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CORNELL 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 


BOUGHT  WITH  THE  INCOME 
OF  THE  SAGE  ENDOWMENT 
FUND     GIVEN     IN     1891     BY 

HENRY  WILLIAMS  SAGE 


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A  life  of  William  Sliaicespeare. 


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A   LIFE 

OF 

WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    -    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

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LONDON  •    BOMBAY  ■    CALCUTTA 
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THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


^Ci  iiLuun    cJ/iaAcJ/i care 

Jro)n  't/ie  (yh^yc^i'/tcu/  futtfLh'fKf  non'  in  t/n' 
oi-nadctinenrri'  llrmrrialQallrii/ itl  AlrnlJTi-i-i'n-^  livn. 


A   LIFE 


OF 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


BY 

SIR   SIDNEY   LEE 


WITH  PORTRAITS  AND  FACSIMILES 


NEW   EDITION,   REWRITTEN  AND   ENLARGED 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  restrved 


?/T 


Copyright^  iSgS,  1909)  And  19x6, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


New  edition,  rewritten  and  enlarged.    Set  up  and  electrotyped. 
Published  January,  Z916.  ' 


J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


IN   PIAM   MEMORIAM 

This  King  Shakespeare  does  he  not  shine 
in  crowned  sovereignty,  over  us  all,  as 
the  noblest,  gentlest,  yet  strongest  of 
rallying  signs ;  z«destructible ;  really  more 
valuable  in  that  point  of  view  than  any 
other  means  or  appliance  whatsoever? 
We  can  fancy  him  as  radiant  aloft  over 
all  Nations  of  Englishmen,  a  thousand 
years  hence.  From  Paramatta,  from  New  , 
York,  wheresoever,  under  what  sort  of 
Parish  Constable  soever,  English  men  and 
women  are,  they  will  say  to  one  another, 
'  Yes,  this  Shakespeare  is  ours ;  we  pro- 
duced him,  we  speak  and  thinlc  by  him ; 
we  are  of  one  blood  and  kind  with  him.' 

(Thomas  Caklyle:  Heroes  and  Hero 
Worship  [1841]  :    The  Hero  as  Poet.) 


PREFACE 

The  biography  of  Shakespeare,  which  I  originally  pub- 
lished seventeen  years  ago,  is  here  re-issued  in  a  new 
shape.  The  whole  has  been  drastically  revised  and 
greatly  enlarged.  Recent  Shakespearean  research  has 
proved  unexpectedly  fruitful.  My  endeavour  has  been 
to  present  in  a  just  perspective  all  the  trustworthy  and 
relevant  information  about  Shakespeare's  life  and  work 
which  has  become  available  up  to  the  present  tim'e.  My 
obligations  to  fellow-workers  in  the  Shakespearean  field 
are  numerous,  and  I  have  done  my  best  to  acknowledge 
them  fully  in  my  text  and  notes.  The  new  documentary 
evidence,  which  scholars  have  lately  discovered  touching 
the  intricate  stage  history  of  Shakespeare's  era,  has 
proved  of  especial  service,  and  I  have  also  greatly  bene- 
fited by  the  ingenious  learning  which  has  been  recently 
brought  to  bear  on  vexed  questions  of  Shakespearean 
bibliography.  Much  of  the  fresh  Shakespearean  know- 
ledge which  my  personal  researches  have  yielded  during 
the  past  few  years  has  already  been  published  in  various 
places  elsewhere,  and  whatever  in  my  recent  publications 
has  seemed  to  me  of  pertinence  to  my  present  scheme 
I  have  here  co-ordinated  as  succinctly  as  possible  with 
the  rest  of  my  material.  Some  additional  information 
which  I  derived  while  this  volume  was  in  course  of  prepa- 
ration, chiefly  from  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  archives 
at  Stratford-on-Avon  and  from  the  wills  at  Somerset 
House  of  Shakespeare's  Stratford  friends,  few  of  which 
appear  to  have  been  consulted  before,  now  sees  the  light 
for  the  first  time.^     In  the  result  I  think  that  I  may 

'  My  transcripts  of  the  wills  of  William  Combe  the  elder  (</.  1611), 
and  of  his  nephews  Thomas  Combe  (a?.  1609)  and  John  Combe  (</.  1614), 
have  enabled  me  to  correct  the  many  errors  which  figure  in  all  earlier 
accounts  of  Shakespeare's  relations  with  the  Combe  family.     Similarly  the 


vm  AVILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

claim  to  have  rendered  an  account  of  Shakespeare's 
career  which  is  more  comprehensive  at  any  rate  than 
any  which  has  been  offered  the  public  previously. 

It  is  with  peculiar  pleasure  that  I  acknowledge  the 
assistance  rendered  me,  while  these  pages  have  been 
passing  through  the  press,  by  M.  Seymour  de  Ricci,  a 
soldier  and  scholar  of  French  nationality  who  is  now 
serving  as  an  interpreter  with  our  army  in  Flanders. 
M.  de  Ricci  has  in  the  intervals  of  active  warfare  sent 
me  from  the  front,  entirely  on  his  own  initiative,  numer- 
ous suggestive  comments  which  he  had  previously  made 
from  time  to  tirne  on  an  earlier  edition  of  my  Life  of 
Shakespeare.  The  conditions  in  which  M.  de  Ricci  has 
aided  me  pointedly  illustrate  the  completeness  of  the 
intellectual  sympathy  which  now  unites  the  French  and 
English  nations. 

My  gratitude  is  also  due  to  Mr.  F.  C.  Wellstood, 
M.A.  Oxford,  secretary  and  librarian  to  the  Trustees 
of  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  and  deputy  keeper  of  the 
Records  of  the  Stratford  Corporation,  for  the  assiduity 
and  ability  with  which  he  has  searched  in  my  behai 
the  collections  of  documents  in  his  keeping.  Finally,  I 
have  to  thank  my  secretary,  Mr.  W.  B.  Owen,  M.A.  Cam- 
bridge, for  the  zealous  service  he  has  continuously  ren- 
dered me  throughout  the  laborious  composition  of  the 
work.  My  sister,  Miss  Elizabeth  Lee,  has  shared  with 
Mr.  Owen  the  tasks  of  reading  the  proofs  and  of  com- 
piling the  Index. 

Sidney  Lee. 

London,  October  15,  1915. 

will  of  the  Southwark  tomb-maker,  Garret  Johnson  the  elder  has  hrfned 
me.  111  consunction  with  documents  belonging  to  the  Duke  nV  R,y,nT«f 
Belvoir  Castle  to  throw  new  light  on  the  history  of  Shalespeafe^s  monu 
ment  in  Stratford-upon-Avon  Church  and  to  solve  some  n^,?,lL  T!w 
standing  in  regard  to  it.  With  the  assent  of  the  Trus^e^,  Lh  r  A-  ^ 
of  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  I  purpose  depositing  in  thefr  ,fh  ^""ft  ' 
ford,  for  the  use  of  students,  copies  of  all  tL  fresh  or  ginalml^- ^  ^^'i; 
I  have  gathered  together  in  the  interests  of  this  volume       ™*'"'^1  '«'b"=l' 


PREFACE  TO  THE   FIRST   EDITION   [1898] 

This  work  is  based  on  the  article  on  Shakespeare  which 
I  contributed  last  year  to  the  fifty-first  volume  of  the 
'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.'  But  the  changes 
and  additions  -which  the  article  has  undergone  during 
my  revision  of  it  for  separate  publication  are  so  numer- 
ous as  to  give  the  book  a  title  to  be  regarded  as  an  in- 
dependent venture.  In  its  general  aims,  however,  the 
present  life  of  Shakespeare  endeavours  loyally  to  adhere 
to  the  principles  that  are  inherent  in  the  scheme  of  the 
'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.'  I  have  endeavoured 
to  set  before  my  readers  a  plain  and  practical  narrative 
of  the  great  dramatist's  personal  history  as  concisely  as 
the  needs  of  clearness  and  completeness  would  permit. 
I  have  sought  to  provide  students  of  Shakespeare  with 
a  full  record  of  the  duly  attested  facts  and  dates  of  their 
master's  career.  I  have  avoided  merely  aesthetic  criti- 
cism. My  estimates  of  the  value  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
and  poems  are  intended  solely  to  fulfil  the  obligation 
that  lies  on  the  biographer  of  indicating  succinctly  the 
character  of  the  successive  labours  which  were  woven 
into  the  texture  of  his  hero's  life.  Esthetic  studies  of 
Shakespeare  abound,  and  to  increase  their  number  is  a 
work  of  supererogation.  But  Shakespearean  literature, 
as  far  as  it  is  known  to  me,  still  lacks  a  book  that  shall 
supply  within  a  brief  compass  an  exhaustive  and  well- 
arranged  statement  of  the  facts  of  Shakespeare's  career, 
achievement,  and  reputation,  that  shall  reduce  conjecture 
to  the  smallest  dimensions  consistent  with  coherence,  and 
shall  give  verifiable  references  to  all  the  original  sources 


X  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

of  information.  After  studying  Elizabethan  literature, 
history,  and  bibliography  for  more  than  eighteen  years,  j 
I  believed  that  I  might,  without  exposing  myself  to  a 
charge  of  presumption,  attempt  something  in  the  way 
of  filling  this  gap,  and  that  I  might  be  able  to  supply, 
at  least  tentatively,  a  guide-book  to  Shakespeare's  life 
and  work  that  should  be,  within  its  limits,  complete  and 
trustworthy.  How  far  my  belief  was  justified  the  readers 
of  this  volume  will  decide. 

I  cannot  promise  my  readers  any  startling  revelations. 
But  my  researches  have  enabled  me  to  remove  some 
ambiguities  which  puzzled  my  predecessors,  and  to  throw 
light  on  one  or  two  topics  that  have  hitherto  obscured 
the  course  of  Shakespeare's  career.  Particulars  that 
have  not  been  before  incorporated  in  Shakespeare's  bi- 
ography will  be  found  in  my  treatment  of  the  following 
subjects:  the  conditions  under  which  'Love's  Labour's 
Lost '  and  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice '  were  written ;  the 
references  in  Shakespeare's  plays  to  his  native  town  and 
county ;  his  father's  applications  to  the  Heralds'  College 
for  coat-armour ;  his  relations  with  Ben  Jonson  and  the 
boy-actors  in  1601 ;  the  favour  extended  to  his  work  by 
James  I  and  his  Court;  the  circumstances  which  led  to 
the  publication  of  the  First  Folio,  and  the  history  of  the 
dramatist's  portraits.  I  have  somewhat  expanded  the 
notices  of  Shakespeare's  financial  affairs  which  have 
already  appeared  in  the  article  in  the  '  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography,'  and  a  few  new  facts  will  be  found 
in  my  revised  estimate  of  the  poet's  pecuniary  position. 

In  my  treatment  of  the  sonnets  I  have  pursued  what 
I  believe  to  be  an  original  line  of  investigation.  The 
strictly  autobiographical  interpretation  that  critics  have 
of  late  placed  on  these  poems  compelled  me,  as  Shake- 
speare's biographer,  to  submit  them  to  a  very  narrow 
scrutiny.  My  conclusion  is  adverse  to  the  claim  of  the 
sonnets  to  rank  as  autobiographical  documents,  but  I 
have  felt  bound,  out  of  respect  to  writers  from  whose 
views  I  dissent,  to  give  in  detail  the  evidence  on  which 
I  base  my  judgment.  Matthew  Arnold  sagaciously  laid 
down  the  maxim  that  'the  criticism  which  alone  can 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION  XI 

much  help  us  for  the  future  is  a  criticism  which  regards 
Europe  as  being,  for  intellectual  and  artistic '  purposes, 
one  gireat  confederation,  bound  to  a  joint  action  and 
working  to  a  common  result.'  It  is  criticism  inspired 
by  this  liberalising  principle  that  is  especially  applicable 
to  the  vast  sonnet-literature  which  was  produced  by 
Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries.  It  is  criticism  of 
the  type  that  Arnold  recommended  that  can  alone  lead 
to  any  accurate  and  profitable  conclusion  respecting  the 
intention  of  the  vast  sonnet-literature  of  the  Elizabethan 
era.  In  accordance  with  Arnold's  suggestion,  I  have 
studied  Shakespeare's  sonnets  comparatively  with  those 
in  vogue  in  England,  France,  and  Italy  at  the  time  he 
wrote.  I  have  endeavoured  to  learn  the  view  that  was 
taken  of  such  literary  endeavours  by  contemporary 
critics  and  readers  throughout  Europe.  My  researches 
have  covered  a  very  small  portion  of  the  wide  field. 
But  I  have  gone  far  enough,  I  think,  to  justify  the  con- 
viction that  Shakespeare's  collection  of  sonnets  has  no 
reasonable  title  to  be  regarded  as  a  personal  or  autobi- 
ographical narrative. 

In  the  Appendix  (Sections  iii.  and  iv.)  I  have  supplied 
a  memoir  of  Shakespeare's  patron,  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton, and  an  account  of  the  Earl's  relations  with  the 
contemporary  world  of  letters.  Apart  from  Southamp- 
ton's association  with  the  sonnets,  he  promoted  Shake- 
speare's welfare  at  an  early  stage  of  the  dramatist's 
career,  and  I  can  quote  the  authority  of  Malone,  who 
appended  a  sketch  of  Southampton's  history  to  his 
biography  of  Shakespeare  (in  the  '  Variorum '  edition 
of  1621),  for  treating  a  knowledge  of  Southampton's 
life  as  essential  to  a  full  knowledge  of  Shakespeare's. 
I  have  also  printed  in  the  Appendix  a  detailed  state- 
ment of  the  precise  circumstances  under  which  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  were  published  by  Thomas  Thorpe  in 
1609  (Section  v.),  and  a  review  of  the  facts  that  seem  to 
me  to  confute  the  popular  theory  that  Shakespeare  was 
a  friend  and  prot^g^  of  William  Herbert,  third  Earl  of 

'  Arnold  wrote '  spiritual,'  but  the  change  of  epithet  is  needful  to  render 
the  dictum  thoroughly  pertinent  to  the  topic  under  consideration. 


xil  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Pembroke,  who  has  been  put  forward  quite  unwarrant- 
ably as  the  hero  of  the  sonnets  (Sections  vi.,  vii.,  viii.).^ 
I  have  also  included  in  the  Appendix  (Sections  ix.  and 
X.)  a  survey  of  the  voluminous  sonnet-literature  of  the 
Elizabethan  poets  between  1591  and  1597,  with  which 
Shakespeare's  sonnetteering  efforts  were  very  closely 
allied,  as  well  as  a  bibliographical  note  on  a  correspond- 
ing feature  of  French  and  Italian  literature  between 
1550  and  1600. 

Since  the  publication  of  the  article  on  Shakespeare  in 
the  '  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,'  I  have  received 
from  correspondents  many  criticisms  and  suggestions 
which  have  enabled  me  to  correct  some  errors.  But  a 
few  of  my  correspondents  have  exhibited  so  ingenuous 
a  faith  in  those  forged  documents  relating  to  Shake- 
speare and  forged  references  to  his  works,  which  were 
promulgated  chiefly  by  John  Payne  Collier  more  than 
half  a  century  ago,  that  I  have  attached  a  list  of  the 
misleading  records  to  my  chapter  on  'The  Sources  of 
Biographical  Information '  in  the  Appendix  (Section  i). 
I  believe  the  list  to  be  fuller  than  any  to  be  met  with 
elsewhere. 

The  six  illustrations  which  appear  in  this  volume  have 
been  chosen  on  grounds  of  practical  utiUty  rather  than 
of  artistic  merit.  My  reasons  for  selecting  as  the 
frontispiece  the  newly  discovered  '  Droeshout '  painting 
of  Shakespeare  (now  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial  Gal- 
lery at  Stratford-on-Avon)  can  be  gathered  from  the 
history  of  the  painting  and  of  its  discovery  which  I  give 
on  pages  528-30.  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  Edgar  Flower 
and  the  other  members  of  the  Council  of  the  Shake- 
speare Memorial  at  Stratford  for  permission  to  repro- 
duce the  picture.  The  portrait  of  Southampton  in  early 
life  is  now  at  Welbeck  Abbey,  and  the  Duke  of  Port- 
land not  only  permitted  the  portrait  to  be  engraved  for 

1  I  have  already  published  portions  of  the  papers  on  Shakespeare's 
relations  with  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Southampton  in  the  Fortni'hth 
Review  (for  February  of  this  year)  and  in  the  CornhiU  Magazine  hot 
April  of  this  year),  and  I  have  to  thank  the  proprietors  of  those  periodicals 
for  permission  to  reproduce  my  material  in  this  volume. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION  xiii 

this  volume  but  lent  me  the  negative  from  which  the 
plate  has  been  prepared.  The  Committee  of  the  Gar- 
rick  Club  gave  permission  to  photograph  the  interesting 
bust  of  Shakespeare  in  their  possession,^  but,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  it  is  moulded  in  black  terra-cotta,  no  satis- 
factory negative  could  be  obtained ;  the  engraving  I 
have  used  is  from  a  photograph  of  a  white  plaster  cast 
of  the  original  bust,  now  in  the  Memorial  Gallery  at 
Stratford.  The  five  autographs  of  Shakespeare's  signa- 
ture —  all  that  exist  of  unquestioned'  authenticity  — 
appear- in  the  three  remaining  plates.  The  three  signa- 
tures on  the  will  have  been  photographed  from  the 
original  document  at  Somerset  House  by  permission  of 
Sir  Francis  Jeune,  President  of  the  Probate  Court ;  the 
autograph  on  the  deed  of  purchase  by  Shakespeare  in 
1613  of  the  house  in  Blackfriars  has  been  photographed 
from  the  original  document  in  the  Guildhall  Library  by 
permission  of  the  Library  Committee  of  the  City  of 
London ;  and  the  autograph  on  the  deed  of  mortgage 
relating  to  the  same  property,  also  dated  in  161 3,  has 
been  photographed  from  the  original  document  in  the 
British  Museum  by  permission  of  the  Trustees.  Shake- 
speare's coat-of-arms  and  motto,  which  are  stamped  on 
the  cover  of  this  volume,  are  copied  from  the  trickings 
in  the  margin  of  the  draft-grants  of  arms  now  in  the 
Heralds'  College. 

The  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts  has  kindly  given  me 
ample  opportunities  of  examining  the  two  peculiarly 
interesting  and  valuable  copies  of  the  First  Folio  ^  in 
her  possession.  Mr.  Richard  Savage,  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  the  Secretary  of  the  Birthplace  Trustees,  and 
Mr.  W.  Salt  Brassington,  the  Librarian  of  the  Shake- 
speare Memorial  at  Stratford,  have  courteously  replied 
to  the  many  inquiries  that  I  have  addressed  to  them 
verbally  or  by  letter.  Mr.  Lionel  Cust,  the  Director  of 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  has  helped  me  to  estimate 
the  authenticity  of  Shakespeare's  portraits.  I  have  also 
benefited,  while  the  work  has  been  passing  through  the 

1  For  an  account  of  its  history  see  p.  537. 

2  See  pp.  562-3  and  567. 


XIV  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

press,  by  the  valuable  suggestions  of  my  friends  the 
Rev.  H.  C.  Beeching  and  Mr.  W.  J.  Craig,  and  I  have 
to  thank  Mr.  Thomas  Seccombe  for  the  zealous  aid  he 
has  rendered  me  while  correcting  the  final  proofs. 

October  is,  iSgS. 


CONTENTS 


In  Piam  Memoriam 
Preface 


Preface    to 
(1898)      . 


the    First    Edition 


PARENTAGE  AND  BIRTH 


Distribution  of  the  name 
of  Shakespeare  ....      i 

The  poet's  ancestry  ...      2 

The  poet's  father  settles  in 
Stratford-on-Avon      .    .      4 

John  Shakespeare  in  mu- 
nicipal office 5 


,   The  poet's  mother     ...  6 
1564,   April.     The  poet's    birth 

and  baptism 8 

Shakespeare's  birthplace   .  9 
History  of   the    Premises, 

1670-1847 10 

Their  present  uses     ...  10 


II  4^ 


CHILDHOOD,  EDUCATION,  AND  MARRIAGE 


The  plague  of  1564    .    .    . 

12 

IS75 

The  father  as  alderman  and 

bailiff 

12 

IS77 

Brothers  and  sisters  .    .    . 

13 

1582. 

The  father's  financial  diffi- 

culties    

14 

1571-7    Shakespeare's  school 

15 

Shakespeare's  curriculum . 

16 

Shakespeare's  learning 

17 

"The  poet's  classical  equip- 

ment      

18 

1583. 

The  influence  of  Ovid   .    . 

20 

The  use  of  translations 

21 

The  English  Bible     .    .    . 

22 

Shakespeare  and  the  Bible 

23 

Youthful  recreation   ,    .    . 

23 

Queen  Elizabeth  at  Kenil- 

worth 24 

Withdrawal  from  school    .  25 

Dec.    The  poet's  marriage  25 
Richard  Hathaway  of  Shot- 

tery 26 

Anne  Hathaway    ....  26 
Anne  Hathaway's  cottage  .  27 
The  bond  against  impedi- 
ments      27 

May.     Birth  of  a  daughter  29 
Formal  betrothal  probably 

dispensed  with  ....  29 
The     disputed     marriage 

license 30 


HI' 


THE  FAREWELL  TO  STRATFORD 


Husband  and  wife     ...  32 

Poaching  at  Charlecote      .  34 
Unwarranted  doubts  of  the 

tradition 34 


Justice  Shallow     .    .    . 
1585    The  flight  from  Stratford 


35 
36 


XVI 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 
IV 


THE  MIGRATION  TO  LONDON 


PAGE 

1586    The  journey  to  London     .  37 

Alternative  routes      ...  39 

Stratford  settlers  in  Lon-    .  40 

don 40 

Richard  Field 41 


Field  and  Shakespeare  .  42 
Shakespeare's  alleged  legal 

experience  .  ...  43 
The  literary  habit  of  legal 

phraseology 43 


v./ 

SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  ACTORS 


Early    theatrical    employ- 
ment       

The  player's  license  .    .    . 
The  acting  companies   . 
The  great  patrons      .     . 
The  companies  of  boys 


4S 
46 
48 
49 
5° 


The     fortunes     of     Lord 

Leicester's  company  51 

The  King's  servants       .     .  54 

Shakespeare's  company     .  54 

His    ties    with    the    Lord 

Chamberlain's  men   .    .  55 


m^ 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE 


■The    Theatre,'   the    first 

playhouse  in  England    .  58 

"The  Curtain' 59 

Shakespeare  at  the  '  Rose '  60 
The      founding      of      the 

'  Globe,'  1599     ....  63 

The  Blackfriars     ....  64 

The  '  private  '  playhouse    .  67 

Performances  at  Court  .    .  &/ 
Methods  of  presentation  in 

pubhc  theatres  ....  72 


The  structural  plan   ...  73 

The  stage  ...  74 

Costume 77 

Absence  of  women  actors  .  78 

Provincial  tours     .    .  81 

Scottish  tours 8^ 

English  actors  on  the  Con- 
tinent      85 

Shakespeare's  alleged  trav- 
els in  Italy 86 

Shakespeare's  r61es  ...  87 


VII 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS 


Pre-Elizabethan  drama 

qo 

The  birth   of  Elizabethan 

dVama 

91 

Amorphous  developments 

9^ 

Chronicle  plays     .... 

94 

A  period  of  purgation    .    . 

94 

1591 

Shakespeare's  debt  to  fel- 

1591 

low-workers  ... 

9'^ 

1592 

The  actor-dramatist  .    .     . 

96 

1592 

Shakespeare's       dramatic 

work 

97 

His  borrowed  plots   .    . 
The  revision  of  plays     . 
Chronology  of  the  plays 
Metrical  tests    .... 
The  use  of  prose   . 
Lovers  Labour's  Lost .     .     . 
Tuoo  Gentlemen  of  Verona 
Comedy  of  Errors  ■    . 
Romeo  and  Juliet  .     . 


98 

99 

100 

lOI 

101 
102 
106 
108 
109 


CONTENTS 


XVll 


VIII 

PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,  1591^1594 


Shakespeare  as  adapter  of 

others'  plays 115 

1592,    Sept.     Greene's  attack  on 

Shakespeare       .    .    .    .116 
Chettle's  apology  ....  118 
Shakespeare's  contrlbuiion 
to    the    First    Part     of 

Henry  VI iig 

First  editions  of  the  Sec- 
ond and  Third  Parts  of 

Henry  VI 119 

Shakespeare's  coadjutors  .  122 
Mulowe's  influence  .    .    .  123 

1593    Richard  HI 123 

Publication  of  Richard  HI  125 

1593    Richard  11 126 

Publication  of  Richard  II .  127 
Shakespeare  and  the  cen- 
sor     127 


IS93 
1594. 


IS94 
1594. 


The  plague  of  1593  .  .  .129 
Titus  Andronicus  .  .  .  130 
Publication  of  J'itas  .  .  ,  131 
August.     The  Merchant  of 

Venice  ..,.'....  133 
Shylock     and     Roderigo 

Lopez 134 

Last  acknowledgments  to 

Marlowe 136 

Publication   of    The  Mer- 
chant of  Venice      ,    ,     .  137 

King  John 137 

Dec.  28.     Comedy  of  Er- 
rors in  Gray's  Inn  Hall .  139 
Early  plays  doubtfully  as- 
signed to  Shakespeare    .  140 
Arden  of  Feversham  (1592)  140 
Edward  III 141 


IX 


THE  FIRST  APPEAL  TO  THE  READING  PUBLIC 


1593. 


IS94. 


April.    Publication  of  Ve- 
nus and  Adonis,  1593      .  142 
First  letter  to  the  Earl  of 

Southampton     ....  142 
''  The  first  heir  of  my  in- 
vention ' 143 

The  debt  to  Ovid  ....  144 

Influence  of  Lodge    .    .    .  145 

May.     Lucrece      ....  146 


First  edition  of  1594  .    .    .  147 

Sources  of  the  story  .  .  .  147 
Second  letter  to  the  Earl 

of  Southampton  .  .  .  148 
Enthusiastic   reception    of 

the  two  poems   ....  149 

Bamfield's  tribute      .    .    .  150 

Shakespeare  and  Spenser .  151 

Patrons  at  Court  ....  153 


THE  SONNETS  AND  THEIR  LITERARY  HISTORY 


The  vogue  of   the   Eliza- 
bethan sonnet    ....  154 

Shakespeare's  first  experi- 
ments     15s 

1594    Majority  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets     composed     in 

IS94 156 

Their  literary  value  .  .  .158 
'  Circulation  m  manuscript  159 
Their  piratical  publication 

in  1609 160 

A  Lover's  Complaint  .  .  161 
Thomas  Thorpe  and  '  Mr. 

W.  H.' 161 


The  form  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets 164 

Want  of  continuity    .    .    .  165 

The  two  '  groups  '      ...  166 

Main  topics  of  the  first 
.  'group'  , 167 

Main  topics  0/  the  second 
'group' 168 

Lade  of  genuine  sentiment 
in  Elizabethan  sonnets   .  169 

Their  dependence  on 
French  and  Italian 
modes 170 


XVUl 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


PAGE 

Sonnetteers'  admissions  of 
insincerity 173 

Contemporary  censure  of 
sonnetteers'  false  senti- 
ment      174 

'  Gulling  sonnets  ' .    .    .    .  175 


PAGE 

Shakespeare's  scornful  al- 
lusion to  sonnets  in  his 
plays 17s 

The  conventional  profes- 
sions of  .sincerity    .     .     .  176 


XI 

THE  CONCEITS  OF  THE  SONNETS 


Slender     autobiographical 
element  in  Shakespeare's 

sonnets 177 

The  imitative  element    .     .  178 
The    illusion    of   autobio- 
graphic confessions    .    .  178 
Shakespeare's        Platonic 

conceptions 179 

The  debt  to  Ovid's  cosmic 

theory 180 

Shakespeare's      borrowed 

physiography     ....  181 

Other  philosophic  conceits  182 

Amorous  conceits      .    .    .  183 

The    theme    of   '  unthrifty 

loveliness ' 185 


Shakespeare's  claims  of 
immortality  for  his  son- 
nets   186 

Conceits  in  sonnets  ad- 
dressed to  a  woman    .     .  igo 

The  praise  of  '  blackness '  191 

The  sonnets  of  vitupera- 
tion   192 

Jodelle's  '  Contr'  Amours  '  193 

Gabriel  Harvey's  '  Amo- 
rous Odious  Sonnet ' .     .  194 

The  convention  of  '  the 
dark  lady ' 194 


XII 

THE  PATRONAGE  OF  THE  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON 


Biographic  fact  in  the 
'  dedicatory '  sonnets  .     .  ,196 

The  Earl  of  Southampton 
the  poet's  sole  patron      .  197 

I.  The  '  dedicatory '  son- 
nets   197 

Rivals    in    Southampton's 

favour 200 

Shakespeare's  fear  of  rival 

poet 201 

Barnabe   Barnes  probably 

the  rival 201 

Other   theories   as    to   the 

rival's  identity    ....  203 

II.  Sonnets  of  friendship  .  205 
Classical      traditions      of 

friendship 205 

Figurative  language  of  love  206 
Gabriel    Harvey    '  courts  * 

Sir  Philip  Sidney  .  .  .208 
Shakespeare's    assurances 

of  affection 210 

Tasso  and   the    Duke    of 

Ferrara 211 

Jodelle's    sonnets    to    his 

patron 212 

III.  The  sonnets  of  in- 
trigue     214 


The  conflict  of  love  and 
friendship 

Boccaccio's  treatment  of 
the  theme 

Palamon  and  Arcite .    .    . 

Tito  and  Gesippo      .     .     . 

Lyly's  Euphues  and  Phil- 
autus 

Clement  Marot's  testimony 

The  crisis  of  the  Two  Gen- 
tlemen   

The  likelihood  of  a  per- 
sonal experience    .     .     . 

External  evidence      .     .    . 

Willobie  his  Avisa    .     .     . 

Direct  references  to  South- 
ampton in  the  sonnets  of 
friendship 

His  youthfulness  .... 

The  evidence  of  portraits  . 

Sonnet  cvii  the  last  of  the 
series    

Allusion  to  Elizabeth's 
death 

Allusions  to  Southampton's 
release  from  prison    .    . 

Summary  of  conclusions 
respecting  the  '  Sonnets ' 


215 

216 
216 
216 

217 
218 

218 

219 
219 
219 


222 
223 
224 

226 

227 

227 

229 


CONTENTS 


XIX 


XIII 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER 


1594-5    Midsummer         Night's 

Dream 232 

The  Sources 232 

1595  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  233 
The  heroine  Helena .  .  .  234 
The  puzzle  of  the  style  .     .  234 

1595     The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  235 

The  undeiplot 236 

!  Stratford  allusions  in  the 

I  Induction 236 

Wincot 237 

1597    Henry  IV 239 

The  historical  incident  .  .  239 
More  Stratford  memories  .  240 
King   Henry   IV  and  his 

foils 241 

Falstaff 241 

The  first  protest  ....  241 
Falstaif  and  Oldcastle  .  .  244 
FalstafFs  personality      .    .  245 

1597  The     Merry      Wives     of 

Windsor 246 

FalstaflF  and  Queen  Eliza- 
beth   246 

The  plot 247 

The    text    of    The    Merry 
Wives 249 

1598  Henry  V 250 

The  text 250 

Popularity  of  the  topic  .    .251 

The  choruses 251 

The  soldiers  in  the  cast  .  252 
Shakespeare  and  the  Earl 

of  Essex 253 


PAGE 

Essex  and  the  rebellion  of 
1601 253 

The  Globe  and  Essex's 
rebellion 254 

Shakespeare's  popularity 
and  influence     ....  255 

The  Mermaid  meetings      .  257 

1598  Meres's  eulogy  ....  25S 
The  growing  '  worship  '  of 

Shakespeare  as  drama- 
tist     259 

Publishers'  unprincipled 
use  of  Shakespeare's 
name 260 

False  ascriptions  of  plays 
in  his  lifetime     ....  260 

A  Yorkshire  Tragedy     .    .  262 

False  ascriptions  after  his 
death '263 

The  Merry  Devill  of  Ed- 
monton   264 

Mucedorus    .    .    .     .    j    .  265 

Faire  Em- 266 

1599  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  .  267 
The  third  edition,  1612 .  .  268 
Thomas  Heywood's  protest 

in  Shakespeare's  name  .  269 

1600  The     Phoenix     and     the 

Turtle 270 

Sir  John  Salisbury's  pat- 
ronage of  poets      .    .    .  270 
Robert  Chester's  work  .     .  271 
Shakespeare   and  his  fel- 
low-contributors    .    .    .  272 


XIV  c 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS  OF  LIFE 


Shakespeare's     residences 

in  London 274 

His  fiscal  obligation  .    .    .  274 

In  Soufhwark 275 

A  lodger  in  Silver  Street, 

Cheapside,  1604  .  .  .  276 
Shakespeare's        practical 

temperament     ....  278 

His  father's  difliculties  .    .  279 

His  wife's  debt      ....  280 

1596    Death  of  his  only  son    .    .281 

1596-9    Shakespeare     and     the 

Heralds'  College  .  .  .  281 
The  draft  '  Coat '  of  1596    .  282 


The  exemplification  of  1599  283 
Other  actors'  heraldic  pre- 
tensions      285 

Contemporary  criticism  of 
Shakespeare's  arms    .    .  286 

1597,  May  4.     Purchase  of  New 

Place 287 

Shakespeare    and   his  fel- 
low-townsmen in  1598   .   290 
1598    Richard  Quiney's  mission 

to  London 292 

Local  appeals  for  aid     .     .  294 

1598,  Oct.  25.    Richard  Quiney's 

letter  to  Shakespeare      .  294 


XX 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


XV  V 

SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL  RESOURCES 


Financial   position    before 

IS99 296 

Dramatists'  fees  until  1599  296 
Affluence  of  actors    .    .     .  298 
Fees    for  Court    perform- 
ances      299 

Shakespeare's  average  in- 
come before  1599   .     .     .  300 
Shalcespeare's  share  in  the 

Globe  theatre  from  1599  300 
As  a  lessee  of  the  site  .  .  301 
As  an  actor  shareholder  .  302 
The  history  of  Shake- 
speare's shares,  1599-1616  304 
Shakespeare's  share  in  the 

Blackfriars  from  1608      .  306 
The  takings  at  the  Globe, 
1599-1613 307 


The  takings  at  the  Black- 
friars from  1608  ....  309 
The    pecuniary   profits    of 
Shakespeare's  theatrical 

shares 309 

Shareholders'  lawsuits    .     .  310 
Increased    fees    from    the 
Court  under  James  I  .     .313 

Salary  as.  actor 314 

Later  income  as  dramatist  314 
ShaJcespeare's  final  income  315 
1601-8.    Cornestic  incident      .     .  315 
1601-10  Formation  of  the  estate 

at  Stratford 317 

The  Stratford  tithes   .     .     .  319  " 
Recovery  of  small  debts     .  321 


XVI 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS 


Literary  work  in  1599     .    .  323 
1599    Much  Ado  about  Nothing  .  324 
The  Italian  source     .     .     .  324 
Shakespeare's     embellish- 
ments     325 

1599  As  You  Like  It      ....  325 
"The  original  characters      .  326 

1600  Twelfth  Night 327 

The  performance  in  Mid- 
dle Temple  Hall,  Feb.  2, 
1602 328 

The  Italian  plot  ....  328 
'  Gli  Inganiiati '  of  Siena  .  329 
Bandello's  '  Nicuola  '  .  .  329 
The  new  dramatis personcE  330 
The  pubHcation  of  the  ro- 
mantic trilogy    ....  331 

1600  Julius  Ccssar 332 

Popularity  of  the  theme  .  333 
The  debt  to  Plutarch  .  .  333 
Shakespeare's    and    other 

plays  about  Caesar      .     .  334 
Shakespeare's  political  in- 
sight       335 

His  conception  of  Cassar  .  336 
A  rival  piece  .....  336 
The  Lord  Mayor  and  the 

theatres 336 

1600,  June  22.    The  Privy  Coun- 
cil Order 338 

1601  The   strife   between   adult 

and  boy  actors  ....  340 


1602 


Shakespeare  on  the  winter 

season  1600- 1    ....  341 
The  actor's  share  in  John- 
son's literary  controver- 
sies, 1598-1601   ....  342 
Histriomastix,  1598   .     .    .  343 
Every  -man  out  of  his  Hu- 
mour, 1599 343 

Cyfiihia's  Revels    ....  344 
Jack    Drum's    Entertain- 
ment, 1600 344 

Poetaster,  1601  ....  345 
Dekker's         Satiro-masiix , 

1601 346 

The  end  of  the  dramatists' 

war 346 

Shakespeare  and  the  '  po- 

etomachia ' 347 

Shakespeare's  references  to 

the  stru^le 348 

His  disinterested  attitude  .  349 
Virgil  in  Johnson's  Poetas- 
ter      350 

The  Return  from  Parnas- 
sus, 1601 351 

Shakespeare's  alleged 

„'P">ge'  352 

Hamlet okq 

The  Danish  legend  qca 

The  old  play  ...'■.  355 
Kyd's  authorship  ...".'  3C6 
Revivals  of  the  old  piece    '.  357 


CONTENTS 


XXI 


The  reception  of  Shake- 
speare's tragedy  .  .  .  357 
Gabriel  Harvey's  comment  358 
Anthony  Scoloker's  notice  359 
The  problem  of  publication  360 
The  First  Quarto.  1603  .  .  360 
Shakespeare's   first  rough 

f  draft 362 

The  Second  Quarto,  1604  .  363 
The  First  Folio  version     .  364 


Permanent    Popularity    of 

Hamlet 364 

1603  Troilus  and  Cressida  .  .  366 
The  publication  of  1609  .  367 
The  First  Folio  version  .  368 
'  Treatment  of  the  theme  .  368 
Source  of  the  plot  .  .  ,  369 
Shakespeare's  acceptance 
of  a'  mediaeval  tradition  .  370 


XVII 


THE  ACCESSION  OF  KING  JAMES  I 


Last  performances  before 
Queen  EHzabeth    .     .     .  372 
603,  March  24.  Shakespeare  and 

the  Queen 's  death  .    .    .  373 
James  I's  accession  .     .     .  375 
603,  May  19.     The  royal  patent 
to    Shakespeare's    com- 
pany       375 

Shakespeare  as  groom  of 

■  the  chamber 375 

603,  Dec.  2.    At  Wilton     .    .    .  377   1 


1603-4,    Christmas.   At  Hampton 

Court 378 

1604,  March  15.    The  royal  prog- 
ress through  London .    .  379 

1604,  Aug.  9-28.    The    actors   at 

Somerset  House    .    .    .  380 
Revival  of  Love's  Labour's 
Lost ,    .    .     .  382 

1604-5    Shakespeare's    plays    at 

Court 383 


XVIII 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES  OF  TRAGEDY 


604     Othello  (Nov.)  and  Meas- 
ure for  Measure  (Dec.)  385 
Their     perfoirmances      at 

Court 385 

Publication  of  Othello  .  .  387 
Cinthio's  novels  ....  387 
Shakespeare  and  the  Ital- 
ian tale  of  Othello  .  .  .  387 
Artistic  unity  of  the  tragedy  389 
The  theme  of  Measure  for 

Measure 389 

Cinthio's  tale 389 

Shakespeare's  variations    .  390 

606.   Macbeth 392 

The  legend  in  Holinshed  .  392 
The  appeal  to  James  I  .  .  392 
The  scenic  elaboration  .  .  393 
The  chief  characters .  .  .  394 
:  Exceptional  features  .  .  .  394 
Signs  of  other  .pens   .    .    .  395 

607    Ring  Lear 395 

The  Quarto  of  1608   .     .    .396 
Holinshed  and  the  story  of 

Lear  .  .  .. , .  .  .  .397 
The  old  play  . '.  .  .  .398 
Shakespeare's  innovations  398 


The  greatness  of  .ffiffifisar  399 
1608  Tim-on  of  Athens  ....  400 
Timon  and  Plutarch  .  .  400 
The  episode  of  Alcibiades  401 
The  divided  authorship     .  401 

1608    Pericles 402 

The    original    legend    of 

Pericles 402 

Incoherences  of  the  piece  .  403 
The  issues  in  quarto .    .    .  404 
Shakespeare's  share  .    .    ,  405 
George  Wilkins's  novel  of 
Pericles 406 

1608  Antony  and  Cleopatra    .     .  406 
Plutarch's  Life  of  Antony  .  407 
Shakespeare's  debt  to  Plu- 
tarch      408 

Shakespeare's    re-creation 

of  the  story 409 

The  style  of  the  piece    .    .410 

1609  Coriolanus 410 

The  fidelity  to  Plutarch      .  411 
The  chief  characters  of  the 

tragedy 412 

The  political  crisis  of  the 
play 413 


xxu 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


XIX 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS 


Shakespeare's  'tragic  pe- 
riod, 1600-9 41S 

Popularity  of  tragedy     .     .  416 

Shakespeare's  return  to 
romance 416 

The  second  romantic  tril- 
ogy and  the  First  Folio  .  419 

Performances  of  the  three 
latest  plays  during  1611 .  419 

1610  The  triple  plot  of  Cymbe- 

line 421 

Construction  and  charac- 
terisation   422 

1611  The  Winter's  Tale  .  .  .  423 
The  debt  to  Greene's  novel  423 
Shakespeare's  innovations  424 
The  freshness  of  tone    .    .  425 

1611     Tie  Tempest 426 

The  sources  of  the  fable     .  426 

The  shipwreck 428 

The  significance  of  Caliban  429 
Shakespeare       and        the 

American  native  .  .  .  430 
Caliban's  god  Setebos  .  .  431 
Caliban's  distorted  shape  .  432 
The  Tempest  at  Court    .    .  432 


The  vogue  of  the  play   ,    .  433 
Fanciful  interpretations  of 

The  Tempest  .  .  .  .  43^ 
Shakespeare's        relations 

with  John  Fletcher  .  .  435 
The  lost  play  of  Cardenio  ,  435 
The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen    .  437 

The  plot 438 

Shakespeare's  alleged 

share 435 

Henry  VllI 440 

Previous  plays  on  the  topic  440 

All  is  true 441 

Holinshed's  story ....  441 
Constructive  defects  in  the 

play 441 

The  scenic  elaboration  .  .  442 
The  divided  authorship  .  443 
Shakespeare's  share  ...  444 
Wolsey's  farewell  speech  .  444 
1613,  June  29.    The  burning  of 

the  Globe 445 

Ben  Jonson  on  the  disaster  447 
The     rebuilding     of    the 

Globe 447 


XXV 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE 


1611     Retirement  to  Stratford      .  448 
Continued  interest  in  Lon- 
don theatres 449 

Visits  to  the  Crown  Inn  at 

Oxford 449 

The     christening    of    Sir 

William  D'Avenant   .     .  450 
Relations  with  actor  friends  451 
Shakespeare  and  Burbage  452 
1613  .  The  Earl  of  Rutland's  '  im- 

presa ' 453 

The  sixth  Earl  of  Rutland  .  454 
1613    Shakespeare's  purchase  of 

a  house  in  Blackfriars     .  456 
1615    Shakespeare's       litigation 
over      the      Blackfriars 

property 458 

1611    Shakespeare  and  the  Strat- 
ford highways    ....  459 
Domestic  incident     .    .    .  460 
Marriage       of      Susanna 

Shakespeare,  1607  ,    .     .  461 
Marriage  of  Judith  Sh^e- 
speare,  1616 462 


Growth  of  Puritanism   at 
Stratford 463 

The  fire  of  1614     .     .     .    .464 

Shakespeare's  social  circle 
at  Stratford 465 

Sir     Henry    Rainsford    at 
Clifford  Chambers     .    .  465 

Thomas  Combe  of  the  Col- 
lege   467 

John  Combe  of  Stratford  468 

Coomb's  legacy  to  Shake- 
speare   469 

Combe's  tomb 470 

Combe's  epitaph   .    .    .    .470 
1614,   Oct.    The    threatened    en- 
closure   472 

The  town  council's  resist- 
ance   473 

The  appeal  to  Shakespeare  475 
1614,    Oct.     28.       Shakespeare's 
agreement      with       the 
Combes'  agent  ....  475 
1614,  Dec.  23.    The  Town  Coun- 
cil's letter  to  Shakespeare  476 


CONTENTS 


XXlll 


PAGE 

1615,  Sept.    Shakespeare's  state- 

ment      478 

The  townsmen's   triumph, 

1618 47Q 

Francis  Collins  and  Shake- 
speare's will  .....  479 

1616,  Feb.-March.    Domestic  af- 

fairs   480 

1616,  March  25.    The  signing  of 

Shakespeare's  will .    .    .481 
The  five  witnesses      .    .    .  482 
1616,  Ap-il  23.      Shakespeare's 

death 483 

1616,  April  25.      Shakespeare's 

burial    ........  483 

The   minatory   inscription 

on  the  tombstone  .    .    .  484 
The  will 485 


PAGE 

The  religious  exordium  .  485 
Bequest  to  his  wife     .     .    .  486 

His  heiress 487 

Legacies  to  friends  .  .  .  488 
Thomas  Russell,  Esq.  .  .  490 
The  bequests  to  the  actors  490 
Overseers  and  executors  .  491 
Shakespeare's       theatrical 

'  shares 491 

The  estates  of  contempo- 
rary actors 493 

The  Stratford  monument  .  494 

Its  design 496 

The  inscription      ....  497 
Shakespeare    and    West- 
minster Abbey  ....  498 
Shakespeare's        personal 
character 500 


XXI 


SURVIVORS  AND  DESCENDANTS 


Shakespeare's  brothers  .  .  503 
Shakespeare's  widow  .  .  503 
Mistress     Judith     Quiney 

(1585-1662)  504 

Mr.  John  Hall 505 

Mrs.  Susanna  Hall  (1583- 

1649) 506 

John  Hall's  notebooks  .    .  508 
The  will  of  Mrs.  Hall's  son- 
in-law,  Thomas  Nash     .  509 


Mrs.  Hall's  death  ....  510 
The  last  descendant .  .  .  511 
Lady  Bernard's  will  .  .  .  512 
The  final  fortunes  of  Shake- 
speare's estate  ....  512 
The    demolition    of    New 

Place,  1759 514 

The    public    purchase    of 
New  Place  estate  .    .    .  514 


XXII 


AUTOGRAPHS,  PORTRAITS,  AND  MEMORIALS 


The  reUcs  of  Shakespeare's 

handwriting 516 

The  six  signatures,  1612-6  517 
Doubtful  signatures  .  .  .  518 
His  mode  of  writing  .  .  .  519 
Spelling  of  the  poet's  name  520 
The  autograph  spellings  .  520 
Autographs  in  the  will  .  .  521 
'Shakespeare '  the  accepted 

form 521 

Shakespeare's  portraits  .  .  522 
The  Stratford  monument  .  522 
Dugdale's  sketch  ....  522 
Vertue's  engraving,  1725  .  523 
The  repairs  of  1748  .  .  .  524 
The  '  Stratford  '  portrait  .  525 
Droeshout's  engraving  .  .  526 
The  first  state 527 


The    original    source     of 

Droeshout's  work  .  .  .  52S 
The  '  Flower '  or  '  Droes- 

hout '  portrait  ....  52B 
The  '  Ely  House '  portrait .  530 
Lord  Clarendon's  picture  .  531 

Later  portraits 531 

The  '  Chandos  '  portrait  .  532 
"The  '  Janssen  '  portrait .  .  534 
The  '  Felton '  portrait  .  .  535 
The  '  Soest '  portrait .    .    .  536 

Miniatures 536 

The  Garrick  Club  bust .  .  537 
Alleged  death-mask  .  .  .  538 
Sculptured    memorials    in 

public  places  ....  539 
The  Stratford  memorials   .  540 


XXIV 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


XXIII 


QUARTOS  AND  FOLIOS 


1623 


PAGE 

Early  issues  of  the  narra- 
tive poems 542 

Posthumous  issues  of  the 

poems 542 

The  Passionate  Pilgrim      .  543 

The  Sonnets 543 

The  Poems  of  1640     .     .     .  544 
Quartos  of  the  plays  in  the 

poet's  lifetime     ....  546 
The  managers'  objections 

to  their  issue      ....  546 
The  source  of  the  '  copy '  .  547 
The  various   lifetime  edi- 
tions      547 

The     four     unquestioned 

quartos  of  1619  ....  548 
The  five  suspected  quartos 

of  1619 549 

The  charge  against  Pavier  549 
The  posthumous  issue  of 

Othello 550 

The  scarcity  of  the  quartos  550 
The    chief    collections    of . 

quartos 551 

The  First  Folio     .    .    .    .552 
Editors,  printers,  and  pub- 
lishers   552 


The  license  of  Nov.  8,  1623  554 


The  order  of  the  plays 
The  prefatory  matter 
The  actors'  addresses 
Their    alleged    authorship 

by  Ben  Jonson  .  .  . 
Editorial  professions .  . 
The  source  of  the  '  copy 
The  textual  value  of  the 

nevfly  printed  plays    . 
The  eight  neglected  quar- 
tos     

The  eight  reprinted  quartos 
The  typography     . 
Irregular  copies     . 
The  Sheldon  copy 
Jaggard's  presentation 

copy  of  the  First  Folio 
The  Turbutt  copy      .     . 
Estimated  number  of  ex- 
tant copies     .     . 
Continental  copies 
The  pecuniary  value  of  the 
First  Folio     .    . 
1632    The  Second  Folio 
1663-4  The  Third  Folio  . 
1685    The  Fourth  Folio  . 


555 
5SS 
556 

556 
557 
557 

559 

559 
560 

S61 
561 
562 

564 
565 

566 
567 

567 
568 
569 
570 


XXIV 


THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  AND  AFTER. 


The    perplexities    of    the 

early  texts 571 

Eighteenth-century  editors  571 
Nicholas  Rowe  (1674-1718)  572 
Alexander     Pope      (i688- 

1744) 573 

Lewis     Theobald     (1688- 

1744) 574 

Sir       1  homas       Hanmer 

(1677-1746)  576 

Bishop  Warburton  (1698- 

1779) 577 

Dr.  Johnson  (1709-1784)  .  578 
Edward      Capell      (1713- 

1781)     .......  578 

George    Steevens     (1736- 

1800) 579 


Edmund  Malone  (1741- 
1812) 580 

'  Variorum  '  editions .    .    .581 

The  new  '  Variorum  '    .    .582 

Nineteenth -century  edi- 
tors   582 

Alexander  Dyce  (1798- 
1869) 583 

Howard  Staunton  (1810- 
1874) 583 

Nikolaus  DeUus  (1813- 
1888) 583 

The  Cambridge  edition 
(1863-6)    583 

Other  nineteenth-century 
or  twentieth-century  edi- 
tions       583 


CONTENTS 


XXV 


XXV 

HAKESPEARE'S  POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  IN  ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA 


PAGE 

Shakespeare  and  the  clas- 
sicists     586 

Ben  Jonson's  tribute,  1623  587 
The  eulogies  of  1632  .  .  588 
Admirers    in    Charles   I's 

reign 588 

Critics  of  the  Restoration  .  590 
Dryden's  verdict  ....  591 
Shakespeare's  fashionable 

vogue 592 

The  Restoration  adapters  .  592 
The     *  revised '     versions, 

1662-80 S94 

Shakespearean       criticism 

from  1702  onwards    .    .  595 
The  growth  of  critical  in- 
sight      596 

The    modern    schools    of 

criticism 59^ 

The  new  aesthetic  school   .  597 
Shakespeare       publishing 
societies 598 


PAGE 

Shakespeare's     fame      at 

Stratford-on-Avon  .  598 
Garrick  at  Stratford  .  .  .  599 
'The    Stratford    Jubilee,' 

1769 S99 

On  the  English  stage     .    .  600 
The    first    appearance    of 
actresses      in      Shake- 
spearean parts   .    .    ...  600 
David  Garrick  (1717-1779)  601 
John  Philip  Kemble  (.1757- 

1823) 603 

Mrs.  Sarah  Siddons  (17SS- 

1831) 603 

Edmund'Kean(i787-i833)  603 
William  Charles  Macready 

(1793-1873) 604 

Recent  revivals      ....  604 
The  spectacular,  setting  of 

Shakespearean  drama  .  606 
Shakespeare    in     English 

music  and  art  ...  .  607 
Shakespeare  in  America   .  608 


XXVI 


SHAKESPEARES 

In  Germany 610 

Early      German      Shake- 

speareana 611 

Lessing's  tribute,  1759  .    .  612 
Growth  of  study  and  en- 
thusiasm  613 

Schlegel's  translation     .    .  613 
Modern  German  writers  on 

Shakespeare 613 

On  the  German  stage    .    .  6i5 
Shakespearean       German 

music 618 

In  France 618 

Voltaire's  estimate     .    .    .  619 
Voltaire's  opponents      .    .  619 
Thefirst  French  translations  620 
French     critics'     gradual 
emancipation  from  Vol- 
tairean  influence    .    .    .  621 


FOREIGN  VOGUE 


On  the  French  stage      .    .  623 

In  Italy 624 

Shakespeare  and  the  Ro- 
mantic pioneers     .     .    .  625 
Italian  translations    .    .    .  625 

In  Spain .  626 

In  Holland 627 

In  Denmark 627 

In  Sweden 628 

In  Russia 628 

The ,  Russian  Romantic 
movement  and  Shake- 
speare   628 

Tolstoy's  attack,  1906    .    .  629 

In  Poland 630 

Polish  translations     .    .    .  631 

In  Hungary 631 

In  other  countries     .    .    .  632 


XXVII 

GENERAL  ESTIMATE 


Shakespeare's  work  and 
the  biographic  facts    .    .  633 

The  impersonal  aspect  of 
his  art 633 

Domestic  and  foreign  influ- 
ences and  affinities     .    .  634   I 


Shakespeare's  receptive 
faculty 635 

General  estimate  of  his 
genius 636 

His  final  achievement   .    .  636 

Its  universal  recognition    .  637 


XXVl 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


APPENDIX 


THE  SOURCES  OF  BIOGRAPHICAL  KNOWLEDGE 


Contemporary        records 

abundant 641 

First  efforts  in  biography  .  641 
Biographers   of  the   nine- 
teenth century   ....  642 
Stratford  topography     .     .  643 
Specialised  studies  in  biog- 
raphy     643 

Aids  to  study  of  plots  and 

texts 644 

Concordances 644 

Bibliographies 645 


Critical  studies  .  ...  645 
Shakespearean  forgeries  .  64! 
George       Steevens's      '  G. 

Peel'  fabrication  (1763)  64! 
John  Jordan  (1746-1809)  .  64! 
Thelreland  forgeries  (1796)  64J 
Forgeries  promulgated  by 

Collier  and  others  ( 1835- 

1849) 64; 

Falsely     suspected    docu- 
ments     545 


II 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CONTROVERSY 


Perversity  of  the  contro- 
versy      651 

Chief  exponents  of  the 
Baconian  and  sceptical 
theory  ...  .    .  651 


Its  vogue  in  America  .  .  65a 
The  Baconians'  pleas  .  .  65J 
Sir  Tobie  Matthew's  letter 

of  1621  .     .     ,    ,    .     .    .653^ 
The  legal  sceptics      .    .    .  65I 


THE  YOUTHFUL  CAREER  OF  THE  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON 


Southampton  and  Shake- 
speare    656 

Parentage 656 

iS73i   Oct.  6.         Southampton's 

birth 657 

Education 657 

Recognition  of  Southamp- 
ton's youthful  beauty .     .  658 


His  reluctance  to  marry    .  655 
Intrigue     with     Elizabeth 

Vernon 660 

1598    Southampton's  marriage   .  660 
1601-3   His  imprisonment  ...  661 

Later  career 661 

1624,  Nov.  10.    His  death  .    .    .661 


IV 


IS93 


THE  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON  AS  A  LITERARY  PATRON 


References  in  his  letters  to 

poems  and  plays  .  .  .  662 
His  love  of  the  theatre  .  .  663 
Poetic  adulation  ....  663 
Barnabe  Barnes's  sonnet  .  664 
Tom  Nashe's  addresses     .  664 


1595  Gervase  Markham's  sonnet  66i 
1598  Florio's  address  .  .  .  .  66i 
1625    Thomas  Heywood's  tribute  1 

The  congratulations  of  the 
poets  in  1603      .    . 

Elegies  on  Southampton 


CONTENTS 


XXVU 


THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THOMAS  THORPE  AND  '  MR.  W.  H.' 
PAGE 

The  publication  of  the 
Sonnets  in  1609  ....  669 

Publishers'  dedications  .    .  670 

Thorpe's  early  life     .     ,     .  671 

His  ownership  of  the  man- 
uscript of  Marlowe's 
Lucan 672 

His  dedicatory  address  to 
Edward  Blount  in  1600  .  672 

Character  of  his  business  .  673 

Shakespeare's  sufferings  at 
publishers'  hands  .    .    .  674 

The  use  of  initials  in  dedi- 
cations of  Elizabethan 
and  Jacobean  books  .    .  674 


Frequency  of  wishes  for 
'  happiness  '  and  '  eter- 
nity'  in  dedicatory  greet- 
ings   675 

Five  dedications  by  Thorpe  677 

*  W.  H.'  signs  dedication 
of  Southwell's  poems  in 
1606  .     .  ■ 677 

■  W.  H.'  and  Mr.  William 
Hall 679 

'  The  onlie  begetter '  means 
'  only  procurer '      .    .    .  679 


VI 


'MR.  WILLIAM  HERBERT 


Origin  of  the  notion  that 
'  Mr.  W.  H.'  stands  for 
'  Mr.  William  Herbert '  .  682 

The  Earl  of  Peinbroke 
known  only  as  Lord 
Herbert  in  youth   .    .    .  682 


Thorpe's  mode  of  address- 
ing the  Earl  of  Pembroke  i 


VII 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  EARL  OF  PEMBROKE 


Shakespeare  with  the  act- 
ing company  at  Wilton 
in  1603 686 

The  dedication  of  the  First 
Folio  in  1623      ....  687 


No  suggestion  in  the  Son- 
nets Qii  the  youth's  iden- 
tity with  Pembroke    .    .  688 

Aubrey's  ignorance  of  any 
relation  between  Shake- 
speare and  Pembroke     .  689 


VIII 

THE  'WILL'  SONNETS 


Elizabethan  meanings  of 
'  will ' 690 

Shakespeare's  uses  of  the 
word 691 

Shakespeare's  puns  on  the 
word 692 

Arbitrary  and  irregular  use 
of  italics  by  Elizabethan 
and  Jacobean  printers    .  693 


The   conceits   of   Sonnets 
cxxxv-vi  interpreted  .    .  693 

Sonnet  cxxxv 695 

Sonnet  cxxxvi 695 

Sonnet  cxxxiv 697 

Meaning  of  Sonnet  cxliii  .  698 


xxvm 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


IX 


THE  VOGUE  OF  THE  ELIZABETHAN  SONNET,   IS9I-IS97 
PAGE 


1^57 

1582 
1591 


1592 
1592 

1593 
IS93 
1S93 
IS93 
1594 
1594 
'594 
I59S 


Wyatt's  and  Surrey's  son- 
nets published   ....  699 
Watson's  Centurie  of  Loue  699 
Sidney's     Asiropkel     and 

Stella    . 700 

I.  Collected     sonnets     of 

feigned  love 701 

Daniel's  Delia 701 

Fame  of  Daniel's  sonnets  .  702 
Constable's  Diana  .  .  .  702 
Barnes's  sonnets  .  ...  .  703 
Watson's  Tears  of  Fancie  704 
Fletcher's  Licia  ....  704 
Lodge's  Phillis  ....  704 
Drayton's  Idea  .  .■  .  .  705 
Percy's  Coelia   ,     .         .     .  705 

Zepkeria 705 

Bamfield's       sonnets      to 
Ganymede 706 


IS9S     Spenser's  Amoretti    . 
1595     Emaricdulfe     .     .    . 

1595  Sir  John  Davies's  Gullinge 

Sonnets 

1596  Linche's  Diella  .  .  . 
1596  Griffin's  Fidessa  .  .  . 
1596    Thomas  Campion     .    . 

1596  William  Smith's  Chloris 

1597  Robert  Tofte's  Laura    , 
Sir    William    Alexander's 

Aurora 

Sir  Fulke  Grevllle's  CtElica 

Estimate  of  number  of  love 

sonnets   issued  between 

1591  and  1597    .... 

n.  Sonnets     to    patrons, 

IS9I-7 

III.  Sonnets    on  philoso- 
phy and  religion    .    .    . 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  ON  THE  SONNET  IN   FRANCE,  1550-1600 


Ronsard  (1524-1585)  and 
'  La  Pl^iade '     .    .    .    .  711 

The  Italian  sonnetteers  of 
the  sixteenth  century .    .711 

Desportes  (1546^1606)  .     .  712 


Index 


Chief  collections  of  French 
sonnets  published  be- 
tween 1550  and  1584  .    .  71! 

Minor  collections  of  French 
sonnets    published    be-  '■'' 
tween  1553  and  1605 .    .713 

71J 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE Frontispiece 

Frotn  ihe  ^  Droeshoui*  or  *  Flower*  painting,  now  in  the 
Shakespeare  Memorial  Gallery,  Strat/ord-on-Avon. 

HENRY       WRIOTHESLEY,        Third       Earl       of 

Southampton,  as  a  young  man     ....    To  face  p.  224 

From  ihe  painting  at  IVelbeck  Abbey. 

SHAKESPEARE'S  AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE  TO 
his  deposition  in  the  suit  brought  by  stephen 
Bellott  against  his  father-in-law  Christopher 
MoNTjoY  IN  the  Court  of  Requests,  dated 
May  II,   1612 .     On  page    517 

From  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the  Public 
Record  Oj^ce,  London. 

SHAKESPEARE'S     AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE    to 

THE   purchase-deed   OF  A   HOUSE    IN    BlACKFRIARS, 

dated  March  10,  1612-3 To  face  p.  456 

From  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the  Guilds  ^ 
hall  Library,  London. 

JHAKESPEARE'S    AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE    to 

A       MORTGAGE-DEED       RELATING      TO       THE      HOUSE 
purchased       by       HIM       IN      BlACKFRIARS,      DATED 

March  ii,  1612-3 "         458 

From  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum. 

:HREE      AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURES      severally 

WRITTEN    BY    SHAKESPEARE    ON    THE   THREE    SHEETS 

OF  HIS  WILL  .    , "  486 

From  the  original  document  at  Somerset  House,  London, 

VILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE "  538 

From  a  piaster-cast  of  ike  terra-cotta  bust  now  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Garrick  Club. 

:ONTEMPORARY      INSCRIPTION      in      Jaggard's 

PRESENTATION   COPY  OF  THE  FiRST  FOLIO  .  .      Oft  page      564 

Now  belongingto  Mr.  Coningsby  Sibthorp. 
xxix 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


PARENTAGE  AND   BIRTH 

Shakespeare  came  of  a  family  whose  surname  was 
borne  through  the  middle  ages  by  residents  in  very 
many  parts  of  England  —  at  Penrith  in  Djgtribu- 
Cumberland,  at  Kirkland  and  Doncaster  in  tionofthe 
Yorkshire,  as  weU  as  in  nearly  all  the  mid-  "*™^" 
land  counties.  The  surname  had  originally  a  martial 
significance,  implying  capacity  in  the  wielding  of  the 
spear.^  Its  first  recorded  holder  is  Wilham  Shakespeare 
or  '  Sakspere,'  who  was  convicted  of  robbery  and  hanged 
in  1248^;  he  belonged  to  Clapton,  a  hamlet  in  the 
hundred  of  Kiftergate,  Gloucestershire  (about  seven 
miles  south  of  Stratford-on-Avon).  The  second  re- 
corded holder  of  the  surname  is  John  Shakespeare,  who 
in  1279  was  living  at  'Freyndon,'  perhaps  Frittenden, 
Kent.*  The  great  mediaeval  guild  of  St.  Anne  at  Knowle, 
whose  members  included  the  leading  inhabitants  of 
Warwickshire,  was  joined  by  many  Shakespeares  in  the 
fifteenth  century.*  In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  the  surname  is  found  far  more  frequently  in 
Warwickshire  than  elsewhere.  The  archives  of  no  fewer 
than    twenty-four    towns    and    villages    there    contain 

'Camden,  Remaines,  ed.  1605,  p.  iii;  Verstegan,  Restitution,  1605, 
p.  294;  see  p.  iji  infra. 

*  Assize  rolls  for  Gloucestershire,  32  Henry  III,  roll  274. 

'  Plac.  Cor.  7  Edw.  I,  Kane. ;  cf.  Notes  and  Queries,  ist  ser.  xi.  122. 

^  Cf.  Register  of  the  Guild  at  Knowle,  ed.  Bickley,  1894. 

B  I 


2  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

notices  of  Shakespeare  families  in  the  sixteenth  century,,^ 
and  as  many  as  thirty-four  Warwickshire  towns  or 
villages  were  inhabited  by  Shakespeare  families  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  Among  them  all  William  was  a 
common  Christian  name.  At  Rowington,  twelve  miles 
to  the  north  of  Stratford,  and  in  the  same  hundred  of 
Barlichway,  one  of  the  most  prolific  Shakespeare  families 
of  Warwickshire  resided  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  no 
fewer  than  three  Richard  Shakespeares  of  Rowington, 
whose  extant  wills  were  proved  respectively  in  1560, 
1 591,  and  1614,  were  fathers  of  sons  called  Wilham. 
At  least  one  other  William  Shakespeare  was  during  the 
period  a  resident  in  Rowington.  As  a  consequence,  the 
poet  has  been  more  than  once  credited  with  achievements 
which  rightly  belong  to  one  or  other  of  his  numerous 
contemporaries  who  were  identically  named.^ 

The  poet's  ancestry  cannot  be  defined  with  absolute 
certainty.  The  poet's  father,  when  applying  for  a 
The  poet's  grant  of  arms  in  1596,  claimed  that  his  grand- 
ancestry.  father  (the  poet's  great-grandfather)  received 
for  services  rendered  in  war  a  grant  of  land  in  Warwick- 
shire from  Henry  VII.^  No  precise  confirmation  of  this 
pretension  has  been  discovered,  and  it  may  be,  after  the 
manner  of  heraldic  genealogy,  fictitious.  But  there  is 
a  probability  that  the  poet  came  of  good  yeoman  stock, 
and  that  his  ancestors  to  the  fourth  or  fifth  generation 
were  fairly  substantial  landowners.'  Adam  Shakespeare,; 
a  tenatit  by  mihtary  service  of  land  at  Baddesley  Clinton 
in  Warwickshire  in  1389,  seems  to  have  been  great-' 
grandfather  of  one  Richard  Shakespeare  who  during  the 
first  thirty-four  years  (at  least)  of  the  sixteenth  century 
held  neighbouring  land  at  Wroxall,  some  ten  miles 
from  Stratford-on-Avon.  Another  Richard  Shakespeare 
who  is  conjectured  to  have  been  nearly  akin  to  the 

»See  for  'other  William  Shakespeares'  Mrs.  Stopes's  Shakespeare's 
Environment,  1914,  pp.  91-104. 

^  See  p.  282  infra. 

'Ct.  The  Times,  October  14,  1895;  Notes  and  Queries,  8th  ser.  vii. 
Soi;  Mrs.  Stopes,  Shakespeare's  Family,  1901,  pp.  35-49. 


PARENTAGE  AND   BIRTH  3 

Wroxall  family  was  settled  in  1535  as  a  farmer  at  Snitter- 
field,  a  village  six  miles  south  of  Wroxall  and  four  miles 
to  the  north  of  Stratford-on-Avon.^  It  is  probable  that 
he  was  the  poet's  grandfather.  In  1550  he  was  renting 
a  messuage  and  land  at  Snitterfield  of  Robert  Arden; 
he  died  at  the  close  of  1560,  and  on  February  iq  of 
the  next  year  letters  of  administration  of  his  goods, 
chattels,  and  debts  were  issued  by  the  Probate  Court 
at  Worcester  to  his  son  John,  who  was  there  described 
as  a  farmer  or  husbandman  (agricola)  of  Snitterfield. 
The  estate  was  valued  at  35Z.  175.^  Besides  the  son 
John,  Richard  of  Snitterfield  certainly  had  a  son  Henry ; 
while  a  Thomas  Shakespeare,  a  considerable  landholder 
at  Snitterfield  between  1563  and  1583,  whose  parentage 
is  imdetermined,  may  have  been  a  third  son.  The  son 
Henry  remained  all  his  life  at  Snitterfield,  where  he 
engaged  in  farming  with  gradually  diminishing  success ; 
he  died  in  very  embarrassed  circumstances  in  December 
1596.'  John,  the  son  who  administered  Richard's  es- 
tate, was  in  all  Kkelihood  the  poet's  father. 

About  1551  John  Shakespeare  left  the  village  of  Snitter- 
field, which  was  his  birthplace,  to  seek  a  career  in  the 
neighbouring  borough  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  then  a  well- 

^  1  Cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare,  1887,  ii. 
207,  and  J.  W.  Ryland,  Records  of  Wroxall  Abbey  and  Manor,  Warwick- 
shire, 1903,  passim. 

'  The  purchasing  power  of  money  may  be  reckoned  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century  eight  times  what  it  is  now,  and  in  the  later  years 
of  the  century  when  prices  rapidly  rose,  five  times.  In  comparing  sums 
of  money  mentioned  in  the  text  with  modem  currency,  they  should  be 
multiplied  by  eight  if  they  belong  to  years  up  to  1560,  and  by  five  if  they 
belong  to  subsequent  years.  (See  p.  296  n.  i  infra.)  The  letters  of  ad- 
ministration in  regard  to  Richard  Shakespeare's  estate,  which  are  in  the 
district  registry  of  the  Probate  Court  at  Worcester,  were  printed  in 
full  by  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps  in  his  Shakespeare's  Tours  (privately 
issued  1887),  pp.  44-s,  and  again  in  J.  W.  Gray's  Shakespeare's  Mar- 
riage, .pp.  259-60.  They  do  not  appear  in  any  edition  of  HaUiweU- 
Phillipp's  Outlines. 

'Henry  Shakespeare,  the  dramatist's  uncle,  was  buried  at  Snitter- 
field on  Dec.  29,  1596,  leaving  no  surviving  issue.  His  widow  Margaret 
was  buried  at  Snitterfield  six  weeks  later,  on  Feb.  9,  IS96-7-  Cf.  Mrs. 
Stopes's  Shakespeare's  Environment,  1914,  pp.  66  seq. 


4  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

to-do  market  town  of  some  two  thousand  inhabitants.^ 
In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  the 
The  poefs  j^^jn  industries  of  Stratford  were  the  weaving 
settfesin  of  wool  into  cloth  or  yarn  and  the  making  j 
Stratford-  q£  ^g^^_  5ojne  substantial  fortunes  were 
made  out  of  dealings  in  wool,  and  on  June  28, 
ISS3,  a  charter  of  incorporation  (or  of  self-government) 
rewarded  the  general  advance  of  prosperity.  Some 
fifty-seven  years  later,  on  July  23,  1610,  the  municipall 
privileges  and  franchises  were  confirmed  anew  by  James 
I.  Meanwhile,  however,  fortune  proved  fickle.  As 
Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  drew  to  a  close,  although  the 
population  was  estimated  to  increase  by  half  as  much 
again,  the  manufacturing  activities  and  the  earnings  of 
commerce  and  labour  dechned.  The  local  trade  tended 
to  confine  itself  to  the  retail  distribution  of  imported  i 
manufactures  or  agricultural  produce.  There  were 
many  seasons  of  scarcity  and  frequent  losses  by  dis- 
astrous fires.  Yet  municipal  life  remained  busy  and. 
the  richer  townsfolk  and  neighbouring  landowners  did 
what  they  could  to  lighten  the  borough's  burden  of 
misfortunes.^ 

In  the  middle  years  of  the  century  there  was  every 
promise  of  a  prosperous  career  for  an  enterprising  immi- . 
grant  from  a  neighbouring  village  who  was  provided  with 
a  small  capital.     John  Shakespeare  arrived  in  Stratford;; 

^In  1547  the  communicants  residing  in  the  main  thoroughfare^ 
were  reckoned  at  1500;  in  1562  the  population  would  seem  to  have 
numbered  as  many  as  2000.  About  1598  the  corporation  when  peti- 
tioning for  an  alteration  of  their  charter  reckoned  the  householders  at 
1500  'at  the  least'  —  a  figure  which  would  suggest  a  population  of 
near  5000;  but  there  was  a  possible  endeavour  here  to  magnify  the 
importance  of  the  place.  (See  Wheler  MSS.,  Shakespeare's  Birth- 
place, i.  f.  72.)  According  to  a  census  of  April  19,  1765,  the  population 
only  numbered  2287.    The  census  of  1911  gives  the  figure  8532. 

^  In  1590  the  baUi£E  and  burgesses  complained  that  the  town  'had 
fallen  much  into  decay  for  want  of  such  trade  as  heretofore  they  had 
by  clothing  and  making  of  yarn.'  The  decline  seems  to  have  made 
steady  progress  through  Shakespeare's  lifetime,  and  in  1615  it  was 
stated  that  'no  clothes  or  stuffs  were  made  at  Stratford  but  were  bought* 
at  London  or  elsewhere.'     (Malone,  Variorum  Shakespeare,  ii.  554-55.) 


PARENTAGE  AND   BIRTH  5 

on  the  eve  of  its  incorporation,  and  he  at  once  set  up  as  a 
trader  in  all  manner  of  agricultural  produce  and  in  many 
articles  which  were  manufactured  out  of  it.  Corn,  wool, 
malt,  meat,  skins,  and  leather  were  among  the  com- 
modities in  which  he  dealt.  Documents  of  a  somewhat 
later  date  often  describe  him  as  a  glover.  Aubrey, 
Shakespeare's  first  biographer,  reported  the  tradition 
that  he  was  a  butcher.  But  though  both  designations 
doubtless  indicated  important  branches  of  his  business, 
neither  can  be  regarded  as  disclpsing  its  full  extent.  The 
bulk  of  his  varied  stock-in-trade  came  from  the  land, 
which  his  family  farmed  at  Snitterfield  and  in  which  he 
enjoyed  some  interest.  As  long  as  his  father  hved  he 
seems  to  have  been  a  frequent  visitor  to  Snitterfield, 
and  until  the  date  of  his  father's  death  in  1560  legal 
documents  designated  him  a  farmer  or  'husbandman' 
of  that  place.  But  it  was  with  Stratford-on-Avon  that 
his  life  was  mainly  identified. 

In  April  1552  John  Shakespeare  was  living  in  Henley 
Street  at  Stratford,  a  thoroughfare  leading  to  the  market 
town  of  Henley-in-Arden.     He  is  first  men-  joj^ 
tioned  in  the  borough  records  as  paying  in  that  Shake- 
month   a  fine   of   twelvepence   for  having   a  munid^i 
dirt-heap  in  front  of  his  house.    His  frequent   °^™- 
appearances  in  the  years  that  follow  as  either  plaintiff 
or  defendant  in  suits  heard  in  the  local  court  of  record 
for  the  recovery  of  small  debts  suggest  that  he  was 
a  keen  man  of  business.     For  some  seven  and  twenty 
years  his  mercantile  progress  knew  no  check  and  his 
local  influence  grew  steadily.     In  October  1556  he  pur- 
chased two  freehold  tenements  at  Stratford  —  one,  with 
a  garden,  in  Henley  Street  (it  adjoins  that  now  known 
as  the  poet's  birthplace),  and  the  other  in   Greenhill 
Street  with  a  garden  and  croft.     Thenceforth  he  played 
a  prominent  part  in  municipal  affairs  under  the  con- 
stitution which  the  charter  of  1553  brought  into  being. 
In  1557  he  was  chosen  an  ale- taster,  whose   duty  it 
was  to  test  the  quality  of  malt  liquors  and  bread.    About 


6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  same  time  he  was  elected  a  burgess  or  town  coun- 
ciUor,  and  in  September  1558,  and  again  on  October  6, 
1559,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  four  petty  constables 
by  a  vote  of  the  jury  of  the  court-leet.  Twice  — m 
ISS9  and  1561  —  he  was  chosen  one  of  the  affeerors  — 
officers  appointed  to  determine  the  fines  for  those  of- 
fences which  were  punishable  arbitrarily,  and  for  which 
no  express  penalties  were  prescribed  by  statute.  In 
1561  he  was  elected  one  of  the  two  chamberlains  of  the 
borough,  an  office  of  financial  responsibility  whicji  he 
held  for  two  years.  He  deHvered  his  second  statement 
of  accounts  to  the  corporation  in  January  1564.  When 
attesting  documents  he,  hke  many  of  his  educated  neigh- 
bours, made  his  mark,  and  there  is  no  unquestioned 
specimen  of  his  handwriting  in  the  Stratford  archives; 
but  his  financial  aptitude  and  ready  command  of  figures 
satisfactorily  reheve  him  of  the  imputation  of  illiteracy. 
The  municipal  accounts,  which  were  checked  by  tallies 
and  counters,  were  audited  by  him  after  he  ceased  to  be 
chamberlain,  and  he  more  than  once  advanced  small  i 
sums  of  money  to  the  corporation.  He  was  reputed  to 
be  a  man  of  cheerful  temperament,  one  of '  a  merry  cheek,'  1 
who  dared  crack  a  jest  at  any  time.^ 

With  characteristic  shrewdness  he  chose  a  wife  of 
assured  fortune  —  Mary,  youngest  daughter  of  Robert  f 
The  poet's    Ardcn,  a  wealthy  farmer  of  Wilmcote  in  the 
mother.       parish   of  Aston   Cantlow,   three  miles  from 
Stratford.     The  chief  branch  of  the  Arden  family  was 

'  Archdeacon  Thomas  Plume  (1630-1704)  bequeathed  to  his  native  | 
town  of  Maiden  in  Essex,  with  books  and  other  papers,  a  MS.  collection    i 
of  contemporary  hearsay  anecdotes  which  he  compiled  about   1656. 
Of  the  dramatist  the  archdeacon  there  wrote  that  he  'was  a  glover's 
son'  and  that  'S[i]r  John  Mennes  saw  once  his  old  f[athe]r  in  h[is]  shop 
—  a  merry  cheeked  old  man  th[a]t  s[ai]d  "Will  was  a  g[oo]d  Hon[est] 
Fellow,  but  he  darest  h[ave]  crackt  a  jeast  w[i]th  him  at  any  time." ' 
(Communicated  by  the  Rev.  Andrew  Clark,  D.D.,  rector  of  Great  ^^ 
Leighs,  Chelmsford.)     Plume  was  probably  repeating  gossip  which  he 
derived  from  Sir  John  Mennes,  the  versifier  and  admiral  of  Charles  I's 
reign,  who  was  only  two  years  old  when  Shakespeare's  father  died  in  • 
1601,  and  could  not  therefore  have  himself  conversed  with  the  elder 
Shakespeare.    No  other  Sir  John  Mennes  is  discoverable. 


PARENTAGE  AND  BIRTH  7 

settled  at  Parkhall,  in  the  parish  of  Curdworth,  near 
Birmingham,  and  it  ranked  with  the  most  influential  of 
the  county.  Robert  Arden,  a  progenitor  of  that  branch, 
was  sheriff  of  Warwickshire  and  Leicestershire  in  1438 
(16  Hen.  VI),  and  this  sheriff's  direct  descendant,  Ed- 
ward Arden,  who  was  himself  high  sheriff  of  Warwick- 
shire in  1575,  was  executed  in  1583  for  alleged  compUcity 
in  a  Roman  Catholic  plot  against  the  life  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  John  Shakespeare's  wife  belonged  to  a 
humbler  branch  of  the  family,  and  there  is  no  trust- 
worthy evidence  to  determine  the  exact  degree  of  kin- 
ship between  the  two  branches.  Her  grandfather, 
Thomas  Arden,  purchased  in  1501  an  estate  at  Snitter- 
field,  which  passed,  with  other  property,  to  her  father 
Robert;  John  Shakespeare's  father,  Richard,  was  one 
of  this  Robert  Arden's  Snitterfield  tenants.  By  his 
first  wife,  whose  name  is  not  known,  Robert  Arden  had 
seven  daughters,  of  whom  all  but  two  married;  John 
Shakespeare's  wife  seems  to  have  been  the  youngest. 
Robert  Arden's  second  wife,  Agnes  or  Anne,  widow  of 
John  Hill  {d'.  1545),  a  substantial  farmer  of  Bearley,  sur- 
vived him ;  by  her  he  had  no  issue.  When  he  died  at  the 
end  of  1556,  he  owned  a  farmhouse  and  many  acres  at 
Wilmcote,  besides  some  hundred  acres  at  Snitterfield, 
with  two  farmhouses  which  he  let  out  to  tenants.  The 
post-mortem  inventory  of  his  goods,  which  was  made  on 
December  9,  1556,  shows  that  he  had  Uved  in  comfort; 
his  house  was  adorned  by  as  many  as  eleven  'painted 
cloths,'  which  then  did  duty  for  tapestries  among  the 
middle  class.^  The  exordium  of  his  will,  which  was 
drawn  up  on  November  24,  1556,  and  proved  on  De- 
cember 16  following,  indicates  that  he  was  an  observant 

'  'Painted  cloths'  were  broad  strips  of  canvas  on  which  figures  from 
the  Bible  or  from  classical  mythology  were,  with  appropriate  mottoes, 
crudely  painted  in  tempera.  Cf.  i  Henry  IV,  iv.  ii.  25,  'as  ragged  as 
Lazarus  in  the  painted  cloth.'  Shakespeare  lays  stress  on  the  embel- 
lishment of  the  mottoes  in  Lticrece,  245  : 

Who  fears  a  sentence  or  an  old  man's  saw 
Shall  by  a  painted  cloth  be  kept  in  awe. 


8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Catholic.  For  his  two  youngest  daughters,  Alice  and 
Mary,  he  showed  especial  affection  by  nominating  them! 
his  executors.  Mary  received  not  only  6  /.  135.  4d.  in 
money,  but  the  fee-simple  of  his  chief  property  at 
Wilmcote,  consisting  of  a  house  with  some  fifty  acres 
of  land,  —  an  estate  which  was  known  as  Asbies.  She 
also  acquired,  under  an  earlier  settlement,  an  interest 
in  two  messuages  at  Snitterfield.^  But,  although  she 
was  well  provided  with  worldly  goods,  there  is  no  sure 
evidence  that  she  could  write ;  several  extant  docu- 
ments bear  her  mark,  and  no  autograph  signature  is 
extant. 

John  Shakespeare's  marriage  with  Mary  Arden  doubt- 
less took  place  at  Aston  Cantlow,  the  parish  church  of 
The  poet's  Wilmcote,  in  the  autumn  of  1557  (the  church 
birth  and  registers  begin  at  a  later  date) .  On  Septem- 
apism.  j^gj.  ^^^  1558,  their  first  child,  a  daughter, 
Joan,  was  baptised  in  the  church  of  Stratford.  A  second 
child,  another  daughter,  Margaret,  was  baptised  on 
December  2,  1562 ;  but  both  these  children  died  in 
infancy.  The  poet  William,  the  first  son  and  third 
child,  was  born  on  April  22  or  23,  1564.  The  later  day 
was  the  day  of  his  death,  and  it  is  generally  accepted 
as  his  birthday.  There  is  no  positive  evidence  on  the 
subject,  but  the  Stratford  parish  registers  a:ttest  that 
he  was  baptised  on  April  26,  and  it  was  a  common  prac- 
tice at  the  time  to  baptise  a  child  three  days  after  birth. 
The  baptismal  entry  runs  'Gulielmus  filius  Johannis 
Shakspere.'  ^ 

Some  doubt  has  been  raised  as  to  the  ordinarily  ac- 

1  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  179. 

»The  vicar,  who  performed  the  christening  ceremony;  was  John 
Bretchgirdle,  M.A.  He  had  been  appointed  on  Feb.  27,  1559-60,  and 
was  buried  in  Stratford  church  on  June  21,  1565.  The  (broken)  'bowl 
of  the  old  font  of  Stratford  church  is  still  preserved  there  (Bloom's 
Stratford-upon-Avon  Church,  1902,  pp.  101-2).  The  existing  vellum 
parish  register  of  this  period  is  a  transcript  of  the  original  'paper  book' ;  • 
it  was  made  before  1600,  in  accordance  with  an  order  of  Convocation  ; 
of  Oct.  25,  1597,  by  Richard  Byfield,  who  was  vicar  for  some  ten  years 
from  1596. 


PARENTAGE  AND   BIRTH  9 

cepted  scene  of  the  dramatist's  birth.  Of  two  adjoining 
houses  now  forming  a  detached  building  on  ghake- 
the  north  side  of  Henley  Street  and  known  as  speare's 
Shakespeare's  House  or  Shakespeare's  Birth-  birthplace. 
place,  both  belonged  to  the  dramatist's  father  for  many- 
years  and  were  combined  by  him  to  serve  at  once  as 
private  residence  and  as  shop  or  warehouse.  The 
tenement  to  the  east  he  purchased  in  1556,  but  there 
is  no  documentary  evidence  that  he  owned  the  house 
to  the  west  before  1575.  Yet  this  western  house  has 
been  Ipng  known  as  the  poet's  birthplace,  and  a  room 
on  the  first  floor  has  been  claimed  for  two  centuries  and 
more  as  that  in  which  he  was  born.  It  may  well  be  that 
John  Shakespeare  occupied  the  two  houses  jointly  in 
1564  (the  year  of  the  poet's  birth),  although  he  only 
purchased  the  \yestern  building  eleven  years  later. 
The  double  residence  became  Shakespeare's  property 
on  his  father's  death  in  1601,  but  the  dramatist  never 
resided  there  after  his  boyhood.  His  mother  inhabited 
the  premises  until  her  death  in  1608,  and  his  sister  Mrs. 
Joan  Hart  and  her  family  dwelt  there  with  her.  Mrs. 
Hart  was  still  living  there  in  161 6  when  Shakespeare 
died,  and  he  left  his  sister  a  hf e  interest  in  the  two  houses 
at  a  nominal  rent  of  one  shilling.  On  Mrs.  Hart's  death 
thirty  years  later,  the  ownership  of  the  property  passed 
to  the  poet's  elder  daughter,  Mrs.  Hall,  and  on  her 
death  in  1649  to  the  poet's  only  granddaughter  and  last 
surviving  descendant.  Lady  Bernard.^  By  her  will  in 
1670  Lady  Bernard  made  the  buildings  over  to  Thomas 
Hart,  the  dramatist's  grandnephew,  then  the  head  of 
the  family  which  suppHed  an  uninterrupted  succession 
of  occupiers  for  the  best  part  of  two  centuries. 

Early  in  Mrs.  Joan  Hart's  occupancy  of  the  'Birth- 
place' she  restored  the  houses  to  their  original  state  of 
two  separate  dwellings.  While  retaining  the  western 
portion  for  her  own  use,  she  sublet  the  eastern  half  to  a 
tenant  who  converted  it  into  an  inn.     It  was  known  at 

^  See  p.  512  infra. 


lO  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

first  as  the  '  Maidenhead '  and  afterwards  as  the  '  Swan 
and  Maidenhead.'  The  premises  remained  subdivided- 
thus  for  some  two  hundred  years,  and  the  irm 
theprem-^  enjoyed  a  continuous  existence  until  1846. 
ises,  1670-  Thomas  Hart's  kinsmen,  to  whom  the  ownership 
'*'*'■  of  both  eastern  and  western  tenements  mean- 

while descended,  continued  to  confine  their  residence  to 
the  western  house  as  long  as  the  property  remained  in 
their  hands.  The  tradition  which  identified  that  tene- 
ment with  the  scene  of  the  dramatist's  birth  gathered 
substance  from  its  intimate  association  with  his  sur- 
viving kindred  through  some  ten  generations.  During 
the  eighteenth  century  the  western  house  was  a  popular 
showplace  and  the  Harts  derived  a  substantial  emolu- 
ment from  the  visits  of  admirers  of  Shakespeare. 

In  1806  the  surviving  representatives  of  the  Harts 
at  Stratford  abandoned  the  family  home  and  the  whole 
Their  property  was  sold  for  230/.  to  one  Thomas 
present  Court,  the  tenant  of  the  eastern  house  which 
"^^^'  still  did  duty  as  the  'Swan  and  Maidenhead' 

inn.  Thereupon  Court  turned  the  western  house  into 
a  butcher's  shop.^  On  the  death  of  his  widow  in  1846 
the  whole  of  the  premises  were  put  up  for  auction  in 
London  and  they  were  purchased  for  3000Z.  on  behalf 
of  subscribers  to  a  public  fund  on  September  16,  1847. 
Adjoining  buildings  were  soon  demolished  so  as  to 
isolate,  the  property,  and  after  extensive  restoration  on 
the  lines  of  the  earliest  accessible  pictorial  and  other 

'In  1834  a  writer  in  the  Tewkesbury  Magazine  described  'Shake- 
speare's House'  thus:  'The  house  in  which  Shakespeare's  father  lived, 
and  in  which  he  was  born,  is  now  divided  into  two  —  the  northern  [i.e. 
western]  half  being,  or  having  lately  been,  a  butcher's  shop  —  and  the 
southern  [i.e.  eastern]  half,  consisting  of  a  respectable  public-house, 
bearing  the  sign  of  the  Swan  and  Maidenhead.'  (French's  Skake- 
speareana  Genealogica,  p.  409.)  The  wife  of  John  Hart  (1753-1800)  of 
'the  Birthplace,'  son  of  Thomas  Hart  (1729-1793),  belonged  to  Tewkes* 
bury  and  their  son  William  Shakespeare  Hart  (1778-1834)  settled^ 
here.  The  latter  wrote  of 'the  Birthplace' in  1810:  'My  grandfather 
[Thomas  Hart]  used  to  obtain  a  great  deal  of  money  by  shewing  the 
premises  to  strangers  who  used  to  visit  them.'  (Shakespeare's  Birth- 
place MSS.,  Saunders  MS.  1191,  p.  63.) 


PARENTAGE  AND  BIRTH  II 

evidence,  the  two  houses  were  reconverted  into  a  single 
detached  domicile  for  the  purposes  of  public  exhibition ; 
the  western  house  (the  'birthplace')  was  left  unfur- 
nished, and  the  eastern  house  (the  'inn')  was  fitted  up 
as  a  museum  and  library.  Much  of  the  Elizabethan 
timber  and  stonework  survives  in  the  double  structure, 
but  a  cellar  under  the  'birthplace'  is  the  only  portion 
which  remains  as  it  was  at  the  date  of  the  poet's  birth.^ 
The  buildings  were  vested  under  a  deed  of  trust  in  the 
corporation  of  Stratford  in  1866.  In  1891  an  Act  of 
Parliament  (54  &  55  Vict.  cap.  iii.)  transferred  the 
property  in  behalf  of  the  nation  to  an  independent  body 
of  trustees,  consisting  of  ten  life-trustees,  together  with  a 
number  of  ex-OjBBicio  trustees,  who  are  representative  of 
the  authorities  of  the  county  of  Warwickshire  and  of 
the  town  of  Stratford. 

^  Cf.  documents  and  sketches  in  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  377-99.  The 
earliest  extant  view  of  the  Birthplace  buildings  is  a  drawing  by  Richard 
Greene  (17 16-1793),  ^  well-known  Lichfield  antiquary,  which  was  en- 
graved for  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  July  1769.  Richard  Greene's 
brother,  Joseph  (1712-1790),  was  long  headmaster  of  Stratford  Grammar 
School.  In  1788  Colonel  Pfiilip  De  la  Motte,  an  archaeologist,  of  Bats- 
ford,  Gloucestershire,  made  an  etching  of  the  Birthplace  premises,  which 
closely  resembles  Greene's  drawing;  the  colonel's  original  copperplate 
is  now  preserved  in  the  Birthplace.  The  restoration  of  the  Birthplace 
in  1847  accurately  conformed  to  the  view  of  1769. 


II 

CHILDHOOD,  EDUCATION,  AND   MARRIAGE 

In  July  1564,  when  William  was  three  months  old,  the 
plague  raged  with  unwonted  vehemence  at  Stratford. 
The  plague  One  in  every  seven  of  the  inhabitants  perished.; 
of  1564.  Twice  in  his  mature  years  —  in  1593  and  1693 
—  the  dramatist  was  to  witness  in  London  more  fatal 
visitations  of  the  pestilence ;  but  his  native  place  was 
spared  any  experience  which  compared  with  the  calam- 
itous epidemic  of  his  infancy.^  He  and  his  family  were 
unharmed,  and  his  father  Hberally  contributed  to  the 
relief  of  his  stricken  neighbours,  hundreds  of  whom  were 
rendered  destitute. 

Fortune  still  favoured  the  elder  Shakespeare.  On 
July  4,  1565,  he  reached  the  dignity  of  an  alderman. 
Thefth  F'^o™  1567  onwards  he  was  accorded  in  the 
as  alder-  Corporation  archives  the  honourable  prefix  of 
m^^and  'Mr.'^  At  Michaelmas  1568  he  attained  the 
highest  office  in  the  corporation  gift,  that  of 
bailiff,  and  during  his  year  of  ofl&ce  the  corporation  for 
the  first  time  entertained  actors  at  Stratford.  The 
Queen's  Company  and  the  Earl  of  Worcester's  Company 
each  received  from  John  Shakespeare  an  official  welcome, 

^  An  epidemic  of  exceptional  intensity  visited  London  from  AugusSl 
to  December  1563,  and  several  country  towns  were  infected  somewhatl 
sporadically  in  the  following  spring.  Leicester,  Lichfield,  and  Canter-| 
bury  seem  with  Stratford-on-Avon  to  have  been  the  chief  sufferers  in 
the  provinces.     (Creighton,  Epidemics  m  Britain,  i.  309.) 

2  According  to  Sir  Thomas  Smith's  Commonwealth  of  England,  1594, 
'Master  is  the  title  which  men  give  to  esquires  and  other  gentlemen.' 
Cf.  Merchant  0}  Venice,  II.  ii.  45  seq.,  where  Launcelot  Gobbo,  on  being 
called  Master  Launcelot,  persistently  disclaims  the  dignity.  'No  master, 
sir  [he  protests],  but  a  poor  man's  son.'  The  dramatist  reached  the 
like  titular  dignity  comparatively  early  (see  p.  293). 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE  1,3 

and  gave  a  performance  in  the  Guildhall  before  the 
council.'  On  September  5,  1571,  he  was  chief  alderman, 
a  post  which  he  retained  till  September  30  the  following 
year.  In  1573  Alexander  Webbe,  a  farmer  of  Snitter- 
field,  and  the  husband  of  his  wife's  sister  Margaret, 
made  him  overseer  of  his  will  of  which  Henry  Shake- 
speare, his  brother,  was  executor.  In  1 575  the  dramatist's 
father  added  substantially  to  his  real  estate  by  purchas- 
ing two  houses  in  Stratford ;  one  of  them,  the  traditional 
'birthplace'  in  Henley  S"treet,  adjoined  the  tenement 
acquired  nineteen  years  before.  In  1576  Alderman 
Shakespeare  contributed  twelvepence  to  the  beadle's 
salary.  But  after  Michaelmas  1572  he  took  a  less  active 
part  in  municipal  affairs,  and  he  grew  irregular  in  his 
attendance  at  the  council  meetings. 

Signs  were  gradually  apparent  that  John  Shake- 
speare's luck  had  turned.  In  1578  he  was  unable  to  pay, 
with  his  colleagues,  either  the  weekly  sum  of  fourpence 
for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  or  his  contribution  '  towards  the 
furniture  of  three  pikemen,  two  billmen,  and  one  archer' 
who  were  sent  by  the  corporation  to  attend  a  muster 
of  the  trained  bands  of  the  county. 

Meanwhile  his  family  was  increasing.  Four  children 
besides  the  poet  —  three  sons,  Gilbert  (baptised  October 
13, 1566),  Richard  (baptised  March  11, 1573-4),  Brothers 
and  Edmund  (baptised  May  3,  1580),  with  a  and  sisters. 
daughter  Joan  (baptised  April  15,  1569)  —  reached 
maturity.  A  daughter  Ann  was  baptised  on  September 
28,  1571,  and  was  buried  on  April  4,  1579.  To  meet 
his  growing    Uabihties,    the    father    borrowed    money 

'  The  Rev.  Thomas  Carter,  in  Shakespeare,  Puritan  and  Recusant, 
1897,  weakly  argued  that  John  Shakespeare  was  a  puritan  from  the 
fact  that  the  corporation  ordered  images  to  be  defaced  (1562-3)  and 
ecclesiastical  vestments  to  be  sold  (1571),  while  he  held  office  as  chamber- 
lain or  chief  alderman.  These  decrees  were  mere  acts  of  conformity  with 
the  new  ecclesiastical  law.  John  Shakespeare's  encouragement  of  actors 
is  conclusive  proof  that  he  was  no  puritan.  The  Elizabethan  puritans, 
too,  according  to  Guillim's  Display  of  Heraldrie  (1610),  regarded  coat- 
armour  with  abhorrence,  yet  John  Shakespeare  with  his  son  made  per- 
sistent application  to  the  College  of  Arms  for  a  grant  of  arms.  (Cf. 
infra,  pp.  281  seq.) 


14  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

from  his  wife's  kinsfolk,  and  he  and  his  wife  mortgaged,  ; 
on  November  14,  1578,  Asbies,  her  valuable  property  at 
Wilmcote,  for  40/.  to  Edmund  Lambert  of  Barton-on- 
the-Heath,  who  had  married  her  sister,  Joan  Arden. 
Lambert  was  to  receive  no  interest  on  his  loan,  but  was 
to  take  the  'rents  and  profits'  of  the  estate.  Asbies 
was  thereby  alienated  for  ever.  Next  year,  on  October 
15,  1579,  John  and  his  wife  made  over  to  Robert  Webbe, 
doubtless  a  relative  of  Alexander  Webbe,  for  the  sum  of 
40/.,  his  wife's  property  at  Snitterfield.^ 

John  Shakespeare  obviously  chafed  under  the  humiUa- 
tion  of  having  parted,  although  as  he  hoped  only  tem- 
porarily, with  his  wife's  property  of  Asbies,  and 
father's  in  the  autumn  of  1580  he  offered  to  pay  off 
^ffi°°it-  the  mortgage ;  but  his  brother-in-law,  Lambert, 
retorted  that  other  sums  were  owing,  and  he 
would  accept  all  or  none.  The  negotiation,  which  was 
the  beginning  of  much  litigation,  thus  proved  abortive.^ 
Through  1585  and  1586  a  creditor,  John  Brown,  was 
embarrassingly  importunate,  and,  after  obtaining  a  writ 
of  distraint.  Brown  informed  the  local  court  that  the 
debtor  had  no  goods  on  which  process  could  be  levied.' 
On  September  6,  1586,  John  was  deprived  of  his  alder- 
man's gown,  on  the  ground  of  his  long  absence  from  the 
council  meetings.* 

'  The  sum  is  stated  to  be  4/.  in  one  document  (Halliwell-Pliillipps, 
ii.  176)  and  40^.  in  another  {ib.  p.  179) ;   the  latter  is  the  correct  sum. 

'  Edmund  Lambert  died  on  March  i,  1586-7,  in  possession  of  Asbies. 
Fresh  legal  proceedings  were  thereupon  initiated  by  John  Shakespeare  : 
to  recover  the  property  from  Edmund  Lambert's  heir,  John  Lambert. 
The  litigation  went  on  intermittently  through  the  next  twelve  years, 
but  the  dramatist's  family  obtained  no  satisfaction.  Cf.  Mrs.  Stopes's 
Shakespeare's  Environment,  pp.  37  seq. 

» Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  238.    The  Henley  Street  property  was  ap- 
parently treated  as  immune  from  distraint. 

^The  embarrassments  of  Shakespeare's  father  have  been  at  times 
assigned  in  error  to  another  John  Shakespeare  of  Stratford.  The  second  I 
John  Shakespeare  or  Shakspere  (as  his  name  is  usually  spelt)  came  to  ~ 
Stratford  as  a  young  man,  married  there 'on  Nov.  25,  1584,  and  was  for 
ten  years  a  well-to-do  shoemaker  in  Bridge  Street,  filling  the  office  of  i 
Master  of  the  Shoemakers'  Company  in  1592  —  a  certain  sign  of  pecuniary  ] 
stability.    He  left  Stratford  in  1594  (cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  137-40).  ; 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE  15 

Happily  John  Shakespeare  was  at  no  expense  for  the 
education  of  his  four  sons.  They  were  entitled  to  free, 
tuition  at  the  grammar  school  of  Stratford,  ghake- 
which  had  been  refashioned  in  1553  by  Edward  speare's 
VI  out  of  a  fifteenth  century  foundation.  An  ^'^  °°'' 
unprecedented  zeal  for  education  was  a  prominent  charac- 
teristic of  Tudor  England,  and  there  was  scarcely  an 
English  town  which  did  not  witness  the  establishment  in 
the  sixteenth  century  of  a  well-equipped  public  school."^ 
Stratford  shared  with  the  rest  of  the  country  the  general 
respect  for  literary  study.  Secular  literature  as  well  as 
theology  found  its  way  into  the  parsonages,  and  libraries 
adorned  the  great  houses  of  the  neighbourhood.^  The 
townsmen  of  Stratford  gave  many  proofs  of  pride  in  the 
municipal  school  which  offered  them  a  taste  of  academic 
culture.  There  John  Shakespeare's  eldest  son  William 
probably  made  his  entry  in  1571,  when  Walter  Roche, 
B.A.,  was  retiring  from  the  mastership  in  favour  of 
Simon  Hunt,  B.A.  Hunt  seems  to  have  been  succeeded 
in  1577  by  one  Thomas  Jenldns,  whose  place  was  taken 
in  1579  by  John  Cotton  'late'  of  London.'  Roche,  Hunt, 
and  Cotton  were  all  graduates  of  Oxford ;  Roche  would 
appear  to  have  held  a  Lancashire  fellowship  at  his  col- 
lege. Corpus  Christi,  and  to  have  left  the  Stratford  School 
to  become  rector  of  the  neighbouring  church  of  Clifford 

'  Before  the  reign  of  the  first  Tudor  sovereign  Henry  VII  England 
could  boast  of  no  more  than  16  granunar  schools,  i.e.  public  schools, 
unconnected  with  the  monasteries.  Sixteen  were  founded  in  addition 
in  different  towns  during  Henry  VH's  reign,  63  during  Henry  VIII's 
reign,  50  during  Edward  VI's  reign,  19  during  Queen  Mary's  reign, 
138  during  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  83  during  James  I's  reign. 

2  The  post-mortem  inventory  of  the  goods  of  John  Marshall,  curate 
of  Bishopton,  a  hamlet  of  Stratford,  enumerates  170  separate  books, 
including  Ovid's  Tristia,  Erasmus's  Colloquia,  Ascham's  Scholemaster, 
Virgil,  Aristotle's  ProbUmes,  Cicero's  Epistles,  besides  much  contro- 
versial divinity,  scriptural  commentaries  and  educational  manuals. 
See  Mrs.  Stopes's  Shakespeare's  Environment  (pp.  57-61).  Sir  George 
Carew  (afterwards  Earl  of  Totnes),  of  Clop  ton  House,  Stratford,  pur- 
chased, for  his  library  there  on  its  publication  in  1598  John  Florio's 
Worlde  of  Wordes,  an  Italian-English  Dictionary;  this  volume  is  now 
in  the  Shakespeare  Birthplace  Library.     (See  Catalogue,  No.  161.) 

'  Gray's  Shakespeare's  Marriage,  p.  108. 


l6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Chambers.  The  schoohnasters  owed  their  appoint- 
ment to  the  town  coundl,  but  a  teacher's  license  from 
the  bishop  of  the  diocese  (Worcester)  was  a  needful 
credential. 

As  was  customary  in  provincial  schools,  the  poetl 
learned  to  write  the  '  Old  English '  character,  which  re- 
shake-  sembles  that  still  in  vogue  in  Germany.  He 
speare's  was  never  taught  the  Itahan  script,  which  was 
cumcuium.  ^jj^jjig  its  way  in  cultured  society,  and  is  now 
universal  among  Englishmen.  Until  his  death  Shake- 
speare's 'Old  EngUsh'  handwriting  testified  to  his  pro- 
vincial education.^  The  general  instruction  was  con- 
veyed in  Latin.  From  the  Latin  accidence,  boys  of  the 
period,  at  schools  of  the  type  of  that  at  Stratford,  were 
led,  through  Latin  conversation  books  like  the  'Sen- 
tentise  Pueriles,'  and  the  standard  elementary  Latin 
grammar  of  Wilham  Lily  (first  highmaster  of  St.  Paul's 
School),  to  the  perusal  of  such  authors  as  Seneca,  Ter- 
ence, Cicero,  Virgil,  Plautus,  Ovid,  and  Horace.  Some 
current  Latin  Hterature  was  in  common  use  in  the  lower 
forms.  The  Latin  eclogues  of  the  popular  renaissance 
poet,  Baptista  Mantuanus,  were  usually  preferred  to 
Virgil's  for  beginners ;  they  were  somewhat  crudely 
modelled  in  a  post-classical  idiom  on  Virgil's  pastorals, 
but  were  reckoned  'both  for  style  and  matter  very  fa- 
miliar and  grateful  to  children  and  therefore  read  in 
most  schools.'  ^    The  rudiments  of  Greek  were  occasion- 

'  See  pp.  S17  seq.  infra. 

"  Cf.  Charles  Hoole's  New  Discovery  of  the  Old  Art  of  Teaching  School 
(published  1660,  written  1640).  Evidence  abounds  of  the  popularity 
of  Mantuanus's  work,  which  Shakespeare  quotes  in  the  original  in 
Love's  Labour's  Lost  (see  p.  ig  ».  i).  Diayton,  a  Warwickshire  boy, 
records  {Of  Poets  and  Poesy)  that  his  tutor 

First  read  to  me  honest  Mantuan, 
Then  Virgil's  Eclogues. 

So  Thomas  Lodge  {Defence  of  Poetry,  1579) :  'Miserable  were  our  state 
if  our  younghngs  [wanted]  the  wrytings  of  Mantuan.'  Dr.  Johnson 
notes  that  Mantuan  was  read  in  some  English  schools  down  to  the 
beginmng  of  the  eighteenth  century  {Lives  of  the  Poets,  ed.  HiU,  iii  317) 
Mantuanus's  Eclogues  have  been  fully  and  admirably  edited  by  Dr 
W.  P.  Mustard,  Baltimore,  1911. 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND  MARRIAGE  17 

ally  taught  in  Elizabethan  grammar  schools  to  very 
promising  pupils;  but  such  coincidences  as  have  been 
detected  between  expressions  in  Greek  plays  and  in 
Shakespeare  seem  due  to  accident,  and  not  to  any  study, 
either  at  school  or  elsewhere,  of  the  Athenian  drama.^ 

Dr.  Farmer  enunciated  in  his  '  Essay  on  Shakespeare's 
Learning'  (1767)  the  theory  that  Shakespeare  knew  no 
language   but  his   own,   and   owed   whatever  gj^^^^ 
knowledge  he  displayed  of  the  classics  and  of  speare's 
ItaUan  and  French  literature  to  English  trans-  '^^^i^s- 
lations.     But  several  French  and  Italian  books  whence 

^  James  RusseU  Lowell,  who  noticed  some  close  parallels  between 
expressions  of  Shakespeare  and  those  of  the  Greek  tragedians,  hazarded 
the  suggestion  that  Shakespeare  may  have  studied  the  ancient  drama  in 
a  GrcBci  et  Latine  edition.  I  believe  Lowell's  parallelisms  to  be  no  more 
than  curious  accidents  —  proofs  of  consanguinity  of  spirit,  not  of  any 
indebtedness  on  Shakespeare's  part.  In  the  Electra  of  Sophocles,  which 
is  akin  in  its  leading  motive  to  Hamlet,  the  Chorus  consoles  Electra  for 
the  supposed  death  of  Orestes  with  the  same  commonplace  argument 
as  that  with  which  Hamlet's  mother  and  uncle  seek  to  console  him.  In 
Electra  are  the  lines  11 71-3  : 

Qin^Tov  witpvKas  Trarpis,  'HX^Krpa,  ^pSver 
SvTjrbs  3*  ^Op^cTTTjs  •  itttrre  fiTj  \iav  ffrive. 
nficrtj'  yhp  T}fuv  tovt'  dcpeLKerai  Tradeiv 

{i.e.  'Remember,  Electra,-  your  father  whence  you  sprang  is  mortal. 
Mortal,  too,  is  Orestes.  Wherefore  grieve  not  overmuch,  for  by  all  of 
us  has  this  debt  of  suffering  to  be  paid').  In  Hamlet  (i.  ii.  72  seq.)  are 
the  familiar  sentences : 

Thou  know'st  'tis  common ;  all  that  live  must  die.  .  .  . 
But  you  must  know,  your  father  lost  a  father  ; 
That  father  lost,  lost  his  .  .  .    But  to  persever 
In  obstinate  condolement  is  a  course 
Of  impious  stubbornness. 

Cf.  Sophodes's  (Edipus  Coloneus,  880 :  Tots  toi  dixalois  x^  Ppo-X^'  "'«? 
li^yav  ('In  a  just  cause  the  weak  vanquishes  the  strong,'  Jebb),  and 
2  Henry  VI,  in.  ii.  233,  'Thrice  is  he  armed  that  hath  his  quarrel  just.' 
Shakespeare's  'prophetic  soul'  in  Hamlet  (i.  v.  40)  and  the  Sonnet  (cvii.  i) 
may  be  matched  by  the  Trpd/iairns  Sv/ils  of  Euripides's  Andromache, 
107s;  and  Hamlet's  'sea  of  troubles'  (iii.  i.  59)  by  the  KaKwv  TiXayos 
of  ^schylus's  PerstB,  443.  Among  all  the  creations  of  Shakespearean 
and  Greek  drama,  Lady  Macbeth  and  .(Eschylus's  Clytemnestra,  who 
'in  man's  counsels  bore  no  woman's  heart'  (yi/raiKis  6,vSpbpov\ov  iXwl^ov 
Kiap,  Agamemnon,  11),  most  closely  resemble  each  other.  But  a 
study  of  the  points  of  resemblance  attests  no  knowledge  of  jEschylus 
on  Shakespeare's  part,  but  merely  the  close  community  of  tragic  genius 
that  subsisted  between  the  two  poets. 


1 8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  derived  the  plots  of  his  dramas  —  Belle- j 
forest's  'Histoires  Tragiques,'  Ser  Giovanni's  'II  Pe- 
corone,'  and  Cinthio's  'Hecatommithi,'  for  example  — 
were  not  accessible  to  him  in  English  translations;  and; 
on  more  general  groimds  the  theory  of  his  ignorance  is 
adequately  confuted.  A  boy  with  Shakespeare's  excep- 
tional alertness  of  intellect,  during  whose  schooldays  a 
training  in  Latin  classics  lay  within  reach,  could  hardly 
lack  in  future  years  all  means  of  access  to  the  hterature'' 
of  France  and.  Italy.  Schoolfellows  of  the  dramatist; 
who  took  to  trade  and  lacked  Hterary  aspirations  showed; 
themselves  on  occasion  capable  of  writing  letters  in  ac- 
curate Latin  prose  or  they  freely  seasoned  their  familiar 
Enghsh  correspondence  with  Latin  phrases,  while  at 
least  one  Stratford  schoolboy  of  the  epoch  shewed  in 
manhood  some  famiHar  knowledge  of  French  poetry.' 
It  was  thus  in  accord  with  common  experience  that 
Shakespeare  in  his  writings  openly  acknowledged  his 
acquaintance  with  the  Latin  and  French  languages,  and 
with  many  Latin  poets  of  the  school  curriculum.  In 
the  mouth  of  his  schoolmasters,  Holof ernes  in  'Love's 
Labour's  Lost '  and  Sir  Hugh  Evans  in  '  Merry  Wives  of 
The  poet's  Windsor,'  Shakespeare  placed  Latin  phrases 
classical  drawn  directly  from  Lily's  grammar,  from  the 
equipment,  'gententias  Pueriles,'  and  from  'the  good  old 
Mantuan.'  ^    Some  critical  knowledge  of  Latin  drama 

'  Cf.  Richard  Quiney's  Latin  letter  to  his  father  (c.  1598)  in  Malone's. 
Variorum  Shakespeare,  ii.  564,  and  Abraham  Sturley's  English  coxiWk 
spondence,  which  is  studded  with  Latin  phrases,  in  Halliwdl-Phillipfl 
ii.  SQ.  Thomas  Quiney,  a  Stratford  youth,  who  became  one  of  Shalce- 
spear^'s  sons-in-law,  when  chamberlain  of  the  borough  in  1623  inscribed 
on  the  cover  of  the  municipal  account  book  the  French  couplet : 

Heureux  celui  qui  pour  devenir  sage 
Du  mal  d'autrui  fait  son  apprentisage. 

I 
(See  Catalogue  of  Sliakespeare's  Birthplace,  p.  115.)  ■ 

'  From  Mantuanus's  first  eclogue  Holofernes  quotes  the  opening 
words :  J 

Fauste,  precor,  gelida  quando  pecus  omne  sub  umbra  I 

Ruminat 

(^Love's  Labour's  Lost,  iv.  ii.  89-90).    See  p.  16  n.  3  supra.  • 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE  19 

is  suggested  by  Polonius's  remark  in  his  survey  of  dra- 
matic literature : '  Seneca  cannot  be  too  heavy  nor  Plautus 
too  light'  ('Hamlet,'  11.  ii.  395-6).  Many  a  distinctive 
phrase  of  Senecan  tragedy  seems  indeed  to  be  interwoven 
with  Shakespeare's  dramatic  speech,  nor  would  the 
dramatist  appear  to  have  disdained  occasional  hints 
from  Seneca's  philosophical  discourses.^  From  Plautus's 
'Menaechmi'  Shakespeare  drew  the  leading  motive  of 
his  'Comedy  of  Errors,'  while  through  the  whole  range 
of  his  literary  work,  both  poetic  and  dramatic,  signs 
are  apparent  of  close  intimacy  with  Ovid's  verse,  notably 
with  the  'Metamorphoses,'  the  most  popular  classical 
poem,  at  school  and  elsewhere,  in  mediaeval  and  renais- 
sance Europe. 

'  Apart  from  two  Latin  quotations  from  Seneca's  Hippolytus  in  Titus 
Andronicus  (of  doubtful  authorship),  n.  i.  133-5,  iv-  !•  82-3,  there  are 
many  notable  resemblances  between  Seneca's  and  Shakespeare's  language. 
The  following  parallel  is  typical : 

Will  all  great  Neptune's  ocean  wash  this  blood 
Clean  from  my  hand?     {Macbeth,  11.  ii.  60-1.) 

Quis  Tanais  aut  quis  Nilus  aut  quis  persica 

Violentus  unda  Tigris  aut  Rhenus  ferox 

Tagusve  hibera  turbidus  gaza  fluens 

Abluere  dextram  potent?  arctoum  licet 

Maeotis  in  me  gelida  transfundat  mare 

Et  tota  Tethys  per  meas  currat  manus : 

Haerebit  altum  facinus.     {Hercules  Furins,  1330-6.) 

See  J.  W.  Cunliffe's  The  Influence  of  Seneca  on  Elizabethan  Tragedy, 
1893,  and  his  Early  English  Classical  Tragedies,  191 2.  Professor  E.  A. 
Sonnenschein  in  Latin  as  an  Intellectual  Force,  a  paper  read  at  the  Inter- 
national Congress  of  the  Arts  and  Sciences,  St.  Louis,  September  1904, 
forcibly  argued  that  Portia's  speech  on  mercy  was  largely  based  on 
Seneca's  tractate  De  dementia.  The  following  passages  illustrate  the 
similarity  of  temper : 

It  becomes  Nullum  dementia  ex  omnibus  magis 

The  throned  monarch  better   than  His  quam  regem  aut  principem  decet. 
crown.     {Merck,  of  Venice,  iv.  i.  {De  dementia,  i.  iii.  3.) 

189-go.) 

And  earthly  power  doth  then  show  likest  Quid  autem?  non  proximum  els  (dis- 

God's  locum  tenet  is  qui  se  ex  deorum  natura 

When   mercy    seasons  justice,     (iv.   i.  gerit  beneficus  et  largus  et  in  melius 

196-7.)  potens?     (i.  xix.  9.) 


20  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Ovid's  poetry  filled  the  predominant  place  among . 
the  studies  of  Shakespeare's  schooldays.  In  his  earliest! 
The  Pl^y-  'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  (rv.  ii.  127),  he 

influence      cites  him  as  the  schoolboy's  model  for  Latin 
of  Ovid.       verse:     'Ovidius   Naso   was    the   man:     and 
why,  indeed,  Naso,  but  for  smelhng  out  the  odorifer-| 
ous  flowers  of  fancy,  the  jerks  of  invention?'  ^    In  his 
later  writings  Shakespeare  vividly  assimilates  number-| 
less  mythological  episodes  from  the  rich  treasury  of  the 
'  Metamorphoses.'  ^    The  poems  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  and 
'Lucrece'  are  both  offspring  of  Ovidian  parentage;   the 
first  theme  comes  direct  from  the  'Metamorphoses'  and 
is  interwoven  by  Shakespeare  with  two  other  tales  from 
the  same  quarry,  while  the  title-page  bears  a  Latin; 
couplet  from  a  different  poem  of  Ovid  —  his  'Amores.'. 
In  Shakespeare's  latest  play  of  'The  Tempest'  Prospero's 
recantation  of  his  magic  art  (v.  i.  33  seq.)  —  j 

Ye  elves  of  hills,  brooks,  standing  lakes  and  groves,  &c. 

—  verbally  echoes  Medea's  incantation  when  making  her 
rejuvenating    potion,    in    the     'Metamorphoses'     (vii.. 
197  seq.).     In  his  'Sonnets'  too  Shakespeare  borrows| 
from  the  same  Latin  poem  his  cliief  excursions  into 
cosmic  and  metaphysical  philosophy.'    Finally  there  is 
good  reason  for  believing  that  the  actual  copy  of  Ovid's ' 
work  which  the  dramatist  owned  still  survives.   There , 
is  in  the  Bodleian  Library  an  exemplar  of  the  Aldine 

*  In  Titus  Andronicus,  for  which  Shakespeare's  full  responsibility  is 
questioned,  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  is  brought  on  the  stage  and  from  the 
volume  the  tragic  tale  of  Philomel  is  read  out  (iv.  i.  42  seq.).  Later 
in  the  play  (iv.  iii.  4)  the  Latin  words  'terras  Astrsea  reliquit!'  are  intro- : 
duced  from  the  Metamorphoses,  i.  150.  An  intimate  acquaintance  with 
Ovid's  poem  was  an  universal  characteristic  of  Elizabethan  culture. 

'  When  in  the  Induction  to  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  sc.  ii.  SQ~6ii 
the  lord's  servant  makes  aUusion,  for  the  benefit  of  the  tinker  Sly,  to 
Daphne's  disdain  of  Apollo's  advances,  he  paraphrases  Ovid's  story  in 
the  Metamorphoses  (i.  So8-g).  Twice  Shakespeare  makes  airy  allusion 
to  the  tale  (which  Ovid  first  narrated)  of  Baucis  and  Philemon,  the 
rustics  who  entertained  Jove  unawares  (Muck  Ado,  n.  i,  100,  and  As 
You  Like  It,  n.  iii.  lo-ii).     Many  other  examples  could  be  given. 

'  Cf.  the  present  writer's  'Ovid  and  Shakespeare's  Sonnets'  in  Quar- 
terly Review,  April  1909,  and  see  pp.  180  seq.  infra. 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND  MARRIAGE  21 

edition  of  Ovid's  'Metamorphoses'  (1502),  and  on  the 
title  is  the  signature  'W".  Sh^,'  which  experts  have  de- 
clared —  on  grounds  which  deserve  attention  —  to  be  a 
genmne  autograph  of  the  poet.^ 

EngKsh  renderings  of  classical  poetry  and  prose  were 
growing  common  in  Shakespeare's  era.  The  poetry  of 
Virgil  and  of  Ovid,  Seneca's  tragedies  and  some  ^j^^  ^^^  ^j 
parts  of  his  philosophical  work,  fragments  of  transU- 
Homer  and  Horace,  were  among  the  classical  ''™^' 
writings  which  were  accessible  in  the  vernacular  in  the 
eighth  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Many  of 
Shakespeare's  reminiscences  of  the .  '  Metamorphoses ' 
show  indebtedness  to  the  popular  English  version  which 
came  in  ballad  metre  from  the  pen  of  Arthur  Golding 
in  1567.  That  translation  long  enjoyed  an  especially 
wide  vogue;  a  seventh  edition  was  issued  in,  1597,  and 
Golding's  phraseology  is  often  reflected  in  Shakespeare's 
lines.  Yet  the  dramatist  never  wholly  neglected  the 
Latin  text  to  which  he  had  been  introduced  at  school. 
Twice  does  the  Latin  poet  confer  on  Diana,  in  her  char- 
acter of  Goddess  of  Groves,  the  name  Titania  ('Met- 
amorphoses,' iii.  173  and  vi.  364).  In  both  cases  the 
translator  Golding  omits  this  distinctive  appellation, 
and  calls  Diana  by  her  accustomed  title.  Ovid's  Latin 
alone  accounts  for  Shakespeare's  designation  of  his  fairy 
queen  as  Titania,  a  word  of  great  beauty  which  he  first 
introduced  into  English  poetry.  There  is  no  ground  for 
ranking"  the  dramatist  with  classical  scholars  or  for 
questioning  his  hberal  use  of  translations.  A  lack  of 
exact  scholarship  fully  accounts  for  the  '  small  Latin  and 

'  Macray,  Annals  of  the  Bodleian  Library,  1890,  pp.  379  seq.  The 
volume  was  purchased  for  the  Bodleian  at  the  sale  of  a  London  book- 
seller, William  Henry  Alkins  of  Lombard  Street,  in  January  1865.  On 
a  leaf  facing  the  title-page  is  an  inscription,  the  genuineness  of  which  is 
unquestioned:  'This  little  Booke  of  Ovid  was  given  to  me  by  W  Hall 
who  satd  it  was  once  Will  Shaksperes.  T.  N.  1682.'  The  identity  of 
'W  Hall'  and  'T.  N.'  has  not  been  satisfactorily  established.  The 
authenfficity  of  the  Shakespeare  signature  is  ably  maintained  by  Dr. 
F.  A.  Leo  in  Jahrbuch  der  Deutschen  Shakespeare-Gesellschaft,  vol.  xvi. 
(1880),  pp.  367-75  (with  photographic  illustrations). 


22  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

less  Greek'  with  which  he  was  credited  by  his  scholaJ-ly| 
friend,    Ben   Jonson.     But   Aubrey's   report    that    'he 
understood  Latin  pretty  well'   is  incontestable.     The 
original  speech  of  Ovid  and  Seneca  lay  weU  within  his 
mental  grasp. 

Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  French  —  the  language  of 
Ronsard  and  Montaigne  —  at  least  equalled  his  know- 
ledge of  Latin.  In  'Henry  V  the  dialogue  in  many 
scenes  is  carried  on  in  French,  which  is  grammatically 
accurate,  if  not  idiomatic.  There  is,  too,  no  reason  to 
•doubt  that  the  dramatist  possessed  sufi&cient  acquaint- 
ance with  Itahan  to  enable  him  to  discern  the  drift  of 
an  Italian  poem  by  Ariosto  or  Tasso  or  of  a  novel  lay 
Boccaccio  or  BandeUo.^  Hamlet  knew  that  the  story  of 
Gonzago  was  'extant,  and  written  in  very  choice  Italian' 
(m.  ii.  256).  ■  _ 

The  books  in  the  English  tongue  which  were  accessible 
to  Shakespeare  in  his  schooldays,  whether  few  or  many, 
TheEng-  included  the  English  Bible,  which  helped  to 
lish  Bible,  mould  his  buddiug  thought  and  expression. 
Two  versions  were  generally  available  in  his  boy- 
hood —  the  Genevan  version,  which  was  first  issued 
in  a  complete  form  in  1560,  and  the  Bishops'  revision  of 
1568,  winch  the  Authorised  Version  bf  161 1  closely  fol- 
lowed and  superseded.  The  Bishops'  Bible  was  author- 
ised for  use  in  churches.     The  Genevan  version,  which 

'  Cf.  Spencer  Bajmes,  'What  Shakespeare  learnt  at  School,'  in  Shake- 
speare Studies,  1894,  pp.  147  seq.  Henry  Ramsay,  one  of  the  panegyrists 
of  Ben  Jonson,  in  the  collection  of  elegies  entitled  Jonsonus  Virbius 
(1637),  wrote  of  Jonson : 

That  Latin  he  reduced,  and  could  command 

That  which  your  Shakespeare  scarce  could  understand. 

Ramsay  here  merely  echoes  Jonson's  familiar  remarks  on  Shakespeare's; 
'small  Latin.'  No  greater  significance  attaches  to  Jasper  Mayne's 
vague  assurance  in  his  elegy  on  Jonson  (also  in  Jonsomts  Virbius)  that 
Jonson's  native  genius  was  such  that  he 

Without  Latin  helps  had  been  ais  rare 

As  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  or  as  Shakespeare  were. 

The  conjunction  of  Shakespeare  with  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  who  were 
well  versed  in  the  classics,  proves  the  futility  of  Mayne's  rhapsody. 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE  23 

was  commonly  found  in  schools  and  middle-class  house- 
holds, was  clearly  the  text  with  which  youthful  Shake- 
speare was  chiefly  familiar.^ 

References  to  scriptural  characters  and  incidents  are 
not  conspicuous  in  Shalkespeare's  plays,  but,  such  as  they 
are,  they  are  drawn  from  all  parts  of  the  Bible,  g^^.^^_ 
and  indicate  a  general  acquaintance  with  speareand 
the  narrative  of  both  Old  and  New  Testa-  ^'^^^''^i^- 
ments.  Shakespeare  quotes  or  adapts  biblical  phrases 
with  far  greater  frequency  than  he  makes  allusion  to 
episodes  in  bibhcal  history.  '  Elizabethan  English  was ' 
saturated  with  scriptural  expressions.  Many  enjoyed 
colloquial  currency,  and  others,  which  were  more  rec- 
ondite, were  liberally  scattered  through  Hohnshed's 
'Chronicles'  and  secular  works  whence  the  dramatist 
drew  his  plots.  Yet  there  is  a  savour  of  early  study  about 
his  normal  use  of  scriptural  phraseology,  as  of  scriptural 
history.  His  scriptural  reminiscences  bear  trace  of  the 
assimilative  or  receptive  tendency  of  'an  alert  youthful 
mind.  It  is  futile  to  urge  that  his  knowledge  of  the 
Bible  was  mainly  the  fruit  of  close  and  continuous  appli- 
cation in  adult  life,^ 

Games  flourished  among  Elizabethan  boys,  and  Shake- 
speare shows  acquaintance  in  his  writings  with  childish 
pastimes,  like  'the  whipping  of  tops,'   'hide  Youthful 
and  seek,'   'more   sacks   to   the  mill,'   'push  recreation, 
pin,'  and  'nine  men's   morris.'    Touring  players   vis- 

'  When  Shylock  speaks  of  'your  prophet  the  Nazarite'  (Merchant 
of  Venice,  i.  iii.  31),  and  when  Prince  Henry  speaks  of  'a  good  amend- 
ment of  life'  (i  Hen.  IV.  i.  ii.  106),  both  the  italicised  expressions  come 
from  the  Genevan  version  of  the  Bible,  and  are  replaced  by  different 
expressions  in  other  English  versions,  by  the  Nazarene  in  the  first  case, 
and  by  repentance  in  the  second.    Similar  illustrations  abound. 

2  Bishop  Charles  Wordsworth,  in  his  Shakespeare's  Knowledge  and 
Use  of  the  Bible  (4th  edit.  1892),  gives  a  long  list  of  passages  for  which 
Shakespeare  may  have  been  indebted  to  the  Bible.  But. the  bishop's 
deductions  as  to  the  strength  of  Shakespeare's  adult  piety  seem  strained. 
The  Rev.  Thomas  Carter's  Shakespeare  and  Holy  Scripture  (1905)  is 
open  to  much  the  same  exceptions  as  the  bishop's  volume,  but  no  Shake- 
spearean student  will  fail  to  derive  profit  from  examining  his  exhaustive 
collection  of  parallel  passages. 


24  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ited  Stratford  from  time  to  time  during  Shakespear^s  , 
schooldays,  and  it  was  a  habit  of  Ehzabethan  parents  in 
provincial  towns  to  take  their  children  with  them  to  local 
performances  of  stage  plays.^    The  actors  made,  as  we 
have  seen,  their  first  appearance  at  Stratford  in  1568, 
while  Shakespeare's  father  was  bailiff.     The  experiment 
was  repeated  almost  annually  by  various  companies 
between  the  dramatist's  ninth  and  twenty-first  years.^ 
Dramatic  entertainments  may  well  have  ranked  among 
Shakespeare's  juvenile  amusements.     There  were,  too, 
cognate  diversions  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Stratford  in 
which  the  boy  may  have  shared.     In  July  1575,  when 
Shakespeare  had  reached  the  age  of  eleven,  Queen  EHza- 
beth  made  a  progress  through  Warwickshire  on  a  visit 
to  her  favourite,  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  at  his  castle  of 
Kenilworth.     References  have  been  justly  detected  in  \ 
Oberon's  vision  in  Shakespeare's  'Midsummer  Night's 
Dream '  (n.  i.  148-68)  to  the  fantastic  pageants,  masques,! 
and  fireworks  with  which  the  queen  was  entertained  in  i 
Kenilworth  Park  during  her  stay.     Two  full  and  graphic  '- 
descriptions  which  were  published  in  1576  in  pamphlet 

^  One  R.  WiUis,  who  was  senior  to  Shakespeare  by  a  year,  tells  how  his 
father  took  him  as  a  child  to  see  a  travelling  company's  rendering  of  a 
piece  called  the  Cradle  of  Security  in  his  native  town  of  Gloucester.  'At  . 
such  a  play  my  father  tooke  me  with  him,  and  made  mee  stand  between^ 
his  leggs  as  he  sate  upon  one  of  the  benches,  where  wee  saw  and  heard 
very  weU'  —  R  WUlis's  Mount  Tabor  or  Private  Exercises  of  a  Penitent 
Sinner,  published  in  the  yeare  of  his  Age  75,  Anno  Dom.  1639,  pp. 
1 10-3;  cf.  Malone's  Variorum  Shakespeare,  iii.  28-30. 

2  In  1573  Stratford  was  visited  by  the  Earl  of  Leicester's  men;   in 
1576   by  the  Earl  of  Warwick's  and   the   Earl   of  Worcester's  men; 
in  IS77  by  the  Earl  of  Leicester's  and  the  Earl  of  Worcester's  men;   in 
1579  by  the  Lord  Strange's  and  the  Countess  of  Essex's  men  •   in  1580  ■ 
by  the  Earl  of  Derby's  players;  in  1581  by  the  Earl  of  Worcester's  and 
Lord  Berkeley's  players;   m  1582  by  the  Earl  of  Worcester's  players; 
in  1583  by  Lord  Berkeley's  and  Lord  Chandos's  players;    in  1584  by 
players  under  the  respective  patronage  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford   the  Earl  ' 
of  Warwick,  and  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  in  1586  by  an  unnamed  com-  ' 
pany.    As  many  as  five  companies—  the  Queen's,  the  Earl  of  Essex's,  ■ 
the  Earl  of  Leicester's,  Lord  Stafford's  and  another  company —  visited 
the  town  in   1587   (Malone,    Variorum  Shakespeare,  ii    150-1)      Mr 
F.  C.  Wellstood,  the  secretary  of  the  Birthplace  Trustees,  has  kindly  ' 
prepared  for  me  a  full  transcript  of  all  the  references  to  actors  in  the 
Chamberlain's  accounts  in  the  Stratford-on-Avon  archives. 


.    CHILDHOOD,    EDUCATION,   AND  MARRIAGE  25 

form,  might  have  given  Shakespeare  his  knowledge  of 
the  varied  programme.^  But  Leicester's  residence  was 
only  fifteen  miles  from  Stratford,  and  the  country  people 
came  in  large  numbers  to  witness  the  open-air  festivities. 
It  is  reasonable  to  assume  that  some  of  the  spectators 
were  from  Stratford  and  that  they  included  the  elder 
Shakespeare  and  his  son. 

In  any  case  Shakespeare's  opportunities  of  recreation, 
whether  within  or  without  Stratford,  saw  some  restriction 
as  his  schooldays  drew  to  an  end.  His  father's 
financial  difficulties  grew  steadily,  and  they  drawai 
caused  the  boy's  removal  from  school  at  an  ^™™^j 
unusually  early  age.  Probably  in  1577,  when 
he  was  thirteen,  he  was  enhsted  by  his  father  in  an 
effort  to  restore  his  decajdng  fortunes.  'I  have  been 
told  heretofore,'  wrote  Aubrey,  'by  some  of  the  neigh- 
bours that  when  he  was  a  boy  he. exercised  his  father's 
trade,'  which,  according  to  the  writer,  was  that  of  a 
butcher.  It  is  possible  that  John's  ill-luck  at  the  period 
compelled  him  to  confine  himself  to  this  occupation, 
which  in  happier  days  formed  only  one  branch  of  his 
business.  His  son  may  have  been  formally  apprenticed 
to  him.  An  early  Stratford  tradition  describes  him  as 
'apprenticed  to  a  butcher.'^  'When  he  kill'd  a  calf,' 
Aubrey  adds  less  convincingly,  'he  would  doe  it  in  a 
high  style  and  make  a  speech.  There  was  at  that  time 
another  butcher's  son  in  this  towne,  that  was  held  not 
at  all  inferior  to  him  for  a  naturall  witt,  his  acquaint- 
ance, and  coetanean,  but  dyed  young.' 

At  the  end  of  1582   Shakespeare,  when  little  more 
than  eighteen  and  a  half  years  old,  took  a  step  which 
was   Httle   calculated   to   lighten  his   father's 
anxieties.     He  married.    His  wife,   according  mamage.'^ 
to  the  inscription  on  her  tombstone,  was  his 
senior  by  eight  years.     Rowe  states  that  she  'was  the 

Ij.    ^  See  p.  232  infra. 

^  Notes  of  John  Dowdall,  a  tourist  in  Warwickshire  in  1693  (pub- 
lished in  1838). 


26  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

daughter  of  one  Hathaway,  said  to  have  been  a  sub- 
stantial yeoman  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Stratford. 

On  September  i,  1581,  Richard  Hathaway,  'husband- 
man' of  Shottery,  a  hamlet  in  the  parish  of  Old  Strat- 
ford, made  his  wiU,  which  was  proved  on 
Hathaway  July  9,  1582,  and  is  now  preserved  at  Somer- 
of  Shot-  set  House.  His  house  and  land,  two  and  a 
^'^'  half  virgates,'  had  been  long  held  in  copyhold 

by  his  family,  and  he  died  in  fairly  prosperous  circum-- 
stances.  His  wife  Joan,  the  chief  legatee,  was  directed 
to  carry  on  the  farm  with  the  aid  of  the  eldest  son, 
Bartholomew,  to  whom  a  share  in  its  proceeds  was  as- 
signed. Six  other  children— three  sons  and  three  daugh- 
ters—received sums  of  money;  Agnes,  the  eldest 
daughter,  and  Catherine,  the  second  daughter,  were 
each  allotted  61.  135.  4J.,  'to  be  paid  at  the  day  of  her 
marriage,'  a  phrase  common  in  wills  of  the  period. 
Anne  Anne  and  Agnes  were  in  the  sixteenth  century  i; 

Hathaway,  alternative  spelHngs  of  the  same  Christian 
name;  and  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  daughter 
'Agnes'  of  Richard  Hathaway's  will  became,  within  a 
few  months  of  Richard  Hathaway's  death,  Shak,espeare'^ 
wife.^  * 

The  house  at  Shottery,  now  known  as  Anne  Hatha- 
way's cottage,  dnd  reached  from  Stratford  by  field-paths,; 
undoubtedly  once  formed  part  of  Richard  Hathaway'sl 
farmhouse,  and,  despite  numerous  alterations  and  reno- 

'  Thomas  Whittington,  a  shepherd  in  the  service  of  the  Hathawayd 
at  Shottery,  makes  in  his  will  dated  1602  mention  of  Mrs.  Atme  Shake-1 
speare,  Mrs.  Joan  Hathaway  [the  mother],  John  Hathaway  and  William 
Hathaway  [the  brothers]  in  such  close  collocation  as  to  dissipate  all 
doubt  that  Shakespeare's  wife  was  a  daughter  of  the  Shottery  householdl 
(see  p.  280  infra).  Longfellow,  the  American  poet  (in  his  Poems  of 
Places,  1877,  vol.  ii.  p.  198),  rashly  accepting  a  persistent  popular  fallacy, 
assigned  to  Shakespeare  a  valueless  love  poem  entitled  'Anne  Hathaway,' | 
which  is  in  four  stanzas  with  the  weak  puiming  refrain  'She  hath  a  way, 
Anne  Hathaway.'  The  verses  are  by  Charles  Dibdin,  the  eighteenth- 
century  song-writer,  and  appear  in  the  chief  collected  editions  of  his 
songs,  as  well  as  in  his  novel  Hannah  Hewit;  or  the  Female  Crusoe,  1796. 
Dibdin  helped  Garrick  to  organise  the  Stratford  jubilee  of  1769,  and 
the  poem  may  date  from  that  year. 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND  MARRIAGE  27' 

vations,  still  preserves  the  main  features  of  a  thatched 
farmhouse  of  the  Elizabethan  period.^      The 
house  remained  in  the  Hathaway  family  till  ^ha- 
1838,  although  the  male  line  became  extinct  ^^y'^ 
in  1746.     It  was  purchased  in  behalf  of  the  ""^^^' 
public  by  the  Birthplace  trustees  in  1892. 

No  record  of  the  solemnisation  of  Shakespeare's 
marriage  survives.  Although  the  parish  of  Stratford 
included  Shottery,  and  thus  both  bride  and  bridegroom 
were  parishioners,  the  Stratford  parish  register  is  silent 
on  the  subject.  A  local  tradition,  which  seems  to  have 
come  into  being  during  the  nineteenth  century,  assigns 
the  ceremony  to  the  neighbouring  hamlet  or  chapelry 
of  Luddington,  of  which  neither  the  chapel  nor  parish 
registers  now  exist.  But  one  important  piece  of  docu- 
mentary evidence  directly  bearing  on  the  poet's  matri- 
monial venture  is  accessible.  In  the  registry  of  the  bishop 
of  the  diocese  (Worcester)  a  deed  is  extant  wherein  Fulk 
Sandells  and  John  Richardson,  responsible  'husbandmen 
of  Stratford,'  ^  botmd  themselves  in  the  bishop's  con- 
sistory court,  on  November  28,  1582,  in  a  surety  of  40/. 
to  free  the  bishop  of  all  liability  should  a  lawful  im- 
pediment—  'by  reason  of  any  precontract'  [i.e.  with  a 
third  party]  or  consanguinity — ^be  subsequently 
disclosed  to  imperil  the  validity  of  the  marriage,  agdnst'^ 
then  in  contemplation,  of  William  Shakespeare  impedi- 
with  Anne  Hathaway.  On  the  assumption  ™^  ^' 
that  no  such  impediment  was  known  to  exist,  and 
provided    that    Anne    obtained    the    consent    of    her 

^  John  Hathaway,  a  direct  descendant  of  Richard  (father  of  Shake- 
speare's wife)  and  owner  of  the  house  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  commemorated  some  repairs  by  inserting  a  stone  in  one  of  the 
chimney  stacks  which  is  still  conspicuously  inscribed  'I.  H.  1697.'  John 
Hathaway's  reparations  were  clearly  superficial. 

*  Both  Fulk  SandeUs  and  John  Richardson  were  men  of  substance 
and  local  repute.  Richardson  was  buried  at  Stratford  on  Sept.  ig,  1594, 
and  SandeUs,  who  was  many  years  his  junior,  on  Oct.  14, 1624.  SandeUs, 
who  attested  the  post-mortem  inventories  of  the  property  of  several 
neighbours,  helped  to  appraise  the  estate  of  Richardson,  his  fellow- 
bondsman,  on  Nov.  4,  1S94.  (Stratford  Records,  Miscell.  Doc.  vol. 
V.  32.) 


■28  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

'friends/  the  marriage  might  proceed  'with  once  asking 
of  the  bannes  of  matrimony  betwene  them.'  _     _  I 

Bonds  of  similar  purport,  although  differing  in  signifi- 
cant details,  are  extant  in  all  diocesan  registries  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  They  were  obtainable  on  the  pay- 
ment of  a  fee  to  the  bishop's  commissary,  and  had  the 
effect  of  expediting  the  marriage  ceremony  while  pro- 
tecting the  clergy  from  the  consequences  of  any  possible 
breach  of  canonical  law.  But  they  were  not  commonji 
and  it  was  rare  for  persons  in  the  comparatively  humble^ 
position  in  life  of  Anne  Hathaway  and  young  Shakespeare 
to  adopt  such  cumbrous  f  ormahties  when  there  was  always 
available  the  simpler,  less  expensive,  and  more  leisurely 
method  of  marriage  by  'thrice  asking  of  the  banns. 'a 
Moreover,  the  wording  of  the  bond  which  was  drawn  be- 
fore Shakespeare's  marriage  differs  in  important  respects 
from  that  commonly  adopted.^  In  other  extant  examples 
it  is  usually  provided  that  the  marriage  shall  not  take^ 
place  without  the  consent  of  the  parents  or  governors  of 
both  bride  and  bridegroom.  In  the  case  of  the  marriage 
of  an  'infant'  bridegroom  the  formal  consent  of  his 
parents  was  essential  to  strictly  regular  procedure,  al- 
though clergymen  might  be  found  who  were  ready  to 
shut  their  eyes  to  the  facts  of  the  situation  and  to  run 
the  risk  of  solemnising  the  marriage  of  an  'infant'  with- 
out inquiry  as  to  the  parents'  consent.  The  clergyman 
who  united  Shakespeare  in  wedlock  to  Anne  Hathaway  j 
was  obviously  of  this  easy  temper.  Despite  the  circum- 
stance that  Shakespeare's  bride  was  of  full  age  and  he 
himself  was  by  nearly  three  yearg  a  minor,  the  Shake-;j 
speare  bond  stipulated  merely  for  the  consent  of  the 
bride's  'friends,'  and  ignored  the  bridegroom's  parents 
altogether.  Nor  was  this  the  only  irregularity  in  the 
document.  In  other  pre-matrimonial  covenants  of  the 
kind  the  name  either  of  the  bridegroom  himself  or  of  the 

1  These  conclusions  are  drawn  from  an  examination  of  like  documents 
in  the  Worcester  diocesan  registry.  Many  formal  declarations  of  con- 
sent on  the  part  of  parents  to  their  children's  marriages  are  also  extant 
there  among  the  sixteenth-century  archives. 


CHILDHOOD,    EDUCATION,   AND  MARRIAGE  29 

bridegroom's  father  figures  as  one  of  the  two  sureties,  and 
is  mentioned  first  of  the  two.  Had  the  usual  form  been 
followed,  Shakespeare's  father  would  have  been  the  chief 
party  to  the  transaction  in  behalf  of  his  'infant'  son. 
But  in  the  Shakespeare  bond  the  sole  sureties,  Sandells 
and  Richardson,  were  farmers  of  Shottery,  the  bride's 
native  place.  Sandells  was  a  'sup^'tvisor'  of  the  will  of 
'  the  bride's  father,  who  there  describes  him  as  '  my  trustie 
friende  and  neighbour.' 

The  prominence  of  the  Shottery  husbandmen  in  the 
negotiations  preceding  Shakespeare's  marriage  suggests 
the  true  position  of  affairs.  Sandells  and  Rich-  Birth  of  a 
ardson,  representing  the  lady's  family,  doubt-  daughter. 
less  secured  the  deed  on  their  own  initiative,  so  that 
Shakespeare  might  have  small  opportunity  of  evading 
a  step  which  his  intimacy  with  their  friend's  daughter 
had  rendered  essential  to  her  reputation.  The  wedding 
probably  took  place,  without  the  consent  of  the  bride- 
groom's parents  —  it  may  be  without  their  knowledge 
—  soon  after  the  signing  of  the  deed-.  The  scene  of  the 
ceremony  was  clearly  outside  the  bounds  of  Stratford 
parish  —  in .  an  unidentified  church  of  the  Worcester 
diocese,  the  register  of  which  is  lost.  Within  six  months 
of  the  marriage  bond  —  in  May  1583  —  a  daughter  was 
born  to  the  poet,  and  was  baptised  in  the  name  of 
Susanna  at  Stratford  parish  church  on  the  26th. 

Shakespeare's  apologists  have  endeavoured  to  show 
that  the  pubhc  betrothal  or  formal   'troth-  Formal 
plight '  which  was  at  the  time  a  common  prelude  betrothal 
to  a  wedding  carried  with  it  all  the  privileges  dispensed 
of  marriage.    But  neither  Shakespeare's  detailed  '"'''• 
description  of   a  betrothal  "■  nor  of  the  solemn  verbal 
contract  that  ordinarily  preceded  marriage  lends   the 
contention    much    support.      Moreover,    the    circum- 

^  Twelfth  Night,  act  v.  sc.  i.  11.  160-4 : 

A  contract  of  eternal  bond  of  love, 
•'^.  Confirm'd  by  mutual  joinder  of  your  hands, 

'***  Attested  by  the  holy  close  of  lips, 

Strengthen 'd  by  interchangement  of  your  rings ; 


30  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Stances  of  the  case  render  it  highly  improbable  that;. 
Shakespeare  and  his  bride  submitted  to  the  formal 
prehminaries  of  a  betrothal.  In  that  ceremony  the 
parents  of  both  contracting  parties  invariably  played 
foremost  parts,  but  the  wording  of  the  bond  precludes  the 
assumption  that  the  bridegroom's  parents  were  actors 
in  any  scene  of  the  hurriedly  planned  drama  of  his 
marriage. 

A  difficulty  has  been  imported  into  the  narration  of 
the  poet's  matrimonial  affairs  by  the  assumption  of  his 

identity  with  one  'WiUiam  Shakespeare,'  to 
putted  ^  whom,  according  to  an  entry  in  the  Bishop 
marriage      of  Worcester's  register,   a  license  was  issued 

on  November  27,  1582  (the  day  before  the 
signing  of  the  Hathaway  bond),  authorising  his  marriage 
with  Anne  Whateley  of  Temple  Grafton.  The  theory 
that  the  maiden  name  of  Shakespeare's  wife  was  Whateley 
is  quite  untenable,  and  it  seems  unsafe  to  assume  that  the 
bishop's  clerk,  when  making  a  note  of  the  grant  of  the 
hcense  in  his  register,  erred  so  extensively  as  to  write 
'  Anne  Whateley  of  Temple  Grafton '  for '  Anne  Hathaway 
of  Shottery.'  ^    The  husband  of  Anne  Whateley  cannot 

And  all  the  ceremony  of  this  compact  | 

Seal'd  in  my  [i.e.  the  priest's]  function  by  my  testimony. 

In  Measure  for  Measure  Claudio's  offence  is  intimacy  with  the  Lady 
Juliet  after  the  contract  of  betrothal  and  before  the  formality  of  marriagel 
(cf.  act  I.  sc.  ii.  1.  155,  act  iv.  sc.  i.  1.  73).  In  As  You  Like  It,  in.  ii.  333  ' 
seq.,  Rosalind  points  out  that  the  interval  between  ihe  contract  and  the 
marriage  ceremony,  although  it  might  be  no  more  than  a  week,  did  not 
allow  connubial  intimacy :  'Marry,  Time  trots  hard  with  a  young  maid 
between  the  contract  of  her  marriage  and  the  day  it  is  solemnised.  It 
the  interim  be  but  a  sennight,  Time's  pace  is  so  hard  that  it  seems  the 
length  of  seven  years.' 

"^Inaccuracies  in  the  surnames  are  not  uncommon  in  die  Bishop  of 
Worcester's  register  of  licenses  for  the  period  {e.g.  Baker  for  Barbar,| 
Darby  for  Bradeley,  Edgock  for  Elcocfc).    But  no  mistake  so  thorough- 
going as  in  the  Shakespeare  entry  has  been  discovered.    Mr.  J.  W. 
Gray,  in  his  Shakespeare's  Marriage  (1905),  learnedly  argues  for  the  . 
clerk's  error  in  copying,  and  deems  the  Shakespeare-Whateley  license  to  ' 
be  the  authorisation  for  the  marriage  of  the  dramatist  with  Anne  Hatha- 1 
way.    He  also  claims  that  marriage  by  license  was  essential  at  certainj 
seasons  of  the  ecclesiastical  year  during  which  marriage  by  banns  was 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND  MARRIAGE  31 

reasonably  be  identified  with  the  poet.  He  was  doubt- 
less another  of  the  numerous  William  Shakespeares  who 
abounded  in  the  diocese  of  Worcester.,  Had  a  license 
for  the  poet's  marriage  been  secured  on  November  27, 
it  is  unlikely  that  the  Shottery  husbandmen  would  have 
entered  next  day  into  a  bond  'against  impediments,' 
the  execution  of  which  might  well  have  been  demanded 
as  a  preliminary  to  the  grant  of  a  license  but  was  super- 
erogatory after  the  grant  was  made. 

prohibited  by  old  canonical  regulations.  The  Shakespeare-Whateley 
license  (of  November  27)  might  on  this  showing  have  been  obtained  with 
a  view  to  eluding  the  delay  which  one  of  the  close  seasons  —  from  Ad- 
vent Sunday  (November  27-December  3)  to  eight  days  after  Epiphany 
(i.e.  January  14)  —  interposed  to  marriage  by  banns.  But  it  is  ques- 
tionable whether  the  seasonal  prohibitions  were  strictly  enforced  at  the 
end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  marriage  licenses  were  limited  by 
episcopal  rule  to  persons  of  substantial  estate.  In  the  year  1592  out  of 
thirteen  marriages  (by  banns)  celebrated  at  the  parish  church  of  Strat- 
ford, as  many  as  three,  the  parties  to  all  of  which  were  of  humble  rank, 
took  place  in  the  forbidden  month  of  December.  There  is  no  means  of 
determining  who  Anne  Whateley  of  Temple  Grafton  precisely  was.  No 
registers  of  the  parish  for  the  period  are  extant.  A  Whateley  family 
resided  in  Stratford,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  Anne  of  Temple 
Grafton  was  connected  with  it.  It  is  undoubtedly  a  strange  coincidence 
that  two  persons,  both  named  William  Shakespeare,  should  on  two  suc- 
cessive days  not  only  be  arranging  with  the  Bishop  of  Worcester's  ofiScial 
to  marry,  but  should  be  involving  themselves,  whether  on  their  own 
initiative  or  on  that  of  their  friends,  in  more  elaborate  and  expensive 
forms  of  procedure  than  were  habitual  to  the  humbler  ranks  of  con- 
temporary society.  But  the  Worcester  diocese  covered  a  very  wide 
area,  and  was  honeycombed  with  Shakespeare  families  of  all  degrees 
of  gentility.  The  William  Shakespeare  whom  Anne  Whateley  was 
licensed  to  marry  was  probably  of  the  superior  station,  to  which  marriage 
by  license  was  deemed  appropriate. 


ni 

THE  FAREWELL  TO   STRATFORD 

Anne  Hathaway's  greater  burden  of  years  and  the 
likelihood  that  the  poet  was  forced  into  marrying  her  by 
Husband  her  friends  were  not  circumstances  of  happy 
and  wife,  augury.  Although  it  is  dangerous  to  read 
into  Shakespeare's  dramatic  utterances  allusions  to  Ms 
personal  experience,  the  emphasis  with  which  he  insists 
that  a  woman  should  take  in  marriage  an  'elder  than 
herself,'  ^  and  that  prenuptial  intimacy  is  productive 
of  'barren  hate,  sour-ey'd  disdain,  and  discord,'  suggests 
a  personal  interpretation.^  To  both  these  unpromising 
features  was  added,  in  the  poet's  case,  the  absence  of  a 
means  of  liveKhood,  and  his  course  of  Hfe  in  the  years  that 
immediately  followed  implies  that  he  bore  his  domestic 
ties  with  impatience.  Early  in  1585  twins  were  born  to 
him,  a  son  (Hamnet)  and  a  daughter  (Judith) ;  both  were 
baptised  on  February  2,  and  were  named  after  their 
father's  friends,  Hamnet  Sadler,  and  Judith,  Sadler's  wife. 
Hamnet  Sadler,  a  prosperous  tradesman  whose  brothf 
John  was  twice  bailiff,  continued  a  friend  for  hfe,  rendering 
Shakespeare  the  last  service  of  witnessing  his  will.    The 

'  Twelfth  Night,  act  n.  sc.  iv.  1.  29 : 

Let  still  the  woman  take 
An  elder  than  herself ;  so  wears  she  to  him 
So  sways  she  level  in  her  husband's  heart. 

^  Tempest,  act  iv.  sc.  i.  11.  15-22  : 

If  thou  dost  break  her  virgin  knot  before 
All  sanctimonious  ceremonies  may 
With  full  and  holy  rite  be  minister'd, 
No  sweet  aspersion  shall  the  heavens  let  fall 
To  make  this  contract  grow ;  but  barren  hate 
Sour-ey'd  disdain,  and  discord,  shall  bestrew 
The  union  of  your  bed  with  weeds  so  loathly 
That  you  shall  hate  it  both. 

32 


THE   FAREWELL   TO   STRATFORD  33 

dramatist's  firstborn  child  Susanna  was  a  year  and  nine 
moiiths  old,  when  the  twins   were  christened.     Shake- 
speare had  no  more  children,  and  all  the  evidence  points 
to  the  conclusion,  that  in  the  later  months  of  the  year 
(1585)  he  left  Stratford,  and  that  he  fixed  his  abode  in 
London  in  the  course  of  1586.     Although  he  was  never 
wholly  estranged  from  his  family,  he  seems  to  have  seen 
li little  of  wife  or  children  for  some  eleven  years.    Between 
jithe  winter  of  1585  and  the  autumn  of  1596  —  an  interval 
liwhich  sjoichronises  with  his  first  literary  triumphs  — 
li  there  is  only  one  shadowy  mention  of  his  name  in  Strat- 
ilford  records.     On  March  i,  1586-7,  there  died  Edmund 
(jLambert,  who  held  Asbies  under  the  mortgage  of  1578, 
J  and  a  few  months  later  Shakespeare's  name,  as  owner  of 
ia,  contingent  interest,  was  joined  to  that  of  his  father  and 
i|  mother  in  a  formal  assent  given  to  an  abortive  proposal 
I  to  confer  on  Edmund's  son  and  heir,  John  Lambert,  an 
J  absolute  title  to  the  Wilmcote  estate  on  condition  of  his 
jj  cancelling  the  mortgage  and  paying  20I.    But  the  deed 
I,  does  not  indicate  that  Shakespeare  personally  assisted 
^  at  the  transaction.^ 

I     Shakespeare's  early  literary  work  proves  that  while  in 

J  the  country  he  eagerly  studied  birds,  flowers,  and  trees, 

,;  and  gained  a  detailed  knowledge  of  horses  and  dogs.    All 

^his  kinsfolk  were  farmers,  and  with  them  he  doubtless 

^as  a  youth  practised  many  field  sports.     Sympathetic 

[  references  to  hawking,  hunting,  coursing,  and  angling 

abound  in  his  early  plays  and  poems.^    There  is  small 

doiibt,  too,  that  his  sporting  experiences  passed  at  times 

beyond  orthodox  hmits. 

Some  practical  knowledge  of  the  art  of  poaching  seems 
to  be  attested  by  Shakespeare's  early  lines : 

'  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  11-13. 

2  Cf .  Ellacombe,  Shakespeare  as  an  Angler,  1883;  J.  E.  Harting, 
Ornithology  of  Shakespeare,  1872.  The  best  account  of  Shakespeare's 
knowledge  of  sport  is  given  by  the  Right  Hon.  D.  H.  Madden  in  his 
entertaining  and  at  the  same  time  scholarly  Diary  of  Master  Williark 
Silence:  a  Study  of  Shakespeare  and  Elizabethan  Sport,  1897  (new  edi- 
tion, 1907). 


34  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

What !  hast  not  thou  full  often  struck  a  doe 
And  borne  her  clfeanly  by  the  keeper's  nose? 

Titus  Andronicus,  n.  i.  92-3. 

A  poaching  adventure,  according  to  a  credible  tradition, 
was  the  immediate  cause  of  Shakespeare's  long  severance 
Poaching  ^'^o"^  ^^  native  place.  'He  had,'  wrote  the 
at  biographer  Rowe  in   1709,   'by  a  misfortune 

Chariecote.  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    Chariecote   near    Stratford.} 
For  this  he  was  prosecuted  by  that  gentleman,  as  he 
thought,  somewhat  too  severely;    and,  in  order  to  re- 
venge that  ill-usage,  he  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  Lon-| 
don.'    The  independent  testimony  of  Archdeacon  Rich-' 
ard  Davies,  who  was  vicar  of  Sapperton,   Gloucester-I 
shire,  late  in  the  seventeenth  century,  is  to  the  effect! 
that  Shakespeare  was  'much  given  to  all  unluckiness  in 
stealing    vension    and    rabbits,    particularly    from    Sir 
Thomas  Lucy,  who  had  him  oft  whipt,  and  sometimes 
imprisoned,  and  at  last  made  him  fly  his  native  county 
to  his  great  advancement.'     The  law  of  Shakespeare^s 
day  (5  EKz.  cap.  21)  punished  deer-stealers  with  thiee: 
months'  imprisonment  and  the  pa)Tnent  of  thrice  the  ^5 
amount  of  the  damage  done. 

The  tradition  has  been  challenged  on  the  ground 
that  the  Chariecote  deer-park  was  of  later  date  than  the 
Unwar-  sixteenth  century.  But  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  was 
dTubtl  ^^  extensive  game-preserver,  and  owned  at 
of  the  Chariecote  a  warren  in  which  a  few  harts  or 
tradition.  (jQgg  doubtlcss  found  an  occasional  home. 
Samuel  Ireland  was  informed  in  1794  that  Shakespearel 


THE  FAREWELL  TO  STRATFORD  35 

stole  the  deer,  not  from  Charlecote,  but  from  Ful- 
broke  Park,  a  few  .  miles  off,  and  Ireland  supplied 
in  his  'Views  on  the  Warwickshire  Avon,'  1795,  an  en- 
graving of  an  old  farmhouse  in  the  hamlet  of  Fulbroke, 
where  he  asserted  that  Shakespeare  was  temporarily  im- 
prisoned after  his  arrest.  An  adjoining  hovel  was  locally 
5.  known  for  some  years  as  Shakespeare's  'deer-barn,'  but 
no  portion  of  Fulbroke  Park,  which  included  the  site  of 
these  buildings  (now  removed),  was  Lucy's  property  in 
EKzabeth's  reign,  and  the  amended  legend,  which  was 
solemnly  confided  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  1828  by  the 
owner  of  Charlecote,  seems  pure  invention.' 

The  ballad ,  which  Shakespeare  is  reported  to  have 
fastened  on  the  park  gates  of  Charlecote  does  not,  as 
Rowe  acknowledged,  survive.  No  authenticity  justice 
can  be  allowed  the  worthless  stanza  beginning  ShaUow. 
'A  parHament  member,  a  justice  of  peace,'  which  was 
represented  to  be  Shakespeare's  on  the  authority  of 
Thomas  Jones,  an  old  man  who  hved  near  Stratford 
and  died  in  1703,  aged  upwards  of  ninety.^  But 
such  an  incident  as  the  tradition  reveals  has  left  a 
distinct  impress  on  Shakespearean  drama.  Justice 
Shallow  is  beyond  douht  a  reminiscence  of  the  owner  of 
Charlecote.  According  to  Archdeacon  Davies  of  Sapper- 
ton,  Shakespeare's  'revenge  was  so  great  that'  he  carica- 
tured Lucy  as  'Justice  Clodpate,'  who  was  (Davies  adds) 
represented  on  the  stage  as  '  a  great  man,'  and  as  bearing, 
in  allusion  to  Lucy's  name,  'three  louses  rampant  for 
his  arms.'  Justice  Shallow^  Davies's  'Justice  Clodpate,' 
came  to  birth  in  the  'Second  Part  of  Henry  IV'  (1597), 
and  he  is  represented  in  the  opening  scene  of  the  '  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor'  as  having  come  from  Gloucester- 
shire to  Windsor  to  make  a  Star-Chamber  matter  of  a 

*  Cf.  C.  Holte  Bracebridge,  Shakespeare  no  Deerstealer,  1862 ;  Lock- 
bart,  Life  of  Scott,  vii.  123. 

^  Copies  of  the  lines  which  were  said  to  have  been  taken  down  from 
the  old  man's  lips  belonged  to  both  Edward  Capell  and  William  Oldys 
(cf.  Yeowell's  Memoir  of  Oldys,  1862,  p.  44).  A  long  amplification, 
clearly  of  laterdate,  is  in  Malone,  Variorum,  ii.  138,  563. 


36  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

poaching  raid   on  his   estate.     'Three   luces   hauriant 
argent'  were  the  arms  borne  by  the  Charlecote  Lucys. -| 
A  'luce'  was  a  full-grown  pike,  and  the  meaning  of  the 
word  fully  explains  Falstaff's  contemptuous  mention  of 
the  garrulous  country  justice  as  'the  old  pike'  ('2  Henry  J 
IV/  III.  ii.  323).!    The  temptation  punningly  to  confuse 
'  luce '  and '  louse '  was  irresistible,  and  the  dramatist's  pro- 
longed reference  in  the  '  Merry  Wives '  to  the  '  dozen  white  ^ 
luces'  on  Justice  Shallow's  'old  coat'  fully  establishes! 
Shallow's  identity  with  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote. 
The  poaching  episode  is  best  assigned  to  1585,  but 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  Shakespeare,  on  fleeing  | 
The  flight     ^^°™  Lucy's  persecution,   at  once  sought  an 
from  asylum  in  London.    William  Beeston,  a  seven- 

stratford.  tccnth-century  actor,  remembered  hearing  that 
he  had  been  for  a  time  a  country  schoolmaster  'in  his 
younger  years,'  and  it  seems  possible  that  on,»first  leaving 
Stratford  he  found  some  such  employment  in  a  neighbour- 
ing village.  The  suggestion  that  he  joined,  at  the  end 
of  1585,  a  band  of  youths  of  the  district  in  serving  in  the 
Low  Countries  under  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  whose  castle  of 
Kenilworth  was  within  easy  reach  of  Stratford,  is  based 
on  an  obvious  confusion  between  him  and  others  of  his 
name  and  county.^  The  knowledge  of  a  soldier's  life 
which  Shakespeare  exhibited  in  his  plays  is  no  greater; 
and  no  less  than  that  which  he  displayed  of  almost  all 
other  spheres  of  human  activity,  and  to  assume  that  he 
wrote  of  all  or  of  any  from  practical  experience,  unless 
the  direct  evidence  be  conclusive,  is  to  underrate  his 
intuitive  power  of  realising  life  under  almost  every  aspect  : 
by  force  of  his  imagination. 

^  It  is  curious  to  note  that  William  Lucy  (1594-16  7  7),  grandson  of 
Shakespeare's  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  who  became  Bishop  of  St.  David's,   • 
adopted  the  pseudonym  of  William  Pike  in  his  two  volumes^(i6s7-8)  '\ 
of  hostile  'observations'  on  Hobbes's  Leviathan.  • 

'  Cf.  W.  J.  Thoms,  Three  Notelets  on  Shakespeare,  1865,  pp.  16  seq.  | 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  writing  from  Utrecht  on  March  24,  1585-6,  to  his  | 
father-in-law,   Sir  Francis  Walsingham,   mentioned   'I  wrote  to  yow 
a.  letter  by  Will,  my  lord  of  Lester's  jesting  plaier'  (Lodge's  Portraits,^ 
ii.  176).    The  messenger  was  the  well-known  actor  Will  Kempe,  and 
not,  as  has  been  rashly  suggested,  Shakespeare. 


IV 

THE  MIGRATION  TO  LONDON 

Amid  the  clouds  which  gathered  about  him  in  his  native 
place  during  1585,  Shakespeare's  hopes  turned  towards 
London,   where    high-spirited    youths   of   the  The  jour- 
day  were  wont  to  seek  their  fortune  from  all  ney  to 
parts  of  the  country.     It  was  doubtless  in  the     °°  °°'- 
early  summer  of  1586  that  Shakespeare  first  traversed 
the  road  to  the  capital.     There  was  much  intercourse 
at   the  time  between  London   aiid   Stratford-on-Avon. 
Tradesmen  of  the  town  paid  the  great  city  repeated  visits 
on  legal  or  other  business ;  many  of  their  sons  swelled  the 
ranks  of  the  apprentices;    a  few  were  students  at  the 
Inns  of  Court.'-    A  packhorse  carrier,  bearing  hi^  load 

1  Three  students  of  the  Middle  Temple  towards  the  end  of  the  six- 
teenth century  were  natives  of  Stratford,  viz.  William,  second  son  of 
John  Combe,  admitted  on  October  19,  1571 ;  Richard,  second  son  of 
Richard  Woodward  (born  on  March  1 1, 1578-9),  on  November  25,  1597 ; 
and  William,  son  and  heir  of  Thomas  Combe,  and  grandnephew  of  his 
elder  namesa!ke,  on  October  7,  1602  {Middle  Temple  Records,  i.  181,  380, 
425).  For  names  of  Stratford  apprentices  in  the  publishing  trade  of 
London  see  p.  40  n.  2  infra.  There  is  a  remarkable  recorded  instance  of 
a  Stratford  boy  going  on  his  own  account  and  unbefriended  to  London 
to  seek  mercantile  employment  and  making  for  himself  a  fortune  and 
high  position  in  trade  there.  The  lad,  named  John  Sadler,  belonged 
to  Shakespeare's  social  circle  at  Stratford.  Born  there  on  February  24, 
1586-7,  the  son  of  John  Sadler,  a  substantial  townsman  who  was  twice 
bailiff  in  1599  and  161 2,  and  nephew  of  the  dramatist's  friend  Hamnet 
Sadler,  the  youth,  early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  in  order  to  escape 
a  marriage  for  which  he  had  a.  distaste,  suddenly  (according  to  his 
daughter's  subsequent  testimony)  'joined  himself  to  the  carrier  [on  a 
good  horse  which  was  supplied  him  by  his  friends]  and  came  to  London, 
where  he  had  never  been  before,  and  sold  his  horse  in  Smithfield ;  and 
having  no  acquaintance  in  London  to  recommend  or  assist  him,  he  went 
from  street  to  street  and  house  to  house,  asking  if  they  wanted  an  ap- 
prentice, and  though  he  met  with  many  discouraging  scorns  and  a  thou- 
sand denials,  he  went  till  he  light  on  Mr.  Brooksbank,  a  grocer  in  Buck- 

37 


38  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

in  panniers,  made  the  journey  at  regular  intervals,  and 
a  solitary  traveller  on  horseback  was  wont  to  seek  the 
carrier's  protection  and  society.^  Horses  could  be  hired 
at  cheap  rates.  But  walking  was  the  common  mode  of 
travel  for  men  of  small  means,  and  Shakespeare's  first 
journey  to  London  may  well  have  been  made  on  f  oot.^ 

lersbury.'  The  story  of  Sadler's  journey  to  London  and  his  first  em- 
ployment there  is  told  in  his  daughter's  autobiography,  The  Holy  Life 
of  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Walker,  late  wife  of  A[ntony]  W[alker]  D.D.  (1690). 
Sadler's  fortunes  in  London  progressed  uninterruptedly.  He  became 
one  of  the  chief  grocers  or  druggists  of  the  day,  and  left  a  large  estate, 
including  property  in  Virginia,  on  his  death  in  1658.  His  shop  was  at 
the  Red  Lion  in  Bucklersbury — the  chief  trading  quarter  for  men  of 
his  occupation.  Shakespeare  in  Merry  Wives,  ni.  iii.  62,  writes  of  fops 
who  smelt  'like  Bucklersbury  in  simple  time'  —  a  reference  to  the  dried 
herbs  which  the  grocers  stocked  in  their  shops  there.  A  Stratford  neigh- 
bour, Richard  Quiney,  Sadler's  junior  by  eight  months,  _  became  his 
partner,  and  married  his  sister  (on  August  27,  1618) ;  Quiney  died  in 
1655.  Sadler  and  Quiney  jointly  presented  to  the  Corporation  of  Strat- 
ford on  August  22,  1632,  'two'fayre  gilte  maces,'  which  are  still  in  use 
(cf.  French's  Shakespeareana  Gencalogica,  pp.  560  seq.),  and  they  also 
together  made  over  to  the  town  a  sum  of  150/.  'to  be  lent  out,  tie  in- 
crease [i.e.  interest]  to  be  given  the  poor  of  the  borough  for  ever'  (Wheler's  I 
History  of  Stratford,  p.  88).  Shakespeare  was  on  intimate  terms  with 
both  the  Sadler  and  Quiney  families.  Richard  Quiney's  father  (of  the 
same  names)  was  a  correspondent  of  the  dramatist  (see  p.  294  infra),  I 
and  his  brother  Thomas  married  the  dramatist's  younger  daughter,  ' 
Judith  (see  p.  462  infra). 

^  Shakespeare  graphically  portrays  packhorse  carriers  of  the  time  in 
I  Henry  IV.  n.  i.  i  seq. 

^  Stage  coaches  were  unknown  before  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  although  at  a  little  earlier  date  carriers  from  the  large  towns 
began  to  employ  wagons  for  the  accommodation  of  passengers  as  well 
as  merchandise.  Elizabethan  men  of  letters  were  usually  good  pedes- 
trians. In  1570  Richard  Hooker,  the  eminent  theologian,  journeyed 
as  an  undergraduate  on  foot  from  Oxford  to  Exeter,  his  native  place. 
Izaak  Walton,  Hooker's  biographer,  suggests  that,  for  scholars,  walking 
'was  then  either  more  in  fashion,  or  want  of  money  or  their  humility 
made  it  so.'  On  the  road  Hooker  visited  at  Salisbury  Bishop  Jewel, 
who  lent  him  a  walking  staff  with  which  the  bishop  'professed  he  had 
travelled  through  many  parts  of  Germany'  (Walton's  Lives,  ed.  Bullen, 
p.  173).  Later  in  the  century  John  Stow,  the  antiquary,  travelled 
through  the  country  'on  foot'  to  make  researches  in  the  cathedral  towns 
(Stow's  Annals,  1615,  ed.  Howes).  In  1609  Thomas  Coryat  claimed  to 
have  walked  in  five  months  1975  miles  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  In 
1618  Shakespeare's  friend  Ben  Jonson  walked  from  London  to  Edin- 
burgh and  much  of  the  way  back.  In  the  same  year  John  Taylor,  tiie 
water-poet,  also  walked  independently  from  London  to  Edinburgh,  and 
thence  to  Braemar  (see  his  Pennyles  Pilgrimage,  1618). 


THE  MIGRATION  TO  LONDON  39 

There  were  two  main  routes  by  which  London  was 
approached  from  Stratford,  one  passing  through  Oxford 
and  High  Wycombe,  and  the  other  through  Alternative 
Banbury  and  Aylesbury.'^  The  distance  either  'o"'«s. 
way  was  some  120  miles.  Tradition  points  to  the 
Oxford  and  High  Wycombe  road  as  Shakespeare's 
favoured  thoroughfare.  The  seventeenth-century  anti- 
quary, Aubrey,  asserts  on  good  authority  that  at  Grendon 
Underwood,  a  village  near  Oxford,  'he  happened  to 
take  the  humour  of  the  constable  in  "Midsummer 
Night's  Dream'" —  by  which  the  writer  meant,  we  may 
suppose,  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing.'  There  were 
watchmen  of  the  Dogberry  t3T)e  all  over  England,  and 
probably  at  Stratford  itself.  But  a  specially  blustering 
specimen  of  the  class  may-  have  arrested  Shakespeare's 
attention  while  he  was  moving  about  the  Oxfordshire 
countryside.  The  Crown-  Inn  (formerly  3  Cornmarket 
Street)  near  Carfax,  at  Oxford,  was  long  pointed  out  as 
one  of  the  dramatist's  favourite  resting  places  on  his 
journeys  to  and  from  the  metropolis.  With  the  Oxford 
innkeeper  John.  Davenant  and  with  his  family  Shake- 
speare formed  a  close  intimacy.  In  1605  he  stood  god- 
father to  the  son  William  who  subsequently  as  Sir 
William  D'Avenant  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  a  popular 
playwright.^ 

The  two  roads  which  were  at  the  traveller's  choice 
between  Stratford  and  London  becarne  one  within  twelve 
miles  of  the  city's  walls.  All  Stratford  wayfarers  met 
at  Uxbridge,  thenceforth  to  follow  a  single  path.  Much 
desolate  country  intervened  between  Uxbridge  and  their 
destination.  The  most  conspicuous  landmark  was  'the 
triple  tree'  of  Tyburn  (near  the  present  Marble  Arch) 
—  the  triangular  gallows  where  London's  felons  met  their 
doom.  The  long  Uxbridge  Road  (a  portion  of  which  is 
now  christened  Oxford  Street)  knew  few  habitations  until 
the  detached  village  of  St.  Giles  came  in  view.    Beyond 

*  Cf.  J.  W.  Hales,  Notes  on  Shakespeare,  1884,  pp.  1-24. 
"  See  p.  449  infra. 


40  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE  '; 

I 
St.  Giles,  the  posts  and  chains  of  Holborn  Bars  marked  j 
(like  Temple  Bar  in  the  Strand)  London's  extramural  or 
suburban  limit,  but  the  full  tide  of  city  Hf e  was  first  joined 
at  the  archway  of  Newgate.     It  was  there  that  Shake- 
speare  caught  his  first  gUmpse  of  the  goal  of  his  youthfuli 
ambition.^ 

The  population  of  London  nearly  doubled   during 
Shakespeare's  Ufetime,  rising  from  100,000  at  the  begin- 
stratford      ning  of  Quecn  EHzabeth's  reign  to  200,000  in 
settlers.       jije  course  of  her  successor's.     On  all   sides 
the  capital  was    spreading   beyond   its    old    decaying! 
walls,   so  as  to  provide  homes  for  rural  iminigrants| 
Already  in  1586  there  were  in  London  settlers  from 
Stratford  to  offer  Shakespeare  a  welcome.     It  is  specially^ 
worthy  of  note  that  shortly  before  his  arrival,  three  young 
men  had  come  thence  to  be  bound  apprentice  to  London  | 
printers,  a  comparatively  new  occupation  with  which  the 
development  of  literature  was  closely  allied.    With  one 
of  these  men,  Richard  Field,  Shakespeare  was  soon  in 
close  relations,  and  was  receiving  from  him  useful  aid 
and  encouragement.^ 

'  The  traveller  on  horseback  by  either  route  spent  two  nights  on  the 
road  and  reached  TJxbridge  on  lie  third  day.  The  pedestrian  would 
spend  three  nights,  arriving  at  Uxbridge  on  the  fourth  day.  Several 
'bills  of  charges'  incurred  by  citizens  of  Stratford  in  riding  to  and  from 
London  during  Shakespeare's  early  days  are  extant  among  the  Eliza- 
bethan manuscripts  at  Shakespeare's  Birthplace.  The  Banbury  route 
was  rather  more  frequented  than  the  Oxford  Road;  it  seems  to  have 
been  richer  in  village  inns.  Among  the  smaller  places  on  this  route  at 
which  the  Stratford  travellers  found  good  accommodation  were  Stretton 
Audley,  Chenies,  Wendover,  and  Amersham  (see  Mr.  Richard  Savage's 
'Abstracts  from  Stratford  Travellers'  Accounts'  in  Athenaum,  Sep- 
tember s,  1908). 

2  Of  the  two  other  stationer's  apprentices  from  Stratford,  Roger,  son 
of  John  Locke,  glover,  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  was  apprenticed  on  August 
24,  1577,  for  ten  years  to  William  Pickering  (Arber,  Transcripts  of  Regis- 
ters of  the  Stationers'  Company,  ii.  80),  and  Allan,  son  of  Thomas  Orrian, 
tailor,  of  Stratford,  was  bound  apprentice  on  March  25,  1585,  for  seven 
years  to  Thomas  Fowkes  {ibid.  ii.  132).  Nothing  further  seems  known 
of  Roger  Locke.  Allan  Orrian  was  made  free  of  the  Stationers'  Com- 
pany on  October  16,  1598  {ibid.  ii.  722).  No  information  is  accessible,! 
regarding  his  precise  work  as  stationer,  but  he  was  prosperous  in  business 
for  some  seven  years,  in  the  course  of  which  there  were  bound  to  him 


THE  MIGRATION  TO  LONDON  41 

Field's  London  career  offers  illuminating  parallels  with 
that  of  Shakespeare  at  many  practical  points.  Born  at 
Stratford  in  the  same  year  as  the  dramatist,  Richard 
he  was  a  son  of  Henry  Field,  a  fairly  pros-  ^'^'•^• 
perous  tanner,  who  was  a  near  neighbour  of  Shake- 
speare's father.  The  elder  Field  died  in  1592,  when 
the  poet's  father,  in  accordance  with  custom,  attested 
'a  trew  and  perfecte  inventory'  of  his  goods  and  chattels. 
On  September  25,  1579,  at  the  usual  age  of  fifteen, 
Richard  was  apprenticed  to  a  London  printer  and  sta- 
tioner of  repute,  George  Bishop,  but  it  was  arranged  five 
weeks  later  that  he  should  serve  the  first  six  years  of  his 
articles  with  a  more  interesting  member  of  the  printing 
fraternity,  Thomas  Vautrollier,  a  Frenchman  of  wide 
sympathies  and  independent  views.  Vautrollier  had 
come  to  London  as  a  Huguenot  refugee  and  had  estab- 
lished his  position  there  by  publishing  in  1579  Sir  Thomas 
North's  renowned  translation  of  '  Plutarch's  Lives '  —  a 
book  in  whicli  Shakespeare  was  before  long  to  be  well 
versed.  When  the  dramatist  reached  London,  Vau- 
trollier was  at  Edinburgh  in  temporary  retirement  owing 
to  threats  of  prosecution  for  printing  a  book  by  the 
Italian  sceptic  Giordano  Bruno.  His  Stratford  ap- 
prentice benefited  by  his  misfortune.  With  the  aid  of 
his  master's  wife,  Field  carried  on  the  business  in  Vau- 
troUier's  absence,  and  thenceforth  his  advance  was 
rapid  and  secure.  Admitted  a  freeman  of  the  Stationers' 
Company  on  February  6,  1586-7,  he  soon  afterwards 
mourned  his  master's  death  and  married  his  widow. 
VautroUier's  old  premises  in  Blackfriars  near  Ludgate 
became  his  property,^  and  there  until  the  century  closed 
he  engaged  in  many  notable  ventures.     These  included 

seven  apprentices,  aU  youths  from  country  districts.  The  latest  notice 
of  Orrian  in  the  Stationers'  Register  is  dated  October  15,  1605,  when 
he  was  fined  'i2(i  for  nonappearance  on  the  quarter  day'  {ibid.  ii.  840). 
In  one  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Register  his  name  appears  as  'Allan 
Orrian  alias  Currance'  {ibid.  ii.  243). 

^  About  1 600  Field  removed  from  Blackfriars  to  the  Sign  of  the 
Splayed  Eagle  in  the  parish  of  St.  Michael  in  Wood  Street. 


42  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

a  new  edition  of  North's  translation  of  'Plutarch' 
(159s)  and  the  first  edition  of  Sir  John  Harington's 
translation  of  Ariosto's  'Orlando  Furioso'  (1591)-^ 

Field  long  maintained  good  relations  with  his  family  1 
at  Stratford,  and  on  February  7,  1 591-2,  he  sent  for  his  l 
Field  and  jounger  brother  Jasper,  to  serve  him  as  appren- 
shake-  tice.  In  the  early  spring  of  the  following  year 
speare.  j^^  ^^^^  signal  proof  of  his  intimacy  with  his 
fellowtownsman  Shakespeare  by  printing  his  poem 
'Venus  and  Adonis,'  the  earliest  specimen  of  Shake- 
speare's writing  which  was  committed  to  the  press.  Next 
year  Field  performed  a  hke  service  for  the  poem  'Lucrece,' 
Shakespeare's  second  pubhcation.  The  metropoUtan 
prosperity  of  the  two  Stratford  settlers  was  by  that  time 
assured,  each  in  his  own  sphere.  Some  proof  of  defective 
sympathy  with  Shakespeare's  ambitions  may  lurk  in  the 
fact  that  Field  was  one  of  the  inhabitants  of  Blackfriars 
who  signed  in  1 596  a  peevish  protest  against  the  plan  of 
James  Burbage,  Shakespeare's  theatrical  colleague,  to 
convert  into  a. '  common  playhouse '  a  Blackfriars  dwell- 
ing-house.^ Yet,  however  different  the  aspirations  of  the 
two  men,  it  was  of  good  omen  for  Shakespeare  to  meet 
on  his  settlement  in  London  a  young  fellow-townsman 
whose  career  was  already  showing  that  country  breeding 
proved  no  bar  to  civic  place  And  power.'  Finally  Field 
rose  to  the  head  of  his  profession,  twice  filling  the  high 
ofiice  of  Master  of  the  Stationers'  Company.  He  sur- 
vived the  dramatist  by  seven  years,  dying  in  1623. 

In  the  absence  of  strictly  contemporary  and  categorical 
information  as  to  how  Shakespeare  employed  his  time 
on  arriving  in  the  metropoUs,  much  ingenuity  has  been 
wasted  in  irrelevant  speculation.     The  theory  that  Field 

1  A  friendly  note  of  typographical  directions  from  Sir  John  Harington 
to  Field  is  extant  in  an  autograph  copy  of  Harington's  translation  of 
Orlando  Furioso  (B.M.  MSS.  Addit.' 18920,  f.  336).  The  terms  of  the 
note  suggest  very  amiable  relations  between  Field  and  his  authors. 
(Information  kindly  supplied  by  Mr.  H.  F.  B.  Brett-Smith.) 

*  Mrs.  Stopes's  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage,  1913,  pp.  174-5. 

'  See  Shakespeare's  Venus  and  Adonis  in  facsiimle,  edited  by  Sidney 
Lee,  Oxford,  1905,  pp.  39  seq. 


THE  MIGRATION  TO  LONDON  43 

found  work  for  him  in  Vautrollier's  printing  office  is 
an  airy  fancy  which  needs  no  refutation,  sbake- 
Little  more  can  be  said  in  behalf  of  the  ^p^''^'^ 
attempt  to  prove  that  he  sought  his  early  ■  legaUx- 
livelihood  as  a  lawyer's  clerk.  In  spite  of  the  perfence. 
marks  of  favour  which  have  been  showered  on  this 
conjecture,  it  fails  to  survive  careful  scrutiny.  The 
assumption  rests  on  no  foundation  save  the  circum- 
stance that  Shakespeare  frequently  employed  legal 
phraseology  in  his  plays  and  poems.^  A  long  series  of 
law  terms  and  of  metaphors  which  are  drawn  from  legal 
processes  figure  there,  and  it  is  argued  that  so  miscel- 
laneous a  store  of  legal  information  could  only  have  been 
acquired  by  one  who  was  engaged  at  one  time  or  another 
in  professional  practice.  The  conclusion  is  drawn  from 
fallacious  premises.  Shakespeare's  legal  knowledge  is  a 
mingled  skein  of  accuracy  and  inaccuracy,  and  the  errors 
are  far  too  numerous  and  important  to  justify  on  sober 
inquiry  the  plea  of  technical  experience.  No  judicious 
reader  of  the  'Merchant  of  Venice'  or  'Measure  for 
Measure'  can  fail  to  detect  a  radical  unsoundness  in 
Shakespeare's  interpretation  alike  of  elementary  legal 
principles  and  of  legal  procedure. 

Moreover  the  legal  terms  which  Shakespeare  favoured 
were  common  forms  of  speech  among  contem-  The  liter- 
porary  men  of  letters  and  are  not  peculiar  to  his  ary  habit 
literary  or  poetic  vocabulary.    Legal  phrase-  phraft 
ology  in  Shakespeare's   vein  was   widely  dis-  °^°sy- 
tributed  over  the  dramatic  and  poetic  literature  of  his 

*  Lord  Campbell,  who  greatly  exaggerated  Shakespeare's  legal  know- 
ledge in  his  Shakespeare's  Legal  Acquirements  (1859),  was  the  first  writer 
to  insist  on  Shakespeare's  personal  connection  with  the  law.  Many 
subsequent  writers  have  been  misled  by  Lord  Campbell's  book  (see 
Appendix  II).  The  true  state  of  the  case  is  presented  by  Charles  Allen 
in  his  Notes  on  the  Bacon  Shakespeare  Question  (Boston,  1900,  pp.  22 
seq.)  and  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson  in  his  Baconian  Heresy  (1913,  pp.  31 
seq.).  Mr.  Allen's  chapter  (ch.  vii)  on  'Bad  Law  in  Shakespeare'  is 
especially  noteworthy.  Of  the  modish  affectation  of  legal  terminology 
by  contemporary  poets  some  instances  are  given  below  in  Barnabe 
Barnes's  Sonnets,  1593,  and  in  the  collection  of  sonnets  called  Zepheria, 
1594  (see  Appendix  13$. 


44  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

day.  Spenser  in  his  'Faerie  Queene'  makes  as  free 
as  Shakespeare  with  strange  and  recondite  technical 
terms  of  law.  The  dramatists  Ben  Jonson,  Mas- 
singer,  and  Webster  use  legal  words  and  phrases  and 
describe  legal  processes  with  all  the  great  dramatist's 
frequency  and  facility,  and  on  the  whole  with  fewer 
blunders.!  jj-  jg  beyond  question  that  all  these  writers 
lacked  a  legal  training.  Elizabethan  authors'  common 
habit  of  legal  phraseology  is  indeed  attributable  to 
causes  in  which  professional  experience  finds  no  pace. 
Throughout  the  period  of  Shakespeare's  working  career, 
there  was  an  active  social  intercourse  between  men  of 
letters  and  young  lawyers,  and  the  poets  and  dramatists  J 
caught  some  accents  of  their  legal  companions'  talk. 
Litigation  at  the  same  time  engaged  in  an  unprecedented! 
degree  the  interests  of  the  middle  classes  among  Eliza- 
beth's and  James  I's  subjects.  Shakespeare's  father  and 
his  neighbours  were  personally  involved  in  endless  legal 
suits  the  terminology  of  which  became  household  words,, 
among  them.  Shakespeare's  Uberal  emplojonent  of  law 
terms  is  merely  a  sign  on  the  one  hand  of  his  habitual 
readiness  to  identify  himself  with  popular  literary 
fashions  of  the  day,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  his  general 
quickness  of  apprehension,  which  assimilated  suggestion 
from  every  phase  of  the  life  that  was  passing  around  him. 
It  may  be  safely  accepted  that  from  his  first  arrival  in 
London  until  his  final  departure  Shakespeare's  mental 
energy  was  absorbed  by  his  poetic  and  dramatic  ambi- 
tions. He  had  no  time  to  devote  to  a  technical  or  pro- 
fessional training  in  another  sphere  of  activity. 

^  When  in  All's  Well  Bertram  is  ordered  under  compulsion  by  the 
king  his  guardian  to  wed  Helena,  Shakespeare  ignores  the  perfectly^ 
good  plea  of  'disparagement'  which  was  always  available  to  protect  a' 
ward  of  rank  from  forced  marriage  with  a  plebeian.  Ben  Jonson  proved 
to  be  more  alive  to  Bertram's  legal  privilege.  In  his  Bartholomew  Fair 
(act  III.  sc.  i.)  Grace  Wellborn,  a  female  ward  who  is  on  the  point  of 
being  married  by  her  guardian  against  her  will,  is  appropriately  advised 
to  have  recourse  to  the  legal  'device  of  disparagement.'  For  Webster's 
liberal  use  of  law  terms  see  an  interesting  paper  '  Webster  and  the  Law ; 
a.ParaUel,'  by  L.  J.  Sturge  in  Shakespeare  Jahrbtich,  1906,  xlii.  148-57. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  ACTORS 

Tradition  and  commonsense  alike  point  to  the  stage 
as  an  early  scene  of  Shakespeare's  occupation  in  London. 
Sir  William  D'Avenant,  the  dramatist,  who  was 
ten  years  old  when  Shakespeare  died  and  was  theatrical 
an  eager  collector  of  Shakespearean  gossip,  is  employ- 
credited  with  the  story  that  the  dramatist  was  ™™  " 
originally  employed  at  'the  playhouse'  in  'taking  care  of 
the  gentlemen's  horses  who  came  to  the  play,'  and  that 
he  so  prospered  in  this  humble  vocation  as  •  to  organise 
a  horse-tending  service  of  'Shakespeare's  boys.'  The 
pedigree  of  the  story  is  fully  recorded.  D'Avenant  con- 
fided the  tale  to  Thomas  Betterton,  the  great  actor  of 
the  Restoration,  who  shared  Sir  William's  zeal  for 
amassing  Shakespearean  lore.  By  Betterton  the  legend 
was  handed  on  to  Nicholas  Rowe,  Shakespeare's  first 
biographer,  who  told  it  to  Pope.  But  neither  Rowe  nor 
Pope  published  it.  The  report  was  first  committed  to 
print  avowedly  on  D'Avenant's  and  Betterton's  authority 
in  Theophilus  Gibber's  'Lives  of  the  Poets'  (i.  130) 
which  were  published  in  1753.^  Only  two  regular  theatres 
('The  Theatre'  and  the  'Curtain')  were  working  in 
London  at  the  date  of  Shakespeare's  arrival.  Both  were 
situate  outside  the  city  walls,  beyond  Bishopsgate; 
fields  lay  around  them,  and  they  were  often  reached  on 
horseback  by  visitors.  According  to  the  Elizabethan 
poet  Sir  John  Davies,  in  his  'Epigrammes,'  No.  7  (1598), 

'  Commonly  assigned  to  Theophilus  Gibber,  they  were  written  by 
Robert  Shiels,  an  amanuensis  of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  other  hack-writers 
under  Gibber's  editorial  direction. 

4S 


46  .  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  well-to-do  citizen  habitually  rode  'into  the  fields' 
when  he  was  bent  on  playgoing.^  The  owner  of  'The 
Theatre,'  James  Burbage,  kept  a  livery  stable  at  Smith- 
field.  There  is  no  inherent  improbabiHty  in  the  main 
drift  of  D'Avenant's  strange  tale,  which  Dr.  Johnson 
fathered  in  his  edition  of  Shakespeare  in  1765. 

No  doubt  is  permissible  that  Shakespeare  was  speedily : 
offered  employment  inside  the  playhouse.     According 
to  Rowe's  vague  statement,  'he  was  received  into  the 
company  then  in  being  at  first  in  a  very  mean  rank.' 
William  Castle,^  parish  clerk  of  Stratford  through  great 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  in  the  habit  of  telling 
visitors  that  the  dramatist  entered  the  playhouse  as  'a 
servitor.'    In  1780  Malone  recorded  a  stage  tradition  1 
'that  his  first  office  in  the  theatre  was  that. of  prompter'^  I 
attendant,'  or  call  boy.     Evidence  abounds  to  show  that 
his  intellectual  capacity  and  the  amiabihty  with  which 
he  turned  to  account  his  versatile  powers  were  soon 
recognised,  and  that  his  promotion  to  more  dignified 
employment  was  rapid. 

Shakespeare's  earliest  reputation  was  made  as  an  actor, 
and,  although  his  work  as  a  dramatist  soon  eclipsed  his 
Tfjg  histrionic    fame,    he    remained    a    prominent 

player's  member  of  the  actor's  profession  till  near  the 
license.  '  ^^^  ^^  j^^  jj^^  ^j^^  profession,  when  Shake-., 
speare  joined  it,  was  in  its  infancy,  but  wliile  he  was  a 
boy  Parliament  had  made  it  on  easy  conditions  a  lawful! 
and  an  honourable  calling.  By  an  Act  of  ParHament  of 
1571  (14  Eliz.  cap.  2)  which  was  re-enacted;  in  1596 
(39  EKz.  cap.  4)  an  obligation  was  imposed  on  players 
of  procuring  a'Hcense  for  the  exercise  of  their  function 

"  So,  too,  Thomas  Dekker  in  his  Gids  Hornbook,  1609  (ch  v  "How 
a  young  Gallant  should  behave  himself  in  an  Ordinary'),  describes  how 
French  lacqueys  and  Irish  footboys  were  wont  to  wait  'with  their  mas- 
ters hobby  horses  outside  the  doors  orordinaries  for  the  gentlemen  i 
to  nde  to  the  new  play ;  that's  the  rendezvous,  thither  they  are  gaUoped  ' 
in  post.  Only  playhouses  north  of  the  Thames  were  thus  reached  To 
theatres  south  of  the  river  the  usual  approach  was  by  boat 

2  Castle's  family  was  of  old  standing  at  Stratford,  where  he  was  born 
on  July  19,  1614,  and  died  m  1701 ;  see  Dowdall's  letter,  pp.  641-2  infra 


SHAKESPEARE   AND  THE  ACTORS  47 

from  a  peer  of  the  realm  or  '  other  honourable  personage 
of  greater  degree.'  In  the  absence  of  such  credential 
they  were  pronounced  to  be  of  the  status  of  rogues, 
vagabonds,  or  sturdy  beggars,  and  to  be  Uable  to  humili- 
ating pimishments ;  but  the  license  gave  them  the  un- 
questioned rank  of  respectable  citizens.  Ehzabethan 
peers  liberally  exercised  their  Ucensing  powers,  and  the 
Queen  gave  her  subfects'  activity  much  practical  en- 
couragement. The  services  of  licensed  players  were  con- 
stantly requisitioned  by  the  Court  to  provide  dramatic 
entertainment  there.  Those  who  wished  to  become  actors 
found  indeed  little  difficulty  in  obtaining  a  statutory 
license  under  the  hand  and  seal  of  persons  in  high  station, 
who  enrolled  them  by  virtue  of  a  formal  fiction  among 
their  'servants,'  became  surety  for  their  behaviour  and 
relieved  them  of  all  risk  of  derogatory  usage.^  An  early 
statute  of  King  James's  reign  (i  Jac.  cap.  7)  sought  in 
1603  to  check  an  admitted  abuse  whereby  the  idle  para- 
sites of  a  magnate's  household  were  wont  to  plead  his 
'license'  by  way  of  exemption  from  the  penalties  of  va- 
grancy or  disorder.  But  the  new  statute  failed  seriously 
to  menace  the  actors'  privileges.^    Private  persons  may 

'  The  conditions  attacMng  in  Shakespeare's  time  to  the  grant  of  an 
actor's  license  may  be  deduced  from  the  earliest  known  document  re- 
lating to  the  matter.  In  1572  six  'players,'  who  claimed  to  be  among 
the  Earl  of  Leicester's  retainers,  appealed  to  the  Earl  in  view  of  the 
new  statute  of  the  previous  year  'to  reteyne  us  at  this  present  as  your 
houshold  Servaunts  and  dayUe  wayters,  not  that  we  meane  to  crave 
any  further  stipend  or  benefite  at  your  Lordshippes  handes  but  our 
Lyveries  as  we  have  had,  and  also  your  honors  License  to  certifye  that 
we  are  your  houshold  Servaunts  when  we  shall  have  occasion  to  travayle 
amongst  our  frendes'  (printed  from  the  Marquis  of  Bath's  MSS.,  in 
Malone  Soc.  Coll.  i.  348-9).  The  licensed  actor's  certificate  was  an  im- 
portant asset;  towards  the  end  of  Shakespeare's  life  there  are  a  few 
cases  of  fraudulent  sale  by  .a  holder  to  an  unauthorised  person  or  of 
distribution  of  forged  duplicates  by  an  unprincipled  actor  who  aimed  at 
forming  a  company  of  his  own.  But  the  regulation  of  the  profession 
was  soon  strict  enough  to  guard  against  any  widespread  abuse  (Dr.  C. 
W.  Wallace  in  EngUsche  Studien,  xliii.  385,  and  Murray,  English  Dramatic 
Companies,  ii.  320,  343  seq.) 

*  Under  this  new  statute  proceedings  were  sanctioned  against  sus- 
pected rogues  or  vagrants  notwithstanding  any  'authority'  which 
should  be  'given  or  made  by  any  baron  of  this  realm  or  any  other  hon- 


48  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

have  proved  less  ready,  in  \dew  of  the  greater  stringency 
of  the  law,  to  exercise  the  right  of  hcensing  players,  but 
there  was  a  compensating  extension  of  the  range  of  the 
royal  patronage.  The  new  King  excelled  his  predecessor  | 
in  enthusiasm  for  the  drama.  He  acknowledged  by 
letters  patent  the  full  corporate  rights  of  the  leading 
company,  and  other  companies  of  repute  were  soon 
admitted  under  Uke  formahties  into  the  'service'  of  his 
Queen  and  of  his  two  elder  sons,  as  well  as  of  his  daugh- 
ter and  son-in-law.  The  actor's  calUng escaped  challenge 
of  legahty,  nor  did  it  suffer  legal  disparagement,  at  any 
period  of  Shakespeare's  epoch.^  j 

From  the  middle  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  many 
hundreds  of  men  received  licenses  to  act  from  noblemem.:| 
The  acting   and  Other  persons  of  social  position,  and  the 
companies.    Hcensces  formed  themselves  into  companies  of 
players  which  enjoyed  under  the  statute  of   1571  the 
standing  of  lawful  corporations.     Fully  a  hundred  peers 
and  knights  during  Shakespeare's  youth  bestowed  the 
requisite  legal  recognition  on  bands  of  actors  who  were 
each  known  as  the  patron's  'men'  or   'servants'   and 
wore  his  'Hvery'  with  his  badge  on  their  sleeves.     The 
fortunes  of   these   companies   varied.     Lack   of  public 
favour  led  to  financial  difificulty  and  to  periodic  suspen- 1 
sion  of  their  careers,  or  even  to  complete  disbandment.  i 
Many  companies  confined  their  energies  to  the  provinces 
or  they  only  visited  the  capital  on  rare  occasions  in  order 

ourable  personage  of  greater  degree  unto  any  other  person  or  persons.' 
The  clauses  which  provided  'houses  of  correction'  for  the  punishment  i| 
of  vagrants  were  separately  re-enacted  in  a  stronger  form  six  years    ' 
later  (7  Jac.  cap.  4);   all  reference  to  magnates'  licensed  'servants'  was  " 
there  omitted.  ,  j. 

^  Shakespeare's  acquaintance,  Thomas  Heywood,  the  well-knowii»!i 
actor  and  dramatist,  in  his  Apology  for  Actors,  1612,  asserts  of  the  actors' 
profession  (Sh.  Soc.  p.  4) :  'It  hath  beene  esteemed  by  the  best  and  ' 
greatest.  To  omit  all  the  noble  patrons  of  the  former  world,  I  need 
alledge  no  more  then  the  royall  and  princely  services  in  which  we  now 
live.'  Towards  the  end  of  his  tract  Heywood  after  describing  the  es- 
timation in  which  actors  were  held  abroad  adds  (p.  60) :  'But  in  no 
country  they  are  of  that  eminence  that  ours  are :  so  our  most  royall 
and  ever  renouned  soveraigne  hath  licenced  us  in  London :  so  did  his 
predecessor,  the  thrice  vertuous  virgin,  Queene  Elizabeth.' 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   THE  ACTORS  49 

to  perform  at  Court  at  the  summons  of  the  Sovereign, 
who  wished  to  pay  a  compliment  to  their  titled  master. 
Yet  there  were  powerful  influences  making  for  perma- 
nence in  the  infant  profession,  and  when  Shakespeare 
arrived  in  London  fJiere  were  at  work  there  at  least 
seven  companies,  whose  activities,  in  spite  of  vicissi- 
tudes, were  continuous  during  a  long  course  of  years. 
The  leading  companies  each  consisted  on  the  average  of 
some  twelve  active  members,  the  majority  of  whom  were 
men,  and  the  rest  youths  or  boys,  for  no  women  found 
admission  to  the  actors'  ranks  and  the  boys  filled  the 
female  parts. ^  Now  and  then  two  companies  would  com- 
bine, or  a  prosperous  company  would  absorb  an  unsuc- 
cessful one,  or  an  individual  actor  would  transfer  his 
services  from  one  company,  to  another ;  but  the  great 
companies  formed  as  a  rule  independent  and  organic 
units,  and  the  personal  constitution  only  saw  the  gradual 
changes  which  the  passage  of  years  made  inevitable. 
Shakespeare,  Hke  most  of  the  notable  actors  of  the  epoch, 
remained  through  his  working  days  faithful  to  the  same 
set  of  colleagues.^ 

Of  the  well-established  companies  of  Hcensed  actors 
which  enjoyed  a  reputation  in  London  and  the  provinces 
when  Shakespeare  left  his  native  place,  three  The  great 
were  under  the  respective  patronage  of  the  patrons. 
Earls  of  Leicester,  of  Pembroke,'  and  of  Worcester,  while 

'  As  many  as  twenty-six  actors  are  named  in  the  full  list  of  members 
of  Shakespeare's  company  which  is  prefixed  to  the  First  Folio  of  1623, 
but  at  that  date  ten  of  these  were  dead,  and  three  or  four  others  had 
retired  from  active  work. 

^  The  best  account  of  the  history  and  organisation  of  the  companies 
is  given  in  John  Tucker  Murray's  English  Dramatic  Companies,  1558- 
1642,  2  vols.  London,  igio.  Fleay's  History  of  the  Stage,  which  also 
collects  valuable  information  on  the  theme,  is  full  of  conjectural  asser- 
tion, much  of  which  Mr.  Murray  corrects. 

'  This  theatrical  patron  was  Henry  Herbert,  second  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, the  father  of  William  Herbert,  the  third  Earl,  who  is  well  known 
to  Shakespearean  students  (see  infra,  pp.  164,  682-9).  The  Pembroke 
company  broke  up  on  the  second  Earl's  death  on  January  19,  i6or,  and 
it  was  not  till  some'  years  after  Shakespeare's  death  that  an  Earl  of 
Pembroke  again  fathered  a  company  of  players. 


50  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE, 

a  fourth  '  served '  the  Lord  Admiral  Lord  Charles  Howardl 
of  Effingham.    These  patrons  or  licensers  were  all  peers 
of  prominence  at  Queen  Elizabeth's  Court,  and  a  noted 
band  of  actors  bore  one  or  other  of  their  names.^ 

The  fifth  association  of  players  which  enjoyed  general^ 
repute  derived  its  hcense  from  Queen  EUzabeth  and  was 
called  the  Queen's  company .^  This  troop  of  actors  was 
first  formed  in  1583  of  twelve  leading  players  who  were 
drawn  from  other  companies.  After  being  'sworn  the: 
Queen's  servants'  they  'were  allowed  wages  and  Hveries 
as  grooms  of  the  chamber.'  ^  The  company's  career,  in 
spite  of  its  auspicious  inauguration,  was  chequered ;  it 
ceased  to  perform  at  Court  after  1591  and  was  irregular 
in  its  appearances  at  the  London  theatres  after  1594; 
but  it  was  exceptionally  active  on  provincial  tours  until 
the  Queen's  death. 

In  the  absence  of  women  actors  the  histrionic  vocation 
was  deemed  especially  well  adapted  to  the  capacity  of 
The  com-     boys,    and   two   additional   companies,   which 
paaiesof      were  formed  exclusively  of  boy  actors,   were 
°^^"  in  the  enjoyment  of  Ucenses  from  the  Crown. 

They  were  recruited  from  the  choristers  of  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  and  the  Chapel  Royal.  The  youthful  per- 
formers, whose  dramatic  programmes  resembled  those 
of  their  seniors,  acquired  much  popularity  and  proved 
formidable  competitors  with  the  men.  The  rivalry: 
knew  little  pause  during  Shakespeare's  professional  life. 

The  adult  companies  changed  their  name  when  a 

1  The  companies  of  the  Earls  of  Sussex  and  of  Oxford  should  not  be 
reckoned  among  the  chief  companies;  they  very  rarely  gave  public 
performances  in  London;  nor  in  the  country  were  they  continuously! 
employed.  The  Earl  of  Oxford's  company,  which  was  constituteB| 
mainly  of  boys,  occupied  the  first  Blackfriars  theatre  in  1582-4,  but 
was  only  seen  publicly  again  in  London  in  the  two  years  1587  and  1602; 
in  the  latter  year  it  disappeared  altogether. 

2  A  body  of  men  was  known  uninterruptedly  by  the  title  of  the  Queen's 
Players  from  the  opening  years  of  Henry  VIII's  reign ;  but  no  marked 
prestige  attached  to  the  designation  until  the  formation  of  the  new 
Queen's  company  of  1583. 

'  Stow's  Chronicle,  ed.  Howes  (sub  anno  1583). 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  ACTORS  51 

new  patron  succeeded  on  the  death  or  the  retirement  of 
his  predecessor.      Alterations   of   the  companies'  titles 
were    consequently    frequent,    and    introduce  xhefor- 
some  perplexity  in  the  history  of  their  several  ^'^^^  9£ 
careers.     But  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  Leicester's 
that   the    band   of   players  which   first   fired  company. 
Shakespeare's  histrionic  ambitions  was  the  one  wliich 
long    enjoyed    the    patronage    of    Queen    EUzabeth's 
favourite,  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  and  subsequently  under 
a  variety  of  designations  filled  the  paramount  place  in 
the  theatrical  annals  of  the  era. 

At  the  opening  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  the  Earl  of 
Leicester,  who  was  known  as  Lord  Robert  Dudley  before 
the  creation  of  the  earldom  in  1564,  numbered  among 
his  household  retainers,  men  who  provided  the  house- 
hold with  rough  dramatic  or  musical  entertainment. 
Early  in  1572  six  of  these  men  applied  to  the  Earl  for 
a  license  in  conformity  with  the  statute  of  1571,  and 
thus  the  earliest  company  of  licensed  players  was 
created.^  The  histrionic  organization  made  rapid  prog- 
ress. In  1574  Lord  Leicester's  company  which  then 
consisted  of  no  more  than  five  players  inaugurated  an- 
other precedent  by  receiving  the  grant  of  a  patent  of 
incorporation  under  the  privy  seal.  Two  years  later 
James  Burbage,  whose  name  heads  the  hst  of  Lord 
Leicester's  'men'  in  the  primordial  charters  of  the  stage, 
built  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  London  the  first 
Enghsh  playhouse,  which  was  known  as  'The  Theatre.' 
The  company's  numbers  grew  quickly  and  in  spite  of 
secessions  which  temporarily  deprived  them  both  of 
their  home  at  'The  Theatre'  and  of  the  services  of  James 
Burbage,  Lord  Leicester's  players  long  maintained  a 
coherent  organisation.  They  acted  for  the  last  time  at 
Court  on  Dec.  27,  1586,^  but  were  busy  in  the  provinces 

1  See  p.  47,  n.  i.  The  names  run,  James  Burbage,  John  Perkin, 
John  Laneham,  WUliam  Johnson,  Robert  Wilson  and  Thomas  Clarke. 
Thomas  Clarke's  name  was  omitted  from  the  patent  of  1574. 

^Cf.  E.  K.  Chambers's  'Court  Performances  before  Queen  Eliza- 
beth' in  Modern  Language  Review,  vol.  ii.  p.  9. 


52  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

until  their  great  patron's  death  on  September  4,  1588. 
Then  with  httle  delay  the  more  prominent  members 
joined  forces  with  a  less  conspicuous  troop  of  actors  who 
were  under  the  patronage  of  a  highly  cultured  nobleman 
Ferdinando  Stanley,  Lord  Strange,  son  and  heir  of  the 
fourth  Earl  of  Derby.  Lord  Leicester's  company  was 
merged  in  that  of  Lord  Strange  to  whose  literary  sym- 
pathies the  poet  Edmund  Spenser  bore  witness,  and  when 
the  new  patron's  father  died  on  September  25,  1593,  the 
company  again  changed  its  title  to  that  of  the  Earl 
of  Derby's  servants.  The  new  Earl  Hved  less  than  seven 
months  longer,  dying  on  April  16,  1594,^  and,  though 
for  the  following  month  the  company  christened  itseK 
after  his  widow  'the  Countess  of  Derby's  players,'  it:: 
found  in  June  a  more  influential  and  more  constant 
patron  in  Henry  Carey,  first  Lord  Hunsdon,  who  hfeld 
(from  1585)  the  office  of  Lord  Chamberlain. 

Lord  Hunsdon  had  already  interested  himself  modestly 
in  theatrical  affairs.  For  some  twelve  previous  years 
his  protection  was  extended  to  players  of  humble  fame, 
some  of  whom  were  mere  acrobats.^  The  Earl  of  Sussex, 
too,  Hunsdon's  predecessor  in  the  post  of  Lord  Chamber- 
lain (i 572-1 583),  had  at  an  even,earUer  period  lent  his 
name  to  a  small  company  of  actors,  and,  while  their 
patron  held  office  at  Court,  Lord  Sussex's  men  occa- 

^  The  sth  Earl  of  Derby  was  celebrated  under  tie  name  'Arayntas'^ 
in  Spenser's  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again  (c.  1594).     His  brother  zm 
successor,  William   Stanley,  6th   Earl,  on  succeeding  to  the  earldom,, 
appears  to  have  taken  under  his  protection  a  few  actors,  but  his  com-' 
pany  won  no  repute  and  its  operations  which  lasted  from  1594  to  1607  ;i 
were  confined  to  the  provinces.     Like  many  other  noblemen,  the  sixth-j 
Earl  of  Derby  was  deeply  interested  in  the  drama  and  would  seem  to 
have  essayed  playwriting.     See  p.  232  infra. 

2  During  1584  an  unnamed  person  vaguely  described  as  'owner'  of 
'The'  Theatre'  claimed  that  he  was  under  Lord  Hunsdon's  protection. 
The  reference  is  probably  to  one  John  Hyde  to  whom  the  building  was 
then  mortgaged  by  James  Burbage  rather  than  to  Burbage  himself. 
Lord  Hunsdon's  men  were  probably  performing  at  the  house  in  the 
absence  of  Leicester's  company.  Cf.  Malone  Society's  Collections, 
vol.  i.  p.  166 ;  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace,  The  First  London  Theatre  (NebrasW 
University  Studies),  1913,  p.  12;  Murray,  English  Dramatic  Companiesj^t 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   THE  ACTORS  53 

sionally  adopted  the  alternative  title  of  the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  servants.'  ^  But  the  association  of  the 
Lord  Chamberlain  with  the  stage  acquired  genuine 
importance  in  theatrical  history  only  in  1594  when  Lord 
Hunsdon  re-created  his  company  by  enrolling  with  a 
few  older  dependents  the  men  who  had  won  their  pro- 
fessional spurs  as  successive  retainers  of  the  Earls  of 
Leicester  and  Derby.  James  Burbage  now  rejoined  old 
associates,  while  his  son  Richard,  who,  unlike  his  father, 
had  worked  with  Lord  Derby's  men,  shed  all  the  radiance 
of  his  matured  genius  on  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  new 
and  far-famed  organisation.^  The  subsequent  stages  in 
the  company's  pedigree  are  readily  traced.  There  were 
no  further  graftings  or  reconstitution.  When  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  died  on  July  23,  1596,  his  son  and  heir, 
George  Carey,  second  Lord  Hunsdon,  accepted  his 
histrionic  responsibilities,  and  he,  after  a  brief  interval, 
himself  became  Lord  Chamberlain  (in  March  1597)- 
On  February  19, 1597-8,  the  Privy  Council  bore  witness  to 
the  growing  repute  of  '  The  Lord  Chamberlain's  men '  by 
making  the  announcement  (which  proved  comphmentary 
rather  than  operative)  that  that  company  and  the  Lord 
Admiral's  company  were  the  only  two  bands  of  players 
whose  Hcense  strictly  entitled  them  to  perform  plays  any- 
where about  London  or  before  Her  Majesty's  Court.^ 

*  Malone  Society's  Collections,  vol.  i.  pp.  36-7 ;  Malone's  Variorum 
Shakespeare  (1821),  iii.  406. 

2  Besides  Richard  Burbage  the  following  actors,  according  to  extant 
lists  of  the  two  companies,  passed  in  1594  from  the  service  of  the  Earl 
of  Derby  (formerly  Lord  Strange)  to  that  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
(Lord  Hunsdon),  viz. :  William  Kemp,  Thomas  Pope,  John  Heminges, 
Augustine  Phillips,  George  Bryan,  Harry  Condell,  Will  Sly,  Richard 
Cowley,  John  Duke,  Christopher  Beeston.  Save  the  two  last,  aU  these 
actors  are  named  in  the  First  Folio  among  'the  principal  actors'  in 
Shakespeare's  plays ;  they  follow  immediately  Shakespeare  and  Richard 
Burbage  who  head  the  First  Folio  list.  WilUam  Kemp,  Thomas  Pope, 
and  George  Bryan  were  at  an  earlier  period  prominent  among  Lord 
Leicester's  servants.  The  continuity  of  the  company's  personnel  through 
all  the  changes  pf  patronage  is  well  attested.  (Fleay's  History  of  the 
Stage,  pp.  82-85,  13s,  189.)  ,         ...  o  /        N 

'  Acts  of  the  Privy  Council,  new  series,  vol.  xxvni.  1597-159°  (,i9°4)) 
p.  327 ;  see  p.  338  infra. 


54  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  company  underwent  no  further  change  of  name 
until  the  end  of  Queen  EHzabeth's  reign.  A  more  signal 
recognition  awaited  it  when  King  James  ascended  the 
throne  in  1603.  The  new  King  took  the  company  into 
The  King's  his  own  patronage,  and  it  became  known  as 
servants,  "phe  King's'  or  'His  Majesty's'  players. 
Thus  advanced  in  titular  dignity,  the  company  re-, 
mained  true  to  its  well-seasoned  traditions  during  the 
rest  of  Shakespeare's  career  and  through  the  generation 
beyond. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  at  an  early  period  Shake- 
speare  joined  this  eminent  company  of  actors  which  in 

Shake-  ^^^  *^™^  ^°^  ^^^  favour  of  King  James, 
speare's  From  1592,  soine  six  years  after  the  drama-, 
company,  ^jg^-'g  arrival  in  London,  until  the  close  of  his 
professional  career  more  than  twenty  years  later,  such 
an  association  is  well  attested.  But  the  precise  date 
and  circumstance  of  his  enrolment  and  his  initial  promo- 
tions are  matters  of  conjecture.  Most  of  his  colleagues 
of  latter  hfe  opened  their  histrionic  careers  in  Lord 
Leicester's  professional  service,  and  there  is  plausible 
ground  for  inferring  that  Shakespeare  from  the  first  trod 
in  their  footsteps.^  But  direct  information  is  lacking. 
Lord  Leicester,  who  owned  the  manor  of  Kenilworth, 
was  a  Warwickshire  magnate,  and  his  players  twice 
visited  Stratford  in  Shakespeare's  boyhood,  for  the  first 
time  in  1573  and  for  the  second  in  1577.  Shakespeare 
may  well  have  cherished  hopes  of  admission  to  Lord 
Leicester's  company  in  early  youth.  A  third  visit  was 
paid  by  Leicester's  company  or  its  leading  members  to 

i 
1  Richard  Burbage  and  John  Heminges,  leading  actors  of  the  com- 
pany while  it  was  known  successively  as  Lorrffierby's  and  the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  'men,'   were  close  friends  of  Shakespeare  from  early 
years,  but  the  common  assumption  that  they  were  natives  of  Stratfo* 
is  erroneous.     Richard  Burbage  was  probably  born  in  Shoreditch  (Lon- 
don) and  John  Heminges  at  Droitwich  in  Worcestershire.    ThonOT 
Green,  a  popular  comic  actor  at  the  Red  Bull  theatre  until  his  deaths 
1612,  is  conjectured  to  have  belonged  to  Stratford  on  no  grounds  that 
deserve  attention.     Shakespeare  is  not  known  to  have  been  associaf"' 
with  him  in  any  way. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   THE  ACTORS  55 

Shakespeare's  native  town  in  1587,  a  year  in  which  as 
many  as  four  other  companies  also  brought  Stratford 
within  the  range  of  their  provincial  activities.  But  by 
that  date  the  dramatist,  according  to  tradition,  was 
already  in  London.  Lord  Leicester's 'servants'  gave  a 
farewell  performance  at  Court  at  Christmas  1586,1  and 
early  in  1587  the  greater  number  of  them  left  London 
for  a  prolonged  country  tour.  James  Burbage  had  tem- 
porarily seceded  and  was  managing  'The  Theatre'  in 
other  interests  and  with  the  aid  of  a  few  only  of  his  former 
colleagues.  The  legend  which  connects  Shakespeare's 
earliest  theatrical  experience  exclusively  with  Burbage's 
playhouse  therefore  presumes  that  he  associated  himself 
near  the  outset  of  his  career  with  a  small  contingent  of 
Lord  Leicester's  '  servants '  and  did  not  share  the  adven- 
tures of  the  main  body. 

Shakespeare's  later  theatrical  fortunes  are  on  record. 
In  1589,  after  Lord  Leicester's  death,  his  company  was 
reorganised,  and  it  regained  under  the  aegis  His  ties 
of  Lord  Strange  its  London  prestige.    With  with  the 
Lord  Strange's  men  Shakespeare  was  closely  chamber- 
associated  as  dramatic  author.    He  helped  in  lain-smen. 
the    authorship    of    the    First    Part    of    'Henry    VI,' 
with  which  Lord  Strange's  men  scored  a  triumphant 
success  early  in  1592.    When  in  1594  that  company 
(then  renamed  the  Earl  of  Derby's  men)  was  merged 
in     the     far-famed     Lord     Chamberlain's     company, 
Shakespeare   is    proclaimed    by    contemporary    official 
documents  to  have  been  one  of  its  foremost  members. 
In  December  of  that  year  he  joined  its  two  leaders, 
Richard  Burbage  the  tragedian  and  William  Kemp  the 

'  Lord  Leicester's  men  are  included  among  the  players  whose  activities 
in  London  during  Shakespeare's  first  winter  there  (1586-7)  are  thus 
described  in  an  unsigned  letter  to  Sir  Francis  Walsingham  under  date 
Jan.  25,  1586-7:  'Every  day  in  the  weeke  the  playeres  billes  are  sett 
upp  in  sondry  places  of  the  cittie,  some  in  the  name  of  her  Majesties 
menne,  some  the  Earle  of  Leic :  some  the  E.  of  Oxfordes,  the  Lo.  Ad- 
myralles,  and  djrvers  others,  so  that  when  the  belles  tole  to  the  lectoures, 
the  trumpettes  sounde  to  the  stages.'  (Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  MS.  286; 
Halliwell-PhiUipps,  Illustrations,  1874,  p.  108.) 


S6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

comedian,  in  two  performances  at  Court.^  He  was 
prominent  in  the  counsels  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
servants  through  1598  and  was  recognised  as  one  of  their 
chieftains  in  1603.  Four  of  the  leading  members  of  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  company  —  Richard  Burbage,  John 
Heminges,  Henry  Condell  and  Augustine  PhilHps,  all  of 
whom  worked  together  under  Lord  Strange  (Earl 
of  Derby)  —  were  among  his  lifelong  friends.  Similarly 
under  this  company's  auspices,  almost  all  of  Shake- 
speare's thirty-seven  plays  were  presented  to  the 
pubhc.^  Only  two  of  the  dramas  claimed  for  him  — 
'  Titus  Andronicus '  and  '  The  True  Tragedie  of  Richard 
Duke  of  Yorke,'  a  first  draft  of  '3  Henry  VJ'  —  are 
positively  known  to  have  been  performed  by  other 
bands  of  players.  The  'True  Tragedie'  was,  accord- 
ing to  the  title-page  of  the  published  version  of  1595, 
'  sundrie  times  acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Earle 
of  Pembroke  his  servants,'  while  'Titus  Andronicus* 
is  stated  on  the  title-page  of  the  first  edition  of  1594  to 
have  been  'plaide'  not  only  by  the  company  of  'the 
Right  Honourable  the  Earle  of  Derbie,'  but  in  addition 
by  the  seryants  of  both  'the  Earle  of  Pembroke  and 
Earle  of  Sussex.'  ^  Shakespeare  was  responsible  for 
fragments  only  of  these  two  pieces,  and  the  main  authors 

^  See  p.  87. 

'  On  the  title-pages  of  thirteen  plays  which  were  published  (in  quarto) 
in  Shakespeare's  lifetime  it  was  stated  that  they  had  been  acted  by  this 
company  under  one  or  other  of  its  four  successive  designations  (the  Earl 
of  Derby's,  the  Lord  Chamberlain's,  Lord  Hunsdon's,  or  the  King's 
servants).  The  First  Folio  of  1623,  which  collected  all  Shakespeare's 
plays,  was  put  together  by  Shakespeare's  fellow  actors  Heminges  and 
Condell,  who  claimed  ownership  in  them  as  having  been  written  for  their 
company. 

'The  second  edition  of  Tikis  Andronicus  (1600)  adds  'the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  servants';  but  the  Earl  of  Derby -and  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain were  as  we  have  seen  successive  patrons  of  Shakespeare's  com- 
pany. Lord  Pembroke's  servants  in  1593-4  were  in  financial  straits, 
and  sold  some  of  their  plays  to  Shakespeare's  and  other  companies. 
Titus  was  produced  as  a  'new  play'  by  Lord  Sussex's  men  at  the  Rose 
Theatre  on  January  23,  1593-4  (cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  78, 
los) ;  itmay  have  been  sold  to  them  by  the  Pembroke  company  after, 
an  abortive  attempt  at  rfepresentation.  .,; 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   THE  ACTORS  57 

would  seem  to  have  been  attached  to  other  companies, 
which,  after  having  originally  produced  them,  trans- 
ferred them  to  Shakespeare's  colleagues.  It  is  alone 
with  the  company  which  began  its  career  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Lord  Leicester  and  ended  it  under  royal 
patronage  that  Shakespeare's  dramatic  activities  were 
conspicuously  or  durably  identified. 


VI 

ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE 

'The  Theatre,'  the  playhouse  at  Shoreditch,  where 
Shakespeare  is  credibly  reported  to  have  gained  his  first 
the  first  experience  of  the  stage,  was  a  timber  structure 
playhouse'  which  had  been  erected  in  1576.  Its  builder 
in  England.  ^^^  proprietor  James  Burbage,  an  original 
member  of  Lord  Leicester's  company,  was  at  one  time 
a  humble  carpenter  and  joiner,  and  he  carried  out  his 
great  design  on  borrowed  capital.  The  site,  which  had 
once  formed  part  of  the  precincts  of -the  Benedictine 
priory  (or  convent)  of  Holywell,  lay  outside  the  city's 
north-eastern  boundaries,  and  within  the  jurisdiction 
not  of  the  Lord  Mayor  and  City  .Council  which  viewed 
the  nascent  drama  with  puritanic  disfavour,  but  of  the 
justices  of  the  peace  for  Middlesex,  who  had  not  com- 
mitted themselves  to  an  attitude  of  hostility.  The 
building  stood  a  few  feet  to  the  east  of  the  thoroughfare 
now  known  as  Curtain  Road,  Shoreditch,  and  near  at 
hand  was  the  open  tract  of  land  variously  known  as 
Finsbury  Fields  and  Moorfields.^  'The  Theatre'  was 
.  the  first  house  erected  in  England  to  serve  a  theatri- 
cal purpose.  Previously  plays  had  been  publicly  per-; 
formed  in  innyards  or  (outside  London)  in  Guildhall^ 
More  select  representations  were  given  in  the  halls  of 

iThe  precise  site  of  'The  Theatre'  has  been  lately  determined  by 
Mr.  W.  W.  Brames,  a  principal  officer  of  the  London  County  Council. 
(See  London  County  Council  —  Indication  of  Houses  of  HistoriH 
Interest  in  London  —  Part  xliii.  Holywell  Priory  and  the  site  of  the 
Theatre,  Shoreditch,  1915.)  Mr.  Braines  corrects  errors  on  the  subject 
for  which  Halliwell-Phillipps  {O-utlines,  i.  351)  was  responsible. 

S8 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  59 

royal  palaces,  of  noblemen's  mansions  and  of  the  Inns 
of  Court.  Throughout  Shakespeare's  career  all  such 
places  continued  to  serve  theatrical  uses.  Drama  never 
ceased  altogether  in  his  time  to  haunt  innyards  and  the 
other  makeshift  scenes  of  its  infancy  to  which  the  public 
at  large  were  admitted  on  payment ;  there  was  a  growth, 
too,  in  the  practice  of  presenting  plays  before  invited 
guests  in  great  halls  of  private  ownership.  But  James 
Burbage's  primal  endeavour  to  give  the  drama  a  home 
of  its  own  quickly  bore  abundant  fruit.  Puritanism 
launched  vain  invectives  a;gainst  Burbage's  'ungodly 
edifice '  as  a  menace  to  pubhc  moraUty.  City  Councillors 
at  the  instigation  of  Puritan  preachers  made  futile  en- 
deavours to  close  its  doors.  Burbage's  innovation  prom- 
ised the  developing  drama  an  advantage  which  was 
appreciated  by  the  upper  classes  and  by  the  mass  of 
the  people  outside  the  Puritan  influence.  The  growth 
of  the  seed  which  he  sowed  was  httle  hindered  by  the 
clamour  of  an  unsympathetic  piety.  The  habit  of  play- 
going  spread  rapidly,  and  the  older  and  more  promis- 
cuous arrangements  for  popular  dramatic  recreation 
gradually  yielded  to  the  formidable  competition  which 
flowed  from  the  energy  of  Burbage  and  his  disciples. 

James  Burbage,  in  spite  of  a  long  series  of  pecuniary 
embarrassments,  remained  manager  and  owner  of  'The 
Theatre '  for  nearly  twenty-one  years.  Shortly  "The 
after  the  building  was  opened,  in  1576,  there  c™tMn." 
came  into  being  in  its  near  neighbourhood  a  second 
London  playhouse,  the  'Curtain,'^  also  within  a 
short  distance  of  Finsbury  Fields  or  Moorfields,  and 
near  the  present  Curtain  Road,  Shoreditch,  which  pre- 
serves its  name.  The  two  playhouses  proved  friendly 
rivals,  and  for  a  few  years  (1585-1592)  James  Burbage 
of  'The  Theatre'  shared  in  the  management  of  the 
younger  house  at  the  same  time  as  he  controlled  the 
older.    Towards  the  close  of  the  century  Shakespeare 

'  The  name  was  derived  from  an  adjacent  'curtain'  or  outer  wall  of 
m  obsolete  fortification  abutting  on  the  old  London  Wall. 


6o  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

spent  at  least  one  season  at  the  Curtain.^  But  between 
1586  and  1600  there  arose  in  the  environs  of  London  six 
new  theatres  in  addition  to  'The  Theatre'  and  the 
'Curtain,'  and  within  the  city  walls  the  courtyards 
of  the  larger  inns  served  with  a  new  vigour  theatrical 
purposes.  Actors  thus  enjoyed  a  fairly  wide  choice  of 
professional  homes  when  Shakespeare's  career  was  in 
fullflight.2  I 

When  Shakespeare  and  his  colleagues  first  came  under 
the  protection  of  Lord  Strange,  they  were  faithful  to 
Shake-        "^^^  Theatre'  save  for  an  occasional  perfomm  I 
speareat      ance   in    the   innyard    of    the    'Crosskeys'  in 
the 'Rose.'    Graccchurch  Street,^  but  there  soon  followed  | 
a  prolonged  season  at  a  playhouse  caUed  the  '  Rose,'  \ 

\ 
'  After  1600  the  vogue  of  the  'Curtain'  declined.    No  reference  to 
the  'Curtain'  playhouse  has  been  found  later  than  1627. 

2  The  chief  of  the  Elizabethan  playhouses, apart  from  'The  Theatre' 
and  the  'Curtain'  were  the  Newington  Butts  (erected  before  1586); 
the  Rose  on  the  Bankside  (erected  about  1587  and  reconstructed  'm 
1592);  the  Swan  also  on  the  Bankside  (erected  in  isgs);  the  Globgi 
also  on  the  Bankside  (erected  out  of  the  dismantled  fabric  of  'The 
Theatre'  in  1599) ;  the  Fortune  in  Golden  Lane  without  Cripplegate 
(modelled  on  the  Globe  in  1600) ;  and  the  Red  BuU  in  St.  John's  Street, 
Clerkenweh  (built  about  1600).  Besides  these  edifices  which  were  un-  ' 
roofed  there  were  two  smaller  theatres  of  a  more  luxurious  and  seclude!' 
type  —  'Paul's'  and  'Blackfriars'  —  which  were  known  as  'private' 
houses  (see  p.  67  infra).  At  the  same  time  there  were  several  inns, 
in  the  quadrangular  yards  or  courts  of  which  plays  continued  to  be 
acted  froni  time  to  time  in  Shakespeare's  early  years;  these  were  the 
Bel  Sauvage  in  Ludgate  Hill,  the  Bell  and  the  Crosskeys  both  in  Grace- 
church  Street,  the  BuU  in  Bishopsgate,  and  the  Boar's  Head  in  East- 
cheap.  During  the  latter  part  of  Shakespeare's  life  only  one  addition 
was  made  to  the  public  theatres,  viz.  the  Hope  in  1613  on  the  site  of  the 
demolished  Paris  Garden,  in  Southwark,  but  two  new  'private'  theatres 
were  construtted — the  Whitefriars,  adjoining  Dorset  Gardens,  Fleet 
Street  (built  before  1608),  and  the  Cockpit,  afterwards  rechristened'ithe 
Phcenix  (built  about  1610),  the  first  playhouse  in  Drury  Lane.  See 
Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  W.  W.  Greg,  1904 ;  W.  J.  Lawrence's  The  Elizor 
bethan  Playhouse  and  other  Studies,  2nd  ser.  p.  237 ;  James  Greenstreet's 
'Lawsuit  about  the  Whitefriars  Theatre  in  1609'  in  New  Shakspere 
Society's  Transactions,  1887-92,  pp.  269  seq.,  and  Dr.  Wallace's  Tkrm 
London  Theatres  of  Shakespeare's  Time,  in  Nebraska  University  Studie^ 
1909,  ix.  pp.  287  seq.,  his  Children  of  the  Chapel  at  Blackfriars  (1597- 
1603),  1908,  and  his  paper  'The  Swan  Theatre  and  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke's Servants'  in  Englische  Studien  (1910-1)  xliii.  350  sq. 
?  Hazlitt's  English  Drama,  1869,  pp.  34-5. 


ON  THE  LONDON   STAGE  6 1 

(fhich  Philip  Henslowe,  the  speculative  theatrical 
nanager,  had  lately  reconstructed  on  the  Bankside, 
southwark.  It  was  the  earhest  playhouse  in  a  district 
jfhich  was  soon  to  be  specially  identified  with  the  drama. 
Lord  Strange's  men  began  work  at  the  'Rose'  on  Feb- 
ruary 19,  1591-2.  At  the  date  of  their  occupation  of 
this  theatre,  Shakespeare's  company  temporarily  allied 
.tseii  with  the  Lord  Admiral's  men,  which  was  its  chief 
rival  among  the  companies  of  the  day.  The  Lord  Ad- 
mral's  players  numbered  the  great  actor  Edward  AUeyn 
imong  them.^  AUeyn  now  for  a  few  months  took  the 
lirection  at  the  '  Rose '  of  the  combined  companies,  but 
the  two  bodies  quickly  parted,  and  no  later  opportunity 
«ras  offered  Shakespeare  of  enjoying  professional  rela- 
tions with  Alleyn.  The  'Rose'  theatre  was  the  first 
scene  of  Shakespeare's  pronounced  successes  alike  as 
ictor  and  dramatist. 

Subsequently,  during  the  theatrical  season  of  1594, 
Shakespeare  and  his  company,  now  known  as  the  Lord 
Chamberlain's  men',  divided  their  energies  between  the 
itage  of  another  youthful  theatre  at  Newington  Butts 
md  the  older-fashioned  innyard  of  the  'Crosskeys.' 
The  next  three  years  were  chiefly  'spent  in  their  early 
shoreditch  home  'The  Theatre,'  which  had  been  occu- 
pied in  their  absence  by  other  companies.  But  during 
[598,  owing  to  'The  Theatre's'  structural  decay  and  to 
:he  manager  Burbage's  difficulties  with  his  creditors 
ind  with  the  ground  landlord,,  the  company  found  a 
jrief  asylum  in  the  neighbouring  'Curtain,'  in  which 
nore  than  one  fellow-actor  of  the  dramatist  acquired  a 
jroprietary  interest.^  There  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  was 
revived  with  applause.^    This  was  Shakespeare's  last 

'  Alle3m  and  the  Lord  Admiral's  men  had  previously  worked  for  a 
ime  with  James  Burbage  at  'The  Theatre,'  and  AUejm's  company 
oined  the  older  Lord  Chamberlain's  company  in  a  performance  at 
^ourt,  January  6,  1585-^.     (Halliwell's  Illustrations,  31.) 

'  See  Thomas  Pope's  and  John  Underwood's  wills  in  Collier's  Lives 
f  the  Actors,  pp.  127,  230, 

'  Marston's  Scourge  of  Villanie,  1598,  Satyre  10. 


62  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

experience  for  some  twelve  years  of  a  playhouse  on  the 
north  side  of  the  Thames.  The  theatrical  quarter- of 
London  was  rapidly  shifting  from  the  north  to  the  soutll 
of  the  river. 

At  the  close  of  1598  the  primal  English  playhouse 
'The  Theatre'  underwent  a  drastic  metamorphosiSi  in 
which  the  dramatist  played  a  foremost  part.  James 
Burbage,  the  owner  and  builder  of  the  veteran  house; 
died  on  February  2,  1596-7,  and  the  control  of  the  prop- 
erty passed  to  his  widow  and  his  two  sons  Cuthbert 
and  the  actor  Richard.  The  latter,  Shakespeare's 
Mfe-long  friend,  was  nearing  the  zenith  of  his  renown. 
The  twenty-one  years'  lease  of  the  land  in  Shoreditch 
ran  out  on  April  13  following  and  the  landlord  was  reluc- 
tant to  grant  the  Burbages  a  renewal  of  the  tenancy.' 
Prolonged  negotiation  failed  to  yield  a  settlement. 
Thereupon  Cuthbert  Burbage,  the  elder  son  and  heir, 
in  conjunction  with  his  younger  brother  Richard,  took 
the  heroic  resolve  of  demolishing  the  biiilding  and  trans- 
ferring it  bodily  to  ground  to  be  rented  across  the  Thames. 
Shakespeare  and  four  other  members  of  the  company, 
Augustine  PhilUps,  Thomas  Pope,  John  Heminges,  and 
WilUam  Kemp,  were  taken  by  the  Burbages  into  their 
counsel.  The  seven  men  proceeded  jointly  to  lease 
for  a  term  of  thirty-one  years  a  site  on  the  Bankside 
in  Southwark.  The  fabric  of  'The  Theatre'  was  accord- 
ingly torn  down  in  defiance  of  the  landlord  during  the  last 
days  of  December  1598  and  the  timber  materials  were 
re-erected,  with  liberal  reinforcements,  on  the  new  site 

1  James  Burbage,  throughout  his  tenure  of  'The  Theatre,'  was  in- 
volved in  very  complicated  litigation  arising  out  of  the  terms  of  the 
original  lease  of  the  ground  and  of  the  conditions  in  which  money  was 
invested  in  the  venture  by  various  relatives  and  others.  The  numerous 
legal  records  are  in  the  Public  Record  Office.  A  few  were  found  there 
and  were  printed  by  J.  P.  Collier  in  his  Memoirs  of  the  Principal  Actors 
tn  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare  (1846),  pp.  7  seq.,  and  these  reappeaif  with 
substantial  additions  m  Halliwell-Phillipps's  Quinines  of  the  Life  of  Shak- 
speare  (1.  357  seq.).  Dr.  WaUace's  researches  have  yielded  a  mass  ol 
supplementary  documents  which  were  previously  unknown,  and  he  has 
printed  the  whole  in  The  First  London  Theatre,  Materials  for  a  History, 
Nebraska  University  Studies,  1913. 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  63 

between  January  and  May  1599.^  The  transplanted 
building  was  christened  'The  Globe,'  and  it  quickly 
entered  on  an  era  of  prosperity  which  was 
without  precedent  in  theatrical  annals.  'The  ingofthe*^" 
Glory  of  the  Bank  [i.e.  the  Bankside],'  as  Ben  Globe, 
Jonson  called  'The  Globe,'  was,  like  'The  '^''' 
Theatre,'  mainly  constructed  of  wood.  A  portion 
only  was  roofed,  and  that  was  covered  with  thatch. 
The  exterior,  according  to  the  only  extant  contem- 
porary ■  view,  was  circular,  and  resembled  a  magni- 
fied martello  tower .^  In  the  opening  chorus  of  'Henry 
V  Shakespeare  would  seem  to  have  written  of  the 
theatre  as  'this  cockpit'  (Une  11),  and  'this  wooden  O' 
(line  13),  and  to  have  Ukened  its  walls  to  a  girdle  about 
the  stage  (line  19).*  Legal  instruments  credited  Shake- 
speare with  playing  a  principal  r6le  in  the  mai^y  complex 
transactions  of  which  the  '  Globe'  theatre  was  the  fruit.* 

^  Giles  Allen,  the  ground  landlord  of  'The  Theatre,'  brought  an 
action  against  Peter  Street,  the  carpenter  who  superintended  the  removal 
of  the  fabric  to  Southwark,  but  after  a  long  litigation  the  plaintiff  was 
nonsuited. 

^  See  Hondius's  'View  of  London  1610'  in  Halliwell-Phillipps's  Out- 
lines, i.  182.  The  original  theatre  was  burnt  down  on  June  29,  1613, 
and  was  rebuilt  'in  a  far  fairer  manner  than. before'  (see  pp.  445-7  infra). 
Visscher,  in  his  well-known  View  of  London  1616,  depicts  the  new  struc- 
ture as  of  octagonal  or  polygonal  shape.  The  new  building  was  de- 
molished on  Apnl  16,  1644,  and  the  site  occupied  by  small  tenements. 

*  The  prologue  to  The  Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton  acted  at  the  Globe 
before  r6o7  has  the  line : 

We  ring  this  rotmi-mXh  our  invoking  spells. 

*  See  p.  301  infra.  The  Globe  Theatre  abutted  on  Maid  Lane  (now 
known  as  Park  Street),  a  modest  thoroughfare  in  Southwark  running 
some  way  behind  Bankside  on  the  river  bank  and  parallel  with  it.  There 
is  difficulty  in  determining  whether  the  theatre  stood  on  the  north  or 
the  south  side  of  the  roadway,  the  north  side  backing  on  to  Bankside 
and  the  south  side  stretching  landwards.  At  a  short  distance  to  the 
south  of  Maid  Lane  there  long  ran  a  passage  (now  closed),  which  was 
christened  after  the  theatre  Globe  Alley.  A  commemorative  tablet 
was  placed  in  igog  on  the  south  side  of  die  street  on  the  outer  wall  of 
Messrs.  Barclay  and  Perkins's  brewery,  which  formerly  belonged  to 
Henry  Thrale,  Dr.  Johnson's  friend,  and  has  for  150  years  been  locally 
identified  with  the  site  of  the  theatre.  The  southern  site  is  indeed  power- 
fully supported  by  a  mass  of  legal  evidence,  by  plans  and  maps,  and  by 
local  tradition  qf  the  seventeenth  and  dghteenth  centuries.     (See  Dr. 


64  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

With  yet  another  memorable  London  theatre  —  the, 
Blackfriars  —  Shakespeare's  fortunes  were  intimately 
The  bound,  though  only  through  the  closing  years 

Blackfriars.  of  his  professional  Hfe.  The  precise  circum- 
stances and  duration  of  his  connexion  with  this 
playhouse  have  often  been  misrepresented.  In  origin 
the  Blackfriars  was  only  a  Httle  younger  than  The 
Theatre,'  but  it  differed  widely  in  structure  and  saw 
many  changes  of  fortune  in  the  course  of  years.  _  As 
early  as  1578  a  spacious  suite  of  rooms  in  a  dwelling- 
house  within  the  precincts  of  the  dissolved  monastery 
of  Blackfriars  was  converted  into  a  theatre  of  modest 
appointment.  For  six  years  the  Blackfriars  playhouse 
enjoyed  a  prosperous  career.  But  its  doors  were  closed 
in  1584,  and  for  some  dozen  years  the  building  resumed 
its  former  status  of  a  private  dwelUng.  In  1596  James 
Burbage,  the  founder  of  'The  Theatre,'  ambitious  to 
extend  his  theatrical  enterprise  in  spite  of  the  attendant 
anxieties,  purchased  for  600^.  the  premises  which  had 
given  Blackfriars  a  fleeting  theatrical  fame  together  with 
adjacent  property,  and  at  a  large  outlay  fashioned  his 
purchase  afresh  into  a  playhouse  on  an  exceptionally 
luxurious  plan.^    It  was  no  more  than  half  the  size  of  the 

William  Martin's  exhaustive  and  fully  illustrated  paper  on  'The  Site 
of  the  Globe  Playhouse'  in  Surrey  Archmological  Collections,  vol.  xxiii. 
(1910),  pp.  148-202.)  But  it  must  be  admitted  that  Dr.  Wallace  brought 
to  light  in  1909  a  legal  document  in  the  theatrical  lawsuit,  Ostelern. 
Heminges,  1616  (Pro  Coram  Rege,  1454,  13  Jac.  i,  Hil.  m.  692),  which, 
according  to  the  obvious  interpretation  of  the  words,  allots  the  theatre 
to  the  north  side  of  Maid  Lane  (see  Shakespeare  in  London,  The  Times, 
October  2  and  4,  1909).  Further  evidence  (dating  between  1593  and 
1606),  which  was  adduced  by  Dr.  Wallace  in  1914  from  the  Records  of 
the  Sewers  Commissioners,  shows  that  the  owners  of  the  playhouse  owned 
property  on  the  north  side  even  if  the  theatre  were  on  tiie  south  side 
(see  The  Times,  April  30,  1914),  while  Visscher's  panoramic  map  of 
London  16 16  alone  of  maps  of  the  time  would  appear  to  place  the  theatre 
on  the  north  side.  It  seems  barely  possible  to  reconcile  the  conflicting 
evidence.  The  controversy  has  lately  been  continued  in  Notes  and 
Queries  (nth  series,  xi.  and  xii.)  chiefly  by  Mr.  George  Hubbard,  who 
champions  anew  the  northern  site,  and  by  Dr.  Martin  who  strongly 
supports  afresh  the  southern  site. 

'■  Halliwell-Phillipps,  in  his  Outlines  (i.  299),  printed  the  deed  of  the 
transfer  of  the  Blackfriars  property  to  James  Burbage  on  Feb.  4,  1595-6 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  65 

Globe,  .but  was  its  superior  in  comfort  and  equipment. 
Unhappily  the  new  scheme  met  an  unexpected  check. 
The  neighbours  protested  against  the  restoration  of  the 
Blackfriars  stage,  and  its  re-opening  was  postponed. 
The  adventurous  owner  died  amid  the  controversy  (on 
February  2,  1596-7),  bequeathing  his  remodelled  theatre 
to  his  son  Richard  Burbage.  Richard  declined  for  the 
time  personal  charge  of  his  father's  scheme,  and  he 
arranged  for  the  occupation  of  the  Blackfriars  by  the 
efficient  company  of  young  actors  known  as  the  Chil- 
dren of  the  Chapel  Royal.^  On  September  21,  1600, 
he  formally  leased  the  house  for  twenty-one  years  to 
Henry  Evans  who  was  the  Children's  manager.  For 
the  next  five  seasons  the  Children's  performances  at 
Blackfriars  rivalled  in  popularity  those  at  the  Globe  it- 
self. Queen  Elizabeth  proved  an  active  patron  of  the 
boys  of  the  Blackfriars,  inviting  them  to  perform  at 
Court  twice  in  the  winters  of  1691  and  of  1602.^    When 

(cf.  Malone  Soc.  Collections,  vol.  ii.  pt.  i.  60-9).  Much  further  light  on 
the  history  of  the  Blackfriars  theatre  has  been  shed  by  the  documents 
discovered  by  Prof.  Albert  Feuillerat  and  cited  in  his  'The  Origin  of 
Shakespeare's  Blackfriars  Theatre:  Recent  Discovery  of  Documents,' 
in  the  Shakespeare  Jahrbuck,  vol.  xlviii.  (1912),  pp.  81-102,  and  in  his 
'Blackfriars  Records'  in  Malone  Society's  Collections,  vol.  ii.  pt.  i.  (1913). 
Dr.  Wallace  also  brought  together  much  documentary  material  in  his 
Children  of  the  Chapel  at  Blackfriars,  1597-1603  (1908),  and  in  his  '  Shake- 
speare in  London'  (The  Times,  Oct.  2  and  4,  1909).  The  Blackfriars 
theatre  was  on  the  site  of  The  Times  publishing  of&ce  off  Queen  Victoria 
Street.  Its  memory  survives  in  the  passage  called  Playhouse  Yard, 
which  adjoins  The  Times  premises. 

^  Evans  was  lessee  and  general  manager  of  the  theatre  and  instructed 
the  Children  in  acting.  Nathaniel  Giles,  a  competent  musical  composer, 
who  became  'Master  of  the  Children  of  the  Chapel'  under  a  patent  dated 
July  15,  IS97,  was  their  music  master.  (Fleay,  Hist,  of  Stage,  126  seq.) 
When,  at  Michaelmas  1600,  Evans  took,  in  'confederacy'  with  Giles, 
a  lease  of  the  Blackfriars  theatre  from  Burbage  for  twenty-one  years  at 
an  annual  rental  of  40^.  in  the  interest  of  the  Children's  performances 
the  building  was  described  in  the  instrument  as  'then  or  late'  in  Evans's 
'tenure  or  occupation.'  These  words  are  quite  capable  of  the  inter- 
pretation that  the  'Children'  were  working  at  the  Blackfriars  under 
GUes  and  Evans  some  years  before  Evans  took  his  long  lease  (but  cf. 
E.  K.  Chambers  in  Mod.  Lang.  Rev.  iv.  156). 

'Murray,  i.  335;  E.  K.  Chambers,  Mod.  Lang.  Rev.  ii.  12.  Sir 
Dudley  Carleton,  the  Court  gossip,  wrote  on  Dec.  29,  1601,  that  the 
Queen  dined  that  day  privately  at  my  Lord  Chamberlain's  («.e.  Lord 


66  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

James  I  ascended  the  throne  they  were  admitted  to  the 
service  of  Queen  Anne  of  Denmark  and  rechristened 
'Children  of  the  Queen's  Revels'  (Jan.  13,,  1603-4.) 
But  the  youthful  actors  were  of  insolent  demeanour  and 
often  produced  plays  which  offended  the  Court's  political 
susceptibiUties.i  In  1605  the  company  was  peremptorily 
dissolved  by  order  of  the  Privy  Council.  Evans's  lease 
of  the  theatre  was  unexpired  but  no  rent  was  forth- 
coming, and  Richard  Burbage  as  owner  recovered  posses- 
sion on  August  9,  leoS.'*  After  an  interval,  in  January 
1610,  the  great  actor  assumed  full  control  of  his  father's 
chequered  venture,  and  Shakespeare  thenceforth  figured 
prominently  in  its  affairs.  Thus  for  the  last  six  years 
of  Shakespeare's  hfe  his  company  maintained  two  Lon- 
don playhouses,  the  Blackfriars  as  well  as  the  Globe. 
The  summer  season  was  spent  on  the  Bankside  and  the 
winter  at  Blackfriars.* 

Hunsdon's).  He  adds  'I  came  even  now  from  the  Blackfriars  where  I 
saw  her  at  the  play  with  all  her  Candidas  auditrices.'  (Cal.  Stale  Papers' 
Dom.  1601-3,  p.  136;  Wallace,  Children  of  the  Chapel  at  Blackfriars, 
p.  95.)  The  last  words  have  been  assumed  to  mean  that  the  Queen 
visited  the  Blackfriars  theatre.  There  is  no  other  instance  of  her  appear- 
ance in  a  playhouse.  The  house  of  the  Queen's  host,  Lord  Hunsdon,  lay 
in  the  precincts  of  Blackfriars  and  the  reference  is  probably  to  a  dramatic 
entertainment  which  he  provided  for  his  royal  guest  under  his  own  roof. 
A  dramatic  entertainment  after  dinner  was  not  uncommon  at  Hunsdon 
House.  On  March  6,  1599-1600,  Lord  Chamberlain  Hunsdon  'feasted' 
the  Flemish  envoy  Verreiken  'and  there  in  the  afternoone  his  Plaiers 
acted  before  [his  guest]  Sir  John  Oldcastell  to  his  great  contentment' 
(Sydney  Papers,  ii.  175).  Queen  Henrietta  Maria  seems  to  be  the  first 
English  Sovereign  of  whose  visit  to  a  theatre  there  is  no  question.  Her 
presence  in  the  Blackfriars  theatre  on  May  13,  1634,  is  fully  attested 
{Variorum  Shakespeare,  iii.  167). 

^  See  p.  306  infra. 

''The  'Children'  were  rehabilitated  in  1608,  and  Burbage  allowed 
them  to  act  at  the  Blackfriars  theatre  at  intervals  till  January  4,  1609-10. 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Scornful  Lady  was  the  last  piece  which  they 
produced  there.  They  then  removed  to  the  Whitefriars  theatre.  Two 
years  later  they  were  dissolved  altogether,  the  chief  members  of  the 
troop  being  drafted  into  adult  companies. 

'  This  arrangement  continued  long  after  Shakespeare's  death —  until 
Sept.  2,  1642,  when  all  theatres  were  closed  by  order  of  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment. The  Blackfriars  was  pulled  down  on  August  5,  1655,  and,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Globe  Theatre  which  was  demolished  eleven  years  earlier, 
tenements  were  erected  on  its  site. 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  67 

The  divergences  in  the  structure  of  the  two  houses 
rendered  their  usage  appropriate  at  different  seasons  of 
the  year.     A  'public'  or  'common'  theatre  Hke  ^j^^ 
the  Globe  had  no  roof  over  the  arena.     The  'private' 
Blackfriars,  which  was  known  as  a  '  private '\p''-^''°"'^- 
theatre,  better  observed  conditions  of  privacy  or  seclu- 
sion in  the  auditorium,  and  made  fuller  provision  for  the 
comfort  of  the  spectators.  |  It  was  as  well  roofed  as  a 
private  residence  and  it  was  lighted  by  candles.^    At  the 
private  theatre  properties,  costumes,  and  music  were 
more  elaborately  contrived  than  at  the  public  theatre.' 
But  the  same  dramatic  fare  was  furnished  at  both  kinds 
of  playhouse.     Each  fiUed  an  identical  part  in  the  drama's 
literary  history. 

It  was  not  only  to  the  London  public  which  frequented 
the  theatres  that  the  professional  actor  of  Shakespeare's 
epoch  addressed  his  efforts.  Beyond  the  perfonn- 
theatres  lay  a  superior  domain  in  which  the  ancesat 
professional  actor  of  Shakespeare's  day  con-  °"^' 
stantly  practised  his  art  with  conspicuous  advantage 
both  to  his  reputation  and  to  his  purse.  Every  winter 
and  occasionally  %t  other  seasons  of  the  year  the  well- 
estaWished  companies  gave,  at  the  royal  palaces  which 
ringed  London, 'dramatic  performances  in  the  presence 
of  the  Sovereign  and  the  Court.  The  pieces  acted  at 
Ehzabeth's  Court  were  officially  classified  as  'morals, 
pastorals,  stories,  histories,  tragedies,  comedies,  inter- 
ludes, inventions,,  and  antic  plays.'  During  Shake- 
speare's youth,  masques  or  pageants  in  which  scenic 
device,  music,  dancing,  and  costume  overshadowed  the 
spoken  word,  fiUed  a  large  place  in  the  royal  programme. 

'  The  'private'  type  of  theatre,  to  which  the  Blackfriars  gave  assured 
vogue,  was  inaugurated  in  a  playhouse  which  was  formed  in  1581  out  of 
the  singing  school  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  near  the  Convocation  House 
for  the  acting  company  of  the  cathedral  choristers ;  this  building  was 
commonly  called  'Paul's.'  Its  theatrical  use  by  St.  Paul's  boys  was 
suspended  between  159°  and  1600  and  finally  ceased  in  1606  when  the 
manager  of  the  rival  company  of  the  'chapel'  boys  at  the  Blackfriars 
bribed  the  manager  of  the  St.  Paul's  company  to  close  his  doors.  Cf. 
E.  K.  Chambers,  Mod.  Lang.  Review,  1909,  p.  153  seq. 


68  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Such  performances  were  never  excluded  from  the  Court 
festivities,  and  in  the  reign  of  King  James  I  were  often 
undertaken  by  amateurs,  who  were  drawn  from  the 
courtiers,  both  men  and  women.  But  full-fledged  stage 
plays  which  were  only  capable  of  professional  presenta*i 
tion  signally  encroached  on  spectacular  entertainment. 
Throughout  Shakespeare's  career  the  chief  companies 
made  a  steadily  increasing  contribution  to  the  recrea- 
tions of  the  palace,  and  the  largest  share  of  the  coveted 
work  fell  in  his  later  years  to  the  dramatist  and  .his  col- 
leagues. The  boy  companies  were  always  encouraged 
by  the  Sovereign,  and  they  long  vied  with  their  seniors 
in  supplying  the  histrionic  demands  of  roy3.1ty.  But 
Shakespeare's  company  ultimately  outstripped  at  Court 
the  popularity  even  of  the  boys. 

The  theatrical  season  at  Court  invariably  opened  on 
the  day  after  Christmas,  St.  Stephen's  Day  (Dec.  26),  , 
and  performances  were  usually  continued  on  the  succeed- 
ing St.  John's  Day  (Dec.  27),  on  Innocents'  Day  (Decj 
28),  on  the  next  Sunday,  and  on  Twelfth  Night  (Jan.  6). 
The  dramatic  celebrations  were  sometimes  resumed  on 
Candlemas  day  (Feb.  2),  and  always  on  Shrove  Sunday 
or  Shrove  Tuesday.  Under  King  James,  Hallowmas 
(Nov.  i)  and  additional  days  in  November  and  at  Shrove- 
tide were  also  similarly  distinguished,  and  at  other  periods 
of  the  year,  when  royal  hospitaUties  were  extended  to 
distinguished  foreign  guests,  a  dramatic  entertaiimient 
by  professional  players  was  commonly  provided.  A  dif- 
ferent play  was  staged  at  each  performance,  so  that  in 
some  years  there  were  produced  at  Court  as  many  as 
twenty-three  separate  pieces.  The  dramas  which  the 
Sovereign  witnessed  were  seldom  written  for  the  occa- 
sion. They  had  already  won  the  public  ear  in  the 
theatre.  A  special  prologue  and  epilogue  were  usually 
prepared  for  the  performances  at  Court,  but  in  other 
respects  the  royal  productions  were  faithful  to  the  popu- 
lar fare.  The  Court  therefore  enjoyed  ample  oppor- 
tunity of  familiarising  itself  with  the  public  taste. 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  69 

^  Queen  Elizabeth  sojourned  by  turns  at  her  many 
palaces  about  London.  Christmas  was  variously  spent 
at  Hampton  Court,  Whitehall,  Windsor,  and  Greenwich. 
At  other  seasons  she  occupied  royal  residences,  which 
have  long  since  vanished,  at  Nonsuch,  near  Cheam,  and 
at  Richmond,  Surrey.  James  I  acquired  an  additional 
residence  in  Theobalds  Palace  at  Cheshunt  in  Hertford- 
shire. To  all  these  places,  from  time  to  time,  Shakespeare 
and  his  fellow-players  were  warmly  welcomed.  A  tem- 
porary stage  was  set  up  for  their  use  in  the  great  hall  of 
each  royal  dwelling,  and  numerous  artificers,  painters, 
carpenters,  wiredrawers,  armourers,  cutlers,  plumbers, 
tailors,  feather-makers  were  enlisted  by  the  royal  officers 
in  the  service  of  the  drama.  Scenery,  properties  and 
costume  were  of  rich  and  elaborate  design,  and  the  com- 
mon notion  that  austere  simplicity  was  an  universal  char- 
acteristic of  dramatic  production  through  Shakespeare's 
lifetime  needs  some  radical  modification,  if  due  considera- 
tion be  paid  to  the  scenic  methods  which  were  habitual 
at  Court.  Spectacular  embellishments  characterised  the 
performances  of  the  regular  drama  no  less  than  of  masques 
and  pageants.  Painted  canvas  scenery  was  a  common 
feature  of  aU  Court  theatricals.  The  scenery,  was  con- 
structed on  the  multiple  or  simultaneous  principle  which 
prevailed  at  the  time  in  France  and  Italy  and  rendered 
superfluous  change  in  the  course  of  the  performance. 
The  various  scenic  backgrounds  which  the  story  of  the 
play  prescribed  formed  compartments  (technically  known 
as  'houses'  or  'mansions')  which  were  linked  together 
so  as  to  present  to  the  audience  an  unbroken  semicircle. 
The  actors  moved  about  the  stage  from  compartment  to 
compartment  or  from  'house'  to  'house'  as  the  develop- 
ment of  the  play  required.  This  'multiple  setting'  was 
invariably  employed  during  Elizabeth's  reign  in  the  pro- 
duction at  Court  not  merely  of  pageants  or  spectacles, 
but  of  the  regular  drama.^    In  the  reign  of  King  James 

*  That  scenic  elaboration  on  the  'house'  system,  to  which  painted 
canvas  scenery  was  essential,  accompanied  dramatic  entertainments 


70  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  scenic  machinery  at  Court  rapidly  developed  at  the 
hands  of  Inigo  Jones,  the  great  architect,  and  separate 
set  scenes  with  devices  for  their  rapid  change  came  to 
replace  the  old  methods  of  simultaneous  multiplicity. 
The  costume  too,  at  any  rate  in  the  production  of 
masques,  ultimately  satisfied  every  call  of  archaeological  or 
historical,  as  well  as  of  artistic  propriety.  The  perform- 
ances at  Court  always  took  place  by  night,  and  great 
attention  was  bestowed  on  the  lighting  of  the  royal  hall 
by  means  of  candles  and  torches.  The  emoluments 
which  were  appointed  for  the  players'  labours  at  Court 
were  substantial.^  For  nearly  twenty  years  Shakespeare 
and  his  intimate  associates  took  a  constant  part  in  dra- 
matic representations  which  were  rendered  in  these 
favoured  conditions.- 

of  all  kinds  at  Queen  Elizabeth's  Court  is  clearly  proved  by  the  extant 
records  of  the  Master  of  the  Revels  Office  (Feuillerat's  Le  Bureau  da 
Menus-Plaisirs,  p.  66  n.).  Sir  Thomas  Benger,  Master  of  the  Revels  at 
the  opening  of  the  Queen's  reign,  gave,  according  to  the  documentary 
evidence,  orders  which  his  successors  repeated  'for  the  apparelling, 
disgyzinge,  ffurnishing,  fitting,  garnishing  &  ,orderly  setting  foorthe 
of  men,  woomen  and  children:  in  sundry  Tragedies,  playes,  maskes 
and  sportes,  with  theier  apte  howses  of  paynted  canvas  &  properties 
incident  suche  as  mighte  most  lyvely  expresse  the  effect  of  the  histories 
plaied,  &c.'  (Feuillerat's  Documents  &c.,  129).  Elsewhere  the  evidence 
attests  that  'six  playes  .  .  .  were  lykewise  throwghly  apparelled,  & 
furniture,  ffitted  and  garnished  necessarely,  &  answerable  to  the  matter, 
person  and  parte  to  be  played :  having  also  apt  howses :  made  of  can- 
vasse,  fframed,  fiEashioned  &  paynted  accordingly,  as  mighte  best  serve 
theier  severall  purposes.  Together  with  sundry  properties  incident, 
flfashioned,  paynted,  garnished,  and  bestowed  as  the  partyes  them 
selves  required  and  needed'  {ibid.  145).  In  1573  4.0s.  was  paid  'for 
canvas  for  the  howses  made  for  the  players'  (ibid.  221)  and  in  1574-5 
8/.  I5.r.  for  canvas  'imployed  upon  the  houses  and  properties  made  for 
the  players'  {ibid.  243). 

'  See  pp.  2§9,  313  infra. 

s  The  activities  of  the  players  at  the  Courts  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I 
are  very  amply  attested.  For  the  official  organisation  of  the  court 
performances  and  expenditure  on  the  scenic  arrangement  during  Queen 
Elizabeth's  reign,  see  E.  K.  Chambers,  Notes  on  the  History  of  the  Revek 
Office  under  the  Tudors,  1906,  and  Feuillerat's  Documents  relating  to  the 
Office  of  the  Revels  in  the  Time  of  Elizabeth  in  Bang's  Materialien,  Bd.  xxi, 
(Louvain,  1908)  and  in  Le  Bureau  des  Menus-Plaisirs  et  la  mise  en  scene 
d  la  cour  d' Elizabeth  (Louvain,  1910) .  Court  performances  were  formally 
registered  in  three  independent  repertories  of  original  official  documents, 
viz. :   I.  The  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber's  Original  Accounts  (of  which 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  7I 

The  royal  example  of  requisitioning  select  perform- 
ances of  plays  by  professional  actors  at  holiday  seasons 
was  followed  intermittently  by  noblemen  and  by  the 
benchers  of  the  Inns  of  Court."-  Of  the  welcome  which 
was  accorded  to  travelling  companies  at  private  mansions 
Shakespeare  offers  a  graphic  picture  in  the  'Taming  of 
the  Shrew '  and  in '  Hamlet.'  In  both  pieces  he  laid  under 
contribution  his  personal  experience.  Evidence,  more- 
over, is  at  hand  to  show  that  his  '  Comedy  of  Errors ' 
was  acted  before  benchers,  students,  and  their  guests 
(on  Innocents'  Day,  Dec.  28,  1594)  in  the  hall  of  Gray's 
Inn,  and  his  'Twelfth  Night'  in  that  of  the  Middle 
Temple  on  Candlemas  Day,  February  2,  1 601-2.  In 
such  environment  the  manner  of  presentation  was  iden- 
tical with  that  which  was  adopted  at  the' Court. 

abstracts  were  entered  in  the  Declared  Accounts  of  the  Audit  Ofi&ce, 
such  abstracts  being  duplicated  in  the  Rolls  of  the  Pipe  Office) ;  2.  The 
Acts  of  The  Privy  Council;  and  3.  The  'original  accounts'  or  office  books 
of  the  Masters  of  the  Revels.  The  entries  in  the  three  series  of  records 
follow  different  formulse,  and  the  information  which  is  given  in  one 
series  supplements  that  given  in  the  others.  Only  the  Declared  Accounts 
which  abstract  the  Original  Accounts  and  are  dupUcated  in  the  Pipe 
RoUs,  are  now  extant  in  a  complete  state.  The  bull  of  all  these  records 
are  preserved  at  the  Public  Record  Office,  but  some  fragments  have 
drifted  into  the  British  Museum  (Harl.  MSS.  1641,  1642,  and  1644)  and 
into  the  Bodleian  Library  {Rawl.  MSS.  A  239  and  240).  A  selection  of 
the  accessible  data  down  to  1585  was  first  printed  in  George  Chalmers's 
An  Apology  for  Believers,  1797,  p.  394  seq.,  and  this  was  reprinted  with 
important  additions  in  Malone's  Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  iii.  360- 
409,  423-9,  445-50.  Peter  Cunningham,  in  his  Extracts  from  the  Revels 
at  Court  in  the  Reigns  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  King  James  the  First  (Shake- 
speare Society,  1842),  confined  his  researches  to  the  extant  portions  of 
the  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber's  Original  Accounts,  and  to  the  Master 
of  the  Revel's  Office  Books,  between  1560  and  1619.  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace, 
in  The  Evolution  of  the  English  Drama  up  to  Shakespeare,  Berlin,  191 2, 
pp.  199-225,  prints  most  of  the  relevant  documents  in  the  Record  Office 
respecting  Court  performances  between  1558  and  1585.  Mr.  E.  K. 
Chambers,  in  his  'Court  Performances  before  Queen  Elizabeth'  {Mod. 
Lang.  Renew,  1907,  pp.  1-13)  and  in  his  'Court  Performances  under 
James  I'  {ib.  1909,  pp.  153-66)  valuably  supplements  the  information 
which  is  printed  elsewhere,  from  the  Declared  Accounts  and  the  Pipe 
Rolls  between  1558  and  1616. 

'  Dramatic  performances  which  were  more  or  less  elaborately  staged, 
were  usually  provided  for  the  entertainment  of  Queen  Elizabeth^  and 
James  I  on  their  visits  to  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 
But  the  pieces  were  commonly  written  specially  by  graduates  for  the 
occasion,  and  were  acted  by  amateur  students. 


72  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE  i 

Methods  of  representation  in  the  theatres  of  Shake- 
speare's day,  whether  of  the  pubhc  or  private  type,  had 
Methods  of  little  in  common  with  the  complex  splendours 
presenta-  in  vogue  at  Court.  Yet  the  crudity  of  the 
pubii?  equipment  which  is  usually  imputed  to  the 
theatres.  Elizabethan  theatre  has  been  much  exagger- 
ated. It  was  only  in  its  first  infancy  that  the 
EHzabethan  stage  showed  that  poverty  of  scenic  ma- 
chinery which  has  been  erroneously  assigned  to  it  through 
the  whole  of  the  Shakespearean  era.  The  rude  traditions 
of  the  innyard,  the  earhest  pubHc  home  of  the  drama, 
were  not  ehminated  quickly,  and  there  was  never  any 
attempt  to  emulate  the  luxurious  Court  fashions,  but 
there  were  many  indications  during  Shakespeare's  life- 
time of  a  steady  development  of  scenic  or  spectacular 
appUances  in  professional  quarters.  The  'private'  play- 
house of  which  the  Blackfriars  was  the  most  successful 
example  mainly  differed  from  the  pubHc  theatre  in  the 
enhanced  comfort  which  it  assured  the  playgoer,  and  in 
the  more  select  audience  which  the  slightly  higher  prices 
of  admission  encouraged.  The  substantial  roof  covering 
all  parts  of  the  house  gave  the  'private'  theatre  an  ad- 
vantage over  the  'pubHc'  theatre,  the  area  of  which  was 
open  to  the  sky,  and  the  innovation  of  artificial  lighting 
proved  a  complementary ,  attraction.  The  scenic  appa- 
ratus and  accessories  of  the  'private'  theatre  may  have 
been  more  abundant  and  more  refined  than  in  the  'pub- 
Uc'  theatre.  But  there  was  no  variation  in  principle 
and  it  was  for  the  pubhc  theatres  that  most  of  Shake- 
speare's work  as  both  actor  and  dramatist  was  done. 
In  the  result  the  scenic  standards  with  which  he  was 
familiar  outside  the  precincts  of  the  Court  fell  far  short 
of  the  elaboration  which  flourished  there,  but  they  ulti- 
mately satisfied  the  more  modest  calls  of  scenic  illusion. 
Scenic  spectacle  invaded  the  regular  playhouse  at  a  much 
later  date.  In  the  Shakespearean  theatre  the  equip* 
ment  and  machinery  were  always  simple  enough  to  thro-v\| 
on  the  actor  a  heavier  responsibility  than  any  whic^ 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  73 

his  successors  knew.  The  dramatic  'effect  owed  almost 
everything  to  his  intonation  and  gesture.  The  available 
evidence  credits  Elizabethan  representations  with  making 
a  profound  impression  on  the  audience.  The  fact  bears 
signal  tribute  to  the  histrionic  efficiency  of  the  profession 
when  it  counted  Shakespeare  among  its  members. 

The  Elizabethan  public  theatres  were  usually  of  oc- 
tagonal or  circular  shape.  In  their  leading,  features  they 
followed  an  uniform  structural  plan,  but  iJiere  xhestruc- 
were  many  variations  in  detail,  which  perplex  turaipian. 
counsel.  The  area  or  pit  was  at  the  dispositidn 
of  the  'groundlings'  who  crowded  round  three  sides  of 
the  projecting  stage.  Their  part  of  the  building  which 
was  open  to  the  sky  was  without  seats.  The  charge  for 
admission  there  was  one  penny.  Beneath  a  narrow  cir- 
cular roof  of  thatch  three  galleries,  a  development  of  the 
balconies  of  the  quadrangular  innyards,  encircled  the 
auditorium ;  the  two  lower  ones  were  partly  divided  into 
boxes  or  rooms  while  the  uppermost  gallery  was  unpar- 
titioned.  The  cost  of  entry  to  the  galleries  ranged  from 
twopence  in  the  highest  tier  to  half  a  crown  in  the  lowest. 
Seats  or  cushions  were  to  be  hired  at  a  small  additional 
fee.  Foreign  visitors  to  the  Globe  were  emphatic  in 
acknowledgment  that  from  all  parts  of  the  house  there 
was  a  full  view  of  the  stage.^  A  small  section  of  the 
audience  was  also  accommodated  in  some  theatres  in  less 
convenient  quarters.  In  many  houses  visitors  were 
allowed  to  occupy  seats  on  the  stage.^  Sometimes  ex- 
pensive 'rooms'  or  'boxes'  were  provided  in  an  elevated 

'  A  foreign  visitor's  manuscript  ^ary,  now  in  the  Vatican,  describes 
a  visit  to  the  Globe  on  Monday,  July  3,  1600.  His  words  ran '  Audivimus 
Comoediam  Anglicam;  theatrum  ad  morem  antiquorum  Romanorum 
constructum  ex  lignis,  ita  formatum  ut  omnibus  ex  partibus  spectatores 
commodissime  singula  videre  possint.'     {The  Times,  April  4,  1914.) 

^  Cf.  Thomas  Dekker,  Guls  Hornbook,  1609,  chap.  vi.  ('How  a  Gallant  . 
should  behave  himself  in  a  Playhouse') :  'Whether  therefore  the  gather- 
ers [i.e.  the  money-takers]  of  the  publique  or  private  playhouses  stand 
to  receive  the  afternoones  rent,  let  our  Gallant  (having  paid  it)  presently 
advance  himselfe  up  to  the  Throne  of  the  stage  on  the  very  Rushes  where 
tlie  Comedy  is  to  dance.  ...  By  sitting  on  the  stage  you  may  have  a 
good  stool  for  sixpence.' 


74  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

gallery  overlooking  the  back  of  the  stage.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  the  Globe  Theatre  held  some  1200  spec- 
tators, and  the  Blackfriars  half  that  number.i 

The  stage  was  a  rough  development  of  the  old  impro- 
vised raised  platform  of  the  innyard.  It  ran  far  into  the 
auditorium  so  that  the  actors  often  spoke  in 
The  stage.  ^^^  centre  of  the  house,  with  the  audience  of 
the  arena  well-nigh  encircling  them.  There  was  no  front 
curtain  or  proscenium  arch.  The  wall  which  closed  the 
stage  at  'the  rear  had  two  short  and  sKghtly  projecting 
wings,  each  of  which  was  pierced  by  a  door  opening  side- 
ways on  the  boards  while  a  third  door  in  the  back  wall 
directly  faced  the  auditorium.  Through  one  or  other  of 
the  three  doors  the  actors  made  their  entrances  and  exits 
and  thence  they  marched  to  the'  front  of  the  platform. 
Impinging  on  the  backward  limit  of  the  stage  was  the 
'tiring  house'  ('mimorum  aedes')  which  was  commonly 
of  two  stories.    There  the  actors  had  their  dressing-rooms. 

1  Cf.  C.  W.  Wallace,  The  Children  of  the  Chapel  at  Blackfriars,  1597- 
1603,  1908,' pp.  49  seq.  The  chief  pieces  of  documentary  evidence  as 
to  the  internal  structure  of  the  Elizabethan  theatres  are  the  detailed 
huilding  contracts  for  the  erection  of  the  Fortune  Theatre  in  1600  after 
the  plan  of  the  Globe  and  of  the  Hope  Theatre  in  1613  after  the  plan 
of  the  Swan.  Both  are  at  Dulwich  and  were  first  printed  by  Malone 
{Variorum,  iii.  338  seq.)  and  more  recently  in  Henslowe  Papers,  ed.  Greg, 
pp.  4  seq.  and  ig  seq.  A  Dutchman  John  De  Witt  visiting  London  in 
1596  made  a  drawing  of  the  interior  of  the  Swan  Theatre,  a  copy  of 
which  is  extant  in  the  hbrary  at  Utrecht.  A  short  description  in  Latin 
is  appended.  De  Witt's  sketch  is  of  great  interest,  not  merely  from  its 
size  and  completeness,  but  as  being  the  only  strictly  contemporary  pic- 
ture of  the  interior  of  a  sixteenth  century  playhouse  which  has  yet  come 
to  light.  At  the  same  time  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  De  Witt's  sketch 
with  the  other  extant  information.  He  may  have  depended  for  his  de- 
tail on  memory.  His  statement  that  the  Swan  Theatre  held  3000  per- 
sons 'in  sedilibus'  {i.e.  in  the  seated  galleries  apart  from  the  arena) 
would  seem  to  be  an  exaggeration  (see  Zur  Kenntniss  der  Altenglischen 
BUhne  von  Karl  Theodor  Gaedertz.  Mit  der  ersten  authentischen  innern 
Ansicht  des  Schwan-T heaters  in  London,  Bremen,  1888).  Three  later 
.  pictorial  representations  of  a  seventeenth-century  stage  are  known;  all 
are  of  small  size  and  they  differ  in  detail  from  De  Witt  and  from  one 
anotheiy  they  appear  respectively  on  the  title-pages  of  WiUiam  Ala- 
baster's Roxana  (1632),  of  Nathaniel  Richards's  Tragedy  of  MessalUna 
(1640),  and  of  The  Wits,  or  Sport  upon  Sport  (1672).  The  last  is  de- 
scribed as  the  stage  of  the  Red  Bull  Theatre.  The  theatres  shown  on 
the  two  other  seventeenth-century  engravings  are  not  named.  "1 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  75 

From  the  first  story  above  the  central  stage  door  there 
usually  projected  a  narrow  balcony  forming  an  elevated 
or  upper  stage  overhanging  the  Back  of  the  great  plat- 
form and  leaving  the  two  side  doors  free.  From  this 
balcony  the  actdrs  spoke  ('  aloft '  or  '  above ')  when  occa- 
sion required  it  to  those  below.  From  such  an  elevation 
Juhet  addressed  Rgja^o  in  the  balcony  scene,  and  the 
citizens  of  Angers  (in  'King  John')  or  of  Harfleur  (in 
'Henry  V)  held  colloquy  from  their  ramparts  with  the 
English  besiegers.  At  times  room  was  also  found  in  the 
balcony  for  musicians  or  indeed  for  a  limited  number  of 
spectators.  From  the  fore-edge  of  the  balcony  there 
hung  sliding  '  arras'  curtains,  technically  known  as '  trav- 
erses.' The  background  which  these  curtains  formed 
when  they  were  drawn  together,  gave  the  stage  one  of 
its  most  distinctive  features.  The  recess  beyond  the 
'traverses'  served,  when  they  were  drawn  back,  as  an 
interior  which  stage  directions  often  designated  as 
'within.'  It  was  in  this  fashion  that  a  cave,  an  arbour, 
or  a  bedchamber  was  commonly  presented.  In  '  Romeo 
and  Juliet'  (v.  iii.)  the  space  exposed  to  view  behind  the 
curtains  was  the  tomb  of  the  Capulets;  in  'Timon  of 
Athens'  and  in  'Cjnnbeline'  it  formed  a  cave;  in  'The 
Tempest'  it  was  Prospero's  cell.^ 

'  Much  special  study  has  been  bestowed  of  late  years  by  students 
in  England,  America,  France,  and  Germany  on  the  shape  and  appoint- 
ments of  the  Elizabethan  stage  as  well  as  on  the  methods  of  Elizabethan 
representation.  The  variations  in  practice  at  difiEerent  theatres  have 
occasioned  controversy.  The  minute  detail  which  recent  writers  have 
recovered  from  contemporary  documents  or  from  printed  literature 
far  exceeds  that  which  their  predecessors  accumulated.  Yet  the  earlier 
researches  of  Malone,  J.  P.  Collier  and  F.  G.  Fleay  illuminated  most 
of  the  broad  issues  and  remain  of  value,  in  spite  of  errors  which  later 
writers  have  corrected.  Perhaps  the  most  important  of  the  numerous 
recent  expositions  of  the  structure  and  methods  of  the  Elizabethan 
theatre  are  G.  F.  Re3molds's  Some  Principles  of  Elizabethan  Staging, 
Chicago,  1905;  William  Creizenach's  Die  Schauspiele  der  Englischen 
KomSdianten,  Berlin  and  Stuttgart  (n.d.);  Richard  Wegener's  Die 
Biihneneinrichtung  des  Shakespeareschen  Theaters  nach  der  zeitgenossischen 
Dramen,  Halle,  1907 ;  Dr.  Wallace,  Children  of  the  Chapel  at  Blackfriars, 
Nebraska,  1908;  Mr.  William  Archer's  article  'The  Elizabethan  Stage' 
in  the  Quarterly  Review,  1908;   Victor  E.  Albright's  The  Shakesperian 


76  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

A  slanting  canopy  of  thatch  was  fixed  high  above  the 
stage;  technically  known  as  'the  shadow'  or  'the 
heavens,'  it  protected  the  actors  from  the  elements,  to 
which  the  spectators  in  the  arena  were  exposed.^  The 
tapestry  hangings  were  suspended  from  this  covering,  at 
some  height  from  the  stage,  but  well  within  view  of  the 
audience.  When  tragedies  were  performed,  the  hangings 
were  of  black.  '  Hung  be  the  heavens  with  hlack '  —  the 
opening  words  of  the  First  Part  of  'Henry  VI'  —  had 
in  theatrical  terminology  a  technical  significance.^  The 
platform  stage  was  fitted  with  trap-doors  from  which 
ghosts  and  spirits  ascended  or  descended.  Thunder 
was  simulated  and  guns  were  fired  from  apartments  in 
the  '  tiring  house '  behind  or  above  the  stage.  It  was  at 
a  performance  of  'Henry  VIII'  'that  certain  cannons 
being  shot  off  at  the  King's  entry,  some  of  the  paper  or 
other  stuff  wherewith  one  of  them  was  stopped  did  light 
on  the  thatch'  of  the  stage  roof,  'and  so  caused  a  fire, 
which  demolished  the  theatre.'  ^ 

The  set  scenery  or  'painted  canvas'  which  was  familiar 
at  Court  was  unknown  to  the  Ehzabethan  theatre ;  but 
there  were  abundant  endeavours  to  supplement  the  scenic 
illusion  of  the  'traverses'  by  a  lavish  use  of  properties. 
Rocks,  tombs,  and  trees  (made  of  canvas  and  paste- 
board), thrones,  tables,  chairs,  and  beds  were  among  a 
hundred  articles  which  were  in  constant  request.  The 
name  of  the  place  in  which  the  author  located  his  scene 
was  often  inscribed  on  a  board  exhibited  on  the  stage,  or 
was  placarded  above  one  or  other  of  the  side-doorways 
of  entry  and  exit.  Sir  Phihp  Sidney,  in  the  pre-Shake- 
spearean  days  of  the  Elizabethan  theatre,  made  merry 
over  the  embarrassments  which  the  spectators  suffered 
by  such  notifications  of  dramatic  topography.  He  con- 
doled, too,  with  the  playgoer  whose  imagination  was  left 
to  create  on  the  bare  platform  a  garden,  a  rocky  coast, 

Stage,  New  York,  1909;    and  Mr.  W.  J.  Lawrence's  The  Elimbetluin 

Playhouse  and  other  Studies,  two  series,  1912-13. 

^Cl.  'Black  stage  for  tragedies  and  murders  fell.'    Lucrece,  1.  766.  ■ 
*  See  p.  44S  infra.  .1 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  77 

and  a  battle-field  in  quick  succession.^  But  the  use  alike 
of  properties  and  of  the  irmer  curtains  greatly  facilitated 
scenic  illusion  on  the  public  stage  after  Sidney's  time, 
and  although  his  criticism  never  lost  all  its  point,  it  is 
not  literally  applicable  to  the  theatrical  production  of 
Shakespeare's  prime.^ 

Costume  on  the  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  stages  was 
somewhat  in  advance  of  the  scenic  standards.  There" 
was  always  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  artistic  in- 
genuity in  the  case  of  fanciful  characters  like  'Rumour 
painted  fuU  of  tongues'  in  the  Second  Part  of  'Henry  IV,' 
or  'certg,in  reapers  properly  habited'  in  the  masque  of 
'The  Tempest.'  But  the  actors  in  normal  roles  wore  the 
ordinary  costumes  of  the  day  without  precise  reference 
to  the  period  or  place  of  action.  Ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans  were  attired  in  doublet  arid  hose,  or,  if  they 
were  soldiers,  in  Tudor  armour.  The  contents  of  the 
theatrical  wardrobe  were  often  of  rich  material  and  in 
the  height  of  current  fashion.  Many  foreign 
visitors  to  London  recorded  in  their  diaries 
their  admiration  of  the  splendour  of  the  leading  actors' 
costume.^    False  hair  and  beards,  crowns  and  sceptres, 

*  Sidney's  Apology  for  Poetrie,  ed.  by  E.  S.  Shuckburgh,  p.  52. 

'  Only  after  the  Restoration  in  1660  did  the  public  theatres  adopt 
the  curtain  in  front  of  the  stage  and  the  changeable  scenic  cloth  at  the 
back.  Both  devices  were  employed  in  dramatic  performances  at  Jjtmes 
I's  court.  The  crudity  of  the  scenic  apparatus  on  the  popular  stage  in 
James  I  and  Charles  I's  reign  has  been  unduly  emphasised.  Richard 
Flecknoe  in  his  Short  Discourse  of  the  English  'Stage  published  in  1664 
generalised  rather  too  sweepingly  when  he  wrote  'The  theatres  of  for- 
mer times  had  no  other  scenes  or  decorations  of  the  stage,  but  only 
old  tapestry  and  the  stage  strewd  with  rushes.'  (Hazlitt,  English 
Drama,  Documents  and  Treatises,  p.  280.)  On  the  other  hand  tapestry 
hangings,  if  the  illustrations  in  Rowe's  edition  of  Shakespeare  (1709)  are 
to  be  trusted,  still  occasionally  formed  in  the  early  eighteenth  century 
the  stage  background  of  Shakespearean  productions,  in  spite  of  the 
almost  universal  adoption  of  painted  scenic  cloths. 

'  German  writers  seem  to  have  measured  fine  costume  by  the  stand- 
ards of  magnificence  which  they  reckoned  characteristic  of  English 
actors.  Well-dressed  Germans  were  said  to  'strut  along  like  the  Eng- 
lish comedians  in  the_  theatres*  Q.  O.  Variscus,  Ethnographia  Mundi, 
pars  iv,  Geldtklage,  Slagdeburg,  1614,  p.  472,  cited  in  Cohn's  Shake- 
speare in  Germany,  p.  cxxxvi.) 


78  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

mitres  and  croziers,  armour,  helmets,  shields,  vizors,  and 
weapons  of  war,  hoods,  bands,  and  cassocks,  were  freely 
employed  to  indicate  differences  of  age,  rank,  or  profes- 
sion. Towards  the  close  of  Shakespeare's  career,  plays 
on  English  history  were  elaborately  'costumed.'  In  the, 
summer  of  1613  'Henry  VIII'  'was  set  forth  with  many 
extraordinary  circumstances  of  Pomp  and  Majesty,  even 
'  to  the  matting  of  the  stage ;  the  Knights  of  the  Order, 
with  their  Georges  and  Garters,  the  Guards  with  their 
embroidered  coats,  and  the  like.'  ^ 

A  very  notable  distinction  between  Elizabethan  and 
modern  modes  of  theatrical  representations  was  the  corn- 
Absence  of  plfite  absence  of  women  actors  from  the  Eliza- 
women  bethan  stage.  All  female  roles  were,  until  the 
actors.  Restoration,  assumed  in  pubhc  theatres  by  men 
or  boys.  Shakespeare  alludes  to  the  appearance  of  men 
or  boys  in  women's  parts  when  he  makes  Rosalind  say 
laughingly  to  the  men  of  the  audience  in  the  epilogue  to 
'As  You  Like  It'  'If  I  were  a  woman  I  would  kiss  as 
many  of  you  as  had  beards  that  please  me.'  Similarly, 
in  'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  (v.  ii.  216-220),  Cleopatra 
on  her  downfall  laments 

the  quick  comedians 
Extemporally  will  stage  us  .  .  .  and  I  shall  see 
Some  squeaking  Cleopatra  boy  my  greatness. 

Men  taking  women's  parts  seem  to  have  worn  masks. 
In  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  Flute  is  bidden  (i.  ii.  52) 
by  Quince  play  Thisbe  'in  a  mask'  because  he  has  a 
beard  coming.  It  is  clear  that  during  Shakespeare's  pro- 
fessional career  boys  or  young  men  rendered  female  roles 
effectively  and  without  serious  injury  to  the  dramatist's 
conceptions.  ^  Although  age  was  always  telling  on  mas- 
culine proficiency  in  women's  parts  and  it  was  never 
easy  to  conceal  the  inherent  incongruity  of  the  habit,  the 
prejudice  against  the  presence  of  women  on  the  public 
stage  faded  slowly.  It  did  not  receive  its  death-blow  till 
December  8, 1660,  when  at  a  new  theatre  in  Clare  Market 

••  See  p.  443  infra. 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  79 

a  prologue  announced  the  first  appearance  of  women  on 
the  stage  and  intimated  that  the  rSle  of  Desdemona  was 
no  longer  to  be  entrusted  to  a  petticoated  page.^ 

Three  flourishes  on  a  trumpet  announced  the  beginning 
of  the  performance.  The  trumpeter  was  stationed  within 
a  lofty  open  turret  overlooking  the  stage.  No  pro- 
grammes were  distributed  among  the  audience.  The 
name  of  the  day's  play  was  placarded  beforehand  on 
posts  in  the  street.  Such  advertisements  were  called, 
'the  players'  'bills,'  and  a  similar  'bill'  was  paraded  on 
the  stage  at  the  opening  of  the  performance.  Musical 
diversion  was  provided  on  a  more  or  less  ample  scale.  A 
band  of  musicians  stood  either  on  the  stage  or  in  a  neigh- 
bouring box  or  'room.'  They  not  merely  accompanied 
incidental  songs  or  dances,  and  sounded  drum  and  trum- 
pet in  military  episodes,  but  they  provided  instrumental 
interludes  between  the  acts.^    The  scenes  of  each  act 

^  See  pp.  600-1  infra.  The  prologue,  which  was  by  the  hack  poetThomas 
Jordan,  sufficiently  exposed  the  demerits  of  the  old  custom :      ^ 

I  come  unknown  to  any  of  the  rest, 
To  tell  you  news :  I  saw  the  lady  drest : 
The  woman  plays  to-day ;  mistake  me  not. 
No  man  in  gown,  or  page  in  petticoat. 

In  this  reforming  age 

We  have  intents  to  civilize  the  stage. 

Our  women  are  defective  and  so  siz'd 

You'd  think  they  were  some  of  the  guard  disguis'd. 

For  to  speak  truth,  men  act,  that  are  between 

Forty  and  fifty,  wenches  of  fifteen ; 

With  bone  so  large,  and  nerve  so  incompliant, 

When  you  call  Desdemona,  enter  Giant. 

The  ancient  practice  of  entrusting  women's  parts  to  men  survived  in 
the  theatres  of  Rome  till  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  Goethe 
who  was  there  in  1786  and  1787  describes  the  highly  favourable  impres- 
sion which  that  histrionic  method  left  on  him,  and  seeks  somewhat  para- 
doxically to  justify  it  as  satisfsang  the  aesthetic  aims  of  imitation  {Travels 
in  Italy,  Bohn's  Libr.  1885,  pp.  567-571)-  On  the  other  hand,  Mon- 
tesquieu reports  on  his  visit  to  England  in  1730  how  he  heard  Lord 
Chesterfield  explain  to  Queen  Caroline  that  the  regrettable  absence  of 
women  from  the  Elizabethan  stage  accounted  for  the  coarseness  and 
inadequacy  of  Shakespeare's  female  characterisation  (Montesquieu, 
(Euvres  Completes,  ed.  Laboidaye,  1879,  vii.  484). 

'  See  G.  H.  Cowling,  Music  on  the  Shakespearean  Stage,  Cambridge, 
1913 ;  and  W.  J.  Lawrence,  The  Elizabethan  Playhouse  and  Other  Studies, 
ist  ser.  191 2,  ch.  iv. 


8o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

would  seem  to  have  followed  one  another  without  any 
longer  pause  than  was  required  by  the  exits  and  entries 
of  the  actors.  The  absence  of  a  front  curtain  might  well 
leave  an  audience  in  some  uncertainty  as  to  the  point 
at  which  a  scene  or  act  ended.  In  blank  verse  dramas  a 
rhyming  couplet  at  the  end  of  a  scene  often  gave  the 
needful  cue,  or  the  last  speaker  openly  stated  that  he 
and  the  other  actors  were  withdrawing.^ 

In  Shakespeare's  early  days  the  public  theatres  were 
open  on  Sundays  as  well  as  on  week-days ;  but  the  Puri- 
tan outcry  gradually  forced  the  actors  to  leave  the  stage 
untenanted  on  the  Lord's  Day.  In  the  later  years  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  Sunday  performances  were  for- 
bidden by  the  Privy  Council  on  pain  of  imprisonment, 
but  it  was  only  during  her  successor's  reign  that  they 
ceased  altogether;  they  were  not  forbidden  by  statute 
till  1628  (3  Car.  I,  c.  i)  and  the  example  of  the  Court 
which  favoured  dramatic  entertainment  on  the  Sabbath 
always  challenged  the  popular  rehgious  scruple.  More 
effective  and  more  embarrassing  to  the  players  was  the 
Privy  Council's  prohibition  of  performances  during  the 
season  of  Lent,  and  'likewise  at  such  time  and  times  as 
any  extraordinary  sickness  or  infection  of  disease  shall 
appear  to  be  in  or  about  the  city.'  ^  The  announcement 
of  thirty  deaths  a  week  of  the  plague  was  held  to  warrant 
the  closing  of  the  theatres  until  the  rate  of  mortality  fell 
below  that  figure.^    At  the  public  theatres  the  perform- 

'  For  example,  in  Shakespeare's  Tempest  the  last  words  of  nearly 
every  scene  are  to  such  efEect;  cf.  'Come,  follow'  (i.  ii.),  'Go  safely 
on'  (11.  i.),  'Follow,  I  pray  you'  (in.  iii.),  and  'Follow  and  do  me  ser- 
vice' (iv.  i.).  Similarly  in  tragedies  the  closing  words  of  the  text  often 
categorically  direct  the  removal  of  the  dead  heroes;  cf.  Hamlet,  v.  iii. 
393,  'Take  up  the  bodies,'  and  Coriolanus,  v.  vi.  148,  'Take  him  [i.e. 
the  dead  hero]  up.'  Hotspur,  when  slain,  in  i  Henry  IV,  is  carried  off 
on  Falstaff's  back. 

"  Cf.  Acts  of  the  Privy  Council,  ed.  J.  R.  Dasent,  vol.  xxx.  1599- 
1600,  p.  397;  see  Earle's  Microcosmographie  xxiii.  ('A  Player')  :  'Lent 
is  more  damage  to  him  [i.e.  the  player]  than  the  butcher'  (the  sale  of 
meat  being  forbidden  during  Lent). 

'  See  Privy  Council  Warrant,  April  9,  1604,  in  Henslowe  Papersf 
ed.  Greg,  1907,  p.  61 ;  and  cf .  Middleton's  Your  Five  Gallants,  licensed 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  8l 

ances  usually  began  at  two  o'clock  in  winter  and  three 
o'clock  in  the  summer  and  they  lasted  from  two  to  three 
hours.^  No  artificial  light  was  admitted,  unless  the  text 
of  the  play  prescribed  the  use  of  a  lantern  or  a  candle  on 
the  stage. 

However  important  the  difference  between  the  organi- 
sation of  the  public  theatres  in  Shakespeare's  day  and 
our  own,  many  professional  customs  which  fell  Provincial 
within  his  experience  still  survive  without  much  *°"'^^- 
change.  The  practice  of  touring  in  the  provinces 
was  followed  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  and  James  I's 
reigns  with  a  frequency  which  subsequent  ages  scarcely 
excelled.  The  chief  actors  rode  on  horseback,  while 
their  properties  were  carried  in  wagons.  The  less  pros- 
perous companies  which  were  colloquially  distinguished 
by  the  epithet  'strolling'  avoided  London  altogether  and 
only  sought  the  suffrages  of  provincial  audiences.  But 
no  companies  with  headquarters  in  London'  remained 
there  through  the  summer  or  autumn,  and  every  country 
town  with  two  thousand  or  more  inhabitants  could  safely 
reckon  on  at  least  one  visit  of  actors  from  the  capital 
between  May  and  October.  The  compulsory  closing  of 
the  London  theatres  during  the  ever-recurrent  outbreaks 
of  plague  or  lack  of  sufiicient  theatrical  accommodation 
in  the  capital  at  times  drove  thriving  London  actors  into 
the  provinces  at  other  seasons  than  summer  and  autumn. 
Now  and  then  the  London  companies  were  on  tour  in 
mid-winter.  Many  records  of  the  Elizabethan  actors' 
provincial  visits  figure  in  municipal   archives   of   the 

March  22,  1608:  "Tis  e'en  as  uncertain  as  playing,  now  up  and  now 
down;  for  if  the  bill  do  rise  to  above  thirty,  here's  no  place  for  players.' 
The  prohibiting  rate  of  mortality  was  raised  to  40  in  1620. 

1  When  the-  Lord  Chamberlain  Hunsdon  petitioned  the  Lord  Mayor 
on  Oct.  8,  IS94>  to  permit  Shakespeare's  company  to  perform  during 
the  winter  at  the  'Crosskeys'  in  Gracechurch  Street,  it  was  stated  that 
the  performances  would  'begin  at  two  and  have  done  betweene  fower 
and  five'  (Halliwell's  Illustrations,  32).  For  acting  purposes  the  author's 
text  was  often  drastically  abbreviated,  so  as  to  bring  the  performance 
within  the  two  hours  limit  which  Shakespeare  twice  lightly  mentions  — 
in  prologues  to  Romeo  and  Juliet  (line  12)  and  to  Henry  VIII  (line  13). 


82  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

period.  The  local  records  have  not  yet  been  quite  ex- 
haustively searched  but  the  numerous  entries  which  have 
come  to  light  attest  the  wide  range  of  the  players'  cir- 
cuits. Shakespeare's  company,  whose  experience  is 
typical  of  that  of  the  other  London  companies  of  the 
time,  performed  in  thirty-one  towns  outside  the  me- 
tropohs  during  the  twenty-seven  years  between  1587  and 
1614,  and  the  separate  visits  reached,  as  far  as  is  known, 
a  total  of  eighty.  The  itinerary  varied  in  duration  and 
direction  from  year  to  year.  In  1593  Shakespeare  and 
his  fellow  players  were  seen  at  eight  provincial  cities  and 
in  1606  at  six.  They  would  appear  to  have  contented 
themselves  with  a  single  visit  in  1590  (to  Faversham), 
in  1591  (to  Cambridge),  in  1602  (to  Ipswich),  and  in  1611 
(to  Shrewsbury).  Their  route  never  took  them  far 
north;  they  never  passed  beyond  York,  which  they 
visited  twice.  But  in  all  parts  of  the  southern  half  of 
the  kingdom  they  were  more  or  less  famihar  figures. 
To  each  of  the  cities  Coventry  and  Oxford  they  paid 
eight  visits  and  to  Bath  six.  To  Marlborough,  Shrews- 
bury and  Dover  they  went  five  times,  and  to  Cambridge 
four  times.  Gloucester,  Leicester,  Ipswich  and  Maidstone 
come  next  in  the  provincial  scale  of  favour  with  three 
visits  apiece.  Apparently  Southampton,  Chester,  Not- 
tingham, Folkestone,  Exeter,  Hythe,  Saffron  Walden, 
Rye,  Plymouth,  and  Chelmsford  did  not  invite  the  com- 
pany's return  after  a  first  experience,  nor  did  Canterbury, 
Bristol,  Barnstaple,  Norwich,  York,  New  Romney, 
Faversham,  and  Winchester  after  a  second.'- 

'  In  English  Dramatic  Companies  1558-1642  (1910)  Mr.  J.  Tucker 
Murray  has  carefuUy,  though  not  exhaustively,  investigated  tiie  actors' 
tours  of  the  period.  His  work  supersedes,  however,  HalUwell-Phillipps's 
Visits  of  Shakespeare's  Company  of  Actors  to  the  Provincial  Cities  and 
Towns  of  England  (privately  printed,  1887).  Thomas  Haywood  in  his 
Apology  for  Actors  mentions  performances  by  unidentified  companies 
at  Lynn  in  Norfolk  and  at  Perrin  in  Cornwall.  These  are  not  noticed 
by  Mr.  Murray,  who  also  overlooks  visits  of  Shakespeare's  company 
to  Oxford  and  Maidstone  in  1593,  to  Cambridge  in  1594,  and  to  Notting- 
ham in  1615.  (See  F.  S.  Boas's  University  Drama,  p.  226,  and  his  'Ham- 
let in  Oxford,'  Fortnightly  Review^  August  1913 ;  Cooper's  Annals  oj 
Cambridge,  ii.  538;   Nottingham  Records,  iv.  328,  and  Maidstone  Cham- 


ON  THE   LONDON   STAGE 


83 


Shakespeare  may  be  credited  with  faithfully  fulfilling 
all  his  professional  functions,  and  some  of  the  references 
to  travel  in  his  Sonnets  have  been  reasonably  interpreted 
as  reminiscences  of  early  acting  tours.  It  is  clear  that 
he  had  ample  opportunities  of  first-hand  observation  of 
his  native  land.  But  it  has  often  been  argued  Scottish 
that  his  journeys  passed  beyond  the  Hmits  of  t"""^^- 
England.  It  has  been  repeatedly  urged  that  Shake- 
speare's company  visited  Scotland  and  that  he  went 
with  it.^  In  November  1599  EngHsh  actors  arrived 
in  Scotland  under  the  leadership  of  Lawrence  Fletcher 
and  one  Martin  Slater,^  and  were  welcomed  with  enthu- 
siasm by  the  King.' 

berlains'  Accounts,  MS.  notes  kindly  communicated  by  Miss  Katharine 
Martin.)  The  following  seems  to  have  been  the  itinerary  of  Shake- 
speare's company  year  by  year  while  he  was  associated  with  it : 


Dover, 
Bristol, 


1587  Dover,  Canterbury,  Oxford, 

Marlborough,  Southamp- 
ton, Exeter,  Bath,  Glouces- 
ter,' Stratford-on-Avon, 
Lathom  House,  Lanes., 
Coventry  (twice),  Leices- 
ter, Maidstone,  and  Nor- 
wich. 

1588  Dover,     Plymouth,      Bath, 

Gloucester,  York,  Coven- 
try, Norwich,  Ipswich, 
Cambridge. 

1590  Faversham. 

1591  Cambridge. 

1592  Canterbury,  Bath,  Glouces- 

ter and  Coventry. 

1593  Chelmsford,    Bristol,    Bath, 

Shrewsbury,  Chester, 

York,  Maidstone  and 
Oxford. 

1594  Coventry,  Cambridge,  Leices- 

ter, Winchester,  Marl- 
borough. 

*  Cf.  Knight's  Life  of  Shakespeare  (1843),  p.  41 ;  Fleay,  Stage,  pp.  135-6. 

*  Martin  Slater  (often  known  as  Martin)  was  both  an  actor  and 
dramatist.  From  1594  to  1597  he  was  a  member  of  the  Admiral's  Com- 
pany, and  was  subsequently  from  1605  to  1625  manager  of  a  subsidiary 
traveUing  company,  under  the  patronage  of  Queen  Anne.  Cf.  Dr. 
Wallace  in  Englische  Studien,  xliii.  383. 

'  The  favour  bestowed  by  James  VI  on  these  English  actors  was  so 


IS97  Faversham,      Rye, 
Marlborough, 
Bath. 

1602  Ipswich. 

1603  Shrewsbury,  Coventry. 

1604  Bath,  Oxford,  Mortlake. 

1605  Barnstaple,  Oxford. 

1606  Marlborough,  Oxford,  Leices- 

ter,       Saffron        Walden, 
Dover,  Maidstone. 

1607  Barnstaple,     Oxford,     Cam- 

bridge. 

1608  Marlborough,  Coventry. 

1609  Ipswich,  Hythe,  New  Rom- 

ney. 

1610  Dover,  Oxford,   Shrewsbury. 

1611  Shrewsbury. 

16 1 2  New  Romney,  Winchester. 

1613  Folkestone,  Oxford,   Shrews- 

bury. 

1614  Coventry. 

1 61s  Nottingham. 


84  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEAHE 

Fletcher  was  a  colleague  of  Shakespeare  in  1603,  hut 
is  not  known  to  have  been  one  earher.  Shakespeare!s 
company  never  included  Martin  Slater.  Fletcher  re- 
peated the  Scottish  visit  in  October  1601.^  There  is  noth- 
ing to  indicate  that  any  of  his  companions  belonged  to 
Shakespeare's  company.  In  Hke  manner,  Shakespeare's 
accurate  reference  in  'Macbeth'  to  the  'nimble'  but 
'sweet'  climate  of  Inverness^  and  the  vivid  impression 
he  conveys  of  the  aspects  of  wild  Highland  heaths  have 
been  judged  to  be  the  certain  fruits  of  a  personal  experi- 
ence ;  but  the  passages  in  question,  into  which  a  more 
definite  significance  has  possibly  been,  read  than  Shake- 
speare intended,  can  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  his 
inevitable  intercourse  with  Scotsmen  in  London  and  at 
the  theatres  after  James  I's  accession. 

A  few  English  actors  in  Shakespeare's  day  combined 
from  time  to  time  to  make  professional  tours  through 
foreign  lands,  where  Court  society  invariably  gave 
them  a  hospitable  reception.     In  Denmark,  Germany, 

marked  as  to  excite  the  resentment  of  the  leaders  of  the  Kirk.  The 
EngUsh  agent,  George  Nicholson,  in  a  (hitherto  unpublished)  despatch 
dated  from  Edinburgh  on  November  12,  1599,  wrote :  'The  four  Sessions 
of  this  Town  (without  touch  by  name  of  our  English  players,  Fletcher 
and  Mertyn  (i.e.  Martyn),  widi  their  company),  and  not  knowing  the 
King's  ordinances  for  them  to  play  and  be  heard,  enacted  (that)  their 
flocks  {yfere)  to  forbear  and  not  topome  to  or  haunt  profane  games, 
sports,  or  plays.'  Thereupon  the  ffing  summoned  the  sessions  before 
him  in  Council  and  threatened  them  with  the  fuH  rigour  of  the  law. 
Obdurate  at  first,  the  ministers  subsequently  agreed  to  moderate  their 
hostile  references  to  the  actors.  Finally,  Nicholson  adds,  'The  King 
this  day  by  proclamation  with  sound  of  trumpet  hath  commanded  the 
players  liberty  to  play,  and  forbidden  their  hinder  or  impeachment 
therein.'     (MS.  State  Papers  Dom.  Scotland,  P.R.O.  vol.  kv.  No.  64.) 

^  Fleay,  Stage,  pp.  126-44.  On  returning  to  England  Fletcher  seems 
to  have  given  a  performance  at  Ipswich  on  May  30,  1602,  and  to  have 
,  irresponsibly  called  himself  and  his  companions  'His  Majesty's  Players.' 
Cf.  Murray's  EngUsh  Dramatic  Companies,  i.  104  n. 

2  Cf.  Duncan's  speech  (on  arriving  at  Macbeth's  castle  of  Inverness) : 

This  castle  hath  a  pleasant  seat ;  the  air  ^ 

Nimbly  and  sweetly  recommends  itself 
Unto  our  gentle  senses. 

Banquo.  This  guest  of  summer. 

The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve, 
By  his  lov'd  mansionry,  that  the  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here.  ('Macbeth,'  i.  vi.  i-6.) 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  85 

Austria,  Holland,  and  France  many  dramatic  perform- 
ances were  given  at  royal  palaces  or  in  public 
places  by  English  actors  between  1580  and  1630.  actors  on 
The  foreign  programmes  included  tragedies  or  ^\^j°"" 
comedies  which  had  proved  their  popularity 
on  the  London  stage,  together  with*  more  or  less  extem- 
porized interludes  of  boisterous  farce.     Some  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  found  early  admission  to  the  foreign  reper- 
tories.   At  the  outset  the  English  language  was  alone 
employed,  although  in  Germany  a  native  comedian  was 
commonly  associated  with  the  English  players  and  he 
spoke  his  part  in  his  own  tongue.    At  a  later  period  the 
English  actors  in  Germany  ventured  on  crude  German 
translations  of  their  repertory.^     German-speaking  audi- 
ences proved  the  most  enthusiastic  of  all  foreign  cUents, 
and  the  towns  most  frequently  visited  were  Frankfort- 
on-the-Main,  Strasburg,  Nuremberg,  Cassel,  and  Augs- 
burg.   Before  Shakespeare's  Hfe  ended,  English  actors 
had  gone  on  professional  missions  in  German-speaking 
countries  as  far  East  as  Konigsberg  and  Ortelsburg  and 
as  far  South  as  Munich  and  Graz.^ 
That  Shakespeare  joined  any  of  these  foreign  expedi- 

^  There  was  published  in  1620  sine  loco  (apparently  at  Leipzig)  a 
volume  entitled  Engelische  Comedien  vnd  Tragedien  containing  German 
renderings  of  ten  English  plays  and  five  interludes  which  had  been 
lately  acted  by  English  companies  in  Germany.  The  collection  in- 
cluded crude  versions  of  Titus  Andronicus  and  The  Two  Gentlemen  of 
Verona.  A  second  edition  appeared  in  1624  and  a  second  volume 
('ander  theU') — Engelische  Comodien  —  followed  in  1630  supplying 
eight  further  plays,  none  of  which  can  be  identified  with  extant  English 
pieces.  In  the  library  at  Dresden  is  a  rough  German  translation  in 
manuscript  of  the  first  quarto  of  Hamlet  ('Der  bestrafte  Brudermord')., 
which  is  clearly  of  very  early  origin.  Early  German  manuscript  ren- 
derings of  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  and  Romeo  and  Juliet  sue  also  eitant. 
(Cf.  Cohn's  Shakespeare  in  Germany,  1865.) 

^  Thomas  Heywood  in  his  Apology  for  -Actors,  1612  (Shakespeare 
Soc.  1841),  mentions  how  in  former  years  Lord  Leicester's  company  of 
English  comedians  was  entertained  at  the  court  of  Deimiark  (p.  40), 
how  at  Amsterdam  English  actors  h'ad  lately  performed  before  the 
burghers  and  the  chief  inhabitants  (p.  58),  and  how  at  the  time  of  writ- 
ing the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  and  the  Cardinal 
at  Bruxelles  each  had  in  their  pay  a  company  of  English  comedians 
(p.  60).  Cf.  Cohn,  Shakespeare  in  Germany,  1865 ;  E.  Herz's  Englische 
Schauspieler  und  engUsches  Schauspiel  mr  Zeit  Shakespeares  in  Deutsck- 


86  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

tions  is  improbable.  Few  actors  of  repute  at  home  took 
part  in  them ;  the  majority  of  the  foreign  performers 
never  reached  the  first  rank.  Many  Usts  of  those  who 
joined  in  the  tours  are  extant,  and  Shakespeare's  name 
appears  in  none  of  them.  It  would  seem,  moreover,  that 
only  on  two  occasions,  and  both  before  Shakespeare 
joined  the  theatrical  profession,  did  members  of  his  own 
company  visit  the  Continent."- 

It  is,  in  fact,  unhkely  that  Shakespeare  ever  set  foot 
on  the  Continent  of  Europe  in  either  a  private  or  a  pro- 
Shake-  fessional  capacity.  He  repeatedly  ridicules  the 
speareand  craze  for  foreign  travel.^  To  Italy,  it  is  true, 
^'^'^-  and  especially  to  cities  of  Northern  Italy,  like 

Venice,  Padua,  Verona,  Mantua,  and  Milan,  he  makes 
frequent  and  famiUar  reference,  and  he  suppUed  many 
a  reahstic  portrayal  of  Italian  life  and  sentiment.  But 
his  Itahan  scenes  lack  the  intimate  detail  which  would 
attest  a  first-hand  experience  of  the  country.  The  pres- 
ence of  barges  on  the  waterways  of  northern  Italy  was 
common  enough  partially  to  justify  the  voyage  of  Valen- 

land,  Hamburg,  1903;  H.  Maas's  'Aussere  Geschichte  der  Englischen 
Theatertruppen  in  dem  Zeitraum  von  1559  bis  1642 '  (Bang's  Materialien, 
vol.  xix.  Louvain,  1907);  J.  Bolte's  'Englische  Komodianten  in  Dane- 
mark  und  Schweden'  (Shakespeare  Jahrbuch,  xxiv.  p.  99,  1888);  and 
his  'Englische  Komodianten  in  Munster  und  Ulm'  {ibid,  xxxvi.  p.  273, 
1900);  K.  Trautmann's  'Englische  Komodianten  in  Numberg,  1593- 
1648'  (Arckiv,  vols.  xiv.  and  xv.) ;  Meissner,  Die  englischen  Comodiankn 
zur  Zeit  Shakespeare's  in  Oesterreich,  Vienna,  1884;  Jon  Stefansson  on 
'Shakespeare  at  Elsinore'  in  Contemporary  Review,  Jan.  1896;  and  M. 
Jusserand's  Shakespeare  in  France,  1899,  pp.  50  seq. 

^  In  1585  and  1586  a  detachment  of  Lord  Leicester's  servants  made 
tours  through  Germany,  which  were  extended  to  the  Danish  Court  at 
Elsinore.  The  leader  was  the  comic  actor,  William  Kemp,  who  was 
subsequently  to  become  for  a  time  a  prominent  colleague  of  Shake- 
speare. In  the  closing  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  Earl  of 
Worcester's  company  chiefly  supplied  the  English  actors  who  undertook 
expeditions  on  the  European  Continent.  The  Englishmen  who  won 
foreign  histrionic  fame  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  were  rarely 
known  at  home. 

^  Cf.  As  You  Like  It,  iv.  i.  22  seq.  (Rosalind  loq.), '  Farewell,  Monsielffi 
Traveller :  look  you  lisp  and  wear  strange  suits ;  disable  all  the  benefits 
of  your  own  country ;  be  out  of  love  with  your  nativity  and  almost  cliide 
God  for  making  you  that  countenance  you  are;  or  I  will  scarce  think 
you  have  swam  in  a  gondola.' 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  87 

tine  by  'ship'  from  Verona  to  Milan  ('Two  Gent.'  i. 
i.  71).  But  Prospero's  embarkation  in  'The  Tempest' 
on  an  ocean  ship  at  the  gates  of  Milan  (i.  ii.  129-144) 
renders  it  difficult  to  assume  that  the  dramatist  gathered 
his  Italian  knowledge  from  personal  observation.^  He 
doubtless  owed  all  to  the  verbal  reports  of  travelled 
friends,  or  to  books  the  contents  of  which  he  had  a  rare 
power  of  assimilating  and  vitalising. 
^ .  The  publisher  Chettle  wrote  in  1592  that  Shakespeare 
was  'exelent  in  the  quaUtie^  he  professes,'  and  the  old 
actor  William  Beeston  asserted  in  the  next  century  that 
Shakespeare  'did  act  exceedingly  well."  But  the  rSles 
in  which  he  distinguished  himself  are  imper-  gjjake- 
fectly  recorded.  Few  surviving  documents  speare's 
refer  specifically  to  performances  by  him.  At  '^^'"" 
Christmas  1594  he  joined  the  popular  actors  WiUiam 
Kemp,  the  chief  comedian  of  the  day,  who  had  lately 
created  Peter  in  'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  and  Richard  Bur- 
bage,  the  greatest  tragic  actor,  who  had  lately  created 
Richard  III,  in '  two  several  comedies  or  interludes '  which 
were  acted  on  St.  Stephen's  Day  and  on  Innocents'  Day 
(December  26  and  28)  at  Greenwich  Palace  before  the 
Queen.  The  three  players  received  in  accordance  with 
the  accepted  tariff  '  xiij'fo'.  vjs.  wiiid.  and  by  waye  of  her 
Majesties  reward  vjfo'.  xiiJ5.  mjd.  in  all  xx/i.' ^  Neither  , 
plays  nor  parts  are  mentioned.  .^ 

^  Cf.  Elze,  Essays,  1874,  pp.  254  seq.  Dr.  Gregor  Sarrazin  in  a  series 
of  well-informed  papers  generally  entitled  Neue  italienische  Skizzen  zu 
Shakespeare  (in  the  Shakespeare  Jahrbuch,  189s,  1900,  1903,  1906),  argues 
in  favour  of  Shakespeare's  personal  experience  of  Italian  travel,  and  his 
view  is  ably  supported  by  Sir  Edward  Sullivan  in  '  Shakespeare  and  the 
Waterways  of  North  Italy'  in  Nineteenth  Century,  1908,  ii.  215  seq.  But 
the  absence  of  any  direct  confirmation  of  an  Italian  visit  leaves  Dr. 
Sarrazin's  and  Sir  Edward's  arguments  very  shadowy. 

2  'Quality'  in  Elizabethan  English  was  the  technical  term  for  the 
actor's  'profession.' 

'  Aubrey's  Lives,  ed.  Andrew  Clark,  ii.  226. 

*  The  entry  figures  in  the  Accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Royal 
Chamber  (Pipe  Office  Declared  Accounts,  vol.  542,  fol.  207b,  Public 
Record  Office)  which  are  the  chief  available  records  of  the  acting  com- 
panies' performances  at  Court.  Mention  is  sometimes  made  of  the 
plays  produced,  but  the  parts  assumed  by  professional  actors  at  Court 


88  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare's  name  stands  first  on  the  list  of  those 
who  took  part  in  1598  in  the  original  production  by  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  servants,  apparently ■  at  'The  Cur- 
tain,' of  Ben  Jonson's  earUest  and  best-known  comedy 
'Every  Man  in  his  Humour.'  Five  years  later,  in  1603, 
a  second  play  by  Ben  Jonson,  his  tragedy  of  '  Sejanus,' 
was  first  produced  at  the  'Globe'  by  Shakespeare's  com- 
pany, then  known  as  the  King's  servants.  Shakespeare 
was  again  one  of  the  interpreters.  In  the  original  cast 
of  this  play  the  actor's  names  are  arranged  in  two 
columns,  and  Shakespeare's  name  heads  the  second 
column,  standing  parallel  with  Burbage's,  which  heads 
the  first.!  The  Hsts  of  actors  in  Ben  Jonson's  plays  fail 
to  state  the  character  allotted  to  each  actor ;  but  it  is 
reasonably  claimed  that  in  'Every  Man  in  his  Hiunour' 
Shakespeare  filled  the  role  of  'Kno'well  an  old  gentle-, 
man.'  ^  John  Davies  of  Hereford  noted  that  he  'played 
some  kingly  parts  in  sport.' '  One  of  Shakespeare's 
younger  brothers,  presumably  Gilbert,  often  came 
(wrote  Oldys)  to  London  in  his  younger  days  to  see  his 
brother  act  in  his  own  plays ;  and  in  his  old  age,  and 
with  faiHng  memory,  he  recalled  his  brother's  perform- 
ance of  Adam  in  'As  You  Like  It'  when  the  dramatist 
'wore  a  long  beard.' ^  Rowe,  Shakespeare's  first  biog- 
rapher, identified  only  one  of  Shakespeare's  parts  — 
'the  Ghost  in  his  own  "Hamlet."'  He  declared  his 
assumption  of  that  character  to  be  'the  top  of  his  per- 
formance.'    Until  the  close  of  Shakespeare's  career  his 

are  never  stated.  It  is  very  rare,  as  in  the  present  instance,  to  find  the 
actors  in  the  royal  presence  noticed  individually.  No  name  is  usually 
found  save  that  of  the  manager  or  assistant-manager  to  whom  the  royal 
fee  was  paid.  (Cf.  HaUiwell-Phillipps,  i.  121 ; .  Mrs.  Stopes  in  Jahrbuch 
der  deutschen  Shakespeare-Gesellschaft,  1896,  xxxii.  182  seq.) 

1  The  date  of  the  first  performance  with  the  lists  of  the  original  actors 
of  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  and  of  his  Sejanus  is  given  in 
Jonson's  works,  1616,  fol.  The  first  quarto  editions  of  Every  Man  in 
his  Humour  (1S98)  and  of  Sejanus  (1605)  omit  these  particulars. 

^  In  the  first  edition  Jonson  gave  his  characters  Italian  names  and 
old  Kno'well  was  there  called  Lorenzo  di  Pazzi  senior. 

'  Scourge  of  Polly,  1610,  epigr.  159.  , 

'  j3.mesYeoviel\'sMemoirofWiUiamOldys{i862),p./i6:ci.p.i^6oinfra, 


ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE  89 

company  was  frequently  summoned  to  act  at  Court,  and 
it  is  clear  that  he  regularly  accompanied  them.  The 
plays  which  he  and  his  colleagues  produced  before  his 
spvereign  in  his  Ufetime  included  his  own  pieces  'Love's 
Labour's  Lost,'  'The  Comedy  of  Errors,'  'The  Merchant 
of  Venice,'  '  i  Henry  IV,'  'The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,' 
'Henry  V,'  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  'Othello,' 
'Measure  for  Measure,'  'King  Lear,'  'A  Winter's  Tale,' 
and  'The  Tempest.'  It  may  be  presumed  that  in  all 
these  dramas  some  role  was  allotted  him.  In  the  1623 
foHo  edition  of  Shakespeare's  'Works'  his  name  heads  the 
prefatory  list  'of  the  principall  actors  in  all' these  playes.' 
That  Shakespeare  chafed  under  some  of  the  conditions 
of  the  actors'  calUng  is  commonly  inferred  from  the 
'Sonnets.'  There  he  reproaches  himself  with  becoming 
'a  motley  to  the  view'  (ex.  .2),  and  chides  fortune  for 
having  provided  for  his  livelihood  nothing  better  than 
pubUc  means  that  public  maimers  breed,  whence  his 
name  received  a  brand  (cxi.  4-5) .  If  such  regrets  are  to 
be  literally  or  personally  interpreted,  they  only  reflected 
an  evanescent  mood.  His  interest  m  whatever  touched 
the  efficiency  of  his  profession  was  permanently  active. 
All  the  technicaHties  of  the  theatre  were  famihar  to  him.' 
He  was  a  keen  critic  of  actors'  elocution,  and  in  'Ham- 
let '  shrewdly  denounced  their  common  failings,  while  he 
clearly  and  hopefully  pointed  out  the  road  to  improve- 
ment. As  a  shareholder  in  the  two  chief  playhouses  of 
his  time,^  he  long  studied  at  close  quarters  the  practical 
organisation  of  theatrical  effort.  His  highest  ambitions 
lay,  it  is  true,  elsewhere  than  in  acting  or  theatrical 
management,  and  at  an  early  period  of  his  theatrical 
career  he  undertook,  with  triumphant  success,  the  labours 
of  a  playwright.  It  was  in  dramatic  poetry  that  his 
genius  found  its  goal.  But  he  pursued  the  profession  of 
an  actor  and  fulfilled  all  the  obligations  of  a  theatrical 
shareholder  loyally  and  uninterruptedly  until  very  near 
the  date  of  his  death. 

1  See  pp.  300  seq.  infra. 


VII 

FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS 

The  English  drama  as  an  artistic  or  poetic  branch  of 
literature  developed  with  magical  rapidity.  It  had  not 
Pre-Eliza-  P^ssed  the  Stage  of  infancy  when  Shakespeare 
bethan  left  Stratford-on-Avon  for  London,  and  within 
drama.  three  dccades  the  unmatched  strength  of  its 
maturity  was  spent.  The  Middle  Ages  were  fertile 
in  'miracles'  and  'mysteries'  which  were  embryonic 
dramatisations  of  the  Scriptural  narrative  or  legends  of 
Saints.  Late  in  the  fifteenth  and  early  in  the  sixteenth 
century  there  flourished  'morah ties'  or  moral  plays 
where  allegorical  figures  interpreted  more  or  less  dra- 
matically the  significance  of  virtues  or  vices.  But  these 
rujlimentary  efforts  lacked  the  sustained  plot,  the  por- 
trayal of  character,  the  distinctive  expression  and  the 
other  genuine  elements  of  dramatic  art.  No  very  ma- 
terial change  was  effected  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century  by  the  current  vogue  of  the  interlude  —  an  off- 
shoot of  the  moraHty.  There  the  allegorical  machinery 
of  the  morahty  was  superseded  by  meagre  sketches  of 
men  and  women,  presenting  in  a  crude  dramatic  fashion 
and  without  the  figurative  intention  of  the  morahty  a 
more  or  less  farcical  anecdote  of  social  life.  The  drama 
to  which  Shakespeare  devoted  his  genius  owed  no  sub- 
stantial debt  to  any  of  these  dramatic  experiments,  and 
all  were  nearing  extinction  when  he  came  of  age.  Such 
opportunities  as  he  enjoyed  of  observing  them  in  boy- 
hood left  small  impression  on  his  dramatic  work.^ 

*  Miracle  and  mystery  plays  were  occasionally  performed  in  provincial 
places  till  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century.    The  Warwickshire  town 

90 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS  91 

Although  in  its  development  Ehzabethan  drama  as- 
similated an  abundance  of  the  national  spirit,  it  can  claim 
no  strictly  English  parentage.  It  traces  its 
origin  to  the  regular  tragedy  and  comedy  of  rf^Eiba^ 
classical  invention  which  flourished  at  Athens  ^ethan 
and  bred  imitation  at  Rome.  .Elizabethan 
drama  openly  acknowledged  its  descent  from  Plautus 
and  Seneca,  types  respectively  of  dramatic  levity  and 
dramatic  seriousness,  to  which,  according  to  Polonius, 
all  drama,  as  he  knew  it,  finally  conformed.^  An  Eng- 
lish adaptation  of  a  comedy  by  Plautus  and  an  EngUsh 
tragedy  on  the  Senecan  model  begot  the  Enghsh  strain 
of  drama  which  Shakespeare  glorified.  The  schoolmaster 
Nicholas  Udall's  farcical  'Ralph  Roister  Bolster'  (1540), 
a  free  English  version  of  the  Plautine  comedy  of  'Miles 
Gloriosus,'  and  the  first  attempt  of  two  young  barristers, 
Thomas  Sackville  and  Thomas  Norton,  to  give  Senecan 
tragedy  an  English  dress  in  their  play  of  'Gorboduc' 
(1561)  are  the  starting-points  of  dramatic  art  in  this 
country.  The  primal  Enghsh  comedy,  which  was  in 
doggerel  rhyme,  was  acted  at  Eton  College,  and  the 
primal  English  tragedy,  which  was  in  blank  verse,  was 
produced  in  the  Hall  of  the  Middle  Temple.  It  was  in 
cultured  circles  that  the  new  and  fruitful  dramatic  move- 
ment drew  its  first  breath. 

In  the  immediate  succession  of  Elizabethan  drama  the 
foreign  mould  remained  undisguised.  During  1566  the 
examples  set  by  'Ralph  Roister  Bolster'  and  'Gorboduc' 
were  followed  in  a  second  comedy  and  a  second  tragedy, 

of  Coventry  remained  an  active  centre  for  this  shape  of  dramatic  energy 
until  about  1575.  At  York,  at  Newcastle,  at  Chester,  at  Beverley, 
the  representation  of  'miracles'  or  'mysteries'  continued  some  years 
longer  (E.  K.  Chambers,  Medieval  Stage;  Pollard,  English  Miracle  Plays, 
1909  ed.,  p.  lix).  But  the  sacred  drama,  in  spite  of  some  endeavours  to 
continue  its  life,  was  reckoned  by  the  Elizabethans  a  relic  of  the  past. 
The  morality  play  with  its  ethical  scheme  of  personification,  and  the 
'interlude'  with  its  crude  farcical  situations,  were  of  later  birth  than 
the  miracle  or  mystery,  and  although  they  were  shorter-lived,  absorbed 
much  literary  industry  through  the  first  stages  of  Shakespeare's  career. 
*  Hamlet,  n.  ii.  395-6. 


92  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

both  from  the  pen  of  George  Gascoigne,  who,  after  edu- 
cation at  Cambridge,  became  a  member  of  parliament' 
and  subsequently  engaged  in  mihtary  service  abroad; 
both  pieces  were  produced  in  the  Hall  of  Gray's  Inn.- 
Gascoigne's  comedy,  the  'Supposes,'  which  was  in  prose 
and  developed  a  slender  romantic  intrigue,  was  a  trans- 
lation from  the  ItaUan  of  Ariosto,  whose  dramatic  work 
was  itself  of  classical  inspiration.  Gascoigne's  tragedy, 
of  'Jocasta,'  which  Hke  'Gorboduc'  was  in  Wank  verse, 
betrayed  more  directly  its  classical  affinities.  It  was 
an  adaptation  from  the  'Phoenissae'  of  Euripides,  and 
was  scarcely  the  less  faithful  to  its  statuesque  ori^nal 
because  the  English  adapter  depended  on  an  intermediary 
Italian  version  by  the  well-known  Lodovico  Dolce. 

Subsequent  dramatic  experiments  in  England  showed 
impatience  of  classical  models  in  spite  of  the  parental 
debt.  The  history  of  the  nascent  Elizabethan  drama 
indeed  shows  the  rapid  elimination  or  drastic  modification 
of  many  of  the  classical  elements  and  their  supersessioii 
by  unprecedented  features  making  for  Ufe  and  liberty 
in  obedience  to  national  sentiment.  The  fetters  of  the 
classical  laws  of  unity  —  the  triple  unity  of  action,  place, 
and  time  —  were  soon  loosened  or  abandoned.  The  clas- 
sical chorus  was  discarded  or  was  reduced  to  the  slim 
proportions  of  a  prologue  or  epilogue.  Monologue  was 
driven  from  its  post  of  vantage.  The  violent  action, 
which  was  relegated  by  classical  drama  to  the  descrip- 
tive speeches  of  messengers,  was  now  first  physically  pre- 
sented on  the  stage.  There  was  a  fusing  of  comedy  and 
tragedy  —  the  two  main  branches  of  drama  which,  accord- 
ing to  classical  critics,  were  mutually  exclusive.  A  new 
element  of  romance  or  sentiment  was  admitted  into  both 
branches  and  there  ultimately  emerged  a  new  middle 
type  of  romantic  drama.  In  all  Ehzabethan  drama, 
save  a  sparse  and  fastidious  fragment  which  sought  the 
select  suffrages  of  classical  scholars,  the  divergences 
between  classical  and  Enghsh  methods  grew  very  wide. 
But  the  literary  traces  of  a  classical  origin  were  never 


FIRST  DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  93 

wholly  obliterated  at  any  stage  in  the  growth  of  the 
Elizabethan  theatre. 

During  Shakespeare's  youth  literary  drama  in  England 
was  struggling  to  rid  itself  of  classical  restraint,  but  it  gave 
in  the  process  no  promise  of  the  harvest  which  Amorphous 
his  genius  was  to  reap.  During  the  first  deveiop- 
eighteen  years  of  Shakespeare's  hfe  (1564-  ™^'^- 
1582)  there  was  no  want  of  workers  in  drama  of  the  new 
pattern.  But  their  hterary  powers  were  modest,  and 
they  obeyed  the  call  of  an  uncultured  pubHc  taste.  They 
suffered  coarse  buffooneries  and  blood-curdling  sensa- 
tions to  deform  the  classical  prinpiples  which  gave  them 
their  cue.  The  audience  not  merely  applauded  tragedy 
of  blood  or  comedy  or  horseplay,  but  they  encouraged 
the  incongruous  combination  in  one  piece  of  the  two 
kinds  of  crudity.  Sir  Phihp  Sidney  accused  the  first 
Elizabethan  dramatists  of  Unking  hornpipes  with  fu- 
nerals. Even  Gascoigne  yielded  to  the  temptation  of 
concocting  a  'tragicall  comedie.'  Shakespeare  subse- 
quently flung  scorn  on  the  unregenerate  predilection 
for  'very  tragical  mirth.'  ^  Yet  the  primordial  incoher- 
ence did  not  deter  him  from  yoking  together  comedy 
and  tragedy  within  the  confines  of  a  single  play.  But  he, 
more  fortunate  than  his  tutors,  managed,  while  he  defied 
classical  law,  to  reconcile  the  revolutionary  poUcy  with 
the  essential  conditions  of  dramatic  art. 

^  Theseus,  when  he  reads  the  title  of  Bottom's'play : 

A  tedious  brief  scene  of  young  Pyramus 
And  his  love  Thisbe:  very  tragical  mirth. 

adds  the  comment 

Merry  and  tragical !  tedious  and  brief ! 

That  is,  hot  ice  and  wondrous  strange  snow. 

How  shaJl  we  find  the  concord  of  this  discord? 

Mids.  Night's  Dream,  v.  i.  S7-6o- 
I 

A  typical  early  tragicomedy  by  Thomas  Preston  was  entitled  'A 
lamentable  tragedy,  mixed  full  of  pleasant  mirth  conteyning  the  Life 
of  Cambises  Kmg  of  Persia'  (1569).  Falstaflf,  when  seeking  to  express 
himself  grandiloquently,  refers  mockingly  to  the  hero  of  this  piece.: 
'I  must  speak  it  in  passion  and  I  will  do  it  in  King  Cambyses'  vein,' 
I  Henry  IV,  u.  iv.  370. 


94  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Another  method  of  broadening  the  bases  of  drama  was 
essayed  in  this  early  epoch,  ffistory  was  enhsted  in 
the  service  of  the  theatre.  There,  too,  the  first  results 
were  halting.  The  '  chronicle  plays '  were  mere  pageants 
or  processions  of  ill-connected  episodes  of  history  in 
Chronicle  which  drums  and  trumpets  and  the  clatter  of 
Plays.  swords  and  cannon  largely  did  duty  for  dra- 
matic speech  or  action.  Here  again  Shakespeare  ac- 
cepted new  methods  and  proved  by- his  example  how 
genius  might  evoke  order  out  of  disorder  and  supplant 
violence  by  power.  The  EngHsh  stage  of  Shakespeare's 
boyhood  knew  nothing  of  poetry,  of  coherent  plot,  of 
graphic  characterisation,  of  the  obhgation  of  restraint. 
It  was  his  glory  to  give  such  elements  of  drama  an  abid- 
ing place  of  predominance. 

In  his  early  manhood  —  after  1582  —  gleams  of  re- 
form lightened  the  dramatic  horizon  and  helped  him  to 
A  period  o£  his  goal.  A  period  of  purgation  set  in.  At 
purgation,  length  the  new  forms  of  drama  attracted  the 
literary  and  poetic  aspiration  of  men  who  had  re- 
ceived at  the  universities  sound  classical  training. 
From  1582  onwards  John  Lyly,  an  Oxford  graduate, 
was  framing  fantastic  comedies  with  lyric  interludes 
out  of  stories  of  the  Greek  mythology,  and  his  plays, 
which  were  capably  interpreted  by  boy  actors,  won  the 
special  favour  of  Queen  EUzabeth  and  her  Court.  Soon 
afterwards  George  Peele,  another  Oxford  graduate, 
sought  among  other  dramatic  endeavours  to  fashion  a 
play  to  some  dramatic  purpose  out  of  the  historic  career 
of  Edward  I.  Robert  Greene,  a  Cambridge  gradual 
after  an  industrious  career  as  a  writer  of  prose  romances, 
dramatised  a  few  romantic  tales,  and  he  brought  literary 
sentiment  to  qualify  the  prevaiHng  crudity.  Thomas 
Kyd,  who  knew  Latin  and  modern  languages,  though  he 
enjoyed  no  academic  training,  shghtly  tempered  the 
blood-curdhng  incident  of  tragedy  by  interpolating  ro- 
mance, but  he  owed  his  vast  popularity  to  extravagantly 
sensational   situations   and   'the   swelling   bombast  of 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS  95 

bragging  blank  verse.'  Finally  another  graduate  of 
Cambridge,  Christopher  Marlowe,  signally  challenged 
the  faltering  standard  of  popular  tragedy,  and  in  his 
stirring  drama  of  '  Tamberlaine '  (1588)  first  proved  be- 
yond question  that  the  English  language  was  capable 
of  genuine  tragic  elevation. 

It  was  when  the  first  reformers  of  the  crude  infant 
drama,  Lyly,  Greene,  Peele,  Kyd,  and  Marlowe,  were 
busy  with  their  experiments  that  Shakespeare  shake- 
joined  the  ranks  of  EngHsh  dramatists.    As  he  speare's 
set  out  on  his  road  he  profited  by  the  lessons  fe1iow° 
which   these   men   were   teaching.     Kyd   and  workers. 
Greene  left  more  or  less  definite  impression  on  all  Shake- 
speare's early  efforts.     But  Lyly  in  comedy  and  Marlowe 
in  tragedy  may  be  reckoned  the  masters  to  whom  he 
stood  on  the  threshold  of  his  career  in  the  relation  of 
disciple.    With  Marlowe  there  is  evidence  that  he  was 
for  a  brief  season  a  working  partner. 

Shakespeare  shared  with  other  men  of  genius  that 
receptivity  of  mind  which  impelled  them  to  assimilate 
much  of  the  intellectual  energy  of  their  contemporaries.^ 
It  was  not  only  from  the  current  drama  of  his  youth 
that  his  mind  sought  some  of  its  sustenance.  The  poetic 
fertility  of  his  epoch  outside  the  drama  is  barely  rivalled 
in  literary  history,  and  thence  he  caught  abundant 
suggestion.  The  lyric  and  narrative  verse  of  Thomas 
Watson,  Samuel  Daniel,  Michael  Drayton,  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  and  Thomas  Lodge,  were  among  the  rills  which 
fed  the  mighty  river  of  his  lyric  invention.  But  in  all 
directions  he  rapidly  bettered  the  instruction  of  fellow- 
workers.  Much  of  their  work  was  unvalued  ore,  which 
he  absorbed  and  transmuted  into  gold  in  the  process. 

'  Ruskin  forcibly  defines  the  receptivity  of  genius  in  the  following 
sentences:  'The  greatest  is  he  who  has  been  oftenest  aided;  and,  if 
the  attainments  of  all  human  minds  could  be  traced  to  their  real  sources, 
it  would  be  found  that  the  world  had  been  laid  most  under  contribution 
by  the  men  of  most  original  power,  and  that  every  day  of  their  existence 
deepened  their  debt  to  their  race,  while  it  enlarged  their  gifts  to  it. '  — 
Modern  Painters,  iii.  362  (Appendix). 


96  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

By  the  magic  of  his  genius  English  drama  was  finally 
lifted  to  heights  above  the  reach  of  any  forerunner  or 
contemporary. 

No.  Elizabethan  actor  achieved  as  a  dramatist  a  posi- 
tion which  was  comparable  with  Shakespeare's.  But  in 
The  actor  his  practice  of  combining  the  work  of  a  play- 
dramatist.  Wright  with  the  functions  of  a  player,  and 
later  of  a  theatrical  shareholder,  there  was  noth- 
ing uncommon.  The  occupation  of  dramatist  grew 
slowly  into  a  professional  calhng.  The  development 
was  a  natural  sequel  of  the  organisation  of  actors  on 
professional  Hues.  To  each  licensed  company  there, 
came  to  be  attached  two  or  three  dramatic  writers  whose 
services  often,  but  not  invariably,  were  exclusively 
engaged.  In  many  instances  an  acting  member  of 
the  corporation  undertook  to  satisfy  a  part,  at  any  rate, 
of  his  colleagues'  dramatic  needs.  George  Peele,  who 
was  busy  in  the  field  of  drama  before  Shakespeare  en- 
tered it,  was  faithful  to  the  double  role  of  actor  and 
dramatist  through  the  greater  part  of  his  career.  The 
first  association  of  the  dramatist  Ben  Jonson  with  the 
theatre  was  in  an  actor's  capacity.  Probably  the  most 
instructive  parallel  that  could  be  drawn  between  the 
experiences  of  Shakespeare  and  those  of  a  contemporary 
is  offered  by  the  biography  of  Thomas  Heywqod,  the 
most  voluminous  playwright  of  the  era,  whom  Charles 
Lamb  generously  dubbed  'a  sort  of  prose  Shakespeare.' 
There  is  ample  evidence  of  the  two  men's  personal  ac- 
quaintance. For  many  years  before  1600  He3nvood 
served  the  Admiral's  company  as  both  actor  and  drama- 
tist. In  1600  he  transferred  himself  to  the  Earl  of 
Worcester's  company,  which  on  James  I's  accession  was 
taken  into  the  patronage  of  the  royal  consort  Queen  Anne 
of  Denmark.  Until  her  death  in  1619  he  worked  in- 
defatigably  in  that  company's  interest.  He  ultimately 
claimed  to  have  had  a  hand  in  the  writing  of  more  than 
220  plays,  although  his  literary  labours  were  by  no 
means  confined  to  drama.     In  his  elaborate  'Apology 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS  97 

for  Actors'  (1612)  he  professed  pride  in  his  actor's 
vocation,  from  which,  despite  his  other  employments, 
he  never  dissociated  himself.^ 

In  all  external  regards  Shakespeare's  experience  can 
be  matched  by  that  of  his  comrades.  The  outward 
features  of  his  career  as  dramatist,  no  less  than  as  actor, 
were  cast  in  the  current  mould.  In  his  prohfic  industry, 
in  his  habit  of  seeking  his  fable  in  pre-existing  literature, 
in  his  co-operation  with  other  pens,  in  his  avowals  of 
deference  to  popular  taste,  he  faithfully  followed  the 
common  paths.  It  was  solely  in  the  supreme  quality  of 
his  poetic  and  dramatic  achievement  that  he  parted  com- 
pany with  his  fellows. 

The  whole  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  work  was  proba- 
bly begun  and  ended  within  two  decades  (1591-1611) 
between  his  twenty-seventh  and  forty-seventh 
year.     If  the  works  traditionally  assigned  to  sp^are's 
him  include   some   contributions   from   other  dramatic 
pens,  he  was  perhaps  responsible,  on  the  other 
hand,  for  portions  of  a  few  plays  that  are  traditionally 
claimed   for   others.     When   the   account   is   balanced 
Shakespeare   must   be   credited   with   the   production, 
during  these  twenty  years,  of  a  yearly  average  of  two 

^  See  pp.  112  n.  3,  269,  6gs.  Numerous  other  instances  could  be 
given  of  the  pursuit  by  men  of  letters  of  the  theatrical  profession.  When 
Shak'espeare  first  reached  London,  Robert  Wilson  was  at  once  a  leading 
dramatist  and  a  leading  actor.  (See  p.  134  n.  i.)  The  poet  Michael 
Drayton  devoted  much  time  to  drama  and  was  a  leading  shareholder 
in  the  Whitefriars  theatre  and  in  that  capacity  was  involved  in  much 
htigation  {New  Shak.  Soc.  Trans.  i?>?ij-p2,  pt.  iii.  pp.  269  seq.).  William 
Rowley,  an  industrious  playwright  with  whom  there  is  reason  for  be- 
lieving that  Shakespeare  collaborated  in  the  romantic  drania  of  Pericles, 
long  pursued  simultan,eously  the  histrionic  and  dramatic  vocations. 
The  most  popular  impersonator  of  youthful  rSles  in  Shakespeare's  day, 
Nathaniel  Field,  made  almost  equal  reputation  in  the  two  crafts ;  while 
another  boy  actor,  William  Barkstead,  co-operated  in  drama  with 
John  Marston  and  wrote  narrative  poems  in  the  manner  of  Shakespeare, 
on  whose  'art  and  wit'  he  bestowed  a  poetic  crown  of  laurel.  Cf.  Bark- 
stead's  Mirrha,  the  Mother  of  Adonis  (1607) : 

His  song  was  worthie  merrit  {Shakespeare  hee) : 
Lawrell  is  due  to  him,  his  art  and  wit 
Hath  purchas'd  it. 


98  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

plays,  nearly  all  of  which  belong  to  the  supreme  rank  of 
Uterature.  Three  volumes  of  poems  must  be  added  to 
the  total.  Ben  Jonson  was  often  told  by  the  playfrs 
that  'whatsoever  he  penned  he  never  blotted  out  [i.e. 
erased]  a  line.'  The  editors  of  the  First  Folio  attested 
that  'what  he  thought  he  uttered  with  that  easinesse 
that  we  have  scarce  received  from  him  a  blot  in  his 
papers.'  Signs  of  hasty  workmanship  are  not  lacking, 
but  they  are  few  when  it  is  considered  how  rapidly  his 
numerous  compositions  came  from  his  pen,  and  in  the 
aggregate  they  are  unimportant. 

By  borrowing  his  plots  in  conformity  with  the  general 
custom  he  to  some  extent  economised  his  energy.  The 
Hisbor-  range  of  literature  which  he  studied  in  his 
rowed  Search  for  tales  whereon  to  build  his  dramas 
^°'^'  was  wide.     He  consulted  not  merely  chronicles' 

of  English  history  (chiefly  Ralph  HoHnshed's)  on  which' 
he  based  his  English  historical  plays,  but  he  was  well 
read  in  the  romances  of  Italy  (mainly  in  French  or  Eng- 
lish translations),  in  the  biographies  of  Plutarch,  and  in 
the  romances  and  plays  of  English  contemporaries.  His 
Roman  plays  of  '  JuUus  Caesar,'  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,' 
and  'Coriolanus'  closely  follow  the  narratives  of  the 
Greek  biographer  in  the  masculine  Enghsh  rendering  of 
Sir  Thomas  North.  Romances  by  his  contemporaries, 
Thomas  Lodge  and  Robert  Greene,  suggested  the  fables 
respectively  of  'As  You  Like  It'  and  'A  Winter's  Tale.' 
'All's  Well  that  Ends  Well'  and  'Cymbehne'  largely 
rest  on  foundations  laid  by  Boccaccio  in  the  fourteenth 
century.  Novels  by  the  sixteenth-century  Italian, 
Bandello,  are  the  liltimate  sources  of  the  stories  of 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  and 
'Twelfth  Night.'  The  tales  of  'Othello'  and  'Measure 
for  Measure'  are  traceable  to  an  Italian  novehst  of  his 
own  era,  Giraldi  Cinthio.  Belleforest's  'Histoires 
Tragiques,'  a  popular  collection  of  French  versions  of 
the  ItaUan  romances  of  Bandello,  was  often  in  Shake- 
speare's hands.     In  treating  of  King  John,  Henry  IV, 


FIRST  DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  99 

Henry  V,  Richard  III,  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  King 
Lear,  and  Hamlet,  he  worked  over  ground  which  fellow- 
dramatists  had  first  fertilised.  Most  of  the  fables  which 
he  borrowed  he  transformed,  and  it  was  not  probably 
with  any  conscious  object  of  conserving  his  strength 
that  he  systematically  levied  loans  on  popular  current 
literature.  In  his  untiring  assimilation  of  others'  la- 
bours he  betrayed  something  of  the  practical  tempera- 
ment which  is  traceable  in  the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of 
his  later  hfe.  It  was  doubtless  with  the  calculated  aim 
of  ministering  to  the  public  taste  that  he  unceasingly 
adapted,  as  his  genius  dictated,  themes  which  had  al- 
ready, in  the  hands  of  inferior  writers  «r  dramatists, 
proved  capable  of  arresting  public  attention. 

The  professional  plajrwrights  sold  their  plays  outright 
to  the  acting  companies  with  which  they  were  associated, 
and  they  retained  no  legal  interest  in  them  j^^ 
after    the    manuscript    had   passed   into    the  revision 
hands    of    the    theatrical    manager.^    It    was  °  ^^^°" 
not  unusual  for  the  manager  to  invite  extensive  revision 
of  a  play  at  the  hands  of  others  than  its  author  before  it 
was  produced  on  the  stage,  and  again  whenever  it  was 
revived.     Shakespeare  gained  much  early  experience  as 
a  dramatist  by  revising  or  rewriting  behind  the  scenes  , 
plays  that  had  become  the  property  of  his  manager. 
It  is  possible  that  some  of  his  labours  in  this  direction 
remain   unidentified.     In   a   few   cases   his   alterations 
were  possibly  sUght,  but  as  a  rule  his  fund  of  originality 
was  too  abundant  to  restrict  him,  when'  working  as  an 
adapter,  to  mere  recension,  and  the  results  of  most  of 
his  known  labours   in   that   capacity   are   entitled  to 
rank  among  original  compositions. 

'  One  of  the  many  crimes  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  dramatist  Robert 
Greene  was  that  of  fraudulently  disposing  of  the  same  play  to  two 
companies.  'Ask  the  Queen's  players,'  his  accuser  bade  him  in  Cuth- 
bert  Cony-Catcher's  Defence  of  Cony-Catching,  1592,  'if  you  sold  them 
not  Orlando  Purioso  for  twenty  nobles  [i.e.  about  ^l.],  and  when  they 
were  in  the  country  sold  the  same  play  to  the  Lord  Admiral's  men  for 
as  many  more.' 


lOO  '  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  determination  of  the  exact  order  in  which  Shake- 
speare's plays  were  written  depends  largely  on  con- 
Chronoiogy  jecture.  External  evidence  is  accessible  in 
of  the  only  a  few  cases,  and,  although  always  worthy 
plays.  q£  ^jjg  utmost  consideration,  is  not  invariably 
conclusive.  The  date  of  pubHcation  rarely  indicates 
the  date  of  composition.  Only  sixteen  of  the  thirty- 
seven  plays  commonly  assigned  to  Shakespeare  were, 
pubHshed  in  his  hfetime,  and  it  is  questionable  whether 
any  were  pubHshed  under  his  supervision.''  But  subject- 
matter  and  metre  both  afford  rough  clues  to  the  period 
in  his  career  to  which  each  play  may  be  referred.  In  his 
early  plays  the  spirit  of  comedy  or  tragedy  appears  in 
its  simplicity;  as  his  powers  gradually  matured  he  de- 
picted hf e  in  its  most  complex  involutions,  and  portrayed 
with  masterly  insight  the  subtle  gradations  of  hutaan 
sentiment  and  the  mysterious  workings  of  human-  pas- 
sion.     Comedy    and    tragedy   are   gradually   blended; 

^  The  playhouse  authorities  deprecated  the  publishing  of  plays  in 
the  belief  that  their  dissemination  in  print  was  injurious  to  the  receipts 
of  the  theatre,  and  Shakespeare  would  seem  to  have  had  no  direct  re- 
sponsibility for  the  publication  of  his  plays.  Professional  opinion  con- 
demned such  playwrights  as  sought  'a  double  sale  of  their  labours,  first 
to  the  stage  and  after  to  the  press'  (Hey wood's  Rape  of  Lucrece,  1638. 
Address  to  Reader).  A  very  small  proportion  of  plays  acted  in  tiie 
reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I  —  some  600  out  of  a  total  of  3000  — 
consequently  reached  the  printing  press,  and  the  bulk  of  them  is  now 
lost.  In  1633  Hey  wood  wrote  of  'some  actors  who  think  it  against 
their  peculiar  profit  to  have  them  [i.e.  plays]  come  into  print.'  (English 
Traveller  pref.).  But,  in  the  absence  of  any  law  of  copyright,  publidiers 
often  contrived  to  defy  the  wishes  of  the  author  or  owner  of  manuscripts. 
The  poet  and  satirist  George  Wither,  in  his  The  Scholler's  Purgatory 
[1625],  which  is  the  classical  indictment  of  publishers  of  ShakespeSe's 
day,  charged  them  with  habitually  taking  'uppon  them  to  publish 
bookes  contrived  altered  and  mangled  at  their  owne  pleasures  withoul 
consent  of  the  writers  .  .  .  and  all  for  their  owne  private  lucre.'  Many 
copies  of  a  popular  play  were  made  for  the  actors  or  their  patrons,  and 
if  one  of  these  copies  chanced  to  fall  into  a  publisher's  hands,  it  was 
issued  without  any  endeavour  to  obtain  either  author's  or  manager's 
sanction.  It  was  no  uncommon  practice,  moreover,  for  a  visitor  to  tiie 
theatre  to  take  down  a  popular  piece  surreptitiously  in  shorthand  (see 
p.  1X2  «.  2  infra),  and  to  dispose  to  a  publisher  of  his  unauthorised  tran- 
script, which  was  usually  confused  and  only  partially  coherent.  For 
fuller  discussion  of  the  conditions  in  which  Shakespeare's  plays  saw  the 
light  see  bibliography,  pp.  545  seq.  infra. 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS  loi 

and  his  work  finally  developed  a  pathos  such  as  could 
only  come  of  ripe  experience.  Similarly  the  metre 
undergoes  emancipation  from  the  hampering  restraints 
of  fijced  rule  and  becomes  flexible  enough  to  Metrical 
respond  to  every  phase  of  human  feeHng.  In  t^^'^- 
the  blank  verse  of  the  early  plays  a  pause  is  strictly  ob- 
served at  the  close  of  almost  every  Une,  and  rhyming 
couplets  are  frequent.  .  Gradually  the  poet  overrides  such 
artificial  restrictions;  rhyme  largely  disappears;  the  pause 
is  varied  indefinitely ;  iambic  feet  are  replaced  by  trochees ; 
lines  occasionally  lack  the  orthodox  number  of  feet ;  extra 
syllables  are,  contrary  to  strict  metrical  law,  introduced  at 
the  end  of  fines,  and  at  times  in  the  middle ;  the  last  word 
of  the  fine  is  often  a  weak  and  unemphatic  conjunction  or 
preposition.^  In  his  early  work  Shakespeare  was  chary 
of  prose,  and  employed  verse  in  scenes  to  The  use 
which  prose  was  better  adapted.  As  his  ofprose. 
experience  grew  he  invariably  clothed  in  prose  the  voice 
of  broad  humour  or  low  comedy,  the  speech  of  mobs, 
clowns  and  fools,  and  the  famifiar  and  intimate  con- 
versation of  women.^     To   the  latest  plays   fantastic 

'  W.  S.' Walker  in  his  Shakespeare's  Versification,  1854,  and  Charles 
Bathurst  in  his  Difference  in  Shakespeare's  Versification  at  Different 
Periods  of  his  Life,  1857,  were  the  first  to  point  out  the  general  facts. 
Br.  Ingram's  paper  on  'The  Weak  Endings'  in  New  Shakspere  Society's 
Transactions  (1874),  vol.  i.  is  of  great  value.  Mr.  Fleay's  metrical  tables, 
which  first  appeared  in  the  same  Society's  Transactions  (1874),  and  were 
re-issued  by  Dr.  FurnivaU  in  a  somewhat  revised  form  in  his  introduction 
to  his  Leopold  Shakspere  and  elsewhere,  give  all  the  information  possible. 

*  In  Italy  prose  was  the  generally  accepted  instrument  of  the  comedy 
of  the  Renaissance  from  an  early  period  of  the  sixteenth  century.  This 
usage  soon  spread  to  France  and  somewhat  later  grew  familiar  in  Eliza- 
bethan England.  In  1566  Gascoigne  rendered  into  English  prose,  Gli 
Suppositi,  Ariosto's  Italian  prose  comedy,  and  most  of  Lyly's  'Court 
Comedies'  were  wholly  in  prose.  In  his  first  experiment  in  comedy, 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  Shakespeare,  apparently  under  the  influence  of 
foreign  example,  makes  a  liberal  employment  of  prose,  more  than  a 
third  of  the  whole  eschews  verse.  But  in  all  other  plays  of  early  date 
Shakespeare  uses  prose  sparingly ;  in  two  pieces,  Richard  II  and  King 
John,  he  avoids  it_  altogether.  In  his  mature  work  he  first  uses  it  on  a 
large  scale  in  the  two  parts  of  Henry  IV,  and  it  abounds  in  Henry  V 
and  in  the  three  romantic  comedies  Twelfth  Night, _  As  You  Like  It,  and 
Much  Ado.  The  Merry  Wives  is  almost  entirely  in  prose,  and  there  is 
a  substantial  amount  in  Measure  for  Measure  and  Troilus  and  Cressida. 


I02  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  punning  conceits  which  aboimd  in  early  work  are 
for  the  most  denied  admission.  But,  while  Shake- 
speare's achievement  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of 
Ins  career  offers  clearer  evidence  than  that  of  any  other 
writer  of  genius  of  the  steady  and  orderly  growth  of 
his  poetic  faculty,  some  allowance  must  be  made  for 
ebb  and  flow  in  the  current  of  his  artistic  progress. 
Early  work  occasionally  anticipates  features  that  become 
habitual  to  late  work,  and  late  work  at  times  embodies 
traits  that  are  mainly  identified  with  early  work.  No 
exclusive  reliance  in  determining  the  precise  chronology 
can  be  placed  on  the  merely  mechanical  tests  afforded  by 
tables  of  metrical  statistics.  The  chronological  order  can 
only  be  deduced  with  any  confidence  from  a  consideration 
of  all  the  internal  characteristics  as  well  as  the  known 
external  history  of  each  play.  The  premisses  are  often 
vague  and  conflicting,  and  no  chronology  hitherto  si^- 
gested  receives  at  aU  points  universal  assent. 

There  is  no  external  evidence  to  prove  that  any  piece 
in  which  Shakespeare  had  a  hand  was  produced  before 
'Love's  -t^^  spring  of  1592.  No  play  by  him  was 
Labour's      published    before    1597,    and    none    bore  his 

^''  name   on   the   title-page   tiU    1598.    But  his 

first  essays  have  been  with  confidence  allotted  to  1591. 
To  'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  may  reasonably  be  assigned 
priority  in  point  of  time  of  all  Shakespeare's  dramatit 
productions.  In  1598  an  amorous  poet,  writing  in  a 
melancholy  mood,  recorded  a  performance  of  the  piece 
which  he  had  witnessed  long  before.^     Liternal  evidence, 

In  the  great  tragedies  Julius  Casar,  AnUmy  and  Cleopatra,  Macbeth  and 
Othello,  there  is  comparatively  little  prose.  In  Hamlet,  King  Lear, 
Coriolanus,  and  Winter's  Tale,  the  ratio  of  prose  to  verse  again  mounts 
high,  but  it  falls  perceptibly  in  Cymbdine  and  The  Tempest.  In  the 
aggregate  Shakespeare's  prose  writing  is  of  substantial  amount;  fuDy 
a  fourth  part  of  his  extant  work  takes  that  shape. 

*  Loves  Labor  Lost,  I  once  did  see  a  Play 
Ydeped  so,  so  called  to  my  paine  .  .  . 
To  every  one  (saue  me)  twas  Comicall, 
Whilst  Tragick  like  to  me  it  did  befalL 
Each  Actor  plaid  in  cunning  wise  his  part. 
But  chiefly  Those  entrapt  in  Cupids  snare.  £L 

Rfobert]  T[ofte],  AJba,  1598  (in  Grosart's  reprint  1880,  p.  105).    M 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS  103 

which  alone  offers  any  precise  clue,  proves  that  it  was 
an  early  effort.  But  the  general  treatment  suggests 
that  the  author  had  already  lived  long  enough  in  London 
to  profit  by  study  of  a  current  inode  of  Ught  comedy 
which  was  winning  a  fashionable  vogue,  while  much  of 
the  subjoc'l-matter  proves  that  he  had  already  enjoyed 
extended  opportunities  of  surveying  London  life  and 
manners,  such  as  wore  hardly  open  to  him  in  the  very 
first  years  of  his  settlement  in  the  metropolis.  'Love's 
Labpur's  Lost'  embodies  keen  observation  of  contem- 
porary life  in  many  ranks  of  society,  both  in  town  and 
country,  while  the  speeches  of  the  hero  Biron  clothe  much 
sound  philosophy  in  masterly  rhetoric  often  charged  with 
poetic  fervour.  Its  slender  plot  stands  almost  alone 
among  Shakespeare's  plots  in  that  it  is  not  known  to 
have  been  borrowed,  and  it  stands  quite  alone  in  its 
sustained  travesty  of  familiar  traits  and  incidents  of  cur- 
rent social  and  political  life.  The  names  of  the  chief 
characters  are  drawn  from  the  leaders  in  the  civil  war 
in  France,  which  was  in  progress  between  1589  and  1594, 
and  was  anxiously  watched  by  the  English  public.^ 
Contemporary  projects  of  academies  for  disciplining 
young  men;  fashions  of  speech  and  dress  current  in 
fashionable  circles ;  recent  attempts  on  the  part  of  EUza- 

'  The  hero  is  the  King  of  Navarre,  in  whose  dominions  the  scene  is 
laid.  The  two  chief  lords  in  attendance  on  him  in  the  play,  Biron  and 
Longaville,  bear  the  actual  namea  of  the  two  most  strenuous  supporters 
of  the  real  King  of  Navarre  (Biron's  later  career  subsequently  formed 
the  subject  of  a  double  tragedy  by  Chapman,  TAe  Conspiracie  and 
Tragedie  of  Charles  Duke  of  Byron,  Marshall  of  France,  which  was  pro- 
duced in  1608).  The  name  of  tlie  Lord  Dumain  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost 
is  a  common  anglicised  version  of  that  Due  de  Maine  or  Mayenne  whose 
name  was  so  frequently  mentioned  in  popular  accounts  of  French  affairs 
in  connexion  with  Navarre's  movements  that  Shakespeare  was  led  to 
number  him  also  among  his  supporters.  Mothe  or  La  Mothe,  the  name 
of  the  pretty,  ingenious  page,  was  that  of  a  French  ambassador  who 
was  long  popular  in  London;  and,  though  he  left  England  in  1583, 
he  lived  in  the  memory  of  playgoers  and  playwrights  long  after  Love  s 
Labour's  Lost  was  written.  In  Chapman's  An  fhtmourous  Day's  Mirth, 
15OQ,  M.  Le  Mot,  a  sprightly  courtier  in  attendance  on  the  King  of 
France,  is  drawn  from  the  some  original,  and  his  name,  as  in  Shake- 
speare's play,  suggests  much  punning  on  the  word  'mote,'    As  late  as 


I04  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

beth's  government  to  negotiate  with  the  Tsar  of  Russia; 
the  inefficiency  of  rural  constables  and  the  pedantry  of 
village  schoolmasters  and  curates  are  all  satirised  with 
good  humour.  Holofernes,  Shakespeare's  Latinising 
pedagogue,  is  nearly  akin  to  a  stock  character  of  the 
sixteenth-century  comedy  of  France  and  Italy  which 
was  just  obtaining  an  Enghsh  vogue. 

In  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  moreover,  Shakespeare 
assimilates  some  new  notes  which  EUzabethan  comedy 
owed  to  the  ingenuity  of  John  Lyly,  an  active  map  of 
letters  during  most  of  Shakespeare's  life.  Lyly  secured 
his  first  fame  as  early  as  1580  by  the  pubUcation  of  his 
didactic  romance  of  'Euphues,'  which  brought  into 
fashion  a  mannered  prose  of  strained  antitheses  and 
affected  conceits.^    But  hardly  less  originaHty  was  be- 

1602  Middleton,  in  his  Blurt,  Master  Constable,  act  ii-.  scene  ii.  line  215, 

wrote : 

Ho  God !  Ho  God !  thus  did  I  revel  it 
When  Monsieur  Motte  lay  here  ambassador. 

Armado,  'the  fantastical  Spaniard'  who  haunts  Navarre's  Court,  and 
is  dubbed  by  another  courtier  'a  phantasm,  a  Monarcho,'  is  a  caricature 
of  a  half-crazed  Spaniard  known  as  'fantastical  Monarcho'  who  for 
many  years  hung  about  Elizabeth's  Court,  and  was  under  the  delusion 
that  he  owned  the  ships  arriving  in  the  port  of  London.  On  his  death 
Thomas  Churchyard  wrote  a  poem  called  Fantastkall  Monarcho's 
Epitaph,  and  mention  is  made  of  him  in  Reginald  Scott's  Discoverie  of 
Witchcraft,  1584,  p.  54.  The  name  Armado  was  doubtless  suggested 
by  the  expeditioii  of  1588.  Braggardino  in  Chaprnan's  Blind  Beggar  of 
Alexandria,  1598,  is  drawn  on  the  same  lines.  The  scene  {Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  V.  ii.  158  sqq.)  in  which  the  princess's  lovers  press  their  suit  in  the 
disguise  of  Russians  follows  a  description  of  the  reception  by  ladies  of 
Elizabeth's  Court  in  1584  of  Russian  ambassadors  who  came  to  London 
to  seek  a  wife  among  the  ladies  of  the  English  nobility  for  the  Tsar 
(cf.  Horsey's  Travels,  ed.  E.  A.  Bond,  Hakluyt  Soc).  For  further  in- 
dications of  topics  of  the  day  treated  in  the  play,  see  'A  New  Study  of 
"Love's  Labour's  Lost,"'  by  the  present  writer,  in  Gent.  Mag.  Oct. 
1880;  and  Transactions  of  the  New  Shakspere  Society,  pt.  iii.  p.  80*. 
The  attempt  to  detect  in  the  schoolmaster  Holofernes  a  caricature  of  the 
Italian  teacher  and  lexicographer,  John  Florio,  seems  unjustified  (see 
p.  iss  n.  2). 

'  In  later  life  Shakespeare,  in  Hamlet,  borrows  from  Lyly's  Euphues 
Polonius's  advice  to  Laertes;  but,  however  he  may  have  regarded  the 
moral  sentiment  of  that  didactic  romance,  he  had  no  respect  for  tie 
afiectations  of  its  prose  style,  which  he  ridiculed  in  a  familiar  passage  in 
I  Henry  IV,  11.  iv.  445  :  Tor  though  the  camomile,  tie  more  it  is  trodden 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS  105 

trayed,  by  the  writer  in  a  series  of  eight  comedies  which 
jcame  from  his  pen  between  1580  and  1592,  and  were 
enthusiastically  welcomed  at  Queen  Elizabeth's  Court, 
where  they  were  rendered  by  the  boy  companies  under 
the  royal  patronage.^  Lyly  adapted  to  the  stage  themes 
of  Greek  mythology  from  the  pages  of  Lucian,  Apuleius, 
or  Ovid,  and  he  mingled  with  his  classical  fables  scenes 
of  low  comedy  which  smacks  of  Plautus.  The  lan- 
guage is  usually  euphuistic.  In  only  one  play,  'The 
Woman  in  the  Moone,'  does  he  attempt  blank  verse; 
elsewhere  his  dramatic  vehicle  is  exclusively  prose. 
The  most  notable  characteristics  of  Lyly's  dramatic 
work  are  brisk  artificial  dialogues  which  glow  with 
repartee  and  word-play,  and  musically  turned  lyrics. 
Such  features  were  directly  reflected  in  Shakespeare's 
first  essay  in  comedy.  Many  scenes  and  characters  in 
'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  were  obviously  inspired  by 
Lyly.  Sir  Tophas,  'a  foolish  braggart'  in  Lyly's  play  of 
'Endimion,'  was  the  father  of  Shakespeare's  character 
of  Armado,  while  Armado's  pagcrboy,  Moth,  is  as  fihally 
related  to  Sir  Tophas's  page-boy,  Epiton.  The  verbal 
encounters  of  Sir  Tophas  and  Epiton  in  Lyly's  'En- 
dimion' practically  reappear  in  the  dialogues  of 
Armado  and  Moth  in  Shakespeare's  'Love's  Labour's 
Lost.'  Probably  it  was  in  conformity  with  Lyly's 
practice  that  Shakespeare  denied  the  ornament  of  verse 
to  fuUy  a  third  part  of  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  while 
in  introducing  lyrics  into  his  play  Shakespeare  again 
accepted  Lyly's  guidance.  Shakespeare  had  at  com- 
mand from  his  early  days  a  fuUer-blooded  humanity 
than  that  which  lay  within  Lyly's  range.     But  Lyly's 

on,  the  faster  it  grows,  yet  youth  the  more  it  is  wasted,  the  sooner  it 
wears.'     Cf.  Lyly's  Works,  ed.  R.  W.  Bond  (1902),  i.  164-75. 

1  The  titles  of  Lyly's  chief  comedies  are  (with  dates  of  first  publica- 
tion) :  Alexander  and  Cumpaspe,  1584 ;  'Sapho  and  Phao,  1584 ;  Endimion,  ■ 
1591;  Gallathea,  1592;  Mydas,iS92;  Mother  Bombie,  1594;  The  Woman 
in  the  Moone  (in  blank  verse),  1597;  Love's  Metamorphosis,  1601.  The 
first  six  pieces  were  issued  together  in  1632  as  'Six  Courte  Comedies  .  .  .. 
Written  by  the  only  rare  poet  of  that  time,  the  wittie,  comicall,  face- 
tiously quicke  and  unparalleled  John  Lilly,  Master  of  Arts.' 


Io6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

influence  long  persisted  in  Shakespearean  comedy.  It  is 
clearly  visible  in  the  succeeding  plays  of  'The  Two  Gen- 
tlemen of  Verona'  and  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.' 

Shakespeare's  'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  was  revised  in 
1597,  probably  for  a  Christmas  performance  at  Court. 
'A  pleasant  conceited  comedie  called  Loues  labors  lost' 
was  first  published  next  year  '  as  it  was  presented  before 
her  Highness  this  last  Christmas.'  The  publisher  was 
Cuthbert  Burbie,  a  Hveryman  of  the  Stationers'  Company 
with  a  shop  in  Cornhill  adjoining  the  Royal  Exchange.' 
On  the  title-page,  which  described  the  piece  as  'newly 
corrected  and  augmented,'  Shakespeare's  name  ('By 
W.  Shakespere ')  first  appeared  in  print  as  that  of  author 
of  a  play.  No  license  for  the  publication  figures  in 
the  Stationers'  Company's  Register.^  The  manuscript 
which  the  printer  followed  seems  to  have  been  legibly 
written,  but  it  did  not  present  the  author's  final  correc- 
tions. Here  and  there  the  pubHshed  text  of  'Love's 
Labour's  Lost'  admits  passages  in  two  forms  —  the 
unrevised  original  draft  and  the  revised  version.  The 
copyist  failed  to  delete  many  umrevised  Knes,  and  his 
neglect,  which  the  press-corrector  did  not  repair,  has 
left  Shakespeare's  first  and  second  thoughts  side  by 
side.  A  graphic  illustration  is  thus  afforded  of  the 
flowing  current  of  Shakespeare's  art.' 

Less  gaiety  characterised  another  comedy  of  the  same 
date:  'The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  for  the  most 
'Two  P^'^t  ^  lyrical  romance  of  love  and  friendship, 

Gentlemen  reflects  Something  of  Lyly's  influence  in  both 
of  Verona,  j^.^  ggntimental  and  its  comic  vein,  but  the 
construction  echoes  more  distinctly  notes  coming  from 

'  The  printer  was  William  White,  of  Cow  Lane,  near  the  Holbom 
Conduit. 

^  Lme's  Labour's  Lost  was  first  mentioned  in  the  Stationers'  Register 
on  Jan.  22,  1606-7,  when  the  publisher  Burbie  transferred  his  right  in 
the  piece  to  Nicholas  Ling,  who  made  the  title  over  to  another  stationer 
John  Smethwick  oh  Nov.  19,  1607.  No  quarto  of  the  play  was  published 
by  Smethwick  till  1631. 

'Cf.  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  iv.  iii.  U.  299-301  and  320-333;  ib.  U. 
302-304  and  350-353;  V.  ii.  11.  827-832  and  847-881. 


FIRST   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  107 

the  South  of  Europe  —  from  Italy  and  Spain.  The 
perplexed  fortunes  of  the  two  pairs  of  youthful  lovers 
and  the  masculine  disguise  of  one  of  the  heroines  are 
reminiscent  of  Italian  or  Spanish  ingenuity.  Shake- 
speare "had  clearly  studied  '  The  pleasaunt-  and  fine  con- 
ceited Comedie  of  Two  Itahan  Gentlemen,'  a  crude 
comedy  of  double  intrigue  penned  in  undramatic  rhjniie, 
which  was  issued  anonymously  in  London  in  1584,  and 
was  adapted  from  a  somewhat  coarse  Italian  piece  of 
European  repute.^  The  eager  pursuit  by  Shakespeare's 
JuKa  in  a  man's  disguise  of  her  wayward  lover  Proteus 
suggests,  at  the  same  time,  indebtedness  to  the  Spanish 
story  of  'The  Shepardess  FeHsmena,'  who  endeavoured 
to  conceal  her  sex  in  her  pursuit  of  her  fickle  lover  Don 
Felix.  The  tale  of  Felismena  forms  part  of  the  Spanish 
pastoral  romance  'Diana,'  by  George  de  Montemayor, 
which  long  enjoyed  popularity  in  England.^  The '  history 
of  Felix  and  Philomena,'  a  lost  piece  which  was  acted  at 
Court  in  1584,  was  apparently  a  first  attempt  to  drama- 
tise Montemayor's  story,  and  it  may  have  given  Shake- 
speare one  of  his  cues.^ 

^  Fidele  and  Portunio,  The  Two  Italian  Gentlemen,  which  was  edited 
for  the  Malone  Society  by  W.  W.  Greg  in  1910.  is  of  uncertain  author- 
ship. Collier  ascribed  it  to  Anthony  Munday,  but  some  passages  seem 
to  have  come  from  the  youthful  pen  of  George  Chapman  (see  England's 
Parnassus,  ed.  by  Charles  Crawford,  1913,  pp.  517  seq. ;  Malone  Soc. 
Collections,  igog,  vol.  i.  pp.  218  seq.).  The  Italian  original  called  II 
Fedele  was  by  Luigi  Pasqualigo,  and  was  printed  at  Venice  in  1576.  A 
French  version,  Le  Piddle,  by  Pierre  de  Larivey,  a  popular  French 
dramatist,  appeared  in  1579,  and  near  the  same  date  a  Latin  rendering 
was  undertaken  by  the  English  classicist,  Abraham  Fraunce.  Fraunce's 
work  was  first  printed  from  the  manuscript  at  Penshurst  by  Prof.  G.  C. 
Moore  Smith  in  Bang's  Materialien,  Band  XIV.,  Louvain,  1906,  under 
the  title  Victoria,  the  name  of  the  heroine. 

^  No  complete  English  translation  of  Montemayor's  romance  was 
published  before  that  of  Bartholomew  Yonge  in  1598,  but  a  manuscript 
version  by  Thomas  Wilson,  which  was  dedicated  to  Shakespeare's  patron, 
the  Earl  of  Southampton,  in  isg6,  possibly  circulated  earlier  (Brit.  Mus. 
Addit.  MSS.  18638). 

'  Some  verses  from  Diana  were  translated  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney  and 
were  printed  with  his  poems  as  early  as  1591.  Other  current  Italian 
fiction,  which  also  anticipated  the  masculine  disguise  of  Shakespeare's 
Julia,  was  likewise  accessible  in  an  English  garb.  The  industrious 
soldier-author*  Barnabe  Riche  drew  a  cognate  story  ('Apolonius  and 


Io8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Many  of  Lyly's  idiosyncrasies  readily  adapted  them-  ^ 
selves  to  the  treatment  of  the  foreign  fable.  Trifling  and 
irritating  conceits  abound  and  tend  to  an  atmosphere  of 
artificiahty ;  but  passages  of  high  poetic  spirit  are  not 
wanting,  and  the  speeches  of  the  clowns,  Launce  and 
Speed  —  the  precursors  of  a  long  Une  of  whimsical 
serving-men  —  overflow  with  a  farcical  drollery  which 
improves  on  Lyly's  verbal  smartness.  The  'Two 
Gentlemen'  was  not  pubhshed  in  Shakespeare's  life- 
time ;  it  first  appeared  in  the  FoUo  of  1623,  after  having, 
in  all  probabihty,  undergone  some  revision.^ 

Shakespeare  next  tried  his  hand,  in  the  'Comedy  of 
Errors'  (commonly  known  at  the  time  as  'Errors'),  at 
'Comedy  boisterous  farce.  The  comic  gusto  is  very 
of  Errors.'  sHghtly  rcKeved  by  romantic  or  poetic  speech, 
but  a  fine  note  of  sober  and  restrained  comedy  is 
struck  in  the  scene  where  the  abbess  rebukes  the 
shrewish  wife  Adriana  for  her  persecution  of  her 
husband  (v.  i.).  'The  Comedy  of  Errors,'  like  'The 
Two  Gentlemen,'  was  first  published  in  1623.  Again, 
too,  as  in  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  allusion  was  made 
to  the  civil  war  in  France.  France  was  described  as 
'making  war  against  her  heir'  (iii.  ii.  125)  — an  allusion 
which  assigns  the  composition  of  the  piece  to  1591. 
Shakespeare's  farce,  which  is  by  far  the  shortest  of  all 
his  dramas,  may  have  been  founded  on  a  play,  no  longer 
extant,  called  'The  Historic  of  Error,'  which  was  acted 
in  1576  at  Hampton  Court.  In  theme  Shakespeare's 
piece  resembles  the  'Menaschmi'  of  Plautus,  and  treats 
of  mistakes  of  identity  arising  from   the  likeness  of 

Silla')  from  an  Italian  source,  Giraldi  Cinthio's  Hecalommithi,  is6Si 
pt.  I,  isth_day,_Novel  8.  Riche's  story  is  the  second  tale  in  his  'Fare- 
well to  Militarie  Profession  conteining  verie  pleasaunt  discourses  fit 
for  a  peaceable  tyme,'  1581.  A  more  famous  Italian  novelist,  Bandello, 
had  previously  employed  the  liite  theme  of  a  girl  in  man's  disguise  to 
more  satisfying  purpose  in  his  iVoweZ/e  (1554;  Pt.  II.  Novel  36).  Under 
Bandello's  guidance  Shakespeare  treated  the  topic  again  and  with  finer 
insight  in  Twelfth  Night,  his  masterpiece  of  romantic  comedy  (see  pp. 
327-8  infra). 

1  Fleay,  Life,  pp.  188  seq. 


FIRST  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS  109 

twin-born  children,  although  Shakespeare  adds  to 
Plautus's  single  pair  of  identical  twins  a  second  couple 
of  serving  men.  The  scene  in  Shakespeare's  play  (act 
in.  sc.  i.)  in  which  Antipholus  of  Ephesus  is  shut  out  of 
his  own  house,  while  his  indistinguishable  brother  is 
entertained  at  dinner  within  by  his  wife  who  mistakes 
him  for  her  husband,  recalls  an  episode  in  the 
'Amphitruo'  of  Plautus.  Shakespeare  doubtless  had  di- 
rect recourse  to  Plautus  as  well  as  to  the  old  play.  He 
had  read  the  Latin  dramatist  at  school.  There  is  only 
a  bare  possibiHty  that  he  had  an  opportunity  of  reading 
Plautus  in  English  when  'The  Comedy  of  Errors'  was 
written  in  1591.  The  earHest  translation  of  the  'Me- 
nffichmi '  was  not  hcensed  for  publication  before  June  10, 
1594,  and  was  not  pubhshed  until  the  following  year. 
No  translation  of  any  other  play  of  Plautus  appeared  in 
print  before.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  stated  in  the 
preface  to  this  first  pubhshed  translation  of  the 
'Menaechmi'  that  the  translator,  W.  W.,  doubtless 
WilUam  Warner,  a  veteran  of  the  Ehzabethan  world  of 
letters,  had  some  time  previously  'EngHshed'  that  and 
■ '  divers '  others  of  Plautus's  comedies,  and  had  circulated 
them  in  manuscript  'for  the  use  of  and  deKght  of  his 
private  friends,  who,  in  Plautus's  own  words,  are  not 
able  to  understand  them.' 

Each  of  these  three  plays  —  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,' 
'The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  and  'The  Comedy  of 
Errors'  —  gave  promise  of  a  dramatic  capacity  'Romeo 
out  of  the  common  way;  yet  none  can  be  andjuUet.' 
with  certainty  pronounced  to  be  beyond  the  abihty 
of  other  men.  It  was  not  until  he  produced  'Romeo 
and  Juhet,'  his  first  tragedy,  that  Shakespeare  proved 
himself  the  possessor  of  a  poetic  instinct  and  a  dramatic 
insight  of  unprecedented  quahty.  Signs  of  study  of  the 
contemporary  native  drama  and  of  other  home-born 
literature  are  not  wanting  in  this  triumph  of  distinctive 
genius.  To  Marlowe,  Shakespeare's  only  EngUsh  pred- 
ecessor in  poetic  and  passionate  tragedy,  some  rhetori- 


no  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

cal  circumlocutions  and  much  metrical  dexterity  are 
undisguised  debts.  But  the  pathos  which  gave 
'Romeo  and  Juliet'  its  nobility  lay  beyond  Marlowe's 
dramatic  scope  or  sympathy.  Where  Shakespeare,  in 
his  early  efforts,  manipulated  themes  of  closer  affinity 
with  those  of  Marlowe,  the  influence  of  the  master 
penetrates  deeper.  In  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  Shakespeare 
turned  to  rare  account  a  tragic  romance  of  Italian  origin, 
which  was  already  popular  in  English  versions,  and  was 
an  accepted  theme  of  drama  throughout  Western  Eu- 
rope.i  Arthur  Broke,  who  in  1562  rendered  the  story 
into  English  verse  from  a  French  rendering  of  Bandello's 
standard  Italian  narrative,  mentions  in  his  '  Address  to 
the  Reader'  that  he  had  seen  'the  same  argument  lately 
set  forth  on  stage  with  more  commendation'  than  he 
could  'look  for,'  but  no  tangible  proof  of  this  statement 
has  yet  come  to  light.  A  second  English  author,  Wil- 
liam Painter,   greatly  extended  the  EngUsh  vogue  of 

*  The  story,  which  has  been  traced  back  to  the  Greek  romance  of 
Anthia  and  Abrocomas  by  Xenophon  Ephesius,  a  writer  of  the  second 
century,  seems  to  have  been  first  told  in  modem  Europe  about  1470  by 
Masuccio,  '  the  Neapolitan  Boccaccio,'  in  his  Novellino  (No.  xxxiii. :  cf. 
W.  G.  Waters's  translation,  ii.  iSS-65).  It  was  adapted  from  Masuccio 
by  Luigi  da  Porto  in  his  novel,  La  Giulietta,  1535,  and  by  BandeUo  in 
his  Novelle,  1554,  pt.  ii.  No.  ix.  Bandello's  version  became  classical; 
it  was  traiislated  into  French  in  the  Histoires  Tragiques  of  Frangois  de 
BeUeforest  (Paris,  iSSp)  by  Pierre  Boaistuau  de  Launay,  an  occasional 
collaborator  with  BeUeforest.  The  English  writers  Broke  and  Painter 
are  both  disciples  of  Boaistuau.  Near  the  same  time  that  Shakespeare 
was  writing  Romeo  and  Jidiet,  the  Italian  story  was  dramatised,  chiefly 
with  Bandello's  help,  by  Italian,  French,  and  Spanish  writers.  The 
bUnd  dramatist  Luigi  Groto  pubUshed  at  Venice  in  1583  La  Hadriana,- 
tragedia  nova,  which  tells  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  under  other  names  and 
closely  anticipates  many  passages  of  Shakespeare's  play.  (Cf .  Originals 
and  Analogues,  pt.  i.  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel,  New  Shakspere  Soc,  pp.  xxi  seq.) 
Meanwhile  a  French  version  (now  lost)  of  Bandello's  Romeo  and  Jidiet, 
by  C6me  de  la  Gambe,  called  '  Chateauvieux,'  a  professional  actor  and 
groom  of  the  chamber  to  Henri  III,  was  performed  at  the  French  Court 
in  1580.  (See  the  present  writer's  French  Renaissance  in  England,  1910, 
pp.  439-440.)  Subsequently  Lope  de  Vega  dramatised  the  tale  in  his 
Spanish  play  called  Castelmnes  y  Monteses  {i.e.  Capulets  and  Montagus). 
For  an  analysis  of  Lope's  play,  which  ends  happily,  see  Variorum  Shake- 
speare, 1 82 1,  xxi.  451-60.  Lope's  play  appeared  in  an  inaccurate  Eng- 
lish translation  in  1770,  and  was  rendered  literally  by  Mr.  F.  W.  Cosens 
in  a  privately  printed  volume  in  1869. 


FIRST  DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  III 

the  legend  by  publishing  in  1567,  in  his  anthology  of 
fiction  called  'The  Palace  of  Pleasure,'  a  prose  para- 
phrase of  the  same  French  version  as  Broke  employed. 
Shakespeare  followed  Broke's  verse  more  closely  than 
Painter's  prose,  although  he  studied  both.  At  the  same 
time  he  impregnated  the  familiar  story  with  a  wholly 
original  poetic  fervour,  and  reheved  the  tragic  intensity 
by  developing  the  humour  of  Mercutio,  and  by  investing 
with  an  entirely  new  and  comic  significance  the  character 
of  the  Nurse.^  Dryden  was  of  opinion  that,  'in  his 
Mercutio,  Shakespeare  showed  the  best  of  his  skill' 
as  a  delineator  of  'gentlemen,'  and  the  critic,  who  was 
writing  in  1672,  imputed  to  Shakespeare  the  remark 
'that  he  was  forced  to  kill  him  [Mercutio]  in  the  third 
act  to  prevent  being  kiUed  by  him.'  ^  The  subordinate 
comic  character  of  Peter,  the  nurse's  serving-man,  en- 
joyed the  advantage  of  being  interpreted  on  the  pro- 
duction of  the  piece  by  William  Kemp,  a  leading  come- 
dian of  the  day.^  Yet  it  is  the  characterisation  of  hero 
and  heroine  on  which  Shakespeare  focussed  his  strength. 
The  ecstasy  of  youthful  passion  is  portrayed  by  Shake- 
speare in  language  of  the  highest  lyric  beauty,  and  al- 
though he  often  jdelds  to  the  current  predilection  for 
quibbles  and  conceits,  'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  as  a  tragic 
poem  on  the  theme  of  love,  has  no  rival  in  any  literature. 
If  the  Nurse's  remark,  "Tis  since  the  earthquake  now 
eleven  years'  (i.  iii.  23),  be  taken  literally,  the  composiv 
tion  of  the  play  must  at  least  have  begun  in  1591,  for 

*  Cf.  Originals  and  Analogues,  pt.  i.  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel,  New  Shakspere 
Society. 

'  Dryden's  Essays,  ed.  W.  P.  Ker,  i.  174.  Dryden  continued  his 
comments  thus  on  Shakespeare's  alleged  confession :  'But,  for  my  part, 
I  cannot  find  he  [Mercutio]  was  so  dangerous  a  person :  I  see  nothing 
in  him  but  what  was  so  exceedingly  harmless,  that  he  might  have  lived 
to  the  end  of  the  play,  and  died  in  his  bed,  without  oflEence  to  any 
man.' 

'  By  a  copyist's  error  Kemp's  name  is  substituted  for  Peter's  in  the 
second  and  third  quartos  of  the  play  (iv.  v.  100).  A  like  error  of  tran- 
scription in  the  text  of  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  (Act  11.  Sc.  ii.)  establishes 
the  fact  tiat  Kemp  subsequently  created  the  part  of  Dogberry. 


112  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

no  earthquake  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  experienced' 
in  England  after  1580.  A  few  parallehsms  with  Daniel's 
'Coniplainte  of  Rosamond'  suggest  that  Shakespeare 
read  that  poem  before  completing  his  play.  Daniel's 
work  was  pubhshed  in  1592,  and  it  is  probable  that 
Shakespeare  completed  his  piece  early  that  year.  The 
popularity  of  the  tragedy  was  unquestioned  from  the 
first,  and  young  lovers  were  for  a  generation  commonly 
credited  with  speaking  'naught  but  pure  Juliet  and 
Romeo. '  ^ 

The  tragedy  underwent  some  revision  after  its  first 
production.^  The  earliest  edition  appeared  in  1597 
annonymously  and  surreptitiously.  The  title-page  ran: 
'An  excellent  conceited  Tragedie  of  Romeo  and  luUet. 
As  it  hath  been  often  (with  great  applause)  plaid  pub- 
Hquely  by  the  right  honourable  the  L[ord]  of  Hunsdon 
his  seruants.'  The  printer  and  publisher,  John  JDanter,  a 
very  notorious  trader  in  books,  of  Hosier  Lane,  near  Hol- 
born  Conduit,  had  acquired  an  unauthorised  transcript 
which  had  doubtless  been  prepared  from  a  shorthand 
report.^    The  reporter  filled  gaps  in  his  imperfect  notes 

^  Marston's  Scourge  of  Villanie  (1598),  Satyre  10. 

2  Cf .  Parallel  Texts,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel,  New  Shakspere  Society ;  Fleay, 
Life,  pp.  191  seq. 

'Danter  first  obtained  notoriety  in  1593  as  the  publisher  of  Thomas 
Nashe's  scurrilous  attacks  on  the  Cambridge  scholar  Gabriel  Harvey. 
Subsequently  he  enjoyed  the  unique  distinction  among  Elizabethan 
stationers  of  being  introduced  under  his  own  name  in  the  dramatis  per- 
soncB  of  an  acted  play  of  the  period.  'Danter  the  printer'  figured  as  a 
trafficker  in  the  licentious  products  of  academic  youth  in  the  academic 
play  of  The  Relume  from  Parnassus,  act  1.  sc.  iii  (1600?).  Besides 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  Danter  published  Tihis  Andronicus  (early  in  1594; 
see  p.  132).  He  died  in  1597  or  1598.  The  evil  practice  of  publishing 
crude  shorthand  reports  of  plays,  from  which  Shakespeare  was  to  suffer 
frequently,  is  capable  of  much  independent  illustration.  The  dramatist 
Thomas  Heywood,  who  began  his  long  career  as  dramatist  before  1600, 
complained  that  some  of  his  pieces  accidentally  fell  into  the  printer's 
hands,  and  then  'so  corrupt  and  mangled,  copied  only  by  the  ear,  that 
I  have  been  as  unable  to  know  them  as  ashamed  to  challenge  them' 
{Rape  of  Lucrece,  1638,  address).  Similarly  Heywood  included  in  his 
Pleasant  Dialogues  and  Dramas,  1637  (pp.  248-9)  a  prologue  for  the 
revival  of  an  old  play  of  his  concerning  Queen  Elizabeth,  called  'If 
you  know  not  me,  you  know  nobody,'  which  he  had  lately  revised  for 


FIRST  DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  1 13 

with  unwieldy  descriptive  stage  directions  of  his  own 
devising.  A  second  quarto — -'The  most  excellent  and 
lamentable  Tragedie  of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  newly  cor- 
rected, augmented,  and  amended;  As  it  hath  bene 
sundry  times  publiquely  acted  by  the  right  honourable 
the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  Seruants'  —  was  .published, 
from  an  authentic  stage  version,  in  1599,  by  a  stationer 
of  higher  reputation,  Cuthbert  Burbie  of  Comhill.^  In 
Burble's  edition  the  tragedy  first  took  coherent  shape. 
Ten  years  later  a  reprint  of  Burble's  quarto  introduced 
further  improvements  ('as  it  hath  been  sundrie  times 
publiquely  acted  by  the  Kings  Maiesties  Seruants  at 

acting  purposes.  Nathaniel  Butter  had  published  the  first  and  second 
editions  of  the  piece  in  1605  and  1608,  and  Thomas  Pavier  the  third  in 
1610.  In  a  prose  note  preceding  the  new  prologue  the  author  denounced 
the  printed  edition  as  'the  most  corrupted  copy,  which  was  published 
without  his  consent.'  In  the  prologue  itself,  Haywood  declared  that 
the  piece  had  on  its  original  production  on  the  stage  pleased  the  audience : 

So  much  that  some  by  stenography  drew 
The  plot,  put  it  in  print,  scarce  one  word  true. 

Sermons  and  lectures  were  frequently  described  on  their  title-page  as 
'taken  by  characterie'  (cf.  Stephen  Egerton's  Lecture  1598,  and  Ser- 
mons of  Henry  Smith,  1590  and  1591).  The  popular  system  of  Eliza- 
bethan shorthand  was  that  devised  by  Timolliy  Bright  in  his  'Char- 
acterie: An  arte  of  shorte  scripte,  and  secrete  writing  by  character,' 
1588.  In  1590  Peter  Bales  devoted  the  opening  section  of  his  'Writing 
Schoolmaster'  to  the  'Arte  of  Brachygraphy.'  In  1612  Sir  George  Buc, 
in  his  'Third  Vniversitie  of  England'  (appended  to  Stow's  Chronicle), 
wrote  of  'the  much-to-be-regarded  Art  of  Brachygraphy'  (chap,  xxxix.), 
that  it  'is  an  art  newly  discovered  or  newly  recovered,  and  is  of  very 
good  and  necessary  use,  being  well  and  honestly  exercised,  for,  by  the 
meaijes  and  helpe  thereof,  they  which  know  it  can  readily  take  a  Ser- 
mon, Oration,  Play,  or  any  long  speech,  as  they  are  spoke,  dictated, 
acted,  and  uttered  in  the  instant.' 

1  This  quarto  was  printed  for  Burbie  by  Thomas  Creede  at  the  Katha- 
rine Wheel  in  Thames  Street.  Burbie  had  a  year  earlier_  issued  the 
quarto  of  Love's  Labour's  Lost.  He  had  no  other  association  with 
Shakespeare's  work.  The  Stationers'  Company's  Register  contains  no 
license  for  the  issue  of  either  Banter's  or  Burble's  quarto  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  The  earliest  mention  of  the  piece  in  the  Stationers'  Register  is 
under  date  January  22,  1606-7,  when  Burbie  assigned  his  rights  in  that 
tragedy,  as  well  as  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew, 
to  the  stationer  Nicholas  Ling ;  but  Ling  transferred  his  title  on  Novem- 
ber 19,  1607,  to  John  Smethwick,  who  was  responsible  for  the  third 
quarto  of  Romeo  and  JuUet  of  1609. 


114  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  Globe'),  and  that  volume,  which  twice  re-appeared 
in  quarto  —  without  date  and  in  1637  —  ^^•s  the  basis 
of  the  standard  text  of  the  First  Folio.  The  prolonged 
series  of  quarto  editions  show  that  'Romeo  and  Juliet' 
fuUy  retained  its  popularity  throughout  Shakespeare's 
generation. 


VIII 

PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,   1591-1594 

Three  pieces  with  which  Shakespeare's  early  activities 
were  associated  reveal  him  as  an  adapter  of  plays  by 
other  hands.    Though  they  lack  the  interest  shake- 
attaching  to  his  unaided  work,  they  throw  in-  speareas 
valuable  hght  on  some  of  his  early  methods  of  others"" 
composition  and  on  his  early  relations  with  p'^^^- 
other  dramatists.     Proofs  are  offered  of  Shakespeare's 
personal  co-operation  with  his  great  forerunner  Marlowe, 
and  the  manner  of  influence  which  Marlowe's  example 
exerted  on    him  is   precisely  indicated.     Shakespeare, 
moreover,  now  experimented  for  the  first  time  with  the 
dramatisation  of   his   country's  history.    That  special 
branch  of  drama  was  rousing  immense  enthusiasm  in 
Elizabethan  audiences,  and  Shakespeare's  first  venture 
into  the  historical  field  enjoyed  a  liberal  share  of  the 
popular  applause. 

On  March  3,  1591-2,  'Henry  VI,'  described  as  a 
'new'  or  reconstructed  piece,  was  acted  at  the  Rose 
Theatre  by  Lord  Strange's  men.  It  was  'Henry 
no  doubt  the  play  subsequently  known  ,as  ^■' 
Shakespeare's  '  The  First  Part  of  Henry  VI,'  which  pre- 
sented the  war  in  France  and  the  factious  quarrels  of 
the  nobiUty  at  home  from  the  funeral  of  King  Henry 
V  (in"  1422)  to  the  humihating  treaty  of  marriage  be- 
tween his  degenerate  son,  King  Henry  VI,  with  Margaret 
of  Anjou  (in  1445) .  On  its  production  the  piece,  owing 
to  its  martial  note,  won  a  popular  triumph,  and  the 
unusual  number  of  fifteen  performances  followed  within 
the  year.^     '  How  would  it  have  Joyed  brave  Talbot  (the 

^  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  i.  13  et  passim;  ii.  152,  338.    The  last 
recorded  performance  was  on  Jan.  31,  1593. 

"S 


Ii6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

terror  of  the  French),'  wrote  Thomas  Nashe,  the  satiric 
pamphleteer,  in  his  'Pierce  Pennilesse'  (1592,  licensed 
August  8),  with  reference  to  the  striking  scenes  of 
Talbot's  death  (act  iv.  sc.  vi.  and  viii.),  'to  thinke  that 
after  he  had  lyne  two  hundred  yeares  in  his  Tombe,  hee 
should  triumplie  againe  on  the  Stage,  and  have  his  bones 
newe  embalmed  with  the  teares  of  ten  thousand  specta- 
tors at  least  (at  severall  times)  who,  in  the  Tragedian 
that  represents  his  person,  imagine  they  behold  him 
fresh  bleeding ! '  There  is  no  categorical  record  of  the 
production  of  a  second  piece  in  continuation  of  the  theme, 
but  indirect  evidence  planly  attests  that  such  a  play 
was  quickly  staged.  A  third  piece,  treating  of  the 
concluding  incidents  of  Henry  VI's  reign,  attracted  much 
attention  in  the  theatre  early  in  the  autumn  of  the  same 
year  (1592). 

The  applause  attending  the  completion  of  this  histori- 
cal trilogy  caused  -bewilderment  in  the  theatrical  pro- 
Greene's  fession.  Older  dramatists  awoke  to  the  fact 
attack.  tiiat  their  popularity  was  endangered  by  a 
young  stranger  who  had  set  up  his  tent  in  their 
midst,  and  was  challenging  the  supremacy  of  the  camp. 
A  rancorous  protest  was  uttered  without  delay.  Late 
in  the  summer  of  1592  Robert  Greene  lay,  after  a  reck- 
less life,  on  a  pauper's  deathbed.  His  last  hours  were 
spent  in  preparing  for  the  press  a  miscellany  of  eu- 
phuistic  fiction  which  he  entitled  '  Greens  Groatsworth 
of  Wit  bought  with  a  MilHon  of  Repentaunce.'  Tow- 
ards the  close  the  sardonic  author  introduced  a  letter 
addressed  to  'those  gentlemen  his  quondam  acquaint- 
ance that  spend  their  wits  in  making  plays.'  Here  he 
warned  three  nameless  Uterary  friends  who  may  best 
be.  identified  with  Peele,  Marlowe,  and  Nashe,  against 
putting  faith  in  actors  whom  he  defined  as  'buckram 
gentlemen,. painted  monsters,  puppets  who  speak  from 
pur  mouths,  antics  garnished  in  our  colours.'  Such 
men  were  especially  charged  with  defying  their  just 
obligations  to  dramatic  authors.    But  Greene's  venom 


PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,   iS9i-iS94  117 

was  chiefly  excited  by  a  single  member  of  the  acting 
fraternity.  'There  is,'  he  continued  'an  upstart  Crow, 
beautified  with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygers  heart 
wrapt  in  a  Players  hide  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to 
bumbast  out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best  of  you;  and 
being  an  absolute  Johannes  factotum,  is,  in  his  owne  con- 
ceit, the  onely  Shake-scene  in  a  countrie.  .  .  .  Never 
more  acquaint  [those  apes]  with  your  admired  inven- 
tions, for  it  is  pittie  men  of  such  rare  wits  should  be 
subject  to  the  pleasures  of  such  rude  groomes.'  The 
'only  Shake-scene'  is  a  punning  attack  on  Shakespeare. 
The  tirade  is  an  explosion  of  resentment  on  the  part  of  a 
disappointed  senior  dramatist  at  the  energy  of  a  young 
actor  —  the  theatre's  factotum  —  in  trespassing  on  the 
playwriter's  domain.  The  'upstart  crow'  had  revised 
the  dramatic  work  of  his  seniors  without  adequate 
acknowledgment  but  with  such  masterly  effect  as  to 
imperil  their  future  hold  on  the  esteem  of  manager  and 
playgoer.  When  Greene  mockingly  cites  as  a  specimen 
of  his  'only  Shake-scene's'  capacity  the  Hne  'Tyger's 
heart  wrapt  in  a  players  hide'  he  travesties  the  words 
'Oh  Tiger's  heart  wrapt  in  a  woman's  hide'  ^  from  the 
third  piece  in  the  trilogy  of  Shakespeare's  'Henry  VI' 
(i.  iv.  137).  It  may  be  inferred  that  Greene  was  espe- 
cially'  angered  by  Shakespeare's  revision  of  this  piece 
in  devising  which  he  originally  had  a  part.^ 

The  sour  critic  died  on  September  3,  1592,  as  soon 
as  he  laid  down  his  splenetic  pen.  But  Shakespeare's 
amiability   of    character   and   versatile   ambition    had 

*  These  words  which  figure  in  one  of  the  most  spirited  outbursts 
in  the  play  —  the  Duke  of  York's  savage  denunciation  of  Queen  Margaret 
—  were  first  printed  in  1595  in  the  earliest  known  draft  of  the  drama 
The  True  Tragedie  of  the  Duke  of  York  (see  p.  120  infra). 

*  Greene's  complaint  that  he  was  robbed  of  his  due  fame  by  literary 
plagiaries,  among  whom  he  gave  Shakespeare  the  first  place,  was  em- 
phatically repeated  by  an  admiring  elegist : 

Greene  gaue  the  ground  to  all  that  wrote  vpon  him. 
Nay  more  the  men  that  so  eclipst  his  fame 
Purloynde  his  Plumbs;  can  they  deny  the  same? 

{Greenes  PuneraUs,  by  R.  B.  1594.  ed.  R,  B.  McKerrow,  1911,  Sonnet  IX.) 


Il8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

already  won  him  admirers,  and  his  success  excited 
the  S5Tnpathetic  regard  of  colleagues  more  kindly  than 
Chettle's  Greene.  At  any  rate  the  djdng  man  had  clearly 
apology.  miscalculated  Marlowe's  sentiment.  Marlowe- 
was  already  working  with  Shakespeare,  and  showed 
readiness  to  continue  the  partnership.  In  December 
1592,  moreover,  Greene's  pubHsher,  Henry  Chettle,  who 
was  himself  about  to  turn  dramatist,  prefixed  an  apology 
for  Greene's  attack  on  the  young  actor  to  his  'Kind 
Hartes  Dreame,'  a  tract  describing  contemporary  phases 
of  social  Ufe.  He  reproached  himself  with  failing  to 
soften  Greene's  phraseology  before  committing  it  to 
the  press.  'I  am  as  sory,'  Chettle  wrote,  'as  if  the 
original  fault  had  beene  my  fault,  because  myselfe 
have  seene  his  [i.e.  Shakespeare's]  demeanour  no  lesse 
civill  than  he  exelent  in  the  quahtie  he  professes,  besides 
divers  of  worship  have  reported  his  uprightnes  of  dealing, 
which  argues  his  honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace  in 
writing  that  aprooves  his  art.'  It  is  obvious  that 
Shakespeare  at  the  date  of  Chettle's  apology  was 
winning  a  high  reputation  alike  as  actor,  man,  and 
writer. 

The  first  of  the  three  plays  dealing  with  the  reign  of 
'Henry  VI'  was  originally  published  in  1623,  in  the 
collected  edition  of  Shakespeare's  works.  The  actor- 
editors  of  the  First  Foho  here  accepted  a  veteran  stage 
tradition  of  its  authorship.  The  second  and  third  plays 
were  previous  to  the  pubhcation  of  the  First  Folio  each 
printed  thrice  in  quarto  volumes  in  a  form  very  different 
from  that  which  they  assumed  long  after  when  they 
followed  the  first  part  in  the  Foho.  Two  editions  of 
the  second  and  third  parts  of  'Henry  VI'  came  forth 
without  any  author's  name ;  but  the  third  separate  issue 
boldly  ascribed  both  to  Shakespeare's  pen.  The  attri- 
bution has  justification  but  needs  quahfying.  Criticism 
has  proved  beyond  doubt  that  in  the  three  parts  of 
'Henry  VI'  Shakespeare  with  varjdng  energy  revised 
and  expanded  other  men's   work.     In   the  first  part 


PROGRESS  AS   PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1594  119 

there  may  be  small  trace  of  his  pen,  but  in  the  second 
and  third  evidence  of  his  handiwork  abounds. 

At  the  most  generous  computation  no  more  than  300 
out  of  the  2600  lines  of  the  'First  Part'  bear  the  impress 
of  Shakespeare's  style.    It  may  be  doubted 
whether  he  can  be  safely  credited  with  aught  fpe^^Js 
beyond   the   scene   in   the   Temple   Gardens,  cp^tribu- 
where  white   and   red   roses   are  plucked   as  'TheFirst 
emblems  by  the  rival  political  parties  (act  11.  HetfryVi' 
sc.  iv.),  and  Talbot's  speeches  on  the  battle- 
field  (act  IV.   sc.  v.-vii.),   to   the   enthusiastic   recep- 
tion of  which  on  the  stage  Nashe  bears  witness.    It 
may  be,  however,  that  the  dying  speech  of  Mortimer 
(act  II.  sc.  V.)  and  the  wooing  of  Margaret  by  Suffolk 
(act  V.  sc.  iii.)  also  bear  marks  of  Shakespeare's  vivid 
power.    The  lifeless  beat  of  the  verse  and  the  crudity 
of  the  language  conclusively  deprive  Shakespeare  of  all 
responsibility  for  the  brutal  scenes  travest3dng  the  story 
of  Joan  of  Arc  which  the  author  of  the  first  part  of  '  Henry 
VI'  somewhat  slavishly  drew  from  Hohnshed.     The  clas- 
sical allusions  throughout  the  piece  are  far  more  numer- 
ous and  recondite  than  Shakespeare  was  in  the  habit  of 
employing.    HoKnshed's  '  Chronicle '  suppUes  the  histori- 
cal basis  for  all  the  pieces,  but  the  playwright  defies 
historic  chronology  in  the  'First  Part'  with  a  callous 
freedom    exceeding    anything    in    Shakespeare's    fully 
accredited  history  work. 

The  second  part  of  Henry  VI's  reign,  which  carried 
on  the  story  from  the  coronation  of  Queen  Margaret  to 
the  initial  campaign  of  'the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  pj^gj  ^jj. 
was  first  published  anonjonously  in  1594  from  twnsof 
a  rough  stage  copy  by  Thomas  Milhngton,  a  anTxhird 
stationer  of  Comhill.    A  Ucense  for  the  pub-  ^^^^^yj, 
lication    was    granted    him    on    March    12, 
1593-4,  and  the  volume,  which  was  printed  by  Thomas 
Creede  of  Thames  Street,  bore  on  its  title-page  the 
rambUng  description  'The  first  part  of  the  Contention 
betwixt  the  two  famous  Houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster 


120  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

with  the  death  of  the  good  Duke  Humphrey :  and  the 
banishment  and  death  of  the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  and  the 
Tragicall  end  of  the  proud  Cardinall  of  Winchester, 
with  the  notable  Rebelhon  of  Jacke  Cade;  and  the 
Duke  of  Yorkes  first  claime  unto  the  crowne.' 

The  third  part  of  Henry  VI's  reign,  which  continues 
the  tale  to  the  sovereign's  final  dethronement  and  death, 
was  first  printed  under  a  different  designation  with 
greater  care  next  year  by  Peter  Short  of  Bread  Street 
Hill,  and  was  published,  as  in  the  case  of  its  predecessor, 
by  MiUington.  This  quarto  bore  the  title  'The  True 
Tragedie  of  Richard,  Duke  of  Yorke,  and  the  death  of 
good  King  Henrie  the  Sixt,  with  the  whole  contention 
betweene  the  two  Houses  Lancaster  and  Yorke  as  it 
was  sundrie  times  acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  the 
Earle  of  Pembroke  his  seruants. '  ^  The  first  part  of  the 
trilogy  had  been  acted  by  Lord  Strange's  company  with 
which  Shakespeare  was  associated,  and  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  third  and  last  instalment  by  Lord  Pembroke's 
men  was  only  a  temporary  deviation  from  normal  practice. 

In  their  earhest  extant  shape,  the  two  continuations 
of  the  First  Part  of  'Henry  VI'  — the  'Contention' 
and  the  '  True  Tragedie '  —  show  Uberal  traces  of 
Shakespeare's    revising    pen.     The    foundations    were 

1  MUlington  reissued  both  Ths  Contention  and  True  Tragedie  in  1600, 
the  former  being  then  printed  for  him  by  Valentine  Simmes  (or  Sims), 
the  latter  by  William  White.  On  April  19,  1602,  Millington  made 
over  to  another  publisher,  Thomas  Pavier,  his  interest  in  'The  first 
and  second  parts  of  Henry  the  »_/"'  ii  bookes'  (Arber,  iii.  304).  This 
entry  would  seem  at  a  first  glance  to  imply  that  the  first  as  well  as  the 
second  part  of  Shakespeare's  Henry  VI  were  prepared  for  separate  pub- 
lication in  1602,  but  no  extant  edition  of  any  part  of  Henry  VI  belongs 
to  that  year.  It  is  more  probable  that  Pavier' s  reference  is  to  The 
Contention  and  True  Tragedie  —  early  drafts  respectively  of  Parts  II 
and  III  of  Henry  VI.  Pavier,  to  whom  Millington  assigned  the  two 
parts  of  Henry  the  vj"'  in  1602,  published  a  new  edition  of  The  Conten- 
tion with  the  True  Tragedie  in  1619,  when  the  title-page  bore  the  words 
'newly  corrected  and  enlarged.  Written  by  William  Shake-speare, 
Gent.'  This  is  the  earliest  attribution  of  the  two  plays  to  Shakespeare, 
but  Pavier  the  publisher,  although  he  had  some  warrant  in  this  case, 
is  rarely  a  trustworthy  witness,  for  he  had  little  scruple  in  attaching 
Shakespeare's  name  to  plays  by  other  pens  (see  p.  262  infra). 


PROGRESS!  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1594  121 

clearly  laid  throughout  by  another  hand,  but  Shakespeare 
is  responsible  for  much  of  the  superstructure.  The 
humours  of  Jack  Cade  in  'The  Contention'  can  owe 
their  savour  to  him  alone.  Queen  Margaret's  simple 
words  in  the  'True  Tragedie,'  when  in  the  ecstasy  of 
grief  she  cries  out  to  the  murderers  of  her  son  'You  have 
no  children,'  have  a  poignancy  of  which  few  but  Shake- 
speare had  the  secret.  Twice  in  later  plays  did  he  repeat 
the  same  passionate  rebuke  in  cognate  circumstances.^ 

Shakespeare  may  be  absolved  of  all  responsibihty  for 
the  original  drafts  of  the  three  pieces.  Those  drafts  have 
not  survive^-  It  was  in  revised  versions  that  the  plays 
were  put  on  the  stage  in  1592,  and  the  text  of  the  second 
and  third  parts  which  the  actors  then  presented  is  extant 
in  the  printed  editions  of  'The  Contention'  and  'The 
True  Tragedie.'  But  much  further  reconstruction  en- 
gaged Shakespeare's  energy  before  he  left  the  theme. 
With  a  view  to  a  subsequent  revival,  Shakespeare's 
services  were  enHsted  in  a  fresh  recension,  at  any  rate 
of  the  second  and  third  parts,  involving  a  great  expan- 
sion. 'The  Contention'  was  thoroughly  overhauled, 
and  was  converted  into  what  was  entitled  in  the  Foho 
'The  Second  Part  of  Henry  VI.'  There  more  than  500 
lines  keep  their  old  form:  840  lines  are  more  or  less 
altered;  some  700  of  the  earlier  lines  are  dropped  al- 
together, and  are  replaced  by  1700  new  lines.  'The 
True  Tragedie,'  which  became  'The  Third  Part  of 
Henry  VI'  of  the  Foho,  was  less  drastically  handled; 
no  part  of  the  old  piece  is  here  abandoned ;  some  1000 
lines  are  retained  unaltered,  and  some  900  are  recast. 
But  a  thousand  fresh  lines  make  their  appearance.  Each 
of  the  Foho  pieces  is  longer  than  its  forerunner  by  at 
least  a  third.  The  2000  Unes  of  the  old  pieces  grow  into 
the  3000  of  the  new.^ 

^Cf.  Constance's  bitter  cry  to  the  papal  legate  in  King  John  'He 
talks  to  me  that  never  had  a  son'  (m.  iv.  91) ;  and  Macduff's  reproach 
'He  has  no  children'  {Macbeth,  iv.  iii.  216). 

^Cf.  Fleay,  Life,  pp.  23s  seq. ;  Trans.  New  Shakspere  Soc,  1876, 
pt.  ii.  by  Miss  Jane  Lee;  Swinburne,  Study,  pp.  51  seq. 


122  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Of  the  two  successive  revisions  of  the  primal  'Henry 
VI'  in  which  Shakespeare  had  a  hand  the  first  may  be 
Shake  ^^^^^  ^^  ^59^  ^^^  ^^^  second  in  1593.  That 
speare's  Shakespeare  in  both  revisions  shared  the  work 
coadjutors,  ^j^j^  another  is  clear  from  the  internal  evidence, 
and  the  identity  of  his  coadjutor  may  be  inferred  with 
reasonable  confidence.  The  theory  that  Robert  Greene, 
with  George  Peele's  co-operation,  produced  the  original 
draft  of  the  three  parts  of  'Henry  VI,'  which  Shake- 
speare twice  helped  to  recast,  can  alone  account  for 
Greene's  indignant  denunciation  of  Shakespeare  as  'an 
upstart  crow,  beautified  with  the  feathersi  of  himself 
and  his  fellow  dramatists.  Greene  and  Peele  were  classi- 
cal scholars  to  whom  there  would  come  naturally  such 
unfamiliar  classical  allusions  as  figure  in  all  the  pieces. 
The'  lack  of  historic  sense  which  is  characteristic  of 
Greene's  romantic  tendencies  may  well  account  for  the 
historical  errors  which  set  'The  First  Part  of  Henry  VI' 
in  a  special  category  of  ineptitude.  Peele  elsewhere,  in 
his  dramatic  presentation  of  the  career  of  Edward  I, 
libels,  under  the  sway  of  anti-Spanish  prejudice,  the 
memory  of  Queen  Eleanor  of  Castile;  he  would  have 
found  nothing  uncongenial  in  the  work  of  viUfying  Joan 
of  Arc.  Signs  are  not  wanting  that  it  was  Marlowe,  the 
greatest  of  his  predecessors,  whom  Shakespeare  joined 
in  the  first  revision  which  brought  to  birth  '  The  Conten- 
tion' and  the  'True  Tragedie.'  There  the  fine  writing, 
the  over-elaboration  of  commonplace  ideas,  the  tendency 
to  rant  in  language  of  some  dignity,  are  sure  indications 
of  Marlowe's  hand.  In  the  second  and  last  recension 
there  are  also  occasional  signs  of  Marlowe's  handi- 
work,i  but  most  of  the  new  passages  are  indubitably  from 

1  Few  will  question  that  among  the  new  lines  in  the  'Second  Part' 
Marlowe  is  responsible  for  such  as  these  (iv.  i.  1-4)  : 

The  gaudy  blabbing  and  remorseful  day 
Is  crept  into  the  bosom  of  the  sea, 
And  now  loud  howling  wolves  arouse  the  jades 
That  drag  the  tragic  melancholy  night. 

When  in  the  '  Third  Part '  the  Duke  of  York's  son  Richard  persuaded 


PROGRESS   AS   PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1594  123 

Shakespeare's  pen.  Marlowe's  assistance  at  the  final 
stage  was  fragmentary.  It  is  probable  that  he  began 
with  Shakespeare  the  last  revision,  but  that  his  task  was 
interrupted  by  his  premature  death.  The  hen's  share  of 
the  closing  phase  of  the  work  fell  to  his  younger  coadjutor. 

Marlowe,  who  alone  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries 
can  be  credited  with  exerting  on  his  efforts  in  tragedy  a 
really  substantial  influence,  met  his  death  on  Marlowe's 
June  I,  1593,  in  a  drunken  brawl  at  Deptford.  "iflu™ce. 
He  died  at  the  zenith  of  his  fame,  and  the  esteem 
which  his  lurid  tragedies  enjoyed  in  his  lifetime  at 
the  playhouse  survived  his  violent  end.  'Tambur- 
laine,'  'The  Jew  of  Malta,'  '  Dr.  Faustus,'  and  'Edward 
II'  were  among  the  best  applauded  productions  through 
the  year  1594.  Shakespeare's  next  two  tragedies, 
'Richard  III'  and  'Richard  II,'  again  pursued  historical 
themes;  a  little  later  the  tragic  story  of  Shylock  the 
Jew  was  enshrined  in  his  comedy  of  'The  Merchant  of 
Venice.'  In  all  three  pieces  Shakespeare  plainly  dis- 
closed a  conscious  and  a  prudent  resolve  to  follow  in  the 
dead  Marlowe's  footsteps. 

In  'Richard  III'  Shakespeare,  working  singlehanded, 
takes  up  the  history  of  England  at  the  precise  point 
where  Marlowe  and  he,  working  in  partnership,  'Richard 
left  it  in  the  third  part  of  'Henry  VI.'  The  ^^■' 
murder  of  King  Henry  closes  the  old  piece;  his 
funeral  opens  the  new;  and  the  historic  episodes  are 
carried  onwards,  until  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  are  finally 
ended  by  Richard's  death  on  Bosworth  Field.  Richard's 
career  was  already  familiar  to  dramatists,  but  Shake- 

his  father  to  aim  at  the  throne  it  is  unthinkable  that  any  other  pen 
than  Marlowe's  converted  the  bare  lines  of  the  old  piece, 

Then,  noble  father,  resolve  yourself e. 
And  once  more  claime  the  crowne, 

into  the  touching  but  strained  eloquence  of  the  new  piece  (i.  ii.  28-31) : 

Father,  do  but  think 
How  sweet  a  thing  it  is  to  wear  a  crown : 
Within  whose  circuit  is  Elysium, 
And  all  that  poets  feign  of  bliss  and  joy. 


124  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

speare  found  all  his  material  in  the  '  Chronicle'  of  Holin- 
shed.  'Ricardus  Tertius,'  a  Latin  piece  of  Senecan 
temper  by  Dr.  Thomas  Legge,  Master  of  Caius  College, 
Cambridge,  had  been  in  favour  with  academic  audiences 
since  1579,  when  it  was  first  acted  by  students  at  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge.^  About  1591  'The  True 
Tragedie  of  Richard  III,'  a  crude  piece  in  EngHsh  of  the 
chronicle  type  by  some  unknown  pen,  was  produced  at  a 
London  theatre,  and  it  issued  from  the  press  in  1594. 
Shakespeare's  piece  bears  Uttle  resemblance  to  either 
of  its  forerunners.  The  occasional  similarities  which 
have  been  detected  seem  due  to  all  the  writers'  common 
dependence  on  the  same  historic  authority .^  Through- 
out Shakespeare's  play  the  effort  to  emulate  Marlowe 
is  unmistakable.  The  tragedy  is,  says  Swinburne,  'as 
fiery  in  passion,  as  single  in  purpose,  as  rhetorical  often, 
though  never  .so  inflated  in  expression,  as  Marlowe's 
"Tamburlaine"  itself.'  In  thought  and  melody  Mar- 
lowe is  for  the  most  part  outdistanced,  yet  the  note  of 
lyric  exaltation  is  often  caught  from  his  lips.  As  in 
his  tragic  efforts,  the  interest  centres  in  a  colossal  type 
of  hero.  Richard's  boundless  egoism  and  intellectual 
cunning  overshadow  all  else.  Shakespeare's  characteri- 
sation of  the  King  betrayed  a  subtlety  beyond  Mar- 
lowe's reach.  But  it  was  the  turbulent  incident  in  his 
predecessor's  vein  which  chiefly  assured  the  popularity 
of  the  piece.  Burbage's  stirring  impersonation  of  the 
hero  was  the  earliest  of  his  many  original  interpretations 
of  Shakespeare's  characters  to  excite  pubHc  enthusiasm. 
His  vigorous  enunciation  of  Richard  Ill's  cry  'A  horse, 
a  horse !  my  kingdom  for  a  horse ! '  gave  the  words 
proverbial  currency.' 

'  See  F.  S.  Boas,  University  Drama  in  the  Ttidor  Age,  1914,  pp.  in  seq. 

"  See  G.  B.  Churchill,  Richard  III  up  to  Shakespeare,  Berlin,  1900. 

3  Cf.  Richard  Corbet's  Iter  Boreale  written  about  1618,  where  it  is 
said  of  an  innkeeper  at  Bosworth  who  acted  as  the  author's  guide  to  the 
local  battlefield : 

For  when  he  would  have  said  King  Richard  died 
And  called  'A  horse,  a  horse ! '  he  Burbage  cried. 


PROGRESS  AS   PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1 S94  125 

It  was  not  until  'Richard  III'  had  exhausted  its  first 
welcome  on  the  stage  that  an  attempt  was  made  to 
publish  the  piece.  A  quarto  edition  '  as  it  hath  putucation 
beene  lately  acted  by  the.  Right  honourable  of 'Richard 
the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants,'  appeared  ^^^'' 
in  1597.  That  year  proved  of  importance  in  the  history 
of  Shakespeare's  fame  and  of  the  pubHcation  of  his  work. 
In  1597  there  also  came  from  the  press  the  crude  version 
of  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  and  the  first  issue  of  'Richard 
II,'  the  play  which  Shakespeare  wrote  immediately  after 
'Richard  III.'  But  the  text  of  the  early  editions  of 
'  Richard  III '  did  the  drama  scant  justice.  The  Quarto 
followed  a  copy  which  had  been  severely  abbreviated 
for  stage  purposes.  The  First  FoHo  adopted  another 
version  which,  though  more  complete,  omits  some 
necessary  passages  of  the  earlier  text.  A  combination 
of  the  Quarto  and  the  FoHo  versions  is  needful  to  a  full 
comprehension  of  Shakespeare's  effort.  None  the  less 
the  original  edition  of  the  play  was,  despite  its  defects, 
warmly  received,  and  before  the  First  Folio  was  published 
in  1623  as  many  as  six  re-issues  of  the  defective  quar- 
ter were  in  circulation,  very  slightly  varying  one  from 
another."- 

The  composition  of  'Richard  II'  seems  to  have  fol- 
lowed that  of  'Richard  III'  without  delay.  The  piece 
was  probably  written  very  early  in  1593.     Once  again 

1  Andrew  Wise,  who  occupied  the  shop  at  the  sign  of  the  Angel  in 
St.  Paul's  Churchyard  for  the  ten  years  that  he  was  in  trade  (1593- 
1603),  was  the  first  publisher  of  Richard  III.  He  secured  licenses  for 
the  publication  of  Richard  II  and  Richard  III  on  August  29  and  October 
20,  IS97,  respectively.  Both  volumes  were  printed  for  Wise  by  Valen- 
tine Simmes  (or  Sims),  whose  printing  office  was  at  the  White  Swan, 
at  the  foot  of  Adling  Hill,  near  Baynard's  Castle.  Second  editions  of 
each  were  issued  by  Wise  in  1598;  Richard  II  was  again  printed  by 
Siirmies,  but  the  second  quarto  of  Richard  III  was  printed  by  Thomas 
Creede  at  the  Katharine  Wheel  in  Thames  Street.  In  1602  Creede 
printed  for  Wise  a  third  edition  of  Richard  III  which  was  described 
without  due  warrant  as  'newly  augmented.'  On  June  25,  1603,  Wise 
made  over  his  interest  in  both  Richard  II  and- Richard  III  to  Matthew 
Lawe  of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  who  reissued  Richard  III  in  1605, 
1612,  1622,  and  1629,  and  Richard  II  in  1608  and  1615. 


126  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  presents  an  historic  figure  who  had  already 
received  drainatic  attention.  Richard.  II  was  a  chief 
'Richard  character  in  a  brief  dramatic  sketch  of  Wat 
^^•'  Tyler's  rebellion   (in  1381),  which   was  com- 

posed in  1587  and  was  pubUshed  anonymously  in 
1593  as  'The  Life  and  Death  of  Jack  Straw.'  The 
King's  troubled  career  up  to  his  delusive  triumph  over 
his  enemies  in  1397,  was  also  the  theme  of  a  longer 
piece  by  another  anonymous  hand.^  But  Shakespeare 
owed  little  to  his  predecessors'  labours.  He  confined  his 
attention  to  the  two  latest  years  and  the  death  of  the 
King  and  ignored  the  earlier  crises  of  his  reign  which 
had  alone  been  dramatised  previously.  'Richard  11' 
is  a  more  penetrating  study  of  historic  character  and 
a  more  concentrated  portrayal  of  historic  action  than 
Shakespeare  had  yet  essayed.  There  is  a  greater  re- 
straint, a  freer  flow  of  dramatic  poetry.  But  again 
there  is  a  clear  echo  of  Marlowe's  'mighty  line,'  albeit 
in  the  subdued  tone  of  its  latest  phase.  Shakespeare; 
in  '  Richard  II '  pursued  the  chastened  path  of  placidity 
on  which  Marlowe  entered  in  'Edward  II,'  the  last  piece 
to  engage  his  pen.  Both  Shakespeare's  and  Marlowe's 
heroes  were  cast  by  history  in  the  same  degenerate 
mould,  and  Shakespeare's  piece  stands  to  that  of  Mar- 
lowe-in  much  the  relation  of  son  to  father.  Shake- 
speare traces  the  development  of  a  self-indulgent  tem- 
perament under  stress  of  misfortune  far  more  subtly 
than  his  predecessor.  He  endows  his  King  Richard  in 
his  fall  with  an  imaginative  chalrm,  of  which  Marlowe's 

'  The  old  play  of  Richard  II,  which  closes  with  the  murder  of  the 
King's  uncle  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  the  Duke  of  Gloucester,  in  1397, 
survives  in  MS.  in  the  British  Museum  (MS.  Egerton  1994).  It  was 
first  printed  in  an  edition  of  eleven  copies  by  HalliweU  in  1870,  and 
for  a  second  time  in  the  Shakespeare  Jahrbiich  for  1900,  edited  by  Dr. 
Wolfgang  Keller.  The  piece  is  a  good  specimen  of  the  commonplace 
•dramatic  work  of  the  day.  Its  composition  may  be  referred  to  the 
year  1591.  A  second  (lost)  piece  of  somewhat  later  date,  again  dealing 
exclusively  with  the  early  part  of  Richard  II's  reign,  which  Shake- 
speare's play  ignores,  was  witnessed  at  the  Globe  Theatre  on  April  30, 
161 1,  by  Simon  Forman,  who  has  left  a  description  of  the  chief  incidents 
(New  Shakspere  Soc.  Trans.  1875-6,  pp.  415-6). 


PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,   1591-1594  127. 

King  Edward  shows  only  incipient  traces.  Yet  Mar- 
lowe's inspiration  nowhere  fails  his  great  disciple  al- 
together. Shakespeare  again  drew  the  facts  from  Hohn- 
shed,  but  his  embelhshments  are  more  numerous  than 
in  'Richard  III';  they  include  the  magnificent  eulogy 
of  England  which  is  set  in  the  mouth  of  John  of  Gaunt. 
The  speech  indicates  for  the  time  the  high-water  mark 
of  dramatic  eloquence  on  the  Elizabethan  stage,  and 
illustrates  the  spirited  patriotism  which  anima-ted 
Shakespeare's  interpretation  of  Enghsh  history.  As  in 
the  first  and  third  parts  of  'Henry  VI,'  prose  is  avoided 
throughout ;  gardeners  and  attendants  speak  in  verse  Hke 
their  betters,  a  sure  sign  of  Shakespeare's  youthful  hand. 

The  printers  of  the  quarto  edition  of  'Richard  II,' 
which  first  appeared  in  1597,  had  access  to  what  was 
in  the  main  a  satisfactory  manuscript.  Two  re-  pubucation 
prints  followed  in  Shakespeare's  hfetime,  and  of 'Richard 
the  editors  of  the  First  FoKo  were  content  to 
adopt  as  their  own  the  text  of  the  third  quarto.  The 
choice  was  prudent.  From  the  first  two  quartos,  in 
spite  of  their  general  merits,  an  important  passage  was 
omitted,  and  the  omission  was  not  repaired  till  the  issue 
of  the  third  iii  1608  when  the  title-page  announced  that 
the  piece  was  reprinted  'with  new  additions  of  the  Parlia- 
ment sceane  and  the  deposing  of  King  Richard,  as  it 
hath  been  lately  acted  by  the  Kinge's  Maiesties  seruantes 
at  the  Globe.'  The  cause  of  this  temporary  mutilation 
of  the  text  demands  some  inquiry,  for  it  illustrates  a 
common  peril  of  Uterature  of  the  time,  which  Shake- 
speare here,  encountered  for  the  first,  but,  as  it  proved, 
the  only  time. 

Since  the  infancy  of  the  drama  a  royal  proclamation 
had  prohibited  playwrights  from  touching  'matters  of 
religion  or  governance   of  the   estate  of   the  ghake- 
common  weal,'  ^  and  on  November  12,  1589,  speareand 
when  Shakespeare  was  embarking  on  his  career, 

,     '  The  proclamation  was  originally  promulgated  on  May  16,  1559, 
long  before  the  drama  had  any  settled  habitation  or  literary  coherence. 


.128  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  Privy  Council  reiterated  the  prohibition,  and' 
created  precise  machinery  for  its  enforcement.  All 
plays  were  to  be  licensed  by  three  persons,  one  to  be 
nominated  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  second 
by  the  Lord  Mayor,  and  the  third  by  the  Master  of  the 
Revels.  Again  there  was  a  warning  against  unseemly 
reference  to  matters  of  divinity  and  state,'  This  regula- 
tion of  1589  remained  in  force  through  Shakespeare!s 
working  days  with  two  sHght  qualifications.  In  tie 
first  place  the  Master  of  the  Revels  —  an  officer  of  the 
Royal  household  —  came  to  perform  the  licensing  duties 
singlehanded,  and  in  the  second  place  ParliameiS 
strengthened  the  licenser's  hand  by  constituting  impiety 
on  the  stage  a  penal  offence.'- 

In  the  course  of  Shakespeare's  Hfetime  fellow  dramar 
,tists  not  infrequently  fell  under  the  licenser's  lash  on 
charges  of  theological  or  pohtical  comment  and  their 
offence  was  purged  by  imprisonment  or  fine.  Ben 
Jonson,  Chapman,  and  Thomas  Nashe  were  among  the 
playwrights  who  were  at  one  time  or  another  suspected' 
of  covert  censure  of  Government  or  Church  and  suffered 
in  consequence  more  or  less  condign  punishment.  There 
was  a  nervous  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  authorities 
to  scent  mischief  where  none  was  intended.  Yet,  in 
spite  of  official  sensitiveness  and  some  vexatious  molesta- 
tion of  authors,  literature  on  and  off  the  stage  enjoyed 
in  practice  a  large  measure  of  liberty.  The  allegation  in 
Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets '  (Ixvi.  9)  that  '  art '  was  '  tongue- 
tied  by  authority '  is  the  casual  expression  of  a  pessimistic 
mood,  and  has  no  precise  bearing  on  Shakespeare's 
personal  experience.  Amid  the  whole  range  of  Shake- 
speare's work  there  is  only  a  single  passage  which,  as 
far  as  is  known,  evoked  official  censure.  The  licenser's 
veto  only  fell  upon  165  Hnes  in  Shakespeare's  play  of 

Mayors  of  cities,  lords  lieutenants  of  counties,  and  justices  of  the  peace 
were  directed  to  inhibit  within  their  jurisdictions  the  performance  of 
stage  plays  tending  to  heresy  or  sedition  (CoUier's  History,  i.  168-9).^ 

'  A  statute  of  1605  (3  Jac.  I.  cap.  21)  rendered  players  liable  to  a  fine 
of  ten  pounds  for  'profanely  abusing  the  name  of  God'  on  the  stage. 


PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,   1591-1594  129. 

'Richard  II.'  When  that  drama  was  produced,  the 
scene  of  the  King's  deposition  in  Westminster  HalL 
was  robbed  of  the  fine  episode  where  the  conquered  hero, 
summoned  to  hear  his  doom,  makes  his  great  speeches 
of  submission  (iv.  i.  154-318).  It  is  curious  to  note  that 
a  cognate  incident  in  Marlowe's  'Edward  II'  (act  v.  sc. 
i.)  escaped  rebuke  and  figured  without  abridgment  in 
the  printed  version  of  1594.  But  Richard  II's  fate 
always  roused  in  Queen  Elizabeth  an  especially  active 
sense  of  dread.  Her  fears  were  not  wholly  caprice,  for  a 
few  years  later — ^  early  in  1601  —  disaffected  subjects 
cited  Richard  II's  fortunes  as  an  argument  for  rebel- 
lion, and  the  rebel  leaders  caused  Shakespeare's  piece 
to  be  revived  at  the  Globe  theatre  with  the  avowed 
object  of  fanning  a  revolutionary  flame.'-  The  hcenser 
of  'Richard  II'  had  some  just  groimd  for  his  endeavour 
to  concihate  royal  anxieties.  Even  so,  he  did  his  spiriting 
gently ;  he  sanctioned  the  scenes  portrajdng  the  monarch's 
arrest  and  his  murder  in  Pomfret  Castle,  and  his  knife 
only  fell  on  the  King's  voluntary  surrender  of  his  crown. 
The  prohibition,  moreover,  was  not  lasting.  The 
censored  lines  were  restored  to  the  issue  of  1608  when 
James  I  was  King.  Shakespeare's  interpretation  of 
historic  incident  was  invariably  independent  and  sought 
the  truth. '  It  does  honour  to  hiniself  and  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  country  that  at  no  other  point  in  lus  work 
did  he  encounter  official  reprimand. 

Through  the  last  nine  months  of  1593,  from  April  to 
December,  the  London  theatres  were  closed,  owing  to  the 
virulence  of  the  plague.  The  outbreak  excelled  The  plague 
in  severity  any  of  London's  recent  experiences,  °^  ^S93. 
and  although  there  were  many  recurrences  of  the 
pestilence  before  Shakespeare's  career  ended,  it  was 
only  once  —  in  1603  —  that  the  terrors  of  1593  were 
surpassed.  In  1593  the  deaths  from  the  plague  reached 
a  total  of  15,000  for  the  city  and  suburbs,  one  in  15  of 
the  population;  the  victims  included  the  Lord  Mayor 
'  See  p.  254  infra. 


130  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  London  and  four  aldermen.  Not  merely  was  public 
recreation  forbidden  until  the  peril  passed,  but  contrary 
to  precedent,  no  Bartholomew  fair  was  held  in  Smithfield.' 
Deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  exercising  their  craft 
in  the  capital,  the  players  travelled  in  the  country, 
visiting  among  other  places  Bristol,  Chester,  Shrews- 
bury, Chelmsford,  and  York.  There  is  small  reason  to 
question  that  Shakespeare  accompanied  his  colleagues 
on  their  long  tour. 

But,  wherever  he  sojourned  while  the  plague  held 
London  in  its  grip,  his  pen  was  busily  employed,  and 
before  the  close  of  the  next  year  —  1594  —  he  had  given 
marvellous  proof  of  his  rapid  and  versatile  industry. 

It  was  early  in  that  year  (1594)  that  there  was  both 
acted  and  pubHshed  'Titus  Andronicus,'  a  bloodstained 
'Titus  An-  tragedy  which  plainly  savoured  of  an  earlier 
dromcus.'  epQcj^  although  it  was  described  as  'new.' 
The  piece  was  in  his  own  Hfetime  claimed  for  Shake- 
speare without  qualification.  Francis  Meres,  Shake- 
speare's admiring  critic  of  1598,  numbered  it  among  his 
fully  accredited  works,  and  it  was  admitted  to  the  First 
Folio.  But  Edward  Ravenscroft,  a  minor  dramatist  of 
Charles  II's  time,  who  prepared  a  new  version  of  the 
piece  in  1678,  wrote  of  it:  'I  have  been  told  by  some 
anciently  conversant  with  the  stage  that  it"  was  not 
originally  his  [i.e.  Shakespeare's]  but  brought  by  a  private 
author  to  be  acted,  and  he  only  gave  some  master  touches 
to  one  or  two  of  the  principal  parts  or  characters.' 
Ravenscroft's  assertion  deserves  acceptance.  The  san- 
guinary tragedy  presents  a  fictitious  episode  illustrative 
of  the  degeneracy  of  Imperial  Rome.  The  hero  is  a 
mythical  Roman  general,  who  gives  and  receives  blows  of 
nauseating  ferocity.  The  victims  of  the  tragic  story  are 
not  merely  killed  but  savagely  mutilated.  Crime  suc- 
ceeds crime  at  an  ever-quickening  pace.  The  repulsive 
plot  and  the  recondite  classical  allusions  differentiate  ij^ii 

'  Stow's  Annals,  p.  766;  Creighton's  Epidemics  in  Britain,  i.  253-4; 
Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  74  n. 


PROGRESS   AS  PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1594  13 1 

from  Shakespeare's  acknowledged  work.  Yet  the  offen- 
sive situations  are  often  powerfully  contrived  and  there 
are  lines  of  artistic  force  and  even  of  beauty.  Shake- 
speare's hand  is  only  visible  in  detached  embellishments. 
The  play  was  in  all  probabihty  written  orginally  in  1591 
by  Thomas  Kyd,  with  some  aid,  it  may  be,  from  Greene 
or  Peele,  and  it  was  on  its  revival  in  1594  that  Shake- 
speare improved  it  here  and  there.^  A  lost  piece  of  like 
character  called  'Titus  and  Vespasian'  was  played  by 
Lord  Strange's  men  on  April  11,  1591.^  'Titus  Androni- 
cus'  may  well  have  been  a  drastic  adaptation  of  this 
piece  which  was  designed,  with  some  help  from  Shake- 
speare, to  prolong  public  interest  in  a  profitably  sensational 
theme.  Ben  Jonson  credits  'Titus  Andronicus'  with  a 
popularity  equalling  Kyd's  lurid  'Spanish  Tragedy.'  It 
was  favorably  known  abroad  as  well  as  at  home. 

The  Shakespearean  'Titus  Andronicus'  was  acted  at 
the  Rose  theatre  by  the  Earl  of  Sussex's  men  on  January 
23,  1593-4,  when  it  was  described  as  a  'new'  Publication 
piece;  yet  that  company's  hold  on  it  was  °* 'Titus.' 
fleeting;  it  was  immediately  afterwards  acted  by 
Shakespeare's  company,  while  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's 
men  also  claimed  a  share  of  the  early  representations. 
The  title-page  of  the  first  edition  of  1594  describes  it  as 
having  been  performed  by  the  Earl  of  Derby's  servants 
(one  of  the  successive  titles  of  Shakespeare's  company), 
as  well  as  by  those  of  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Sussex. 

'  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson,  in  his  Did  Shakespeare  write  Titus  Andronicus  ? 
(1905)  ably  questions  Shakespeare's  responsibility  at  any  point. 

^  Cf.  Henslowe,  ed.  Greg,  i.  14  seq. ;  ii.  155  and  159-162.  A  German 
play  called  Tito  Andronico,  which  presents  with  broad  divergences  the 
same  theme  as  the  Shakespearean  piece,  was  acted  by  English  players 
in  Germany  and  was  published  in  1620.  There  Vespasianus,  who  is 
absent  from  the  Shakespearean  Titus,  figures  among  the  dramatis  per- 
sona. The  German  piece  is  doubtless  a  rendering  of  the  old  English 
play  Titus  and  Vespasian,  no  text  of  which  survives  in  the  original  lan- 
guage. (See  Cohn,  Shakespeare  in  Germany,  pp.  155  seq.)  Two  Dutch 
versions  of  Titus  and  Vespasian  were  made  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  Of  these  the  later,  which  alone  survives,  was  first  printed 
in  1642  (see  a  paper  by  H.  de  W.  Fuller  in  Modern  Language  Association 
of  America  Publications,  1901,  ix.  p.  i). 


122  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

In  the  title-page  of  the  second  edition  of  1600,  to 
these  three  noblemen's  names  was  added  that  of  the 
Lord  Chamberlain,  who  was  .the  Earl  of  Derby's  suc- 
eessor  in  the  patronage  of  Shakespeare's  company. 
Whatever  the  circumstances  in  which  other  companies 
presented  the  piece,  it  was  more  closely  identified  with 
Shakespeare's  colleagues  than  with  any  other  band  of 
players.  John  Danter,  the  printer,  of  Hosier  Lane,  who 
produced  the  first  (imperfect)  quarto  of  'Romeo  and 
Juliet'  received  a  Ucense  to  publish  the  piece  on  February 
6,  1593-4.  His  edition  soon  appeared,  being  pubUshed 
jointly  by  Edward  White,  whose  shop  'at  the  Uttle  North 
doore  of  Paules'  bore,  as  the  title-page  stated,  'the  sign 
of  the  Gun,'  and  by  Thomas  MilHngton,  the  pubHsher  of 
'The  First  Contention'  and  the  'True  Tragedie'  (early 
drafts  of  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  of  'Henry  VI'), 
whose  shop,  unmentioned  in  the  'Titus'  title-page,  was 
in  Cornhill.i  ^  second  edition  of  'Titus'  was  pubUshed 
solely  by  Edward  White  in  1600.^  This  edition  was 
printed  by  James  Roberts,  of  the  Barbican,  who  was 
printer  and  publisher  of  'the  players'  bills'  or  placards 
of  the  theatrical  performances  which  were  displayed  on 
posts  in  the  street.^  Roberts  was  in  a  favourable  posi- 
tion to  reaUse  how  strongly  'Titus  Andronicus'  gripped 
average  theatrical  taste. 

On  any  showing  the  distasteful  fable  of  'Titus  An- 
dronicus' engaged  little  of  Shakespeare's  attention.  All 
his  strength  was  soon  absorbed  by  the  composition  of 

*  Only  one  copy  of  this  quarto  is  known.  Its  existence  was  noticed 
by  Langbaine  in  1691,  but  no  copy  was  found  to  confirm  Langbaine's 
statement  until  January  1905,  when  an  exemplar  was  discovered  among 
the  books  of  a  Swedish  gentleman  of  Scottish  descent,  named  Robson, 
who  resided  at  Lund  (cf.  Atkenaum,  Jan.  21,  1905).  The  quarto  was 
promptly  purchased  by  an  American  collector,  Mr.  H.  C.  Folger,  of 
New  York,  for  2000/. 

^  Some  years  later — in  16 11  —  Edward  White  published  a  reprint 
of  his  second  edition,  which  was  reproduced  in  the  First  Folio.  Tlie 
First  Folio  version  adds  a  short  scene  (act  .ni.  sc.  ii.),  which  had  not 
been  in  print  before. 

'This  office  Roberts  purchased  in  1594  of  John  Charlewood,  and 
held  it  till  1615,  when  he  sold  it  to  WiUiam  Jaggard.     See  p.  553  inf'i- 


PROGRESS  AS   PLAYWRIGHT,    1391-1594  133 

'Tke  Merchant  of  Venice,'  a  comedy,  in  which  two  ro- 
mantic love  stories  are  magically  blended  with  a  theme 
of  tragic  import.  The  plot  is  a  child  of  mingled  .^j^^ 
parentage.  For  the  main  thread  Shakespeare  Merchant 
had  direct  recourse  to  a  book  in  a  foreign  tongue  °^  '^^^'^^■' 
—  to  'II  Pecorone,'  a  fourteenth-century  collection  of 
Itahan  novels  by  Ser  Giovanni  Fiorentino,  of  which  there 
was  no  EngUsh  translation.^  There  a  Jewish  creditor 
demands  a  pound  of  flesh  of  a  defaulting  Christian  debtor, 
and  the* latter  is  rescued  through  the  advocacy  of  'the 
lady  of  Belmont,'  who  is  wife  of  the  debtor's  friend. 
The  management  of  the  plot  in  the  Itahan  novel  is  closely 
followed  by  Shakespeare.  A  similar  story  of  a  Jew  and 
his  debtor's  friend  is  very  barely  outhned  in  a  popular 
mediaeval  collection  of  anecdotes  called  'Gesta  Roma- 
norum,'  while  a  tale  of  the  testing  of  a  lover's  character 
by  offer  of  a  choice  of  three  caskets  of  gold,  silver,  and 
lead,  which  Shakespeare  combined  in  'The  Merchant' 
with  the  legend  of  the  Jew's  loan,  is  told  independently 
(and  with  variations  from  the  Shakespearean  form) 
in  another  portion  of  the  'Gesta.'  But  Shakespeare's 
'Merchant'  owes  important  debts  to  other  than  Itahan 
or  Latin  sources.  He  caught  hints  after  his  wont  from 
one  or  more  than  one  old  EngHsh  play.  Stephen  Gosson, 
the  sour  censor  of  the  infant  drama  in  England,  described 
in  his  'Schoole  of  Abuse'  (1579)  a  lost  play  called  'the 
Jew  .  .  .  showne  at  the  Bull  [inn]  .  .  .  representing 
the  greedinesse  of  worldly  chusers  and  bloody  mindes 
of  usurers.'  The  writer  excepts  this  piece  from  the  cen- 
sure which  he  flings  on  well-nigh  all  other  EngHsh  plays. 
Gosson's  description  suggests  that  the  two  stories  of  the 
pound  of  flesh  and  the  caskets  had  been  combined  in 
drama  before  Shakespeare's  epoch.  The  scenes  in 
Shakespeare's  play  in  which  Antonio  negotiates  with 

'  Cf.  W.  G.  Waters's  translation  of  II  Pecorone,  pp.  44-60  (fourth 
day,  novel  i).  The  Italian  collection  was  not  published  till  1558,  and 
the  story  followed  by  Shakespeare  was  not  accessible  in  his  day  in  any 
language  but  the  original. 


134  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shylock  are  roughly  anticipated,  too,  by  dialogues  be- 
tween a  Jewish  creditor  Gerontus  and  a  Christian  debtor 
in  the  extant  play  of  'The  Three  Ladies  of  London'  by 
R[obert]  W[ilson],  which  was  printed  in  1584.^  There 
the  Jew  opens  the  attack  on  his  Christian  debtor  with  the 
lines: 

Signor  Mercatore,  why  do  you  not  pay  me?  Think  you  I  will  be 
mocked  in  this  sort? 

This  three  times  you  have  flouted  me  —  it  seems  you  make  thereat  a 
sport. 

Truly  pay  me  my  money,  and  that  even  now  presently, 

Or  by  mighty  Mahomet,  I  swear  I  will  forthwith  arrest  thee. 

Subsequently,  when  the  judge  is  passing  judgment  in 
favour  of  the  debtor,  the  Jew  interrupts : 

Stay  there,  most  puissant  judge.  Signor  Mercatore,  consider  what 
you  do. 

Pay  me  the  principal,  as  for  the  interest  I  forgive  it  you. 

Such  phrases  are  plainly  echoed  by  Shakespeare.^ 

Above  all  is  it  of  interest  to  note  that  Shakespeare 
in  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice '  shows  the  last  indisputable 
Shylock  ^^^  material  trace  of  his  discipleship  to  Mar- 
andRode-  lowe.  Although  the  delicate  comedy  wMch 
rigo  opez.  ligj^^gj^g  ^.jjg  serious  interest  of  Shakespeare's 
play  sets  it  in  a  wholly  different  category  from  that  of 
Marlowe's  'Jew  of  Malta,'  the  humanized  portrait  of 
the  Jew  Shylock  embodies  reminiscences  of  Marlowe's 

'■  The  author  Robert  Wilson  was,  like  Shakespeare  himself,  well 
known  both  as  player  and  playwright.  The  London  historian  Stow 
credited  him  with  'a  quick  delicate  refined  extemporal  wit.'  He  made 
a  reputation  by  his  improvisations.  In  his  Three  Ladies  of  London,  as 
ui  the  other  plays  assigned  to  him,  allegorical  characters  (in  the  vein  of 
the  morality)  join  concrete  men  and  women  in  the  dramatis  persona. 

^  In  The  Orator  (a  series  of  imaginary  declamations,  which  Anthony 
Munday  translated  from  the  French  and  published  in  1596)  the  speech 
of  a  Jew  who  claims  a  pound  of  flesh  of  a  Christian  debtor  and  the  reply 
of  the  debtor  bear  a  further  resemblance  to  Shylock's  and  Antonio's 
passages  at  arms.  The  first  part  of  the  Orator  appeared  in  French  in 
1571,  and  the  whole  in  1581.  It  is  unsafe  to  infer  that  the  MerchaiA 
of  Vemce  must  have  been  written  after  1596,  the  date  of  the  issue  of  the 
first  English  version  of  the  Orator.  Shakespeare  was  quite  capable  of 
consulting  the  book  in  the  original  language. 


PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,   1591-1594  135 

caricature  presentment  of  the  Jew  Barabas,  while  Mar- 
lowe's Jewess  Abigail  is  step-sister  to  Shakespeare's 
Jewess  Jessica.  But  everywhere  Shakespeare  outpaced 
his  master,  and  the  inspiration  that  he  drew  from  Marlowe 
in  the  '  Merchant '  goes  little  beyond  the  general  concep- 
tion of  the  Jewish  figures.  Marlowe's  Jewish  hero,  al- 
though he  is  described  as  a  victim  of  persecution,  typifies 
a  savage  greed  of  gold,  which  draws  him  into  every  man- 
ner of  criminal  extravagance.  Shakespeare's  Jew,  de- 
spite his  mercenary  instinct,  is  a  penetrating  and  tolerant 
interpretation  of  racial  characteristics  which  are  de- 
graded by  an  antipathetic  enviroimient.  Doubtless  the 
popular  interest  aroused  by  the  trial  in  February 
1594  and  the  execution  in  June  of  the  Queen's  Jewish 
physician,  Roderigo  Lopez,  incited  Shakespeare  to  a  subt- 
ler study  of  Jewish  character  than  had  been  essayed  be- 
fore.^ It  is  Shylock  (not  the  merchant  Antonio)  who  is 
the  hero  of  the  play,  and  the  main  interest  culmiiiates 
in  the  Jew's  trial  and  discomfiture.  That  solemn  scene 
trembles  on  the  brink  of  tragedy.     Very  bold  is  the  transi- 

1  Lopez  was  the  Earl  of  Leicester's  physician  before  1586,  and  the 
Queen's  chief  physician  from  that  date.  An  accomplished  Unguist,  with 
friends  in  all  parts  of  Europe,  he  acted  in  1590,  at  the  request  of  the  Earl 
of  Essex,  as  interpreter  to  Aiitonio  Perez,  a  victim  of  PhilipII's  perse- 
cution, whom  Essex  and  his  associates  brought  to  England  in  order  to 
stimulate  the  hostihty  of  the  English  public  to  Spain.  Don  Antonio  (as 
the  refugee  was  popularly  caUed)  proved  querulous  and  exacting.  A 
quarrel  between  Lopez  and  Essex  followed.  Spanish  agents  in  London 
offered  Lopez  a  bribe  to  poison  Antonio  and  the  Queen.  The  evidence 
that  he  assented  to  the  murderous  proposal  is  incomplete,  but  he  was 
convicted  of  treason,  and,  although  the  Queen  long  delayed  signing  his 
death-warrant,  he  was  hanged  at  Tyburn  on  June  7,  1594.  His  trial 
and  execution  evoked  a  marked  display  of  anti-Semitism  on  the  part 
of  the  London  populace.  Very  few  Jews  were  domiciled  in  England 
at  the  time.  That  a  Christian  named  Antonio  should  be  the  cause  of 
the  ruin  alike  of  the  greatest  Jew  in  Elizabethan  England  and  of  the 
greatest  Jew  of  the  Elizabethan  drama  is  a  curious  confirmation  of  the 
theory  that  Lopez  was  the  begetter  of  Shylock.  Cf.  the  article  on 
Roderigo  Lopez  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography;  'The  Original 
of  Shylock,'  by  the  present  writer,  in  Gent.  Mag.  February  1880;  Dr. 
H.  Graetz,  Shylock  in  den  Sagen  in  den  Dramen  und  in  der  Geschichte, 
Krotoschin,  1880;  New  Shakespere  Soc.  Trans.  1887-92,  pt.  ii.  pp.  158- 
92;  'The  Conspiracy  of  Dr.  Lopez,'  by  the  Rev.  Arthur  Dimock,  m 
English  Historical  Review  (1894),  iv.  440  seq. 


136  WrLLLA.M  SHAKESPEARE 

tion  to  the  gently  poetic  and  humorous  incidents  of  the 
concluding  act,  where  Portia  and  her  waiting  maid  in 
masculine  disguise  lightly  banter  their  husbands  Bassanio 
and  Gratiano  on  their  apparent  fickleness.  The  change 
of-  tone  attests  a  mastery  of  stage  craft ;  yet  the  interest 
of  the  play,  while  it  is  sustained  to  the  end,  is,  after 
Shylock's  final  exit,  pitched  in  a  lower  key. 

A  piece  called  "The  Venesyon  Comedy'  which  the 
Lord  Admiral's  men  produced  at  the  Rose  theatre  on 
August  25,  1594,  and  performed  twelve  times 
k^owkdg-  within  the  following  nine  months,^  was  pre- 
mentsto  sumcd  by  Malone  to  be  an  early  version  of 
-  cpj^g  Merchant  of  Venice.'  The  identifica- 
tion is  very  doubtful,  but  the  'Merchant's'  af&nity  with 
Marlowe's  work,  and  the  metrical  features  which  resemble 
those  of  the  'Two  Gentlemen,'  suggest  that  the -date  of 
first  composition  was  scarcely  later  than  1 594.  '  The  Mer- 
chant' is  the  latest  play  in  which  Marlowe's  sponsorship 
is  a  living  inspiration.  Shakespeare's  subsequent  allu- 
sions to  his  association  with  Marlowe  sound  like  fading 
reminiscences  of  the  past.  In  'As  You  Like  It'  (in.  v. 
80)  he  parenthetically  and  vaguely  commemorated  his 
acquaintance  with  the  elder  dramatist  by  apostrophising 
him  in  the  Hnes : 

Dead  Shepherd !  now  I  find  thy  saw  of  might : 
'Who  ever  loved  that  loved  not  at  first  sight?' 

The  'saw'  is  a  quotation  from  Marlowe's  poem  'Hero  and 
Leander'  (line  76).  In  the  'Merry  Wives  of  Windsor' 
(ill.  i.  17-21)  Shakespeare  places  on  the  Ups  of  Sir  Hugh 
Evans,  the  Welsh  parson,  confused  snatches  of  verse  from 
Marlowe's  charming  lyric,  '  Come  live  with  me  and  be  my 
love.'  The  echoes  of  his  master's  voice  have  lost  their 
distinctness. 

On  July  17,  1598,  several  years  after  its  production 
on  the  stage,  the  well-established  'stationer'  James 
Roberts,  who   printed   the    second    edition   of   'Titus 

1  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  i.  19,  ii.  167  and  170. 


PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1594  157 

Andronicus'  and  other  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  secured  a 
license  from  the  Stationers'  Company  for  the  publica- 
tion of  'The  Merchaunt  of  Venyce,  or  otherwise  pubUcation 
called  the  Jewe  of  Venyce.'  But  to  the  hcense  of  'The 
there  was  attached  the  unusual  condition  that  M^'^'^'^^n'' 
neither  Roberts  nor  'any  other  whatsoever'  should  print 
the  piece  before  the  Lord  Chamberlain  gave  his  assent  to 
the  publication.^  More  than  two  years  elapsed  after  the 
grant  of  the  original  license  before  'The  Merchant' 
actually  issued  from  the  press.  'By  consent  of  Master 
Roberts'  a  second  license  was  granted  on  October  28, 
1600,  to  another  stationer  Thomas  Heyes  (or  Haies),  and 
when  the  year  1600  was  closing  Heyes  published- the  first 
edition  which  Roberts  printed  for  him.  Heyes's  text, 
which  was  more  satisfactory  than  was  customary,  was  in 
due  time  transferred  to  the  First  FoHo.^ 

To  1594  must  be  assigned  one  more  historical  piece, 
'King  John.'    Like  the  First  and  Third  Parts  of  'Henry 
VI'   and    'Richard   II'    the   play   altogether  'King 
eschews    prose.    Strained    conceits    and    rhe-  J°^°' 

'  Arber,  Stationers'  Registers,  iii.  122.  Apparently  the  players  were 
endeavouring  to  persuade  their  patron  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to  exert 
his  influence  against  the  unauthorised  publication  of  plays.  On  June  i, 
IS99,  the  wardens  of  the  Stationers'  Company,  by  order  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  gave  the  drastic  direc- 
tion 'That  noe  playes  be  printed  excepte  they  bee  allowed  by  suche  as 
haue  aucthorytie.'  The  prohibition  would  seem  to  have  resulted  in  a 
temporary  suspension  of  the  issue  of  plays  which  were  in  the  repertory 
of  Shakespeare's  company;  but  the  old  irregular  conditions  were  re- 
sumed in  the  autumn  of  1600,  and  they  experienced  no  further  check  in 
Shakespeare's  era. 

2  The  imprint  of  the  first  quarto  of  The  Merchant  runs :  'At  London, 
Printed  by  I[ames]  R[oberts]  for  Thomas  Heyes  and  are  to  be  sold  in 
Paules  Church-yard,  at  the  signe  of  the  Greene  Dragon.  1600.'  Cf. 
Arber,  Transcript,  iii.  175.  Heyes  attached  pecuniary,  value  to  his 
publishing  rights  in  The  Merchant  of  Venice.  On  July  8,  1619,  his  son, 
Laurence,  as  heir  to  his  father,  paid  a  fee  to  the  Stationers'  Company  on 
their  granting  him  a  formal  recognition  of  his  exclusive  interest  in  the 
publication  (Arber,  iii.  651).  There  is  ground  for  treating  another  early 
quarto  of  The  Merchant  which  bears  the  imprint  'Printed  by  J.  Roberts 
1600'  as  a  revised  but  unauthorised  and  misdated  reprint  of  Heyes's 
quarto  which  William  Jaggard,  the  successor  to  Roberts's  press,  printed 
for  Thomas  Pavier,  an  unprincipled  stationer,  in  1619  (see  Pollard, 
Shakespeare  Folios  and  Quartos,  1909,  pp.  81  seq.,  and  p.  559  infra). 


138  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

torical  extravagances  which  tend  to  rant  and  bom- 
bast are  clear  proofs  of  early  composition.  Again  the 
theme  had  already  attracted  dramatic  effort.  Very 
early  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  Bishop  Bale,  a  fanati- 
cal protestant  controversialist,  had  produced  a  crude  piece 
called  'King  Johan,'  which  presented  from  an  ultra- 
protestant  point  of  view  the  story  of  that  King's  struggle 
with  Rome  for  the  most  part  allegorically,  after  the 
manner  of  the  morality.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
Shakespeare  knew  anything  of  Bale's  work,  which  re- 
mained in  manuscript  until  1838.  More  pertinent  is  the 
circumstance  that  in  1591  there  was  pubUshed  anony- 
mously a  rough  piece  in  two  parts  entitled  '  The  Trouble- 
some Raigne  of  King  John.'  A  preHminary  'Address  to 
the  Gentlemen  Readers'  reminds  them  of  the  good  re- 
ception which  they  lately  gave  to  the  Scythian  TambuF= 
laine.  This  reference  to  Marlowe's  tragedy  points  to 
the  model  which  the  unknown  author  set  before  himself. 
There  is  no  other  ground  for  associating  Marlowe's  name 
with  the  old  play,  which  lacks  any  sign  of  genuine  power. 
Yet  the  old  piece  deserves  grateful  mention,  for  it  sup- 
plied Shakespeare  with  all  his  material  for  his  new  'his- 
tory.' In  'King  John'  he  worked  without  disguise  over 
a  predecessor's  play,  and  sought  no  other  authority. 
Every  episode  and  every  character  are  anticipated  in 
the  previous  piece.  Like  his  guide,  Shakespeare  em- 
braces the  whole  sixteen  years  of  King  John's  reign,  yet 
spends  no  word  on  the  chief  political  event  —  the  signing 
of  Magna  Carta.  But  into  the  adaptation  Shakespeare 
flung  all  his  energy,  and  the  theme  grew  under  his  hand 
into  great  tragedy.  It  is  not  only  that  the  chief  charac- 
ters are  endowed  with  new  Ufe  and  glow  with  dramatic 
fire,  but  the  narrow  polemical  and  malignant  censure  of 
Rome  and  Spain  which  disfigures  the  earher  play  is  for 
the  most  part  eliminated.  The  old  ribald  scene  de- 
signed to  expose  the  debaucheries  of  the  monks  of 
Swinstead  Abbey  is  expunged  by  Shakespeare,  and  he 
pays  Uttle  heed  to  the  legend  of  the  monk's  poisoning 


PROGRESS  AS   PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1594  139 

of  King  John,  which  fills  a  large  place  on  the  old  canvas. 
The  three  chief  characters  ■ —  the  mean  and  cruel  king,  the 
noble-hearted  and  desperately  wronged  Constance,  and 
the  soldierly  humorist,  Faulconbridge  —  are  recreated 
by  Shakespeare's  pen,  and  are  portrayed  with  the  same 
sureness  of  touch  that  marks  in  Shylock  his  rapidly 
maturing  strength.  The  scene  in  which  the  gentle  boy 
Arthur  learns  from  Hubert  that  the  king  has  ordered 
his  eyes  to  be  put  out  is  as  affecting  as  any  passage  in 
tragic  literature.  The  older  playwright's  Ufeless  presen- 
tation of  the  incident  gives  a  fair  measure  of  his  inepti- 
tude. Shakespeare's  'King  John'  was  not  printed  till 
1623,  but  an  unprincipled  and  ill-advised  endeavour  was 
made  meanwhile  to  steal  a  march  on  the  reading  public. 
In  1611  the  old  piece  was  reissued  as  'written  by  W.  Sh.' 
In  1622  the  publisher  went  a  step  further  in  his  career  of 
fraud  and  on  the  title-page  of  a  new  edition  declared  its 
author  to  be  'W.  Shakespeare.' 

At  the  close  of  1594  a  performance  of  Shakespeare's 
early  farce,  'The  Comedy  of  Errors,'  gave  him  a  passing 
notoriety  that  he  could  well  have  spared.     The 
piece  was  played  (apparently  by  professional  of  Errors' 
actors)    on    the   evening   of    Innocents'    Day  j^^^^u 
(December  28),  1594,  in  the  hall  of  Gray's  Inn, 
before  a  crowded  audience  of  benchers,  students,  and 
their  friends.     There  was  some  disturbance  during  the 
evening  on  the  part  of  guests  from  the  Inner  Temple, 
who,  dissatisfied  with  the  accommodation  afforded  them, 
retired  in  dudgeon.     'So  that  night,'  a  contemporary 
chronicler  states,  'was  begun  and  continued  to  the  end 
in  nothing  but  confusion  and  errors,  whereupon  it  was 
ever  afterwards  called  the  "Night  of  Errors." '  ^    Shake- 
speare was  acting  on  the  same  day  before  the  Queen  at 
Greenwich,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  he  were  present.     On  the 
morrow  a  commission  of  oyer  and  terminer  inquired  into 

'  Gesla  Grayorum,  printed  in  1688  from  a  contemporary  manuscript. 
A  second  perfonnance  of  the  Comedy  of  Errors  was  given  at  Gray's  Inn 
Hall  by  the  Elizabethan  Stage  Society  on  Dec.  6,  1895. 


I40  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  causes  of  the  tumult,  which  was  mysteriously  attri- 
buted to  a  sorcerer  having  'foisted  a  company  of  base  and 
common  fellows  to  make  up  our  disorders  with  a  play  of 
errors  and  confusions.' 

Fruitful  as  were  these  early  years,  there  are  critics  who 
would  enlarge  by  conjecture  the  range  of  Shakespeare's 
Early  plays  accredited  activities.  Two  plays  of  uncertain 
doubtfuUy  authorship  attracted  pubUc  attention  during 
shaS-  °  the  period  under  review  (1591-4)  —  'Arden  of 
speare.  Feversham' ^  and  'Edward  III.' ^  Shake- 
speare's hand  has  been  traced  in  both,  mainly  on  the 
ground  that  their  dramatic  energy  is  of  a  quality 
not  to  be  discerned  in  the  work  of  any  contemporary 
whose  writings  are  extant.  There  is  no  external  evi- 
dence in  favour  of  Shakespeare's  authorship  in  either 
case.  'Arden  of  Feversham'  dramatises  with  intensity 
and  insight  a  sordid  murder  of  a  husband  by  a  wife  which 
was  perpetrated  at  Faversham  on  February  15, 1550-1, 
'Axden  of  ^^*^  ^^^  fuUy  reported  by  Holinshed  and  more 
Fever-  briefly  by  Stow.  The  subject  in  its  realistic 
^  **"■  veracity  is  of  a  different  t3T)e  from  any  which 
Shakespeare  is  known  to  have  treated,  and  although 
the  play  may  be,  as  Swinburne  insists,  'a  young  man's 
work,'  it  bears  no  relation  either  in  topic  or  style  to  the 
work  on  which  young  Shakespeare  was  engaged  at  a 
date  so  early  as  1591  or  1592.  The  character  of  the 
murderess  (Arden's  wife  AHce)  is  finely  touched,  but  her 
brutal  instincts  strike  a  jarring  note  which  conflicts  with 
the  Shakespearean  spirit  of  tragic  art.* 

'Edward  III'  is  a  play  in  Marlowe's  vein,  and  has 
been  assigned  to  Shakespeare  with  greater  confidence  on 
even  more  shadowy  grounds.     The  competent  Shake- 

'  Licensed  for  publication  April  3,  1592,  and  published  in  1592. 

2  Licensed  for  publication  December  i,  1595,  and  published  in  1596. 

'  In  1770  the  critic  Edward  Jacob,  in  his  edition  of  Arden  of  Fever- 
sham,  first  assigned  Arden  to  Shakespeare,' claiming  it  to  be 'his  earliest 
dramatic  work.'  Swinburne  supported  the  theory,  which  is  generally 
discredited.  The  piece  would  seem  to  be  by  some  unidentified  disciplfe 
of  Kyd  (cf.  Kyd's  Works,  ed.  Boas,  p.  kxxix). 


PROGRESS  AS  PLAYWRIGHT,    1591-1594  141 

spearean  critic  Edward  Capell  reprinted  it  in  his  '  Pro- 
lusions'  in  1760,  and  described  it  as  'thought  to  be  writ 
by  Shakespeare.'  A  century  later  Tennyson  'Edward 
accepted  with  some  qualification  the  attri-  ^^■' 
bution,  which  Swinburne,  on  the  other  hand,  warmly 
contested.  The  piece  is  a  curious  medley  of  history  and 
romance.  Its  main  theme,  confusedly  drawn  from  Holin- 
shed,  presents  Edward  Ill's  wars  in  France,  with  the 
battles  of  Crecyand.Poitiers  and  the  capture  of  Calais,  but 
the  close  of  act  i.  and  the  whole  of  act  11.  dramatise  an 
unhistoric  tale  of  dishonourable  love  which  the  Italian 
novelist  Bandello  told  of  an  unnamed  King  of  England 
who  sought  to  defile  'the  Countess  of  SaKsbury,'  the  wife 
of  a  courtier.  Bandello's  fiction  was  rendered  into  Eng- 
lish in  Painter's  '  Palace  of  Pleasure,'  and  the  author  of 
'Edward  III'  unwarrantably  put  the  tale  of  ilUcit  love 
to  the  discredit  of  his  hero.  Many  speeches  scattered 
through  the  drama  and  the  whole  scene  (act  n.  sc.  ii.) ,  in 
which  the  Countess  of  Salisbury  repulses  the  advances 
of  Edward  III,  show  the  hand  of  a  master.  The  Coun- 
tess's language,  which  breathes  a  splendid  romantic  en- 
ergy, has  chiefly  led  critics  to  credit  Shakespeare  with 
responsibility  for  the  piece.  But  there  is  even  in  the  style 
of  these  contributions  much  to  dissociate  them  from 
Shakespeare's  acknowledged  work,  and  to  justify  their 
ascription  to  some  less  gifted  disciple  of  Marlowe.^  A 
line  in  act  11.  sc.  i.  ('Lihes  that  fester  smell  far  worse  than 
weeds')  reappears  in  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  (xciv. 
line  14),^  and  there  are  other  expressions  in  those  poems, 
which  seem  to  reflect  phrases  in  the  play  of  'Edward  III.' 
It  was  contrary  to  Shakespeare's  practice  literally  to 
plagiarise  himself.  Whether  the  dramatist  borrowed 
from  a  manuscript  copy  of  the  'Sonnets'  or  the  sonnet- 
teer  borrowed  from  the  drama  are  questions  which  are 
easier  to  ask  than  to  answer.* 

'  Cf.  Swinburne,  Study  of  Shakespeare,  pp.  231-274. 
2  See  p.  IS9  infra.  ,  .  ,    .         .         t  1    1 

'  For  other  plays  of  somewhat  later  date  which  have  been  falsely 
assigned  to  Shakespeare,  see  pp.  260  seq.  infra. 


rx 

THE  FIRST  APPEAL  TO  THE  READING  PUBLIC 

During  the  busy  years  (1591-4)  that  witnessed  his  first 
pronounced  successes  as  a  dramatist,  Shakespeare  came 
Publication  before  the  pubUc  in  yet  another  Hterary.  ca- 
of 'Venus  pacity.  On  April  18,  1593,  Richard  Field, 
Adonis,'  the  printer,  who  was  his  feUow-townsman,  ob- 
^593-  tained  a  license  for  the  publication  of  'Venus 

and  Adonis,'  Shakespeare's  metrical  version  of  a  classi- 
cal tale  of  love.  The  manuscript  was  set  up  at  Field's 
press  at  Blackfriars,  and  the  book  was  published  in 
accordance  with  the  common  contemporary  division 
of  labour  by  the  stationer  John  Harrison,  whose  shop  was 
at  the  sign  of  the  White  Greyhound  in  St.  Paul's  Church^ 
yard.  No  author's  name  fi,gured  on  the  title-page,  but 
Shakespeare  appended  his  full  signature  to  the  dedica- 
tion, which  he  addressed  in  conventional  terms  to  Henry 
Wriothesley,  third  earl  of  Southampton.  The  Earl,  who 
was  in  his  twentieth  year,  was  reckoned  the  hand- 
somest man  at  Court,  with  a  pronounced  disposition  to 
gallantry.  He  had  vast  possessions,  was  well  educated, 
loved  literature,  and  through  hfe  extended  to  men  of 
letters  a  generous  patronage.^  'I  know  not 
to  the  Earl  how  I  shall  offend,'  Shakespeare  now  wrote  to 
ampto'n"  ^™  ^^  ^  ^^V^^  flavoured  by  euphuism,  'in  dedi- 
cating my  unpolished  lines  to  your  lordship, 
nor  how  the  world  will  censure  me  for  choosing  so  strong: 
a  prop  to  support  so  weak  a  burden ;  only  if  your  Honour 
seem  but  pleased,  I  account  myself  highly  praised,  and 
vow  to  take  advantage  of  all  idle  hours,  till  I  have  hon- 

'  See  Appendix,  sections  iii.  and  iv. 


FIRST  APPEAL  TO  THE  READING  PUBLIC         143 

cured  you  with  some  graver  labour.  But  if  the  first 
heir  of  my  invention  prove  deformed,  I  shall  be  sorry  it 
had  so  noble  a  godfather ;  and  never  after  ear  [i.e.  plough] 
so  barren  a  land,  for  fear  it  yield  me  still  so  bad  a  harvest. 
I  leave  it  to  your  honourable  survey,  and  your  Honour 
to  your  heart's  content ;  which  I  wish  may  always  answer 
your  own  wish,  and  the  world's  hopeful  expectation.' 
The  subscription  ran  '  Your  Honour's  in  all  duty,  WilUam 
Shakespeare.' 

The  writer's  mention  of  the  work  as  'the  first  heir  of 
my  invention'  implies  that  the  poem  was  written,  or  at 
least  designed,  before  Shakespeare  undertook  .The  first 
any  of  his  dramatic  work.  But  there  is  reason  heir  of  my 
to  believe  that  the  first  draft  lay  in  the  author's  '"^™''°°- 
desk  through  four  or  five  summers  and  underwent  some 
retouching  before  it  emerged  from  the  press  in  its  final 
shape.  Shakespeare,  with  his  gigantic  powers  of  work, 
could  apparently  count  on  'idle  hours'  even  in  the 
well-filled  days  which  saw  the  completion  of  the  four 
original  plays  —  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  'Two  Gentle- 
ment  of  Verona,'  'Comedy  of  Errors,'  and  'Romeo  and 
Juliet'  —  as  well  as  the  revision  of  the  three  parts  of 
'Henry  VI'  and  'Titus  Andronicus,'  while  'Richard  III' 
and  '  Richard  II '  were  in  course  of  drafting.  Marlowe's 
example  may  here  as  elsewhere  have  stimulated  Shake- 
speare's energy ;  for  at  that  writer's  death  (June  i,  1593) 
he  left  unfinished  a  poetic  rendering  of  another  amorous 
tale  of  classic  breed  —  the  story  of  Hero  and  Leander 
by  the  Greek  poet  Musaeus.^ 

Shakespeare's  'Venus  and  Adonis'  is  affluent  in 
beautiful   imagery  and   metrical  sweetness;    but  it  is 

*  Marlowe's  Hero  and  Leander  was  posthumously  licensed  for  the 
press  on  September  28,  1593,  some  months  after  Venus  and  Adonis; 
but  it  was  not  published  till  1598,  in  a  volume  to  which  George  Chap- 
man contributed  a  continuation  completing  the  work.  About  1596 
Richard  Carew  in  a  letter  on  the  'ExceUencie  of  the  English  tongue' 
linked  Shakespeare's  poem  with  Marlowe's  'fragment,'  and  credited 
them  jointly  with  the  literary  merit  of  Catullus  (Camden's  Remaines, 
1614,  p.  43). 


144  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

imbued  with  a  juvenile  tone  of  license,  which  harmo- 
nises with  its  pretension  of  youthful  origin.  The  irrele- 
vant details,  the  many  figures  drawn  from  the  sounds  and 
sights  of  rural  or  domestic  life,  confirm  the  impression  of 
adolescence,  although  the  graphic  justness  of  observation 
and  the  rich  harmonies  of  language  anticipate  the  touch' 
of  maturity,  and  traces  abound  of  wide  reading  in  both 
classical  and  recent  domestic  literature.  The  topic  was 
one  which  was  likely  to  appeal  to  a  young  patron  like 
Southampton,  whose  culture  did  not  discourage  lascivious 
tastes. 

The  poem  offers  signal  proof  of  Shakespeare's  early 
devotion  to  Ovid.  The  title-page  bears  a  beautiful  Latin 
motto : 

Vilia  miretur  vulgus ;  mihi  flavus  Apollo 
Pocula  Castalia  plena  ministret  aqua. 

The  lines  come  from  the  Roman  poet's  'Amores,'  and, 
in  his  choice  of  the  couplet,  Shakespeare  again  showed 
loyalty  to  Marlowe's  example.^ 

The  legend  of  Venus  and  Adonis  was  sung  by  Theoc- 
ritus and  Bion,  the  pastoral  poets  of  Sicily;  but 
The  debt  Shakespeare  made  its  acquaintance  in  the  brief 
to  Ovid.  version  which  figures  in  a  work  by  Ovid  which 
is  of  greater  note  than  his  'Amores'  —  in  his  'Meta- 
morphoses' (Book  X.  520-560;     707-738).      Not  that 

'  The  motto  is  taken  from  Ovid's  Amores,  liber  i.  elegy  xv.  11.  35-6. 
Portions  of  the  Amores  or  Elegies  of  Love  were  translated  by  Mar- 
lowe about  1589,  and  were  first  printed  without  a  date,  probably 
about  IS97,  in  Epigrammes  and  Elegies  by  I[ohn]  D[avies]  and  C[hris-  * 
topher]  M[arlowe].  Marlowe,  whose  version  circulated  in  manuscript 
in  the  eight  years'  interval,  rendered  the  lines  quoted  by  Shakespeare 
thus: 

Let  base  conceited  wits  admire  vile  things, 
Fair  Phoebus  lead  me  to  the  Muses'  springs ! 

This  poem  of  Ovid's  Amores  was  popular  with  other  Elizabethans. 
Ben  Jonson  placed  another  version  of  it  on  the  lips  of  a  character  called 
Ovid  in  his  play  of  the  Poetaster  (1602).  Jonson  presents  Shakespeare's 
motto  in  the  awkward  garb : 

Kneele  hindes  to  trash :  me  let  bright  Phoebus  swell, 
With  cups  full  flowing  from  the  Muses'  well. 


FIRST  APPEAL  TO  THE  READING  PUBLIC  145 

Shakespeare  was  a  slavish  borrower.  On  Ovid's  nar- 
rative of  the  Adonic  fable  he  embroidered  reminis- 
cences of  two  independent  episodes  in  the  same  treasury 
of  mythology,  viz. :  the  wooing  of  the  reluctant  Herma- 
phroditus  by  the  maiden  Sahnacis  (Book  IV.)  and  the 
hunting  of  the  Calydonian  boar  (Book  VIII.).  Again, 
however  helpful  Ovid's  work  proved  to  Shakespeare, 
'the  first  heir'  of  his  invention  found  supplementary 
inspiration  elsewhere.  The  Roman  poet  had  given  the 
myth  a  European  vogue.  Echoes  of  it  are  heard  in  the 
pages  of  Dante  and  Chaucer,  and  it  was  developed  before 
Shakespeare  wrote  by  poets  of  the  Renaissance  in  six- 
teenth-century Italy  and  France.  In  the  year  of 
Shakespeare's  birth  Ronsard,  the  chieftain  of  contempo- 
rary French  poetry,  versified  the  tale  of  Venus  and  Adonis 
with  pathetic  charm,^  and  during  Shakespeare's  boyhood 
many  fellow-countrymen  emulated  the  Continental 
example.  Spenser,  Robert  Greene,  and  Marlowe  bore 
occasional  witness  in  verse  to  the  myth's  influence, 
fascination,  while  Thomas  Lodge  described  in  of  Lodge, 
detail  Adonis's  death  and  Venus's  grief  in  prefatory 
stanzas  before  his  'Scillaes  Metamorphosis:  Enterlaced 
with  the  unfortunate  love  of  Glaucus'  (published  in 
1589).  Lodge's  main  theme  was  a  different  fable, 
drawn  from  the  same  rich  mine  of  Ovid.  His  effort  is 
the  most  notable  pre-Shakespearean  experiment  in  the 
acclimatisation  of  Ovid's  '  Metamorphoses '  in  English 
verse. 

Shakespeare's  'Venus  and  Adonis'  is  in  the  direct 
succession  of  both  Continental  and  Elizabethan  culture, 
which  was  always  loyal  to  classical  tradition.  His  metre 
is  the  best  proof  of  his  susceptibihty  to  current  vogue. 
He  employed  the  sixain  or  six-line  stanza  rhyming  ababcc, 
which  is  the  commonest  of  all  forms  of  narrative  verse 
in  both  EngUsh  and  French  poetry  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Spenser  had  proved  the  stanza's  capacity  in  his 
'Astrophel,'  his  elegy  on  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  while  Thomas 
1  See  French  Renaissance  in  England,  220. 


146  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Lodge  had  shown  its  adaptabiKty  to  epic  purpose  in  that 
Ovidian  poem  of  'Scillaes  Metamorphosis'  which  treats 
in  part  of  Shakespeare's  theme.  On  metrical  as  well  as 
on  critical  grounds  Lodge  should  be  credited  with  helping 
efficiently  to  mould  Shakespeare's  first  narrative  poem.' 
A  year  after  the  issue  of  'Venus  and  Adonis,'  in  1594, 
Shakespeare  pubHshed  another  poem  in  Kke  vein,  which 
'Lucr  '  ^°^^  ^^^  tragic  tale  of  Lucrece,  the  accepted 
pattern  of  conjugal  fidelity  alike  through 
classical  times  and  the  Middle  Ages.  The  tone  is  graver 
than  that  of  its  predecessor,'  and  the  poet's  reading 
had  clearly  taken  a  wider  range.  Moral  reflections 
abound,  and  there  is  some  advance  in  metrical  dex- 
terity and  verbal  harmony.  But  there  is  less  fresh- 
ness in  the  imagery  and  at  times  the  language  tends  to 
bombast.  Long  digressions  interrupt  the  flow  of  the 
narrative.  The  heroine's  allegorical  addresses  to  '  Op- 
portunity Time's  servant'  and  to  'Time  the  lackey  of 
Eternity'  occupy  133  hues  (869-1001),  while  the  spirited 
description  of  a  picture  of  the  siege  of  Troy  is  prolonged 
through  202  hues  (1368-1569),  nearly  a  ninth  part  of  the 
whole  poem.  The  metre  is  changed.  The  six-line  stanza 
of  'Venus'  is  replaced  by  a  seven-line  stanza  which 
Chaucer  often  used  in  the  identical  form  ababbcc.    The 

*  Shakespeare's  Venus  and  Adonis  and  Lodge's  Scillaes  Metamor- 
phosis, by  James  P.  Reardon,  in  'Shakespeare  Society's  Papers,'  iiL 
143-6.  Cf.  Lodge's  description  of  Venus's  discovery  of  tlie  wounded 
Adonis : 

Her  daintie  hand  addrest  to  dawe  her  deere. 
Her  roseall  lip  alied  to  his  pale  cheeke. 
Her  sighs  and  then  her  lookes  and  heavie  cheere, 
Her  bitter  threates,  and  then  her  passions  meeke : 

How  on  his  senseless  corpse  she  lay  a-crying, 

As  if  the  boy  were  then  but  new  a-dymg. 

In  the  minute  description  in  Shakespeare's  poem  of  the  chase  of  the 
hare  (11.  673-708)  there  are  curious  resemblances  to  the  Ode  de  la  Chase. 
(on  a  stag  hunt)  by  the  French  dramatist,  Estienne  Jodelle,  in  his  (Euvres 
et  Meslanges  Poetiques,  1574.  For  fuller  illustration  of  Shakespeare's 
sources  and  analogues  of  the  poem,  and  of  its  general  literary  history  and 
bibliography,  see  the  present  writer's  introduction  to  the  facsimile  re- 
production of  the  first  quarto  edition  of  Venus  and  Adonis  (1593),  Claren- 
don Press,  1905. 


FIRST   APPEAL  TO  THE   READING  PUBLIC        147 

stanza  was  again  common  among  Elizabethan  poets. 
Prosodists  christened  it  'rhyme  royal'  and  regarded  it 
as  peculiarly  well  adapted  to  any  'historical  or  grave' 
theme. 

The  second  poem  was   entered  in  the   'Stationers' 
Registers'  on  May  9,  1594,  under  the  title  of  'A  Booke 
in  titled   the   Ravyshement   of   Lucrece,'    and  pj^.^^ 
was  pubUshed  in  the  same  year  under  the  title  edition, 
of  'Lucrece.'    As  in  the  case  of  'Venus  and  '^'*' 
Adonis,'  it  was  printed  by  Shakespeare's  fellow-towns- 
man Richard  Field.     But  the  copyright  was  vested  in 
John  Harrison,  who  pubhshed  and  sold  it  at  the  sign  of 
the  White  Greyhound  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.    He  was 
a  prominent  figure  in  the  book-trade  of  the  day,  being 
twice  master  of  the  Stationers'  Company,  and  shortly 
after  publishing  Shakespeare's  second  poem  he  acquired 
of  Field  the  copyright,  in  addition,  of  the  dramatists' 
first  poem,  of  which  he  was  already  the  publisher. 

Lucrece's  story,  which  flourished  in  classical  literature, 
was  absorbed  by  mediaeval  poetry,  and  like  the  tale  of 
Venus  and  Adonis  was  subsequently  endowed  Sources  of 
with  new  fife  by  the  literary  effort  of  the  Euro-  'he  story, 
pean  Renaissance.  There  are  signs  that  Shakespeare  ' 
sought  hints  at  many  hands.  The  classical  version 
of  Ovid's  'Fasti'  (ii.  721-852)  gave  him  a  primary 
clue.  But  at  the  same  time  he  seems  to  have  assimilated 
suggestion  from  Livy's  version  of  the  fable  in  his  '  History 
of  Rome'  (Bk.  I.  ch.  57-59),  which  Wilham  Painter  para- 
phrased in  EngHsh  in  the  'Palace  of  Pleasure.'  Ad- 
mirable help  was  also  available  in  Chaucer's  'Legend  of 
Good  Women'  (fines  1680-1885),  where  the  fifth  section 
deals  with  Lucretia's  pathetic  fortunes,  and  Bandello  had 
developed  the  theme  in  an  Itafian  novel.  Again,  as  in 
'Venus  and  Adonis,'  there  are  subsidiary  indications  in 
phrase,  episode,  and  sentiment  of  Shakespeare's  debt  to 
contemporary  Engfish  poetry.  The  accents  of  Shake- 
speare's 'Lucrece'  often  echo  those  of  Daniel's  poetic 
'Complaint  of  Rosamond'  (King  Henry  II's  mistress), 


148  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

which,  with  its  seven-Hne  stanza  (1592),  stood  to  'Lu- 
crece'  in  even  closer  relation  than  Lodge's  'Scilla,'^  with 
its  six-line  stanza,  to  '  Venus  and  Adonis.'  The  piteous 
accents  of  Shakespeare's  heroine  are  those  of  Daniel's 
heroine  purified  and  glorified.^  Lucrece's  apostrophe  to 
Time  (lines  939  seq.)  suggests  indebtedness  to  two  other 
English  poets,  Thomas  Watson  in  'Hecatompathia,' 
1582  (Sonnets  xlvii.  and  Ixxvii.),  and  Giles  Fletcher  in 
'Licia,'  1593  (Sonnet  xxviii.)-  Fletcher  anticipated  at 
many  points  Shakespeare's  catalogue  of  Time's  varied 
activities.^  The  curious  appeal  of  Lucrece  to  personi- 
fied 'Opportunity'  (lines  869  seq.)  appears  to  be  his 
unaided  invention. 

Shakespeare  dedicated  his  second  volume  of  poetry  to 
the  Earl  of  Southampton,  the  patron  of  his  first,  but  his 
Second  language  displays  a  greater  warmth  of  feeling, 
letter  to  Shakespeare  now  addressed  the  young  Earl  in 
South-  terms  of  devoted  friendship,  which  were  not  un- 
ampton.  common  at  the  time  in  communications  be- 
tween patrons  and  poets,  but  they  suggest  here 
that  Shakespeare's  relations  with  the  brilUant  young 
nobleman  had  grown  closer  since  he  dedicated  'Venus 
and  Adonis'  to  him  in  more  formal  style  a  year  before. 
'  The  love  I  dedicate  to  your  lordship,'  Shakespeare  wrote 

*  Rosamond,  in  Daniel's  poem,  muses  thus  when  King  Henry  chal- 
lenges her  honour : 

But  what?  he  is  my  King  and  may  constraine  me; 
Whether  I  yeeld  or  not,  I  live  defamed. 
The  World  will  thinke  Authoritie  did  gaine  me, 
I  shall  be  judg'd  his  Love  and  so  be  shamed ; 
We  see  the  faire  condemn'd  that  never  gamed. 

And  if  I  yeeld,  'tis  honourable  shame. 

If  not,  I  live  disgrac'd,  yet  thought  the  same. 

'  The  general  conception  of  Time's  action  can  of  course  be  traced 
very  far  back  in  poetry.  Watson  acknowledged  that  his  lines  were 
borrowed  from  the  ItaUan  Serafino,  and  Fletcher  imitated  the  NeapoUtan 
Latinist  Angerianus;  while  both  Serafino  and  Angerianus  owed  much 
to  Ovid's  pathetic  lament  in  Tristia  (iv.  6,  i-io).  That  Shakespeare 
knew  Watson's  chain  of  reflections  seems  proved  by  his  verbatim  quota- 
tion of  one  link  in  Muck  Ado  about  Nothing  (i.  i.  271) :  'In  time  the 
savage  bull  doth  bear  the  yoke.'  There  are  plain  indications  in  Shake- 
speare's Sonnets  that  Fletcher's  Licia  was  faroiUar  to  him. 


FIRST  APPEAL  TO  THE  READING  PUBLIC        149 

in  the  opening  pages  of '  Lucrece,' '  is  without  end,  whereof 
this  pamphlet  without  beginning  is  but  a  superfluous 
moiety.  The  warrant  I  have  of  your  honourable  dis- 
position, not  the  worth  of  my  untutored  hues,  makes  it 
assured  of  acceptance.  What  I  have  done  is  yours,  what  I 
have  to  do  is  yours,  being  part  in  all  I  have,  devoted  yours. 
Were  my  worth  greater,  my  duty  would  show  greater ; 
meantime,  as  it  is,  it  is  bound  to  your  lordship ;  to  whom 
I  wish  long  hfe  still  lengthened  with  all  happiness.'  The 
subscription  runs  '  Your  Lordship's  in  all  duty,  Wil- 
liam Shakespeare.'  ^ 

In  these  poems  Shakespeare  made  his  earliest  appeal 
to  the  world  of  readers.  The  London  playgoer  already 
knew  his  name  as  that  of  a  promising  actor 
and  a  successful  playwright.  But  when  '  Ve-  f" rece^' 
nus  and  Adonis'  appeared  in  1593,  no  word  tionoifthe 
of  his  dramatic  composition  had  seen  the  hght  ^°  p"^""^' 
of  the  printing  press.  Early  in  the  following  year,  a 
month  or  two  before  the  pubhcation  of  '  Lucrece,'  there 
were  issued  the  plays  of  '  Titus  Andronicus '  and  the  first 
part  of  the 'Contention'  (the  early  draft  of  the  Second 
Part  of  'Henry  VI'),  to  both  of  which  Shakespeare  had 
lent  a  revising  hand.  But  so  far,  his  original  dramas  had 
escaped  the  attention  of  traders  in  books.  His  early 
plays  brought  him  at  the  outset  no  reputation  as  a  man 
of  letters.  It  was  not  as  the  myriad-minded  dramatist, 
but  in  the  restricted  rdle  of  versifier  of  classical  fables 
familiar  to  all  cultured  Europe,  that  he  first  impressed 
studious  contemporaries  with  the  fact  of  his  mighty 
genius.  The  reading  public  welcomed  his  poetic  tales 
with  unquahfied  enthusiasm.  The  sweetness  of  the  verse, 
the  poetic  flow  of  the  narrative,  and  the  graphic  imagery 
discountenanced  censure  of  the  hcentious  treatment  of 
the  themes  even  on  the  part  of  the  seriously  minded. 
Critics  vied  with  each  other  in  the  exuberance  of  the  eulo- 

'  For  fuller  illustration  of  the  poem's  literary  history  and  bibliography, 
see  the  present  writer's  introduction  to  the  facsimile  reproduction  of  &e 
first  quarto  edition  of  Lucrece  (1594),  Clarendon  Press,  1905; 


150  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

gies  in  which  they  proclaimed  that  the  fortunate  author 
had  gained  a  place  in  permanence  on  the  sunmrit  of 
Parnassus.  'Lucrece,'  wrote  Michael  Drayton  in  his 
'Legend  of  Matilda'  (1594),  was  'revived  to  Kve  another 
age.'  A  year  later  William  Covell,  a  Cambridge  fellow, 
in  his  'PoHmanteia,'  gave  'all  praise'  to  'sweet  Shake- 
speare' for  his  'Lucrecia.'  ^ 

In  1598  Richard  Barnfield,  a  poet  of  some  lyric  power, 
sums  up  the  general  estimate  of  the  two  works  thus : 

Bamfield's       And  Shakespeare  thou,  whose  hony-flowing  Vaine, 
tribute.  (Pleasmg  the  World)  thy  Praises  doth  obtaine. 

Whose  Venus,  and  whose  Lucrece  (sweete  and  chaste) 
Thy  name  in  fames  immortall  Booke  have  plac't, 
Live  ever  you,  at  least  in  Fame  live  ever : 
Well  may  the  Bodye  dye,  but  Fame  dies  never.' 

In  the  same  year  the  rigorous  critic  and  scholar,  Gabriel 
Harvey,  distinguished  between  the  respective  impres- 
sions which  the  two  poems  made  on  the  pubUc.  Harvey 
reported  that  'the  younger  sort  take  much  dehght'  in 
'Venus  and  Adonis,'  while  'Lucrece'  pleased  'the  wiser 
sort.'  ^  A  poetaster  John  Weever,  in  a  sormet  addressed 
to  ' honey- tongued  Shakespeare'  in  his  'Epigramms' 
(1599),  eulogised  the  poems  indiscriminately  as  an  un- 
matchable  achievement,  while  making  vaguer  and  less 
articulate  mention  of  the  plays  'Romeo'  and  'Richard' 
and  'more  whose  names  I  know  not.' 

Printers  and  publishers  of  both  poems  strained  their 
resources  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  eager  purchasersi 
No  fewer  than  six  editions  of  '  Venus '  appeared  between 
1592  and   1602 ;     a  seventh   followed  in   1617,  and  a 

*  In  a  copy  supposed  to  be  unique  of  this  work,  formerly  the  property 
of  Prof.  Dowden,  the  author  gives  his  name  at  the  foot  of  the  dedication 
to  the  Earl  of  Essex  as  'W.  Covell.'  (See  Dowden's  Sale  Catalogue 
Hodgson  and  Co.,  London,  Dec.  i6,  1913,  p.  40.)  Covell  was  a  Fellow 
of  Queens'  College,  Cambridge.  (See  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.)  In  aU  other 
known  copies  of  the  PoHmanteia  the  author's  signature  appears  as 
'W.  C  —  initials  which  have  been  wrongly  identified  with  those  of 
William  Clerke,  FeEow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

2  Bamfield's  Poems  in  Divers  Humours,  1589,  'A  Remembrance  of 
some  English  Poets.' 

'  Harvey's  Marginalia,  ed.  G.  C.  Moore  Smith,  1913 ;  see  p.  358. 


FIRST  APPEAL   TO  THE  READING  PUBLIC        151 

twelfth  in  1636.  'Lucrece '  achieved  a  fifth  edition  in  the 
year  of  Shakespeare's  death,  and  an  eighth  edition  in 

There  is  a  likelihood,  too,  that  Edmund  Spenser,  the 
greatest  of  Shakespeare's  poetic  contemporaries,  was  first 
drawn  by  the  poems  into  the  ranks  of  Shake-  g^^^^ 
speare's  admirers.  Among  the  ten  contempo-  speareand 
rary  poets  whom  Spenser  saluted  mostly  under  ^p™^"- 
fanciful  names  in  his  'CoUn  Clouts  come  home  againe' 
(completed  in  1594),^  it  is  hardly  doubtful  that  he  greeted 
Shakespeare  under  the  name  of  'Aetion'  —  a  familiar 
Greek  proper  name  derived  from  aertk,  an  eagle.  Spen- 
ser wrote : 

And  there,  though  last  not  least  is  Aetion ; 

A  gentler  Shepheard  may  no  where  be  found, 
Whose  muse,  full  of  high  thought's  invention, 

Doth,  like  himseUe,  heroically  sound. 

The  last  hne  alludes  to  Shakespeare's  surname,  and  ad- 
umbrates the  later  tribute  paid  by  the  dramatist's  friend, 
Ben  Jonson,  to  his  'true-filed  lines,'  which  had  the  power 
of  'a  lance  as  brandish'd  at  the  eyes  of  ignorance.' '  We 
may  assume  that  the  admiration  of  Spenser  for  Shake- 
speare was  reciprocal.  At  any  rate  Shakespeare  paid 
Spenser  the  compliment  of  making  reference  to  his 
"Teares  of  the  Muses'  (1591)  in  'Midsummer  Night's 
Dream'  (v.  i.  52-3). 

The  thrice  three  Muses,  mourning  for  the  death] 
Of  learning,  late  deceased  in  beggary, 

is  there  paraded  as  the  theme  of  one  of  the  dramatic 
entertainments  wherewith  it  is  proposed  to  celebrate 

*  See  pp.  S42-3  infra. 

'  Cf.  Malone's  Variorum,  ii.  224-279,  where  an  able  attempt  is  made 
to  identify  all  the  writers  noticed  by  Spenser,  e.g.  Thotaas  Churchyard 
('Harpalus'),  Abraham  Fraunce  ('Corydon'),  Arthur  Gorges  ('Alcyon'), 
George  Peele  ('Palin'),  Thomas  Lodge  ('Alcon'),  Arthur  Golding 
('Palemon'),  and  the  fifth  Earl  of  Derby  ('Amyntas'),  the  patron  of 
Shakespeare's  company  of  actors.  Spenser  mentions  Alabaster  and 
Daniel  without  disguise. 

'  'Similarly  Fuller,  in  his  Worthies,  likens  Shakespeare  to  'Martial 
in  the  warlike  sound  of  his  surname.' 


152  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Theseus's  marriage.  In  Spenser's  'Teares  of  the  Muses' 
each  of  the  Nine  laments  in  turn  her  decUning  influence 
on  the  Uterary  and  dramatic  effort  of  the  age.  Shake- 
speare's Theseus  dismisses  the  suggestion  with  the  frank 
but  not  unkindly  comment : 

That  is  some  satire  keen  and  critical, 
Not  sorting  with  a  nuptial  ceremony. 

But  it  may  be  safely  denied  that  Spenser  in  the  same 
poem  referred  figuratively  to  Shakespeare  when  he  made 
Thalia  deplore  the  recent  death  of  '  our  pleasant  WiUy.' ' 
The  name  Willy  was  frequently  used  in  contemporary 
hterature  as  a  term  of  familiarity  without  relation  to  the 
baptismal  name  of  the  person  referred  to.  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  was  addressed  as  'Willy'  by  some  of  his  elegists. 
A  comic  actor, '  dead  of  late '  in  a  Hteral  sense,  was  clearly 
intended  by  Spenser,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  dispute 
the  view  of  an  early  seventeenth-century  commentator 
that  Spenser  was  paying  a  tribute  to  the  loss  English 
comedy  had  lately  sustained  by  the  death  of  the  comedian, 
Richard  Tarleton.^  Similarly  the  'gentle  spirit'  who  is 
described  by  Spenser  in  a  still  later  stanza  as  sitting  'in 
idle  cell'  rather  than  turn  his  pen  to  base  uses  cannot  be 
more  reasonably  identified  with  Shakespeare.* 

^  All  these  and  all  that  els  the  Comick  Stage 
With  seasoned  wit  and  goodly  pleasance  graced. 
By  which  mans  life  in  his  likest  image 
Was  Umned  forth,  are  wholly  now  defaced  .  .  . 
And  he,  the  man  whom  Natmre  selfe  had  made 
To  mock  her  selfe  and  Truth  to  imitate, 
With  kindly  counter  under  mimick  shade. 
Our  pleasant  Willy,  ah !  is  dead  of  late ; 
With  whom  all  joy  and  jolly  meriment 
Is  also  deaded  and  in  dolour  drent  (11.  199-210). 

2  A  note  to  this  effect,  in  a  genuine  early  seventeenth-century  hand 
was  discovered  by  HalliweU-PhUlipps  in  a  copy  of  the  161 1  edition  of 
Spenser's  Works  (cf.  Outlines,  ii.  394-5). 

'  But  that  same  gentle  spirit,  from  whose  pen 
Largestreames  of  honnie  and  sweete  nectar  flowe, 
Scorning  the  boldnes  of  such  base-borne  men 
Which  dare  their  foUies  forth  so  rashlie  throwe. 
Doth  rather  choose  to  sit  in  idle  cell 
Than  so  himselfe  to  mockerie  to  sell  (11.  217-22). 


FIRST  APPEAL  TO  THE   READING  PUBLIC        153 

Meanwhile  Shakespeare  was  gaining  personal  esteem  in 
a  circle  more  exclusive  than  that  of  actors,  men  of  letters, 
or  the  general  reading  public.  His  genius  and  patrons 
'civil  demeanour'  of  which  Chettle  wrote  in  at  court. 
1592  arrested  the  notice  not  only  of  the  brilliant 
Earl  of  Southampton  but  of  other  exalted  patrons  of 
literature  and  the  drama.  His  summons  to  act  at  Court 
with  Burbage  and  Kemp,  the  two  most  famous  actors  of 
the  day,  during  the  Christmas  season  of  1594  was  pos- 
sibly due  in  part  to  the  personal  interest  which  he  had 
excited  among  satellites  of  royalty.  Queen  Elizabeth 
quickly  showed  him  special  favour.  Until  the  end  of  her 
reign  his  plays  were  repeatedly  acted  in  her  presence. 
Every  year  his  company  contributed  to  her  Christmas 
festivities.  The  revised  version  of  'Love's  Labour's 
Lost'  was  given  at  Whitehall  at  Christmas  1597,  and 
tradition  credits  the  Queen  with  unconcealed  enthu- 
siasm for  Falstaff,  who  came  into  being  a  little  later. 
Under  Queen  Elizabeth's  successor  Shakespeare  greatly 
strengthened  his  hold  on  royal  favour,  but  Ben  Jonson 
claimed  that  the  Queen's  appreciation  equalled  that  of 
King  James  I.  When  Jonson  in  his  elegy  of  Shake- 
speare wrote 

Those  flights  upon  the  banks  of  Thames 
That  so  did  take  Eliza  and  our  James, 

he  was  mindful  of  the  many  representations  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  which  glorified  the  river  palaces  of  White- 
hall, Windsor,  Richmond,  and  Greenwich  during  the  last 
decade  of  the  great  Queen's  reign. 


X 

THE  SONNETS  AND  THEIR  LITERARY  HISTORY 

It  was  doubtless  to  Shakespeare's  personal  relations  with 
men  and  women  of  the  Court  that  most  of  his  sonnets 
The  vogue  owed  their  existence.  In  Italy  and  France  the 
of  the  practice  of  writing  and  circulating  series  of 
Sthan  sonnets  inscribed  to  great  personages  flour- 
sonnet,  ished  continuously  through  the.  greater  part 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  England,  until  the  last 
decade  of  that  century,  the  vogue  was  intermittent. 
Wyatt  and  Surrey  inaugurated  sonnetteering  in  the 
English  language  under  Henry  VIII,  and  Thomas 
Watson  devoted  much  energy  to  the  pursuit  when 
Shakespeare  was  a  boy.  But  it  was  not  until  1591, 
when  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  collection  of  sonnets  en- 
titled 'Astrophel  and  Stella'  was  first  published,  that 
the  sonnet  enjoyed  in  England  any  conspicuous  or  con- 
tinuous favour.  For  the  half-dozen  years  following  the 
appearance  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  volume  the  writing  of 
sonnets,  both  singly  and  in  connected  sequences,  engaged 
more  literary  activity  in  this  country  than  it  engaged  at 
any  period  here  or  elsewhere.^  Men  and  women  of  the 
cultivated  Elizabethan  nobihty  encouraged  poets  to 
celebrate  in  single  sonnets  or  in  short  series  their  virtues 
and  graces,  and  under  the  same  patronage  there  were 
produced  multitudes  of  long  sonnet-sequences  which 
more  or  less  fancifully  narrated,  after  the  manner  of 
Petrarch  and  his  successors,  the  pleasures  and  pains  of 
love.    Between  1591  and  1597  no  aspirant  to  poetic  fame 

'  Section  ix.  of  the  Appendix  to  this  volume  gives  a  sketch  of  each 
of  the  numerous  collections  of  sonnets  which  bore  witness  to  the  un- 
exampled vogue  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnet  between  1591  and  1597. 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  155 

in  the  country  failed  to  count  a  patron's  ears  by  a  trial  of 
skill  on  the  popular  poetic  instrument,  and  Shakespeare, 
who  habitually  kept  abreast  of  the  currents  of  contempo- 
rary literary  taste,  applied  himself  to  sonnetteering  with 
all  the  force  of  his  poetic  genius  when  the  fashion  was  at 
its  height. 

The  dramatist  hghtly  experimented  with  the  sonnet 
from  the  outset  of  his  Hterary  career.    Ten  times  he  wove 
the  quatorzain  into  his  early  dramatic  verse. 
Seven   examples   figure   in   'Love's   Labour's  spire's 
Lost,'  probably  his  earUest  play^;    both  the  ^g^j^P^"" 
choruses  in  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  (before  acts  i. 
and  II.)  are  couched  in  the  sonnet  form ;   and  a  letter  of 
the  heroine  Helena  in  '  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,'  which 
bears  traces  of  early  composition,  takes  the  same  shape 
(m.  iv.  4-17).     It  has,  moreover,  been  argued  ingen- 
iously, if  not  convincingly,  that  he  was  author  of  the 
somewhat  clumsy  sonnet,  'Phaeton  to  his  friend  Florio,' 
which  prefaced  in  1591  Florio's  'Second  Frutes,'  a  series 
of  Italian-English  dialogues  for  students.^ 

^Love's  Labour's  Lost,  i.  i.  80-93,  163-176;  rv.  ii.  109-122;  iii.  26- 
39,  60-73 ;  V.  ii.  343-56 ;  402-IS- 

'  Minto,  Characteristics  of  English  Poetry,  1885,  pp.  371,  382.  The 
sonnet,  headed  'Phaeton  to  his  friend  Florio,'  runs : 

Sweet  friend,  whose  name  agrees  with  thy  increase. 

How  fit  a  rival  art  thou  of  the  Spring ! 

For  when  each  branch  hath  left  his  flourishing, 
And  green-locked  Summer's  shady  pleasures  cease ; 
She  makes  the  Winter's  storms  repose  in  peace. 

And  spends  her  franchise  on  each  hving  thing : 

The  daisies  sprout,  the  Uttle  birds  do  sing. 
Herbs,  gums,  and  plants  do  vaunt  of  theh  release. 
So  when  that  all  our  EngUsh  Wits  lay  dead, 

(Except  the  laurel  that  is  ever  green) 
Thou  with  thy  Fruit  our  barrenness  o'erspread, 

And  set  thy  flowery  pleasance  to  be  seen. 
Such  fruits,  such  flow'rets  of  moraUty, 
Were  ne'er  before  brought  out  of  Italy. 

John  Florio  (iSS3?-ii525),  at  first  a  teacher  of  Italian  at  Oxford  and 
later  well  known  in  London  as  a  lexicographer  and  translator,  was  a 
protegS  of  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  whose  'pay  and  patronage'  he  ac- 
knowledged in  1598  when  dedicating  to  him  his  Worlde  of  Wordes.  He 
was  afterwards  a  beneficiary  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.  His  circle  of 
acquaintance  included  the  leading  men  of  letters  of  the  day.    Shake- 


156  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

But  these  were  sporadic  efforts.  It  was  not  till  the 
spring  of  1593,  after  Shakespeare  had  secured  a  noble- 

.  .  man's  patronage  for  his  earliest  publication, 
of  shake^  'Venus  and  Adonis,'  that  he  turned  to  sonnet- 
sonnS  teering  on  the  regular  plan,  outside  dramatic 
composed  composition.  One  hundred  and  fifty-four 
""  ^^^'^'  sonnets  survive  apartfr^m  his  plays,  and  there 
are  signs  that  a  large  part  of  tne  collection  was  inaugu- 
rated while  the  two  narrative  poems  were  xmder  way 
during  1593  and  1594  —  his  thirtieth  and  thirty-first 
years.  Occasional  reference  in  the  sonnets  to  the 
writer's  growing  age  was  a  conventional  device  —  trace- 
able to  Petrarch  —  of  all  sonnetteers  of  the  day,  and 
admits  of  no  literal  interpretation.^    In  matter  and  in 

speare  doubtless  knew  Florio  first  as  Southampton's  proUgl.  He  quotes 
his  fine  translation  of  Montaigne's  Essays  in  The  Tempest;  seep.  429. 
Although  the  fact  of  Shakespeare's  acquaintance  with  Florio  is  not 
open  to  question,  it  is  responsible  for  at  least  one  mistaken  inference. 
Farmer  and  Warburton  argue  that  Shakespeare  ridiculed  Florio  in 
Holofemes  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost.  They  chiefly  rely  on  Florio's  bom- 
bastic prefaces  to  his  Worlde  of  Wordes  and  his  translation  of  Mon- 
taigne's Essays  (1603).  There  is  nothing  there  to  justify  the  suggestion. 
Florio  writes  more  in  the  vein  of  Armado  than  of  Holofernes,  and,  be- 
yond the  fact  that  he  was  a  teacher  of  languages  to  noblemen,  he  beais 
no  resemblance  to  Holofernes,  a  village  schoolmaster. 
^  Shakespeare  writes  in  his  Sonnets : 

My  glass  shall  not  persuade  me  I  am  old  (xxii.  i). 

But  when  my  glass  shows  me  myself  indeed, 

Seated  and  chopp'd  with  taim'd  antiquity  (Ixii.  g-io). 

That  time  of  year  thou  may'st  in  me  behold 

When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few  do  hang  (bcxiii.  1-2). 

My  days  are  past  the  best  (cxxxviii.  6). 

Daniel  in  Delia  (xxiii.)  in  1591,  when  twenty-nine  years  old,  exclaimed: 

My  years  draw  on  my  everlasting  night, 
.  .  .  My  days  are  done. 

Richard  Bamfield,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  bade  the  boy  Ganymede,  to 
whom  he  addressed  his  Affectionate  Shepherd  and  a  sequence  of  sonnets 
in  IS94  (ed.  Arber,  p.  23) : 

Behold  my  gray  head,  full  of  silver  hairs, 
My  wrinkled  skin,  deep  furrows  in  my  face. 

Similarly  Drayton  in  a  sonnet  {Idea,  xiv.)  published  in  1394,  when  he 
was  barely  thirty-one,  wrote : 

Looking  into  the  glass  of  my  youth's  miseries, 

I  see  the  ugly  face  of  my  deformed  cares 

With  withered  brows  all  wrinkled  with  despairs ; 


LITERARY  fflSTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  157 

manner  the  greater  number  of  the  poems  suggest  that 
they  came  from  the  pen  of  a  man  not  yet  middle-aged. 
Language  and  imagery  closely  connect  the  sonnets 
with  the  poetic  and  dramatic  work  which  is  known  to 
have  engaged  Shakespeare's  early  pen.  The  phrase- 
ology which  is  matched  in  plays  of  a  later  period  is 
smaller  in  extent  than  that  which  finds  a  parallel  in  the 
narrative  poems  of  1593  and  1594,  or  in  the  plays  of 
similar  date.  Shakespeare's  earliest  comedy,  'Love's 
Labour's  Lost,'  seems  to  offer  a  longer  list  of  parallel 
passages  than  any  other  of  his  works.  Doubtless  he 
renewed  his  sonnetteering  efforts  from  time  to  time  and 
at  irregular  intervals  during  the  closing  years  of  Queen 
Ehzabeth's  reign,  although  only  once  —  in  the  epilogue 
of  'Henry  V,'  which  was  penned  in  1599  —  did  he  in- 
troduce the  sonnet-form  into  his  maturer  dramatic  verse. 
Sonnet  cvn.,  in  which  reference  is  made  to  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's death,  may  be  fairly  regarded  as  one  of  the  latest 
acts  of  homage  on  Shakespeare's  part  to  the  importu- 
nate vogue  of  the  Ehzabethan  sonnet.  All  the  evidence, 
whether  internal  or  external,  points  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  sonnet  exhausted  such  fascination  as  it  exerted 
on  Shakespeare  before  his  dramatic  genius  attained  its 
full  height. 

In  literary  value  Shakespeare's  sonnets  are  notably 
unequal.     Many  reach  levels  of  lyric  melody  and  medi- 

and  a  little  later  (No.  xliii.  of  the  1599  edition)  he  repeated  how 

Age  rules  my  lines  with  wrinkles  in  my  face. 

All  these  lines  are  echoes  of  Petrarch,  and  Shakespeare  and  Drayton 
followed  the  Italian  master's  words  more  closely  than  their  contempora- 
ries. Cf.  Petrarch's  Sonnet  cxliii.  (to  Laura  aUve),  or  Sonnet  Ixxxi.  (to 
Laura  after  death) ;  the  latter  begins :  — 

Dicemi  spesso  il  mio  fidato  speglio, 

L'animo  stance  e  la  cangiata  scorza 

E  la  scemata  mia  destrezza  e  forza; 
Non  ti  nasconder  piii :  tu  se'  pur  veglio. 

{i.e.  'My  faithful  glass,  my  weary  spirit  and  my  wrinkled  skin,  and  my 
decaying  wit  and  strength  repeatedly  tell  me:  "It  cannot  longer  be 
hidden  from  you,  you  are  old."') 


158  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

tative  energy  that  are  hardly  to  be  matched  elsewhere 
in  poetry.  The  best  examples  are  charged  with  the 
Their  mellowed  sweetness  of  rhythm  and  metre,  the 
Hterary  depth  of  thought  and  feeling,  the  vividness 
value.  ^f  imagery  and  the  stimulating  fervour  of  ex- 
pression which  are  the  finest  fruits  of  poetic  power.  On 
the  other  hand,  many  sink  almost  into  inanity  beneath 
the  burden  of  quibbles  and  conceits.  In  both  their 
excellences  and'  their  defects  Shakespeare's  sonnets  be- 
tray near  kinship  to  his  early  dramatic  work,  in  which 
passages  of  the  highest  poetic  temper  at  times  alternate 
with  unimpressive  displays  of  verbal  jugglery.  There 
is  far  more  concentration  in  the  sonnets  than  in  'Venus 
and  Adonis'  or  in  'Lucrece,'  although  traces  of  their  in- 
tensity appear  in  occasional  utterances  of  Shakespeare's 
Roman  heroine.  The  superior  and  more  evenly  sustained 
energy  of  the  sonnets  is  to  be  attributed  less  to  the  acces- 
sion of  power  that  comes  with  increase  of  years  than  to 
the  innate  principles  of  the  poetic  form,  and  to  metrical 
exigencies,  which  impelled  the  sonnetteer  to  aim  at  a 
uniform  condensation  of  thought  and  language. 

In  accordance  with  a  custom  that  was  not  uncommon, 
Shakespeare  did  not  pubhsh  his  sonnets ;  he  circulated 
them  in  manuscript.^    But  their  reputation  grew,  and 

1  The  Sonnets  of  Sidney,  Watson,  Daniel,  and  Constable  long  cir- 
culated in  manuscript,  and  suffered  much  the  same  fate  as  Shakespeare's 
at  the  hands  of  piratical  publishers.  After  circulating  many  years  in 
manuscript,  Sidney's  Sonnets  were  published  in  1591  by  an  irresponsible 
trader,  Thomas  Newman,  who  in  his  self-advertising  dedication  wrote  of 
the  collection  that  it  had  been  widely  'spread  abroad  in  written  copies,' 
and  had  'gathered  much  corruption  by  ill  writers'  [i.e.  copyists].  Con- 
stable produced  in  1592  a  collection  of  twenty  sonnets  in  a  volume  which 
he  entitled  'Diana.'  This  was  an  authorised  publication.  But  in  1594 
a  printer  and  a  publisher,  without  Constable's  knowledge  or  sanction, 
reprinted  these  sonnets  and  scattered  them  through  a  volume  of  nearly 
eighty  miscellaneous  sonnets  by  Sidney  and  many  other  hands;  tlie 
adventurous  publishers  bestowed  on  their  medley  the  title  of  'Diana,' 
which  Constable  had  distinctively  attached  to  his  own  collection.  Daniel 
suffered  in  much  the  same  way.  See  Appendix  ix.  for  further  notes  on 
the  subject.  Proofs  of  the  commonness  of  the  iabit  of  circulating  Utera- 
ture  in  manuscript  abound.  Fulke  Greville,  writing  to  Sidney's  father-in- 
law,  Sir  Francis  Walsingham,  in  1587,  expressed  regret  that  uncorrected 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  159 

public  interest  was  aroused  in  them  in  spite  of  his  un- 
readiness to  give  them  publicity.     The  meUiflu-  circulation 
ous  verse  of  Richard  B  arnfield,  which  was  printed  in  manu- 
in  1594  and   1595,  assimilated  many  touches  ^™p'" 
from  Shakespeare's  sonnets  as  well  as  from  his  narrative 
poems.     A  line  from  one  sonnet : 

Lilies  that  fester  smell  far  worse  than  weeds  (xciv.  14)  * 

and  a  phrase  'scarlet  ornaments'  (for  'hps')  from  another 
(cxlii.  6)  were  both  repeated  in  the  anonymous  play  of 
'Edward  III,'  which  was  pubKshed  in  1596  and  was  prob- 
ably written  before  1595.  Francis  Meres,  the  critic, 
writing  in  1598,  enthusiastically  commends  Shake- 
speare's 'sugred^  sonnets  among  his  private  friends,' 
and  mentions  them  in  close  conjunction  with  his  two 
narrative  poems.^  Wilham  Jaggard  piratically  inserted 
in  1599  two  of  the  most  mature  of  the  series  (Nos.  cxxxviii. 
and  cxliv.)  in  the  poetic  miscellany  which  he  deceptively 
entitled  '  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  by  W.  Shakespeare.' 

At  length,  in  1609,  a  collection  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets 
was  surreptitiously  sent  to  press.     Thomas  Thorpe,  the 

manuscript  copies  of  the  then  unprinted  Arcadia  were  'so  common.' 
In  1591  Gabriel  Cawood,  the  publisher  of  Robert  Southwell's  Mary 
Magdalen's  Funeral  Tears,  wrote  that  manuscript  copies  of  the  work 
had  long  flown  about  'fast  and  false.'  Nash,  in  the  preface  to  his  Terrors 
oj  the  Night,  1594,  described  how  a  copy  of  that  essay,  which  a  friend 
had  'wrested'  from  him,  had  'progressed  [without  his  authority]  from 
one  scrivener's  shop  to  another,  and  at  length  grew  so  common  that  it 
was  ready  to  be  hung  out  for  one  of  their  figures  [i.e.  shop-signs],  like  a 
pair  of  indentures.'  Thorpe's  bookselling  friend,  Edward  Blount, 
gathered  together,  without  the  author's  aid,  the  scattered  essays  by 
John  Earle,  and  he  published  them  in  1628  under  the  title  of  Micro- 
cosmographie,  frankly  describing  them  as  'many  sundry  dispersed  tran- 
scripts, some  very  imperfect  and  surreptitious.' 
'  Cf.  Sonnet  Ixix.  12  : 

To  thy  fair  flower  add  the  rank  smell  of  weeds. 

^  For  other  instances  of  the  application  of  this  epithet  to  Shake- 
speare's work,  see  p.  259,  note  i. 

'  Meres's  words  run:  'As  the  soule  of  Euphorbus  was  thought  to 
live  in  Pythagoras:  So  the  sweete  wittie  soule  of  Ovid  lives  in  mellifluous 
and  hony-tongued  Shakespeare,  witnes  his  Ventts  and  Adonis,  his  Lttcrece, 
his  sugred  Sonnets  among  his  private  friends,  &c.' 


l6o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

moving  spirit  in  the  design  of  their  publication,  was  a 
camp-follower  of  the  regular  publishing  army.  He  was 
professionally  engaged  in  procuring  for  publica- 
Sraticai  tion  literary  works  which  had  been  widely  dis- 
pubiication  geminated  in  written  copies,  and  had  thus  passed 
"^ '  °^'  beyond  their  authors'  control ;  for  the  law 
then  ignored  any  natural  right  in  an  author  to  the  crea- 
tions of  his  brain,  and  the  full  owner  of  a  manuscript  copy 
of  any  literary  composition  was  entitled  to  reproduce  it, 
or  to  treat  it  as  he  pleased,  without  reference  to  the 
author's  wishes.  Thorpe's  career  as  a  procurer  of  neg- 
lected 'copy'  had  begun  well.  He  made,  in  1600,  his 
earliest  hit  by  bringing  to  light  Marlowe's  translation  of 
the  'First  Book  of  Lucan.'  On  May  20,  1609,  he  ob- 
tained a  license  for  the  publication  of  'Shakespeare's 
Sonnets,'  and  this  tradesman-like  form  of  title  figured  not 
only  on  the  'Stationers'  Company's  Registers,'  but  on 
the  title-page.  Thorpe  employed  George  Eld,  whose 
press  was  at  the  White  Horse,  in  Fleet  Lane,  Old  Bailey, 
to  print  the  work,  and  two  booksellers,  William 
Aspley  of  the  Parrot  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard  and  John 
Wright  of  Christ  Church  Gate  near  Newgate,  to  dis-^ 
tribute  the  volume  to  the  public.  On  half  the  edition. 
Aspley's  name  figured  as  that  of  the  seller,  and  on  the 
other  half  that  of  Wright.  The  book  was  issued  in 
June,'  and  the  owner  of  the  'copy'  left  the  public  under 
no  misapprehension  as  to  his  share  in  the  production  by 
printing  above  his  initials  a  dedicatory  preface  from  his 
own  pen.  The  appearance  in  a  book  of  a  dedication  from 
the  publisher's  (instead  of  from  the  author's)  hand  was, 
unless  the  substitution  was  specifically  accounted  for  on 
other  grounds,  an  accepted  sign  that  the  author  had  no 
part  in  the  pubhcation.  Except  in  the  case  of  his  two 
narrative  poems,  which  were  published  in  1593  and  1594 

1  The  actor  AUeyn  paid  fivepence  for  a  copy  in  that  month  (cf .  Ws^i- 
Tiei's_  Dulwich  MSS.  p.  92).  The  symbol  's'^'  (i.e.  fivepence)  is  also 
inscribed  in  contemporary  handwriting  on  the  title-page  of  the  copy 
of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  (1609)  in  the  John  Rylands  Library,  Manchester. 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  i6l 

respectively,  Shakespeare  made  no  effort  to  publish  any 
of  his  works,  and  uncomplainingly  submitted  to  the 
wholesale  piracies  of  his  plays  and  the  ascription  to  him 
of  books  by  other  hands.  Such  practices  were  encour- 
aged by  his  passive  indifference  and  the  contemporary 
condition  of  the  law  of  copyright.  He  cannot  be  credited 
with  any  responsibility  for  the  publication  of  Thorpe's 
collection  of  his  sonnets  in  1609.  With  characteristic 
insolence  Thorpe  took  the  added  hberty  of  appending 
a  previously  unprinted  poem  of  forty-nine  seven-line 
stanzas  entitled  'A  Lover's  Complaint,  by  William 
Shake-speare,'  in  which  a  gitl  laments  her  be-  <a  Lover's 
trayal  by  a  deceitful  youth.  The  title  is  com-  Com-  ^ 
mon  in  Elizabethan  poetry,  and  although  the  p""'- 
metre  of  the  Shakespearean  'Lover's  Complaint'  is  that 
of  'Lucrece,'  it  has  no  other  afl&nity  with  Shakespeare's 
poetic  style.  Its  vein  of  pathos  is  unknown  to  the 
'Sonnets.'  Throughout,  the  language  is  strained  and 
the  imagery  far-fetched.  Many  awkward  words  g.ppear 
in  its  lines  for  the  first  and  only  time,  and  their  inven- 
tion seems  due  to  the  author's  imperfect  command  of  the 
■available  poetic  vocabulary.  Shakespeare's  responsibil- 
ity for  'A  Lover's  Complaint'  may  well  be  questioned.^ 

A  misunderstanding  respecting  Thorpe's  preface  and 
his  part  in  the  publication  has  encouraged  many  critics 
in  a  serious  misinterpretation  of  Shakespeare's  Thomas 
poems,^  and  has  caused  them  to  be  accorded  a  Jnd'^r. 
place  in  his  biography  to  which  they  have  small  w.  h.' 

'  Cf .  the  present  writer's  introduction  to  the  facsimile  of  the  Sonnets, 
Clarendon  Press,  1905,  pp.  49-50,  and,  especially.  Prof.  J.  W.  Mackail's 
essay  on  A  Lover's  Complaint  in  Engl.  Association  Essays  and  Studies, 
vol.  iii.  191 2.  After  a  careful  critical  study  of  the  poem  Prof.  Mackail 
questions  Shakespeare's  responsibility.  He  suggests  less  convincingly 
tiat  the  rival  poet  of  the  Sonnets  may  be  the  author. 

*  The  present  writer  has  published  much  supplementary  illustration 
of  the  Sonnets  and  their  history  in  the  Introduction  to  the  Clarendon 
Press's  facsimile  reproduction  of  the  first  edition  of  the  Sonnets  (1905), 
in  the  footnotes  to  the  Sonnets  in  the  Caxton  Shakespeare  [1909],  vol. 
xbc.,  and  in  The  French  Renaissance  in  England,  1910,  pp.  266  seq.  The 
chief  recent  separate  editions  of  the  Sonnets  with  critical  apparatus 
are  those  of  Gerald  Massey  (1872,  reissued  1888),  Edward  Dowden 


1 62  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

title.  Thorpe's  dedication  was  couched  in  the  bombas- 
tic language  which  was  habitual  to  him.  He  advertised 
Shakespeare  as  'our  ever-hving  poet.'  As  the  chief 
promoter  of  the  undertaking,  he  called  himself  in  mer- 
cantile phraseology  of  the  day,  'the  well-wishing  adven- 
turer in  setting  forth,'  and  in  resonant  phrase  designated 
as  the  patron  of  the  venture  a  partner  in  the  speculation, 
'Mr.  W.  H.'  In  the  conventional  dedicatory  formula 
of  the  day  he  wished  'Mr.  W.  H.'  'all  happiness'  and 
'eternity,'  such  eternity  as  Shakespeare  in  the  text  of 
the  sonnets  conventionally  foretold  for  his  own  verse. 
When  Thorpe  was  organising  the  issue  of  Marlowe's 
'First  Book  of  Lucan'  in  1600,  he  sought  the  patronage 
of  Edward  Blount,  a  friend  in  the  trade.  'W.  H.'  was 
doubtless  in  a  like  position.^  When  Thorpe  dubbed 
'Mr.  W.  H.,'  with  characteristic  magniloquence,  'the 
onlie  begetter  [i.e.  obtainer  or  procurer]  of  these  ensuing 
sonnets,'  he  merely  indicated  that  that  personage  was  the 
first  of  the  publishing  fraternity  to  procure  a  manu- 
script of  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  and  to  make  possible 
its  surreptitious  issue.  In  accordance  with  custom, 
Thorpe  gave  the  procurer's  initials  only,  because  he  was 
an  intimate  associate  who  was  known  by  those  initials 

(187s,  reissued  i8g6),  Thomas  Tyler  (1890),  George  Wyndham  (1898), 
Samuel  Butler  (1899),  and  Dean  Beeching  (1904).  Butler  and  Dean 
Beeching  argue  that  the  sonnets  were  addressed  to  an  unknown  youth 
of  no  high  birth,  who  was  the  private  friend,  and  not  the  patron,  of  the 
poet.  Massey  identifies  the  young  man  to  whom  many  of  the  sonnets 
were  addressed  with  the  Earl  of  Southampton.  Tyler  accepts  the 
identification  with  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke.  Mr.  C.  M. 
Walsh,  in  Shakespeare's  Complete  Sonnets  (1908),  includes  the  sonnets 
from  the  plays,  holds  aloof  from  the  conflicting  theories  of  solutiA, 
arranges  the  poems  in  a  new  order  on  internal  evidence  only,  and  adds 
new  and  useful  illustrations  from  classical  sources. 

^  'W.  H.'  is  best  identified  with  a  stationer's  assistant,  William  Hall, 
who  was  professionally  engaged,  like  Thorpe,  in  procuring  'copy.'  In 
i5o6  'W.  H.'  won  a  conspicuous  success  in  that  direction,  and  conducted 
his  operations  under  cover  of  the  familiar  initials.  In  that  year  'W.  H.' 
announced  that  he  had  procured  a  neglected  manuscript  poem  —  'A 
Foure-fould  Meditation'  —  by  the  Jesuit  Robert  Southwell,  who  had 
been  executed  in  1595,  and  he  published  it  with  a  dedication  (signed 
'W.  H.')  vaunting  his  good  fortune  in  meeting  with  such  treasure-trove 
(see  Appendix  v.). 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF   THE   SONNETS  163 

to  their  common  circle  of  friends.  Thorpe's  ally  was  not 
a  man  of  such  general  reputation  as  to  render  it  likely 
that  the  printing  of  his  fuU  name  would  excite  additional 
interest  in  the  book  or  attract  buyers. 

It  has  been  assumed  that  Thorpe  in  this  boastful 
preface  was  covertly  addressing,  under  the  initials  'Mr. 
W.  H.,'  a  young  nobleman,  to  whom  (it  is  argued)  the 
sonnets  were  originally  addressed  by  Shakespeare.  But 
this  assumption  ignores  the  elementary  principles  of  pub- 
lishing transactions  of  the  day,  and  especially  of  those 
of  the  type  to  which  Thorpe's  efforts  were  confined.^ 
There  was  nothing  mysterious  or  fantastic,  although  from 
a  modern  point  of  view  there  was  much  that  lacked 
principle,  in  Thorpe's  methods  of  business.  His  choice 
of  patron  for  this,  like  all  his  volumes,  was  dictated 
by  his  mercantile  interests.  He  was  under  no  induce- 
ment and  in  no  position  to  take  into  consideration  cir- 
cumstances touching  Shakespeare's  private  affairs.  The 
poet,  through  aU  but  the  earliest  stages  of  his  career, 
belonged  socially  to  a  world  that  was  cut  off  by  impassa- 
ble barriers  from  that  in  which  Thorpe  pursued  his  ques- 
tionable calling.  It  was  outside  Thorpe's  aim  to  seek  to 
mystify  his  customers  by  investing  a  dedication  with  a 
cryptic  significance. 

No  peer  of  the  day,  moreover,  bore  a  name  which 
could  be  represented  by  the  initials  'Mr.  W.  H.'  Shake- 
speare was  never  on  terms  of  intimacy  (although  the 

'  It  has  been  wrongly  inferred  that  Shakespeare  asserts  in  Sonnets 
cxxxv.-vi.  and  cxliii.  that  the  young  friend  to  whom  he  addressed  some 
of  the  sonnets  bore  his  own  Christian  name  of  Will  (see  for  a  full  examina- 
tion of  these  sonnets  Appendix  viii.).  Further,  it  has  been  fantastically 
suggested  that  the  friend's  surname  was  Hughes,  because  of  a  pun  sup- 
posed to  lurk  in  the  line  (xx.  7)  describing  the  youth  (in  the  original  text) 
as  'A  man  in  hew,  all  Hews  in  his  controwUng'  (i.e.  a  man  in  hue,  or  com- 
plexion, who  exerts,  by  virtue  of  his  fascination,  control,  or  influence  over 
the  hues  or  complexion  of  all  he  meets).  Three  other  applications  to 
the  youth  of  the  ordinary  word  'hue'  (cf.  'your  sweet  hue,'  civ.  11)  are 
capriciously  held  to  corroborate  the  theory.  On  such  grounds  a  few 
critics  have  claimed  that  the  friend's  name  was  WUliam  Hughes.  No 
known  contemporary  of  that  name,  either  in  age  or  position  in  life,  bears 
any  resemblance  to  the  young  man  who  is  addressed  by  Shakespeare  in 
his  Sonnets  (cf.  Notes  and  Queries,  sth  ser.  v.  443). 


164  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

contrary  has  often- been  asserted)  with  William  (Herbert), 
third  Earl  of  Pembroke,  when  a  youth.^  But  were  com- 
plete proofs  of  the  acquaintanceship  forthcoming,  they 
would  throw  no  light  on  Thorpe's  'Mr.  W.  H.'  The 
Earl  of  Pembroke  was,  from  his  birth  to  the  date  of  his 
succession  to  the  earldom  in  1601,  known  by  the  courtesy 
title  of  Lord  Herbert  and  by  no  other  name,  and  he  could 
not  have  been  designated  at  any  period  of  his  life  by  the 
symbols  'Mr.  W.  H.'  In  1609  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  was 
a  high  ofi&cer  of  state,  and  numerous  books  were  dedicated 
to  him  in  all  the  splendour  of  his  many  titles.  Star- 
Chamber  penalties  would  have  been  exacted  of  any  pub- 
lisher or  author  who  denied  him  in  print  his  titular  dis- 
tinctions. Thorpe  had  occasion  to  dedicate  two  books 
to  the  earl  in  later  years,  and  he  there  showed  not  merely 
that  he  was  fully  acquainted  with  the  compulsory  eti- 
quette, but  that  his  tradesmanlike  temperament  rendered 
him  only  eager  to  improve  on  the  conventional  formulas 
of  servihty.  Any  further  consideration  of  Thorpe's 
address  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  belongs  to  the  biographies  of 
Thorpe  and  his  friend ;  it  lies  outside  the  scope  of  Shake- 
speare's biography.^ 

Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets '  ignore  the  somewhat  complex 
scheme  of  metre  adopted  by  Petrarch  whom  the  Eliza- 
The  form  ^cthan  sonnettccrs,  like  the  French  and  Italian 
of  Shake-  sonnettcers  of  the  sixteenth  century,  recognised 
lonnetl.  *°  ^^  ^°  *^°^^  respects  their  master.  The 
foreign  writers  strictly  divided  their  poems  into 
an  octave  and  a  sestett,  and  they  subdivided  each 
octave  into  two  quatrains,  and  each  sestett  into  two 
tercets  (abba,  abba,  cde,  cde).  The  rhymes  of  the  regular 
foreign  pattern  are  so  repeated  as  never  to  exceed  a  total 
of  five,  and  a  couplet  at  the  close  is  sternly  avoided. 

'  See  Appendix  vi.,  'Mr.  William  Herbert';  and  vu.,  'Shakespeare 
and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.' 

2  The  full  results  of  my  researches  into  Thprpe's  history,  his  methods 
of  business,  and  the  significance  of  his  dedicatory  addresses,  of  which 
four  are  extant  besides  that  prefixed  to  the  volume  of  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets  in  1609,  are  given  in  Appendix  v.,  'The  True  History  of  Thomas 
Thorpe  and  "Mr,  W,H,"' 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  165 

Following  the  example  originally  set  by  Surrey  and  Wyatt, 
and  generally  pursued  by  Shakespeare's  contemporaries, 
his  sonnets  aim  at  far  greater  metrical  simplicity  than 
the  Italian  or  the  French.  They  consist  of  three -deca- 
syllabic quatrains  with  a  concluding  couplet ;  the  qua- 
trains rhyme  alternately,  and  independently  of  one 
another;  the  number  of  different  rhyming  syllables 
reach  a  total  of  seven  {abah  cdcd  efef  gg)}  A  single  sonnet 
does  not  always  form  an  independent  poem.  As  in  the 
French  and  Italian  sonnets  of  the  period,  and  in  those  of 
Spenser,  Sidney,  Daniel,  and  Drayton,  the  same  train 
of  thought  is  at  times  pursued  continuously  through  two 
or  more.  The  collection  of  Shakespeare's  154  sonnets 
thus  has  the  aspect  of  a  series  of  detached  poems,  many  in 
a  var3dng  number  of  fourteen-line  stanzas.  The  longest 
sequence  (i.-xvii.)  numbers  seventeen  sonnets,  and  in 
Thorpe's  edition  opens  the  volume. 

It  is  unlikely  that  the  order  in  which  the  poems  were 
printed  follows  the  order  in  which  they  were  written. 
Endeavours  have  been  made  to  detect  in  want  of 
the  original  arrangement  of  the  poems  a  con-  continuity, 
nected  narrative,  but  the  thread  is  on  any  showing 
constantly  interrupted.^    It  is  usual  to  divide  the  son- 

1  The  metrical  structure  of  the  fourteen-line  stanza  adopted  by  Shake- 
speare is  in  no  way  peculiar  to  himself.  It  is  the  type  recognised  by 
Elizabethan  writers  on  metre  as  correct  and  customary  in  England 
long  before  he  wrote.  George  Gascoigne,  in  his  Certayne  Notes  of  In- 
struction concerning  the  making  of  Verse  or  Ryme  in  English  (published 
in  Gascoigne's  Posies,  iSTS),  defined  sonnets  thus:  'Fouretene  lynes, 
every  lyne  conteyning  tenne  syllables.  The  first  twelve  to  ryme  in 
staves  of  foure  lynes  by  cross  metre  and  the  last  two  ryming  togither, 
do  conclude  the  whole.'  In  twenty-one  of  the  108  sonnets  of  which 
Sidney's  collection  entitled  Astrophel  and  Stella  consists,  the  rhymes 
are  on  the  foreign  model  and  the  final  couplet  is  avoided.  But  these 
are  exceptional.  Spenser  interlaces  his  rhymes  more  subtly  than  Shake- 
speare; but  he  is  faithful  to  the  closing  couplet.  As  is  not  uncommon 
in  Elizabethan  sonnet-coUections,  one  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  (xcix.) 
has  fifteen  lines ;  another  (cxxvi.)  has  only  twelve  lines  in  rhymed  couplets 
(cf.  Lodge's  Phillis,  Nos.  viii.  and  xxvi.) ;  and  a  third  (cxlv.)  is  in  octo- 
syllabics. But  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  second  and  third  of  these 
sonnets  rightly  belong  to  the  collection.  They  were  probably  written 
as  independent  lyrics:   see  p.  166,  note  i. 

*  If  the  critical  ingenuity  which  has  detected  a  continuous  thread  of 


1 66  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

nets  into  two  groups,  and  to  represent  that  all  those 
numbered  i.-cxxvi.  by  Thorpe  were  addressed  to  a  young 
The  two  man,  and  all  those  numbered  cxxvii.-cliv.  were 
'groups;'  addressed  to  a  woman.  This  division  cannot 
be  Uterally  justified.  In  the  first  group  some  eighty  of 
the  sonnets  can  be  proved  to  be  addressed  to  a  man  by 
the  use  of  the  masculine  pronoun  or  some  other  un- 
equivocal sign ;  but  among  the  remaining  forty  there  is 
no  clear  indication  of  the  addressee's  sex.  Many  of  these 
forty  are  meditative  soliloquies  which  address  no  person 
at  all  (cf .  cv.  cxvi.  cxix.  cxxi.).  A  few  invoke  abstractions 
like  Death  (Ixvi.)  or  Time  (cxxiii.),  or  'benefit  of  ill' 
(cxix.).  The  twelve-fined  poem  (cxxvi.),  the  last  of  the 
first  'group,'  does  fittle  more  than  sound  a  variation  on 
the  conventional  poetic  invocations  of  Cupid  or  Love 
personified  as  a  boy  who  is  warned  that  he  must,  in  due 
course,  succumb  to  Time's  inexorable  law  of  death.' 
And  there  is  no  vaUd  objection  to  the  assumption  that 
the  poet  inscribed  the  rest  of  these  forty  sonnets  to  a 
woman  (cf .  xxi.  xlvi.  xlvii.)  Similarly,  the  sonnets  in  the 
second  'group'  (cxxvii.-cHv.)  have  no  uniform  super- 
narrative  in  the  order  that  Thorpe  printed  Shakespeare's  sonnets  were 
applied  to  the  booksellers'  miscellany  of  sonnets  called  Diana  (1594), 
that  volume,  which  rakes  together  sonnets  on  all  kinds  of  amorous  sub- 
jects from  all  quarters  and  numbers  them  consecutively,  could  be  made 
to  reveal  the  sequence  of  an  individual  lover's  moods  quite  as  readily, 
and,  if  no  external  bibliographical  evidence  were  admitted,  quite  as 
convincingly,  as  Thorpe's  collection  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  Almost 
all  Elbabethan  sonnets,  despite  their  varying  poetic  value,  are  not 
merely  substantially  in  the  like  metre,  but  are  pitched  in  what  sounds 
superficially  to  be  the  same  key  of  pleading  or  yearning.  Thus  almost 
every  collection  gives  at  a  first  perusal  a  specious  and  delusive  impression 
of  homogeneity. 

1  Shakespeare  merely  warns  his  'lovely  boy'  that,  though  he  be  now 
the  'minion'  of  Nature's  'pleasure,'  he  will  not  succeed  in  defying  Time's 
inexorable  law.  Sidney  addresses  in  a  lighter  vein  Cupid  as  'blind 
hitting  boy,'  as  in  his  Astrophel  (No.  xlvi.).  Cupid  is  similarly  invoked 
in  three  of  Drayton's  sonnets  (No.  xxvi.  in  the  edition  of  1594,  and 
Nos.  xxxiii.  and  xxxiv.  in  that  of  1605),  and  in  six  in  Ftilke  Greville's 
collection  entitled  Ccslica  (cf.  Ixxxiv.,  beginning  'Farewell,  sweet  boy, 
complain  not  of  my  truth').  A  similar  theme  to  that  of  Shakespeare's 
Sonnet  cxxvi.  is  treated  by  John  Ford  in  the  song  'Love  is  ever  dying,' 
in  his  tragedy  of  the  Broken  Heart,  1633. 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  167 

scription.  Six  invoke  no  person  at  all.  No.  cxxviii.  is 
an  overstrained  compliment  on  a  lady  playing  on  the 
virginals.  No.  cxxix.  is  a  metaphysical  disquisition  on 
lust.  No.  cxlv.  is  a  playful  lyric  in  octosyllabics,  Hke 
Lyly's  song  of  'Cupid  and  Campaspe,'  and  its  tone  has 
close  affinity  to  that  and  other  of  Lyly's  songs.  No. 
cxlvi.  invokes  the  soul  of  man.  Nos.  cliii.  and  cliv. 
soliloquise  on  an  ancient  Greek  apologue  on  the  force  of 
Cupid's  fire.^ 

The  choice  and  succession  of  topics  in  each  'group' 
give  to  neither  genuine  cohesion.  In  the  first  'group' 
the  long  opening  sequence  (i.-xvii.)  forms  the    ,  . 

, ,  1     .  .  Main 

poet  s  appeal  to  a  young  man  to  marry  so  topics  of 
that  his  youth  and  beauty  may  survive  in  the  first 
children.  There  is  almost  a  contradiction  in 
terms  between  the  poet's  handling  of  that  topic  and  his 
emphatic  boast  in  the  two  following  sonnets  (xviii.-xix.) 
that  his  verse  alone  is  fully  equal  to  the  task  of  immor- 
talising his  friend's  youth  and  accomplishments.  The 
same  asseveration  is  repeated  in  many  later  sonnets  (cf . 
Iv.  Lx.  bdii.  Ixxiv.  Ixxxi.  ci.  cvii.).  These  assurances  alter- 
nate with  conventional  adulation  of  the  beauty  of  the 
object  of  the  poet's  affections  (cf.  xxi.  lii.  bcviii.)  and  de- 
scriptions of  the  effects  of  absence  in  intensifying  devotion 
(cf.  xlviii.  1.  cxiii.).  There  are  many  reflections  on  the 
nocturnal  torments  of  a  lover  (cf .  xxvii.  xxviii.  xHii.  bd.) 
and  on  his  blindness  to  the  beauty  of  spring  or  summer 
when  he  is  separated  from  his  love  (cf.  xcvii.  xcviii.). 
At  times  a  youth  is  rebuked  for  sensual  indulgences ;  he 
has  sought  and  won  the  favour  of  the  poet's  mistress  in 
the  poet's  absence,  but  the  poet  is  forgiving  (xxxii.-xxxv. 
xl.-xlii.  Mx.  xcv.-xcvi.).  In  Sonnet  Ixx.  the  young  man 
whom  the  poet  addresses  is  credited  with  a  different 
disposition  and  experience : 

And  thou  present'st  a  pure  unstained  prime. 
Thou  hast  pass'd  by  the  ambush  of  young  days, 
Either  not  assail'd,  or  victor  being  charg'd ! 

1  See  p.  185,  note  2. 


1 68  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

At  times  melancholy  overwhelms  the  writer  :  he  despairs 
of  the  corruptions  of  the  age  (Ixvi.),  reproaches  himself 
with  carnal  sin  (cxix.),  declares  himself  weary  of  his  pro- 
fession of  acting  (ex.  cxi.),  and  foretells  his  approaching 
death  (Ixxi.-lxxiv.).  Throughout  are  dispersed  obsequious 
addresses  to  the  youth  in  his  capacity  of  sole  patron  of 
the  poet's  verse  (cf.  xxiii.  xxxvii.  c.  ci.  ciii.  civ.).  But  in 
one  sequence  the  friend  is  sorrowfully  reproved  for  be- 
stowing his  patronage  on  rival  poets  (Ixxviii.-lxxxvi.).  In 
three  sonnets  near  the  close  of  the  first  group  in  the 
original  edition,  the  writer  gives  varied  assurances  of  his 
constancy  in  love  or  friendship  which  apply  indifferently 
to  man  or  woman  (cf.  cxxii.  cxxiv.  cxxv.). 

In  two  sonnets  of  the  second  'group'  (cxxvii.  cliv.) 
the  poet  compHments  his  mistress  on  her  black  complex- 

.  ion  and  raven-black  hair  and  eyes.   In  twelve 

topics  of  sonnets  he  hotly  denounces  his  'dark'  mistress 
the  second  fQj-  j^g,-  proud  disdaiu  of  his  affection,  and  for 
her  manifold  infideHties  with  other  men.  Ap- 
parently continuing  a  theme  of  the  first  'group'  the  poet 
rebukes  a  woman  for  having  beguiled  his  friend  to  yield 
himself  to  her  seductions  (cxxxiii.-cxxxvi.).  Elsewhere 
he  makes  satiric  reflections  on  the  extravagant  compli- 
ments paid  to  the  fair  sex  by  other  sonnetteers  (No. 
cxxx.),  or  lightly  quibbles  on  his  name  of  'Will'  (cxxx.- 
vi.)  —  the  word  'will'  being  capable  of  many  meanings 
in  Elizabethan  Enghsh.  In  tone  and  subject-matter 
numerous  sonnets  in  the  second  as  in  the  first  'group' 
lack  visible  sign  of  coherence  with  those  they  immediately 
precede  or  follow. 

It  is  not  merely  a  close  study  of  the  text  that  confutes 
the  theory,  for  which  recent  writers  have  fought  hard,  of 
a  logical  continuity  in  Thorpe's  arrangement  of  the  poems 
in  1609.  There  remains  the  historic  fact  that  readers 
and  publishers  of  the  seventeenth  century  acknowledged 
no  sort  ojf  significance  in  the  order  in  which  the  poems 
first  saw  the  light.  When  the  sonnets  were  printed  for 
a  second  time  in  1640  —  thirty-one  years  after  their  first 


LITERARY  HISTORY   OF  THE   SONNETS  169 

appearance  —  they  were  presented  in  a  completely  dif- 
ferent order.i  The  short  descriptive  titles  which  were 
then  supplied  to  single  sonnets  or  to  short  unbroken 
sequences  proved  that  the  collection  was  regarded  as  a 
disconnected  series  of  occasional  poems  in  more  or  less 
amorous  vein. 

In  whatever  order  Shakespeare's  sonnets  be  studied, 
the  claim  that  has  been  advanced  in  their  behalf  to  rank 
as  autobiographical  documents  can  only  be  ,  , 
accepted  with  rhany  qualifications.  The  fact  genuine 
that  they  create  in  many  minds  the  illusion  j^^e^^^*^ 
of  a  series  of  earnest  personal  confessions  bethan 
does  not  justify  their  treatment  by  the  biog-  =°'™^'=- 
rapher  as  self-evident  excerpts  from  the  poet's  auto- 
biography. Shakespeare's  mind  was  dominated  and  en- 
grossed by  genius  for  drama,  and  his  supreme  mastery 
of  dramatic  power  renders  it  unlikely  that  any  production 
of  his  pen  should  present  an  unqualified  piece  of  auto- 
biography. The  emotion  of  the  sonnets  may  on  a  priori 
grounds  weU  owe  much  to  that  dramatic  instinct  which 
reproduced  inttdtively  in  the  plays  the  subtlest  thought 
and  feeling  of  which  man's  mind  is  capable.  In  his 
drama  Shakespeare  acknowledged  that '  the  truest  poetry 
is  the  most  feigning.'  The  exclusive  embodiment  in 
verse  of  mere  private  introspection  was  barely  known  to 
his  era,  and  in  this  phrase  the  dramatist  paid  an  explicit 
tribute  to  the  potency  in  poetic  literature  of  artistic 
impulse  and  control  contrasted  with  the  impotency  of 
personal  sensation,  which  is  scarcely  capable  of  discipline. 
To  few  of  the  sonnets  can  a  controlling  artistic  impulse 
\  be  denied  by  criticism.  To  pronounce^  them,  alone  of  his 
extant  work,  wholly  free  of  that  'feigning,'  which  he 
identified  with  'the  truest  poetry,'  is  almost  tantamount 
to  denying  his  authorship  of  them,  and  to  dismissing 
them  from  the  Shakespearean  canon. 

In  spite  of  their  poetic  superiority  to  those  of  his 
contemporaries,   Shakespeare's  sonnets  c3.nnot  be  dis- 
'  See  p.  S44  infra. 


170  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

sociated  from  the  class  of  poetic  endeavour  with 
which  they  were  identified  in  Shakespeare's  own  time. 
Elizabethan  sonnets  of  all  degrees  of  merit  were 
commonly  the  artificial  products  of  the  poet's  fancy. 
A  strain  of  personal  emotion  is  discernible  in  a 
detached  effort,  and  is  vaguely  traceable  in  a  few 
sequences;  but  autobiographical  confessions  were  not 
the  stuff  of  which  the  Elizabethan  soimet  was  made. 
The  t5rpical  collection  of  Elizabethan  sonnets  was  a 
mosaic  of  plagiarisms,  a  medley  of  imitative  or  assimi- 
lative studies.  Echoes  of  the  French  or  of  the  Italian 
sonnetteers,  with  their  Platonic  idealism,  are  usually 
the  dominant  notes.  The  echoes  often  have  a  musical 
quality  pecuUar  to  themselves.  Daniel's  fine  sonnet 
(xlix.)  on  'Care-charmer  sleep,'  although  directly  in- 
spired by  the  French,  breathes  a  finer  melody  than  the 

sonnet  of  Pierre  de  Brach  ^  apostrophising  'le 
pendence  sommeil  chasse-soin '  (in  the  collection  entitled 
on  French  'Les  Amours  d'Aymee'),  or  the  sonnet  of 
modeK  '^°  Philippe  Desportes  invoking  '  Sommeil,  paisible 

fils  de  la  nuit  solitaire'  (in  the  collection  en- 
titled 'Amours  d'Hippolyte').  But,  throughout  Eliza- 
bethan sonnet  literature,  the  heavy  debt  to  classical 
Italian  and  French  effort  is  urunist'akable.^  Spenser, 
in  1569,  at  the  outset  of  his  Hterary  career,  avowedly 
translated  numerous  sormets  from  Du  Bellay  and  from 
Petrarch,  and  his  friend  Gabriel  Harvey  bestowed  on  him 
the  title  of  'an  English  Petrarch'  —  the  highest  praise 
that  the  critic  conceived  it  possible  to  bestow  on  an 
English  sonnetteer.*    Thomas  Watson  in  1582,  in  his 

'■  1547-1604.  Cf.  De  Brach,  CEuwes  Poetigues,  edited  by  Reinhold 
Dezeimeris,  1861,  i.  pp.  59-60. 

J*  See  Appendices  dc.  and  x.  Of  the  vastness  of  the  debt  that  the 
Elizabethan  sonnet  owed  to  foreign  poets,  a  fuller  estimate  is  given  by 
the  present  writer  in  his  preface  to  Elizabethan  Sonnets  (2  vols.  1904), 
in  the  revised  edition  of-Arber's  English  Garner. 

'  Gabriel  Harvey,  in  his  Pierces  Supererogation  (1593,  p.  61),  after 
enthusiastic  commendation  of  Petrarch's  sonnets  ('Petrarch's  invention 
is  pure  love  itself;  Petrarch's  elocution  pure  beauty  itself),  justifies  the 
common  English  practice  of  imitating  them  on  the  ground  tiat  'all  the 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  171 

collection  of  metrically  irregular  sonnets  which  he  en- 
titled 'EKATOMHAeiA,  or  A  Passionate  Century  of 
Love,'  prefaced  each  poem,  which  he  termed  a  'passion,' 
with  a  prose  note  of  its  origin  and  intention.  Watson 
frankly  informed  his  readers  that  one  'passion'  was 
'wholly  translated  out  of  Petrarch';  that  in  another 
passion  'he  did  very  busily  imitate  and  augment  a  certain 
ode  of  Ronsard';  while  'the  sense  or  matter  of  "a 
third"  was  taken  out  of  Serafino  in  his  "Strambotti."' 
In  every  case  Watson  gave  the  exact  reference  to  his 
foreign  original,  and  frequently  appended  a  quotation.^ 

noblest  Italian,  French,  and  Spanish  poets  have  in  their  several  veins 
Petrarchized ;  and  it  is  no  dishonour  for  the  daintiest  or  divinest  Muse 
to  be  his  scholar,  whom  the  amiablest  invention  and  beautifuUest  elocu- 
tion acknowledge  their  master.'  Both  French  and  English  sonnetteers 
habitually  admit  that  they  are  open  to  the  charge  of  plagiarising  Pe- 
trarch's sonnets  to  Laura  (cf.  Du  Bellay's  Les  Amours,  ed.  Becq  de 
Fouqui6res,  1876,  p.  186,  and  Daniel's  Ddia,  Sonnet  xxxviii.).  The 
dependent  relations  in  which  both  English  and  French  sonnetteers 
stood  to  Petrarch  may  be  best  realised  by  comparing  such  a  popular 
sonnet  of  the  Italian  master  as  No.  ciii.  (or  in  some  editions  Ixxxviii.) 
in  Sonetti  in  Vita  di  M.  Laura,  beginning  'S'  amor  non  6,  che  dunque 
h  quel  ch'  i'  sento?'  with  a  rendering  of  it  into  French  like  that  of  De 
Balf  in  his  Amours  de  Francine  (ed.  Becq  de  Fouquifires,  p.  121),  be- 
ginning, '  Si  ce  n'est  pas  Amour,  que  sent  donques  mon  coeur  ? '  or  with 
a  rendering  of  the  same  sonnet  into  English  like  that  by  Watson  in  his 
Passionate  Century,  No.  v.,  beginning,  'If  't  bee  not  love  I  feele,  what 
is  it  then?'  Imitation  of  Petrarch  is  a  constant  characteristic  of  the 
English  sonnet  throughout  the  sixteenth  century  from  the  date  of  the 
earliest  efforts  of  Surray  and  Wyatt.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  the 
skin  of  the  early  and  late  sonnetteers  in  rendering  the  Italian  master. 
Petrarch's  sonnet  In  vita  di  M.  Laura  (No.  kxx.  or  kxxi.,  beginning 
'Cesare,  poi  che  '1  traditor  d'  Egitto')  was  independently  translated 
both  by  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  about  1530  (ed.  Bell,  p.  60),  and  by  Francis 
Davison  in  his  Poetical  Rhapsody  (1602,  ed.  BuUen,  i.  go).  Petrarch's 
sonnet  (No.  xcv.  or  cxiii.,  beginning  'Pommi  ove  '1  Sol  uccide  i  fiori  e 
I'erba')  was  also  rendered  independently  both  by  Wyatt  (cf.  Putten- 
ham's  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  ed.  Arber,  p.  231)  and  by  Drummond  of 
Hawthomden  (ed.  Ward,  i.  100,  221). 

^  Eight  of  Watson's  sonnets  are,  according  to  his  own  accoimt,  ren- 
derings from  Petrarch;  twelve  are  from  Serafino  deU'  Aquila  (T466- 
1500) ;  four  each  come  from  Strozza,  an  Italian  poet,  and  from  Ron- 
sard;  three  from  the  Italian  poet  Agnolo  Firenzuola  (1493-1S48) ;  two 
each  from  the  French  poet,  Etienne  Forcadel,  known  as  Forcatulus 
(iSi4?-iS73),  the  Italian  Girolamo  Parabosco  (Jl.  1548),  and  .lEneas 
Sylvius;  while  many  are  based  on  passages  from  such  authors  as  (among 
the  Greeks)  Sophocles,  Theocritus,  Apollonius  of  Rhodes  (author  of 


172  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Drayton  in  1594,  in  the  dedicatory  sonnet  of  his  collec- 
tion of  sonnets  entitled  'Idea,'  declared  that  it  was  'a 
fault  too  common  in  this  latter  time'  'to  filch  from 
Desportes  or  from  Petrarch's  pen.'  ^  Lodge  did  not 
acknowledge  his  many  literal  borrowings  from  Ronsard 
and  Ariosto,  but  he  made  a  plain  profession  of  indebted- 
ness to  Desportes  when  he  wrote :  '  Few  men  are  able  to 
second  the  sweet  conceits  of  Philippe  Desportes,  whose 
poetical  writings  are  ordinarily  in  everybody's  hand.'^ 
Dr.  Giles  Fletcher,  who  in  his  collection  of  sonnets  called 
'Licia'  (1593)  simulated  the  varying  moods  of  a  lover 
under  the  sway  of  a  great  passion  as  successfully  as  most 
of  his  rivals,  stated  on  his  title-page  that  his  poems  were 
all  written  in  'imitation  of  the  best  Latin  poets  and 
others.'  Very  many  of  the  love-sonnets  in  the  series  of 
sixty-eight  penned  ten  years  later  by  WiUiam  Drum- 
mond  of  Hawthornden  have  been  traced  to  their  sources 
not  merely  in  the  Itahan  sonnets  of  Petrarch,  and  the 
sixteenth-century  poets  Guarini,  Bembo,  Giovanni  Bat- 
tista  Marino,  Tasso,  and  Sannazzaro,  but  in  the  French 
verse  of  Ronsard,  of  his  colleagues  of  the  Pleiade,  and  of 
their  half-forgotten  disciples.'    The  Elizabethans  usually 

the  epic  'Argonautica');  or  (among  the  Latins)  Virgil,  Tibullus,  Ovid, 
Horace, -Propertius,  Seneca,  Pliny,  Lucan,  Martial,  and  Valerius  Flaccus, 
or  (among  other  modern  Italians)  Angelo  Poliziano  (1454-1494)  and 
Baptista  Mantuanus  (1448-1516) ;  or  (among  other  modem  French- 
men) Gervasius  Sepinus  of  Saumur,  writer  of  eclogues  after  the  manner 
of  Virgil  and  Mantuanus. 

_'_No  importance  can  be  attached  to  Drayton's  pretensions  to  greater 
originality  than  his  rivals.  The  very  line  in  which  he  makes  the  claim 
('I  am  no  pick-purse  of  another's  wit')  is  a  verbatim  quotation  from  a 
sonnet  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  {Astrophel  and  Stella,  Ixxiv.  8),  and  is  origi- 
nally from  an  epigram  of  Persius. 

2  Lodge's  Margarite,  p.  79.  See  Appendix  ix.  for  the  text  of  Des- 
portes s  sonnet  (Diana,  livre  ii.  No.  iii.)  and  Lodge's  translation  ia 
Phillis.  Lodge  gave  two  other  translations  of  the  same  sonnet  of  Des- 
portes —  ui_  his  romance  of  Rosalind  (Hunterian  Society's  reprint, 
p.  74),  and  in  his  volume  of  poems  called  Scillaes  Metamorphosis  (p.  44)- 
Many  sonnets  in  Lodge's  Phillis  are  rendered  with  equal  literalness 
from  Ronsard,  Ariosto,  Paschale,  and  others. 

_  '  See  Drummond's  Poems,  ed.  W.  C.  Ward,  in  Muses'  Library,  1894, 
1.  207  seq. ;  and  The  Poetical  Works  of  William  Drummond,  ed.  L.  E. 
Kastner  (Manchester  University  Press),  1913,  2  vols. 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  173 

gave  the  fictitious  mistresses  after  whom  their  volumes 
of  sonnets  were  called  the  names  that  had  recently  served 
the  like  purpose  in  France.  Daniel  followed  Maurice 
Seve^  in  christening  his  collection  'Delia';  Constable 
followed  Desportes  in  christening  his  collection  'Diana'; 
while  Drayton  not  only  applied  to  his  sonnets  on  his 
title-page  in  1594  the  French  term  'Amours,'  but  be- 
stowed on  his  imaginary  heroine  the  title  of  Idea,  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  invention  of  Claude  de  Pontoux,^ 
although  itwas  employed  by  other  French  contemporaries. 
With  good  reason  Sir  Phihp  Sidney  warned  the  public 
that  '  no  inward  touch '  was  to  be  expected  from  sonnet- 
teers  of  his  day,  whom  he  describes  as 

PVIen]  that  do  dictionary's  method  bring 
Into  their  rhymes  running  in  rattling  rows; 
[Men]  that  poor  Petrarch's  long  deceased  woes 
With  newborn  sighs  and  denizened  wit  do  sing. 

Sidney  unconvincingly  claimed  greater  sincerity  for  his 
own  experiments.     But  'even  amorous  sonnets  in  the 
gallantest  and  sweetest  civil  vein,'  wrote  Gabriel  Harvey 
in  'Pierces  Supererogation'  in  1593,  'are  but 
dainties  of  a  pleasurable  wit.'     Drayton's  son-  teers'^ad- 
nets  more  nearly  approached  Shakespeare's  in  missions  of 
quality  than  those  of  any  contemporary.    Yet 
Drayton  told  the  readers  of  his  collection  entitled  '  Idea ' ' 

*  SSve's  D&ie  was  first  published  at  Lyons  in  1544. 

*  Pontoux's  L'ldte  was  published  at  Lyons  in  1579,  just  after  the 
author's  death. 

'  In  two  of  his  century  of  sonnets  (Nos.  xiii.  and  xxiv.  in  the  1594 
edition,  renumbered  xxxii.  and  liii.  in  1619  edition)  Drayton  asserts 
that  his  'fair  Idea'  embodied  traits  of  an  identifiable  lady  of  his  ac- 
quaintance (see  p.  466  infra),  and  he  repeats  the  statement  in  two  other 
short  poems;  but  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  sonnetteering  ex- 
ploits are  defined  explicitly  in  Sonnet  xviii.  in  the  1594  edition. 

Some,  when  in  rhyme,  they  of  their  loves  do  tell,  .  .  . 

Only  I  call  [i.e.  I  call  only]  on  my  divine  Idea. 
Joachim  du  Bellay,  one  of  the  French  poets  who  anticipated  Drayton 
in  addressing  sonnets  to  'L'Id6e,'  left  the  reader  in  no  doubt  of  his  in- 
tent by  concluding  one  poem  thus : 

LS.,  6  mon  Sme,  au  plus  hault  ciel  guidle 
Tu  y  pourras  recognoistre  I'ld^e 
De  la  beauts  qu'en  ce  monde  j'adore. 

(Du  Bellay's  Olvoe,  No.  cxiii.,  published  in  1568.) 


174  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

(after  the  French)  that  if  any  sought  genuine  passion 
in  them,  they  had  better  go  elsewhere.  'In  all 
humours  sportively  he  ranged,'  he  declared.  Dr.  Giles 
Fletcher,  in  1593,  introduced  his  collection  of  imitative 
sonnets  entitled  'Licia,  or  Poems  of  Love,'  with  the 
warning,  'Now  in  that  I  have  written  love  sonnets,  if 
any  man  measure  my  affection  by  my  style,  let  him 
say  I  am  in  love.  .  .  .  Here,  take  this  by  the  way  .  .  . 
a  man  may  write  of  love  and  not  be  in  love,  as  well  as 
of  husbandry  and  not  go  to  the  plough,  or  of  witches 
and  be  none,  or  of  hohness  and  be  profane.'  ^ 

The  dissemination  of  false  or  artificial  sentiment  by 
the  sonnetteers,  and  their  monotonous  and  mechanical 
treatment  of  'the  pangs  of  despised  love'  or 
porary  the  joys  of  requited  affection,  did  not  escape 
some™"*  the  censure  of  contemporary  criticism.  The 
teers'  false  air  soon  rang  with  sarcastic  protests  from  the 
sentiment.  jjjQg^  respected  writers  of  the  day.  In  early 
life  Gabriel  Harvey  wittily  parodied  the  mingling  of 
adulation  and  vituperation  in  the  conventional  sonnet- 
sequence  in  his  'Amorous  Odious  Sonnet  intituled  The 
Student's  Loove  or  Hatrid.' ^  Chapman  in  1595,  in  a 
series  of  sonnets  entitled  'A  Coronet  for  his  mistress 
Philosophy,'  appealed  to  his  literary  comrades  to  aban- 
don 'the  painted  cabinet'  of  the  love-sonnet  for  a  cofEer 
of  genuine  worth.  But  the  most  resolute  of  the  censors 
of  the  sonnetteering  vogue  was  the  poet  and  lawyer.  Sir 
John  Davies.  In  a  sonnet  addressed  about  1596  to  his 
friend  Sir  Anthony  Cooke  (the  patron  of  Drayton's 
'Idea')  he  inveighed  against  the  'bastard  sonnets'  which 
'base  rhymers'  'daily'  begot  'to  their  own  shames  and 
poetry's  disgrace.'  In  his  anxiety  to  stamp  out  the  folly 
he  'wrote  and  circulated  in  manuscript  a  specimen  series 

'  Ben  Jonson,  echoing  without  acknowledgment  an  Italian  critic's 
epigram  (cf.  Athenaum,  July  9,  1904),  told  Drummond  of  Hawthornden 
that  'he  cursed  Petrarch  for  redacting  verses  to  sonnets  which  he  said 
were  like  that  tyrant's  bed,  where  some  who  were  too  short  were  racked, 
others  too  long  cut  short'  (Jonson's  Conversations,  p.  4). 

'  See  p.  194  infra. 


s 


LITERARY  HISTORY  OF  THE  SONNETS  175 

of  nine  'gulling  sonnets'  or  parodies  of  the  conventional 
efforts.^  Even  Shakespeare  does  not  seem  to  have 
escaped  Davies's  condemnation.  Sir  John  is  'Gulling 
especially  severe  on  the  sonnetteers  who  handled  Sonnets.' 
conceits  based  on  legal  technicalities,  and  his  eighth 
' gulling  sonnet,'  in  which  he  ridicules  the  apphcation  of 
law  terms  to  affairs  of  the  heart,  may  well  have  been 
suggested  by  Shakespeare's  legal  phraseology  in  his 
Sormets  Ixxxvii.  and  cxxiv.^;  while  Davies's  Sonnet  ix., 
beginning : 

To  love,  my  lord,  I  do  knight's  service  owe 

must  have  parodied  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  xxvi.,  begin- 
ning: 

Lord  of  my  love,  to  whom  in  vassalage,  &c.' 

Echoes  of  the  critical  hostihty  are  heard,  it  is  curious 
to  note,  in  nearly  all  the  references  that  Shakespeare 
himself  makes  to  sonnetteering  in  his  plays,   gj^^j^^ 
'Tush,  none  but  minstrels  like  of  sonnetting,'  speare's 
exclaims    Biron    in    'Love's    Labour's    Lost'  S^fJSmsto 
(iv.   iii.    158).     In    the    'Two    Gentlemen   of  sonnets  in 
Verona'  (iii.  ii.  68  seq.)  there  is  a  satiric  touch  ""^P'^y^- 
in  the  recipe  for  the  conventional  love-sonnet  which 
Proteus  offers  the  amorous  Duke : 

You  must  lay  lime  to  tangle  her  desires 

By  wailful  sonnets  whose  composed  rime 

Should  be  full  fraught  with  serviceable  vows  .  .  . 

Say  that  upon  the  altar  of  her  beauty 

You  sacrifice  your  sighs,  your  tears,  your  heart. 

Mercutio  treats  Elizabethan  sonnetteers  even  less  respect- 
fully when  alluding  to  them  in  his  flouts  at  Romeo  : '  Now 
is  he  for  the  numbers  that  Petrarch  flowed  in :  Laura, 
to  his  lady,  was  but  a  kitchen-wench.     Marry,  she  had 

'  They  were  first  printed  by  Dr.  Grosart  for  the  Chetham  Society 
in  1873  in  his  edition  of  'the  Dr.  Farmer  MS.,'  a  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth century  commonplace  book  preserved  in  the  Chetham  Library 
at  Manchester,  pt.  i.  pp.  76-81.  Dr.  Grosart  also  included  the  poems 
in  his  edition  of  Sir  John  Davies's  Works,  1876,  ii.  S3~62. 

^  Davies's  Sonnet  viii.  is  printed  in  Appendix  rx. 

'  See  p.  198  infra. 


176  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

a  better  love  to  be-rhyme  her.'  ^  In  later  plays  Shake- 
speare's disdain  of  the  sonnet  is  equally  pronounced.  In 
'Henry  V  (in.  vii.  33  et  seq.)  the  Dauphin,  after  bestow- 
ing ridiculously  magniloquent  commendation  on  his 
charger,  remarks,  '  I  once  writ  a  sonnet  in  his  praise,  and 
begun  thus:  "Wonder  of  nature!"'  The  Duke  of 
Orleans  retorts :  '  I  have  heard  a  sonnet  begin  so  to  one's 
mistress.'  The  Dauphin  repKes :  '  Then  did  they  imitate 
that  which  I  composed  to  my  courser ;  for  my  horse  is 
my  mistress.'  In  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing'  (v.  ii. 
4-7)  Margaret,  Hero's  waiting-woman,  mockingly  asks 
Benedick  to  'write  her  a  sonnet  in  praise  of  her  beauty.' 
Benedick  jestingly  promises  one  'in  so  high  a  style  that 
no  man  living  shall  come  over  it.'  Subsequently  (v. 
iv.  87)  Benedick  is  convicted,  to  the  amusement  of  his 
friends,  of  penning  'a  halting  sonnet  of  his  own  pure 
brain '  in  praise  of  Beatrice. 

The  claim  of  Sidney,  Drayton,  and  others  that  their 
efforts  were  free  of  the  fantastic  insincerities  of  fellow 
Shake-  practitioners  was  repeated  by  Shakespeare, 
speareand  More  than  once  in  his  sonnets  Shakespeare 
vOTtionai  declares  that  his  verse  is  innocent  of  the 
profession  'strained  touches'  of  rhetoric  (Ixxxii.  10),  of 
0  sincerity,  ^j^^  'proud'  and  'false  compares'  (xxi.  and 
cxxx.),  of  the  'newfound  methods'  and  'compounds 
strange'  (Ixxvi.  4)  — which  he  imputes  to  the  sonnetteer- 
ing  work  'of  contemporaries.^  Yet  Shakespeare  modestly 
admits  elsewhere  (kxvi.  6)  that  he  keeps  'invention  in  a 
noted  weed'  [i.e.  he  is  faithful  to  the  normal  style]. 
Shakespeare's  protestations  of  veracity  are  not  always 
distinguishable  from  the  like  assurances  of  other  Eliza- 
bethan sonnetteers. 

'  Romeo  and  Juliet,  ii.  iv.  4.1-4. 

'  Cf.  Sidney's  Astrophel  and  Stella,  Sonnet  iii.,  where  the  poet  affinns 
that  his  sole  inspiration  is  his  beloved's  natural  beauty. 

Let  dainty  wits  cry  on  the  Sisters  nine  .  .  . 
Ennobling  new-found  tropes  with  problems  old, 
Or  with  strange  similes  enrich  each  line  .  .  . 
Phrases  and  problems  from  my  reach  do  grow.  .  .  , 


XI 

THE  CONCEITS  OF  THE  SONNETS 

At  a  first  glance  a  far  larger  proportion  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets  give  the  reader  the  illusion  of  personal  confessions 
than   those   of   any  contemporary,  but  when 
allowance  has  been  made  for  the  current  con-  aJftoblo- 
ventions  of  Elizabethan  sonnetteering,  as  well  graphical 
as  for  Shakespeare's  unapproached  affluence  in  shS^  '° 
dramatic  instinct  and  invention  —  an  affluence   speare's 
which  enabled  him  to  identify  himself  with 
every  phase  of  human  emotion  — ■  the  autobiographic 
element,  although  it  may  not  be  dismissed  altogether,  is 
seen  to  shrink  to  slender  proportions.    As  soon  as  the 
collection  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  is  studied  compara- 
tively with  the  many  thousand  poems  of  cognate  theme 
and  form  that  the  printing-presses  of  England,  France, 
and  Italy  poured  forth  during  the  last  years  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  a  vast  number  of  Shakespeare's  perform- 
ances prove  to  be  little  more  than  trials  of  skill,  often  of 
superlative  merit,  to  which  he  deemed  himself  challenged 
by  the  poetic  effort  of  his  own  or  of  past  ages  at  home  and 
abroad.    Francis  Meres,   the  critic  of   1598,   adduced 
not  merely  Shakespeare's  'Venus  and  Adonis'  and  his 
'Lucrece'  but  also  'his  sugared  sonnets'  as  evidence  that 
'the  sweet  witty  soul  of  Ovid  Mves  in  mellifluous  and 
honey-tongued  Shakespeare.'  Much  of  the  poet's  thought 
in  the  sonnets  bears  obvious  trace  of  Ovidian  inspiration. 
But  Ovid  was   only  one   of  many    nurturing    forces. 
Echoes  of  Plato's  ethereal  message  filled  the  air  of  Eliza- 
bethan poetry.     Plato,   Ovid,  Petrarch,  Ronsard,   and 
Desportes  (among  foreign  authors  of  earlier  time),  Sidney, 

N  177 


178  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

• 

Watson,  Constable,  and  Daniel  (among  native  contem- 
poraries) seem  to  have  quickened  Shakespeare's  sonnet- 
™  teering  energy  in  much  the  same  fashion  as  Ms- 

imitative  torical  writings,  romances  or  plays  of  older  and 
element.  contemporary  date  ministered  to  his  dramatic 
activities.  Of  Petrarch's  and  Ronsard's  sonnets  scores 
were  accessible  to  Shakespeare  in  English  renderings,  but 
there  are  signs  that  to  Ronsard  and  to  some  of  Ronsard's 
fellow  countrymen  Shakespeare's  debt  was  often  as  direct 
as  to  tutors  of  his  own  race.  Adapted  or  imitated  ideas 
or  conceits  are  scattered  over  the  whole  of  Shakespeare's 
collection.  The  transference  is  usually  manipulated 
with  consummate  skill.  Shakespeare  invariably  gives 
more  than  he  receives,  yet  his  primal  indebtedness  is 
rarely  in  doubt.  It  is  just  to  interpret  somewhat  literally 
Shakespeare's  own  modest  criticism  of  his  sonnets  (kxvi. 
11-12) : 

So  all  my  best  is  dressing  old  words  new, 
Spending  again  what  is  already  spent. 

The  imitative  or  assimilative  element  in  Shakespeare's 
'sugared  sonnets'  is  large  enough  to  refute  the  assertion 
.  .  that  in  them  as  a  whole  he  sought  to  'unlock 
ofautobio-"  his  heart.'  ^  Few  of  the  poems  have  an  indis- 
confesslons  P^^^^le  right  to  be  regarded  as  untutored 
cries  of  the  soul.  It  is  true  that  the  sonnets 
in  which  the  writer  reproaches  himself  with  sin,  or  gives 
expression  to  a  sense  of  melancholy,  offer  at  times  a  con- 
vincing illusion  of  autobiographic  confessions.  But  the 
energetic  lines  in  which  the  poet  appears  to  betray  his 
inmost  introspections  are  often  adaptations  of  the  less 
forcible  and  less  coherent  utterances  of  contemporary 
poets,  and  the  ethical  or  emotional  themes  are  common 

'  Wordsworth  in  his  sonnet  on  The  Sonnet  (1827)  claimed  that  'With 
this  key  Shakespeare  unlocked  his  heart'  —  a  judgment  whici  Robert 
Browning,  no  mean  psychologist  or  literary  scholar,  strenuously  at- 
tacked in  the  two  poems  At  the  Mermaid  and  House  (1876).  Browning 
cited  in  the  latter  poem  Wordsworth's  assertion,  adding  the  gloss:  'Did 
Shakespeare?    If  so,  the  less  Shakespeare  he !' 


THE   CONCEITS   OF   THE   SONNETS  1 79 

to  almost  all  Elizabethan  collections  of  sonnets.^  Shake- 
speare's noble  sonnet  on  the  ravages  of  lust  (cxxix.),  for 
example,  treats  with  marvellous  force  and  insight  a 
stereotyped  topic  of  sonnetteers,  and  it  may  have  owed 
its  immediate  cue  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  sonnet  on 
'Desire.' 2 

Plato's  ethereal  conception  of  beauty  which  Petrarch 
first  wove  into  the  sonnet  web  became  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  metaphysical  speculation  of  the  shake- 
Renaissance  a  dominant  element  of  the  love  speare's 
poetry  of  sixteenth  century  Italy  and  France,  concep-'^ 
In  Shakespeare's  England,  Spenser  was  Plato's  *'°''^- 
chief  poetic  apostle.     But  Shakespeare  often  caught  in 
his  sonnets  the  Platonic  note  with  equal  subtlety.    Plato's 
disciples  greatly  elaborated  their  master's  conception  of 
earthly  beauty  as  a  reflection  or  'shadow'  of  a  heavenly 
essence  or  'pattern'  which,  though  immaterial,  was  the 
only  true  and  perfect   'substance.'    Platonic  or  neo- 
Platomc  'ideas'  are  the  source  of  Shakespeare's  metaphy- 
sical questionings  (Sonnet  liii.  1-4) : 

'  The  fine  exordium  of  Sonnet  cxix. : 

What  potions  have  I  drunk  of  Siren  tears, 
Distill'd  from  limbecks  foul  as  hell  within, 

adopts  expressions  in  Bamabe  Barnes's  sonnet  (No.  xlix.),  where,  after 
denouncing  his  mistress  as  a  'siren,'  that  poet  incoherendy  ejaculates: 

From  my  love's  limbeck  [sc.  have  I]  still  [di]stilled  tears ! 

Almost  every  note  in  the  scale  of  sadness  or  self-reproach  is  sounded 
from  time  to  time  in  Petrarch's  sonnets.  Tasso  in  Scelta  delle  Rime, 
1582,  p.  ii.  p.  26,  has  a  sonnet  (beginning  'Vinca  fortuna  homai,  se 
sotto  il  peso')  which  adumbrates  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  xxix.  ('When 
in  disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eyes')  and  bcvi.  ('Tired  with  all 
these,  for  restful  death  I  cry').  Drummond  of  Hawthomden  translated 
Tasso's  sonnet  in  his  sonnet  (part  i.  No.  xxxiii.) ;  while  Drummond's 
Sonnets  xxv.  ('What  cruel  star  into  this  world  was  brought')  and  xxxii. 
('If  crost  with  aU  mishaps  be  my  poor  life')  are  pitched  in  the  identical 
key, 

^  Sidney's  Certain  Sonnets  (No.  xiii.)  appended  to  Astrophel  and 
Stella  in  the  edition  of  1598.  In  Emaricdidfe:  Sonnets  wr.itlen  by  E.  C. 
IS9S,  Sonnet  xxxvii.  beginning  'O  lust,  of  sacred  love  the  foul  corrupter,' 
even  more  closely  resembles  Shakespeare's  sonnet  in  both  phraseology 
and  sentiment.  E.  C.'s  rare  volimie  is  reprinted  in  the  Lamport  Car- 
land  (Roxburghe  Club),  1881. 


l8o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

What  is  your  substance,  whereof  are  you  made 
That  millions  of  strange  shadows  on  you  tend? 
Since  every  one  hath,  every  one,  one  shade, 
And  you,  but  one,  can  every  shadow  lend.' 

Again,  when  Shakespeare  identifies  truth  with  beauty^ 
and  represents  both  entities  as  independent  of  matter 
or  time,  he  is  proving  his  loyalty  to  the  mystical  creed 
of  the  Grseco-Itahan  Renaissance,  which  Keats  subse- 
quently summarised  in  the  familiar  lines : 

Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty;  that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know. 

Shakespeare's  favourite  classical  poem,  OAdd's  'Meta- 
morphoses,' which  he  and  his  generation  knew  well  in 

Golding's  EngUsh  version,  is  directly  responsible 
to  Ovid's  for  a  more  tangible  thread  of  philosophical 
cosmic        speculation  which,  after  the  manner  of  other 

contemporary  poets,  Shakespeare  also  wove 
dispersedly  into  the  texture  of  his  sonnets.*  In  varied 
periphrases  he  confesses  to  a  fear  that  'nothing'  is 
'new';  that  'that  which  is  hath  been  before';  that 
Time,  being  in  a  perpetual  state  of  'revolution,'  is  for 
ever  reproducing  natural  phenomena  in  a  regtdar  rota- 
tion ;  that  the  most  impressive  efforts  of  Time,  which  the 
untutored  mind  regards  as  'novel'  or  'strange'  'are  but 
dressings  of  a  former  sight,'  merely  the  rehabihtations 
of  a  past  experience,  which  fades  oiily  to  repeat  itself  at 
some  future  epoch. 

The  metaphysical  argument  has  only  a  misty  relevance 
to  the  poet's  plea  of  everlasting  love  for  his  friend.    The 

'  The  main  philosophic  conceits  of  the  Sonnets  are  easily  traced  to 
their  sources.  See  J.  S.  Harrison,  Platonism  in  English  Poetry  (New 
York,  1903) ;  George  Wyndham,  The  Poems  of  Shakespeare  (London, 
1898),  p.  cxxii.  seq.;  Lilian  Winstanley,  Introduction  to  Spenser's 
Foure  Hymnes  (Cambridge,  1907). 

2  Cf.  'Thy  end  is  truth  and  beauty's  doom  and  date'  (Sonnet  xiv.  4). 
'Both  truth  and  beauty  on  my  love  depend'  (ci.  3) ;  cf.  liv.  1-2. 

'  The  debt  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  to  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  has 
been  worked  out  in  detail  by  the  present  writer  in  an  article  in  the 
Quarterly  Review,  April,  1909. 


THE   CONCEITS   OF  THE  SONNETS  l8l 

poet  fears  that  Nature's  rotatory  processes  rob  his  pas- 
sion of  the  stamp  of  originahty.  The  reaUty  and  in- 
dividuality of  passionate  experience  appear  to  be  pre- 
judiced by  the  classical  doctrine  of  universal  'revolution.' 
With  no  very  coherent  logic  he  seeks  refuge  from  his 
depression  in  an  arbitrary  claim  on  behalf  of  his  friend 
and  himself'  to  personal  exemption  from  Nature's  and 
Time's  universal  law  which  presumes  an  endless  recur- 
rence of  'growth'  and  'waning.' 

It  is  from  the  last  book  of  Ovid's  'Metamorphoses' 
that   Shakespeare   borrows  his   cosmic   theory   which, 
echoing  Golding's  precise  phrase,  he  defines  in  gjjake- 
one  place  as  'the  conceit  of  thife  inconstant  speare's 
stay'  ^  (xv.  9),  and  which  he  christens  elsewhere  phy^o-* 
'nature's  changing  course'  (xviii.  8),  'revolu-  graphy. 
tion'  (lix.  12),  'interchange  of  state'  (Ixiv.  9),  and  'the 
course  of  altering  things'    (cxv.   8).    But  even  more 
notable  is  Shakespeare's  literal  conveyance  from  Ovid 
or  from  Ovid's  English  translator  of  the  Latin  writer's 
physiographic  illustrations  of  the  working  of  the  alleged 
rotatory  law.     Ovid's  graphic  appeal  to  the  witness  of 
the  sea  wave's  motion  — 

As  every  wave  drives  others  forth,  and  that  that  comes  behind 
Both  thrusteth  and  is  thrust  himself;  even  so  the  times  by  kind 
Do  fly  a,nd  follow  both  at  once  and  evermore  renew  — 

is  loyally  adopted  by  Shakespeare  in  the  fine  lines : 

Like  as  the  waves  make  towards  the  pebbled  shore, 

So  do  our  minutes  hasten  to  their  end ; 
Each  changing  place  with  that  which  goes  before. 

In  sequent  toil  all  forwards  do  contend.  —  Sonnet  Ix.  1-4. 

Similarly  Shakespeare  reproduces  Ovid's  vivid  de- 
scriptions of  the  encroachments  of  land  on  sea  and  sea 
on  land  which  the  Latin  poet  adduces  from  professedly 

\  Golding,  Ovid's  Elizabethan  translator,  when  he  writes  of  the 
Ovidian  theory  of  Nature's  unending  rotation,  repeatedly  employs  a 
negative  periphrasis,  of  which  the  word  'stay'  is  the  central  feature. 
Thus  he  asserts  that  'in  all  the  world  there  is  not  that  that  standeth 
at  a  stay,'  and  that  'our  bodies'  and  'the  elements  never  stand  al  stay.' 


l82  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

personal  observation   as  further  evidence  of  matter's 
endless  rotations.     Golding's  lines  run : 

Even  so  have  places  oftentimes  exchanged  their  estate. 
For  /  have  seen  it  sea  which  was  substantial  ground  alate: 
Again  where  sea  was,  /  have  seen  the  same  become  dry  land. 

This  passage  becomes  under  Shakespeare's  hand : 

When  /  have  seen  the  hungry  ocean  gain 
Advantage  on  the  kingdom  of  the  shore, 

And  the  firm  soil  win  of  the  watery  main 

Increasing  store  with  loss,  and  loss  with  store; 

When  /  have  seen  such  interchange  of  state.  —  (Soimet  kiv.) 

Shakespeare  has  no  scruple  in  claiming  to  'have  seen' 
with  his  own  eyes  the  phenomena  of  Ovid's  narration. 
Shakespeare  presents  Ovid's  doctrine  less  confidently 
than  the  Latin  writer.  In  Sonnet  lix.  he  wonders  whether 
'five  hundred  courses  of  the  sun'  result  in  progress  or 
in  retrogression,  or  whether  they  merely  bring  things 
back  to  the  precise  point  of  departure  (11.  13-14)-  Yet, 
despite  Shakespeare's  hesitation  to  identify  himself  cate- 
gorically with  the  doctrine  of  'revolution,'  the  fabric  of 
his  speculation  is  Ovid's  gift. 

In  the  same  Ovidian  quarry  Shakespeare  may  have 
found  another  pseudo-scientific  theory  on  which  he 
other  meditates  in  the  Sonnets  —  xliv.  and  xlv.  —  the 

philosophic  notion  that  man  is  an  amalgam  of  the  four 
conceits.  elements,  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire ;  but  that 
superstition  was  already  a  veteran  theme  of  the  sonnet- 
teers  at  home  and  abroad,  and  was  accessible  to  Shake- 
speare in  many  places  outside  Ovid's  pages."-  In  Sonnet 
cvi.  Shakespeare  argues  that  the  splendid  praises  of 
beauty  which  had  been  devised  by  poets  of  the  past 
anticipated  the  eulogies  which  his  own  idol  inspired. 

So  all  their  praises  are  hut  prophecies 

Of  this  our  time,  all  you  prefiguring; 
And,  for  they  look'd  but  with  divining  eyes, 

They  had  not  skill  enough  your  worth  to  sing. 

'  Cf .  Spenser,  Iv. ;  Barnes's  Parthenophe  and  Parthenophil,  Ixxvii. ; 
Fulke  Greville's  Ccelica,  No.  vii. 


THE   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS  183 

The  conceit  which  has  Platonic  or  neo-Platonic  af- 
finities may  well  be  accounted  another  gloss  on  Ovid's 
cosmic  philosophy.  But  Henry  Constable,  an  English 
sonnetteer,  who  wrote  directly  under  continental  guid- 
ance, would  here  seem  to  have  given  Shakespeare  an 
immediate  cue : 

Miracle  of  the  world,  I  never  will  deny 
That  former  poets  praise  the  beauty  of  their  days; 
But  all  these  beauties  were  but  figures  of  thy  praise, 
And  all  those  poets  did  of  thee  but  prophesy} 

Another  of  Shakespeare's  philosophic  fancies  — 
thought's  nimble  triumphs  over  space  (xliv.  7-8)  —  is 
clothed  in  language  which  was  habitual  to  Tasso,  Ron- 
sard,  and  their  followers.^ 

The  simpler  conceits  wherewith  Shakespeare  illustrates 
love's  working  under  the  influence  of  spring  or  summer, 
night  or  sleep,  often  appear  to  echo  in  deepened  Amorous 
notes  Petrarch',  Ronsard,  De  Baif,  and  Des-  conceits, 
portes,  or  English  disciples  of  the  ItaHan  and  French 
masters.'    In  Sonnet  xxiv.    Shakespeare   develops   the 

1  In  his  Miscellaneous  Sonnets  (No.  vii.)  written  about  1590  (see 
Hazlitt's  edition,  1859,  p.  27)  —  not  in  his  Diana.  Constable  significantly 
headed  his  sonnet:  'To  his  Mistrisse,  upon  occasion  of  a  Petrarch  he 
gave  her,  showing  her  the  reason  why  the  Italian  commentators  dissent 
so  much  in  the  exposition  thereof.' 

*  Cf.  Ronsard's  Amours,  i.  cbcviii.  ('  Ce  fol  penser,  pour  s'envoler 
trop  haut');  Du  Bellay's  Olive,  xliii.  (Tenser  volage,  et  leger  comme 
vent');  Amadis  Jamyn,  Sonnet  xxi.  ('Penser,  qui  peux  en  un  moment 
grande  erre  courir');  and  Tasso's  Rime  (1583,  Venice,  i.  p.  33)  ('Come 
s'  human  pensier  di  giunger  tenta  Al  luogo'). 

'  Almost  all  sixteenth-century  sonnets  on  spring  in  the  absence  of 
the  poet's  love  (cf.  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  xcviii.  xcix.)  play  variations 
on  the  sentiment  and  phraseology  of  Petrarch's  well-known  sonnet  xlii., 
'In  morte  di  M.  Laura,'  beginning : 

Zefiro  toma  e  '1  bel  tempo  rimena, 

E  1  fiori  e  r  erbe,  sua  dolce  famiglia, 

E  garrir  Progne  e  pianger  Filomena, 

E  primavera  Candida  e  vermiglia. 
Ridono  i  prati,  e  '1  ciel  si  rasserena ; 

Giove  s'  allegra  di  mirar  sua  figlia ; 
L'  aria  e  1'  acqua  e  la  terra  6  d'  amor  piena; 

Ogni  animal  d'  amar  si  riconsiglia._ 
Ma  per  me,  lasso,  tornano  i  piil  gravi 

Sospiri,  che  del  cor  profondo  tragge,  &c. 


1 84  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

old-fashioned  fancy  to  which  Ronsard  gave  a  new  lease 
of  life,  that  his  love's  portrait  is  painted  on  his  heart; 
and  in  Sonnet  cxxii.  he  repeats  something  of  Ronsard's 
phraseology  in  describing  how  his  friend,  who  has  just 
made  him  a  gift  of  'tables,'  is  ' character 'd '  in  his  brain.' 
Again  Constable  may  be  credited  with  suggesting 
Shakespeare's  Sonnet  xcix.,  where  the  flowers  are  re- 
proached with  stealing  their  charms  from  the  features 
of  the  poet's  love.  Constable  had  published  in  1592 
an  identically  turned  compliment  in  honour  of  his 
poetic  mistress  Diana  (Sonnet  xvii.).  Two  years  later 
Drayton  issued  a  sonnet  in  which  he  fancied  that  his 
'fair  Muse'  added  one  more  to  'the  old  nine.'  Shake- 
speare adopted  the  conceit  (xxxviii.  9-10  :) 

Be  thou  the  tenth  Muse,  ten  times  more  in  worth 
Than  those  old  nine,  which  rhymers  invocate.' 

_  In  two  or  three  instances  Shakespeare  engaged  in  the 
literary  exercise  of  offering  alternative  renderings  of  the 
same  conventional  conceit.  In  Sonnets  xlvi.  and  xlvii. 
he  paraphrases  twice  over  —  appropriating  many  of  Wat- 
son's words  —  the  unexhilarating  notion  that  the  eye 
and  heart  are  in  perpetual  dispute  as  to  which  has  the 

See  a  translation  bw  William  Drummond  of  Hawthomden  in  Sonnets, 
pt.  u.  No.  ix.  Similar  sonnets  and  odes  on  April,  spring,  and  summer 
abound  m  French  and  English  (cf.  Becq  de  FouquiSre's  (Euwes  ckoisies 
de  J. -A.  de  Baif,  passim,  and  (Euwes  ckoisies  des  Contemporains  de 
Ronsard,p.  io8  (by  Remy  BeUeau),p.  129  (by  Amadis  Jamyn)  et passim). 
boi  descriptions  of  mght  and  sleep  see  especially  Ronsard's  Amours 
(livre  1.  clxxxvi.,  Uvre  u.  xxii. ;  Odes,  livre  iv.  No.  iv.,  and  his  Odes  Re- 
tranch&es  m  (Euvres,  edited  by  Blanchemain,  ii.  302-4).  Cf.  Barnes's 
Parthenophe  and  Parthenophil,  Ixxxiii.  cv. 

T^u  i9f'  ^o''^'"d's  Amours,  \mt  i.  cbcxviii.;  Sonnets  pour  Asfrle,-n. 
The  latter  opens : 

n  ne  falloit,  maistresse,  autres  tablettes 
Pour  vous  graver  que  celles  de  men  coeur 
Ou  de  sa  main  Amour,  nostre  vainqueur, 
Vous  a  gravfie  et  vos  graces  parfaites. 

*!,  l^T^  Drayton's  Ideas  Mirrow,  1594,  Amour  8.  Drayton  represents 
that  his  ladyloveadds  one  to  the  nine  angels  and  the  nine  worthies  as 
well  as  to  the  nine  muses.  Sir  John  Davies  severely  castigated  this 
extravagance  in  his  Epigram  In  Decium.  Cf.  Jonson's  Conversations 
mth  Drummond  (Shakespeare  Soc,  p.  15). 


THE  CONCEITS  OF  THE  SONNETS  185 

greater  influence  on  lovers.^  In  the  concluding  sonnets, 
cliii.  and  cliv.,  he  gives  alternative  versions  of  an  apologue 
illustrating  the  potency  of  love  which  first  figured  in 
the  Greek  Anthology,  had  been  translated  into  Latin, 
and  subsequently  won  the  notice  of  English,  French,  and 
Italian  sonnetteers.^ 

Two  themes  of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets,'  both  of  which, 
in  spite  of  their  different  cahbre,  touch  rather  more 
practical  issues  than  any  which  have  yet  been 
cited  —  the  duty  of  marriage  on  the  one  hand  ot'^w'-^^^ 
and  the  immortality  of  poetry  on  the  other  —  thrifty 

,         . , ,  i-        1  1.  J  n    -J.      loveliness. 

present  with  exceptional  coherence  deiimte 
phases  of  contemporary  sentiment.  '  The  seventeen  open- 
ing sonnets  in  which  the  poet  urges  a  youth  to  marry, 
and  to  bequeath  his  beauty  to  posterity,  repeat  the  plea  of 
'unthrifty  loveliness,'  which  is  one  of  the  commonplaces 
of  Renaissance  poetry.'  As  a  rule  the  appeal  is  ad- 
dressed by  earher  poets  to  a  woman.  Yet  in  Guarini's 
world-famous  pastoral  drama  of  'Pastor  Fido'  (1585)  a 

*  A  similar  conceit  is  the  topic  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  xxiv.  Ron- 
sard's  Ode  (livre  iv.  No.  xx.)  consists  of  a  like  dialogue  between  the 
heart  and  the  eye.  The  conceit  is  traceable  to  Petrarch,  whose  Sonnet 
Iv.  or  bdii.  ('Occhi,  piangete,  accompagnate  il  core')  is  a  dialogue  be- 
tween the  poet  and  his  eyes,  while  his  Sonnet  xcix.  or  cxvii.  is  a  com- 
panion dialogue  between  the  poet  and  his  heart.  Cf.  Watson's  Tears 
ofFancie,  xix.  xx.  (a  pair  of  sonnets  on  the  theme  which  closely  resembles 
Shakespeare's  pair);  Drayton's  Idea,  xxxiii. ;  Barnes's  Parthenophe 
and  Parthenophil,  xx.,  and  Constable's  Diana,  vi.  7. 

*  The  Greek  epigram  is  in  Palatine  Anthology,  ix.  627,  and  is  translated 
into  Latin  in  Selecta  Epigrammata,  Basel,  1529.  The  Greek  lines  relate, 
as  in  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  how  a  nymph  who  sought  to  quench  loves' 
torch  in  a  fountain  only  succeeded  in  heating  the  water.  An  added 
detail  Shakespeare  borrowed  from  a  very  recent  adaptation  of  the 
epigram  in  Giles  Fletcher's  Licia,  1593  (Sonnet  xxvii.),  where  the  poet's 
Love  bathes  in  the  fountain,  with  the  result  not  only  that  'she  touched 
the  water  and  it  burnt  with  Love,'  but  also 

Now  by  her  means  it  purchased  hath  that  bliss 
Which  all  diseases  quickly  can  remove. 

Similarly  Shakespeare  in  Sonnet  cUv.  not  merely  states  that  the  'cool 
well'  into  which  Cupid's  torch  had  fallen  'from  Love's  fire  took  heat 
perpetual,'  but  also  that  it  grew  'a  bath  and  healthful  remedy  for  men 
diseased.' 

'The  common  conceit  may  owe  something  to  Ovid's  popular  Ars 
Amatoria,  where  appear  the  lines : 


1 86  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

young  man,  Silvio,  who  is  the  hero  of  the  poem,  receives 
the  warning  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  while  in  Sir  Philip 
Sidney's  'Arcadia'  (Book  iii.)  in  one  place  a  young  man 
and  in  another  a  young  woman  are  severally  reminded 
that  their  beauty,  which  will  perish  unless  it  be  repro- 
duced, lays  them  under  the  obligation  of  marrying. 
Itahan  and  French  sonnetteers  developed  the  conceit 
on  Unes  which  Shakespeare  varied  Httle.^  Nor  did 
Shakespeare  show  in  the  sonnets  his  first  familiarity 
with  the  widespread  theme.  Thrice  in  his  'Venus  and 
Adonis'  does  Venus  fervently  urge  on  Adonis  the  duty 
of  propagating  his  charm  (cf.  hnes  129-132,  162-174, 
751-768),  and  a  fair  maiden  is  admonished  of  the  like 
duty  in  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  (i.  i.  218-228).^ 

It  is  abundantly  proved  that  a  gentle  modesty  was 
an  abiding  note  of  Shakespeare's  character.  In  the  nu- 
merous sonnets  in  which  he  boasted  that  his 
speare's  vcrsc  was  SO  Certain  of  immortality  that  it  was 
to^Mr-"*  capable  of  immortalising  the  person  to  whom 
taiityfor  it  was  addressed,  he  therefore  gave  voice  to 
■s  sonnets.  ^^  conviction  that  was  pecuhar  to  his  mental 
constitution.  He  was  merely  proving  his  supreme  mas- 
tery of  a  theme  which  Ronsard,  Du  Bellay,  and  Des- 
portes,  emulating  Pindar,  Horace,  Ovid,  and  other 
classical  poets,  had  lately  made  a  commonplace  of  the 
poetry  of  Europe.'     Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in  his  'Apologie 

Carpite  florem 
Qui,  nisi  carptus  erit,  turpiter  ipse  cadet,     (iii.  79-80). 

Erasmus  presents  the  argument  in  full  in  his  Colloquy  'Prod  et  Puellae,' 
and  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  notices  it  in  his  poem  'That  the  season  of  en- 
joyment is  short.' 

'  See  French  Renaissance  in  England,  pp.  268-9. 

2  Cf.  also  All's  Well,  i.  i.  136,  and  Twelfth  Night,  i.  v.  273-5,  where 
the  topic  is  treated  more  cursorily.  Shakespeare  abandons  3ie  conceit 
in  his  later  work. 

'  In  Greek  poetry  the  topic  is  treated  in  Pindar's  Olympic  Odes,  xi., 
and  in  a  fragment  by  Sappho,  No.  16  in  Bergk's  Poeta  Lyrici  Graci 
In  Latin  poetry  the  topic  is  treated  in  Ennius  as  quoted  in  Cicero,  De 
Senectute,  c.  207 ;  in  Virgil's  Georgics,  iii.  9 ;  in  Propertius,  iii.  i ;  and  in 
Martial,  x.  27  seq.  But  it  is  the  versions  of  Horace  (Odes,  iii.  30)  and 
of  Ovid  (Metamorphoses,  xv.  871  seq.)  which  the  poets  of  the  sixteenth 


THE   CONCEITS  OF  THE  SONNETS       '  187 

for  Poetrie'  (1595),  wrote  that  it  was  the  common  habit 
of  poets  '  to  tell  you  that  they  will  make  you  immortal  by 
their  verses.'  ^  Men  of  great  calling,'  Nashe  declared  in 
his  'Pierce  Pennilesse,'  1593,  'take  it  of  merit  to  have 
their  names  eternised  by  poets.'  ^  In  the  hands  of 
Elizabethan  sonnetteers  the  'eternising'  faculty  of  their 
verse  became  a  staple  and  indeed  an  inevitable  topic. 
Spenser  wrote  of  his  mistress  in  his  'Amoretti'  (1595, 
Sonnet  Ixxv.)  : 

My  verse  your  virtues  rare  shall  eternize, 
And  in  the  heavens  write  your  glorious  name.^ 

century  adapted  most  often.  In  French  and  English  literature  numer- 
ous traces  survive  of  Horace's  far-famed  ode  (iii.  30) : 

Exegi  monumentum  sere  perennius 
Regalique  situ  pyramidum  altius. 
Quod  non  imber  edax,  non  Aquilo  impotens 
Possit  diruere,  aut  innumerabilis 
Annorum  series,  et  fuga  temporum. 

as  well  as  of  the  lines  which  end  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  (xv.  871-9). 

Jamque  opus  exegi,  quod  nee  Jovis  ira  nee  ignes, 
Nee  poterit  ferrum,  nee  edax  abolere  vetustas. 
Cum  volet  ilia  dies,  quas  nil  nisi  corporis  hujus 
Jus  habet,  incerti  spatum  mihi  finiat  aevi ; 
Parte  tamen  meliore  mei  super  alta  perennis 
Astra  ferar  nomenque  erit  indelebile  nostrum. 

Among  French  sonnetteers  Ronsard  attacked  the  theme  most  boldly, 
although  Bu  Bellay  popularised  Ovid's  lines  in  an  avowed  translation, 
and  also  in  an  original  poem,  'De  I'immortalit^  des  pontes,'  which  gave 
the  boast  an  exceptionally  buoyant  expression.  Ronsard's  odes  and 
sonnets  promise  immortality  to  the  persons  to  whom  they  are  addressed 
with  an  extravagant  and  a  monotonous  liberality.  The  following  lines 
from  Ronsard's  Ode  (livre  i.  No.  vii.)  'Au  Seigneur  Camavalet,'  illus- 
trate his  habitual  treatment  of  the  theme : 


C'est  un  travail  de  bon-heur 

Chanter  les  hommes  louables, 

Et  leur  bastir  un  honneur 

Seul  vainqueur  des  ans  muables. 

Le  marbre  ou  I'airain  vestu 

D'un  labeur  vif  par  I'enclume 

N'animent  tant  la  vertu 

Que  les  Muses  par  la  plume.  .  .  . 

{CEuwes  de  Ronsard,  ed.  Blanchemain,  ii.  58,  62.) 
'  Ed.  Shuckburgh,  p.  62. 
'  Shakespeare  Soc.  p.  93. 
'  Spenser,  when   commemorating  the  death  of   the  Earl  of  War- 


Les  neuf  divines  pueelles 
Gardent  ta  gloire  chez  elles ; 
Et  mon  luth,  qu'eU'ont  fait  estre 
De  leurs  secrets  le  grand  prestre. 
Par  cest  hymne  solennel 
Kespandra  dessus  ta  race 
Je  ne  sjay  quoy  de  sa  grace 
Qui  te  doit  faire  etemel. 


l88  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Drayton  and  Daniel  developed  the  conceit  with  unblush- 
ing iteration.  Drayton,  who  spoke  of  his  efforts  as 
'my  immortal  song'  ('Idea,'  vi.  14)  and  'my  world-out- 
wearing rhymes'  (xliv.  7),  embodied  the  vaunt  in  such 
lines  as : 

While  thus  my  pen  strives  to  eternize  thee  ('Idea,'  xliv.  i). 
Ensuing  ages  yet  my  rhymes  shall  cherish  (ib.  xliv.  ii). 
My  name  shall  mount  unto  eternity  {ib.  xliv.  14). 
All  that  I  seek  is  to  eternize  thee  [ib.  xlvii.  14). 

Daniel  was  no  less  explicit : 

This  [sc.  verse]  may  remain  thy  lasting  monument  (Delia,  xxxvii.  9). 

Thou  mayst  in  after  ages  live  esteemed, 

Unburied  in  these  lines  (ib.  xxxix.  9-10). 

These  [sc.  my  verses]  are  the  arks,  the  trophies  I  erect 

That  fortify  thy  name  against  old  age; 

And  these  [sc.  verses]  thy  sacred  virtues  must  protect 

Against  the  dark  and  time's  consuming  rage  (ib.  1.  9-12). 

Shakespeare,  in  his  references  to  his  'eternal  lines' 
(xviii.  12)  and  in  the  assurances  that  he  gives  the  subject 
of  his  addresses  that  the  sonnets  are,  in  Daniel's  exact 
phrase,  his  'monument'  (Ixxxi.  9,  cvii.  13),  was  merely 
accommodating  himself  to  the  prevailing  taste.  Amid 
the  obUvion  of  the  day  of  doom  Shakespeare  foretells 
that  his  friend 

shall  in  these  black  lines  be  seen, 
And  they  shall  live,  and  he  in  them  still  green.     (Sonnet  bdii.  13-14.) 
'Your  monument'  (the  poet  continues)  'shall  be  my  gentle  verse, 
Which  eyes  not  yet  created  shall  o'erread  .  .  . 
You  still  shall  live,  —  such  virtue  hath  my  pen.     (Sonnet  Ixxxi.  g-io,  13,) 

Characteristically  in  Sonnet  Iv.  Shakespeare  invested 
the  conventional  vaunt  with  a  splendour  that  was  hardly 
approached  by  any  other  poet : 

wick  in  the  Ruines  of  Time  (c.   1591),  assured  the  Earl's  widowed 

Countess, 

Thy  Lord  shall  never  die  the  whiles  this  verse 
Shall  live,  and  surely  it  shall  live  for  ever : 
For  ever  it  shall  live,  and  shall  rehearse 
His  worthie  praise,  and  vertues  dying  never, 
Though  death  his  soul  doo  from  his  body  sever; 
And  thou  thyself  herein  shalt  also  live : 
Such  grace  the  heavens  doo  to  my  verses  give. 


THE  CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS  189 

Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 

Of  princes,  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme ; 

But  you  shall  shine  more  bright  in  these  contents 

Than  unswept  stone  besmear'd  with  sluttish  time. 

"When  wasteful  war  shall  statues  overturn. 

And  broils  root  out  the  work  of  masonry, 

Nor  Mars  his  sword  nor  war's  quick  fire  shall  burn 

The  living  record  of  your  memory. 

'Gainst  death  and  all-oblivious  enmity 

Shall  you  pace  forth;  your  praise  shall  still  find  room 

Even  in  the  eyes  of  all  posterity 

That  wear  this  world  out  to  the  ending  doom. 

So,  till  the  judgement  that  yourself  arise, 

You  live  in  this,  and  dwell  in  lovers'  eyes. 

Very  impressively  does  Shakespeare  subscribe  to  a  lead- 
ing tenet  of  the  creed  of  all  Renaissance  poetry.^ 

The  imitative  element  is  no  less  conspicuous  in  the 
sonnets  that  Shakespeare  distinctively  addresses  to  a 
woman.  In  two  of  the  latter  (cxxxv.-vi.),  where  he 
quibbles  over  the  fact  of  the  identity  of  his  own  name 
of  Will  with  a  lady's  'will'  (the  synon)nii  in  Elizabethan 

'  See  also  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  xix.  liv.  Ix.  Ixv.  and  cvii.  In  the 
three  quotations  in  the  text  Shakespeare  catches  very  nearly  Ronsard's 
notes : 

Donne  moy  I'encre  et  le  papier  aussi. 

En  cent  papiers  tesmoins  de  men  soud 

Je  veux  tracer  la  peine  que  j'endure : 

En  cent,  papiers  plus  durs  que  diamant, 

A  fin  qu'un  jour  nostra  race  future 

Juge  du  mal  que  je  soufEre  en  aimant. 

{Amours,  1.  cxxxili.     CEmres,  i.  109.) 

Vous  vivrez  et  croistrez  comma  Laura  an  grandeur 

Au  moins  tant  que  vivront  las  plumes  at  le  llvre. 

{Sonnets  pour  HSUne,  n.  ii.) 

Plus  dur  qua  fer  j'ay  fini  mon  ouvrage. 

Qua  I'an,  dispos  k  demener  las  pas. 

Qua  I'eau,  le  vent  ou  la  brulant  orage, 

L'injuriant,  ne  ru'ront  i.  has. 

Quand  ce  viendra  que  le  dernier  trespas 

M'assoupira  d'uii  somme  dur,  a  I'haure, 

Sous  le  tombeau  tout  Ronsard  n'ira  pas, 

Restant  de  luy  la  part  meilleure.  ... 

Sus  donque.  Muse,  emporte  au  ciel  la  gloire 

Qua  j'ay  gaign^e,  annonfant  la  victoire 

Dent  a  bon  droit  ja  me  voy  jouxssant.  ... 

{Odes,  livre  v.  No.  xxxii.  'A  sa  Muse.') 

In  Sonnet  Ixxii.  in  Amours  (livre  i.),  Ronsard  declares  that  his  mis- 
tress's name 

Victorieux  das  pauples  et  das  rois 
S'en  voleroit  sus  I'aile  de  ma  ryme. 


igo  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

English  of  both  'lust'  and  'obstinacy'),  he  derisively 
challenges  comparison  with  wire-drawn  conceits  of 
rival  sonnetteers,  especially  of  Barnabe  Barnes, 
fomrts'ad"  who  had  enlarged  on  his  disdainful  mistress's 
dressed  to  'wills,'  and  had  turned  the  word  'grace'  to 
a  woman.  ^^^  ^^^^  punning  account  as  Shakespeare 
turned  the  word  'will.'^  Similarly  in  Sonnet  cxxx., 
beginning  — 

My  mistress'  eyes  are  nothing  like  the  sun ; 
Coral  is  far  more  red  than  her  lips'  red  .  .  . 
If  hairs  be  wires,  black  wires  grow  on  her  head,* 

the  poet  satirises  the  conventional  hsts  of  precious  stones, 
metals,  and  flowers,  to  which  the  sonnetteers  likened  their 
mistresses'  features.  It  was  not  the  only  time  that 
Shakespeare  deprecated  the  sonnetteer's  practice  of 
comparing  features  of  women's  beauty  with  'earth  and 
sea's  rich  gems'  (xxi.  5-6).' 

In  two  sonnets  (cxxvii.  and  cxxxii.)  Shakespeare 
graciously  notices  the  black  complexion,  hair,  and  eyes 
of  his  mistress,  and  expresses  a  preference  for  features 

'  See  Appendix  vrn.,  'The  Will  Sonnets,'  for  the  interpretation  of 
Shakespeare's  conceit  and  like  efforts  of  Barnes. 

2  Wires  in  the  sense  of  hair  was  peculiarly  distinctive  of  the  sonnet- 
teers' affected  vocabulary.  Cf.  Daniel's  Delia,  1591,  No.  xxvi.,  'And 
golden  hair  may  change  to  silver  wire';  Lodge's  Phillis,  1595,  'Made 
blush  the  beauties  of  her  curled  wire';  Barnes's  Parthenophil,  sonnet 
xlviii.,  'Her  hairs  no  grace  of  golden  wires  want.'  For  the  habitual 
comparison  of  lips  with  coral  cf.  'Coral-coloured  lips'  [Zepheria,  IS94) 
No.  xxiii.);  'No  coral  is  her  lip'  (Lodge's  Phillis,  1595,  No.  viii.)  'Ce 
beau  coral'  are  the  opening  words  of  Ronsard's  Amours,  livre  i.  No. 
xxiii.,  where  a  list  is  given  of  stones  and  metals  comparable  with  women's 
features.  Remy  Belleau,  one  of  Ronsard's  poetic  colleagues,  treated 
that  comparative  study  most  comprehensively  in  'Les  Amours  et  nou- 
veaux  eschanges  des  pi'erres  prficieuses,  vertus  et  proprietez  d'icelles' 
which  was  first  published  at  Paris  in  1576.  In  A  Lover's  Complaint, 
lines  280-1,  the  writer  betrays  knowledge  of  such  strained  imagery  when 
he  mentions : 

,  deep-brained  sonnets  that  did  amplify 
Each  stone's  dear  nature,  worth  and  quality. 

'  Here  Spenser  in  his  Amoretti,  No.  ix.,  gives  Shakespeare  a  very 
direct  cue,  as  may  be  seen  when  Spenser's  cited  sonnet  is  read  alongside 
of  Shakespeare's  sonnet  xxi. 


THE  CONCEITS  OF  THE  SONNETS  191 

of  that  hue  over  those  of  the  fair  hue  which  was,  he  tells 
us,  more  often  associated  in  poetry  with  beauty.  He 
commends  the  'dark  lady'  for  refusing  to  prac-  ^j^^  ^^j^^ 
tise  those  arts  by  which  other  women  of  the  day  of  'biack- 
gave  their  hair  and  faces  colours  denied  them  °^^' 
by  Nature.!  In  his  praise  of  'blackness'  or  a  dark 
complexion  Shakespeare  repeats  almost  verbatim  his 
own  Knes  in  'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  (iv.  iii.  241-7), 
where  the  heroine  RosaHne  is  described  as  'black  as 
ebony,'  with  'brows  decked  in  black,'  and  in  'mourning' 
for  her  fashionable  sisters'  indulgence  in  the  disguising 
arts  of  the  toilet.  '  No  face  is  fair  that  is  not  full  so  black, 
exclaims  Rosaline's  lover.  But  neither  in  the  sonnets 
nor  in  the  play  can  Shakespeare's  praise  of  'blackness' 
claim  the  merit  of  being  his  own  invention.  The  conceit 
is  famiUar  to  the  French  sonnetteers.^  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
in  Sonnet  vii.  of  his  'Astrophel  and  Stella,'  had  antici- 
pated its  employment  in  England.  The  'beams'  of  the 
eyes  of  Sidney's  mistress  were  'wrapt  in  colour  black' 
and  wore  'this  mourning  weed,'  so 

That  whereas  black  seems  beauty's  contrary, 
She  even  in  black  doth  make  all  beauties  flow.' 


^  Cf.  Sonnet  kviii.  3-7.  Desportes  had  previously  protested  with 
equal  warmth  against  the  artificial  disguises  —  false  hair  and  cosmetics 
—  of  ladies'  toilets : 

Ceste  vive  coxjleur,  qui  ravit  et  qui  blesse 
Les  esprits  des  amans,  de  la  feinte  abusez, 

Ce  n'est  que  Wane  d'Espagne,  [i.e.  a  cosmetic]  et  ces  cheveux  frisez 
Ne  sont  pas  ses  cheveux :  c'est  une  fausse  tresse. 

('Diverses  Amours,'  Sonnet  xxix.  in  (Euwes,  ed.  Michiels,  p.  398.) 
'Ct. 

La  modeste  Venus,  la  honteuse  et  las  age, 
Estoit  par  les  anciens  toute  peinte  de  noir     .  . 
Noire  est  la  Verity  cach^e  en  un  nuage. 

(Amadis  Jamyn,  (Euwes,  i.  p.  129,  No.  xcv.) 

'  Shakespeare  adopted  this  phraseology-  of  Sidney  literally  in  both 
the  play  and  the  sonnet ;  while  Sidney's  further  conceit  that  the  lady's 
eyes  are  in  'this  mourning  weed'  in  order  'to  honour  all  their  deaths 
who  for  her  bleed'  is  reproduced  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  cxxxii.  —  one 
of  the  two  under  consideration  —  where  he  tells  his  mistress  that  her 
eyes  'have  put  on  black'  to  become  'loving  mourners'  of  him  who  is 
denied  her  love. 


192  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

To  his  praise  of  'blackness'  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost' 
Shakespeare  appends  a  playful  but  caustic  comment  on 
the  paradox  that  he  detects  in  the  conceit.^  Similarly, 
the  sonnets,  in  which  a  dark  complexion  is  pronounced 
to  be  a  mark  of  beauty,  are  followed  by  others  in  which 
the  poet  argues  in  self-confutation  that  blackness  of 
feature  is  hideous  in  a  woman,  and  invariably  indicates 
moral  turpitude  or  blackness  of  heart.  Twice,  in  much 
the  same  language  as  had  already  served  a  like  purpose 
in  the  play,  does  he  mock  his  'dark  lady'  with  this  un- 
complimentary interpretation  of  dark-coloured  hair  and 
eyes. 

The  two  sonnets,  in  which  this  uncomplimentary  view 
of  'blackness '  is  developed,  form  part  of  a  series  of  twelve, 
which  belongs  to  a  special  category  of  sonnet- 
nets  of  teering  effort.  In  them  Shakespeare  abandons 
vitupera-      ^j^g  sugared  sentiment  which  characterises  most 

"Oil-  ^  ,     .       T  -  -  -     .  ,       , 

of  his  hundred  and  forty-two  remainmg  sonnets. 
He  grows  vituperative  and  pours  a  volley  of  passionate 
abuse  upon  a  woman  whom  he  represents  as  disdaining 
his  advances.  She  is  as  '  black  as  hell,'  as  '  dark  as  night,' 
and  with  '  so  foul  a  face '  was  '  the  bay  where  all  men  ride.' 
The  genuine  anguish  of  a  rejected  lover  often  expresses 
itself  in  curses  both  loud  and  deep,  but  in  Shakespeare's 
sonnets  of  vituperation,  despite  their  dramatic  intensity, 
there  is  a  declamatory  parade  of  figurative  extravagance 
which  suggests  that  the  emotion  is  feigned. 

Every  sonnetteer  of  the  sixteenth  century,  at  some 
point  in  his  career,  devoted  his  energies  to  vituperation 
of  a  cruel  siren.  Among  Shakespeare's  English  contem- 
poraries Barnabe  Barnes  affected  to  contend  in  his  sonnets 
with  a  female  'tyrant,'  a  'Medusa,'  a  'rock.'  'Women' 
(Barnes  laments) '  are  by  nature  proud  as  devils.'    On  the 

•  0  paradox !    Black  as  the  badge  of  hell, 
The  hue  of  dungeons  and  the  scowl  of  night. 

(Love's  Labour's  Lost,  IV.  iii.  254-5.) 
To  look  like  her  are  chimney-sweepers  black, 
And  since  her  time  are  colUers  counted  bright. 
And  Ethiops  of  their  sweet  complexion  crack. 
Dark  needs  no  candle  now,  for  dark  is  Ught  (»6.  266-9). 


THE  CONCEITS  OF  THE  SONNETS  193 

European  continent  the  method  of  vituperation  was  long 
practised  systematically.  Roijsard's  sonnets  celebrated 
in  Shakespeare's  manner  a  'fierce  tigress,'  a  'murderess,' 
a  'Medusa.'  Another  French  sonnetteer  Claude  de 
Pontoux  broadened  the  formula  in  a  sonnet  addressed 
to  his  mistress  which  opened : 

Affamee  Meduse,  enragee  Gorgonne, 
Horrible,  espouvantable,  et  felonne  tigresse, 
Cruelle  et  rigoureuse,  allechante  et  traistresse, 
Meschante  abominable,  et  sanglante  Bellonne.* 

A  third  French  sonnetteer,  of  Ronsard's  school,  Eti- 
enne  Jodelle,  designed  in  1570  a  collection  of  as  many  as 
three  hundred  vituperative  sonnets  which  he  jodeiie's 
inscribed  to  'hate  of  a  woman,'  and  he  ap-  'Cont'r' 
propriately    entitled    them    'Contr'    Amours'  ^°"'=' 
in  distinction  from  'Amours,'  the  term  applied  to  son- 
nets  in   the   honeyed  vein.     Only   seven   of  Jodelle's 
'Contr'  Amours'  are  extant.    In  one  the  poet  forestalls 
Shakespeare's  confession  of  remorse  for  having  lauded 
the  black  hair  arid  complexion  of  his  mistress.^    But  at 

'  De  Pontoux's  L'Idee  (sonnet  ccviii.),  a  sequence  of  288  sonnets 
published  in  1579. 

2  No.  vii.  of  Jodelle's  Contr'  Amours  runs  thus : 

Combien  de  fois  mes  vers  ont-ils  dort 

Ces  cheueux  noirs  dignes  d'vne  Meduse? 

Combien  de  fois  ce  teint  noir  qui  m'amuse, 

Ay-ie  de  lis  et  roses  colore? 
Combien  ce  front  de  rides  labour^ 

Ay-ie  applani?  et  quel  a  fait  ma  Muse 

Le  gros  sourcil,  oil  folle  elle  s'abuse, 

Ayant  sur  luy  Tare  d' Amour  figure? 
Quel  ay-ie  fait  son  ceil  se  renfonfant? 

Quel  ay-ie  fait  son  grand  nez  rougissant? 

Quelle  sa  bouche  et  ses  noires  dents  quelles 
Quel  ay-ie  fait  le  reste  de  ce  corps? 

Qtii,  me  sentant  endurer  mille  morts, 

Viuoit  heureux  de  mes  peines  mortelles. 

(Jodelle's  (Euwes,  1597,  pp.  91-94.) 

With  this  should  be  compared  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  cxxxvii.  cxlviii. 
and  cl.  In  No.  vi.  of  his  Contr'  Amours  Jodelle,  after  reproaching  his 
'traitres  vers'  with  having  untruthfully  described  his  siren  as  a  beauty, 
and  concludes : 

Ja  si  long  temps  faisant  d'un  Diable  vn  Ange 
Vous  m'ouurez  I'ceil  en  I'iniuste  louange, 
Et  m'aueuglez  en  I'iniuste  tourment. 


194  Wn^LIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

all  points  there  is  complete  identity  of  tone  between 
Jodelle's  and  Shakespeare's  vituperative  efforts. 

The  artificial  regularity  with  which  the  sonnetteers 
of  all  lands  sounded  the  vituperative  stop,  whenever 

they  exhausted  their  faculty  of  adulation, 
Haxve^'-s  excited  ridicule  in  both  England  ^nd  France. 
'Amorous  In  Shakespeare's  early  life  the  convention  was 
Somet.'      wittily  parodied  by   Gabriel  Harvey  in  'An 

Amorous  Odious  Sonnet  intituled  The  Stu- 
dent's Loove  or  Hatrid,  or  both  or  neither,  or  what  shall 
please  the  looving  or  hating  reader,  either  in  sport  or 
earnest,  to  make  of  such  contrary  passions  as  are  here 
discoursed.'  ^  After  extolhng  the  beauty  and  virtue  of 
his  mistress  above  that  of  Aretino's  Angehca,  Petrarch's 
Laura,  CatuUus's  Lesbia,  and  eight  other  far-famed 
objects  of  poetic  adoration,  Harvey  suddenly  denounces 
her  in  burlesque  rhyme  as  'a  serpent  in  brood,'  'a  poi- 
sonous toad,'  'a  heart  of  marble,'  and  'a  stony  mind 
as  passionless  as  a  block.'     Finally  he  tells  her, 

If  ever  there  were  she-devils  incarnate 
They  are  altogether  in  thee  incorporate. 

The  'dark  lady'  of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  may 
in  her  main  hneaments  be  justly  ranked  with  the  son- 

netteer's  well-seasoned  type  of  fenunine  ob- 
ventionof  duracy.  It  is  quite  possible  that  Shakespeare 
lad^  '^^'^^     ™^y  have  met  in  real  life  a  dark-complexioned 

siren,  and  it  is  possible  that  he  may  have  fared 
ill  at  her  disdainful  hands.    But  no  such  incident  is  needed 

With  this  should  be  compared  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  cxliv.,  lines  g-io: 

And  whether  that  my  angel  be  tum'd  fiend 
Suspect  I  may,  yet  not  directly  tell. 

A  conventional  sonnet  of  extravagant  vituperation,  which  Drummond 
of  Hawthomden  translated  from  Marino  {Rime,  1602,  pt.  i.  p.  76),  is 
introduced  with  grotesque  inappropriateness  into  Drummond's  collec- 
tion of  'sugared'  sonnets  (see  pt.  i.  No.  xxxv. :  Drummond's  Poems, 
ed.  W.  C.  Ward,  i.  69,  217). 

'  The  parody,  which  is  not  in  sonnet  form,  is  printed  in  Harvey's 
Letter-book  (Camden  Soc.  pp.  101-43). 


THE   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS  195 

to  account  for  the  presence  of  the  'dark  lady'  in  the  son- 
nets. The  woman  acquires  more  distinctive  features  in 
the  dozen  sonnets  scattered  through  the  collection  which 
reveal  her  in  a  treacherous  act  of  intrigue  with  the  poet's 
friend.  At  certain  points  in  the  series  of  sonnets  she 
becomes  the  centre  of  a  conflict  between  the  competing 
calls  of  love  and  friendship.  Though .  the  part  which 
is  there  imputed  to  her  lies  outside  the  sonnet  teer's 
ordinary  conventions,  the  r61e  is  a  traditional  one 
among  heroines  of  Itahanate  romance.  It  cannot  have 
lain  beyond  the  scope  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  inven- 
tion to  vary  his  portrayal  of  the  sonnetteer's  conven- 
tional type  of  feminine  obduracy  by  drawing  a  fresh 
romantic  interest  from  a  different  branch  of  literature.^ 
She  has  been  compared,  not  very  appositely,  with  Shake- 
speare's splendid  creation  of  Cleopatra  in  his  play  of 
'  Antony  and  Cleopatra.'  From  one  point  of  view  the 
same  criticism  may  be  passed  on  both.  There  is  no 
greater  and  no  less  ground  for  seeking  in  Shakespeare's 
personal  environment  the  original  of  the  '  dark  lady ' 
of  his  sonnets  than  for  seeking  there  the  original  of  his 
Queen  of  Egypt. 

*  The  theories  that  all  the  sonnets  addressed  to  a  woman  were  ad- 
dressed to  the  'dark  lady,'  and  that  the  'dark  lady'  is  identifiable  with 
Mary  Fitton,  a  mistress  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  are  shadowy  conjec- 
tures. The  extant  portraits  of  Mary  Fitton  prove  her  to  be  fair.  The 
introduction  of  her  name  into  the  discussion  is  due  to  the  mistaken 
notion  that  Shakespeare  was  the  protigi  of  Pembroke,  that  most  of  the 
sonnets  were  addressed  to  him,  and  that  the  poet  was  probably  acquainted 
with  his  patron's  mistress.  SeeAppendix  vil.  The  expressions  in  two  of 
the  vituperative  sonnets  to  the  effect  that  the  disdainful  mistress  had 
'robb'd  others'  beds'  revenues  of  their  rents'  (cxlii.  8)  and  'in  act  her  bed- 
vow  broke'  (clii.  37)  have  been  held  to  imply  that  the  woman  denounced 
by  Shakespeare  was  married.  The  first  quotation  can  only  mean  that 
she  was  unfaithful  with  married  men,  but  both  quotations  seem  to  be 
general  phrases  of  abuse,  the  meaning  of  which  should  not  be  pressed 
closely. 


XII 

THE  PATRONAGE  OF  THE  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON 

Amid  the  borrowed  conceits  and  poetic  figures  of  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  there  lurk  suggestive  references  to  the 

circumstances  in  his  extemat  life  that  at- 
i.dffa'the^  tended  their  composition.  If  few  can  be 
'dedica-  safely  regarded  as  autobiographic  revelations 
nets.  ^°°     of  sentiment,  many  of  them  offer  evidence  of 

the  relations  in  which  he  stood  to  a  patron,  and 
to  the  position  that  he  sought  to  fill  in  the  circle  of  that 
patron's  Kterary  retainers.  Twenty  sonnets,  which  may 
for  purposes  of  exposition  be  entitled  'dedicatory'  son- 
nets, are  addressed  to  one  who  is  declared  without  much 
periphrasis  to  be  a  patron  of  the  poet's  verse  (Nos. 
xxiii.  xxvi.  xxxii.  xxxvii.  xxxviii.  Ixix.  bcxvii.-kxxvi. 
c.  ci.  ciii.  cvi.)  In  one  of  these  —  Sonnet  kxviii.  — 
Shakespeare  asserted : 

So  oft  have  I  invoked  thee  for  my  Muse 
And  found  such  fair  assistance  in  my  verse 
As  every  alien  pen  hath  got  my  use 
And  under  thee  their  poesy  disperse. 

Subsequently  he  regretfully  pointed  out  how  his  patron's 
readiness  to  accept  the  homage  of  other  poets  seemed  to 
be  thrusting  him  from  the  enviable  place  of  pre-eminence 
in  his  patron's  esteem. 

Shakespeare's  biographer  is  under  an  obligation  to 
attempt  an  identification  of  the  persons  whose  relations 
with  tiie  poet  are  indicated  so  expUcitly.  The  problem 
presented  by  the  patron  is  simple.  Shakespeare  states 
unequivocally  that  he  has  no  patron  but  one. 

Sing  [sc.  O  Muse  !]  to  the  ear  that  doth  thy  lays  esteem, 
And  gives  thy  pen  both  skill  and  argument  (c.  7-8). 
196 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    197 

For  to  no  other  pass  my  verses  tend 

Than  of  yQur  graces  and  your  gifts  to  tell  (ciii.  11-12). 

The  Earl  of  Southampton,  the  patron  of  his  narrative 
poems,  is  the  only  patron  of  Shakespeare  who  is  known 
to  biographical  research.  No  contemporary 
document  or  tradition  gives  any  hint  that  ^'^lout^' 
Shakespeare  was  the  friend  or  dependent  ampton_ 
of  any  other  man  of  rank.  Shakespeare's  ^lepatron. 
close  intimacy  with  the  Earl  is  attested  under 
his  own  hand  in  the  dedicatory  epistles  of  his  'Venus 
and  Adonis'  and  'Lucrece,'  which  were  penned  respec- 
tively in  1593  and  1594.  A  trustworthy  tradition  cor- 
roborates that  testimony.  According  to  Nicholas  Rowe, 
Shakespeare's  first  adequate  biographer,  'there  is  one 
instance  so  singular  in  the  magnificence  of  this  patron  of 
Shakespeare's  that  if  I  had  not  been  assured  that  the 
story  was  handed  down  by  Sir  WilHam  D'Avenant,  who 
was  probably  very  well  acquainted  with  his  affairs,  I 
should  not  have  ventured  to  have  inserted;  that  my 
Lord  Southampton  at  one  time  gave  him  a  thousand 
pounds  to  enable  him  to  go  through  with  a  purchase 
which  he  heard  he  had  a  mind  to.  A  bounty  very  great 
and  very  rare  at  any  time.' 

There  is  no  difl&culty  in  detecting  the  lineaments  of 
the  Earl  of  Southampton  in  those  of  the  man  who  is 
distinctively   greeted   in   the   sonnets   as    the 
poet's   patron.     Three   of   the   twenty   'dedi-  'dedica- 
catory'    sonnets    merely    translate    into    the  ^o'v' 

T  /.  /    r  1     1 .  1  1      sonnets. 

language    of    poetry      the    dedicated    words 
which  writers  use'  (Ixxxii.  3),  the  accepted  expressions 
of  devotion  which  had  already  done  duty  in  the  dedica- 
tory epistle  in  prose  that  prefaces  'Lucrece.' 

That  epistle,  which  opens  with  the  sentence  'The  love 
I  dedicate  to  your  lordship  is  without  end,'^  is  finely 
paraphrased  in  Sonnet  xxvi. : 

'  The  whole  epistle  is  quoted  on  pp.  148-g  supra.  For  comment  on 
the  use  of  'lover'  and  'love'  in  Elizabethan  English  as  synonyms  for 
'friend'  and  'friendship,'  see  p.  205  n.  i. 


198  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Lord  of  my  love,  to  whom  in  vassalage 

Thy  merit  hath  my  duty  strongly  knit, 

To  thee  I  send  this  written  ambassa.ge, 

To  witness  duty,  not  to  show  my  wit : 

Duty  so  great,  which  wit  so  poor  as  mine 

May  make  seem  bare,  in  wanting  words  to  show  it, 

But  that  I  hope  some  good  conceit  of  thine 

In  thy  soul's  thought,  all  naked,  will  bestow  it 

Till  whatsoever  star  that  guides  my  moving, 

Points  on  me  graciously  with  fair  aspect, 

And  puts  apparel  on  my  tatter'd  loving 

To  show  me  worthy  of  thy  sweet  respect : 

Then  may  I  dare  to  boast  how  I  do  love  thee ; 

Till  then  not  show  my  head  where  thou  may'st  prove  me.' 

The  'Lucrece'  epistle's  intimation  that  the  patron's 
love  alone  gives  value  to  the  poet's  'untutored  lines' 
is  repeated  in  Sonnet  xxxii.,  which  doubtless  reflected 
a  moment  of  depression  : 

If  thou  survive  my  well-contented  day, 
When  that  churl  Death  my  bones  with  dust  shall  cover. 
And  shalt  by  fortune  once  more  re-survey 
These  poor  rude  lines  of  thy  deceased  lover, 
Compare  them  with  the  bettering  of  the  time, 
And  though  they  be  outstripp'd  by  every  pen, 
Reserve  them  for  my  love,  not  for  their  rh3nne, 
Exceeded  by  the  height  of  happier  men. 
O,  then  vouchsafe  me  but  this  loving  thought : 
'Had  my  friend's  Muse  grown  with  this  growing  age, 
A  dearer  birth  than  this  his  love  had  brought, 
To  march  in  ranks  of  better  equipage  ^ ; 
But  since  he  died,  and  poets  better  prove, 
Theirs  for  their  style. I'll  read,  his  for  his  love.' 

'  There  is  little  doubt  that  this  sonnet  was  parodied  by  Sir  Jolin 
Davies  in  the  ninth  and  last  of  his  'gulling'  sonnets,  in  which  he  ridicules 
the  notion  that  a  man  of  wit  should  put  his  wit  in  vassalage  to  any  one. 

To  love  my  lord  I  do  knight's  service  owe. 

And  therefore  now  he  hath  my  wit  in  ward ; 

But  while  it  [i.e.  the  poet's  wit]  is  in  his  tuition  so 

Methinks  he  doth  intreat  [i.e.  treat]  it  passing  hard  .  .  . 

But  why  should  love  after  minority 

(When  I  have  passed  the  one  and  twentieth  year) 

Preclude  my  wit  of  his  sweet  liberty, 

And  make  it  still  the  yoke  of  wardship  bear? 

I  fear  he  [i.e.  my  lord]  hath  another  title  [i.e.  right  to  my  wit]  got 

And  holds  my  wit  now  for  an  idiot. 

^  Thomas  Tyler  assigns  this  sonnet  to  the  year  1398  or  later,  on  the 
fallacious  ground  that  this  line  was  probably  imitated  from  an  expression 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    199 

A  like  vein  is  pursued  in  greater  exaltation  of  spirit  in 
Soiinet  xxxviii. : 

How  can  my  Muse  want  subject  to  invent, 

While  thou  dost  breathe,  that  pour'st  into  my  verse 

Thine  own  sweet  argument,  too  excellent 

For  every  vulgar  paper  to  rehearse? 

O  give  thyself  the  thanks,  if  aught  in  me 

Worthy  perusal  stand  against  thy  sight ; 

For  who's  so  dumb  that  cannot  write  to  thee, 

When  thou  thyself  dost  give  invention  Ught? 

Be  thou  the  tenth  Muse,  ten  times  more  in  worth  ' 

Than  those  old  nine  which  rhymers  invocate; 

And  he  that  caUs  on  thee,  let  him  bring  forth 

Eternal  numbers  to  outlive  long  date. 
If  my  slight  Muse  do  please  these  curious  days. 
The  pain  be  mine,  but  thine  shall  be  the  praise. 

The  central  conceit  here  so  finely  developed  —  that 
the  patron  may  claim  as  his  own  handiwork  the  protege's 
verse  because  he  inspires  it  —  belongs  to  the  most 
conventional  schemes  of  dedicatory  adulation.  When 
Daniel,  in  1592,  inscribed  his  volume  of  sonnets  entitled 
'DeKa'  to  the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  he  played  in  the 
prefatory  sonnet  on  the  same  note,  and  used  in  the  con- 
cluding couplet  almost  the  same  words  as  Shakespeare. 
Daniel  wrote : 

Great  patroness  of  these  my  humble  rhymes. 
Which  thou  from  out  thy  greatness  dost  inspire  .  .  . 
O  leave  [i.e.  cease]  not  stUl  to  grace  thy  work  in  me  .  .  . 

Whereof  the  travail  I  may  challenge  mine,  , 

But  yet  the  glory,  madam,  must  be  thine. 

Elsewhere  in  the  sonnets  we  hear  fainter  echoes  of 
the  'Lucrece'  epistle.  Repeatedly  does  the  sonnetteer  re- 
new the  assurance  given  there  that  his  patron  is  'part 

in  Marston's  Pigmalion's  Image,  published  in  1598,  where  'stanzas'  are 
said  to  'march  rich  bedight  in  warlike  equipage.'  The  suggestion  of 
plagiarism  is  quite  gratuitous.  The  phrase  was  common  in  Elizabethan 
literature  long  before  Marston  employed  it.  Nashe,  in  his  preface  to 
Greene's  Menaphon,  which  was  published  in  1589,  wrote  that  the  works 
of  the  poet  Watson  'march  in  equipage  of  honour  with  any  of  your  an- 
cient poets.'  (Cf.  Peek's  Works,  ed.  BuUen,  ii.  236.) 
1  Cf.  Drayton's  Ideas  Mirrow  1594,  Amour  8. 


200  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  all '  he  has  or  is.  Frequently  do  we  meet  in  the  sonnets 
with  such  expressions  as  these : 

[I]  by  a  part  of  all  your  glory  live  (xxxvii.  12) ; 
Thou  art  all  the  better  part  of  me  (xxxix.  2) ; 
My  spirit  is  thine,  the  better  part  of  me  (Ixjdv.  8) ; 

while  'the  love  without  end'  which  Shakespeare  had 
vowed  to  Southampton  in  the  hght  of  day  reappears  in 
sonnets  addressed  to  the  youth  as  'eternal  love'  (cviii. 
9)  and  a  devotion  'what  shall  have  no  end'  (ex.  9). 

The  identification  of  the  rival  poets  whose  'richly 
compiled'  'comments'  of  his  patron's  'praise'  excited 

Shakespeare's  jealousy  is  a  more  difficult  in- 
in  South-  quiry  than  the  identification  of  the  patron. 
fr^ur'^'^     The  rival  poets  with  their  'precious  phrase  by 

all  the  Muses  filed'  (Ixxxv.  4)  are  to  be  sought 
among  the  writers  who  eulogised  Southampton  and  are 
known  to  have  shared  his  patronage.  The  field  of  choice 
is  not  small.  Southampton  from  boyhood  cultivated 
Uterature  and  the  society  of  literary  men.  In  1594  no 
nobleman  received  so  abundant  a  measure  of  adulation 
from  the  contemporary  world  of  letters.^  Thomas  Nashe 
justly  described  the  Earl,  when  dedicating  to  him  his 
'Life  of  Jack  Wilton'  in  1594,  as  '  a  dear  lover  and 
cherisher  as  well  of  the  lovers  of  poets  as  of  the  poets 
themselves.'  Nashe  addressed  to  him  many  affection- 
ately phrased  sonnets.  The  prolific  sonnetteer  Barnabe 
Barnes  and  the  miscellaneous  literary  practitioner  Ger- 
vase  Markham  confessed,  respectively  in  1593  and  1595, 
yearnings  for  Southampton's  countenance  in  sonnets 
which  glow  hardly  less  ardently  than  Shakespeare's 
with  admiration  for  his  personal  charm.  Similarly 
John  Florio,  the  Earl's  Italian  tutor,  who  is  to  be  reckoned 
among  Shakespeare's  literary  acquaintances,^  wrote  to 
Southampton  in  1598,  in  his  dedicatory  epistle  before 

'  See  Appendix  rv.  for  a  full  account  of  Southampton's  relations  with 
Nashe  and  other  men  of  letters, 
^.^ee  p.  155-6,  note  2. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    20I 

his  'Worlde  of  Wordes'  (an  Italian-English  dictionary), 
'  as  to  me  and  many  more,  the  glorious  and  gracious  sun- 
shine of  your  honour  hath  infused  light  and  life.' 

Shakespeare  magnanimously  and  modestly  described 
that  protegi    of    Southampton,    whom    he    deemed    a 
specially  dangerous  rival,  as  an  'able'  and  a 
' better [  'spirit,'  'a  worthier  pen,'  a  vessel  'of  spefr^s 
tall  building  and  of  goodly  pride,'  compared  fearo^a 
with  whom  he  was  himself  'a  worthless  boat.'  "™  ^^' 
He  detected   a   touch   of   magic   in   the   man's   writ- 
ing.   His  'spirit,'  Shakespeare  hyperbolically  declared, 
had  been  'by  spirits  taught  to  write  above  a  mortal 
pitch,'  and  'an  affable  famihar  ghost'  nightly  gulled  him 
with  intelligence.     Shakespeare's  dismay  at  the  fascina- 
tion exerted  on  his  patron  by  '  the  proud  full  sail  of  his 
[rival's]  great  verse'  sealed  for  a  time,  he  declared,  the 
springs  of  his  own  invention  (Ixxxvi.). 

There  is  no  need  to  insist  too  curiously  on  the  justice 
of  Shakespeare's  laudation  of  'the  other  poet's'  powers. 
He  was  presumably  a  new-comer  in  the  literary  field 
who  surprised  older  men  of  benevolent  tendency  into 
admiration  by  his  promise  rather  than  by  his  achieve- 
ment. 'Eloquence  and  courtesy,'  wrote  Gabriel  Har- 
-vey  at  the  time,  'are  ever  bountiful  in  the  amplifying 
vein ' ;  and  writers  of  amiability,  Harvey  adds,  ha- 
bitually blazoned  the  perfections  that  they  hoped  to 
see  their  young  friends  achieve,  in  language  implying 
that  they  had  already  achieved  them.  All  the  condi- 
tions of  the  problem  are  satisfied  by  the  rival's  „ 
identification  with  the  Oxford  scholar  Barnabe  Bames 
Barnes,  a  youthful  panegjnrist  of  Southampton  ^^"''^^^ 
and  a  prolific  sonnetteer,  who  was  deemed  by 
contemporary  critics  certain  to  prove  a  great  poet.  His 
first  collection  of  sonnets,  'Parthenophil  and  Parthe- 
nophe,'  with  niany  odes  and  madrigals  interspersed,  was 
printed  in  1593  ;  and  his  second,  'A  Centurie  of  Spirit- 
ual Sonnets,'  in  1595-  Loud  applause  greeted  the  first 
book,  which  included  numerous  adaptations  from  the 


202  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

classical,  Italian,  and  French  poets,  and  disclosed, 
among  many  crudities,  some  fascinating  lyrics  and  at 
least  one  first-rate  sonnet  (No.  lx\d.  'Ah,  sweet  con- 
tent, where  is  thy  mild  abode?')-  The  veteran  Thomas 
Churchyard  called  Barnes  'Petrarch's  scholar'  ;  the 
learned  Gabriel  Harvey  bade  him '  go  forward  in  maturity 
as  he  had  begun  in  pregnancy,'  and  'be  the  gallant  poet, 
like  Spenser';  the  fine  poet  Campion  judged  his  verse 
to  be  'heady  and  strong.'  In  a  sonnet  that  Barnes 
addressed  in  this  earliest  volume  to  the  'virtuous' 
Earl  of  Southampton  he  declared  that  his  patron's  eyes 
were  'the  heavenly  lamps  that  give  the  Muses  light,' 
and  that  his  sole  ambition  was  'by  flight  to  rise'  to  a 
height  worthy  of  his  patron's  'virtues.'  Shak^peare 
sorrowfxilly  pointed  out  in  Sonnet  Ixxviii.  that  his  lord's 
eyes 

that  taught  the  dumb  on  high  to  ang. 
And  heavy  ignorance  aloft  to  fly. 
Have  added  feathers  to  the  leamed's  wing. 
And  given  grace  a  double  majesty; 

while  in  the  following  sonnet  he  asserted  that  the 
'worthier  pen'  of  las  dreaded  rival  when  lending  his 
patron  'virtue'  was  guilty  of  plagiarism,  for  he  'stole 
that  word '  from  his  patron's  ' behaviour.'  The  emphasis, 
laid  by  Barnes  on  the  inspiration  that  he  sought  from 
Southampton's  'gracious  eyes'  on  the  one  hand,  and  his 
reiterated  references  to  his  patron's  'virtue'  on  the 
other,  suggest  that  Shakespeare  in  these  sonnets  directly 
alluded  to  Barnes  as  his  chief  competitor  in  the  hody 
contested  race  for  Southampton's  favour.  In  Sonnet 
Ixxxv.  Shakespeare  declares  that  he  cries  '"Amen"  to 
every  hymn  that  able  spirit  [i.e.  his  rival]  affords.' 
Very  few  poets  of  the  day  in  England  followed  Ron- 
sard's  practice  of  bestowing  the  title  of  hymn  on  mis- 
cellaneous poems,  but  Barnes  twice  applies  the  word 
to  his  poems  of  love.'    When,  too,  Shakespeare  in  Sonnet 

^  Cf.  ParthenophU,  Madrigal  L  line  12 ;    Sonnet  x\tL  line  9.    The 
French  usage  of  applying  the  term  'hymne'  to  secular  lyijcs  was  un- 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    203 

Ixxx.  employs  nautical  metaphors  to  indicate  the  rela- 
tions of  himself  and  his  rival  with  his  patron  — 

My  saucy  bark,  inferior  far  to  his  .  .  . 

Your  shallowest  help  will  hold  me  up  afloat,  — 

he  seems  to  write  with  an  eye  on  Barnes's  identical  choice 
of  metaphor 

My  fancy's  ship  tossed  here  and  there  by  these  [sc.  sorrow's  floods] 

Still  floats  in  danger  ranging  to  and  fro. 

How  fears  my  thoughts'  swift  pinnace  thine  hard  rock  ! ' 

Gervase  Markham,  an  industrious  man  of  letters,  is 
equally  emphatic  in  his  sonnet  to  Southampton  on  the 
potent  influence  of  his  patron's  'eyes,'  which,  „ 

r  (,,  J.      •   ^      •  !  Other  theo- 

ne  says,  crown    the  most  victonous  pen  —  a  ries  as  to 
possible    reference    to    Shakespeare.     Nashe's  l^^^^'^ 
poetic  praises  of  the  Earl  are  no  less  enthusi- 
astic, and  are  of  a  finer  literary  temper  than  Markham's. 
But  Shakespeare's  description  of  his  rival's  literary  work 
fits  far  less  closely  the  verse  of  Markham  and  Nashe 
than  the  verse  of  their  fellow  aspirant  Barnes. 

Many  critics  argue  that  the  numbing  fear  of  his  rival's 
genius  and  of  its  influence  on  his  patron  to  which  Shake- 
speare confessed  in  the  sonnets  was  more  Ukely  to  be 
evoked  by  the  work  of  George  Chapman,  .the  dramatist 
and  classical  translator,  than  by  that  of  any  other  con- 
temporary poet.  But  Chapman  produced  no  con- 
spicuously 'great  verse'  till  he  began  his  rendering  of 
Homer  in  1598;  and  although  he  appended  in  1610 
to  a  complete  edition  of  his  translation  a  sonnet  to 
Southampton,  it  was  couched  in  cold  terms  of  formaUty, 
and  it  was  one  of  a  series  of  sixteen  sonnets  each  ad- 
dressed to  a  distingiiished  nobleman  with  whom  the 
writer  imphes  that  he  had  previously  no  close  relations.^ 

common  in 'England,  although  Chapman  styles  each  section  of  his 
poem  'Shadow  of  the  Night'  (1594)  'a  hymn'  and  Michael  Drayton 
contributed  'h)Tnns'  to  his  Harmonie  of  the  Church  (1591). 

'  Parthenophil,  Sonnet  xci. 

*  Much  irrelevance  has  been  introduced  into  the  discussion  of  Chap- 


204  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  poet  Drayton,  and  the  dramatists  Ben  Jonson  and 
Marston,  have  also  been  identified  by  various  critics 
with  '  the  rival  poet,'  but  none  of  these  shared  Southamp- 
ton's bounty,  nor  are  the  terms  which  Shakespeare 
applies  to  his  rival's  verse  specially  applicable  to  the 
productions  of  any  of  them. 

man's  claim  to  be  the  rival  poet.  Prof.  Minto  in  Us  Characteristics  of 
English  Poets,  p.  291,  argued  that  Chapman  was  the  man  mainly  be- 
cause Shakespeare  declared  his  competitor  to  be  taught  to  write  by 
'spirits'  —  'his  compeers  by  night'  —  as  weU  as  by  'an  affable  familiar 
ghost'  which  guUedhim  with  intelligence  at  night  (Ixxxvi.  s  seq.).  Pro- 
fessor Minto  saw  in  these  phrases  allusions  to  some  lines  by  Chapman  ia 
his  Shadows  of  Night  (1594),  a  poem  on  Night.  There  Chapman  warned 
authors  in  one  passage  that  the  spirit  of  literature  will  often  withhold 
itself  from  them  unless  it  have  'drops  of  theiir  blood  like  a  heavenly 
familiar,'  and  in  another  place  sportively  invited  'nimble  and  aspiring 
wits'  to  join  him  in  consecrating  their  endeavours  to  'sacred  night.' 
There  is  no  connection  between  Shakespeare's  theory  of  the  supernatural 
and  nocturnal  sources  of  his  rival's  influence  and  Chapman's  trite  allu- 
sion to  the  current  faith  in  the  power  of  'nightly  familiars'  over  men's 
minds  and  lives,  or  Chapman's  invitation  to  his  literary  comrades  to 
honour  Night  with  him.  Nashe  in  his  prose  tract  called  independently 
The  Terrors  of  the  Night,  which  was  also  printed  in  1594,  described  the 
nocturnal  habits  of  'familiars'  more  explicitly  than  Chapman.  The 
publisher  Thomas  Thorpe,  in  dedicatmg  in  1600  Marlowe's  translation 
of  Lucan  (bk.  i.)  to  his  friend  Edward  Blount,  humorously  referred  to 
the  same  topic  when  he  reminded  Blount  that  '  this  spirit  [i.e.  Marlowe], 
whose  ghost  or  genius  is  to  be  seen  walk  the  Churchyard  [of  St.  Paul's] 
in  at  the  least  three  or  four  sheets  .  .  .  was  sometime  a  familiar  of 
your  own.'  On  the  strength  of  these  quotations,  and  accepting  Professor 
Minto's  line  of  argument,  Nashe,  Thorpe,  or  Blount,  whose  'famihar'  is 
declared  to  have  been  no  less  a  personage  than  Marlowe,  has  as  good  a 
claim  as  Chapman  to  be  the  rival  poet  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  A 
second  argument  in  Chapman's  favour  has  been  suggested.  Chapman 
in  the  preface  to  his  translation  of  the  Iliads  (16 11)  denounces  without 
mentioning  any  name  'a  certain  envious  windsucker  that  hovers  up  and 
down,  laboriously  engrossing  all  the  air  with  his  luxurious  ambition,  and 
buzzing  into  every  ear  my  detraction.'  It  is  suggested  that  Chapman 
here  retaliated  on  Shakespeare  for  his  references  to  him  as  his  rival  in 
the  sonnets ;  but  it  is  out  of  the  question  that  Chapman,  were  he  the 
rival,  should  have  termed  those  high  compliments  'detraction.'  There 
is  small  ground  for  identifying  Chapman's  'windsucker'  with  Shake- 
speare (cf.  Wyndham,  p.  255).  Mr.  Arthur  Acheson  in  Shakespeare 
and  the  Rival  Poet  (1903)  adopts  Prof.  Minto's  theory  of  Chapman's 
identity  with  the  rival  poet,  arguing  on  fantastic  grounds  that  Shake- 
speare and  Chapman  were  at  lifelong  feud,  and  that  Shakespeare  not 
only  attacked  his  adversary  in  the  soimets  but  held  him  up  to  ridicule 
as  Holofernes  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  as  Thersites  in  Troiltts  and 
Cressida. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    205 

Many  besides  the  'dedicatory'  sonnets  are  addressed 
to  a  handsome  youth  of  wealth  ai;d  rank,  for  whom  the 
poet  avows  'love/  in  the  Elizabethan  sense  of  jj  ^j^^ 
friendship.^  Although  no  specific  reference  is  Sonnets  of 
made  outside  the  twenty  'dedicatory'  sonnets  fn^<i^i"P- 
to  the  youth  as  a  literary  patron,  and  the  clues  to  his 
identity  are  elsewhere  vaguer,  there  is  good  ground  for 
the  inference  that  the  greater  number  of  the  sonnets 
of  devoted  'love'  also  have  Southampton  for  their 
subject. 

Classical  study  is  mainly  responsible  in  the  era  of 
the  Renaissance  for  the  exalted  conception  of  friendship 
which  placed  it  in  the  world  of  Hterature  on 
the  level  of  love.  The  elevated  estimate  traditions 
was  largely  bred  in  Renaissance  poetry  of  the  f.  . ,. 
traditions  attaching  to  such  twin  heroes  of  ™  ^  '^' 
antiquity  as  Pylades  and  Orestes,  Theseus  and  Pirithous, 
Laelius  and  Scipio.  To  this  classical  catalogue  Boc- 
caccio, amplifying  the  classical  legend,  added  in  the 
fourteenth  century  the  new  examples  of  Palamon  and 
Arcite  and  of  Tito  and  Gesippo,  and  the  latter  pair  of 
heroic  friends  fully  shared  in  -Shakespeare's  epoch  the 
literary  vogue  of  their  forerunners.  It  was  to  well- 
seasoned  classical  influence  that  poetry  of  the  sixteenth 
century  owed  the  tendency  to  identify  the  ideals  of 
friendship  and  love.^    At  the  same  time  it  is  important 

'  'Lover'  and  'friend'  were  interchangeable  terms  in  Elizabethan 
English.  Cf.  p.  197  note.  Brutus  opens  his  address  to  the  citizens  of 
Rome  with  the  words,  'Romans,  countrymen,  and  lovers,'  and  subse- 
quently describes  Julius  Caesar  as  'my  best  lover'  {Jtditis  Ccesar,  iii. 
ii.  13-49).  Portia,  when  referring  to  Antonio,  the  bosom  friend  of  her 
husband  Bassanio,  calls  him  'the  bosom  lover  of  my  lord'  {Merchant  of 
Venice,  rn.  iv.  17).  Ben  Jonson  in  his  letters  to  Donne  commonly  de- 
scribed himself  as  his  correspondent's  'ever  true  lover';  and  Drayton, 
writing  to  William  Drummond,  of  Hawthomden,  informed  him  that 
an  admirer  of  his  literary  work  was  'in  love'  with  him.  The  word  'love' 
was  habitually  applied  to  the  sentiment  subsisting  between  an  author 
and  Ws  patron.  Nashe,  when  dedicating  Jack  WiUon  in  1594  to  South- 
ampton, calls  him  'a  dear  lover  ...  of  the  lovers  of  poets  as  of  the  poets 
themselves.' 

^  Records  of  friendship  in  Elizabethan  literature  invariably  acknow- 


2o6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

to  recognise  that  in  Elizabethan  as  in  all  Renaissance 
literature  —  more  especially  in  sonnets  —  the  word 
'love'  together  with  all  the  common  terms  of  endear- 
ment was  freely  employed  in  a  conventional  or  figura- 
tive fashion,  which  deprives  the  expressions  of  much 
of  the  emotional  force  attaching  to  them  in  ordinary 
speech. 

That  the  whole  language  of  love  was  appUed  by  Eliza- 
bethan poets  to  their  more  or  less  professional  inter- 
course with  those  who  appreciated   and   en-  p;gujative 
couraged    their  literary  activities   is    convinc-  language 
ingly  illustrated  by  the  mass  of  verse  which  °  °^^' 
was  addressed  to  the  greatest  of  all  patrons  of  Eliza- 

ledged  the  classical  debt.  Edmund  Spenser  when  describing  the  perfect 
quality  of  friendship,  cites  as  his  witnesses  : 

great  Hercules,  and  Hyllus  dear ; 
True  Jonathan,  and  David  trusty  tried ; 
Stout  Theseus,  and  Pirithous  his  fear ; 
Pylades  and  Orestes  by  his  side  ; 
Mild  Titus,  and  Gesippus  without  pride ; 
Damon  and  Pythias,  whom  death  could  not  sever. 

{Faerie  Queene,  Bk.  iv.  Canto  x.  st.  27.) 

Lyly,  in  his  romance  of  Euphues,  makes  his  hero  Euphues  address  his 
friend  Philautus  thus  (ed.  Arber,  p.  49) : 

'  Assure  yourself  that  Damon  to  his  Pythias,  Pilades  to  his  Orestes,  Tytus  to  his 
Gysippus,  Thesius  to  his  Pirothus,  Scipio  to  his  Laelius,  was  never  fouade  more  faithfull, 
then  Euphues  will  bee  to  Philautus.* 

The  Story  of  Damon  and  Pythias  formed  the  subject  of  a  popular  Eliza- 
bethan tragicomedy  by  Ridiard  Edwardes  (1570).  Shakespeare  pays  a 
tribute  to  the  current  vogue  of  this  classical  legend  when  he  makes 
Hamlet  call  his  devoted  friend  Horatio  'O  Bamon  dear'  {Hamlet,  in. 
ii.  284).  Cicero's  treatise  De  Amicitia  which  was  inspired  by  the  ideal 
relations  subsisting  between  Scipio  and  Laslius  was  very  familiar  to 
Elizabethan  men  of  letters  in  both  the  Latin  original  and  English  transla- 
tions, and  that  volume  helped  to  keep  alive  the  classical  example.  Mon- 
taigne echoed  the  classical  strain  in  his  essay  'On  Friendship'  which 
finely  describes  his  affection  for  Etienne  de  la  Bo6tie  and  their  perfect 
community  of  spirit.  It  may  be  worth  noticing  that  Bacon,  while  in 
his  essay  'On  Friendship'  he  pays  a  fine  tribute  to  the  sentiment,  takes 
an  unamiable  view  of  it  in  a  second  essay  'On  Followers  and  Friends,' 
where  he  scornfully  treats  friends  as  merely  interested  and  self-seeking 
dependents  and  frankly  disparages  the  noble  classical  conception.  The 
concluding  words  of  Bacon's  second  essay  are  significant : 

'  There  is  little  friendship  in  the  world,  and  least  of  all  between  equals,  which  wa^ 
wont  to  be  magnified.  That  that  is,  is  between  superior  and  inferior,  'whose  fortunes  may 
comprehend  the  one  the  other.' 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    207 

bethan  poetry  —  the  Queen.  The  poets  who  sought 
her  favour  not  merely  commended  the  beauty  of  her 
mind  and  body  with  the  semblance  of  amorous  ecstasy; 
they  carried  their  protestations  of  'love'  to  the  ex- 
treme limits  of  realism;  they  seasoned  their  notes 
of  adoration  with  reproaches  of  inconstancy  and  in- 
fidelity, which  they  clothed  in  peculiarly  intimate 
phraseology.  Edmund  Spenser,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
Richard  Barnfield,  and  Sir  John  Davies  were  among 
many  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries  who  wrote  of 
their  sovereign  with  a  warmth  that  would  mislead  any 
reader  who  ignores  the  current  conventions  of  the 
amorous  vocabulary.^ 

^  Here  are  some  of  the  lines  in  which  Spenser  angled  for  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's professional  protection   ('Colin   Clouts  come  home  againe,'  c. 

IS94)  : 

To  her  my  thoughts  I  daUy  dedicate, 

To  her  my  heart  I  nightly  martyrize ; 

To  her  my  love  I  lowly  do  prostrate, 

To  her  my  life  I  wholly  sacrifice : 

My  thought,  my  heart,  my  love,  my  life  is  she. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh  similarly  celebrated  his  devotion  to  the  Queen  in  a 
poem  called  'Cjoithia'  of  which  only  a  fragment  survives.  The  tone  of 
such  portion  as  is  extant  is  that  of  unrestrainable  passion.  At  one  point 
the  poet  reflects  how 

that  the  eyes  of  my  mind  held  her  beams 
In  every  part  transferred  by  love's  swift  thought : 

Far  off  or  near,  in  waking  or  in  dreams. 
Imagination  strong  their  lustre  brought. 

Such  force  her  angelic  appearance  had 
To  master  distance,  time  or  cruelty. 

The  passionate  Ulusion  could  hardly  be  produced  with  more  vivid 
efifect  than  in  a  succeeding  stanza  from  the  pen  of  Raleigh  in  the  capacity 
of  literary  suitor : 

The  thoughts  of  past  times,  Uke  flames  of  hell. 
Kindled  afresh  within  my  memory 

The  many  dear  achievements  that  befell 
In  those  prime  years  and  infancy  of  love. 

See  'Cynthia,'  a  fragment  in  Poems  of  Raleigh,  ed.  Hannah,  p.  38. 
Richard  Barnfield  in  his  like-named  poem  of  Cynthia,  1595,  and  Fulke 
Greville  in  sonnets  addressed  to  Cjmthia,  also  extravagantly  described 
the  Queen's  beauty  and  graces.  In  1599  Sir  John  Davies,  poet  and 
lawyer,  apostrophised  Elizabeth,  who  was  then  sixty-six  years  old,  thus : 


2o8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

It  was  in  the  rhapsodical  accents  of  Spenser  and 
Raleigh  that  Elizabethan  poets  habitually  sought,  not 
Gabriel  the  Queen's  countenance  only,  but  that  of  her 
Harvey  courtiers.  Great  lords  and  great  ladies  alike 
a?  PMi'ip  were  repeatedly  assured  by  poetic  chents  of  the 
Sidney.  infatuation  which  came  of  their  mental  and 
physical  charms.  The  fashionable  tendency  to  clothe 
love  and  friendship  in  the  same  Uterary  garb  eUminated 
aU  distinction  between  the  phrases  of  afifection  which 
were  addressed  to  patrons  and  those  which  were  ad- 
dressed to  patronesses.  Nashe,  a  tj^ical  Elizabethan, 
bore  graphic  witness  to  the  poetic  practice  when  he  in 
159s  described  how  Gabriel  Harvey,  who  rehgiously 
observed  the  professional  ritual,  'courted'  his  patron 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  with  every  extravagance  of  amorous 
language.^ 

Fair  soul,  since  to  the  fairest  body  knit 

You  give  such  lively  life,  such  quickening  power, 

Such  sweet  celestial  influences  to  it 

As  keeps  it  still  in  youth's  immortal  flower  .  .  . 

O  many,  many  years  may  you  remain 

A  happy  angel  to  this  happy  land. 

{Nosce  Teipsum,  dedication.) 

Davies  published  in  the  same  year  twenty-six  'Hjnuues  of  Astrea'  on 
Elizabeth's  beauty  and  graces;  each  poem  forms  an  acrostic  on  the 
words  'Elizabetha  Regina,'  and  the  language  of  love  is  simulated  on 
almost  every  page. 

^  Nashe  wrote  of  Harvey:    'I  have  perused  vearses  of  his,  written 
vnder  his  owne  hand  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  wherein  he  courted  him  as  he  ■ 
were  another  Cyparissus  or  Ganimede :  the  last  Gordian  true  loues  knot 
or  knitting  up  of  them  is  this : 

Sum  iecur,  ex  quo  te  primum,  Sydneie,  vidi ; 
Os  oculosque  regit,  cogit  amare  iecur. 

AU  timr  am  I,  Sidney,  since  I  saw  thee ; 

.My  mouth,  eyes,  rule  it  and  to  loue  doth  draw  mee.' 

Have  with  you  to  Safron  Walden  in  Nashe's  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  iii. 
92.  Cf.  Shakespeare's  comment  on  a  love  sonnet  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost 
(iv.  iii.  74  seq.) : 

This  is  the  liver  vein,  which  makes  flesh  a  deity, 

A  green  goose  a  goddess ;  pure,  pure  idolatry. 

God  amend  us,  God  amend !  we  are  much  out  of  the  way. 

Throughout  Europe  sonnets  or  poems  addressed  to  patronesses  display 
identical  characteristics  with  those  that  were  addressed  to  patrons. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    ^Op 

The  tide  of  adulation  of  patrons  and  patronesses  aUke, 
in  (what  Shakespeare  himself  called)  *the  liver  vein,' 
long  flowed  without  check.  Until  comparatively  late 
in  the  seventeenth  century  there  was  ample  justifica- 
tion for  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  warning  of  the  flattery  that 
awaited  those  who  patronised  poets  and  poetry :  '  Thus 
doing,  you  shall  be  [hailed  as]  most  fair,  most  rich,  most 
wise,  most  all ;  thus  doing,  you  shall  dwell  upon  super- 
latives; thus  doing,  your  soul-  shall  be  placed  with 
Dante's  Beatrice.'  ^  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
Shakespeare,   always  susceptible  to   the  contemporary 

One  series  of  Michael  Angelo's  impassioned  sonnets  was  addressed  to  a 
young  nobleman  Tommaso  dei  Cavalieri,  and  another  series  to  a  noble 
patroness  Vittoria  Colonna,  but  the  tone  is  the  same  in  bbth,  and  in- 
ternal evidence  fails  to  enalsle  the  critic  to  distinguish  between  the  two 
series.  The  poetic  addresses  to  the  Countess  of  Bedford  and  other  noble 
patronesses  of  Donne,  Ben  Jonson,  and  their  colleagues  are  often  amorous 
in  their  phraseology,  and  akin  in  temper  to  Shakespeare's  sonnets  of 
friendship.  Nicholas  Breton,  in  his  poem  The  Pilgrimage  to  Paradise 
coyned  with  the  Countess  of  Pembroke's  Love,  1592,  and  another  work  of 
his.  The  Countess  of  Pembroke's  Passion  (first  printed  from  manuscript 
in  1867),  pays  the  countess,  his  Uterary  patroness,  a  homage  which  is 
indistinguishable  from  the  ecstatic  utterances  of  a  genuine  and  over- 
mastering passion.  Patronesses  as  well  as  patrons  are  addressed  in  the 
same  adulatory  terms  in  the  long  series  of  sonnets  before  Spenser's 
Faerie  Queene,  at  the  end  of  Chapman's  Iliad,  and  at  the  end  of  John 
Davies's  Microcosmos,  1603.  Other  addresses  to  patrons  and  patronesses 
are  scattered  through  collections  of  occasional  poems,  such  as  Ben  Jon- 
son's  Forest  and  Underwoods  and  Donne's  Poems.  Sonnets  to  men  are 
occasionally  interpolated  in  sonnet-sequences  in  honour  of  women. 
Sonnet  xi.  in  Drayton's  soimet-fiction  called  'Idea'  (in  1599  edition) 
seems  addressed  to  a  man,  in  much  the  same  manner  as  Shakespeare 
often  addressed  his  hero;  and  a  few  others  of  Drayton's  sonnets  are 
ambiguous  as  to  the  sex  of  their  subject.  John  Soothern's  eccentric  col- 
lection of  love-sonnets.  Pandora  (1584),  has  sonnets  dedicatory  to  the 
Earl  of  Oxford;  and  William  Smith  in  his  Chloris  (1596)  (a  sonnet-fiction 
of  the  conventional  kind)  in  two  prefatory  sonnets  and  in  No.  x\ii.  of 
the  substantive  collection  invokes  the  affectionate  notice  of  Edmund 
Spenser.  Only  one  English  contemporary  of  Shakespeare  published  a 
long  sequence  of  sonnets  addressed  to  a  man  who  does  not  prove  on  in- 
vestigation to  have  been  a  professional  patron.  In  1595  Richard  Barn- 
field  appended  to  his  poem  Cynthia  a  set  of  twenty  sonnets,  in  which  he 
feignedly  avowed  affection  for  a  youth  called  Ganymede.  Barnfield 
explained  that  he  was  fancifully  adapting  to  the  sonnet-form  the  second 
of  Virgil's  Eclogues,  in  which  the  shepherd  Corydon  apostrophises  the 
shepherd-boy  Alexis. 

^  Apologie  for  Poetrie  (1595),  ed.  Shuckburgh,  p.  62. 


2IO  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

vogue,  penned  many  sonnets  in  that  'liver  vein 'which 
was  especially  Calculated  to  flatter  the  ear  of  a  praise- 
loving  Maecenas  like  the  Earl  of  Southampton.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  beneath  all  the  conventional  adula- 
tion there  lay  a .  genuine  affection.  But  the  perfect 
illusion  of  passion  which  often  colours  Shakespeare's 
poetic  vows  of  friendship  may  well  be  fruit  of  his 
interpretation  of  the  common  usage  in  the  glow  of 
dramatic  instinct. 

Shakespeare  assured  his  friend  that  he  could  never 

grow  old  (civ.),  that  the  finest   types   of  beauty  and 

chivalry  in  mediaeval  romance  lived  again  in 

speare's       him  (cvi.),  that  absence  from  him  was  misery, 

assurances    ^nd  that  his  affectiou  was  unalterable.    Writ- 

of  affection.    .  .  ,  ,  ... 

mg  Without  concealment  m  their  own  names, 
many  other  poetic  clients  gave  their  Maecenases  the 
like  assurances,  crediting  them  with  every  perfection  of 
mind  and  body,  and  'placing'  them,  in  Sidney's  phrase, 
'with  Dante's  Beatrice.'  Matthew  Roydon  wrote  of 
his  patron,  Sir  Philip  Sidney : 

His  personage  seemed  most  divine, 
A  thousand  graces  one  might  count 
Upon  his  lovely  cheerful  eyne. 
To  heare  him  speak  and  sweetly  smile 
You  were  in  Paradise  the  while. 

Edmund  Spenser  in  a  fine  sonnet  told  his  patron,  Ad- 
miral Lord  Charles  Howard,  that  'his  good  personage 
and  noble  deeds'  made  him  the  pattern  to  the  present 
age  of  the  old  heroes  of  whom  'the  antique  poets'  were 
'wont  so  much  to  sing.'  This  compUment,  which 
Shakespeare  turns  to  splendid  account  in  Sonnet  cvi.,' 
recurs  with  especial  frequency  in  contemporary  sonnets 
of  adulation.  Ben  Jonson  apostrophised  the  Earl  of 
Desmond  as  'my  best-best  lov'd.'     Campion  told  Lord 

'  Cf .  Sonnet  lix. : 

Show  me  your  image  in  some  antique  book  .  .  . 

Oh  sure  I  am  the  wits  of  former  days 

To  subjects  worse  have  given  admiring  praise. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    2ll 

Walden,  the  Earl  of  Suffolk's  undistinguished  heir, 
that  although  his  muse  sought  to  express  his  love,  'the 
admired  virtues'  of  the  patron's  youth 

Bred  such  despairing  to  his  daunted  Muse 
That  it  could  scarcely  utter  naked  truth.' 

Yet  it  is  in  foreign  poetry  which  just  proceded  Shake- 
speare's era  that  the  English  dramatist's  plaintive  and 
yearning  language  is  most  closely  adumbrated.  ^^^^  ^^^ 
The  greatest  Italian  poet  of  the  era,  Tasso,  the  Duke 
not  merely  recorded  in  numerous  sonnets  his  °^^^"*''^- 
amorous  devotion  for  his  first  patron,  the  Duke  of 
Ferrara,  but  he  also  carefully  described  in  prose  the 
sentiments  which,  with  a  view  to  retaining  the  ducal 
favour,  he  sedulously  cultivated  and  poetised.  In  a 
long  prose  letter  to  a  later  friend  and  patron,  the  Duke 
of  Urbino,  he  wrote  of  his  attitude  of  mind  to  his  first 
patron  thus :  ^  '  I  confided  in  him,  not  as  we  hope  in 
men,  but  as  we  trust  in  God.  ...  It  appeared  tome, 
so  long  as  I  was  under  his  protection,  fortune  and  death 
had  no  power  over  me.  Burning  thus  with  devotion  to 
my  lord,  as  much  as  man  ever  did  with  love  to  his  mis- 
tress, I  became,  without  perceiving  it,  almost  an  idolater. 
I  continued  in  Rome  and  Ferrara  many  days  and  months 
in  the  same  attachment  and  faith.'  With  ;illuminating 
frankness  Tasso  added :  '  I  went  so  far  with  a  thousand 
acts  of  observance,  respect,  affection,  and  almost  adora- 
tion, that  at  last,  as  they  say  the  courser  grows  slow  by 
too  much  spurring,  so  his  [i.e.  the  patron's]  goodwill 
towards  me  slackened,  because  I  sought  it  too  ardently.' 

There  is  practical  identity  between  the  alternations 
of  feeling  which  find  touching  voice  in  many  of  the  son- 
nets  of   Shakespeare   and  those  which  colour   Tasso's 

1  Campion's  Poems,  ed.  Bullen,  pp.  148  seq.  Cf.  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets: 

0  how  I  faint  when  I  of  you  do  write  (Ixxx.  i). 
Finding  thy  worth  a  limit  past  my  praise  (Ixxxii.  6). 

See  also  Donne's  Poems  (in  Muses'  Library),  ii.  34. 
'  Tasso,  Opere,  Pisa,  1821-32,  vol.  xiii.  p.  298. 


212  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

picture  of  his  intercourse  with  his  Duke  of  Ferrara. 
Italian  and  English  poets  profess  for  a  man  a  loverlike 
'idolatry,'  although  Shakespeare  conventionally  warns 
his  'lord' :  'Let  not  my  love  be  called  idolatry'  (Sonnet 
cv.)-  Both  writers  attest  the  hopes  and  fears  which  his 
favour  evokes  in  them,  with  a  fervour  and  intensity  of 
emotion  which  it  was  only  in  the  power  of  great  poets 
to  feign. 

An  even  closer  parallel  in  both  sentiment  and  phrase- 
ology with  Shakespeare's  soimets  of  friendship  is  furnished 
TodeUe's  ^y  ^^  soimets  of  the  French  poet  Etienne 
sonnets  to  JodcUe,  whose  high  reputation  as  the  inventor 
his  patron.  ^^  French  classical  drama  did  not  obscure  his 
fame  as  a  lyrist.  Jodelle  was  well  known  in  both  capa- 
cities to  cultivated  Elizabethans.  The  suspicions  of 
atheism  under  which  he  laboured,  and  his  premature 
death  in  distressing  poverty  at  the  early  age  of  forty- 
one,  led  EngHsh  observers  of  the  day  to  hken  him  to 
'our  tragical  poet  Marlowe.'  ^  To  a  noble  patron, 
Comte  de  Fauquemberge  et  de  Courtenay,  Jodelle 
addressed  a  series  of  eight  sonnets  which  anticipate 
Shakespeare's  sonnets  at  every  turn.^  In  the  opening 
address  to  the  nobleman  Jodelle  speaks  of  his  desolation 
in  his  patron's  absence  which  no  crowded  company 
can  alleviate.  Yet  when  his  friend  is  absent,  the  French 
poet  yearningly  fancies  him  present  — 

Present,  absent,  je  pais  I'ame  a  toy  toute  deue. 
So  Shakespeare  wrote  to  his  hero : 

Thyself  away  art  present  still  with  me ; 

For  thou  not  further  than  my  thoughts  can  move  (dvii.  lo-ii). 

^  The  parallel  between  the  careers  of  Marlowe  and  Jodelle  first  ap- 
peared in  Thomas  Beard's  Theatre  of  God's  Judgements,  1597,  and  was 
repeated  by  Francis  Meres  next  year  in  his  Palladis  Tamia  (cf .  Frewk 
Renaissance  in  England,  430-1). 

^  These  were  first  published  with  a  long  collection  of  'amours'  chiefly 
in  sonnet  form,  in  1574.  Cf.  Jodelle,  (Euvres,  1870,  ed.  ii.  p.  I74' 
Throughout  these  soimets  Jodelle  addresses  his  lord  in  the  second  per- 
son singular,  as  Shakespeare  does  in  all  but  thirty-four  of  his  sonnets. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    213 

Jodelle  credits  his  patron  with  a  genius  which  puts 
labour  and  art  to  shame,  with  rank,  virtue,  wealth,  with 
intellectual  grace,  and  finally  with 

Une  bont^  qui  point  ne  change  ou  s'epouvante. 

Similarly  Shakespeare  commemorates  his  patron's 
'birth  or  wealth  or  wit'  (xxxvii.  5)  as  well  as  his  'bounty' 
(liii.  11)  and  his  'abundance'  (xxxvii.  11).  None  the 
less  the  French  poet,  echoing  the  classical  note,  avers 
that  the  greatest  joy  in  the  Count's  Kfe  is  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  S5anpathy  between  the  patron  and  his 
poetic  admirer,  which  guarantees  them  both  immortal- 
ity. Hotly  does  the  French  sonnetteer  protest  the 
eternal  constancy  of  his  affection.  His  spirit  droops 
when  the  noble  lord  leaves  him  to  go  hunting  or  shooting, 
and  he  then  finds  his  only  solace  in  writing  sonnets  in 
the  truant's  honour.  Shakespeare  in  his  sonnets,  it 
will  be  remembered,  did  no  less : 

Nor  dare  I  chide  the  world-without-end  hour 
Whilst  I,  my  sovereign,  watch  the  clock  for  you, 
Nor  thinik  the  bitterness  of  absence  sour 
When  you  have  bid  your  servant  once  adieu. 

avii.  S-8.) 

O  absence !  what  a  );orment  wouldst  thou  prove, 
Were  it  not  thy  sour  leisure  gave  sweet  leave 
To  entertain  the  time  with  thoughts  of  love. 

(xxxix.  g-ii.)^ 

Elsewhere  Jodelle  declares  that  he,  a  servant  {serf, 
serviteur),  has  passed  into  the  relation  of  a  beloved  and 
loving  friend.  The  master's  high  birth,  wealth,  and 
intellectual  endowments,  interpose  no  bar  to  the  force 
of  the  friendship.  The  great  friends  of  classical  antiq- 
uity, Pylades  and  Orestes,  Sdpio  and  Laelius,  and  the 

1  Cf .  also : 

Being  your  slave,  what  should  I  do  but  tend 
Upon  the  hours  and  times  of  your  desire? 

(Sonnet  Ivii.  1-2.) 

That  god  forbid  that  made  me  first  your  slave, 
I  should  in  thought  control  your  times  of  pleasure. 

(Sonnet  Iviii.  1-2.) 


214  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

rest,  lived  with  one  another  on  such  terms  of  perfect 
equaKty.    While  Jodelle  wrote  of  his  patron 

Et  si  Ion  dit  que  trop  par  ces  vers  je  me  vante, 
Cast  qu'estant  tien  je  veux  ie  vanter  en  mas  heurs, 

Shakespeare  greeted  his  'lord  of  love'  with  the  assurance 

'Tis  thee,  myself,  —  that  for  myself  I  praise. 

(Sonnet  Ixii.  13.) 

Finally  Jodelle  confesses  to  Shakespeare's  experience  of 
suffering,  and  grieves,  like  the  English  sonnetteer,  that 
he  was  the  victim  of  slander.  Although  Shakespeare's 
poetic  note  of  pathos  is  beyond  JodeUe's  range,  yet  the 
phase  of  sentiment  which  shapes  these  French  greetings 
of  a  patron  in  sonnet  form  is  rarely  distingtiishable  from 
that  of  Shakespeare's  sonnetteering  triumph. 

Some  dozen  poems  which  are  dispersed  through  Shake- 
speare's collection  at  irregular  intervals  detach  them- 
III  The  selves  in  point  of  theme  from  the  rest.  These 
sonnets  of  pieces  Combine  to  present  the  poet  and  the 
intrigue.  youth  in  relations  which  are  not  easy  at  a 
first  glance  to  reconcile  with  an  author's  ideaUsed  wor- 
ship of  a  patron.  The  poet's  friend,  we  are  here  told, 
yielded  to  the  seductions  of  the  poet's  mistress.  The 
woman  is  bitterly  denounced  for  her  treachery,  the 
youth  is  complacently  pardoned  amid  regretful  rebukes. 
The  poet  professes  to  be  torn  asunder  by  his  double 
affection  for  friend  and  mistress,  and  he  lays  the  blame 
for  the  crisis  on  the  woman's  malign  temperament.^ 

Two  loves  I  have  of  comfort  and  despair 

Which  like  two  spirits  do  suggest  {i.e.  tempt)  me  still : 

The  better  angel  is  a  man  right  fair. 

The  worser  spirit  a  woman  colour'd  ill.         (Sonnet  cxliv.) 

^  The  dozen  sonnets  fall  into  two  groups.  Six  of  them  —  xxxiii.-v., 
Ixix.  and  xcv.-vi.  —  reproach  the  youth  in  a  general  way  with  sensual 
excesses,  and  the  other  six  —  xl.-xUi.  cxxxii.-iii.  and  cxliv.  —  specifically 
point  to  the  poet's  traitorous  mistress  as  the  wilful  cause  of  the  youth's 
'fault.' ' 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    215 

The  traitress  is  'the  dark  lady'  of  the  Sonnets  of  con- 
ventional vituperation.  Whether  the  misguided  youth 
of  the  intrigue  is  to  be  identified  with  the  patron-friend 
of  the  other  sonnets  of  friendship  may  be  an  open  ques- 
tion. It  might  be  in  keeping  with  Southampton's 
sportive  temperament  for  him  to  accept  the  attentions 
of  a  Circe,  by  whose  fascination  his  poet  was  lured.  The 
sonnetteer's  sorrowful  condonation  of  the  young  man's 
offence  may  be  an  illustration,  drawn  from  life,  of  the 
strain  which  a  self-willed  patron  under  the  spell  of  the 
ethical  irregularities  of  the  Renaissance  laid  on  the  for- 
bearance of  a  poetic  protege. 

But  while  we  admit  that  some  strenuous  touches  in 
Shakespeare's  presentation  of  the  episode  may  weU  owe 
suggestion  either  to  autobiographic  experience  „, 

'I  ,       ,  4.-  i.    u  •       The  Con- 

or to  personal  observation,  we  must  bear  m  fictof 

mind  that  the  intrigue  of  the  'Sonnets'  in  its  l°.'^^^'l4 

,  .  *  ,  r   T>         .  fnendship. 

mam  phase  is  a  commonplace  01  Kenaissance 
romance,  and  that  Shakespeare  may  after  his  wont  be 
playing  a  variation  on  an  accepted  literary  theme  with 
the  slenderest  prompting  apart  from  his  sense  of  literary 
or  dramatic  effect.  Italian  poets  and  novelists  from  the 
fourteenth  century  onwards  habitually  brought  friend- 
ship and  love  into  rivalry  or  conflict.^  The  call  of  friend- 
ship often  demanded  the  sacrifice  of  love.  The  laws  of 
'sovereign  amity'  were  so  fantastically  interpreted  as 
frequently  to  require  a  lover,  at  whatever  cost  of  emo- 
tional suffering,  to  abandon  to  his  friend  the  woman 
who  excited  their  joint  adoration. 

The  Italian  novelist  Boccaccio  offered  the  era  of  the 
Renaissance  two  alternative  solutions  of  this  puzzling 
problem  and  both  long  enjoyed  authority  in  the  liter- 

'  Cf.  Petrarch's  sonnet  ccxxvii. 

'  Caritil,di  signore,  amor  di  donna 
Son  le'catene,  ove  con  multi  affanni_ 
Legato  son,  perch'io  stesso  mi  strinsi.' 

So  Beza's  Poemata,  1548,  Epigrammata,  xc. :   'De  sua  in  Candidam  et 
Audebertum  benevolentia.' 


2l6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

ary  world.  In  his  narrative  poem  of  'Teseide,'  Boc- 
caccio pictured  the  two  devoted  friends  Palamon  and 
Arcite  as  alienated  by  their  common  love  for 
fr^tmeit'  the  fair  EmiKa.  Their  rival  claims  to  the  lady's 
of  the  hand  are  decided  by  a  duel  in  which  Palamon 
'""^'  is  vanquished  although  he  is  not  mortally 
wounded.  But  just  after  his  victory  Arcite  is  fatally 
Palamon  injured  by  a  fall  from  his  horse.  In  his  dying 
and  Arcite.  momcnts  he  bestows  Emilia's  hand  on  his 
friend.  This  is  the  fable  which  Chaucer  retold  in  his 
'Knight's  Tale,'  and  Shakespeare  and  Fletcher,  accept- 
ing the  cue  of  an  earlier  Elizabethan  dramatist,  com- 
bined to  dramatise  it  in  'The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen.'' 
But  Boccaccio  also  devised  an  even  more  famous  pre- 
scription for  the  disorder  of  friends  caught  in  the  same 
toils  of  love.  In  the  'Decameron'  (Day  x..  Novel  8) 
Gesippo,  whose  friendship  with  Tito  has  the  classical 
perfection,  is  affianced  to  the  lady  Sophronia.  But 
Tito  and  Gesippo  soon  discovered  that  his  friend  is  like- 
Gesippo.  TffigQ  enslaved  by  the  lady's  beauty.  There- 
upon Gesippo,  in  the  contemporary  spirit  of  quixotiq 
chivalry,  contrives  that  Tito  shall,  by  a  trick  wMch  the 
lady  does  not  suspect,  take  his  place  at  the  marriage 
and  become  her  husband.^  In  the  sequel  Gesippo  is 
justly  punished  with  a  long  series  of  abject  misfortunes 
for  his  self-denying  wiles.  But  Tito,  whose  friendship 
is  immutable,  finally  restores  Gesippo's  fortunes  and 
gives  him  his  sister  in  marriage.'    The  chequered  ad- 

'  The  perfect  identity  which  is  inherent  in  friendship  of  the  Renais- 
sance type  finds  emphatic  expression  in  this  play.  Palamon  assures 
Arcite : 

We  are  an  endless  mine  to  one  another ; 

We're  one  another's  wife,  ever  begetting 

New  births  of  love ;  we're  father,  friends,  acquaintance ; 

We  are,  in  one  another,  families ; 

I  am  your  heir,  and  you  are  mine.     (n.  ii.  79-83.) 

*Into  two  plays,  All's  Well  and  Measure  for  Measure,  Shakespeare, 
true  to  the  traditions  of  the  Renaissance,  introduces  the  like  deception,  — 
on  the  part  of  Helena  in  the  former  piece  and  on  that  of  Mariana  in  the 
latter. 

'  The  first  outline  of  this  story  is  found  in  a  miscellany  of  the  twelfth 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    217 

ventures  of  these  devoted  friends  of  Italy  caught  the 
literary  sentiment  of  Tudor  England,  and  enjoyed  a 
wide  vogue  there  in  Shakespeare's  youth.' 

Shakespeare's  contemporary,  John  Lyly,  in  his  populaf 
romance  of  'Euphues,'  treated  the  theme  of  friendship 
in  competition  with  love  on  Boccaccio's  lines 
although   with   important   variations.    Lyly's  Euphues 
hero,  Euphues,  forms  a  rapturous  friendship,  ^ig^^ug 
which  the  author  likens  to  that  of  Tito  and 
Gesippo,   with   a   young   man   called   Philautus.    The 
latter  courts  the  fair  but  fickle  Lucetta,  and  he  is  soon 
supplanted  in  her  good  graces  by  his  'shadow'  Euphues. 
Less  amiable  than  Boccaccio's  Gesippo,  Lyly's  Philau- 
tus denounces,  with  all  the  fervour  of  Shakespeare's 
vituperative    sonnets,    both    man    and    Woman.    But 
Lucetta  soon  transfers  her  attentions  to  a  new  suitor, 

century,  De  Clericali  disciplina  by  Petrus  Alfonsus,  and  thence  found, 
its  way  into  the  Gesta  Romanorum  (No.  171),  the  most  popular  story 
book  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Boccaccio's  tale  enjoyed  much  vogue  in  a 
Latin  version  in  the  fifteenth  century  by  Filippo  Beroaldo.  This  was 
rendered  back  into  Italian  by  Bandello  in  1509  and  was  turned  into 
French  verse  by  Franpois  Habert  in  1551.  Early  in  the  seventeenth 
century  the  French  dramatist  Alexandre  Hardy  dramatised  the  story  as 
Gesippe  ou  les  deux  Amis. 

'  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  worked  a  long  rendering  of  Boccaccio's  story  into 
his  fojmal  treatise  on  the  culture  of  Tudor  youth  which  he  called  The 
Governour  (1531),  see  Croft's  edition,  ii.  132  seq.,  while  two  English 
poetasters  contributed  independent  poetic  versions  to  early  Tudor  litera- 
ture. The  later  of  these,  which  was  issued  in  1562,  is  entitled  The  most 
wonderful  and  pleasaunt  History  of  Tittts  and  Gisippus,  whereby  is  fully 
declared  the  figure  of  perfect  frendshyp,  drawen  into  English  metre.  By 
Edward  Lewicke,  1562.  Robert  Greene  frequently  cites  the  tale  of  Tito 
and  Gesippo  as  an  example  of  perfect  friendship  (cf .  Works,  ed.  Grosart, 
iv.  211,  vii.  243),  and  the  story  is  the  theme  of  the  popular  Elizabethan 
ballad  'Alphonso  and  Ganselo'  (Sievers,  Thomas  Deloney,  Berlin,  1904, 
pp.  83  seq.).  Twice  was  the  tale  dramatised  in  the  infancy  of  Tudor 
drama,  once  in  Latin  by  a  good  scholar  and  schoolmaster  Ralph  Rad- 
cliffe  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI,  and  again  in  English  about  1576  by  an 
anonymous  pen.  Queen  Elizabeth  directed  the  English  play — The 
Historic  of  Titus  and  Gisippus  —  to  be  acted  before  her  on  the  night  of 
Shrove  Tuesday,  February  19,  1576-7.  Neither  the  Latin  nor  the  Eng- 
lish play  survives.  Two  plays  by  Richard  Edwards  (d.  1566)  on  like 
themes  of  friendship  —  Damon  and  Pythias  and  Palemon  and  Arcite  — 
were  acted  before  the  Queen,  in  1564  and  1566  respectively.  Only 
Damon  and  Pythias  is  extant. 


2l8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Curio,  and  Euphues  and  Philautus  renew  _  their  in- 
terrupted ties  of  mutual  devotion  in  their  former 
strength.  Lyly's  Philautus,  his  Euphues,  and  his 
Lucetta,  are,  before  the  advent  of  Curio,  in  the  precise 
situation  with  which  Shakespeare's  sonnet-intrigue 
credits  the  poet,  the  friend,  and  the  lady. 

Yet  another  phase  of  the  competing  calls  of  love  and 
friendship  is  portrayed  by  the  French  poet,  Clement 
Clement  Marot.  He  personally  claims  the  experience 
Marot's  wMch  Shakespeare  in  his  intrigue  assigns  to 
testimony,  j^j^  friend.  Marot  relates  how  he  was  solicited 
in  love  by  his  comrade's  mistress,  and  in  a  poetic  ad- 
dress, 'A  celle  qui  souhaita  Marot  aussi  amoureux 
d'elle  qu'un  sien  Amy'  warns  her  of  the  crime  against 
friendship  to  which  she  prompts  him.  Less  complacent 
than  Shakespeare's  'friend,'  Marot  rejects  the  Siren's 
invitation  on  the  ground  that  he  has  only  half  a  heart 
to  offer  her,  the  other  half  being  absorbed  by  friendship.' 

Before  the  sonnets  were  penned,  Shakespeare  himself 
too,  in  the  youthful  comedy  'The  Two  Gentlemen  of 
, .  Verona,'  treated  friendship's  struggle  with 
of  the"^'°  love  in  the  exotic  light  which  the  Renaissance 
^TwoGen-  sanctioned.  In  'The  Two  Gentlemen,'  when 
Valentine  learns  of  his  friend  Proteus '  infatua- 
tion for  his  own  lady-love  Silvia,  he,  like  Gesippo  in 
Boccaccio's  tale,  resigns  the  girl  to  his  supplanter. 
Valentine's  unworthy  surrender  is  frustrated  by  the 
potent  appeal  of  Proteus'  own  forsaken  mistress  Julia. 
But  the  episode  shows  that  the  issue  at  stake  in  the 
sonnets'  tale  of  intrigue  already  fell  within  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  scrutiny. 

Shakespeare  would  have  been  conforming  to  his 
wonted  dramatic  practice  had  he  adapted  his  tale  of 
intrigue  in  the  '  Sonnets '  from  the  stock  theme  of  con- 
temporary romance.    Yet  a  piece  of  external  evidence 

^  Marot's  CEuvres,  1565,  p.  437.  On  Marot's  verse  loans  were  freely 
levied  by  Edmund  Spenser  and  other  Elizabethan  poets.  See  Frauh 
Renaissance  in  England,  109  seq. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    219 

suggests  that  in  some  degree  fact  mingled  with  fiction, 
truth  with  make-believe,  earnestness  with  jest 
in    Shakespeare's    poetic  presentation  of  the  hoodo/a 
clash  between  friendship  and  love,^  and  that  p^sonai 
while  the  poet  knew  something  at  first  hand  of 
the  disloyalty  of  mistress  and  friend,  he  recovered  his 
composure  as  quickly  and  completely  as  did  External 
Lyly's  romantic  hero  Philautus  under  a  hke  evidence, 
trial.    A  literary  comrade  obtained  a  license  on  Sep- 
tember 3,  1594,  for  the  pubHcation  of  a  poem  'wiiioWe 
called  'Willobie  his  Avisa,  or  the  True  Picture  WsAvisa.' 
of  a  Modest  Maid  and  of  a  Chaste  and  Constant  Wife.'  ^ 
In  this  volume,  which  mainly  consists  of  seventy-two 
cantos  in  varjdng  numbers  of  six-Hne  stanzas,  the  chaste 
heroine,  Avisa,  holds  converse  —  in  the  opening  section 
as  a  maid,  and  in  the  later  section  as  a  wife  —  with  a 
series  of  passionate  adorers.     In  every  case  she  firmly 
repulses  their  advances.     Midway  through  the  book  its 
alleged  author  —  Henry  Willobie  ^-  is  introduced  in  his 
own  person  as  an  ardent  admirer,  and  the  last  twenty- 
nine  of  the  cantos  rehearse  his  woes  and  Avisa's  obduracy. 
To  this  section  there  is  prefixed  an  argument  in  prose 

^  The  closest  parallel  to  the  Shakespearean  situation  (see  esp.  Sonnet 
xlii.)  is  that  seriously  reported  by  the  seventeenth-century  French  writer, 
Saint  Evremond,  who  complaining  of  a  close  friend's  relations  with  his 
mistress  (apparently  la  Comtesse  d'Olonne),  wrote  thus  to  her  in  1654 
of  his  twofold  affection  for  her  and  for  his  comrade:  'Apprenez-moi 
centre  qui  je  me  dois  ficher  d'avantage,  ou  contre  lui  qui  m'enlSve  une 
maltresse,  ou  contre  vous,  qui  me  volez  uu  ami.  .  .  .  J'ai  trop  de  pas- 
sion pour  donner  rien  au  ressentiment ;  ma  tendresse  I'importera  tou- 
jours  sur  vos  outrages.  J'aime  la  perfide  [i.e.  the  mistress],  j'aime 
I'infidye  [i.e.  the  friend].'  (CEuvres  MiUes  de  Saint  Evremond,  ed. 
Giraud,  1865,  iii.  5.) 

'  The  edition  of  1594  was  reprinted  by  Dr.  Grosart  in  his  Occasional 
Issues,  1880,  and  in  1904  by  Mr.  Charles  Hughes,  who  brings  new  argu- 
ments to  justify  association  of  the  book  with  Shakespeare's  biography. 
Extracts  from  the  poem  appear  in  the  New  Shakspere  Society's  Allusion 
Books,  i.  169  seq.  In  Mistress  D'Avenant  the  dark  lady  of  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets  (1913),  Mr.  Arthur  Acheson  again  reprints  Willobie  his  Avisa 
by  way  of  supporting  a  fanciful  theory  which  would  make  the  'dark 
lady'  of  the  sonnets  the  heroine  of  that  poem,, and  would  identify  her 
with  the  wife  of  the  Oxford  innkeeper  who  was  mother  of  Sir  William 
D'Avenant  (see  p.  449). 


220  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

(canto  xliv.)-  It  is  there  stated  that  Willobie,  'being 
suddenly  affected  with  the  contagion  of  a  fantastical 
wit  at  the  first  sight  of  Avisa,  pineth  a  while  in  secret 
grief.  At  length,  not  able  any  longer  to  endure  the 
burning  heat  of  so  fervent  a  humour,  [he]  bewrayeth 
the  secrecy  of  his  disease  unto  his  famihar  friend  W.  S., 
who  not  long  before  had  tried  the  courtesy  of  the  like  passion 
and  was  now  newly  recovered  of  the  like  infection.  Yet 
[W.  S.],  finding  his  friend  let  blood  in  the  same  vein, 
took  pleasure  for  a  time  to  see  him  bleed,  and  instead 
of  stopping  the  issue,  he  enlargeth  the  wound  with  the 
sharp  razor  of  wilHng  conceit,'  encouraging  Willobie  to 
believe  that  Avisa  would  ultimately  yield  'with  pains, 
diligence,  and  some  cost  in  time.'  'The  miserable  com- 
forter' [W.  S.],  the  narrative  continues,  was  moved  to 
comfort  his  friend  'with  an  impossibihty,'  for  one  of  two 
reasons.  Either  he  'now  would  secretly  laugh  at  his 
friend's  folly'  because  he  'had  given  occasion  not  long 
before  unto  others  to  laugh  at  his  own.'  Or  'he  would 
see  whether  another  could  play  his  part  better  than 
himself,  and,  in  viewing  after  the  course  of  this  loving 
comedy,'  would  'see  whether  it  would  sort  to  a  happier 
end  for  this  new  actor  than  it  did  for  the  old  player. 
But  at  length  this  comedy  was  like  to  have  grown  to  a 
tragedy  by  the  weak  and  feeble  estate  that  H.  W.  was 
brought  unto,'  owing  to  Avisa's  unrelenting  temper. 
Happily,  'time  and  necessity'  effected  a  cure.^  In 
two  succeeding  cantos  in  verse  (xlv.  and  xlvii.)  W.  S. 
is  introduced  in  dialogue  with  Willobie,  and  he  gives 
.him,  in  oratio  recta,  Ught-hearted  and  cynical  counsel. 
Identity  of  initials,  on  which  the  theory  of  Shake- 
speare's identity  with  H.  W.'s  unfeeling  adviser  mainly 
rests,  is  not  a  strong  foundation,^  and  it  is  to  be  re- 

^  The  narrator  ends  by  claiming  for  his  'discourse'  that  in  it  'is  lively 
represented  the  unruly  rage  of  unbridled  fancy,  having  the  reins  to  rove 
at  liberty,  with  the  divers  and  sundry  changes  of  affections  and  tempta- 
tions, virhich  Will,  set  loose  from  Reason,  can  devise.'  {Willobie  his 
Avisa,  ed.  C.  Hughes,  p.  41.) 

^  W.  S.  are  common  initials,  and  at  least  two  authors  bearing  them 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    221 

membered  that  some  attempt  was  made  by  a  supposi- 
■  titious  editor  of  the  poem  to  question  the  veracity 
of  the  story  of  the  heroine  'Avisa'  and  her  lovers.  In 
a  pr^ace  signed  Hadrian  Dorell,  the  writer,  after  men- 
tioning that  the  alleged  author  (Willobie)  was  dead, 
enigmatically  discusses  whether  or  no  the  work  be  'a 
poetical  fiction.'  In  a  new  edition  of  1596  the  same 
editor  decides  the  point  in  the  affirmative.  But  Dorell's 
protestations  scarcely  carry  conviction,  and  suggest  an 
intention  to  put  his  readers  off  the  true  scent.  In  any 
case  the  curious  episode  of  'W.  S.'  is  left  without  com- 
ment. The  mention  of  'W.  S.'  as  'the  old  player,' 
and  the  employment  of  theatrical  imagery  in  discussing 
his  relations  with  Willobie,  must  be  coupled  with  the 
fact  that  Shakespeare,  at  a  date  when  mentions  of  him 
in  print  were  rare,  was  greeted  by  name  as  the  author  of 
'Lucrece'  ('And  Shakespeare  paints  poore  Lucrece  rape') 
in  some  prefatory  verses  to  the  volume.  From  such 
considerations  the  theory  of  Shakespeare's  identity  with 
'W.  S.,'WiUobie's  acquaintance,  acquires  substance.  If 
we  agree  that  it  was  Shakespeare  who  took  a  roguish 
delight  in  watching  his  friend  Willobie  suffer  the  dis- 
dain of  ' chaste  Avisa '  because  he  had  'newly  recovered' 
from  the  effects  of  a  like  experience,  it  follows  that  the 
soimets'  tale  of  the  theft  of  the  poet's  mistress  by  his 
friend  is  no  cry  of  despair  springing,  as  is  often 
represented,  from  the  depths  of  the  poet's  soul.  The 
allusions  that  were  presumably  made  to  the  episode  by 
the  author  of  'Avisa'  remove  it,  in  fact,  from  the  confines 
of  tragedy  and  bring  it  nearer  those  of  comedy. 

The  story  of  intrigue  which  is  interpolated  in  the 
Sonnets  has  much  interest  for  the  student  of  psychology 

made  some  reputation  in  Shakespeare's  day.  There  was  a  dramatist 
named  Wentworth  Smith  (see  p.  260  ».  jw/ra),  and  there  was  a  William 
Smith  who  published  a  volume  of  lovelorn  sonnets  called  Chloris  in  1595. 
A  specious  argument  might  possibly  be  devised  in  favour  of  the  latter's 
identity  with  WiUobie's  counsellor.  But  Shakespeare,  of  the  two,  has 
the  better  claim. 


222  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

and  for  the  literary  historian,  but  the  precise  propor- 
tion in  which  it  mingles  elements  of  fact  and  fiction' 

does  not  materially  affect  the  general  inter- 
references  prctation  of  the  main  series  of  the  ppems. 
to  South-  The  trend  of  the  story  is  not  out  of  keeping 
the'sonnets  with  the  somewhat  complex  conditions  of  Eliza- 
oHriend-     bethan  friendship.     The  vocabulary  in  which 

professions  of  EUzabethan  friendship  were 
phrased  justify,  as  we  have  seen,  the  inference  that 
Shakespeare's  only  Uterary  patron,  the  Earl  of  Southamp- 
ton, was  the  hero  of  the  greater  number  of  the  sonnets. 
That  conclusion  is  corroborated  by  such  definite  personal 
traits  as  can  be  deduced  from  the  shadowy  eulogies  in 
those  poems  of  the  youth's  gifts  and  graces.  In  real 
fife  beauty,  birth,  wealth,  and  wit  sat  'crowned'  in  the 
Earl,  whom  poets  acclaimed  the  handsomest  of  Eliza- 
bethan courtiers.  Southampton  has  left  in  his  correspond- 
ence ample  proofs  of  his  hterary  learning  and  taste, 
and,  hke  the  hero  of  the  sonnets,  might  justly  be  de- 
clared to  be  'as  fair  in  knowledge  as  in  hue.'  The  open- 
ing sequence  of  seventeen  sonnets,  in  which  a  youth  is 
admonished  to  marry  and  beget  a  son  so  that  'his  fair 
house'  may  not  fall  into  decay,  was  appropriately  ad- 
dressed to  a  young  peer  like  Southampton,  who  was  as 
yet  immarried,  had  vast  possessions,  and  was  the  sole 
male  representative  of  his  family.  The  sonnetteer's 
exclamation,  'You  had  a  father,  let  your  son  say  so,' 
had  pertinence  to  Southampton  at  any  period  between 
his  father's  death  in  his  boyhood  and  the  close  of  his 
bachelorhood  in  1598.  To  no  other  peer  of  the  day  do 
the  words  seem  to  be  exactly  applicable.  The  'lasciv- 
ious comment'  on  his  'wanton  sport'  which  pursues  the 
young  friend  through  the  Sonnets,  and  adds  point  to 
the  picture  of  his  fascinating  youth  and  beauty,  asso- 
ciates itself  with  the  reputation  for  sensual  indulgence 
that  Southampton  acquired  both  at  Court  and,  accord- 
ing to  Nashe,  among  men  of  letters.^ 

^  See  p.  664,  note  1. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    223 

There  is  no  force  in  the  objection  that  the  young  man 
of  the  sonnets  of  'friendship'  must  have  been  another 
than  Southampton  because  the  terms  in  Hisyouth- 
which  he  is  often  addressed  imply  extreme  fulness, 
youth.^  The  young  man  had  obviously  reached  man- 
hood, and  Southampton  was  under  twenty-one  in  1594, 
when  we  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  large 
majority  of  the  sonnets  was  in  course  of  composition.  In 
Sonnet  civ.  Shakespeare  notes  that  the  first  meeting 
between  him  and  his  friend  took  place  three  years  be- 
fore that  poem  was  written,  so  that,  if  the  words  are  to 
be  taken  Uterally,  the  poet  may  have  at  times  embodied 
reminiscences  of  Southampton  when  he  was  only  seven- 
teen or  eighteen.^  But  Shakespeare,  already  worn  in 
worldly  experience,  passed  his  thirtieth  birthday  in 
1594,  and  he  probalDly  tended,  when  on  the  threshold  of 
middle  life,  to  exaggerate  the  youthfulness  of  the  noble- 
man almost  ten  years  his  junior,  who  even  later  im- 
pressed his  acquaintances  by  his  bo3dsh  appearance  and 
disposition.'  '  Young '  was  the  epithet  invariably  ap- 
plied to  Southampton  by  all  who  knew  anything  of  him 
even  when  he  was  twenty-eight.  In  1601  Sir  Robert 
Cecil  referred  to  him  as  the  'poor  young  Earl.' 

But  the  most  striking  evidence  of  the  identity  of  the 
friend  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  with  Southampton  is 
found  in  the  likeness  of  feature  and  complexion  which 
characterises  the  poet's  description  of  the  youth's  out- 

1  This  objection  is  chiefly  taken  by  those  who  unjustifiably  assign  the 
composition  of  the  sonnets  to  a  date  approximating  to  1609,  the  year  of 
their  publication. 

*  Three  years  was  the  conventional  period  which  sonnetteers  allotted 
to  the  development  of  their  passion.  Cf.  Ronsard,  Sonnets  pour  Helene 
(No.  xiv.),  beginning:  'Trois  ans  sont  ja  passez  que  ton  oeil  me  tient 
pris.'    See  French  Renaissance  in  England,  p.  267. 

'  Octavius  Cffisar  at  thirty-two  is  described  by  Mark  Antony  after 
the  battle  of  Actium  as  the  'boy  Caesar'  who  'wears  the  rose  of  youth' 
{Antony  and  Cleopatra,  ni.  ii.  17  seq.).  Spenser  in  his  Astrophel  apostro- 
phises Sir  Philip  Sidney  on  his  death,  near  the  close  of  his  thirty-second 
year,  as  'oh  wretched  boy'  (1.  133)  and  'luckless  boy'  (1.  142).  Con- 
versely it  was  a  recognised  convention  among  sonnetteers  to  exaggerate 
their  own  age.     See  p.  156,  n.  i. 


224  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

ward  appearance  and  tlie  extant  pictures  of  Southai^ 
ton  as  a  young  man.  Shakespeare's  many,  refereiices 
Theevi-  ^^  ^^  youth's  'painted  counterfeit'  (xvi.  xxiv. 
denceof  xlvii.  Ixvii.)  suggest  that  his  hero  often  sat.  for 
portraits.  ^^  portrait.  Southampton's  countenance" sur- 
vives in  probably  more  canvases  than  that  of  any  of  his 
contemporaries.  At  least  fifteen  extant  portraits;  have 
been,  identified  on  good  authority  —  ten  paintings^  i  three 
miniatures  (two  by  Peter  Oliver  and  one  byJ  Isaac 
Oliver),  and  two  contemporary  prints.^  Most  of  these, 
it  is  true,  portray  their  subject  in  middle  age,  when  the 
roses  of  youth  had  faded,  and  they  contribute  nothin'^  to 
the  present  argument.  But  the  two  portraits,  that  are 
now  at  Welbeck,  the  property  of  the  Duke  of  Portland, 
give  all  the  information  that  can  be  desired  of  Southamp- 
ton's aspect  'in  his  youthful  morn.'^  One  of  these 
pictures  represents  the  Pari  at  twenty-one,  and  the 
other  at  twenty-five  or  twenty-six.  The  earlier  por- 
trait, which  is  reproduced  on  the  opposite  page,  shows  a 

^  Two  portraits,  representing  the  Earl  in  early  manhood,  are  jat  Wel- 
beck Abbey,  and  are  described  above.  .  Of  the  remaining  eight  paintings 
two  have  been  assigned  to  Van  Soiner,  and  represent  tiieEarl  in  early 
middle  age;  one,  a  full-length  in  drab  doublet  and  hose,  is  in  thp  Shake- 
speare Memorial  Gallery  at  Stratford-on-Avon;  the  other,  a  half-length, 
a  charming  picture  formerly  belonging  to  the  late  Sir  James  Knowles, 
and  now  to  Mrs.  Holman  Hunt,  is  more  probably  by  Mireveldt.^  That 
artist  certainly  painted  the  Earl  several  times  at  a  later  period  of -his 
career;  portraits  by  Mireveldt  are  now  at  Wobum  Abbey  (the  propeirty 
of  the  Duke  of  Bedford),  at  Althorpe,  and  at  the  Nations^  Portrait 
Gallery.  A  fifth  picture,  assigned  to  Mytens,  belongs  to  Viscount 
Powerscourt;  a.  sixth,  by  an  unknown  artist,  belongs  to  Mr.  Wingfield 
Digby,  and  the  seventh  (in  armour)  is  in  the  Master's  Lodge  at  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge^  where  Southampton  was  educatedi^  The 
miniature  by  Isaac  Oliver,  which' also  represents  Southampton  in  late 
life,  was  formerly  in  Dr.  Lumsden  Propert's  collection.  It  now  belongs 
to  a  collector  at  Hamburg.  The  two  miniatures  assigned  to  Peter  Oliver 
belonged  respectively  to  Mr.  Jefifery  Whitehead  and  Sir  Francis  Cook, 
Bt.  '  (Cf.  Catalogue  6f' Exhibition  of  Portrait  Miniatures  at  the  Burling- 
ton Fine  Arts  Club,  London,  1889;  pp.  32,  71,  100.)  In  all  the  best 
preserved  of  these  portraits  the  eyes  are  blue  and  the  hair  a  dark  shade 
of  auburn.  Among  the  middle-Ufe  portraits  Southampton  appears  to 
best  advantage  in  tiie  one  now;  the  property  of  Mrs.  Holman  Hunt. 

^  I  describe  these  pictures  from  a  personal  inspection  of  them  which 
the  Duke  kindly  permitted  me  to  make. 


dTlenru^  Cl/riO'L 


aa  a  uouag,  miLft, 


auovjm. 


iroTTL  in.e  crriglriaC  nictare  at  ^TV-eJJM&k- 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    22$ 

young  man  resplendently  attired.  His  doublet  is  of 
white  satin ;  a  broad  collar,  edged  with  lace,  half  covers 
a  pointed  gorget  of  red  leather,  embroidered  with  silver 
thread;  the  white  trunks  and  knee-breeches  are  laced 
with  gold ;  the  sword-belt,  embroidered  in  red  and  gold, 
is  decorated  at  intervals  with  white  silk  bows;  the 
hilt  of  the  rapier  is  overlaid  with  gold ;  purple  garters, 
embroidered  in  silver  thread,  fasten  the  white  stockings 
below  the  knee.  Light  body  armour,  richly  dama- 
scened, lies  on  the  ground  to  the  right  of  the  figure; 
and  a  white-plumed  helmet  stands  to  the  left  on  a  table 
covered  with  a  cloth  of  purple  velvet  embroidered  in 
gold.  Such  gorgeous  raiment  suggests  that  its  wearer 
bestowed  much  attention  on  his  personal  equipment. 
But  the  head  is  more  interesting  than  the  body.  The 
eyes  are  blue,  the  cheeks  pink,  the  complexion  clear, 
and  the  expression  sedate ;  rings  are  in  the  ears ;  beard 
and  moustache  are  at  an  incipient  stage,  and  are  of  the 
same  bright  auburn  hue  as  the  hair  in  a  picture  of 
Southampton's  mother  that  is  also  at  Welbeck.^  But, 
however  scanty  is  the  down  on  the  youth's  cheek,  the 
hair  on  his  head  is  luxuriant.  It  is  worn  very  long,  and 
falls  over  and  below  the  shoulder.  The  colour  is  now  of 
walnut,  but  was  originally  of  lighter  tint. 

The  portrait  depicting  Southampton  five  or  six  years 
later  shows  him  in  prison,  to  which  he  was  committed 
after  his  secret  marriage  in  1598.  A  cat  and  a  book  in  a 
jewelled  binding  are  on  a  desk  at  his  right  hand.  Here 
the  hair  falls  over  both  his  shoulders  in  even  greater 
profusion,  and  is  distinctly  blonde.  The  beard  and  thin 
upturned  moustache  are  of  brighter  auburn  and  are  fuller 
than  before,  although  still  slight.  The  blue  eyes  and 
colouring  of  the  cheeks  show  signs  of  ill  health,  but  differ 
little  from  those  features  in  the  earlier  portrait. 

From  either  of  the  two  Welbeck  portraits  of  South- 

'  Cf.  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  iii. : 

Thou  art  thy  mother's  glass,  and  she  in  thee 
Calls  back  the  lovely  AprU  of  her  prime. 


226  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ampton  might  Shakespeare  have  drawn  his  picture  of 
the  youth  in  the  'Sonnets.'  Many  times  does  he  tell  us 
that  the  youth  is  'fair'  in  complexion,  and  that  his  eyes 
are  'fair.'  In  Sonnet  Ixviii.,  when  he  points  to  the 
youth's  face  as  a  map  of  what  beauty  was  'without  all 
ornament,  itself  and  true'  —  before  fashion  sanctioned 
the  use  of  artificial  'golden  tresses' — ^  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  he  had  in  mind  the  wealth  of  locks  that 
fell  about  Southampton's  neck.^ 

A  few  only  of  the  sonnets  that  Shakespeare  addressed 
to  the  youth  can  be  allotted  to  a  date  which  is  very  dis- 
tant from  1594;    only  two  bear  unmistakable 
cvSrthe      signs  of  much  later  composition.     In  Sonnet 
last  of  the    j^^.  the  poet  no  longer  credits  his  hero  with 

S6ri6S 

juvenile  wantonness,  but  with  a  'pure,  un- 
stained prime,'  which  has  'passed  by  the  ambush  of 
young  days.'  Sonnet  cvii.,  apparently  the  last  of  the 
series,  was  penned  long  after  the  mass  of  its  companions, 
for  it  makes  references  that  cannot  be  ignored  to  three 
events  that  took  place  in  1603  —  to  Queen  Elizabeth's 
death,  to  the  accession  of  James  I,  and  to  the  release  of 
the  Earl  of  Southampton,  who  was  convicted  in  1601  of 
compHcity  in  the  rebelUon  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  had 
since  that  year  been  in  prison  in  the  Tower  of  London. 
The  first  two  events  are  thus  described : 

The  mortal  moon  hath  her  eclipse  endured 
And  the  sad  augurs  mode  their  own  presage ; 
Incertainties  now  crown  themselves  assured 
And  peace  proclaims  olives  of  endless  age. 

It  is  in  almost  identical  phrase'  that  every  pen  in  the 
spring  of  1603  was  fehcitatingthe  nation  on  the  unexpected 

^  Southampton's  singularly  long  hair  procured  him  at  times  unwelcome 
attentions.  When,  in  January  1598,  he  struck  Ambrose  Willoughby, 
an  esquire  of  the  body,  for  asking  him  to  break  oflE,  owing  ^o  the  late- 
ness of  the  hour,  a  game  of  primero  that  he  was  playing  in  the  royal 
chamber  at  Whitehall,  the  esquire  Willoughby  is  stated  to  have  retaliated 
by  'pulling  off  some  of  the  Earl's  locks.'  On  the  incident  being  reported 
to  the  Queen,  she  'gave  Willoughby  thanks  for  what  he  did,  in  the 
presence'  (Sydney  Papers,  ii.  83). 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    227 

turn  of  events,  by  which  Elizabeth's  crown  had  passed, 
without  civil  war,  to  the  Scottish  King,  and  thus  the 
revolution  that  had  been  foretold  as  the  inevi-   ,„   .     , 

,  ,  '  1       -1  ,  .  Allusion  to 

table  consequence  of  Elizabeth  s  demise  was  Elizabeth's 
happily  averted.  Cynthia  (i.e.  the  moon)  was  '^^^*' 
the  Queen's  recognised  poetic  appellation.  It  is  thus 
that  she  figures  in  the  verse  of  Barnfield,  Spenser,  FuLke 
Greyille,  and  Ralegh,  and  her  elegists  involuntarily  fol- 
lowed the  same  fashion.  'Fair  Cynthia's  dead'  sang 
one. 

Luna's  extinct;  and  now  beholde  the  sunne 
Whose  beames  soake  up  the  moysture  of  all  teares, 

wrote  Henry  Petowe  in  his  'A  Fewe  Aprill  Drops  Show- 
ered on  the  Hearse  of  Dead  Eliza,'  1603.  There  was 
hardly  a  verse-writer  who  mourned  her  loss  that  did 
not  typify  it,  moreover,  as  the  eclipse  of  a  heavenly  body. 
One  poet  asserted  that  death '  veiled  her  glory  in  a  cloud 
of  night.'  ■  Another  argued:  'Naught  can  eclipse  her 
light,  but  that  her  star  will  shine  in  darkest  night.' 
A  third  varied  the  formula  thus : 

When  winter  had  cast  oflE  her  weed 

Our  sun  eclipsed  did  set.    Oh !  Ught  most  fair.* 

At  the  same  time  James  was  constantly  said  to  have 
entered  on  his  inheritance  'not  with  an  olive  branch  in 
his  hand,  but  with  a  whole  forest  of  oUves  round  about 
him,  for  he  brought  not  peace  to  this  kingdom  alone' 
but  to  all  Europe.^ 

'The  drops  of  this  most  balmy  time,'  in  this  same 
Sonnet  cvii.,  is  an  echo  of  another  current  strain  of  fancy. 
James  came  to  England  in  a  springtide  of  Allusions  to 
rarely  rivalled  clemency,  which  was  reckoned  Southamp- 
of  the  happiest  augury.  'AH  things  look  1^56 from 
fresh,'  one  poet  sang,  'to  greet  his  excellence.'  prison- 
'The  air,  the  seasons,  and  the  earth'  were  represented 

*  These  quotations  are  from  Sorrowes  Joy,  a  collection  of  elegies  on 
Queen  Elizabeth  by  Cambridge  writers  (Cambridge,  1603),  and  from 
Chettle's  England's  Mourning  Garment  (London,  1603). 

'  Gervase  Markham's  Honour  in  her  Perfection,  1624. 


228  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

as  in  sympathy  with  the  general  joy  in  '  this  sweetest  of 
all  sweet  springs.'  One  source  of  grief  alone  was  acknow- 
ledged :  Southampton  was  still  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower, 
'  supposed  as  forfeit  to  a  confined  doom.'  AU  men,  wrote 
Manningham,  the  diarist,  on  the  day  following  the 
Queen's  death,  wished  him  at  liberty."-  The  wish  was 
fulfilled  quickly.  On  April  lo,  1603,  his  prison  gates 
were  opened  by '  a  warrant  from  the  King.'  So  bountiful 
a  beginning  of  the  new  era,  wrote  John  Chamberlain  to 
Dudley  Carleton  two  days  later,  'raised  all  men's  spir- 
its ..  .  and  the  very  poets  with  their  idle  pamphlets 
promised  themselves  great  things.^  Samuel  Daniel  and 
John  Davies  celebrated  Southampton's  release  in  buoy- 
ant verse.'  It  is  improbable  that  Shakespeare  remained 
silent.  'My  love  looks  fresh,'  he  wrote  in  the  concluding 
Unes  of  sonnet  cvii.  and  he  repeated  the  conventional 
promise  that  he  had  so  often  made  before,  that  his  friend 
should  live  in  his  'poor  rhyme,'  'when  tyrants'  crests 
and  tombs  of  brass  are  spent.'  It  is  impossible  to  resist 
the  inference  that  Shakespeare  thus  saluted  his  patron 
on  the  close  of  his  days  of  tribulation.  Shakespeare's 
genius  had  then  won  for  him  a  pubHc  reputation  that 
rendered  him  independent  of  any  private  patron's  favour, 
and  he  made  no  further  reference  in  his  writings  to  the 
patronage  that  Southampton  had  extended  to  him  in 
earher  years.  But  the  terms  in  which  he  greeted  his 
former  protector  for  the  last  time  in  verse  justify  the 
behef  that,  during  his  remaining  thirteen  years  of  life, 
the  poet  cultivated  friendly  relations  with  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,,  and  was  mindful  to  the  last  of  the  en- 
couragement that  the  young  peer  offered  him  while  he 
was  still  on  the  threshold  of  the  temple  of  fame. 

The  processes  of  construction  which  are  discernible 
in  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  are  thus  seen  to  be  identical 
with  those  that  are  apparent  in  the  rest  of  his  literary 
work.    They  present  one  more  proof  of  his  punctilious 

1  Manningham's  Diary,  Camden  Soc,  p.  148. 

'  Court  and  Times  of  James  I,  i.  i.  7.  '  See  Appendix  rv. 


PATRONAGE  OF  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON    229 

regard  for  the  demands  of  public  taste,  and  of  his  mar- 
vellous genius  and  skill  in  adapting  and  transmuting 
for  his  own  purposes  the  hints  of  other  workers  g^^^^^ 
in  the  field  which  for  the  moment  engaged  of  con- 
Ms  attention.  Most  of  Shakespeare's  'Son-  f^^^l,^ 
nets'  were  produced  under  the  incitement  of  the 
that  freakish  rage  for  sonnetteering  which,  ^°™®'*- 
taking  its  rise  in  Italy  and  sweeping  over  France  on  its 
way  to  England,  absorbed  for  some  half-dozen  years  in 
this  country  a  greater  volume  of  hterary  energy  than  has 
been  apphed  to  sonnetteering  within  the  same  space  of 
time  here  or  elsewhere  before  or  since.  The  thousands 
of  sonnets  that  were  circulated  in  England  between  1591 
and  1597  were  of  every  literary  quaUty,  from  sublimity 
to  inanity,  and  they  illustrated  in  form  and  topic  every 
known  phase  of  sonnetteering  activity.  Shakespeare's 
collection,  which  was  put  together  at  haphazard  and 
published  surreptitiously  many  years  after  the  poems 
were  written,  was  a  medley,  at  times  reaching  heights 
of  Uterary  excellence  that  none  other  scaled,  but  as  a 
whole  reflecting  the  varied  features  of  the  sonnetteering 
vogue.  Apostrophes  to  metaphysical  abstractions,  vivid 
picturings  of  the  beauties  of  nature,  idealisation  of  a 
protege's  regard  for  a  nobleman  in  the  figurative  language 
of  amorous  passion,  vivacious  compliments  on  a  woman's 
hair  or  her  touch  on  the  virginals,  and  vehement  de- 
nunciation of  the  falseness  and  frailty  of  womankind  — 
all  appear  as  frequently  in  contemporary  collections  of 
sonnets  as  in  Shakespeare's.  He  borrows  very  many 
of  his  competitors'  words  and  thoughts,  but  he  so  fused 
them  with  his  fancy  as  often  to  transfigure  them.  Gen- 
uine emotion  or  the  writer's  personal  experience  inspired 
few  EUzabethan  sonnets,  and  no  literary  historian  can 
accept  the  claim  which  has  been  preferred  in  behalf  of 
Shakespeare''s  'Sonnets'  to  be  at  all  points  a  self-evident 
exception  to  the  general  rule.  A  personal  note  may 
have  escaped  the  poet  involuntarily  in  the  sonnets  in 
which  he  gives  voice  to  a  sense  of  melancholy  and  re- 


230  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

morse,  but  his  dramatic  instinct  never  slept,  and  there  is 
no  proof  that  he  is  doing  more  there  than  produce  dra- 
matically the  illusion  of  a  personal  confession.  In  a 
scattered  series  of  some  twelve  sonnets  he  introduced  a 
detached  topic  —  a  lover's  supersession  by  his  friend  in 
his  mistress's  graces :  but  there  again  he  shows  little 
independence  of  his  comrades.  He  treated  a  theme 
which  was  wrought  into  the  web  of  Renaissance  romance, 
and  if  he  sought  some  added  sustenance  from  an  incident 
of  his  own  Ufe,  he  was  inspired,  according  to  collateral 
testimony,  by  a  passing  adventure,  which  deserved  a 
smile  better  than  a  tear.  .The  sole  biographical  infer- 
ence which  is  deducible  with  full  confidence  from  the 
'Sonnets'  is  that  at  one  time  in  his  career  Shakespeare, 
Uke  the  majority  of  his  craft,  disdained  few  weapons  of 
flattery  in  an  endeavour  to  monopoUse  the  bountiful 
patronage  of  a  young  man  of  rank.  External  evidence 
agrees  with  internal  evidence  in  identif3dng  the  belauded 
patron  with  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  the  real  value 
to  a  biographer  of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  is  the  cor- 
roboration they  offer  of  the  ancient  tradition  that  the 
Earl  of  Southampton,  to  whom  his  two  narrative  poems 
were  openly  dedicated,  gave  Shakespeare  at  an  early 
period  of  his  Uterary  career  help  and  encouragement, 
which  entitles  the  nobleman  to  a  place  in  the  poet's 
biography  resembling  that  fiUed  by  the  Duke  of  Ferrara 
in  the  early  biography  of  Tasso. 


XIII 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER 

All  the  while  that  Shakespeare  was  fancifully  assuring 
his  patron 

"^  [How]  to  no  other  pass  my  verses  tend 

Than  of  your  graces  and  your  gifts  to  tell, 

his  dramatic  work  was  steadily  advancing.  While  he 
never  ceased  to  garner  hints  from  the  labours  of  others, 
he  was  during  the  last  years  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  long 
reign  very  surely  widening  the  interval  between  his  own 
dramatic  achievement  and  that  of  all  contemporaries. 

To  the  winter  season  of  1595  probably  belongs  'Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream.'  ^  The  comedy  may  well  have 
been  written  to  celebrate  a  marriage  in  high  society  — 
perhaps  the  marriage  of  the  universal  patroness  of  poets, 

_  '  No  edition  appeared  before  1600.  On  October  8,  1600,  Thomas 
Fisher,  formerly  a  draper,  who  had  only  become  &.  freeman  of  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company  in  the  previous  June,  and  remained  for  a  very  few 
years  a  bookseller  and  publisher  (never  possessing  a,  printing  press), 
obtained  a  license  for  the  publication  of  the  Dream  (Arber,  ii.  174). 
The  name  of  Fisher,  the  publisher,  figured  alone  on  the  title-page  of  the 
first  quarto  of  1600;  no  printer  was  mentioned,  but  the  book  probably 
came  from  the  press  of  James  Roberts,  the  printer  and  publisher  of  '  the 
players'  bills.'  The  title-page  runs:  'A  Midsommer  Nights  Dreame. 
As  it  hath  beene  sundry  times  publikely  acted,  by  the  Right  Honourable, 
the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants.  Written  by  William  Shakespeare. 
Imprinted  at  London  for  Thomas  Fisher,  and  are  to  be  soulde  at  his 
shoppe  at  the  signe  of  the  White  Hart  in  Fleete  Streete  1600.'  A  second 
quarto,  which  corrects  some  misprints  in  the  first  version,  and  was  re- 
printed in  the  First  Folio,  bears  a  different  printer's  device  and  has  the 
brief  imprint  'Printed  by  James  Roberts,  1600.'  It  is  ingeniously  sug- 
gested that  this  imprint  is  a  misrepresentation  and  that  the  second  quarto 
of  the  Dream  was  not  published  before  1619,  when  it  was  printed  by 
William  Jaggard,  the  successor  to  Roberts's  press,  for  Thomas  Pavier,  a 
stationer  of  doubtful  repute.  (Pollard's  Shakespeare  Folios  and  Quartos, 
igcg,  pp.  81  seq.) 

231 


232  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Lucy  Harington,  to  Edward  Russell,  third  Earl  of  Bed- 
ford, on  December  12,  1594;  or  that  at  Greenwich  on 
January  24,  1594-5,  of  William  Stanley,  sixth 
sSSmer  Earl  of  Derby,  brother  of  a  former  patron  of 
Night's^       Shakespeare's  company  of  actors  and  himself  an 

^™'  amateur  dramatist,^  with  Elizabeth,  daughter 
of  Edward  de  Vere,  seventeenth  Earl  of  Oxford,  a  wild- 
living  nobleman  of  literary  procUvities.  The  elaborate 
compliment  to  the  Queen,  'a  fair  vestal  throned  by 
the  west'  (11.  i.  157  seq.),  was  at  once  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  past  marks  of  royal  favour  and  an  invitation  for 
their  extension  to  the  future.  Oberon's  fanciful  descrip- 
tion (irr©  148-68)  of  the  home  of  the  Uttle  magical 
flower  called  'Love-in-idleness'  that  he  bids  Puck  fetch 
for  him,  seems  Hterally  to  report  one  of  the  scenic 
pageants  with  which  the  Earl  of  Leicester  entertained 
Queen  EUzabeth  on  her  visit  to  Kenilworth  in  1575.'' 

Although  the  whole  play  is  in  the  airiest  and  most 
graceful  vein  of  comedy,  it  furnishes  fresh  proof  of 
The  Shakespeare's  studious  versatility.    The  plot 

sources.  ingeniously  weaves  together  four  independent 
and  apparently  conflicting  threads  of  incident,  for  which 
Shakespeare  found  suggestion  in  various  places.  The 
Athenian  background,  which  is  dominated  by  the 
nuptials  of  Theseus,  Duke  of  Athens,  with  Hippolyta, 
queen  of  the  Amazons,  owes  much  to  tlie  setting  of 
Chaucer's  '  Knight's  Tale.'  There  Chaucer  was  himself 
under  obhgation  to  Boccaccio's  'Teseide,'  a  medieval 
rendering  of  classical  myth,  where  the  cla'ssical  vision  is 
blurred  by  a  mediaeval  haze.  For  his  Greek  topic 
Shakespeare  may  have  sought  supplementary  aid  in  the 
'Life  of  Theseus'  in  Plutarch's  storehouse  of  biography, 
with  which  his  later  work  shows  much  familiarity.    The 

s  ^  On  June  30, 1599,  the  sixth  Earl  of  Derby  was  reported  to  be  'busyed 
only  in  penning  conunodyes  for  the  commoun  players'  {State  Papers 
Dom.  Eliz.,  vol.  271,  Nos.  34  and  35) ;   see  p.  52  supra. 

*  See  Oberon's  Vision,  by  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Halpin  (Shakespeare  Sodety), 
1843.  Two  accounts  of  the  Keliil worth  fUes,  by  George  Gascoigne  and 
Robert  Laneham  respectively,  were  published  in  1576. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER  2^3 

story  of  the  tragicomedy  of  'Pyxamus  and  Thisbe,' 
which  Bottom  and  his  mates  burlesque,  is  an  offspring 
of  the  dramatist's  researches  in  Ovid's  'Metamorphoses,' 
and  direct  from  the  Latin  text  of  the  same  poem  he  drew 
the  beautiful  name  of  his  fairy  queen  Titania.  Oberon 
the  king  of  the  fairy  world  and  his  ethereal  company 
come  from  'Huon  of  Bordeaux,'  the  French  mediaeval 
romance  of  which  a  translation  by  Lord  Berners  was 
first  printed  in  1534.  The  Athenian  lovers'  quarrels 
sound  a  more  modern  note  and  there  is  no  need  for  sug- 
gesting a  Uterary  origin.  Yet  the  influence  of  Shake- 
speare's predecessor  in  comedy,  John  Lyly,  is  perceptible 
in  the  raillery  in  which  both  Shakespeare's  mortals  and 
immortals  indulge,  and  the  intermeddling  of  fairies  in 
human  affairs  is  a  contrivance  in  which  Lyly  made  an 
earlier  experiment.  The  humours  which  mark  the  pres- 
entation of  the  play  of  'Pyramus  and  Thisbe'  improve 
upon  a  device  which  Shakespeare  had  already  employed 
in  'Love's  Labour's  Lost.'  The  'rude  mechanicals'  who 
produce  the  piece  are  credited,  like  the  rest  of  the  dram- 
atis personae,  with  Athenian  citizenship;  yet  they 
most  faithfully  reflect  the  temper  of  the  Elizabethan 
artisan,  and  iJieir  crude  mingling  of  tragic  tribulation 
with  comic  horseplay  travesties  much  extravagance  in 
contemporary  drama.  When  all  Shakespeare's  literary 
debts  are  taken  into  account,  the  final  scheme  of  the 
'Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  remains  an  example  of  the 
author's  freshest  invention.  The  dramatist  endows  the 
phantoms  of  the  fairy  world  with  a  genuine  and  a  sus- 
tained dramatic  interest,  which  was  beyond  the  reach 
of  Lyly  or  any  forerunner.  Shakespeare  may  indeed  be 
said  to  have  conquered  in  this  fairy  comedy  a  new  realm 
for  art. 

More  sombre  topics  engaged  him  in  the  comedy  of 
'All's  Well  that  Ends  Well'  of  which  the  original  draft 
may   be   tentatively   allotted   to    1595.    The  'All's 
general  treatment  illustrates  the  writer's  tight-  ^eii.'  ^ 
ening  grip  on  the  subtleties  of  romance.    Meres,  writing 


234  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  1598,  attributed  to  Shakespeare  a  piece  called  'Love's 
Labour's  Won.'  This  title,  which  is  not  otherwise  known, 
may  well  be  applied  to  'AH's  Well.'  _  'The  Taming  of 
the  Shrew,'  which  has  also  been  identified  with  'Love's 
Labour's  Won,'  has  sHghter  claim  to  the  designation. 
The  main  story  of  'All's  Well'  is  of  Itahan  origin.  Al- 
though it  was  accessible,  Hke  the  plot  of  'Romeo  and 
JuHet,'  in  Painter's  'Palace  of  Pleasure'  (No.  xxxviii.), 
the  original  source  is  Boccaccio's  'Decamerone'  (Day 
iii.  Novel  9).  On  the  old  touching  story  of  Helena's 
love  for  her  social  superior,  the  unworthy  Bertram, 
Shakespeare,  after  his  wont,  grafted  the  three  comic 
characters  of  the  braggart  Parolles,  whose  name  is  French 
for  'words,'  the  pompous  Lafeu,  and  a  clown  (Lavache) 
less  witty  than  his  compeers ;  all  are  of  the  dramatist's 
own  devising.  Another  original  creation,  Bertram's 
mother.  Countess  of  Roussillon,  is  a  charming  portrait 
of  old  age. 

In  spite  of  the  effective  relief  which  is  furnished  by 
the  humours  of  the  boastful  coward  Parolles,  the  pathetic 
j^^  elenient   predominates   in    'All's   Well.'    The 

heroine  heroine  Helena,  whose  'pangs  of  despised  love' 
^^°*'  are  expressed  with  touching  tenderness,  ranks, 
in  spite  of  her  ultimate  defiance  of  modern  standards  of 
maidenly  modesty,  with  the  greatest  of  Shakespeare's 
female  creations.  Shakespeare  failed  to  eUminate  from 
his  Italian  plot  all  the  fraiikness  of  Renaissance  manners. 
None  the  less  he  finally  succeeded  in  enforcing  an  ideal 
of  essential  purity  and  refinement. 

The  style  of  'All's  Well,'  in  regard  both  to  language 
and  to  metre,  presents  a  puzzhng  problem.  Early  and 
.pjjg  late  features  of  Shakespeare's  work  are  per- 

puzzie  of  plexingly  combined.  The  proportion  of  rhyme 
t  e  sty  e.  ^^  blank  vcrsc  is  high,  and  the  rhymed  verse 
in  which  epistles  are  penned  by  two  of  the  characters 
(in  place  of  prose)  is  a  clear  sign  of  youthful  artifice; 
one  letter  indeed  takes  the  lyric  form  of  a  sonnet.  On 
the  other  hand,  nearly  half  the  play  is  in  prose,  and  the 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  235 

metrical  irregularities  of  the  blank  verse  and  its  elliptical 
tenour  are  characteristic  of  the  author's  ripest  efforts. 
No  earlier  version  of  the  play  than  that  which  appears 
in  the  First  FoUo  is  extant,  and  the  discrepancy  of  style 
suggests  that  the  Folio  text  presents  a  late  revision  of  an 
early  draft. 

'The  Taming  of  the  Shrew'  — which,  like  'All's 
Well,'  was  first  printed  in  the  Folio  —  was  probably  com- 
posed soon  after  the  first  planning  of  that  solemn  -Taming 
comedy.  It  is  a  revision  of  an  old  play  on  of  the 
lines  somewhat  differing  from  those  which  ^^™-' 
Shakespeare  had  followed  previously.  A  comedy  called 
'The  Taming  of  A  Shrew'  was  produced  as  an  old  piece 
at  Newington  Butts  by  the  conjoined  companies  of  the 
Lord  Admiral  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain  on  June  11, 
1594,  and  was  first  published  in  the  same  year.^  From 
that  source  Shakespeare  drew  the  Induction  (an  outer 
dramatic  framework)  ^  as  well  as  the  energetic  scenes  in 
which  the  hero  Petruchio  conquers  Katharine  the  Shrew. 
The  dramatist  accepted  the  scheme  of  the  old- piece,  but 
he  first  endowed  the  incident  with  the  vital  spirit  of 
comedy.  While  following  the  old  play  in  its  general 
outlines,  Shakespeare's  revised  version  added,  moreover, 
an  entirely  new  underplot,  the  intrigue  of  the  shrew's 
younger  sister,  Bianca,  with  three  rival  lovers.    That 

*  Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ii.  164.  The  published  quarto  described  the 
old  play  as  acted  by  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  company,  for  whom  it  was 
originally  written.  It  was  reprinted  by  the  Shakespeare  Society  in 
1844,  and  was  re-edited  by  Prof.  F.  S.  Boas  in  1908. 

^  Although  comparatively  rare,  there  are  many  examples  in  Eliza- 
bethan drama  of-  the  device  of  an  Induction  or  outer  framework  in  which 
a  set  of  characters  are  presented  at  the  outset  as  arranging  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  substantive  piece,  and  remain  on  the  stage  as  more  or 
less  critical  spectators  of  the  play  through  the  course  of  its  performance. 
Besides  the  old  play  of  The  Taming  of  A  Shrew  Shakespeare  may  well 
have  known  George  Peek's  Old  Wives'  Tale  (1595),  Robert  Greene's 
King  James  IV  af  Scotland  (1598),  and  Anthony  Munday's  Downfall  of 
Robert  Earl  of  Huntingdon  (i6ox),  all  of  which  are  furnished  with  an  'in- 
duction' of  the  accepted  sort.  A  more  critical  kind  of  'induction'  figures 
in  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour  (1600)  and  Cynthia's 
Revels  (1601),  Marston's  Malcontent  (1604),  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle  (1613).  < 


236  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

subsidiary  woof  of  fable  which  is  ingeniously  interwoven 
with  the  main  web,  owes  much  to  the  'Supposes/  an 
The  Ehzabethan  comedy  which  George  Gascoigne 

underplot,  adapted  from  Ariosto's  Italian  comedy  'I  Sup- 
positi.'  The  association  has  historic  interest,  for  Gas- 
coigne's  'Supposes'  made  known  to  Englishmen  for  the 
first  time  the  modern  conception  of  romantic  comedy 
which  Italy  developed  for  all  Europe  out  of  the  classical 
model.  Yet  evidence  of  style  —  the  hberal  introduction 
of  tags  of  Latin  and  the  beat  of  the  doggerel  —  makes 
it  difficult  to  allot  the  Bianca  scenes  of  the  'Taming  of 
the  Shrew'  to  Shakespeare;  those  scenes  were  probably 
due  to  a  coadjutor. 

The  Induction  to  the  'Taming  of  the  Shrew'  has 
a  direct  bearing  on  Shakespeare's  biography,  for  the  poet 

admits  into  it  a  number  of  Uteral  references  to 
aUurfon^s  Stratford  and  his  native  county.  Such  per- 
^^^\-       sonahties  are  rare  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  and 

can  only  be  paralleled  in  two  of  slightly  later 
date  —  the  'Second  Part  of  Henry  IV'  and  the  'Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor.'  All  these  local  allusions  may  well 
be  due  to  such  a  renewal  of  Shakespeare's  personal  re- 
lations with  the  town,  as  is  indicated  by  facts  in  his 
private  history  of  the  same  period.^  In  the  Induction 
the  tinker,  Christopher  Sly,  describes  himself  as  'Old 
Sly's  son  of  Burton  Heath.'  Burton  Heath  is  Barton- 
on-the-Heath,  the  home  of  Shakespeare's  aunt,  Edmund 
Lambert's  wife,  and  of  her  sons.  The  Lamberts  were 
relatives  whom  Shakespeare  had  no  reason  to  regard 
with  much  favour.  The  stern  hold  which  Edmund 
Lambert  and  his  son  John  kept  on  Asbies,  the  estate  of 
the  dramatist's  mother,  caused  his  parents  continued 
anxiety  through  his  early  manhood.  The  tinker  Sly  in 
Hke  local  vein  confesses  that  he  has  run  up  a  score  with 
Marian  Hacket,  the  fat  alewife  of  Wincot.^    The  refer- 

'  See  p.  280—1  infra. 

^  All  these  details  are  of  Shakespeare's  invention,  and  do  not  figure 
in  the  old  play.    But  in  the  crude   induction  there  the  nondescript 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  237 

ences  to  Wincot  and  the  Hackets  are  singularly  precise. 
The  name  of  the  maid  of  the  inn  is  given  as  Cicely  Racket, 
and  the  alehouse  is  described  in  the  stage  direction  as 
'  on  a  heath.' 

Wincot  was  the  familiar  designation  of  three  small 
Warwickshire  villages,  and  a  good  claim  has  been  set  up 
on  behalf  of  each  to  be  the  scene  of  Sly's 
drunken  exploits.  There  is  a  very  small  hamlet  ^""^°'- 
named  Wincot  within  four  miles  of  Stratford  now  con- 
sisting of  a  single  farmhouse  which  was  once  an  Eliza- 
bethan mansion;  it  is  situated  on  what  was  doubtless 
in  Shakespeare's  day,  before  the  land  there  was  enclosed, 
an  open  heath.  This  Wincot  forms  part  of  the  parish 
of  Quinton,  where,  according  to  the  parochial  registers, 
a  Hacket  family  resided  in  Shakespeare's  day.  On 
November  21,  1591,  'Sara  Hacket,  the  daughter  of 
Robert  Racket,'  was  baptised  in  Quinton  church.^  Yet 
by  Warwickshire  contemporaries  the  Wincot  of  the 
"Taming  of  the  Shrew'  was  unhesitatingly  identified 
with  Wilnecote,  near  Tamworth,  on  the  Staffordshire 
border  of  Warwickshire,  at  some  distance  from  Strat- 
ford. That  village,  whose  name  was  pronounced  'Win- 
cot,' was  celebrated  for  its  ale  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
a  distinction  which  is  not  shown  by  contemporary 
evidence  to  have  belonged  to  any  place  of  like  name. 
The  Warwickshire  poet.  Sir  Aston  Cokain,  within  half 
a  century  of  the  production  of  Shakespeare's  'Taming  of 
the  Shrew,'  addressed  to  'Mr.  Clement  Fisher  of  Win- 
cott'  (a  well-known  resident  at  Wilnecote)  verses  which 
begin 

drunkard  is  named  without  prefix  'Slie.'  That  surname,  although  it 
was  very  common  at  Stratford  and  in  the  neighbourhood,  was  borne  by 
residents  in  many  other  parts  of  the  country,  and  its  appearance  in  the 
old  play  is  not  in  itself,  as  has  been  suggested,  sufficient  to  prove  that 
that  piece  was  written  by  a  Warwickshire  man.  There  are  no  other 
names  or  references  in  the  old  play  which  can  be  associated  with  War- 
wickshire. 

'  Mr.  Richard  Savage,  formerly  secretary  and  librarian  of  the  Birth- 
place Trustees  at  Stratford,  generously  placed  at  my  disposal  this  in- 
teresting fact,  which  he  discovered. 


238  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  your  Wincot  ale  hath  much  renowned, 
That  fox'd  a  Beggar  so  (by  chance  was  found 
Sleeping)  that  there  needed  not  many  a  word 
To  make  him  to  believe  he  was  a  Lord. 

In  the  succeeding  lines  the  writer  promises  to  visit  'Win- 
cot'  (i.e.  Wihiecote)  to  drink 

Such  ale  as  Shakespeare  fancies 
Did  put  Kit  Sly  into  such  lordly  trances.^ 

It  is  therefore  probable  that  Shakespeare  consciously 
invested  the  home  of  Kit  Sly  and  of  Kit's  hostess  wi'th 
characteristics  of  Wilnecote  as  well  as  of  the  hamlet  near 
Stratford. 

Wilmcote,  the  native  place  of  Shakespeare's  mother, 
is  also  said  to  have  been  popularly  pronounced  'Wincot.' 
A  tradition  which  was  first  recorded  by  Capell  as  late  as 
1780  in  his  notes  to  the  'Taming  of  the  Shrew'  (p.  26) 
is  to  the  effeQt  that  Shakespeare  often  visited  an  inn  at 
'Wincot'  to  enjoy  the  society  of  a  'fool  who  belonged 
to  a  neighbouring  mill,'  and  the  Wincot  of  this  story  is, 
we  are  told,  locally  associated  with  the  village  of  Wilm- 
cote. But  the  links  that  connect  Shakespeare's  tinker 
with  Wihncote  are  far  slighter  than  those  which  connect 
him  with  Wincot  and  Wilnecote. 

The  mention  of  Kit  Sly's  tavern  comrades  — 

Stephen  Sly  and  old  John  Naps  of  Greece, 
And  Peter  Turf  and  Henry  Pimpernell  — 

was  in  aU  HkeUhood  a  reminiscence  of  contemporary 
Warwickshire  life  as  hteral  as  the  name  of  the  hamlet 
where  the  drunkard  dwelt.  There  was  a  genuine  Stephen 
Sly  who  was  in  the  dramatist's  day  a  self-assertive  citizen 
of  Stratford;  and  'Greece,'  whence  'old  John  Naps' 
derived  his  cognomen,  is  an  obvious  misreading  of  Greet, 
a  hamlet  by  Winchcomb  in  Gloucestershire,  not  far 
removed  from  Shakespeare's  native  town.^ 

'  Small  Poems  of  Divers  Sorts,  1658,  p.  224  (mispaged  124). 
^  According  to  local  tradition  Shaiespeare  was  acquainted  with  Greet, 
Winchcomb,  and  all  the  villages  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood.    He 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER  239 

^^  1597  Shakespeare  turned  once  more  to  English 
history.  He  studied  anew  Holinshed's  'Chronicle.'  At 
the  same  time  he  carefully  examined  a  value-  'Henry 
less  but  very  popular  piece,  'The  Famous  ^v.' 
Victories  of  Henry  V,  containing  the  Honourable  battle 
of  Agincourt,'  which  was  repeatedly  acted  by  the  Queen's 
company  of  players  between  1588  and  1595.^  The 
'Famous  Victories'  opens  with  a  perfunctory  sketch  of 
Henry  IV's  last  years;  in  the  crudest  spirit  of  farce 
Prince  Hal,  while  heir  apparent,  engages  in  roistering 
horseplay  with  disreputable  associates ;  the  later  scenes 
present  the  most  stirring  events  of  his  reign.  From 
Holinshed  and  the  old  piece  Shakespeare  worked  up  with 
splendid  energy  two  plays  on  the  reign  of  Henry  IV, 
with  an  independent  sequel  on  the  reign  of  Henry  V  — 
the  three  plays  forming  together  the  supreme  trilogy  in 
the  range  of  history  drama. 

Shakespeare's   two  plays   concerning  Henry  IV  are 
continuous  in  subject  matter ;  they  are  known  respectively 
as  Parts  I.  and  II.  of  'Henry  IV.'    The  First  ^he 
Part  carries  the  historic  episode  from  the  close  historical 
of  the  play  of  'Richard  II'  down  to  the  battle  ^'^^''^■ 
of  Shrewsbury  on  July  21,  1403,  when  Henry  IV,  Richard 
II's  successor  on  the  throne,  triumphed  over  the  rebellion 
of  his  new   subjects.     The   Second  Part   treats  more 
cursorily  of  the  remaining  ten  years  of  Henry  IV's  reign 
and  ends  with  that  monarch's  collapse  under  the  strain 
of  kingly  cares  and  with  the  coronation  of  his  son  Henry 

is  still  credited  with  the  authorship  of  the  local  jingle  which  enumerates 
the  chief  hamlets  and  points  of  interest  in  the  district.    The  lines  run : 

Dirty  Gretton,  dingy  Greet, 
Beggarly  Winchcomb,  Sudely  sweet; 
Hartshorn  and  Wittington  Bell, 
Andoversford  and  Merry  Frog  Mill. 

'  It  was  licensed  for  publication  in  1594,  and  published  in  ijgS  as 
acted  by  the  Queen's  company.  A  re-issue  of  1617  credits  the  King's 
company  (i.e.  Shakespeare's  company)  with  its  production  —  a  fraudu- 
lent device  of  the  publisher  to  identify  it  with  Shakespeare's  work. 


240  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

V.  The  main  theme  of  the  two  pieces  is  serious  in  the 
extreme.  Henry  IV  is  a  figure  of  gloom,  and  a  cause  of 
gloom  in  his  environment.  But  Shakespeare,  boldly 
improving  on  the  example  of  the  primitive  old  play  of 
'The  Famous  Victories'  and  of  much  other  historical 
drama,  linked  to  the  tragic  scheme  his  most  convincing 
portrayal  of  broad  and  comprehensive  humour. 

The  'Second  Part  of  Henry  IV'  is  almost  as  rich  as 
the  Induction  to  'The  Taming  of  the  Shrew'  in  direct 
jj^j.^  references   to   persons    and   districts   familiar 

Stratford  to  Shakespeare.  Two  amusing  scenes  pass 
memories.  ^^  ^j^^  j^^^gg  ^f  Justice  Shallow  in  Gloucester- 
shire, a  county  which  touched  the  boundaries  of  Stratford 
(ill.  ii.  and  v.  i.).  Justice  Shallow,  as  we  have  seen, 
boldly  caricatures  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  a  bugbear  of  Shake- 
speare's youth  at  Stratford,  the  owner  of  the  neighbouring 
estate  of  Charlecote,^  When,  in  the  play,  the  justice's 
factotum,  Davy,  asked  his  master  'to  countenance  Wil- 
ham  Visor  of  Woncot  ^  against  Clement  Perkes  of  the 
Hill,'  the  allusions  are  unmistakable  to  persons  and 
places  within  the  dramatist's  personal  cognisance.  The 
Gloucestershire  village  of  Woodmancote,  where  the  fam- 
ily of  Visor  or  Vizard  has  flourished  since  the  sixteenth 
century,  is  still  pronounced  Woncot.  The  adjoining 
Stinchcombe  Hill  (still  famiharly  known  to  natives  as 
'The  HiU')  was  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  home  of  the 
family  of  Perkes.  Very  precise  too  are  the  allusions  to 
the  region  of  the  Cotswold  Hills,  which  were  easily 
accessible  from  Stratford.  'Will  Squele,  a  Cotswold 
man,'  is  noticed  as  one  of  Shallow's  friends  in  youtH 
(in.  ii.  23) ;  and  when  Shallow's  servant  Davy  receives 
his  master's  instructions  to  sow  'the  headland'  'with 
red  wheat'  in  the  early  autumn,  there  is  an  obvious 
reference  to  the  custom  almost  peculiar  to  the  Cotswolds 

'  See  pp.  35-6  supra. 

''The  quarto  of  1600  reads  Woncote:  all  the  folios  read  Woncot. 
Yet  Malone  in  the  Variorum  of  1803  introduced  the  new  and  unwarranted 
reading  of  Wincot,  which  has  been  unwisely  adopted  by  succeeding 
editors. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER     '       241 

of  sowing  'red  lammas'  wheat  at  an  unusually  early 
season  of  the  agricultural  year.^ 

The  kingly  hero  of  the  two  plays  of  'Henry  IV'  had 
figured  under  his  princely  name  of  Henry  BoUngbroke 
as  a  spirited  young  man  in  '  Richard  II ' ;   he    ■ . 
was  now  represented  as  weighed  down  by  care  Hen?y  iv 
and  age.    With  him  are  contrasted  (in  Part  I.)  ^^^^ 
Ms  impetuous  and  ambitious  subject  Hotspur 
and  (in  both  Parts)  his  son  and  heir  Prince  Hal,  whose 
boisterous  and  restless  disposition  drives  him  from  Court 
to  seek  adventures  among  the  haunters  of  taverns.    Hot- 
spur is  a  vivid  and  fascinating  portrait  of  a  hot-headed 
soldier,  courageous  to  the  point  of  rashness,  and  sacri- 
ficing his  hfe  to  his  impetuous  sense  of  honour.     Prince 
Hal,  despite  his  riotous  vagaries,  is  endowed  by  the 
dramatist  with  far  more  self-control  and  common  sense. 

On  the  first,  as  on  every  subsequent,  production  of 
'Henry  IV'  the  main  public  interest  was  concentrated 
neither  on  the  King  nor  on  his  son,  nor  on  Hot- 
spur, but  on  the  chief  of  Prince  Hal's  riotous 
companions.  In  the  old  play  of  'The  Famous  Victories' 
the  Prince  at  the  head  of  a  crew  of  needy  ruffians  robs 
the  royal  tax-collectors  on  Gadshill  or  drinks  and  riots  in 
a  tavern  in  Eastcheap,  while  a  clown  of  the  traditional 
stamp  who  is  finally  impressed  for  the  war  adds  to  the 
merriment  by  gulling  a  number  of  simple  tradesmen  and 
artisans.  Shakespeare  was  not  blind  to  the  hints  of  the 
old  drama,  but  he  touched  its  comic  scenes  with  a  magic 
of  his  own  and  summoned  out  of  its  dust  and  ashes  the 
radiance  of  his  inimitable  Falstaff. 

At  the  outset  the  propriety  of  that  great  creation  was 
questioned  on  a  poHtical  or  historical  ground  of  doubt- 
ful relevance.     Shakespeare  in  both  parts  of  xhe  first 
'Henry  IV'  originally  named  the  chief  of  the  protest. 
Prince's  associates  after  a  serious  Lollard  leader.  Sir 

*  These  references  are  convincingly  explained  by  Mr.  Justice  Madden 
in  his  Diary  of  Master  Silence,  pp.  87  seq.,  372-4.  Cf.  Blunt's  Dursley 
and  its  Ndghhourhood,  Huntley's  Glossary  of  the  Cotswold  Dialect,  and 
Marshall's  Rural  Economy  of  Cotswold  (1796). 


242  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

John  Oldcastle,  a  very  subordinate  and  shadowy  char- 
acter in  the  old  play.  But  influential  objection  was 
taken  by  Henry  Brooke,  eighth  Lord  Cobham,  who  suc- 
ceeded to  the  title  on  March  s,  1596-7,  and  claimed 
descent  in  the  female  line  from  the  historical  Sir  John 
Oldcastle,  the  LoUard  leader,  who  had  sat  in  the  House 
of  Lords  as  Lord  Cobham.  The  new  Lord  Cobham's 
father,  Wilham  Brooke,  the  seventh  lord,  had  filled  the 
ofi&ce  of  Lord  Chamberlain  for  some  seven  months  before 
his  death  (August  8,  iS96-March  5, 1597)  and  had  betrayed 
Puritanic  prejudices  in  his  attitude  to  the  acting  pro- 
fession. The  new  Lord  Cobham  showed  himself  a  loyal 
son  in  protesting  against  the  misuse  on  the  stage  of  his 
Lollard  ancestor's  appellation.  Shakespeare  met  the 
objection  by  bestowing  on  Prince  Hal's  tunbeUied  fol- 
lower the  new  and  deathless  name  of  Falstaff.  When 
the  First  Part  of  Shakespeare's  'Henry  IV'  was  Ucensed 
for  pubHcation  on  February  25,  1597-8,^  the  name  of 

'  Andrew  Wise,  the  publisher  in  1597  of  Richard  II  and  Richard  III, 
obtained  on  February  25,  1597-8,  a  license  for  the  publication  of  the  his- 
iorye  of  Henry  iiij"'  with  his  battaile  of  Shrewsburye  against  Henry  Hot- 
spurre  of  the  Northe  with  the  conceipted  mirthe  of  Sir  John  Falstaf  (Arber, 
iii.  105).  This  quarto,  which,  although  it  bore  no  author's  name,  pre- 
sented a  satisfactory  version  of  Shakespeare's  text,  was  printed  for  Wise 
by  Peter  Short  at  the  Star  on  Bread  Street  HiU.  A  second  edition 
'newly  corrected  by  W.  Shake-speare'  was  printed  for  Wise  by  a  different 
printer,  Simon  Stafford  of  Adling  Hill,  near  Carter  Lane,  in  1599. 
Wise  made  over  his  interest  in  this  First  Part  of  Henry  IV  on  June  25, 
1603,  to  Matthew  Lawe  of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  who  produced  new 
editions  in  1604,  1608,  1613,  and  1622.  The  First  FoUo  text  gives  with 
some  correction  the  Quarto  of  1613.  Meanwhile  Wise  had  entered  into 
partnership  with  another  bookseller,  William  Aspley,  of  the  Parrot  in 
St.  Paul's  Churchyard  in  1600,  and  Wise  and  Aspley  jointly  obtained  on 
August  23,  1600,  a  license  to  publish  both  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  and 
the  Second  Parte  of  the  history  of  Kinge  Henry  the  iiij"'  with  the  humours 
of  Sir  John  Fallstajf,  wrytten  by  Master  Shakespere  (Arber,  iii.  170-1). 
This  is  the  earUest  mention  of  Shakespeare's  name  in  the  Stationers' 
Register.  In  previous  entries  of  his  plays  no  author's  name  was  given. 
The  original  edition  of  the  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV  was  printed  for  Wise 
by  Valentine  Simmes  (or  Sims)  in  1600 :  it  followed  an  abbreviated  acting 
version ;  most  exemplars  omit  Act  III  Sc.  i.,  which  only  appears  in  a  few 
copies  on  two  inserted  leaves.  A  second  edition  was  reached  before  the 
close  of  the  year.  There  was  no  reissue  of  the  Quarto.  The  First  Folio 
of  1623  adopted  a  different  and  a  rather  fuller  version  of  Shakespeare's 
text  of  2  Henry  IV. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER  243 

Falstaff  was  already  substituted  for  that  of  Oldcastle 
in  the  title.  Yet  the  text  preserved  a  relic  of  the  earUer 
name  in  Prince  Hal's  apostrophe  of  Falstaff  as  'my  old 
lad  of  the  Castle'  (i.  ii.  40).  A  less  trustworthy  edition 
of  the  Second  Part  of  'Henry  IV'  also  appeared  with 
Falstaff's  name  in  the  place  of  that  of  Oldcastle  in  1600. 
There  the  epilogue  ironically  denied  that  Falstaff  had  any 
characteristic  in  common  with  the  martyr  Oldcastle : 
'  Oldcastle  died  a  martyr,  and  this  is  not  the  man.'  Again, 
however,  the  text  retained  tell-tale  marks ;  the  abbrevia- 
tion 'Old.'  stood  before  one  of  Falstaff's  speeches  (i.  ii. 
114),  and  Falstaff  was  credited  like  the  genuine  Oldcastle 
with  serving  in  boyhood  as  'page  to  Thomas  Mowbray, 
Duke  of  Norfolk'  (in.  ii.  24-5).  Nor  did  the  employ- 
ment of  the  name  'Falstaff'  silence  all  cavilling.  The 
new  name  hazily  recalled  Sir  John  Fastolf,  an  historical 
warrior  of  repute  and  wealth  of  the  fifteenth  century  who 
had  aheady  figured  in  the  First  Part  of  'Henry  VI,'  and 
was  owner  at  one  time  of  the  Boar's  Head  Tavern  in 
Southwark.^  An  Oxford  scholar,  Dr.  Richard  James, 
writing  about  1625,  protested  that  Shakespeare,  after 
offending  Sir  John  Oldcastle's  descendants  by  giving  his 
'buffoon'  the  name  of  that  resolute  martyr,  'was  put 
to  make  an  ignorant  shift  of  abusing  Sir  John  Fastolf, 
a  man  not  inferior  in  vertue,  though  not  so  famous  in 
piety  as  the  other.'  ^  George  Daniel  of  Beswick,  the 
Cavalier  poet,  similarly  complained  in  1647  of  the  ill 
use  to  which  Shakespeare  had  put  Fastolf 's  name  in 
order  to  escape  the  imputation  of  vilifying  the  Lollard 
leader.'  Furthermore  Fuller,  in  his  'Worthies,'  first 
published  in   1662,   while  expressing  satisfaction   that 

'  According  to  traditional  stage  directions,  first  adopted  by  Theobald 
in  1733,  the  Prince  and  his  companions  in  Henry  IV  frequent  the  Boar's 
Head  in  Eastcheap,  a  popular  tavern  where  plays  were  occasionally 
performed.  Eastcheap  is  several  times  mentioned  in  Shakespeare's  text 
as  the  scene  of  FalstafiE's  revels,  but  the  tavern  is  not  described  more 
spec^cally  than  as  'the  old  place'  {2  Henry  IV,  11.  ii.  161). 

ii  James  MS.  34,  Bodleian  Library,  Oxford;  cf.  Halliwell,  On  the 
Character  of  Sir  John  Falstaf,  1841,  pp.  19,  20. 

'  George  Daniel's  Poems,  ed.  Grosart,  1878,  pp,  112-13. 


244  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  had  'put  out'  of  the  play' Sir  John  Old- 
castle,  was  eloquent  in  his  avowal  of  regret  that  'Sir 
John  Fastolf '  was  'put  in,'  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
making  overbold  with  a  great  warrior's  memory  to 
make  him  a  'Thrasonical  puff  and  emblem  of  mock 
valour.' 

The  offending'  introduction  and  withdrawal  of  Old- 
castle's  name  left  a  curious  mark  on  hterary  history. 
Faistaff  -^^  many  as  four  humbler  men  of  letters  (An-- 
and  thony     Munday,     Robert     Wilson,     Midiael 

oidcastie.  j^j-ayton,  and  Richard  Hathaway),  seeking  to 
profit  by  the  attention  drawn  by  Shakespeare  to  the  his- 
torical Oidcastie,  combined  to  produce  a  poor  dramatic 
version  of  that  worthy  genuine  history.  They  pretended 
to  vindicate  the  Lollard's  memory  from  the  slur  that 
Shakespeare's  identification  of  him  with  his  fat  knight 
had  cast  upon  it.^  This  unimpressive  counterstroke  was 
produced  by  the  Lord  Admiral's  company  in  the  autumn 
of  1599  and  was  received  with  favour.  It  was,  like  Shake- 
speare's 'Henry  IV,'  in  two  parts,  and  when  the  second 
part  was  revived  in  the  autumn  of  1602  Thomas  Dekker,, 
the  well-known  writer,  whose  versatile  capacity  gave  him 
an  uncertain  livelihood  and  left  him  open  to  the  tempta- 
tion of  a  bribe,  was  employed  to  make  additions  to  the 
original  draft.  Shakespeare  was  obviously  innocent  of 
any  share  in  this  many-handed  piece  of  hack-work,  two 
of  whose  contrivers,  Drayton  and  Dekker,  were  capable 
of  more  dignified  occupation.  Nevertheless  of  two  early 
editions  of  the  first  part  of  '  Sir  John  Oidcastie '  bearing 
the  date  1600,,  one  'printed  for  T[homas]  P[avier]'  was 
impudently  described  on  the  title-page  as  by  Shakespeare, 
and  the  false  description  misled  innocent  editors  of 
Shakespeare's  collective  works  in  the  second  half  of  the 

^  In  the  prologue  to  the  play  of  Oidcastie  (1600)  appear  the  lines: 

It  is  no  pampered  glutton  we  present, 
Nor  aged  councellor  to  youthful  sinne ; 
But  one  whose  vertue  shone  above  the  rest, 
A  valiant  martyr  and  a  vertuous  Peere. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER  245 

seventeenth  century  into  including  the  feeble' dramatic 
reply  to  Shakespeare's  work  among  his  own  writings.^ 
The  second  part  of  'Sir  John  Oldcastle'  has  vanished. 
Non-dramatic  literature  was  also  enlisted  in  the  con- 
troversy over  Shakespeare's  alleged  defamation  of  the 
historic  Oldcastle's  character.  John  Weever,  an  anti- 
quarian poet,  pursued  the  dramatists'  path  of  rehabih- 
tation.  In  1601  he  issued  a  narrative  poem  entitled 
'The  Mirror  of  Martyrs  or  the  Life  and  Death  of  that 
thrice  valiant  capitaine  and  most  godly  martyr  Sir 
John  Oldcastle  Knight  —  Lord  Cobham.  Printed  by 
V[alentine]  S[immes]  for  William  Wood.'  Weever  calls 
his  'mirror'  'the  true  Oldcastle'  and  cites  incidentally 
phrases  from  the  Second  Part  of  'Henry  IV'  which  by 
covert  impUcation  convict  Shakespeare  of  fathering  '  the 
false  Oldcastle.' 

But  none  of  the  historical  traditions  which  are  con- 
nected with  Falstaff  helped  him  to  his  fame.     His  peren- 
nial attraction  is  fruit  of  the  personality  owing  pajgtaff's 
nothing  to  history  with  which  Shakespeare's  personal- 
imaginative  power  clothed  him.    The  knight's  '^^' 
unfettered  indulgence  in  sensual  pleasures,  his  exuberant 
mendacity,  and  his  love  of  his  own  ease  are  purged  of 
offence  by  his  colossal  wit  and  jollity,  while  the  contrast 
between  his  old  age  and  his  unreverend  way  of  life  sup-^ 

'  The  early  edition  of  The  First  Pari  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  with,  Shake- 
speare's name  on  the  title-page  and  bearing  the  date  1600,  is  believed 
to  have  been  deliberately  antedated  by  the  publisher  Pavier,  and  to  have 
been  actually  published  by  him  some  years  later — in  1619  —  at  the 
press  of  WilUam  Jaggard.  It  is  not  easy  to  reconcile  with  the  facts  of 
the  situation  the  report  of  the  gossiping  letterwriter  Roland  Whyte 
[Sydney, Papers,  ii.  175)  to  the  effect  that  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  [i.e. 
Shakespeare's]  company  acted  'Sir  John  Oldcastle  with  good  contentnient ' 
3n  March  6,  1599-1600  at  Lord  Hunsdon's  private  house,  after  a  dinner 
jiven  in  honour  of  a  Flemish  envoy  to  the  English  court.  It  is  highly 
mprobable  that  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  players  would  have  performed 
he  piece  of '  Sir  John  Oldcastle,'  which  was  written  for  the  Lord  Admiral's 
»inpany,  in  opposition  to  Shakespeare's  i  Henry  IV.  The  reporter 
ras  doubtless  referring  hastily  to  Shakespeare's  i  Henry  IV  and  gave  it 
he  name  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle  which  the  character  of  F?ilstafi  originally 
rare.  '      ~ 


246  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

plies  that  tinge  of  melancholy  which  is  inseparable  from 
the  highest  manifestations  of  humour.  His  talk  is  always 
in  prose  of  a  rarely  matched  pith.  The  Elizabethan 
pubUc,  despite  the  protests  of  historical  critics,  recog- 
nised the  triumphant  success  of  the  effort,  and  many  of 
Falstaff's  telling  phrases,  with  the  names  of  his  foils, 
Justices  Shallow  and  Silence,  at  once  took  root  in  popular 
speech.  Shakespeare's  purely  comic  power  culminated 
in  Falstaff ;  he  may  be  claimed  as  the  most  humorous 
figure  in  literature. 

In  all  probability  'The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,' 
a  domestic  comedy  incKning  to  farce,  followed  close  upon 
'Mer  'Henry  IV.'     The  piece  is  unquahfied  by  any 

Wives  of  _  pathetic  interest.  The  low-pitched  sentiment 
Windsor."  j^  couched  in  a  colloquial  vein.  The  high  ratio 
of  prose  to  verse  finds  no  parallel  elsewhere  in  Shake- 
speare's work.  Of  the  3000  Hnes  of  the  'Merry  Wives' 
only  one  tenth  is  in  metre. 

In  the  epilogue  to  the  'Second  Part  of  Henry  IV' 
Shakespeare  had  written :  '  If  you  be  not  too  much  cloyed 
Falstaff  ^^^^  ^^^  meat,  our  humble  author  will  continue 
and  Queen  the  story  with  Sir  John  in  it  .  .  .  where  for 
Elizabeth,  anything  I  know  Falstaff  shall  die  of  a  sweat, 
unless  already  a'  be  killed  with  your  hard  opinions.' 
Falstaff  was  not  destined  to  the  fate  which  the  dramatist 
airily  foreshadowed.  External  influence  gave  an  un- 
expected turn  to  Sir  John's  career.  Rowe  asserts  that 
Queen  Elizabeth  '  was  so  well  pleased  with  that  admirable 
character  of  Falstaff  in  the  two  parts  of  "Henry  IV" 
that  she  commanded  him  to  continue  it  for  one  play  more, 
and  to  show  him  in  love.'  John  Dennis,  the  literary 
critic  of  Queen  Anne's  era,  in  the  dedication  of  a  tasteless 
adaptation  of  the  'Merry  Wives'  which  he  called  'The 
Comical  Gallant'  (1702),  noted  that  the  'Merry  Wives' 
was  written  at  Queen  Elizabeth's  '  command  and  by  her 
direction ;  and  she  was  so  eager  to  see  it  acted  that  she 
commanded  it  to  be  finished  in  fourteen  days,  and  was 
afterwards,  as  tradition  tells  us,  very  well  pleased  with  the 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC   POWER  247 

representation.'  ^  In  his  'Letters'  ^  Dennis  reduces  the 
period  of  composition  to  ten  days  —  'a  prodigious  thing,' 
added  Gildon,*  where  all  is  so  well  contrived  and  carried 
on  without  the  least  confusion.'  The  localisation  of  the 
scene  at  Windsor,  and  the  compHmentary  references  to 
Windsor  Castle,  corroborate  the  tradition  tjiat  the  comedy 
was  prepared  to  meet  a  royal  command.  The  tradition 
is  very  plausible.  But  the  royal  suggestion  failed  to 
preserve  the  vital  interest  of  the  comedy  from  an  '  alacrity 
in  sinking.'  Although  FalstafI  is  the  central  figure,  he 
is  a  mere  caricature  of  his  former  self.  His  power  of 
retort  has  decayed,  and  the  laugh  invariably  turns 
against  him.  In  name  only  is  he  identical  with  the  po- 
tent humourist  of  'Henry  IV.' 

The  matrimonial  adventures  out  of  which  the  plot  of 
the  'Merry  Wives'  is  woven  formed  a  frequent  and  a 
characteristic  feature  of  ItaUan  fiction.  The 
Italian  novelist  delighted  in  presenting  the  *  ^  °  ' 
amorous  intrigues  of  matrons  who  by  farcical  tricks  lulled 
their  jealous  husbands'  suspicions,  and  they  were  at  the 
same  time  expert  devisers  of  innocent  deceits  which 
faithful  wives  might  practise  on  foolish  amorists.  Much 
Italian  fiction  of  the  kind  would  seem  to  have  been  ac- 
cessible to  Shakespeare.  A  tale  from  Straparola's 
'Notti'  (iv.  4),  of  which  an  adaptation  figured  in  the 
miscellany  of  novels  called  Tarleton's  'Newes  out  of 
Purgatorie'  (1590),  another  Italian  tale  from  the  'Peco- 
rone'  of  Ser  Giovanni  Fiorentino  (i.  2),  and  a  third  ro- 
mance, the  Fishwife's  tale  of  Brainford  in  the  collection 
of  stories,  drawn  from  Italian  sources,  called  'Westward 
for  Smelts,'  *  aU  supply  incidents  of  matrimonial  strategy 

'  In  the  prologue  to  his  adaptation  Dennis  repeated  the  story : 

But  Shakespeare's  Play  in  fourteen  days  was  writ, 

And  in  that  space  to  make  all  just  and  fit, 

Was  an  attempt  surpassing  human  Wit. 

Yet  our  great  Shakespeare's  matchless  Muse  was  such. 

None  e'er  in  so  small  time  perform'd  so  much. 

"  1721,  p.  232.  '  Remarks,  p.  291. 

*  This  collection  of  stories  is  said  by  both  Malone  and  Steevens  to 


248  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

against  dissolute  gallantry  and  marital  jealousy  which 
resemble  episodes  in  Shakespeare's  comedy.  Yet  in 
spit.e  of  the  Italian  aflSnities  of  the  fable  and  of  Falstaff's 
rather  cosmopolitan  degeneracy,  Shakespeare  has  no- 
where so  vividly  reflected  the  blufiE  temper  of  average 
EngUsh  men  and  women  in  contemporary  middle-class 
society.  The  presentation  of  the  buoyant  domestic  life 
of  an  Elizabethan  country  town  bears,  too,  distinctive 
marks  of  Shakespeare's  own  experience.  Again,  there 
are  literal  references  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Stratford. 
Justice  Shallow  reappears,  and  his  coat-of-arms,  which 
is  described  as  consisting  of  'luces,'  openly  identifies 
him  with  Shakespeare's  early  foe.  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  of 
Charlecote.^  When  Shakespeare  makes  Master  Slender 
repeat  the  report  that  Master  Page's  fallow  greyhound 
was  'outrun  on  CotsaU'  (i.  i.  93),  he  testifies  to  his 
interest  in  the  coursing  matches  for  which  the  Cotswold 
district  was  famed  at  the  period.  A  topical  allusion  of  a 
different  kind  and  one  rare  in  Shakespearean  drama  is 
made  in  some  detail  at  the  end  of  the  play.  One  of  the 
characters,  the  Host  of  the  Garter  Inn  at  Windsor,  re- 
calls bitterly  and  with  literal  frankness  the  losses  which 
tavernkeepers  of  Reading,  Maidenhead,  and  Colebrook 
actually  incurred  some  years  before  at  the  hands  of  a 
German  tourist,  one  Frederick  Duke  of  Wirtemberg, 
who,  while  travelling  incognito  as  Count  Mompelgard, 
had  been  granted  by  Queen  Elizabeth's  government  the 
right  to  requisition  posthorses  free  of  charge.  The 
'Duke  de  Jamany'  made  liberal  use  of  his  privilege 
and  the  absence  of  ofi&cial  compensation  is  the  griev- 
ance to  which  Shakespeare's  candid  'Host'  gives  loud 
voice. 
The  imperfections  of  the  surviving  text  of  the  'Merry 


have  been  published  in  ,1603,  although  no  edition  earlier  than  1620  is 
now  known.    The  1620  edition  of  Westward  for  Smelts,  written  by  Kinie 
Kit  of  Kingston,  was  reprinted  by  the  Percy  Society  in  1848.    Cf.  Shahi- 
speare's  Library,  ed.  Hazlitt,  i.  ii.  1-80. 
'  See  p.  35-6  supra. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  249 

Wives'  graphically  illustrate  the  risks  of  injury  to  which 
the  publishing  methods  of  his  day  exposed  Shakespeare's 
work.  A  license  for  the  publication  of  the  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^ 
play  was  granted  by  the  Stationers'  Company  'The Merry 
to  the  stationer  John  Busby  of  the  Crane  in  ^^''^^■' 
St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  on  January  18,  1601-2.^  A  very 
imperfect  draft  was  printed  in  1602  by  Thomas  Creede, 
the  well-known  printer  of  Thames  Street,  and  was  pub- 
lished at  the  'Fleur  de  Luce'  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard  by 
Arthur  Johnson,  who  took  the  venture  over  from  Busby 
on  the  same  day  as  the  latter  procured  his  license.  The 
inflated  title-page  ran:  'A  most  pleasaunt  and  excellent 
conceited  comedie,  of  Syr  lohn  Falstaffe,  and  the  merrie 
Wiues  of  Windsor.  Entermixed  with  sundrie  variable 
and  pleasing  humors,  of  Syr  Hugh  the  Welch  Knight, 
Justice  Shallow,  and  his  wise  Cousin  M.  Slender.  With 
the  swaggering  vaine  of  Auncient  PistoU  and  Corporall 
Nym.  By  William  Shakespeare.  As  it  hath  bene  diuers 
times  Acted  by  the  right  Honorable  my  Lord  Chamber- 
laines  seruants.  Both  before  her  Males  tie,  and  elsewhere.' 
The  incoherences  of  this  edition  show  that  it  was  pre- 
pared either  from  a  transcript  of  ignorant  shorthand 
notes  taken  in  the  theatre  or,  less  probably,  from  a  report 
of  the  play  made  in  longhand  from  memory.  In  any 
case  the  version  of  the  play  at  the  printers'  disposal  was 
based  on  a  drastic  abbreviation  of  the  author's  draft. 
This  crude  edition  was  reissued  without  change  in  1619, 
by  Arthur  Johnson,  the  former  pubUsher.  A  far  better 
and  far  fuller  text  happily  figured  in  the  First  Folio  of 
1623 .  Several  speeches  of  the  First  Quarto  were  omitted, 
but  many  passages  of  importance  were  printed  for  the 
first  time.  The  First  Folio  editors  clearly  had  access  to 
a  version  of  the  piece  which  widely  differed  from  that  of 
the  original  quarto.  But  the  Folio  manuscript  also 
bears  traces  of  mutilation  for  stage  purposes,  and  though 
a  joint  recension  of  the  Quarto  and  the  Foho  texts 
presents  an  intelligible  whole,  we  cannot  confidently 
*  Arber,  iii.  199 ;  Pollard,  45  seq. 


2SO 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


claim  to  know  from  the  existing  evidence  the  precise 
shape  in  which  the  play  left  Shakespeare's  hand.^ 

The  spirited  character  of  Prince  Hal  (in' Henry  IV') 
was  pecuharly  congenial  to  its  creator,  and  in  the  play  of 

'Henry  V  Shakespeare,  during  1598,  brought 
'Henry  V.'  j^j^  career  to  its  zenith.  The  piece  was  per- 
formed early  in  1599,  probably  in  the  newly  built  Globe 
theatre —  ' this  wooden  0'  of  the  opening  chorus. 
Again  printers  and  pubUshers  combined  to  issue  to  the 
reading  pubhc  a  reckless  perversion  of  Shakespeare's 
manuscript.     A   piratical   and   incompetent   shorthand 

reporter  was  responsible  for  the  text  of  the 
The  text,  g^g^  edition  which  appeared  in  quarto  in  1600. 
Half  of  the  play  was  ignored.  There  were  no  choruses, 
and  much  of  the  prose,  in  which  a  great  part  of  the  play 
was  written,  was  printed  in  separate  Unes  of  unequal 
lengths  as  if  it  had  been  intended  to  be  verse.  A  note 
in  the  register  of  the  Stationers'  Company  dated  August 
4,  1600,  runs:  'Henry  the  flBift,  a  booke,  to  be  staied.' 
Yet  in  spite  of  the  order  of  a  stay  of  publication,  the  book 
was  pubUshed  in  the  same  year.  The  pubUshers  were 
jointly  Thomas  MilUngton  of  Cornhill  and  John  Busby 
of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.^    The  printer  was  Thomas 

1  The  First  Quarto  was  reprinted  as  'The  first  sketch  of  The  Merry 
Wives '  in  1842,  ed.  by  J.  O.  HaUiwell  for  the  Shakespeare  Society.  A 
photolithographic  facsimile  appeared  in  1881  with  a  valuable  introduc- 
tion by  P.  A.  Daniel.  A  typed  facsimile  was  very  fully  edited  by  Mr. 
W.  W.  Greg  for  the  Clarendon  Press  in  1910. 

2  MilUngton  had  published  the  first  edition  of  'Titus'  (1594)  with 
Edward  White,  and  was  responsible  for  two  editions  of  both  The  Contm- 
Hon  (1594  and  1600)  and  True  Tragedie  (1595  and  1600)  —  the  first 
drafts  respectively  of  Shakespeare's  second  and  third  parts  of  Henry  VI. 
Busby,  MDlington's  partner  in  Henry  V,  acquired  on  January  18, 1601-2 
a  license  for  the  Merry  Wives  only  to  part  with  it  immediately  to  Arthur 
Johnson.  In  like  fashion  Busby  and  Millington  made  over  their  in- 
terest in  Henry  V  before  August  r4,  1600,  to  Thomas  Pavier  of  Cornhill, 
an  irresponsible  pirate,  who  undertook  the  disreputable  reissue  of  1602 
(Arber,  iii.  i6g).  It  was  Pavier  who  published  the  plays  of  5»>  John 
Oldcastle  (doubtfully  dated  1600)  and  the  Yorkshire  Tragedy  (1608)  under 
the  fraudulent  pretence  that  Shakespeare  was  their  auflior.  A  third 
uncorrected  reprint  of  Henry  V  —  'Printed  for  T.  P.  1608'  —  seems 
to  be  deliberately  misdated  and  to  have  been  first  issued  by  Pavier  in 
1619  at  the  press  of  William  Jaggard.  (See  Pollard,  Shakespeare  Polks 
and  Quartos,  1909,  pp.  81  seq.) 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  251 

Creede  of  Thames  Street,  who  had  just  proved  his 
recklessness  in  his  treatment  of  the  First  Quarto  of  the 
'Merry  Wives.'  There  were  two  reprints  of  this  dis- 
reputable volume  —  ostensibly  dated  in  1602  and  1608 
—  before  an  adequate  presentation  of  the  piece  appeared 
for  the  first  time  in  the  First  Folio  of  1623.  There  the 
1623  lines  of  the  piratical  quarto  gave  way  to  an  im- 
proved text  of  more  than  twice  the  length. 

The  dramatic  interest  of  'Henry  V  is  slender.  In 
construction  the  play  resembles  a  military  pageant.  The 
events,  which  mainly  concern  Henry  V's  wars  popularity 
in  France,  bring  the  reign  as  far  as  the  treaty  of  the 
of  peace  and  the  King's  engagement  to  the  '°^"^' 
French  princess.  The  climax  is  reached  earlier,  in 
the  brilliant  victory  of  the  EngUsh  at  Agincourt,  which 
powerfully  appealed  to  patriotic  sentiment.  HoKnshed's 
'  Chronicle'  and  the  crude  drama  of  the  'Famous  Victories 
of  Henry  the  Fift'  are  both  laid  under  generous  contri- 
bution. The  argument  indeed  enjoyed  already  an  ex- 
ceptionally wide  popularity.  Another  piece  ('Harry 
the  V)  which  the  Admiral's  conipany  produced  under 
Henslowe's  managership  for  the  first  time  on  November 
28,- 1595,  was  repeated  thirteen  times  within  the  follow- 
ing eight  months.  That  piece,  which  has  disappeared, 
may  have  stimulated  Shakespeare's  interest  in  the 
theme  if  it  did  not  offer  him  supplementary  hints  for  its 
development.^ 

In  'Henry  V  Shakespeare  incidentally  manipulated 
on  somewhat  original  lines  a  dramatic  device  of  classical 
descent.  At  the  opening  of  each  act  he  intro-  The 
duces  a  character  in  the  part  of  prologue  or  choruses, 
'chorus'  or  interpreter  of  the  coming  scene.  'Henry 
V  is  the  only  play  of  Shakespeare  in  which  every  fresh 
act  is  heralded  thus.  Elsewhere  two  of  the  five  acts, 
as  in  'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  or  only  one  of  the  acts,  as  in  the 
Second  Part  of  'Henry  IV,'  is  similarly  introduced. 
Nowhere,  too,  is  such  real  service  rendered  to  the  progress 
^  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  177. 


252  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  story  by  the  'chorus'  as  in  'Henry  V,'  nor  are  the 
speeches  so  long  or  so  memorable.  The  choric  prologues 
of  'Henry  V  are  characterised  by  exceptional  solemnity 
and  sublimity  of  phrase,  by  a  IjTic  fervour  and  philo- 
sophical temper  which  sqts  them  among  the  greatest 
of  Shakespeare's  monologues.  Through  the  first,  and 
the  last,  runs  an  almost  passionate  appeal  to  the  spec- 
tators to  bring  their  highest  powers  of  imagination  to 
the  realisation  of  the  dramatist's  theme. 

As  in  the  '  Famous  Victories '  and  in  the  two  parts  of 
'Henry  IV,'  there  is  abimdance  of  comic  element  in 
rj.^^  'Henry  V,'  but  death  has  removed  Falstaff, 

soldiers  in  whose  last  moments  are  described  with  the 
the  cast.  gimpie  pathos  that  comes  of  a  matchless 
art,  and,  though  Falstaff's  companions  survive,  they  are 
thin  shadows  of  his  substantial  figure.  New  comic 
characters  are  introduced  in  the  persons  of  three  soldiers 
respectively  of  Welsh,  Scottish,  and  Irish  nationality, 
whose  racial  traits  are  contrasted  with  effect.  The 
irascible  Irishman,  Captain  MacMorris,  is  the  only 
representative  of  his  nation  who  figures  in  the  long  list 
of  Shakespeare's  dramatis  persona.  The  Scot  James  is 
stolid  and  undemonstrative.  The  scene  in  which  the 
pedantic  but  patriotic  Welsh  captain,  FlueUen,  avenges 
the  sneers  of  the  braggart  Pistol  at  his  nation's  emblem, 
by  forcing  him  to  eat  the  leek,  overflows  in  vivacious 
humour.  There  are  also  original  and  Kfelike  sketches 
of  two  English  private  soldiers,  Williams  and  Bates.  On 
the  royal  hero's  manhness,  whether  as  soldier,  ruler,  or 
lover,  Shakespeare  loses  no  opportunity  of  laying  empha- 
sis. In  no  other  play  has  he  cast  a  man  so  entirely  in 
the  heroic  mould.  Alone  in  Shakespeare's  gallery  of 
English  monarchs  does  Henry's  portrait  evoke  at  once  a 
joyous  sense  of  satisfaction  in  the  high  potentiahties  of 
human  character  and  a  f eehng  of  pride  among  English- 
men that  one  of  his  mettle  is  of  Enghsh  race.  'Henry 
V  may  be  regarded  as  Shakespeare's  final  experiment  in 
the  dramatisation  of  English  history,  and  it  artistically 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  253 

and  patriotically  rounds  off  the  series  of  his  'histories' 
which  form  collectively  a  kind  of  national  epic.  For 
'Henry  VIII,'  which  was  produced  very  late  in  his 
career,  Shakespeare  was  only  in  part  responsible,  and  that 
'history'  consequently  belongs  to  a  different  category. 

A  glimpse  of  autobiography  may  be  discerned  in  the 
direct  mention  by  Shakespeare  in  'Henry  V  of  an  excit- 
ing episode  in  current  history.  At  the  time  of 
the  composition  of  'Henry  V  public  attention  speareand 
was  riveted  on  the  exploits  of  the  impetuous  ^^^^^l 
Robert  Devereux,  second  Earl  of  Essex,  whose 
virtues  and  defects  had  the  faculty  of  evoking  immense 
popularity.  Early  in  1599,  he  had  tempted  fate  by  ac- 
cepting the  appointment  of  lord  deputy  of  Ireland  where 
the  native  Irish  were  rebelling  against  EngUsh  rule.  He 
left  London  for  Dublin  on  March  27,  1599,  and  he  rode 
forth  from  the  English  capital  amid  the  deafening  plaudits 
of  the  populace.^  Very  confident  was  the  general  hope 
that  he  would  gloriously  pacify  the  distracted  province. 
The  Earl's  close  friend  Southampton,  Shakespeare's 
patron,  bore  him  company  and  the  dramatist  shared  in 
the  general  expectation  of  an  early  triumphant  home- 
coming. 

In  the  prologue  or  'chorus'  to  the  last  act  of  'Henry 
V  Shakespeare  foretold  for  the  Earl  of  Essex  E^sexand 
an   enthusiastic   reception   by   the   people   of  t^ifonof 
London  when  he  should  return  after  'broach-  1601. 
ing '  rebellion  in  Ireland. 

Were  now  the  general  of  our  gracious  empress, 
As  in  good  time  he  may,  from  Ireland  coming, 
Bringing  rebellion  broached  on  his  sword, 
How  many  would  the  peaceful  city  quit 
To  welcome  him  !     (Act  v.  Chorus,  11.  30-4.) 

'  Cf.  Stow's  Annals,  ed.  Howes,  1631,  p.  788 :  'The  twentie  seuen 
of  March,  1599,  about  two  a  clocke  in  the  afternoone,  Robert  Earle  of 
Essex,  Vicegerent  of  Ireland,  &c.,  tooke  horse  in  Seeding  Lane,  and  from 
thence  beeing  accompanied  with  diuers  Noblemen,  and  many  others, 
himselfe  very  plainely  attired,  roade  through  Grace-streete,  Comehill, 
Cheapeside,  and  other  high  streetes,  in  all  which  places,  and  in  the  fieldes, 
the  people  pressed  exceedingly  to  behold  him,  especially  in  the  highwayes 


254  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

But  Shakespeare's  prognostication  was  woefully  belied. 
Essex's  Irish  policy  failed.  He  proved  unequal  to  the 
task  which  was  set  him.  Instead  of  a  glorious  fulfilment 
of  his  Irish  charge  he,  soon  after  'Henry  V  was  produced, 
crept  back  hurriedly  to  London,  with  his  work  undone, 
and  under  orders  to  stand  his  trial  for  disobedience  to 
royal  directions  and  for  neglect  of  duty.  Dismissed  after 
tedious  litigation  from  all  offices  of  state  (on  August  26, 
1600),  Essex  saw  his  hopes  fatally  bhghted.  With  a 
view  to  recovering  his  position,  he  thereupon  formed  the 
desperate  resolve  of  forcibly  removing  from  the  Queen's 
councils  those  to  whom  he  attributed  his  niin.  South- 
ampton and  other  young  men  of  social  positioa  joined 
in  the  reckless  plot.  They  vainly  counted  on  the  good- 
will of  the  citizens  of  London.  When  the  year  1601 
opened,  the  conspirators  were  completing  their  plans, 
and  Shakespeare's  sympathetic  reference  to  Essex's 
popularity  with  Londoners  bore  fruit  of  some  peril  to 
his  theatrical  colleagues,  if  not  to  himself. 

On  the  eve  of  the  projected  rising,  a  few  of  the  rebel 
leaders,  doubtless  at  Southampton's  suggestion,  sought 
The  Globe  ^^^  dramatist's  countenance.  They  paid  4.0s. 
and  Essex's  to  Augustine  PhiUips,  a  leading  member  of 
on.  Shakespeare's  company  and  a  close  friend  of 
the  dramatist,  to  induce  him  to  revive  at  the  Globe 
theatre  'the  play  of  the  deposing  and  murder  of  King 
Richard  the  Second'  (beyond  doubt  Shakespeare's  play), 
in  the  hope  that  its  scenes  of  the  deposition  and  killing  of 
a  king  might  encourage  a  popular  outbreak.  Phillips 
prudently  told  the  conspirators  who  bespoke  the  piece 
that '  that  play  of  Kyng  Richard'  was  '  so  old  and  so  long 
out  of  use  as  that  they  should  have  small  or  no  company 
at  it.'  None  the  less  the  performance  took  place  on 
Saturday,  February  7,  1600-1,  the  day  preceding  the 
one  fixed  by  Essex  for  his  rising  in  the  streets  of  London. 

for  more  then  four  myles  space,  crying  and  saying,  God  blesse  your 
Lordship,  God  preserue  your  honour,  &c.,  and  some  followed  him  untill 
the  evening,  onely  to  behold  him.' 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  255 

The  Queen,  in  a  later  conversation  (on  August  4,  1601) 
with  William  Lambarde,  a  well-known  antiquary,  com- 
plained rather  wildly  that  'this  tragedie'  of  'Richard 
II,'  which  she  had  always  viewed  with  suspicion,  was 
played  at  the  period  with  seditious  intent  'forty  times 
in  open  streets  and  houses.'  ^  At  any  rate  the  players' 
appeal  failed  to  provoke  the  response  which  the  conspir- 
ators anticipated.  On  Sunday,  February  8,  Essex,  with 
Southampton  and  others,  fully  armed,  vainly  appealed 
to  the  people  of  London  to  march  on  the  Court.  They 
addressed  themselves  to  deaf  ears,  and  being  arrested,  by 
the  Queen's  troops  were  charged  with  high  treason.  At 
the  joint  trial  of  Essex  and  Southampton,  the  actor 
Phillips  gave  evidence  of  the  circumstances  in  which  the 
tragedy  of  '  Richard  II '  was  revived  at  the  Globe  theatre. 
Both  Essex  and  Southampton  were  found  guilty  and 
sentenced  to  death.  Essex  was  duly  executed  on  Feb- 
ruary 25  within  the  precincts  of  the  Tower  of  London; 
but  Southampton  was  reprieved  on  the  ground  that  his 
offence  was  due  to  his  'love'  of  Essex.  He  was  impris- 
oned in  the  Tower  of  London  until  the  Queen's  death, 
more  than  two  years  later.  No  proceedings  were  taken 
against  the  players  for  their  implied  support  of  the 
traitors,^  but  Shakespeare  wisely  abstained,  for  the 
time,  from  any  public  refetence  to  the  fate  either  of 
Essex  or  of  his  patron  Southampton. 

Such  incidents  served  to  accentuate  rather  than  injure 
Shakespeare's  growing  reputation.     For   several  years 
his  genius  as  dramatist  and  poet  had  been  ac-  shake- 
knowledged  by  critics  and  playgoers  alike,  and  pPp^^^'^j^y 
his  social  and  professional  position  had  become  and 
considerable.     Inside  the  theatre  his  influence  i"fl"™ce. 
was  supreme.     When,  in   1598,   the   manager   of   the 
company    rejected   Ben    Jonson's    first    comedy  —  his 
'Every  Man  in  his  Humour'  —  Shakespeare  intervened, 

'  Nichols,  Progresses  of  Elizabeth,  iii.  SS^-  ,    „^ 

2Cf     Domestic   MSS.    (Elizabeth)    in  Public   Record   Office,   vol. 

cclxxviii.  Nos.  78  and  85;    and  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic, 

1598-1601,  pp.  S7S-8. 


256  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

according  to  a  credible  tradition  (reported  by  Rowe  but 
denounced  by  Gifford),  and  procured  a  reversal  of  the 
decision  in  the  interest  of  the  unknown  dramatist,  who 
was  his  junior  by  nine  years.  Shakespeare  took  a  part 
when  the  piece  was  performed.  On  September  22,  1598, 
after  the  production  of  the  comedy, '  Jonson  unluckily 
killed  a  fellow  actor,  Gabriel  Spenser,  in  a  duel  in  Moor- 
fields,  and  being  convicted  of  murder  escaped  punish- 
ment by  benefit  of  clergy.  According  to  a  story  published 
at  the  time,  he  owed  his  release  from  'purgatory'  to  a 
player,  'a  charitable  copperlaced  Christian,'  and  his 
benefactor  has  been  identified  with  Shakespeare.^  What- 
ever may  have  been  Shakespeare's  specific  acts  of  benevo- 
lence, Jonson  was  of  a  difficult  and  jealous  temper,  and 
subsequently  he  gave  vent  to  an  occasional  expression 
of  scorn  at  Shakespeare's  expense.  But,  despite  passing 
manifestations  of  his  unconquerable  surliness,  the  proofs 
are  complete  that  Jonson  cherished  genuine  esteem  and 
affection  for  Shakespeare  till  death.^  Within  a  very 
few  years  of  Shakespeare's  death  Sir  Nicholas  L'Es- 
trange,  an  industrious  collector  of  anecdotes,  put  into 
writing  an  anecdote  for  which  he  made  John  Donne,  the 
poetic  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  responsible,  attesting  the 
anaicable  social  relations  that  commonly  subsisted  be- 
tween Shakespeare  and  Jonson.  'Shakespeare,'  ran 
the  story,  'was  godfather  to  one  of  Ben  Jonson's  children, 
and  after  the  christening,  being  in  a  deep  study,  Jonson 
came  to  cheer  him  up  and  asked  him  why  he  was  so 
melancholy.  "No,  faith,  Ben,"  says  he,  "not  I,  but  I 
have  been  considering  a  great  while  what  should  be  the 

i  See  Dekker's  SaiiromasHx,  which  was  produced  by  Shakespeare's 
company  in  the  autumn  of  1601,  where  Horace,  a  caricature  portrait  of 
Ben  Jonson,  is  thus  addressed:  'Thou  art  the  true  arraign'd  Poet,  and 
shouldst  have  been  hang'd,  but  for  one  of  these  part-takers,  these  chari- 
table Copper-lac'd  Christians  that  fetcht  thee  out  of  Purgatory,  Players 
I  meane,  Theaterians,  pouchmouth  stage- walkers'  (act  iv.  sc.  iii.  252 
seq.). 

*  Cf .  Gilchrist,  Examination  of  the  charges  .  .  .  of  Jonson's  Enmity 
towards  Shakespeare,  1808.  See  Ben  Jonson's  elegy  in  the  First  Folio 
and  his  other  references  to  Shakespeare's  writings  at  p.  587  infra. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  257 

fittest  gift  for  me  to  bestow  upon  my  godchild,  and  I 
have  resolv'd  at  last."  "I  pr'ythee,  what?"  sayes  he. 
"I'  faith,  Ben,  I'll  e'en  give  him  a  dozen  good  Lattin 
spoons,  and  thou  shalt  translate  them."'  "■  The  friendly 
irony  is  in  the  gentle  vein  with  which  Shakespeare  was 
traditionally  credited.  Very  mildly  is  Ben  Jonson  re- 
buked for  his  vainglorious  assertion  of  classical  learning, 
the  comparative  lack  of  which  in  Shakespeare  was  a 
frequent  theme  of  Jonson's  taunts. 

The  creator  of  Falstaff  could  have  been  no  stranger 
to  tavern  Hfe,  and  he  doubtless  took  part  with  zest  in  the 
convivialities  of  men  of  letters.  Supper  parties  ^j^^ 
at  City  inns  were  a  welcome  experience  of  all  Mermaid 
poets  and  dramatists  of  the  time.  The  bright  "'^^''"s^- 
wit  flashed  freely  amid  the  substantial  fare  of  meat, 
game,  pastry,  cheese  and  fruit,  with  condiments  of  olives, 
capers  and  lemons,  and  flowing  cups  of  'rich  Canary 
wine.'  ^  The  veteran '  Mermaid '  in  Bread  Street,  Cheap- 
side,  and  the  'Devil'  at  Temple  Bar,  were  celebrated 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century  for  their  literary  asso- 
ciations,* while  other  taverns  about  the  City,  named 
respectively  the  'Sun,'  the  'Dog,'  and  the  'Triple 
Tun,'  long  boasted  of  their  lettered  patrons.  The  most 
famous  of  the  literary  hostelries  in  Shakespeare's  era 
was  the  'Mermaid,'  where  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  held 
to  have  inaugurated  the  poetic  feasts.  Through  Shake- 
speare's middle  years  Ben  Jonson  exercised  supreme 
control  over  the  convivial  Hfe  of  literary  London,  and  a 
reasonable  tradition  reports  that  Shakespeare  was  a 
frequent  visitor  to  the  'Mermaid'  tavern  at  the  period 

' '  Latten'  is  a  mixed  metal  resembling  brass.  Pistol  in  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor  [l.  i.  165]  likens  Slender  to  a  'latten  bilbo,'  that  is,  a  sword 
made  of  the  mixed  metal.  Cf.  Anecdotes  and  Traditions,  edited  from 
L'Estrange's  MSS.  by  W.  J.  Thoms  for  the  Camden  Society,  p.  i. 
2  Cf.  Ben  Jonson's  Epigrams,  No.  ci.  'Inviting  a  Friend  to  Supper,' 
'  Cf.  Herrick's  Poems  (Muses'  Library,  ii.  no)  where  in  his  'ode  for' 
Ben  Jonson,  Herrick  mentions : 

those  lyric  feasts 
Made  at  the  Sun, 
The  Dog,  the  Triple  Tun. 


258  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

when  Ben  Jonson  presided  over  its  parliament  of  wit. 
Of  the  intellectual  brilliance  of  those  'merry'  meetings 
the  dramatist  Francis  Beaumont  wrote  glowingly  in 
his  poetical  letter  to  the  presiding  genius  : 

What  things  have  we  seen 
Done  at  the  Mermaid  ?    heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble,  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest, 
And  had  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  Ufe.i 

'Many  were  the  wit-combats,'  wrote  Fuller  of  Shake- 
speare in  his  'Worthies'  (1662),  'betwixt  him  and  Ben 
Jonson,  which  two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish  great  galleon 
and  an  English  man  of  war;  Master  Jonson  (lik§  the 
former)  was  built  far  higher  in  learning,  soHd  but  slow  in 
his  performances.  Shakespear,  with  the  Englishman  of 
war,  lesser  in  bulk,  but  hghter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with 
all  tides,  tack  about,  and  take  advantage  of  aU  winds  by 
the  quickness  of  his  wit  and  invention.' 

Of  the  many  testimonies  paid  to  Shakespeare's  reputa- 
tion as  both  poet  and  dramatist  at  this  period  of  his 
Meres's  Career,  the  most  striking  was  that  of  Francis 
eulogy,  Meres.  Meres  was  a  learned  graduate  of 
'^'*'  Cambridge  University,   a  divine  and  school- 

master, who  brought  out  in  1598  a  collection  of  apoph- 
thegms on  morals,  rehgion,  and  literature  which  he 
entitled  'Palladis  Tamia'  or  'Wits  Treasury.'  In  the 
volume  he  interpolated  'A  comparative  discourse  of 
our  English  poets  with  the  Greek,  Latin,  and  Italian 
poets,'  and  there  exhaustively  surveyed  contemporary 
literary  effort  in  England.  Shakespeare  figured  in 
Meres's  pages  as  the  greatest  man  of  letters  of  the  day. 
'The  Muses  would  speak  Shakespeare's  fine  filed  phrase,' 
Meres  asserted,  'if  they  could  speak  English.'  'Among 
the  English,'  he  declared,  'he  is  the  most  excellent  in 

'  Francis  Beaumont's  Poems  in  Old  Dramatists  (Beaumont  and 
Fletcher),  ii.  708. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER  259 

both  kinds  for  the  stage'  (i.e.  tragedy  and  comedy), 
rivalling  the  fame  of  Seneca  in  the  one  kind,  and  of 
Plautus  in  the  other.  There  follow  the  titles  of  six 
comedies:  'Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  'Errors,' 
'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  'Love's  Labour's  Won'  {i.e. 
'All's  Well'),  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  and  'Mer- 
chant of  Venice,'  and  of  six  tragedies,  'Richard  II,' 
'Richard  III,'  'Henry  IV,'  'King  John,'  'Titus,'  and 
'Romeo  and  Juliet.'  Mention  was  also  made  of  Shake- 
speare's 'Venus  and  Adonis,'  his  'Lucrece,'  and  his 
'sugred  ^  sonnets  among  his  private  friends.' 

Shakespeare's  poems  'Venus  and  Adonis'  and  'Lu- 
crece' received  in  contemporary  literature  of  the  closing 
years   of  Queen  Elizabeth's   reign  more   fre- 
quent   commendation    than    his    plays.    Yet  in/'wor^ 
'Romeo  and  Juliet,'   'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  1^^^^°* 
and  '  Richard  III '  all  received  some  approving  speare  as 
notice  at  critical  hands ;  and  familiar  references  <^'^^™^tist. 
to  Justice  Silence,  Justice  Shallow,  and  Sir  John  Falstaff , 
with  echoes  of  Shakespearean  phraseology,   either  in 
printed  plays  or  in  contemporary  private  correspondence, 
attest  the  spreading  range  of  Shakespeare's  conquests.^ 
At  the  turn  of  the  century  the  '  Pilgrimage  to  Parnassus, 
and  the  two  parts  of  the  'Returne  from  Parnassus,'  a  tri- 

*  This,  or  some  synonym,  is  the  conventional  epithet  applied  at  the 
date  to  Shakespeare  and  his  work.  Weever  credited  such  characters 
of  Shakespeare  as  Adonis,  Venus,  Tarquin,  Romeo,  and  Richard  III 
with  'sugred  tongues'  in  his  Epigrams  of  iS99-  In  the  Return  from  Par- 
nassus (1601?)  Shakespeare  is  apostrophised  as  'sweet  Master  Shake- 
speare.' Milton  did  homage  to  the  tradition  by  writing  of  'sweetest 
Shakespeare'  in  L' Allegro. 

'  See  Centurie  of  Praise,  under  the  years  1600  and  1601.  In  Ben  Jon- 
son's  Every  Man  Out  of  His  Humour  (1600)  one  character  is  described 
as  'a  kinsman  of  Justice  Silence,'  and  of  another  it  is  foretold  that  he 
might  become  'as  fat  as  Sir  John  Falstaff.'  A  country  gentleman,  Sir 
Charles  Percy,  writing  to  a  friend  in  London  from  his  country  seat  in 
Gloucestershire,  said :  'If  I  stay  heere  long  in  this  fashion,  at  my  return 
I  think  you  will  find  mee  so  dull  that  I  shall  bee  taken  for  Justice  Silence 
or  Justice  Shallow  .  .  .  Perhaps  thee  will  not  exempt  mee  from  the 
opinion  of  a  Justice  Shallow  at  London,  yet  I  will  assure  you,  thee  will 
make  mee  passe  for  a  very  sufficient  gentleman  in  Gloucestershire'  (MS. 
letter  in  Public  Record  Office,  Domestic  State  Papers,  vol.  275,  No.  146). 


26o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

logy  of  plays  by  wits  of  Cambridge  University,  introduce 
a  student  who  constantly  quotes  '  pure  Shakespeare  and 
shreds  of  poetry  that  he  hath  gathered  at  the  theatres.' 
The  admirer  asserts  that  he  will  hang  a  picture  of  'sweet 
Mr.  Shakespeare'  in  his  study,  and  denounces  as  'dunci- 
fied'  the  world  which  sets  Spenser  and  Chaucer  above 
his  idol. 

Shakespeare's  assured  reputation  is  convincingly  cor- 
roborated by  the  value  which  unprincipled  pubhshers 

..  ,  attached  to  his  name  and  by  the  zeal  with 
unprin-  which  they  sought  to  palm  off  on  their  cus- 
of^'shake-^  totners  the  productions  of  inferior  pens  as  his 
speare's  work.  The  practice  began  in  1594  and  con- 
"^"'^'  tinned  not   only   through'  the  rest  of   Shake- 

speare's career,  but  for  some  half-century  after  his 
death.  The  crude  deception  was  not  wholly  unsuccess- 
ful. Six  valueless  pieces  which  publishers  put  to  his 
credit  in  his  lifetime  found  for  a  time  unimpeded  ad- 
mission to  his  collected  works. 

As  early  as  July  20,  1594,  Thomas  Creede,  the  printer 
of  the  surreptitious  editions  of  '  Henry  V '  and  the  '  Merry 
Wives'  as  well  as  of  the  more  or  less  authentic 
ascr^tions  versions  of  'Richard  III'  (1598)  and  'Romeo 
lifetime  ^^'^  Juliet'  (1599)  obtained  a  license  for  the 
issue  of  the  crude  'Tragedie  of  Locrine'  which 
he  published  during  1595  as  'newly  set  foorth  overseene 
and  corrected.  By  W.  S.'  'Locrine,'  which  lamely 
dramatises  a  Brito-Trojan  legend  from  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth's history,  appropriated  many  passages  from  an 
blder  piece  called  'Selimus,'  which  was  also  printed  and 
pubUshed  by  Thomas  Creede  in  1594.  'Selimus'  was 
no  doubt  from  the  pen  of  Robert  Greene,  and  came  into 
being  long  before  Shakespeare  was  out  of  his  apprentice- 
ship. Scenes  of  dumb  show  which  preface  each  act  of 
'Locrine'  indicate  the  obsolete  mould  in  which  the  piece 
was  cast.     The  same  initials  —  'W.  S.' ^  —  figured  on 

'  A  hack-writer,  Wentworth  Smith,  took  a  hand  in  producing  for  the 
theatrical  manager  Philip  Henslowe,  between  1601  and  1603,  thirteen 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC   POWER  261 

the  title-page  of  'The  True  Chronicle  Historie  of  Thomas, 
Lord  Cromwell  .  .  .  Written  by  W.  S.,'  which  was 
licensed  on  August  11,  1602,  was  printed  for  WiUiam 
Jones  in  that  year,  and  was  reprinted  verbatim  by 
Thomas  Snodham  in  1613.  The  piece  is  described  as 
having  been  acted  by  Shakespeare's  company,  both 
when  under  the  patronage  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
and  under  that  of  King  James.  'Lord  Cromwell'  is  a 
helpless  collection  of  disjointed  scenes  from  the 
biography  of  King  Henry  VIII's  ministers ;  it  is  quite 
destitute  of  literary  quahty.  On  the  title-page  of  a 
comedy  entitled  "The  Puritaine,  or  the  Widdow  of 
Watling  Streete,'  which  George  Eld  printed  in  1607, 
'W.  S.'  was  for  a  third  time  stated  to  be  the  author. 
'The  Puritaine  .  .  .  Written  by  W.  S.'  is  a  brisk  farce 
portraying  the  coarseness  of  bourgeois  London  life  in  a 
manner  which  Ben  Jonson  essayed  later  in  his  'Bai-tholo- 
mew  Fair.'  According  to  the  title-page,  the  piece  was 
'acted  by  the  children  of  Paules'  who  never  interpreted 
any  of  Shakespeare's  works. 

Through  the  same  period  Shakespeare's  full  name 
appeared  on  the  title-pages  of  three  other  pieces  which 
are  equally  destitute  of  any  touch  of  Shakespeare's 
hand,  viz. :  '  The  First  Part  of  the  Life  of  Sir  John 
Oldcastle'  in  1600  (printed  for  T[homas]  P[avier]), 
'The  London  Prodigall'  in  1605  (printed  by  T[homas] 
C[reede]  for  Nathaniel  Butter),  and  'A  Yorkshire 
Tragedy'  in  1608  (by  R.  B.  for  Thomas  Pavier). 
The  first  part  of  the  'Life  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle' 
was  the  piece  designed  by  other  pens  in  1599  to  re- 
lieve the  hero's  character   of   the    imputations  which 

plays,  none  of  which  are  extant.  The  Hector  of  Germanie,  an  extant 
play  'made  by  W.  Smith'  and  published  'with  new  additions'  in  1615, 
was  doubtless  by  Wentworth  Smith,  and  is  the  only  dramatic  work  by 
him  that  has  survived.  Neither  internal  nor  external  evidence  confirms 
the  theory  that  the  above-mentioned  six  plays,  which  have  been  wrongly 
claimed  for  Shakespeare,  were  really  by  Wentworth  Smith.  The  use 
of  the  initials  'W.  S.'  was  not  due  to  the  publishers'  belief  that  Went- 
worth Smith  was  the  author,  but  to  their  endeavour  to  delude  their 
customers  into  a  belief  that  the  plays  were  by  Shakespeare. 


262  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  was  supposed  to  cast  upon  it  in  his  first 
sketch  of  Falstaff's  portrait.^  'The  London  Pro-digall,' 
which  was  acted  by  Shakespeare's  company,  humorously 
delineates  middle-class  society  after  the  maimer  of 
.^  'The    Puritaine.'       'A    Yorkshire    Tragedy,' 

Yorkshire  which  was  actcd  by  his  Majesty's  players 
Tragedy.'  ^^  ^j^^  Globc,  was  assigucd  to  Shakespeare 
not  only  on  the  title-page  of  the  published  book,  but 
on  the  Hcense  granted  to  Thomas  Pavier,  the  pirate 
publisher,  by  the  Stationers'  Company  (May  2,  1608).^ 
The  title-page  describes  the  piece,  which  was  unusually 
short,  as  'not  so  new  as  lamentable  and  true';  it  dra- 
matises current  reports  of  the  sensational  murder  in 
1605  by  a  Yorkshire  squire  of  his  children  and  of  the 
attempted  murder  of  his  wife.^ 

None  of  the  six  plays  just  enumerated,  which  passed 
in '  Shakespeare's  Hfetime  under  either  his  name  or  his 
initials,  has  any  reasonable'  pretension  to  Shakespeare's 
authorship ;  nevertheless  all  were  uncritically  included  in 
the  Third  FoUo  of  his  collected  works  (1664),  and  they 
reappeared  in  the  Fourth  Foho  of  1685.  Save  in  the 
case  of  'A  Yorkshire  Tragedy,'  criticism  is  unanimous  in 
decreeing  their  exclusion  from  the  Shakespearean  canon. 
Nor  does  serious  value  attach  to  the  grounds  which  led 
Schlegel  and  a  few  critics  of  repute  to  detect  signs  of 
Shakespeare's  hand  in  '  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy. '  However 
superior  that  drama  is  to  its  companions  in  passionate  and 
lurid  force,  it  is  no  more  than  '  a  coarse,  crude,  and  vigor- 
ous impromptu '  which  is  as  clearly  as  the  rest  by  a  far 
less  experienced  pen  than  Shakespeare's. 

The  fraudulent  practice  of  crediting  Shakespeare 
with  valueless  plays  from  the  pens  of  comparatively  dull- 
vntted  contemporaries  extended  far  beyond  the  six 
pieces  which  he  saw  circulating  under   lus  name,  and 

^  See  p.  244  n.  supra. 

'  Arber's  Stationers'  Reg.  iii.  377. 

'  The  piece  was  designed  as  one  of  a  set  of  four  plays,  and  it  has  the 
alternative  title  :  '  All's  one  or  One  of  the  four  plaies  in  one.'  A  second 
edition  of  1619  repeats  the  attribution  to  Shakespeare. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER  263 

which  the  later  Folios  accepted  as  his.  The  worthless 
old  play  on  the  subject  of  King  John  was  attributed  to 
Shakespeare  in  the  reissues  of  161 1  and  1622, 
and  enterprising  traders  continued  to  add  to  ascriptions 
the  illegitimate  record  through  the  next  gen-  j^**!*"^ 
eration.  Hiunphrey  Moseley,  a  London  pub- 
lisher of  hterary  proclivities,  who,  between  1630  and 
his  death  early  in  1661,  issued  much  poetic  literature, 
including  the  first  collection  of  Milton's  Minor  Poems  in 
1645,  claimed  for  Shakespeare  the  av^thorship  in  whole 
or  in  part  of  as  many  as  seven  additional  plays.  On 
September  9,  1653,  he  obtained  from  the  Stationers' 
Company  license  to  publish  no  less  than  forty-one 
'severall  Playes.'  The  list  includes  'The  Merry  Devill 
of  Edmonton'  which  the  publisher  assigned  wholly  to 
Shakespeare ;  '  The  History  of  Carden[n]io,'  which  was 
said  to  be  a  joint  work  of  Shakespeare  and  Fletcher; 
and  two  pieces  called  'Henry  I'  and  'Henry  II,'  respon- 
sibility for  which  was  divided  between  Shakespeare  and 
a  minor  dramatist  called  Robert  Davenport.  On  June 
29,  1660,  Moseley  repeated  his  bold  exploit,^  and  ob- 
tained a  second  license  to  publish  twenty-eight  further 
plays,  three  of  which  he  again  put  without  any  warrant 
to  Shakespeare's  credit.  The  titles  of  this  trio  ran: 
'The  History  of  King  Stephen,'  'Duke  Humphrey,  a 
tragedy,'  and  'Iphis  and  lantha,  or  a  marriage  without 
a  man,  a  comedy.'  Of  the  seven  reputed  Shakespearean 
dramas  which  appear  on  Moseley's  hsts,  only  one,  'The 
Merry  DeviU  of  Edmonton,'  is  extant.  Pieces  called 
the  'History  of  Cardenio'  ^  and  'Henry  the  First'  were 
acted  by  Shakespeare's  company.  Manuscripts  of  three 
other  of  Moseley's  alleged  Shakespearean  plays  ('Henry 
the  First,'  'Dtike  Humphrey,'  and  'The  History  of 
King  Stephen')  would  seem  to  have  belonged  in   the 

'  Moseley's  lists  are  carefully  printed  from  the  Stationers'  Company's 
Registers  in  Mr.  W.  W.  Greg's  article  'The  Bakings  of  Betsy'  in  The 
Library,  July  191 1,  pp.  237  seq. 

'  See  p.  438  infra. 


264  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  antiquary 
and  herald  John  Warburton,  whose  cook,  traditionally 
christened  Betsy  Baker,  through  his  'carelessness'  and 
her  'ignorance'  committed  them  and  many  papers  of  a 
like  kind  to  the  kitchen  flames.^  '  The  Merry  Devill  of 
Edmonton,'  the  sole  survival  of  Moseley's  alleged 
'The  Shakespearean  discoveries,  was  produced  on  the  V 

Merry  sta^ggjjefore  the-close^of-lha-sixteenth  century ;  u 
Edmoa°^  it  was  entered  on  the  'Stationers'  Register'  ', 
ton.'  on    OctqjDer    22,    1607,    was    first    published 

anonymously  in  1608,  'as  it  hath  beene  sundry  times 
Acted,  by  his  Maiesties  Seruants,  at  the  Globe  on  the 
bankside,'  and  was  revived  before  the  Court  at  White- 
hall in  May  1613.  There  was  a  sixth  quarto  edition  m 
1655.  None  of  the  early  impressions  bore  an  author's 
name.  Francis  Kirkman,  another  prominent  London 
bookseller  of  Moseley's  temper,  assigned  it  to  Shake- 
speare in  his  catalogue  of  1661 ;  a  copy  of  it  was  bound 
up  in  Charles  II's  library  with  two  other  EHzabethan 
plays  —  '  Faire  Em '  and  '  Mucedorus '  —  and  the  volume 
was  labelled  by  the  binders  'Shakespeare,  volume  i.'^ 
'The  Merry  Devill'  is  a  deUghtful  comedy,  abounding" 
in  both  humour  and  romantic  sentiment;  at  times  it 
recalls  scenes  of  the  '  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.'  Superior 
as  it  is  at  all  points  to  any  other  of  Shakespeare's  falsely 

^  Warburton's  list  of  some  fifty-six  plays,  all  but  three  or  four  of 
which  he  charges  his  servant  with  destroying,  is  in  the  British  Museum, 
Lansdowne  MS.  vol.  807,  a  volume  which  also  contains  the  MS.  of  three 
pieces  and  the  fragment  of  a  fourth,  the  sole  relics  of  the  servant's  holo- 
caust. The  list  is  printed  in  Malone's  Variorum  Shakespeare,  ii.  468- 
470,  and  more  carefully  by  Mr.  Greg  in  The  Library,  July  1911,  pp.  230-2. 
Among  the  pieces  named  are  Henry  I  by  Will.  Shakespear  and  Robert 
Davenport;  Duke  Humphrey,  by  Will.  Shakespear;  and  A  Play  by 
Will.  Shakespeare  vaguely  identified  with  'The  History  of  King  Stephen.' 
Sir  Henry  Herbert  licensed  The  History  of  Henry  the  First  to  the  King's 
company  on  April  10,  1624,  attributing  it  to  Davenport  alone  (Malone, 
iii.  229).  Nothing  else  is  known  of  Warburton's  two  other  alleged 
Shakespearean  pieces. 

^  This  volume,  which  was  at  one  time  in  the  library  of  the  actor- 
Garrick,  passed  to  the  British  Museum.  Its  contents  are  now  bound  up 
separately,  the  old  label  being  long  since  discarded.  (Cf.  Malone's 
Variorum,  1821,  ii.  682;  Simpson's  School  of  Shakspere,  ii.  337.) 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER  265 

reputed  plays,  it  gives  no  sign  of  Shakespeare's  workman- 
ship.^ The  bookseller,  Francis  Kirkman,  showed  greater 
rashness  in  issuing  in  1662  a  hitherto  unprinted  piece 
called  'The  Birth  of  Merlin,'  an  extravagant  romance 
which  he  described  on  the  title-page  as  'written  by 
William  Shakespeare  and  William  Rowley.'  A  few 
snatches  of  poetry  fail  to  hft  this  piece  above  the  crude 
level  of  Rowley's  unaided  work.  It  cannot  be  safely 
dated  earlier  than  1622,  six  years  after  Shakespeare's 
death.^ 

Bold  speculators  have  occasionally  sought  to  justify 
the  rashness  of  Charles  II's  bookbinder  in  labelling  as 
Shakespeare's  work  the  two  pieces  '  Mucedorus '  and 
'Faire  Em'  along  with  the  'Merry  Devill.'  The  book- 
seller Kirkman  accepted  the  attribution  in  his  '  Catalogue 
of  Plays'  of  1 67 1,  and  his  fallacious  guidance  was  followed 
by  William  Winstanley  (1687)  and  Gerard  Langbaine 
(1691)  in  their  notices  of  Shakespeare  in  their  respective 
'Lives  of  English  Poets.'  ^ 

'Mucedorus'  is  an  elementary  effort  in  romantic 
comedy  somewhat  in  Greene's  vein.  It  is  interspersed 
with  clownish  horseplay  and  dates  from  the  'Muce- 
early  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign;  it  was  first  dorus.' 
published  in  1598  after  having  been  'sundrie  times  plaid 
in  the  honorable  Cittie  of  London.'  Its  prolonged 
popularity  is  attested  by  the  unparalleled  number  of 
sixteen  quarto  editions  through  which  it  passed  in  the 

'  The  authorship  cannot  be  positively  determined.  Coxeter,  an 
eighteenth-century  antiquary,  assigned  it  to  Michael  Drayton.  Charles 
Lamb  and  others,  more  probably,  put  it  to  Thomas  Heywood's  credit. 

^A  useful  edition  of  fourteen  'doubtful'  plays,  csmpetently  edited 
by  Mr.  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke  under  the  general  title  of  'The  Shakespeare 
Apocrypha,'  was  pubUshed  by  the  Clarendon  Press  in  IQ08.  Mr.  A.  F. 
Hopkinson  edited  in  three  volumes  (189 1-4)  twelve  doubtful  plays  and 
pubhshed  a  useful  series  of  Essays  on  Shakespeare's  doubtful  plays  (1900). 
Five  of  the  apocryphal  pieces,  Paire  Em,  Merry  Devill,  Edward  III,  Mer- 
lin, Arden  of  Fever  sham,  were  edited  by  Karl  Warnke  and  Ludwig 
Proescholdt  (Halle,  1883-8). 

'Kirkman  also  put  to  Shakespeare's  credit  in  his  Catalogue  of  167 1, 
Peele's  Arraignment  of  Paris,  another  foolish  blunder  which  Winstanley 
and  Langbaine  adopt. 


266  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

seventeenth  century.  According  to  the  title-page  of  the 
third  quarto  of  1.6  lo,  the  piece  was  acted  at  Court  on 
Shrove  Sunday  night  by  Shakespeare's  company,  'His 
highnes  servants  usually  playing  at  the  Globe,'  and  the 
text  was  then  'amplified  with  new  additions.'  These 
'  additions '  exhibit  a  dramatic  abiUty  above  that  of  the 
dull  level  of  the  rest,  and  were  presumably  made  after 
the  comedy  had  come  under  the  control  of  Shakespeare's 
associates.  The  new  passages  have  deluded  one  modern 
critic  into  a  justification  of  the  seventeenth-century 
association  of  Shakespeare's  name  with  the  piece.  Mr. 
Payne  Collier,  who  included  '  Mucedorus '  in  his  privately 
printed  edition  of  Shakespeare  in  1878,  was  confident 
that  one  of  the  scenes  (iv.  i.)  interpolated  in  the  1610 
version  —  that  in  which  the  King  of  Valentia  laments 
the  supposed  loss  of  his  son  —  displayed  genius  which 
Shakespeare  alone  could  compass.  However  readily 
critics  may  admit  the  superiority  in  literary  value  of 
the  additional  scene  to  anything  else  in  the  piece,  none 
can  seriously  accept  Mr.  Colher's  extravagant  estimate. 
The  scene  was  probably  from  the  pen  of  an  admiring 
but  faltering  imitator  of  Shakespeare.^ 

'Faire  Em,'  although  it  was  first  printed  at  an  un- 
certain date  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  and  again 
■Faire  in  1 63 1,  was,  according  to  the  title-page  of 
^™'  both   editions,   acted   by   Shakespeare's  com- 

pany while  Lord  Strange  was  its  patron  (1589-93). 
Two  lines  from  the  piece  (v.  121  and  157)  are,  how- 
ever, quoted  and  turned  to  ridicule  by  Shakespeare's  foe, 
Robert  Greene,  in  his  'Farewell  to  Folly,'  a  mawkish 
penitential  triact,  with  an  appendix  of  short  stories, 
which  was  licensed  for  pubhcation  in  158,7,  although  no 
edition  is  known  of  eariier  date  than  1591.  'Faire  Em' 
must  therefore  have  been  in  circulation  before  Shake- 
speare's career  as  dramatist  opened.  It  is  a  very  rudi- 
mentary endeavour  in  romantic  comedy,  in  which  two 

'  Tucker  Brooke,  The  Shakespeare  Apocrypha,  1908,  pp.  vii,  xxiii  seq., 
103  seq. ;  Dodsley's  Old  Plays,  ed.  W.  C.  Hazlitt,  1874,  vii.  236-8. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC   POWER  267 

complicated  tales  of  amorous  adventure  run  independent 
courses ;  the  one  tale  has  for  its  hero  William  the  Con- 
queror, and  the  other  has  for  heroine  the  fictitious  Faire 
Em,  daughter  of  one  Sir  Thomas  Goddard  who  dis- 
guises himself  for  purposes  of  intrigue  as  a  miller  of 
Manchester.  The  piece  has  not  even  the  pretension 
of  'Mucedorus'  to  one  short  scene  of  conspicuous  liter- 
ary merit.i 

Poems  no  less  than  plays,  in  which  Shakespeare  had 
no  hand,  were  deceptively  placed  to  his  credit  as  soon 
as  his  fame  was  established.  In  1599  William  ,^^ 
Jaggard,  a  none  too  scrupulous  pubHsher,  Passionate 
issued  a  small  poetic  anthology  which  he  en-  ^''^nm.' 
titled  'The  Passionate  Pilgrim,  by  W.  Shakespeare.' 
The  volume,  of  which  only  two  copies  are  known  to  be 
extant,  consists  of  twenty  lyrical  pieces,  the  last  six  of 
which  are  introduced  by  the  separate  title-page :  '  Son- 
nets to  sundry  notes  of  Musicke.'  ^  Only  five  of  the 
twenty  poems  can  be  placed  to  Shakespeare's  credit. 
Jaggard's  volume  opened  with  two  sonnets  by  Shake- 
speare which  were  not  previously  in  print  (Nos.  cxxxviii. 
and  cxliv.  in  the  Sonnets  of  1609),  and  there  were 
scattered  through  the  remaining  pages  three  poems 
drawn  from  the  already  published  play  of  'Love's 
Labour's  Lost.'  The  rest  of  the  fifteen  pieces  were  by 
Richard  Barnfield,  Bartholomew  Grif&n,  and  even  less 
prominent  versifiers,  not  all  of  whom  can  be  identified.^ 

'  Richard  Simpson,  in  liis  School  of  Shakspere  (1878,  iii.  339  seq.), 
fantastically  argues  that  the  piece  is  by  Shakespeare,  and  that  it  presents 
the  leading  authors  and  actors  under  false  names,  the  main  object  being 
to  satirise  Robert  Greene.  Fleay  thinks  Robert  Wilson,  who  was  both 
actor  and  dramatist,  was  the  author. 

*The  word  'sonnet'  is  here  used  in  the  sense  of  'song.'  No  'quator- 
zain'  is  included  in  the  last  part  of  the  Passionate  Pilgrim.  No  notes  of 
music  were  supplied  to  the  volume;  but  in  the  case  of  the  poems  'Live 
with  me  and  be  my  love'  and  'My  flocks  feed  not'  contemporary  airs  are 
found  elsewhere. 

'  The  five  pieces  by  Shakespeare  are  placed  in  the  order  i.  ii.  iii.  v. 
xvi.  Of  the  remainder,  two  — '  If  music  and  sweet  poetry  agree '  (No. 
viii.)  and  '  As  it  fell  upon  a  day '  (No.  xx.)  —  were  borrowed  from  Barn- 
fidd's  Poems  in  diuers  humors  (1598).    Four  sonnets  on  the  theme  of 


268  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

According  to  custom,  many  of  the  pieces  were  circulat- 
ing in  dSpersed  manuscripts.  The  pubUsher  had  evil 
precedent  for  bringing  together  in  a  single  volume  de- 
tached poems  by  various  pens  and  for  attributing  them 
all  on  the  title-page  to  a  an^e  author  who  was  responsi- 
ble for  a  very  small  number  of  them."^ 

Jaggard  issued  a  second  edition  of  "The  Passionate 
Pilgrim '  in  1606,  but  no  copy  siu-vives.  A  third  edition 
The  third  appeared  in  1612  with  an  expanded  title-page : 
edition.  'The  Passiouate  Pilgrime,  or  Certaine  Amorous 
Sonnets  betweene  Venus  and  Adonis,  newly  corrected 
and  augmented.  By  W.  Shakespere.  The  third  edi- 
tion. Whereunto  is  newly  added  two  Loue-Epistles, 
the  first  from  Paris  to  HeUen,  and  Hellens  answere  back 
againe  to  Paris.  Printed  by  W.  Jaggard.  1612.'  The 
old  text  reappeared  without  diange;  the  words  'certain 
amorous  sonnets  between  Venus  and  Adonis'  aiq)ro- 
priately  describe  four  non-Shakespearean  poems  in  the 
original  edition,  and  the  fresh  emphasis  laid  on  them  in 

Venus  and  Adonis  (Nos.  iv.vi.ix.  and  sL)  aie  probaUy  by  Bartfado- 
mew  Griffin,  from  whose  Fidessa  (1596)  No.  xL  is  dicecttf  adapted. 
'My  flocks  feed  not'  '(No.  xviL)  comes  from  Thomas  We^es's  Mai- 
rigals  (1597),  but  Bamfield  is  again  pretty  certainly  the  author. 
'live  with  me  and  be  my  love'  (No.  xix.)  is  by  Marlowe,  and  four  lines 
are  quoted  by  Sir  Hugh  Evans  in  Shake^)eare's  Merry  Wims  (m.  i.  17 
seq.).  The  appended  stanza  to  Marlowe's  lyiic  entitled  'Love's  Answer' 
is  by  Sir  Walter  Ralegh  'Crabbed  age  and  youth  cannot  live  together' 
(No.  xii.)  is  a  popular  song  often  quoted  1^  Elizabethan  dramatists. 
'It  was  a  Lording's  daughter'  CNo.  xv.)  is  a  ballad  possibly  bjr  ThtHnas 
Deloney.  Nos.  vii.  x.  xiii.  xiv.  and  xviiL  are  commoaqdaGe  love  poems 
in  six-line  stanzas  of  no  individuality,  the  authoi^iip  of  whidi  is  un- 
known. See  for  full  discusdon  of  the  various  questions  arigmg  oat  of 
Jaggard's  volume  the  introduction  to  the  f!ir«aiiiilf  of  the  1399  editJOB 
(Oxford,  1905,  4to). 

^  See  Bryton's  Boiore  of  Deli^Os,  1591,  and  Arbor  of  Amirrous  Deaices 
.  .  .,  by  N.  B.  Gent,  1594 —  two  vohunes  of  miscellaneoas  poems,  itt 
of  whidi  the  publisher  Richard  Jones  as^ned  to  the  poet  Nidiidas 
Breton,  though  the  majority  of  tiiem  were  by  other  wiitrasw  BretcB 
plaintively  protested  that  the  earlier  volume  'was  done  altogetl^  with- 
out my  consent  or  knowledge,  and  many  things  of  other  men  minted 
with  a  few  of  mine;  for  except  Amoris  LackrinuE,  an  epitaidi  upon  Sr 
Philip  Sidney,  and  one  or  two  other  toys,  wh&ji  I  know  not  how  he  (ix 
the  publisher)  unhappily  came  by,  I  have  no  part  of  any  of  thenu'  (Pirf- 
atory  note  to  Breton's  Pilgrimage  to  Paradiu,  1592.) 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC   POWER  269 

the  new  title-page  had  the  intention  of  suggesting  a  con- 
nection with  Shakespeare's  first  narrative  poem.  But 
the  unabashed  Jaggard  added  to  the  third  edition  of  his 
pretended  Shakespearean  anthology,  two  new  non- 
Shakespearean  poems  which  he  silently  filched  from 
Thomas  Heywood's  'Troia  Britannica.'  That  work  was 
a  collection  of  poetry  which  Jaggard  had  published  for 
Heywood  in  1609.  Heywood  called  attention  to  his 
personal  grievance  in  the  dedicatory  epistle  before  his 
'Apology  for  Actors'  (1612)  which  was  addressed  to  a 
rival  publisher  Nicolas  Okes,  and  he  added  the  important 
information  that  Shakespeare  resented  the  more  sub- 
stantial injury  which  the  publisher  had  done  him.  Hey- 
wood's words  run :  '  Here,  hkewise,  I  must  necessarily 
insert  a  manifest  injury  done  me  in  that  work  [i.e. 
'Troia  Britannica'  of  1609]  by  taking  the  two  epistles 
or  Paris  to  Helen,  and  Helen  to  Paris,  and  printing  them 
in  a  less  volume  [i.e.  'The  Passionate  Pilgrim'  of  161 2] 
under  the  name  of  another  [i.e.  Shakespeare],  which  may 
put  the  world  in  opinion  I  might  steal  them  from  him, 
and  he  to  do  himself  right,  hath  since  published  them  in 
his  own  name :  but  as  I  must  acknowledge  my  .pjj^^^j 
lines  not  worth  his  [i.e.  Shakespeare's]  patronage  Heywood's 
under  whom  he  [i.e.  Jaggard]  hath  pubhshed  shake-'" 
them,  so  the  author,  I  know,  much  Offended  speare's 
with  M.  Jaggard  that  altogether  unknown  to  °^™*' 
him  presumed  to  make  so  bold  with  his  name.'  In  the 
result  the  publisher  seems  to  have  removed  Shake- 
speare's name  from  the  title-page  of  a  few  copies."^ 
Heywood's  words  form  the  sole  recorded  protest  on 
Shakespeare's  part  against  the  many  injuries  which  he 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  contemporary  publishers. 
In  1601  Shakespeare's  full  name  was  attached  to  'a 

'  Only  two  copies  of  the  third  edition  of  the  Passionate  Pilgrim  are 
extant ;  one  formerly  belonging  to  Mr.  J.  E.  T.  Loveday  of  Williamscote 
near  Banbury,  was  sold  by  him  to  an  American  collection  in  1906 ;  the 
other  is  in  the  Malone  collection  at  the  Bodleian.  The  Malone  copy 
has  two  title-pages,  from  one  of  which  Shakespeare's  name  is  omitted. 
The  Loveday  copy  has  the  title-page  bearing  Shakespeare's  name. 


270  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

poetical  essaie  on  the  Phoenix  and  the  Turtle,'  which  was 
published  by  Edward  Blount,  a  prosperous 
Phoenix  London  stationer  of  literary  tastes,  as  part  of  a 
i\irtie^  supplement  or  appendix  to  a  volume  of  verse 
by  one  Robert  Chester.  Chester's  work  bore 
the  title :  '  Love's  Martyr,  or  RosaUn's  complaint,  alle- 
gorically  shadowing  the  Truth  of  Love  in  the  Constant 
Fate  of  the  Phoenix  and  Turtle  .  .  .  [with]  some  new 
compositions  of  seueral  moderne  Writers  whose  names 
are  subscribed  to  their  seuerall  workies.'  Neither  the 
drift  of  Chester's  crabbed  verse,  nor  the  occasion  of  its 
composition  is  clear,  nor  can  the  praise  of  perspicuity  be 
allowed  to  the  supplement,  to  which  Shakespeare  con- 
tributed. His  colleagues  there  are  the  dramatic  poets, 
John  Marston,  George  Chapman,  Ben  Jonson,  and  two 
writers  signing  themselves  respectively  'Vatum  Chorus' 
and  'Ignoto.'  The  supplement  is  introduced  by  an 
independent  title-page  running  thus :  '  Hereafter  follow 
diverse  poeticall  Essaies  on  the  former  subject,  viz. : 
the  Turtle  and  Phoenix.  Done  by  the  best  and  chiefest 
of  our  modern  writers,  with  their  names  subscribed  to 
their  particular  workes :  never  before  extant ;  and  (now 
first)  consecreated  by  them  all  generally  to  the  love  and 
merite  of  the  true-noble  knight.  Sir  John  Salisburie.' 
Sir  John  Salisbury  was  also  the  patron  to  whom  Robert 
Chester,  the  author  of  the  main  work,  modestly  dedi- 
cated his  labours. 

Sir  John  Sahsbury,  a  Welsh  country  gentleman  of 
Lleweiii,  Denbighshire,  who  was  by  two  years  Shake- 
s' t  hn  speare's  junior,  married  in  early  Ufe  Ursula 
Salisbury's  Stanley,  an  illegitimate  daughter  of  the  fourth 
of  poets^^  Earl  of  Derby,  who  was  at  one  time  patron  of 
Shakespeare's  theatrical  company.^  Sir  John 
was  appointed  an  esquire  of  the  body  to  Queen  Elizabeth 
in    1595,  and  spent  much  time  in  London  during  the 

'  Sir  John's  surname  is  usually  spelt  SalMsbury.  Dr.  Johnson's  friend, 
Mrs.  Thrale  (afterwards  Mrs.  Piozzi),  whose  maiden  name  was  Salus- 
bury,  was  a  direct  descendant. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC  POWER  271 

rest  of  the  reign,  being  knighted  in  1601.  A  man  of 
literary  culture,  he  could  turn  a  stanza  with  some  deft- 
ness, and  was  a  generous  patron  of  many  Welsh  and 
English  bards  who  wrote  much  in  honour  of  himself 
and  his  family.  Robert  Chester  was  clearly  a  con- 
fidential protige  closely  associated  with  the  knight's 
Welsh  home.  But  it  is  clear  that  Sit  John  was 
acquainted  with  Ben  Jonson  and  other  men  of  letters 
in  the  capital  and  that  Shakespeare  and  the  rest  good- 
naturedly  contributed  to  Chester's  volume  by  way  of 
showing  regard  for  a  minor  Maecenas  of  the  day. 

Chester's  own  work  is  a  confused  collection  of  grotesque 
allegorical  fancies  which  is  interrupted  by  an  elaborate 
metrical    biography    of    King    Arthur.^    The  Robert 
writer  would  seem  to  celebrate  in  obscure  and  Chester's 
figurative  phraseology  the  passionate  love  of  ^°'^''' 
Sir  John  for  his  wife  and  its  mystical  reinforcement  on 
the  occasion  of  the  birth  of  their  first  child. 

Some  years  appear  to  have  elapsed  between  the  com- 
position of  Chester's  verses  and  their  publication,  and  the 
friendly  pens  who  were  responsible  for  the  supplement 
embroidered  on  Chester's  fantasy  fresh  conceits,  which, 
while  they  were  of  vague  relevance  to  his  symbolic  inten- 
tion, were  designed  to  conciliate  his  master's  favour. 
The  contributor  who  conceals  his  identity  under  the 
pseudonjmi  'Vatum  Chorus,'  and  signs  the  opening  lines 
of  the  supplement,  greeted '  the  worthily  honoured  knight, 
Sir  John  Salusbury,'  as  'an  honourable  friend,'  whose 
merits  were  'parents  to  our  several  rhymes.'  All  the 
contributors  play  enigmatic  voluntaries  on  the  familiar 
mythology  of  the  phoenix,  the  unique  bird  of  Arabia,  and 
the  turtle-dove,  the  sjonbol  of  loving  constancy,  whose 

'  By  way  of  enhancing  the  mystification,  the  title-page  describes  the 
main  work  as  'now  first  translated  [by  Robert  Chester]  out  of  the  Vener- 
able Italian  Torquato  Coeliano.'  No  Italian  poet  of  this  name  is  known, 
the  designation  seems  a  fantastic  amalgam  of  the  Christian  name  (Tor- 
quato) of  Tasso  and  the  surname  of  a  contemporary  Italian  poetaster, 
Livio  Celiano.  Chester  described  his  interpolated  '  true  legend  of  famous 
King  Arthur'  as  'the  first  essay  of  a  new  Brytish  Poet  collected  out  of 
diverse  Authentical  Records,' 


272  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

mystical  union  was  Chester's  recondite  theme.  Like 
Chester  they  make  the  phoenix  feminine  and  the  turtle- 
dove masculine,  and  their  general  aim  is  the  glorification 
of  a  perfect  example  of  spiritual  love.  Shakespeare's 
'poetical  essaie'  consists  of  thirteen  four-Hned  stanzas 
in  trochaics,  each  line  being  of  seven  syllables,  with  the 
rhymes  disposed  as  in  Tennyson's  'In  Memoriam.'  The 
concluding  'threnos'  is  in  five  three-hned  stanzas,  also 
in  trochaics,  each  stanza  having  a  single,  rhyme.^  Both 
in  tone  and  metre  Shakespeare's  verses  differ  from  their 
companions.  They  strike  unmistakably  an  elegiac  or 
funereal  note  which  is  out  of  keeping  with  their  environ- 
ment. The  dramatist  cryptically  describes  the  obse- 
quies, which  other  birds  attended,  of  the  phoenix  and 
the  turtle-dove,  after  they  had  been  knit  together  in 
hfe  by  spiritual  ties  and  left' no  offspring.  Chaucer's 
'ParUament  of  Foules'  and  the  abstruse  symbolism  of 
sixteenth-century  emblem  books  are  thought  to  be 
echoed  in  Shakespeare's  lines ;  but  their  closest  affinity 
seems  to  He  with  the  imagery  of  Matthew  Roydon's 
elegy  on  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  where  the  turtle-dove  and 
phoenix  meet  the  swan  and  eagle  at  the  dead  hero's 
funeral,  and  there  play  roles  somewhat  similar  to  those 
which  Shakespeare  assigns  the  birds  in  his  'poeticall 
essaie.'  ^  The  internal  evidence  scarcely  justifies  the 
conclusion  that  Shakespeare's  poem,  which  is  an  exer- 
cise in  allegorical  elegy  in  untried  nietre,  was  penned 
Shake-  for  Chester's  book.  It  must  have  been  either 
speareand    devised  in  an  idle  hour  with  merely  abstract 

his  fellow       •    ,       ,•  ..  ,    ,  ,        .       I 

contribu-  mtention,  or  it  was  suggested  by  the  death 
tors.  within    the   poet's   own   circle   of   a   pair  of 

devoted  lovers.  The  resemblances  with  the  verses 
of  Chester  and  his  other  coadjutors  are  specious 
and   superficial   and   Shakespeare's   piece   would   seem 

'  Shakespeare's  concluding  'Threnos'  is  imitated  in  metre  and  phrase- 
ology by  Fletcher  in  his  Mad  Lover  in  the  song  'The  Lover's  Legacy  to  his 
Cruel  Mistress.' 

'  See  Spenser's  Colin  Clout's  Come  Home  Again  (1595),  ad  fin. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC   POWER  273 

to  have  been  admitted  to  the  miscellany  at  the  soKcita- 
tion  of  friends  who  were  bent  on  paying  as  comprehen- 
sive a  compliment  as  possible  to  Sir  John  Salisbury. 
The  poem's  publication  in  its  curious  setting  is  chiefly 
memorable  for  the  evidence  it  offers  of  Shakespeare's 
amiable  acquiescence  in  a  fantastic  scheme  of  profes- 
sional homage  on  the  part  of  contemporary  poets  to  a 
patron  of  promising  repute.^ 

'  A  unique  copy  of  Chester's  Love's  Martyr  is  in  Mr..Cliristie-Miller's 
library  at  BritweU.  Of  a  reissue  of  the  original  edition  in  1611  with  a 
new  title,  The  Annals  of  Great  Brittaine,  a  copy  (also  unique)  is  in  the 
British  Museum.  A  reprint  of  the  original  edition  was  prepared  for 
private  circulation  by  Dr.  Grosart  in  1878,  in  his  series  of  'Occasional 
Issues.'  It  was  also  printed  in  the  same  year  as  one  of  the  publications 
of  the  New  Shakspere  Society.  Dr.  A.  H.  R.  FairchUd,  in  'The  Phoenix 
and  Turtle:  a  critical  and  historical  interpretation'  (Englische  Studien, 
1904,  vol.  xxxiii.  pp.  337  seq.),  examines  the  poem  in  the  light  of  mediaeval 
conceptions  of  love  and  of  the  fantastic  allegorical  imagery  of  the  em- 
blematists.  A  more  direct  light  is  thrown  on  the  history  of  Chester's 
volume  and  incidentally  of  Shakespeare's  contribution  to  it  in  Mr.  Carle- 
ton  Brown's  'Poems  by  Sir  John  Salusbury  and  Robert  Chester'  {Bryn 
Mawr  College  Monographs,  vol.  xiv.  1913).  Mr.  Brown  prints  many 
poems  by  Sir  John,  by  Robert  Chester,  and  by  other  of  Sir  John's  pro- 
tigis,  from  MSS.  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford  (formerly  the  property  of 
Sir  John  Salisbury).  These  MSS.  include  an  autograph  poem  of  Ben 
Jonson.  Mr.  Brown  has  also  laid  under  contribution  a  very  rare  pub- 
lished volume,  Robert  Parry's  Sinetes  (iS97),  which  was  dedicated  to  Sir 
John,  and  contains  much  verse  by  the  patron  as  well  as  by  the  poet. 
Furthermore  Mr.  Brown  supplies  from  original  sources  an  exhaustive 
biography  of  Sir  John  and  confutes  Dr.  Grosart's  erroneous  identifica- 
tion of  the  poet  Robert  Chester,  whose  Welsh  connections  are  plainly 
indicated  in  his  verse,  with  a  country  gentleman  (of  the  same  names)  of 
Royston,  Hertfordshire.  No  student  of  Chester's  volume  can  afford  to 
overlook  Mr.  Brown's  valuable  researches. 


XIV 

THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS  OF  LIFE 

In  London  Shakespeare  resided  as  a  rule  near  the  play- 
houses. Soon  after  his  arrival  he  found  a  home  in  the 
parish  of  St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  within 
spe\r?a  easy  reach  of  'The  Theatre'  in  Shoreditch. 
residences    There  he  remained  until  i  ';q6.     In  the  autumn 

in  London.  .  ^^  i        mi 

of  that  year  he  migrated  across  the  rhames 
to  the  Liberty  of  the  Clink  in  Southwark,  where  actors, 
dramatic  authors,  and  public  entertainers  generally  were 
already  congregating.^ 

Meanwhile  Shakespeare's  name  was  placed  on  the  roll 
of  'subsidy  men'  or  taxpayers  for  St.  Helen's  parish, 
His  fiscal  and  his  personal  property  there  was  valued 
obligation.  fQj.  fiscal  purposcs  at  5/.  In  1593  Parliament 
had  voted  to  the  Crown  three  subsidies,  and  each  sub- 
sidy involved  a  payment  of  2s.  Sci.'in  the  pound  on 
the  personal  assessment.  Shakespeare  thus  became 
liable  for  an  aggregate  sum  of  il.  —  13s.  i^d.  for  each  of 
the  three  subsidies.  But  the  collectors  of  taxes  in  the 
city  of  London  worked  sluggishly.  For  three  years  they 
put  no  pressure  on  the  dramatist,  and  Shakespeare  left 
Bishopsgate  without  dischar^ng  the  debt.  Soon  after- 
wards, however,  the  Bishopsgate  officials  traced  him 
to  his  new  Southwark  lodging.  The  Liberty  of  the 
Clink  within  which  his  new  abode  lay  was  an  estate  of 

1  A  missing  memorandum  by  Alleyn  (quoted  by  Malone),  the  general 
trustworthiness  of  which  is  attested  by  the  fiscal  records  cited  i»/ro, 
locates  Shakespeare's  Southwark  residence  in  1596  'near  the  Bear 
Garden.'  The  Bear  Garden  was  a  popular  place  of  entertainment  which 
was  chiefly  devoted  to  the  rough  sports  of  bear-  and  bull-baiting.  Near 
at  hand  in  isg6  were  the  Rose  and  the  Swan  theatres  —  the  earliest 
playhouses  to  be  erected  on  the  south  side  of  the  Thames. 

274 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE  275 

the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  and  was  under  the  Bishop's 
exclusive  jurisdiction.  In  October  1596  the  revenue 
officer  of  St.  Helen's  obtained  the  permission  of  the 
Bishop's  steward  to  claim  the  overdue  tax  of  Shake- 
speare across  the  river.  Next  year  the  poet  paid  on 
account  of  the  St.  Helen's  assessment  a  first  instalment 
of  55.    A  second  instalment  of  135. 4^.  followed  next  year.^ 

There  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  Southwark,  which 
formed  the  chief  theatrical  quarter  through  the  later 
years  of  Shakespeare's  life,  remained  a  in  south- 
customary  place  of  residence  so  long  as  his  w^'^''- 
work  required  his  presence  in  the  metropolis.  From 
1599  onwards  he  was  thoroughly  identified  with  the 
fortunes  of  the  Globe  Theatre  on  the  Bankside  in  South- 
wark, the  leading  playhouse  of  the  epoch,  and  in  adja- 
cent streets  lodged  Augustine  PhilUps,  Thomas  Pope, 
and  many  other  actors,  with  whom  his  social  relations 
were  very  close.  His  youngest  brother,  Edmund,  who 
became  a  'player,'  was  buried  in  St.  Saviour's  Church 
in  Southwark  on  December  31,  1607,  a  proof  that  he 
at  any  rate  was  a  resident  in  that  parish.  Shakespeare 
had  close  professional  relations  too  with  the  contem- 
porary dramatist,  John  Fletcher,  who,  according  to 
Aubrey,  lived  with  his  literary  partner  Francis  Beau- 
mont, 'on  the  Banke-side  (in  Southwark)  not  far  from 
the  playhouse  {i.e.  the  Globe).' 

But  Shakespeare's  association  with  South  London 
during  his  busiest  years  did  not  altogether  withdraw  him 
from  other  parts  of  the  city.  Some  of  his  colleagues  at 
the  Globe  Theatre  preferred  a  residence  at  some  dis- 

'  Cf.  Exchequer  Lay  Subsidies,  City  of  London,  146/369,  Public  Record 
Office;  Prof.  J.  W.  Hales  in  Alhenaum,  March  26,  1904.  No  docu- 
mentaiy  evidence  has  yet  been  discovered  of  any  other  contribution  by 
Shakespeare  to  the  national  taxes  during  any  part  of  his  career,  either 
in  Stratford  or  London.  The  surviving  fiscal  archives  of  the  period 
have  not  yet  been  quite  exhaustively  searched.  But  it  is  clear  that  taxa- 
tion was  levied  at  the  period  partially  and  irregularly,  and  that  numer- 
ous persons  of  substance  escaped  the  collectors'  notice.  See  the  present 
writer's  'Shakespeare  and  Public  Affairs'  in  Fortnightly  Review,  Sept. 
1913. 


276  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

tance  from  their  place  of  work.'-  The  greatest  actor  of 
Shakespeare's  company,  Richard  Burbage,  would  seem 
to  have  remained  through  life  a  resident  in  Shoreditch, 
where  he  served  at  'The  Theatre'  his  histrionic  ap- 
prenticeship.^ Two  other  professional  friends,  John 
Heminges  and  Henry  Condell,  were  for  many  years 
highly  respected  parishioners  of  St.  Mary  Aldermanbury 
near  Cripplegate  when  Heminges  served  as  churchwarden 
in  1608  and  Condell  ten  years  later.  Visits  to  friendjs' 
houses  from  time  to  time  called  the  dramatist  from  Souti- 
wark,  and  he  made  an  occasional  stay  in  the  central  dis- 
trict of  the  City  where  Heminges  and  Condell  had  their 
home. 

In  the  year  1604  Shakespeare  'laye  in  the  house' 
of  Christopher  Montjoy,  a  Huguenot  refugee,  who  carried 
A  lodger  in  on  the  business  of  a  '  tiremaker '  (i.e.  maker 
Street  ^^  ladies'  headdresses)  in  Silver  Street,  near 
1604. '        Wood  Street,  Cheapside.^    It  is  clear  that  for 

^  See  the  wills  and  other  documents  in  Collier's  Lives  of  the  Actors. 

2  A  theory  that  Shakespeare  was,  like  the  Burbages,  remembered  as 
a  Shoreditch  resident,  rests  on  a  shadowy  foundation.  Aubrey's  bio- 
graphical jottings  which  are  preserved  in  his  confused  autograph  at  the 
,  Bodleian  contain  some  enigmatic  words  which  seem  to  have  been  in- 
tended by  the  writer  to  apply  to  one  of  three  persons  —  either  to  Shake- 
speare, to  John  Fletcher  or  to  John  Ogilby,  a  well-known  dancing  master 
of  Aubrey's  day.  The  incoherent  arrangement  of  the  page  renders  it 
impossible  to  determine  the  individual  reference.  The  disjointed  pas- 
sage runs :  'The  more  to  be  admired  q.  {i.e.  quod  or  quia]  he  [i.e.  Shake- 
speare, Fletcher,  or  Ogilby]  was  not  a  company  keeper,  lived  in  Share- 
ditch,  would  not  be  debauched  &  if  invited  to  writ;  he  was  in  paine.' 
The  next  line  is  blank  save  for  'W.  Shakespeare'  in  the  centre.  The 
succeeding  note  states  that  one  Mr.  William  Beeston  possessed  informa- 
tion about  Shakespeare  which  he  derived  from  the  actor  Mr.  Lacy.  Sir 
G.  F.  Warner  inclines  to  the  opinion  that  Shakespeare  was  intended  in 
the  obscure  passage;  Mr.  Falconer  Madan  thinks  Fletcher.  If  Shake- 
speare were  intended  the  words  would  mean  that  he  avoided  social  dis- 
sipation, that  he  resided  in  Shoreditch,  and  that  the  practice  of  writing 
caused  him  pain.  None  of  these  assertions  have  any  coherence  with 
better  attested  information.  See  E.  IC.  Chambers,  A  Jotting  by  John 
Aubrey,  in  Malone  Soc.  Collections  (igii),  vol.  i.  pp.  324  se^.  Mr. 
Andrew  Clark  in  his  edition  of  Aubrey's  Brief  Lives,  1898,  vol.  i.  p.  97i 
wrongly  makes  the  entry  refer  to  the  actor  William  Beeston. 

'  Cf.  Jonson's  Silent  Woman,  iv.  ii.  94-5  (Captain  Otter  of  Mrs. 
Otter) :  'AH  her  teeth  were  made  i'  the  Black-Friers,  both  her  eyebrowes 
i'  the  Stfand,  and  her  haire  in  Sihier-street.' 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE  277 

some  time  before  and  after  1604  the  dramatist  was 
on  familiar  terms  with  the  'tiremaker'  and  with  his 
family,  and  that  he  interested  himself  benevolently  in 
their  domestic  affairs.  One  of  Montjoy's  near  neighbours 
was  Shakespeare's  early  Stratford  friend  Richard  Field, 
the  prosperous  stationer,  who  after  1600  removed  from 
Ludgate  Hill,  Blackfriars,  to  the  sign  of  the  Splayed 
Eagle  in  Wood  Street.  Field's  wife  was  a  Huguenot 
and  the  widow  of  a  prominent  member  of  the  Huguenot 
community  in  London.  Shakespeare  may  have  owed 
a  passing  acquaintance  with  the  Huguenot  '  tiremaker ' 
to  his  fellow-townsman  Field,  and  to  Field's  Huguenot 
connections.^     The  sojourn  under  Montjoy's  roof  was 

'  The  knowledge  of  Shakespeare's  relations  with  Silver  Street  and 
with  the  Montjoy  family  is  due  to  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace's  recent  researches 
at  the  Public  Record  Office.  In  Harper's  Magazine,  March  1910,  Dr. 
Wallace  first  cited  or  described  a  long  series  of  legal  documents  connected 
with  a  lawsuit  of  16 1 2  in  the  Court  of  Requests  —  Bellott  v.  Montjoy  —  in 
which  Montjoy  was  the  defendant  and  'William  Shakespeare  of  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon  in  the  County  of  Warwick,  gentleman,  of  the  age  of  xlvii 
yeares  or  thereabouts'  was  a  witness  for  file  plaintiff,  Stephen  BeUott, 
Montjoy's  son-in-law.  The  litigation  arose  out  of  the  conditions  of  the 
marriage  which  took  place  on  Nov.  19,  i6o4,  between  Mary  Montjoy, 
daughter  of  Shakespeare's  host  in  Silver  Street,  and  Bellott,  then  her 
father's  apprentice.  Bellott's  apprenticeship  to  Montjoy  ran  from  1598 
to  1604.  To  a  witness,  Mrs.  Joan  Johnson,  formerly  a  female  servant 
in  Montjoy's  employ,  we  owe  the  statement  that  'one,  Mr.  Shakespeare, 
that  laye  in  the  house '  had  helped  at  the  instance  of  the  girl's  mother  to 
persuade  the  apprentice  —  a  reluctant  wooer  —  to  marry  his  master's 
daughter.  Other  witnesses  state,  partly  on  the  authority  of  Shake- 
speare's communications  to  them,  that  Bellott  consented  to  the  marriage 
on  condition  that  he  received  sol.  together  with  'certain  household  stuff' 
and  the  promise  of  a  further  sum  of  200/.  on  Montjoy's  death.  It  was 
to  confirm  this  alleged  contract  which  Montjoy  repudiated  that  Bellott 
brought  his  action  in  161 2.  In  the  deposition  which  Shakespeare  signed 
on  May  11,  1612,  he  supports  Bellott's  allegations,  adding  that  he  knew 
the  apprentice  'duringe  the  tyme'  of  his  service  with  Montjoy;  that 
it  appeared  to  him  that  Montjoy  did  'all  the  time'  of  Bellott's  service 
'bear  and  show  great  good  will  and  affection  towards'  him,  and  that  he 
heard  the  defendant  and  his  wife  speak  well  of  their  apprentice  at '  divers 
and  sundry  tymes.'  The  Court  remitted  the  case  to  the  Consistory  of 
the  French  Huguenot  Church  in  London,  which  decided  in  Bellott's 
favour.  The  numerous  records  in  the  case,  which  throw  no  precise  light 
on  the  length  or  reasons  of  Shakespeare's  stay  in  Silver  Street,  have  been 
printed  in  extenso  by  Dr.  Wallace  in  University  Studies,  Nebraska,  U.S.A. 
The  autograph  signature  which  Shakespeare  appended  to  his  deposition 
is  reproduced  on  p.  ^5 19  infra. 


278  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

unlikely  in  any  case  to  have  been  more  than  a  passing 
interlude  in  the  dramatist's  Southwark  life. 

Shakespeare,  in  middle  life,  brought  to  practical 
affairs  a  singularly  sane  and  sober  temperament.  In 
Shake-  'Ratseis  Ghost'  (1605),  an  anecdotal  biography 
speare's  of  Gamaliel  Ratsey,  a  notorious  highwayman, 
tempera-  who  was  hanged  at  Bedford  on  March  26,  1605, 
ment.  ^jig  highwayman  is  represented  as  compelling 
a  troop  of  actors  whom  he  met  by  chance  on  the  road 
to  perform  in  his  presence.  According  to  the  memoir 
Ratsey  rewarded  the  company  with  a  gift  of  forty 
shilhngs,  of  which  he  robbed  them  next  day.  Before 
dismissing  his  victims  Ratsey  addressed  himself  to  a 
leader  of  the  company  in  somewhat  mystifjdng  terms. 
He  would  dare  wager  that  if  his  auditor  went  to  London 
and  played  'Hamlet'  there,  he  would  outstrip  the  fainous 
player,  who  was  making  his  fame  in  that  part.  It  was 
needful  to  practise  the  utmost  frugality  in  the  capital. 
'When  thou  feelest  thy  purse  well  Hned  (the  counsellor 
proceeded,  less  ambiguously),  buy  thee  some  place  or 
lordship  in  the  country  that,  growing  weary  of  playing, 
thy  money  may  there  bring  thee  to  dignity  and  reputa- 
tion.' To  this  speech  the  player  repUed:  'Sir,  I  thanke. 
you  for  this  good  counsell ;  I  promise  you  I  will  make  use. 
of  it,  for  I  have  heard,  indeede,  of  some  that  have  gone  to  • 
London  very  meanly,  and  have  come  in  time  to  be  ex- 
ceeding wealthy.'  Finally  the  whimsical  outlaw  directed 
the  player  to  kneel  down  and  mockingly  conferred  on 
him  the  title  of  'Sir  Simon  Two  Shares  and  a  Haifa.' 
Whether  or  no  Ratsey's  biographer  consciously  identified 
the  highwayman's  auditor  with  Shakespeare,  it  was  the 
prosaic  course  of  conduct  which  Ratsey  recommended  to 
his  actor  that  Shakespeare  literally  followed.  As  soon 
as  his  position  in  his  profession  was  assured,  he  de- 
voted his  energies  to  re-estabhshing  the  fallen  fortunes 
of  his  family  in  his  native  place  and  to  acquiring  for 
himself  and  his  successors  the  status  of  gentlefolk.  No 
sooner  was  Shakespeare's  purse  'well  Uned,'  than  he 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS  OF  LIFE  279 

bought  'some  place  or  lordship  in  the  country'  which 
assured  him  'dignity  and  reputation.'  ^ 

His  father's  pecuniary  embarrassments  had  steadily 
increased  since  his  son's  departure.  Creditors  harassed 
the  elder  Shakespeare  unceasingly.  In  1587  jjj^ 
one  Nicholas  Lane  pursued  him  for  a  debt  wluch  father's 
he  owed  as  surety  for  his  impecunious  brother  <^i®'="ities. 
Henry,  who  was  still  farming  their  father's  lands  at 
Snitterfield.  Through  1588  and  1589  John  Shakespeare 
retaliated  with  pertinacity  on  a  debtor  named  John 
Tompson.  But  in  1591  a  substantial  creditor,  Adrian 
Quiney,  a  '  mercer '  of  repute,  with  whom  and  with  whose 
family  the  dramatist  was  soon  on  intimate  terms,  ob- 
tained a  writ  of  distraint  against  his  father.  Happily 
the  elder  Shakespeare  never  forfeited  his  neighbours' 
faith  in  his  integrity.  In  1592  he  attested  inventories 
taken  on  the  death  of  two  neighbours,  of  Ralph  Shaw,  a 
wooldriver,  with  whose  prosperous  son,  Juhus,  Shake- 
speare was  later  in  much  personal  intercourse,  and  of 
Henry  Field,  father  of  the  London  printer.  None  the 
less  the  dramatist's  father  was  on  December  25  of  the 
same  year  'presented'  as  a  recusant  for  absenting  him- 
self from  church.  The  commissioners  reported  that  his 
absence  was  probably  due  to  'fear  of  process  for  debt.' 
He  figures  for  the  last  time  the  proceedings  of  the  local 
court,  in  his  customary  r6le  of  defendant,  on  March  9, 
1594-5.  He  was  then  joined  with  two  fellow  traders  — 
Philip  Green,  a  chandler,  and  Henry  Rogers,  a  butcher 
—  as  defendant  in  a   suit  again  brought  by  Adrian 

'  The  only  copy  known  of  Ratseis  Ghost  (1605)  is  in  the  John  Rylands 
Library,  Manchester.  The  author  doubtless  had  his  eye  on  Burbage 
as  well  as  on  Shakespeare.  'Two  and  a  half  shares'  formed  at  the  out- 
set Burbage's  precise  holding  in  the  first  Globe  Theatre,  and  would  en- 
title him  better  than  Shakespeare  to  be  called  'Sir  Simon  Two  Shares 
and  a  Half.'  Ratsey's  hearer  is  warned  moreover  that  when  he  has 
made  his  fortune  he  need  not  care  '  for  them  that  before  made  thee 
proud  with  speaking  their  words  upon  the  stage '^phraseology  which 
suggests  that  Ratsey  was  taking  into  account  the  actor's  rather  than 
the  author's  fortunes.  On  the  other  hand,  Burbage  is  not  known  to 
have  acquired,  like  Shakespeare,  a  'place  or  lordship  in  the  country.' 


28o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Quiney,  but  now  in  conjunction  with  one  Thomas  Barker, 
for  the  recovery  of  the  large  sum  of  five  pounds.  Unlike 
his  partners  in  the  litigation,  the  elder  Shakespeare's 
name  is  not  followed  in  the  record  by  a  mention  of  Ms 
calhng,  and  when  the  suit  reached  a  later  stage  his  name 
was  omitted  altogether.  These  may  be  viewed  as 
indications  that  in  the  course  of  the  proceedings  he 
finally  retired  from  trade,  which  had  been  of  late  prolific 
in  disasters  for  him.  In  January  1596-7  he  conveyed 
a  sUp  of  land  attached  to  his  dwelling  in  Henley  Street 
to  one  George  Badger,  a  Stratford  draper. ^ 

There  is  a  likehhood  that  the  poet's  wife  fared,  in 
the  poet's  absence,  no  better  than  his  father.  The 
His  wife's  Only  Contemporary  mention  made  of  her  be- 
•iebt.  tween  her  marriage  in  1582  and  the  execution 

of  her  husband's  will  in  the  spring  of  1616  is  as  the 
borrower  at  an  unascertained  date  (evidently  before 
159s)  of  forty  shiUings  from  Thomas  Whittington,  who 
had  formerly  been  her  father's  shepherd.  The  money 
was  unpaid  when  Whittington  died  in  1601,  and  he 
directed  his  executor  to  recover  the  sum  from  the  poet 
and  distribute  it  among  the  poor  of  Stratford.^ 

It  was  probably  in  1596  that  Shakespeare  returned, 
after  nearly  eleven  years'  absence,  to  his  native  town, 
and  very  quickly  did  he  work  a  revolution  in  the  affairs  of 
his  family.     The  prosecutions  of  his  father  in  the  local 

'  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Outlines,  ii.  13. 

'i  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  186;  J.  W.  Gray's  Shakespeare's  Marriage, 
1905,  pp.  28-29.  The  pertinent  clause  in  shepherd  Whittington's  mil 
directs  payment  to  be  made  'unto  the  poor  people  of  Stratford  [of  the 
sum  of]  xl^  that  is  in  the  hand  of  Anne  Shaxspere  wyffe  unto  Mr.  Wyllyam 
Shaxspere,  and  is  due  debt  to  me.  The  sum  is  to  be  paid  to  mine  exec- 
utor by  the  said  Willyam  Shaxspere  or  his  assigns  according  to  the  true 
meanying  of  this  my  wUl.'  Whittington's  estate  was  valued  at  50^.  is. 
lid.  The  testator's  debtors  included,  in  addition  to  Mrs.  Anne  Shake- 
speare, John  and  William  Hathaway,  her  brothers,  who  owed  him  an 
aggregate  sum  of  61.  2s.  iid.  Of  this  sum  3^.  was  an  unpaid  bequest 
made  to  him  by  Mrs.  Joan  Hathaway,  Mrs.  Shakespeare's  mother,  who 
having  lately  died  had  appointed  her  sons,  John  and  William  Hathaway, 
her  executors.  On  the  other  side  of  the  account,  Whittington  admitted 
that  'a  quarter  of  a  year's  board'  was  due  from  him  to  the  two  brothers 
Hathaway. 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE  281 

court,  ceased.  The  poet's  relations  with  Stratford  were 
thenceforth  uninterrupted.  He  still  resided  in  London 
for  most  of  the  year ;  but  until  the  close  of  his  r>  *u  < 

r       •         1  ■!  -11  ,  Death  of 

professional  career  he  paid  the  town  at  least  his  only 
one  annual  visit,  and  he  was  always  formally  ™"'  ^^^' 
described  there  and  elsewhere  as  'of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
gentleman.'  He  was  no  doubt  at  Stratford  on  August 
II,  1596,  when  his  only  son,  Hamnet,  was  buried  in  the 
parish  church ;  the  boy  was  eleven  and  a  half  years  old. 
Two  daughters  were  now  Shakespeare's  only  children  — ■ 
Hamnet's  twin-sister  Judith  and  the  elder  daughter 
Susanna,  now  a  girl  of  tiiirteen. 

At  the  same  date  the  poet's  father,  despite  his  pecuniary 
embarrassments,  took  a  step,  by  way  of  regaining  his 
prestige,  which  must  be  assigned  to  the  poet's  shake- 
intervention.'^  He  made  application  to  the  speareand 
College  of  Heralds  for  a  coat-of-arms.^  Heral-  Heralds' 
die  ambitions  were  widespread  among  the  College, 
middle  classes  of  the  day,  and  many  EUzabethan  actors 
besides  Shakespeare  sought  heraldic  distinction.  The 
loose  organisation  of  the  Heralds'  College  favoured  the 
popular  predilection.  Rumour  ran  that  the  College  was 
ready  to  grant  heraldic  honours  without  strict  inquiry 
to  any  applicant  who  could  afford  a  substantial  fee.  In 
numerous  cases  the  heralds  clearly  credited  an  appH- 
cant's  family  with  a  fictitious  antiquity.  Rarely  can 
much  reHance  therefore  be  placed  on  the  biographical  or 
genealogical  statements  alleged  in  Elizabethan  grants 
of  arms.     The  poet's  father,  or  the  poet  himself,  when 

'  There  is  an  admirable  discussion  of  the  question  involved  in  the 
poet's  heraldry  in  Herald  and  Genealogist,  i.  510.  Facsimiles  of  all  the 
documents  preserved  in-  the  College  of  Arms  are  given  in  Miscellanea 
Genealogica  et  Heraldica,  2nd  ser.  1886,  i.  109.  Halliwell-Phillipps  prints 
imperfectly  one  of  the  1596  draft-grants,  and  that  of  1599  (.Outlines,  ii. 
56,  60),  but  does  not  distinguish  the  character  of  the  negotiation  of  the 
earlier  year  from  that  of  the  negotiation  of  the  later  year. 

'  It  is  still  customary  at  the  College  of  Arms  to  inform  an  applicant 
for  a  coat-of-arms  who  has  a  father  alive  that  the  application  should  be 
made  in  the  father's  name,  and  the  transaction  conducted  as  if  the 
father  were  the  principal.  It  was  doubtless  on  advice  of  this  kind  that 
Shakespeare  was  acting  in  the  negotiations  that  are  described  below. 


282  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

first  applying  to  the  College  stated  that  John  Shake- 
speare, in  1568,  while  he  was  bailiff  of  Stratford,  and 
while  he  was  by  virtue  of  that  office  a  justice  of  the 
peace,  had  obtained  from  Robert  Cook,  then  Clarenceux 
herald,  a  'pattern'  or  sketch  of  an  armorial  coat.  This 
allegation  is  not  confirmed  by  the  records  of  the  College, 
and  may  be  an  invention  designed  by  John  Shakespeare 
and  his  son  to  recommend  theif  claim  to  the  notice  of  the 
easy-going  heralds  in  1596.  The  negotiations  of  1568, 
if  they  were  not  apocryphal,  were  certainly  abortive; 
otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  necessity  for  the 
further  action  of  the  later  years.  In  any  case,  on  October 
20,  1596,  a  draft,  which  remains  in  the  College  of  Arms,, 
was  prepared  under  the  direction  of  William  Dethick, 
Garter  King-of-Arms,  granting  John's  request  for  a  coat- 
The  draft  of-arms.  Garter  stated,  with  characteristic 
'Coat' of  vagueness,  that  he  had  been  'by  credible  re- 
^^'*'  port'  informed  that  the  applicant's  'parentes 

and  late  antecessors  were  for  theire  valeant  and  faith- 
full  service  advanced  and  rewarded  by  the  most  prudent 
prince  King  Henry  the  Seventh  of  famous  memorie, 
sythence  whiche  tyme  they  have  continewed  at  those 
partes  [i.e.  Warwickshire]  in  good  reputation  and  credit'; 
and  that  '  the  said  John  [had]  maryed  Mary,  daughter 
and  one  of  the  heyres  of  Robert  Arden,  of  Wilmcote, 
gent.'  In  consideration  of  these  titles  to  honour, 
Garter  declared  that  he  assigned  to  Shakespeare  this 
shield,  viz. :  'Gold  on  a  bend  sable, 'a  spear  of  the  first, 
the  point  steeled  proper,  and  for  his  crest  or  cognizance 
a  falcon,  his  wings  displayed  argent,  standing  on  a 
wreath  of  his  colours,  supporting  a  spear  gold  steeled 
as  aforesaid.'  In  the  margin  of  this  draft-grant  there  is 
a  pen  sketch  of  the  arms  and  crest,  and  above  them  is 
written  the  motto,  'Non  Sans  Droict.'  ^  A  second  copy 
of  the  draft,  also  dated  in  1596,  is  extant  at  the  College. 

'  In  a  manuscript  in  the  British  Museum  (Harl.  MS.  6140,  f.  4S)  p 
a  copy  of  the  tricking  of  the  arms  of  William  'Shakspere,'  whiM  is 
described  'as  a  pattentt  per  Will'm  Dethike  Garter,  Principall  King  of 
Armes';   this  is  figured  in  French's  Shakespeareana  Genealogica,  p.  SH- 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS  OF  LIFE  283 

The  only  alterations  are  the  substitution  of  the  word 
'grandfather'  for  'antecessors'  in  the  account  of  John 
Shakespeare'*  ancestry,  and  the  substitution  of  the  word 
'esquire'  for  'gent'  in  the  description  of  his  wife's  father, 
Robert  Arden.  At  the  foot  of  this  draft,  however,  ap- 
peared some  disconnected  and  unveriiiable  memoranda 
which  had  been  supplied  to  the  heralds,  to  the  effect 
that  John  had  been  bailiff  of  Stratford,  had  received  a 
'pattern'  of  a  shield  from  Cook,  the  Clarenceux  herald, 
was  a  man  of  substance,  and  had  married  into  a  wor- 
shipful family.^ 

Neither  of  these  drafts  was  fully  executed.  It  may 
have  been  that  the  unduly  favourable  representations 
made  to  the  College  respecting  John  Shake-  xheexem- 
speare's  social  and  pecuniary  position  excited  pUfication 
suspicion  even  in  the  credulous  and  corruptly  °  ^^^^' 
interested  minds  of  the  heralds.  At  any  rate,  Shake- 
speare and  his  father  allowed  three  years  to  elapse  before 
(as  far  as  extant  documents  show)  they  made  a  further 
endeavour  to  secure  the  coveted  distinction.  In  1599 
their  efforts  were  crowned  with  success.  Changes  in 
the  interval  among  the  ofl&dals  at  the  College  may  have 
facilitated  the  proceedings.  In  1597  the  Earl  of  Essex 
had  become  Earl  Marshal  and  chief  of  the  Heralds' 
College  (the  office  had  been  in  commission  in  1596) ; 
while  the  great  scholar  and  antiquary,  William  Camden, 
had  joined  the  College,  also  in  1597,  as  Clarenceux 
King-of-Arms.  The  poet  was  favouralily  known  both 
to  Camden,  the  admiring  preceptor  and  friend  of  Ben 
Jonson,^  and  to  the  Earl  of  Essex,  the  close  friend  of  the 

'  These  memoranda  ran  (with  interlineations  in  brackets) :  — 

[This  John  shoeth]  A  patieme  therof  under  Clarent  Cookes  hand  m  paper  3cx. 
years  past.     [The  Q.  officer  and  cheffe  of  the  towne] 

[A  Justice  of  peace]  And  was  a  Baylife  of  Stratford  uppo  Avon  xv.  or  xvj.  years 
past. 

That  he  hathe  lands  and  tenements  of  good  weahh  and  substance.  [500  U.] 

That  he  mar[ried  a  daughter  and  heyre  of  Arden,  a  gent,  of  worship]. 

2  Camden  was  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  Stratford-on-Avon  on 
Aug.  7,  1600,  when  he  organised  the  elaborate  heraldic  funeral  of  old  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  at  Charlecote,  and  bore  the  dead  knight's  'cote  of  armes' 
at  the  interment  in  Charlecote  Church  (Variorum  Shakespeare,  ii.  ss6). 


284  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Earl  of  Southampton.  His  father's  application  now 
took  a  new  form.  No  grant  of  arms  was  asked  for.  It 
was  asserted  without  quaHfication  that  the  coat,  as 
set  out  in  the  draft-grants  of  1596,  had  been  assigned 
to  John  Shakespeare  while  he  was  baihfE,  and  the  heralds 
were  merely  invited  to  give  him  a  'recognition'  or  'ex- 
emplification' of  it.^  At  the  same  time  he  asked  per- 
mission for  himself  to  impale,  and  his  eldest  son  and 
other  children  to  quarter,  on  'his  ancient  coat-of-arms' 
that  of  the  Ardens  of  Wilmcote,  his  wife's  family.  The 
College  officers  were  characteristically  complacent.  A 
draft  was  prepared  under  the  hands  of  Dethick,  the 
Garter  King,  and  of  Camden,  the  Clarenceux  King, 
granting  the  required  '  exempHfication '  and  authorising 
the  required  impalement  and  quartering.  On  one 
point  only  did  Dethick  and  Camden  betray  conscien- 
tious scruples.  Shakespeare  and  his  father  obviously  de- 
sired the  heralds  to  recognise  the  title  of  Mary  Shake- 
speare (the  poet's  mother)  to  bear  the  arms  of  the  great 
Warwickshire  family  of  Arden,  then  seated  at  Park  Hall. 
But  the  relationship,  if  it  existed,  was  undetermined; 
the  Warwickshire  Ardens  were  gentry  of  influence  in 
the  county,  and  were  certain  to  protest  against  any 
hasty  assumption  of  identity  between  their  line  and  that 
of  the  humble  farmer  of  Wilmcote.  After  tricking  the 
Warwickshire  Arden  coat  in  the  margin  of  the  draft- 
grant  for  the  purpose  of  indicating  the  manner  of  its 
impalement,  the  heralds  on  second  thoughts  erased  it. 
They  substituted  in  their  sketch  the  arms  of  an  Arden 
family  Hving  at  Alvanley  in  the  distant  county  of 
Cheshire.  With  that  stock  there  was  no  pretence  that 
Robert  Arden  of  Wilmcote  was  lineally  connected;  but 
the  bearers  of  the  Alvanley  coat  were  unlikely  to  learn 
of    its    suggested    impalement    with    the    Shakespeare 

'An  'exemplification'  was  invariably  secured  more  easily  than  a 
new  grant  of  arms.  The  heralds  might,  if  they  chose,  tacitly  accept, 
without  examination,  the  applicant's  statement  that  his  family  had  borne 
arms  long  ago,  and  they  thereby  regarded  themselves  as  relieved  of  the 
obligation  of  close,  inquiry  into  his  present  status. 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE  285 

shield,  and  the  heralds  were  less  liable  to  the  risk  of 
complaint  or  litigation.  But  the  Shakespeares  wisely- 
relieved  the  College  of  all  anxiety  by  omitting  to  assume 
the  Arden  coat.  The  Shakespeare  arms  alone  are  dis- 
played with  full  heraldic  elaboration  on  the  monument 
above  the  poet's  grave  in  Stratford  Church ;  they  alone 
appear  on  the  seal  and  on  the  tombstone  of  his  elder 
daughter,  Mrs.  Susanna  Hall,  impaled  with  the  arms  of 
her  husband  ^ ;  and  they  alone  were  quartered  by  Thomas 
Nash,  the  first  husband  of  the  poet's  granddaughter, 
Elizabeth  Hall.^ 

Shakespeare's  victorious  quest  of  a  coat-of-arms  was 
one  of  the  many  experiences  which  he  shared  with  pro- 
fessional   associates.     Two    or    three    officers  other 
of  the  Heralds'  College,  who  disapproved  of  actors' 
the  easy  methods  of  their  colleagues,  indeed  pre- 
protested  against  the  bestowal  on  actors  of  tensions, 
heraldic  honours.     Special  censure  was  levelled  at  two 
of  Shakespeare's  closest  professional  allies,  Augustine 
Phillips  and  Thomas  Pope,  comedians  of  repute  and  fel- 
low shareholders  in  the  Globe  theatre,  whose  names 
figure  in  the  prefatory  list  of  the  'principal  actors'  in 
the  First  Folio.    At  the  opening  of  King  James's  reign 
William  Smith,  who  held  the  post  of  Rouge  Dragon 
pursuivant  at  the  Heralds'  College  and  disapproved  of 
his  colleagues'  lenience,  poured  scorn  on  the  two  actors' 
false    heraldic    pretensions.'     The    critic    wrote    thus: 
'Phillipps  the  player  had  graven  in  a  gold  ring  the  armes 
of  S'  W"  Phillipp,  Lord  Bardolph,  with  the    said   L. 

*  On  the  gravestone  of  John  Hall,  Shakespeare's  elder  son-in-law,  the 
Shakespeare  arms  are  similarly  impaled  with  those  of  Hall. 

*  French,  Genealogica  Shakespeareana,  p.  413. 

'  Smith's  censure  figures  in  an  elaborate  exposure  of  recent  heraldic 
scandals,  which  he  dedicated  to  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Northampton, 
K.G,,  a  commissioner  for  the  oflice  of  Earl  Marshal  from  1604,  and 
thereby  a  chief  controller  of  the  College  of  Arms.  The  indictment,  which 
is  in  Smith's  autograph,  bears  the  title :  'A  brieff  Discourse  of  ye  causes 
of  Discord  amongst  ye  OflScers  of  arms  and  of  the  great  abuses  and  ab- 
surdities c6m[m]ited  by  [heraldic]  painters  to  the  great  prejudice  and 
hindrance  of  the  same  ofl&ce.'  The  MS.  was  kindly  lent  to  the  present 
writer  by  Messrs.  Pearson  &  Co.,  Pall  Mall  Place. 


286  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Bardolph's  cote  quartred,  which  I  shewed  to  M'  York 
[i.e.  Ralph  Brooke,  another  rigorous  champion  of  heraldic 
orthodoxy],  at  a  small  graver's  shopp  in  Foster  Lane' 
(leaf  8a).  Philhps's  irresponsibly  adopted  ancestor, 
'Sir  William  Phillipp,  Lord  Bardolph,'  won  renown  at 
Agincourt  in  1415,  and  the  old  warrior's  title  of  Lord 
Bardolf  or  Bardolph  received  satiric  commemoration  at 
Shakespeare's  hands  when  the  dramatist  bestowed  on 
Falstaff's  red-nosed  companion  the  name  of  his  actor- 
<  friend's  imaginary  progenitor.  Smith's  charge  against 
Thomas  Pope  was  to  similar  effect:  'Pope  the  player 
would  have  no  other  armes  but  the  armes  of  S'  Tho. 
Pope,  Chancelor  of  ye  Augmentations.'  Player  Pope's 
alleged  sponsor  in  heraldry,  Sir  Thomas  Pope,  was  the 
Privy  Councillor,  who  died  without  issue  in  the  first  year 
of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  after  founding  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Oxford.  Shakespeare's  claim  in  his  own  heraldic 
application  to  descent  from  unspecified  persons  who 
did  'valiant  and  faithful  service'  in  Henry  the  Seventh's 
time  was  comparatively  modest.  But  his  heraldic 
adventure  had  good  precedent  in  the  contemporary 
ambition  of  the  theatrical  profession. 

Rouge  Dragon  Smith  omitted  specific  mention  of 
Shakespeare;  but  his  equally  censorious  colleague, 
Contempo-  ^^k>^  Brooke,  York  Herald,  was  less  reticent, 
rarycriti-  Independently  of  Smith,  Brooke  drew  up  a 
sSe-  list  of  twenty-three  persons  whom  he  charged 
speare's  with  obtaining  coats-of-arms  on  more  or  less 
fraudulent  representations.  Fourth  on  his 
list  stands  the  surname  Shakespeare,  and  eight  places 
below  appears  that  of  Cowley,  who  may  be  identified 
with  Shakespeare's  actor  friend,  Richard  Cowley,  the 
creator  of  Verges,  in  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing.'  In 
thirteen  cases  Brooke  particularises  with  sarcastic  heat 
the  imposture  which  he  claims  to  expose.^    But  Shake- 

^  This  heraldic  manuscript,  which  was  also  lent  me  by  Messrs.  Pear- 
son, IS  a  paper  book  of  seventeen  leaves,  without  title,  containing  des- 
ultory notes  on  grants  of  arms  which  (it  was  urged)  had  been  errone- 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE  287 

speare's  name  is  merely  mentioned  in  Brooke's  long 
indictment  without  aimotation.  Elsewhere  the  critic 
took  the  less  serious  objection  that  the  arms  'exemplified' 
to  Shakespeare  usurped  the  coat  of  Lord  Mauley,  on 
whose  shield  'a  bend  sable'  also  figured.  Dethick  and 
Camden,  the  official  guardians  of  heraldic  etiquette, 
deemed  it  fitting  to  reply  on  this  minor  technical  issue. 
They  pointed  out  that  lie  Shakespeare  shield  bore  no 
greater  resemblance  to  the  Mauley  coat  than  it  did  to 
that  of  the  Harley  and  the  Ferrers  families,  both  of 
which  also  bore  '  a  bend  sable,'  but  that  in  point  of  fact 
it  differed  conspicuously  from  all  three  by  the  presence 
of  a  spear  on  the  'bend.'  Dethick  and  Camden  added, 
with  customary  want  of  precision,  that  the  person  to 
whom  the  grant  was  made  had  'borne  magistracy  and 
was  justice  of  peace  at  Stratford-on-Avon ;  he  maried 
the  daughter  and  heire  of  Arderne,  and  was  able  to 
maintain  that  Estate.'  ^ 

While  the  negotiation  with  the  College  of  Arms  was  in 
progress  in  the  elder  Shakespeare's  name,  the  poet  had 
taken  openly  in  his  own  person  a  more  effective  purchase 
step   towards   rehabilitating   himself   and   his  of  New 
faroily  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellow-townsmen  at     ^'^^' 
Stratford.    On  May  4,  1597,  he  purchased  the  largest 

ously  made  by  Sir  William  Dethick,  Garter  King,  at  the  end  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  reign.  Two  handwritings  figure  in  these  pages,  one  of  which 
is  the  autograph  of  Ralph  Brooke,  York  Herald,  and  the  other,  which  is 
not  identified,  may  be  that  of  Brooke's  clerk.  Brooke's  detailed  charges 
include  statements  that  an  embroiderer,  calling  himself  Parr,  who  failed 
to  give  proof  of  his  right  to  that  surname  and  was  unquestionably  the 
son  of  a  pedlar,  received  permission  to  use  the  crest  and  coat  of  Sir 
William  Parr,  Marquis  of  Northampton,  who  died  in  1571  'the  last  male 
of  his  house.'  Three  other  men,  who  bought  honourable  pedigrees  of 
the  college,  are  credited  with  the  occupations  respectively  of  a  seller  of 
stockings,  a  haberdasher,  and  a  stationer  or  printer,  while  a  fourth 
offender  was  stated  to  be  an  ahen.  In  some  cases  Garter  was  charged 
with  pocketing  his  fee,  and  then  with  prudently  postponing  the  formal 
issue  of  the  promised  grant  of  arms  until  the  applicant  was  dead. 

'The  details  of  Brooke's  second  accusation  are  deduced  from  the 
answer  of  Garter  and  Clarenceux  to  his  complaint.  Two  copies  of  the 
answer  are  accessible :  one  is  in  the  vol.  W-Z  at  the  Heralds'  College,  f . 
276;  and  the  other,  slightly  differing,  is  in  Ashmole  MS.  846,  ix.  f.  50. 
Both  are  printed  in  the  Herald  and  Genealogist,  i.  514. 


288  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEAllE 

house  but  one  in  the  town.  The  edifice,  which  was  known 
as  New  Place,  had  been  built  by  Sir  Hugh  Clopton  more 
than  a  century  before,  and  seems  to  have  fallen  into 
a  ruinous  condition.  But  Shakespeare  paid  for  it, 
with  two  barns  and  two  gardens,  the  then  substantial 
sum  of  6ol.  A  curious  incident  postponed  legal  posses- 
sion. The  vendor  of  the  Stratford  'manor-house,' 
William  Underhill,  died  suddenly  of  poison  at  another 
residence  in  the  county,  Fillongley  near  Coventry, 
and  the  legal  transfer  of  New  Place  to  the  dramatist  was 
left  at  the  time  incomplete.  Underhill's  eldest  son  Fulk 
died  a  minor  at  Warwick  next  year,  and  after  his  death 
he  was  proved  to  have  murdered  his  father.  The  family 
estates  were  thus  in  jeopardy  of  forfeiture,  but  they  were 
suffered  to  pass  to  'the  felon's'  next  brother  Hercules, 
who  on  coming  of  age  in  May  1602  completed  in  a  new 
deed  the  transfer  of  New  Place  to  Shakespeare.^  There 
was  only  one  larger  house  in  the  town  —  the  College, 
which  had  before  the  Reformation  been  the  official  home 
of  the  clergy  of  the  parish  church,  and  was  subsequently 
confiscated  by  the  Crown.  In  1596  that  imposing  resi- 
dence was  acquired  by  a  rich  native  of  Stratford, 
Thomas  Combe,  whose  social  relations  with  Shakespeare 
were  soon  close.^  In  1598,  a  year  after  his  purchase  of 
New  Place,  the  dramatist  procured  stone  for  the  repair 
of  the  house,  and  before  1602  he  had  set  a  fruit  orchard 
in  the  land  adjoining  it.  He  is  traditionally  said  to  have 
interested  himself  in  the  spacious  garden,  and  to  have 
planted  with  his  own  hands  a  mulberry-tree,  which  was 
long  a  prominent  feature  of  it.  When  this  tree  was  cut 
down  in  1758,  numerous  relics,  which  were  made  from  the 
wood,  were  treated  with  an  almost  superstitious  venera- 
tion.^ 

^  Mrs.  Stopes,  Shakespeare's  Warwickshire  Contemporaries,  p.  232. 
HalliweU's  History  of  New  Place,  1863,  folio,  collects  a  mass  of  pertinent 
information  on  the  fortunes  of  Shakespeare's  mansion. 

"  See  p.  467  infra. 

'  The  tradition  that  Shakespeare  planted  the  mulberry-tree  was  not 
put  on  record  tiU  it  was  cut  down  in  1758  (see  p.  514  infra).    In  1760 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  EIFE  289 

Shakespeare  does  not  appear  to  have  permanently 
settled  at  New  Place  till  161 1.  In  1609  the  house,  or 
part  of  it,  was  occupied  by  Thomas  Greene,  '  alias  Shake- 
speare,' a  lawyer,  who  claimed  to  be  the  poet's  cousin. 
Greene's  mother  or  grandmother  seems  to  have  been  a 
Shakespeare.  He  was  for  a  time  town-clerk  of  the 
town,  and  acted  occasionally  as  the  poet's  legal 
adviser.^ 

It  was  doubtless  under  their  son's  guidance  that 
Shakespeare's  father  and  mother  set  on  foot  in  November 
1597  —  six  months  after  his  acquisition  of  New  Place 
—  a  fresh  lawsuit  against  John  Lambert,  his  mother's 
nephew,  for  the  recovery  of  her  mortgaged  estate  of 
Asbies  in  Wilmcote.^  The  litigation  dragged  on  till  near 
the  end  of  the  century  with  some  appearance  of  favour- 
mention  is  made  of  it  in  a  letter  of  thanks  in  the  corporation's  archives 
from  the  Steward  of  the  Court  of  Record  to  the  corporation  of  Stratford 
for  presenting  him  with  a  standish  made  from  the  wood.  But,  according 
to  ike  testimony  of  old  inhabitants  confided  to  Malone  (cf.  his  Life  of 
Shakespeare,  1790,  p.  118),  the  legend  had  been  orally  current  in  Strat- 
ford since  •Shakespeare's  lifetime.  The  tree  was  perhaps  planted  in 
i6og,  when  a  Frenchman  named  Veron  distributed  a  number  of  young 
mulberry-trees  through  the  midland  counties  by  order  of  James  I.,  who 
desired  to  encourage  the  culture  of  silkworms  (cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i. 
134,  411-16).  Thomas  Sharp,  a  woo'd-carver  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  was 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  eighteenth  century  mementos  of  the  tree  — 
goblets  or  fancy  boxes  or  inkstands.  But  far  more  objects  than  could 
possibly  be  genuine  have  been  represented  by  dealers  as  being  manu- 
factured from  Shakespeare's  mulberry-tree.--  From  a  slip  of  the  original 
tree  is  derived  the  mulberry-tree  which  stiU  flourishes  on  the  central 
lawn  of  New  Place  garden.  Another  slip  of  the  original  tree  was  ac- 
quired by  Edward  Capell,  the  Shakespearean  commentator,  and  was 
planted  by  him  in  the  garden  of  his  residence,  Troston  Hall,  near  Bury 
St.  Edmunds.  That  tree  lived  for  more  than  a  century,  and  many  cut- 
tings taken  from  it  stUl  survive.  One  scion  was  presented  by  the  owner 
of  Troston  Hall  to  the  Royal  Botanic  Gardens  at  Kew  in  October  1896, 
and  flourishes  there,  being  labelled '  Shakespeare's  mulberry.'  The  Direc- 
tor of  Kew  Gardens,  Lieut.-Col.  Sir  David  Prain,  writes  to  me  (March 
23.  1915)  confirming  the  authenticity  of  'our  tree's  descent.'  Sir  David 
adds,  'We  have  propagated  from  it  rather  freely,  have  planted  various 
offshoots  from  it  in  various  parts  of  the  garden,  and  have  sent  plants  to 
places  where  there  are  memorials' of  Shakespeare  and  to  people  interested 
in  matters  relating  to  him.' 

'  See  pp.  473-4  infra. 

'  HalUwell-Phillipps,  ii.  13-17;  cf.  Mrs.  Stopes's  Shakespeare's  En- 
vironment, 45-47.    See  also  p.  14  supra. 


290  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ing  the  dramatist's  parents,  but,  in  the  result,  the  estate 
remained  in  Lambert's  hands. 

The  purchase  of  New  Place  is  a  signal  proof  of  Shake- 
speare's growing  prosperity,  and  the  transaction  made 
Shake-  ^  ^^^P  impression  on  his  fellow-townsmen. 
speareand  Letters  written  during  1598  by  leading  men 
townlmrn  at  Stratford,  which  are  extant  among  the' 
in  1598.  archives  of  the  Corporation  and  of  the  Birth- 
place Trustees,  leave  no  doubt  of  the  reputation  for 
wealth  and  influence  which  he  straightway  acquired  in 
his  native  place.  His  Stratford  neighbours  stood  in 
urgent  need  of  his  help.  In  the  summer  of  1594  a  severe 
fire  did  much  damage  in  the  town,  and  a  second  out- 
break 'on  the  same  day'  twelve  months  later  intensified 
the  suffering.  The  two  fires  destroyed  120  dwelling- 
houses,  estimated  to  be  worth  12,000/.,  and  400  persons 
were  rendered  homeless  and  destitute.  Both  confla- 
grations started  on  the  Lord's  Day,  and  Puritan  preach- 
ers through  the  country  suggested  that  the  double  dis- 
aster was  a  divine  judgment  on  the  townsfolk* '  chiefly 
for  prophaning  the  Lords  Sabbaths,  and  for  contemning 
his  word  in  the  mouth  of  his  faithfull  Ministers.'  ^  In 
accordance  with  precedent,  the  Town  Council  obtained 
permission  from  the  quarter  sessions  of  the  county  to 
appeal  for  help  to  the  country  at  large,  and  the  leading 
townsmen  were  despatched  to  various  parts  of  the 
kingdom  to  make  collections.  The  Stratford  collectors 
began  their  first  tour  in  the  autumn  of  1594,  and  their 
second  in  the  autumn  of  the  following  year.  Shake- 
speare's friends.  Alderman  Richard  Quiney  the  elder, 
and  John  Sadler,  were  especially  active  on  these  expe- 
ditions, and  the  returns  were  sadsfactory,  though  the 
collectors'  personal  expenses  ran  high.^    But  new  troubles 

'  Lewis  Bayly,  The  Practice  of  Piety,  1613  ed.,  p.  551.  Bayly's  alle- 
gation is  repeated  in  Thomas  Beard's  Theatre  of  God's  Judgements,  1631, 
P-  555- 

'  Full  details  of  the  collections  of  1594  appear  in  Stratford  Council 
Book  B,  under  dates  September  24  and  October  23.  Richard  Quiney 
obtained  from  some  of  the  Colleges  at  Oxford  the  sum  of  yl.  os.  ud. 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS  OF  LIFE  291 

followed  to  depress  the  fortunes  of  the  town.  The  har- 
vests of  1594  and  the  three  following  years  yielded  badly. 
The  prices  of  grain  rapidly  Tose.  The  consequent  dis- 
tress was  acute  and  recovery  was  slow.  The  town  suf- 
fered additional  hardships  owing  to  a  royal  proclama- 
tion of  1597,  which  forbade  all  but  farmers  who  grew 
barley  to  brew  malt  between  Lady  Day  and  Michaelmas, 
and  restrictions  were  placed  on  '  the  excessive  buying  of 
barley  for  that  use  and  purpose.'  ^  Every  householder 
of  Stratford  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of  making  malt ; 
'servants  were  hired  only  to  that  purpose.'  Urban  em- 
plojTnent  was  thus  diminished;  while  the  domestic 
brewing  of  beer  was  seriously  hindered  in  the  interest  of 
the  farmer-maltsters  to  the  grievous  injury  of  the  hum- 
bler townsfolk.  Early  in  1598  the  'dearness  of  corn'  at 
Stratford  was  reported  to  be  '  beyond  all  other  counties,' 
and  riots  threatened  among  the  labouring  people.  The 
town  council  sought  to  meet  the  difl&culty  by  ordering 
an  inventory  of  the  corn  and  malt  in  the  borough. 
Shakespeare,  who  was  described  as  a  householder  in 
Chapel  Street,  in  which  New  Place  stood,  was  reported 
to  own  the  very  substantial  quantity  of  ten  quarters  or 
eighty  bushels  of  corn  and  malt.  Only  two  inhabitants 
were  credited  with  larger  holdings.^ 

and  he  and  Sadler  with  two  others  obtained  from  Northampton  as  much 
as  26I.  los.  3d.  Documents  describing  the  collections  for  both  years 
1594  and  IS9S  are  in  the  Wheler  Papers,  vol.  i.  flf.  43-4-  In  the  latter 
year  Quiney  and  Sadler  begged  with  success  through  the  chief  towns 
of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  and  afterwards  visited  Lincoln  and  London;  but 
of  the  75?.  6s.  which  was  received  Quiney  disbursed  as  much  as  54I.  gs. 
4d.  on  expenses  of  travel.  The  journey  lasted  from  October  18,  iS9S> 
to  January  26,  1595-6,  and  horse-hire  cost  a  shilling  a  day.  In  1595 
the  corporation  of  Leicester  gave  to  'collectors  of  the  town  of  Stratforde- 
upon-Haven  13^.  4^.  in  regard  of  their  loss  by  fire.'  (W.  Kelly,  Notices 
iUusWaiive  of  the  drama  at  Leicester,  1865,  p.  224;  Records  of  the  Borough 
of  Leicester,  ed.  Bateson,  1905,  iii.  320.) 

'  Acts  of  the  Privy  Council,  1597-9,  pp.  314  seq. 

*  The  return,  dated  February  4,  1597-8,  is  printed  from  the  corpora- 
tion records  by  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  58.  The  respective  amounts  of 
com  and  malt  are  not  distinguished  save  in  the  case  of  Thomas  Badsey, 
who  is  credited  with  'vj.  quarters,  bareley  j.  quarter.'  The  two  neigh- 
bours of  Shakespeare  who  possessed  a  larger  store  of  corn  and  malt  were 


292  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

While  Stratford  was  in  the  grip  of  such  disasters 
Parliament  met  at  Westminster  in  1597  and  imposed  on 
the  country  fresh  and  formidable  taxation.^  The  ma- 
chinery of  collection  was  soon  set  in  motion  and  the 
impoverished  community  of  Stratford  saw  all  hope 
shattered  of  recovering  its  solvency.  Thereupon  in 
January  1598  the  Council  sent  a  delegate  to  London  to 
represent  to   the   Government  the  critical  state  of  its 

affairs.  The  choice  fell  on  Shakespeare's  friend, 
Quine/s  Alderman  Richard  Quiney,  a  draper  of  the 
mission  to    town  who  had  served  the  office  of  bailiff  in  1592, 

and  was  re-elected  in  1601,  dying  during  his 
second  term  of  office.  Quiney  and  his  family  stood  high 
in  local  esteem.  His  father  Adrian  Qtdney,  commonly 
described  as  'a  mercer,'  was  still  living;  he  had  been 
baiUff  in  1571,  the  year  preceding  John  Shakespeare's 
election.  Quiney's  mission  detained  him  in  London  for 
the  greater  part  of  twelve  months.  He  lodged  at  the  Bell 
Inn  in  Carter  Lane.  Friends  at  Stratford  constantly  im- 
portuned Quiney  by  letter  to  enlist  the  influence  of  great 
men  in  the  endeavour  to  obtain  relief  for  the  townsmen, 
but  it  was  on  Shakespeare  that  he  was  counselled  to  place 
his  chief  reliance.  During  his  sojourn  in  the  capital, 
Quiney 'was  therefore  in  frequent  intercourse  with  the 
dramatist.  Besides  securing  an  'ease  and  discharge  of 
such  taxes  and  subsidies  wherewith  our  town  is  likely  to 
be  charged,'  he  hoped  to  obtain  from  the  Court  of  Ejt- 
chequer  relief  for  the  local  maltsters,  and  to  raise  a  loan 
of  money  wherewith  to  meet  the  Corporation's  current 
needs.  A  further  aim  was  to  borrow  money  for  the 
commercial  enterprises  of  himself  and  his  family.  In 
fulfilhng  all  these  purposes  Quiney  and  his  friends  at 
Stratford  were  sanguine  of  benefiting  by  Shakespeare's 
influence  and  prosperity. 

'Mr.  Thomas  Dyxon,  xvij  quarters,'  and  'Mr.  Aspinall,  aboutes  xj 
quarters.'     Shakespeare's  friend  Julius  Shaw  owned  'vij.  quarters.' 

'■  Three  lay  subsidies,  six  fifteenths,  and  three  clerical  subsidies  were 
granted. 


THE  PRACTICAL-  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE  293 

Quiney's  most  energetic  local  correspondent  was  his 
wife's  brother,  Abraham  Sturley,  an  enterprising  trades- 
man, who  was  bailiff  of  Stratford  in  1596.  He  had  gained 
at  the  Stratford  grammar  school  a  command  of  colloquial 
Latin  and  was  prone  to  season  his  correspondence  with 
Latin  phrases.  Sturley  gave  constant  proof  of  his  faith 
in  Shakespeare's  present  and  future  fortune.  On  January 
24,  1597-8,  he  wrote  to  Quiney  from  Stratford,  of  his 
'great  fear  and  doubt'  that  the  burgesses  were  'by  no 
means  able  to  pay'  any  of  the  taxes.  He  added  a  signifi- 
cant message  in  regard  to  Shakespeare's  fiscal  affairs : 
'This  is  one  special  remembrance  from  [Adrian  Quiney] 
our  father's  motion.  It  seemeth  by  him  that  our  coun- 
tryman, Mr.  Shaksper,  is  wilhng  to  disburse  some  money 
upon  some  odd  yardland  ^  or  other  at  Shottery,  or  near 
about  us :  he  thinketh  it  a  very  fit  pattern  to  move  him 
to  deal  in  the  matter  of  our  tithes.  By  the  instructions 
you  can  give  him  thereof,  and  by  the  friends  he  can 
make  therefor,  we  think  it  a  fair  mark  for  him  to  shoot 
at,  and  not  impossible  to  hit.  It  obtained  would  ad- 
vance him  indeed,  and  would  do  us  much  good.'  After 
his  manner  Sturley  reinforced  the  exhortation  by  a 
Latin  rendering:  'Hoc  movere,  et  quantum  in  te  est 
permovere,  ne  necligas,  hoc  enim  et  sibi  et  nobis  maximi 
erit  momenti.  Hie  labor,  hie  opus  esset  eximie  et  gloriae 
et  laudis  sibi.'  ^  As  far  as  Shottery,  the  native  hamlet  of 
Shakespeare's  wife,  was  concerned,  the  suggestion  was 
without  effect;  but  in  the  matter  of  the  tithes  Shake- 
speare soon  took  very  practical  steps.' 

Some  months  later,  on  November  4,  1598,  Sturley 
was  still  pursuing  the  campaign  wilJi  undiminished 
vigour.    He  now  expressed  anxiety   to  hear  'that  our 

^A  yardland  was  the  technical  name  of  a  plot  averaging  between 
thirty  and  forty  acres. 

'  'To  urge  this,  and  as  far  as  in  you  lies  to  persist  herein,  neglect  not ; 
for  this  will  be  of  the  greatest  importance  both  to  him  and  to  us.  Here 
pre-eminently  would  be  a  task,  here  would  be  a  work  of  glory  and  praise 
for  him.' 

•  See  p.  3r9  infra. 


294  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

countryman,  Mr.  Wm.  Shak.,  would  procure  us  money, 
Local  which  I  will  like  of,   as  I  shall  hear  when, 

appeals  and  whcre,  and  how,  and  I  pray  let  not  go 
for  aid.  jjjg^^  occasion  if  it  may  sort  to  any  indifferent 
[i.e.  reasonable]  conditions.' 

Neither  the  writer  nor  Richard  Quiney,  his  brother-in- 
law,  whom  he  was  addressing,  disguised  their  hope  of 
Richard  personal  advantage  from  the  dramatist's  afflu- 
Quiney's  encc.  Amid  his  public  activities  in  London, 
shak^e-°  Quiucy  appealed  to  Shakespeare  for  a  loan  of 
speare.  money  wherewith  to  discharge  pressing  private 
debts.  The  letter,  which  is  interspersed  with  references 
to  Quipey's  municipal  mission,  ran  thus :  'Loveinge 
contrejonan,  I  am  bolde  of  yow,  as  of  a  ffrende,  craveinge 
yowr  helpe  with  xxx/j  vppon  Mr.  Bushells  and  my 
securytee,  or  Mr.  Myttons  with  me.  Mr.  Rosswell  is 
nott  come  to  London  as  yeate,  and  I  have  especiall 
cawse.  Yow  shall  ffrende  me  muche  in  helpeing  me  out 
of  all  the  debettes  I  owe  in  London,  I  thancke  God, 
&  muche  quiet  my  mynde,  which  wolde  nott  be  in- 
debeted.  [I  am  nowe  towardes  the  Courte,  in  hope  of 
answer  for  the  dispatche  of  my  buysenes.]  Yow  shal 
nether  loase  creddytt  nor  monney  by  me,  the  Lorde 
wyllinge;  &  nowe  butt  perswade  yowrselfe  soe,  as  I 
hope,  &  yow  shall  nott  need  to  feare,  butt,  with  all 
hartie  thanckefuUenes,  I  wyU  holde  my  t5ane,  &  content 
yowr  ffrende,  &  yf  we  bargaine  farther,  yow  shal  be 
the  paie-master  yowrselfe.  My  tyme  biddes  me  hastene 
to  an  ende,  &  soe  I  committ  thys  [to]  yowr  care  &  hope 
of  yowr  helpe.  [I  feare  I  shall  nott  be  backe  thys  night 
ffrom  the  Cowrte.]  Haste.  The  Lorde  be  with  yow  & 
with  vs  all.  Amen !  ffrom  the  Bell  in  Carter  Lane,  the 
25  October,  1598.  Yowrs  in  all  kyndenes,  Ryc.  Qire- 
NEY.'  Outside  the  letter  was  the  superscription  in 
Quiney's  hand:  'To  my  loveinge  good  ffrend  and  con- 
tre3miann  Mr.  Wm.  Shackespere  deliver  thees.' 

This  document  is  preserved  at  Shakespeare's  Birth- 
place and  enjoys  the  distinction  of  being  the  only  sur- 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE  295 

viving  letter  which  was  delivered  into  Shakespeare's 
hand.  Quiney,  Shakespeare's  would-be  debtor,  informed 
his  family  at  Stratford  of  his  apphcation  for  money,  and 
he  soon  received  the  sanguine  message  from  his  father 
Adrian:  'If  you  bargain  with  William  Shakespeare,  or 
receive  money  therefor,  bring  your  money  home  that 
[i.e.  as]  you  may.'  1  It  may  justly  be  inferred  that 
Shakespeare  did  not  belie  the  coridence  which  his  fellow- 
townsmen  reposed  both  in  his  good  will  towards  them 
and  in  his  powers  of  assistance.  In  due  time  Quiney's 
long-drawn  mission  was  crowned  on  the  leading  issue 
with  success.  On  January  27,  1598-9,  a  warrant  was 
signed  at  Westminster  by  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer releasing  'the  ancient  borough'  from  the  pay- 
ment of  the  pending  taxes  on  the  'reasonable  and  con- 
scionable'  grounds  of  the  recent  fires. 

*  This  letter,  which  is  undated,  may  be  assigned  to  November  or 
December  1598,  and  in  the  course  of  it  Adrian  Quiney  urged  his  son  to 
lay  in  a  generous  supply  of  knitted  stockings  for  which  a  large  demand 
was  reported  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Stratford.  Much  of  Abraham 
Sturley's  and  Richard  Quiney's  correspondence  remains,  with  other 
notes  respecting  the  town's  claims  for  relief  from  the  subsidy  of  1598, 
among  the  archives  at  the  Birthplace  at  Stratford.  (Cf.  Catalogue  of 
Shakespeare's  Birthplace,  1910,  pp.  112-3.)  In  the  Variorum  Shake- 
speare, 1821,  vol.  ii.  pp.  561  seq.,  Malone  first  printed  four  of  Sturley's 
letters,  of  which  one  is  wholly  in  Latin.  Halliwell-Phillipps  reprinted 
in  his  Outlines,  ii.  57  seq.,  two  of  these  letters  dated  respectively  January 
24,  1597-8,  and  November  4,  1598,  from  which  citation  is  made  above, 
together  with  the  undated  letter  of  Adrian  Quiney  to  his  son  Richard. 


XV 

SHAKESPEARE'S  FINANCIAL  EESOURCES 

The  financial  prosperity  to  which  the  correspondence 
just  cited  and  the  transactions  immediately  preceding 
Financial  ^*  point  has  been  treated  as  one  of  the  chief 
position  be-  mystcrics  of  Shakespeare's  career,  but  the 
fore  1599.  difl&culties  are  gratuitous.  A  close  study  of 
the  available  information  leaves  practically  nothing  in 
Shakespeare's  financial  position  which  the  contemporary 
conditions  of  theatrical  Kfe  fail  to  explain.  It  was  not 
until  1599,  when  Shakespeare  co-operated  in  the  erection 
of  the  Globe  theatre,  that  he  acquired  any  share  in  the 
profits  of  a  playhouse.  But  his  revenues  as  a  successful 
dramatist  and  actor  were  by  no  means  contemptible  at 
an  earlier  date,  although  at  a  later  period  their  dimensions 
greatly  expanded. 

Shakespeare's  gains  in  the  capacity  of  dramatist 
formed  through  the  first  half  of  his  professional  career  a 
Drama-  Smaller  source  of  income  than  his  wages  as  an 
tists'  fees  actor.  The  highest  price  known  to  have  been 
until  IS99.  p^j(j  before  1599  to  an  author  for  a  play  by  the 
manager  of  an  acting  company  was  iil.;  61.  was  the 
lowest  rate.^  A  small  additional  gratuity  —  rarely  ex- 
ceeding ten  shilHngs  —  was  bestowed  on  a  dramatist 
whose  piece  on  its  first  production  was  especially  well 

^  The  purchasing  power  of  a  pound  during  Shakespeare's  prime  may 
be  generally  defined  in  regard  to  both  necessaries  and  luxuries  as  equiva- 
lent to  that  of  five  pounds  of  the  present  currency.  The  money  value  of 
corn  then  and  now  is  nearly  identical;  but  other  necessaries  of  life— 
meat,  milk,  eggs,  wool,  building  materials,  and  the  like  —  were  much 
cheaper  in  Shakespeare's  day.  In  1586  a  leg  of  veal  and  a  shoulder  of 
mutton  at  Stratford  each  sold  for  tenpence,  a  loin  of  veal  for  a  shilling, 
and  a  quarter  of  lamb  for  twopence  more  (Halliwell,  Col.  Stratford  Records, 
p.  334).    Threepence  was  the  statutory  price  of  a  gallon  of  beer. 

296 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  297 

received;  and  the  author  was  by  custom  allotted,  by- 
way of  'benefit,'  a  certain  proportion  of  the  receipts  of  the 
theatre  on  the  production  of  a  play  for  the  second  time.^ 
Other  sums,  amounting  at  times  to  as  much  as  4I.,  were 
bestowed  on  the  author  for  revising  and  altering  an  old 
play  for  a  revival.  The  nineteen  plays  which  may  be 
set  to  Shakespeare's  credit  between  1591  and  1599, 
combined  with  such  revising  work  as  fell  to  his  lot 
during  those  nine  years,  cannot  consequently  have 
brought  him  less  than  200I.,  or  some  20I.  a  year.  Eight 
or  nine  of  these  plays  were  published  during  the  period, 
but  the  publishers  operated  independently  of  the  author, 
taking  all  the  risks  and,  at  the  same  time,  all  the  receipts. 
The  company  usually  forbade  under  heavy  penalties 
the  author's  sale  to  a  publisher  of  a  play  which  had  been 
acted.  The  publication  of  Shakespeare's  plays  in  no 
way  affected  his  monetary  resources.  But  his  friendly 
relations  with  the  printer  Field  doubtless  secured  him, 
despite  the  absence  of  any  copyright  law,  some  part  of 
the  profits  in  the  large  and  continuous  sale  of  his  narrative 
poems.  At  the  same  time  the  dedications  of  the  poems, 
in  accordance  with  contemporary  custom,  brought  him  a 
tangible  reward.  The  pecuniary  recognition  which  patrons 
accorded  to  dedicatory  epistles  varied  greatly,  and  ranged 
from  a  fee  of  two  or  three  pounds  to  a  substantial  pen- 
sion. Shakespeare's  patron,  the  Earl  of  Southampton, 
was  conspicuous  for  his  generous  gifts  to  men  of  letters 
who  sought  his  good  graces.^ 

'  Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Collier,  pp.  xxviii  seq.,  and  ed.  Greg.  ii. 
no  seq.  'Beneficial  second  days'  were  reckoned  among  dramatists' 
sources  of  income  until  the  Civil  War.  (Cf.  'Actors'  Remonstrance,' 
1643,  in  Hazlitt's  English  Drama  and  Stage,  1869,  p.  264.)  After  the 
Restoration  the  receipts  of  the  third  performance  were  given  for  the 
author's  'benefit.' 

^  Cf.  Malone's  Variorum,  iii.  164,  and  p.  197  supra.  The  ninth  Earl 
of  Northumberland  gave  to  George  Peele  3Z.  in  June  1593  on  the  presen- 
tation of  a  congratulatory  poem  {Hist.  MSS.  Comm.  vi.  App.  p.  227), 
while  to  two  Mterary  mafliematicians,  Walter  Warner  and  Thomas 
Harriot,  he  gave  pensions  of  40/.  and  120/.  a  year  respectively  (Aubrey's 
Lives,  ed.  Clark,  ii.  16).  See  Phoebe  Sheavyn,  The  Literary  Profession 
in  the  Elizabethan  Age,  1909,  pp.  26,  32. 


298  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

But  it  was  as  an  actor  that  at  an  early  date  Shakespeare 
acquired  a  genuinely  substantial  and  secure  income. 
Affluence  There  is  abundance  of  contemporary^  evidence 
of  actors,  to  show  that  the  stage  was  for  an  efl&cient  actor 
an  assured  avenue  to  comparative  wealth.  In  1590 
Robert  Greene  describes  in  his  tract  entitled  '  Never  too 
Late'  a  meeting  with  a  player  whom  he  took  by  his 
'outward  habit'  to  be  'a  gentleman  of  great  living '  and 
a  'substantial  man.'  The  player  informed  Greene  that 
he  had  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  travelled  on  foot, 
bearing  his  theatrical  properties  on  his  back,  but  he 
prospered  so  rapidly  that  at  the  time  of  speaking  'his 
very  share  in  pla5dng  apparel  would  not  be  sold  for  200/.' 
Among  his  neighbours  'where  he  dwelt'  he  was  reputed 
able  'at  his  proper  cost  to  build  a  windmill.'  In  the 
university  play,  'The  Return  from  Parnassus'  (1601?), 
a  poor  student  enviously  complains  of  the  wealth  and 
position  which  a  successful  actor  derived  from  his  calling : 

England  affords  those  glorious  vagabonds, 

That  carried  erst  their  fardles  on  their  backs, 

Coursers  to  ride  on  through  the  gazing  streets. 

Sweeping  it  in  their  glaring  satin  suits, 

And  pages  to  attend  their  masterships ; 

With  mouthing  words  that  better  wits  had  framed, 

They  purchase  lands  and  now  esquires  are  made.' 

The  travelhng  actors,  who  gave  a  performance  at  the 
bidding  of  the  highwayman,  GamaHel  Ratsey,  in  1605, 
received  from  him  no  higher  gratuity  than  forty  shil- 

'  Return  from  Parnassus,  v.  i.  10-16.  Cf.  H[enry]  P[arrot]'s  Laqtiei 
Ridiculosi  or  Springes  for  Woodcocks,  1613,  Epigram  No.  131,  headed 
'Theatrum  Licencia' : 

Cotta's  become  a  player  most  men  know, 
And  will  no  longer  take  such  toyling  paines ; 

For  here's  the  spring  (saith  he)  whence  pleasures  flow 
And  brings  them  damnable  excessive  games 

That  now  are  cedars  growne  from  shrubs  and  sprigs, 
Since  Greene's  Tu  Quoque  and  those  Garlicke  Jigs. 

Greene's  Tu  Quoque  was  a  popular  comedy  that  had  once  been  performed 
at  Court  by  the  Queen's  players,  and  'Garlicke  Jigs'  alluded  derisively 
to  drolling  entertainments,  interspersed  with  dances,  which  won  much 
esteem  from  patrons  of  the  smaller  playhouses. 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  299 

lings  to  be  divided  among  them ;  but  the  company  was 
credited  with  a  confident  anticipation  of  far  more  generous 
remuneration  in  London.  According  to  the  author  of 
'The  Pilgrinaage  to  Parnassus'  (1601?),  Shakespeare's 
colleague  Will  Kemp  assured  undergraduate  aspirants 
to  the  stage:  'You  haue  happened  vpon  the  most 
excellent  vocation  in  the  world  for  money :  they  come 
north  and  south  to  bring  it  to  our  playhouse,  and  for 
honours,  who  of  more  report,  then  Dick  Burbage  and  Will 
Kempe?'  (iv.  iii.  1826-32).  The  scale  of  the  London 
actors'  salaries  rose  rapidly  during  Shakespeare's  career, 
and  was  graduated  according  to  capacity  and  experience. 
A  novice  who  received  ten  shillings  a  week  in  a  London 
theatre  in  1597  could  count  on  twice  that  sum  thirty 
years  later,  although  the  rates  were  always  reduced  by 
half  when  the  company  was  touring  the  provinces.  A 
player  of  the  highest  rank  enjoyed  in  London  in  the 
generation  following  Shakespeare's  death  an  annual 
stipend  of  180/.^  Shakespeare's  emoluments  as  an  actor, 
whether  in  London  or  the  provinces,  are  not  fees  for 
likely  to  have  fallen  before  1599  below  looZ.  Court  per- 
Very  substantial  remuneration  was  also  de-  *°™^°<=^^- 
rived  by  his  company  from  performances  at  Court  or 
in  noblemen's  houses,  and  from  that  source  his  yearly 
revenues  would  receive  an  addition  of  something  ap- 
proaching 10/.^ 

'  Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  291 ;  documents  of  1635  cited 
by  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  310  seq. 

2  Each  piece  acted  before  Queen  Elizabeth  at  Court  was  awarded 
10/.,  which  was  composed  of  a  fixed  official  fee  of  61.  i^s.  /\d.  and  of  a 
special  royal  gratuity  of  3^.  6^.  M.  The  number  of  actors  among  whom 
lie  money  was  divided  was  commonly  few.  In  1594  a  sum  of  2oi.  in 
pa3Tnent  of  two  plays  was  divided  by  Shakespeare  and  his  two  acting 
coUeagues,  Burbage  and  Kemp,  each  receiving  tl.  13^.  /\i.  apiece  (see 
p.  87).  Shakespeare's  company  performed  six  plays  at  Court  during 
the  Christmas  festivities  of  1596,  and  four  each  of  those  of  1597-8  and 
i6oi-z.  The  fees  for  performances  at  private  houses  varied  but  were 
usually  smaller  than  those  at  the  royal  palaces.  In  the  play  of  '  Sir 
Thomas  More'  probably  written  about  1598,  a  professional  company  of 
players  received  ten  angels  (i.e.  s^.)  for  a  performance  in  a  private  man- 
sion.    [^Shakespeare  Apocrypha,  ed.  Tucker  Brooke,  p.  407.) 


300  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Thus  a  sum  approaching  150/.  (equal  to  750^.  of  to-day) 

would  be  Shakespeare's  average  annual  revenue  before 

1599.     Such  a  sum  would  be  regarded  as  a  very 

spelt's       large  income  in  a  country  town.     According  to 

average       ^.j^g  author  of '  Ratseis  Ghost,'  the  actor  practised 

income  ,      _         ,  .        c  t  mi 

before  m  Loudon  a  strict  frugahty.  There  seems  no 
^^''"  reason  why  Shakespeare  should  not  have  been 

able  in  1597  to  draw  from  his  savings  60I.  wherewith  to 
buy  New  Place.  His  resources  might  well  justify  his 
fellow- townsmen's  high  opinion  of  his  wealth  in  1598, 
and  sufl&ce  between  1597  and  1599  to  meet  his  expenses, 
in  rebuilding  the  house,  stocking  the  barns  with  grain,  and 
conducting  various  legal  proceedings.  But,  according  to 
an  early  and  well-attested  tradition,  he  had  in  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  to  whom  his  two  narrative  poems  were 
dedicated,  a  wealthy  and  exceptionally  generous  patron, 
who  on  one  occasion  gave  him  as  much  as  one  thousand 
pounds  to  enable  'him  to  go  through  with'  a  purchase  to 
which  he  had  a  mind.  A  munificent  gift,  added  to 
professional  gains,  leaves  nothing  unaccounted  for  in 
Shakespeare's  financial  position  before  1599. 

From  1599  onwards  Shakespeare's  relations  with 
theatrical  enterprise  assumed  a  different  phase  and  his 
Shake  pecuniary  resources  grew  materially.  When 
speare's  in  1 598  the  actor  Richard  Burbage  and  his 
thefflobe  brother  Cuthbert,  who  owned  'The  Theatre' 
theatre  in  Shorcditch,  resolved  to  transfer  the  fabric  to 
romisgg.  ^  ^^^  ^j^^  .^^  Southwark,  they  enlisted  the 
personal  co-operation  and  the  financial  support  of  Shake- 
speare and  of  four  other  prosperous  acting  colleagues, 
Thomas  Pope,  Augustine  PhilUps,  William  Kemp,  and 
John  Heminges.  For  a  term  of  thirty-one  years  running 
from  Christmas  1598  a  large  plot  of  land  on  the  Bankside 
was  leased  by  the  Burbages,  in  aUiance  with  Shakespeare 
and  the  four  other  actors.  The  Burbage  brothers  made 
themselves  responsible  for  one  half  of  the  liability  and  the 
remaining  five  accepted  joint  responsibility  for  the  other 
half.    The  deed  was  finally  executed  by  the  seven  lessees 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  301 

on  February  21,  1598-9.  The  annual  rental  of  the 
Bankside  site  was  14/.  105.,  and  on  it  Shakespeare  and 
his  partners  straightway  erected,  at  an  outlay  of  some 
500/.  which  was  variously  distributed  among  them,  the 
new  Globe  theatre.  Much  timiber  from  the  dismantled 
Shoreditch  theatre  was  incorporated  in  the  new  build- 
ing, which  was  ready  for  opening  in  May. 

There  is  conclusive  evidence  tJiat  Shakespeare  played 
a  foremost  part  in  both  the  initiation  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  new  playhouse.  On  May  16,  1599,  as  a  lessee 
the  Globe  property  was  described,  in  a  formal  °^  *■»*  site, 
inventory  of  the  estate  of  which  it  formed  part,  as  in  the 
occupation  of  William  Shakespeare  and  others.'  ^  The 
dramatist's  name  was  alone  specified  —  a  proof  that 
his  reputation  excelled  that  of  any  of  his  six  partners. 
Some  two  years  later  the  demise  on  October  12,  1601,  of 
Nicholas  Brend,  then  the  ground  landlord,  who  left  an 
infant  heir  Matthew,  compelled  a  resettlement  of  the 
estate,  and  the  many  inevitable  legal  documents  de- 
scribed the  tenants  of  the  playhouse  as  '  Richard  Burbage 
and  William  Shackespeare,  Gent ' ;  the  greatest  of  his 
actor  allies  was  thus  joined  with  the  dramatist.  This 
description  of  the  Globe  tenancy  was  frequently  repeated 
in  legal  instruments  affecting  the  Brend  property  in 
later  years.  Although  the  formula  ultiinately  received 
the  addition  of  two  other  partners,  Cuthbert  Burbage 
and  John  Heminges,  Shakespeare's  name  so  long  as  the 
Globe  survived  was  retained  as  one  of  the  tenants  in 
documents  defining  the  tenancy.  The  estate  records  of 
Southwark  thereby  kept  alive  the  memory  of  the  dram- 
atist in  his  capacity  of  theatrical  shareholder,^  after  he 
was  laid  in  his  grave. 

'This  description  appears  in  the  'inquisitio  post  mortem'  (dated" 
May  12, 1599)  of  the  property  of  the  lately  deceased  Thomas  Brend,  who 
had  owned  the  Bankside  site  and  had  left  it  to  his  son,  Nicholas  Brend. 

'  The  Globe  theatre  was  demolished  in  1644,  twenty-eight  years  after 
the  dramatist's  death.  See  the  newly  discovered,  documents  in  the 
Public  Record  Office  cited  by  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace  in  'New  Light  on 
Shakespeare'  in  The  Times,  April  30  and  May  1,  1914. 


302  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

On  the  foundation  of  the  Globe  theatre  the  proprietor- 
ship was  divided  among  the  seven  owners  in  ten  shares. 

The  fixed  moiety  which  the  two  Burbages  ac- 
actOT-  quired  at  the  outset  they  or  their  representa- 
hoider         ^^^^^  ^^^'^  nearly  as  long  as  the  playhouse  lasted. 

The  other  moiety  was  originally  divided  equally 
among  Shakespeare  and  his  four  colleagues.  There  was 
at  no  point  anything  unusual  in  such  an  appUcation  of 
shareholding  principles.^  It  was  quite  customary  for 
leading  members  of  an  acting  company  to  acquire  in- 
dividually at  the  meridian  of  their  careers  a  proprietary 
interest  in  the  theatre  which  their  company  occupied. 
Hamlet  claims,  in  the  play  scene  (in.  ii.  293),  that  the 
success  of  his  improvised  tragedy  deserved  to  'get  him 
a  fellowship  in  a  cry  of  players ' — evidence  that  a  success- 
ful dramatist  no  less  than  a  successfid  actor  expected 
such  a  reward  for  a  conspicuous  effort.^    Shakespeare 

'  James  Burbage  had  in  1576  allotted  shares  in  the  receipts  of  The 
Theatre  to  those  who  had  advanced  him  capital;  but  these  investors 
were  commercial  men  and  their  relations  with  the  managerial  owner 
differed  from  those  subsisting  between  his  sons  and  the  actors  who  held 
shares  with  them  in  the  Bankside  playhouse.  The  Curtain  theatre  was 
also  a  shareholding  concern,  and  actors  in  course  of  time  figured  among 
the  proprietors ;  shares  in  the  Curtain  were  devised  by  will  by  the  actors 
Thomas  Pope  (in  1603)  and  John  Underwood  (in  1624).  (Cf.  Collier's 
Lives  of  the  Actors.)  The  property  of  the  Whitefriars  theatre  (in  1608) 
was  divided,  like  that  of  the  Globe,  into  fixed  moieties,  each  of  which 
was  distributed  independently  among  a  differing  number  of  sharers 
{New Shakspere  Soc.  Trans.  1887-92,  pp.  271  seq.).  Heminges  produced 
evidence  in  the  suit  Keysar  v.  Heminges,  Condell  and  others  in  the  Court 
of  Requests  in  1608  (see  pp.  309-312  irifra)  to  show  that  the  moiety  of 
the  Globe  which  Shakespeare  and  he  shared  was  converted  at  the  outset 
into  'a  joint  tenancy'  which  deprived  the  individual  shareholder  of  any 
right  to  his  share  on  his  death  or  on  his  withdrawal  from  the  company, 
and  left  it  to  be  shared  in  that  event  by  surviving  shareholders,  the  last 
survivor  thus  obtaining  the  whole.  But  this  legal  device,  if  not  re- 
voked, was  ignored,  for  the  two  sharing  colleagues  of  Shakespeare  who 
died  earliest,  Thomas  Pope  (in  1603)  and  Augustine  Phillips  (in  1605), 
both  bequeathed  their  shares  to  their  heirs. 

*  Later  litigation  suggests  that  a  successful  actor  often  claimed  as  a 
right  at  one  or  other  period  of  his  career  the  apportionment  of  a  share 
in  the  theatrical  estate.  Sometimes  the  share  was  accepted  in  Ueu  of 
wages.  After  Paris  Garden  on  the  Bankside  was  rebuilt  as  a  theatre  in 
1613,  the  owners  Philip  Henslowe  and  Jacob  Meade,  engaged  for  the 
Lady  Elizabeth's  company  which  was  then  occupying  the  stage  an  actor 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL   RESOURCES  303 

as  both  actor  and  playwright  of  his  company  had  an 
exceptionally  strong  claim  to  a  proprietary  interest,  but 
contemporaries  who  were  authors  only  are  known  to 
have  enjoyed  the  same  experience.  John  Marston,  the 
well-known  dramatist,  owned  before  1608  a  share  in  the 
Blackfriars  theatre.  Through  the  same  period  Michael 
Drayton,  whose  fame  as  a  poet  was  greater  than  that 
as  a  dramatist,  was,  with  hack  play-wrights  like  Lodo- 
wick  (or  Lording)  Barry  and  John  Mason,  a  shareholder 
in  the  Whitefriars  theatre.^  The  shareholders,  whether 
they  were  actors  or  dramatists,  or  merely  organising 
auxiUaries  of  the  profession,  were  soon  technically  known 
as  the  'housekeepers.'  Actors  of  the  company  who  held 
no  shares  were  distinguished  by  the  title  of  'the  hired 
actors'  or  'hirehngs'  or  'journeymen,'  and  they  usually 
bound  themselves  to  serve  the  'housekeepers'  for  a  term 
of  years  under  heavy  penalties  for  breach  of  their  en- 
gagement.^ 

named  Robert  Dawes  for  three  years  '/<"■  &*  "^^  '^^  ''<^'«  "/  one  whole  share, 
according  to  the  custom  of  players.'  [Benslowe  Papers,  ed.  Greg,  124; 
cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg.  ii.  139.)  In  other  cases  the  share  was 
paid  for  by  the  actor,  who  received  a  salary,  in  addition  to  his  dividend. 
The  greedy  eyes  which  aspiring  actors  cast  on  theatrical  shares  is  prob- 
ably satirised  in  Troilus  and  Cressida,  11.  iii.  214,  where  Ulysses  addresses 
to  Ajax  in  his  sullen  pride  the  taunt  "A  would  have  ten  shares.'  In 
Dekker  and  Webster's  play  of  Northward  Ho,  1607,  Act  iv.  sc.  i.  (Dekker's 
Works,  iii.  p.  45),  'a  player'  who  is  also  'a  sharer'  is  referred  to  as  a  per- 
son of  great  importance.  In  1635  three  junior  members  of  Shakespeare's 
old  company,  Robert  Benfield,  Hilliard  Swanston,  and  Thomas  Pollard, 
jointly  petitioned  the  Lord  Chamberlain  of  the  day  (the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke and  Montgomery)  for  compulsory  authority  to  purchase  of  John 
Shanks,  a  fellow  actor  who  had  accumulated  shares  on  a  liberal  scale, 
three  shares  in  the  Globe  and  two  in  the  Blackfriars.  Their  petition 
was  granted,  John  Shanks  had  bought  his  five  shares  of  Heminges's  son, 
William,  in  1633,  for  a  total  outlay  of  506?.  (See  documents  in  extenso 
in  Halliwell-PlnlJipps's  Outlines,  i.  31 1-4.) 

'  See  documents  from  Public  Record  OfiSce  relating  to  a  suit  brought 
against  the  shareholders  in  the  Whitefriars  theatre  in  1609  in  New  Shak. 
Soc.  Trans.  1889-92,  pp.  269  seq. 

'In  Dekker's  tract,  A  Knight's  Conjuring,  1607  (Percy  Soc.  p.  65),  a  , 
company  of  'country  players'  is  said  to  consist  of  'one  sharer  and  the 
rest  journeymen.'     In  the  satiric  play  Histriomastix,  1610,  'hired  men' 
among  the  actors  are  sharply  contrasted  with  'sharers'  and  'master- 
sharers.' 


304  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Thus  when  the  Globe  theatre  opened  the  actor  and 
dramatist  Shakespeare  was  a  'housekeeper'  owning  a 
, .  tenth  part  of  the  estate.  The  share  entitled 
toryof  him  to  a  tenth  part  of  the  profits,  but  also 
speM-?s  made  him  responsible  for  a  tenth  part  of  the 
shares,  ground-rent  and  of  the  working  expenses.  Till 
1599-1616.  jjg  death  —  for  some  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  — 
he  probably  drew  a  substantial  profit-income  from  the 
Globe  venture.  But  the  moiety  of  the  property  to  which 
his  holding  belonged  experienced  some  redivisions  which 
modified  from  time  to  time  the  proportion  of  his  receipts 
and  liabilities.  Within  six  months  of  the  inauguration 
of  the  Globe,  William  Kemp,  the  great  comic  actor,  who 
had  just  created  the  part  of  Dogberry  in  Shakespeare's 
'Much  Ado,'  abandoned  his  single  share,  which  was 
equivalent  to  a  tenth  part  of  the  whole.  Kemp  resented, 
it  has  been  alleged,  a  reproof  from  his  colleagues  for  his 
practice  of  inventing  comic  '  gag. '  However  that  may  be, 
his  holding  was  distributed  in  four  equal  parts  among 
his  former  partners  in  the  second  moiety.  For  some 
years  therefore  Shakespeare  owned  a  share  and  a  quarter, 
or  an  eighth  instead  of  a  tenth  part  of  the  collective 
estate.  The  actor-shareholder  Pope  died  in  1603  and 
Phillips  two  years  later,  and  their  interest  was  devised 
by  them  by  will  to  their  respective  heirs  who  were  not 
members  of  the  profession.  Subsequently  fresh  actors 
of  note  were,  according  to  the  recognised  custom,  suf- 
fered to  participate  anew  in  the  second  moiety,  and 
Shakespeare's  proportionate  interest  experienced  modi- 
fication accordingly.  In  1610  Henry  Condell,  a  prom- 
inent acting  colleague,  with  whom  Shakespeare's  rela- 
tions were  soon  as  close  as  with  Burbage  and  Heminges, 
was  allotted  a  sixth  part  of  the  second  moiety  or  a  twelfth 
part  of  the  whole  property.  Each  of  the  four  original 
holders  consequently  surrendered  a  corresponding  frac- 
tion (one  twenty-fourth)  of  his  existing  proprietary 
right.  A  further  proportionate  decrease  in  Shakespeare's 
holding  was  effected  on  February  21,  1611-2,  when  a 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINANCIAL   RESOURCES  305 

second  actor  of  repute,  William  Ostler,  the  son-in-law 
of  the  actor  and  original  sharer  John  Heminges,  acquired 
a  seventh  part  of  the  moiety,  or  a  fourteenth  part  of  the 
whole  estate.  Another  new  condition  arose  some  six- 
teen months  later.  On  June  29,  1613,  the  original 
Globe  playhouse  was  burnt  down,  and  a  new  building 
was  erected  on  the  same  site  at  a  cost  of  1400^.  To  this 
outlay  the  shareholders  were  required  to  contribute  in 
proportion  to  their  holdings.  But  one  of  the  proprietors, 
a  man  named  John  Witter,  who  had  inherited  the  original 
interest  of  his  dead  father-in-law,  the  actor  Phillips,  was 
unable  or  declined  to  meet  this  liability,  and  Heminges, 
then  the  company's  business  manager,  seized  the  for- 
feited share.  Heminges's  holding  thus  became  twice 
that  of  Shakespeare.  No  further  reapportionment  of 
the  shares  took  place  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime,  so  that 
his  final  interest  in  the  Globe  exceeded  by  very  little  a 
fourteenth  part  of  the  whole  property.^ 

'  Shakespeare  would  appear  to  have  retained  to  the  end  in  addition 
to  his  original  share  his  quarter  of  Kemp's  original  allotment,  but  the 
successive  partitions  reduced  both  portions  of  his  early  allotment  in 
the  same  degree.  The  subsequent  history  of  Shakespeare's  and  his 
partners'  shares  in  the  Globe  are  clearly  traceable  from  documentary 
evidence.  Nathan  Field,  the  actor  dramatist,  has  been  wrongly  claimed 
as  a  shareholder  of  the  Globe  after  Shakespeare's  death.  He  was  clearly 
a  'hired'  member  of  the  company  for  a  few  years,  but  probably  retired 
in  i6ig,  when,  on  Richard  Burbage's  death,  Joseph  Taylor,  who  succeeded 
to  Burbage's  chief  rdles,  was  admitted  also  in  a  hired  capacity  in  spite 
of  earlier  litigation  with  Heminges,  the  manager.  Field  had  certainly 
withdrawn  by  1621  (E.  K.  Chambers,  in  Mod.  Language  Rev.  iv.  395). 
Neither  Field  at  any  time,  nor  Taylor  at  this  period,  was  a  'housekeeper' 
or  shareholder.  But  such  a  dignity  was  bestowed  within  a,  short  period 
of  Shakespeare's  death  on  John  Underwood,  a  young  actor  of  promise, 
who  received  an  eighth  part  of  the  subsidiary  moiety.  This  share,  along 
with  an  eighth  share  at  the  Blackfriars,  Underwood  bequeathed  to  his 
children  by  will  dated  October  4,  1624  (Malone,  iii.  214;  ColUer,  p.  230; 
cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  313).  After  Underwood's  admission  the  Globe 
property  was  described  as  consisting  of  sixteen  shares,  eight  remaining 
m  the  Burbages'  hands.  The  whole  of  the  second  moiety  was  soon 
acquired  by  Heminges  and  CondeU.  The  latter  died  in  1627  and  the 
former  in  1630.  Their  two  heirs,  Heminges's  son  and  Condell's  widow, 
were  credited  in  1630  with  owning  respectively  four  shares  apiece.  (See 
documents  printed  in  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  311.)  There  is  reason  to 
believe  that  it  was  to  Heminges,  the  business  man  of  the  company  and 
the  last  survivor  of  the  origiiMil  owners  of  the  second  moiety,  that  Shaken 

X 


3o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare's  pecuniary  interest  in  the  Blackfriars 
theatre  was  only  created  at  a  late  period  of  his  life,  when 
his  active  career  was  nearing  its  close,  and  his 
speare's  full  enjoyment  of  its  benefit  extended  over 
theBiack-  little  more  than  five  years  (1610-6).  The 
friars  from  Blackfriars  playhouse  became  in  1597  the  sole 
'*°*'  property  of  Richard  Burbage,  by  inheritance 
from  his  father.  Until  1608  the  house  was  leased  by 
Burbage  to  Henry  Evans,  the  manager  of  the  beys'  com- 
pany which  was  known  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  as 
'  Children  of  the  Chapel  Royal '  and  in  the  beginning  of 
King  James's  reign  as  '  Children  of  the  Queen's  Revels, 
In  the  early  autumn  of  1608  Burbage  recovered  pos- 
session of  the  Blackfriars  theatre  owing  to  Evans's  non- 
payment of  rent  under  his  lease.  On  August  9  of  that 
year  the  great  actor-owner  divided  this  playhouse  into 
seven  shares,  retaining  one  for  himself,  and  allotting  one 
each  to  Shakespeare,  to  his  brother  Cuthbert,  to  Hem- 
inges,  Condell,  and  William  Sly,  his  acting  colleagues, 
while  the  seventh  and  last  share  was  bestowed  on  Henry 
Evans,  the  dispossessed  lessee.  .  Until  the  close  of  the 
following  year  (1609)  Evans's  company  of  boy  actors 
continued  to  occupy  the  Blackfriars  stage  intermittently, 
and  Shakespeare  and  his  six  partners  took  no  part  in 
the  management.     It  was  only  in  January  1610  that 

speare's  holding,  like  that  of  Phillips,  Ostler,  and  others,  ultimately  came. 
After  Heminges's  death  in  1630  his  four  shares  were  disposed  of  by  his 
son  and  heir,  William  Heminges;  one  was  then  divided  between  the 
actors,  Taylor  and  Lowin,  who  acquired  a  second  share  from  the  Burbage 
moiety,  which  was  then  first  encroached  upon ;  the  remaining  three  of 
Heminges's  four  shares  passed  to  a  third  actor,  John  Shanks,  who  soon 
made  them  over  under  compulsion  to  three  junior  actors,  Benfield, 
Swanston,  and  Pollard.  About  the  same  time  Condell's  widow  parted 
with  two  of  her  four  shares  to  Taylor  and  Lowin,  who  thus  came  to  hold 
four  shares  between  them.  Richard  Burbage  had  died  in  1619  and 
Cuthbert  Burbage  in  1636.  Their  legatees  —  Richard's  widow  and  the 
daughters  of  Cuthbert  —  retained  between  them,  till  the  company  dis- 
solved, seven  shares,  and  Condell's  widow  two  shares.  The  five  actor- 
shareholders,  Taylor,  Lowin,  Benfield,  Swanston,  and  Pollard,  outlived 
the  demohtion  of  the  Globe  in  1644  and  were,  together  with  the  private 
persons  who  were  legatees  of  the  Burbages  and  of  Condell,  the  kst  suc- 
cessors of  Shakespeare  and  of  the  other  original  owners  of  the  playhouse. 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  307 

full  control  of  the  Blackfriars  theatre  was  assumed  by 
Shakespeare,  Burbage,  and  their  five  colleagues.  Thence- 
forth the  company  of  the  Globe  regularly  appeared  there 
during  the  winter  seasons,  and  occasionally  at  other 
times.  Shakespeare's  seventh  share  in  the  Blackfriars 
now  entitled  him  to  a  seventh  part  of  the  receipts,  but 
imposed  as  at  the  Globe  a  proportionate  habiUty  for  the 
working  expenses.^  During  the  last  few  years  of  his  hfe 
Shakespeare  thus  enjoyed,  in  addition  to  his  revenues  as 
actor  and  dramatic  author,  an  income  as  'housekeeper'  or 
part  proprietor  of  the  two  leading  playhouses  ^f  the  day. 
The  first  Globe  theatre,  a  large  and  popular  playhouse, 
accommodated  some  1600  spectators,  whose  places  cost 
them  sums  varying  from  a  penny  or  twopence 
to  half-a-crown.  The  higher  priced  seats  were  ings  at  the 
comparatively  few,  and  the  theatre  was  prob-  Globe 
ably  closed  on  the  average  some  100  days  a  '  ^^^  '^' 
year,  while  the  company  was  resting,  whether  voluntarily 
or  compulsorily,  or  wlule  it  was  touring  the  provinces. 
During  the  first  years  of  the  Globe's  hfe  the  daily  takings 
were  not  likely  on  a  reasonable  system  of  accountancy 
to  exceed  15I.,  nor  the  receipts  in  gross  to  reach  more 
than  3000^.  a  year.^    The  working  expenses,  including 

^  There  was  no  re-partition  of  the  Blackfriars  during  Shakespeare's 
lifetime.  But  on  Sly's  early  death  (Aug.  13,  1608)  his  widow  made  over 
her  husband's  share  to  Burbage  and  he  transferred  it  to  the  actor  Wil- 
liam Ostler  on  his  marriage  to  Heminges's  daughter  (May  20,  161 1). 
After  Shakespeare's  death  John  Underwood,  a  new  actor,  of  youthful 
promise,  was  admitted  (before  1624)  as  an  eighth  partner,  and  the  pro- 
portional receipts  and  liabilities  of  each  old  proprietor  were  readjusted 
accordingly.  Heminges,  who  Uved  till  1630,  seems  to  have  ultimately 
acquired  four  shares  or  half  the  whole,  while  the  two  Burbages  and  Con- 
deU's  and  Underwood's  heirs  retain^  one  each.  Of  Heminges's  four 
shares,  two  were  after  his  death  sold  by  his  son  William  to  flie  actors 
Taylor  and  Lowin  respectively,  and  two  to  a  third  actor  of  a  junior 
generation,  John  Shanks,  who  soon  parted  with  them  to  the  three  players 
Benfield,  Swanston,  and  Pollard.  When  the  Blackfriars  company  was 
finally  dissolved  in  the  Civil  Wars,  Taylor  and  Lowin  and  these  three 
actors  held  one  moiety  and  the  other  moiety  was  equally  shared  by 
legatees  of  the  two  Burbages,  of  CondeU,  and  of  Underwood. 

'When  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  Philip  Henslowe  was 
managing  the  Rose  and  Newington  theatres,  both  small  houses,  and  was 
probably  entitled  to  less  than  a  half  of  the  takings,  he  often  received 


3o8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ground-rent,  cost  of  properties,  dramatists'  and  licen- 
sers' fees,  actors'  salaries,  maintenance  of  the  fabric, 
and  the  wages  of  attendants,  might  well  absorb  half  the 
total  receipts.  On  that  supposition  the  residue  to  be 
divided  among  the  shareholders  would  be  no  more  than 
1500Z.  a  year.  When  Shakespeare  was  in  receipt  of  a 
tenth  share  of  the  profits  he  could  hardly  count  on  more 
than  150/.  annually  from  that  source.  Later  his  share 
decreased  to  near  a  fourteenth,  in  conformity  with  the 
practice  of  extending  the  number  of  actor-housekeepers, 
but  the  increased  prosperity  of  the  playhouse  would 
insure  him  against  a  diminution  of  profit  and  might 
lead  to  some  increase.  When  the  theatre  was  burnt 
down  in  1613,  Shakespeare's  career  was  well-nigh  ended. 
His   contribution  to   the  fund  which  the  shareholders 

as  his  individual  share  some  3I.  to  4I.  a  perfprinance  at  each  house.  On 
one  occasion  he  pocketed  as  much  as  61.  ys.  8d.  (Collier's  Hist,  iii.;  cf. 
Dr.  Wallace  in  Englische  Studien,  xliii.  pp.  360  seq.).  The  average 
takings  at  the  Fortune  theatre,  which  was  of  the  same  size  as  the  Globe 
but  enjoyed  less  popularity,  have  been  estimated  at  12Z.  a  day  (Hens^ 
lowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  135).  It  should,  however,  be  pointed  out  that 
Henslowe's  extant  accounts  which  are  at  Dulwich  are  incomplete,  and 
there  is  lack  of  agreement  as  to  their  interpretation  (ibid.  ii.  pp.  no  seq^_ 
Dr.  Wallace  in  Englische  Studien,  xliii.  pp.  357  seq.,  and  E.  K.  Chambers' 
in  Mod.  Lang.  Rev.  iv.  489  seq.).  Malone  reckoned  the  receipts  at  both 
the  Globe  and  the  Blackfriars  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  at  no 
more  than  gl.  a  day ;  but  his  calculation  was  based  on  a  somewhat  special 
set  of  accounts  rendered  for  some  five  years  (1628-34)  subsequent  to 
Shakespeare's  death  to  Sir  Henry  Herbert,  the  licenser  of  plays,  who  was 
allowed  an  annual  'benefit'  at  each  theatre  (Malone's  Variorum,  iii.  17S 
seq.).  Herbert  reckoned  his  ten  'benefits'  during  the  five  years  in  ques- 
tion at  sums  varjdng  between  17Z.  10.J.  and  il.  $5.,  but  Herbert's  'bene- 
fits' involved  conditions  which  were  never  quite  normal.  In  Actors' 
Remonstrance  (1643)  the  author,  who  clearly  drew  upon  a  long  experience, 
vaguely  estimated  the  yield  of  a  share  of  each  theatrical  'housekeeper' 
who  'grew  wealthy  by  actors'  endeavours'  at  from  'ten  to  thirty  shil- 
lings' for  each  performance,  or  from  some  100/.  to  300/.  a  year.  (See 
Hazlitt's  English  Drama  and  Stage,  1869,  p.  262.)  It  would  seem  that 
shareholders  enjoyed  some  minor  perquisites  at  the  theatre.  Profits, 
which  were  sometimes  made  in  the  playhouse  on  wine,  beer,  ale,  or 
tobacco,  were  reckoned  among  the  assets  of  the  'housekeepers'  {New 
Shakspere  Society  Transactions,  1887-92,  p.  271).  The  costumes,  which 
at  the  chief  Elizabethan  theatres  involved  a  heavy  expense,  were  sold 
from  time  to  time  to  smaller  houses  and  often  fetched  as  secondhand 
apparel  substantial  sums.  (See  Shakespeare  Jahrhuch,  1910,  xlvi.  239- 
240.) 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  309 

raised  to  defray  the  cost  of  rebuilding  apparently  ex- 
ceeded loo^  The  profits  of  the  new  playhouse  some- 
what exceeded  those  of  the  old,  but  Shakespeare  hved 
little  more  than  a  year  after  the  new  playhouse  opened 
and  there  was  barely  time  for  him  to  benefit  conspicu- 
ously by  the  improved  conditions.  His  net  income  from 
the  Globe  during  his  last  year  was  probably  not  greatly 
in  excess  of  former  days. 

The  rates  of  admission  for  the  audience  at  the  Black- 
friars  were  rather  higher  than  at  the  Globe,  but  the  hotise 
held  only  half  the  number  of  spectators.  The 
dividend  which  Shakespeare's  seventh  share  ingsatthe 
earned  there  was  consequently  no  larger  than  BiackWars 
that  which  a  fourteenth  share  earned  at  the 
Globe.  Thus  a  second  sum  of  150/.  probably  reached 
him  from  the  younger  theatre.  On  such  an  assumption 
Shakespeare,  as  'housekeeper'  or  part  proprietor  of  both 
playhouses,  received,  while  the  two  were  in  active  work, 
an  aggregate  yearly  sum  of  some  300/.,  equivalent  to 
1500Z.  in  modern  currency.  In  the  play  of  'Hamlet' 
both  'a  share'  and  'a  half  share'  of  'a  fellowship  in  a  cry 
^  players'  are  described  as  assets  of  enviable  value 
(lit.  ii.  294-6).  |In  view  of  the  affluence  popularly  im- 
puted to  shareowning  actors  and  the  wealth  known  from 
their  extant  wills  to  have  been  left  by  them  at  death,^ 
Hamlet's  description  would  hardly  justify  a  lower  valu- 
ation of  Shakespeare's  holdings  than  the  one  which  is 
here  suggested. 

No  means  is  at  hand  to  determine  more  positively  the 
precise  pecuniary  returns  which  Shakespeare's  The  pecu- 
theatrical   shares    yielded.     Litigation   among  profits  of 
shareholders  was  frequent  and  estimates  of  the  shake- 
value  of  their  shares  have  come  to  light  in  the  theatrical 
archives  of  legal  controversy,  but  the  figures  are  shares. 
too  speculative  and  too  conflicting  to  be  very  serviceable.^ 

'  See  p.  493  infra. 

'Very  numerous  depositions  and  other  documents  connected  with 
theatrical  litigation  in  Shakespeare's  epoch  are  in  the  Public  Record 


3IO 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


The  circumstances  in  which  a  share  in  the  Globe  (of 
the  same  dimensions  as  Shakespeare's)  which  was 
Share-  Originally  owned  by  Augustine  Phillips,  was  ac- 
hoiders'  quired  in  1614  by  Heminges  led  to  a  belated  suit 
law-suits,  jj^  jgj^  £qj.  j|.g  recovery  by  Philhps's  son-in-law, 
John  Witter.  Witter,  whose  smt  was  dismissed  as 
frivolous  and  whose  testimony  carried  no  weight  with  the 
Court,  reckoned  that  before  the  fire  of  1613  the  share's 
annual  income  brought  a  modest  return  of  between  30/,' 

Ofi&ce.  Such  as  have  been  examined  throw  more  or  less  light  on  the 
financial  side  of  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  theatrical  enterprise.  The 
earliest  known  records  of  theatrical  litigation —  in  which  James  Burbage 
was  involved  at  The  Theatre  late  in  the  sixteenth  century  —  were  first 
published  by  J.  P.  Collier  in  Lives  of  Actors,  1846 ;  and  Collier's  docu- 
ments were  re-edited  by  Halliwell-Phillipps  and  again  edited  and  supple- 
mented by  Mrs.  Stopes  in  her  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage  and  by  Dr. 
Wallace  in  his  First  London  Theatre.  But  it  is  only  theatrical  litigation 
of  a  somewhat  late  date  which  is  strictly  relevant  to  a  discussion  of 
Shakespeare's  theatrical  earnings.  Investigation  in  this  direction  has 
been  active  very  recently,  but  its  results  are  scattered  and  not  easily 
accessible.  It  may  be  convenient  here  to  tabulate  bibUographically  the 
recent  publications  (within  my  knowledge)  of  the  legal  records  of  the- 
atrical litigation  which  bear  in  any  degree  on  Shakespeare's  financial 
experience : 

I.-III.  Three  lawsuits  among  persons  claiming  financial  interests  in 
the  Blackfriars  Theatre  just  before  Shakespeare's  association  with  it, 
discovered  by  James  Greenstreet  in  the  Public  Record  Office,  and  printed 
in  full  in  Fleay's  History  of  the  Stage,  1887.  I.  Clifton  v.  Robinson, 
Evans  and  others  in  the  Star  Chamber,  1601  (Fleay,  pp.  127-33).  ^■ 
Evans  v.  Kirkham  and  III.  Kirkham  v.  Painton  in  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
1612  {ib.  208-251). 

IV.-VII.  Four  interesting  cases  to  which  Shakespeare's  fellow- 
shareholders  were  parties  in  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century 
discovered  by  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace ;  they  supply  various  ex  parte  estimates 
of  the  pecuniary  value  of  theatrical  shares  practically  identical  with 
Shakespeare's.  IV.  Robert  Keyzar  v.  John  Heminges,  Henry  Condd, 
and  others  in  the  Court  of  Requests,  1608,  described  by  Dr.  Wallace  in 
the  Century  Magazine  foir  September  1910;  all  the  documents  printed 
in  Nebraska  University  Studies  for  that  year.  V.  Mrs.  Thomasina  Ostkr 
v.  John  Heminges  (her  father)  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  1614-5, 
described  by  Dr.  Wallace  in  The  Times  (London)  for  Oct.  2  and  Oct.  4, 
1909 ;  the  only  document  found  here,  the  plaintifi's  long  plea,  prmted 
by  Dr.  Wallace  in  extenso  in  the  original  Latin  in  a  privately-circulated 
pamphlet.  VI.  John  Witter  v.  John  Heminges  and  Henry  Conddl,  in  the 
Court  of  Requests,  1619,  described  in  the  Century  Magazine  for  August 
1910,  of  special  interest  owing  to  the  many  documents  concerning  the 
early  financial  organisation  of  the  Globe  theatre  which  were  exhibited 
by  John  Heminges,  who  was  both  manager  of  the  theatre  and  the  cus: 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINANCIAL   RESOURCES  31 1 

and  40I.  a  year ;  he  vaguely  admitted  that  after  the  fire 
the  revenue  had  vastly  increased.  Meanwhile  in  October 
1614  a  different  litigant,  who  claimed  a  year's  profits  on 
another  and  a  somewhat  smaller  share  in  the  Globe, 
valued  the  alleged  debt  after  the  fire  at  300/.  The 
claimant,  Heminges's  daughter,  was  widow  of  the 
actor-shareholder  William  Ostler,  whose  dividend,  she 
alleged,  was  wrongly  detained  by  her  father.^  Mrs. 
Ostler's  suit  also  throws  a  flicker  of  Ught  on  the  profits 
of  the  Blackfriars  house  at  a  time  when  Shakespeare  was 
a  part  proprietor.  She  claimed  of  her  father  a  second 
sum  of  300Z.,  being  her  estimate  of  the  previous  year's 
dividend  on  her  husband's  seventh  share  at  the  Black- 
friars. Shakespeare's  proportionate  interest  in  the  two 
theatres  was  very  little  larger  than  Ostler's,  so  that  if 

todian  of  its  archives.  VII.  John  Heminges  v.  Joseph  Taylor  in  1610 
for  the  recovery  of  iil.  for  theatrical  costume,  sold  by  Heminges  to  the 
Duke  of  York's  company  of  which  Taylor  the  defendant  was  a  member 
{^Shakespeare  Jahrbuck,  1910,  xlvi.  239-40). 

Vni.  A  financial  sharing  dispute  before  the  Lord  Chamberlain  in 
1635  among  Shakespeare's  actor-successors  at  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars 
which  is  of  great  importance;  printed  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
archives  by  HaUiwell-Phillipps  first  in  his  Illustrations,  1873,  and  again 
in  his  OuMnes,  i.  312-9. 

IX.-XII.  Four  theatrical  lawsuits  touching  the  affairs  of  theatres 
of  Shakespeare's  time  other  than  the  Globe  or  Blackfriars,  and  furnish- 
ing collateral  information.  DC.  Robert  Shaw  and  four  other  actors  v. 
Francis  Langley,  owner  of  the  Swan  theatre,  in  the  Court  of  Requests, 
1597-8  (documents  summarised  by  Mrs.  Stopes  in  The  Stage,  Jan.  6, 
1910,  and  printed  in  full  in  her  Burbage  and  Shakespeare's  Stage,  1913, 
pp.  177-83 ;  also  printed  with  much  conuuent  by  Dr.  Wallace  in  Eng- 
lische  iSludien,  1910-1,  xliii.  340-95).  X.  George  Androwes  v.  Martin 
Slater  and  other  persons  interested  in  the  Whitef  riars  theatre,  in  the  Court 
of  Chancery,  1609  (documents  printed  by  James  Greenstreet  in  New 
Shakspere  Society's  Transactions,  1887-92,  pp.  269-84).  XI.  Woodford 
V.  Holland,  concerning  the  ownership  of  a  share  in  the  Red  Bull  theatre, 
in  the  Court  of  Requests  in  161 3  (documents  discovered  by  James  Green- 
street  and  printed  in  Fleay's  History  of  the  Stage,  pp.  194-9).  XII.  A 
suit  in  the  Court  of  Chancery,  1623-6,  to  which  actors  of  the  Queen's 
company  at  the  Cockpit  in  Drury  Lane  were  parties  among  thernselves, 
a  main  issue  being  the  company's  pecuniary  obligations  to  the  widow  of 
a  prominent  member,  Thomas  Greene,  who  died  in  1612  (the  documents 
discovered  by  James  Greenstreet  and  printed  in  fuU  in  Fleay's  History 
of  the  Stage,  pp.  270-297). 

'  Ostler,  who  died  in  1614,  had  been  granted  both  a  fourteenth  share 
of  the  Globe  and  a  seventh  share  of  the  Blackfriars. 


312 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Mrs.  Ostler's'  estimates  were  accurate,  Shakespeare's  in- 
come from  the  playhouses  in  1614  would  have  slightly 
exceeded  600/.  But  Mrs.  Ostler's  claim  was  probably 
as  much  in  excess  of  the  truth  as  Witter's  random  valu- 
ation fell  below  it.^ 

Meanwhile,  in  1610,  a  third  litigant,  a  goldsmith  of  the 
City  of  London,  Robert  Keysar,  who  engaged  from  1606 
onwards  in  theatrical  management,^  -propounded  another 
estimate  of  the  value  of  a  share  in  the  Blackfriars  while 
Shakespeare  was  one  of  the  owners.  Keysar  in  February 
1610  brought  an  action  for  1000/.  damages  against  Shake- 
speare's company  on  the  ground  that  that  corporation 
had  unjustly  seized  a  sixth  share  in  the  Blackfriars 
theatre  which  he  had  purchased  for  100^.  about  1606, 
when  Henry  Evans  was  the  lessee  and  before  Burbage 
and  his  friends  had  taken  possession.  Keysar  generously 
estimated  the  profit  which  Shakespeare  and  his  partners 
divided  at  the  Blackfriars  at  1500Z.  for  half  a  year  or 
over  200/.  on  each  share.^ 

'  Mrs.  Ostler,  of  whose  suit  only  her  ex  parte  plea  has  come  to  light, 
seemed  in  her  evidence  to  treat  the  capital  value  of  her  husband's  shares 
as  worth  no  more  than  a  single  year's  dividends.  Such  a  valuation  of 
theatrical  property  would  appear  to  be  generally  accepted  at  the  time. 
In  1608  an  investor  in  a  share  at  the  Whitefriars  theatre  who  anticipated 
an  annual  return  of  loo/.  was  offered  the  share  at  gol.  and  finally  bought 
it  for  •jci.  {New  Shak.  Soc.  Trans.  1887-92,  p.  299).  A  second  share  in 
the  same  theatre  changed  hands  at  the  like  period  for  lool.  At  a  later 
date,  in  1633,  three  actors  bought  three  shares  in  the  Globe  and  two  in 
the  Blackfriars  for  a  total  sum  of  506^.  The  capital  value  of  shares  was 
doubtless  influenced  in  part  by  the  number  of  years  which  the  lease  of 
the  site  of  the  theatre  concerned  had  yet  to  run  when  the  shares  were 
sold.  The  Whitefriars  lease  was  short,  and  had  in  1608  only  five  years 
to  run,  and  the  Globe  lease  in  1633,  although  the  original  term  had  been 
extended,  was  approaching  extinction. 

^  To  Keysar  the  publisher  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Knight  of  the 
Burning  Pestle  dedicated  the  play  in  1613.  (See  E.  K.  Chambers,  in 
Mod.  Lang.  Rev.  1909,  iv.  160  seq.) 

'  Keysar  maintained  not  only  that  he  had  paid  John  Marston,  pre- 
sumably the  dramatist,  lool.  for  a  sixth  share  in  1606,  but  that  he  had 
advanced  between  that  year  and  1608  sooZ.  for  the  training  of  the  boy 
actors  who  were  located  at  the  time  at  the  Blackfriars.  His  further 
declaration  that  the  new  management,  which  consisted  of  Shakespeare  and 
six  other  actors,  had  in  1608  offered  him  400/.  for  his  holding  was  warmly 
denied  by  them.    The  result  of  Keysar's  claim  has  not  yet  come  to  light. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  313 

There  is  no  wide  discrepancy  between  Keysar's  and 
Mrs.  Ostler's  independent  reckonings  of  the  profits  at  the 
Blackfriars.  Yet  the  evidence  of  both  Utigants  is  dis- 
credited by  a  number  of  facts  which  are  accessible  outside 
the  records  of  the  law  courts.  The  problem  must  seek  its 
solution  in  a  more  comprehensive  and  less  interested  sur- 
vey of  theatrical  enterprise  than  that  which  ex  parte  state- 
ments in  legal  disputes  are  likely  to  furnish.  It  is  only  safe 
to  rely  on  the  dispassionate  evidence  of  dramatic  history. 

Shakespeare's  professional  income  was  never  derived 
exclusively  from  his  shares  in  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars 
theatres  after  1599.  EarUer  sources  of  revenue  increased 
remained  open  to  him  and  yielded  richer  returns  fees  from 
than  before.  Performances  of  his  company  at  under" 
Court  proved  increasingly  profitable.  The  James  i. 
dramatist  and  his  colleagues  had  become  on  James  I's 
succession  'the  servants  of  the  King,'  and  their  services 
were  each  year  enhsted  by  the  sovereign  at  least  three 
times  as  often  as  iri  the  old  reign.  Actors  in  the  royal 
presence  at  the  palaces  in  or  near  London  still  received 
as  a  rule  10/.  for  each  play  in  agreement  with  Queen 
Elizabeth's  tariff ;  but  Prince  Henry  and  the  royal  chil- 
dren made  additional  and  independent  calls  on  the 
players'  activities,  and  while  the  princes'  fee  was  a  third 
less  than  the  King's,  the  company's  total  receipts  from 
the  royal  patronage  thereby  rose.  In  1603  a  special 
performance  of  the  company  before  James  I  while  the 
King  was  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  guest  out  of  London  — 
at  Wilton  —  brought  the  enhanced  remuneration  of 
30/.  For  Court  performances  in  London  alone  Shake- 
speare and  his  colleagues  received  for  the  six  years 
(from  1608-9  to  1613-4)  a  total  sum  of  912^.  12s.  8d.  or 
over  160/.  a  year.  Shakespeare's  proportional  share  in 
these  receipts  may  be  reckoned  as  adding  to  his  income 
an  average  sum  of  at  least  15/.  a  year.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered, too,  that  Shakespeare  and  his  acting  colleagues 
came  on  the  accession  of  James  I  under  the  direct  patron- 
age of  the  King,  and  were  thenceforth,  in  accordance  with 


314  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

a  precedent  set  by  Queen  Elizabeth,  reckoned  among 
officers  of  the  royal  household  ('grooms  of  the  chamber'). 
The  rank  entitled  them  individually,  and  irrespectively 
of  professional  fees  for  acting  services,  to  a  regular  stipend 
of  between  2I.  and  3^.  a  year,  with  various  perquisites 
and  gratuities,  which  were  at  times  substantial.^ 

Shakespeare's  remuneration  as  both  actor  and  dram- 
matist  between  1599  and  161 1  was  also  on  the  upward 
Salary  grade.  .  The  sharers  or  housekeepers  were  wont 
as  actor.  ^q  (jraw  for  regular  histrionic  service  a  fixed 
salary,  which  was  at  this  epoch  reaching  its  maximum  of 
180/.  a  year.  Actor-shareholders  were  also  allowed  to 
take  apprentices  or  pupils  with  whom  they  received 
premiums.  Among  Shakespeare's  colleagues  Richard 
Burbage  and  Augustine  Philhps  are  both  known  to  have 
had  articled  pupils.^ 

The  fees  paid  to  dramatists  for  plays  also  rose  rapidly 
in  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  while  the 
Later  in-  valuc  of  the  author's  'benefits'  grew  con- 
come  as  spicuously  with  the  growing  vogue  of  the 
dramatist,  ^j^gg^^j-g  Additional  pajTnents  on  an  enhanced 
scale  were  made,  too,  for  revisions  of  old  dramas  on  their 
revival  in  the  theatres.  Playwrights  of  secondary  rank 
came  to  receive  a  fixed  yearly  stipend  from  the  company, 
but  the  leading  dramatists  apparently  continued  to  draw 
remuneration  piece  by  piece.  The  exceptional  popularity 
of  Shakespeare's  work  after  1599  gave  him  the  full  advan- 
tage of  higher  rates  of  pecuniary  reward  in  all  directions. 
The  seventeen  plays  which  were  produced  by  him  be- 
tween that  year  and  the  close  of  his  professional  career 
could  not  have  brought  him  less  on  an  average  than  25/. 
each  or  some  400/.  in  all  —  nearly  40^.  a  year,  while  the 
'benefits'  and  other  supplementary  dues  of  authorship 
may  be  presumed  to  have  added  a  further  2qI? 

Thus  Shakespeare,  during  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of 

'  See  p.  382  infra.  '  Collier's  History,  iii.  434. 

'  In  1613  Robert  Dabome,  a  plajnwright  of  insignificant  reputation, 
charged  for  a  drama  as  much  as  25^.  {AUeyn  Papers,  ed.  Collier,  p.  65)' 
A  little  later  (in  1635)  a  hackwriter,  Richard  Brome;  one  of  Ben  Jonson's 


SHAKESPEARE^S   FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  315 

the  later  period  of  his  life,  must  have  been  earning  at  the 
theatre  a  sum  well  exceeding  700/.  a  year  in 
money  of  the  time.  With  so  large  a  profes-  speare's 
sional  income  he  could  easily,  with  good  final  in- 
management,  have  completed  those  purchases  ™  ' 
of  houses  and  land  at  Stratford  on  which  he  laid  out, 
between  1599  and  1613,  a  total  sum  of  970/.,  or  an 
annual  average  of  ^ol.  These  properties,  it  must  be 
remembered,  represented  investments,  and  he  drew  rent 
from  most  of  them.  Like  the  other  well-to-do  house- 
holders or  landowners  at  Stratford,  he  traded,  too,  in 
agricultural  produce.  There  is  nothing  inherently  im- 
probable in  the  statement  of  John  Ward,  the  seventeenth- 
century  vicar  of  Stratford,  that  the  dramatist,  in  his  last 
years,  '  spent  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  a  year,  as  I  have 
heard,'  although  we  may  reasonably  make  allowance  for 
some  exaggeration  in  the  round  figures.  Shakespeare's 
comparative  afHuence  presents  no  feature  which  is  un- 
matched in  the  current  experience  of  the  profession.^ 
Gifts  from  patrons  may  have  continued  occasionally  to 
augment  his  resources,  but  his  wealth  can  be  satisfactorily 
assigned  to  better  attested  agencies.  There  is  no  ground 
for  treating  it  as  of  mysterious  origin. 

Between    1599   and    1611,  while   London    remained 
Shakespeare's    chief   home    and  his    financial  jjoj^estic 
position  was  assured,  he  built  up  at  Stratford  incident, 
the  large  landed  estate  which   his   purchase  of  '  °'"  ' 
New  Place  had  inaugurated.     Early  in"  the  new  century 

'servants'  or  disciples,  contracted  to  write  three  plays  a  year  for  three 
years  for  the  Salisbury  Court  theatre  at  15^.  a  week  together  with 
author's  'benefits'  on  the  production  of  each  work.  In  1638  Brome 
was  offered,  for  a  further  term  of  seven  years,  an  increased  salary  of 
20s.  a  week  with  'benefits,'  but  a  rival  theatre,' the  Cockpit,  made  a  more 
generous  proposal,  which  the  dramatist  accepted  instead.  A  dramatist 
of  Brome's  slender  repute  may  thus  be  credited  with  earning  as  a  play- 
wright at  his  prime  some  80/.  a  year.  In  the  Actors'  Remonstrance,  1643, 
'our  ablest  ordinarie  poets'  were  credited  with  large  incomes  from  their 
'annual  stipends  and  beneficial  second  days'  (Hazlitt's  English  Drama, 
1869,  p.  264). 

*  For  a  comparison  of  Shakespeare's  estate  at  death  with  that  of  other 
actors  and  theatrical  shareholders  of  the  day,  see  p.  493. 


3i6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  death  of  his  parents  made  some  addition  to  his  interest 
in  house  property.  In  1601  his  father  died,  being  buried 
on  September  8.  In  spite  of  the  decay  of  his  fortune  the 
elder  Shakespeare  retained  much  local  esteem.  Within 
a  few  months  of  the  end  the  Town  Council  accepted  from 
him  suggestions  for  its  conduct  of  a  lawsuit  which  the  lord 
of  the  manor,  Sir  Edward  Greville,  was  bringing  against 
the  bailiff  and  burgesses.  Sir  Edward  made  claim  to  a 
toll  on  wheat  and  barley  entering  the  town.^  The  old 
man  apparently  left  no  will,  and  the  poet,  as  the  eldest 
son,  inherited,  subject  to  the  widow's  dower,  the  houses  in 
Henley  Street,  the  only  portion  of  the  property  of  the 
elder  Shakespeare  or  of  his  wife  which  had  not  been  alien- 
ated to  creditors.  Shakespeare's  mother  continued  to  re- 
side in  one  of  the  Henley  Street  houses  tiU  her  death. 
She  survived  her  husband  for  just  seven  years.  She 
was  buried  in  Stratford  churchyard  on  September  9, 
1608.  The  dramatist's  presence  in  the  town  on  the  sad 
occasion  of  his  mother's  funeral  enabled  him  to  pay  a 
valued  compliment  to  the  bailiff  of  the  town,  one  Henry 
Walker,  a  mercer  of  High  Street,  to  whom  a  son  had  just 
been  born.  The  dramatist  stood  godfather  to  the  boy, 
who  was  baptised  at  the  parish  church,  in  the  name  of 
William,  on  October  19,  1608.^ 

The  Henley  Street  tenement  where  Shakespeare's 
mother  died  remained  by  his  indulgence  the  home  of 
his  married  sister,  Mrs.  Joan  Hart,  and  of  her  family. 
Whether  his  sister  paid  him  rent  is  uncertain.  But  through 
the  last  years  of  his  life  the  dramatist  enjoyed  a  modest 

'  Stratford-on-Avon  Corporation  Records,  Miscell.  Documents,  vol.  v. 
No.  20. 

*  See  p.  460  infra.  Henry  Walker  was  very  active  in  municipal 
affairs,  being  chamberlain  in  1603  and  becoming  an  alderman  soon  after. 
He  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  Henry  Wa&er  'citizen  and  minstrel 
of  London'  of  whom  Shakespeare  bought  a  house  in  Blackfriars  in  1613. 
(See  pp.  456-7  and  489  infra.)  William  Walker,  son  of  the  Stratford 
Henry  Walker  and  Shakespeare's  godson,  proved,  like  his  father,  a  useful 
citizen  of  Stratford,  serving  as  chamberlain  of  the  borough  in  1644-5. 
WilUam  Walker,  'gent.,'  his  wife  Frances,  and  many  children  were  resi- 
dent in  the  town  in  1657.  He  was  buried  at  Stratford  in  March  1679-80. 
(Cf.  HalliweU,  Cal.  Stratford  Records,  129,  442,  465.) 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  317 

return  from  a  small  part  of  the  Henley  Street  property. 
A  barn  stood  in  the  grounds  behind  the  residence,  and  this 
Shakespeare  leased  to  a  substantial  neighbour,  Robert 
Johnson,  keeper  of  the  White  Lion  Inn.  On  the  inn- 
keeper's death  in  161 1  the  unexpired  lease  of  the  build- 
ing was  valued  at  2ol} 

On  May  i,  1602,  Shakespeare  purchased  for  the  sub- 
stantial sum  of  320Z.  a  large  plot  of  107  acres  (or  'four 
yard-lands')  of  arable  land  near  the  town,  formation 
The  transaction  brought  the  dramatist  into  of  the 
close  relation  with  men  of  wealth  and  local  Itratford, 
influence.  The  vendors  were  William  Combe  iSoi-"- 
and  his  nephew  John  Combe,  members  of  a  family  which 
had  settled  at  Stratford  some  sixty  years  before,  and 
owned  much  land  near  the  town  and  elsewhere.  Wil- 
Ham  Combe  had  entered  the  Middle  Temple  on  October 
19,  1571,^  and  long  retained  a  set  of  chambers  there; 
but  his  career  was  identified  with  the  city  of  Warwick, 
where  he  acquired  a  large  property,  and  was  held  in  high 
esteem.'  He  also  owned  the  important  estate  of  Alve- 
church  Park  in  Worcestershire.  In  the  conveyance  of 
the  land  to  Shakespeare  in  1602  he  is  described  as  'of 
Warwick  in  the  county  of  Warwick,  esquire.'  *  His 
nephew  John  Combe  of  'Old  Stratford  in  the  county 
aforesaid,  gentleman,'  the  joint  vendor  of  the  property, 

'The  inventory  of  Robert  Johnson's  goods  is  described  from  the 
Stratford  records  by  Mr.  Richard  Savage  in  the  Athemsum,  August  29, 
1908.!  _         ' 

'Middle  Temple  Records  —  Minutes  of  Parliament,  i.  181,  where 
William  Combe  is  described  as  'second  son  of  John  Combe  late  of  Strat- 
ford upon  Avon  esquire,  deceased.' 

'  Black  Book  of  Warwick,  ed.  Kemp,  pp.  406-8. 

*  William  Combe  of  Warwick  married  after  1596  Jane  widow  of  Sir 
John  Puckering,  lord  keeper  of  the  great  seal  (or  lord  chancellor),  but 
left  no  issue.  He  was  M.P.  for  the  town  of  Warwick  in  1592-3  and 
for  the  county  in  1597,  was  Sheriff  of  Warwickshire  in  1608  and  died  two 
years  later.  His  will,  which  was  signed  on  Sept.  29,  1610,  was  proved  on 
June  I,  161 1.  The  original  is  preserved  at  Somerset  House  (P.C.C.  52 
Wood).  Most  of  his  property  was  left  to  his  widow,  'Lady  Jane  Pucker- 
ing.' His  executors  were  his  'cosins  John  Combe  and  William  Combe  of 
Stratforde,  esquires'  [respectively  his  nephew  and  grand-nephew]  but 
probate  was  only  granted  to  William,  son  of  his  nephew  Thomas.    He 


3l8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

was  a  wealthy  Stratford  resident,  with  whom  Shakespeare 
was  soon  to  enjoy  much  personal  intercourse.  The 
conveyance  of  the  Combes'  land  was  dehvered,  in  the 
poet's  absence,  to  his  brother  Gilbert, 'to  the  use  of  the 
within  named  William  Shakespeare,'  in  the  presence  of 
the  poet's  friends  Anthony  and  John  Nash  and  three 
other  neighbours.!  A  less  imposing  purchase  quickly 
followed.  On  September  28,  1602,  at  a  court  baron  of 
the  manor  of  Rowington,  one  Walter  Getley  transferred 
to  the  poet  a  cottage  and  a  quarter  of  an  acre  of  land 
which  were  situated  at  Chapel  Lane  (then  called 
'Walkers  Streete  alias  Dead  Lane')  adjoining  the  lower 
grounds  of  his  residence  of  New  Place.  These  properties 
were  held  practically  in  fee-simple  at  the  annual  rental 
of  2S.  6d.  The  Manor  of  Rowington,  of  which  numerous 
other  Shakespeares  were  tenants,  had  been  granted  by 
Queen  Elizabeth  to  Ambrose  Dudley,  Earl  of  Warwick, 
the  Earl  of  Leicester's  brother,  who  held  it  until  his  death 
in  1589.  The  Earl's  widow  and  third  wife,  Anne  Count- 
ess of  Warwick,  remained  Lady  of  the  Manor  until  her 
death  on  February  9,  1603-4,  when  the  property  fully 
reverted  to  the  Crown.  The  Countess  of  Warwick  was 
thus  Lady  of  the  Manor  .when  Shakespeare  purchased 
the  property  in  Chapel  Lane.  It  appears  from  the 
manorial  roll  that  Shakespeare  did  not  attend  the 
manorial  court  held  at  Rowington  on  the  day  fixed  for 
the  transfer  of  the  property,  and  it  was  consequently 

left  10/.  to  the  poor  of  Stratford,  as  well  as  20I.  to  the  poor  of  Warwick. 
The  will  of  his  nephew  Thomas  Combe,  John  Combe's  brother  (P;C.C. 
Dorset  13),  establishes  the  relationship  between  William  Combe  of  War- 
wick and  John  Combe  of  Stratford.  Thomas  Combe  who  predeceased 
his  'good  uncle  William  Combe'  in  Jan.  1608-9,  made  him  in  the  firSt 
draft  of  his  will  an  executor  along  with  his  brother  John  and  his  son 
William.  William  Combe  of  Warwick  is  invariably  confused  witli  his 
grand-nephew  and  Thomas  Combe's  son  William,  who,  born  at  Stratford 
in  1586,  was  closely  associated  with  Shakespeare  after  1614.  See  p. 
472  infra.  The  dramatist  was  not  brought  into  personal  relation  with 
the  elder  William  Combe,  save  over  the  sales  of  land  in  1602  and  subse- 
quent years. 

1  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  17-19.    The  original  deed  is  at  Shakespeare's 
Birthplace  {Cat.  No.  158). 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL   RESOURCES  319 

stipulated  then  that  the  estate  should  remain  in  the 
hands  of  the  Lady  of  the  Manor  until  the  dramatist 
completed  the  purchase  in  person.  At  a  later  period  he 
made  the  brief  journey  and  was  admitted  to  the  copy- 
hold, settling  the  remainder  on  his  two  daughters  in  fee, 
although  the  manorial  custom  (as'it  proved)  only  allowed 
the  elder  child  to  succeed  to  the  property.^  Subsequently 
Shakespeare  negotiated  a  further  purchase  from  the  two 
Combes  of  20  acres  of  meadow  or  pasture  land,  to  add 
to  the  107  of  arable  land  which  he  had  acquired  of  the 
same  owners  in  1602.  In  April  1610  he  paid  to  the 
vendors,  the  uncle  and  nephew  William  and  John  Combe, 
a  fine  of  100/.  in  respect  of  the  two  purchases.^ 

Shakespeare  had  thus  become  a  substantial  landowner 
in  his  native  place.  A  yet  larger  investment  was  mean- 
while in  contemplation.  As  early  as  1598  .pj^g 
Abraham  Sturley,  the  Stratford  citizen  who  Stratford 
deeply  interested  himself  in  Shakespeare's  '''  ^' 
material  fortunes,  had  suggested  that  the  dramatist 
should  purchase  the  tithes  of  Stratford.  The  advice 
was  taken  after  an  interval  of  seven  years.  On  July  24, 
1605,  Shakespeare  bought  for  440Z.  of  Ralph  Huband, 
owner  of  the  well-known  Warwickshire  manor  of  Ipsley, 
a  lease  of  a  'moiety'  of  'the  tithes'  of  Stratford,  Old 
Stratford,  Bishopton,  and  Welcombe.  Although  loosely 
called  a  'moiety,'  Shakespeare's  share  of  'the  tithes' 
—  a  miscellaneous  property  including  houses,  cottages, 
and  fieilds,  —  scarcely  amounted  to  a  quarter.  The 
whole  had  formed  part  of  the  forfeited  ecclesiastical 
estate  of  The  College,  and  had  been  leased  by  the  officers 
i  of  that  institution  in  1544  for  a  term  of  ninety-two  years 
to  one  William  Barker,  of  Sonning,  Berkshire.  On  the 
dissolution  of  The  College  by  act  of  pariiament  in  1553, 

■.    '  See  p.  488  infra.    Cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  19 ;  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace 
"in  The  Times,  May  8,  1915,  and  Mrs.  Slopes  in  The  Athenceum,  June  s, 
1915- 

''Halliwell-Phaiipps,  ii.  25  (from  P.R.O.  Feet  of  Fines,  Warwick  Tnn. 
;  8  Jac.I,  1610,  Skin  15). 


320  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  property  was  devised  to  the  Stratford  Corporation 
on  the  expiration  of  the  lease.  Barker  soon  sub-leased 
the  tithe  estate,  and  when  Shakespeare  acquired  his 
'moiety'  the  property  was  divided  among  over  thirty 
local  owners  in  allotments  of  various  dimensions.  Shake- 
speare's holding,  of  which  the  ninety-two  years'  lease 
had  thirty-one  years  to  run,  had  come  into  the  hands  of 
the  vendor  Ralph  Huband  on  the  recent  death  of  his 
brother  Sir  John  Huband,  who  had  acquired  it  of  Barker. 
It  far  exceeded  in  value  all  the  other  shares  save  one,  and 
it  was  estimated  to  3deld  5o/.  a  year.  But  all  the  shares 
were  heavily  encumbered.  Shakespeare's  'moiety'  was 
subject  to  a  rent  of  17/.  to  the  corporation,  who  were  the 
reversionary  owners  of  the  tithe-estate,  while  John 
Barker,  heir  of  the  first  lessee,  claimed  dues  of  5/.  a  year, 
According  to  the  harsh  terms  of  the  sub-leases,  any 
failure  on  the  part  of  any  of  the  sub-lessees  to  pay  Barker 
a  prescribed  contribution  forfeited  to  him  the  entire 
property.  The  investment  thus  brought  Shakespeare, 
under  the  most  favourable  circumstances,  no  higher 
income  than  38/.,  and  the  refusal  of  his  fellow-share- 
holders to  acknowledge  the  full  extent  of  their  liability 
to  Barker,  constantly  imperilled  aU  the  poet's  rights. 
If  he  wished  to  retain  his  interest  in  the  event  of  the 
others'  default,  he  was  required  to  pay  their  debts. 
After  1609  Shakespeare  entered  a  suit  in  the  Court 
of  Chancery  to  determine  the  exact  responsibilities  of 
all  the  tithe-owners.  With  him  were  joined  Richard 
Lane,  of  Alveston  on  the  Avon  near  Stratford,  Thomas 
Greene,  the  lawyer  who  was  town  clerk  of  Stratford 
from  1610  to  1617  and  claimed  to  be  the  dramatist's 
cousin,'-  and  the  rest  of  the  more  responsible  sharers. 
In  161 2  Shakespeare  and  his  friends  presented  a  bill  of 
complaint  to'  Lord-Chancellor  Ellesmere.  The  judg- 
ment has  not  come  to  light,  but  an  accommodation, 
whereby  the  poet  was  fully  secured  in  his  holding, 
was  clearly  reached.  His  investment  in  the  tithes 
'  See  pp.  473-4  infra. 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FINANCIAL  RESOURCES  321 

proved  fruitful  of  legal  embarrassments,  but  the  property 
descended  to  his  heirs.  ^ 

Shakespeare  inherited  his  father's  love  of  litigation, 
and  stood  rigorously  by  his  rights  in  all  his  business 
relations.  In  March  1 600 '  William  Shackspere '  Recover 
sued  John  Clayton  'Yeoman'  of  WeUington  in  of  small 
Bedfordshire,  in  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench,  for  '*^'''^' 
the  repayment  of  a  debt  of  ^l?  The  plaintiff's  attorney 
was  Thomas  Awdley,  and  on  the  failure  of'  the  defendant 
to  put  in  an  appearance,  judgment  was  given  for  the 
plaintiff  with  205.  costs.  There  is  nothing  to  identify 
John  Clayton's  creditor  with  the  dramatist,  nor  is  it  easy 
to  explain  why  he  should  have  lent  money  to  a  Bed- 
fordshire yeoman.^  It  is  beyond  question  however  that 
at  Stratford  Shakespeare,  like  many  of  his  feUow-towns- 
men,  was  a  frequent  suitor  in  the  local  court  of  record. 
While  he  was  not  averse  from  advancing  money  to  im- 
pecunious neighbours,  he  was  punctual  and  pertinacious 
in  demands  for  repayment.  In  July  1604  he  sued  for 
debt  in  the  local  court  Phihp  Rogers,  the  apothecary  of 
the  town.  Like  most  of  the  larger  householders  at  Strat- 
ford, Shakespeare  found  means  of  evading  the  restrictions 
on  the  domestic  manufacture  of  malt  which  proved 
ef&cadous  in  the  case  of  the  humbler  townsfolk.  Afflu- 
ent residents  indeed  often  rendered  their  poorer  neigh- 
bours the  service  of  seUing  to  them  their  superfluities. 
In  such  conditions  Shakespeare's  servants  delivered  to 
the  apothecary  Rogers  at  fortnightly  intervals  between 
March  27  and  May  30,  1604,  twenty  pecks  or  five  bushels 
of  malt  in  varying  small  quantities  for  domestic  use. 
The  supply  was  valued  at  il.  igs.  lod.     On  June  25  the 

'  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  19  seq. ;  Mrs.  Stopes's  Shakespeare's  Environ^ 
fnmt,  82-4. 

'  The  record  is  in  the  Public  Record  Office  (Coram  Rege  Roll,  Easter 
42  Eliz.  No.  J361,  Mem.  293).  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  185,  mentions  the 
litigation  without  giving  any  authority.  I  owe  the  clue  to  the  kindness 
of  Mrs.  Stopes. 

'  Shakespeare's  granddaughter,  Lady  Bernard,  in  her  will  claimed 
as  her  'cousin'  a  Bedfordshire  'gent.,'  'Thomas  Welles,  of  Carleton' 
in  that  county,  but  there  is  no  due  to  the  kinship;  see  p.  513. 


322  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

apothecary,  who  was  usually  in  pecuniary  difficulties, 
borrowed  2S.  of  Shakespeare's  household.  Later  in  the 
summer  he  repaid  6s.  and  in  Michaelmas  term  the 
dramatist  sued  him  for  the  balance  of  the  account  i/, 
155.  lod}  During  1608  and  1609  he  was  at  law  with 
another  fellow-townsman,  John  Addenbroke.  On  Feb- 
ruary 15,  1609,  the  dramatist,  who  appears  to  have  been 
legally  represented  on  this  occasion  by  his  kinsman, 
Thomas  Greene,^  obtained  judgment  from  a  jury  against 
Addenbroke  for  the  pa}anent  of  61.,  with  zl.  5s.  costs, 
but  Addenbroke  left  the  town,  and  the  triimiph  proved 
barren.  Shakespeare  avenged  himself  by  proceeding 
against  Thomas  Horneby,  who  had  acted  as  the  abscond- 
ing debtor's  bail.^  Horneby  had  succeeded  his  father 
Richard  Horneby  on  his  death  in  1606  as  a  master  black- 
smith in  Henley  Street,  and  was  one  of  the  smaller  sharers 
in  the  tithes.  The  family  forge  lay  near  Shakespeare's 
Birthplace.  Plaintiff  and  defendant  in  this  last  prose- 
cution had  been  playmates  in  childhood  and  they  had 
some  common  interests  in  adult  Hfe.  But  Ktigation 
among  the  residents  of  Stratford  showed  scant  regard 
for  social  ties,  and  -in  his  handhng  of  practical  affairs 
Shakespeare  caught  the  prevaihng  spirit  of  rigour. 

1  The  Latin  statement  of  claim —  'Shexpere  versus  Rogers'  —  which 
was  filed  by  Shakespeare's  attorney  William  Tetherton,  is  exhibited  in 
Shakespeare's  Birthplace.  (See  Catalogue,  No.  114.)  There  is  no  due 
to  any  later  stage  of  the  suit,  at  the  hearing  of  which  Shakespeare  was 
disabled  by  contemporary  procedure  from  giving  evidence  on  his  own 
behalf.  Similar  actions  were  taken  against  local  purchasers  of  small 
quantities  of  malt  during  the  period  by  Shakespeare's  wealthy  local 
friends,  Mr.  John  Combe,  Mr.  John  Sadler,  Mr.  Anthony  Nash  and 
others.  The  grounds  on  which  Shakespeare's  identification  with  Rogers's 
creditor  has  been  questioned  are  fallacious.  (See  Mrs.  Stopes's  Shaker 
speare's  Family,  p.  121;  The  Times,  May  15,  1915;  and  The  Times _ 
Literary  Supplement,  May  27,  1915.)  Philip  Rogers,  the  apothecary, 
was  something  of  a  professional  student.  In  the  same  year  as  Shake- 
speare sued  him,  he  sued  a  fellow-townsman,  Valentine  Palmes,  or 
Palmer,  for  detaining  a  copy  of  Gale's  Certain  Workes  of  Chiruriery, 
which  Rogers  valued  at  los.  6d.  Cf.  HalUwell's  Cal.  Stratford  Records, 
237)  316;  36s;   Mrs.  Stopes's  Shakespeare's  Environment,  57. 

2  See  pp.  473-4  and  n. 

^  Halliwell-PhiUipps,  ii.  77-80,  where  all  the  extant  documents  in 
the  archives  of  the  Stratford  Court  bearing  on  the  suits  against  both 
Rogers  and  Addenbroke  are  printed  in  fuU. 


XVI 

MATURITY  OF  GENIUS 

With  an  inconsistency  that  is  more  apparent  than  real, 
the  astute  business  transactions  of  these  years  (1597- 
161 1)  synchronise  with  the  production  of  Litg^ary 
Shakespeare's  noblest  Hterary  work  —  of  his  "work  in 
most  sustained  and  serious  efforts  in  comedy,  ^^^'' 
tragedy,  and  romance.  In  1599,  after  abandoning  Eng- 
lish history  with  'Henry  V,'  he  addressed  himself  to  the 
composition  of  his  three  most  perfect  essays  in  romantic 
comedy  —  '  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  'As  You  Like  It,' 
and  'Twelfth  Night.'  There  is  every  likelihood  that 
all  three  were  quickly  drafted  within  the  year.  The 
component  parts  of  the  trilogy  are  closely  Unked  one 
to  another  in  manner  of  construction.  In  each  play 
Shakespeare  works  over  a  more  or  less  serious  poetic 
romance  by  another  hand  and  with  the  romantic  theme 
he  interweaves  original  episodes  of  genial  irony  or  broad 
comedy  which  are  convincingly  interpreted  by  characters 
wholly  of  his  own  invention.  Much  penetrating  reflec- 
tion on  grave  ethical  issues  is  fused  with  the  spirited 
portrayal  of  varied  comic  phases  of  humanity.  In  all 
three  comedies,  moreover,  the  dramatist  presents  youth- 
ful womanhood  in  the  fascinating  guise  which  is  instinct 
at  once  with  gaiety  and  tenderness ;  while  the  plays  are 
interspersed  with  melodious  songs  which  enrich  the 
dominant  note  of  harmony.  To  this  versatile  trilogy 
there  attaches  an  equable  charm  which  is  scarcely  rivalled 
elsewhere  in  Shakespearean  drama.  The  christening  of 
each  piece  — 'Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  'As  You 
Like  It,'  'Twelfth  Night'  —  seems  to  exhibit  the  author 

323 


324  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ill'  a  pecuKarly  buoyant  vein.  Although  proverbial  and 
disjointed  phrases  often  served  at  the  time  as  titles  of 
drama,  it  is  not  easy  to  parallel  the  lack  of  obvioiis 
relevance  in  the  name  of  'Twelfth  Night'  or  the  merely 
ironic  pertinence  of  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing'  or  the 
careless  insolence  of  the  phrase  'As  You  Like  It,'  which 
is  re-echoed  in  'What  You  WUl,'  the  alternative  desig- 
nation of 'Twelfth  Night.' 

'Much  Ado'  was  probably  the  earhest  of  the  three 
pieces  and  may  well  have  been  written  in  the  early  sum- 
'Much  Ado  ^^'^  ^^  1 599-  The  sombre  romance  of  Hero  and 
about  ^  Claudio,  which  is  the  main  theme,  was  of 
Not  ing.  Italian  origin.  The  story,  before  Shakespeare 
handled  it,  had  passed  from  foreign  into  Enghsh  liter- 
ature, and  had  been  turned  to  theatrical  uses  in  England. 
Bandello,  to  whose  work  Shakespeare  and  contem- 
porary dramatists  made  very  frequent  recourse,  first 
narrated  at  length  in  his  'Novelle'  (No.  xxii.)  the  sad 
experiences  of  the  slandered  heroine,  whom  he  christened 
Fenicia,  and  Bandello's  story  was  translated  into  Freiich 
rpijg  in  Belief orest's  'Histoires  Tragiques.'    Mean- 

itaiian  while  Ariosto  grafted  the  tale  on  his  epic  of 
source.  'Qrlando  Furioso'  (canto  v),  christening  the 
injured  bride  Ginevra  and  her  affianced  lover  Ariodante. 
While  Shakespeare  was  still  a  youth  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  Ariosto's  version  was  dramatised  in  Enghsh.  Ac- 
cording to  the  accounts  of  the  Court  revels,  'A  Historie 
of  Ariodante  and  Ginevra'  was  shown  'before her  Majestie 
on  Shrove  Tuesdaie  [Feb.  12]  at  night'  in  1583,  the  actors 
being  boy-scholars  of  Merchant  Taylors'  School,  under 
the  direction  of  their  capable  headmaster,  Richard 
Mulcaster.^  In' 1 591,  moreover,  Ariosto's  account  was 
anghcised  by  Sir  John  Harington  in  his  spirited  trans- 
lation of   'Orlando   Furioso,'   and   Spenser  wrought  a 

'  This  dramatised  'Historie'  has  not  survived  in  print  or  manuscript. 
Cf.  Wallace,  Evolution  of  the  English  Drama,  p.  209 ;  Cunningham's 
Revds  (Shakespeare  Society),  p.  177;  Malone's  Variorum  Shakespisaft, 
1821,  iii.  406. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  325 

variation  of  Ariosto's  rendering  of  the  tale  into  his 
'Faerie  Queene,'  renaming  the  heroine  Claribell  (Bk.  II. 
canto  iv.).  To  one  or  other  of  the  many  English  adap- 
tations of  Ariosto  Shakespeare  may  have  owed  some 
stimulus,  but  he  drew  substantial  aid  alone  from  Bandello 
or  from  his  French  translator.  All  the  serious  episodes 
of  the  play  come  from  the  ItaHan  novel. 

Yet  it  was  not  the  wrongs  of  the  Italian  heroine  nor 
the  villainy  of  her  enemies  which  gave  Shakespeare's 
genius  in  'Much  Ado'  its  chief  opportunity. 
The  drama  owes  its  life  to  his  creation  of  two  speMe-s 
subsidiary  threads  of  comic  interest' — the  bril-  embeiiish- 
liant  encounters  of  Benedick  and  Beatrice,  and 
the  blunders  of  the  watchmen  Dogberry  and  Verges,  who 
are  very  plausible  caricatures  of  Ehzabethan  constables. 
All  these   characters   won   from   the  first   triumphant 
success  on  the  stage.     The  popular  comic  actor  William 
Kemp  created  the  role  of  Dogberry  before  he  left  the 
newly  opened  Globe  theatre,  while  Richard  Cowley,  a 
comedian  of  repute,  appeared  as  Verges.     In  the  early 
editions  —  in  both  the  Quarto  of  1600  and  the  Folio  of 
1623  — •  these  actors'  names  are  prefixed  by  a  copjdst's 
error  to  some  of  the  speeches  allotted  to  the  two  char- 
acters (act  IV.  scene  ii.). 

'As  You  Like  It,'  which  quickly  followed  'Much  Ado' 
intheautumndf  i599,is  a  dramatic  adaptation  of  Thomas 
Lodge's  pastoral  romance  'Rosalynde,  Euphues  'As  You 
Golden  Legacie'  (1590),  which,  although  of  Like  it." 
English  authorship,  has  many  Italian  affinities.  None 
of  Shakespeare's  comedies  breathes  a  more  placid  temper 
or  catches  more  faithfully  the  spirit  of  the  pastoral 
type  of  drama  which  Tasso  in  'Aminta,'  and  Guarini 
in  'Pastor  Fidb,'  had  lately  created  not  for  Italy  alone 
but  for  France  and  England  as  well.  The  dramatist 
follows  without  serious  modifitation  the  novehst's  guid- 
ance in  his  treatment  of  the  story.  But  he  significantly 
rejects  Lodge's  amorphous  name  of  Rosader  for  his  hero 
and  substitutes  that  of  Orlando  after  the  hero  of  Ariosto's 


326  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Italian  epic.^  While  the  main  conventions  of  Lodge's 
pastoral  setting  are  loyally  accepted,  the  action  is 
touched  by  Shakespeare  with  a  fresh  and  graphic  vitality, 
Lodge's  forest  of  Ardennes,  which  is  the  chief  scene  of  his 
story,  belonged  to  Flanders,  but  Shakespeare  added  to 
Lodge's  Flemish  background  some  features  suggestive 
of  the  Warwickshire  woodland  of  Arden  which  lay  near 
Stratford-on-Avon.  Another  source  than  Lodge's  pas- 
toral tale,  too,  gave  Shakespeare  hvely  liints  for  the 
scene  of  Orlando's  fight  with  Charles  the  Wrestler,  and 
for  Touchstone's  fantastic  description  of  the  diverse 
shapes  of  a  lie  which  prompted  duelling.  Both  these 
passages  were  largely  inspired  by  a  book  called  '  Saviolo's 
Practise,'  a  manual  of  the  art  of  self-defence,  which  ap- 
peared in  1 595  from  the  pen  of  Vincentio  Saviolo,  an 
Itahan  fencing-master  in  the  service  of  the  Earl  of  Essex. 
In  more  effective  fashion  Shakespeare  strengthened  the 
human  fibre  of  Lodge's  narrative  by  original  additions 
to  the  dramatis  persona.  Very  significant  is  his  intro- 
duction of  three  new  characters,  two  of  whom,  Jaques 
rp^g  and   Touchstone,   are  Incisive   critics  of  life, 

original  each  from  his  own  point  of  view,  while  the 
c  aracters.  ^j^jj-^j^  Audrey,  supplies  broadly  comic  relief 
to  the  play's  comprehensive  study  of  the  feminine  tem- 
perament. Jaques  is  a  finished  study  of  the  meditative 
cynic  who  has  enjoyed  much  worldly  experience  and 
dissipation.  Touchstone  is  the  most  carefully  elaborated 
of  all  Shakespeare's  professional  wits.'  The  hoyden 
Audrey  adds  zest  to  the  brilliant  and  humorous  portrayal 

'  Shakespeare  directly  borrowed  his  hero's  name  from  The  Historie 
of  Orlando  Furioso  (written  about  1591  and  published  in  1594),  a  crude, 
dramatic  version  of  Ariosto's  epic  by  Robert  Greene,  Shakespeare's 
early  foe.  In  Greene's  play,  as  in  Ariosto's  poem  (canto  xxiii.)  much 
space  is  devoted  to  the  love  poetry  inscribed  on  'the  barks  of  divers 
trees'  by  the  hero's  rival  in  the  affections  of  Angelica,  or  by  the  lady 
herself.  It  is  the  sight  of  these  amorous  inscriptions,  which  in  boti 
Greene's  play  and  the  Italian  poem  unseats  Orlando's  reason,  and  thus 
introduces  the  main  motive.  Lodge  makes  much  in  his  novel  of  Rosa- 
lynde  of  his  lover  Rosader's  'writmg  on  trees.'  The  change  of  name 
to  Orlando  in  As  You  Like  It  is  thus  easUy  accounted  for. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  327 

of  Rosalind,  Celia,  and  Phoebe,  varied  types  of  youthful 
womanhood  which  Shakespeare  perfected  from  Lodge's 
sketches. 

A  new  play  was  commonly  produced  at  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's Court  each  Twelfth  Night.  On  the  title-pages 
of  the  first  editions  of  two  of  Lyly's  comedies,  'Twelfth 
'Campaspe'  (1584)  and  'Midas'  (1591),  promi-  Night.- 
nance  was  given  to  the  fact  that  each  was  performed 
before  Queen  EKzabeth  on  'twelfe  day  at  night.'  The 
main  title  of  Shakespeare's  piece  has  no  reference  to  the 
plot,  and  doubtless  conamemorates  the  fact  that  it  was 
designed  for  the  Twelfth  Night  of  15  59-1 600,  when 
Shakespeare's  company  is  known  to  have  entertained  the 
Sovereign  with  a  play.^  The  alternative  title  of  'What 
You  Will'  repeats  the  easy  levity  of  'As  You  Like  It.'  * 
Several  passages  in  the  text  support  the  conjecture  that 
the  play  was  ready  for  production  at  the  turn  of  the 
year  1599-1600.  'The  new  map  with  the  augmentation 
of  the  Indies,'  spoken  of  by  Maria  (iii.  ii.  86),  was  a 
respectful  reference  to  the  great  map  of  the  world  or 
'hydrographical  description'  which  seems  to  have  been 
engraved  in  1599,  and  first  disclosed  the  full  extent  of 
recent  explorations  of  the  East  and  West  Indies — -in 
the  New  World  and  the  Old.'  The  tune  of  the  beautiful 
lyric  '0  mistress  mine,  where  are  you  roaming'  was  pub- 
lished also  in  1599  in  a  popular  music  book  —  Thomas 

'  Shakespeare's  company  also  performed  at  Court  on  Twelfth  Night, 
[S95-6r  1596-7,  1597-8,  and  1600-1,  but  the  collateral  evidence;  points 
;o  Twelfth  Night  of  the  year  1599-1600  as  the  date  of  the  production 
)f  Shakespeare's  piece  (Cunningham's  Revels,  xxxii-iii;  Mod.  Lang.  Rev. 
i.  9  seq.). 

2  The  dramatist  Marston  paid  Shakespeare  the  flattery  of  imitation 
jy  also  naming  a  comedy  'What  You  Will'  which  was  acted  in  1601, 
ilthough  it  was  first  published  in  1607. 

'  The  map  is  very  occasionally  found  in  copies  of  the  second  edition 
)f  Hakluyt's  Principal  Navigations,  1598-1600.  It  has  been  repro- 
iuced  in  The  Voyages  and  Workes  of  John  Davis  the  Navigator,  ed.  Cap- 
ain  A.  H.  Markham,  Hakluyt  Soc.  1880.  (See  Mr.  Coote's  note  on 
ie  New  Map,  Ixxxv.-xcv.),  and  again  in  Hakluyt's  Principal  Navt- 
laHons  (Glasgow,  1903,  vol.  i.  ad  fin^.  '  A  paper  on  Shakespeare's  men- 
ion  of  the  map,  by  Mr.  Coote,  appears  in  New  Shakspere  Society  s 
Transactiorts,  1877-9,  P*-  i-  PP-  8&-100. 


328  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Morley's  'First  Booke  of  Consort  Lessons,  made  by 
divers  exquisite  authors.'  There  is  no  reason  to  deprive 
Shakespeare  of  the  authorship  of  the  words ;  but  it  is 
plain  that  they  were  accessible  to  the  musical  composer 
before  the  year  1599  closed.^  Like  the  'Comedy  of 
Errors,'  'Twelfth  Night'  enjoyed  early  in  its  career  the 
experience  of  production  at  an  Inn  of  Court. .  On 
February  2,  1601-2,  it  was  acted  by  Shake- 
fomance  speare's  company  at  Middle  Temple  Hall,  and 
Temple""*  John  Manningham,  a  student  of  the  Middle 
Hall,  Feb.  Temple,  who  was  present,  described  the  per- 
2, 1602.  formance  in  his  diary  which  forms  an  enter- 
taining medley  of  current  experiences.^  Manningham 
wrote  that  the  piece  'called  Twelfe  Night  or  what  you 
will'  which  he  witnessed  in  the  Hall  of  his  Inn  was  'much 
Uke  the  "  Comedy  of  Errors"  or  "Menechmi"  in  Plautus, 
but  most  Uke  and  neere  to  that  in  Italian  called  "In- 
ganni."'  The  diarist  especially  commends  the  tricks 
played  on  Malvolio  and.  was  much  diverted  by  the 
steward's  'gesture  in  smiling.' 

The  Middle  Temple  diarist  was  justified  in  crediting 
the  main  plot  of  'Twelfth  Night'  with  Italian  affinities. 
-Pjjg  Mistakes  due  to  the  strong  resemblance  between 

Italian  a  young  man  and  his  sister,  whom  circum- 
^  °'"  stance  has  led  to  assume  the  disguise  of  a  boy, 

was  a  common  theme  of  Italian  drama  and  romance, 
and  several  Italian  authors  had  made  the  disguised  girl 
the  embarrassed  centre  of  complex  love-adventures. 
But  the  Middle  Temple  student  does  inadequate  justice 
to  the  pre-Shakespearean  treatment  of  Viola's  fortunes 
either  in  Itahan  Uterature  or  on  the  Italian  stage.    No 

'■  Robert  Jones  included  in  The  first  booke  of  Songes  and  Ayres  (1600) 
the  words  and  music  of  a  feeble  song  'Farewell,  dear  love,  since  I  must 
needs  be  gone,'  of  which  Sir  Toby  Belch  in  Twelfth  Night  (n.  iii.)  sings 
snatches  of  the  first  stanza.  Robert  Jones  was  collecting  popular 
'ditties'  'by  divers  gentlemen.'  Sir  Toby  Belch  borrows  in  the  play 
several  specimens  of  the  same  kind,  which  were  already  of  old  standing. 

'  Diary  (Camden  Soc.  p.  18)  ed.  by  John  Bruce  from  Brit.  Mus.  Harl. 
MS.  5353.  The  Elizabethan  Stage  Society  repeated  the  play  of  Twelfth 
Night  in  Middle  Temple  Hall  on  February  10,  11,  and  12,  1897. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS 


329 


less  than  three  Italian  comedies  of  the  sixteenth  century- 
adumbrate    the    experience   of    Shakespeare's   heroine. 
Two  of  these  Italian  plays  are  called  'GH  Inganni'  (The 
Deceits),  a  title  which  Manningham  cites ;  but  both  these 
pieces  owe  much  to  an  earlier  and  more  famous  Italian 
play  entitled  'Gh  Ingannati'  (The  Deceived)/  which 
anticipates  Shakespeare's  serious  plot  in  'Twelfth  Night' 
more  closely  than  any  successor.     'Gh  Ingannati'  was 
both  acted  and  pubHshed  at  Siena  as  early  as  .Giiin- 
153 1  and  it  subsequently  enjoyed  a  world-wide  gannati' 
vogue,  which  neither  of  the  two  'Gh  Inganni'  °*^^™^- 
shared.^     '  GH  Ingannati '  alone  was  repeatedly  reprinted, 
adapted,  or  translated,  not  merely  in  Italy,'  but  in  France, 
Spain,  and  England,  long  before  Shakespeai;e  set  to  work 
on 'Twelfth  Night." 

There  is  no  room  for  doubt  that,  whatever  the  points  of 
similarity  with  either  of  the  two  '  Gh  Inganni,'  the  Itahan 
comedy   of   'GH   Ingannati'   is   the   ultimate  BandeUo's 
source  of  the  leading  theme  of  Shakespeare's  'Nlcuoia.' 
'Twelfth  Night.'     But  it  is  improbable  that  the  poet 

^  Of  the  two  pieces  which  are  christened  Gli  Inganni,  the  earlier, 
by  Nicolo  Secchi,  was  'recitata  in  Milano  I'anno  1547'  and  seems  to 
Imve  been  first  printed  in  Florence  in  1562.  There  a  girl  Genevra  in 
the  disguise  of  a  boy  Ruberto  provokes  the  love  of  a  lady  called  Portia, 
and  herself  falls  in  love  with  her  master  Gostanzo;  Portia  in  the  end 
voluntarily  transfers  her  affections  to  Genevra's  twin  brother  Fortunato, 
who  is  indistinguishable  from  his  sister  in  appearance.  The  second  Gli 
Inganni  is  by  one  Curzio  Gonzaga  and  was  printed  at  Venice  in  1592. 
This  piece  closely  follows  the  lines  of  its  predecessor;  but  the  disguised 
heroine  assumes  the  masculine  name  of  Cesare,  which  is  significantly 
like  that  of  Cesario,  Viola's  adopted  name  in  Twelfth  Night. 

'  Secchi's  Gli  Inganni  was  known  in  France  where  Pierre  de  Larivey, 
the  well-known  writer  of  comedies,  converted  it  into  Les  Tromperies,  but 
Gli  Ingannati  alone  had  an  European  repute. 

'  A  French  version  of  Gli  Ingannati  by  Charles  Etienne  called  at  first 
Le  Sacrifice  and  afterwards  Les  Abusez  went  through  more  than  one 
edition  (1543,  1549,  ISS^)-  A.  Spanish  version  —  Comedia  de  los  Engana- 
dos — by  Lope  de  Rueda  appeared  at  Valencia  in  1567.  On  Etienne's 
French  version  of  the  piece  an  English  scholar  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century  based  a  Latin  play  entitled  Laelia  (after  the  character  adumbrat- 
ing Shakespeare's  Viola).  This  piece  was  performed  at  Queens'  College, 
Cambridge,  before  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  other  distinguished  visitors,  on 
March  i,  1595.  The  MS.  of  Lcelia  is  at  Lambeth,  and  was  first  edited 
by  Prof.  G.  C.  Moore  Smith  in  1910. 


330  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

depended  on  the  original  text  of  the  drama.  He  may 
have  gathered  an  occasional  hint  from  subsequent  dra- 
matic adaptations  in  Italian,  French,  or  Latin.  Yet 
it  is  difficult  to  question  that  he  mainly  relied  for  the 
plot  of  'Twelfth  Night'  on  one  of  the  prose  tales  which 
were  directly  based  upon  the  primal  Italian  play.  Ban- 
dello's  ItaHan  romance  of  'Nicuola,'  which  first  appeared 
in  his  'Novelle'  (ii.  36)  in  1554,  is  a  very  literal  rendering 
of  the  fable  of  'GH  Ingannati,'  and  this  novel  was  acces- 
sible to  the  Elizabethans  not  only  in  the  original  Italian, 
but  in  the  popular  French  translation  of  Bandello's 
work,  'Les  Histoires  Tragiques,'  by  Frangois  de  Belle- 
forest  (Paris,  1580,  No.  63).  Cinthio,  another  Italian 
novelist  of  the  sixteenth  century,  also  narrated  the 
dramatic  fable  in  his  collection  of  stories  called  'Heca- 
tommithi'  (v.  8)  which  appeared  in  1565.  It  was  from 
Cinthio,  with  some  help  from  Bandello,  that  Barnabe 
Riche  the  EKzabethan  author  drew  his  English  tale  of 
'Apolonius  and  Silla'  (1581).^  Either  the  Frenchman 
BeUeforest  or  the  Englishman  Riche  furnished  Shake- 
speare with  his  first  knowledge  of  the  history  of  Orsino, 
Viola,  Sebastian  and  OHvia,  although  the  dramatist  gave 
these  characters  names  which  they  had  not  borne  before. 
In  any  case  the  Enghsh  playwright  was  handling  one  of 
the  most  famihar  tales  in  the  range  of  sixteenth-century 
fiction,  and  was  thereby  identifying  himself  beyond  risk 
of  misconception  with  the  European  spirit  of  contem- 
porary romance. 

Shakespeare  invests  the  romantic  pathos  of  Viola's  and 
The  new  ^^^  Companions'  amorous  experiences,  which 
dramatis  the  geiiius  of  Italy  created,  with  his  own  poetic 
personm.  glamour,  and  as  in  'Much  Ado'  and  'As  You 
Like  It,'  he  quahfies  the  languorous  tones  of  the  well- 

'  In  Riche's  tale  the  adventures  of  Apolonius,  Silla,  Julina,  and 
Silvio  anticipate  respectively  those  of  Shakespeare's  Orsino,  Viola, 
Olivia  and  Sebastian.  Riche  makes  Julina  (Olivia)  a  rich  widow,  and 
Manningham  speaks  of  Olivia  as  a  widow,  a  possible  indication  that 
Shakespeare,  who  presents  her  as  a  spinster  in  the  extant  comedy,  gave 
her  in  a  first  draft  the  status  with  which  Riche  credited  her. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  33 1 

worn  tale  by  grafting  on  his  scene  an  entirely  new  group 
of  characters  whose  idiosyncrasies  give  his  brisk  humor- 
ous faculty  varied  play.  The  steward  Malvoho,  whose 
ludicrous  gravity  and  vanity  take  almost  a  tragic  hue  as 
the  comedy  advances,  owes  nothing  to  outside  suggestion, 
while  the  mirthful  portrayals  of  Sir  Toby  Belch,  Sir 
Andrew  Aguecheek,  Fabian,  the  clown  Feste,  and  Maria 
the  witty  serving-maid,  aU  bear  signal  witness  to  the 
originahty  and  fertility  of  Shakespeare's  comic  powers 
in  the  energetic  era  of  his  maturity. 

No  attempt  was  made  at  the  time  of  composition  to 
print '  Twelfth  Night,'  which  may  justly  be  reckoned  the 
flower   of   Shakespeare's   efforts   in   romantic 
comedy.     The  play  was  first  published  in  the  ucation 
First  Folio  of  1623.     But  publishers  made  an  °^}^^ 
endeavour  to  issue  its  two  associates  'Much 
Ado'  and  'As  You  Like  It,'  while  the  pieces  were  wirming 
their  first  commendations  on  the  stage.     The  acting 
company  who  owned  the  plays  would  seem  to  have 
placed  obstacles  in  the  way  of  both  publications  and  in 
the  case  of  'As  You  Like  It'  the  protest  took  practical 
effect. 

In  the  early  autmnn  of  1600  application  was  made  to 
the  Stationers'  Company  to  Ucense  both  'Much  Ado'  and 
'As  You  Like  It 'with  two  other  plays  which  Shakespeare's 
company  had  lately  produced,  his  own  'Henry  V'  and 
Ben  Jonson's  'Every  Man  in  his  Humour.'  But  on 
August  4  the  Stationers'  Company  ordered  the  issue  of 
the  four  plays  '  to  be  staled.'  ^  Twenty  days  passed  and 
on  August  24  'Much  Ado'  was  again  entered  in  the 
Stationers'  Register  by  the  publishers  Andrew  Wise  and 
William  Aspley,  together  with  another  Shakespearean 
piece,  'The  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV.' ^  The  comedy 
was  then  duly  printed  and  published.  There  are  clear 
indications  that  the  first  printers  of  'Much  Ado'  had 
access  through  the  good  ofl&ces  of  an  indulgent  actor  to 
an  authentic  playhouse  copy.     The  original  quarto  was 

'  Stationers'  Company's  Re^sters,  ed.  Arber,  iii.  37.  "  Ibid.,  170. 


332  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

reproduced  in  the  First  Folio  with  a  few  additional  cor- 
rections which  had  been  made  for  stage  purposes.  Of  the 
four  plays  which  were  'staled'  on  August  4,  1600,  only 
'As  You  Like  It'  failed  to  surmount  Qie  barriers  whidi 
were  then  placed  in  the  way  of  its  publication.  There 
is  no  issue  of  'As  You  Like  It'  earlier  than  that  in  the 
First  Foho. 

Shakespeare's  activity  knew  no  pause  and  a  Uttle  later 
in  the  year  (1600)  which  saw  the  production  of  'Twelfth 
'Julius  Night'  he  made  an  experiment  in  a  path  of 
Caesar,'  drama  which  he  had  previously  neglected, 
^^°°"  although  it  had  been  already  weil,-trodden  by 

others.  Shakespeare  now  drew  for  the  first  time  the  plot 
of  a  tragedy  from  Plutarch's  'Lives.'  On  Plutarch's 
Life  of  Julius  Caesar,  supplemented  by  the  memoirs  of 
Brutus  and  of  Mark  Antony,  he  based  his  next  drafaatic 
venture,  his  tragedy  of  'JuHus  Caesar.'  This  was  the 
earhest  of  his  Roman  plays  and  it  preceded  by  many 
years  his  two  other  Roman  tragedies — ^ 'Antony  and 
Cleopatra'  and  'Coriolanus.' ^  The  piece  was  first 
published  in  the  Foho  of  1623.  Internal  evidence  alone 
determines  the  date  of  composition.  The  character- 
isation is  signally  virile;  the  metrical  features  hover 
between  early  regularity  and  late  irregularity,  and  the 
dehberate  employment  of  prose,  notably  in  the  studied 
oratory  of  Brutus  in  the  great  scene  of  the  Forum,  would 
seem  to  anticipate  at  no  long  interval  the  hke  artistic 
usage  of  'Hamlet.'  All  these  traits  suggest  a  date  of 
composition  at  the  midmost  point  of  the  dramatist's 
career,  and  the  autumn  of  1600  satisfactorily  answers 
the  conditions  of  the  problem.^ 

•  Although  Titus  Andronicus  professes  to  present  incident  of  late 
Roman  history,  the  plot  lacks  all  historical  foundation.  In  any  case 
Shakespeare  had  small  responsibility  for  that  piece.  His  second  narra- 
tive poem,  Lucrece,  is  securely  based,  however,  on  a  legend  of  early 
Roman  history  and  attests  Shakespeare's  youthful  interest  in  the  subject 

'  John  Weever's  mention  in  his  Mirror  of  Martyrs  (1601)  of  the 
speeches  of  Brutus  and  Caesar  in  the  Forum  and  of  their  effects  on  'the 
many-headed  multitude'  is  commonly  held  to  echo  Shakespeare's  play. 
But  Weever's  slender  reference  to  the  topic  may  as  well  have:  been 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  333 

In  his  choice  alike  of  theme  and  of  authority  Shake- 
speare adds  in  'Julius  Caesar'  one  more  striking  proof  of 
his  eager  readiness  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  popularity 
workers  in  drama  abroad  as  well  as  at  home,  of  the 
Plutarch's  biographies  furnished  the  dramatists  *''^*' 
of  Italy,  France,  and  England  with  much  tragic  material 
from  dbie  middle  years  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the 
fortunes  of  Julius  Caesar  in  the  Greek  biographer's 
pages  had  chiefly  attracted  their  energy.^ 

At  times  Shakespeare's  predecessors  sought  additional 
information  about  the  Dictator  in  the  '  Roman  histories ' 
of  the  Alexandrine  Greek  Appian,  and  there  are  ^j^^  jgj,^ 
signs  that  Shakespeare,  too,  may  have  had  occa-  to 
sional  recourse  to  that  work,  which  was  readily     "'^"^"^  ' 
accessible  in  an  English  version  published  as  early  as 
1578.    But  Plutarch,  whose  'Lives'  first  raised  biography 
to  the  level  of  a  literary  art,  was  Shakespeare's  main 

drawn  from  Plutarch  or  Appian,  and  may  have  been  framed  without 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare's  spirited  eloquence.  Nothing  more  definite 
can  be  deduced  from  Drayton's  introduction  into  his  Barons'  Wars 
(1603)  of  lines  depicting  the  character  of  his  hero  Mortimer,  which  are 
held  to  reflect  Antony's  elegy  on  Brutus  (Jul.  Ctzs.  v.  v.  73-6).  Both 
passages  attribute  perfection  in  man  to  a  mixture  of  the  elements  in  due 
proportion  —  a  reflection  which  was  a  commonplace  of  contemporary 
literature. 

"■  Marc-Antoine  Muret,  professor  of  the  college  of  Guienne  at  Bor- 
deaux, based  on  Plutarch's  life  of  Csesar  a  Latin  tragedy,  which  was 
acted  by  his  students  (the  essayist  Montaigne  among  them)  in  1544. 
Sixteen  years  later  Jacques  Gr6vin,  then  a  pupU  at  the  College  of  Beau- 
vais,  wrote  for  presentation  by  his  fellow-collegians  a  tragedy  on  the 
same  topic  cast  in  Senecan  inould  in  rhyming  French  verse.  Grfivin's 
tragedy  acquired  a  wide  reputation  and  inaugurated  some  traditions  in 
the  dramatic  treatment  of  Caesar's  death,  which  Shakespeare  consciously 
or  unconsciously  developed.  Gr6vin  sought  his  material  in  Appian's 
RomatuE  HistoricB  as  well  as  in  Plutarch.  Robert  Gamier,  the  chief 
French  writer  of  tragedy  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  introduced 
Cffisar,  Mark  Antony,  Cassius,  and  other  of  Shakespeare's  characters, 
into  his  tragedy  of  Cornilie  (Pompey's  widow).  Mark  Antony  is  also 
the  leading  personage  in  Gamier's  two  other  Roman  tragedies,  Porcie 
(Portia,  Brutus's  widow)  and  Marc  Antoine.  In  1594  an  Italian  drama- 
tist, Orlando  Pescetti,  published  at  Verona  II  Cesare  Tragoedia  (2nd 
ed.  1604)  which  like  Grgvin's  work  is  based  on  both  Plutarch  and  Appian 
and  anticipates  at  many  points,  probably  by  accident,  Shakespeare's 
treatment.  See  Dr.  Alexander  Boecker's  A  Probable  Italian  Source  of 
Shakespeare's  Jidius  Cmsar  (New  York,  1913). 


334  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

guide.  The  Greek  biographies  were  at  his  hand  in  an 
English  garb,  which  was  worthy  of  the  original  language. 
Sir  Thomas  North's  noble  translation  was  first  printed  in 
London  by  the  Huguenot  stationer,  VautroUier,  in  1579, 
and  was  reissued  by  Shakespeare's  fellow-townsman  and 
VautrolHer's  successor  Richard  Field  in  isgs-^  Shake- 
speare's character  of  Theseus  in  'Midsummer  Night's 
Dream'  may  owe  something  to  Plutarch's  account  of 
that  hero.  But  there  is  no  proof  of  any  thorough  study 
of  Plutarch  on  Shakespeare's  part  before  he  planned 
his  drama  of  'JuHus  Caesar.'  There  he  followed  the 
details  of  Plutarch's  story  in  North's  rendering  with  an 
even  closer  fidehty  than  when  Holinshed's  Chronicle 
guided  him  in  his  English  history  plays.  But  Shake- 
speare is  never  a  slavish  disciple.  With  characteristic 
originaHty  he  interweaves  Plutarch's  biographies  of 
Brutus  and  Antony  with  his  hfe  of  Cffisar.  Brutus's  fate 
rather  than  Caesar's  is  his  leading  concern.  Under  the 
vivifying  force  of  Shakespeare's  genius  Plutarch's  person- 
ages and  facts  finally  acquire  a  glow  of  dramatic  fire 
which  is  all  the  dramatist's  own  gift. 

Shakespeare  plainly  hints  at  the  wide  dissemination 
of  Caesar's  tragic  story  through  dramatic  literature  when 
Shake-  he  makes  Cassius  prophesy,  in  presence  of 
MdTther     the  dictator's  bleeding  corpse  (ni.   111-114), 

plays  about 

Cajsar.  How  many  ages  hence 

ShaU  this  our  lofty  scene  be  acted  o'er 

In  states  unborn  and  accents  yet  unknown  ! 

—  a  speech  to  which  Brutus  adds  the  comment 

'How  many  times  shall  Caesar  bleed  in  sport !' 

In  'Hamlet'  (in.  ii.  108  seq.)  Shakespeare  makes  Polonius 
recall  how  he  played  the  part  of  Julius  Casar  'at  the 

]  North  followed  the  French  version  of  Jacques  Amyot  (Paris,  1550), 
which  made  Plutarch's  Lives  a  standard  French  work.    Montaigne, 
who  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Plutarch,  caUed  Amyot's  rendering 
our  breviary.' 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  335 

University'  and  how  he  was  killed  by  Brutus  in  the 
Capitol.  Yet,  in  spite  of  his  recognition  of  pre-existing 
dramatic  Hterature  on  the  subject,  no  clear  trace  is  found 
in  Shakespeare's  tragedy  of  indebtedness  to  any  of  his 
dramatic  forerunners.  In  England  Caesar's  struggle 
with  Pompey  had  been  pressed  into  the  earlier  service  of 
drama  quite  as  frequently  as  his  overthrow,  and  that 
episode  in  Caesar's  life  Shakespeare  well-nigh  ignored.^ 

Shakespeare's  piece  is  a  penetrating  study  of  political 
life.    Brutus,  whose  family  traditions  compel  in  him  de- 
votion to  the  cause  of  political  liberty,  allows 
himseK  to  be  persuaded  to  head  a  revolution ;  fp^^l-s 
but  his  gentle  and  philosophic  temper  engenders  political 
scruples  of  conscience  which  spell  failure  in  the  '"^"^ 
stormy  crisis.     In  Cassius,  the  man  of  action,  an  honest 
abhorrence  of  political  tyranny  is  freed  from  any  punctili- 
ous sense  of  honour.     Casca,  the  third  conspirator,  is  an 
aristocratic  liberal  poHtician  with  a  breezy  contempt  for 
the  mob.     Mark  Antony,  the  pleasure-seeker,  is  meta- 
morphosed into  a  statesman  —  decisive  and  eloquent  — 
by  the  shock  of  the  murder  of  Cssar,  his  uncle  and 
benefactor.     The  death  and  funeral  of  Caesar  form  the 
central  episode  of  the  tragedy,  and  no  previous  dramatist 
pursued  the  story  beyond  the  outcry  of  the  Roman  popu- 
lace against  Caesar's  assassins.     Shakespeare  alone  among 
playwrights  carries  on  the  historic  episode  to  the  defeat 
and  suicide  of  the  leading  conspirators  at  the  battle  of 
Philippi.  " 

'  Most  of  the  early  English  plays  on  Caesar's  history  are  lost.  Such 
was  the  fate  of  a  play  called  Julius  Ccssar  acted  before  Queen  Elizabeth 
in  February  1562  (Machyn's  Diary) ;  of  The  History  of  CcBsar  and  Pom- 
pey which  was  popular  in  London  about  1580  (Gosson's  Plays  Confuted, 
1581);  of  a  Latin  drama  called  Casar  Interfectus  by  Richard  Eades, 
which  was  acted  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  in  1582,  and  may  be  the 
university  piece  cited  by  Polonius;  of  Cesar  and  Pompey  ('Seser  and 
Pompie')  which  was  produced  by  Henslowe  and  the  Admiral's  com- 
pany on  November  8,  1594,  and  of  the  second  part  of  Ccesar  {the  2  pte 
of  Sesore)  which  was  similarly  produced  on  June  18,  1595.  Surviving 
plays  of  the  epoch  in  which  Cffisq,r  figures  were  produced  after  Shake- 
speare's tragedy,  e.g.  William  Alexander,  Earl  of  Stirling's  Julius  Cesar 
(1604)  and  George  Chapman's  Cesar  and  Pompey  (1614?). 


336  WitLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  peril  of  dramatic  anticlimax  in  relegating  Cfesaf's 
assassination  to  the  middle  distance  is  subtly  averted  in 
His  con-  Shakespeare's  play  by  the  double  and  some- 
ception  of  what  ironical  process  of  belittHng,  on  the  one 
^^^^-  hand,  Caesar's  stature  in  his  last  days  of  life, 
and  of  magnifying,  on  the  other  hand,  the  spiritual  in- 
fluence of  his  name  after  death.  The  dramatist  divests 
Caesar  of  most  of  his  heroic  attributes;  his  dominant 
personality  is  seen  to  be  sinking  from  the  outset  under 
the  burden  of  physical  and  moral  weakness.  Yet  his 
exalted  posthumous  fame  supplies  an  efl&cient  motive  for 
the  scenes  which  succeed  his  death.  'Thou  art  mighty 
yet,  thy  spirit  walks  abroad,'  the  words  which  spring  to 
the  lips  of  the  dying  Brutus,  supply  the  key  to  the 
dramatic  equipoise,  which  Shakespeare  maintains  to  the 
end.  The  fifth  act,  which  presents  the  battle  of  Philippi 
in  progress,  proves  ineffective  on  the  stage,  but  the 
reader  never  relaxes  his  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  the 
vanquished  Brutus,  whose  death  is  the  catastrophe. 

The  pronounced  success  of  'Julius  Cassar '  in  the  theatre 
is  strongly  corroborated  by  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  a 
A  rival  rival  manager  to  supplant  it  in  pubhc  favour 
piece.  ^,y  another  piece  on  the  same  popular  theme. 
In  1602  Henslowe  brought  together  a  band  of  distin- 
guished authors,  Anthony  Munday,  Michael  Drayton, 
John  Webster,  Thomas  Middleton,  and  others,  and  com- 
missioned them  to  produce  'a  book  called  "Caesar's 
Fall."'  The  manager  advanced  to  the  syndicate  the 
sum  of  5/.  on  May  22,  1602.  Nothing  else  is  known  of 
the  design. 

The  theatrical  world  was  meantime  gravely  disturbed 
by  critical  incidents  which  only  remotely  involved  literary 
The  Lord  ^^^^^^-  While  'JuKus  Caesar'  was  winning  its 
Mayor  first  laurels  on  the  stage,  the  fortunes  of  the 
&LtiL  London  theatres  were  menaced  by  two  mani- 
festations of  unreasoning  prejudice  on  the  part 
of  the  public.  The  earher  manifestation,  although 
speciously  serious,  was  in  effect  innocuous.    The  Puri- 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  337 

tans  oi  the  City  had  long  agitated  for  the  suppression 
of  all  theatrical  performances,  whether  in  London 
or  its  environs.  But  the  Privy  Council  stood  by  the 
players  and  declined  to  sanction  the  restrictive  by- 
laws for  which  the  Corporation  from  time  to  time 
pressed.  The  flames  of  the  municipal  agitation  had 
burnt  briskly,  if  without  genuine  effect,  on  the  eve  of 
Shakespeare's  arrival  in  London.  The  outcry  gradu- 
ally subsided,  although  the  puritan  suspicions  were  not 
dead.  After  some  years  of  comparative  inaction  the 
civic  authorities  inaugurated  at  the  end  of  1596  a  fresh 
and  embittered  campaign  against  the  players.  The 
puritanic  Lord  Cobham  then  entered  on  his  short  tenure 
of  office  as  Lord  Chamberlain.  His  predecessor  Lord 
Hunsdon  was  a  warm  friend  of  the  actors,  and  until 
his  death  the  staunch  patron  of  Shakespeare's  company. 
In  the  autumn  of  1596  Thomas  Nashe,  the  dramatist 
and  satirist,  sadly  wrote  to  a  friend:  'The  players  are 
piteously  persecuted  by  the  lord  mayor  and  aldermen, 
and  however  in  their  old  Lord's  [the  late  Lord  Huns- 
don's]  time  they  thought  their  state  settled,  'tis  now  so 
uncertain  they  cannot  build  upon  it.'  The  melancholy 
prophecy  soon  seemed  on  perilous  point  of  fulfilment. 
On  July  28,  1597,  the  Privy  Council,  contrary  to  its 
wonted  policy,  ordered,  at  the  Lord  Mayor's  invitation, 
all  playhouses  within  a  radius  of  three  miles  to  be  pulled 
down.  Happily  the  Council  was  in  no  earnest  mood. 
It  suffered  its  drastic  order  to  remain  a  dead  letter,  and 
soon  bestowed  on  the  profession  fresh  marks  of  favour. 
Next  year  (February  19,  1597-8)  the  Council  specifically 
acknowledged  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  Lord  Ad- 
miral's and  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  companies,^  and  when 
on  July  19,  1598,  the  vestry  of  St.  Saviour's  parish, 
Southwark,   repeated   the   City    Corporation's   protest 

'  Acts  of  the  Privy  Council,  1597-8,  p.  327-  The  two  companies  were 
described  as  alone  entitled  to  perform  at  Court,  and  'athird  company' 
(which  was  not  more  distinctly  named)  was  warned  against  encroaching 
on  their  rights. 


338  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

and  urged  the  Council  to  suppress  the  playhouses  on  the' 
Bankside,  a  deaf  ear  was  turned  officially  to  the  appeal. 
The  Master  of  the  Revels  merely  joined  with  two  prom- 
inent members  of  the  Council,  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury and  the  Bishop  of  London,  in  an  endeavour  to 
soften  the  vestry's  heart,  not  by  attacking  the  offending 
theatres,  but  by  arranging  with  the  Southwark  players 
to  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  poor  of  the  parish. 
The  Council  appeared  to  be  deliberately  treading  paths 
of  conciliation  or  mediation  in  the  best  interest  of  the 
players.  None  the  less  the  renewed  agitation  of  the 
Lord  Mayor  and  his  colleagues  failed  to  abate,  and  in 
the  summer  of  1600  the  Privy  Council  seemed  to  threaten 
under  pressure  a  reversal  of  its  complacent  policy.  On 
June  22,  1600,  the  Council  issued  to  the  officers  of  the 
Corporation  of  London  and  to  the  justices  of  the  peace 
The  Privy  of  Middlesex  and  Surrey  an  order  restraining 
Council  'the  immoderate  use  and  company  of  play- 
jiLr^,  houses  and  players.'  Two  acting  companies 
1600.  —  tf^g  Lord  Admiral's  and  the  Lord  Chamber- 

lain's —  were  alone  to  be  suffered  to  perform  in  London, 
and  only  two  playhouses  were  to  be  allowed  to  continue 
work  — ■  one  in  Middlesex  (the  '  Fortune '  in  Cripplegate, 
AUeyn's  new  playhouse  then  in  course  of  building),  and 
the  other  in  Surrey  (the  'Globe'  on  the  Bankside). 
The  'Curtain'  was  to  be  pulled  down.  All  stage  plays 
were  to  be  forbidden  'in  any  common  irm  for  public 
assembly  in  or  near  about  the  city'  and  the  prohibition 
was  interpreted  to  extend  to  the  'private'  playhouses 
of  the  Blackfriars  and  St.  Paul's,  which  were  occupied 
by  boy  actors.  The  two  privileged  companies  were, 
moreover,  only  to  perform  twice  a  week,  and  their 
theatres  were  to  be  closed  on  the  Sabbath  day,  during- 
Lent,  and  in  times  of  'extraordinary  sickness'  in  or 
about  the  City.^  The  contemplated  restrictions  were 
likely,  if  carried  out,  to  deprive  a  large  number  of  actors 
of  employment,  to  drive  others  into  the  provinces  where 
'  dels  of  the  Privy  Council,  1599-1600,  pp.  395-8, 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  339 

their  livelihood  was  always  precarious,  and  seriously  to 
fetter  the  activities  of  the  few  actors  who  were  specially 
excepted  from  the  bulk  of  the  new  regulations.  The 
decree  promised  Shakespeare's  company  a  certain  relief 
from  competition,  but  the  price  was  high.  Not  only 
was  their  regular  employment  to-be  arbitrarily  dimin- 
ished, but  they  were  to  make  a  humiliating  submission  to 
the  vexatious  prejudices  of  a  narrow  clique. 

Genuine  alarm  was  created  in  the  profession  by  the 
Privy  Coimcil's  action;  but  fortunately  the  sound  and 
fury  came  to  Httle.  What  was  the  intention  of  the 
Council  must  remain  matter  for  conjecture.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  neither  the  municipal  authorities  nor  the 
magistrates  of  Surrey  and  Middlesex,  to  all  of  whom  the 
Privy  Council  addressed  itself,  made  any  attempt  to 
put  the  stringent  decree  into  operation,  and  the  Privy 
Council  was  quite  ready  to  let  it  sleep.  All  the  London 
theatres  that  were  already  in  existence  went  on  their  way 
unchecked.  The  innyards  continued  to  be  applied  to 
^  theatrical  uses.  The  London  companies  saw  no  decrease 
in  their  numbers,  and  performances  followed  one  another 
day  after  day  without  interruption.  But  so  solemn  a 
threat  of  legal  interference  bred  for  a  time  anxiety  in 
the  profession,  and  the  year  1601  was  a  period  of  sus- 
pense among  men  of  Shakespeare's  calUng.^ 

More  calamitous  was  a  temporary  reverse  of  fortune 
which  Shakespeare's  company,  in  common  with  some 
other  companies  of  adult  actors,  suffered,  as  the  new 

*  On  December  31,  1601,  the  Lords  of  the  Council  sent  letters  to  the 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  and  to  the  magistrates  of  Surrey  and  Middle;sex 
,  expressing  their  surprise  that  no  steps  had  yet  been  taken  to  limit  the 
f  number  of  playhouses  in  accordance  with  'our  order  set  down  and 
prescribed  about  a  year  and  a  half  since.'  But  nothing  followed  during 
Shakespeare's  lifetime,  and  no  more  was  heard  officially  of  the  Council's 
order  until  1619,  when  the  Corporation  of  London  called  attention  to 
its  practical  abrogation  at  the  same  time  as  they  directed  the  suppres- 
sion (which  was  not  carried  out)  of  the  Blackfriars  theatre.  All_  the 
documents  on  this  subject  are  printed  from  the  Privy  Council  Register 
by  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  307-9.  They  are  well  digested  in  Dr.  V.  C. 
Gildersleeve's  Government  Regulation  of  the  Elizabethan  Drama  (New 
York,  1908,  pp.  178  seq.). 


340  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

century  dawned,  at  the  hands,  not  of  fanatical  enemies 
of  the  drama,  but  of  play-goers  who  were 
bitwfen'^  its  avowed  supporters.  The  coinpany  of  boy 
adult  and  actors,  recruitcd  from  the  choristers  of  tlie 
oy  actors,  ^-.j^^p^j  Royal,  and  known  as  '  the  Children  of 
the  Chapel,'  was  in  the  autumn  of  1600  firmly  installed  at 
the  new  theatre  in  Blackfriars,  and  near  the  same  date  a 
second  company  of  boy  actors,  which  was  formed  of  the 
choristers  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  re-opened,  after  a 
five  years'  interval,  its  private  playhouse  within  the 
cathedral  precincts.  Through  the  winter  season  of 
1600-1  the  fortunes  of  the  veterans,  who  occupied  the 
public  or  'common'  stages  of  London,  were  put  in 
jeopardy  by  the  extravagant  outburst  of  public  favour 
evoked  by  the  performances  of  the  two  companies  of 
boys.  Dramatists  of  the  first  rank  placed  their  services 
at  the  boys'  disposal.  Ben  Jonson  and  George  Chap- 
man, whose  dramatic  work  was  rich  in  comic  strength, 
were  active  in  the  service  of  the  Children  of  the 
Chapel  at  the  Blackfriars  theatre,  while  John  Marston, 
a  playTvright  who  promised  to  excel  in  romantic  tragedy, 
allowed  his  earliest  and  best  plays  to  be  interpreted  for 
the  first  time  by  the  'Children  of  Paules.'  The  boy 
actors  included  in  their  ranks  at  the  time  performers  of 
exceptional  promise.  Three  of  the  Chapel  Children, 
Nathaniel  Field,  WiUiam  Ostler,  and  John  Underwood, 
who  won  their  first  laurels  during  the  memorable  season 
of  1600-1,  joined  in  manhood  Shakespeare's  company, 
while  a  fourth  child  actor  of  the  period,  SalatHiel  Pavy, 
who  died  prematurely,  still  fives  in  Ben  Jonson's  pathetic 
,  elegy,  where  the  poet  plays  with  the  fancy  that  the  boy 
rendered  old  men's  parts  so  perfectly  as  to  give  Death  a 
wrong  impression  of  his  true  age. 

Many  references  in  plays  of  the  period  bear  witness 
to  the  loss  of  popular  favour  and  of  pecuniary  profit 
which  the  boys'  triumphs  cost  their  professional  seniors. 
Ben  Jonson,  in  his  'Poetaster,'  puts  in  the  mouth  of  one 
of  his  characters 'Histrio,  the  actor,'  the  statement  that 


MATURITY  OF   GENroS  341 

the  winter  of  1600-1  'hath  made  us  all  poorer  than  so 
many  starved  snakes.'     'Nobody,'  the  discon-  shake- 
solate  player  adds,  '  comes  at  us,  not  a  gentle-  speare  on 

man  nor  a . '  ^    The  most  graphic  account  of  seLon"'^"^ 

the  actors'  misfortunes  figures  in  Shakespeare's  ^^°°-^- 
tragedy  of  'Hamlet,'  which  was  first  sent  to  press  in  an 
imperfect  draft  in  the  year  1602.^  'The  tragedians  of 
the  city,'  in  whom  Hamlet  was  'wont  to  take  such 
deUght,'  are  represented  as  visiting  Elsinore  on  a  pro- 
vincial tour.  Hamlet  expresses  surprise  that  they 
should  travel,'  seeing  that  the  town  brought  actors 
greater  'reputation  and  profit'  than  the  country.  But 
the  explanation  is  offered : 

;     y  faith,  my  lord,  noveltie  carries  it  away, 
For  the  principal  publike  audience  that 
Came  to  them  [i.e.  the  old  actors]  are  turned  to  private  playes 
And  to  the  humours  of  children.' 

The  public  no  longer  (Hamlet  learns)  held  the  actors  in 
'the  same  estimation'  as  in  former  years.  There  was 
no  falling  off  in  their  efficiency,  but  they  were  out- 
matched by  '  an  aery  [i.e.  nest]  of  children,  httle  eyases 
[i.e.  yoimg  hawks],'  who  dominated  the  theatrical  world, 
and  monopoUsed  public  applause.     '  These  are  now  the 

'  Poetasler,  ed.  Mallory,  rv.  iii.  345-7. 

'  Only  the  First  Folio  Version  of  1623  supplies  Shakespeare's  full 
comment  on  the  subject :  see  act  n.  sc.  ii.  348-394.  Both  the  First  and 
the  Second  Quarto  notice  the  misfortunes  of  the  'tragedians  of  the 
city'  very  briefly.  To  the  ten  lines  which  the  quartos  furnish  the  First 
Folio  adds  twenty. 

'  These  Unas  are  peculiar  to  the  First  Quarto.  In  the  Second  Quarto 
and  in  the  First  FoUo  they  are  replaced  by  the  sentence  'I  think  their 
[i.e.  the  old  actors']  inhibition  comes  by  the  means  of  the  late  innovation.' 
Many  commentators  follow  Steevens  in  interpreting  the  'late  innova- 
tion' of  the  later  Hamlet  texts  as  the  order  of  the  Privy  Council  of  June 
1600,  restricting  the  number  of  the  London  playhouses  to  two  and  otherr 
wise  prejudicing  the  actors'  freedom ;  but  that  order  was  never  put  in 
force,  and  in  no  way  affected  the  actors'  fortunes.  The  First  Quarto 
text  makes  it  clear  that  'the  late  innovation'  to  which  the  players'  mis- 
fortunes were  assigned  in  the  later  texts  was  the  'iiovdtie'  of  the  boys' 
performances.  'Private  plays'  were  plays  at  private  theatres  —the 
^class  of  playhouse  to  which  both  the  Blackfriars  and  Paul's  theatres 
belonged  (see  p.  67). 


342  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

fashion,'  the  dramatist  lamented,  and  he  made  the  com- 
mon players'  forfeiture  of  popularity  the  text  of  a  re- 
flection on  the  fickleness  of  pubhc  taste : 

Hamlet.     Do  the  boys  carry  it  away? 

RosENCRANTZ.     Ay,  that  they  do,  my  lord,  Hercules  and  his  load  too. 

Hamlet.  It  is  not  very  strange;  for  my  uncle  is  King  of  Denmark, 
and  those  that  would  make  mows  at  him  while  my  father  lived,  give 
twenty,  forty,  fifty,  a  hundred  dudats  apiece  for  his  picture  in  little.' 

The  difficulties  of  the  actors  in  the  pubhc  theatres 
were  greatly  accentuated  by  a  heated  controversy  which 

burnt  very  briskly  in  1601  among  the  drama- 
sh^reia°'^^  tists,  and  involved  Shakespeare's  company 
jonson's  and  to  some  extent  Shakespeare  himself.  The 
control  boys'  notoriety  and  success  were  signally 
^^'a^^'fi       increased  by  personal  dissensions  among  the 

pla3rwrights.  As  early  as  1598  John  Marston 
made  a  sharp  attack  on  Ben  Jonson's  hterary  style, 
opening  the  campaign  in  His  satire  entitled  '  The  Scourge 
of  Villanie,'  and  quickly  developing  it  in  his  play  of 
'Histriomastix.'  Jonson  soon  retahated  by  lampoon- 
ing Marston  and  his  friends  on  the  stage.  Each  pro- 
tagonist was  at  the  time  a  newcomer  in  the  Hterary  field, 
and  the  charges  which  they  brought  against  each  other 
were  no  more  heinous  than  that  of  penning  'fustian' 
or  of  inventing  awkward  neologisms.  Yet  they  quickly 
managed  to  divide  the  plajrwrights  of  the  day  into  two  hos- 
tile camps,  and  pubHc  interest  fastened  on  their  recrimina- 
tions. Ben  Jonson's  range  of  attack  came  to  cover 
dramatists,  actors,  courtiers,  or  citizens  who  either  failed 
to  declare  themselves  on  his  side  or  professed  indifference 
to  the  quarrel.  This  war  of  personaHties  raged  confusedly 
for  three  years,  reaching  its  cHmax  in  1601.  Shake- 
speare's company  and  both  the  companies  of  the  boys 
were  pressed  by  one  or  the  other  party  into  the  strife, 
and  the  intervention  of  the  Children  of  the  Chapel  gave 
them  an  immense  advantage  over  the  occupants  of 
rival  stages. 

'  Hamlet,  n.  ii.  349-64, 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  343 

In  the  initial  phases  of  the  campaign  Shakespeare's 
company  lent  Jonson  its  countenance.     The  assault  on 
Jonson  which  Marston  inaugurated  in  his  book  .jjistrio 
of  satires,  he  continued  with  the  aid  of  friends  mastix,' 
in  the  play  involving  varied   personal   issues  '^**' 
called  'Histriomastix  or  the  Player  Whipt.'  ^    The  St. 
Paul's   boys,   who  were    producing   Marston's  serious 
dramatic  work  at  the  time,  were  apparently  responsible 
for  the  early  performances  of  this  lumbering  piece  of 
irony.    Jonson  weightily  retorted  in  1599  in  his  com- 
prehensive social  satire  of  'Every  Man  out  of  'Every 
his  Humour,'  and  Shakespeare's  company  so  Man  out 
far  identified   themselves   with   the    sensitive  Humour,' 
dramatist's  cause  as  to  stage  that  comedy  at  the  ^sqq- 
Globe  theatre.     'Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour'  proved 
the  first  of  four  pieces  of  artillery  which  Jonson  brought 
into   the  field.     But   Shakespeare's   company  was   re- 
luctant to  be  dragged  further  at  Jonsoh's  heel,  and  it 
was  the  boys  at  Blackfriars  who  interpreted  the  rest 
of  his  controversial  dramas  to  the  huge  delight  of  play- 
goers who  welcomed  the  paradox  of  hearing  Ben  Jonson's 
acrid  humour  on  childish  tongues.     In  his  more  or  less 
conventional  comedy  of  intrigue  called  'The  Case  is 
Altered,'   which  the  boys  brought  out  in   1599,  four 
subsidiary  characters,  Antonio  Balladino  ^  the  pageant 

^  This  rambling  review  of  the  vices  of  contemporary  society  derided 
not  only  Ben  Jonson's  arrogance  (in  the  character  of  Chrisoganus)  but 
also  adult  actors  generally  with  their  patrons  and  their  authors.  Some 
of  the  shafts  were  calculated  to  disparage  Shakespeare's  company,  the 
best  organised  troop  on  the  stage.  The  earliest  extant  edition  of  His- 
triomastix is  dated  1610.  But  internal  evidence  and  a  reference  which 
Jonson  made  to  it  in  his  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour,  1599  (Act  m. 
sc.  i.),  show  it  to  have  been  written  in  1598.  It  is  reprinted  in  Simpson's 
School  of  Shakspere,  ii.  i  seq. 

"  Antonio  Balladino  is  a  plain  caricature  of  Anthony  Munday,  the 
industrious  play-wright,  and,-  although  Marston's  features  are  not  recog- 
nised with  certainty  in  any  of  the  other  ludicrous  dramatis  personce,  The 
Case  is  Altered  was  held  to  score  heavily  in  Jonson's  favour  in  his  fight 
with  Marston.  According  to  the  title-page  of  the  first  edition  (1609) 
the  piece  was  'sundry  times  acted  by  the  Children  of  the  Blackfriers.' 
It  seems  to  have  beeli  the  earliest  piece  of  the  kind  which  was  entrusted 
to  the  Chapel  boys'  tender  mercies. 


344  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

poet,  Jumper  a  cobbler,  Peter  Onion  groom  of  the  hall, 
and  Pacue  a  French  page,  were  justly  suspected  of  trav- 
estying identifiable  men  of  letters.  A  year  later, 
in  1600,  Jonson  won  a  more  pronounced  success  when 
'Cynthia's  he  caused  the  Children  of  the  Chapel  to  pro- 
Revels.'  (juce  at  Blackfriars  his  'Cynthia's  Revels,' 
an  encyclopaedic  satire  on  Hterary  fashions  and  on  the 
public  taste  of  the  day.  There,  under  the  Greek  names 
of  Amorphus,  Asotus,  Hedon,  and  Anaides,  various 
Hterary  foes  were  paraded  as  laughing-stocks.  An 
'Induction'  to  the  play  takes  the  shape  of  a  pretended 
quarrel  amongst  three  of  the  actor-children  as  to  who 
shall  speak  the  prologue.  'By  this  Ught,'  the  third 
child  remarks  with  mocking  self-depreciation,  '  I  wonder 
that  any  man  is  so  mad  to  come  and  see  these  rascally 
tits  play  here '  ^ ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  sting  of 
Jonson's  taunts  lost  nothing  on  the  boys'  precocious  lips. 
There  is  some  ground  for  assuming  that  the  Children 
'Jack  of  Paul's  replied  without  delay  to  'Cynthia's 

Drum's  Revels'  in  an  anonymous  piece  called  'Jack 
men"'*™"  Drum's  Entertainment,  or  the  Comedie  of 
1601.  Pasquil,'  where  a  story  of  intrigue  is  interwoven 

with  mordant  parodies  of  Jonson's  foibles.^    Meanwhile 

^  The  author,  in  the  person  of  Crites,  one  of  the  characters,  shrewdly 
argues  that  fantastic  vanity  and  futile  self-conceit  are  the  springs '.of 
all  fashionable  drama  and  poetry.  Incidental  compliments  to  Queen 
Elizabeth,  who  was  represented  as  presiding  over  the  literary  revels 
in  her  familiar  poetic  name  of  Cynthia,  increased  the  play's  vogue. 

'  In  'The  Introduction'  of  Jack  Drum's  Entertainment,  one  of  the 
children,  parodjdng  Jonson's  manner,  promises  the  audience  not  to 

torment  ,.  ^    . 

your  listenmg  eares 
With  mouldie  fopperies  of  stale  Poetrie, 
XJnpossible  drie  mustie  fictions. 

Elsewhere  in  the  piece  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  gentility  and  refined 
manners  of  the  audience  for  which  the  St.  Paul's  boys  catered,  as  com- 
pared with  the  roughness  and  boorishness  of  the  frequenters  of  the 
adult  actors'  theatres.  The  success  of  the  'children'  is  assigned  to 
that  advantage  rather  than  to  their  histrionic  superiority  over  the  men. 
Jack  Drum's  Entertainment,  which  was  published  in  1601,  would  seem 
to  be  the  work  of  a  criticsil  onlooker  of  the  pending  controversy  who 
detectfed_  faults  on  both  sides,  but  deemed  Jonson  the  chief  offender. 
See  reprint  in  Simpson's  School  0}  Shakspere,  ii.  igp  et  passim. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  345 

the  rumour  spread  that  Marston  and  Dekker,  who 
deemed  themselves  specially  maligned  by  'Cynthia's 
Revels,'  were  planning  a  bolder  revenge  at  the  Globe 
theatre.  Jonson  forestalled  the  blow  by  completing 
within  fifteen  weeks  a  fourth  'comical  satire'  which  he 
called  'Poetaster,  or  his  arraignment.'  This  'Poetas- 
new  attack,  which  the  boys  dfelivered  at  Black-  *^''''  ^*°^- 
friars  early  in  1601,  was  framed  in  a  classical  mould.^ 
The  main  theme  ^  caustically  presents  the  poet  Horace 
as  pestered  by  the  importunities  of  the  poetaster  Cris- 
pinus  and  his  friend  Demetrius.  Horace  finally  ar- 
raigned his  two  tormentors  before  Csesar  on  a  charge  of 
defamation,  in  that  they  had  'taxed'  him  falsely  of  'self- 
love,  arrogancy,  impudence,  railing,  and  filching  by 
translation.'  Virgil  was  summoned  by  Caesar  to  sit 
with  other  Latin  poets  in  judgment  on  these  accusations. 
A  triumphant  acquittal  of  Horace  follows,  and  the 
respondents  are  convicted  of  malicious  libel.  Demetrius 
admits  the  offence,  while  Crispinus,  who  is  sentenced 
to  drink  a  dose  of  hellebore,  vomits  with  Rabelaisian 
realism  a  multitude  of  cacophonous  words  to  which  he 
has  given  literary  currency.  Although  the  identifica- 
tion of  many  of  .the  personages  of  the  'Poetaster'  is  open 
to  question,  Jonson  himself,  Marston,  and  Dekker  stand 
confessed  beneath  the  names  respectively  of  Horace, 
Crispinus,  and  Demetrius.  In  subsidiary  scenes  Histrio, 
an  adult  actor,  was  held  up  to  scornful  ridicule  and  else- 
where lawyers  were  roughly  handled.  Ben  Jonson  put 
httle  restraint  on  his  temper,  and  the  boys  once  again 
proved  equal  to  their  interpretative  functions. 

'  In  the  words  of  the  prologue,  Jonson 

chose  Augustus  Cassar's  times 
When  wit  and  arts  were  at  their  height  in  Rome; 
To  show  that  Virgjl,  Horace,  and  the  rest 
Of  those  great  master-spirits  did  not  want 
Detractors  then  or  practisers  against  them. 

"A  subsidiary  thread  of  interest  was  innocuously  wrought  out  of 
the  familiar  tale  of  the  poet  Ovid's  amours  and  exile,  while  brisk  sketches 
were  furnished  of  Ovid's  literary  contemporaries,  TibuUus,  Propertius, 
and  other  well-known  Roman  writers. 


346  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Clumsy  yet  effective  retaliation  was  provided  without 
delay  by  the  players  of  Shakespeare's  company.  They, 

'  answered '  Jonson  and  his  '  company  of  horrible' 
'Satire-^  blackfryers'  'at  their  own  weapons,'  by  pro- 
mastix,'       ducing  after  a  brief  interval  a  violent  piece 

of  'detraction'  by  Dekker  called  ' Satirotnastix, 
or  the  Un trussing  of  the  Humourous  Poet.'  ^  Amid  an 
irrelevant  story  of  romantic,  intrigue  all  the  polemical 
extravagances  of  the  'Poetaster'  were  here  parodied  at 
Jonson's  expense  with  brutal  coarseness.  Jonson's  per- 
sonal appearance  and  habits  were  offensively  analysed, 
and  he  was  ultimately  crowned  with  a  garland  of  sting- 
ing nettles.  '  The  Children  of  Paul's '  —  who  were  the 
persistent  rivals  of  the  Chapel  Children  —  eagerly  aided 
the  men  actors  in  this  strenuous  endeavour  to  bring 
Jonson  to  book.  '  Satiromastix '  was  produced  in  the 
private  playhouse  of  Paul's  soon  after  it  appeared  at  the 
Globe.^  The  issue  of  this  wide  publicity  was  happier 
than  might  have  been  expected.  The  fooUsh  and  freak- 
ish controversy  received  its  deathblow.  Jonson  peace- 
The  end  ^^^^^  accepted  a  warning  from  the  authorities 
of  the  to  refrain  from  further  hostilities,  and  his  op- 
fg'^^l^^''^'^'  ponents  readily  came  to  terms  with  him.    He 

was  soon  writing  for  Shakespeare's  company  a 
new  tragedy,  'Sejanus'  (1603),  in  which  Shakespeare 
played  a  part.  Marston,  in  dignified  Latin  prose, 
dedicated  to  him  his  next  play,  'The  Malcontent'  (1604), 
and  the  two  gladiators  thereupon  joined  forces  with 
Chapman  in  the  composition  of  a  third  piece,  'Eastward 
Ho'  (1605). 3 

*  This  piece  was  licensed  for  the  press  on  November  11,  1601,  which 
was  probably  near  the  date  of  its  first  performance.  The  epilogue 
makes  a  reference  to  'this  cold  weather.' 

'  On  the  title-page  of  the  first  edition  (1602)  Satiromastix  is  stated 
to  have  'bin  presented  publikely  by  the  Right  Honorable,  the  Lord 
Chamberlaine  his  Seruants  and  priuately  by  the  children  of  Paulas.' 

'  Much  ingenuity  has  been  expended  on  the  interpretation  of  the 
many  personal  allusions  scattered  broadcast  through  the  various  plays 
in  which  the  dramatic  poets  fought  out  their  battle.  Save  in  the  few 
mstances  which  are  cited  above,  the  application  of  the  personal  gibes 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  347 

The   most   material   effect   of   'that   terrible   poeto- 
machia'  (to  use  Dekker's  language)  was  to  stimulate  the 
vogue  of  the  children.     Playgoers  took  sides  in  gj^^tg. 
the  struggle,  and  their  attention  was  for  the  speare 
season  of  1600-1  riveted,  to  the  exclusion  of  ^poeto-^ 
topics  more  germane  to  their  province,  on  the  machia.' 
actors'  and  dramatists'  boisterous  war  of  personalities.^ 

It  is  not  easy  to  trace  Shakespeare's  personal  course 
of  action  through  this  '  war  of  high  words '  —  which  he 
stigmatised  in  'Hamlet'  as  a  'throwing  about  of  brains.' 
It  is  only  on  collateral  incidents  of  the  petty  strife  that 

is  rarely  quite  certain.  Ben  Jonson  would  seem  at  times  to  have  inten- 
tionally disguised  his  aim  by  crediting  one  or  other  subsidiary  character 
in  his  plays  with  traits  belonging  to  more  persons  than  one.  Nor  did 
he  confine  his  attack  to  dramatists.  He  hit  out  freely  at  men  who  had 
offended  him  in  all  ranks  and  professions.  The  meaning  of  the  con- 
troversial sallies  has  been  very  thoroughly  discussed  in  Mr.  Josiah  H. 
Penniman's  The  War  of  the  Theatres  (Series  in  Philology,  Literature  and 
Archseology,  Univ.  of  Pennsylvania,  1897,  iv.  3)  and  in  his  introduction 
to  Ben  Jonson's  Poetaster  and  Dekker's  Satiromastix  in  Belles-Lettres 
Series  (1912),  as  well  as  by  H.  C.  Hart  in  Notes  and  Queries,  Series  IX. 
vols.  II  and  12  passim,  and  in  Roscoe  A.  Small's  'The  Stage  Quarrel 
between  Ben  Jonson  and  the  so-called  Poetasters'  in  Forschungen  zur 
EngUschen  Sprache  und  Litteratur,  iSgg.  Useful  reprints  of  the  rare 
plays  Histriomastix  (iSq8)  and  Jack  Drum's  Entertainment  (1601)  figure 
in  Simpson's  School  of  Shakspere,  but  the  conclusion  regarding  the  poets' 
warfare  reached  in  the  prefatory  comments  there  is  not  very  convincing. 
^  Throughout  the  year  1601  offensive  personalities  seem  to  have  in- 
fected all  the  London  theatres.  On  May  10,  1601,  the  Privy  Council 
called  the  attention  of  the  Middlesex  magistrates  to  the  abuse  covertly 
levelled  by  the  actors  of  the  'Curtain'  at  gentlemen  'of  good  desert  and 
quaUty,  and  directed  the  magistrates  to  examine  all  plays  before  they 
were  produced'  {Privy  Council  Register).  Jonson  subsequently  issued 
an  'apologetical  dialogue'  (appended  to  printed  copies  o^  the  Poetaster), 
in  wHch  he  somewhat  truculently  qualified  his  hostility  to  the  players 
of  the  common  stages : 

Now  for  the  players  'tis  true  I  tax'd  them 

And  yet  but  some,  and  those  so  sparingly 

As  all  the  rest  might  have  sat  still  unquestioned, 

Had  they  but  had  the  wit  or  conscience 

To  think  well  of  themselves.     But  unpotent  they 

Thought  each  man's  vice  belonged  to  their  whole  tribe ;  _ 

And  much  good  do  it  them.    What  they  have  done  against  me 

I  am  not  moved  with,  if  it  gave  them  meat 

Or  got  them  cjothes,  'tis  weU;  that  was  their  end, 

Only  amongst  them  I  am  sorry  for 

Some  better  natures  by  the  rest  so  drawn 

To  run  in  that  vile  line. 


348  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

he  has  left  any  clearly  expressed  view,  but  he  obviously 
Shake-  resented  the  enlistment  of  the  children  in  the 
speare's  campaign  of  virulence.  In  his  play  of  '  Ham- 
to  thT*^^^  let'  he  protested  vigorously  against  the  abu- 
struggie.  gjvg  speech  which  Jonson  and  his  satellites 
contrived  that  the  children's  mouths  should  level  at  the 
men  actors  of  'the  common  stages,'  or  public  theatres. 
Rosencrantz  declared  that  the  children  'so  berattle  [i.e. 
assail]  the  common  stages  —  so  they  call  them  —  that 
many  wearing  rapiers  are  afraid  of  goose-quiUs,  and 
dare  scarce  come  thither  [i.e.  to  the  public  tiieatres].'  ^ 
Pursuing  the  theme,  Hamlet  pointed  out  that  the  writers 
who  encouraged  the  precocious  insolence  of  the  'child 
actors'  did  them  a  poor  service,  because  when  the  boys 
should  reach  men's  estate  they  would  run  the  risk,  if 
they  continued  on  the  stage,  of  the  same  insults  and 
neglect  with  which  they  now  threatened  their  seniors. 

Hamlet.  What,  are  they  children?  who  maintains  'em?  how  are 
they  escoted?  [i.e.  paid].  Will  they  pursue  the  quality  [i.e.  the  actor's 
profession]  no  longer  than  they  can  sing?  will  they  not  say  afterwards, 
if  they  should  grow  themselves  to  common  players  —  as  it  is  most  like, 
if  their  means  are  no  better  —  their  writers  do  them  wrong,  to  make 
them  exclaim  against  their  own  succession? 

Rosencrantz.  Faith,  there  has  been  much  to  do  on  both  sides; 
and  the  nation  holds  it  no  sin  to  tarre  [i.e.  incite]  them  to  controversy : 
there  was,  for  a  while,  no  money  bid  for  argument,  unless  the  poet  and 
the  player  went  to  cuffs  in  the  question. 

Hamlet.    Is  it  possible? 

GtriLDENSTEEN.    O,  there  has  been  much  throwing  about  of  brains ! 

Shakespeare  was  not  alone  among  the  dramatists  in  his 
Thomas  emphatic  expression  of  regret  that  the  boys 
Haywood  should  have  been  pressed  into  the  futile  warfare. 
ShSfe-  Thomas  Heywood,  the  actor-pla3rwright  who 
speare's  shared  Shakespeare's  professional  sentiments 
^'°  ^^  ■  as  well  as  his  professional  experiences,  echoed 
Hamlet's  shrewd' comments  when  he  wrote :  'The  liberty 

^  Jonson  in  Cynthia's  Revels  (Induction)  applies  the  term  'common 
stages'  to  the  public  theatres.  'Goosequilian'  is' the  epithet  applied 
to  Posthast,  an  actor-dramatist  who  is  a  character  in  Hiskiomastix 
(seep.  343  supra). 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  349 

(vhich  some  arrogate  to  themselves,  committing  their 
Ditternesse,  and  liberall  invectives  against  all  estates, 
to  the  mouthes  of  children,  supposing  their  juniority  to 
3e  a  privilegde  for  any  rayling,  be  it  never  so  violent,  I 
:ould  advise  all  such  to  curb  and  limit  this  presumed 
Liberty  within  the  bands  of  discretion  and  government.'  ^ 

While  Shakespeare  thus  sided  on  enUghtened  grounds 
with  the  adult  actors  in  their  professional  competition 
with  the  boys,  he  would  seem  to  have  watched  shake- 
Ben  Jonson's  personal  strife  both  with  fellow  speare's 
luthors  and  with  actors  in  the  serene  spirit  of  a  terested 
disinterested  spectator  and  to  have  eschewed  attitude, 
any  partisan  bias.     In  the  prologue    to    'Troilus  and 
Cressida'   which   he   penned   in   1603,  he  warned   his 
bearers,  with  obvious  allusion  to  Ben  Jonson's  battles, 
that  he  hesitated  to  identify  himself  with  either  actor 
or  poet. 

Jonson  had  in  his  'Poetaster'  put  into  the  mouth  of 
his  Prologue  the  lines : 

If  any  muse  why  I  salute  the  stage, 

An  armed  Prologue ;  know,  'tis  a  dangerous  age : 

Wherein,  who  writes,  had  need  present  his  scenes 

Fortie  fold-proofe  against  the  conjuring  meanes  ' 

Of  base  detractors,  and  illiterate  apes, 

That  fill  up  roomes  in  faire  and  formall  shapes. 

'Gainst  these,  have  we  put  on  this  forc't  defence. 

In   'Troilus   and    Cressida'    Shakespeare's   Prologue 
retorted : 

Hither  am  I  come, 
A  prologue  arm'd,  but  not  in  confidence 
Of  author's  pen  or  actor's  voice,  but  suited 
In  like  conditions  as  our  argument, 

which  began  'in  the  middle'  of  the  Graeco-Trojan  'broils.' 
Passages  in  Ben  Jonson's  'Poetaster'  suggest,  more- 
over, that  Shakespeare  cultivated  so  assiduously  an 
attitude  of  neutrality  on  the  main  issues  that  Jonson 
finally  acknowledged  him  to  be  qualified  for  the  rdle  of 

'■  Heywood,  Apology  for  Actors,  1612  (Sh.  Soc),  p.  61. 


3  so  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

peacemaker.  The  gentleness  of  disposition  with  which 
Shakespeare  was  invariably  credited  by  his  friends 
would  have  well  fitted  him  for  such  an  office.  Jonson, 
vir  ■]  in  ^^°  figures  in  the  'Poetaster'  under  the  name 
jonson's  of  Horace,  joins  his  friends,  TibuUus  and  Gallus, 
'Poetaster.'  ^^  eulogising  the  work  and  genius  of  another 
character,  Virgil,  and  the  terms  whch  are  employed  so 
closely  resemble  those  which  were  popularly  applied  to 
Shakespeare  that  the  praises  of  Virgil  may  be  regarded 
as  intended  to  apply  to  the  great  dramatist  (act  v.  sc.  i.). 
Jonson  points  out  that  Virgil,  by  his  penetrating  intui- 
tion, achieved  the  great  effects  which  others  laboriously 
sought  to  reach  through  rules  of  art. 

His  learning  labours  not  the  school-like  gloss 

That  most  consists  of  echoing  words  and  terms  .  .  . 

Nor  any  long  or  far-fetched  circumstance  — 

Wrapt  in  the  curious  general  ties  of  arts  — 

But  a  direct  and  analytic  sum 

Of  all  the  worth  and  first  effects  of  arts. 

And  for  his  poesy,  'tis  so  rammed  with  life 

That  it  shall  gather  strength  of  life  with  being, 

And  live  hereafter,  more  admired  than  now. 

TibuUus  gives  Virgil  equal  credit  for  having  in  his  writ- 
ings touched  with  telling  truth  upon  every  vicissitude 
of  human  existence. 

That  which  he  hath  writ 
Is  with  such  judgment  laboured  and  distilled 
Through  all  the  needful  uses  of  our  lives 
That,  could  a  man  remember  but  his  lines, 
He  should  not  touch  at  any  serious  point 
But  he  might  breathe  his  spirit  out  of  him.^ 

Finally,  in  the  play,  Virgil,  at  Caesar's  invitation,  judges 
between  Horace  and  his  libellers,  and  it  is  he  who  ad- 

^  These  expressions  were  at  any  rate  accepted  as  applicable  to  Shake- 
speare by  the  writer  of  the  preface  to  the  dramatist's  Troilus  and  Cressida 
(1609).  The  preface  includes  the  sentences :  'this  author's  [i.e.  Shake- 
speare's] comedies  are  so  framed  to  the  life,  that  they  serve  for  the  most 
common  commentaries  of  all  the  actions  of  our  lives,  showing  such  a 
dexterity  and  power  of  wit.' 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  351 

vises  the  administration  of  purging  hellebore  to  Marston 
(Crispinus),  the  chief  offender.^ 

On  the  other  hand,  one  contemporary  witness  has 
been  held  to  testify  that  Shakespeare  stemmed  the  tide 
of  Jonson's  embittered  activity  by  no  peace- 
making interposition,  but  by  joining  his  foes,  tum  from 
and  by  administering  to  him,  with  their  aid,  Pamassus,' 
much  the  same  course  of  medicine  which  in  the 
'Poetaster'  is  meted  out  to  his  enemies.  In  the  same 
year  (1601)  as  the  'Poetaster'  was  produced,  and  before 
the  hterary  war  had  burnt  itself  out  on  the  London 
stage,  'The  Return  from  Parnassus'  —  the  last  piece  in 
a  trilogy  of  plays — ^was  'acted  by  the  students  in  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge.'  It  was  an  ironical  review 
of  the  current  Ufe  and  aspirations  of  London  poets,  actors, 
and  dramatists.  In  this  piece,  as  in  its  two  predecessors, 
Shakespeare  received,  both  as  a  pla3rwright  and  a  poet, 
much  commendation  in  his  own  name.  His  poems,  even 
if  one  character  held  that  they  reflected  somewhat  too 
largely  'love's  lazy  fooHsh  languishment,'  were  hailed 
by  others  as  the  perfect  expression  of  amorous  sentiment. 
The  actor  Burbage  was  introduced  in  his  own  name  in- 
structing an  aspirant  to  the  actor's  profession  in  the  part 
of  Richard  the  Third,  and  the  familiar  Unes  from  Shake- 
speare's play  — 

Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discontent 

Made  glorious  summer  by  tliis  sun  of  York  — 

were  recited  by  the  pupU  as  part  of  his  lesson.  Subse- 
quently, in  a  prose  dialogue  between  Shakespeare's  fel- 
low-actors Burbage  and  Kemp,  the  latter  generally  dis- 
parages university  dramatists  who  are  wont  to  air  their 
classical  learning,  and  claims  for  Shakespeare,  his  theatri- 
cal colleague,  a  complete  ascendancy  over  them.  'Why, 
here's  our  fellow  Shakespeare  puts  them  all  down  [Kemp 

1  The  proposed  identification  of  Virgil  in  the  Poetaster  with  Chap- 
man has  little  to  recommend  it.  Chapman's  literary  work  did  not 
justify  the  commendations  which  were  bestowed  on  Virgil  in  the  play. 


352  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

remarks] ;  aye,  and  Ben  Jonson,  too.  O !  that  Ben 
Jonson  is  a  pestilent  fellow.  He  brought  up  Horace, 
giving  the  poets  a  pill ;  but  our  fellow  Shakespeare  hath 
given  him  a  purge  that  made  him  bewray  his  credit.' 
Burbage  adds:  'It's  a  shrewd  fellow  indeed.'  This 
perplexing  passage  has  been  held  to  mean  that  Shake- 
speare took  a  decisive  part  against  Jonson  in  the  con- 
troversy with  Marston,  Dekker,  and  their  friends.  But 
such  a  conclusion  is  nowhere  corroborated,  and 
spe^are's  seems  to  be  confuted  by  the  eulogies  of  Virgil 
aUeged^  jn  tj^g  'Poetaster'  and  even  by  the  general 
^"'^^'  handling  of  the  theme  in  'Hamlet.'  The 
words  quoted  from  'The  Return  from  Parnassus'  may 
well  be  incapable  of,  a  Uteral  interpretation.  Probably 
the  'purge'  that  Shakespeare  was  alleged  by  the  author 
of  'The  Return  from  Parnassus'  to  have  given  Jonson 
meant  no  more  than  that  Shakespeare  had  signally 
outstripped  Jonson  in  popular  esteem.  As  the  author 
of  'Julius  Caesar,'  he  had  just  proved  his  command  of 
topics  that  were  peculiarly  suited  to  Jonson's  classicised 
vein,i  and  had  in  fact  outrun  his  churHsh  comrade  on  his 

1  The  most  scornful  criticism  that  Joifton  is  known  to  have  passed 
on  any  composition  by  Shakespeare  was  aimed  at-  a  passage  in  Jidim 
CcBsar,  and  as  Jonson's  attack  is  barely  justifiable  on  literary  grounds, 
it  is  fair  to  assume  that  the  play  was  distasteful  to  him  from  other  con- 
siderations. '  Many  times,'  Jonson  wrote  of  Shakespeare  in  his  Timber, 
'hee  fell  into  those  things  [which]  could  not  escape  laughter:  As  wlien 
hee  said  in  the  person  of  Cmsar,  one  speaking  to  him  [i.e.  Cssar] ;  Casar, 
thou  dost  me  wrong.  Hee  [i.e.  Caesar]  replyed :  Casar  did  never  wroni, 
butt  with  just  cause:  and  such  like,  which  were  ridiculous.'  Jonson 
derisively  quoted  the  same  passage  in  the  induction  to  The  Staple  oj 
News  (1623)  :  '  Cry  you  mercy,  you  did  not  wrong  but  with  just  cause.' 
Possibly  the  words  that  were  ascribed  by  Jonson  to  Shakespeare's  char- 
acter of  CcBsar  appeared  in  the  original  version  of  the  play,  but  owing 
perhaps  to  Jonson's  captious  criticism  they  do  not  figure  in  the  Folio 
version,  the  sole  version  that  has  reached  us.  The  only  words  there 
that  correspond  with  Jonson's  quotation  are  Csesar's  remark : 

Know,  Caesar  doth  not  wrong,  nor  without  cause 
Will  he  be  satisfied 

(in.  i.  47-8).  The  rhythm  and  sense  seem  to  require  the  reinsertion 
after  the  word  'wrong'  of  the  phrase  'but  with  just  cause,'  which  Jon- 
son needlessly  reprobated.    Leonard  Digges  (1588-1635),  one  of  Shake- 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  353 

3wn  ground.  Shakespeare  was,  too,  on  the  point  of 
dealing  in  a  new  play  a  crushing  blow  at  the  pretensions 
af  all  who  reckoned  themselves  his  masters. 

Soon  after  the  production  of  'Juhus  Caesar'  Shake- 
speare completed  the  first  draft  of  a  tragedy,  which 
Snally  left  Jonson  and  all  friends  and  foes  'Hamlet,' 
lagging  far  behind  him  in  reputation.  This  ^^°^- 
aew  exhibition  of  the  force  of  his  genius  re-established, 
too,  the  ascendency  of  the  adult  actors  who  interpreted 
his  work,  and  the  boys'  supremacy  was  Jeopardised. 
Early  in  the  second  year  of  the  seventeenth  century 
Shakespeare  produced  'Hamlet,' '  that  piece  of  his  which 
most  kindled  EngUsh  hearts.' 

As  in  the  case  of  so  many  of  Shakespeare's  plots,  the 
itory  of  his  prince  of  Dermiark  was  in  its  main  outlines  of 
indent  origin,  was  well  known  in  contemporary  r^j^^ 
France,  and  had  been  turned  to  dramatic  pur-  Danish 
pose  in  England  before  he  applied  his  pen  to  it.  '^^end. 
The  rudimentary  tale  of  a  prince's  vengeance  on  an 
uncle  who  has  slain  his  royal  father  is  a  mediaeval  tra- 
dition of  pre-Christian  Denmark.  As  early  as  the 
thirteenth  century  the  Danish  chronicler,  Saxo  Gram- 
maticus,  embodied  Hainlet's  legendary  history  in  his 
Historia  Danica,'  which  was  first  printed  in  15 14. 
Saxo's  unsophisticated  and  barbaric  narrative  found  in 
1570  a  place  in  'Les  Histoires  Tragiques,'  a  French  mis- 
:ellany  of  translated  legend  or  romance  by  Pierre  de 
Belleforest.''  The  French  collection  of  tales,  was  fa- 
miliar to  Shakespeare  and  to  many  other  dramatists  of 

ipeare's  admiring  critics,  emphasises '  the  superior  popularity  in  the 
ieatre  of  Shakespeare's  Julius  Casar  to  Ben  Jonson's  Roman  play  of 
Zatiline,  in  his  eulogistic  lines  on  Shakespeare  (published  after  Digges's 
leath  in  the  1640  edition  of  Shakespeare's  Poems) ;  see  p.  589  n.  2 
Infra. 

^  Histoire  No.  cviii.  Cf.  Gericke  und  Max  Moltke,  Hamlet-QueUen, 
Leipzig,  1881.  Saxo  Grammaticus's  Historia  Danica,  bks.  i.-ix.,  ap- 
aeared  in  an  English  translation  by  Prof.  Oliver  Elton  with  an  intro- 
iuction  by  Prof.  York  Powell  in  1894  (Folklore  Soc.  vol.  33).  Hamlet's 
itory  was  absorbed  into  Icelandic  mythology;  cf.  Ambales  Saga,  ed.  by 
Prof.  Israel  GoUancz,  1898. 

2A 


354  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  day.  No  English  translation  of  Belief  ores  t's  Frend 
version  of  Hamlet's  history  seems  to  have  been  avail- 
able when  Shakespeare  attacked  the  theme.^  But  a 
dramatic  adaptation  was  already  at  his  disposal  in  his 
own  tongue. 

The  primordial  Danish  version  of  the  'Hamlet'  story, 
which  the  French  rendering  Hterally  follows,  is  a  relic  of 
The  bar-  heathenish  barbarism,  and  the  dramatic  pro- 
barism  of  ccsscs  of  purgation  which  Shakespeare  perfected 
the  legend.  ^^^^  clearly  bcgun  by  another  hand.  The  pre- 
tence of  madness  on  the  part  of  the  young  prince  who 
seeks  to  avenge  his  father's  murder  is  a  central  feature 
of  the  fable  in  all  its  forms,  but  in  the  original  version 
the  motive  develops  without  much  purpose  in  a  repulsive 
environment  of  unqualified  brutahty.  HorwendiU,  King 
of  Denmark,  the  father  of  the  hero  Amleth,  was  accord- 
ing to  Saxo  craftily  slain  in  a  riot  by  his  brother  Fengon, 
who  thereupon  seized  the  crown  and  married  Geruth 
the  hero's  mother.  In  order  to  protect  himself  against 
the  new  King's  malice,  Amleth,  an  only  child  who  has 
a  foster  brother  Osric,  dehberately  feigns  madness, 
without  very  perceptibly  affecting  the  situation.  The 
usurper  suborns  a  beautiful  maiden  to  tempt  Amleth  at 
the  same  time  as  she  tests  the  genuineness  of  his  malady. 
Subsequently  his  mother  is  induced  by  King  Fengon  to 
pacify  Amleth's  fears ;  but  in  the  interview  the  son  brings 
home  to  Geruth  a  sense  of  her  infamy,  after  he  has  slain 
in  her  presence  the  prying  chamberlain  of  the  court. 
Amleth  gives  evidence  of  a  savagery,  which  harmonises 
with  his  surroundings,  by  dismembering  the  dead  body, 
boiling  the  fragments  and  flinging  them  to  the  hogs  to  eat. 
Thereupon  the  uncle  sends  his  nephew  to  England  to 
be  murdered ;  but  Amleth  turns  the  tables  on  his  guards, 
effects  their  death,  marries  the  EngHsh  King's  daughter, 

^  The  Hisiorie  of  EamUett,  an  English  prose  translation  of  Belleforest, 
appeared  in  1608.  It  was  doubtless  one  of  many  tributes  to  the  interest 
in  the  topic  which  Shakespeare's  drama  stimulated  among  his  fellow- 
countrymen. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  355 

and  returns  to  the  Danish  Court  to  find  his  funeral  in 
course  of  celebration.  He  succeeds  in  setting  fire  'to  the 
palace  and  he  kills  his  uncle  while  he  is  seeking  to  escape 
the  flames.  Amleth  finally  becomes  King  of  Denmark, 
only  to  encounter  a  fresh  series  of  crude  misadventures 
which  issue  in  his  violent  death. 

Much  reconstruction  was  obviously  imperative  before 
Hamlet's  legendary  experiences  could  be  converted  into 
tragedy  of  however  rudimentary  a  t3^e.  Shakespeare 
was  spared  the  pains  of  applying  the  first  spade  to  the 
unpromising  soil.  The  first  Elizabethan  play  which  pre- 
sented Hamlet's  tragic  fortunes  has  not  survived,  save 
possibly  in  a  few  fragments,  which  are  imbedded  in  a 
piratical  and  crudely  printed  first  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
later  play,  as  well  as  in  a  free  German  adaptation  of 
somewhat  mysterious  origin.^  But  external  evidence 
proves  that  an  old  piece  called  'Hamlet'  was  in  existence 
in  1589  —  soon  after  Shakespeare  joined  the  theatrical 
profession.  In  that  year  the  pamphleteer  Tom  The  old 
Nashe  credited  a  writer  whom  he  called  'Eng-  p'^^- 
lish  Seneca'  with  the  capacity  of  penning  'whole  Ham- 
lets, I  should  say  handfuls  of  tragical  speeches.'  Nashe's 
'English  Seneca'  may  be  safely  identified  with  Thomas 
Kyd,  a  dramatist  whose  bombastic  and  melodramatic 
'Spanish  Tragedie,  containing  the  lamentable  end  of 
Don  Horatio  and  Bel-Imperia,  with  the  pittiful  death  of 
olde  Hieronimo,'  was  written  about  1586,  and  held  the 

'  See  p.  362  infra.  Der  Bestrafte  Brudermord,  oder  Prinz  Hamlet  aus 
Dannemark,  the  German  piece,  which  seems  to  preserve  fragments  of 
the  old  Hamlet,  was  first  printed  in  Berlin  in  1781  from  a  MS.  in  the 
Dresden  library,  dated  1710.  The  drama  originally  belonged  to  the 
repertory  of  one  of  the  English  companies  touring  early  in  Germany. 
The  crude  German  piece,  while  apparently  based  on  the  old  Hamlet, 
bears  many  signs  of  awkward  revision  in  the  light  of  Shakespeare's  sub- 
sequent version.  Much  ingenuity  has  been  devoted  to  a  discussion  of 
the  precise  relations  of  Der  Bestrafte  Brudermord  to  the  First  Quarto  and 
Second  Quarto  texts  of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  as  well  as  to  the  old  lost 
play.  (See  A.  Cohn's  Shakespeare  in  Germany,  cv.  seq. ;  237  seq. ;  Gus- 
tav  Tanger  in  the  Shakespeare  Jahrltich,  xxiii.  pp.  224  seq.;  Wilhelm 
Creizenach  in  Modern  Philology,  Chicago,  1904-5,  ii.  249-260;  and 
M.  Blakemore  Evans,  ibid.  ii.  433-449). 


356  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

breathless  attention  of  the  average  Elizabethan  play- 
goer for  at  least  a  dozen  years.^  Kyd's  '  Spanish  Trag- 
edie'  anticipates  with  some  skill  the  leading  motive  and 
an  important  part  of  the  machinery  of  Shakespeare's 
play.  Kyd's  hero  Hieronimo  seeks  to  avenge  the  mur- 
der of  his  son  Horatio  in  much  the  same  spirit  as  Shake- 
speare's Prince  Hamlet  seeks  to  avenge  his  father's 
Kyd's  death.  Horatio,  the  friend  of  Shakespeare's 
authorship.  Hamlet,  is  called  after  the  victim  of  Kyd's 
tragedy.  Hieronimo,  moreover,  by  way  of  testing  his 
suspicions  of  those  whom  he  believes  to  be  his  son  Ho- 
ratio's murderers,  devises  a  play  the  performance  of  which 
is  a  crucial  factor  in  the  development  of  the  plot.  A 
ghost  broods  over  the  whole  action  in  agreement  with 
the  common  practice  of  the  Latin  tragedian  Seneca. 
The  most  distinctive  scenic  devices  qf  Shakespeare's 
tragedy  manifestly  lay  within  the  range  of  Kyd's  dra- 
matic faculty  and  experience.  The  Danish  legend 
knew  nothing  of'  the  ghost  or  the  interpolated  play. 
There  is  abundant  external  proof  that  in  one  scene  of 
the  lost  play  of  'Hamlet'  the  ghost  of  the  hero's  father 
exclaimed  'Hamlet,  revenge.'  Those  words,  indeed, 
deeply  impressed  the  playgoing  public  in  the  last  years 
of  the  sixteenth  century  and  formed  a  popular  catch- 
phrase  in  Elizabethan  speech  long  before  Shakespeare 
brought  his  genius  to  bear  on  the  Danish  tale.  Kyd 
may  justly  be  credited  with  the  first  invention  of  a  play 
of  'Hamlet'  on  the  tragic  hues  which  Shakespeare's 
genius  expanded  and  subtilised.^ 

^  According  to  Dekker's  Satiromastix,  Ben  Jonson  himself  played 
the  part  of  Hieronimo  in  the  Spanish  Tragedie  on  a  provincial  tour, 
when  he  first  joined  the  profession.  In  1602  Jonson  made  'additions' 
to  Kyd's  popular  pitece,  and  tJius  tried  to  secure  for  it  a  fresh  lease  of 
life.  (Kyd's  Works,  ed.  Boas,  kxxiv-v.)  The  superior  triumph  of 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet  in  the  same  season  may  well  have  been  regarded 
by  Jonson's  foes  as  another  'purging  pill'  for  him. 

^  Shakespeare  elsewhere  shows  acquaintance  with  Kyd's  work.  He 
places  in  the  mouth  of  Kit  Sly  in  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew  the  current 
catch-phrase  'Go  by,  Jeronimy,'  which  owed  its  currency  to  words  in 
The  Spanish  Tragedie.    Shakespeare,  too,  quotes  verbatim  a  line  from 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  357 

The  old  'Hamlet'  enjoyed  in  the  London  theatres 
almost  as  long  a  spell  of  favour  as  Kyd's  'Spanish 
Tragedie.'  On  June  9,  1594,  it  was  revived  at  ^^^  , 
the  Newington  Butts  theatre,  when  the  Lord  oA"roid 
Chamberlain's  men,  Shakespeare's  company,  'h^"'«'-' 
were  co-operating  there  with  the  Lord  Admiral's  men.^ 
A  little  later  Thomas  Lodge,  in  a  pamphlet  called  'Wits 
Miserie'  (1596),  mentioned  'the  ghost  which  cried  so 
miserably  at  the  Theator  hke  an  oister  wife  Hamlet 
revenge.'  Lodge's  words  suggest  a  fresh  revival  of  the 
original  piece  at  the  Shoreditch  playhouse.  In  the 
'Satiromastix'  of  1601  the  blustering  Captain  Tucca 
mocks  Horace  (Ben  Jonson)  with  the  sentences  :*  'My 
name's  Hamlet  Revenge;  thou  hast  been  at  Parris  Gar- 
den, hast  not  ? '  ^  This  gibe  implies  yet  another  re- 
vival of  the  old  tragedy  in  1601  at  a  third  playhouse  — 
the  Paris  Garden  theatre. 

There  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  Shakespeare's  new 
interpretation  of  the  popular  fable  was  first  xherecep- 
acted  at  the  Globe  theatre  in  the  early  winter  tio"  «£ 
of  1602,  not  long  after  the  polemical  'Satiro-  speare-s 
mastix'  had  run  its  course  on  the  same  boards.'  tragedy. 
Burbage  created  the  title  r6le  of  the  Prince  of  Denmark 

the  same  piece  in  Mtich  Ado  about  Nothing  (i.  i.  271) :  'In  time  the 
savage  bull  doth  bear  the  yoke';  but  Kyd  practically  borrowed  that 
line  from  Watson's  Passionate  Centurie  (No.  xlvii.),  where  Shakespeare 
may  have  met  it  first. 

'■  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  164. 

'  Horace  [i.e.  Jonson]  replies  that  he  has  played  'Zulziman'  at  Paris 
Garden.  ,  'Soliman'  is  the  name  of  a  character  in  the  interpolated  play 
scene  of  the  Spanish  Tragedie  and  also  of  the  hero  of  another  of  Kyd's 
tragedies  —  Soliman  and  Perseda. 

'  Tucca's  scornful  mention  of  'Hamlet'  in  Satiromastix  was  uttered 
on  Shakespeare's  stage  by  a  fellow-actor  in  November  1601.  Tucca's 
words  presume  that  only  the  old  play  of  Hamlet  was  then  in  existence, 
and  that  Shakespeare's  own  play  on  the  subject  had  not  yet  seen  the 
light.  The  drainatist's  fellow  players  scored  a  very  pronounced  success 
with  the  production  of  Shakespeare's  piece,  and  it  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tioji  that  they  shoiild  make  its  hero's  name  a  term  of  reproach  after  they 
had  produced  Shakespeare's  tragedy.  Some  difficulty  as  to  the  date  is 
suggested  by  the  statement  in  all  the  printed  versions  of  Shakespeare's 
Hamlet,  beginning  with  the  first  quarto  of  1603,  that  'the  tragedians 


3S8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

with  impressive  effect ;  but  the  dramatic  triumph  was  as 
warmly  acknowledged  by  readers  of  the  piece  as  by  the 
spectators  in  the  playhouse.  An  early  appreciation  is 
extant  in  the  handwriting  of  the  critical  scholar  Gabriel 
Harvey.  Soon  after  the  play  was  made  accessible  to 
^readers,  Harvey  wrote  of  it  thus:  'The  younger  sort 
Gabriel  takcs  much  dehght  in  Shakespeares  Venus  & 
Harvey's  Adonis :  but  his  Lucrece,  &  his  tragedie  of 
comment,  jj^mlet,  Prfnce  of  Denmarke,  haue  it  in  them, 
to  please  the  wiser  sort.'  "■    Many  dramatists  of  repute 

of  the  city'  had  been  lately  forced  to  'travel'  in  the  country  througli 
the  menacing  rivalry  of  the  boy  actors  in  London.  No  positive  evidence 
is  at  hand  to  prove  any  unusual  provincial  activity  on  the  part  of  Shake- 
speare's company  or  any  other  company  of  men  actors  during  the  seasons 
of  1600  or  of  1601.  Such  partial  research  in  municipal  records  as  has 
yet  been  undertaken  gives  no  specific  indication  that  Shakespeare's 
company  was  out  of  London  between  1597  and  1602,  although  three 
unspecified  companies  of  actors  are  shown  by  the  City  Chamberlain's 
accounts  to  have  visited  Oxford  in  1601.  But  the  accessible  knowledge 
of  the  men  actors'  provincial  experience  is  too  fragmentary  to  offer 
safe  guidance  as  to  their  periods  of  absence  from  London.  (See  p.  83 
supra.)  Examination  of  municipal  records  has  shed  much  light  on 
actors'  country  tours.  But  the  research  has  not  yet  been  exhaustive. 
The  municipal  archives  ignore,  moreover,  the  men's  practice  of  per- 
forming at  country  fairs  and  at  country  houses,  and  few  clues  to  such 
engagements  survive.  The  absence  of  recorded  testimony  is  not  there- 
fore conclusive  evidence  of  the  failure  of  itinerant  players  to  give  pro- 
vincial performances  during  this  or  that  season  or  in  this  or  that  place. 
Shakespeare's  implication  that  the  leading  adult  actors  were  much 
out  of  I^ondon  in  the  course  of  the  years  1600-1  is'in  the  circumstances 
worthier  of  acceptance  than  any  inference  from  collateral  negative 
premisses. 

'  The  precise  date  at  which  Gabriel  Harvey  penned  these  sentences 
is  difficult  to  determine.  They  figure  in  a  long  and  disjointed  series 
of  autograph  comments  on  current  literature  which  Harvey  inserted 
in  a  copy  of  Speght's  edition  of  Chaucer  published  in  1598  (see  Gabriel 
Harvey's  Marginalia,  ed.  G.  C.  Moore  Smith,  pp.  232-3).  Throughout 
the  volume  Harvey  scattered  many  manuscript  notes,  and  on  the  title- 
page  and  on  the  last  page  of  the  printed  text  he  attached  the  date  1598 
to  his  own  signature,  sufficient  proof  that  he  acquired  the  book  in  the 
year  of  its  publication.  There  is  no  ground  for  assuming  that  Harvey's 
mention  of  Hamlet  was  made  in  the  same  year.  Francis  Meres  failed 
to  include  Hamlet  in  the  full  list  of  Shakespeare's  successful  plays  which 
he  supplied  late  in  1598  in  his  PaUadis  Tamia;  and  Harvey,  who  was 
through  life  in  the  habit  of  scribbling  in  the  margin  of  his  books,  clearly 
annotated  his  Speght's  Chaucer  at  idle  hours  in  the  course  of  various 
years.    Little  which  is  of  strict  chronological  pertinence  is  deducible 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  ^9 

were  soon  echoing  lines  from  the  successful  piece, 
while  familiar  reference  was  made  to  'mad  Hamlet' 
by  the  pamphleteers.  In  the  old  play  the  ghost  had 
excited  popular  enthusiasm;  in  Shakespeare's  ^nthon 
tragedy  the  personaHty  of  the  Prince  of  Den-  Scoioker's 
mark  riveted  public  attention.  In  1604  one  '^°^^'^^- 
Anthony  Scoloker  published  a  poetical  rhapsody  called 
'Daiphantus  or  the  Passions  of  Loue.'  In  an  eccentric 
appeal  'To  the  Reader'  the  writer  commends  in  general 
terms  the  comprehensive  attractions  of  'friendly  Shake- 
speare's tragedies ' ;  as  for  the  piece  of  writing  on  which 
he  was  engaged  he  disavows  the  hope  that  it  should 
'please  all  like  prince  Hamlet,'  adding  somewhat  am- 
biguously 'then  it  were  to  be  feared  [it]  would  run  mad.' 
In  the  course  of  the  poem  which  follows  the  'Epistle,' 
Scoloker,  describing  the  maddening  effects  of  love,  credits 
his  lover  with  emulating  Hamlet's  behaviour.     He 

Puts  off  his  clothes ;  his  shirt  he  only  wears 
Much  like  mad-Hamlet. 

from  the  dates  of  publication  of  the  poetical  works,  which  he  strings 
together  in  the  long  note  containing  the  reference  to  Hamlet.  One  sen- 
tence 'The  Earle  of  Essex  much  commendes  Albion's  England'  might 
suggest  at  a  first  glance  that  Harvey  was  writing  at  any  rate  before 
February  1601,  when  the  Earl  of  Essex  was  executed.  Yet  much  of 
the  context  makes  it  plain  that  Harvey  uses  the  present  tense  in  the 
historic  fashion.  In  a  later  sentence  he  includes  in  a  list  of  '  our  flourish- 
ing metricians'  the  poet  Watson,  who  was  dead  in  1592.  He  wrote  of 
Watson  in  the  present  tense  long  after  the  poet  ceased  to  live.  A  suc- 
ceeding laudatory  mention  of  John  Owen's  New  Epigrams  which  were 
first  published  in  1606  supports  the  inference  that  Harvey  penned  his 
note  several  years  after  Speght's  Chaucer  was  acquired.  No  light  is 
therefore  thrown  by  Harvey  on  the  precise  date  of  the  composition  or 
of  the  first  performance  of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet.  Harvey's  copy_  of 
Speght's  Chaucer  (1598)  was  in  the  eighteenth  century  in  the  possession 
of  Dr.  Thomas  Percy,  Bishop  of  Dromore.  George  Steevens,  in  his 
edition  of  Shakespeare,  1773,  cited  the  manuscript  note  respecting 
Hamlet  while  the  book  formed  part  of  Bishop  Percy's  library,  and  Malone 
commented  on  Steevens's  transcript  in  letters  to  Bishop  Percy  and  in 
his  Variorum  edition,  1821,  ii.  369  (cf.  HalliweU-Phillipps,  Memoranda 
on  Hamlet,  1879,  pp.  46-9).  The  volume,  which  was  for  a  long  time 
assumed  to  be  destroyed,  now  belongs  to  Miss  Meade,  great-grand- 
daughter of  Bishop  Percy.  The  whole  of  Harvey's  note  is  reproduced 
in  facsimile  and  is  fully  annotated  in  Gabriel  Harvey's  Marginalia,  ed. 
G.  C.  Moore  Smith  (Stratford-on-Avon,  1913). 


360  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Parod3dng  Hamlet's  speech  to  the  players,  Scoloker's 
hero  calls  'players  fools'  and  threatens  to  'learn  them 
action.'  ^  Thus  as  early  as  1604  Shakespeare's  recon- 
struction of  the  old  play  was  receiving  exphcit  marks  of 
popular  esteem. 

The  bibliography  of  Shakespeare's  'Hamlet'  offers  a 
puzzUng  problem.     On  July  26,  1602,  'A  Book  called  the 

Revenge  of  Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmark,  as  it 
lenfofits  was  lately  acted  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  his 
pubKca-       Servants,'    was    entered    on    the    Stationers' 

Company's  Registers  by  the  printer  James 
Roberts,  and  it  was  pubhshed  in  quarto  next  year  by 
Nicholas]  L[ing]  and  John  TrundeU.^  The  title-page 
The  First  ^^^  '■  '  ^^^  Tragicall  Historic  of  Hamlet  Prince 
Quarto,  of  Denmarke.  By  William  Shakespeare.  As 
'  °^'  it  hath  beene  diuerse  times  acted  by  his  High- 

nesse  Seruants  in  the  Cittie  of  London  as  also  in  the 

^  Scoloker's  work  was  reprinted  by  Dr.  Grosart  in  1880. 

'  Although  James  Roberts  obtained  on  July  26,  1602,  the  Stationers' 
Company's  license  for  the  publication  of  Hamlet,  and  although  he  printed 
the  Second  Quarto  of  1604,  he  had  no  hand  in  the  First  Quarto  of  1603, 
which  was  in  all  regards  a  piracy.  Its  chief  promoter  was  Nicholas 
Ling,  a  bookseller  and  publisher,  not  a  printer,  who  had  taken  up  his 
freedom  as  a  stationer  in  1579,  and  was  called  into  the  livery  in  1598. 
He  was  himself  a  man  of  letters,  having  designed  a  series  of  collected 
aphorisms  in  four  volumes,  of  which  the  second  was  the  well-known 
Palladis  Tamia  (1598)  by  Francis  Meres.  Ling  compiled  and  pubhshed 
both  the  first  volume  of  the  series  called  Politeupheuia  (iS97))  *iid  the 
third  called  Wit's  Theatre  of  the  Little  World  (1599).  In  1607  he  tem- 
porarily acquired  some  interest  in  the  publication  of  Shakespeare's 
Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  Romeo  and  Juliet  (Arber,  iii.  337,  365).  With 
Ling  there  was  associated  in  the  unprincipled  venture  of  the  First  Quarto 
of  Hamlet,  John  Trundell,  a  stationer  of  small  account.  He  took  up 
his  freedom  as  a  stationer  on  October  29,  1597,  but  the  Hamlet  of  1603 
was  the  earliest  volume  on  the  title-page  of  which  he  figured.  He  had 
no  other  connection  with  Shakespeare's  works.  Ben  Jonson  derisively 
introduced  Trundell's  name  as  that  of  a  notorious  dealer  in  broadside 
ballads  into  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  (i.  ii.  63  folio  edition,  1616). 
The  printer  of  the  First  Quarto,  who  is  unnamed  on  the  title-page,  has 
been  identified  with  Valentine  Simmes,  who  was  often  in  difficulties  for 
unlicensed  and  irregular  printing.  But  Simmes  had  much  experience 
in  printing  Shakespeare's  plays ;  from  his  press  came  the  First  Quartos 
of  Richard  III  (iS97),  Richard  II  (1597),  2  Henry  IV  (1600),  and  Much 
Ado  (1600).  (Cf.  Pollard,  Shakespeare  Folios  and  Quartos,  1909,  pp. 
73  seq. ;  Mr.  H.  R.  Plomer  in  Library,  April  1906,  pp.  153-5.) 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  361 

two  Uniuersities  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford,  and  else- 
where.' The  Lord  Chamberlain's  servants  were  not 
known  as  'His  Highnesse  seruants'  —  the  (designation 
bestowed  on  them  on  the  title-page  —  before  their  for- 
rnal  enrolment  as  King  James's  players  on  May  19, 
1603.^  It  was  therefore  after  that  date  that  the  First 
Quarto  saw  the  light.^ 

The  First  Quarto  of  '  Hamlet '  was  a  surreptitious  issue. 
The  text  is  crude  and  imperfect,  and  there  is  Uttle  doubt 
that  it  was  prepared  from  shorthand  notes  xhe  defects 
taken  from  the  actor's  lips  during  an  early  of  the  First 
performance  at  the  theatre.  But  the  dis-  Q""'"- 
crepancies  between  its  text  and  that  of  more  authentic 
editions  of  a  later  date  cannot  all  be  assigned  to  the 
incompetency  of  the  'copy'  from  which  the  printer 
worked.  The  numerous  divergences  touch  points  of 
construction  which  are  beyond  the  scope  of  a  reporter 
or  a  cop3dst.  The  transcript  followed,  however  lamely, 
a  draft  of  the  piece  which  was  radically  revised  before 
'Hamlet'  appeared  in  print  again. 

The  First  Quarto  furnishes  2143  lines  —  scarcely  half 
as  many  as  the  Second  Quarto,  which  gives  the  play 
substantially  its  accepted  form.  Several  of  the  charac- 
ters appear  in  the  First  Quarto  under  unfamihar  names ; 

'  See  p.  375  infra. 

2  The  further  statement  on  the  title-page,  that  the  piece  was  acted 
not  only  in  the  City  of  London  but  at  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  is  perplexing.  At  both  Oxford  and  Cambridge  the  academic 
authorities  did  all  they  could,  from  1589  onwards,  to  prevent  perform- 
ances by  the  touring  companies  within  the  University  precincts.  The 
Vice-Chancellor  made  it  a  practice  to  bribe  visiting  actors  with  sums 
varying  from  ten  to  forty  shillings  to  refrain  from  playing.  The  munici- 
pal officers  did  not,  however,,  share  the  prejudice  of  their  academic 
neighbours,  and  according  to  the  accounts  of  the  City  Chamberlain, 
as  many  as  three  companies,  which  the  documents  unluckily  omit  to 
specify  individually  by  name,  gave  performances  in  the  City  of  Oxford 
during  the  year  1600-1.  It  was  only  the  towns  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
and  not  the  universities  themselves  which  could  have  given  Shakespeare's 
Hamlet  an  early  welcome.  The  misrepresentation  on  the  title-page  is  in 
keeping  with  the  general  inaccuracy  of  the  First  Quarto  text.  (See 
F.  S.  Boas,  'Hamlet  at  the  Universities'  in  Fortnightly  Review,  August 
1913,  and  his  University  Drama,  1914.) 


362  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Polonius  is  called  Corambis,  Reynaldo  Montano.'  Some 
notable  speeches  —  'To  be  or  not  to  be'  for 
speM-e's  example  —  appear  at  a  different  stage  of  the 
first  rough  action  from  that  which  was  finally  allotted 
them.  One  scene  (11.  1247-82)  has  no  counter- 
part in  other  editions ;  there  the  Queen  suffers  herself  to 
be  convinced  by  Horatio  of  her  second  husband's  in- 
famous character;  in  signal  conflict  with  her  attitude 
of  mind  in  the  subsequent  version,  she  acknowledges 

treason  in  his  [i.e.  King  Claudius's]  lookes 
That  seem'd  to  sugar  or'e  his  viUanie. 

Through  the  last  three  acts  the  rhythm  of  the  blank  verse 
and  the  vocabulary  are  often  reminiscent  of  Kyd's  ac- 
knowledged work,^  and  lack  obvious  aflSnity  with  Shake- 
speare's style.  The  collective  evidence  suggests  that 
the  First  Quarto  presents  with  much  t5^ograpliical  dis- 
figurement Shakespeare's  first  experiment  with  the 
theme.  His  design  of  a  sweeping  reconstruction  of  the 
old  play  was  not  fully  worked  out,  and  a  few  fragments  of 
the  original  material  were  suffered  for  the  time  to  remain.' 
A  revised  edition  of  Shakespeare's  work,  printed  from 

1  Osric  is  only  known  as  'A  Braggart  Gentleman'  and  Francisco 
'A  sentinel,'  but  here  the  shorthand  notetaker  may  have  failed  to  catch 
the  specific  names. 

2  Kyd's  Works,  ed.  Boas,  pp.  xlv-liv— 'The  Ur-HanJet';  c£.  G. 
Sarrazin,  'Entstehung  der  Harnlet-tragodie '  in  Anglia  xii-iv. 

^  No  other  theory  fits  the  conditions  of  the  problem.  Both  omissions 
and  interpolations  make  it  clear  that  the  transcriber  of  the  First  Quarto 
was  not  dependent  on  Shakespeare's  final  version,  nor  is  there  ground 
for  crediting  the  transcriber  with  the  abUity  to  foist  by  his  own  initiative 
reminiscences  of  the  old  piece  on  a  defective  shorthand  report  of  Shake- 
speare's complete  play.  An  internal  discrepancy  of  construction  which 
Shakespeare's  later  version  failed  to  remove  touches  the  death  of  Ophelia. 
According  to  the  Queen's  familiar  speech  (iv.  vii.  167-84)  the  girl  is  the 
fatal  victim  of  a  pure  accident.  The  bough  of  a  willow  tree,  on  which 
she  rests  while  serenely  gathering  wild  flowers,  snaps  and  flings  her  into 
the  brook  where  she  is  drowned.  Yet  in  the  scene  of  her  burial  all  the 
references  to  her  death  assume  that  she  committed  suicide.  It  looks 
as  if  in  the  old  play  Ophelia  took  her  own  life,  and  that  while  Shake- 
speare altered  her  mode  of  death  in  act  iv.  sc.  vii.  he  failed  to  reconcile 
with  the  change  the  comment  on  Ophelia's  end  in  act  v.  sc.  i.  which 
echoed  the  original  drama. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  363 

a  far  more  complete  and  accurate  manuscript,  was  pub- 
lished in  1604.  This  quarto  volume  bore  the  title :  '  The 
Tragicall  Historic  of  Hamlet  Prince  of  Denmarke,  by 
William  Shakespeare.  Newly  imprinted  and  enlarged 
to  almost  as  much  againe  as  it  was,  according  to  the 
true  and  perfect  coppie.'  The  printer  was  I[ames] 
R[oberts]  and  the  publisher  Npcholas]  L[ing].^  The  con- 
cluding words — -'according  to  the  true  and  per-  xhe Second 
feet  coppie'  —  of  the  title-page  of  the  Second  Quarto, 
Quarto  authoritatively  stamped  its  predecessor  ^^°*' 
as  surreptitious  and  unauthentic.  A  second  impression 
of  the  Second  Quarto  of  'Hamlet'  bore  the  date  1605, 
but  was  otherwise  unaltered.  Ling,  the  pubhsher  of  the 
First  Quarto,  and  not  Roberts,  the  original  licensee  and 
printer  of  the  Second  Quarto,  would  seem  to  have  been 
recognised  as  owner  of  copyright  in  the  piece.  On 
November  19,  1607,  there  was  transferred,  with  other 
literary  property,  to  a  different  pubhsher,  John  Smeth- 
wick,  'A  booke  called  Hamlet  .  .  .  Whiche  dyd  be- 
longe  to  Nicholas  'Lyage.'  ^  Smethwick  published  a 
Fourth  Quarto  of  'Hamlet'  in  161 1  as  well  as  a  Fifth 
Quarto  which  was  undated.  Both  follow  the  guidance 
of  the  Second  Quarto.  The  Second  Quarto  is  carelessly 
printed  and  awkwardly  punctuated,  and  there  are  signs 
that  the  'copy'  had  been  curtailed  for  acting  purposes. 
But  the  Second  Quarto  presents  the  fuUest  of  all  extant 
versions  of  the  play.  It  numbers  nearly  4000  lines,  and 
is  by  far  the  longest  of  Shakespeare's  dramas.' 

'  The  printer  of  the  Second  Quarto,  James  Roberts,  who_  held  the 
Stationers'  Company's  license  of  July  26,  1602  for  the  publication  of 
Hamlet,  had  clearly  come  to  terms  with  Nicholas  Ling,  the  piratical 
pubhsher  of  the  First  Quarto.  Roberts,  who  was  jjrinter  and  publisher 
of  'the  players'  biUs,'  had  been  concerned  in  1600  in  the  publication  of 
Titus  Andromicus  (see  p.  132),  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice  (see  p.  i37_«.  2), 
and  of  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  (see  p.  231  n.) .  He  also  obtained  a 
license  for  the  publication  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  in  1603  (see  pp.  365-6). 

'  Stationers'  Company's  Registers,  ed.  Arber,  iii.  365. 

'  Hamlet  is  thus  some  three  hundred  lines  longer  than  Richard  III 
—  the  play  by  Shakespeare  that  approaches  it  most  closely  in  numerical 
strengli  of  lines. 


364  WriLLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

A  third  version  (long  the  textus  receptus)  figured  in  the 
Folio  of  1623.  Here  some  hundred  lines  which  are  want- 
The  First  "^§  ^^  ^^  quartos  appear  for  the  first  time. 
FoUo  The  Folio's  additions  include  the  full  account 

Version.  q£  ^^  quarrel  between  the  men  actors  and  the 
boys,  and  some  uncomplimentary  references  to  Denmark 
in  the  same  scene.  Both  these  passages  may  well  have 
been  omitted  from  the  Second  Quarto  of  1604  in  defer- 
ence to  James  I's  Queen  Anne,  who  was  a  Danish  prin- 
cess and  an  active  patroness  of  the  '  children-plaj^ers.' 
At  the  same  time  more  than  two  hundred  lines  which 
figure  in  the  Second  Quarto  are  omitted  from  the  Folio. 
Among  the  deleted  passages  is  one  of  Hamlet's  most 
characteristic  soliloquies  ('How  all  occasions  do  inform 
against  me')  with  the  preliminary  observations  which 
give  him  his  cue  (iv.  iv.  9-66).  The  Folio  text  dearly 
followed  an  acting  copy  which  had  been  abbreviated 
somewhat  more  drastically  than  the  Second  Quarto  and 
in  a  different  fashion.^  But  the  printers  did  their  work 
more  accurately  than  their  predecessors.  A  collation  of 
the  First  Folio  with  the  Second  Quarto  is  essential  to  the 
formation  of  a  satisfactory  text  of  the  play.  An  en- 
deavour of  the  kind  was  first  made  on  scholarly  Knes  by 
Lewis  Theobald  in  his  'Shakespeare  Restor'd'  (1726). 
Theobald's  text,  with  further  embellishments  by  Sir 
Thomas  Hanmer,  Edward  Capell,  and  the  Cambridge 
editors  of  1866,  is  now  generally  adopted. 

Shakespeare's  'Hamlet'  has  since  its  first  production 
attracted  more  attention  from  actors,  playgoers,  and 
_  ^   readers  of  all  capacities  than  any  other  of  his 

Fennanent       ,  t-,  ^      ,  /■    ,.  ■, 

popularity    plays.     tiom  no  piece  of  hterature  have  so 

•Hamlet.'     ^^^Y  phrases  passed  into  colloquial  speech. 

Its  world-wide  popularity  from  its  author's  day 

to  our  own,  when  it  is  as  warmly  welcomed  in  the  theatres 

'  Cf.  Hamlel — parallel  texts  of  the  First  and  Second  Quarto,  and 
First  Folio  —  ed.  Wilhelm  Vietor,  Marburg,  1891;  The  Devonshire 
Bamlets,  i860,  parallel  texts  of  the  two  quartos  edited  by  Mr.  Sam 
Timmins. 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  365 

of  France  and  Germany  as  in  those  of  the  British  Empire 
and  America,  is  the  most  striking  of  the  many  testi- 
monies to  the  eminence  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  in- 
stinct .  The  old  barbarous  legend  has  been  transfigured, 
and  its  coarse  brutalities  are  sublimated  in  a  new  atmos- 
phere of  subtle  thought.  At  a  tirst  glance  there  seems 
little  in  the  play  to  attract  the  uneducated  or  the  unre- 
flecting, Shakespeare's  '  Hamlet '  is  mainly  a  psycliologi- 
cal  etTort,  a  study  of  the  rellective  temperament  in  excess. 
T!\e  action  develops  slowly ;  at  times  there  is  no  movement 
at  all.  The  piece  in  its  Ihial  shape  is  not  only  the  longest 
of  Shakespeare's  dramas,  but  the  total  length  of  Hamlet's 
speeches  far  exceeds  that  of  those  allotted  by  Shake- 
speare to  any  othe»  of  his  characters.  Humorous  and 
quite  original  relief  is  etTectively  supplied  to  the  tragic 
theme  by  the  garrulities  of  Polonius  and  the  rustic 
grave-diggers.  The  controversial  references  to  contem- 
porary theatrical  history  {n.  ii.  350-89)  could  only  count 
on  a  patient  hearing  from  a  sj^mpathetic  Elizabethan 
audience,  but  the  pungent  censure  of  actors'  perennial 
defects  is  calculated  to  catch  tlie  ear  of  the  average 
playgoer  of  all  ages.  The  minor  characters  are  vividly 
elaborated.  But  it  is  not  to  these  subsidiary  features 
that  the  univers;ility  of  the  play's  vogue  can  be  attrib- 
uted. It  is  the  intensity  of  interest  which  Shakespeare 
contrives  to  e.Kcite  in  the  cliaracter  of  tlie  hero  that 
explains  the  position  of  the  phi}'  in  popular  esteem. 
The  play's  uuri\alleil  power  of  attraction  lies  in  the 
pathetic  fascination  exerted  on  minds  of  almost  every 
caHbre  by  the  central  figure  —  a  high-born  youtli  of 
chivalric  instincts  and  finely  developed  intellect,  who, 
when  stirred  to  axenge  in  action  a  desperate  private 
wrong,  is  foikxl  by  introspective  workings  of  tlie  brain 
that  paralyse  the  will.  The  pedigree  of  the  conception 
flings  a  flood  of  light  on  the  magical  property  of  Shake- 
speare's individual  genius. 

Although  the  difficulties  of  determining  the  date  of 
'Troilus  and  Cressida'  are  very  great,  there  are  many 


366  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

grounds  for  assigning  its  composition  to  the  early  days 
of  1603.  Four  years  before,  in  1599,  the  dramatists 
'Troiius  Dekker  and  Chettle  were  engaged  by  Philip 
and"  "^  Henslowe  to  prepare  a  play  of  identical  name  for 
Cressida.'  ^j^^  jg^^j.!  ^f  Nottingham's  (formerly  the  Lord 
Admiral's)  company  —  the  chief  rival  of  Shakespeare's 
company  among  the  men  actors.  Of  the  pre-Shake- 
spearean  drama  of  'Troiius  and  Cressida,'  only  a  frag- 
ment of  the  plot  or  scenario  survives.  There  is  small 
doubt  that  that  piece  suggested  the  topic  to  Shakespeare, 
although  he  did  not  follow  it  closely.^  On  February  7, 
1602-3,  James  Roberts,  the  original  licensee  of  Shake- 
speare's 'Hamlet,'  obtained  a  hcense  for  'the  booke  of 
"Troiius  and  Cresseda"  as  yt  is  acted  by  my  Lord 
Chamberlens  men  {i.e.  Shakespeare's  company)  ,2  to 
print  when  he  has  gotten  sufficient  authority  for  it.' 
Roberts's  'book'  was  probably  Shakespeare's  play. 
Roberts,  who  printed  the  Second  Quarto  of  'Hamlet' 
and  others  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  failed  in  his  effort  to 
send  'Troiius'  to  press.  The  interposition  of  the  players 
for  the  time  defeated  his  effort  to  get  '  sufl&cient  author- 
ity for  it.'  But  the  metrical  characteristics  of  Shake- 
speare's '  Troiius  and  Cressida '  —  the  regularity  of  the 
blank  verse  —  powerfully  confirm  the  date  of  composi- 
tion which  Roberts's  abortive  license  suggests.  Six 
years  later,  however,  on  January  28,  1608-9,  a-  ^^^  license 
for  the  issue  of  'a  booke  called  the  history  of  Troylus 
and  Cressida'  was  granted  to  other  publishers,  Richard 
Bonian  and  Henry  Walley,^  and  these  pubhshers,  more  for- 
tunate than  Roberts,  soon  issued  a  quarto  bearing  on  the 
title-page  Shakespeare's  full  name  as  author  and  the  date 

'■  The  'plot'  of  a  play  on  the  subject  of  Trailus  and  Cressida  which 
may  be  attributed  to  Dekker  and  Chettle  is  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum  MSS.  Addit.  10449  f.  5.  This  was  first  printed  in  Henslowe 
Papers,  ed.  Greg,  p.  142.  Eleven  lines  in  the  1610  edition  of  Histrio- 
mastix  (Act  ill.  11.  269-79)  parody  a  scene  in  Shakespeare's  TroUus 
(v.  ii.).  Histriomastix  was  first  produced  in  1599.  The  passage  in  the 
edition  of  1610  is  clearly  an  interpolation  of  uncertain  date  and  gives 
no  clue  to  the  year  of  composition  or  production  of  Shakespeare's  piece. 

2  Stationers'  Company's  Registers,  ed.  Arber,  iii.  226.  '  Ibid.,  A°°- 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  367 

1609.  The  volume  was  printed  by  George  Eld,  but  the 
t)rpography  is  not  a  good  specimen  of  his  customary  skill. 
Exceptional  obscurity  attaches  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  publication.  Some  copies  of  the  book  bear  an 
ordinary  type  of  title-page  stating  that  'The  ^j^^  ^j^ 
Historie  of  Troylus  and  Cresseida '  was  printed  Ucation 
'as  it  was  acted  by  the  King's  Majesties  °^^^9- 
seruants  at  the  Globe,'  and  that  it  was  'written  by  Wil- 
liam Shakespeare.'  But  in  other  copies,  which  differ 
in  no  way  in  regard  either  to  the  text  of  the  play  or  to 
the  publishers'  imprint,  there  was  substituted  a  more 
pretentious  title-page  running:  'The  famous  Historie 
of  Troylus  and  Cresseid,  excellently  expressing  the  be- 
ginning of  their  loues  with  the  conceited  wooing  of  Pan- 
darus,  prince  of  Licia,  written  by  WilHam  Shakespeare.' 
This  pompous  description  was  followed,  for  the  first  and 
only  time  in  the  case  of  a  play  by  Shakespeare  published 
in  his  lifetime,  by  an  advertisement  or  preface  super- 
scribed 'A  never  writer  to  an  ever  reader.  News.'  The 
anonymous  pen  supphes  in  the  interest  of  the  publishers 
a  series  of  high-flown  but  well-deserved  compliments 
to  Shakespeare  as  a  writer  of  comedies.^  'Troilus  and 
Cressida'  was  declared  to  be  the  equal  of  the  best  work 

'  The  tribute  is  worthy  of  note.  The  most  eulogistic  sentences 
run  thus:  'Were  but  the  vain  names  of  comedies  changed  for  titles 
of  conmxodities  or  of  plays  for  pleas,  you  should  see  all  those  grand 
censors  that  now  style  them  such  vanities  flock  to  them  for  the  main 
grace  of  their  gravities;  especially  this  author's  comedies  that  are  so 
framed  to  the  life,  that  they  serve  for  the  most  common  commentaries 
of  all  the  actions  of  our  Uves,  showing  such  a  dexterity  and  power  of 
wit,  that  the  most  displeased  with  plays  are  pleased  with  his  comedies. 
And  aU  such  dull  and  heavy  witted  worldlings  as  were  never  capable 
of  the  wit  of  a  comedy,  coming  by  report  of  them  to  his  representations 
have  found  that  wit  that  they  never  found  in  themselves,  and  have 
parted  better  witted  than  they  came ;  feeling  an  edge  of  wit  set  upon 
them  more  than  ever  they  dreamed  they  had  brain  to  grind  it  on.  So 
much  and  such  savoured  salt  of  wit  is  in  his  comedies,  that  they  seem 
(for  their  height  of  pleasure)  to  be  born  in  that  sea  that  brought  forth 
Venus.  Amongst  all  there  is  none  more  witty  than  this:  and  had  I 
time  I  would  comment  upon  it,  though  I  know  it  needs  not  (for  so  much 
as  will  make  you  think  your  testern  well  bestowed) ;  but  for  so  much 
worth  as  even  poor  I  know  to  be  stuffed  in  it,  deserves  such  a  labour  as 
well  as  the  best  comedy  in  Terence  or  Plautjis.' 


368  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

of  Terence  and  Plautus,  and  there  was  defiant  boasting 
that  the  'grand  possessors' — i.e.  the  theatrical  owners— 
of  the  manuscript  deprecated  its  publication.  By  way 
of  enhancing  the  value  of  what  were  obviously  stolen 
wares,  it  was  falsely  added  that  the  piece  was  new  and 
unacted,  that  it  was  'a  new  play  never  staled  with  the 
stage,  never  clapperclawed  with  the  palms  of  the  vulgar.' 
The  purchaser  was  adjured:  'Refuse  not  nor  Uke  this 
the  less  for  not  being  sullied  with  the  smoky  breath  of 
the  multitude.'  This  address  was  possibly  a  brazen 
reply  of  the  publishers  to  a  more  than  usually  emphatic 
protest  on  the  part  of  players  or  dramatist  against  the 
printing  of  the  piece.  The  'copy'  seemed  to  follow  a 
The  First  Version  of  the  play  which  had  escaped  theatrical 
Folio  revision  or  curtailment,  and  may  have  reached 

version.  ^^  press  with  the  corrupt  connivance  of  a 
scrivener  in  the  authors'  and  managers'  confidence. 
The  editors  of  the  First  FoHo  evinced  distrust  of  the 
Quarto  edition  by  printing  their  text  from  a  different 
copy,  but  its  deviations  were  not  always  for  the  better. 
The  Folio  'copy,'  however,  suppUed  Shakespeare's 
prologue  to  the  play  for  the  first  time.^ 

The  work,  which  in  point  of  construction  shows  signs 
of  haste,  and  in  style  is  exceptionally  unequal,  is  the 
Treatment  ^^^.st  attractive  of  the  efforts  of  Shakespeare's 
of  the  middle  fife.  In  matter  and  manner  'Troilus 
^^^'  and  Cressida'  combines  characteristic  features 
of  its  author's  early  and  late  performances.    His  imagery 

^  A  curious  uncertainty  as  to  the  place  wUch  the  piece  should  occupy 
in  their  volume  was  evinced  by  the  First  Folio  editors.  They  began 
by  printing  it  in  their  section  of  tragedies  after  Romeo  and  Juliet.  With 
that  tragedy  of  love  Troilus  and  Cressida's  cynical  d^noliment  awk- 
wardly contrasts,  nor  is  the  play,  strictly  speaking,  a  tragedy.  Both 
hero  and  heroine  leave  the  scene  alive,  and  the  death  in  the  closing 
pages  of  Hector  at  Achilles'  hand  is  no  regular  climax.  Ultimately 
the  piece  was  given  a  detached  place  without  pagination  between  the 
close  of  the  section  of  'Histories'  and  the  opening  of  the  section  of 
'Tragedies.'  The  editors'  perplexities  are  reflected  in  their  prdiminary 
table  or  catalogue  of  contents,  in  which  Troilus  and  Cressida  finds  no 
mention  at  all.  See  First  Folio  Facsiroile,  ed.  Sidney  Lee,  Introduction, 
xxvii-xxix. 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  369 

is  sometimes  as  fantastic  as  in  'Romeo  and  Juliet'; 
elsewhere  his  intuition  is  as  penetrating  as  in  '  King  Lear.' 
The  problem  resembles  that  which  is  presented  by  'AU's 
Weir  and  may  be  solved  by  the  assumption  that  the  play 
was  begun  by  Shakespeare  in  his  early  days,  and  was 
completed  in  the  season  of  maturity.  The  treatment 
of  the  strange  Trojan  love  story  from  which  the  piece 
takes  its  name  savours  of  Shakespeare's  youthful  hand, 
while  the  complementary  scenes,  which  the  Greek  leaders 
and  soldiers  dominate,  bear  trace  of  a  more  mature  pen. 

The  story  is  based  not  on  the  Homeric  poem  of  Troy 
but  on  a  romantic  legend  of  the  Trojan  war,  which 
a  fertile  mediaeval  imagination  quite  irrespon-  source  of 
sibly  wove  round  Homeric  names.  '  Both  the  plot. 
Troilus,  the  type  of  loyal  love,  and  Cressida,  the  type 
of  perjured  love,  were  children  of  the  twelfth  century 
and  of  no  classical  era.  The  literature  of  the  Middle 
Ages  first  gave  them  their  general  fame,  which  the  ht- 
erature  of  the  Renaissance  steadily  developed. 

Boccaccio  first  bestowed  literary  form  on  the  tale  of 
Troilus  and  his  fickle  mistress  in  his  epic  of  '  Filostrato '  of 
1348,  and  on  that  foundation  Chaucer  built  his  touching 
poem  of  'Troylus  and  Criseyde'  —  the  longest  of  all  his 
poetic  narratives.  To  Chaucer  the  story  owed  its  wide 
English  vogue  ^  and  from  him  Shakespeare's  love  story 
in  the  play  took  its  cue.  No  pair  of  lovers  is  more 
often  cited  than  Troilus  and  his  faithless  mistress  by 
Elizabethan  poets,  and  Shakespeare,  long  before  he 
finished  Hs  play,  introduced  their  names  in  familiar 
allusion  in  'The  Merchant  of  Venice'  (v.  i.  4)  and  in 
'Twelfth  Night'  (in.  i.  59).  The  mihtary  and  political 
episodes  in  the  wars  of  Trojans  and  Greeks,  with  which 
Shakespeare  encircles  his  romance,  are  traceable  to  two 

mediaeval  books  easily  accessible  to  Elizabethans,  which 

I 

'  Cressida's  name  in  Benoit  de  Ste.  More's  Roman  de  Troyes,  y?here 
her  story  was  first  told  in  the  twelfth  century,  appears  as  Briseide,  a 
derivative  from  the  Homeric  Briseis.  Boccaccio  converted,  the  name  into 
Griseide  and  Chaucer  into  Criseyde,  whence  Cressida  easily  developed. 

2B 


37° 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


both  adapt  in  different  ways  the  far  famed  Guido 
della  Colonna's  fantastic  reconstruction  or  expansion  of 
the  Homeric  myth  in  the  thirteenth  century ;  the  first 
of  these  authorities  was  Lydgate's  'Troy  booke,'  a 
long  verse  rendering  of  Coloima's  'Historia  Trojana/ 
and  the  second  was  Caxton's  'Recuyell  of  the  his- 
toryes  of  Troy,'  a  prose  translation  of  a  French  epitome 
of  Colonna.  Shakespeare  may  have  read  the  first  in- 
stalment of  Chapman's  great  translation  of  Homer's 
Iliad,  of  which  two  volumes  appeared  in  1598 

Shake-  '  ^    .    .  i_      i      /• ■ 

speare's  —  One  coutaimng  seven  books  (1.  u.  vu.  vui.  ix. 
acceptance        ^i )  ^^^  ^j^g  Other,  Called  'Achilles'  Shield,' 

01  a  meal-  ;    ,  ,./       -i-»  i         i  i 

aval  contaming  book  xvm.     But  the  drama  owed 

tradition,  nothing  to  Homcr's  epic.  Its  picture  of  the 
Homeric  world  was  a  fruit  of  the  mediaeval  falsifications. 
At  one  point  the  dramatist  diverges  from  his  authorities 
with  notable  originahty.  Cressida  figures  in  his  play  as 
a  heartless  coquette;  the  poets  who  had  previously 
treated  her  story — ^  Boccaccio,  Chaucer,  Lydgate,  and 
Robert  Henryson,  the  Scottish  writer  who  echoed 
Chaucer  —  had  imagined  her  as  a  tender-hearted,  if 
frail,  beauty,  with  claims  on  their  pity  rather  than  on 
their  scorn.  But  Shakespeare's  innovation  is  dramati- 
cally effective,  and  deprives  fickleness  in  love  of  any  false 
glamour.  It  is  impossible  to  sustain  the  charge  fre- 
quently brought  against  the  dramatist  that  he  gave  proof 
of  a  new  and  original  vein  of  cynicism,  when,  in  'Troilus 
and  Cressida,'  he  disparaged  the  Greek  heroes  of  classical 
antiquity  by  investing  them  with  contemptible  char- 
acteristics. Guido  della  Colonna  and  the  authorities 
whom  Shakespeare  followed  invariably  condemn  Homer's 
glorification  of  the  Greeks  and  depreciate  their  characters 
and  exploits.  Shakespeare  indeed  does  the  Greek  chief- 
tains Ulysses,  Nestor,  and  Agamemnon  a  better  justice 
than  his  guides,  for  whatever  those  veterans'  moral 
defects  he  concentrated  in  their  speeches  a  marvellous 
wealth  of  pithily  expressed  philosophy,  much  of  which  has 
fortunately   obtained   proverbial   currency.    Otherwise 


MATURITY  OF   GENroS  371 

Shakespeare's  conception  of  .the  Greeks  ran  on  the  tradi- 
tional mediaeval  Unes.  His  presentation  of  Achilles  as  a 
brutal  coward  is  entirely  loyal  to  the  spirit  of  Guido  della 
Colonna,  whose  veracity  was  unquestioned  by  Shake- 
speare or  his  tutors.  Shakespeare's  portrait  interpreted 
the  selfish,  unreasoning,  and  exorbitant  pride  with  which 
the  warrior  was  credited  by  Homer's  mediaeval  expositors. 
Shakespeare's  treatment  of  his  theme  cannot  therefore 
be  fairly  construed,  as  some  critics  construe  it,  into  a 
petty-minded  protest  against  the  honour  paid  to  the 
ancient  (Greeks  and  to  the  form  and  sentiment  of  their  ht- 
ejrature  by  more  learned  dramatists  of  the  day,  Hke  Ben 
Jonson  and  Chapman.  Irony  at  the  expense  of  classi- 
cal hero-worship  was  a  common  note  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Shakespeare  had  already  caught  a  touch  of  it  when  he  por- 
trayed Julius  Caesar,  not  in  the  fulness  of  the  Dictator's 
powers,  but  in  a  pitiable  condition  of  physical  and  men- 
tal decrepitude,  and  he  was  subsequently  to  show  his 
tolerance  of  prescriptive  habits  of  disparagement  by  con- 
tributing to  the  two  pseudo-classical  pieces  of  '  Pericles ' 
and  'Timon  of  Athens.'  Shakespeare  worked  in  'Troilus 
and  Cressida'  over  well-seasoned  specimens  of  mediaeval 
romance,  which  were  uninfluenced  by  the  true  classical 
spirit.  Mediaeval  romance  adumbrated  at  all  points 
Shakespeare's  unheroic  treatment  of  the  Homeric  heroes.^ 

1  Less  satisfactory  is  the  endeavour  that  has  been  made  by  F.  G. 
Fleay  and  George  Wyndham  to  treat  Troilus  and  Cressida  as  Shake- 
speare's contribution  to  the  embittered  controversy  of  1601-2,  between 
Jonson  on  the  one  hand  and  Marston  and  Dekier  and  their  actor- 
friends  on  the  other  hand,  and  to  represent  the  play  as  a  pronouncement 
against  Jonson.  According  to  this  fanciful  view,  Shakespeare  held  up 
Jonson  to  savage  ridicule  in  Ajax,  while  in  Thersites  he  denounced  with 
equal  bitterness  Marston,  despite  Marston's  antagonism  to  Jonson, 
which  entitled  him  to  freedom  from  attack  by  Jonson's  foes.  The  con- 
troversial interpretation  of  the  play  is  in  conflict  with  chronology  (for 
Troilus  cannot,  on  any  showing,  be  assigned  to  the  perigd  of  the  war 
between  Jonson,  Dekker,  and  Marston,  in  1601-2),  and  it  seems  con- 
futed by  the  facts  and  arguments  already  adduced  in  the  discussion  of  the 
theatrical  conflict  (see  pp.  342  seq.  and  especially  pp.  349-50).  Another 
untenable  theory  represents  Troilus  and  Cressida  as  a  splenetic  attack 
on  George  Chapman,  the  translator  of  Homer  and  champion  of  classical 
literature  (see  Acheson's  Shakespeare  and  the  Rival  Poet,  1903). 


XVII 

THE  ACCESSION  OF  KING  JAMES  I 

Despite  the  suspicions  of  sympathy  with  the  Earl  of 
Essex's  revolt  which  the  players  of  Shakespeare's  corn- 
Last  per-  pany  incurred  and  despite  their  stubborn 
formances  controversy  with  the  Children  of  the  Chapel 
Queen  Royal,  Shakespeare  and  his  colleagues  main- 
Elizabeth,  tained  their  hold  on  the  favour  of  the  Court 
till  the  close  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign.  No  political 
anxiety  was  suffered  to  interrupt  the  regular  succession 
of  their  appearances  on  the  royal  stage.  On  Boxing 
Day  1600  and  on  the  succeeding  Twelfth  Night,  Shake- 
speare's company  was  at  Whitehall  rendering  as  usual 
a  comedy  or  interlude  each  night.  Within  httle  more 
than  a  month  Essex  made  his  sorry  attempt  at  rebellion 
in  the  City  of  London  (on  February  9,  1 600-1)  and  on 
Shrove  Tuesday  (February  24)  Queen  Elizabeth  signed 
her  favourite's  death  warrant.  Yet  on  the  evening  of 
that  most  critical  day  —  barely  a  dozen  hours  before  the 
Earl's  execution  within  the  precincts  of  the  Tower  of 
London  —  Shakespeare's  band  of  players  produced  at 
Whitehall  one  more  play  in  the  sovereign's  presence. 
As  the  disturbed  year  ended,  the  guests  beneath  the 
royal  roof  were  exceptionally  few,^  but  the  acting  com- 
pany's exertions  were  not  relaxed  at  Court.  During  the 
next  Christmas  season  Shakespeare's  company  revisited 

'  Cf.  Chlendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  vol.  283,  no.  48  (Dudley 
Carleton  to  John  Chamberlain,  Dec.  29,  1601) :  'There  has  been  such 
a  small  court  this  Christmas  that  the  guard  were  not  troubled  to  keep 
doors  at  the  plays  and  pastimes.'  Besides  the  plays  at  Court  this  Christ- 
mas the  Queen  witnessed  one  performedin  her  honour  at  Lord  Hunsdon's 
hous^  in  Blackfriars,  presumably  by  Shakespeare's  company  of  which 
Lord  Hunsdon,  then  Lord  Chamberlain,  was  the  patron  (ibid.). 

372 


THE  ACCESSION  OF  KING  JAMES  I  373 

Whitehall  no  less  than  four  times  —  on  Boxing  Day  and 
St.  John's  Day  (December  27,  1601)  as  well  as  oil  New 
Year's  Day  and  Shrove  Sunday  (February  14,  1601-2).^ 
Their  services  were  requisitioned  once  again  on  Boxing 
Day,  1602,  but  Queen  Elizabeth's  days  were  then  at 
length  numbered.  On  Candlemas  Day  (February  2) 
1602-3,  the  company  travelled  to  Richmond,  Surrey, 
whither  the  Queen  had  removed  in  vain  hope  of  recover- 
ing her  failing  health,  and  there  for  the  last  time  Shake- 
speare and  his  friends  offered  her  a  dramatic  entertain-r 
ment.^  She  hved  only  seven  weeks  longer.  On  March 
24,  1602-3,  she  breathed  her  last  at  Richmond.' 

The  literary  ambitions  of  Henry  Chettle,  Shakespeare's 
early  eulogist  and  Robert  Greene's  pubUsher,  had  long 
withdrawn  him  from  the  pubHshing  trade.  At  shake- 
the  end  of  the  century  he  was  making  a  penuri-  speare  and 
ous  hvelihood  by  ministering  with  vast  industry  Queen's 
to  the  dramatic  needs  of  the  Lord  Admiral's  '^^^'^^■ 
company  of  players.  'The  London  Florentine,'  the 
last  piece  (now  lost)  which  was  prepared  for  presentation 
by  the  Lord  Admiral's  men  before  Queen  Elizabeth 
early  in  March  1602-3,  was  from  the  pen  of  Chettle  in 
partnership  with  Thomas  Hpywood,  and  for  its  render- 
ing at  Court  Chettle  prepared  a  special  prologue  and 
epilogue.*  It  was  not  unfitting  that  the  favoured  author 
should  interrupt  his  dramatic  labour  in  order  to  com- 
memorate the  Queen's  death.  His  tribute  was  a  pastoral 
elegy  (of  mingled  verse  and  prose)  .called  'England's 
Mourning  Garment.'  It  appeared  just  after  the  Sover- 
eign's funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey  on  April  28.     Into 

'  E.  K.  Chambers  in  Mod.  Lang.  Rev.  (1907),  vol.  ii.  p.  12. 

^  Murray,  English  Dramatic  Companies,  i.  105  seq. ;  Cunningham, 
Revels,  xxxii.  seq. 

'  After  the  last  performance  of  Shakespeare's  company  at  the  Palace 
of  Richmond  and  before  the  Queen's  death,  Edward  Alleyn  with  the 
Lord  Admiral's  conapany  twice  acted  before  her  there  —  once  on  Shrove 
Sunday  (March  6),  and  again  a  day  or  two  later  on  an  unspecified  date. 
See  Tucker  Murray,  English  Dramatic  Companies,  i.  138;.  Henslowe's 
Diary,  ed.  Greg,  i.  17 1-3;   Cunningham,  Revels,  xxxiv. 

*  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  i.  173. 


374  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

his  loyal  panegyric  the  zealous  elegist  wove  expressions 
of  surprised  regret  that  the  best  known  poets  of  the  day 
had  withheld  their  pens  from  his  own  great  theme. 
Under  fanciful  names  in  accordance  with  the  pastoral 
convention,  Chettle,  who  himself  assumed  Spenser's 
pastoral  title  of  CoHn,  appealed  to  Daniel,  Drayton, 
Chapman,  Ben  Jonson,  and  others  to  make  Elizabeth's 
royal  name  'live  in  their  lively  verse.'  Nor  was  Shake- 
speare, whose  progress  Chettle  had  watched  with  sjon- 
pathy,  omitted  from  the  Ust  of  neglectful  singers.  '  The 
silver-tongued  Melicert'  was  the  pastoral  appellation 
under  which  Chettle  Hghtly  concealed  the  great  dram- 
atist's identity.  Deeply  did  he  grieve  that  Shakespeare 
should  forbear  to 

Drop  from  his  honied  muse  one  sable  teare, 
To  mourne  her  death  that  graced  his  desert, 
And  to  his  laies  opened  her  royal  eare. 

The  apostrophe  closed  with  the  lines  : 

Shepheard,  remember  our  Elizabeth, 

And  sing  her  Rape  done  by  our  Tarquin  Death. 

The  reference  to  Shakespeare's  poem  of  'Lucrece'  left 
the  reader  in  no  doubt  of  the  writer's  meaning.^  But 
there  were  critics  of  the  day  who  deemed  Shakespeare 
better  employed  than  on  elegies  of  royalty.  Testimonies 
to  the  worth  of  the  late  Queen  flowed  in  abundance 
from  the  pens  of  ballad-mongers  whose  ineptitudes 
were  held  by  many  to  profane  'great  majesty.'  A 
satiric  wit  heaped  scorn  on  Chettle  who 

calde  to  Shakespeare,  Jonson,  Greene 
To  write  of  their  dead  noble  Queene. 

Any  who  responded  to  the  invitation,  the  satirist  sug- 
gested, would  deserve  to  suffer  at  the  stake  for  poetical 
heresy.^ 

*  England's  Mourning  Garment,  1603,  sign.  D.  3,  reprinted  in  Shak- 
spere  Allusion  Books  (New  Shak.  Soc.  1874),  ed.  C.  M.  Ingleby,  p.  98. 

'^ 'Epigrams  ...  By  I.  C.  Gent.,'  London  [1604?],  No.  12;  see 
Shakspere  Allusion  Books,  pp.  121-2.  The  author  I.  C.  is  unidentified. 
His  reference  to  'Greene'  is  to  Tbpmas  Greene,  the  popular  comedian. 


Till';   ACCESSION   OK   KIN(;   JAMKS    I  375 

Save  on  grounds  of  patriotic  sentiment,  the  Queen's 
death  justified  no  liimenLalion  on  the  part  of  Shakespeare. 
lie  had  no  material  reason  for  mourning,  jamcsl'i 
On  the  withdrawal  (jf  one  royal  patron  he  and  "ccenion, 
his  friends  at.  once  found  another,  who  proved  far  more 
liberal  and  appreciative.  Under  the  immediate  auspices 
of  the  new  Kin^'  and  Queen,  dramatists  and  actors  en- 
joyed a  prosperity  and  a  consideration  which  improved 
on  every  (irecedent. 

On  May  iq,  1603,  James  I,  very  soon  after  his  acces- 
sion, extended  to  Shakespeare  and  other  members  of  the 
hord  Chamberliiin's  company  a  very  marked 
and  valuable  rec:o(,'nition.    To  them  he  j,'ranted  mt'enuo 
under  royal   letters  [)atent  a  license   'freely  Shake- 
to  use  and   exercise  the  arte  and   facultie  of  JSmpany, 
playinj^   comedies,   tragedies,    histories,   enter-  May  ig,    , 
ludes,    moralls,    fiastoralles,    stage-pJaies,    and 
such  other  like  as  they  have  already  studied,  or  hereafter 
shall  use  or  studie  as  well  for  the  recreation  of  our  loving 
subjectes  as  for  our  solace  and  i)leasure,  when  we  shall 
thinkegood  to  see  them  during  our  pleasure.'     The  Globe 
theatre  was  noted  as  the  customary  scene  of  their  labours, 
but  permission  was  granted  to  them  to  perform  in  the 
town-hall  or  moot-hall   or  other  convenient  place  in 
any  country  town.    Nine  actors  were  alone  mentioned 
individually  by  name.     Other  members  of  the  com- 
pany were  merely  described  as  'the  rest  of  their  asso- 
ciates.'    Lawrence  I'letchcr  stood  first  on  the  list;    he 
had  already  performed  before  James  in  Scotland  in  1599 
and  1601.     Shakespeare  came  second  and  Burbage  third. 
'I'here    followed    Augustine    i'hillips,    John    Heminges, 
Henry  (.'ondell,  William  Sly,  RolK-Tt  Armin,  shake- 
and  Richard  Cowley.    'I'he  company  to  which  *ptana» 
Shakespeare  and  his  colleagues  belonged  was  of  the 
thenceforth  styled   the  King's  company,   its  Chamber, 
members  became  'the  iting's  Servants.'    In  accordance, 
moreover,  with  a  precedent  created  liy  Queen  Elizabeth 
in  1583,  they  were  numbered  among  the  Grooms  of  the 


376  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Chamber.!  -phg  like  rank  was  conferred  oh  the  mem- 
bers of  the  company  which  was  taken  at  the  same  time 
into  the  patronage  of  James  I's  Queen-consort  Anne  of 
•  Denmark,  and  among  Queen  Anne's  new  Grooms  of  the 
Chamber  was  the  actor-dramatist  Thomas  Heywood, 
whose  career  was  always  running  parallel  with  that  of  the 
great  poet.  Shakespeare's  new  status  as  a  complemen- 
tary member  of  the  royal  household  had  material  advan- 
tages. In  that  capacity  he  and  his  fellows  received  from 
time  to  time  cloth  wherewith  to  provide  themselves 
liveries,  and  a  small  fixed  salary  of  525.  ^d.  a  year. 
Gifts  of  varying  amount  were  also  made  them  at  festive 
seasons  by  the  controller  of  the  royal  purse  at  the  Sov- 
ereign's pleasure  and  distinguished  royal  guests  gave 
them  presents.  The  household '  office  of  Groom  of  the 
Chamber  was  for  the  most  part  honorary,^  but  occasionally 
the  actors  were  required  to  perform  the  duties  of  Court 

1  The  royal  license  of  May  19,  1603,  was  first  printed  from  the  patent 
roll  in  Rymer's  Fcedera  (1715).  xvi.  505,  and  has  been  very  often  re- 
printed (cf.  Malone  Soc.  Coll.  191 1,  vol.  i.  264).  At  the  same  time  the 
Earl  of  Worcester's  company,  of  which  Thomas  Heywood,  the  actor- 
dramatist,  was  a  prominent  member,  was  taken  into  the  Queen's  patron- 
age, and  its  members  became  the  Queen's  servants,  and  likewise '  Grooms 
of  the  Chamber,'  while  the  Lord  Admiral's  (or  the  Earl  of  Nottingham's) 
company  were  taken  into  the  patronage  of  Henry  Prince  of  Wales,  and 
its  members  were  known  as  the  Prince's  Servants  until  his  death  in  161 2, 
when  they  were  admitted  into  the  'service'  of  his  biother-in-law  the 
Elector  Palatine.  The  remnants  of  the  ill-fated  company  of  Queen 
Elizabeth's  Servants  seem  to  have  passed  at  her  death  first  to  the  patron- 
age of  Lodovick  Stuart,  Duke  of  Lenox,  and  then  to  Prince  Charles,  Duke 
of  York,  afterwards  Prince  of  Wales  and  King  Charles  I  (Murray's 
English  Dramatic  Companies,  i.  228  seq.).  This  extended  patronage  of 
actors  by  the  royal  family  was  noticed  as  especially  honourable  to  the 
King  by  one  of  his  contemporary  panegyrists,  Gilbert  Dugdale,  in  his 
Time  Triumphant,  1604,  sig.  B. 

^  See  Dr.  Mary  Sullivan's  Court  Masques  of  James  I  (New  York, 
1913),  where  many  new  details  are  given  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
and  Lord  Steward's  records  in  regard  to  the  pecuniary  rewards  of  actors 
who  were  Grooms  of  the  Chamber.  The  Queen's  company,  which  was 
formed  in  1583,  but  soon  lost  its  prestige  in  London,  had  been  previously 
allotted  the  same  status  of  'Grooms  of  the  Chamber'  on  its  formation 
(see  p.  50  supra).  At  the  French  Court  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury the  leading  actors  were  given  the  corresponding  rank  of  'valets  de 
chambre'  in  the  royal  household.  See  French  Renaissance  in  England, 
P-  439- 


THE  ACCESSION  OF   KING  JAMES   I  377 

ushers,  and  they  were  then  allotted  board  wages  or 
the  pecuniary  equivalent  in  addition  to  their  other 
emoluments.  From  the  date  of  Shakespeare's  admis- 
sion to  titular  rank  in  the  royal  household  his  plays 
were  repeatedly  acted  in  the  royal  presence,  and  the 
dramatist  grew  more  intimate  than  of  old  with  the  social 
procedure  of  the  Court.  There  is  a  credible  tradition 
that  King  James  wrote  to  Shakespeare  '  an  amicable  let- 
ter' in  his  own  hand,  which  was  long  in  the  possession  of 
Sir  William  D'Avenant.^ 

In  the  autimm  and  winter  of  1603  an  exceptionally 
virulent  outbreak  of  the  plague  led  to  the  closing  of  the 
theatres  in  London  for  fully  six  months.  The  ^^  watoh 
King's  players  were  compelled  to  make  a  Dec.  2, 
prolonged  tour  in  the  provinces,  and  their  '  °^' 
normal  income  seriously  decreased.  For  two  months 
from  the  third  week  in  October,  the  Court  was  tem- 
porarily installed  at  Wilton,  the  residence  of  WiUiam 
Herbert,  third  Earl  of  Pembroke,  a  nobleman  •whose 
literary  tastes  were  worthy  of  a  nephew  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney.  Late  in  November  Shakespeare's  company  was 
summoned  thither  by  the  royal  officers  to  perform  be- 
fore the  new  King.  The  actors  travelled  from  Mort- 
lake  to  SaHsbury  'unto  the  Courte  aforesaide,'  and  their 
performance  took  place  at  Wilton  House  on  December  2. 
They  received  next  day 'upon  the  Councells  warrant' 
the  large  sum  of  30^.  'by  way  of  his  majesties  reward.'  ^ 

'  This  circumstance  was  first  set  forth  in  print,  on  the  testimony  of 
'a  credible  person  then  living,'  by  Bernard  Lintot  the  bookseller,  in 
the  preface  of  his  edition  of  Shakespeare's  poems  in  1710.  Oldys  sug- 
gested Uiat  the  'credible  person'  who  saw  the  letter  while  in  D'Avenant's 
possession  was  John  ShrfSeld,  Duke  of  Buckingham  (i'648-i72i),  who 
characteristically  proved  his  regard  for  Shakespeare  by  adapting  to  the 
Restoration  stage  his  Julius  Casar. 

'  The  entry,  which  appears  in  the  accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the 
Chamber,  was  first  printed  in  1842  in  Cunningham's  Extracts  from_  the 
Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court,  p.  xxxiv.  A  comparison  of  Cunning- 
ham's transcript  with  the  original  in  the  Public  Record  Office  {Audit 
Office  —  Declared  A  ccounts  —  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber,  RoU  41 ,  Bundle 
No.  388)  shows  that  it  is  accurate.  The  Earl  of  Pembroke  was  in  no  way 
responsible  for  the  performance  at  Wilton  House.    At  the  time,  the 


378  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

A  few  weeks  later  the  King  gave  a  further  emphatic 
sign  of  his  approbation.  The  plague  failed  to  abate  and 
the  Court  feared  to  come  nearer  the  capital 
tonC^rt,  than  Hampton  Court.  There  the  Christmas 
Christmas,  jioHdays  were  spent,  and  Shakespeare's  company 
were  summoned  to  that  palace  to  provide  again 
entertainment  for  the  King  and  his  family.  During  the 
festive  season  between  St.  Stephen's  Day,  December  26, 
1603,  and  New  Year's  Day,  January  i,  1604,  the  King's 
players  rendered  six  plays  —  four  before  the  King  and 
two  before  Prince  Henry.  The  programme  included  'a 
play  of  Robin  Goodfellow,'  which  has  been  rashly  identi- 
fied with  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.'  The  royal 
reward  amounted  to  the  generous  sum  of  53/.^  In  view 
of  the  fatal  persistence  of  the  epidemic  Shakespeare's 
company,  when  the  new  year  opened,  were  condemned 
to  idleness,  for  the  Privy  Council  maintained  its  prohi- 
bition of  public  performances  'in  or  neare  London  by 
reason*  of  greate  perill  that  might  growe  through  the 
extraordinarie  concourse  and  assemblie  of  people.' 
The  King  proved  afresh  his  benevolent  interest  in  his 
players'  welfare  by  directing  the  payment,  on  February  8, 
1603-4,  of  30/.  to  Richard  Burbage  'for  the  mayntenance 
and  rehefe  of  himself e  and  the  reste  of  his  companie.'^ 

The  royal  favour  flowed  indeed  in  an  uninterrupted 
stream.  The  new  King's  state  procession  through  the 
City  of  London,  from  the  Tower  to  Whitehall,  was  orig- 
inally designed  as  part  of  the  coronation  festivities  for 
the  summer  of  1603.  But  a  fear  of  the  coming  plague 
confined  the  celebrations  then  to  the  ceremony  of  the 
crowning  in  Westminster  Abbey  on  July  25,  and  the  pro- 
Court  was  formally  installed  in  his  house  (cf.  Cal.  State  Papers,  Dom. 
1603-10,  pp.  47-59),  and  the  Court  officers  commissioned  the  players 
to  perform  there,  and  paid  all  their  expenses.  The  alleged  tradition, 
recently  promulgated  for  the  first  time  by  the  owners  of  Wilton,  that 
As  You  Like  It  was  performed  on  the  occasion,  is  unsupported  by  con- 
temporary evidence. 

'  See  Cunningham's  Extracts  from  the  Rends,  p.  jcxxv,  and  Ernest 
Law's  History  of  Hampton  Court  Palace,  ii.  13. 

2  Cunningham,  ibid. 


THE  ACCESSION  OF   KING  JAMES   I  379 

cession  was  postponed  till  the  spring  of  the  following 
year.     When  the  course  of  the  sickness  was  at  length 
stayed,  the  royal  progress  through  the  capital  ^j^^^     , 
was  fixed  for  March  15,  1603-4,  and  the  page-  progress 
antry   was    planned    on   an   elaborate   scale.  London 
Triumphal  arches  of  exceptional  artistic  charm  March  is. 
spanned  the  streets,  and  the  beautiful  designs  ^^'*" 
were   reproduced  in  finished   copper-plate  engravings.^ 
Just  before  the  appointed  day  Shakespeare  arid  eight  other 
members  of  lais  acting  company  each  received  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  royal  household  from  Sir  George  Home,  master 
of  the  great  wardrobe,  four  and  a  half  yards  of  scarlet 
cloth  wherewith  to  make  themselves  suits  of  royal  red. 
In  the  document  authorising  the  grant,  Shakespeare's 
name  stands  first  on  the  Hst ;  it  is  immediately  followed 
by  that  of  Augustine  PhiUips,  Lawrence  Fletcher,  John 
Heminges,  and  Richard  Burbage.^    There  is  small  like-" 
lihood  that  Shakespeare  and  his  colleagues  joined  the 
royal  cavalcade  in  tlieir  gay  apparel.     For  the  Herald's 
official  order  of  precedence  allots  the  actors  no  place, 
nor  is  their  presence  noticed  by  Shakespeare's  friends, 
Drayton  and  Ben  Jonson,  or  by  the  dramatist  Dekker, 
all  of  whom  published  descriptions  of  the  elaborate 
ceremonial  in  verse  or  prose.'    But  twenty  days   after 
the  royal  passage  through  London  —  on  April  9,  1604  — 
the  Kong  added  to  his  proofs  of  friendly  regard  for  the 
fortunes  of  his  actors.    He  caused  the  Privy  Council  to 
send  an  official  letter  to  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  and 

'  See  The  Arclies  of  Triumph  .  .  .  invented  and  pMislied  by  Stephen 
Hturrison,  Joyner  and  ArMttct  and  graven  by  William  Kip,  London,  1604. 

'  The  grant  which  is  in  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  books  ix.  4  (5)  in  the 
Public  Record  Office  was  printed  in  the  New  Shakspere  Society's  Trans- 
actions 1877-9,  Appendix  II.  The  main  portion  is  reproduced  in  fac- 
simile in  jNIr.  Ernest  Law's  SImkespeare  as  a  Groont  of  the  Chamber,  1910, 
p.  8.  A  blank  space  in  the  list  separates  the  first  five  names  (given 
above)  from  the  last  four,  viz.  William  Sly,  Robert  Annin,  Henry  Con- 
dell,  and  Richard  Cowley. 

'  The  King's  players  on  the  other  hand  were  allotted  a  place  in  the 
funeral  procession  of  James  I  in  1623,  while  a  like  honour  was  accorded 
the  Queen's  players  in  her  funeral  procession  in  1618  (Law's  Shake- 
speare as  a  Groom  of  the  Chamber,  12-13). 


380  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Justices  of  the  Peace  for  Middlesex  and  Surrey,  bid- 
ding them  'permit  and  suffer'  the  King's  players  to 
'exercise  their  playes'  at  their  'usual  house/  the  Globe.' 
The  plague  had  disappeared,  and  the  Corporation  of  Lon- 
don was  plainly  warned  against  indulging  their  veteran 
grudge  against  Shakespeare's  profession. 

Nor  in  the  ceremonial  conduct  of  current  diplomatic 
affairs  did  the  Court  forgo  the  personal  assistance  of  the 
The  actors  actors.  Early  in  August  _  1 604  there  reached 
atsomer-  London,  on  a  diplomatic  mission  of  high 
Aug^^fs,  national  interest,  a  Spanish  ambassador- 
i6°4-  '  extraordinary,  Juan  Fernandez  de  Velasco, 
Duke  de  Frias,  Constable  of  Castile,  and  Great  Cham- 
berlain to  King  Philip  III  of  Spain.  His  ■  companions 
were  two  other  Spanish  statesmen  and  three  representa- 
tives of  Archduke  Albert  of  Austria,  the  governor  of  the 
Spanish  province  of  the  Netherlands.  The  purpose  of 
the  mission  was  to  ratify  a  treaty  of  peace  between  Spain 
and  England.^  Through  nearly  the  whole  of  Queen 
EHzabeth's  reign  —  from  the  ,  days  of  Shakespeare's 
youth  —  the  two  countries  had  engaged  in  a  furious 
duel  by  sea  and  land  in  both  the  hemispheres.  The 
defeat  of  the  Armada  in  1588  was  for  England  a  glorious 
incident  in  the  struggle,  but  it  brought  no  early  settle- 
ment in  its  train.  Sixteen  years  passed  without  termi- 
nating the  quarrel,  and  though  in  the  autumn  of  1604 

'  A  contemporary  copy  of  this  letter,  which  declared  the  Queen's 
players  acting  at  the  Fortune  and  the  Prince's  players  at  the  Curtain 
to  be  entitled  to  the  same  privileges  as  the  King's  players  at  the  Globe, 
is  at  Dulwich  College  (cf.  G.  F.  Warner's  Cat.  Dtdwich  MSS.  pp.  26-7). 
Collier  printed  it  in  his  New  Facts  with  fraudulent  additions,  in  which 
the  names  of  Shakespeare  and  other  actors  figured. 

2  There  is  at  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  London,  a  painting  by 
Marc  Gheeraedts,  representing  the  six  foreign  envoys  in  consultation 
over  the  treaty  at  Somerset  House  in  August  1604  with  the  five  English 
commissioners,  viz.,  Thomas  Sackville,  Earl  of  Dorset  (co-author  in 
early  life  of  the  first  English  tragedy  of  Gorboduc) ;  Charles  Howard, 
Earl  of  Nottingham,  Lord  High  Admiral  (patron  of  the  well-known 
company  of  players) ;  Charles  Blount,  Earl  of  Devonshire  (Essex's 
successor  as  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland) ;  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  North- 
ampton, and  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  the  King's  Secretary  (afterwards  Lord 
Cranborne  and  Earl  of  Salisbury). 


THE  ACCESSION  OF  KING  JAMES  I  381 

many  Englishmen  still  agitated  for  a  continuance  of 
the  warfare,  James  I  and  his  Government  were  resolutely 
bent  on  ending  the  long  epoch  of  international  strife. 
The  EngUsh  Court  prepared  a  magnificent  reception  for 
the  distinguished  envoys.  The  ambassador  was  lodged, 
with  his  two  companions  from  Spain,  at  the  royal  residence 
of  Somerset  House  in  the  Strand,  and  there  the  twelve 
chief  members  of  Shakespeare's  company  were  ordered 
in  their  capacity  of  Grooms  of  the  Chamber  to  attend  the 
Spanish  guests  for  the  whole  eighteen  days  of  their  stay. 
The  three  Flemish  envoys  were  entertained  at  another 
house  in  the  Strand,  at  Durham  House,  and  there  Queen 
Anne's  company  of  actors,  of  which  Thomas  Heywood 
was  a  member,  provided  the  household  service.  On 
August  9  Shakespeare  and  his  colleagues  went  into  resi- 
dence at  Somerset  House  'on  his  Majesty's  service,' 
in  order  to  'wait  and  attend'  on  the  Constable  of  Castile, 
who  headed  the  special  embassy,  and  they  remained 
there  till  August  28.  Professional  work  was  not  re- 
quired of  the  players.  Cruder  sport  than  the  drama 
was  alone  admitted  to  the  official  programme  of  amuse- 
ments. The  festivities  in  the  Spaniards'  honour  cul- 
minated in  a  splendid  banquet  at  Whitehall  on  Sunday 
August  28  (new  style)  —  the  day  on  which  the  treaty 
was  signed.  In  the  morning  the  twelve  actors  with  the 
other  members  of  the  royal  household  accompanied  the 
Constable  in  formal  procession  from  Somerset  House  to 
James  I's  palace.  At  the  banquet,  Shakespeare's  patron, 
the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke 
acted  as  stewards.  There  followed  a  ball,  and  the 
eventful  day  was  brought  to  a  close  with  exhibitions  of 
bear-baiting,  bull-baiting,  rope-dancing,  and  feats  of 
horsemanship.^     Subsequently  Sir  John  Stanhope  (after- 

'  Cf.  Stow's  Chronicle  1631,  pp.  845-6,  and  a  Spanish  pamphlet, 
Relation  de  la  Jornada  del  exi""'  Condestabile  de  CasUlla,  etc.,  Antwerp, 
1604,  4to,  which  was  summarised  in  Ellis's  Original  Letters,  2nd  series, 
vol.  iii.  pp.  207-215,  and  was  partly  translated  in  Mr.  W.  B.  Rye's 
England  as  seen  by  Foreigners,  pp.  117-124.  In  the  unprinted  accounts 
of  Edmund  Tilney,  Master  of  the  Revels  for  the  year  October  1603  to 


382  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

wards  Lord  Stanhope  of  Harrington),  who  was  Treasurer 
of  the  chamber,  received  order  of  the  Lord  Chamber- 
lain to  pay  Shakespeare  and  his  friends  for  their  services 
the  sum  of  21^.  125.'-  The  Spanish  Constable  also 
bestowed  a  Uberal  personal  gift  on  every  English  oflScial 
who  attended  on  him  during  his  eighteen  days'  sojourn 
in  London. 

At  normal  times  throughout  his  reign  James  I  relied 
to  an  ever-increasing  extent  on  the  activity  of  Shake- 
speare's company  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
'iS've's  °*    Court,  and  royal  appreciation  of  Shakespeare's 
/Labour's      dramatic  work  is  well  attested  year  by  year. 
In  the  course  of  1604  Queen  Anne  expressed  a 
wish  to  witness  a  play  under  a  private  roof,  and  the 
Earl   of    Southampton's   mansion   in    the    Strand   was 
chosen  for  the  purpose.   A  prominent  officer  of  the  Court, 
Sir  Walter   Cope,   in  whose  hands   the   arrangements 

October  1604,  charge  is  made  for  his  three  days'  attendance  with  four 
men  to  direct  the  non-dramatic  entertainments  'at  the  receaving  of 
the  Constable  of  Spayne'  (Public  Record  Office,  Declared  Accounts, 
Pipe  Office  Roll  2805). 

1  The  formal  record  of  the  service  of  the  King's  players  and  of  their 
payments  is  in  the  Pubhc  Record  Office  among  the  Audit  Office  Declared 
Accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Kynges  Majesties  Chamber  Roll  41, 
Bundle  No.  388.  The  same  information  is  repeated  in  the  Pipe  Office 
Parchment  Bundle,  No.  543.  The  warrant  for  payment  was  granted 
'  to  Augustine  Phillipps  and  John  Hemynges  for  the  allowance  of  them- 
selves and  tenne  of  their  feUowes.'  Shakespeare,  the  very  close  associate 
of  Phillips  and  Heminges,  was  one  of  the  'tenne.'  The  remaining  nine 
certainly  included  Burbage,  Lawrence  Fletcher,  CondeU,  Sly,  Armin, 
and  Cowley.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  in iis  Outlines  (i.  213),  vaguely  noted 
the  effect  of  the  record  without  giving  any  reference.  Mr.  Ernest  Law 
has  given  a  facsimile  of  the  pay  warrant  in  his  Shakespeare  as  a  Groom  of 
the  Chamber,  1910,  pp.  19  seq.  The  popular  comedian  Thomas  Greene, 
and  ten  other  members  of  the  Queen's  company  (including  Heywood) 
who  were  in  'waiting  as  Grooms  of  the  Chamber'  on  the  Spanish  envoy's 
companions  —  the  three  diplomatists  from  the  Low  Countries  —  at 
Durham  House,  for  the  eighteen  days  of  their  sojourn  there  received  a 
fee  of  igZ.  16s.  —  a  rather  smaller  sum  than  Shakespeare's  compajiy 
(Mary  Sullivan,  Court  Masquss  of  James  I,  1913,  p.  141).  The  Flemish 
embassy  was  headed  by  the  Count  d'Aremberg,  and  one  of  his  two  com- 
panions was  Louis  Verreiken,  whom,  on  a  previous  visit  to  London,  in 
March  1599-1600,  Lord  Hunsdon,  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  had  enter- 
tained at  Hunsdon  House  when  Shakespeare's  company  performed  a 
play  there  for  his  amusement  (see  p.  65  n.  2  and  244  n.  supra). 


THE  ACCESSION  OP  KING  JAMES  I  383 

were  left,  sent  for  Burbage,  Shakespeare's  friend  and 
colleague.  Burbage  informed  Sir  Walter  that  there 
was  'no  new  play  that  the  Queen  had  not  seen' ;  but  his 
company  had  'just  revived  an  old  one  called  "Love's 
Labour's  Lost,"  which  for  wit  and  mirth'  (he  said) 
would  'please  her  Majesty  exceedingly.'  Cope  readily 
accepted  the  suggestion,  and  the  earliest  of  Shakespeare's 
comedies  which  had  won  Queen  Elizabeth's  special 
approbation  was  submitted  to  the  new  Queen's  judg- 
ment.'' 

At  holiday  seasons  Shakespeare  and  his  friends  were 
invariably  visitors  at  the  royal  palaces.    Between  All 
Saints'  Day  (November  i),  1604,  and  the  ensu-  shake- 
ing  Shrove  Tuesday  (February  12, 1604-5),  they  speare's 
gave  no  less  than  eleven  performances  at  White-  courtf' 
hall.^    As  many  as  seven  of  the  chosen  plays  i6°4-s. 
during    this    season    were    from    Shakespeare's    pen. 
'Othello,'  the  'Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  'Measure  for 
Measure,'   'The  Comedy  of  Errors,'  'Love's  Labour's 
Lost,'  'Henry  V,'  were  each  rendered  once,  while  of  'The 
Merchant  of  Venice'  two  performances  were  given,  the 
second  being  specially   '  com[m]aunded  by    the    Kings 
M[ajes]tie.^    The  King  clearly  took  a  personal  pride  in 
the  repute  of  the  company  which  bore  his  name,  and  he 
lost  no  opportunity  of  making  their  proficiency  known 

^  Cope  gave  the  actor  a  written  message  to  that  effect  for  him  to 
carry  to  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  Lord  Cranbome,  the  King's  secretary.  Cope, 
inquired  in  his  letter  whether  Lord  Cranborne  would  prefer  that  his 
own  house  should  take  the  place  of  Lord  Southampton's  for  the  purpose 
of  the  performance  (Calendar  of  MSS.  of  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury, 
in  Hist.  MSS.  Comm.  Third  Rep.  p.  148). 

^  At  the  Bodleian  Library  (MS.  Rawlinson,  A  204)  are  the  original 
accounts  of  Lord  Stanhope  of  Harrington,  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber 
for  various  (detached)  years  in  the  early  part  of  James  I's  reign.  These 
documents  show  that  Shakespeare's  company  acted  at  Court  on  Novem- 
ber I  and  4,  December  26  and  28, 1604,  and  on  January  7  and  8,  February 
2  and  3,  and  the  evenings  of  the  following  Shrove  Sunday,  Shrove  Mon- 
day, and  Shrove  Tuesday,  1604-5. 

'  Cf.  Ernest  Law's  Some  Supposed  Shakespeare  Forgeries,  rpii,  pp. 
xvi  seq.  with  facsimile  extract  from  The  Revells  Booke  An"  1605  in  the 
Public  Record  Office. 


384  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

to  distinguished  foreign  visitors.  When  the  Queen's 
brother,  Frederick,  King  of  Denmark,  was  her  husband's 
guest  in  the  summer  of  1606,  the  King's  players  were 
specially  summoned  to  perform  three  plays  before  the 
two  monarchs  —  two  at  Greenwich  and  one  at  Hampton 
Court.  The  celebration  of  the  marriage  of  the  King's 
daughter  Princess  Elizabeth  with  the  Elector  Palatine 
in  February  1613  was  enlivened  by  an  exceptionally 
lavish  dramatic  entertainment  which  was  again  fur- 
nished by  the  actors  of  the  Blackfriars  and  Globe 
theatres.  During  the  first  twelve  years  (1603-1614) 
of  King  James's  reign,  Shakespeare's  company,  accord- 
ing to  extant  records  of  royal  expenses,  received  fees  for 
no  less  than  150  performances  at  Court.-' 

'  Cunningham,  Revels,  p.  xxxiv;    Murray,  English  Dramatic  Com- 
panies, i.  173  seq. 


XVIII 

THE  HIGHEST  THEMES  OF  TRAGEDY 

Under  the  incentive  of  such  exalted  patronage,  Shake- 
speare's activity  redoubled,  but  his  work  shows  none  of 
the  conventional  marks  of  literature  that  is  ,„ ,  ,,  , 
produced  in  the  blaze  of  Court  favour.     The  and'Mea- 
first  six  years  of  the  new  reien  saw  him  absorbed  l^^  ^"^  , 
in  the  highest  themes  of  tragedy;   and  an  un- 
paralleled intensity  and  energy,  which  had  small  affinity 
with  the  atmosphere  of  a  Court,  thenceforth  illumined 
almost  every  scene  that  he  contrived. 

To  1604,  when  Shakespeare's  fortieth  year  was  clos- 
ing, the  composition  of  two  plays  of  immense  grasp  can  be 
confidently  assigned.  One  of  these  —  '  Othello '  —  ranks 
with  Shakespeare's  greatest  achievements;  while  the 
other  —  'Measure  for  Measure'  —  although  as  a  whole 
far  inferior  to  'Othello'  or  to  any  other  example  of 
Shakespeare's  supreme  power  —  contains  one  of  the 
finest  scenes  (between  Angelo  and  Isabella,  11.  ii.  43  seq.) 
and  one  of  the  greatest  speeches  (Claudio  on  the  fear  of 
death,  in.  i.  116-30)  in  the  range  of  Shakespearean 
drama. 

'Othello'  was  doubtless  the  first  new  piece  by  Shake- 
speare that  was  acted  before  James.     It  was  produced  on 
November  i,  1604,  in  the  old  Banqueting  House  gj^  ^^^^ 
at  Whitehall,  which  had  been  often  put  by  perfonn- 
Queen  Ehzabeth  to  like  uses,  although  the  build-  ^'^' 
ing  was  now  deemed  to  be  '  old,  rotten,  and  sHght  builded ' 
and  in  1607  a  far  more  ornate  structure  took  its  place.^ 

'  Cf.  Stow's  Annals,  ed.  Howes,  p.  891,  col.  i.  James  I's  banqueting 
house  at  Whitehall  was  destroyed  by  fire  after  a  dozen  years'  usage  on 

2  c  38s 


386  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

'Measure  for  Measure'  followed  'Othello'  at  Whitehall 
on  December  26,  1604,  and  that  piece  was  enacted  in  a 
different  room  of  the  palace,  'the  great  haU.'  ^  Neither 
piece  was  printed  in  Shakespeare's  Ufetime.  'Measure 
for  Measure '  figured  for  the  first  time  in  the  First  Folio 
of  1623.     'Othello,'  which  held  the  stage  continuously,^ 

January  12,  1618-9,  and  was  then  rebuilt  from  the  designs  of  Inigo  Jones. 
The  new  edifice  was  completed  on  March  31,  1622.  Inigo  Jones's  ban- 
queting house,  now  part  of  the  United  Service  Institution  in  Parliament 
Street,  is  all  that  survives  of  Whitehall  Palace. 

'■  These  dates  and  details  are  drawn  from  'The  ReueUs  Booke,  An" 
160S,'  a  slender  manuscript  pamphlet  among  the  Audit  Office  archives 
formerly  at  Somerset  House,  and  now  in  the  Public  Record  Office. 
The  'booke'  covers  the  year  November  1604-October  1605.  It  was 
first  printed  in  1842  by  Peter  Cunningham,  a  well-known  Shakespearean- 
student  and  a  clerk  in  the  Audit  Office,  in  his  Extracts  from  the  Accounts 
of  the  Revels  at  Court  (Shakespeare  Soc.  1842,  pp.  203  seq.).  When 
Cunningham  left  the  Audit  Office  in  1858  he  retained  in  his  possession 
this  'ReueUs  Booke'  of  1605  as  well  as  one  for  161 1-2  and  some  Audit 
Office  accounts  of  1636-7.  These  documents  were  missing  when  the 
Audit  Office  papers  were  transferred  from  Somerset  House  to  the  Public 
Record  Office  in  1859,  but  they  were  recovered  from  Cuimingham  by 
the  latter  institution  in  1868.  It  was  then  hastily  suspected  tiat  boli 
the  'Booke'  of  1605  and  that  of  1611-2  which  also  contained  Shake- 
spearean information,  had  been  tampered  with,  and  that  the  Shake- 
spearean references  were  modem  forgeries.  The  authenticity  of  the 
Shakespearean  entries  of  1604-5  was,  however,  confirmed  by  manuscript 
notes  to  identical  effect  which  had  been  made  by  Malone  from  the  Audit 
Office  archives  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  are  pre- 
served in  the  Bodleian  Library  among  the  Malone  papers  (MS.  Malone 
29).  A  very  thorough  investigation  carried  out  by  Mr.  Ernest  Law 
has  recently  cleared  the  'ReueUs  Booke  An"  1605'  as  weU  as  that  of 
1611-2,  and  the  papers  of  1636-7  of  aU  suspicion.  See  Ernest  Law's 
Some  Supposed  Shakespeare  Forgeries,  191 1,  and  More  about  Shakespeare 
'Forgeries'  1913;  see  Appendix  I,  p.  650  infra.  Collier's  assertion  in 
his  New  Particulars,  p.  57,  that  Othello  was  first  acted  at  Sir  Thomas 
Egerton's  residence  at  Harefield,  near  Uxbridge,  on  August  6,  1602,  was 
based  solely  on  a  document  among  the  Earl  of  EUesmere's  MSS.  at. 
Bridgwater  House,  which  purported  to  be  a  contemporary  account  by 
the  clerk,  Sir  Arthur  Maynwaring,  of  Sir  Thomas  Egerton's  household 
expenses.  This  document,  which  CoUier  reprinted  in  his  Egerton  Papers 
(Camden  Soc),  p.  343,  was  authoritatively  pronounced  by  experts  in 
i860  to  be  'a  shameful  forgery'  (cf.  Ingleby's  Complete  View  of  the  Skak- 
spere_  Controversy,  1861,  pp.  261-5),  and  there  is  no  possibility  of  this 
verdict  being  reversed. 

'  The  piece  was  witnessed  at  the  Globe  theatre  on  April  30,  1610, 
by  a  German  visitor  to  London,  Prince  Lewis  Frederick  of  Wiirtembetg 
(Rye's  England  as  seen  by  Foreigners,  pp.  cxviii-ix,  61),  and  it  was  re- 
peated at  Court  early  in  1613  {Sh.  Soc.  Papers,  ii.  124). 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES  OF  TRAGEDY  387 

first  appeared  in  a  belated  Quarto  in  1622,  six  years  after 
Shakespeare's  death.  The  publisher,  Thomas  Walkley, 
had  obtained  a  theatre  copy  which  had  been  p^j^jj 
abbreviated  and  was  none  too  carefully  tran-  tionof 
scribed.  He  secured  a  license  from  the  Sta-  '°^^^^°-' 
tioners'  Company  on  October  6,  1621,  and  next  year  the 
volume  issued  from  the  competent  press  of  Nicholas 
Okes,  '  as  it  hath  beene  diuerse  times  acted  at  the  Globe, 
and  at  the  Black  Friers,  by  his  Maiesties  Seruants.'  In 
an  'address  to  the  reader'  Walkley  claimed  sole  responsi- 
bility ('  the  author  being  dead ')  for  the  undertaking.  He 
forbore  to  praise  the  play;  'for  that  which  is  good  I 
hope  every  man  will  commend  without  entreaty ;  and  I 
am  the  bolder  because  the  author's  name  is  sufficient  to 
vent  his  work.'  The  editors  of  the  First  FoUo  ignored 
Walkley's  venture  and  presented  an  independent  and  a 
better  text. 

The  plots  of  both  'Othello'  and  'Measure  for  Measure' 
come  from  the  same  Itahan  source  —  from  a  collection 
of  Italian  novels  known  as  'Hecatommithi,'  cintWo's 
which  was  penned  by  Giraldi  Cinthio  of  Ferrara,  novels, 
a  sixteenth-century  disciple  of  Boccaccio.  Cinthio's 
volume  was  first  published  in  1565.  But  while  Shake- 
speare based  each  of  the  two  plays  on  Cinthio's  romantic 
work,  he  remoulded  the  course  of  each  story  at  its 
critical  point.  The  spirit  of  melodrama  was  exorcised. 
Varied  phases  of  passion  were  interpreted  with  magical 
subtlety,  and  the  language  was  charged  with  a  poetic 
intensity,  which  seldom  countenanced  mere  rhetoric  or 
declamation. 

Cinthio's  painful  story  of  'Un  Capitano  Moro,'  or  'The 
Moor  of  Venice'  (decad.  iii.  Nov.  vii.),  is  not  known  to 
have  been  translated  into  English  before  Shake-  Shake- 
speare dramatised  it  in  the  play  on  which  he  jg^^j^^g"^ 
bestowed  the  title  of  'Othello.'  He  frankly  tafeof'^'' 
accepted  the  main  episodes  and  characters  of  otheUo. 
the  Italian  romance.  At  the  same  time  he  gave  all  the 
personages    excepting   Desdemona   names   of   his   own 


388  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

devising,  and  he  invested  every  one  of  them  with  a  new 
and  graphic  significance.^  Roderigo,  the  foolish  dupe  of 
lago,  is  Shakespeare's  own  creation,  and  he  adds  some 
minor  characters,  hke  Desdemona's  father  and  uncle. 
The  only  character  in  the  Itahan  novel  with  whom 
Shakespeare  dispensed  is  lago's  little  child.  The  hero 
and  heroine  (Othello  and  Desdemona)  are  by  no  means 
featureless  in  the  Itahan  novel';  but  the  passion,  pathos, 
and  poetry  with  which  Shakespeare  endows  their  speech 
are  all  his  own.  lago,  who  lacks  in  Cinthio's  pages  any 
trait  to  distinguish  him  from  the  conventional  criminal 
of  Itahan  fiction,  became  in  Shakespeare's  hands  the 
subtlest  of  all  studies  of  intellectual  villainy  and  hy- 
pocrisy. The  Heutenant  Cassio  and  lago's  wife  Emilia 
are  in  the  Italian,  tale  lay  figures.  But  Shakespeare's 
genius  declared  itself  most  signally  in  his  masterly  recon- 
struction of  the  catastrophe.  He  lent  Desdemona's 
tragic  fate  a  wholly  new  and  fearful  intensity  by  making 
lago's  cruel  treachery  known  to  Othello  at  the  last— just 
after  lago's  perfidy  had  impelled  the  noble-hearted  Moor, 
in  groundless  jealousy,  to  murder  his  gentle  and  innocent 
wife.^ 

The  whole  tragedy  displays  to  magnificent  advantage 
the  dramatist's  mature  powers.    An  unfaltering  equilib- 

'  In  Cinthio's  story  none  of  the  characters,  save  Desdemona,  have 
proper  names;  they  are  known  only  by  their  office;  thus  Othello  is 
'il  capitano  moro'  or  'il  moro.'  lago  is  '1'  alfiero'  (i.e.  the  ensign  or 
'ancient')  and  Cassio  is  'il  capo  di  squadrone.' 

'  In  Cinthio's  melodramatic  dfeoflment  'the  ensign'  (lago)  and  'the 
Moor'  (Othello)  plot  together  the  deaths  of 'the  captain'  (Cassio)  and 
Desdemona.  Cassio  escapes  unhurt,  but  lago  in  Othello's  sight  kills 
Desdemona  with  three  strokes  of  a  stocking  filled  with  sand ;  whereupon 
Othello  helps  the  murderer  to  throw  down  the  ceiling  of  the  room  on  his 
wife's  dead  body  so  that  the  death  might  appear  to  be  accidental.  Though 
ignorant  of  Desdemona's  innocence,  Othello  soon  quarrels  with  lago, 
who  in  revenge  contrives  the  recall  of  the  Moor  to  Venice,  the^e  to  stand 
his  trial  for  Desdemona's  murder.  The  Moor,  after  being  tortured  with- 
out avail,  is  released  and  is  ultimately  slain  by  Desdemona's  kinsfolk 
without  being  disillusioned.  lago  is  charged  with  some  independent 
offence  and  dies  under  torture.  Cinthio  represents  that  the  story  was 
true,  and  that  he  owes  his  knowledge  of  it  to  lago's  widow,  Shakespeare's 
Emilia. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES  OF  TRAGEDY  389 

rium  is  maintained  in  the  treatment  of  plot  and  char- . 
acters  alike.     The  first  act  passes  in  Venice;    the  rest 
of  the  play  has  its  scene  in  Cyprus.    Dr.  John- 
son, a  champion  of  the  classical  drama,  argued  um'ty  of 
that  had  Shakespeare  confined  the  action  of  *«   . 
the  play  to  Cyprus  alone  he  would  have  satis-     ^^^  ■*'' 
fied  all  the  canons  of  classical  unity.     It  might  well 
be  argued  that,  despite  the  single  change  of  scene,  Shake- . 
speare  reahses  in  'Othello'  the  dramatic  ideal  of  unity 
more  effectively  than  a  rigic  adherence  to  the  letter  of 
the  classical  law  would  allow.     The  absence  of  genuine 
comic  relief  emphasises  the  classical  aflSnity,  and  differ- 
entiates 'OtheUo'  from  its  chief  forerunner  'Hamlet.'^ 
France  seems  to  have  first  adapted  to  hterary  pur- 
poses the  central  theme  of  'Measure  for  Measure' ;  early 
in  the  sixteenth  century  French  drama  and 
fiction  both  portrayed  the  agonies  of  a  virtuous  of  'Mea™^ 
woman,  who,  when  her  near  kinsman  Hes  under  j^^^^g . 
lawful  sentence  of  death,  is  promised  his  par- 
don by  the  governor  of  the  State  at  the  price  of  her 
chastity.^    The  repulsive  tale  impressed  the  imagination 
,of  all  Europe;   but  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime  it  chiefly 
circulated  in  the  form  which  it  took  at  the  hand  of  the 
Italian  novelist  Cinthio  in  the  later  half  of  the  century. 
Cinthio  made  the  perilous  story  the  subject  not  cintUo's 
only  of  a  romance  but  of  a  tragedy  called  '  Epi-  '^'«- 
tia,'  and  his  romance  found  entry  into  EngKsh  Uterature, 
before  Shakespeare  wrote  his  play.     Direct  recourse  to 
the  ItaUan  text  was  not  obligatory  as  in  the  case  of 
Cinthio's  story  of '  OtheUo. '     Cinthio's  novel  of  '  Measure 
for  Measure'  had  been  twice  rendered  into  Enghsh  by 
George  Whetstone,  an  industrious  author,  who  was  the 
friend    of    the    Elizabethan    literary    pioneer,    George 
Gascoigne.     Whetstone    not    only    gave    a    somewhat 

'  lago's  cynical  and  shameless  mirth  does  not  belong  to  the  category 
of  comic  relief,  and  the  clown  in  Othello's  service,  whose  wit  is  unim- 
pressive, plays  a  small  and  negligible  part. 

'  Cf .  Boas,  University  Drama,  p.  19 ;  Lee,  French  Renaissance  in 
England,  p.  408. 


3  go  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

altered  version  of  the  Italian  romance  in  his  unwieldy' 
play  of  'Promos  and  Cassandra'  (in  two  parts  of  five 
acts  each,  1578),  but  he  also  freely  translated  it  in  his 
collection  of  prose  tales,  called  'Heptameron  of  Ciuill 
Discourses'  (1582).  'Measure  for  Measure'  owes  its 
episodes  to  Whetstone's  work,  although  Shakespeare 
borrows  Httle  of  his  language.  Whetstone  changes 
Cinthio's  nomenclature,  and  Shakespeare  again  gives  all. 
the  personages  new  appellations.  Cinthio's  Juriste  and 
Epitia,  who  are  respectively  rechristened  by  Whetstone 
Promos  and  Cassandra,  become  in  Shakespeare's  pages 
Angelo  and  Isabella.'-  There  is  a  bare  likehhood  that 
Shakespeare  also  knew  Cinthio's  Italian  play,  which  was 
untranslated ;  there,  as  in  the  ItaHan  novel,  the  leading 
character,  who  is  by  Shakespeare  christened  Angelo,  was 
known  as  Juriste,  but  CintHo  in  his  play  (and  not  in  his 
novel)  gives  the  character  a  sister  named  Angela,  which 
may  have  suggested  Shakespeare's  designation.^ 

In  the  hands  of  Shakespeare's  predecessors  the  popular 
tale  is  a  sordid  record  of  lust  and  cruelty.  But  Shake- 
shake-  speare  prudently  showed  scant  respect  for  their 
speare's  handhng  of  the  narrative.  By  diverting  the 
variations.    (,Qyj.gg  q{  ^j^g  pj^^  g^j.  ^  critical  point  he  not 

merely  proved  his  artistic  ingenuity,  but  gave  dramatic 
dignity  and  moral  elevation  to  a  degraded  and  repellent 
theme.  In  the  old  versions  Isabella  jdelds  her  virtue  as 
the  price  of  her  brother's  Hfe.  The  central  fact  of  Shake- 
speare's play  is  Isabella's  inflexible  and  unconditional 
chastity.  Other  of  Shakespeare's  alterations,  Hke  the 
Duke's  abrupt  proposal  to  marry  Isabella,  seem  hastily 
conceived.     But  his  creation  of  the  pathetic  character  of 

^  Whetstone  states,  however,  that  his  'rare  historie  of  Promos  and 
Cassandra'  was  'reported'  to  him  by  'Madam  Isabella,'  who  is  not 
otherwise  identified. 

^  Richard  Garnett's  Italian  Literature,  1898,  p.  227.  Angelo,  how- 
ever, is  a  name  which  figures  not  infrequently  in  lists  of  dramatis  persona 
of  other  English  plays  in  the  opening  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Subordinate  characters  are  so  christened  in  Ben  Jonson's  The  Case  is 
Altered,  and  in  Chapman's  May  Day,  both  of  which  were  written  before 
1602,  though  they  were  first  printed  in  1609  and  1611  respectively. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  391 

Mariana  'of  the  moated  grange'  —  the  legally  affianced 
bride  of  Angelo,  Isabella's  would-be  seducer  —  skilfully 
excludes  the  possibility  of  a  settlement  (as  in  the  old 
stories)  between  Isabella  and  Angelo  op.  terms  of  mar- 
riage. Shakespeare's  argument  is  throughout  philosophi- 
cally subtle.  The  poetic  eloquence  in  which  Isabella  and 
the  Duke  pay  homage  to  the  virtue  of  chastity,  and  the 
many  expositions  of  the  corruption  with  which  unchecked 
sexual  passion  threatens  society,  alternate  with  coarsely 
comic  interludes  which  suggest  the  vanity  of  seeking  to 
efface  natural  instincts  by  the  coercion  of  law.  There  is 
little  in  the  play  that  seems  designed  to  recommend  it  to 
the  Court  before  which  it  was  performed.  But  the  two 
emphatic  references  to  a  ruler's  dislike  of  mobs,  despite 
his  love  of  his  people,  were  perhaps  penned  in  defer- 
ential allusion  to  James  I,  whose  horror  of  crowds  was 
notorious.     In  act  i.  sc.  i.  67-72  the  Duke  remarks : 

I  love  the  people, 
But  do  not  like  to  stage  me  to  their  eyes. 
Though  it  do  well,  I  do  not  relish  well 
Their  loud  applause  and  aves  vehement. 
Nor  do  I  think  the  man  of  safe  discretion 
That  does  aflfect  it. 

Of  like  tenor  is  the  succeeding  speech  of  Angelo  (act  n. 
sc.  iv.  27-30) : 

The  general  [i.e.  the  public],  subject  to  a  weU-wish'd  king,  .  .  . 
Crowd  to  his  presence,  where  their  imtaught  love 
Must  needs  appear  offence.^ 

In  'Macbeth,'  the  'great  epic  drama,'  which  he  began 
in  1605  and  completed  next  year,  Shakespeare  employed 

'  When  James  I  made  his  great  progress  from  Edinburgh  to  Loijdon 
on  his  accession  to  the  English  throne,  the  loyal  author  of  'The  true 
narration  of  the  entertainment  of  his  Royal  Majesty'  (1603)  on  the  long 
journey,  noted  that  'though  the  King  greatly  tendered'  his  people's 
'love,'  yet  he  deemed  their  'multitudes'  oppressive,  and  pubUshed  'an 
inhibition  against  the  inordinate  and  daily  access  of  people's  coming' 
(of.  Nichols's  Progresses  of  King  James  I,  i.  76).  At  a  later  date  King 
James  was  credited  with  'a  hasty  and  passionate  custom  which  often 
in  his  sudden  distemper  would  bid  a  pox  or  plague  on  such  as  flocked 
to  see  him'  (Life  of  Sir  Simonds  D'Ewes,  i.  170). 


392  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

a  setting  wholly  in  harmony  with  the  accession  of  a 
Scottish  king.  The  story  was  drawn  from  Holinshed's 
,  '  Chronicle  of  Scottish  History,'  with  occasional 
'Macbeth.'  jgfgj-gjjpg^  perhaps,  to  earher  Scottish  sources. 
But  the  chronicler's  bald  record  supplies  Shakespeare 
with  the  merest  scaffolding.  Duncan  appears  in  the 
rpj^g  '  Chronicle '  as  an  incapable  ruler  whose  removal 

legend  in  commends  itself  to  his  subjects,  while  Macbeth, 
HoUnshed.  j^^  gpjte  of  the  crime  to  which  he  owes  his  throne, 
proves  a  satisfactory  sovereign  through  the  greater  part 
of  his  seventeen  years'  reign.  Only  towards  the  close 
does  his  tyranny  provoke  the  popular  rebelHon  which 
proves  fatal  to  him.  Hohnshed's  notice  of  Duncan's 
murder  by  Macbeth  is  bare  of  detail.  Shakespeare  in  his 
treatment  of  that  episode  adapted  Hohnshed's  more 
precise  account  of  another  royal  murder  —  that  of  King 
Duff,  an  earher  Scottish  King  who  was  slain  by  the  chief 
Donwald,  while  he  was  on  a  visit  to  the  chief's  castle. 
The  vaguest  hint  was  offered  by  the  chronicler  of  Lady 
Macbeth's  influence  over  her  husband.  In  subsidiary 
incident  Shakespeare  borrowed  a  few  passages  almost 
verbatim  from  Hohnshed's  text ;  but  every  scene  which 
has  supreme  dramatic  value  is  Shakespeare's  own  inven- 
tion. Although  the  chronicler  briefly  notices  Macbeth's 
meeting  with  the  witches,  Shakespeare  was  under  no  debt 
to  any  predecessor  for  the  dagger  scene,  for  the  thrilling 
colloquies  of  husband  and  wife  concerning  Duncan's 
murder,  for  Banquo's  apparition  at  the  feast  or  for 
Lady  Macbeth's  walking  in  her  sleep.. 

The  play  gives  a  plainer  indication  than  any  other  of 
Shakespeare's  works  of  the  dramatist's  desire  to  condli- 
The  appeal  ate  the  Scottish  King's  idiosyncrasies.  The 
to  James  I.  supernatural  machinery  of  the  three  witches 
which  Holinshed  suggested  accorded  with  the  King's 
superstitious  faith  in  demonology.  The  dramatist  was 
lavish  in  sympathy  with  Banquo,  James's  reputed 
ancestor  and  founder  of  the  Stuart  dynasty;  while 
Macbeth's  vision  of  kings  who  carry  '  twofold  balls  and 


THE  HIGHEST   THEMES   OF   TRAGEDY  393 

treble  sceptres*  (iv.  i.  20)  loyally  referred  to  the  union 
of  Scotland  with  England  and  Ireland  under  James's 
sway.  The  two  'balls'  or  globes  were  royal  insignia 
which  King  James  bore  in  right  of  his  double  kingship  of 
England  and  Scotland,  and  the  three  sceptres  were  those 
of  his  three  Kingdoms  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ire- 
land. No  monarch  before  James  I  held  these  emblems 
conjointly.  The  irrelevant  'description  in  the  play  of 
the  English  King's  practice  of  touching  for  the  King's 
evil  (iv.  iii.  149  seq.)  was  doubtless  designed  as  a  further 
personal  compliment  to  King  James,  whose  confidence 
in  the  superstition  was  profound.  The  allusion  by  the 
porter  (11.  iii.  9)  to  the  '  equivocator  .  .  .  who  committed 
treason'  was  perhaps  suggested  by  the  insolent  defence 
of  the  doctrine  of  equivocation  made  by  the  Jesuit  Henry 
Garnett,  who  was  executed  early  in  1606  for  his  share  in 
the  '  Gunpowder  Plot.' 

The  piece,  which  was  not  printed  until  1623,  is  in  its 
existing  shape  by  far  the  shortest  of  all  Shakespeare's 
tragedies  ('Hamlet'  is  nearly  twice  as  long),  xhe scenic 
and  it  is  possible   that  it  survives   only  in  eiabora- 
an  abbreviated  acting  version.     Much  scenic    '°"' 
elaboration  characterised  the  production.     Dr.   Simon 
Forman,  a  playgoing  astrologer,  witnessed  a  performance 
of  the  tragedy  at  the  Globe  on  April  20,  1610,  and  noted 
that  Macbeth  and  Banquo  entered  the  stage  on  horse- 
back, and  that  Banquo's  ghost  was  materially  represented 
(m.  iv.  40  seq.).^ 

'Macbeth''  ranks  with  'Othello'  among  the  noblest 
tragedies  either  of  the  modern  or  the  ancient  world.  Yet 

1  In  his  Boohe  of  Plates  (among  Ashmole's  MSS.  at  the  Bodleian) 
Forman's  note  on  Macbeth  begins  thus :  'In  Mackbeth  at  the  Globe  16 10, 
the  20  of  Aprill  Saturday,  there  was  to  be  observed,  firste  howe  Mackbeth 
and  Banko,  two  noble  men  of  Scotland,  ridinge  thorow  'a  wod,  ther  stode 
before  them  three  women  fairies  or  nimphs  .  .  .'  Of  the  feasting  scene 
Forman  wrote :  'The  ghoste  of  Banco  came  and  sate  down  in  his  [i.e. ' 
Macbeth's]  cheier  be-hind  him.  And  he  tuminge  about  to  sit  down  again 
sawe  the  goste  of  Banco  which  fronted  him  so.'  (Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii. 
86.)  See  for  Forman's  other  theatrical  experiences  p.  126  supra  and 
p.  420  infra. 


394 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


the  bounds  of  sensational  melodrama  are  approached 
by  it  more  nearly  than  by  any  other  of  Shakespeare's 
The  chief  plays.  The  melodramatic  effect  is  heightened 
characters,  ^y  the  physical  darkness  which  envelopes  the 
main  episodes.  It  is  the  poetic  fertility  of  the  language, 
the  magical  simphcity  of  speech  in  the  critical  turns  of 
the  action,  the  dramatic  irony  accentuating  the  myste- 
rious issues,  the  fascinating  complexity  of  the  two  leading 
characters  which  lift  the  piece  into  the  first  rank._  The 
characters  of  hero  and  heroine  —  Macbeth  and  his  wife 
—  are  depicted  with  the  utmost  subtlety  and  insight. 
Their  worldly  ambition  involves  them  in  hateful  crime. 
Yet  Macbeth  is  a  brave  soldier  who  is  endowed  with 
poetic  imagination  and  values  a  good  name.  Though 
Lady  Macbeth  lacks  the  moral  sense,  she  has  no  small 
share  of  womanly  tact,  of  womanly  affections,  and  above 
all  of  womanly  nerves. 

In  three  points  'Macbeth'  differs  somewhat  from  other 
of  Shakespeare's  productions  in  the  great  class  of  liter- 
Excep-  ature  to  which  it  belongs.  The  interweaving 
tionai  with  the  tragic  story  of  supernatural  interludes 
features.  ^^  -which  Fate  is  weirdly  personified  is  not  exactly 
matched  in  any  other  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies.  In 
the  second  place,  the  action  proceeds  with  a  rapidity 
that  is  wholly  without  parallel  in  the  rest  of  Shake- 
speare's plays ;  the  critical  scenes  are  unusually  short ; 
the  great  sleepwalking  scene  is  only  seventy  fines  long, 
of  which  scarcely  twenty,  the  acme  of  dramatic  brevity, 
are  put  in  Lady  Macbeth's  mouth.  The  swift  move- 
ment only  slackens  when  Shakespeare  is  content  to  take 
his  cue  from  HoUnshed,  as  in  the  somewhat  tedious  epi- 
sode of  Macduff's  negotiation  in  England  with  Malcolm, 
Duncan's  son  and  heir  (act  iv.  sc.  iii.).  Nowhere,  in 
the  third  place,  has  Shakespeare  introduced  comic  relief 
into  a  tragedy  with  bolder  effect  than  in  the  porters 
speech  after  the  murder  of  Duncan  (ii.  iii.  i  seq.).  The 
theory  that  this  passage  was  from  another  hand  does 
not  merit  acceptance. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  395 

Yet  elsewhere  there  are  signs  that  the  play  as  it 
stands  incorporates  occasional  passages  by  a  second  pen. 
Duncan's  interview  with  the  '  bleeding  sergeant '  signs  of 
(act  I.  sc.  ii.)  falls  so  far  below  the  style  of  the  °'^«'^  p«"=- 
rest  of  the  play  as  to  suggest  an  interpolation  by  a  hack 
of  tl;ie  theatre.  So,  too,  it  is  diflEicult  to  credit  Shake- 
speare with  the  superfluous  interposition  (act  11.  sc.  v.) 
of  Hecate,  a  classical  goddess  of  the  infernal  world,  who 
appears  unheralded  to  complain  that  the  witches  lay 
their  spells  on  Macbeth  without  asking  her  leave.  The 
resemblances  between  Thomas  Middleton's  later  play  of 
'The  Witch'  (1610)  and  portions  of  'Macbeth'  may 
safely  be  ascribed  to  plagiarism  on  Middleton's  part. 
Of  two  songs  which,  according  to  the  stage  directions, 
were  to  be  sung  during  the  representation  of  '  Macbeth,' 
'Come  away,  come  away'  (iii.  v.)  and  'Black  spirits 
&c.'  (iv.  i.),  only  the  first  words  are  noted  there,  but 
songs  beginning  with  the  same  words  are  set  out  in  full 
in  Middleton's  play ;  they  were  probably  by  Middleton, 
and  were  interpolated  by  actors  in  a  stage  version  of 
'Macbeth'  after  its  original  production. 

'King  Lear,'  in  which  Shakespeare's  tragic  genius 
moved  without  any  faltering  on  Titanic  heights,  was 
written  during  1606,  and  was  produced  before  'King 
the  Court  at  Whitehall  on  the  night  of  Decern-  ^*"' 
ber  26  of  that  year.^  Eleven  months  later,  on  November 
26,  1607,  two  undistinguished  stationers,  John  Busby 
and  Nathaniel  Butter,  obtained  a  license  for  the  publi- 
cation of  the  great  tragedy  '  under  the  hands  of '  Sir 
George  Buc,  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  and  of  the  wardens 
of  the  company.^    Nathaniel  Butter  published  a  quarto 

'  This  fact  is  stated  in  the  Stationers'  Company's  license  of  Nov.  26, 
1607,  and  is  repeated  a  little  confusedly  on  the  title-page  of  the  Quarto 
of  1608. 

*  John  Busby,  whose  connection  with  the  transaction  does  not  ex- 
tend beyond  the  mention  of  his  name  in  the  entry  iii  the  Stationers' 
Register,  was  five  years  before  as  elusively  and  as  mysteriously  associated 
widi  the  first  edition  of  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  (1602).  Butter, 
who  was  alone  the  effective  promoter  of  the  publication  of  King  Lear, 
became  a  freeman  of  the  Stationers'  Company  early  in  1604,  and  he 


396  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

edition  in  the  following  year  (1608).  The  verbose  title, 
which  is  from  the  pen  of  a  bookseller's  hack,  ran 
The  Quarto  thus :  'M.  WilUam  Shak-speare:  his  true 
of  1608.  chronicle  historie  of  the  life  and  death  of  King 
Lear  and  his  three  daughters.  With  the  unfortunate  life 
of  Edgar,  sonne  and  heire  to  the  Earle  of  Gloster,  and 
his  sullen  and  assumed  humor  of  Tom  of  Bedlam.  As  it 
was  played  before  the  King's  Maiestie  at  Whitehall 
upon  S.  Stephans  night  in  Christmas  Hollidayes.  By  his 
Maiesties  seruants  pla3dng  usually  at  the  Gloabe  on  the 
Banke-side.'  In  the  imprint  the  pubUsher  mentions 
'  his  shop  in  Pauls  Churchyard  at  the  signe  of  the  Pide 
Bull  near  St.  Austin's  Gate.'  The  printer  of  the  volume, 
who  is  unnamed,  was  probably  Nicholas  Okes,  a  young 
friend  of  Richard  Field,  who  had  stood  surety  for  him  in 
1603  when  he  was  made  free  of  the  Stationers'  Company, 
and  who  fourteen  years  later  printed  the  first  quarto  of 
'Othello.'  Butter's  edition  of  'King  Lear'  followed  a 
badly  transcribed  playhouse  copy,  and  it  abounds  in 
gross  typographical  errors.^  Another  edition,  also  bear- 
ing the  date  1608,  is  a  later  reprint  of  a  copy  of  Butter's 
original  issue  and  repeats  its  typographical  confusions.^ 

lived  on  to  1664,  acquiring  some  fame  in  Charles  I's  reign  as  a  purveyor 
of  news-sheets  or  rudimentary  journals.  His  experience  of  tiie  trade 
was  very  limited  before  he  obtained  the  license  to  pubUsh  Shakespeare's 
King  Lear  in  1607. 

^  There  was  no  systematic  correction  of  the  press ;  but  after  some 
sheets  were  printed  oflE,  the  type  was  haphazardly  corrected  here  and 
there,  and  further  sheets  were  printed  off.  The  uncorrected  sheets 
were  not  destroyed  and  the  corrected  and  uncorrected  sheets  were  care- 
lessly bound  together  in  proportions  which  vary  in  extant  copies.  In 
the  result,  accessible  examples  of  the  edition  present  many  typographical  , 
discrepancies  one  from  another. 

2  The  Second  Quarto  has  a  title-page  which  differs  from  that  of  the 
first  in  spelling  the  dramatist's  surname  'Shakespeare'  instead  of  'Shak- 
speare'  and  in  giving  the  imprint  the  curt  form  'Printed  for  Nathaniel 
Butter,  1608.'  There  seems  reason  to  believe  that  the  dated  imprint 
of  the  second  quarto  is  a  falsification,  and  that  the  volume  was  actually 
published  by  Thomas  Pavier  at  the  press  of  William  Jaggard  as  late  as 
1619  (see  Pollard's  Shakespeare  Folios  and  QiMrtos,  1909).  The  Second 
Quarto  is,  like  the  First,  unmethodically  made  up  of  corrected  and  un- 
corrected sheets,  but  in  all  known  copies  of  the  Second  Quarto  two  of 
the  sheets  (E  and  K)  always  appear  in  their  corrected  shape. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES  OF  TRAGEDY  397 

The  First  Folio  furnished  a  greatly  improved  text. 
Fewer  verbal  errors  appear  there^  and  some  1 10  lines  are 
new.  At  the  same  time  the  Folio  omits  300  lines  of  the 
Quarto  text,  including  the  whole  of  act  iv.  sc.  iii.  (with 
the  beautiful  description  of  Cordelia's  reception  of  the 
news  of  her  sisters'  maltreatment  of  their  father),  and 
some  other  passages  which  are  as  unquestionably  Shake- 
spearean. The  editor  of  the  Folio  clearly  had  access  to  a 
manuscript  which  was  quite  independent  of  that  of  the 
Quarto,  but  had  undergone  abbreviation  at  different 
points.  The  FoUo  'copy,'  as  far  as  it  went,  was  more 
carefully  transcribed  than  the  Quarto  'copy.'  Yet 
neither  the  Quarto  nor  the  FoHo  Version  of  'King  Lear' 
reproduced  the  author's  autograph;  each  was  derived 
from  its  own  playhouse  transcript. 

As  in  the  case  of  its  immediate  predecessor  'Macbeth,' 
Shakespeare's  tragedy  of  'King  Lear'  was  based  on  a 
story  with  which  Holinshed's  '  Chronicle '  had  „  ,.  ,  , 
long  famiharised  Elizabethans;  and  other  and  the 
writers  who  had  anticipated  Shakespeare  in  f^°l^°^ 
adapting  HoUnshed's  tale  to  literary  purposes 
gave  the  dramatist  help.  The  theme  is  part  of  the 
legendary  lore  of  pre-Roman  Britain  which  the  Eliza- 
bethan chronicler  and  his  readers  accepted  without 
question  as  authentic  history.  Hohnshed  had  followed 
the  guidance  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  who  in  the 
twelfth  century  first  undertook  a  history  of  British  Kings. 
Geoffrey  recorded  the  exploits  of  a  Celtic  dynasty  which 
traced  its, origin  to  a  Trojan  refugee  Brute  or  Brutus, 
who  was  reputed  to  be  the  grandson  of  Aeneas  of  Troy. 
Elizabethan  poets  and  dramatists  aUke  welcomed  material 
from  Geoffrey's  fables  of  Brute  and  his  line  in  HoUn- 
shed's version.  Brute's  son  Locrine  was .  the  Brito- 
Trojan  hero  of  the  pseudo-Shakespearean  tragedy  of 
the  name,  which  had  appeared  in  print  in  1595.  'King 
Lear'  was  one  of  many  later  occupants  of  Locrine's 
throne,  who  figured  on  the  Elizabethan  stage. 

Nor  was   Shakespeare   the  first  playwright  to  give 


398  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

theatrical  vogue  to  King  Lear's  mythical  fortunes.  On 
April  6,  1594,  a  piece  called  'Kinge  Leare'  was  acted 
The  old  at  the  Rose  theatre  'by  the  Queene's  men 
P'^y-  and  my  lord  of  Susexe  together.'     On  May  14, 

15914.,  a  license  was  granted  for  the  printing  of  this  piece 
under  the  title :  '  The  moste  famous  chronicle  historye 
of  Leire  Kinge  of  England  and  his  three  daughters.' 
But  the  permission  did  not  take  effect,  and  some  eleven 
years  passed  before  the  actual  pubhcation  in  1605  of  the 
pre-Shakespearean  play.  The  piece  was  then  entitled: 
'The  true  Chronicle  History  of  King  Leir  and  his  three 
daughters,  Gonorill,  Ragan  and  Cordelia,  as  it  hath  bene 
divers  and  sundry  times  lately  acted.'  The  author, 
whose  name  is  unknown,  based  his  work  on  Holinshed's 
'Chronicle,'  but  he  sought  occasional  help  in  the  three 
derivative  poetic  narratives  of  King  Lear's  fabulous 
career,  which  figure  respectively  in  William  Warner's 
'Albion's  England'  (1586,  bk.  iii.  ch.  14),  in  'The  Mirror 
for  Magistrates'  (1587),  and  in  Edmund  Spenser's 
'Faerie  Queene'  (1590,  bk.  ii.  canto  x.  stanzas  27-32). 
At  the  same  time  the  old  dramatist  embelUshed  his 
borrowed  cues  by  devices  of  his  own  invention.  He  gave 
his  ill-starred  monarch  a  companion  who  proved  a  pattern 
of  fidelity  and  became  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  dramatic 
action.  The  King  of  France's  hasty  courtship  of  King 
Lear's  banished  daughter  Cordelia  follows  original  lines. 
Lear's  sufferings  in  a  thunderstorm  during  his  wander- 
ings owe  nothing  to  earlier  Hterature.  But  the  resto- 
ration of  Lear  to  his  throne  at  the  close  of  the  old  piece 
agrees  with  all  earlier  versions  of  the  fable.^ 

Shakespeare  drew  many  hints  from  the  old  play  as  well 
as  from  a  direct  study  of  Holinshed.  But  he  refashioned 
Shake-  ^"^  Strengthened  the  great  issues  of  the  plot 
speare'sin-  by  methods  which  lay  outside  the  capacity  of 
nova  ions.  gj(.]^gj.  ^^d  dramatist  or  chronicler.  There  is 
no  trace  of  Lear's  Fool  in  any  previous  version.     Shake- 

_^  Cf.  The  Chronicle  History  of  King  Leir:  the  original  of  Shakespeare's 
King  Lear,  ed.  by  Sidney  Lee,  igog. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  399 

speare  too  sought  an  entirely  new  complication  for  the 
story  by  grafting  on  it  the  complementary  by-plot  of  the 
Earl  of  Gloucester  and  his  sons  Edgar  and  Edmund, 
which  he  drew  from, an  untried  source,  Sir  PhiUp  Sidney's 
'Arcadia.'  ^  Hints  for  the  speeches  of  Edgar  when 
feigning  madness  were  found  in  Harsnet's  'Declaration  of 
Popish  Impostures,'  1603.  Above  all,  Shakespeare  ig- 
nored the  catastrophe  of  the  chronicles  which  contented 
the  earher  dramatist  and  preceding  poets.  They  re- 
stored Lear  to  his  forsaken  throne  at  the  triumphant 
hands  of  Cordelia  and  her  husband  the  French  King. 
Shakespeare  invented  the  defeat  and  death  of  King  Lear 
and  of  his  daughter  CordeUa.  Thus  Shakespeare  first 
converted  the  story  into  inexorable  tragedy. 

In  every  act  of  'Lear'  the  pity  and  terror  of  which 
tragedy  is  capable  reach  their  climax.  Only  one  who 
has  something  of  the  Shakespearean  gift  oi.rj^^  ^_ 
language  could  adequately  characterise  the  nessof 
scenes  of  agony  —  '  the  Uving  martyrdom '  —  to  °^  ^^'' 
which  the  fiendish  ingratitude  of  his  daughters  condemns 
in  Shakespeare's  play  the  abdicated  king  —  '  a  very  fool- 
ish, fond  old  man,  fourscore  and  upward.'  The  elemen- 
tal passions  burst  forth  in  his  utterances  with  all  the 
vehemence  of  the  volcanic  tempest  which  beats  about 
his  defenceless  head  in  the  scene  on  the  heath.  The 
brutal  blinding  of  the  Earl  of  Gloucester  by  the  Duke 
of  Cornwall  exceeds  in  horror  any  other  situation  that 
Shakespeare  created,  if  we  assume  that  he  was  not 
responsible  for  similar  scenes  of  mutilation  in  'Titus 
Andronicus.'  At  no  point  in  'Lear'  is  there  any  loosen- 
ing of  the  tragic  tension.  The  faithful  half-witted  lad 
who  serves  the  king  as  his  fool  plays  the  jesting  chorus 
on  his  master's  fortunes  in  penetrating  earnest  and 
deepens  the  desolating  pathos.     The  metre  of  'King 

>  Sidney  tells  the  story  in  a  chapter  entitled  'The  pitiful  state  and 
Story  of  the  Paphlagonian  unkind  king  and  his  kind  son ;  first  related 
by  the  son,  then  by  the  blind  father'  (bk.  ii.  chap.  10,  ed.  1590,  4to. 
pp.  132-3,  ed.  1674,  fol.). 


400  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Lear'  is  less  regular  than  in  any  earlier  play,  and  the 
language  is  more  elliptical  and  allusive.  The  verbal 
and  metrical  temper  gives  the  first  signs  of  that  valiant 
defiance  of  all  conventional  restraint  which  marks  the 
latest  stage  in  the  development  of  Shakespeare's  style, 
and  becomes  habitual  to  his  latest  efforts. 

Although  Shakespeare's  powers  were  unexhausted,  he 
rested  for  a  while  on  his  laurels  after  his  colossal  effort  of 
'Timonof  'Lear'  (1607).  He  reverted  in  the  following 
Athens.'  yg^j-  ^o  earlier  habits  of  collaboration.  In  two 
succeeding  dramas,  'Timon  of  Athens'  and  'Pericles,' 
he  would  seem  indeed  to  have  done  Mttle  more  than 
lend  his  hand  to  brilKant  embeUishments  of  the  dull 
incoherence  of  very  pedestrian  pens.  Lack  of  construc- 
tive plan  deprives  the  two  pieces  of  substantial  dramatic 
value.  Only  occasional  episodes  which  Shakespeare's 
genius  illumined  Hft  them  above  the  rank  of  mediocrity. 

An  extant  play  on  the  subject  of  'Timon  of  Athens' 
was  composed  in  1600  ^  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that 
Timon  and  Shakespeare  or  his  coadjutor,  who  remains 
Plutarch,  anonymous,  was  acquainted  with  it.  Timon 
was  a  familiar  figure  in  classical  legend  and  was  a  pro- 
verbial type  of  censorious  misanthropy.  'Critic  Timon' 
is  lightly  mentioned  by  Shakespeare  in  'Love's  Labour's 
Lost.'  His  story  was  originally  told,  by  way  of  paren- 
thesis, in  Plutarch's  'Life  of  Marc  Antony.'  There 
Antony  was  described  as  emulating  at  one  period  of 
his  career  the  Ufe  and  example  of  'Timon  Misanthropos 
the  Athenian,'  and  some  account  of  the  Athenian's 
perverse  experience  was  given.  From  Plutarch  the 
tale  passed  into  Painter's  miscellany  of  Elizabethan 
romances  called  'The  Palace  of  Pleasure.'  The  author 
of  the  Shakespearean  play  may  too  have  known  a  dia- 
logue of  Lucian  entitled  'Timon,'  which  Boiardo,  the 
poet  of  fifteenth  century  Italy,  had  previously  converted 
into  an  Italian  comedy  under  the  name  of  '  II  Timone.' 

'  Dyce  first  edited  the  manuscript,  which  is  now  in  the  Victoria  and 
Albert  Museum,  South  Kensington,  for  the  Shakespeare  Society  in  1842. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES  OF  TRAGEDY  401 

With  singular  clumsiness  the  English  piece  parts  com- 
pany with  all  preceding  versions  of  Timon's  history  by 
grafting  on  the  tradition  of  his  misanthropy  a  shadowy 
and' irrelevant  fable  of  the  Athenian  hero  Aid-  xheepi- 
biades.  A  series  of  subsidiary  scenes  presents  sodeof 
Alcibiades  in  the  throes  of  a  quarrel  with  the  ^icibiades. 
Athenian  senate  over  its  punishment  of  a  friend ;  finally 
he  lays  siege  to  the  city  and  compels  its  rulers  to  submit 
to  his  will.  Such  an  incident  has  no  pertinence  to 
Timon's  fortunes. 

The  piece  is  as  reckless  a  travesty  of  classical  life  and 
history  as  any  that  came  from  the  pen  of  a  mediaeval 
fabulist.'-  Nowhere  is  there  a  gKimner  of  the  j^^ 
true  Greek  spirit.  The  interval  between  the  divided 
Greek  nomenclature  and  the  characterisation  or  ^"'  °^^  ^^' 
action  of  the  personages  is  even  wider  than  in  '  Troilus 
and  Cressida.'  Internal  evidence  makes  it  clear  that  the 
groundwork  and  most  of  the  superstructure  of  the  in- 
coherent tragedy  were  due  to  Shakespeare's '  colleague. 
To  that  crude  pen  must  be  assigned  nearly  the  whole  of 
acts  ni.  and  v.  and  substantial  portions  of  the  three 
remaining  acts.  Yet  the  characters  of  Timon  himself 
and  of  tie  churlish  cynic  Apemantus  bear  witness  to 
Shakespeare's  penetration.  The  greater  part  of  the 
scenes  which  they  dominate  owed  much  to  his  hand. 
Timon  is  cast  in  the  psychological  mould  of  Lear.  The 
>  play  was  printed  for  the  first  time  in  the  First  Foho  from 
a  very  defective  transcript.^ 

'  Although  Timon  is  presented  in  the  play  as  the  contemporary  of 
Alcibiades  and  presumably  of  the  generation  of  Pericles,  he  quotes 
Seneca.  In  much  the  same  way  Hector  quotes  Aristotle  in  Troilus 
and  Cressida.  Alcibiades  in  Timon  makes  his  entry  in  battle  array 
'with  drum  and  fife.' 

^  There  is  evidence  that  when  the  First  Folio  was  originally  planned 
the  place  after  Romeo  and  Juliet  which  Timon  now  fills  was  designed 
for  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  that,  after  the  typographical  composition 
of  Troilus  was  begun  in  succession  to  Romeo,  Troilus  was  set  aside  with 
a  view  to  transference  elsewhere,  and  the  vacant  space  was  hurriedly 
occupied  by  Tirrion  by  way  of  stop-gap.  (See  p.  368  «.)  _  The  play  is 
followed  in  the  Folio  by  a  leaf  only  printed  on  one  side  which  contains 
'The  Actors'  Names.'    This  arrangement  is  unique  in  the  First  Folio. 


402  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

There  seems  some  ground  for  the  belief  that  Shake- 
speare's anon)Tnous  coadjutor  in  'Timon'  was  George 

WiMns,  a  writer  of  ill-developed  dramatic 
"'  ''^^  power,  who  is  known  to  have  written  occasion- 
ally for  Shakespeare's  company.  In  1607  that  company 
produced  Wilkins's  '  The  Miseries  of  Enforced  Marriage,' 
which  was  published  in  the  same  year  and  proved  popular. 
The  piece  dealt  with  a  melodramatic  case  of  murder 
which  had  lately  excited  public  interest.  Next  year 
the  same  episode  served  for  the  plot  of  '  The  Yorkshire  A 
Tragedy,'  a  piece  falsely  assigned  by  the  publishers  to 
Shakespeare's  pen.  The  hectic  fury  of  the  criminal  hero 
in  both  these  pieces  has  afl&nities  with  the  impassioned 
rage  of  Timon  which  Shakespeare  may  have  elaborated 
from  a  first  sketch  by  WiUdns.  At  any  rate,  to  Wilkins 
may  safely  be  allotted  the  main  authorship  of  '  Pericles,' 
a  romantic  play  which  was  composed  in  the  same  year 
as  'Timon'  and  of  which  Shakespeare  was  again  an- 
nounced as  the  sole  author.  During  his  Ufetime  and  for 
many  subsequent  years  Shakespeare  was  openly  credited 
with  the  whole  of  'Pericles.'  Yet  the  internal  evidence 
plainly  reUeves  him  of  responsibility  for  the  greater  part 
of  it. 

The  frankly  pagan  tale  of  'Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre' 
was  invented  by  a  Greek  novelist  near  the  opening  of  the 

Christian  era,  and  enjoyed  during  the  Middle 
original  Ages  an  immense  popularity,  not  merely  in  a 
Pericles'^     Latin    version,    but    through    translations  in 

every  vernacular  speech  of  Europe.  The  Unc- 
age of  the  Shakespearean  drama  is  somewhat  obscured 
by  the  fact  that  the  hero  was  given  in  the  play  a  name 
which  he  bore  in  none  of  the  numerous  preceding  ver- 
sions of  his  story.  The  Shakespearean  Pericles  of  Tyre 
is  the  ApoUonius  of  Tyre  who  permeates  post-classical 
and  mediaeval  hterature.  The  EngUsh  dramatist  de- 
rived most  of  his  knowledge  of  the  legend  from  the  ren- 
dering of  it  which  John  Gower,  the  English  poet  of  the 
fourteenth  century,   furnished  in  his  rambling  poetic 


THE  HIGHEST  T^HEMES   OF   TRAGEDY  403 

miscellany  called  'Confessio  Amantis.'  A  prominent 
figure  in  the  Shakespearean  play  is  'the  chorus'  or  'pre- 
senter '  who  explains  the  action  before  or  during  the  acts. 
The  '  chorus '  bears  the  name  of  the  poet  Gower.^  At  the 
same  time  the  sixteenth  century  saw  several  versions  of 
the  veteran  tale  in  both  French  and  Enghsh  prose,  and 
while  the  dramatist  found  his  main  inspiration  in  'old 
Gower '  he  derived  some  embellishments  of  his  work  from 
an  EUzabethan  prose  rendering  of  the  myth,  which  first 
appeared  in  1576,  and^reached  a  third  edition  in  1607.^ 
Indeed  the  reissue  in  1607  of  the  Ehzabethan  version  of 
the  story  doubtless  prompted  the  dramatisation  of  the 
theme,  although  the  three  leading  characters  of  the  play, 
Pericles,  his  wife  Thaisa,  and  his  daughter  Marina,  all 
bear  appellations  for  which  there  is  no  previous  author- 
ity. The  hero's  original  name  of  Pericles  recalls  with 
characteristic  haziness  the  period  in  Greek  history  to 
which  '  Timon  of  Athens '  is  vaguely  assigned.^ 

The  ancient  fiction  of  ApoUonius  of  Tyre  was  a  tale  of 
adventurous    travel,   and  was    inherently  in-  in^ohe- 
capable  of  effective  dramatic  treatment.     The  reuces  of 
rambling  scenes  of  the  Shakespearean  '  Pericles '  ^  *  '"^'^^' 
and  the  long  years  which  the  plot  covers  tend  to  inco- 

'  Of  the  eight  speeches  of  the  chorus  (filling  in  all  305  lines),  five 
(filHng  212  Hnes)  are  in  the  short  six-  or  seven-syllable  rhyming  couplets 
of  Gower's  Confessio. 

^  In  1576  the  tale  was  'gathered  into  English  [prose]  by  Laurence 
Twine,  gentleman'  under  the  title:  'The  Patteme  of  painefuU  Aduen- 
tures,  containing  the  most  excellent,  pleasant,  and  variable  Historie 
of  the  strange  accidents  that  befell  vnto  Prince  ApoUonius,  the  Lady 
Lucina  his  wife  and  Tharsia  his  daughter.  Wherein  the  vncertaintie 
of  this  world,  and  the  fickle  state  of  man's  life  are  liuely  described.  .  .  . 
Imprinted  at  London  by  William  How,  1576.'  This  volume  was  twice 
reissued  (about  1595  and  in  1607)  before  the  play  was  attempted.  The 
translator,  Laurence  Twine,  a  graduate  of  All  Souls'  College,  Oxford, 
performed  his  task  without  distinction. 

'  In  all  probability  the  name  Pericles  confuses  reminiscences  of  the 
Greek  Pericles  with  those  of  Pyrocles,  one  of  the  heroes  ,of  Sidney's 
romance  of  Arcadia,  whence  Shakespeare  had  lately  borrowed  the  by- 
plot  of  King  Lear.  Richard  Flecknoe,  writing  of  the  Shakespearean 
play  in  1656,  called  the  hero  Pyrocles.  Musidorus,  another  hero  of 
Sidney's  romance,  had  already  supplied  the  title  of  the  romantic  play, 
Mvcedonis,  which  appeared  in  iSQS- 


404  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

herence.  Choruses  and  dumb  shows  'stand  i'  the  gaps 
to  teach  the  stages  of  the  story.'  Yet  numerous  refer- 
ences to  the  piece  in  contemporary  literature  attest  the 
warm  welcome  which  an  uncritical  public  extended  to  its 
early  representations.^ 

After  the  first  production  of  'Pericles'  at  the  Globe  in 
the  spring  of  1608,  Edward  Blount,  a  publisher  of  Hterary 
The  issues  proclivities,  obtained  (on  May  20,  1608)  a 
in  quarto,  license  for  the  play's  pubhcation.  But  Blount 
failed  to  exercise  his  right,  and  the  piece  was  actually 
published  next  year  by  an  undistinguished  'stationer,' 
Henry  Gosson,  then  living  'at  the  sign  of  the  Sunne 
in  Paternoster  Row.'  The  exceptionally  bad  text  was 
clearly  derived  from  the  notes  of  an  irresponsible  short- 
hand reporter  of  a  performance  in  the  theatre.-  A  second 
edition,  without  correction  but  with  some  typographical 
variations,  appeared  in  the  same  year,  and  reprints  which 
came  from  other  presses  in  1611,  1619,  1630,  and  1635,^ 
bear  strange  witness  to  the  book's  popularity.  The 
original  title-page  is  couched  in  ostentatious  phraseology 
which  sufficiently  refutes  Shakespeare's  responsibiUty  for 

'  In  the  prologue  to  Robert  Tailor's  comedy,  The  Hogge  hath  lost  Us 
Pearle  (1614)  the  writer  says  of  his  own  piece :  — 

If  it  prove  so  happy  as  to  please, 
Weele  say  'tis  fortunate  l&e  Pericles. 

On  May  24,  i6ig,  the  piece  was  performed  at  Court  on  the  occasion  of 
'a  great  entertainment  in  honour  of  the  French  ambassador,  the  Marquis 
de  TrenouUIe.  The  play  was  still  popular  in  1630  when  Ben  Jonson, 
indignant  at  the  failure  of  his  own  piece,  The  New  Inn,  sneered  at  'some 
mouldy  tale  like  Pericles'  in  his  sour  ode  beginning  'Come  leave  the 
lothed  stage.'  On  June  10,  1631,  the  piece  was  revived  before  a  crowded 
audience  at  the  Globe  theatre  'upon  the  cessation  of  the  plague,'  At 
the  Restoration  Pericles  renewed  its  popularity  in  the  theatre,  and  Better- 
ton  was  much  applauded  in  the  title  rSle.  AU  the  points  connected  with 
the  history  and  bibliography  of  the  play  are  discussed  in  the  facsitnile 
reproduction  of  Pericles,  ed.  by  Sidney  Lee,  Clarendon  Press,  1903. 

"^  The  unnamed  printer  of  both  first  and  second  editions  would  seem 
to  have  been  William  White,  an  inferior  workman  whose  press  was  near 
Smithfield.  White  was  responsible  for  the  first  quarto  of  Low's  Labour's 
Lost  in  1598.  The  second  edition  of  Pericles  is  easily  distinguishable 
from  the  first  by  a  misprint  in  the  first  stage  direction.  'En(er  Gower' 
of  the  first  edition  is  reproduced  in  the  second  edition  as  '  Eneer  Gower.' 


THE   HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  405 

the  publication.  The  words  run :  '  The  late  and  much 
admired  play  called  Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre.  With  the 
true  relation  of  the  whole  Historic,  aduentures,  and 
fortunes  of  the  said  Prince :  as  also,  the  no  lesse  strange 
and  worthy  accidents,  in  the  Birth  and  Life  of  his  Daugh- 
ter Mariana.  As  it  hath  b'een  diuers  and  sundry  times 
acted  by  his  Maiesties  Seruants,  at  the  Globe  on  the 
Banck-side.  By  William  Shakespeare.'  All  the  quarto 
editions  credit  Shakespeare  with  the  sole  authorship; 
but  the  piece  was  with  much  justice  excluded  from  the 
First  Folio  of  1623  and  from  the  Second  Folio  of  1632. 
It  was  not  admitted  to  the  collected  works  of  the  drama- 
tist until  the  second  issue  of  the  Third  FoUo  in  1664. 

There  is  no  sustained  evidence  of  Shakespeare's  handi- 
work in  'Pericles,'  save  in  acts  in.  and  v.  and  parts  of 
act  IV.  The  Shakespearean  scenes  tell  the  ghate- 
story  of  Pericles's  daughter  Marina.  They  speare's. 
open  with  the  tempest  at  sea  during  which  she  ^^^'^^' 
is  born,  and  they  close  with  her  final  restoration  to  her 
parents  and  her  betrothal.  The  style  of  these  scenes  is 
in  the  maimer  of  which  Shakespeare  gives  earnest  in 
'King  Lear.'  The  eUipses  are  often  puzzHng,  but  the 
condensed  thought  is  intensely  vivid  and  glows  with 
strength  and  insight.  The  themes,  too,  of  Shakespeare's 
contribution  to  'Pericles'  are  nearly  akin  to  many 
which  figured  elsewhere  in  his  latest  work.  The  tone 
of  Marina's  appeals  to  Lysimachus  and  Boult  in  the 
brothel  resembles  that  of  Isabella's  speeches  in  'Measure 
for  Measure.'  Thaisa,  whom  her  husband  imagines  to 
be  dead,  shares  some  of  the  experiences  of  Hermione  in 
'The  Winter's  Tale.'  The  portrayal  of  the  shipwreck 
amid  which  Marina  is  born  adumbrates  the  opening 
scene  of '  The  Tempest ' ;  and  there  are  ingenuous  touches 
in  the  delineation  of  Marina  which  suggest  the  girlhood 
of  Perdita. 

There  seems  good  ground  for  assuming  that  the  play  of 
'Pericles'  was  originally  penned  by  George  Wilkins  and 
that  it  was  over  his  draft  that  Shakespeare  worked. 


4o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

One  curious  association  of  Wilkins  with   the  play  is 
attested  under  his  own  hand.     Very  soon  after  the  piece 

was  staged  he  published  in  his  own  name  a  novel 
wlfkms's  in  prose  which  he  asserted  to  be  based  upon  the 
?°vei  of^  _     play.     The  novel  preceded  by  a  year  the  pub- 

hcation  of  the  drama,  but  the  fiUal  relation 
in  which  the  romance  stands  to  the  play  is  precisely  stated 
ahke  in  the  title-page  of  the  novel  and  in  its  '  argument  to 
the  whole  histprie.'  The  novel  bears  the  title:  'The 
Painful  Adventures  of  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre.  Being 
the  true  History  of  the  Play  of  Pericles,  as  it  was  lately 
presented  by  the  worthy  and  ancient  Poet  John  Gower.'  * 
In  the  'argument'  the  reader  is  requested  'to  receive 
this  Historic  in  the  same  maner  as  it  was  under  the 
habite  of  ancient  Gower,  the  famous  EngHsh  Poet,  by 
the  King's  Maiesties  Players  excellently  presented.'  ^ 

■  On  the  same  day  (May  20,  1608)  that  Edward  Blount 
obtained  his  abortive  license  for  the  issue  of  'Pericles' 

he  secured  from  the  Stationers'  Company  a 
andaJo-  second  hcense,  also  by  the  authority  of  Sir 
?6o8^''         George  Buc,  the  Ucenser  of  plays,  for  the  pub- 

hcation  of  a  far  more  impressive  piece  of  lit- 
erature—  'a  booke  called  "Anthony  and  Cleopatra.'" 

^  The  imprint  runs:  'At  London.  Printed  by  T[homas]  P[avier] 
for  Nat.  Butter,  1608';  see  the  reprint  edited  by  Tycho  Mommsen 
(Oldenburg,  1857). 

*  At  times  the  language  of  the  drama  is  exactly  copied  by  Wilkins's 
novel,  and,  though  transferred  to  prose,  preserves  the  rhythm  of  blank 
verse.  The  novel  is  far  more  carefully  printed  than  the  play,  and  cor- 
rects some  of  the  manifold  corruptions  of  the  printed  text  of  the  latter. 
On  the  other  hand  Wilkins's  novel  shows  at  several  points  divergence 
from  the  play.  There  are  places  in  which  the  novel  develops  incidents 
which  are  barely  noticed  in  the  play,  and  elsewhere  the  play  is  somewhat 
fuller  than  the  novel.  One  or  two  phrases  which  have  the  Shakespear^n 
ring  are  indeed  found  alone  in  the  novel.  A  few  lines  from  Shakespeafe** 
pen  seem  to  be  present  there  and  nowhere  else.  After  the  preliminary 
'argument'  of  the  novel,  there  follows  a  list  of  the  dramatis  persom 
headed  'The  names  of  the  Personages  mentioned  in  the  Historie'  which 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  play,  but  seems  to  belong  to  it.  The  discrep- 
ancies between  the  play  and  novel  suggest  that  Wilkins's  novel  followed 
a  manuscript  version  of  the  play  diflEerent  from  that  on  which  the  printed 
quarto  was  based. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  407 

No  copy  of  this  date  is  known,  and  once  again  the 
company  probably  hindered  the  publication.  The  play 
was  first  printed  in  the  folio  of  1623.  Shakespeare's 
'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  is  the  middle  play  of  Shake- 
speare's Roman  trilogy  which  opened  some  seven  years 
before  with  ' Julius  Caesar'  and  ended  with  'Coriolanus.' 
As  in  the  case  of  all  the  poet's  Roman  plays,  the  plot  of 
'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  comes  from  Sir  Thomas  North's 
version  of  Plutarch's  'Lives.'  On  the  opening  section 
of  Plutarch's  Life  of  Antony  Shakespeare  had  already 
levied  substantial  loans  in  'Julius  Caesar.'  ^  He  now 
produced  a  full  dramatisation  of  it.  The  story  of 
Antony's  love  of  Cleopatra  had  passed  from  pjutarch's 
classical  history  into  the  vague  floating  tradi-  Life  of 
tion  of  mediaeval  Europe.  Chaucer  assigned  ■'^'°'^y- 
her  the  first  place  in  his  'Legend  of  Good  Women.' 
But  Plutarch's  graphic  biography  of  Antony  first  taught 
western  Europe  in  the  early  days  of  the  Renaissance  the 
whole  truth  about  his  relations  with  the  Queen  of  Egypt. 
Early  experiments  in  the  Renaissance  drama  of  Italy, 
France,  and  England  anticipated  Shakespeare  in  turning 
the  theme  to  dramatic  uses.  The  pre-Shakespearean 
dramas  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  suggest  at  some  points 
Shakespeare's  design.  But  the  resemblances  between 
the  'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  of  Shakespeare  and  the 
like  efforts  of  his  predecessors  at  home  or  abroad  seem 
to  be  due  to  the  universal  dependence  on  Plutarch.^ 

'  Shakespeare  showed  elsewhere  familiarity  with  the  memoir.  Into 
the  more  recent  tragedy  of  Macbeth  (ni.  i.  54-57)  he  drew  from  it  a 
pomted  reference  to  Octavius  Caesar,  and  on  a  digression  in  Plutarch's 
text  he  based  his  lurid  sketch  of  the  misanthropy  of  Timon  of  Athens. 

*The  earUest  dramatic  version  of  the  Plutarchan  narrative  came 
from  an  Italian  pen  about  1540.  The  author,  Giraldi  Cinthio  of  Ferrara, 
is  best. known  by  that  collection  of  prose  tales,  Hecatommithi,  which 
supplied  Shakespeare  with  the  plots  of  Othello  and  Measure  for  Measure. 
The  topic  enjoys  the  distinction  of  having  inspired  the  first  regular 
tragedy  in  French  literature.  This  piece,  Cleopatre  Captive  by  Estienne 
Jodelle,  was  published  in  1552.  Within  twenty  years  of  Jodelle's  ef- 
fort, the  chief  dramatist  of  the  French  Renaissance,  Robert  Gamier, 
handled  the  theme  in  his  tragedy  called  Marc  Antoine.  Finally  the 
inferior  hand  of  Nicolas  de  Montreux  took  up  the  parable  of  Cleopatra 


4o8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare  follows  the  lines  of  Plutarch's  biography 
even  more  loyally  than  in  'Julius  Caesar.'  Many  trifling 
details  which  in  the  play  accentuate  Cleopatra's 
s^e^re's  idiosyncrasy  come  unaltered  from  the  Greek 
debt  to  author.  The  superb  description  of  the  barge 
in  which  the  Queen  journeys  down  the  river 
Cydnus  to  meet  Antony  is  Plutarch's  language.  Shake- 
speare borrows  the  supernatural  touches,  which  compli- 
cate the  tragic  motive.  At  times,  even  in  the  heat  of 
the  tragedy,  the  speeches  of  the  hero  and  heroine  and  of 
their  attendants  are  transferred  bodily  from  North's 
prose.^  Not  that  Shakespeare  accepts  the  whole  of  the 
episode  which  Plutarch  narrates.  Although  he  adds 
nothing,  he  makes  substantial  omissions,  and  his  method 
of  selection  does  not  always  respect  the  calls  of  perspicuity. 
Shakespeare  ignores  the  nine  years'  interval  between 
Antony's  first  and  last  meetings  with  Cleopatra.  During 
that  period  Antony  not  only  did  much  important  political 

in  1594;  his  five-act  tragedy  of  CUopatre,  alike  ia  construction  and 
plot,  closely  follows  Jodelle's  CUopatre  Captive.  It  was  such  French 
efforts  which  gave  the  cue  to  the  dramatic  versions  of  Cleopatra's  his- 
tory in  Elizabethan  England  which  preceded  Shakespeare's  work.  The 
earliest  of  these  English  experiments  was  a  translation  of  Gamier's 
tragedy.  This  came  from  the  accomplished  pen  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's 
sister,  Mary  Countess  of  Pembroke;  it  was  published  in  1592.  Two 
years  later,  by  way  of  sequel  to  the  Countess's  work,  her  prot^g^,  Daniel, 
issued  an  original  tragedy  of  Cleopatra  on  the  Senecan  pattern.  Daniel 
pursued  the  topic  some  five  years  later  in  an  imaginary  verse  letter 
from  Antony's  wife  Octavia  to  her  husband.  A  humble  CEunp-follower 
of  the  Elizabethan  army  of  poets  and  dramatists,  one  Samuel  Brandon, 
emulated  Daniel's  example,  and  contrived  in  1598  The  tragicomedie 
of  the  mrtiMUs  Octavia.  Brandon's  catastrophe  is  the  death  of  Mark 
Antony,  and  Octavia's  jealousy  of  Cleopatra  is  the  main  theme. 

^  George  Wyndham,  in  his  introduction  to  his  edition  of  North's 
Plutarch,  i.  pp.  xciii-c,  gives  an  excellent  criticism  of  the  relations  of 
Shakespeare's  play  to  Plutarch's  life  of  Antonius.  See  also  M.  W. 
MacCallum,  Shakespeare's  Roman  Plays  and  their  background  (1910), 
pp.  318  seq.  The  extent  to  which  the  dramatist  saturated  himself 
with  Plutarchan  detail  may  be  gauged  by  the  circumstance  that  he 
christens  an  attendant  at  Cleopatra's  Court  with  the  name  of  Lamprius 
(i.  ii.  I  stage  direction).  The  name  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
Plutarch's  grandfather  of  similar  name  (Lampiyas)  is  parenthetically 
cited  by  the  biographer  as  hearsay  authority  for  some  backstairs  gossip 
of  the  palace  at  Alexandria. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  409 

work  at  Rome,  but  conducted  an  obstinate  war  in  Pat- 
thia  and  Armenia.  Nor  does  Shakespeare  take  cog- 
nisance of  the  eight  or  nine  months  which  separate 
Antony's  defeat  at  Actium  from  his  rout  under  the 
walls  of  Alexandria.  With  the  complex  series  of  events, 
which  Shakespeare  cuts  adrift,  his  heroine  has  no  concern, 
yet  the  neglected  incident  leaves  in  the  play  some  jagged 
edges  which  impair  its  coherence  and  symmetry. 

Shakespeare  is  no  slavish  disciple  of  Plutarch.  The 
dramatist's  mind  is  concentrated  on  Antony's  infatuation 
for  Cleopatra,  and  there  he  expands  and  de-  shake- 
velops  Plutarch's  story  with  niagnificent  free-  speare's 
dom  and  originality.  The  leading  events  and  ofth?'*'™ 
characters,  which  Shakespeare  drew  from  the  ^^'^■ 
Greek  biography,  are,  despite  his  liberal  borrowings  of 
phrase  and  fact,  re-incarnated  in  the  crucible  of  the 
poet's  imagination,  so  that  they  glow  in  his  verse  with  an 
heroic  and  poetic  glamour  of  which  Plutarch  gives  faint 
conception.  All  the  scenes  which  Antony  and  Cleopatra 
dominate  show  Shakespeare's  mastery  of  dramatic 
emotion  at  its  height.  It  is  doubtful  if  any  of  his  cre- 
ations, male  or  female,  deserve  a  rank  in  Ms  great  gal- 
lery higher  than  that  of  the  Queen  of  Eg)^t  for  artistic 
completeness  of  conception  or  sureness  of  touch  in  dra- 
matic execution.  It  is  almost  adequate  comment  on 
Antony's  character  to  affirm  that  he  is  a  worthy  com- 
panion of  Cleopatra.  The  notes  of  roughness  and  sen- 
suality in  his  temperament  are  ultimately  sublimated 
by  a  vein  of  poetry,  which  lends  singular  beauty  to  all 
his  farewell  utterances.  Herein  he  resembles  Shake- 
speare's Richard  II  and  Macbeth,  in  both  of  whom  a 
native  poetic  sentiment  is  quickened  by  despair.  Among 
the  minor  personages,  Enobarbus,  Antony's  disciple,  is 
especially  worthy  of  study.  His  frank  criticism  of 
passing  events  invests  him  through  the  early  portions  of 
the  play  with  the  function  of  a  chorus  who  sardonically 
warns  the  protagonists  of  the  destiny  awaiting  their 
delinquencies  and  follies. 


4IO  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  metre  and  style  of  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  when 
they  are  compared  with  the  metre  and  style  of  the  great 
The  St  le  tragedies  of  earlier  date,  plainly  indicate  fresh 
of  the  development  of  faculty  and  design.  The  ten- 
piece,  dency  to  spasmodic  and  disjointed  efiects, 
of  which  'King  Lear'  gives  the  earUest  warnings,  has 
become  habitual.  Coleridge  applied  to  the  language 
of  'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  the  Latin  motto  'feliciter 
audax.'  He  credited  the  dramatic  diction  with  '  a  happy 
vahancy,'  a  description  which  could  not  be  bettered. 
Throughout  the  piece,  the  speeches  of  great  and  small 
characters  are  instinct  with  figurative  allusiveness  and 
metaphorical  subtlety,  which,  however  hard  to  para- 
phrase or  analyse,  convey  an  impression  of  sublimity. 
At  the  same  time,  in  their  moments  of  supreme  exalta- 
tion, both  Antony  and  Cleopatra  employ  direct  language 
which  is  innocent  of  rhetorical  involution.  But  the  tone 
of  subUmity  commonly  seeks  sustenance  in  unexpected 
complexities  of  phrase.  Occasional  lines  tremble  on  the 
verge  of  the  grotesque.  But  Shakespeare's  'angelic 
strength'  preserves  him  from  the  perils  of  bombast.' 

Internal  evidence  points  with  no  uncertain  finger  to  the 
late  months  of  1608  or  early  months  of  1609  as  the  period 
'Corioia-  of  the  birth  of  '  Coriolanus,'  the  last  piece  of 
°"^'  Shakespeare's   Roman   trilogy.     The   tragedy 

was  first  printed  in  the  First  Folio  of  1623  from  a  singu- 
larly bad  transcript.^  The  irregularities  of  metre,  the 
ellipses  of  style  closely  associate  'Coriolanus'  with 
'Antony  and  Cleopatra.'  The  metaphors  and  similes 
of  'Coriolanus'  are  hardly  less  abundant  than  in  the 
previous  tragedy  and  no  less  vivid.     Yet  the  austerity 

'  A  full  review  of  the  play  and  its  analogues  by  the  present  writer 
appears  in  the  introduction  to  the  text  in  the  'Caxton'  Shakespeare. 

^  Ben  Jonson's  Silent  Woman,  which  is  known  to  have  been  first 
acted  in  1609,  seems  to  echo  a  phrase  of  Shakespeare's  play.  In  n.  u- 
105  Cominius  says  of  the  hero's  feats  in  youth  that  'he  lurch'd  [i.e.  de- 
prived] all  swords  of  the  garland.'  The  phrase  has  an  uncomnion  ring 
and  it  would  be  in  full  accordance  with  Jonson's  habit  to  have  assimilated 
it,  when  he  penned  the  sentence,  'Well,  Dauphin,  you  have  lurched  your 
friends  of  the  better  half  of  the  garland'  {Silent  Woman,  v.  iv.  227-8). 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  411 

of  Coriolanus'  tragic  story  is  the  ethical  antithesis  of  the 
passionate  subtlety  of  the  story  of  Antony  and  his  mis- 
tress, and  the  contrast  renders  the  tragedy  a  fitting 
sequel. 

As  far  as  is  known,  only  one  dramatist  in  Europe  an- 
ticipated Shakespeare  in  turning  Coriolanus'  fate  to 
dramatic  purposes.  Shakespeare's  single  predecessor 
was  his  French  contemporary  Alexandre  Hardy,  who, 
freely  interpreting  Senecan  principles  of  drama,  pro- 
duced his  tragedy  of  'Coriolan'  on  the  Parisian  stage 
for  the  first  time  in  1607.' 

Coriolanus'  story,  as  narrated  by  the  Roman  historian 
Livy,  had  served  in  Shakespeare's  youth  for  material  of  a 
prose  tale  in  Painter's  well-known  'Palace  of  xhefiddity 
Pleasure.'  There  Shakespeare  doubtless  made  to 
the  acquaintance  of  his  hero  for  the  first  time.  "'^"^  ' 
But  once  again  the  dramatist  sought  his  main  authority 
in  a  biography  of  Plutarch,  and  he  presented  Plutarch's 
leading  facts  in  his  play  with  a  documentary  fidelity 
which  excels  any  earUer  practice.  He  amplifies  some 
subsidiary  details  and  omits  or  contracts  others.  Yet 
the  longest  speeches  in  the  play  —  the  hero's  address 
to  the  Volscian  general,  Aufidius,  when  he  offers  him  his 
military  services,  and  Volumnia's  great  appeal  to  her 
son  to  rescue  his  fellow-countrymen  from  the  perils  to 
which  his  desertion  is  exposing  them  —  both  transcribe 
with  small  variation  for  two-thirds  of  their  length 
Plutarch's  language.  There  is  magical  vigour  in  the 
original  interpolations.  But  the  identity  of  phraseology 
is  almost  as  striking  as  the  changes  or  ampUfications.^ 

'  Hardy  declared  that  'few  subjects  will  be  found  in  Roman  history 
to  be  worthier  of  the  stage'  than  Coriolanus.  The  simplicity  of  the 
tragic  motive  with  its  filial  sentiment  well  harmonises  \irith  French 
ideals  of  classical  drama  and  with  the  French  domestic  temperament. 
For  more  than  two  centuries  the  seed  which  Hardy  had  sown  bore  fruit 
in  France;  and  no  less  than  three-and-twenty  tragedies  on  the  subject 
of  Coriolanus  have  blossomed  since  Hardy's  day  in  the  French  theatres. 

*  In  Plutarch,  Coriolanus'  first  words  to  Aufidius  in  his  own  house  run : 
'If  thou  knowest  me  not  yet,  Tullus,  and  seeing  me,  dost  not  believe 
me  to  be  the  man  that  I  am  indeed,  I  must  of  necessity  betray  myself 


412  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Despite  such  liberal  levies  on  Plutarch's  text  Shake- 
speare imbues  Plutarch's  theme  with  a  new  vivacity. 
The  unity  of  interest  and  the  singleness  of  the 
Characters    dramatic  purpose  render  the  tragedy  nearly  as 
o*  the  complete  a  triumph  of  dramatic  art  as  '  Othello.' 

trage  y.  Shakespeare's  Coriolanus  is  cast  in  a  Titanic 
mould.  No  turn  in  the  wheel  of  fortune  can  modify  that 
colossal  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  caste  with  which  his 
mother's  milk  has  infected  him.  Coriolanus'  mother, 
Volumnia,  is  as  vivid  and  finished  a  picture  as  the  hero 
himself.  Her  portrait,  indeed,  is  a  greater  original  effort, 
for  it  owes  much  less  to  Plutarch's  inspiration.  From  her 
Coriolanus  derives  ahke  his  patrician  prejudice  and  his 
mihtary  ambition.  But  in  one  regard  Volumnia  is  greater 
than  her  stubborn  heir.     The  keenness  and  phancy  of 

to  be  that  I  am.'  In  Shakespeare  Coriolanus  speaks  on  the  same  oc- 
casion thus : 

If  Tullus, 

Not  yet  thou  knowest  me,  and,  seeing  me,  dost  not 

Think  me  for  the  man  I  am,  necessity 

Commands  me  name  myself,     (iv.  v.  S4-S7-) 

Volumnia's  speech  offers  like  illustration  of  Shakespeare's  dependence. 
Plutarch  assigns  to  Volumnia  this  sentence :  '  So  though  the  end  of 
war  be  uncertain,  yet  this,  notwithstanding,  is  most  certain  that  if  it 
be  thy  chance  to  conquer,  this  benefit  shalt  thou  reap  of  this  thy  goodly 
conquest  to  be  chronicled  the  plague  and  destroyer  of  thy  country.' 
Shakespeare  transliterates  with  rare  dramatic  effect  (v.  iii.  140-148) : 

Thou  know'st,  great  son, 
The  end  of  war's  uncertain,  but  this  certain, 
That  if  thou  conquer  Rome,  the  benefit 
Which  thou  shalt  thereby  reap  is  such  a  name 
Whose  repetition  will  be  dogg'd  with  curses ; 
Whose  chronicle  thus  writ :  'The  man  was  noble, 
But  with  his  last  attempt  he  wiped  it  out, 
Destroy'd  his  country,  and  his  name  remains 
To  the  ensuing  age  abhorr'd.' 

Like  examples  of  Shakespeare's  method  of  assimilation  might  be  quoted 
from  Coriolanus'  heated  speeches  to  the  tribunes  and  his  censures  of 
democracy  (act  ni.  sc.  i.).  The  account  which  the  tribune  Brutus 
gives  of  Coriolanus'  ancestry  (n.  iii.  234  seq.)  is  so  hterally  paraphrased 
from  Plutarch  that  an  obvious  hiatus  in  the  corrupt  text  of  the  play 
which  the  syntax  requires  to  be  filled,  is  easily  supplied  from  North's 
page.  A  full  review  of  the  play  and  its  analogues  by  the  present  writer 
appears  in  the  introduction  to  the  text  in  the  'Caxton'  Shakespeare. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF   TRAGEDY  413 

her  intellect  have  no  counterpart  in  his  nature.  Very 
artistically  are  the  other  female  characters  of  the  tragedy, 
Coriolanus'  wife,  Virgilia,  and  Virgilia's  friend  Valeria, 
presented  as  Volumnia's  foils.  Valeria  is  a  high-spirited 
and  honourable  lady  of  fashion,  with  a  predilection  for 
frivolous  pleasure  and  easy  gossip.  Virgilia  is  a  gentle 
wife  and  mother,  who  well  earns  Coriolanus'  apostrophe 
of  'gracious  silence.'  Of  other  subsidiary  characters, 
Menenius  Agrippa,  Coriolanus'  old  friend  and  coun- 
sellor, is  a  touching  portrait  of  fideUty  to  which  Shake- 
speare lends  a  significance  unattempted  by  Plutarch. 
Throughout  the  tragedy  Menenius  criticises  the  progress 
of  events  with  ironical  detachment  after  the  manner  of 
a  chorus  in  classical  tragedy.  His  place  in  the  dramatic 
scheme  resembles  that  of  Enobarbus  in  'Antony  and 
Cleopatra,'  and  the  turn  of  events  involves  him  in  almost 
as  melancholy  a  fate. 

More  important  to  the  dramatic  development  are  the 
spokesmen  of  the  mob  and  their  leaders,  the  tribunes 
Brutus  and  Sicinius.  The  dark  colours  in  ThepoKt- 
which  Shakespeare  paints  the  popular  faction  are  icai  crisis 
often  held  to  reflect  a  personal  predilection  for  °^  "^*  ^^^^' 
aristocratic  predominance  in  the  body  politic  or  for  feudal 
conditions  of  poUtical  society.  It  is,  .however,  very 
doubtful  whether  Shakespeare,  in  his  portrayal  of  the 
Roman  crowd,  was  conscious  of  any  intention  save  that 
of  dramatically  interpreting  the  social  and  political  en- 
vironment which  Plutarch  allots  to  Coriolanus'  career. 
The  political  situation  which  Plutarch  described  was 
aUen  to  the  experience  of  Shakespeare  and  his  con- 
temporaries. Shakespeare  was  in  aU  likehhood  merely 
moved  by  the  artistic  and  purely  objective  ambition  of 
investing  unfamiliar  episode  with  dramatic  plausibility. 
No  personal  malice  nor  political  design  need  be  imputed 
to  the  dramatist's  repeated  references  to  the  citizens' 
'  strong  breaths '  or '  greasy  caps '  w'hich  were  conventional 
phrases  in  Elizabethan  drama.  Whatever  failings  are 
assigned  to  the  plebeians  in  the  tragedy  of  '  Coriolanus,' 


414  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

it  is  patrician  defiance  of  the  natural  instinct  of  patri- 
otism which  brings  about  the  catastrophe,  and  works  the 
fatal  disaster.  Shakespeare's  detached  but  inveterate 
sense  of  justice  holds  the  balance  true  between  the  rival 
political  interests. 


XIX 

THE  LATEST  PLAYS 

Through  the  first  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
when  Shakespeare's  powers  were  at  their  zenith,  he  de- 
vo,ted  his  energies,  as  we  have  seen,  almost  shake- 
exclusively  to  tragedy.  During  the  years  that  fpeare's 
intervened  between  the  composition  of  'Julius  period,' 
Caesar,'  in  1600,  and  that  of  'Coriolanus,'  in  i6o°-«- 
1609,  tragic  themes  of  solemn  import  occupied  his  pen 
unceasingly.  The  gleams  of  humour  which  illumined  a 
few  scenes  scarcely  relieved  the  sombre  atmosphere. 
Seven  plays  in  the  great  tragic  series —  'Julius  Caesar,' 
'Hamlet,'  'Othello,'  'Macbeth,'  'King  Lear,'  'Antony 
and  Cleopatra,'  and  '  Coriolanus '  —  won  for  their  author 
the  pre-eminent  place  among  workers  in  the  tragic  art  of 
eyery  age  and  clime.  A  popular  theory  presumes  that 
Shakespeare's  decade  of  tragedy  was  the  outcome  of 
some  spiritual  calamity,  of  some  episode  of  tragic  gloom 
in  his  private  life.  No  tangible  evidence  supports  the  al- 
legation. The  external  facts  of  Shakespeare's  biography 
through  the  main  epoch  of  his  tragic  energy  show  an 
unbroken  progress  of  prosperity,  a  final  farewell  to  pe- 
cuniary anxieties,  and  the  general  recognition  of  his 
towering  genius  by  contemporary  opinion.  The  bio- 
graphic record  lends  no  support  to  the  suggestion  of  a 
prolonged  personal  experience  of  tragic  suffering.  Nor 
does  the  general  trend  of  his  Uterary  activities  coun- 
tenance the  nebulous  theory.  Tragedy  was  no  new 
venture  for  Shakespeare  when  the  seventeenth  century 
opened.  His  experiments  in  that  branch  of  drama 
date  from  his  earliest  years.  Near  the  outset  of  his 
career  he  had  given  signal  proof  of  his  tragic  power  in 

41S 


41 6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  in  'King  John,'  in  'Richard  II,'  and 
'Richard  III.'  Into  his  comedies  'The  Merchant  of 
Venice,'  'Much  Ado,'  and  'Twelfth  Night,'  he  imported 
tragic  touches.  With  his  advance  in  years  there  came 
in  comedy  and  tragedy  alike  a  larger  grasp  of  Kfe,  a 
firmer  style,  a  richer  thought.  Ultimately,  tragedy 
rather  than  comedy  gave  him  the  requisite  scope  for  the 
full  exercise  of  his  matured  endowments,  by  virtue  of  the 
inevitable  laws  governing  the  development  of  dramatic 
genius.  To  seek  in  the  necessarily  narrow  range  of  his 
personal  experience  the  key  to  Shakespeare's  triumphant 
conquest  of  the  topmost  peajcs  of  tragedy  is  to  underrate 
his  creative  faculty  and  to  disparage  the  force  of  its  magic. 

In  the  EUzabethan  realm  of  letters  interest  combined 
with  instinct  to  encourage  the  tragic  direction  of  Shake- 
Popuiarity  speare's  dramatic  aptitudes.  PubUc  taste  gave 
of  tragedy,  tragedy  a  supreme  place  in  the  theatre.  It 
was  on  those  who  excelled  in  tragic  drama  that  the 
highest  rewards  and  the  loudest  applause  were  bestowed. 
There  is  much  significance  in  the  circumstance  that 
Shakespeare's  tragedy  of  'King  Lear,'  the  most  appalling 
of  all  tragedies,  was  chosen  for  presentation  at  White- 
hall on  the  opening  of  the  joyous  Christmas  festivities 
of  1606.  The  Court's  choice  was  dictated  by  the  prev- 
alent Hterary  feeling.  Shakespeare's  devotion  to  tragedy 
at  the  zenith  of  his  career  finds  all  the  explanation  that 
is  needed  in  the  fact  that  he  was  a  great  poet  and  dra- 
matic artist  whose  progressive  power  was  in  closest 
touch  and  surest  sympathy  with  current  predilections.^ 

There  is  no  conflict  with  this  conclusion  in  the  circum- 
stance that  after  completing  '  Coriolanus,'  the  eighth 
Shake  drama  in  the  well-nigh  uninterrupted  suc- 
speare's  cession  of  his  tragic  masterpieces,  Shake- 
llm^ce.  ^P^^^^  turned  from  the  storm  and  stress  of 
great  tragedy  to  the  serener  field  of  medita- 
tive romance.    A  relaxation  of  the  prolonged  tragic  strain 

'  Cf.  the  present  writer's  essay  on  'The  Impersonal  Aspect  of  Shake- 
speare's Art'  (English  Association  Leaflet,  No.  13,  July  1909). 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  417 

was  needed  by  both  author  and  audience.  Again  the 
dramatist  was  pursuing  a  path  which  at  once  harmo- 
nised with  the  playgoers'  idiosyncrasy  and  conformed 
with  the  conditions  of  his  art. 

The  Elizabethan  stage  had  under  Italian  or  Franco- 
Italian  influence  welcomed  from  early  days,  by  way  of 
rehef  from  the  strenuousness  of  unqualified  tragedy, 
experiments  in  tragicomedy  or  romantic  comedy  which 
aimed  at  a  fusion  of  tragic  and  comic  elements.  At 
first  the  result  was  a  crude  minghng  of  ingredients  which 
refused  to  coalesce.^  But  by  slow  degrees  there  devel- 
oped an  harmonious  form  of  drama,  technically  known 
as  'tragicomedy,'  in  which  a  romantic  theme,  while  it 
admitted  tragic  episode,  ended  happily  and  was  imbued 
with  a  sentimental  pathos  unknown  to  either  regular 
comedy  or  regular  tragedy.  Shakespeare's  romantic 
dramas  of  'Much  Ado'  and  'Twelfth  Night'  had  at  the 
end  of  the  sixteenth  century  first  indicated  the  artistic 
capabihties  of  this  middle  term  in  drama.  'Measure 
for  Measure,'  which  was  penned  in  1604,  respected  the 
essential  conditions  of  a  tragicomedy.  The  main  issues 
fell  within  the  verge  of  tragedy,  but  left  the  tragic  path 
before  they  reached  solution.  In  the  years  that  immedi- 
ately followed,  Shakespeare's  juniors  applied  much  in- 
dependent energy  to  popularising  the  mixed  dramatic 
type.  George  Chapman's  'The  Gentleman  Usher,' 
which  was  published  early  in  1606  after  its  performance 
at  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  by  the  Children  of  the  Chapel, 
has  all  the  features  of  a  full-fledged  tragicomedy.  As  in 
'Twelfth  Night'  and  'Much  Ado,'  serious  romance  is 
linked  with  much  comic  episode,  but  the  incident  is 
penetrated  by  strenuous  romantic  sentiment  and  stern 
griefs  and  trials  reach  a  peaceful  solution.  The  exam- 
ple was  turned  to  very  effective   account   by  Francis 

'  The  best  known  specimen  of  the  early  type  is  Richard  Edwards's 
empiric  'tragicall  comedy'  of  Damon  and  Pythias,  which  dates  from  1566. 
See  pp.  93,  217  supra.  For  better-developed  specimens  on  the  contem- 
porary French  stage  which  helped  to  direct  the  development  in  England, 
cf.  Lee's  French  Renaissance  in  England,  408  seq. 


4l8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Beaumont  and  John  Fletcher,  who,  soon  after  their 
Hterary  partnership  opened  in  1607,  enlisted  in  the  ser- 
vice of  Shakespeare's  company.  In  their  three  popular 
plays  'The  Faithful  Shepherdess,'  'Philaster,'  and  'A 
King  and  no  King,'  they  succeeded  in  establishing  for 
a  generation  the  vogue  of  tragicomedy  on  the  English 
stage.  It  was  to  the  tragicomic  movement,  which  his 
ablest  contemporaries  had  already  espoused  with  public 
approval,  that  Shakespeare  lent  his  potent  countenance 
in  the  latest  plays  which  came  from  his  unaided  pen. 
In  '  CymbeUne,'  'The  Winter's  Tale,'  and  'The  Tempest,' 
Shakespeare  applied  himself  to  perfecting  the  newest 
phases  of  romantic  drama.  'Cymbeline'  and  'The 
Winter's  Tale,'  which  immediately  followed  his  great 
tragic  efforts,  are  the  best  specimens  of  tragicomedy 
which  literature  knows.  Although  'The  Tempest' 
differs  constructively  from  its  companions,  it  completes 
the  trilogy  of  which  'Cymbehne'  and  'The  Winter's 
Tale '  are  the  •  first  and  second  instalments.  If  '  The 
Tempest'  come  no  nearer  ordinary  comedy  than  they, 
it  is  further  removed  from  ordinary  tragedy.^    But  it 

'  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  The  Faithful  Shepherdess  and  Philaster, 
or  Love  Lies  a  Bleeding,  both  of  which  may  be  classed  with  tragicomedies, 
would  each  seem  to  have  been  written  in  1609,  and  the  evidence  suggests 
that  they  were  the  precursors  rather  than  the  successors  of  Cymbeline 
and  The  Winter's  Tale  (cf.  Ashley  Thorndike's  The  Infltience  of  Beaur 
mont  and  Fletcher  on  Shakespeare,  Worcester,  Mass.,  1901,  chaps,  ix. 
and  X.).  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  A  King  and  no  King,  which  also 
obeyed  the  laws  of  tragicomedy,  was  written  before  16 11  and  was  in 
all  probability  in  course  of  composition  at  the  same  time  as  Cymbeline. 
All  three  pieces  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  were  acted  by  Shakespeare's 
company.  Guarini's  Pastor  Fido,  the  Italian  pastoral  drama,  was  very 
popular  in  England  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  and  influenced 
the  sentiment  of  Jacobean  tragicomedy.  In  Fletcher's  'Address  to 
the  Reader'  before  The  Faithful  Shepherdess,  of  which  the  first  edition 
is  an  undated  quarto  assignable  to  1609-10,  a  tragicomedy  is  thus  de- 
fined in  language  silently  borrowed  from  a  critical  essay  of  Guarini: 
'A  tragicomedy  is  not  so  called  in  respect  of  mirth  and  killing,  but  in 
respect  it  wants  deaths,  which  is  enough  to  make  it  no  tragedy,  yet 
brings  some  near  it,  which  is  enough  to  make  it  no  comedy,  which  must 
be  a  representation  of  familiar  people,  with  such  kind  of  trouble  as  no 
life  be  questioned.'  (Cf.  F.  H.  Ristine,  English  Tragicomedy,  New 
York,  1910,  p.  107;  T.  M.  Parrott's  Comedies  of  George  Chapman, 
pp.  7S7  seq.) 


I  THE  LATEST  PLAYS  419 

belongs  to  the  category  of  its  two  predecessors  by  virtue 
of  its  romantic  spirit,  of  the  plenitude  of  its  poetry,  of 
its  solemnity  of  tone,  of  its  avoidance  of  the  arbitrament 
of  death. 

None  of  these  three  pieces  was  published  in  Shake- 
speare's Hf  etime.  All  were  first  printed  in  the  First  Foho, 
and  the  places  they  hold  in  that  volume  lack  xhe 
justification.  Although  'The  Tempest'  was  romantic 
the  last  play  which  Shakespeare  completed,  it  andthe 
fills  the  first  place  in  the  First  FoUo,  standing  ^'"'  ^°^°- 
at  the  head  of  the  section  of  comedies.  'The  Winter's 
Tale,'  in  spite  of  its  composition  just  before  'The  Tem- 
pest,' occupies  the  last  place  of  the  same  section,  being 
separated  from  'The  Tempest'  by  the  whole  range  of 
Shakespeare's  endeavours  in  comedy.  With  even  greater 
inconsistency,  '  CymbeUne '  comes  at  the  very  end  of  the 
First  Folio,  filling  the  last  place  in  the  third  and  last 
section  of  tragedies.  It  is  clear  that  the  editors  of  the 
volume  completely  misconceived  the  chronological  and 
critical  relations  of  the  three  plays,  alike  to  one  another 
and  to  the  rest  of  Shakespeare's  work.  They  failed  to 
recognise  the  distinctive  branch  of  dramatic  art  to  which 
'Cymbeline'  belonged,  and  they  set  it  among  Shake- 
speare's tragedies  with  which  it  bore  small  logical  affinity. 
Nor  was  'The  Tempest'  nor  'The  Winter's  Tale'  justly 
numbered  among  the  comedies  without  a  radical  quali- 
fication of  that  term. 

It  is  mainly  internal  evidence  —  points  of  style,  lan- 
guage, metre,  characterisation  —  which  proves  that  the 
three  plays  'CymbeHne,'  'The  Winter's  Tale,'  ^^^°™- 
and  'The  Tempest'  belonged  to  the  close  of  the  three 
Shakespeare's  career/     The  metrical  irregular-  Jf^ringP'^^^ 
ity,  the  condensed  imagery,  the  abrupt  turns  1611. 
of  subtle  thought,  associate  the  three  pieces  very  closely 
with  'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  and  'Coriolanus.'    The 
discerning  student  recognises  throughout  the  romantic 
trilogy  the  latest  phase  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  manner. 
The  composition  of   'Cymbeline'   and   'The  Winter's 


420  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Tale'  may  be  best  assigned  to  the  spring  and  autumn 
respectively  of  1610,  and  'The  Tempest'  to  the  early 
months  of  the  following  year.  External  evidence  shows 
that  the  three  plays  stood  high  in  popular  favour  through 
the  year  161 1.  Henry  Manningham,  the  Middle  Tem- 
ple barrister,  who  described  a  performance  of  'Twelfth 
Night'  in  the  Hall  of  his  Inn  in  February  1601-2,  was 
not  the  only  contemporary  reporter  of  early  perform- 
ances of  Shakespeare's  plays  in  London.  Simon  Forman, 
a  prosperous  London  astrologer  and  quack  doctor,  also 
kept  notes  of  his  playgoing  experiences  in  the  metropolis 
a  few  years  later.  In  the  same  notebook  in  which  he 
described  how  he  attended  a  revival  of  'Macbeth'  at 
the  Globe  theatre  in  April  1610,  he  recorded  that  on 
May  15,  161 1,  he  visited  the  same  theatre  and  witnessed 
'The  Winter's  Tale.'  The  next  entry,  which  is  without 
a  date,  gives  a  fairly  accurate  sketch  of  the  complicated 
plot  of  Shakespeare's  '  Cymbelme.'  ^  Forman's  notes 
do  not  suggest  that  he  was  present  at  the  first  production 
of  any  of  the  cited  pieces;  but  it  is  clear  that  'The 
Winter's  Tale'  and  'Cymbeline,'  were,  when  he  wrote 
of  them,  each  of  comparatively  recent  birth.  Within 
six  months  of  the  date  of  Forman's  entries  'The  Tem- 
pest' was  performed  at  Court  (Nov.  i,  161 1)  and  a  pro- 
duction of  'The  Winter's  Tale'  before  royalty  followed 
in  four  days  (Nov.  5,  1611).^ 

'  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  86;  cf.  p.  125  n.  supra. 

'  The  entries  of  The  Tempest  and  The  Winter's  Tale  in  the  Booke  of 
the  Revells  (October  31,  1611-November  x,  1612)  in  the  Public  Record 
Of&ce  were  long  under  suspicion  of  forgery.  But  their  authenticity 
is  now  establishe4.  See  Ernest  Law's  Some  supposed  Shakespeare 
Forgeries,  191 1,  and  his  More  about  Shakespeare  Forgeries,  1913.  The 
Booke  of  the  Revells  in  question  was  printed  in  Cunningham's  Extracts 
from  the  Account  of  the  Revels  at  Court,  p.  210.  In  1809  Malone,  who 
examined  the  Revels  Accounts,  wrote  of  The  Tempest,  'I  know  that  it 
had  "a  being  and  a  name"  in  the  autumn  of  1611,'  and  he  concluded 
that  it  was  penned  in  the  spring  of  that  year.  (Variorum  Shakespeare, 
1821,  XV.  423.)  The  Council's  warrant,  giving  particulars  of  the  pay- 
ment of  the  actors  for  their  services  at  Court  during  the  year  1611-12, 
is  in  the  Accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber,  Bodleian  Library 
MS.  Rawl.  A  204  (f .  305) ;  the  warrant  omits  all  names  of  plays. . 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  421 

In  'Cymbeline'  Shakespeare  weaves  together  three 
distinct  threads  of  story,  two  of  which  he  derives  from 
well-known  literary  repertories.  The  first  The  triple 
thread  concerns  a  political  quarrel  between  PcymL- 
ancient  Britain,  when  it  was  a  Roman  province,  line.' 
and  the  empire  of  Rome,  which  claimed  supreme  domin- 
ion over  it.  Shakespeare  derived  his  Brito-Roman 
incident  from  Hohnshed's  'Chronicle,'  a  voluine  whence 
he  had  already  drawn  much  legend  as  well  as  authentic 
history.  His  pusOlanimous  hero  C3Tnbeline,  King  of 
Britain,  is  a  late  successor  of  King  Lear  and  nearly  the 
last  of  Lear's  Hne.  The  second  thread  of  the  plot  of 
'  CjTnbeline,'  which  concerns  the  experiences  of  the 
heroine  Imogen,  comes  with  variations  from  a  well-known 
novel  of  Boccaccio.  There  Shakespeare's  heroine  was 
known  as  Ginevra;  her  husband  (Shakespeare's  Post- 
humus)  as  Bernabo ;  and  his  treacherous  friend  (Shake- 
speare's lachimo)  as  Ambrogiuolo.  Boccaccio  antici- 
pates Shakespeare  in  the  main  fortunes  of  Imogen,  in- 
cluding her  escape  in  boy's  attire  from  the  death  which 
her  husband  designs  for  her.  But  Shakespeare  recon- 
structs the  subsequent  adventures  which  lead  to  her 
reconciliation  with  her  husband.  Boccaccio's  tale  was 
crudely  adapted  for  English  readers  in  a  popular  mis- 
cellany of  fiction  entitled  'Westward  for  Smelts,  or  the 
Waterman's  Fare  of  Mad  Merry  Western  Wenches, 
whose  tongues  albeit,  like  Bell-clappers,  they  never 
leave  ringing,  yet  their  Tales  are  sweet,  and  will  much 
content  you:  Written  by  kinde  Kitt  of  Kingstone.' 
This  fantastically  named  book  was,  according  to  Malone 
and  Steevens,  first  published  in  London  in  1603,  but  no 
edition  earlier  than  1620  is  known.  Episodes  analogous 
to  those  which  form  the  plot  of  Shakespeare's  'Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor'  appear  in  the  volume.  But  on  any 
showing  the  indebtedness  of  the  dramatist's  '  Cjonbeline' 
to  it  is  slender.  He  follows  far  more  loyally  Boccaccio's 
original  text.  Shakespeare  would  seem  to  have  himself 
invented  the  play's  third  thread  of  story,  the  banish- 


422  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ment  from  the  British  Court  of  the  lord,  Belarius,  who, 
in  revenge  for  his  expatriation,  kidnapped  the  king's 
young  sons  and  brought  them  up  with  him  in  the  recesses 
of  the  mountains. 

Although  most  of  the  scenes  of  'Cjonbeline'  are  laid 
in  Britain  in  the  first  century  before  the  Christian  era, 

there  is  no  pretence  of  historical  vraisemblance. 
tion^S*^  With  an  almost  ludicrous  inappropriateness, 
character-    ^g  British  King's  courtiers  make  merry  with 

technical  terms  peculiar  to  Calvinistic  theology,, 
like  'grace'  and  'election.'^  The  action,  which,  owing 
to  the  combination  of  the  three  threads  of  narrative,  is 
varied  and  intricate,  wholly  belongs  to  the  region  of 
romance.  But  the  dramatist  atones  for  the  remoteness 
of  the  incident  and  .the  looseness  of  construction  by  in- 
vesting the  characters  with  a  rare  wealth  of  vivacious 
humanity.  The  background  of  the  picture  is  unreal; 
but  the  figures  in  the  f oregroiuid  are  instinct  with  life  and 
poetry.  On  Imogen,  who  is  the  main  piUar  of  the  action, 
Shakespeare  lavished  all  the  fascination  of  his  genius. 
She  is  the  crown  and  flower  of  his  conception  of  tender 
and  artless  womanhood.  She  pervades  and  animates  the 
whole  piece  as  an  angel  of  light,  who  harmonises  its  dis- 
cursive and  discordant  elements.  Her  weakly  suspicious 
husband  Posthumus,  her  rejected  lover  the  brutish  CIo- 
ten,  her  would-be  seducer  lachimo  are  contrasted  with 
her  and  with  each  other  with  luminous  ingenuity.  The 
mountain  passes  of  Wales  in  which  Belarius  and  his 
fascinating  boy-companions  play  their  part  have  some 
points  of  resemblance  to  the  Forest  of  Arden  in  'As  You 
Like  It';  but  life  throughout  'Cymbeline'  is  grimly 
earnest,  and  the  rude  and  bracing  Welsh  mountains 
nurture  little  of  the  contemplative  quiet  which  char- 
acterises existence  on  the  sylvan  levels  of  Arden.  Save 
in  a  part  of  one  scene,  no  doubt  is  permissible  of  Shake- 

'  In  I.  i.  136-7  Imogen  is  described  as  'past  grace'  in  the  theologial 
sense.  In  i.  ii.  30-31  the  Second  Lord  remarks :  'If  it  be  a" sin  to  make 
a  true  election,  she  is  damned.' 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS 


423 


speare's  sole  responsibility.  In  the  fourth  scene  of  the 
fourth  act  (11.  30  seq.)  the  husband  Posthumus,  when 
imprisoned  by  Cymbeline,  ICing  of  Britain,  sees  in  an 
irrelevant  vision  his  parents  and  his  brothers,  who  sum- 
mon Jupiter  to  restore  his  broken  fortunes.  All  here  is 
pitiful  mummery,  which  may  be  assigned  to  an  incom- 
petent coadjutor.  Any  suspicion  elsewhere  that  Shake- 
speare's imagination  has  suffered  in  energy  is  dispelled 
by  the  lyrical  dirge  'Fear  no  more  the  heat  of  the  sun,' 
which  for  perfect  sureness  of  thought  and  expression  has 
no  parallel  in  the  songs  of  previous  years.  The  "deaths  of 
Cloten  and  his  mother  signalise  the  romantic  triumph  of 
Imogen's  virtue  over  wrong,  and  accentuate  the  serious 
aspects  of  life  without  exciting  tragic  emotion. 

Far  simpler  than  the  plot  of  'CymbeUne'  is  that  of 
'The  Winter's  Tale,'  which  was  seen  by  Dr.  Forman  at 
the  Globe  on  May  15,  1611,  and  was  acted  at  <^^g 
Court  on  November  5  following.^    The  play  Winter's 
was  wholly   based   upon   a   popular   English  ■^*'*'' 
romance  of  euphuistic  temper  which  was  called '  Pandosto' 
in  the  first  edition  of  1588,  and  in  numerous  later  edi- 
tions, but  was  ultimately  in  1648  re-christened  'Dorastus 
and   Fawnia.'     Shakespeare's   constructive   method   in 
'The  Winter's  Tale'  resembled  that  which  he  pursued 
in  'As  You  Like  It,'  when  he  converted  into  a  play  a 
recent  English  romance,  '  Rosalynde,'  by  Thomas  Lodge. 
Some  irony  attaches  to  Shakespeare's  choice  of  authority 
for  the  later  play.     The  writer  of  the  novel  which  Shake- 
speare dramatised  there  was  Robert  Greene,  xhedebt 
who,  on  his   deathbed,  some   eighteen   years  to  Greene's 
before,  had  attacked  the  dramatist  with  much  "°^* " 
bitterness  when  his  great  career  was  opening.     In  many 

*  Camillo's  reflections  (i.  ii.  358)  on  the  ruin  that  attends  those  who 
'struck  anointed  kings'  have  been  regarded,  not  quite  conclusively,  as 
specially  designed  to  gratify  James  I.  The  name  of  the  play  belongs  to 
tile  same  category  as  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  and  Twelfth  Night. 
•  The  expression  'a  winter's  tale'  was  in  common  use  for  a  serious  story, 
but  the  dramatist  may  possibly  echo  here  Las  Noches  de  Invierno  ('The 
Winter  Evenings'),  the  title  of  a  collection  of  Spanish  tales  (Madrid, 
1609)  to  which  he  may  have  had  access,  see  p.  427  n.  ±. 


424  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ways  Shakespeare  in  'The  Winter's  Tale'  was  more 
loyal  to  the  invention  of  his  early  foe  than  scholarship 
or  art  quite  justified.  Shakespeare  followed  Greene  in 
allotting  a  seashore  to  Bohemia  —  an  error  over  which 
Ben  Jonson  and  many  later  critics  have  made  merry,' 
The  dramatist,  like  the  novelist,  located  in  the  island  of 
Delphos,  instead  of  on  the  mainland  of  Phocis,  the 
Delphic  oracle  of  Apollo  which  ii  pseudo-classical  pro- 
clivity irrelevantly  brought  into  tlie  story.  The  scheme 
of  the  piece  suggests  im  undue  deference  on  the  i)lay- 
wright's  part  to  the  conditions  of  the  novel.  The  action 
of  the  play  is  bluntly  cut  in  two  by  an  interval  of  sixteen 
years,  which  elapse  between  the  close  of  act  iii.  and  the 
opening  of  act  :v.,  and  the  speech  of  the  chorus  personi- 
fying Time  proves  barely  able  to  bridge  the  chasm.  The 
incidentiil  deaths  of  two  subsidiary  good  characters  — 
the  boy  Mamilius  and  the  kindly  old  courtier  Antigonus 
—  somewhat  infringe  the  placid  canons  of  romanee.  The 
second  death  is  an  invention  of  the  dramatist.  Shake- 
speare's dependence  on  Greene's  narrative  was  indeed  far 
from  servile.  After  his  wont  he  recliristened  the  char- 
acters, and  he  modified  tlie  spirit  of  the  fable  wherever 
his  dramatic  instinct  prompted  change.  In  the  novel 
bold  familiarities  between  Bellaria,  Shakespeare's  Her- 
mione,  and  Egistus,  Shakespeare's  Polixenes,  lend  some 

colour  to  the  jealousy  of  Pundosto,  Shakespeare's 
speare^s  Leontes.  In  Shakespeare's  play  all  excuse  for 
["ons"'"       *^^  husband's  suspicions  of  his  wife  is  swept 

away.  In  the  novel  Bellaria  dies  of  grief  on 
hearing  of  the  death  of  her  son  Gerintes,  Shakespeare's 
Mamilius.  Hermione's  long  and  secret  retirement  and 
her  final  reconciliation  with  Leontes  are  episodes  of 
Shakespeare's  coinage.  At  the  same  time  he  created 
the  character  of  Paulina,  Hermione's  outspoken  friend 
and  companion,  and  he  provided  from  his  own  resources 
welcome  comic  relief  in  the  gipsy  pedlar  and  thief  Auto- 
lycus,  who  is  skilled  in  all  the  patter  of  the  cheap  Jack 

*  Conversations  with  Drtminond,  p.  16. 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  425 

and  sings  with  a  light  heart  many  popular  airs.  A  few 
lines  in  one  of  Autolycus's  speeches  were  obviously  drawn 
from  that  story  of  Boccaccio  with  which  Shakespeare 
had  dealt  just  before  in  'Cjonbeline.'  ^  But  the  rogue 
is  essentially  a  creature  of  Shakespeare's  fashioning. 

Leontes'  causeless  jealousy,  which  is  the  motive  of 
'The  Winter's  Tale,'  has  nothing  in  common  with  the 
towering  passion  of  Othello.  Nor  is  it  cast  in  .pj^^ 
quite  the  same  mould  as  the  wrongful  suspicion  freshness 
which  Posthvunus  cherishes  of  Imogen  at  °*'™^- 
lachimo's  prompting  in  'CyihbeUne.'  Leontes'  jealousy 
is  the  aberration  of  a  weak  mind  and  owes  nothing  to 
external  pressure.  The  husband's  feeble  wrath  is  finely 
contrasted  with  his  wife's  gentle  composure  and  patient 
fortitude  in  the  presence  of  unwarrantable  suffering  which 
moves  pathos  of  an  infinite  poignancy.  The  boy  Mamil- 
ius  is  of  near  kin  to  the  boys  in  'Cymbeline.'  Nowhere 
has  the  dramatist  portrayed  more  convincingly  boyhood's 
charm,  quickness  of  perception  or  innocence.  Perdita 
develops  the  ethereal  model  of  Marina  in  '  Pericles '  and 
shows  tender  ingenuous  girlhood  moulded  by  Nature's 
hand  and  free  of  the  contamination  of  social  artifice. 
The  .courtship  of  Florizel  and  Perdita  is  the  perfection  of 
gentle  romance.  The  freshness,  too,  of  the  pastoral 
incident  surpasses  that  of  aU  Shakespeare's  presentations 
of  country  hfe.  Shakespeare's  final  labours  in  tragi- 
comedy betray  an  enhanced  mastery  of  the  simple  as 
well  as  of  the  complex  aspect  of  human  experience.- 

'The  Tempest'  was  probably  the  latest  drama  that 
Shakespeare  completed.  While  chronologically  and  or- 
ganically it  is  closely  bound  to  'Cymbeline'  and  'The 

1  In  The  Winter's  Tale  (rv.  iv.  812  et  seq.)  Autolycus  threatens  that 
the  clown's  son  'shall  be  flayed  alive;  then  'nointed  over  with  honey, 
set  on  the  head  of  a  wasp's  nest,'  &c.  In  Boccaccio's  story  of  Ginevra 
(Shakespeare's  Imogen)  the  villain  Ambrogiuolo  (Shakespeare's  lachimo), 
after  'being  bounden  to  the  stake  and  anointed  with  honey,'  was  'to  his 
exceeding  torment  not  only  slain  but  devoured  of  the  flies  and  wasps 
and  gadflies  ■virherewith  that  country  abounded'  (cf.  Decameron,  transl. 
John  Payne,  i.  164).    See  also  Apuleius'  Golden  Ass,  bk.  viii.  c.  35. 


426  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Winter's  Tale,'  it  pursues  a  path  of  its  own.  It  chal- 
lenges familiar  laws  of  life  and  nature  far  more  openly 
'The  than  either  of  its  immediate  predecessors.    Yet 

Tempest.'  the  dramatist's  creative  power  has  fired  his 
impalpable  texture  with  a  hving  sentiment  and  emotion 
which  are  the  finest  flower  of  poetic  romance.  .  'The 
Tempest'  has  affinities  with  the  'Midsummer  Night's 
Dream.'  In  both  pieces  supernatural  fancies  play  a 
prominent  part.  But  the  contrasts  are  more  notable 
than  the  resemblances.  The  bustling  energy  of  the 
'Dream'  is  replaced  in  'The  Tempest'  by  a  steadily 
progressive  calm.  The  poetry  of  the  later  drama  rings 
with  a  greater  profundity  and  a  stronger  human  sym- 
pathy. 'The  Tempest's'  echoes  of  classical  poetry  are 
less  numerous  or  distinct  than  those  of  the  'Dream.' 
Yet  into  Prospero's  great  speech  renouncing  his  practice 
of  magical  art  (v.  i.  33-37)  Shakespeare  wrought  literal 
reminiscences  of  Golding's  translation  of  Medea's  invoca- 
tion in  Ovid's  'Metamorphoses'  (vii.  197-206).  Gold- 
ing's rendering  of  Ovid  had  been  one  of  Shakespeare's 
best-loved  books  in  youth,  and  his  parting  tribute  proves 
the  permanence  of  his  early  impressions,  in  spite  of  his 
widened  interests. 

In  'The  Tempest'  Shakespeare  accepted  two  main 
cues,  one  from  pre-existing  romantic  literature  and  the 
The  other  from  current  reports  of  contemporary 

sovircesof  adventure.  The  main  theme  of  the  exiled 
'  ^  ^^'  magician  and  his  daughter  was  probably  bor- 
rowed from  a  popular  romance  of  old  standing  in  many 
foreign  tongues.^  The  episode  of  the  storm  and  the  con- 
ception of  Caliban  were  more  obvious  fruit  of  reported 
incident  in  recent  voyages  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

Several  Spanish  novelists,  whose  work  was  circulating 

^  The  name  Prospero,  which  Shakespeare  first  bestowed  on  the 
magician,  would  seem  to  have  been  drawn  from  the  first  draft  of  Ben 
Jonson's  Every  Man  in  his  Humour  (1598),  where  all  the  characters  bear 
Italian  names  (in  later  editions  changed  into  English).  Ben  Jonson 
afterwards  christened  his  character  of  Prospero  by  the  name  of 
WeUbred. 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  427 

in  cultured  English  circles,  had  lately  told  of  magicians 
of  princely  or  ducal  rank  exiled  by  usurpers  from  their 
home  to  mysteriously  remote  retreats,  in  the  company  of 
au  only  daughter  who  was  ultimately  wooed  and  won  by 
the  son  of  the  magician's  archfoe.^  In  the  '  Comedia  von 
der  schonen  Sidea,'  a  German  play  written  about  1595, 
by  Jacob  Ayrer,  a  dramatist  of  Nuremberg,  there  are, 
moreover,  adxmibrations  not  only  of  the  magician  Pros- 
pero,  his  daughter  Miranda,  and  her  lover  Ferdinand, 
but  also  of  Ariel.^  English  actors  were  performing  at 
Nuremberg,  where  Ayrer  hved,  in  1604  and  1606,  and 
may  have  brought  reports  of  the  piece  to  Shakespeare, 
or  both  German  and  English  dramatists  may  have  fol- 

'  Spamsh  romance  was  well  known  in  Elizabethan  England,  as  is 
shown  by  the  vogue  of  Montemayor's  Diana,  which  includes  a  story 
analogous  to  that  of  Shakespeare's  Two  Gentlemen.  In  the  seventeenth 
century  Spanish  stories  were  repeatedly  dramatised  in  England.  Shake- 
speare's coadjutor  Fletcher  based  numerous  plays  on  the  Exemplary 
Novels  of  Cervantes  and  the  fiction  of  other  Spaniards.  A  Spanish 
collection  of  short  tales  by  Antonio  de  Eslava,  bearing  the  general 
title  'Primera  Parte  de  las  Noches  de  Invierno'  —  'The  First  Part  of 
the  Winter  Evenings'  (Madrid  1609)  — -includes  the  story  of  Dardanus, 
a  king  of  Bulgaria,  a  virtuous  magician,  who,  being  dethroned  by  Nice- 
phorus,  a  usurping  emperor  of  Greece,  sails  away  with  his  only  daughter 
Seraphma  in  a  littie  ship,  and  in  mid-ocean  creates  a  beautiful  submarine 
palace  for  their  residence.  There  the  girl  grows  up  like  Miranda  on 
the  desert  island.  When  she  reaches  womanhood,  the  magician,  dis- 
guised as  a  fisherman,  captures  the  son  of  his  usurping  foe  and  brings 
the  youth  to  his  dwelling  under  the  sea.  The  girl's  marriage  with  the 
kidnapped  prince  follows.  The  usurper  dies  and  the  magician  is  re- 
stored to  hi^  kingdom,  but  finally  he  transfers  his  power  to  his  daughter 
and  son-in-law.  On  such  a  foundation  Shakespeare's  fable  of  Prospero 
might  conceivably  have  been  reared. 

'  In  the  German  play,  which  is  printed  in  Cohn's  Shakespeare  in 
Germany,  a  noble  magician,  Ludolph,  prince  of  Lithuania,  being  defeated 
in  battle  by  a  usurper,  Leudegast,  prince  of  the  WUtau,  seeks  refuge 
in  a  forest  together  with  an  only  daughter  Sidea.  In  the  forest  the  exile 
is  attended  by  a  demon,  Runcival,  who  is  of  Ariel's  kindred.  The  . 
forest,  although  difficult  of  access,  is  by  no  means  uninhabited.  Mean- 
while the  exile  works  his  magic  spell  on  his  enemy's  son  Engelbrecht  and 
makes  him  his  prisoner  in  the  sylvan  retreat.  The  captive  is  forced  by 
his  master  to  bear  logs,  like  Ferdinand  in  The  Tempest.  Finally  the 
youth  marries  the  girl,  and  the  marriage  reconciles  the  parents.  At 
many  points  the  stories  of  the  German  and  English  plays  correspond. 
But  there  are  too  many  discrepancies  to  establish  a  theory  of  direct 
dependence  on  Shakespeare's  part. 


428  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

lowed  an  identical  piece  of  fiction,  which  has  not  been 
quite  precisely  identified. 

In  no  earlier  presentment  of  the  magician's  and  his 
daughter's  romantic  adventures,  is  any  hint  given  either 
The  ship-  of  the  shipwrcck  or  of  Caliban.  Suggestions 
wreck.  fQj-  these  episodes  reached  Shakespeare  from  a 
quarter  nearer  home  than  Spain  or  Germany.  In  the 
summer  of  i6og  a  fleet-bound  for  the  new  plantation  of 
Jamestown  in  Virginia,  under  the  command  of  Sir  George 
Somers,  was  overtaken  by  a  storm  off  the  West  Indies, 
and  the  admiral's  ship,  the  'Sea- Venture,'  was  driven 
on  the  coast  of  the  hitherto  unknown  Bermuda  Isles. 
There  they  remained  ten  months,  pleasurably  impressed 
by  the  mild  beauty  of  the  cUmate,  but  sorely  tried  by 
the  hogs  which  overran  the  island  and  by  mysterious 
noises  which  led  them  to  imagine  that  spirits  and  devils 
had  made  the  island  their  home.  Somers  and  his  men 
were  given  up  for  lost,  but  they  escaped  from  Bermuda  in 
two  boats  of  cedar  to  Virginia  in  May  1610,  and  the 
news  of  their  adventures  and  of  their  safety  was  carried 
to  England  by  some  of  the  seamen  in  September  1610. 
The  sailors'  arrival  created  vast  public  excitement  in 
London.  At  least  five  accounts  were  soon  published  of 
the  shipwreck  and  of  the  mysterious  island,  previously 
uninhabited  by  man,  which  had  proved  the  salvation  of 
the  expedition.  'A  Discovery  of  the  Bermudas,  other- 
wise called  the  Isle  of  Divels,'  written  by  Sylvester 
Jourdain  or  Jourdan,  one  of  the  survivors,  appeared  as 
early  as  October.  A  second  pamphlet  describing  the 
disaster  was  issued  by  the  Council  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany in  December,  and  a  third  by  one  of  the  leaders  of 
,  the  expedition,  Sir  Thomas  Gates.  Shakespeare,  who 
mentions  the  'stiU  vexed  Bermoothes'  (i.  i.  229),  incor- 
porated in  'The  Tempest'  many  hints  from  Jourdain, 
Gates,  and  the  other  pamphleteers.  The  references  to 
the  gentle  climate  of  the  island  on  which  Prospero  is 
cast  away,  and  to  the  spirits  and  devils  that  infested  it, 
seem  to  render  unquestionable  its  identification  with 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  429 

the  newly  discovered  Bermudas.  There  is  no  reasonable 
ground  for  disputing  that  the  catastrophe  around  which 
the  plot  of  'The  Tempest'  revolves  was  suggested  by 
the  casting  away,  in  a  terrific  storm,  on  the  rocky  Atlan- 
tic coast,  of  the  ship  bound  in  1609  for  the  new  settle- 
ment of  Jamestown.  Prospero's  uninhabited  island  re- 
flects most  of  the  features  which  the  shipwrecked  sailors 
on  this  Virginian  voyage  assigned  to  their  involuntary 
asylum,  where  they  imagined  themselves  to  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  elementary  forces  of  Nature. 

The  scene  of  the  sailors'  illusion  stirred  in  the  drama- 
tist's fertile  imagination  the  further  ambition  to  portray 
aboriginal  man  in  his  own  home.  But  before  xhesignif- 
he  formulated  his  conception  of  Caliban,  Shake-  rcance  of 
speare  played  parenthetically  with  current  ^  '*°' 
fancies  respecting  the  regeneration  which  the  New  World 
held  in  store  for  the  Old.  The  French  essayist  Mon- 
taigne had  fathered  the  notion  that  aboriginal  America, 
offered  Europe  an  example  of  Utopian  communism.  In 
his  rambhng  essay  on  cannibals  (11.  30)  he  described  an 
unknown  island  of  the  New  World  where  the  inhabitants 
lived  according  to  nature  and  were  innocent  ahke  of  the 
vices  and  virtues  of  civilisation.  In  'The  Tempest' 
(11.  i.  154  seq.),  Gonzalo,  the  honest  counsellor  of  Naples, 
sketches  after  he  and  his  companions  are  rescued  from 
shipwreck  the  kind  of  natural  law  which,  if  the  planta- 
tion were  left  in  his  hands,  he  would  establish  on  the 
desert  island  of  their  redemption.  Here  Shakespeare 
literally  adopts  Montaigne 's  vocabulary  with  its  abrupt 
turns  as  it  figured  in  Florio's  Enghsh  translation  of 
the  Frenchman's  essays.  But  Shakespeare  admits  no 
personal  faith  in  Montaigne's  complaisant  theorising,  of 
which  he  takes  leave  with  the  comment  that  it  is  'merry 
fooling.' 

CaUban  was  Shakespeare's  ultimate  conception  of  the 
true  quality  of  aboriginal  character.  Specimens  of  the 
American  Indian  had  been  brought  to  England  by  Eliza- 
bethan or  Jacobean  voyagers  during  Shakespeare's  work- 


430  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

ing  career.  They  had  often  besen  exhibited  in  London  and 
Shake-  the  provinces  by  professional  showmen  as  mir- 
speare  and  aculous  monsters.^  Travellers  had  spoken  and 
ican  ^^'  written  freely  of  the  native  American.  Caliban 
native.  jg  an  imaginary  composite  portrait,  an  attempt 
to  reduce  to  one  common  denominator  the  aboriginal  types 
whom  the  dramatist  had  seen  or  of  whom  he  had  heard 
or  read.^  Shakespeare's  American  proves  to  have  little 
in  common  with  the  Arcadian  innocent  with  which  Mon- 
taigne identifies  him.  Shakespeare  had  Ughtly  applied 
to  savage  man  the  words  '  a  very  land-fish,  languageless, 
a  monster,'  before  he  concentrated  his  attention  on  the 
theme.'  But  on  closer  study  he  rejected  this  description, 
and  finally  presented  him  as  a  being  endowed  with  live 
senses  and  appetites,  with  aptitudes  for  mechanical 
labour,  with  some  knowledge  and  some  control  of  the 
resources  of  inanimate  nature  and  of  the  animal  world. 
But  his  hfe  was  passed  in  that  stage  of  evolutionary  de- 
velopment which  preceded  the  birth  of  moral  sentiment, 
of  intellectual  perception,  and  of  social  culture.  Caliban 
was  a  creature  stumbling  over  the  first  stepping-stones 
which  lead  from  savagery  to  civUisation.* 

'  A  native  of  New  England  called  Epenew  was  brought  to  England 
in  1611,  and  'being  a  man  of  so  great  a  stature'  was  'showed  up  and 
down  London  for  money  as  a  monster'  (Capt.  John  Smith's  Historic 
of  New  England,  ed.  1907,  ii.  7).  The  Porter  in  Henry  VIII  (v.  iv.  32) 
doubtless  had  Epenew  in  mind  when  he  alludes  to  the  London  mob's 
rush  after  'some  strange  Indian.'  When  Trinculo  in  The  Tempest 
speaks  of  the  eagerness  of  a  London  crowd  to  pay  for  a  sight  of  'a  dead 
Indian'  (n.  ii.  34)  Shakespeare  doubtless  recalls  an  actual  experience. 
'Indian'  is  used  by  Shakespeare  in  the  sense  of  'Red  Indian.' 

'  Traits  of  the  normal  tractable  type  of  Indian  to  which  belonged 
the  Virginian  and  Caribbean  of  the  middle  continent  mingle  in  Caliban 
with  those  of  the  irredeemable  savages  of  Patagonia  to  the  extreme 
south  of  America.  To  the  former  type  Red  Indian  visitors  to  England 
belonged.  The  evidence  which  justifies  the  description  of  Caliban  as  a 
composite  portrait  of  varied  types  of  the  American  Indian  has  been 
brought  together  by  the  present  writer  in  two  essays,  'The  American 
Indian  in  Elizabethan  England,'  in  Scribner's  Magazine,  September  1907, 
and  '  Caliban's  Visits  to  England,'  in  Cornhill  Magazine,  March  1913. 

'  Troilus  and  Cressida,  ni.  iii.  264. 

*  At  some  points  Shakespeare  reproduced  in  The  Tempest  with  ab- 
solute literalness  the  experience  of  Europeans  in  their  encounters  with 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  431 

The  dramatist's  notice  of  the  god  Setebos,  the  chief 
object  of  Caliban's  worship,  echoes  accounts  of  the  wild 
people  of  Patagonia,  who  lived  in  a  state  of  Caliban's 
unquaHfied  savagery.  Pigafetta,  an  Italian  god  ^"  ^ 
mariner,  first  put  into  writing  an  account  of  s^'«''°=- 
the  Patagonians'  barbarous  modes  of  hfe  and  their  un- 
couth superstitions.  His  tract  circulated  widely  in 
Shakespeare's  day  in  English  translations,  chiefly  in 
Richard  Eden's  'History  of  Travel'  (1577).  During  the 
dramatist's  lifetime  curiosity  about  the  mysterious 
people  spread.  Sir  Francis  Drake  and  Thomas  Caven- 
dish, in  their  circumnavigations  of  the  globe,  both  paused 
on  Patagonian  territory  and  held  intercourse  with  its 
strange  inhabitants.  In  'their  great  devil  Setebos' 
centred  the  most  primitive  conceptions  of  reUgion.  Cah- 
ban  acknowledges  himself  to  be  a  votary  of  'the  Pata- 
gonian devil.'  Twice  he  makes  mention  of  'my  dam's 
god  Setebos'  (i.  ii.  373 ;  v.  i.  261). 

In  one  respect  Shakespeare  departs  from  his  authorities. 

aboriginal  inhabitants  of  newly  discovered  America.  The  savage's  in- 
sistent recognition  in  the  brutish  Trinculo  of  divine  attributes  is  a  vivid 
and  somewhat  ironical  picture  of  the  welcome  accorded  to  Spanish, 
French,  and  English  explorers  on  their  landing  in  the  New  World. 
Every  explorer  shared,  too,  Prospero's  pity  for  the  aborigines'  inability 
to  make  themselves  intelligible  in  their  crabbed  agglutinative  dialects, 
and  ofiered  them  instruction  in  civilised  speech.  The  menial  services 
which  Caliban  renders  his  civihsed  master  specifically  identify  Prospero 
and  his  native  servant  with  the  history  of  early  settlements  of  English- 
men in  Virginia.  'I'll  fish  for  thee,'  Caliban  tells  Trinculo,  and  as  soon 
as  he  beUeves  that  he  has  shaken  off  Prospero's  tyrannical  yoke  he 
sings  with  exultant  emphasis,  'No  more  dams  I'U  make  for  fish.'  These 
remarks  of  Cahban  are  graphic  echoes  of  a  peculiar  experience  of  Eliza- 
bethans in  America.  One  of  the  chief  anxieties  of  the  early  English 
settlers  in  Virginia  was  lest  the  natives  should  fail  them  in  keeping  in 
good  order  the  fish-dams,  where  fish  was  caught  for  food  by  means  of 
a  device  of  great  ingenuity.  When  Raleigh's  first  governor  of  Virginia, 
Ralph  Lane,  detected  in  1586  signs  of  hostility  among  the  natives  about 
his  camp,  his  thoughts  at  once  turned  to  the  dams  or  weirs.  Unless  the 
aborigines  kept  them  in  good  order,  starvation  was  a  certain  fate  of  the 
colonists,  for  no  Englishmen  knew  how  to  construct  and  work  these 
fish-dams  on  which  the  settlement  relied  for  its  chief  sustenance.  (Cf. 
Hakluyt's  Voyages,  ed.  1904,  viii.  334  seq.)  Caliban's  threat  to  make 
'no  more  dams  for  fish'  exposed  Prospero  to  a  very  real  and  familiar 
peril. 


432  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Although  untrustworthy  rumours  described  aboriginal 
tribes  in  unexplored  forests  about  the  river  Amazon 
as  hideously  distorted  dwarfs/  the  average  Indian  of 
Caliban's  America  —  even  the  Patagonian  —  was  physi- 
distorted  cally  as  well  formed  and  of  much  the  same  stat- 
^^P*'  ure  as  Englishmen.  Yet  CaHban  is  described 
as  of  'disproportioned'  body;  he  is  Ukened  to  a  tortoise, 
and  is  denounced  as  a  'f redded  whelp'  or  a  'poor  credu- 
lous monster.'  Such  misrepresentation  is  no  doubt 
deUberate.  CaUban's  distorted  form  brings  into  bolder 
reUef  his  moral  shortcomings,  and  more  clearly  defines 
his  psychological  significance.  Ehzabethan  poetry  com- 
pletely assimilated  the  Platonic  idea,  that  the  soul  de- 
termines the  form  of  the  body.  Shakespeare  invested 
his  'rude  and  savage  man  of  Ind'  with  a  shape  akin  to 
his  stunted  intelligence  and  sentiment.^ 

King  James  I  and  his  circle  now  looked  to  Shakespeare 
for  most  of  their  dramatic  recreation.  'The  Tempest,' 
'The  penned   in   the   spring   of    1611,    opened   the 

Tempest'  gay  winter  season  at  Court  of  161 1-2,  and 
at  ourt.  ^jjg  twelve  pieces  which  followed  it  included 
among  them  Shakespeare's  'Winter's  Tale.'  'The  Tem- 
pest' was  again  performed  in  February  161 2-3  during  the 
festivities  which  celebrated  the  marriage  of  King  James's 
daughter,  Princess  Elizabeth,  with  Frederick  the  Elector 
Palatine.  Princess  Elizabeth  was,  like  Miranda,  an 
island  princess ;  but  there  was  no  relevance  in  the  plot 
to   the  circumstances  of   the  royal  bridal.^    Eighteen 

'  Cf.  Othello's  reference  to  the  Anthropophagi  and  men  whose  heads 
'Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders'  (i.  iii.  144-5).  Raleigh,  in  his  Dis- 
coverie  of  Guiana,  1596,  mentions  on  hearsay  such  a  deformed  race  in  a 
region  of  South  America. 

*  Cf.  Browning,  Caliban  upon  Setebos,  Daniel  Wilson,  Caliban,  or  the 
Missing  Link  [1873],  and  Renan,  Caliban  [1878],  a  drama  continuing 
Shakespeare's  play. 

'  A  baseless  theory,  first  suggested  by  Tieck,  represents  The  Tempest 
as  a  masque  written  to  celebrate  Princess  Elizabeth's  marriage  on  Febru- 
ary 14,  161 2-13.  It  was  clearly  written  some  two  years  earlier.  On 
any  showing,  the  plot  of  The  Tempest  which  revolves  about  the  forcible 
expulsion  of  a  ruler  from  his  dominions,  and  his  daughter's  wooing  by 
the  son  of  the  usurper's  chief  ally,  was  hardly  one  that  a  direwd  play- 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  433 

other  plays  at  Court  were  given  in  honour  of  the  nup- 
tials by  Shakespeare's  company  under  the  direction  of 
its  manager,  John  Heminges.  Five  pieces  besides  'The 
Tempest'  in  the  extended  programme  were  by  Shake- 
speare, viz.:  'The  Winter's  Tale,'  'Much  Ado  about 
Nothing,'  'Sir  John  Falstaff'  (i.e.  Henry  IV'),  'Othello,' 
and  'Julius  Caesar.*  Two  of  these  plays,  'Much  Ado' 
and  'Henry  IV,'  were  rendered  twice.^ 

The  early  representations  of  'The  Tempest'  evoked 
as  much  applause  in  the  public  theatre  as  at  Court.  The 
popular  success  of  the  piece  owed  something  The  vogue 
to  the  beautiful  lyrics  which  were  dispersed  of  the  play. 
through  the  play  and  were  set  to  music  by  Robert 
Johnsoji,  a  lutenist  in  high  repute.^  Like  its  predecessor 
'The  Winter's  Tale,'  'The  Tempest'  long  maintained  its 
first  success  on  the  stage,  and  the  vogue  of  the  two  pieces 
drew  a  passing  sneer  from  Ben  Jonson.  In  the  Induc- 
tion to  his  'Bartholomew  Fair,'  first  acted  in  1614,  he 
wrote :  '  If  there  be  never  a  servant-monster  in  the  Fair, 
who  can  help  it?  he  [i.e.  the  author]  says,  nor  a  nest  of 
Antics.  He  is  loth  to  make  nature  afraid  in  his  plays 
like  those  that  beget  Tales,  Tempests,  and  such  like 
Drolleries.*  The  'serv£int-monster'  was  an  obvious  allu- 
sion to  Caliban,  and  '  the  nest  of  Antics '  was  a  glance  at 
the  satyrs  who  figure  in  the  sheep-shearing  feast  in  '  The 
Winter's  Tale.* 

Nowhere  did  Shakespeare  give  rein  to  his  imagination 
with  more  imposing  effect  than  in  'The  Tempest.*  The 
serious  atmosphere  has  led  critics,  without  much  reason, 

Wright  would  deliberately  choose  as  the  setting  of  an  official  epithalamium 
in  honour  of  the  daughter  of  a  monarch  so  sensitive  about  his  title  to  the 
crown  as  James  I. 

'  Heminges  was  paid  on  May  20,  1613,  the  total  sum  of  133^.  6^.  8d. 
for  the  company's  elaborate  services.  See  the  accounts  of  Lord  Stan- 
hope, Treasurer  of  the  Chamber,  in  the  Bodleian  Library  MS.  Rawl. 
A  239  (f.  47),  printed  in  Halliwell-Phillipps's  Outlines,  ii.  87,  and  in  the 
New  Shakspere  Society's  Transactions,  i88s-6;  ii.  p.  419- 

*  Harmonised  scores  of  Johnson's  airs  for  the  songs  'Full  Fathom 
Five'  and  'Where  the  Bee  sucks'  are  preserved  in  Wilson's  Cheerful 
Ayres  or  Ballads  set  for  three  voices,  1660. 


434  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

to  detect  in  the  scheme  of  the  drama  a  philosophic 
pronouncement  rather  than  a  play  of  mature  poetic 
Fanciful  fancy.  Little  reliance  should  be  placed  on  in- 
interpre-  terpretations  which  detach  the  play  from  its 
^'?^e  historic  environment.  The  creation  of  Miranda 
Tempest.'  jg  the  apotheosis  in  literature  of  tender,  ingen- 
uous girlhood  unsophisticated  by  social  intercourse;  but 
Shakespeare  had  already  sketched  the  outlines  of  the 
portrait  in  Marina  and  Perdita,  the  youthful  heroines 
respectively  of  'Pericles'  and  "The  Winter's  Tale,'  and 
these  two  characters  were  directly  developed  from  ro- 
mantic stories  of  girl-princesses,  cast  by  misfortune  on 
the  mercies  of  Nature,  to  which  Shakespeare  had  re- 
course for  the  plots  of  the  two  plays.  It  is  by  accident, 
rather  than  design,  that  in  Ariel  appear  to  be  discernible 
the  capabilities  of  human  intellect  when  relieved  of 
physical  attributes.  Ariel  belongs  to  the  same  poetic 
world  as  Puck,  although  he  is  delineated  in  the  severer 
colours  that  were  habitual  to  Shakespeare's  fully  devel- 
oped art.  Caliban,  as  we  have  seen,  is  an  imaginary 
portrait,  conceived  with  matchless  vigour  and  vividness, 
of  the  aboriginal  savage  of  the  New  World,  descriptions  of 
whom  abounded  in  contemporary  travellers'  speech  and 
writings,  while  a  few  living  specimens,  who  visited  Shake- 
speare's England,  excited  the  UveUest  popular  curiosity. 
In  Prospero,  the  guiding  providence  of  the  romance,  who 
resigns  his  magic  power  in  the  closing  scene,  traces  have 
been  sought  of  the  lineaments  of  the  dramatist  himself, 
who  was  approaching  in  this  play  the  date  of  his 
farewell  to  the  enchanted  work  of  his  life,  although 
he  was  not  yet  to  abandon  it  altogether.  Prospero 
is  in  the  story  a  scholar-prince  of  rare  intellectual 
attainments,  whose  engrossing  study  of  the  mysteries 
of  science  has  given  him  magical  command  of  the 
forces  of  Nature.  His  magnanimous  renunciation  of 
his  magical  faculty  as  soon  as  by  its  exercise  he  has 
restored  his  shattered  fortimes  is  in  accord  with  the 
general   conception   of  a  just  and  philosophical   tem- 


'n-IK  LA'PKST  PLAYS  435 

perament.    Any  other  justification  of  hi»  final  act  in 
sUperdiiouH.' 

While  tliere  is  every  indicaUun  that  in  rOii  Shake- 
speare Hurrendered  llu;  reKuiur  haljil  of  dramatic  com- 
Eosition,  it.  has  l)een  urged  with  much  ])iauHi-  ^1,^1,,, 
ility  that  he  Hul)He(|iienily  drafted  more  than  upomo'i 
one  play  which  he  Buffered  othern  to  comj)lete.  wifif  Tohn 
Ah  hin  literacy  iiclivity  declined,  his  place  at  the  i''"i™r. 
head  of  the  profe.HHional  dramatistH  came  to  he  fdled  by 
John  Fletcher,  who  in  i)artnerHhip  with  I'ViinciH  Beau- 
mont had  from  1607  onwards  been  winning  much 
applause  from  playgoers  and  critics.  Beaumont's  co- 
operation with  l'"letcher  was  nhortlived,  and  ceiwed  in 
lillle  more  than  six  years.  Thereupon  l''letcher  found  a 
new  coadjutor  in  Pliilij)  MaHsinger,  another  competent 
playwright  airciady  enjoying  some  rejjutation,  and 
{''letcher,  with  occasional  aid  from  Massinger,  lias  been 
credited  on  grounds  of  varying  substance  with  complet- 
ing some  dramatic  work  which  engaged  Shakespeare's 
attention  on  the  eve  of  his  retirement.  Three  plays, 
'Cardenio,'  'The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,'  and  'Henry 
VIII,'  have  been  named  as  the  fruits  of  Shakespeare's 
farewell  co-operation  with  Metcher.  The  evidence  in 
the  first  easels  too  slender  lo  admit  of  a  conclusion.  In 
tlie  case  of  the  second  |)iece  the  allegation  of  Shake- 
speare's ])artncrsliip  with  Metcher  hangs  in  the  balance 
of  debate.  Only  in  the  third  case  of  'Henry  VIH' 
may  J'"lelcher's  a,SHociation  with  Shakespeare  be  accepted 
without  demur. 

OnSeptember'g,  1653,  thei)ul)lisht!r  Humphrey  Moscley 
obtained  a  licenst;  for  the  ])ul)lication  of  a  play  The  lost 
which  he  described  as  'History  of  Cardenio,  play  of     , 
by  IHelchcr  and   Shakespeare'    No  drama  of  _  ^'"^'";'"' 
the  name  survives,  but  it  was  i)robably  identical  with 

'A  full  dlicuiilon  of  nil  llic  ihiIiiIm  connected  with  The  Ttmftst 
WM  contributed  by  the  ini'w'ni  wiUit  Id  the  beautifully  printed  edition, 

erlvately  liiuod  under  ilir  ctlitoinlili)  of  WIUU  Vlckery,  by  the  Rowfant 
lub,  Clevolund,  Ohio,  In  1911. 


436  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  lost  piece  called  'Cardenno,'  or  'Cardeiina/  which 
was  twice  acted  at  Court  by  Shakespeare's  company  in 
1 613  —  in  May  during  the  Princess  Elizabeth's  marriage 
festivities,  and  on  June  8  before  the  Duke  of  Savoy's 
ambassador.'-  Moseley  failed  to  pubHsh  the  piece,  and 
no  tangible  trace  of  it  remains  to  confirm  or  to  confute 
his  description  of  its  authorship,  which  may  be  merely 
fanciful.^  The  title  of  the  play  leaves  no  doubt  that  it 
was  a  dramatic  version  of  the  adventures  of  the  lovelorn 
Cardenio  which  are  related  in  the  first  part  of  'Don 
Quixote'  (ch.  xxiii.^xxxvii.).  Cervantes's  amorous  story 
first  appeared  in  EngHsh  in  Thomas  Shelton's  transla- 
tion of  'Don  Quixote'  in  1612.  There  is  no  evidence  of 
Shakespeare's  acquaintance  with  Cervantes's  great  work. 
On  the  other  hand  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  farce  of 
'The  Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle'  echoes  the  mock 
heroics  of  the  Spanish  romance;  the  adventures  of 
Cervantes'  'Cardenio'  offer  much  incident  in  Fletcher's 
vein,  and  he  subsequently  found  more  than  one  plot 
in  Cervantes'  'Exemplary  Novels.'  The  allegations 
touching  the  lost  play  of  '  Cardenio '  had  a  curious  sequel. 
In  1727  Lewis  Theobald,  the  Shakespearean  critic, 
induced  the  managers  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre  to  stage 
a  piece  called  '  Double  Falshood,  or  the  Distrest  Lovers,' 
on  his  mysterious  representation  that  it  was  an  un- 
pubHshed  play  by  Shakespeare.  The  story  of  Theo- 
bald's piece  is  the  story  of  Cardenio,  although  the  char- 
acters are  renamed.  When  Theobald  pubhshed  'Double 
Falshood'  next  year  he  described  it  on  the  title-page  as 
'written  originally  by  W.  Shakespeare,  and  now  revised 
and  adapted  to  the  stage  by  Mr.  Theobald.'  Despite 
Theobald's  warm  protestations  to  the  contrary,'  there  is 
nothing  in  the  play  as  pubhshed  by  him  to  suggest  Shake- 

^  Treasurer's  accounts  in  Rawl.  MS.  A  239,  leaf  47  (in  the  Bodleian), 
printed  in  New  Shakspere  Soc.'s  Transactions,  1895-6,  pt.  ii.  p.  419. 

'  For  Moseley's  assignment  to  Shakespeare  of  plays  of  doubtful 
authorship,  see  p.  263  supra. 

'  In  the  'preface  of  the  editor'  Theobald  wrote :  'It  has  been  alleg'd 
as  incredible,  that  such  a  Curiosity  should  be  stifled  and  lost  to  the  World 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  437 

speare's  hand.  Theobald  clearly  took  mystifying  ad- 
vantage of  a  tradition  that  Shakespeare  and  Fletcher 
had  combined  to  dramatise  the  Cervantic  theme.^ 

The  two  other  pieces,  'The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen'  and 
'Henry  VIII,'  which  have  been  attributed  to  a  similar 
partnership,  survive.^  'The  Two  Noble  Kins-  ,.j^q 
men'  was  first  printed  in  1634,  and  was,  accord-  Noble 
ing  to  the  title-page,  not  only  'presented  at  the  ^"^™™-' 
Black-friers  by  the  Kings  Maiesties  servants  with  great 
applause,'  but  was  'written  by  the  memorable  worthies 
of  their  time,  Mr.  John  Fletcher  and  Mr.  WilKam  Shake- 
speare, gentlemen.'  Neither  author  was  aHve  at  the  date 
of  the  publication.  Shakespeare  had  died  in  1616  and 
Fletcher  nine  years  later.  The  piece  was  not  admitted  to 
any  early  edition  of  Shakespeare's  collected  works,  but' 
it  was  included,  in  the  second  foKo  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  of  1679.  Critics  of  repute  affirm  and  deny 
with  equal  confidence  the  joint  authorship  of  the  piece, 
which  the  original  title-page  announced. 

for  above  a  Century.  To  This  my  Answer  is  short ;  that  tho'  it  never 
till  now  made  its  Appearance  on  the  Stage,  yet  one  of  the  Manuscript 
Copies,  which  I  have,  is  of  above  Sixty  Years  Standing,  in  the  Hand- 
writing of  Mr.  Dowries,  the  famous  Old  Prompter ;  and,  as  I  am  credibly 
inform'd,  was  early  in  the  Possession  of  the  celebrated  Mr.  Betterton, 
■  and  by  Him  design'd  to  have  been  usher'd  into  the  World.  What 
Accident  prevented  This  Purpose  of  his,  I  do  not  pretend  to  know :  Or 
thro'  what  hands  it  had  successively  pass'd  before  that  Period  of  Time. 
There  is  a  Tradition  (which  I  have  from  the  Noble  Person,  who  supply'd 
me  with  One  of  my  Copies)  that  it  was  given  by  our  Author,  as  a  Present 
of  Value,  to  a  Natural  Daughter  of  his,  for  whose  Sake  he  wrote  it,  in 
the  Time  of  his  Retirement  from  the  Stage.  Two  other  Copies  I  have, 
(one  of  which  I  was  glad  to  purchase  at  a  very  good  Rate),  which  may 
not,  perhaps,  be  quite  so  old  as  the  Former;  but  One  of  Them  is  much 
more  perfect,  and  hag  fewer  Flaws  and  Interruptions  in  the  Sense.  .  .  . 
Others  again,  to  depreciate  the  Affair,  as  they  thought,  have  been  pleased 
to  urge,  that  tho'  the  Play  may  have  some  Resemblances  of  Shakespeare, 
yet  the  Colouring,  Diction,  and  Characters  come  nearer  to  the  Style  and 
Manner  of  Fletcher.    This,  I  think,  is  far  from  deserving  any  Answer.' 

*  Dr.  Farmer  thought  he  detected  trace  of  Shirley's  workmanship, 
and  Malone  that  of  Massinger.  The  piece  was  possibly  Theobald's  un- 
aided invention,  and  his  claim  for  Shakespeare  an  ironical  mystification. 

^  The  1634  quarto  of  the  play  was  carefully  edited  for  the  New  Shak- 
spere  Society  by  Mr.  Harold  Littledale  in  1876.  See  also  William  Spald- 
mg,  Shakespeare's  Authorship  of  'Two  Noble  Kinsmen,'  1833,  reprinted 
by  New  Shakspere  Society,  1876. 


438  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The   main   plot   is   drawn   directly   from   Chaucer's 

'Knight's  Tale'  of  Palamon  and  Arcite  in  which  the  two 

knightly  friends,  while  suffering  captivity  at 

e  p  ot.  xheseus's  heroic  hands,  become  estranged  owing 
to  their  bbth  falling  in  love  with  the  same  lady  Emilia. 
After  much  chivalric  adventure  Arcite  dies,  and  Palamon 
and  Emilia  are  united  in  marriage.  The  rather  unsat- 
isfying story  had  been  already  twice  dramatised;  but 
neither  of  the  earlier  versions  has  survived.  Richard 
Edwardes  (the  father  of  'tragicall  comedy')  was  respon- 
sible for  a  lost  play  'Palemon  and  Arcyte'  which  was 
acted  before  Queen  Elizabeth  at  Christ  Church  on  her 
visit  to  Oxford  in  1566  ^ ;  while  at  the  Newington  theatre 
Philip  Henslowe  produced  as  a  new  piece  a  second  play 
of  like  name,  'Palamon  and  Arsett,'  on  September  17, 
1594.  Henslowe  thrice  repeated  the  performance  in  the 
two  following  months.^  The  obvious  signs  of  indebted- 
ness on  the  part  of  Fletcher  and  his  coadjutor  to  Chau- 
cer's narrative  render  needless  any  speculation  whether 
or  no  the  previous  dramas  were  laid  under  contribution. 
With  the  Chaucerian  tale  the  authors  of  'The  Two 
Noble  Kinsmen'  combine  a  trivial  by-plot  of  crude 
workmanship  in  which  'the  jailer's  daughter'  develops 
for  Palamon  a  desperate  and  unrequited  passion  which 
engenders  insanity.  A  mention  of  'the  play  Palemon' 
in  Ben  Jonson's  'Bartholomew  Fair,'  which  was  pro- 
duced in  1614,  suggests  the  date  of  the  composition 
which  is  attributed  to  Shakespeare's  and  Fletcher's  dual 
authorship. 

On  grounds  alike  of  esthetic  criticism  and  metrical 
tests,  a  substantial  portion  of  the  main  scenes  of  'The 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen'  was  assigned  to  Shakespeare  by 
judges  of  the  acumen  of  Charles  Lamb,  Coleridge,  De 
Quincey,  and  Swinburne.  The  Shakespearean  editor 
Dyce  included  the  whole  piece  in  his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare.   Coleridge  positively  detected  Shakespeare's  hand 

'  Nichols's  Progresses  of  Elizabeth,  1823,  i.  210-3. 
2  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  168. 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  439 

in  act  I.,  act  11.  sc.  i.,  and  act  iii.  sc.  i.  and  ii.  In  addition 
to  those  scenes,  act  iv.  sc.  iii.  and  act  v.  (except  sc.  ii.) 
have  been  subsequently  placed  to  his  credit  by  critics 
whose  judgment  merits  respect.  It  is  undeni- 
able that  two  different  styles  figure  in  the  piece,  speart's 
The  longer  and  inferior  part,  including  the  aUeged 
-  subsidiary  episode  of  '  the  jailer's  daughter,' 
may  be  allotted  to  Fletcher's  pen  without  misgiv- 
ing, but  in  spite  of  the  weight  attaching  to  the  ver- 
dict of  the  affirmative  critics,  some  doubt  is  inevi- 
table as  to  whether  the  smaller  and  superior  portion 
of  the  drama  is  Shakespeare's  handiwork.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  disputed  scenes  often  recalls  Shakespeare's 
latest  efforts.  The  opening  song,  'Roses  their  sharp 
spines  being  gone,'  echoes  Shakespeare's  note  so  closely 
that  it  is  difficult  to  allot  it  to  another.  Yet  the  char- 
acterisation falls  throughout  below  the  standard  of  the 
splendid  diction.  The  personages  either  lack  distinc- 
tiveness of  moral  feature  or  they  breathe  a  sordid  senti- 
ment which  rings  falsely.  It  may  be  that  Shakespeare 
was  content  to  redraft  in  his  own  manner  speeches  which 
Fletcher  had  already  infected  with  unworthy  traits  of 
feeling.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  just  possible  that  Philip 
Massinger,  Fletcher's  fellow-worker,  who  is  known  else- 
where to  have  echoed  Shakespeare's  tones  with  almost 
magical  success,  may  be  responsible  for  the  contribu- 
tions to  'The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen'  to  which  Fletcher  has 
no  claim.  Massinger's  ethical  temper  is  indistinguishable 
from  that  which  pervades  'The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen.' 
There  may  be  nothing  in  Massinger's  extant  work  quite 
equal  to  the  style  of  the  non-Fletcherian  scenes  there, 
but  it  is  easier  to  believe  that  some  exceptional  impulse 
should  have  lifted  Massinger  for  once  to  their  level, 
than  that  Shakespeare  should  have  belied  on  a  single 
occasion  his  habitual  ideals  of  ethical  principle. 

The  hterary  problems  presented  by  the  play  of  'Henry 
VIII'  closely  resemble  those  attaching  to  'The  Two 
Noble  Kinsmen.'    Shakespeare  had  abandoned  the  theme 


440  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  English  history  with  his  drama  of  'Henry  V  early 
in  1599.  Pubhc  interest  in  the  Enghsh  historical  play 
'Henry  thenceforth  steadily  decHned ;  fresh  experiments 
VIII.'  ^ere  rare  and  occasional,  and  when  they  were 
made,  they  usually  dealt  with  more  recent  periods  of 
Enghsh  history  than  were  sanctioned  at  earher  epochs. 

The  reign  of  Henry  VIII  attracted  much  attention 
from  dramatists  when  the  historical  mode  of  drama  was 
Previous  ending  its  career.  Shakespeare's  company 
plays  on  produced,  when  the  sixteenth  century  was 
the  topic,  closing,  two  plays  deahng  respectively  with  the 
Uves  of  Henry  VIII's  statesmen,  Thomas  Cromwell  and 
Sir  Thomas  More.  But  though  King  Henry  is  the  pivot 
of  both  plots,  he  does  not  figure  in  the  dramatis  persona} 
In  1605,  an  obscure  dramatist,  Samuel  Rowley,  ventured 
for  the  first  time  to  bring  Henry  VIII  on  the  stage  as  the 
hero  of  a  chronicle-play  or  history-drama.  The  drama- 
tist worked  on  crude  old  fashioned  Hnes  which  recall 
'The  Famous  Victories  of  Heiu-y  V.'  The  piece,  which 
was  performed  by  Prince  Henry's  company  of  players, 
bore  the  strange  title  'When  you  see  me  you  know  me. 
Or  the  famous  Chronicle  Historie  of  King  Henrie  the 
Eight,  With  the  Birth  and  vertuous  Life  of  Edward 
Prince  of  Wales.'  ^ 

1  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell,  which  was  published  in  1602,  was  falsely 
ascribed  to  Shakespeare.  Sir  Thomas  More,  which  was  not  printed  till 
1844,  is  extant  in  Brit.  Mus.  MS.  Harl.  7368,  and  has  been  carefully 
edited  for  the  Malone  society,  1911.  The  Admiral's  company  under 
Henslowe's  management  produced  in  1601  and  1602  two  (lost)  plays 
concerning  Cardinal  Wolsey,  the  first  one  called  The  Life,  the  other 
The  Rising  of  the  Cardinal.  Henry  Chettle  would  seem  to  have  been 
the  author  of  the  Life  and  to  have  revised  the  Rising,  which  was  from 
the  pens  of  Michael  Drayton,  Anthony  Munday,  and  Wentworth  Smith 
(Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  218). 

^  The  main  themes  are  the  birth  of  Prince  Edward,  afterwards  Edward 
VI,  the  death  of  his  mother,  Queen  Jane  Seymour,  Henry  VIII's  fifth 
wife,  and  the  plots  against  the  life  of  her  successor.  Queen  Catherine 
Parr.  The  career  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  who  died  long  before  Edward  VI 
was  heard  of,  is  prolonged  by  the  playwright,  so  that  he  plays  a  sub- 
ordinate part  in  the  drama.  The  King,  Henry  VIII,  is  the  chief  per- 
sonage, and  he  appears  at  full  length  as  bluff  King  Harry  capable  of 
terrifying  outbursts  of  wrath  and  of  almost  as  terrifying  outbursts  of 
merriment.    The  King  finds  recreation  in  the  companionship  of  his 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  441 

The  prologue  to  the  Shakespearean  'Henry  VIII' 
warned  the  audience  that  the  King's  reign  was  to  be 
treated  on  lines  differing  from  those  followed  'aihs 
in  Rowley's  preceding  effort.  The  play  was  True.' 
not  to  be  a  piece  of  'fool  and  fight,'  with  Henry  VIII 
engaging  his  jester  in  undignified  buffoonery.  There 
were  to  be  noble  scenes  such  as  draw  the  eye  to  flow 
and  the  incident  was  to  justify  the  alternative  title  of 
the  piece,  'All  is  True.'  ^ 

The  Shakespearean  drama  followed  HoUnshed  with 
exceptional  closeness.     Nowhere  was  Holinshed's  work 
better  done  than  in  his  account  of  the  early  g^]^. 
part  of  Hemry  VIII's  reign,  where  he  utilised  shed's 
the    unpubHshed    'Life    of    Wolsey'    by    his  '""^• 
gentleman  usher,  George  Cavendish,  a  good  specimen  of 
sympathetic  biography.     One  of  the  finest  speeches  in 
the   Shakespearean   play.   Queen   Katharine's   opening 
appeal  on  her  trial,  is  in  great  part  the  chronicler's 
prose    rendered    into    blank    verse,    without 
change  of  a  word.     Despite  the  debt  to  Hohn-  tivede-*^ 
shed's   Chronicle   the  play  of   'Henry  VIII'  {f^^^^' 
shows  a  greater  want  of  coherence  and  a  bolder 
conflict  with  historical  chronology  than  are  to  be  met 
with  in  Shakespeare's  earher '  histories. '   It  is  more  loosely 
knit  than  'Henry  V,'  which  in  design  it  resembles  most 
closely.^    The  King,  Henry  VIII,   is   a  moving  force 

fool  or  jester,  an  historic  personage  Will  Summers.  Will  Summers 
has  a  comic  foil  in  Patch,  the  fool  or  jester  of  Cardinal  Wolsey.  The 
two  fools  engage  in  many  comic  encounters.  The  King,  in  emulation 
of  Prince  Hal's  (Henry  V's)  exploits,  wanders  in  disguise  about  the 
purlieus  of  London  in  search  of  adventure.  In  the  same  year  (1605)  as 
When  you  see  me  you  know  me  appeared,  there  came  out  a  spectacular 
and  rambling  presentation  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  early  life  and  coronation 
with  a  sequel  celebrating  the  activity  of  London  merchants  and  the 
foundation  of  the  Royal  Exchange.  This  piece  of  pageantry  was  from 
the  industrious  pen  of  Thomas  Heywood,  and  bore  the  cognate  title 
//  you  know  not  me,  you  know  nobody. 

'  Cf.  Prologue,  1-7,  13-27,  where  the  spectators  are  advised  that 
they  may  'here  find  truth.'  The  piece  is  described  as  'our  chosen 
truth'  and  as  solely  confined  to  what  is  true.     See  p.  445  injra. 

'The  deaths  of  Queen  Katharine  (in  1536)  and  Cardinal  Wolsey 
(in  1530)  are  represented  as  taking  place  at  the  same  time,  whereas 


442  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

throughout  the  play.    He  is  no  very  subtle  portrait, 
being  for  the  most  part  King  Hal  of  popular  tradition, 
imperious  and  autocratic,  impulsive  and  sensual,  and 
at    the    same    time   both    generous    and    selfish.    But 
Queen  Katharine,  a  touching  portrait  of  matronly  dig- 
nity and  resignation,  is  the  heroine  of  the  drama,  and  her 
withdrawal  comparatively  early  in  its  progress  produces 
the  impression  of  an  anticlimax.     The  midway  fall  of 
Wolsey   also   disturbs   the   constructive   balance;    the 
arrogant  statesman  who  has  worked  his  way  up  from 
the  ranks  shows  a  self-confidence  which  his  sudden  peril 
renders  pathetic,  and  the  heroic  dignity  with  which  he 
meets  his  change  of  fortune  prejudices  the  dramatic 
interest   of   the   tamer   incidents   following  his  death. 
Anne  Boleyn,  who  succeeds  Queen  Katharine  as  King 
Henry's  wife,  is  no  very  convincing  sketch  of  frivolity 
and    coquettishness.     Her    confidante,    the    frank   old 
lady,  clearly  reflected  Shakespeare's  alert  intuition,  but 
the   character's   conventional  worldliness   is   far   from 
pleasing.    At  the  end  of  'Henry  VIII'  a  new  and  in- 
artistic note  is  struck  without  warning  in  the  eulogy  of 
Queen  Anne's  daughter,  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  and  in 
the  complimentary  reference  to  her  successor  on  the 
Enghsh  throne.  King  James,  the  patron  of  the  theatre.^ 
The  play  was  produced  at  the  Globe  theatre  early  in 
1613.     The  theory  that  it  was  hastily  completed  for  the 
The  scenic    Special  purpose  of  enabhng  the  company  to  cele- 
eiabora-       brate  the  marriage  of  Princess  Elizabeth  and  the 
Elector  Palatine,  which  took  place  on  February 
14,    161 2-13,   seems   fanciful.     During   the   succeeding 

Queen  Katharine  survived  the  Cardinal  by  six  years.  Cranmer's  prose- 
cution by  his  foes  of  the  Council  precedes  in  the  play  Queen  Elizabeth's 
christening  (on  September  10, 1533),  whereas  the  archbishop's  difficulties 
arose  eleven  years  later  (in  1544). 

'■  Throughout,  the  development  of  events  is  interrupted  by  five  barely 
relevant  pageants :  (i)  the  entertainment  provided  for  Henry  VIII  and 
Anne  Boleyn  by  Cardinal  Wolsey ;  (2)  the  elaborate  embellishment  of 
the  trial  scene  of  Queen  Katharine;  (3)  the  coronation  of  Anne  Boleyn; 
(4)  a  vision  acted  in  dumb  show  in  Queen  Katharine's  dying  moments; 
and  (s)  the  christening  procession  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth. 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  443 

weeks,  nineteen  plays,  according  to  an  extant  list,  were 
produced  at  Court  in  honour  of  the  event,  but  'Henry 
VIII'  was  not  among  them.  According  to  contemporary 
evidence  the  piece  'was  set  forth  [at  the  Globe]  with 
many  extraordinary  circumstances  of  Pomp  ahd 
Majesty,  even  to  the  matting  of  the  Stage ;  the  Knights 
of  the  Order,  with  their  Georges  and  Garters,  the  guards 
with  their  embroidered  Coats,  and  the  like:  sufficient 
in  truth  within  a  while  to  make  greatness  very  familiar, 
if  not  ridiculous.'  ^  Salvoes  of  artillery  saluted  the 
King's  entry  in  one  of  the  scenes.  The  scenic  elabora- 
tion well  indicated  the  direction  which  the  organisa- 
tion of  the  stage  was  taking  in  Shakespeare's  last  days. 
'Henry  VIII'  was  not  published  in  Shakespeare's  life- 
time. But  when  the  First  Folio  appeared  in  1623,  seven 
years  after  his  death,  the  section  of  histories  in  that 
volume  was  closed  by  the  piece  called  'The  Famous 
History  of  the  Life  of  King  Henry  VIII.'  Shakespeare 
was  generally  credited  with  the  drama  through  the  seven- 
teenth century,  but  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury his  sole  responsibiUty  was  powerfully  questioned 
on  critical  grounds.^  Dr.  Johnson  asserted  j,^^ 
that  the  genius  of  Shakespeare  comes  in  and  divided 
goes  out  with  Katharine.  The  rest  of  the  piece  ^"'^"^'^'p- 
was  not  in  his  opinion  above  the  powers  of  lesser  men. 
No  reader  with  an  ear  for  metre  can  fail  to  detect  in 
the  piece  two  rhythms,  an  inferior  and  a  superior  rhythm. 
Two  different  pens  were  clearly  at  work.  The  greater 
part  of  the  play  must  be  assigned  to  the  pen  of  a  coad- 
jutor of  Shakespeare,  and  considerations  of  metre  and 
style  identify  his  assistant  beyond  doubt  with  John 
Fletcher.  It  is  quite  possible  that  here  and  there 
Philip  Massinger  collaborated  with  Fletcher;  but  it  is 
difficult  to  treat  seriously  the  conjecture,  despite  the 
ability  with  which  it  has  been  pleaded,  that  Massinger 

'  Sir  Henry  Wotton  in  Reliquia  Wottoniana,  1675,  pp.  425-6- 
'  Cf.  the  notes  by  one  'Mr.  Roderick'  in  Edwards's  Canons  of  Criti- 
cism, 176s,  p.  263. 


444  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

was  Fletcher's  fellow-worker  to  the  exclusion  of  Shake- 
speare.^ 

A  metrical  analysis  of  the  piece  leads  to  the  .conclu- 
sion that  no  more  than  six  of  the  seventeen  scenes  of 
Shake  ^^^  P^^^  ^^^  ^^  positively  set  to  Shakespeare's 
speare's  credit.  Shajkespearc's  six  unquestioned  scenes 
^''"*"  are :  act  i.  sc.  i.  and  ii. ;  n.  iii.  and  iv. ;  the 
greater  part  of  in.  ii.,  and  v.  i.  Thus  Shakespeare 
can  claim  the  first  entry  of  Buckingham ;  the  scene  in 
the  council  chamber  in  which  that  nobleman  is  charged 
with  treason  at  the  instigation  of  Wolsey ;  the  confiden- 
tial talk  of  Anne  Boleyn  with  the  worldly  old  lady,  who 
is  ambitious  for  her  protegee's  promotion;  the  trial 
scene  of  Queen  Katharine  which  is  the  finest  feature  of 
the  play;  the  greater  part  of  the  episode  of  Wolsey's 
fall  from  power,  and  the  King's  assurances  of  protection 
to  Cranmer  when  he  is  menaced  by  the  Catholic  party. 
The  metre  and  language  of  the  Shakespearean  scenes 
are  as  elliptical,  irregular,  and  broken  as  in  'Coriolanus' 
or  'The  Tempest.'  There  is  the  same  close-packed  ex- 
pression, the  same  rapid  and  abrupt  turnings  of  thought, 
the  same  impatient  and  impetuous  activity  of  intellect 
and  fancy.  The  imagery  has  the  pointed,  vivid,  homely 
strength  of  Shakespeare's  latest  plays.  Katharine  and 
Hermione  in  'The  Winter's  Tale'  ate  clearly  cast  in 
the  same  mould,  and  the  trial  scene  of  the  one  invites 
comparison  with  that  of  the  other.  On  the  whole  the 
palm  must  be  given  to  Shakespeare's  earlier  effort. 

Some  hesitation  is  inevitable  in  finally  separating  the 
non-Shakespearean  from  the  Shakespearean  elements  of 
Wolsey's  ^^^  play.  One  may  well  hesitate  to  deprive 
farewell  Shakespeare  of  the  dying  speeches  of  Bucking- 
speech.  ^^^  ^^^  Queen  Katharine.  There  is  a  third 
famous  passage  about  the  authorship  of  which  it  is 
unwise  to  dogmatise.  Probably  no  extract  from  the 
drama   has   been   more   often   recited    than   Wolsey's 

^  Cf.  Mr.  Robert  Boyle  in  New  Shakspere  Society's  Transactions, 
1884. 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  -445 

dying  colloquy  with  his  servant  Cromwell.  Many 
trained  ears  detect  in  the  Cardinal's  accents  a  cadence 
foreign  to  Shakespeare's  verse  and  identical  with  that 
of  Fletcher ;  yet  it  is  equally  apparent  that  in  concentra- 
tion of  thought  and  command  of  elevated  sentiment 
these  passages  in  'Henry  VIII'  reach  a  level  above  any- 
thing that  Fletcher  compassed  elsewhere.  They  are 
comparable  with  the  work  of  no  dramatist  save  Shake- 
speare. Wolsey's  valediction  may  be  reckoned  a  fruit 
of  Shakespeare's  pen,  though  Shakespeare  caught  here 
his  coadjutor's  manner,  adapting  Fletcher's  metrical 
formulae  to  his  own  great  purpose. 

The  play  of  'Henry  VIII'  contains  Shakespeare's 
last  dramatic  work,  and  its  production  was  nearly  asso- 
ciated with  the  final  scene  in  the  history  of  that  xhe  bum- 
theatre  which  was  identified  with  the  triumphs  mgof  the 
of  his  career.  During  a  performance  of  the  june  29, 
piece  while  it  was  yet  new,  in  the  summer  of  '^'3- 
1613  (o^  June  29)  the  Globe  theatre  was  burnt  to  the 
ground.  The  outbreak  began  during  the  scene  —  at 
the  end  of  act  i.  —  when  Henry  VIII  arrives  at  Wolsey's 
house  to  take  part  in  a  fancy-dress  ball  given  in  the 
King's  honour,  and  Henry  has  his  fateful  introduction 
to  Anne  Boleyn.  According  to  the  stage  direction,  the 
King  was  received  with  a  salute  of  cannon.  What 
followed  on  the  fatal  day,  was  thus  described  by  a 
contemporary,  who  gives  the  piece  its  original  name  of 
'AU  is  True,  representing  some  principal  pieces  in  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII.':  'Now  King  Henry  making  a 
Masque  at  the  Cardinal  Wolsey's  House,  and  certain 
Canons  being  shot  off  at  his  entry,  some  of  the  paper  or 
other  stuff  wherewith  one  of  them  was  stopped,  did 
light  on  the  Thatch,  where  being  thought  at  first  but 
an  idle  smoak,  and  their  eyes  more  attentive  to  the  show, 
it  kindled  inwardly,  and  ran  round  like  a  train,  consum- 
ing within  less  than  an  hour  the  whole  House  to  the  very 
grounds.  This  was  the  fatal  period  of  that  vertuous 
fabrique;    wherein  yet  nothing  did  perish,  but  wood 


446-  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  straw  and  a  few  forsaken  cloaks ;  only  one  man  had 
his  breeches  set  on  fire,  that  would  perhaps  have  broyled 
him,  if  he  had  not  by  the  benefit  of  a  provident  wit  put 
it  out  with  bottle[d]  ale.'  ^ 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  in  the  demoUshed 
playhouse  were  many  of  the  players'  books,  including 
Shakespeare's  original  manuscripts,  which  were  the  prop- 
erty of  his  theatrical  company.  Scattered  copies  sur- 
vived elsewhere  in  private  hands,  but  the  loss  of  the 
dramatist's  autographs  rendered  incurable  the  many 
textual  defects  of  surviving  transcripts.^ 

'  Sir  Henry  Wotton  in  ReUqaia  Wottoniana,  pp.  425-6.  John  Cham- 
berlain, writing  to  Sir  Ralph  Winwood  on  July  8,  1613,  briefly  mentions 
that  the  theatre  was  burnt  to  the  ground  in  less  than  two  hours'  owing 
to  the  accidental  ignition  of  the  thatch 'roof  through  the  firing  of  cannon 
'to  be  used  in  the  play ' ;  the  audience  escaped  unhurt  though  they  had 
'but  two  narrow  doors  to  get  out'  (Winwood's  Memorials,  iii.  p.  469). 
A  similar  account  was  sent  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Lorkin  to  Sir  Thomas 
Puckering,  Bart.,  from  London,  June  30,  1613.  'The  fire  broke  out,' 
Lorkin  wrote,  '  no  longer  since  than  yesterday,  while  Burbage's  company 
were  acting  at  the  Globe  the  play  of  Henry  VIII '  {Court  and  Times  of 
James  1, 1848,  vol.  i.  p.  253).  On  June  30, 1613,  the  Stationers' Company 
licensed  the  publication  of  two  separate  ballads  on  the  disaster,  one  called 
The  Sodayne  Burninge  of  the  'Globe'  on  the  Banhside  in  the  Play  tyme  on 
Saint  Peters  day  last,  16 13,  and  the  other  A  doleful  ballad  of  the  generall 
ouerthrowe  of  the  famous  theater  on  the  Banksyde,  called  the  '  Globe,'  &c.,  by 
WUliam  Parrat.  (Arber's  rrore^cri^fa,  iii.  528.)  Neither  of  these  pub- 
lications survives  in  print;  but  one  of  them  may  be  identical  with  a 
series  of  stanzas  on  'the  pittifuU  burning  of  the  Globe  playhouse  in 
London,'  which  Haslewood  first  printed  'from  an  old  manuscript  volume 
of  poems'  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  1816,  and  HaUiwell-Phillipps 
again  printed  (Outlines,  pp.  310,  311)  from  an  authentic  manuscript  in 
the  library  of  Sir  Matthew  Wilson,  Bart.,  of  Eshton  Hall,  Yorkshire. 
The  perils  of  Shakespeare's  close  friends  Burbage,  CondeU  and  Heminges 
are  crudely  described  in  the  following  lines : 

Some  lost  their  hattes,  and  some  their  swordes. 
Then  out  runne  Burbidge  too, 
The  Reprobates,  though  drunck  on  Munday, 
Prayed  for  the  Foole  and  Henry  Condye  .  .  . 
Then  with  swolne  eyes  like  druncken  Fleminges 
Distressed  stood  old  stuttering  Heminges. 

^  When  the  Fortune  theatre  suffered  the  Globe's  fate  on  Dec.  1621  and 
was  burnt  to  the  ground,  John  Chamberlain,  the  London  gossip,  wrote 
that  the  building  was  'quite  burnt  downe  in  two  houres,  &  all  their 
apparell  &  playbookes  lost,  wherby  those  poor  Companions  are  quite 
undone'  {Court  and  Times  of  James  I,  ii.  280-1).    It  is  unlikely  that 


THE  LATEST  PLAYS  447 

Ben  Jonson  deplored  Vulcan's 

Ben  Jon- 
mad  prank  son  on 
Against  the  Globe,  the  glory  of  the  Bank.'         the 

disaster. 

He  wrote  how  he  saw  the  building 

'with  two  poor  chambers  [i.e.  cannon]  taken  in  [i.e.  destroyed], 
And  razed :  ere  thought  could  urge  this  might  have  been  ! 
See  the  World's  ruins  !  nothing  but  the  piles ! 
Left,  and  wit  since  to  cover  it  with  tiles.'  ^ 

The  owners  of  the  playhouse,  of  which  Shalsespeare 
was  one,  did  not  rest  on  their  oars  in  face  of  misfortune. 
The  theatre  was  rebtiilt  next  year  on  a  more  xhe  re- 
elaborate  scale  than  before.  The  large  cost  building  of 
of  1,400/.  more  than  doubled  the  original  *  ^'^'*^- 
outlay.  The  expenses  were  defrayed  by  the  share- 
holders among  themselves  in  proportion  to  their  hold- 
ings. Shaliespeare  subscribed  a  sum  sKghtly  exceeding 
100/.^  The  'new  playhouse'  was  re-opened  on  June 
30,  1614,  and  was  then  described  as  'the  fairest  that 
ever  was  in  England.' '  But  Shakespeare's  career  was 
nearing  its  end,  and  in  the  management  of  the  new 
building  he  took  no  active  part.*  If  the  second  fabric 
of  the  '  Globe'  feU  short  of  the  fame  of  the  first,  its  place 
of  precedence  among  London  playhouses  was  not  quickly 
questioned.  It  survived  till  1644,  when  the  Civil  Wars 
suppressed  all  theatrical  enterprise  in  England.  For 
at  least  twenty  of  the  thirty  years  of  its  Ufe  the  new 
Globe  enjoyed  a  substantial  measure  of  the  old  Globe's 
prosperity. 

Shakespeare  and  his  company  suffered  better  fortune  on  June  29,  1613. 
Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  ii.  65. 

'  Jonsou's  An  Execration  upon  Vulcan  in  his  Underwoods,  bd.  Jon- 
son's  poem  deplored  the  burning  of  his  own  library  which  took  place  a 
few  years  after  the  destruction  of  the  Globe. 

*  See  pp.  308-9  supra. 

'  John  Chamberlain  to  Mrs.  Alice  Carlton,  Court  and  Times  of  James  I, 
1848,  i.  329. 


XX 

THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE 

According  to  the  Oxford  antiquary  John  Aubrey, 
Shakespeare,  through  the  period  of  his  professional 
Retire-  activities,  paid  an  annual  visit  of  unspecified 
Sratford,  duration  to  Stratford-on-Avon.  The  greater 
1611.  part  of  his  working  career  was  spent  in  London. 

But  with  the  year  1611,  which  saw  the  completion  of 
his  romantic  drama  of  'The  Tempest,'  Shakespeare's 
regular  home  would  seem  to  have  shifted  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  to  his  native  place. ^  It  is  clear  that  after  Strat- 
ford became  his  fixed  abode  he  occasionally  left  the  town 
for  sojourns  in  London  which  at  times  lasted  beyond  a 
month.  Proof,  too,  is  at  hand  to  show  that  the  intima- 
cies which'  he  had  formed  in  the  metropolis  with  pro- 
fessional associates  continued  till  the  end  of  his  days. 
Yet  there  is  no  reason  to  question  the  veteran  tradition 
that  the  five  years  which  opened  in  161 1  formed  for  the 
dramatist  an  epoch  of  comparative  seclusion  amid  the 
scenes  of  his  youth.  We  may  accept  without  serious 
qualification  the  assurance  of  his  earHest  biographer 
Nicholas  Rowe  that  'the  latter  part  of  his  [Shake- 
speare's] life  was  spent,  as  all  men  of  good  sense  will 
wish  theirs  may  be,  in  ease,  retirement,  and  the  con- 
versation of  his  friends.' 

Shakespeare's  withdrawal  to  Stratford  did  not  pre- 
clude, the  maintenance  of  business  relations  with  the 
London  theatres  where  he  won  his  literary  triumphs 
and  his  financial  prosperity.     There  is  httle  doubt  that 

'  'He  frequented  the  plays  all  his  younger  time,  but  in  his  elder 
days  lived  at  Stratford.' —  Djaj-y  0/  John  Ward,  Vicar  of  Stratford, 
p.  183. 

448 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  449 

he  retained  his  shares  in  both  the  Globe  and  Black- 
friars  theatres  till  his  death.     If  after  161 1  he 
only  played  an  intermittent  part  in  the  affairs  interesUn 
of  tlie  company  who  occupied  those  stages,  he  !;°'^'^°° 
was  never  unmindful  of  his  {jersonal  interest 
in  its  fortunes.     Plays  from  his  pen  were  constantly 
revived  at  both  theatres,  and  the  demand  for  their  per- 
formance  at   Court  saw  no  abatement.     In  the  early 
spring  of  1613  when  the  marriage  of  James's  daughter, 
the  Princess  Elizabeth,  with  the  Elector  Palatine  was 
celebrated  with  an  exceptionally  generous  rendering  of 
stage  plays,  there  were  produced  at  Whitehall  no  fewer 
than  six  pieces  of  Shakespeare's  undoubted  authorship 
as  well  as  the  lost  play  of  'Cardenio,'  for  which  he 
divided  the  credit  with  John  Fletcher.'- 

According  to  an  early  tradition  Shakespeare  cherished 
through  his  later  years  some  close  social  relations  with 
Qxford,  where  to  the  last  he  was  wont  to  break       . 
his    journey  between  Stratford  and    London,  the' Crown 
He  invariably  lodged   at   Oxford   with   John  Q^ord 
Davenant,  a  prosperous  vintner  whose  inn  at 
Carfax   in   the   parish   of    St.   Martin's,   subsequently 
known  as  the  '  Crown,'  was  well  patronised  by  residents 
as  well  as  travellers.     The  innkeeper  was  credited  by 
the  Oxford  antiquary  Anthony  a  Wood  with  '  a  melan- 
chohc  disposition  and  was  seldom  or  never  seen  to  laugh,' 
yet  he  'was  an  admirer  and  lover  of  plays  and  play- 
makers.'    According  to  a  poetic  eulogist 

Hee  had  choyce  gif  tes  of  Nature  and  of  arte. 
Neither  was  fortune  wanting  on  her  parte 
To  him  in  honours,  wealth  or  progeny. 

Shakespeare  is  said  to  have  delighted  in  the  society  of 
Davenant's  wife,  '  a  very  beautiful  woman  of  a  good  wit 
and  conversation,'   and  to  have  interested  himself  in 

'  See  pp.  43S,  436  supra.  The  King's  company  were  again  active  at 
Court  at  the  Christmas  seasons  of  1614-5  and  1615-6;  but  the  names  of 
the  pieces  then  performed  have  not  been  recovered.  See  Cunningham's 
Revels,  and  E.  K.  Chambers  in  Mod.  Lang.  Rev.  iv.  165-6. 


4  so  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

their  large  family.  Much  care  was  bestowed  on  the  educa- 
tion of  the  five  sons.  Robert,  who  became  a  Fellow  of 
St.  John's  College  at  Oxford  and  a  doctor  of  divinity, 
was  proud  to  recall  in  manhood  how  the  dramatist  'had 
given  him  [when  a  boy]  a  hundred  kisses.' 

The  second  son  William  gained  much  distinction  as 
a  poet  and  playwright  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
The  Chris-  century,  and  was  knighted  as  a  zealous  royalist 
teningof  in  1 643.  He  was  baptised  at  St.  Martin's, 
William  Carfax,  on  March  3,  1605-6,  and  there  is  little 
D'Avenant.  doubt  that  Shakespeare  was  his  godfather. 
The  child  was  ten  years  old  at  the  dramatist's  death. 
The  special  affection  which  Shakespeare  manifested 
for  him  subsequently  led  to  a  rumour  that  he  was 
Shakespeare's  natural  son.  Young  Davenant,  whose 
poetic  ambitions  rendered  the  allegation  congenial, 
penned  in  his  twelfth  year  '  an  ode  in  remembrance  of 
Master  WilUam  Shakespeare,'  and  changed  the  spelling 
of  his  name  from  Davenant  to  D'Avenant  in  order  to 
suggest  a  connection  with  the  river  Avon.  The  scandal 
rests  on  flimsy  foundation ;  but  there  is  adequate  evidence 
of  the  bond  of  friendly  sympathy  which  subsisted  be- 
tween Shakespeare  and  the  Oxford  innkeeper's  family,^ 
and  of  the  pleasant  associations  with  the  university 
city  which  the  dramatist  enjoyed  at  the  close  of  life, 
when  going  to  or  returning  from  London. 

1  The  innkeeper  John  Davenant  died  in  1621  while  he  was  Mayor  of 
Oxford,  a  fortnight  after  the  death  of  his  wife.  A  verse  elegy  assigns 
his  death  to  grief  over  her  loss,  and  the  pair  are  credited  witi  .an  un- 
broken strength  of  mutual  affection  which  seems  to  refute  any  imputa- 
tion on  the  lady's  character.  Another  elegiac  poem  reckons  among 
Davenant's  sources  of  felicity  'a  happy  issue  of  a  vertuous  wife.'  A 
popular  anecdote,  in  which  the  Oxford  antiquary  Hearne  and  the  poet 
Pope  delighted,  runs  to  the  effect  that  the  boy  D'Avenant  once  'meet- 
ing a  grave  doctor  of  divinity'  told  him  that  he  was  about  to  ask  a  bless- 
ing of  his  godfather,  Shakespeare,  who  had  just  come  to  the  town,  and 
that  the  doctor  retorted  'Hold,  child,  you  must  not  take  the  name  of 
God  in  vain.'  The  jest  is  of  ancient  lineage,  and  was  originally  told  of 
other  persons  than  Shakespeare  and  D'Avenant  (HaUiwell-Phillipps, 
Outlines,  ii.  43  seq.).  In  ah  elegy  on  D'Avenant  in  1668  he  is  represented 
as  being  greeted  in  the  Elysian  Fields  by  'his  cousin  Shakespeare'  (Huth's 
Inedited  Poetical  Miscellanies,  1584-1700,  sheet  S,  2  verso). 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  451 

Of  Shakespeare's  personal  relations  in  his  latest  years 
with  his  actor  colleagues,  much  interesting  testimony 
survives.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  friendly  Relations 
sympathy  which  he  moved  in  his  fellow- workers  with  actor 
fiat  Augustine  PhiUips,  an  actor  who  was,  hke  '"™<'^- 
Shakespeare,  one  of  the  original  shareholders  of  the  Globe 
theatre,  should  on  his  premature  death  in  May  1605 
have  bequeathed  by  his  will  'to  my  fellowe  William 
Shakespeare  a  thirty  shillings  peece  in  gould.'  ^  Of 
the  members  of  the  King's  company  who  were  longer- 
lived  than  PhiUips  and  survived  Shakespeare,  the  actors 
John  Heminges,  Henry  Condell,  and  Richard  Burbage 
chiefly  enjoyed  the  dramatist's  confidence  in  the  season 
of  his  partial  retirement.  Heminges,  the  reputed  creator 
of  Falstafif,  was  the  business  manager  or  director  of  the 
company ;  and  Condell  was,  with  the  great  actor  Bur- 
bage, Heminges's  chief  partner  in  the  practical  organisa- 
tion of  the  company's  concerns.^  All  three  were  re- 
membered by  the  dramatist  in  his  will,  and  after  his 
death  two  of  them,  Heminges  and  Condell,  not  merely 

'  Phillips  had  been  a  resident  in  Southwark.  But  within  a  year  of 
his  death  he  purchased  a  house  and  land  at  Mortlake,  where  he  died. 
See  his  will  in  Collier's  Lives  of  the  Actors,  pp.  85-88.  Phillips  died  in 
affluent  circumstances  and  remembered  many  of  his  fellow-actors  in  his 
will,  leaving  to  'his  fellow'  Henry  Condell  and  to  his  theatrical  servant 
Christopher  Beeston,  like  sums  as  to  Shakespeare.  He  also  bequeathed 
'twenty  shillings  in  gould'  to  each  of  the  actors  Lawrence  Fletcher, 
Robert  Annin,  Richard  Cowley,  Alexander  Cook,  Nicholas  Tooley,  to- 
gether with  forty  shillings  and  clothes  or  musical  instruments  to  two 
theatrical  apprentices  Samuel  Gilborne  and  James  Sands.  Five  pounds 
were  further  to  be  equally  distributed  amongst  'the  hired  men  of  the 
company.'  Of  four  executors  three  were  the  actors  John  Heminges, 
Richard  Burbage,  and  William  Sly,  who  each  received  a  silver  bowl 
of  the  value  of  five  pounds.  Phillips's  share  in  the  Globe  theatre, 
which  is  not  mentioned  in  his  will,  was  identical  with  Shakespeare's 
and  passed  to  his  widow.     See  p.  305  supra. 

^  The  latest  recorded  incident  wifliin  Shakespeare's  lifetime  touching 
the  business  management  of  the  company  bears  the  date  March  29,  1615, 
when  Heminges  and  Burbage,  as  two  leading  members  of  the  company, 
were  summoned  before  the  Privy  Council  to  answer  a  charge  of  giv- 
ing performances  during  Lent.  There  is  no  entry  in  the  Privy  Council 
Register  of  the  hearing  of  the  accusation  in  which  all  the  London  com- 
panies were  involved.  The  absence  from  the  summons  of  Shakespeare's 
name  is  corroborative  of  his  virtual  retirement  from  active  theatrical  life. 


452  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

carried  through  the  noble  project  of  the  first  collected 
edition  of  his  plays,  but  they  bore  open  and  signal 
tribute  to  their  private  affection  for  him  in  the  'Address 
Shake-  ^°  ^^^  Reader'  which  they  prefixed  to  the 
speareand  Undertaking.  The  third  of  Shakespeare's  life- 
Burbage.  ^^^^  professional  friends,  Richard  Burbage,  was 
by  far  the  greatest  actor  of  the  epoch.  It  was  he  who 
created  on  the  stage  most  of  Shakespeare's  tragic  heroes, 
including  Hamlet,  King  Lear,  and  Othello.  Contempo- 
rary witnesses  attest  the  'justice'  with  which  Burbage 
rendered  the  dramatist's  loftiest  conceptions.  It  is 
beyond  doubt  that  Shakespeare  and  Burbage  cultivated 
the  closest  intimacy  from  the  earliest  days  of  their 
association.  They  were  reputed  to  be  companions  in 
many  sportive  adventures.  The  sole  anecdote  of 
Shakespeare  that  is  positively  known  to  have  been  re- 
corded in  his  fife  time  relates  that  Burbage,  when  play- 
ing 'Richard  III,'  agreed  with  a  lady  in  the  audience  to 
visit  her  after  the  performance;  Shakespeare,  over- 
hearing the  conversation,  anticipated  the  actor's  visit, 
and  met  Burbage  on  his  arrival  at  the  lady's  house 
with  the  quip  that  'Wilham  the  Conqueror  was  before 
Richard  the  Third.'  The  credible  chronicler  of  the 
story  was  the  law  student  Manningham,i  who,  near 
the  same  date,  described  an  early  performance  of 
'Twelfth  Night'  in  Middle  Temple  HaU. 

Other  evidence  shows  that  Burbage's  relations  with 
Shakespeare  were  not  confined  to  their  theatrical  re- 
sponsibiHties.  In  the  dramatist's  latest  years,  when  he 
had  settled  in  his  native  town,  he  engaged  with  the 
great  actor  in  a  venture  with  which  the  drama  had  small 
concern.     The    partnership    illustrates     a    deferential 

1  Manningham,  Diary,  March  13,  1601,  Camden  Soc,  p.  39.  The 
diarist's  authority  was  his  chamber-fellow  'Mr.  Curie'  {not  'Mr.  Touse' 
as  the  name  has  been  wrongly  transcribed).  The  female  patrons  of 
the  theatre  in  Shakespeare's  time  were  commonly  reckoned  to  be  pe- 
culiarly susceptible  to  the  actors'  fascination.  Cf .  John  Earle's  Micro- 
cosmographie,  1628  (No.  22,  'A  Player') :  'The  waiting  women  spec- 
tators are  over-eares  in  love  with  him,  and  ladies  send  for  him  to  act  in 
their  Chambers,' 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  453 

readiness  on  the  part  of  author  and  actor  to  obey  the 
rather  frivolous  behests  of  an  influential  patron. 

Early  in  16 13  Francis  Manners,  sixth  Earl  of  Rutland, 
a  nobleman  of  some  literary  pretension,  invited  Shake- 
speare and  Burbage  to  join  in  devising,   in 

f     ™-4.  ■+!,  \.  ui        The  Earl  of 

coniormity  with  a  current  vogue,  an  emble-  Rutland's 
matic    decoration    for    his    equipment    at    a  '^presa,' 
great   Court   joust   or   tournament.     Tourna-  ^  ^^' 
ments  or  jousts,  which  descended  from  days  of  mediaeval 
chivalry,  still  formed  in  James  I.'s  reign  part  of  the  cere- 
monial recreation  of  royalty,  and  throughout  the  era  of 
the  Renaissance  poets  and  artists  combined  to  ornament 
the  jousters'  shields  with  ingenious  devices  (known  in 
Italy  as  'imprese'  and  in  France  as  'devises')  in  which 
a   miniature    symbolic   picture    was    epigrammatically 
interpreted  by  a  motto  or  brief  verse.^    The  fantastic 

^Literature  on  the  subject  of  'imprese'  abounded  in  Italy.  The 
poet  Tasso  published  a  dialogue  on  the  subject.  The  standard  Italian 
works  on  'imprese'  are  Luca  Con  tile's  Ragionamenti  sopra  la  proprietd 
delle  Imprese  (1573)  and  Giovanni  Ferro's  Theatro  d'Imprese  (Venice, 
1623).  Among  French  poets,  Clement  Marot  supplies  in  his  (Euwes 
(ed.  Jannet,  Paris,  1868)  many  examples  of  poetic  interpretation  of 
pictorial  'devises';  see  his  Epigramme  xxix.  'Sur  la  Devise:  "Non 
ce  que  je  pense"'  (vol.  iii.  p.  15) ;  Ixxv.  'Pour  une  dame  qui  donna  une 
teste  de  mort  en  devise'  {ib.  p.  32) ;  xciii.  'Pour  une  qui  donna  la  devise 
d'un  neud  3,  un  gentilhomme'  {ib.  p.  40).  Etienne  JodeUe  was  equally 
productive  in  the  same  kind  of  composition;  cf.  'Recueil  des  inscrip- 
tions, figures,  devises  et  masquarades  ordonnSes  en  I'hostel  de  viUe  de 
Paris,  le  Jeudi  17  de  F6vrier  1558'  in  honour  of  Henri  II.  (in  Jodelle's 
CEuwes,  ed.  Marty-Laveaux,  Paris,  1868,  vol.  i.  p.  237).  Similarly 
Ronsard  wrote  mottoes  for  'emblesmes'  and  'devises';  cf.  his  CEuwes, 
ed.  Blanchemain,  'Pour  un  emblesme  representant  des  saules  esbranchez' 
(iv.  203)  and  'Aii  Roy,  sur  sa  devise'  (viii.  129).  See  too  Jusserand's 
Literary  History, of  the  English  People,  1909  (iii.  270).  The  fantastic 
exercise  was  also  held  in  England  to  be  worthy  of  the  energy  of  eminent 
genius.  Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  proud  of  his  proficiency  in  the  art.  The 
poet  Samuel  Daniel  translated  an  Italian  treatise  on  'imprese'  with 
abundance  of  original  illustration.  English  essays  on  the  tieme  came 
from  the  pens  of  the  scholarly  antiquary,  William  Camden,  and  of  the 
Scottish  poet,  Drummond  of  Hawthornden.  During  Queen  Elizabeth's 
and  King  James  I.'s  reigns  a  gallery  at  Whitehall  was  devoted  to  an 
exhibition  of  copies  (on  paper)  of  the  'imprese'  employed  in  contempo- 
rary tournaments  (see  Hentzner's  Diary).  Manningham,  the  Middle 
Temple  student,  gives  in  his  Diary  (pp.  3-5)  descriptions  of  thirty-six 
'devises  and  impressaes'  which  he  examined  in  'the  gallery  at  White- 


454 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


'impresa'  or  literary  pictorial  device,  which  had  obvious 
affinities  with  heraldry,  was  variously  applied  to  the 
decoration  of  architectural  work,  of  furniture  or  of  cos- 
tume, but  it  was  chiefly  used  in  the  blazonry  of  the  shields 
in  jousts  or  tournaments.  It  was  with  the  object  of 
enhancing  the  dignity  of  the  Earl  of  Rutland's  equip- 
ment at  a  spectacular  tournament  in  which  he  and 
other  courtiers  engaged  at  Whitehall  on  March  24, 
161 2-3,  that  the  great  dramatist  and  the  great  actor 
exercised  their  ingenuity.  Burbage  was  an  accomplished 
painter  as  well  as  player,  and  he  and  Shakespeare  de- 
vised for  the  Earl  an  'impresa.'  Shakespeare  supplied 
the  scheme  with  the  interpreting  'word'  or  motto, 
while  the  actor  executed  the  pictorial  device.^ 

Francis  Manners,  sixth  Earl  of  Rutland,  in  whose 
behalf  Shakespeare  thus  amiably  employed  an  idle  hour, 
The  sixth  belonged  to  that  cultivated  section  of  the 
Earl  of  nobility  which  patronised  poetry  and  drama 
Rutland,  ^j^j^  consistent  enthusiasm  and  generosity. 
The  earl's  fleeting  association  with  the  poet  in  1613 
harmonises  with  Shakespeare's  earher  social  experience. 
The  poet's  patron,  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  was  Lord 
Rutland's  friend  and  the  friend  of  his  family.^    He  had 

hall  19  Martij  1601.'  None  show  any  brilliant  invention.  One  of  Man- 
ningham's  descriptions  runs:  'A  palme  tree  laden  with  armor  upon  the 
bowes,  the  word  Fero  et  patior.' 

^  In  dramatic  work  for  which  his  authorship  was  undivided,  Shake- 
speare only  once  mentioned  'imprese.'  In  Richard  II.  (n.  i.  25)  such 
devices  are  mentioned  as  occasionally  emblazoned  in  the  stained  glass 
windows  of  noblemen's  houses.  But  in  a  scene  descriptive  of  a.  tourna- 
ment in  the  play  of  Pericles  (n.  ii.  16  seq.),  which  must  be  assignedHo 
Shakespeare's  partner,  six  knights  appear,  each  bearing  on  his  shield  an 
'impresa'  the  details  of  which  are  specified  in  the  text.  The  fourth 
device,  'a  burning  torch  that's  turned  upside  down'  with  the  motto 
'Quod  me  aUt  me  extinguit,'  is  borrowed  from  Claude  Paradin's  Heroicdl 
Devices,  translated  by  P.  S.,  1591.  A  like  scene  of  a  tournament  with 
description  of  the  knights'  'imprese'  figures  in  The  Partiall  Law  (ed.. 
Dobell,  igo8),  p.  19;  the  'imprese'  on  the  shields  of  four  knights  are 
fuUy  described. 

2  The  (sixth)  Eari  of  Rutland  consulted  'M""  Shakspeare'  about  his 
'impresa,'  nine  months  after  he  succeeded  to  the  earldom  on  the  death 
on  June  26,  161 2,  without  issue,  of  his  elder  brother  Roger,  the  fifth 
Earl,  who  was  long  the  Earl  of  Southampton's  closest  friend.    There 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  455 

joined  the  Earl  of  Southampton  and  his  own  elder  brother 
in  the  Earl  of  Essex's  plot  of  1601  and  had  endured  im- 
prisonment with  them  till  the  end  of  Queen  Elizabeth's 
reign.  In  August  1612,  barely  two  months  after  his 
succession  to  the  earldom,  he  entertained  King  James 
and  the  Prince  of  Wales  with  regal  splendour  at  Belvoir 
Castle,  the  family  seat.  It  was  some  six  months 
later  that  he  soUdted  the  aid  of  Shakespeare  and 
Burbage  in  designing  an  'impresa'  for  the  coming  royal 
tournament.  The  poet  and  critic  Sir  Henry  Wotton, 
who  witnessed  the  mimic  warfare,  noted,  in  a  letter 
to  a  friend,  the  cryptic  subtlety  of  the  many  jousters' 
'imprese.'  ^  In  the  household  book  of  the  Earl  of 
Rutland  which  is  preserved  at  Belvoir  Castle,  due 
record  was  made  of  the  payment  to  Shakespeare 
and  Burbage  of  forty-four  shilhngs  apiece  .for  their 
services.  The  entry  runs  thus:  'Item  31  Martij  [1613] 
to  Mr.  Shakspeare  in  gold  about  my  Lordes  Impreso  (sic) 
xliiijs.    To  Richard  Burbadge  for  paynting  and  making 

had  been  talk  of  a  marriage  between  the  Earl  of  Southampton  and  his 
sister  Lady  Bridget  Manners.  The  two  Earls  were  constant  visitors  to- 
gether to  the  London  theatres  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
both  suffered  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  of  London  for  complicity  in 
the  Earl  of  Essex's  plot  early  in  1601.  The  fifth  Earl's  wife  was  daughter 
of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  she  cultivated  the  society  of  men  of  letters, 
constantly  entertaining  and  corresponding  with  Ben  Jonson  and  Francis 
Beaumont. 

1  Unluckily  neither  Wotton  nor  anyone  else  reported  the  details  of 
Shakespeare's  invention  for  the  Earl  of  Rutland.  Writing  to  his  friend 
Sir  Edmund  Bacon  from  London  on  March  31,  1613,  Wotton  described 
the  tournament  thus :  'The  day  fell  out  wet,  to  the  disgrace  of  many 
fine  plumes  .  .  .  The  two  Riches  [i.e.  Sir  Robert  Rich  and  Sir  Henry 
Rich,  brothers  of  the  first  Earl  of  Holland]  only  made  a  speech  to  the 
King.  The  rest  [of  whom  the  Earl  of  Rutland  is  mentioned  by  name  as 
one]  were  contented  with  bare  imprese,  whereof  some  were  so  dark  that 
their  meaning  is  not  yet  understood,  unless  perchance  that  were  their 
meaning,  not  to  be  understood.  The  two  best  to  my  fancy  were  those 
of  the  two  earl  brothers  [i.e.  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  of  Montgomery]. 
The  first  a  small,  exceeding  white  pearl,  and  the  words  solo  candore  valeo. 
The  other,  a  sun  casting  a  glance  on  the  side  of  a  pillar,  and  the  beams 
reflecting  with  the  motto  Splendente  refidget,  in  which  device  there  seemed 
an  agreement :  tie  elder  brother  to  allude  to  his  own  nature,  and  the 
other  to  his  fortune.'  (Logan  Pearsall-Smith,  Life  and  Letters  of  Sir 
Henry  Wotton,  Oxford,  1907,  vol.  ii.  p.  17.) 


4S6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

yt  in  gold  xliiijs. '  [Total]  iiij"  viij'.'  ^  The  prefix  'Mr.,' 
the  accepted  mark  of  gentiUty,  stands  in  the  Earl  of 
Rutland's  account-book  before  the  dramatist's  name 
alone.  Payment  was  obviously  rendered  the  two  men 
in  the  new  gold  pieces  called  'jacobuses,'  6achof  which 
was  worth  about  22s? 

During  the  same  month  (March  1613),  in  which  Bur- 
bage  and  Shakespeare  were  exercising  their  ingenuity 
in  the  Earl  of  Rutland's  behalf,  the  dramatist 
speare's  was  engaging  in  a  private  business  transaction 
a  house1n°^  in  London.  While  on  a  visit  to  the  metropolis 
Biackfriars,  in  the  same  spring,  Shakespeare  invested  a 
^^^^"  small  sum  of  money  in  a  new  property,  not 

far  distant  from  the  Biackfriars  theatre.  This  was  his 
last  investment  in  real  estate,  and  his  procedure  closely 
followed  the  example  of  his  friend  Richard  Burbage, 
who  with  his  brother  Cuthbert  also  acquired  pieces  of 
land  or  houses  in  their  private  capacity  within  the 
Biackfriars  demesne.'  Shakespeare  now  purchased  a 
house,  with  a  yard  attached,  which  was  situated  within 

'  The  Historical  Manuscripts  Commission's  Report  on  the  Historical 
Manuscripts  of  Behoir  Castle,  calendared  by  Sir  Henry  Maxwell-Lyte, 
Deputy-Keeper  of  the  Public  Records  and  Mr.  W.  H.  Stevenson,  vol.  iv. 
p.  494 ;  see  article  by  the  present  writer  in  The  Times,  December  27, 1905. 

'  Abundant  evidfence  is  accessible  of  Burbage's  repute  as  a  painter. 
An  authentic  specimen  of  his  brush  —  '  a  mail's  head '  —  which  belonged 
to  Edward  Alleyn,  the  actor  and  founder  of  Dulwich  College,  may  still 
be  seen  at  the  Dulwich  College  Gallery.  That  Burbage's  labour  in 
'painting  and  making'  the  'impresa'  which  Shakespeare  suggested  and 
interpreted  was  satisfactory  to  the  Earl  of  Rutland  "is  amply  proved  by 
another  entry  in  the  Duke  of  Rutland's  household  books  which  attests 
that  Burbage  was  employed  on  a  like  work  by  the  Earl  three  years  later. 
On  March  25,  1616,  the  Earl  again  took  part  in  a  tilting-match  at  Court 
on  the  anniversary  of  James  I.'s  accession.  On  that  occasion,  too,  his 
shield  was  entrusted  to  Burbage  for  armorial  embellishment,  and  the 
actor-artist  received  for  his  iie\y  labour  the  enhanced  remuneration  of 
4I.  i8s.  The  entry  runs:  'Paid  given  Richard  Burbidg  for  my  Lorde's 
shelde  and  for  the  embleanCe;  4/.  i8s.'  Shakespeare  was  no  longer  Bur- 
bage's associate.  At  the  moment  he  lay  on  what  proved  to  be  his  death- 
bed at  Stratford. 

'  The  Burbages'  chief  purchases  of  private  property  in  Biackfriars 
were  dated  in  1601,  1610,  and  1614  respectively.  See  Biackfriars  Rec- 
ords, ed.  A.  Feuillerat,  Malone  Soc.  Collections,  vol.  ii.  pt.  i.  pp.  70  seq. 


M 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AUTOGRAPH  SIGNATURE  APPENDED  TO 
THE  PURCHASE-DEED  OF  A  HOUSE  IN  BLACKFRIARS 
ON   MARCH   lo,    1612-13. 

Reproduced  from  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the  Guildhail 
Library,  London. 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  457 

six  hundred  feet  of  the  Blackfriars  theatre.^  The  former 
C^wner,  Henry  Walker,  a  musician,  had  bought  the 
-pjoBferty  for  100^.  in  1604  of  one  Matthew  Bacon  of 
Holborn,  a  student  of  Gray's  Inn.  Shakespeare  in 
1613  agreed  to  pay  Walker  140/.  The  deeds  of  convey- 
ance bear  the  date  March  10  in  that  year.^  By  a  legal 
device  Shakespeare  made  his  ownership  a  joint  tenancy, 
associating  with  himself  three  merely  nominal  partners 
or  trustees,  viz.  WilUam  Johnson,  citizen  and  vintner  of 
London,  John  Jackson  and  John  Hem3Tige  of  London, 
gentlemeri.  The  effect  of  such  a  legal  technicality  was 
to  deprive  Shakespeare's  wife,  if  she  survived  him,  of 
a  right  to  receive  from  the  estate  a  widow's  dower. 
Hem3aige  was  probably  Shakespeare's  theatrical  col- 
league. On  March  11,  the  day  following  the  conveyance 
of  the  property,  Shakespeare  executed  another  deed 
(now  in  the  British  Museum^)  which  stipulated  that 
60/.  of  the  purchase-money  was  to  remain  on  mortgage, 
with  Henry  Walker,  the  former  owner,  until  the  follow- 
ing Michaelmas.  The  money  was  unpaid  at  Shake- 
speare's death  three  years  later.  In  both  purchase- 
deed,  and  mortgage-deed  Shakespeare's  signature  was 
witnessed  by  (among  others)  Henry  Lawrence,  '  servant ' 
or  clerk  to  Robert  Andrewes,  the  scrivener  who  drew 
the  deeds,  and,  Lawrence's  seal,  bearing  his  initials 
'H.  L.,'  was  stamped  in  each  case  on  the  parchment- 
tag,  across  the  head  of  which  Shakespeare  wrote  his 
name.  In  all  three  documents  —  the  two  indentures 
and  the  mortgage-deed  —  Shakespeare  is  described  as 

'  It  stood  on  the  west  side  of  St.  Andrew's  Hill,  formerly  termed 
Puddle  Hai  or  Puddle  Dock  HiU,  adjoining  what  is  now  known  as  Ire- 
land Yard.  Opposite  the  hou^e  was  an  old  building  known  as  'The 
King's  Wardrobe.'  The  ground-floor  was  in ,  the  occupation  of  one 
WilUam  Ireland,  a  haberdasher.  » 

^  The  indenture  prepared  for  the  purchaser  is  in  the  HalliweU-PhUlipps 
collection,  which  was  sold  to  Mr.  Marsden  J.  Perry  of  Providence, 
Rhode  Island,  U.S.A.,  in  January  1897,  and  now  belongs  to  Mr.  H.  C. 
Folger  of  New  York.  The  indenture  held  by  the  vendor  is  in  the  Guild- 
hall Library. 

'  Egerton  MS.  1787. 


4S8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  Stratford-on-Avon,  in  the  Countie  of  Warwick,  Gentle- 
man.' It  was  as  an  investment,  not  for  his  own  occ^a-' 
tion,  that  he  acquired  the  property.  He  at  once  leased 
it  to  John  Robinson,  a  resident  in  the  neighbourhood.^  - 
Two  years  later  Shakespeare  joined  some  neighbouring 
owners  in  a  suit  for  the  recovery  of  documentg,  relating 

to  his  title  in  this  newly  acquired  Blackfriars 
spe'^r^'s  property.  The  full  story  of  the  litigation  is 
litigation  still  to  Seek;  but  papers  belonging  to  one 
Blackfriars  Stage  of  it  have  been  brought  to  light,  and 
property,     ^j^gy  sUpply  a  final  illustration,  within  a  year 

of  his  death,  of  Shakespeare's  habitual  readiness 
to  enforce  his  legal  rights.  .  On  April  26,  1615,  a  'bill  of 
complaint'  or  petition  was  addressed  in  Chancery  to  Sir 
Thomas  Egerton,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  by  'Willyam 
Shakespere  gent'  (jointly  with  six  fellow  complainants, 
Sir  Thomas  Bendish,  baronet,  Edward  IS^ewport  and 
William  Thoresbie,  esquires,  Robert  Dormer,  esquire, 
and  Marie  his  wife,  and  Richard  Bacon,  citizen  of  Lon- 
don). The  Chancellor's  'orators'  prayed  him  to  compel 
Matthew  Bacon  of  Gray's  Inn,  a  former  owner  of  Shake- 
speare's Blackfriars  house,  to  deliver  up  to  them  a 
number  of  'letters  patent,  deeds,  evidences,  charters 
and  writings,'  which,  it  was  alleged,  were  wrongfully 
detained  by  him  and  concerned  their  title  to  various 
houses  and  lands  'within  the  precinct  of  Blackfriars  in 
the  City  of  London  or  county  of  Middlesex.'  The  houses 
and  lands  involved  in  the  dispute  are  sufficiently  de- 
scribed for  legal  purposes ;  but  no  specific  detail  identifies 
their  exact  sites  or  their  precise  destribution  among  the 
several  owners.^    On  May  15  the  defendant  Matthew 

'  Halliwell-Phillipps,  OutUnes,  ii.  25-41. 

^  The  disputed  property  is  thus  collectively  described  in  the  'bill  of 
complaint':  'One  Capitall  Messuage  or  Dwellinge  howse  w[th]  there 
app[u]rten[a]nces  w[th]  two  Court  Yardes  and  one  void  plot  of  ground 
sometymes  vsed  for  a  garden  of  the  East  p[te]  of  the  said  Dwellinge 
howse  and  so  Much  of  one  Edifice  as  now  or  sometymes  served  for  two 
Stables  and  one  little  Colehowse  adioyninge  to  the  said  Stables  Lyinge 
on  the  South  Side  of  the  said  Dwellinge  howse  And  of  another  Messuage 
or  Tenem[te]  w[th]  thapp[ur]ten[a]nces  now  in  the  occupac[i]oii  of  An- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AUTOGRAPH  SIGNATURE  APPENDED  TO 
A  DEED  MORTGAGING  HIS  HOUSE  IN  BLACKFRIARS 
ON   MARCH   II,   1612-13. 

Reproduced  from  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum. 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  459 

Bacon  filed  his  answer  to  the  complaint  of  Shakespeare 
and  his  associates.  Bacon  did  not  dispute  the  complain- 
ants' right  to  the  property  in  question,  and  he  admitted 
that  a  collection  of  deeds  came  into  his  hands  on  the 
recent  death  of  Anne  Bacon  his  mother/  who  had  owned 
them  for  many  years ;  but  he  denied  precise  knowledge 
of  their  contents  and  all  obligation  to  part  with  them. 
On  May  22,  the  Court  of  Chancery  decreed  the  surrender 
of  the  papers  to  Sir  Thomas  Bendish,  Edward  Newport, 
and  the  other  petitioners.^  Shakespeare's  participation 
an  the  successful  suit  involved  him  in  personal  negotia- 
tion with  his  co-plaintiffs  and  confirms  the  persistence  of 
his  London  associations  after  he  had  finally  removed 
to  Stratford. 

The  records  of  Stratford-on-Avon  meanwhile  show 
that  at  the  same  time  as  Shakespeare  was  protecting 
his  interests  elsewhere  he  was  taking  a  full  shake- 
share  there  of  social  and  civic  responsibilities,  speareand 
In  161 1  the  chief  townsmen  of  Stratford  were  ford 
anxious  to  obtain  an  amendment  of  existing  highways, 
statutes  for  the  repair  of  the  highways.    A  fund  was  col- 
lected for  the  purpose  of  'prosecuting'  an  amending  bill 
in  Parliament.     The  list  of  contributors,  which  is  still 
extant  in  the  Stratford  archives,  includes  Shakespeare's 
name.    The    words    'Mr.    WiUiam    Shackespere'    are 

thony  Thompson  and  Thom[a]s  Perckes  and  of  there  Assignee,  &  of  a 
void  peece  of  grownd  whervppon  a  Stable  is  builded  to  the  said  messuage 
belonginge  and  of  seu[e]rall  othere  howses  Devided  into  seu[er]all  Lodg- 
inges  or  Dwellinge  howses  Toginther  w[th]  all  and  Singuler  sell[ors] 
Sellers  Chambers  Halls  p[ar]lo[rs]  Yardes  Backsides  Easem[tes]  P[ro]fites 
and  Comodityes  Hervnto  seu[er]allie  belonginge  And  of  Certaine  Void 
plots  of  grownd  adioyinge  to  the  said  Messuages  and  p[re]niisses  afore- 
said or  vnto  some  of  them  And  of  a  Well  howse  AU  w[ch]  messuages 
Tenemen[ts]  and  p[re]misses  aforesaid  be  Lyinge  w[th]  in  the  p[re]cinct 
of  Blackffriers  in  the  Cittye  of  London  or  Countye  of  Middlesex].' 

'  Anne  Bacon  owned  property  adjoining  ShaJiespeare's  house  at  the 
time  of  his  purchase.    See  deeds  in  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  32,  37. 

'  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace,  of  the  University  of  Nebraska,  discovered  the 
three  cited  documents  in  this  suit  in  the  autumn  of  1905  at  the  Public 
Record  Ofl5ce.  Full  copies  were  printed  by  Dr.  Wallace  in  the  Standard 
newspaper  on  October  18,  1905,  and  again  in  the  Shakespeare  Jahrbuch 
for  April  1906. 


460  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

written  in  the  margin  as  though  they  were  added  after 
the  list  was  first  drawn  up.  The  dramatist  was  probably 
absent  when  the  movement  was  set  on  foot,  and  gave  it  his 
support  on  his  return  to  the  town  from  a  London  visit.' 
The  poet's  family  circle  at  Stratford  was  large,  and 
their  deaths,  marriages,  and  births  diversified  the  course 
Domestic  of  his  domestic  history.  Early  in  September 
incident.  jgog  jjig  mother  (Mary  Arden)  died  at  a  ripe 
age,  exceeding  seventy  years,  in  the  Birthplace  at  Henley 
Street,  where  her  daughter  Mrs.  Joan  Hart  and  her 
grandchildren  resided  with  her.  She  was  buried  in  the. 
churchyard  on  the  ninth  of  the  month,  just  fifty-one 
years  since  her  marriage  and  after  seven  years  of  widow- 
hood. Three  and  a  half  years  later,  on  February  3, 
161 1-2,  there  appears  in  the  burial  register  of  Stratford 
Church  the  entry  'Gilbert  Shakespeare  adolescens.' 
Shakespeare's  brother,  Gilbert,  who  was  his  junior  by 
two  and  a  half  years,  had  then  reached  his  forty-sixth 
year,  an  age  to  which  the  term  'adolescens'  seems  in- 
applicable. Nothing  is  certainly  known  of  Gilbert's 
history  save  that  on  May  i,  1602,  he  represented  the 
dramatist  at  Stratford  when  WiUiam  and  John  Combe 
conveyed  to  the  latter  107  acres  of  arable  land,  and -that 
on  March  5,  1609-10,  he  signed  his  name  as  witness 
of  a  deed  to  which  some  very  humble  townsfolk  were 
parties.^    An    eighteenth-century    tradition    represents 

'  The  list  of  names  of  contributors  to  the  fund  is  in  Stratford-upon- 
Avon  Corporation  Records,  Miscell.  Docs.  I.  No.  4,  fol.  6.  The  document 
is  headed  'Wednesdaye  the  xjth  of  September,  1611,  Colected  towardes 
the  Charge  of  prosecutyng  the  Bill  in  parliament  for  the  better  Repayre 
of  the  highe  Wales,  and  ameudinge  diuers  defectes  in  the  statutes  already 
made.'  The  seventy  names  include  all  the  best  known  citizens,  e.g. 
'Thomas  Greene,  Esquire,'  Abraham  Sturley,  Henry  Walker,  Julius 
Shawe,  John  Combes,  William  Combes,  Mrs.  Quynye,  John  Sadler. 
Only  in  the  case  of  Thomas  Greene,  the  town  derk,  is  the  amount  of 
the  contribution  specified ;  he  subscribed  2^.  td. 

^  On  the  date  in  question  Gilbert  Shakespeare's  signature,  which 
is  in  an  educated  style  of  handwriting,  was  appended  to  a  lease  by 
Margery  Lorde,  a  tavern-keeper  in  Middle  Row,  of 'a  few  yards  of  ground 
to  a  neighbour  Richard  Smyth  alias  Courte,  a  butcher.  The  document 
is  exhibited  in  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  (see  Catalogue,  No.  115). 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  461 

that  Gilbert  Shakespeare  lived  to  a  patriarchal  age  and 
was  a  visitor  to  London  near  his  death.  It  is  commonly 
assumed  that  the  Gilbert  Shakespeare  who  died  at 
Stratford  early  in  161 2  was  a  son  of  the  poet's  brother 
Gilbert;  but  the  identification  remains  uncertain.^  It 
is  well  established,  however,  that  precisely  a  year  later 
(February  4,  161 2-3),  Shakespeare's  next  brother  Rich- 
ard, who  was  just  completing  his  thirty-ninth  year,  was 
buried  in  the  churchyard. 

Happier  episodes  characterised  the  afifairs  of  Shake- 
speare's own  household.  His  two  daughters  Susanna  and 
Judith  both  married  in  his  last  years,  and  the  Marriage 
union  of  his  elder  daughter  Susanna  was  satis-  of  Susanna 
factory  from  all  points  of  view.  On  June  5,  spet^, 
1607,  she  wedded,  at  Stratford  parish  church,  at  '^°7- 
the  age  of  twenty-four,  John  Hall,  a  medical  practitioner, 
who  was  eight  years  her  senior.  Hall,  an  educated  man 
of  Puritan  leanings,  was  no  native  of  Stratford,  but  at  the 
opening  of  the  seventeenth  century  he  acquired  there  a 
good  practice,  which  extended  far  into  the  countryside. 
The  bride  and  bridegroom  settled  in  a  house  in  the 
thoroughfare  leading  to  the  church  known  as  Old  Town, 
nor  far  from  New  Place.  Their  residence  still  stands  and 
bears  the  name  of  Hall's  Croft.  In  the  February  follow- 
ing their  marriage  there  was  born  to  them  a  daughter 
Elizabeth,  who  was  baptised  in  the  parish  church  on 
February  21,  1607-8.  The  Halls  had  no  other  children, 
and  Elizabeth  Hall  was  the  only  grandchild  of  the  poet 
who  was  born  in  his  lifetime.  She  proved  to  be  his  last 
surviving  descendant.    Stratford  society  was  prone  to 

'  Mrs.  Slopes  confutes  Halliwell-Phillipps's  assertion  that  Gilbert 
Shakespeare  became  a  haberdasher  in  London  in  the  parish  of  St.  Bridget 
or  St.  Bride's.  She  shows  that  Halliwell-Phillipps  has  confused  Gilbert 
Shakespeare  with  one  Gilbert  Shepheard.  Mrs.  Stopes  also  points 
out  that  in  the  Stratford  burial  register  of  the  early  seventeenth  cen- 
tury the  terms  adolescens,  adolescentulus,  and  adolescenhda  were  all 
used  rather  loosely,  being  applied  to  dead  persons  who  had  passed  the 
period  of  youth.  But  her  identification  of  the  entry  of  February  3,  1611- 
2,  with  Shakespeare's  brother  Gilbert  remains  questionable.  (See  her 
Shakespeare's  Environment,  63-5 ;  332-5.) 


463  WIMIAM    SUAKKSIMAKK 

slandcixnis  j;\>ssip.  ;uul  Mi's.  Susanna  Hall  was  in  i(n  j, 
to  lior  fatlioi's  portuvbation,  tl\o  victim  uf  «  liholtous 
runuHiv  of  imn\ofal  UMuiuct,  \vl\iol\  was  ciivnlatnl  l>v 
|ot\M  l.ano  im\ior,  son  of  «  sulistantial  follow -townsman, 
A  dofanuition  suit  was  hnui^^ht  l>v  Mt-s,  Mall  «);aii\st 
l-ai\o  in  tt\o  Coixsistofv  Court  of  tho  Mishop  of  W'otvostor, 
with  tho  satisfactory  ivsult  that  tho  slaiuloror,  who  fiulwi 
to  put  in  ai\  appoaranoo  at  tho  hearing,  was  oxoomnuini- 
oatcd  on  July  ."7.  Tho  oaso  was  hoanl  ot\  July  is  at 
tho  wostorn  omi  of  tho  south  aislo  of  tho  Cathodral,  ami 
tho  ohiof  witness  for  tho  injurod  lady  was  Kohort  \Vltat« 
coto,  ono  of  {\\v  witt\ossi's  of  Shakospoaro's  will.' 

Tho  dran\atisl"s  youn^or  dtUigl\(or  Judith  n\arnod  later 
than  hor  sister,  on  IVhruary  10,  1015  0,  son\o  two  numths 
Miiirmvjr  hoforo  her  father's  doulh,  and  durinj.';  I^it  \wuld 
i.i.huiiUi  appear)  his  last  illness.  Tlie  hride  had  reaehetl 
siu'i>it\  tu-r  thirty-seeond  year.  Thontas  (^>uiney.  tho 
'^>'*-  bridej'.room,  was  her  junior  by  four  years.     Uo 

was  a  younger  son  of  Shalvospoaro's  close  friet\d  ot  middle 
life.  Richard  (Juii\ey.  tlie  Stratford  ntercor,  who  had  ap* 
poalotl  to  tho  (.iramatist  in  t  suv^  for  a  loan  v^f  money,  and 
had  died  while  haiiilT  in  idoi.  Judith  Siialvospeare  was 
a  close  friend  of  the  (^>uinoy  family,  ami  on  Pecemln^r  4, 
lOii,  she  witnessed  for  Richard  (^hiiney's  widow  and  fur 
her  eldest  son  ,\dri,'in  the  \.\vv{\  of  sale  of  a  house  helonjf 
insr  to  thorn  at  Stratford,"  Judith  Shakespeare's  miu- 
riage  with  Thomas  (,)uiney  was  solemnised  during  Lent, 
when  ecclesiastical  law  prescribed  that  a  license  should 
he  obtained  before  the  performance  of  tho  rite.  Hauns, 
no  doubt,  had  been  called,  but  the  wedding  was  hurried 
on,  and  look  place  before  a  license  was  obtained.      IV 

'  The  spntcmr  wiis  piilrmi  In  {\\v  Wononlor  l>ioi'r!<«i\  Uoijliitvy, 
.•\cl  llooU  No.  0.  ,\a'oiiliiiu'  1(1  tlir  rrnuil  of  ll\o  I'onil,  Jol\M  Limo'iilnmt 
Uvo  wwkn  irpoi-ttHi  llml  tl\o  |>liiintilT  l\ml  tlio  rmuiiiijip  of  ll>o  r«yiiP!i. 
iii«l  liml  liiu  iuuikIU  \vill\  Kiifo  SiwUli  iiiul  |olo\  I'ulmrr,'  Sor  ,|.  W. 
Cniv',  .S'/id^r.v/vii/r'.v  A/w>ti((,i,v,  ifi?,  joS.  Ct.  IIhIUwoII  riiillliip*,  Oiil 
Ihirs.  i.  j.ij;   II,  ).\x  •!.  ,tu.l. 

"  I'lio  ilrt'il  Is  rvliihlloil  nt  SliiiUrSpeftre'i  IllrlUiiliur  ((.'ill.  No,  Oil. 
Jiiilllli  mukcu  lior  iwiiik  liy  wi\y  of  stlnmilmT. 


HIwIkim'n  C'oimlNliiry   Courl   III   Worci'Hicr  coiiNtKHirnlly 
iMlinl  n  I'llMlldii  Id  'rimiiiMit  (.Miinoy  iukI  IiIh  wllV  Id  rx 
|iltilii  llio  iiiiiUtiliiii,     'I'liry  pill  In  iiii  ii|i|i('iinm('i\  unci  ii 
(liu'iw  of  pxciiiiimiitilniliiiii  wtin  Umird.'     The  |mi(^I  died 
lirl'div    JiuIkiiii^iiI     wtw    ilt'llvcrnl,     \\v    |(i'()iiiini'(l     Mn 
(UniKlilt'i'  II  iminiiiKi'  pdrlltin  of  iim/,  wlilcli  vviin  iinpiilil 
III  IiIh  (linillii    lie  nui(lt\  Ikiwcvim',  lu'liili'd  provision  fur 
ll   III  liln  will,"     Tltn  iniilrlinoiiliij  iiiiloii   wliirli  opciUMi 
lliitH  liiiti,i(*pl(  liiiixly  wiiH  iiiiirrcd  jiy  ninny  mlHrorliiiifH. 
'I'lio  (Ifvi'lopinnil  of  llir  ivll|.;loiui  l(<inpi'i'  of  tliolowii 
In   Sluikt^HprHiv'n   litli'Hl    yi'iu'w  nm   HCiinrly    iiiivt"   liiii'' 
monlwod  wllh  hln  own  hiMillincnl.     Willi  I'liil 
iMiiM,  wlume  oulrrlot*  wKnlnnl   I  he  dniinii  lun'iM'  iClu'lui 
(viiMcd,    Sliiilu'Hpiniir    wilM    oiil    of    Hynipiilliy,"  l!',,'^,'''"' 
iind  \w  could  liiirdiy  luivc  vIowimI  wllli  iiiiviiry 
Inn  t'onipownrc  llio  Mlnidy  pi'op.ivKX  Ihiil  piiillnnlHm  wiih 
nmkliiK  tiinoiiK  \\U  IVIlow  (owimincn.     In  1(115  WllH(\in 
Conilit',   llie  lociil  ItuidowiitM',   Willi   whom  Sliiikcspt'iirc 
llvt'd    on    friendly    IrriiiK,    1  omprclKMUilvcly    diMioiinct'd 
{\w  towiinfolk  111  a  inonicnl  nf  nw^t^v  m  '  Puriliiu  kniivoH," 
Nrvrillii'lonH  11  pi'tNH  hor,  (lonlilloHH  of  I'liiilnn  proilivi 
lion,  wiiw  (Milt'i'liilnrd  nl  SliiikcHpciirii'H  ivHidi'iuT,   New 
I'line.  nfler  dellvei'lng  11  Hei'lium  in  Ihr  Kpi'ing  of  ifii.|. 
Till'   Incidriil    mlfdil    rtrivi'    to   llliintnili'   ShiikfHpt"iin''H 

'  Spp  J.  \V,  (imv,  SlMl>nf>i>m«'\  Uitntt^p,  |i.  4.|M, 

*  A  IiiiiiiIiimI  iu\(I  Uflv  |»iiiii(U  U  ilrm'i'llii'il  n*  n  HiiliHliuiliiil  joliittilT  ill 
Wwv  \\'lw\  (111,  lv„.|u>.  'rimiwHH  ( 'iimln'  ii|i|iuliilril  liy  lila  will  llu^  Im'tjo 
mini  III'  .liiil^i  llfi  llip  iiiiurtii^i'  |itirlliiii  III'  iMU  ll  III'  liU  hvii  iliiiiulilol'H, 

'  Slm«('ti|ioiui''B  ii'l'i'itMiri'tt  III  I'lirllium  In  llii'  jiliivw  ul'  liw  iiililillo  iniil 
lill^  Wtf  nil'  M>  lllilliniiilv  illwuinioiilln  llllll  lliov  nuitll  In'  JiiiIhoiI  In  w 
lli'i'l  llla  iimwnml  li'i'lliiii,  t'l,  llii'  fiilliiwliiu  I'liiivi'isallnii  riiinonilim 
Mtilviillii  III  IViillh  Main  Ul.  111.  is,(  I'l  w'i|  ll 

Mahi  \.     Miiiry,  nlr.  Niiii\i>lliiii'tt  lii'  lit  ii  Uiul  nf  inniliiii. 
Nik  .VNiminv.    HI  IM  lliuiiulil  lliiil.  I'll  UihiI  IiIiii  llki>  ii  iIuh. 
.SlH  I'liiiv      Wliiil,  I'lU'  lii'liiH  11  imilliuii'  lliv  iiM|iil»lli'  I'l'iiduii,  iIpiii'  lililitht, 
SiH  Aniimii'w,    I  tiiiv*  mt  PHiiiiialic  cwitim  Uii'  '1,  Imi  I  luivi.  rt>ii»im  hiuhI 
isniiiiHli. 

hi  irV»<f('v  Tuh  Civ,  III,  .|0l,  till'  t'liiwii,  til  In  nmlvliig  rnuloiimtiuiUK 
r«(ii|'«>iu'v>«  til  till'  niMini'li'i"  III"  llii'  »thtmroi«,  nnimiku  llmt  IIiimv  i»  Mmt 
(iiip  imrllttu  ttiiuiiiHitl  IIkmii,  iiml  he  kIiihs  iimiliiw  In  IuhiiiiIiiok,'  In 
inin  l\  l|((i  )uvmt>  liinr  Mi«,  t,>nli  klv  bius  Iu  ,Ui'»i  \'  Wiws  (1,  Iv,  ml  nf  llio 
wrvuni  jiilin  Kiiuliy ;   'Ills  woibI  tmilt  U  llnil  lio  U  ylviMi  In  |ir<iyoi',' 


464  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

characteristic  placability,  but  his  son-in-law  Hall,  who; 
avowed  sympathy  with  puritanism,  was  probably  in 
the  main  responsible  for  the  civility.  The  town  council 
of  Stratford-on-Avon,  whose  meeting-chamber  almost 
overlooked  Shakespeare's  residence  of  New  Place,  gave 
curious  proof  of  their  puritanic  suspicion  of  the  drama 
on  February  7,  161 1-2,  when  they  passed  a  resolution 
that  plays  were  unlawful  and  'the  sufferance  of  them 
against  the  orders  heretofore  made  and  against  the 
example  of  other  well-governed  cities  and  boroughs,' 
and  the  council  was  therefore  'content,'  the  resolution 
ran,  that  '  the  penalty  of  xs.  imposed  [on  players  hereto- 
fore] he  xli.  henceforward.'  ^ 

A  more  definite  anxiety  arose  in  the  summer  of  1614 
from  a  fresh  outbreak  of  fire  in  the  town  on  Saturday, 
The  Fire  July  Q.  The  outbreak  would  appear  to  have 
of  1614.  caused  Httle  less  damage  than  the  conflagrations 
at  the  end  of  the  previous  century.  The  town  was  de- 
clared once  more  to  be  'ruinated  by  f5Tre'  and  appeal 
was  made  for  rehef  to  the  charitable  generosity  of  the 
neighbouring  cities  and  villages.^ 

^  Ten  years  later  the  King's  players  (Shakespeare's  own  company) 
were  bribed  by  the  councU  to  leave  the  town  without  playing.  (See 
the  present  writer's  Stratford-on-Aiion,  p.  270.) 

'  According  to  the  Order  Book  of  the  Town  Council  (B.  267),  the 
justices  of  the  shire  were  requested,  on  July  15,  1614,  to  obtain  royal 
letters  patent  authorising  a  collection  through  various  parts  of  England  in 
order  to  retrieve  the  town's  losses  by  fire.  The  Council  reported  that : 
'Within  the  space  of  lesse  than  two  howres  [there  were]  consumed  and 
burnt  fifty  and  fower  dwelling  howses,  many  of  them  being  very  faire 
houses,  besides  Barnes,  Stables,  and  other  howses  of  ofiSce,  together 
with  great  store  of  Come,  Hay,  Straw,  Wood  and  timber  therein,  amount- 
ing to  the  value  of  Eight  thowsand  pounds  and  upwards ;  the  force  of 
which  fier  was  so  great  (the  wind  sitting  ful  upon  the  towne)  that  it 
dispersed  into  so  many  places  thereof,  whereby  the  whole  towne  was  in 
very  great  danger  to  have  beene  utterly  consumed.'  (Wheler's  Hist,  of 
Stratford,  p.  15.)  The  official  authorisation  of  the  collection  was  not 
signed  by  King  James  till  May  11,  161 6,  and  the  local  collectors  were 
not  nominated  till  June  29  following.  (Stratford  Archives,  Miscell.  Doc. 
vii.  122.)  Charitable  contributions  were  invited  from  the  chief  towns 
in  the  Midlands  and  the  South,  '  towardes  the  new  buyldyng  reedifyeing 
■and  erectyng  of  the  sayd  Towne  of  Stratford  upon  Avon,  and  the  relief 
of  aU  such  his  majesties  poore  distressed  subiectes  their  wives  and  chil- . 
dren  as  have  sustayned  losse  and  decay  by  the  misfortune  of  a  sodayne 


THE  CLOSE   OF  LIFE  465 

Shakespeare's  social  circle  clearly  included  all  the 
better-to-do  inhabitants.  The  tradesfolk,  from  whom 
the  baihff,  aldermen,  and  councillors  were  shake- 
drawn  were  his  nearest  neighbours,  and  speare's 
among  them  were  numerous  friends  of  his  it'sfrS-'^'* 
youth.  But  within  a  circuit  of  some  mile  or  f<"^<*- 
two  there  lay  the  houses  and  estates  of  many  country 
gentlemen,  justices  of  the  peace,  who  cultivated  intimacies 
with  prominent  townspeople,  and  were  linked  by  social 
ties  with  the  prosperous  owner  of  New  Place.  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote,  the  inspirer  of  Justice 
Shallow,  belonged  to  a  past  generation,  and  his  type 
was  decaying.  Ofl&cial  duties  often  called  to  Stratford 
in  Shakespeare's  last  days  a  neighbouring  landowner 
who  combined  in  a  singular  degree  poetic  and  political 
repute.  At  Alcester,  some  nine  miles  from  Stratford, 
stood  the  ancestral  mansion  of  Beauchamp  Court, 
where  lived  the  poet  and  politician  Sir  Fulke  Greville. 
On  his  father's  death  in  1606  he  was  chosen  to.  succeed 
him  in  the  office  of  Recorder  of  the  borough  of  Stratford, 
and  he  retained  the  post  till  he  died  twenty-two  years 
later.  As  recorder  and  also  as  justice  of  the  peace  Sir 
Fulke  paid  several  visits  year  by  year  to  the  town  and 
accepted  the  hospitahty  of  the  baiUff  and  his  circle.  A 
short  walk  across  the  borders  of  Gloucestershire  separated 
New  Place  from  the  manor  house  of  Chfford  Chambers, 
the  residence  of  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Rainsford.^  Their 
lifelong  patronage  of  Michael  Drayton,  another  War- 
wickshire poet  and  Shakespeare's  friend,  gives  5;^  Henry 
them  an  honoured  place  in  hterary  history.  ^j^j?,^g'^'j 
Drayton  was  born  at  the  village  of  Hartshill  chambers. 

and  terrible  fire  there  happenjmge.'  The  returns  seem  to  have  proved 
disappointing.  The  fire  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  in  the  summer  of  1614, 
made  sufficient  impression  on  the  public  mind  to  justify  its  mention 
in  Edmund  Howes'  edition  of  Stow's  Chronicle,  1631,  p.  1004.  No  other 
notice  of  the  town  appears  in  that  comprehensive  record. 

'  Sir  Henry,  born  in  1575,  married  in  1596  and  was  knighted  at  King 
James  I.'s  coronation  on  July  23,  1603.  (Cf.  Bristol  and  Gloucestershire 
Archaolog.  Soc.  Journal,  xiv.  63  seq.,  and  Genealogist,  ist  ser.  ii.  105.) 


466  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

near  AtHerstone  in  the  northern  part  of  the  county, 
and  Lady  Rainsford's  father  Sir  Henry  Goodere  had 
brought  the  boy  up  in  his  ajdacent  manor  of  Poles- 
worth.  Lady  Rainsford  before  her  marriage  was  the 
adored  mistress  of  Drayton's  youthful  muse,  and  in  the 
days  of  his  maturity,  Drayton,  who  was  always  an  enthu- 
siastic lover  of  his  native  county,  was  the  guest  for  many 
months  each  year  of  her  husband  and  herself  at  CUfford 
Chambers,  which,  as  he  wrote  in  his  '  Polyolbion,'  hath 
'been  many  a  time  the  Muses'  quiet  port.'  Drayton's 
host  found  at  Stratford  and  its  environment  his  closest 
friertds,  and  several  of  his  intimacies  were  freely  shared 
by  Shakespeare.  Shakespeare's  son-in-law,  John  Hall, 
a  medical  practitioner  of  Stratford,  reckoned  Lady 
Rainsford  among  his  earUest  patients  from  the  first 
years  of  the  century,  and  Drayton  himself,  while  a  guest 
at  CUfford  Chambers,  came  under  Hall's  professional 
care.  The  dramatist's  son-in-law  cured  Drayton  of  a 
'tertian'  by  the  administration  of  'syrup  of  violets' 
and  described  him  in  his  casebook  as  'an  excellent  poet.' ' 
Drayton  was  not  the  only  common  friend  of  Shake- 
speare and  Sir  Henry  Rainsford.  Both  enjoyed  at 
Stratford  personal  intercourse  with  the  wealthy  land- 
owning family  of  the  Combes,  the  chief  members  of 
which  lived  within  the  hmits  of  the  borough  of  Strat- 
ford, while   they   took  rank  with  the   landed   gentry 

1  Sir  Henry  Rainsford  owned  additional  property  in  the  hamlet  of 
Alveston  on  the  banks  of  the  Avon  across  Stratford  bridge.  Drayton 
celebrated  Sir  Henry  Rainsford's  death  on  January  27,  1621-2,  at  the 
age  of  forty-six,  with  an  affectionate  elegy  in  which  he  described  Sir 
Henry  as  'what  a  friend  should  be'  and  praised  'his  care  of  me'  as  proof 

'that  to  no  other  end 
He  had  been  bom  but  only  for  my  friend.' 

Rainsford's  heir,  also  Sir  Henry  Rainsford  {d.  1641),  continued  to  the 
poet  until  his  death  the  hospitality  of  Clifford  Chambers.  Drayton's 
last  extant  letter,  which  is  addressed  to  the  Scottish  poet  Drummond 
of  Hawthornden,  is  dated  from  'Clifford  in  Gloucestershire,  14  July 
1631';  Drayton  explains  that  he  is  writing  from  'a  knight's  house  in 
Gloucestershire,  to  which  place  I  yearly  use  to  come  in  the  summertime 
to  recreate  myself,  and  to  spend  some  two  or  three  months  in  the  coun- 
try.'    (Oliver  Elton,  Introduction  to  Michael  Drayton,  1895,  p.  43.) 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE         .  467 

of  the  county.  With  three  generations  of  this  family 
Shakespeare  maintained  social  relations.  The  Combes 
came  to  Stratford  in  Henry  VIII's  reign  from  North 
Warwickshire,  and  after  the  dissolution  of  the 
monasteries,  they  rapidly  acquired  a  vast  series  of 
estates,  not  in  Warwickshire  alone,  but  also  in  the  ad- 
joining counties  of  Gloucestershire  and  Worcestershire. 
The  part  of  the  town  known  as  Old  Stratford  re- 
mained the  family's  chief  place  of  abode,  though 
William  Combe,  a  younger  son  of  the  first  Strat- 
ford settler,  made  his  home  at  Warwick.  It  was  by 
the  purchase  of  land  at  Stratford  from  William  Combe 
of  Warwick  jointly  with  his  nephew  John  Combe  of 
Stratford  in  1602  that  Shakespeare  laid  the  broad 
foundations  of  his  local  estate.  While  the  dramatist 
was  establishing  his  position  in  his  native  town,  John 
Combe  and  his  elder  brother,  Thomas,  exerted  an  im- 
posing influence  on  the  social  fortunes  of  the 
town.  Thomas  Combe  acquired  of  the  Crown  com™e  of 
in  1596  for  his  residence  the  old  Tudor  mansion  {^^  ^°^ 
near  the  church  known  as '  The  College  House. '  ^ 
There  Drayton's  host  of  Clifford  Chambers  was  an  hon- 
oured visitor.  Thomas  Combe  stood  godfather  to  Sir 
Henry  Rainsford's  son  and  heir  (of  the  same  names),  and 
when  he  made  his  wiU  on  December  22,  1608,  he  sum- 
moned from  Clifford  Chambers  both  Sir  Henry  and  the 
knight's  guardian  and  stepfather  'William  Barnes,  es-  , 
quire '  to  act  as  witnesses  and  to  accept  the  office  of  over- 
seers. The  testator  described  the  two  men,  who  were 
deeply  attached  to  each  other,  as  his  '  good  friends '  in 
whom  he  reposed  '  a  special  trust  and  confidence.'  ^ 

'  According  to  his  will  he  left  to  his  son  and  heir  William  (subject 
to  his  wife's  tenancy  for  life  or  a  term  of  thirty  years)  '  the  house  I  dwell 
in  called  The  College  House  and  the  ortyards  and  other  appurtenances 
therewith,  to  me  by  our  late  Sovereign  Queen  Elizabeth  devised.'  These 
words  dispose  of  the  often  repeated  error  that  Thomas  Combe's  brother 
John  was  owner  of  'The  College  House,'  which  duly  descended  to  Thomas 
Combe's  heir  William. 

^Thomas  Combe's  will  is  at  Somerset  House  (P.C.C.  Dorset  13). 
Combe  was  buried  at  Stratford  church  on  January  11,  1608-9,  and  his 


468  .        WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

With  Thomas  Combe's  sons  William  and  Thomas,  the 
former  of  whom  succeeded  to  his  vast  property  and  in- 
john  fluence,   Shakespeare  was  actively  associated 

Combe  of  until  his  last  days.  But  the  member  of  the 
Stratford.  (;^ojjibe  family  whose  personahty  appealed 
most  strongly  to  the  dramatist  was  Thomas  Combe's 
brother  John,  a  confirmed  bachelor,^  who  in  spite  of 
his  ample  landed  estate  largely  added  to  his  resources 
by  loans  of  money  on  interest  to  local  tradespeople  and 
farmers.  For  some  thirty  years  he  kept  busy  the  local 
court  of  record  with  a  long  series  of  suits  against  de- 
faulting cKents.  Nevertheless  his  social  position  in 
town  and  county  was  quite  as  good  as  that  of  his  brother 
Thomas  or  his  uncle  Wilham.  A  charitable  instinct 
qualified  his  usurious  practices  and  he  Hved  on  highly 
amiable  terms  with  his  numerous  kinsfolk,  with  his 
Stratford  neighbours,  and  with  the  leading  gentry  of  the 
county.  His  real  property  included  a  house  at  War- 
wick, where  his  uncle  William  held  much  property,  a 
substantial  estate  at  Hampton  Lucy,  and  much  land  at 
Stratford,  including  a  meadow  at  Shottery.  On  Jan- 
uary 28,  1612-3,  he  made  his  will,  and  he  died  on  July 
12  next  year  (1614).  He  distributed  his  vast  property 
with  much  precision.^    Two  brothers  (George  and  John), 

will  was  proved  by  his  executor  and  elder  son,  William,  on  February  10, 
1608-9.     His  widow  Mary  was  buried  on  April  s,  1617. 

_  *  Many  of  Shakespeare's  biographers  wrongly  credit  Combe  with  a 
wife  and  children.  Cf.  Variorum  Shakespeare,  ii.  449,  J.  C.  M.  Bellew's 
Shakespeare's  Home,  1863,  pp.  67  and  365  seq. ;  Mrs.  Stopes,  Shake- 
speare's Warwickshire  Contemporaries,  1907,  p.  220.  The  confusion  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  his  father,  a  married  step-brother,  and  a  married 
nephew  all  bore  the  same  Christian  name  of  John.  The  terms  of  the 
will  of  the  John  Combe  who  was  Shakespeare's  especial  friend  leave  his 
celibacy  in  no  doubt. 

2  Combe's  will  is  preserved  at  Somerset  House.  An  office  copy 
signed  by  three  deputy  registrars  of  the  Prerogative  Court  of  Canter- 
bury is  among  the  Stratford  Records,  Miscell.  Doe.  vii.  254.  The  will 
was  proved  by  the  nephew  and  executor,  Thomas  Combe,  on  Novem- 
ber 10,  161S  (not  1616  as  has  been  erroneously  stated).  The  pecuniary 
bequests  amount  to  1500^.  A  fair  sum  was  left  to  charity.  Apart  from 
bequests  of  20/.  to  the  poor  of  Stratford,  5^.  to  the  poor  of  Alcester,  and 
5^.  to  the  poor  of  Warwick,  all  the  testator's  debtors  were  granted  relief 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  469 

a  sister  (Mrs.  Hyatt),  an  uncle  (John  Blount,  his  mother's 
brother),  many  nephews,  nieces,  cousins,  and  servants 
were  all  generously  remembered.  His  nephew  Thomas 
(younger  son  of  his  late  brother  Thomas)  was  his  heir  and 
residuary  legatee.  But  a  wider  historic  interest  dis- 
tinguishes John  Combe's  testamentary  trib-  , 
utes  to  his  friends  who  were  not  lineally  re-  UgMyM 
lated  to  him.  To  'Mr.  William  Shakespeare'  Shake- 
he  left  five  pounds.  Sir  Henry  Rainsford  of  ^''^^^' 
Clifford  Chambers  was  an  overseer  of  the  will,  receiving 
5/.  for  his  service,  while  Lady  Rainsford  was  allotted  405. 
wherewith  to  buy  a  memorial  ring.  Another  overseer  of 
as  high  a  standing  in  the  county  was  Sir  Francis  Smyth, 
lord  of  the  manor  of  Wootton  Wawen,  who  received  an 
additional  5/.  wherewith  to  buy  a  hawk,  while  on  his 
wife  Lady  Ann  was  bestowed  the  large  sum  of  40/. 
wherewith  to  buy  a  bason  and  ewer.  There  were  three 
executors,  each  receiving  20I. ;  with  the  heir  Thomas 
Combe,  there  were  associated  in  that  capacity  Bartholo- 
mew Hales,  the  squire  of  Snitterfield,  and  Sir  Richard 
Verney,  knight,  of  Compton  Verney,  whose  wife  was 
sister  of  Sir  Fulke  Greville  the  poet  and  politician.^ 

Combe  directed  that  he  should  be  buried  in  Stratford 
Church,  'near  to  the  place  where  my  mother  was  buried,' 

of  a  shilling  in  the  pound  on  the  discharge  of  their  debts ;  100?.  was  to 
be  applied  in  loans  to  fifteen  poor  or  young  tradesmen  of  Stratford  for 
terms  of  three  years,  at  two-and-a-half  per  cent,  interest,  the  interest  to 
be  divided  among  the  Stratford  almsfolk.  The  bequest  of  Shottery 
meadow  to  a  cousin,  Thomas  Combe,  was  saddled  with  an  annual  pay- 
ment of  7?.  13^.  4d.  —  il.  for  two  sermons  in  Stratford  Church,  and  the 
rest  for  ten  black  gowns  for  as  many  poor  people  to  be  chosen  by  the 
bailiff  and  aldermen.  Henry  Walker,  whose  son  William  was  Shake- 
speare's godson,  received  twenty  shillings.  The  bequests  to  John's 
brother  George  included  'the  close  or  grounds  known  by  the  name  of 
Parson's  Close  alias  Shakespeare's  Close'  —  land  at  Hampton  Lucy, 
which'has  been  erroneously  assumed  to  owe  its  alternative  title  to  as- 
sociation with  the  dramatist  {Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  ii.'497  seqO. 
'  The  third  overseer  was  Sir  Edward  Blount,  a  kinsman  of  the  tes- 
tator's mother,  and  the  fourth  was  John  Palmer  of  Compton,  whose 
lineage  was  traceable  to  a  very  remote  period.  Dugdale  in  his  Antiq- 
uities of  Warwickshire  gives  a  full  account  of  the  families  of  Smyth  of 
Wootton  Wawen,  Verney  of,  Compton  Verney,  and  Palmer  of  Compton. 


470  ,        WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  that  a  convenient  tomb  of  the  value  of  threescore 
pounds  should  'within  one  year  of  my  decease  be  set 
Combe's  ovcr  me.'  An  elaborate  altar  tomb  with  a 
tomb.  coloured  recumbent  effigy  still  stands  in  a  re- 
cess cut  into  the  east  wall  of  the  chancel.  The  sculptor 
was  Garret  Johnson,  a  tomb-maker  of  Dutch  descent 
living  in  Southwark,  who  within  a  very  few  years  was 
to  undertake  a  monument  near  at  hand  in  honour  of 
Shakespeare.^  According  to  contemporary  evidence, 
there  was  long  'fastened  '  to  Combe's  tomb  in  Stratford 
Church  four  doggerel  verses  which  derisively  condemned 
Combe's  his  reputed  practice  of  lending  money  at  the 
epitaph.  jate  of  ten  per  cent.  The  crude  lines  were 
first  committed  to  print  in  1618  when  they  took  this 
form : 

Ten-in-the-hundred  must  lie  in  his  grave, 
But  a  hundred  to  ten  whether  God  will  him  have. 
Who  then  must  be  interr'd  in  this  tombe? 
Oh,  quoth  the  Divill,  my  John-a-Combe. 

The  first  couplet  would  seem  to  have  been  adapted 
from  an  epigram  devised  to  cast  ridicule  on  some  earlier 
member  of  the  usurious  profession  who  had  no  concern 
with  Combe  or  Stratford.^  In  1634  a  Norwich  visitor  to 
Stratford  who  kept  a  diary  first  recorded  the  local  tradi- 
tion to  the  effect  that  Shakespeare  was  himself  the  author 

1  See  pp.  494-5  infra. 

*  The  epitaph  as  quoted  above  appeared  in  Richard  Brathwaite's 
Remains  in  16 18  under  the  heading :  'Upon  one  John  Combe  of  Strat- 
ford upon  Aven,  a  notable  Usurer,  fastened  upon  a  Tombe  that  he  had 
Caused  to  be  built  in  his  Life  Time.'  The  first  two  lines  imitate  a 
couplet  previously  in  print :  see  H[enry]  P[arrot]'s  The  More  the  Merrier 
(a  collection  of  Epigrams,  1608), 

Feneratoeis  EpiTAPmnm. 

Ten  in  the  hundred  lies  under  this  stone. 
And  a  hundred  to  ten  to  the  devil  he's  gone. 

Cf.  also  Camden's  epitaph  of  'an  usurer'  in  his  Remaines,  1614  (ed, 
1870,  pp.  429-43°) : 

Here  lyes  ten  in  the  hundred, 

In  the  ground  fast  ramm'd ; 

'Tis  a  himdred  to  ten 

But  his  soule  is  damn'd. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE         ,  471 

of  the  'witty  and  facetious  verses'  at  Combe's  expense 
which  were  then  to  be  read  on  Combe's  monument.^ 
The  story  of  Shakespeare's  authorship  was  adopted  on 
independent  local  testimony  both  by  John  Aubrey  and 
by  the  poet's  first  biographer  Nicholas  Rowe."  Other 
impromptu  sallies  of  equally  futile  mortuary  wit  were 
assigned  to  Shakespeare  by  collectors  of  anecdotes 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century.  But  the  internal 
evidence  for  them  is  as  unconvincing  as  in  the  case  of 
Combe's  doggerel  epitaph.' 

'  Lansdowne  MS.  2i3f.  3321/;  see  p.  598  and  note  infra. 

^  The  lines  as  quoted  by  Aubrey  (Lives,  ed.  Clark,  ii.  226)  run : 

Ten  in  the  hundred  the  Devill  allowes 

But  Combes  will  have  twelve,  he  sweares  and  vowes; 

If  any  one  askes,  who  lies  in  his  tombe, 

Hah !  quoth  the  Devill,  'Tis  my  John  o  Combe. 

Rowe's  version  runs  somewhat  differently : 

Ten-in-the-hundred  lies  here  ingrav'd. 

'Tis  a  hundred  to  ten  his  soul  is  not  sav'd. 

If  any  man  ask,  who  lies  in  this  tomb  ? 

Oh !  ho  I  quoth  the  devil,  'tis  my  John-a-Combe. 

One  Robert  Dobyns,  in  1673,  cited,  in  an  account  of  a  visit  to  Stratford, 
the  derisive  verse  in  the  form  given  by  Rowe,  adding  'since  my  being  at 
Stratford  the  heires  of  Mr.  Combe  have  caused  these  verses  to  be  razed 
so  yt  they  are  not  legible.'  (See  Athenaum,  Jan.  19,  1901.)  There  is 
now  no  visible  trace  on  Combe's  tomb  of  any  inscription  save  the  original 
epitaph  (inscribed  above  the  eflBgy  on  the  wall  within  the  recess)  which 
runs :  'Here  lyeth  interred  the  body  of  John  Combe,  Esqr.,  who  departed 
this  life  the  loth  day  of  July  A"  Dni  1614  bequeathed  by  his  last  will 
and  testament  to  pious  and  charitable  uses  these  sumes  in[s]ving  annually 
to  be  paied  for  ever  viz.  xxj.  for  two  sermons  to  be  preached  in  this 
church,  six  poundes  xiiis.  &  4  pence  to  buy  ten  goundes  for  ten  poore 
people  within  the  borrough  of  Stratford  &  one  hundred  poundes  to  be 
lent  unto  15  poore  tradesmen  of  the  same  borrough  from  3  yeares  to  3 
yeares 'Changing  the  pties  every  third  yeare  at  the  rate  of  fiftie  shillinges 
p.  anum  the  wch  increase  he  appointed  to  be  distributed  toward  the  re- 
liefe  of  the  almes  people  theire.  More  he  gave  to  the  poore  o  Statforde 
Twenty  [pounds]  .  .  .'    The  last  word  is  erased. 

'  There  is  evidence  that  it  was  no  uncommon  sport  for  wits  at  social 
meetings  of  the  period  to  suggest  impromptu  epitaphs  for  themselves 
and  their  friends,  and  Shakespeare  is  reported  in  many  places  to  ha,ve 
engaged  in  the  pastime.  A  rough  epitaph  sportively  devised  for  Ben 
Jonson  at  a  supper  party  is  assigned  to  Shakespeare  in  several  seven- 
teenth-century  manuscript   collections.    According   to   Ashmole   MS. 


472  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

John  Combe's  death  involved  Shakespeare  more  con- 
spicuously than  before  in  civic  affairs.  Combe's  two 
nephews,  William  and  Thomas/  sons  of  his 
threatened  brother  Thomas,  who  died  in  1609,  now  divided 
enclosure,  between  them  the  family's  large  estates  about 
^  "*■  Stratford.    WilHam  had  succeeded  five  years 

before  to  his  father's  substantive  property  including  the 
College  House,  and  Thomas  now  became  owner  of  his 
uncle  John's  wealth.  The  elder  brother,  William,  was 
in  his  twenty-eighth  year,  and  his  brother,  Thomas, 
was  in  his  twenty-sixth  year  when  their  uncle  John 
passed  away.  Wilham  had  entered  the  Middle  Temple 
on  October  17,  1602,  when  his  grand-uncle  William 
Combe,  of  Warwick,  was  one  of  his  sureties.^  Though 
the  young  man  was  not  called  to  the  bar,  he  made 
pretensions  to  some  legal  knowledge.  Both  brothers 
were  of  violent  and  assertive  temper,  the  elder  of  the 
two  showing  the  more  domineering  disposition.  Within 
two  months  of  their  uncle's  death,  they  came  into 
serious  conflict  with  £he  Corporation  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon.     In  the  early  autumn  of  1614  they  aimounced  a 

No.  38,  Art.  340  (in  the  Bodleian  Library),  'being  Merrie  att  a  Tauem, 
Mr.  Jonson  hauing  begun  this  for  his  Epitaph  — 

Here  lies  Ben  Johnson  that  was  once  one, 

he  giues  ytt  to  Mr.  Shakspear  to  make  up ;  he  presently  wryght : 

Who  while  he  liu'de  was  a  sloe  thing 
And  now  being  dead  is  no  thing.' 

Archdeacon  Plume,  in  a  manuscript  note-book  now  in  the  corporation 
archives  of  Maldon,  Essex,  assigns  to  Shakespeare  (on  Bishop  Hacket's 
authority)  the  feeble  mock  epitaph  on  Ben  weakly  expanded  thus :        ' 

Here  lies  Benjamin  .  .  .  w[it]h  littl  hair  up  [on]  his  chin 

Who  w[hi]l[e]  he  Uved  w[as]  a  slow  th[ing],  and  now  he  is  d[ea]d  is  nothpng). 

Ben  Jonson  told  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  that  an  unnamed  friend 
had  written  of  him  (Conversations,  p.  36) : 

Here  lyes  honest  Ben 

That  had  not  a  beard  on  his  chen. 

'  WiUiam  was  baptised  at  Stratford  Church  on  December  8,  1586, 
and  Thomas  on  February  9,  1588-9. 

*  Middle  Temple  Minutes  of  Parliament,  p.  425. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  473 

resolve  to  enclose  the  borough's  common  lands  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  town  in  the  direction  of  Welcombe, 
Bishopton,  and  Old  Stratford,  hamlets  about  which 
some  of  the  Combe  property  lay.  The  enclosure  also 
menaced  the  large  estate  which,  by  the  disposition  of 
King  Edward  VI,  owed  tithes  to  the  Corporation,  and 
after  the  expiration  of  a  ninety-two  years'  lease  was  to 
become  in  163.6  the  absolute  property  of  the  town. 

The  design  of  the  Combes  had  much  current  precedent. 
In  all  parts  of  the  country  landowners  had  long  been 
seeking  'to  remove  the  ancient  bounds  of  lands  with  a 
view  to  inclosing  that  which  was  wont  to  be  common.'  ^ 
The  invasion  of  popular  rights  was  everyw^here  hotly 
resented,  and  as  recently  as  1607  the  enclosure  of 
commons  in  north  Warwickshire  had  provoked  some- 
thing like  insurrection.^  Although  the  disturbances 
were  repressed  with  a  strong  hand,  James  I  and  his 
ministers  disavowed  sympathy  with  the  landowners  in 
their  arrogant  defiance  of  the  public  interest. 

The  brothers  Combe  began  work  cautiously.    They 
first  secured  the   support  of  Arthur  Mainwaring,  the 
steward  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  Elesmere,  who  xheXown 
was  ex-officio  lord  of  the  manor  of  Stratford  in  Council's 
behalf  of  the  Crown.^    Mainwaring  resided  in  ■^«^'='^'"=«- 
London,  knew  nothing  of  local  feeling,  and  was  rep- 
resented at  Stratford  by  one  William  Replingham,  who 
acted  as  the  Combes'  agent.     The  Town  Council  at 
once  resolved  to  offer  the  proposed  spoliation  as  stout 
a  resistance  as  had  been  offered  like  endeavours  else- 
where.   Thomas  Greene,  a  cultivated  lawyer,  had  been 
appointed  the  first  town  clerk  of  the  town  in  16 10,  an 
of&ce  which  was  created  by  James  I's  new  charter.     He 
took  prompt  and  effective  action  in  behalf  of  the  towns- 

'Nashe's  Works,  ed.  McKerrow,  i.  33,  88,  ii.  98.  Cf.  Stafford's 
Examination  of  Certayne  Ordinary  Complaints,  1581. 

"  Stow's  Annals,  ed.  Howes,  p.  890. 

'  Owing  to  the  insolvency  of  Sir  Edward  Greville,  of  Milcote,  wlio 
had  been  lord  of  the  manor  since  1596,  the  manor  had  recently  passed 
to  King  James  I. 


474 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


men.  The  town  clerk,  who  had  already  given  the 
dramatist  some  legal  help,  wrote  of  the  dramatist  as 
'my  cosen  Shakespeare.'  Whatever  the  hneal  relation- 
ship, Greene  was  to  prove  in  the  course  of  the  coming 
controversy  his  confidential  intimacy  with  Shakespeare 
alike  in  London  and  Stratford.' 

Both  parties  to  the  strife  bore  witness  to  Shakespeare's 
local  influence   by  seeking  his   countenance.^     But  he 

^  Greene's  history  is  not  free  of  difficulties.  'Thomas  Green  alias 
Shakspere'  was  buried  in  Stratford  Church  on  March  6,  1589-90.  The 
'alias'  which  implies  that  Shakespeare  was  the  maiden  name  of  this 
man's  mother  suggested  to  Malone  that  he  was  father  of  the  dramatist's 
legal  friend.  On  the  other  hand  Shakespeare's  Thomas  Greene  who  is 
described  in  the  Stratford  records  (Misc.  Doc.  a.  No.  23)  as  'councillor 
at  law,  of  the  Middle  Temple'  is  clearly  identical  with  the  student  who 
was  admitted  at  that  Inn  on  November  20,  1595,  and  was  described  at 
the  time  in  the  Bench  Book  (p.  162)  as  'son  and  heir  of  Thomas  Greene 
of  Warwick,  gent.,'  his  father  being  then  deceased.  The  Middle  Temple 
student  was  called  to  the  bar  on  October  29,  1600,  and  long  retained 
chambers  in  the  inn.  His  association  with  Stratford  was  a  temporary 
episode  in  his  career.  He  was  acting  as  'solicitor'  or  'counsellor'  for 
the  Corporation  in  1601,  and  on  September  7,  1603,  became  steward  (or 
judge)  of  the  Court  of  Record  there  and  clerk  to  the  aldermen  and 
burgesses.  On  July  8,  1610,  he  added  to  his  office  of  steward  the  new 
post  of  town  clerk  or  common  clerk  which  was  created  by  James  I's 
charter  of  incorporation.  Numerous  papers  in  his  crabbed  handwriting 
are  in  the  Stratford  archives.  He  resigned  both  his  local  offices  early 
in  1617  and  soon  after  sold  the  house  at  Stratford  which  he  occupied  in 
Old  Town  as  well  as  his  share  in  the  town  tithes  which  he  had  acquired 
along  with  Shakespeare  in  1605  and  owned  jointly  with  his  wife  Lettice 
or  Letitia.  Thenceforth  he  was  exclusively  identified  with  London,  and 
made  some  success  at  the  bar,  becoming  autumn  reader  of  his  inn  in 
1621  and  treasurer  in  1629  {Middle  Temple  Bench  Book,  pp.  70-1).  It  is 
necessary  to  distinguish  him  from  yet  another  Thomas  Greene,  a  yeo- 
man of  Bishopton,  who  was  admitted  a  burgess  or  councillor  of  Strat- 
ford on  September  i,  1615,  was  churchwarden  in  1626,  leased  for  many 
years  of  the  Corporation  a  house  in  Henley  "Street,  and  played  a  promi- 
nent part  in  municipal  affairs  long  after  Shakespeare's  Thomas  Greene 
had  left  the  town. 

^  The  archives  of  the  Stratford  Corporation  supply  full  information 
as  to  the  course  of  the  controversy;  and  the  official  papers  are  sub- 
stantially supplemented  by  a  surviving  fragment  of  Thomas  Greene's 
private  diary  (from  Nov.  15,  1614,  to  Feb.  19,  1616-7).  Of  Greene's 
diary,  which  is  in  a  crabbed  and  barely  decipherable  handwriting,  one 
leaf  is  extant  among  the  Wheler  MSS.,  belonging  to  the  Shakespeare 
Birthplace  Trustees,  and  three  succeeding  leaves  are  among  the  Cor- 
poration documents.  The  four  leaves  were  reproduced  in  autotjrpe, 
with  a  transcript  by  Mr.  E.  J.  L.  Scott  and  illustrative  extracts  from 


THE  CLOSE  OP  LIFE 


475 


proved  unwilling  to  identify  himself  with  either  side.  He 
contented  himself  with  protecting  his  own  property  from 
possible  injury  at  the  hands  of  the  Combes,  xhe  appeal 
Personally  Shakespeare  had  a  twofold  interest  to  shake- 
in  the  matter.  On  the  one  hand  he  owned  ^p^^"^^- 
the  freehold  of  127  acres  which  adjoined  the  threatened 
common  fields.  This  land  he  had  purchased  of  'old.' 
John  Combe  and  his  uncle  William,  of  Warwick.  On 
the  other  hand  he  was  a  joint  owner  with  Thomas 
Greene,  the  town  clerk,  and  many  others,  of  the  tithe- 
estate  of  Old  Stratford,  Welcombe,  and  Bishopton. 
The  value  of  his  freeholds  could  not  be  legally  affected 
by  the  proposed  enclosure.^  But  too  grasping  a  neigh- 
bour might  cause  him  anxiety  there.  ^  On  the  other 
hand,  his  profits  as  lessee  of  a  substantial  part  of  the 
tithe-estate  might  be  imperilled  if  the  Corporation  were 
violently  dispossessed  of  control  of  the  tithe-paying 
land. 

At  the  outset  of   the   controversy  William   Combe 
prudently  approached  Shakespeare  through  his  agent 
Replingham,  and  sought  to  meet  in  a  concilia-  shake- 
tory  spirit  any  objection  to  his  design  which  speare's 

ftPTR  RTTI  fin  T- 

the    dramatist    might    harbour    on    personal  with  the 
grounds.     On  October  28,  1614,  'articles'  were  agent *^' 
drafted  between  Shakespeare  and  Replingham  Oct:  28, 
indemnif3dng    the    dramatist    and    his    heirs  '*^*" 
against  any  loss  from  the   scheme   of   the   enclosure. 
At  Shakespeare's  suggestion   the   terms   of   the   agree- 
ment between  himself    and    Combe's  agent  were  de- 
Corporation  records  and  valuable  editorial  comment  by  C.  M.  Ingleby, 
LL.D.,  in  Shakespeare  and  the  Enclosure  of  Common  Fields  at  Welcombe, 
Birmingham,  1885.     Some  interesting  additional  information  has  been 
gleaned  from  the  Stratford  records  by  Mrs.  Stopes  in  Shakespeare's 
Environment,  pp.  81-91  and  336-342. 

'  Thomas  Greene  drew  up  at  the  initial  stage  of  the  controversy  a 
list  of  'ancient  freeholders  in  Old  Stratford  and  Welcombe'  who  were 
interested  parties.  The  first  entry  runs  thus :  'Mr.  Shakspeare,  4  yard 
land  [i.e.  roughly  127  acres],  noe  common  nor  ground  beyond  Gospel 
Bush,  noe  ground  in  Sandfield,  nor  none  in  Slow  Hillfield  beyond  Bishop- 
ton,  nor  none  in  the  enclosure  beyond  Bishopton.    Sept.  sth,  1614.' 


476  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

vised  to  cover  the  private  interests  of  Thomas  Greene, 
who,  in  his  capacity  of  joint  tithe-owner,  was  in  much 
the  same  position  as  the  dramatist.  On  November  12, 
the  Council  resolved  that  'all  lawful  meanes  shalbe 
used  to  prevent  the  enclosing  that  is  pretended  of  part 
of  the  old  town  field,'  and  Greene  proceeded  to  London 
to  present  a  petition  to  the  Privy  Council.  Four  days 
later,  Shakespeare  reached  the  metropolis  on  business 
of  his  own.  Within  twenty-four  hours  of  his  arrival 
Greene  called  upon  the  dramatist  and  talked  over  the 
local  crisis.  The  dramatist  was  reassuring.  He  had 
(he  said)  discussed  the  plan  of  the  enclosure  with  his 
son-in-law,  John  Hall,  and  they  had  reached  the  con- 
clusion'that  '  there  will  be  nothyng  done  at  all.'  ^  Shake- 
speare avoided  any  expression  of  his  personal 
Comdi™  sympathies.  He  would  seem  to  have  been 
letter  to  absent  from  Stratford  till  the  end  of  the  year, 
spe^art  and  the  Corporation  chafed  against  his  neu- 
Dec.  23,  trahty.  On  December  23,  1614,  the  Council  in 
formal  meeting  drew  up  two  letters  to  be 
dehvered  in  London,  one  addressed  to  Shakespeare  im- 
ploring his  active  aid  in  their  behalf,  and  the  other 
addressed  to  Mainwaring.  Almost  all  the  Councillors 
appended  their  signatures  to  each  letter.  Greene  also 
on  his  own  initiative  sent  to  the  dramatist  'a  note  of 
inconveniences  [to  the  town]  that  would  happen  by  the 
enclosure.'  ^  But,  as  far  as  the  extant  evidence  goes, 
Shakespeare  remained  silent. 

'  'Jovis  17  No:  [1614].  My  Cosen  Shakspeare  commyng  yesterday 
to  towne,  I  went  to  see  him  howe  he  did ;  he  told  me  that  they  assured 
him  they  ment  to  inclose  noe  further  then  to  gospell  bushe,  &  so  vpp 
straight  (leavsmg  out  part  of  the  dyngles  to  the  ffield)  to  the  gate  in 
Clopton  hedge  &  take  in  Salisburyes  peece;  and  that  they  meane  in 
Aprill  to  servey  the  Land,  &  then  to  gyve  satisfaccion  &  not  before,  & 
he  &  Mr.  Hall  say  they  think  there  will  be  nothyng  done  at  all'  (Greene's 
Diary). 

^ '  23rd  Dec.  1614.  A  Hall.  Lettres  wrytten,  one  to  Mr.  Maimeryng, 
another  to  Mr.  Shakspeare,  with  almost  all  the  companyes  hands  to 
eyther :  I  alsoe  wrytte  of  myself  to  my  Cosen  Shakspeare  the  coppyes 
of  all  our  oathes  made  then,  alsoe  a  not  of  the  Inconvenyences  wold 
grow  by  the  Inclosure'  (Greene's  Diary).    The  minute  book  of  the 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  477 

William  Combe  was  in  no  3delding  mood.  In  vain  a 
deputation  of  six  members  of  the  Council  laid  their  case 
before  him.  They  were  dismissed  with  contumely.  The 
young  landlord's  arrogance  stiffened  the  resistance  of  the 
Corporation.  The  Councillors  were  determined  to  'pre- 
serve their  inheritance';  'they  would  not  have  it  said 
in  future  time  they  were  the  men  which  gave  way  to  the 
undoing  of  the  town' ;  '  all  three  fires  were  not  so  great 
a  loss  to  the  town  as  the  enclosures  would  be.'  Early 
next  year  (1615)  labourers  were  employed  by  Combe  to 
dig  ditches  round  the  area  of  the  proposed  enclosure 
and  the  townsmen  attempted  to  fill  them  up.  A  riot 
followed.  The  Lord  Chief  Justice,  Sir  Edward  Coke, 
was  on  the  Warwickshire  Assize,  and  in  reply  to  a  peti- 
tion from  the  Town  Council  he  on  March  27  declared 
from  the  bench  at  Warwick  that  Combe's  conduct 
defied  the  law  of  the  realm.^  The  quarrel  was  not  there- 
by stayed.     But  an  uneasy  truce  followed. 

Town  Council  under  date  December  23  omits  mention  of  the  letters  to 
Shakespeare  and  Mainwaring,  although  the  minutes  show  that  the 
controversy  over  the  enclosures  occupied  the  whole  time  of  the  Council 
as  had  happened  at  every  meeting  from  September  23  onwards.  No 
trace  of  the  letter  to  Shakespeare  survives;  but  a  contemporary  copy, 
apparently  in  Greene's  handwriting,  of  the  letter  to  Mainwaring  (doubt- 
less the  counterpart  of  that  to  Shakespeare)  is  extant  among  the  Strat- 
ford archives  (Wheler  Papers,  vol.  i.  f .  80) ;  it  is  printed  in  Greene's  Diary, 
ed.  Ingleby,  Appendix  ix.  p.  15.  The  bailiff,  Francis  Smyth  senior,  and 
the  Councillors,  mention  the  recent  'casualties  of  fires'  and  the  'ruin  of 
this  borough,'  and  entreat  Mainwaring  'in  your  Christian  meditations  to 
bethink  you  that  such  enclosure  wiU  tend  to  the  great  disabUng  of  per- 
formance of  those  good  meanings  of  that  godly  king  [Edward  VI,  by 
whose  charter  of  incorporation  'the  common  fields'  passed  to  the  town 
for  the  benefit  of  the  poor]  to  the  ruyne  of  this  Borough  wherein  live 
above  seven  hundred  poor  which  receive  almes,  whose  curses  and  clamours 
will  be  poured  out  to  God  against  the  enterprise  of  such  a  thing.' 

'  '14  April  1615.  A  Coppy  of  the  Order  made  at  Warwick  Assises 
27  Marcij  xiii"  Jacobi  R. : 

'Warr  §  Vpon  the  humble  petition  of  the  Baylyffe  and  Burgesses  of 
Stratford  uppon  Avon,  It  was  ordered  at  thes  Assises  that  noe  inclosure 
shalbe  made  within  the  parish  of  Stratforde,  for  that  yt  is  agaynst  the 
Lawes  of  the  Reakne,  neither  by  Mr.  Combe  nor  any  other,  untill  they 
shall  shewe  cause  at  open  assises  to  the  Justices  of  Assise ;  neyther  that 
any  of  the  Commons  beinge  aunciente  greensworde  shalbe  plowed  upp 
eyther  by  the  sayd  Mr.  Combe  or  any  other,  untill  good  cause  be  lyke- 
wise  shewed  at  open  assises  before  the  Justices  of  Assise ;  and  this  order 


478  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  September  1615,  during  the  lull  in  the  conflict,  the 
town  clerk  once  again  made  record  of  Shakespeare's  atti- 
tude. Greene's  ungramraatical  diary  supplies 
sSs  the  clumsy  entry:  'Sept.  [1615]  W.  Shak- 
statement,  gpeares  tellyng  J.  Greene  that  I  was  not  able 
Sept.  161S.  ^^   ^^^^g   ^j^g   encloseinge   of   Welcombe.'    J. 

Greene  was  the  town  clerk's  brother  John,  who  had 
been  solicitor  to  the  Corporation  since  October  22, 
1612.^  It  was  with  him  that  Shakespeare  was  repre- 
sented in  conversation.  Shakespeare's  new  _  statement 
amounted  to  nothing  more  than  a  reassertion  of  the 
continued  hostility  of  Thomas  Greene  to  WiUiam 
Combe's  nefarious  purpose.^  Shakespeare  clearly  re- 
is  taken  for  preventynge  of  tumultes  and  breaches  of  his  Majesties 
peace;  where  of  in  this  very  towne  of  late  upon  their  occasions  there 
hadd  lyke  to  have  bene  an  eviU  begynnynge  of  some  great  mischief. 

'Edw.  Coke.' 

'■  Cal.  Stratford  Records,  p.  102. 

*  The  wording  of  the  entry  implies  that  Shakespeare  told  J[ohn] 
Greene  that  the  writer  of  the  diary,  Thomas  Greene,  was  not  able  to 
bear  the  enclosure.  Those  who  would  wish  to  regard  Shakespeare  as 
a  champion  of  popular  rights  have  endeavoured  to  interpret  the  'I' 
in  'I  was  not  able'  as  'he.'  Were  that  the  correct  reading,  Shakespeare 
would  be  rightly  credited  with  telling  John  Greene  that  he  disliked  the 
enclosure;  but  palaeographers  only  recognise  the  reading  'I.'  (Cf. 
Shakespeare  and  the  Enclosure  of  Common  Fields  ai  Welcombe,  ed.  Ingleby, 
1885,  p.  II.)  In  spite  of  Shakespeare's  tacit  support  of  WUliam  Combe 
in  the  matter  of  the  enclosure,  he  would  seem  according  to  another  entry 
in  Greene's  diary  to  have  gently  intervened  amid  the  controversy  in  the 
interest  of  one  of  the  young  tyrant's  debtors.  Thomas  Barber  (or 
Barbor),  who  was  described  as  a  'gentleman'  of  Shottery  and  was  thrice 
bailiff  of  Stratford  in  1578,  1586,  and  1594,  had  become  surety  for  a 
loan,  which  young  Combe  or  his  uncle  John  had  made  Mrs.  Quiney, 
perhaps  the  widow  of  Richard.  Mrs.  Quiney  failed  to  meet  the  liability, 
and  application  was  made  to  Barber  for  repayment  in  the  spring  of  1615. 
Barber  appealed  to  Thomas  Combe,  William's  brother,  for  some  grace. 
But  on  April  7,  1615  'W[illiam]  Combe  willed  his  brother  to  shew  Mr. 
Barber  noe  favour  and  threatned  him  that  he  should  be  served  upp  to 
London  within  a  fortnight  (and  so  ytt  fell  out).'  Barber's  wife  Joan 
was  buried  within  the  next  few  months  (August  10,  1615)  and  he  fol- 
lowed her  to  the  grave  five  days  later.  On  September  5,  Greene's  diary 
attests  that  Shakespeare  sent  'for  the  executors  of  Mr.  Barber  to  agree 
as  ys  said  with  them  for  Mr.  Barber's  interest.'  Shakespeare  would 
seem  to  have  been  benevolently  desirous  of  relieving  Barber's  estate 
from  the  pressure  which  Cimbe  was  placing  upon  it.  (Cf.  Stopes, 
Shakespeare's  Environment,  1913,  pp.  87  seq.) 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  479 

garded  his  agreement  with  Combe's  agent  as  a  bar  to 
any  active  encouragement  of  the  Corporation. 

The  fight  was  renewed  early  next  year  when  William 
Combe  was  chosen  to  serve  as  high  sheriff  of  the  county 
and  acquired  fresh  leverage  in  his  oppression 
of  the  townsfolk.  He  questioned  the  Lord  men's°'™°" 
Chief  Justice's  authority  to  run  counter  to  his  '^J^p"^' 
scheme.  Sir  Edward  Coke  reiterated  his  warn- 
ing, and  the  country  gentry  at  length  ranged  themselves 
on  the  popular  side.  A  few  months  later  Shakespeare 
passed  away.  Soon  afterwards  Combe  was  compelled 
'  to  acknowledge  defeat.  Within  two  years  of  Shake- 
speare's death  the  Privy  Council,  on  a  joint  report  of 
IJie  Master  of  the  Rolls  and  Sir  Edward  Coke,  con- 
demned without  qualification  Combe's  course  of  action 
(February  14,  1618).  Thereupon  the  disturber  of  the 
local  peace  sued  for  pardon.  He  received  absolution  on 
the  easy  terms  of  pa3dng  a  fine  of  4/.  and  of  restoring 
the  disputed  lands  to  the  precise  condition  in  which 
they  were  left  at  his  uncle's  death.^ 

At  the  beginning  of  1616,  although  Shakespeare  pro- 
nounced himself  to  be,  in  conventional  phrase,  'in  per- 
fect health   and  memory,'   his   strength  was  Francis 
clearly  failing,  and  he  set  about  making  his  &''^°^^°'' 
mil.    Thomas  Greene,  who  had  recently  acted  speare's 
as  his  legal  adviser,  was  on  the  point  of  resign-  ''^■ 
ing  his  office  of  town  clerk  and  of  abandoning  his  re- 
lations  with    Stratford.     Shakespeare  now  sought  the 
professional  services  of  Francis  Collins,  a  solicitor,  who 
had  left  the  town  some  twelve  years  before,  and  was 
practising    at    Warwick.  '  Collins,    whose    friends    or  ^ 
clients  at  Stratford  were  numerous,  was  much  in  the 

'  William  Combe  long  survived  his  defeat,  and  for  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury afterwards  cultivated  more  peaceful  relations  with  his  neighbours. 
He  is  commonly  identified  with  the  William  Combe  who  was  elected  to 
.  the  Long  Parliament  (November  2,  1640)  but  whose  election  was  at 
once  declared  void.  He  died  at  Stratford  on  January  30,  1666-7,  at 
the  age  of  eighty,  and  was  buried  in  the  parish  church,  where  a  monu- 
ment commemorates  him  with  his  wife,  a  son,  and  nine  daughters. 


480  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

confidence  of  the  Combe  family.  He  was  solicitor  to 
John  Combe's  brother  Thomas,  the  father  of  the  heroes 
of  the  enclosure  controversy,  whose  will  he  had  witnessed 
at  the  College  on  December  22,  1608.  Thomas  Combe's 
brother,  the  wealthy  John  Combe,  stood  godfather  to 
Collins's  son  John,  and  gave  in  his  mU  substantial 
proofs  of  his  regard  for  CoUins  and  his  family.^  In 
employing  Collins  to  make  his  will  Shakespeare  was 
loyal  to  distinguished  local  precedent. 

Shakespeare's  will  was  written  by  Collins^  and  was 
ready  for  signature  on  January  25,  but  it  was  for  the 
time  laid  aside.  Next  month  the  poet  suffered 
aff^?  "^  domestic  anxiety  owing  to  the  threatened  ex- 
^l^'f'Ap"''  communication  of  his  younger  daughter  Judith 
and  of  his  son-in-law  Thomas  Quiney  on  the 
ground  of  an  irregularity  in  the  celebration  of  their  recent 
marriage  in  Stratford  Church  on  February  10,  1615-6. 

John  Ward,  who  was  vicar  of  Stratford  in  Charles  II's 
time  and  compiled  a  diary  of  local  gossip,  is  responsible 
for  the  statement  that  Shakespeare  later  in  this  same 
spring  entertained  at  New  Place  his  two  literary  friends 
Michael  Drayton  and  Ben  Jonson.  Jonson's  old  intimacy 
with  Shakespeare  continued  to  the  last.  The  hospitality 
which  Drayton  constantly  enjoyed  at  Clifford  Chambers 
made  him  a  familiar  figure  in  Stratford.  According  to 
the  further  testimony  of  the  vicar  Ward,  Shakespeare  and 
his  two  guests  Jonson  and  Drayton,  when  they  greeted 
him  at  Stratford  for  the  last  time, '  had  a  merry  meeting,' 
'but'  (the  diarist  proceeds)  '  Shakespeare  itt  seems  drank 
too  hard,  for  he  died  of  a  feavour  there  contracted.' 
Shakespeare  may  well  have  cherished  Falstaff's  faith  in 
the  virtues  of  sherris  sack  and  have  scorned  'thin  pota- 

'  John  Combe  bequeathed  sums  of  lol.  to  both  Francis  Collins' and 
his  godson  John  Collins  as  well  as  61.  135.  4^.  to  Francis  Collins's  wife 
Susanna.  Collins  had  two  sons  named  John  who  were  baptised  in  Strat- 
ford Church,  one  on  June  2,  1601,  the  other  on  November  22,  1604. 
(See  Baptismal  Register.)     The  elder  son  John  probably  died  in  infancy. 

^  Collins's  penmanship  is  established  by  a,  comparison  of  the  will 
with  admitted  specimens  of  his  handwriting  among  the  Stratford  ar- 
chives. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  481 

tions,'  but  there  is  no  ground  for  imputing  to  him  an 
excessive  indulgence  in  'hot  and  rebelHous  liquors.' 
An  eighteenth-century  legend  credited  him  with  en- 
gaging in  his  prime  in  a  prolonged  and  violent  drinking 
bout  at  Bidford,  a  village  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of 
Stratford,  but  no  hint  of  the  story  was  put  on  record 
before  1762,  and  it  lacks  credibiUty.^ 

The  cause  of  Shakespeare's  death  Is   undetermined. 
Chapel  Lane,  which  ran  beside  his  house,  was  known  as 
a  noisome  resort  of  straying  pigs;    and   the  The  sign- 
insanitary  atmosphere  is  likely  to  have  prej-  ingof 
udiced  the  failing  health  of   a    neighbouring  gpe^re's 
resident.    During  the  month  of  March  Shake-  ™u.  '^f^'^^ 
speare's  illness  seemed  to   take   a  fatal  turn.   ^^' '^  ' 
The  will  which  had  been  drafted  in  the  previous  Jamiary 
was  revised,  and  on  March  25  ^  the  document  was  finally 
signed  by  the  dramatist  in  the  presence  of  five  neighbours. 

'  In  the  British  Magazine,  June  1762,  a  visitor  to  Stratford  described 
how,  on  an  excursion  to  the  neighbouring  village  of  Bidford,  the  host 
of  the  local  inn,  the  White  Lion,  shewed  Mm  a  crab  tree,  '  called  Shake- 
speare's canopy '  and  repeated  a  tradition  that  the  poet  had  slept  one 
night  under  that  tree  after  engaging  in  a  strenuous  drinking  match 
with  the  topers  of  Bidford.  A  Stratford  antiquary,  John  Jordan,  who 
invented  a  variety  of  Shakespearean  myths,  penned  about  1770  an 
elaborate  narrative  of  this  legendary  exploit,  and  credited  Shakespeare 
on  his  recovery  from  his  drunken  stupor  at  Bidford  with  extemporising 
a  crude  rh5rming  catalogue  of  the  neighbouring  villages,  in  all  of  which 
he  claimed  to  have  proved  his  prowess  as  a  toper.  The  doggerel,  which 
long  enjoyed  a  local  vogue,  ran : 

Piping  Pebwerth,  Dancing  Marston, 
Haunted  HiUborough  and  Hungry  Grafton, 
With  Dadging  Exhall,  Papist  Wixford, 
Beggarly  Broom,  and  Drunken  Bidford. 

The  Bidford  crab  tree  round  which  the  story  crystallised  was  sketched 
by  Samuel  Ireland  in  1794  (see  his  Warwickshire  Avon,  1795,  p.  232), 
and  by  Charles  Frederick  Green  in  1823  (see  his  Shakespeare's  Crab- 
tree,  1857,  p.  9).  The  tree  was  taken  down  in  a  decayed  state  in  1824. 
The  shadowy' legend  was  set  out  at  length  in  W.  H.  Ireland's  Confessions, 
1805,  p.  34  and  in  the  Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  ii.  pp.  500-2.  It  is 
also  the  theme  of  the  quarto  volume,  Shakespeare's  Crabtree  and  its  Legend 
(with  nine  lithographic  prints),  by  Charles  Frederick  Green,  1857. 

^  In  the  extant  will  the  date  of  execution  is  given  as  '  vicesimo  quinto  ■ 
die  Martii';   but  'Martii'  is  an  interlineation  and  is  written  above  the 
word  '  Januarii'  which  is  crossed  through. 
2  I 


482  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEAJIE 

Three  of  the  witnesses,  who  watched  the  poet  write 
his  name  at  the  foot  of  each  of  the  three  pages  of  his  will, 
The  five  Were  local  friends  near  the  testator's  own  age, 
witnesses,  f  Uing  responsible  positions  in  the  town.  At 
the  head  of  the  list  stands  the  name  of  Francis  Collins, 
the  soHcitor  of  Warwick,  who  a  year  later  accepted  an 
invitation  to  resettle  at  Stratford  as  Thomas  Greene's 
successor  in  the  office  of  town  clerk,  although  death 
Kmited  his  tenure  of  the  dignity  to  six  months.^  Collins's 
signature  was  followed  by  that  of  Julius  Shaw,  who  after 
holding  most  of  the  subordinate  municipal  offices  was 
now  serving  as  bailiff  or  chief  magistrate.  He  was 
long  the  occupant  of  a  substantial  house  in  Chapel 
Street,  two  doors  off  Shakespeare's  residence.^  A  third 
signatory  of  Shakespeare's  will,  Hamnet  Sadler,  whose 
Christian  name  was  often  written  Hamlet,  was  brother 
of  John  Sadler  who  served  twice  as  baihfl  —  in  1599 
and  16 1 2  —  and  he  himself  was  often  in  London  on 
business  of  the  Corporation.  His  intimacy  with  Shake- 
speare was  already  close  in  1585,  when  he  stood  god- 
father to  Shakespeare's  son  Hamnet.^    The  fourth  wit- 

^  Collins's  will  dated  September  20,  1617,  was  proved  by  Francis  his 
son  and  executor  on  November  lo  following  (P.C.C.  Weldon,  loi).  He 
would  appear  to  have  died  and  been  buried  at  Warwick.  A  successor 
as  town-derk  of  Stratford  was  appointed  on  October  i8,  1617  {CoumU 
Book  B). 

'  Julius  Shaw,  who  was  baptised  at  Stratford  in  September  1571, 
was  acquainted  with  Shakespeare  from  boyhood.  Shakespeare's  father 
John  attested  the  inventory  of  the  property  of  Jidius  Shaw's  father  Ralph 
at  his  death  in  1591,  when  he  was  described  as  a  '  wooldriver.'  Julius 
Shaw's  house  in  Chapel  Street  was  the  property  of  the  Corporation,  and 
he  was  in  occupation  of  it  in  1599,  when  the  Corporation  carefully  de- 
scribed it  in  its  survey  of  its  tenements  in  the  town  {Cal.  Stratford  Rec- 
ords, p.  169).  Julius  Shaw  was  churchwarden  of  Stratford  in  1603-4, 
chamberlain  in  1609-10,  and  being  successively  a  burgess  and  an  alder- 
man was  bailiff  for  a  second  time  in  1628-9.  A  man  of  wealth,  he  was 
through  his  later  years  entitled  'gentleman'  in  local  records.  He  was 
buried  in  Straford  churchyard  on  June  24,  1629 ;  his  will  is  in  the  pro- 
bate registry  at  Worcester  (Worcester  Wills,  Brit.  Rec.  See.  ii.  13s).  His 
widow  Anne  Boyes,  whom  he  married  on  August  s,  1593,  was  buried  at 
Stratford  on  October  26,  1630. 

'  Hamnet  Sadler  died  on  October  26,  1624.  He  would  seem  to  have 
had  a  family  of  seven  sons  and  five  daughters,  but  only  five  of  these 


THE   CLOSE   OF  LIFE  483 

ness  of  Shakespeare's  will,  Robert  Whatcote,  apparently 
a  farmer,  was  a  chief  witness  to  the  character  of  the 
poet's  daughter  when  she  brought  the  action  for  def- 
amation in  1614.  The  fifth  and  last  witness,  John 
Robinson,  occasionally  figured  as  a  htigant  in  the  local 
court  of  record.^  Of  the  five  signatories  ColUns  and 
Sadler  received  legacies  under  the  will. 

On    April    17,    Shakespeare's    only    brother-in-law, 
William  Hart,  of  Henley  Street,  who,  according  to  the 
register,  was  in  trade  as  a  hatter,  was  buried 
in  the  parish  churchyard.     Six  days  later,  on  f^^^'s 
Tuesday,  April  23,  the  poet  himself  died  at  death, 
New  Place.     He  had  just  completed  his  fifty-  zi^,  lid 
second  year.     On  Thursday,  April  25,  he  was  buria.i, 
buried  inside  Stratford  Church  in  front  of  the  . 
altar  not  far  from  the  northern  wall  of  the  chancel. 
As  part  owner  of  the  tithes,  and  consequently  one  of 
the  lay-rectors,  the  dramatist  had  a  right  of  interment 
in  the  chancel,  and  his  local  repute  justified  the  supreme 
distinction  of  a  grave  before  the  altar.^    But  a  special 
peril  attached  to  a  grave  in  so  conspicuous  a  situation. 
Outside  in  the  churchyard  stood  the  charnel-house  or^ 
'bone-house'  impinging  on  the  northern  wall  of  the 

survived  childhood.  His  sixth  son,  bom  on  February  s,  1597-8,  was 
named  William,  probably  after  the  dramatist. 

'  See  p.  462  supra.  Whatcote  claimed  damages  in  2  Jac.  i  for  the 
loss  of  six  sheep  which  had  been  worried  by  the  dogs  of  one  Robert 
Suche  (Col.  Stratford  Records,  p.  325).  John  Robinson  brought  actions 
for  assault  against  two  different  defendants  in  1608  and  1614  respectively 
{ibid.  p.  211  and  231).  Whether  Whatcote  or  Robinson's  home  lay 
within  the  boundaries  of  Stratford  is  uncertain.  No  person  named 
Whatcote  figures  in  the  Stratford  parish  registers,  nor  is  there  any  entry 
which  can  -be  positively  identified  with  the  witness  John  Robinson. 
He  should  be  in  all  probabiUty  distinguished  from  the  John  Robinson 
who  was  lessee  of  Shakespeare's  house  in  Blackfriars.     See  p.  458  supra. 

^  A  substantial  fee  seems  to  have  attached  to  the  privilege  of  burial 
in  the  chancel,  and  in  the  year  before  Shakespeare's  death  on  December  4, 
1615,  the  town  council  deprived  John  Rogers  the  vicar,  whose  'faults 
and  failings'  excited  much  local  complaint,  of  his  traditional  right  to 
the  money.  At  the  date  of  Shakespeare's  burial,  the  fee  was  made 
payable  to  the  borough  chamberlains,  and  was  to  be  applied  to  the  re- 
pair of  the  chancel  and  church  {Cal.  Stratford  Records,  p.  107). 


484  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

chancel,  and  there,  according  to  a  universal  custom, 
bofles  which  were  dug  from  neighbouring  graves  lay  in 
The  mina-  confused  heaps.  The  scandal  of  such  early  and 
toryin-  irregular  exhumation  was  a  crying  grievance 
on"Ae°"  throughout  England  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
gravestone.  Hamlet  bitterly  voiced  the  prevaiUng  dread. 
When  he  saw  the  gravedigger  callously  fling  up  the  bones 
of  his  old  playmate  Yorick  in  order  to  make  room  for 
Ophelia's  coffin,  the  young  Prince  of  Denmark  exclaimed, 
'Did  these  bones  cost  no  more  the  breeding  but  to  play 
at  loggats  with  'em?  Mine  ache  to  think  on  't.'- 
Yorick's  body  had  'lain  in  the  grave'  twenty-three 
years. ^  It  was  to  guard  against  profanation  of  the 
kind  that  Shakespeare  gave  orders  for  the  inscription 
on  his  grave  of  the  lines  : 

Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake  forbeare 
To  dig  the  dust  enclosed  heare ; 
Bleste  be  the  man  that  spares  these  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  that  moves  my  bones.^ 

According  to  one  William  Hall,  who  described  a  visit  to 
Stratford  in  1694,^  Shakespeare  penned  the  verses  in 
order  to  suit  '  the  capacity  of  clerks  and  sextons,  for  the 

1  Similarly  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  in  his  Hydriotaphia,  1658,  urged  the 
advantage  of  cremation  over  a  mode  of  burial  which  admitted  the 
'  tragicall  abomination,  of  being  knav'd  out  of  our  graves  and  of  having 
our  skulls  made  drinking  bowls  and  our  bones  turned  into  pipes.'  Ac- 
cording to  Aubrey,  the  Oxford  antiquary,  the  Royalist  writer  Sir  John 
Berkenhead,  in  December  1679,  gave  directions  in  his  wiU  for  his  burial 
in  the  yard  'neer  the  Church  of  St.  Martyn's  in  the  Field'  instead  of  in- 
side the  church  as  was  usual  with  persons  of  his  status.  '  His  reason  was 
because  he  sayd  they  removed  the  bodies  out  of  the  church'  (Aubrey's 
Brief  Lives,  ed.  A.  Clark,  1898,  i.  105). 

^  Several  early  transcripts  of  these  Unes,  which  were  first  printed  in 
Dugdale's  Antiquities  of  Warwickshire,  1656,  are  extant.  The  Warwick- 
shire antiquary  Dugdale  visited  Stratford-on-Avon  on  July  4,  1634,  and 
his  transcript  of  the  lines  which  he  made  on  that  day  is  still  preserved 
among  his  manuscript  collections  at  Merevale.  In  1673  a  tourist  named 
Robert  Dobyns  visited  the  church  and  copied  this  inscription  as  well  as 
that  on  John  Combe's  tomb  (see  pp.  470-1  supra) .  The  late  Bertram  Do- 
beU,  the  owner  of  Dobyns'  manuscript,  described  it  in  The  Atherueum, 
January  ig,  igoi. 

'  Hall's  letter  was  published  as  a  quarto  pamphlet  at  London  in  1884, 
from  the  original,  now  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  Oxford. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  485 

most  part  a  very  ignorant  set  of  people.'  Had  this 
curse  not  threatened  them,  Hall  proceeds,  the  sexton 
would  not  have  hesitated  in  course  of  time  to  remove 
Shakespeare's  dust  to  'the  bone-house.'  As  it  was,  the 
grave  was  made  seventeen  feet  deep,  and  was  never 
opened,  even  to  receive  his  wife  and  daughters,  although 
(according  to  the  diary  of  one  Dowdall,  another  seven- 
teenth-century visitor  to  Stratford)  they  expressed  a 
desire  to  be  buried  in  it.  In  due  time  his  wife  was 
buried  in  a  separate  adjoining  grave  on  the  north  side  of 
his  own,  while  three  graves  on  the  south  side  afterwards 
received  the  remains  of  the  poet's  elder  daughter,  of 
her  husband,  and  of  the  first  husband  of  their  only 
child,  the  dramatist's  granddaughter.  Thus  a  row  of 
five  graves  in  the  chancel  before  the  altar  ultimately  bore 
witness  to  the  local  status  of  the  poet  and  his  family. 
Shakespeare's  will,  the  first  draft  of  which  was  drawn 
up  before  January  25,  1615-6,  received  many  inter- 
lineations and  erasures  before  it  was  signed  in 
the  ensuing  March.  The  religious  exordium 
is  in  conventional  phraseology,  and  gives  no  clue  to 
Shakespeare's  personal  religious  opinions,  j.^^ 
What  those  opinions  precisely  were,  we  have  religious 
neither  the  means  nor  the  warrant  for  dis-  '''o"^"™- 
cussing.  The  plays  furnish  many  ironical  references 
to  the  Puritans  and  their  doctrines,  but  we  may  dismiss 
as  idle  gossip  the  irresponsible  report  that  'he  dyed  a 
papist,'  which  the  Rev.  Richard  Davies,  rector  of 
Sapperton,  first  put  on  record  late  in  the  seventeenth 
century.^  That  he  was  to  the  last  a  conforming  member 
of  the  Church  of  England  admits  of  no  question. 

'  Richard  Davies,  who  died  in  1708,  inserted  this  and  other  remarks 
in  some  brief  adversaria  respecting  Shakespeare,  which  figuredin  the 
manuscript  collections  of  WiUiam  Fulman,  the  antiquary,  which  are 
in  the  Hbrary  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford.  For  the  main  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  Davies's  assertion  see  Father  H.  S.  Bowden's  The 
Religion  of  Shakespeare,  chiefly  from  the  writings  of  Richard  Simpson, 
London,  1899.  A  biography  of  Shakespeare  curiously  figures  in  the  im- 
posing Catholic  work  of  reference  Die  Converiiten  seit  der  Reformation 
nach  ihrem  Leben  und  ihren  Schriften  dargestellt  von  Dr.  Andreas  Raess, 


486  V/ILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  name  of  Shakespeare's  wife  was  omitted  from  the 
original  draft  of  the  will,  but  by  an  interlineation  in  the 
Bequest  to  final  draft  she  received  his  'second  best  bed 
his  wife.  yf^iii  the  furnitur.'  No  other  bequest  was 
made  her.  It  was  a  common  practice  of  the  period  to 
specify  a  bedstead  or  other  defined  article  of  household 
furniture  as  a  part  of  a  wife's  inheritance.  Nor  was  it 
unusual  to  bestow  the  best  bed  on  another  member  of 
the  family  than  the  wife,  leaving  her  only  'the second 
best,'  ^  but  no  will  except  Shakespeare's  is  forthcoming 
in  whrch  a  bed  forms  the  wife's  sole  bequest.  There  is 
nothing  to  show  that  Shakespeare  had  set  aside  any 
property  under  a  previous  settlement  or  jointure  witi 
a  view  to  making  independent  provision  for  his  widow. 
Her  right  to  a  widow's  dower  —  i.e.  to  a  third  share 
for  hfe  in  freehold  estate  —  was  not  subject  to  testa- 
mentary disposition,  but  Shakespeare  had  taken  steps 
to  prevent  her  from  benefiting,  at  any  rate  to  the  full 
extent,  by  that  legal  arrangement.  He  had  barred  her 
dower  in  the  case  of  his  latest  purchase  of  freehold 
estate,  viz.  the  house  at  Blackfriars.^    Such  procedure 

Bischof  von  Strassburg  (Freiburg  im  Breisgau,  1866-80,  13  vols,  and 
index  vol.),  vol.  xiii.  1880,  pp.  372-439. 

1  Thomas  Combe  of  Stratford  (father  of  Thomas  and  William  of  the 
enclosure  controversy)  whUe  making  adequate  provision  for  his  wife  in 
his  will  (dated  December  22,  1608),  specifically  withheld  from  her  his 
'best  bedstead  .  .  .  with  the  best  bed  and  best  furniture  thereunto  be- 
longing'; this  was  bequeathed  to  his  elder  son  WiUiam  to  the  exclusion 
of  ius  widow.     (See  Thomas  Combe's  will,  P.C.C.  Dorset  13.) 

2  The  late  Charles  Elton,  Q.C.,  was  kind  enough  to  give  me  a  legal 
opinion  on  this  point.  He  wrote  to  me  on  December  9,  1897  :  'I  have 
looked  to  the  authorities  with  my  friend  Mr.  Herbert  Mackay,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  Stakespeare  barred  the  dower.'  Mr.  Mackay's 
opinion  is  couched  in  the  following  terms:  'The  conveyance  of  the 
Blackfriars  estate  to  William  Shakespeare  in  16 13  shows  that  the  es- 
tate was  conveyed  to  Shakespeare,  Johnson,  Jackson,  and  Hemming 
as  joint  tenants,  and  therefore  the  dower  of  Shakespeare's  wife  would 
be  barred  unless  he  were  the  survivor  of  the  four  bargainees.'  That 
was  a  remote  contingency  which  did  not  arise,  and  Shakespeare  always 
retained  the  power  of  making  'another  settlement  when  the  trustees 
were  shrinking.'  Thus  the  bar  was  for  practical  purposes  perpetual, 
and  disposes  of  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps's  assertion  that  Shakespeare's 
wife  was  entitled  to  dower  in  one  form  or  another  from  all  his  real  estate. 


Q),''^ 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  487 

is  pretty  conclusive  proof  that  he  had  the  intention  of 
excluding  her  from  the  enjoyment  of  his  possessions 
after  his  death.  But,  however  plausible  the  theory 
that  his  relations  with  her  were  from  first  to  last  wanting 
in  sympathy,  it  is  improbable  that  either  the  slender 
mention  of  her  in  the  will  or  the  barring  of  her  dower 
was  designed  by  Shakespeare  to  make  pubKc  his  in- 
difference or  disUke.  Local  tradition  subsequently 
credited  her  with  a  wish  to  be  buried  in  his  grave ;  and 
her  epitaph  proves  that  she  inspired  her  daughters 
with  genuine  affection.  Probably  her '  ignorance  of 
affairs  and  the  infirmities  of  age  (she  was  past  sixty) 
combined  to  unfit  her  in  the  poet's  eyes  for  the  control 
of  property,  and,  as  an  act  of  ordinary  prudence,  he 
committed  her  to  the  care  of  his  elder  daughter,  who 
inherited,  according  to  such  information  as  is  accessible, 
some  of  ids  own  shrewdness,  and  had  a  capable  adviser  • 
in  her  husband. 

This  elder  daughter,  Susanna  Hall,  was,  under  the 
terms  of  the  will,  to  become  mistress  of  New  Place, 
and  practically  of  all  the  poet's  estate.  She  „.  ,  . 
received  (with  remainder  to  her  issue  in  strict 
entail)  New  Place,  the  two  messuages  or  tenements  in 
Henley  Street  (subject  to  the  Ufe  interest  of  her  aunt 
Mrs.  Hart),  the  cottage  and  land  in  Chapel  Lane  which 
formed  part  of  the  manor  of  Rowington,  and  indeed  all 
the  land,  barns,  and  gardens  at  and  near  Stratford, 
together  with  the  dramatist's  interest  in  the  tithes  and 
the  house  in  Blackfriars,  London.  Moreover,  Mrs.  Hall 
and  her  husband  were  appointed  executors  and  residuary 
legatees,  with  full  rights  over  nearly  all  the  poet's  house- 
hold furniture  and  personal  belongings.  To  their 
only  child,  the  testator's  granddaughter  or  'niece,' 
Elizabeth  HaU,  was  bequeathed  the  poet's  plate,  with 
the  exception  of  his  broad  silver  and  gilt  bowl,  which 

Cf.  Davidson  on  Conveyancing;  Littleton,  sect.  45;   Coke  upon  Littleton, 
ed.  Hargrave,  p.  379  h,  note  i.    See  also  pp.  456-7  supra  and  p.  491  n.  i 

infra. 


488  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

was  reserved  for  his  younger  daughter,  Judith.  To 
his  younger  daughter  he  also  left  150/.  in  money,  of 
which  lool.,  her  marriage  portion,  was  to  be  paid  within 
a  year,  and  another  150^.  to  be  paid  to  her  if  alive  three 
years  after  the  date  of  the  will.  Ten  per  cent,  interest 
was  to  be  allowed  until  the  money  was  paid.  Of  the 
aggregate  amount  the  sum  of  50Z.  was  specified  to  be 
the  consideration  due  to  Judith  for  her  surrender  of  her 
interest  in  the  cottage  and  land  in  Chapel  Lane  which 
was  held  of  the  manor  of  Rowington.  To  the  poet's 
sister,  Joan  Hart,  whose  husband,  William  Hart,  pre- 
deceased the  testator  by  only  six  days,  he  left,  besides 
a  contingent  reversionary  interest  in  Judith's  pecuniary 
legacy,  his  wearing  apparel,  20I.  in  money,  and  a  life 
interest  in  the  Henley  Street  property,  with  5^.  for  each 
of  her  three  sons,  William,  Thomas,  and  Michael. 

Shakespeare  extended  his  testamentary  benefactions 
beyond  his  domestic  circle,  and  thereby  proved  the  wide 
Legacies  range  of  his  social  ties.  Only  one  bequest 
to  friends,  ^^g  applied  to  charitable  uses.  The  sum  of 
10/.  was  left  to  the  poor  of  Stratford.  Eight  fellow 
townsmen  received  marks  of  the  dramatist's  regard. 
To  Mr.  Thomas  Combe,  younger  son  of  Thomas  Combe 
of  the  College,  and  younger  nephew  of  his  friend  John 
Combe,  Shakespeare  left  his  sword  —  possibly  by  way 
of  ironical  allusion  to  the  local  strife  in  which  the  legatee 
had  borne  a  part.^  No  mention  was  made  of  Thomas's 
elder  brother  William,  who  was  still  actively  urging  his 
claim  to  enclose  the  common  land  of  the  town.  The 
large  sum  of  13Z.  6s.  M.  was  allotted  to  Francis  Collins, 
who  was  described  in  the  will  as  '  of  the  borough  of  War- 


*  All  effort  to  trace  Shakespeare's  sword  has  failed.  Its 
Mr.  Thomas  Combe,  who  died  at  Stratford  in  July  1657,  aged  68,  directed 
his  executors,  by  his  will  dated  June  20,  1656,  to  convert  all  his  personal 
property  into  money,  and  to  lay  it  out  in  the  purchase  of  lands,  to  be 
settled  on  William  Combe,  the  eldest  son  of  a  cousin,  John  Combe,  of 
Alvechurch,  in  the  county  of  Worcester,  Gent.,  and  his  heirs  male  with 
remainder  to  his  two  brothers  successively  {Variorum  Shakespeare, 
ii.  604  n.). 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  489 

wick,  gent.' ;  within  a  year  he  was  to  be  called  to  Strat- 
ford as  town  clerk.  A  gift  of  xxs.  in  gold  was  bestowed 
on  the  poet's  godson,  WilHam  Walker,  now  in  his  ninth 
year.  Four  adult  Stratford  friends,  Hamnet  Sadler, 
WilKam  Reynoldes,  gent.,  Anthony  Nash,  gent.,  and  Mr. 
John  Nash,  were  each  given  26s.  8d.  wherewith  to  buy 
memorial  rings.  All  were  men  of  local  influence,  al- 
though William  Reynoldes  and  the  Nash  brothers  were 
of  rather  better  status  than  the  dramatist's  friend  from 
boyhood  Hamnet  Sadler,  a  witness  to  the  will.  William 
Reynoldes  was  a  local  landowner  in  his  thirty-third 
year.  His  father,  'Mr.  Thomas  Re5aioldes,  gent.,'  of 
Old  Stratford,  who  had  died  on  September  8,  1613, 
enjoyed  heraldic  honours;  and  John  Combe,  who  de- 
scribed Reynoldes's  mother  as  his  'cousin,'  had  made 
generous  bequests  of  land  or  money  to  all  members 
of  the  family  and  even  to  the  servants.  William  Rey- 
noldes inherited  from  John  Combe  two  large  plots  of 
land  on  the  Evesham  Road  to  the  west  of  the  town, 
which  were  long  familiarly  known  as  'Salmon  Jowl' 
and  'Salmon  Tail'  respectively.^  Anthony  Nash  was 
the  owner  of  much  land  at  Welcombe,  and  had  a  share 
in  the  tithes.^  His  brother  John  was  less  affluent,  but 
made  at  his  death  substantial  provision  for  his  family. 
A  younger  generation  of  the  poet's  family  continued 
his  own  intimacy  with  the  Nashes.  Thomas,  a  younger 
son  of  Anthony  Nash,  who  was  baptised  on  June  20, 
1593,  became  in  1626  the  first  husband  of  Shakespeare's 
granddaughter,  Elizabeth  HaU. 

Another  legatee,  Thomas  Russell,  alone  of  all  the 
persons  mentioned  in  the  will,  bore  the  dignified  desig- 

'  See  Cd.  Stratford  Records.  William  Reynoldes  married  Frances 
De  Bois  of  London,  described  as  a  Frenchwoman  (see  Visitation  of 
Warwickshire,  1619,  Harl.  Sec,  p.  243).  He  was  buried  in  Stratford 
Church  on  March  6,  1632-3. 

^  Anthony  Nash  was  buried  in  Stratford  on  November  18,  1622.  A 
younger  son  was  christened  John  on  October  15,  1598,  after  his  uncle 
John,  Shakespeare's  legatee.  The  latter's  will  dated  November  S).i623, 
was  proved  by  his  sole  executor  and  son-in-law  William  Home  just  a 
fortnight  later  {P.C.C.  Swarm  122). 


490  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

nation  of  'Esquire.'  He  received  the  sum  of  5/.,  and 
was  also  nominated  one  of  the  two  overseers,  Francis 
Thomas  Collins  being  the  other.  There  is  no  proof  in 
RusseU,  the  local  records  that  Russell  was  a  resident 
Esquire.  -^^  Stratford/  and  he  was  in  all  probability  a 
London  friend.  Shakespeare' had  opportunities  of  meet- 
ing in  London  one  Thomas  Russell,  who  in  the  dram- 
atist's later  life  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  there  as  a 
metallurgist,  obtaining  patents  for  new  methods  of  ex- 
tracting metals  from  the  ore.  For  near  a  decade  before 
Shakespeare's  death  Russell  would  seem  to  have  been  in 
personal  relations  with  the  poet  Michael  Drayton.  Both 
men  enjoyed  the  patronage  of  Sir  David  Murray  of 
Gorthy,  who  was  a  poetaster  as  well  as  controller  of  the 
household  of  Henry,  Price  of  Wales ;  in  his  capacity  of 
minor  poet,  Murray  received  a  handsome  tribute  in 
verse  from  Drayton.  As  early  as  1608  Francis  Bacon 
was  seeking  Thomas  Russell's  acquaintance  on  the  two- 
fold ground  of  his  scientific  ingenuity  and  his  social  in- 
fluence.", Shakespeare  probably  owed  to  Drayton  an 
acquaintanceship  with  Russell,  which  Bacon  aspired  to 
share. 

More  interesting  is  it  to  note  that  three  'fellows'  or 
colleagues  of  his  theatrical  career  in  London,  were  com- 
Thebe-  memorated  by  Shakespeare  in  his  will  in  pre- 
quests  to  cisely  the  same  fashion  as  his  four  chief  friends 
the  actors.  ^^^  gtratford,  —  Sadler,  Reynoldes,  and  the  two 
Nashes.  The  actors  John  Heminges,  Richard  Burbage, 
and  Henry  Condell  also  received  265.  8d.  apiece  where- 
with to  buy  memorial  rings.  All  were  veterans  in  the 
theatrical  service,  and  acknowledged  leaders  of  the 
theatrical  profession,  to  whose  personal  association  with 

^  The  dramatist's  father  John  Shakespeare  occasionally  co-operated 
in  local  affairs  with  one  Henry  Russell,  who  held  for  a  time  the  humble 
office  of  Serjeant  of  the  mace  in  the  local  court  of  record.  Henry  Russell 
married  Elizabeth  Perry  in  1559  and  may  have  been  father  of  Thomas 
Russell,  although  the  latter's  name  is  absent  from  the  baptismal  register, 
and  his  status  makes  the  suggestion  improbable. 

'  Cal.  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1610-1624;  Spedding's  Life  and  Letters 
of  Bacon,  iv.  23,  63. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  491 

the  dramatist  his  biography  furnishes  testimony  at 
every  step.  When  their  company,  of  which  Shakespeare 
had  been  a  member,  received  a  new  patent  on  March  27, 
1619,  the  list  of  patentees  was  headed  by  the  three  actors 
whom  Shakespeare  honoured  in  his  will. 

While  'Francis  CoUins,  gent.,'  and  'Thomas  Russell, 
esquire,'  were  overseers  of  the  will,  Shakespeare's  son-in- 
law  and  his  daughter,  John  and  Susanna  Hall,  overseers 
were  the  executors.    The  will  was  proved  in  and 
London  by  Hall  and  his  wife  on  June   22,  «''«™t°'^=- 
1616.    Most  of  the  landed  property  was  retained  by  the 
beneficiaries  during  their  hfetime  in  accordance  with 
Shakespeare's   testamentary  provision.^    Hall  and  his 
wife  only  alienated  one  portion  of  the  poet's  estate; 
they  parted  to  the  Corporation  with  Shakespare's  in- 
terest in  the  tithes  in  August  1624  for  400/.,  reserving 
'two  closes'  which  they  had  lately  leased  'to  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Combe,  esquier.' 

Thus  Shakespeare,  according  to  the  terms  of  his  will, 
died  in  command  of  an  aggregate  sum  of  350/.  in  money 
in  addition  to  personal  belongings  of  realisable 
value,  and  an  extensive  real  estate  the  greater  spe^e's 
part  of  which  he  had  purchased  out  of  his  theatrical 
savings  at  a  cost  of  1,200/.     But  it  was  rare  for 
wills  of  the  period  to  enumerate  in  full  detail  the  whole 
of  a  testator.'s  possessions.    A  complete  inventory  was 
reserved  for   the   'inquisitio  post  mortem,'   which  in 
Shakespeare's  case,  despite  a  search  at  Somerset  House, 
has  not  come  to  light.    The  absence  from  the  dramatist's 
will  of  any  specific  allusion  to  books  is  no  proof  that  he 
left  none ;  they  were  doubtless  included  by  his  lawyer  in 

'  On  February  10,  1617-8,  John  Jackson,  John  Hemynge  of  London, 
gentlemen,  and  William  Johnson,  citizen  and  vintner  of  London,  whom 
Shakespeare  had  made  nominal  co-owners  or  trustees  of  the  Blackfriars 
estate,  made  over  their  formal  interest  to  John  Greene  of  Clement's  Inn, 
gent.  (Thomas  Greene's  brother),  and  Matthew  Morris,  of  Stratford, 
gent.,  with  a  view  to  facilitating  the  disposition  of  the  property  'accord- 
ing to  the  true  intent  and  meaning'  of  Shakespeare's  last  will  and  testa- 
ment. The  house  passed  to  the  Halls,  subject  to  the  lawful  interest  of 
the  present  lessee,  John  Robinson  (HaUiweU-Phillipps,  ii.  36-41). 


492  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  comprehensive  entry  of  'goodes'  and  'chattells' 
which  fell,  with  the  rest  of  his  residuary  estate,  to  his 
elder  daughter  and  to  John  Hall,  her  well-educated 
husband.  When  Hall  died  at  New  Place  in  1635,  a 
'study  of  books'  was  among  the  contents  of  his  house.' 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe,  too,  that  Shakespeare 
retained  till  the  end  of  his  Hfe  his  theatrical  shares  —  a 
fourteenth  share  in  the  Globe  and  a  seventh  share  in  the 
Blackfriars  —  which  his  will  again  fails  to  mention. 
Such  an  omission  is  paralleled  in  the  testaments  of  several 
of  his  acting  colleagues  and  friends.  Neither  Augustine 
PhiUips  {d.  1605),  Richard  Burbage  {d.  1619),  nor 
Henry  Condell  {d.  1627)  made  any  testamentary  refer- 
ence to  their  theatrical  shares,  although  substantial 
holdings  passed  in  each  case  to  their  heirs.  John 
Heminges,^  one  of  the  three  actors  who  are  commemorated 
by  bequests  in  Shakespeare's  will,  was  the  business 
manager  of  the  dramatist's  company.  Shortly  after 
Shakespeare's  death  Heminges  largely  increased  his 
proprietary  rights  in  both  the  Globe  and  Blackfriars 
theatres.  There  is  Httle  question  that  he  acquired  of ' 
the  residuary  legatees  (Susanna  and  John  Hall)  Shake- 
speare's shares  in  both  houses.  At  his  death  in  1630, 
Heminges  owned  as  many  as  four  shares  in  each  of  the 
two  theatres.  It  is  reasonable  to  regard  his  large 
theatrical  estate  as  incorporating  Shakespeare's  theatri- 
cal property.' 
Exhaustive  details  of  the  estates  of  Jacobean  actors 

'  See  p.  506  infra. 

^  The  practice  varied.  In  the  wills  of  Thomas  Pope  (d.  1603),  John 
Heminges  (i.  1630),  and  John  Underwood  {d.  1624)  specific  bequest  is 
made  of  their  theatrical  shares. 

'  See  p.  305  n.  i  snpra.  The  capitalised  value  of  theatrical  shares 
rarely  rose  much  above  the  annual  income.  The  leases  of  the  land  on 
which  the  theatre  stood  were  usually  short,  and  the  prices  of  shares 
were  bound  to  fall  as  the  leases  neared  extinction.  In  1633,  when  the 
leases  of  the  sites  of  the  Globe  and  the  Blackfriars  theatres  had  only 
a  few  years  to  run,  three  shares  in  the  Globe  and  two  in  the  Blackfriars 
were  sold  for  no  more  than  an  aggregate  sum  of  506/.  John  Hall  and 
his  wife  may  well  have  sold  to  Heminges  Shakespeare's  theatrical  in- 
terest for  some  300?. 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  493 

are  rarely  available.  The  provisions  of  their  wills  offer 
as  a  rule  vaguer  information  than  in  Shakespeare's 
case.  But  the  co-ordinated  evidence  shows 
that,  while  Shakespeare  died  a  richer  man  than  rf'contem*^ 
most  members  of  his  profession,  his  wealth  was  p^^'^^ 
often  equalled  and  in  a  few  instances  largely- 
exceeded.  The  actor  Thomas  Pope,  who  died  in  1603, 
made  pecuniary  bequests  to  an  amount  exceeding  340/. 
and  disposed  besides  of  theatrical  shares  and  much  real 
estate.  Heiiry  Condell,  who  died  in  1627,  left  annuities 
of  31/.  and  pecuniary  legacies  of  some  70/.  in  addition  to 
extensive  house  property  in  London  and  his  theatrical 
shares.  Burbage,  whose  wiU  was  nuncupative,  was 
popularly  reckoned  to  be  worth  at  his  death  (in  March 
1 6 18-9)  300/.  in  land,  apart  from  personal  and  theatrical 
property.  A  far  superior  standard  of  afHuence  was 
furnished  by  the  estate  of  the  actor  Edward  Alleyn, 
Burbage's  chief  rival,  who  died  on  November  25,  1626. 
In  his  lifetime  he  purchased  an  estate  at  Dulwich  for 
some  io,oooZ.  in  money  of  his  own  time,  and  he  built 
there  the  College  'of  God's  Gift'  which  he  richly  en- 
dowed with  land  elsewhere.  At  the  same  time  Alle)^ 
disposed  by  his  will  of  a  sum  of  money  approaching 
Tpool.  and  made  provision  out  of  an  immense  real  es- 
tate for  the  building  and  endowment  of  thirty  alms- 
houses. Alleyn  speculated  in  real  property  with  great 
success;  but  his  professional  earnings  were  always 
considerable.  Shakespeare's  wealth  was  modest  when 
it  is  compared  with  Alleyn's.  Yet  AUeyn's  financial 
experience  proves  the  wide  possibiHties  of  fortune 
which  were  open  to  a  contemporary  actor  who  possessed 
mercantile  aptitude.^ 

A  humble  poejbic  admirer,  Leonard  Digges,  in  com- 
mendatory verses  before  the  First  FoKo  of  1623,  wrote 
that  Shakespeare's  works  would  be  alive  when 
Time  dissolves  thy  Stratford  monument. 

'  For  Alleyn's  will  see  Collier's  Alleyn  Papers,  pp.  xxi-xxvi,  and  for  the 
wills  of  many  other  contemporary  actors  see  Collier's  Lives  of  the  Actors. 


494  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

It  is  clear  that  before  the  year  1623,  possibly  some 
three  years  earlier,  the  monument  in  Shakespeare's 
^jjg  honour,   which  is   still   affixed   to   the  north 

Stratford  wall  of  the  chanccl  overlooking  his  grave, 
monument,  ^as  placed  in  Stratford  Church.  The  memorial 
was  designed  and  executed  in  Southwark  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  the  Globe  theatre,  and  it  thus  constitutes  a 
material  Hnk  between  Shakespeare's  professional  life 
on  the  Bankside  and  his  private  career  at  Stratford. 
'Gheeraert  Janssen,'  a  native  of  Amsterdam,  settled 
in  the  parish  of  St.  Thomas,  Southwark,  early  in  1567 
and  under  the  Anglicised  name  of  '  Garret  Johnson'  made 
a  high  reputation  as  a  tombmaker,  forming  a  clientele 
extending  far  beyond  his  district  of  residence.  In  1591 
he  received  the  handsome  sum  of  200/.  for  designing  a!nd 
erecting  the  elaborate  tombs  of  the  brothers  Edward 
Manners,  third  Earl  of  Rutland,  and  John  Manners, 
fourth  Earl,  which  were  set  up  in  the  church  at  Bottes- 
ford,  Leicestershire,  the  family  burying-place.^  The 
sculptor  died  in  St.  Saviour's,  parish,  Southwark,  in 
August  161 1,  dividing  his  estate  between  his  widow 
Mary  and  two  of  his  sons.  Garret  and  Nicholas.  They 
had  chiefly  helped  him  in  his  tombmaking  business, 
and  they  carried  it  on  after  his  death  with  much  of  his 
success.  Shakespeare's  tomb  came  from  the  Southwark 
stone-yard,  while  it  was  controlled  by  the  younger 
Garret  Johnson  and  his  brother  Nicholas.^    Nicholas 

'  Garret  Johnson's  work  at  Bottesford  is  fully  described  by  Lady 
Victoria  Manners  in  'The  Rutland  Monuments  in  Bottesford  Church,' 
Art  Journal,  1903,  pp.  288--9.  See  also  Rutland  Papers  {Hisi.  MSS. 
Comm.  Rip.),  iv.  397-9,  where  elaborate  details  are  given  of  the  con- 
veyance of  the  tombs  from  London;  EUer's  Hist,  of  Belvoir  Caitle,  1841, 
pp.  369  seq. 

2  The  -mil  of  Garret  Johnson,  'tombmaker'  of  St.  Saviour's  parish, 
dated  July  24,  1611,  and  proved  July  3,  161 2,  is  at  Somerset  House 
(P.C.C.  Penner  66).  His  burial  is  entered  in  St.  Saviour's  parish  register 
in  August  1611.  The  return  of  aliens  dated  in  1593  credits  him  with 
five  sons  of  ages  ranging  between  22  and  4,  and  with  a  daughter  aged  14; 
but  only  two  sons  are  mentioned  in  his  will,  which  was  apparently  made 
in  haste  on  the  point  of  death.  (Cf.  Kirk's  'Return  of  Aliens,'  Huguenot 
Sac.  Proceedings,  iii.  445.)    Dugdale  in  his  diary  noted  under  the  year 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  495 

was  by  far  the  better  artist  of  the  two.  He  continued 
his  father's  association  with  the  Rutland  faniily,  and 
designed  and  executed  in  1618-9  the  splendid  tomb 
which  commemorated  Roger  Manners,  fifth  Earl  of  Rut- 
land, and  his  Countess  (Sir  Philip  Sidney's  daughter)  at 
Bottesford.^  The  order  was  given  by  the  sixth  Earl 
of  Rutland  (brother  of  the  fifth  Earl),  with  whom  Shake- 
speare was  in  personal  relations  in  1613.  The  dramatist 
had  shared  the  Earl's  favour  with  the  sculptor.  Shake- 
speare's monument  was  designed  on  far  simpler  lines 
IJian  this  impressive  Bottesford  tomb,  and  the  main 
features  suggest  by  their  crudity  the  hand  of  Nicholas's 
brother  Garret,  though  some  of  the  subsidiary  ornament 
is  identical  with  that  of  Nicholas's  work  at  Bottesford 
Church  and  attests  his  partial  aid.  One  or  other  of  the 
Johnsons  had  lately,  too,  provided  for  St.  Saviour's 
Church  (now  Southwark  Cathedral)  a  tomb  of  a  design 
very  similar  to  that  of  Shakespeare's,  in  honour  of 
one  John  Bingham,  a  prominent  Southwark  parishioner, 
and  saddler  to  Queen  Elizabeth  and  James  I.^ 

The  poet's  monument  in  Stratford  Church  was  in 
tablet  form  and  was  coloured,  in  accordance  with  con- 
temporary practice.     It  presents  a  central  arch  flanked 

1653  that  Shakespeare's  and  Combe's  monuments  m  Stratford  Church 
were  both  the  work  of  'one  Gerard  Johnson'  {Diary,  ed.  Hamper,  1827, 
p.  2W),  but  the  editor  of  the  diary  knew  nothing  of  the  younger  Garret, 
and  by  identifying  the  sculptor  of  Shakespeare's  tomb  with  the  elder 
Garret  propounded  a  puzzle  which  is  here  solved  for  the  first  time. 

'Lady  Victoria  Manners'  'Rutland  Monuments'  'm  Art  Journal, 
1903,  pp.  33s  seq.,  and  Rutland  Papers,  iv.  pp.  517  and  519. 

2  Probably  Garret  and  Nicholas  Johnson  designed  the  effigies  in  South- 
wark Cathedral  of  Bishop  Lancelot  Andrewes  {d.  1626),  and  of  John 
Treheme  {d.  1618),  gentleman  porter  to  James  I,  together  with  that  of 
his  wife  Margaret  {d.  1645).  See  W.  Thompson's  Southwark  Cathedral, 
1910,  pp.  78,  121.  To  the  same  Johnson .  family  doubtless  belonged 
Bernard  Janssen  or  Johnson,  who  was  brought  to  England  in  1613  from 
Amsterdam  by  the  distinguished  English  monumental  sculptor  Nicholas 
Stone,  and  settling  in  Southwark  helped  Stone  in  much  important  work. 
Together  they  executed  in  1615  Thomas  Sutton's  tomb  at  the  Charter- 
house and  subsequently  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon's  tomb  in  Redgrave  Church, 
Suffolk.  See  A.  E.  Bullock's  Some  Sculptural  Works  of  Nicholas  Stone, 
1908. 


496  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

by  two  Corinthian  columns  which  support  a  cornice  and 
entablature.!  Within  the  arch  was  set  a  half-length 
figure  of  the  poet  in  reHef .  The  dress  consists  of 
Its  design.  ^  gcarlet  doublet,  slashed  and  loosely  buttoned, 
with  white  cuffs  and  a  turned-down  or  falling  white  collar. 
A  black  gown  hangs  loosely  about  the  doublet  from 
the  shoulders.  The  eyes  are  of  a  Hght  hazel  and  the  hair 
and  beard  auburn.  The  hands  rest  upon  a  cushion,  the 
right  hand  holding  a  pen  as  in  the  act  of  writing  and  the 
left  hand  resting  on  a  scroll.  Over  the  centre  of  the 
entablature  is  a  block  of  stone,  on  the  surface  of  which 
the  poet's  arms  and  crest  are  engraved,  and  on  a  ledge 
above  rests  a  full-sized  skull.  These  features  closely 
resemble  the  hke  details  in  Nicholas  Johnson's  tomb  of 
the  fifth  earl  of  Rutland  in  Bottesford  Church.  The 
stone  block  is  flanked  by  two  small  seated  nude  figures ; 
the  right  holds  a  spade  in  the  right  hand,  while  the 
other  figure  places  the  Hke  hand  on  a  skull  lying  at  its 
side  and  from  the  left  hand  droops  a  torch  reversed  with 
the  flame  extinguished.  Similar  standing  figures  with 
identical  emblematic  objects  surmount  the  outer  columns 
of  the  Rutland  monument,  and  Nicholas  Johnson  the 
designer  of  that  tomb  explained  in  his  'plot'  (or  descrip- 
tive plan)  that  the  one  figure  was  a  'portraiture  of  Labor,' 
and   'the  other   of  Rest.' ^    Beneath  the  arch  which 

'  The  pillars  were  of  marble,  the  ornaments  were  of  alabaster,  and 
the  rest  of  the  fabric  was  of  stone  which  has  been  variously  described  as 
a  '  soft  bluish  grey  stone,'  a  '  loose  freestone,'  a  '  soft  whitish  grey  lime- 
stone' (Mrs.  Stopes,  Shakespeare's  Environment,  pp.  117-8). 

^  Nicholas  Johnson's  'plot'  of  his  Rutland  monument  which  is  dated 
28  May  (apparently  1617)  is  extant  among  the  family  archives  at  Bel- 
voir  and  is  printed  in  full  by  Lady  Victoria  Manners  in  Art  Journal, 
1903,  pp.  335-6.  Like  figures  surmount  the  outer  columns  of  the  Sutton 
monument  at  the-  Charterhouse,  and  they  adorn,  as  on  Shakespeare's 
tomb,  the  cornices  of  Sir  William  Pope's  monument  in  Wroxtdn  Church 
(1633)  and  of  Robert  Kelway's  tomb  in  Exton  Church.  These  three 
monuments  were  designed  by  the  English  sculptor  Nicholas  Stone,  whose 
coadjutor  Bernard  Janssen  or  Johnson  of  Southwark  was  possibly  re- 
lated to  Nicholas  and  Garret  Johnson,  and  he  may  have  exchanged  sug- 
gestions with  his  kinsmen.  The  earUest  sketch  of  the  Shakespeare 
monument  is  among  Dugdale's  MSS.  at  Merevale,  and  is  dated  1634. 
Dugdale's  drawing  is  engraved  in  his  Antiquities  of  Warwickshire,  1656, 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  497 

holds  the  dramatist's  effigy  is  a  panel  which  bears  this 
inscription : 

Judicio  Pylium,  genio  Socratem,  arte  Maronem, 

Terra  tegit,  populus  maeret,  Olympus  habet. 
Stay  passenger,  why  goest  thou  by  so  fast? 
Read,  if  thou  canst,  whom  envious  death  hath  plast 
Within  this  monument ;   Shakspeare  with  whome 
Quick  nature  dide ;  whose  name  doth  deck  ys  tombe 
Far  more  then  cost;  sith  all  yt  he  hath  writt 
Leaves  living  art  but  page  to  serve  his  witt. 

Obiit  ano.  doi  1616  ^tatis  53  Die  23  Ap. 

The  authorship  of  the  epitaph  is  undetermined.  It 
was  doubtless  by  a  London  friend  who  belonged  to 
the  same  circle  as  William  Basse  or  Leonard  Thein- 
Digges,  whose  elegies  are  on  record  else-  scnption. 
where.  The  writer  was  no  superior  to  them  in  poetic 
capacity.  The  opening  Latin  distich  with  its  compari- 
son of  the  dramatist  to  Nestor,  Socrates,  and  Virgil 
echoes  a  cultured  convention  of  the  day,  while  the  suc- 
ceeding English  stanza  embodies  a  conceit  touching  art's 
supremacy  over  nature  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
spirit  of  the  Renaissance.^  Whatever  their  defects  of 
style,  the  lines  presented  Shakespeare  to  his  fellow- 
townsmen  as  the  greatest  man  of  letters  of  his  time. 
According  to  the  elegist,  literature  by  all  other  living 
pens  was,  at  the  date  of  the  dramatist's  death,  only  fit 
to  serve  'all  that  he  hath  writ'  as  'page'  or  menial.  In 
Stratford  Church,  Shakespeare  was  acclaimed  the  master- 
poet,  and  all  other  writers  were  declared  to  be  his  servants. 

It  differs  in  many  details,  owing  to  inaccurate  draughtsmanship,  from 
the  present  condition  of  the  monument.  For  discussion  of  the  varia- 
tions and  for  the  history  of  the  renovations  which  the  monument  is 
known  to  have  undergone  in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries, 
see  pp.  523-5  infra. 

'  The  epitaph  on  the  tomb  of  the  painter  Raphael  in  the  Pantheon 
at  Rome,  by  the  cultivated  Cardinal  Pietro  Bembo,  adumbrates  the 
words  'with  whom  quick  nature  dide'  in  Shakespeare's  epitaph: 

Hie  ille  est  Raphael,  metuit  qui  sospite  vinci 
Rerum  magna  parens,  et  moriente  mori 

(».«.  Here  lies  the  famous  Raphael,  in  whose  lifetime  great  mother  Nature  feared 
to  be  outdone,  and  at  whose  death  feared  to  die). 

2K 


498  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Some  misgivings  arose  in  literary  circles  soon  after 
Shakespeare's  death,  as  to  whether  he  had  received 
appropriate  sepulture.  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  the  greatest 
English  poet  of  pre-Elizabethan  times,  had  been  accorded 
a  grave  in  Westminster  Abbey  in  October  1400.  It 
was  association  with  the  royal  household  rather  than 
poetic  eminence  which  accounted  for  his  interment  in 
the  national  church.  But  in  155 1  the  services  to  poetry 
of  the  author  of  'The  Canterbury  Tales'  were  directly 
a,cknowledged  by  the  erection  of  a  monument  near  his 
grave  in  the  south  transept  of  the  Abbey.  When  the 
sixteenth  century  drew  to  a  close,  Chaucer's  growing 
fame  as  the  father  of  Enghsh  poetry  suggested  the 
propriety  of  burying  within  the  shadow  of  his  tomb  the 
eminent  poets  of  his  race.  On  January  16,  1598-9, 
Edmund  Spenser,  who  died  in  Kang  Street,  Westminster, 
and  had  apostrophised  '  Dan  Chaucer '  as '  well  of  English 
undefiled,'  was  buried  near  Chaucer's  tomb,  and  the 
occasion  was  made  a  demonstration  in  honour  of 
Shake-  his  poetic  faculty.  Spenser's  'hearse  was 
speareand  attended  by  poets,  and  mournful  elegies  and 
minster  pocms  with  the  pens  that  wrote  them  were 
Abbey.  thrown  into  his  tomb.'  ^  Some  seven  weeks 
before  Shakespeare  died,  there  passed  away  (on  March 
6,  1615-6)  the  dramatist,  Francis  Beaumont,  the  partner 
of  John  Fletcher.  Beaumont  was  the  second  Elizabethan 
poet  to  be  honoured  with  burial  at  Chaucer's  side.  The 
news  of  Shakespeare's  death  reached  London  after  the 
dramatist  had  been  laid  to  rest  amid  his  own  people  at 
Stratford.  But  men  of  letters  raised  a  cry  of  regret 
that  his  ashes  had  not  joined  those  of  Chaucer,  Spenser, 
and  Beaumont  in  Westminster  Abbey.  William  Basse, 
an  enthusiastic  admirer,  gave  the  sentiment  poetic 
expression  in  sixteen  lines  which  would  seem  to  have 
been  penned  some  three  or  four  years  after  Shakespeare's 
interment  at  Stratford.  The  dramatist's  monument  in 
the  church  there  was  already  erected,  and  the  elegist 
1  Camden's  Annals  of  Elizabeth,  i588  ed.  p.  565. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  499 

in  his  peroration  accepted  the  accomplished  fact, 
acknowledging  the  fitness  of  giving  Shakespeare's 
unique  genius  'unmolested  peace'  beneath  its  own 
'carved  marble,'  apart  from  fellow  poets  who  had  no 
claim  to  share  his  glory .^  An  echo  of  Basse's  argument 
was  impressively  sounded  by  a  more  famous  elegist. 
In  his  splendid  greeting  of  his  dead  friend  prefixed  to 
the  First  Folio  of  1623,  Ben  Jonson  reconciled  himself 
to  Shakespeare's  exclusion  from  the  Abbey  where  lay 
the  remains  of  Chaucer,  Spenser  and  Beaumont,  in  the 
great  apostrophe : 

My  Shakespeare,  rise !    I  will  not  lodge  thee  by 
Chaucer,  or  Spenser,  or  bid  Beaumont  lie 
A  little  further  to  make  thee  a  room. 
Thou  art  a  monument  without  a  tomb, 
And  art  alive  still,  while  thy  book  doth  live 
And  we  have  wits  to  read  and  praise  to  give. 

'  Basse's  elegy  runs  thus  in  the  earliest  extant  version : 

Renowned  Spencer  lye  a  thought  more  nye 

To  learned  Chaucer,  and  rare  Beaumond  lye 

A  little  neerer  Spenser,  to  make  roome 

For  Shakespeare  in  your  threefold,  fowerfold  Tombe. 

To  lodge  all  fowre  in  one  bed  make  a  shift 

Vntill  Doomesdaye,  for  hardly  will  a  fift 

Betwixt  ys  day  and  y*  by  Fate  be  slayne, 

For  whom  your  Curtaines  may  be  drawn  againe. 

If  your  precedency  in  death  doth  barre 

A  fourth  place  in  your  sacred  sepulcher, 

Vnder  this  earned  marble  of  thine  owne, 

Sleepe,  rare  Tragoediau,  Shakespeare,  sleep  alone; 

Thy  immolested  peace,  vnshared  Caue, 

Possesse  as  Lord,  not  Tenant,  of  thy  Graue, 

That  vnto  us  &  others  it  may  be 

Honor  hereafter  to  be  layde  by  thee. 

There  are  many. 17th  century  manuscript  versions  of  Basse's  lines. 
The  earUest,  probably  dated  1620,  is  in  the  British  Museum  (Lansdowne 
MSS.  777,  f.  676),  and  though  it  is  signed  William  Basse,  is  in  the  hand- 
writing of  the  pastoral  poet  William  Browne,  who  was  one  of  Basse's 
friends.  It  was  first  printed  in  Donne's  Poems,  1633,  but  was  withdrawn 
in  the  edition  of  1635.  Donne  doubtless  possessed  a  manuscript  copy, 
which  accidentally  found  its  way  into  manuscripts  of  his  own  verses. 
Basse's  poem  reappeared  signed  'W.  B.'  among  the  prefatory  verses 
to  Shakespeare's  Poems,  1640,  and  without  author's  name  in  Witts' 
Recreations,  edd.  1640  and  1641,  and  among  the  additions  to  Poems  by 
Francis  Beaumont,  1652.  (See  Basse's  Poetical  Works,  ed.  Warwick 
Bond,  pp.  113  seq.;  and  Century  of  Praise,  pp.  136  seq.) 


500  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Apart  from  Spenser  and  Beaumont,  only  two  poetic  con- 
temporaries, Shakespeare's  friends  Michael  Drayton  and 
Ben  Jonson,  received  the  honour,  which  the  dramatist 
was  denied,  of  interment  in  the  national  church.  Dray- 
ton at  the  end  of  1631  and  Ben  Jonson  on  August  16, 
1637,  were  both  buried  within  a  few  paces  of  the  graves 
of  Chaucer,  Spenser,  and  Beaumont.^  Although  Shake- 
speare slept  in  death  far  away,  Basse's  poem  is  as  con- 
vincing as  any  of  the  extant  testimonies,  to  the  national 
fame  which  was  allotted  Shakespeare  by  his  own  genera- 
tion of  poets. 

High  was  the  place  in  the  ranks  of  literature  which 
contemporary  authors  accorded  Shakespeare's  genius 
Personal  and  its  glorious  fruit.  Yet  the  impressions 
character,  ^yhich  his  personal  character  left  on  the  minds 
of  his  associates  were  those  of  simpHcity,  modesty,  and 
straightforwardness.  At  the  opening  of  Shakespeare's 
career  Chettle  wrote  of  his  'civil  demeanour'  and  of 
'his  uprightness  of  dealing  which  argues  his  honesty.' 
In  1 60 1  —  when  near  the  zenith  of  his  fame  —  he  was 
apostrophised  as  '  sweet  Master  Shakespeare '  in  the  play 
of  'The  Return  from  Parnassus,'  and  that  adjective  was 
long  after  associated  with  his  name.  In  1604  Anthony 
Scoloker,  in  the  poem  called  'Daiphantus,'  bestowed  on 
him  the  epithet  'friendly.'  After  the  close  of  his  career 
Ben  Jonson  wrote  of  him:  'I  loved  the  man  and  do 
honour  his  memory,  on  this  side  idolatry  as  much  as 
any.  He  was,  indeed,  honest  and  of  an  open  and  free 
nature.'  ^  No  more  definite  judgment  of  Shakespeare's 
individuality  was  recorded  by  a  contemporary.  His 
dramatic  work  is  essentially  impersonal,  and  fails  to 

'■  See  A.  P.  Stanley's  Historical  Memorials  of  Westminster  Abbey,  1869, 
pp.  295  seq. 

"  'Timber'  in  Works,  1641.  Jonson  seems  to  embody  a  reminiscence 
of  lago's  description  of  Othello : 

The  Moor  is  of  a  free  and  open  nature. 

That  thinks  men  honest  that  but  seem  to  be  so. 

{Othello,  I.  iii.  405-6.) 


THE   CLOSE  OF  LIFE  501 

betray  the  author's  idiosyncrasies.  The  'Sonnets,' 
which  alone  of  his  literary  work  have  been  widely 
credited  with  self-portraiture,  give  a  potent  illusion  of 
genuine  introspection,  but  they  rarely  go  farther  in  the 
way  of  autobiography  than  illustrate  the  poet's  readiness 
to  accept  the  conventional  bonds  which  attached  a  poet 
to  a  great  patron.  His  Uterary  practices  and  aims  were 
those  of  contemporary  men  of  letters,  and  the  difference 
in  the  quality  of  his  work  and  theirs  was  due  to  no  con- 
scious endeavour  on  his  part  to  act  otherwise  than  they, 
but  to  the  magic  and  involuntary  working  of  his  genius. 
He  seemed  unconscious  of  his  marvellous  superiority 
to  his  professional  comrades.  The  references  in  his 
will  to  his  fellow-actors,  and  the  spirit  in  which  (as.  they 
announced  in  the  First  FoHo)  they  approach  the  task  of 
collecting  his  works  after  his  death,  corroborate  the 
description  of  him  as  a  sympathetic  friend  of  gentle, 
unassuming  mien.  The  later  traditions  brought  to- 
gether by  John  Aubrey,  the  Oxford  antiquary,  depict 
him  as  'very  good  company,  and  of  a  very  ready  and 
pleasant  smooth  wit,'  and  other  early  references  suggest 
a  genial  if  not  a  convivial,  temperament,  Unked  to  a 
quiet  turn  for  good-humored  satire.  But  Bohemian 
ideals  and  modes  of  life  had  no  dominant  attraction  for 
Shakespeare.  His  extant  work  attests  the '  copious ' 
and  continuous  industry  which  was  a  common  feature  of 
the  contemporary  world  of  letters.^  With  Shakespeare's 
literary  power  and  his  sociability,  too,  there  clearly  went 
the  shrewd  capacity  of  a  man  of  business.  Pope  had 
just  warrant  for  the  surmise  that  he 

For  gain  not  glory  winged  his  roving  flight, 
And  grew  immortal  in  his  own  despite. 

His  literary  attainments  and  successes  were  chiefly  valued 
as  serving  the  prosaic  end  of  making  a  permanent  provi- 

'  John  Webster,  the  dramatist,  wrote  in  the  address  before  his  White 
DM  ini6i2  of '  the  right  happy  and  copious  industry  of  M.  Shakespeare, 
M.  Decker,  and  M.  Hejrwood.' 


502  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

sion  for  himself  and  his  daughters.  He  was  frankly 
ambitious  of  restoring  among  his  fellow-townsmen  the 
family  repute  which  his  father's  misfortunes  had  im- 
perilled. At  Stratford  in  later  life  he  loyally  conformed 
to  the  social  standards  which  prevailed  among  his  well- 
to-do  neighbours  and  he  was  proud  of  the  regard  which 
small  landowners  and  prosperous  traders  extended  to 
him  as  to  one  of  their  own  social  rank.  Ideals  so  homely 
are  reckoned  rare  in  poets,  but  Chaucer  and  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  among  writers  of  exalted  genius,  vie  with  Shake- 
speare in  the  sobriety  of  their  personal  aims  and  in  the 
sanity  of  their  mental  attitude  towards  life's  ordinary 
incidents. 


XXI 

SURVIVORS  AND  DESCENDANTS 

Of  Shakespeare's  three  brothers,  two  predeceased  him 
at  a  comparatively  early  age.     Edmund,  the  youngest 
brother,  'a  player,'  was  buried  at  St.  Saviour's  ghake- 
Church,  Southwark,  'with  a  forenoone  knell  of  -speare's 
the  great  bell, '  on  December  31,1 607  ;  he  was  in    ™"*®'^- 
his  twenty-eighth  year.     Richard,  John  Shakespeare's 
third  son,  died  at  Stratford  in  February  1612-3,  aged 
39.    The  dramatist's  next  brother  Gilbert  would  seem 
to  have  survived  him,  and  he  Uved  according  to  Oldys 
to  a  patriarchal  age ;  at  the  poet's  death  he  would  have 
reached  his  fiftieth  year.^    The  dramatist's  only  sister 
Mrs.  Joan  Hart  continued  to  reside  with  her  family  at 
Shakespeare's   Birthplace   in   Henley   Street  until   her 
death  in  November  1646  at  the  ripe  age  of  seventy- 
seven.    She  was  by  five  years  her  distinguished  brother's 
junior,  and  she  outKved  him  by  more  than  thirty  years. 
Shakespeare's  widow  (Anne)  died  at  New  Place  on 
August  6,  1623,  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven.^    She  sur- 
vived her  husband  by  some  seven  and  a  half  s^ake- 
years.    Her  burial  next  him  within  the  chancel  speare's 
took  place  two  days  after  her  death.     Some  '^  ''^' 
Latin  elegiacs  —  doubtless  from  the  pen  of  her  son-in- 

'  See  pp.  460-1  supra. 

'The  name  is  entered  in  the  parish  register  as  'Mrs.  Shakespeare] 
and  immediately  beneath  these  words  is  the  entry  'Anna  uxor  Richardi 
James.'  The  close  proximity  of  the  two  entries  has  led  to  the  very 
fanciful  conjecture  that  they  both  describe  the  same  person  and  that 
Shakespeare's  widow  Anne  was  the  wife  at  her  death  of  Richard  James. 
'Mrs!  Shakespeare'  is  a  common  form  of  entry  in  the  Stratford  register; 
the  word  'vidua'  is  often  omitted  from  entries  respecting  widows.  The 
terms  of  the  epitaph  on  Mrs.  Shakespeare's  tonib  refute  the  assumption 
that  she  had  a  second  husband. 

S03 


504  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

law  —  were  inscribed  on  a  brass  plate  fastened  to  the 
stone  above  her  grave.^  The  verses  give  poignant  ex- 
pression to  filial  grief. 

Shakespeare's  younger  daughter,  Judith,  long  resided 
with  her  husband,  Thomas  Quiney,  at  The  Cage,  a  house 
Mistress  ^^  ^^^  Bridge  Street  corner  of  High  Street, 
Judith  which  he  leased  of  the  Corporation  from  the 
Quiney.  j^^g  ^j  ^as  marriage  in  1616  till  1652.  There 
he  carried  on  the  trade  of  a  vintner,  and  took  some 
part  in  municipal  affairs.  He  acted  as  a  councillor  from 
1617,  and  as  chamberlain  in  1622-3.  ^^  the  local  rec- 
ords he, bears  the  cognomen  of  'gent.'  He  was  a  man 
of  some  education  and  showed  an  interest  in  French 
literature.  But  from  1630  onwards  his  affairs  were 
embarrassed,  and  after  a  long  struggle  with  poverty  he 
left  Stratford  late  in  1652  for  London.  His  brother 
-Richard,  who  was  a  flourishing  grocer  in  Bucklersbury, 
died  in  1656,  and  left  him  an  annuity  of  12I.  Thomas 
would  not  seem  to  have  long  survived  the  welcome  be- 
quest. By  his  wife  Judith  he  had  three  sons,  but  all 
died  in  youth  before  he  abandoned  Stratford.  The 
eldest,  Shakespeare,  was  baptised  at  Stratford  Church 
on  November  23,  1616,  and  was  buried  an  infant  in  the 
churchyard  on  May  8,  1617 ;  the  second  son,  Richard 
(baptised  on  February  9,  1617-18),  died  shortly  after 
his  twenty-first  birthday,  being  buried  on  February  26, 
1638-9 ;  and  the  third  son,  Thomas  (baptised  on  January 
23,  1619-20),  was  just  turned  nineteen  when  he  was 
buried  on  January  28,  1638-9.  Judith  outlived  her 
husband,  sons,  and  sister,  dying  at  Stratford  on  Feb- 
ruary 9,   1661-2,  in  her  seventy-seventh  year.    Unlike 

*  The  words  run:  'Heere  lyeth  interred  the  bodye  of  Anne,  wife  of 
Mr.  William  Shakespeare,  who  depted.  this  life  the  6th  day  of  August, 
1623,  being  of  the  age  of  67  yeares. 

Vbera,  tu,  mater,  tu  lac  vitamq.  dedisti, 

Vae  mihi ;  pro  tanto  munere  saxa  dabo. 
Quam  malletti,  amoueat  lapidem  bonus  Angel[us]  ore, 

Exeat  ut  Christi  Corpus,  imago  tua. 
Sed  nil  vota  valent ;  venias  cito,  Christe ;  resurget, 

Clausa  licet  tumulo,  mater,  et  astra  petet. 


SURVIVORS  AND   DESCENDANTS  505 

other  members  of  her  family,  she  was  not  accorded 
burial  in  the  chancel  of  the  church.  Her  grave  lay  in 
the  churchyard,  and  no  inscription  marked  its  site. 

The  poet's  elder  daughter,  Mrs.  Susanna  Hall,  resided 
till  her  death  at  New  Place,  her  father's  residence,  which 
she  inherited  under  his  will.  Her  only  child  Mr.  John 
Ehzabeth  married  on  April  22,  1626,  Thomas,  h^"- 
eldest  son  and  heir  of  Anthony  Nash  of  Welcombe,  the 
poet's  well-to-do  friend.  Thomas,  who  was  baptised 
at  Stratford  on  June  20,  1593,  studied  law  at  Lincoln's 
Inn,  but  soon  succeeded  to  his  father's  estate  at  Strat- 
ford and  occupied  himself  with  its  management.  After 
her  marriage  Mrs.  Nash  settled  in  a  house  which  adjoined 
New  Place  and  was  her  husband's  freehold.  Meanwhile 
the  medical  practice  of  her  father  John  Hall  still 
prospered  and  he  travelled  widely  on  professional 
errands.  The  Earl  and  Countess  of  Northampton, 
who  Kved  as  far  off  as  Ludlow  Castle,  were  among  his 
patients.^  Occasionally  he  visited  London,  where  he 
owned  a  house.  But  Stratford  was  always  his  home. 
In  municipal  affairs  he  played  a  somewhat  troubled  part. 
He  was  thrice  elected  a  member  of  the  town  council, 
but,  owing  in  part  to  his  professional  engagements,  his 
attendance  was  irregular.  In  October  1633,  a  year 
after  his  third  election,  he  was  fined  for  continued  ab- 
sence, and  he  was  ultimately  expelled  for  'breach  of 
orders,  sundry  other  misdemeanours  and  for  his  contin- 
ual disturbances '  at  the  meetings.  With  the  government 
of  the  church  he  was  more  closely  and  more  peace- 
ably associated.  He  was  successively  borough  church- 
warden, sidesman,  and  vicar's  warden,  and  he  presented  a 
new  hexagonal  and  well-carved  pulpit  which  did  duty  until 
1792.     Hall's  closest  friends  were  among  the  Puritan 

'  Drayton  was  not  his  only  literary  patient.  (See  p.  466  supra.) 
His  case-book  records  a  visit  to  Southam,  some  ten  miles  north  of  Strat- 
ford, where  he  attended  Thomas  'the  only  son  of  Mr.  [Francis]  Holy- 
oake,  who  framed  the  Dictionary'  {i.e.  Dictionarie  Etymologicall,  1617, 
enlarged  and  revised  as  Dictionarium  Etymologicum  Laiinum,  3  pts. 
4to.  1633).    Francis  Holyoake  was  rector  of  Southam  from  1604  to  1652, 


5o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

clergy,  but  he  reconciled  his  Puritan  sentiment  with  a 
kindly  regard  for  Roman  CathoHc  patients.  He  died  at 
New  Place  on  November  25,  1635,  when  he  was  described 
in  the  register  as  'medicus  peritissimus.'  He  was  buried 
next  day  in  the  chancel  near  the  graves  of  his  wife's 
parents.^  By  a  nuncupative  will,  which  was  dated  the 
day  of  his  death,  he  left  his  wife  a  house  in  London,  and 
his  only  child  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Thomas  Nash,  a  house 
at  Acton  and  'my  meadow.'  His  'goods  and  money' 
were  to  be  equally  divided  between  wife  and  daughter. 
His  'study  of  books'  was  given  to  his  son-in-law  Nash, 
'  to  dispose  of  them  as  you  see  good,'  and  his  manuscripts 
were  left  to  the  same  legatee  for  him  to  burn  them  or  'do 
with  them  what  you  please.'  'A  study  of  books'  im- 
phed  in  the  terminology  of  the  day  a  library  of  some  size. 
There  is  no  clue  to  the  details  of  Hall's  hterary  property 
apart  from  his  case-books,  with  which  his  widow  sub- 
sequently parted.  Whether  his  'study  of  books'  in- 
cluded Shakespeare's  Ubrary  is  a  question  which  there 
is  no  means  of  answering. 

Mrs.  HaU,  who  survived  her  husband  some  fourteen 
years,  was  designated  in  Ms  epitaph  'fidissima  conjux' 
jyj^g  and  'vitae  comes.'    As  wife  and  mother  her 

Susanna      character  was  above  reproach,  and  she  renewed 

^  ■  an  apparently  interrupted  intimacy  with  her 

mother's  family,  the  Hathaways,  which  her  daughter 
cherished  until  death.  With  two  brothers,  Thomas  and 
WiUiam  Hathaway  (her  first  cousins),  and  with  the 
former's  young  daughters,  she  and  her  daughter  were 
long  in  close  relations.     Through  her  fourteen  years' 

'  The  inscription  on  his  tombstone  ran :  Here  lyeth  ye  Body  of  John 
Halle  gent.  He  marr.  Susanna  daugh.  (co-heire)  of  WUl.  Shakespare 
gent.    Hee  deceased  Nove.  25.  A :  1635.    Aged  60. 

Hallius  hie  situs  est,  medica  celeberrimus  arte : 

Expectans  regni  gaudia  laeta  Dei ; 
Dignus  erat  meritis  qui  Nestora  vinceret  annis, 

In  terris  omnes  sed  rapit  aequa  dies. 
Ne  tumulo  quid  desit,  adest  fidissima  conjux, 

Et  vitae  comitem  nunc  quoq ;  mortis  habet. 


SURVIVORS  AND   DESCENDANTS  507 

widowhood,  Mrs.  Hall's  only  child,  Elizabeth,  resided 
with  Iher  under  her  roof,  and  until  his  death  her  son-in- 
law,  Thomas  Nash,  also  shared  her  hospitaUty.  Thomas 
Nash,  indeed,  took  control  of  the  household,  and  caused 
his  mother-in-law  trouble  by.  treating  her  property  as 
his  own.  On  the  death  in  1639  of  Mrs.  Hall's  nephew 
Richard  Quiney,  the  last  surviving  child  of  her  sister 
Judith,  her  son-in-law  induced  her  to  covenant  with  his 
wife  and  himself  for  a  variation  of  the  entail  of  the  prop- 
erty which  the  poet  had  left  Mrs.  Hall.  Save  the 
share  in  the  tithes,  which  she  and  HaU  had  sold  to  the 
corporation  in  1625,  all  Shakespeare's  realty  remained 
in  her  hands  intact.^  On  May  27,  1639,  Mrs.  Hall 
signed,  in  a  regular  well-formed  handwriting  with  her  seal 
appended,^  the  fresh  settlement,  the  terms  of  which,  while 
they  acknowledged  the  rights  of  her  daughter  Ehzabeth 
as  heir  general,  provided  that  after  her  death  in  the  event 
of  the  young  woman  predeceasing  her  husband  without 
child,  the  poet's  property  should  pass  to  the  'heires  and 
assignes  of  the  said  Thomas  Nash.'  The  poet's  sister, 
Joan  Hart,  who  was  still  living  at  Shakespeare's  Birth- 
place in  Henley  Street,  was  thus,  with  her  children, 
hypotheticaUy  disinherited.  But  public  affairs  also 
helped  to  disturb  Mrs.  Hall's  equanimity.  The  tumult 
of  the  Civil  Wars  invaded  Stratford.  On  July  10, 
1643,  Queen  Henrietta  Maria  left  Newark  with  an  army 
of  2000  foot,  1000  horse,  some  100  wagons,  and  a  train 
of  artillery.  The  Queen  and  her  escort  reached  Strat- 
ford on  the  nth,  and  Mrs.  Hall  was  compelled  to  enter- 
tain her  for  three  days  at  New  Place.  On  the  12  th  of 
the  month.  Prince  Rupert  arrived  with  another  army  of 

1  While  her  husband  lived,  Mrs.  Hall  and  he  regularly  paid  dues  or . 
fines  in  their  joint  names  to  the  manor  of  Rowington  in  respect  of  the 
cottage  and  land  in  Chapel  Lane,  which  the  poet  bought  in  1602.  _  After 
her  husband's  death  Mrs.  Hall  made  the  necessary  pajonents  in  her 
sole  name  until  her  death.  See  Dr.  Wallace's  extracts  from  the  manorial 
records  in  The  Times,  May  8,  1915. 

'The  seal  bears  her  husband's  arms,  three  talbot's  heads  erased, 
with  Shakespeare's  arms  impaled.  The  document  is  exhibited  in  Shake- 
speare's Birthplace  (fiat.  121). 


5o8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

2000  men,  and  next  day  he  conducted  the  Queen  to 
Kineton,  near  the  site  of  the  battle  of  Edgehill  of  the 
previous  year.  At  Kineton  the  Queen  met  the  King, 
and  a  day  later  the  two  made  their  triumphal  entry 
into  Oxford.  Stratford  soon  afterwards  passed  into  the 
control  of  the  army  of  the  ParHament,  and  Parliamen- 
tary soldiers  took  the  place  of  Royahsts  as  Mrs.  Hall's 
compulsory  guests.  In  1644,  when  Parhamentary  troops 
occupied  the  town,  James  Cooke,  a  doctor  of  Warwick 
who  was  in  attendance  on  them,  enjoyed  an  interesting 
interview  with  Mrs.  Hall.  A  friend  of  Mrs.  Hall's  late 
johnHaU's  husband  brought  him  to  her  house  in  order 
note-books,  jq  See  HaU's  books,  which  Nash  had  inherited. 
The  first  volumes  which  Cooke  examined  were  stated 
by  Mrs.  Hall  to  belong  to  her  husband's  library.  Sub- 
sequently she  produced  some  manuscripts,  which  she 
said  that  her  husband  had  purchased  of  'one  that  pro- 
fessed physic'  Cooke,  who  knew  her  husband's  apothe- 
cary and  had  thus  seen  his  handwriting,  recognised  in  Mrs. 
Hall's  second  collection  memoranda  in  Hall's  autograph. 
Mrs.  Hall  disputed  the  identification  with  an  unex- 
plained warmth.  Ultimately  Cooke  bought  of  her  some 
note-books  which  Hall  had  clearly  prepared  for  pubHca- 
tion.  The  contents  were  merely  a  selected  record  in 
Latin  of  several  hundred  (out  of  a  total  of  some  thousand) 
cases  which  he  had  attended.  Cooke  subsequently 
translated,  edited,  and  issued  Hall's  Latin  notes,  with  a 
preface  describing  his  interview  with  Shakespeare's 
daughter.^ 
Mrs.  Hall's  son-in-law,  Thomas  Nash,  died  on  April  4, 

1  The  full  title  of  Hall's  work  whicli  Cooke  edited  was:  'Select  Ob- 
servations on  English  Bodies,  or  Cures  both  Empericall  and  Historicall 
performed  upon  very  eminent  persons  in  desperate  Diseases.  First 
written  in  Latine  by  Mr.  John  Hall,  physician  living  at  Stratford-upon- 
Avon,  in  Warwickshire,  where  he  was  very  famous,  as  also  in  the  coun- 
ties adjacent,  as  appears  by  these  observations  drawn  out  of  severall 
hundreds  of  his,  as  choysest ;  Now  put  into  English  for  common  benefit 
by  James  Cooke  Practitioner  in  Physick  and  Chirurgery:  London, 
printed  for  John  Sherley,  at  the  Golden  Pelican  in  Little  Britain,  1657.' 
Other  editions  appeared  in  1679  and  1683. 


SURVIVORS  AND   DESCENDANTS  509 

1647,  and  was  buried  next  Shakespeare  in  the  chancel  of 
Stratford  Church  on  the  south  side  of  the  grave  xhe  will  of 
opposite  to  that  on  which  lay  the  dramatist's  Mrs.  Hall's 
wife.  Nash's  will,  which  was  dated  nearly  five  Thomas'''' 
years  before  (August  20,  1642)  and  had  a  Nash. 
codicil  of  more  recent  execution,  involved  Mrs.  Hall  and 
her  daughter  in  a  new  perplexity.  Nash,  who  was 
owner  of  the  house  adjoining  New  Place  and  of  much 
other  real  estate  in  the  town,  made  generous  provision  for 
his  wife,  and  by  the  codicil  he  left  sums  of  50/.  apiece  to 
his  mother-in-law,  and  to  Thomas  Hathaway  and  to 
Hathaway's  daughter  Elizabeth,  with  10/.  to  Judith 
another  of  Hathaway's  daughters  (all  relatives  of  the 
dramatist's  wife).  The  modest  sum  of  forty  shillings 
was  evenly  divided  between  his  sister-in-law,  Judith 
Quiney,  and  her  husband  Thomas  Quiney  'to  buy  them 
rings.'  But,  in  spite  of  these  proofs  of  family  affection, 
Nash  at  the  same  time  was  guilty  of  the  presumption  of 
disposing  in  his  will  of  Mrs.  Hall's  real  property  which 
she  had  inherited  from  her  father  and  to  which  he  had 
no  title.  His  only  association  with  Mrs.  Hall's  heritage 
was  through  his  wife  who  had  a  reversionary  interest  in  it. 
With  misconceived  generosity  he  left  to  his  first  cousin, 
Edward  Nash,  New  Place,  the  meadows  and  pastures 
which  the  dramatist  had  bought  of  the  Combes,  and  the 
house  in  Blackfriars.^  Complicated  legal  formalities 
were  required  to  defeat  Nash's  unwarranted  claim. 
Mother  and  daughter  resettled  all  their  property  on  them- 
selves, and  they  made  their  kinsmen  Thomas  and  Wil- 
liam Hathaway  trustees  of  the  new  settlement  (June  2, 
1647).  Both  ladies',  signatures  are  clear  and  bold.^ 
Legal  business  consequently  occupied  much  of  the  atten- 
tion of  Mrs.  Hall  and  Mrs.  Nash  during  the  last  two 
years  of  Mrs.  Hall's   life.     At   length   Edward  Nash, 

'  Thomas  Nash's  long  will  is  printed  in  extenso  in  Halliwell's  New 
Place,  pp.  117-24,  together  with  the  consequential  resettlements  of  his 
mother-in-law's  estate. 

*The  document  is  exhibited  in  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  (Cat.  122). 


5IO  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Thomas  Nash's  heir,  withdrew  his  pretensions  to  the  dis- 
puted estate  in  consideration  of  a  right  of  pre-emption  on 
Mrs.  Nash's  death.  The  young  widow  took  refuge  from 
her  difficulties  in  a  second  marriage.  On  June  5,  1649, 
she  became  the  wife  of  a  Northamptonshire  squire,  John 
Bernard  or  Barnard,  of  Abington,  hear  Northampton. 
The  wedding  took  place  at  the  village  of  Billesley,  four 
miles  from  Stratford. 

Within  a  little  more  than  a  month  of  her  marriage  (on 
July  II,  1649)  Mrs.  Bernard's  mother  died.  Mrs.  Hall's 
jyj^g  body  was  committed  to  rest  near  her  parents, 

Hall's  her  husband,  and  her  son-in-law  in  the  chancel 

^^  '  of  Stratford  Church.  A  rhyming  stanza, 
describing  her  as  'witty  above  her  sexe,'  was  engraved 
on  her  tombstone.     The  whole  inscription  ran : 

'Heere  lyeth  ye  body  of  Svsanna,  wife  to  John  Hall, 
Gent,  ye  davghter  of  WiUiam  Shakespeare,  Gent.  She 
deceased  ye  nth  of  Jvly,  a.d.  1649,  ^S^'^  66. 

'Witty  above  her  sexe,  but  that's  not  all, 
Wise  to  Salvation  was  good  Mistress  Hall ; 
Something  of  Shakespere  was  in  that,  but  this 
Wholy  of  Him  with  whom  she's  now  in  bUsse. 
Then,  passenger,  ha'st  ne're  a  teare, 

To  weepe  with  her  that  wept  with  all? 
That  wept,  yet  set  herselfe  to  chere 

Them  up  with  comforts  cordiaU. 
Her  Love  shall  live,  her  mercy  spread, 
When  thou  hast  ne're  a  tear  to  shed.'  ^ 

Mrs.  Hall's  death  left  her  daughter,  the  last  surviving 
descendant  of  the  poet,  mistress  of  New  Place,  of  Shake- 
speare's lands  near  Stratford,  and  of  the  Henley  Street 
property,  as  well  as  of  the  dramatist's  house  in  Black- 
friars. 
The  first  husband  of  Mrs.  Hall's  only  child  Elizabeth, 

'  One  Francis  Watts,  of  Rine  Clifford,  was  buried  beside  Mrs.  Hall 
in  1 69 1,  and  his  son  Richard  was  apparently  committed  to  her  grave  in 
1707.  The  elegy  on  Mrs.  Hall's  tomb  which  is  preserved  by  Dugdale 
was  erased  in  1707  in  order  to  make  way  for  an  epitaph  on  Ridiard 
Watts.  The  original  inscription  on  Mrs.  Hall's  grave  was  restored. in 
1844  (see  Samuel  Neil's  Home  of  Shakespeare,  1871,  p.  49). 


SURVIVORS  AND  DESCENDANTS  51 1 

Thomas  Nash  of  Stratford,  had  died,  as  we  have  seen, 
childless  at  New  Place  on  April  4,  1647,  and  on  ^j^^  j^^^^ 
June  5,  1649,  she  had  married,  as  her  second  descend- 
husband,  a  widower,  John  Bernard  or  Barnard,  ^'' 
of  Abington  Manor,  near  Northampton.  Bernard  or 
Barnard  was  of  a  good  family,  which  had  held  Abington 
for  more  than  two  hundred  years.  By  his  first  wife, 
who  died  in  1642,  Bernard  had  a  family  of  eight  children, 
four  sons  and  four  daughters ;  but  only  three  daughters 
reached  maturity  or  at  any  rate  left  issue.^  Shakespeare's 
granddaughter  was  forty-one  years  old  at  the  time  of  her 
second  marriage  and  her  new  husband  some  three  years 
her  senior.  They  had  no  issue.  Until  near  the  Resto- 
ration they  seem  to  have  resided  at  New  Place.  They 
then  removed  to  Abington  Manor,  and  Mrs.  Bernard's 
personal  association  with  Stratford  came  to  an  end.  On 
November  25,  1661,  Charles  II  created  her  husband  a 
baronet,  though  it  was  usual  locally  to  describe  him  as  a 
knight.  Lady  Bernard  died  at  Abington  in  the  middle 
of  February  1669-70,  and  was  buried  in  a  vault  under 
the  south  aisle  of  the  church  on  February  16,  1669-70. 
Her  death  extinguished  the  poet's  family  in  the  direct 
line.  Sir  John  Bernard  survived  her  some  four  years, 
dying  intestate  at  Northampton  on  March  3,  1673-4,  in 
the  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  age.  A  Latin  inscription  on 
a  stone  slab  in  the  south  aisle  of  Abington  Church  stiU 
attests  his  good  descent.^ 

'  These  daughters  were  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Henry  Gilbert,  of  Locko,  in 
Derbyshire;  Mary,  wife  of  Thomas  Higgs,  of  Colesbourne,  Gloucester- 
shire; and  Eleanor,  wife  of  Samuel  Cotton,  of  Henwick,  in  the  county  of 
Bedford  (Malone,  Variorum  Shakespeare,  ii.  625). 

'  No  inscription  marked  Lady  Bernard's  grave ;  but  the  follow- 
ing words  have  recently  been  cut  on  the  stone  commemorating  her 
husband:  'Also  to  Elizabeth,  second  wife  of  Sir  John  Bernard,  Knight 
(Shakespeare's  granddaughter  and  last  of  the  direct  descendants  of  the 
poet),  who  departed  this  life  on  the  17th  February  MDCLXIX.  Aged 
64  years.  Mors  est  janua  vitae.'  Bernard's  estate  was  administered  by 
his  two  married  daughters,  Mary  Higgs  and  Eleanor  Cotton,  and  his 
son-in-law  Henry  Gilbert  (cf.  Baker's  Northamptonshire,  vol.  i.  p.  10). 
The  post-mortem  inventory  of  his  'goods  and  chattels,'  dated  October  14, 
1674,  is  printed  from  the  original  at  Somerset  House  in  New  Shak.  Soc. 


512  '     WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

By  her  will,  dated  January  1669-70,  and  proved  in 
the  following  March,''  Lady  Bernard  gave  many  proofs 
Laj  of  her  affection  for  the  kindred  of  both  her 

Bernard's  grandfather  the  dramatist  and  of  his  wife,  her 
'^''  maternal  grandmother.     She  left  40I.  apiece  to 

Rose,  Elizabeth  and  Susanna  Hathaway,  and  50^.  apiece  to 
Judith  Hathaway  and  to  her  sister  Joan,  wife  of  Edward 
Kent.  All  five  ladies  were  daughters  of  Thomas  Hatha- 
way, of  the  family  of  the  poet's  wife.  To  Edward  Kent, 
a  son  of  Joan,  30/.  was  apportioned  '  towards  putting  him 
out  as  an  apprentice.'  The  two  houses  in  Henley  Street, 
one  of  which  was  her  grandfather's  Birthplace,  the  testa- 
trix bestowed  on  her  cousin,  Thomas  Hart,  grandson  of 
the  poet's  sister  Joan.^  Mrs.  Joan  Hart,  Shakespeare's 
widowed  sister,  had  hved  there  with  her  family  till  her 
death  in  1646,  and  Thomas  Hart,  her  son,  had  since  con- 
tinued the  tenancy  by  Lady  Bernard's  favour. 

By  a  new  settlement  (April  18,  1653),  Lady  Bernard 
had  appointed  Henry  Smith,  of  Stratford,  gent.,  and 
The  final  Job  Dighton,  of  the  Middle  Temple,  London, 
^f'sh°k^  esquire,  trustees  of  the  rest  of  the  estate  which 
speare's  she  inherited  through  her  mother  from 
estate.  'WilUam  Shackspeare  gent,  my  grandfather,'^ 
but  Smith  alqne  survived  her,  and  by  her  will,  and  in 
agreement  with  the  terms  of  the  recent  settlement, 
Lady  Bernard  directed  him  to  seU  New  Place  and  her 
grandfather's  land  at  Stratford  six  months  after  her  hus- 

Trans.  1881-6,  pp.  13!  seq.  The  whole  is  valued  at  948/.  10s.  'AU  the 
Bookes  in  the  studdy'  are  valued  at  29/.  ii.r.  'A  Rent  at  Stratford 
vpon  Avon'  is  described  as  worth  4I.,  and  'old  goods  and  Lumber  at 
Stratford  vpon  Avon'  at  the  same  sum.  Bernard's  house  and  grounds 
at  Abington  were  lately  acquired  by  the  Northampton  Corporation  and 
are  now  converted  into  a  public  museum  and  park. 

'  See  HalKwell-Phillipps's  Outlines,  ii.  62-3. 

''  See  p.  316  supra. 

'  This  deed  is  exhibited  at  Shakespeare's  Birthplace,  Cat.  124.  Lady 
Bernard's  trustee  Job  Dighton  became  in  1642  guardian  of  Henry  Rains- 
ford  of  Clifford  Chambers,  son  and  heir  of  the  second  Sir  Henry,  and 
before  1649  he  acquired  all  the  Rainsford  estate  about  Stratford.  He 
died  in  1659.  (Bristol  and  Gloucester  Archceolog.  Soc.  Journal,  i.  889- 
90,  xiv.  70  seq^) 


SURVIVORS  AND  DESCENDANTS  513 

band's  death.  The  first  option  of  purchase  was  allowed 
Edward  Nash,  her  first  husband's  cousin,  and  a  second 
option  was  offered  her  'loving  kinsman,  Edward  Bagley, 
citizen  of  London,'  whom  she  made  her  executor  and  re- 
siduary legatee.^  Shakespeare's  house  in  Blackfriars  was 
burnt  in  the  Great  Fire  of  London  in  1666,  and  the  site 
now  appears  to  have  passed  to  Bagley.  Neither  he  nor 
Edward  Nash  exercised  their  option  in  regard  to  Lady 
Bernard's  Stratford  property,  and  both  New  Place  and 
the  land  adjoining  Stratford  which  Shakespeare  had  pur- 
chased of  the  Conibes  were  sold  on  May  18,  1675,  to  Sir 
Edward  Walker,  Garter  King-of-Arms.  His  only  child, 
Barbara,  was  wife  of  Sir  John  Clopton,  of  Clopton  House, 
near  Stratford,  a  descendant  of  the  first  bmlder  of  New 
Place.  Sir  Edward  sought  a  residence  near  his  daughter 
and  her  family.  He  died  at  New  Place  on  February  19, 
1676-7,  and  he  left  the  Shakespearean  house  and  estate 
to  his  eldest  grandchild,  Edward  Clopton,  who  inhabited 
New  Place  untU  May  1699.  In  that  month  Edward 
Clopton  surrendered  the  house  to  Sir  John  his  father.^ 
In  1702  Sir  John  pulled  down  the  original  building,  and 
rebuilt  it  on  a  larger  scale,  settling  the  new  house  on  his 
second  son,  Hugh  Clopton  (b.  1672).  Hugh  was  promi- 
nent in  the  affairs  of  the  town.  He  became  steward  of 
the  Court  of  Record  in  1699  and  was  knighted  in  1732. 
He  died  at  New  Place  on  December  28,  1751.'  In  1753 
Sir  Hugh's  son-in-law  and  executor,  Henry  Talbot,  sold 
the  residence  and  the  garden  to  a  stranger,  Francis 
Gastrell,  vicar  of  Frodsham,  Cheshire,  who  was  seeking 
a  summer  residence.  Gastrell's  occupation  of  New 
Place  had  a  tragic  sequel.    A  surly  temper  made  him  a 

_ '  No  clue  has  been  found  to  Lady  Bernard's  precise  lineal  tie  either 
with  her  'kinsman'  Bagley,  or  with  another  of  her  legatees,  Thomas 
WeUes  of  Carleton,  Bedfordshire,  whom  she  describes  as  her  'cousin.' 

^  Edward  Clopton  removed  next  door,  to  Nash's  house,  which  he 
occupied  till  T70S.  To  the  garden  of  Nash's  house  he  added  the  great 
garden  of  New  Place.  Hugh  Clopton,  the  occupant  and  owner  of  New 
Place,  did  not  recover  possession  of  Shakespeare's  great  garden  till  1728. 

'  He  had  some  literary  proclivities,  and  published  in  1705  a  new  edi- 
tion of  Sir'Edward  Walker's  Historical  Discourses. 


514  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

difficult  neighbour.  He  was  soon  involved  in  serious 
disputes  with  the  town  council  on  a  question  of  assess- 
ment. By  way  of  retaliation  in  the  autumn  of  1758  he 
cut  down  the  celebrated  mulberry  tree,  which  was  planted 
near  the  house.i  g^t  the  quarrel  was  not 
Kdoifor"  abated,  and  in  1 759  in  a  fresh  fit  of  temper 
New  Place,  Gastrell  razed  New  Place  to  the  ground.  After 
'"'■  disposing  of  the  materials,  he  'left  Stratford, 

amidst  the  rages  and  curses  of  the  inhabitants.'  ^    The 
site  of  New  Place  has  thenceforth  remained  vacant. 

In  March  1762,  Gastrell,  who  thenceforth  hved  at 
Lichfield  in  a  house  belonging  to  his  wife,  leased  the 
The  public  desolate  site  of  New  Place  with  the  garden  to 
purchase  William  Hunt,  a  resident  of  Stratford.  The 
pia^r  iconoclastic  owner  died  at  Lichfield_  in  1768, 
estate.  leaving  his  Stratford  property  to  his  widow, 
Jane,  who  sold  it  to  Hunt  in  1775.  The  subsequent 
succession  of  private  owners  presents  no  points  of  in- 
terest. The  vacant  site,  with  the  'great  garden'  at- 
tached, was  soon  "annexed  to  the  garden  of  the  adjoining 
(Nash's)  house.  In  1862  the  whole  of  the  property, 
including  Nash's  house  and  garden,  was  purchased  by  a 
public  subscription,  which  was  initiated  by  James  Orchard 
HalHwell-PhiUipps,  the  biographer  of  Shakespeare.  New 
Place  gardenwas  converted  into  a  public  garden  and  a  small 
portion  of  Nash's  house  was  employed  as  a  Museum. 

'  See  p.  288  n.  2  supra. 

2  Cf.  Halliwell's  New  Place;  R.  B.  Whaler's  Stratford-on-Avon.  A 
contemporary  account  of  Gastrell's  vandalism  by  a  visitor  to  Stratford 
in  1760  runs  thus :  'There  stood  here  till  lately  the  house  in  which  Shake- 
speare Uved,  and  a  mulberry  tree  of  his  planting ;  the  house  was  large, 
strong,  and  handsome.  As  the  curiosity  of  this  house  and  tree  brought 
much  fame,  and  more  company  and  profit,  to  the  town,  a  certain  man, 
on  some  disgust,  has  pulled  the  house  down,  so  as  not  to  leave  one  stone 
upon  another,  and  cut  down  the  tree,  and  piled  it  as  a  stack  of  firewood, 
to  the  great  vexation,  loss  and  disappointment  of  the  inhabitants'  (Letter 
from  a  lady  to  her  friend  in  Kent  in  The  London  Magazine,  July  1760). 
According  to  BosweU  {Life  of  Johnson)  Gastrell's  wife  'participated  in 
his  guilt.'  She  was  sister  of  Gilbert  Walmisley  of  Lichfield,  a  man  of 
cultivation  who  showed  much  interest  in  Johnson  and  Garrick  in  their 
youth,  and  whose  memory  they  always  revered. 


SURVIVORS  AND  DESCENDANTS  515 

In  1891  the  New  Place  estate  was  conveyed  by  Act  of 
Parliament  to  the  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  Trustees. 
In  1912  the  trustees  renovated  Nash's  house,  which  in 
the  course  of  two  centuries  of  private  ownership  had 
undergone  much  structural  change  and  disfigurement. 
Surviving  features  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  freed  of 
modern  accretions  and  the  fabric  was  restored  in  all 
essentials  to  its  Elizabethan  condition.  The  whole  of 
Nash's  house  was  thenceforth  applied  to  public  uses. 


XXII 

AUTOGRAPHS,  PORTRAITS,  AND   MEMORIALS 

The  only  extant  specimens  of  Shakespeare's  handwriting 
that  are  of  undisputed  authenticity  consist  of  the  six 
The  relics  autograph  signatures  which  are  reproduced  in 
of  Shake-  this  volume.  To  one  of  these  signatures  there 
hanT'  are  attached  the  words  'By  me.'  But  no 
writing.  other  reUc  of  Shakespeare's  handwriting  outside 
his  signatures  —  no  letter  nor  any  scrap  of  his  literary 
work  —  is  known  to  be  in  existence.  The  ruin  which 
has  overtaken  Shakespeare's  writings  is  no  peculiar 
experience.  Very  exiguous  is  the  fragment  of  Eliza- 
bethan or  Jacobean  literature  which  survives  in  the 
authors'  autographs.  Barely  forty  plays,  and  many  of 
those  of  post-Shakespearean  date,  remain  accessible  in 
contemporary  copies ;  and  all  but  five  or  six  of  these  are 
in  scriveners'  handwriting.  Dramatic  manuscripts,  which 
were  the  property  of  playhouse  managers,  habitually  suf- 
fered the  fate  of  waste-paper.^  Non-dramatic  literature 
of  the  time  ran  hardly  smaller  risks,  and  autograph  relics 
of  Elizabethan  or  Jacobean  poetry  and  prose  are  little 
more  abundant  than  those  of  plays.  Ben  Jonson  is  the 
only  literary  contemporary  of  Shakespeare,  of  whose  hand- 
writing the  surviving  specimens  exceed  a  few  scraps.  Of 
the  voluminous  fruits  of  Edmund  Spenser's  pen,  nothing 
remains  in  his  handwriting  save  one  holograph  business 
note,  and  eight  autograph  signatures  appended  to  business 
documents  —  all  of  which  are  in   the  PubUc  Record 

'  See  pp.  547,  558  infra.  Of  the  3000  separate  plays,  which  it  is  es- 
timated were  produced  on  the  stage  between  1586  and  1642,  scarcely 
more  than  one  in  six  is  even  preserved  in  print.  The  residue,  which 
far  exceeds  2000  pieces,  has  practically  vanished. 

S16 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  517 

Office.  The  MSS.  of  the  'Faerie  Queene'  and  of  Spen- 
ser's other  poems  have  perished.  Shakespeare's  script 
enjoyed  a  better  fate  than  that  of  Christopher  Mar- 
lowe, his  tutor  in  tragedy,  of  John  Webster,  his  chief 
disciple  in  the  tragic  art,  and  of  many  another  Eliza- 
bethan or  Jacobean  author  or  dramatist  no  scrap  of  whose 
writing,  not  even  a  signature,  has  been  traced.^ 

The  six  extant  signatures  of  Shakespeare  all  belong  to 
his  latest  years,  and  no  less  than  three  of  them  were  at- 
tached to  his  will,  which  was  executed  within  Thesk 
a  few  days  of  his  death.  The  earliest  extant  signatures, 
autograph  (Willm  Shak'p')  is  that  afl&xed  to  '^""^• 
his  deposition  in  the  suit  brought  by  Stephen  Bellott 
against  his  father-in-law,  Christopher,  Montjoy,  in  the 

Court  of  Requests.  The  document,  which  bears  the 
date  May  11,  1612,  is  in  the  Public  Record  Office  and  is 
on  exhibition  in  the  museum  there.^ 

'  It  is  curious  to  note  that  MoliSre,  the  great  French  dramatist,  whose 
career  (1623-1673)  is  a  little  nearer  to  our  own  time  than  Shakespeare's, 
left  behind  him  as  scanty  a  store  of  autograph  memorials.  The  only 
extant  specimens  of  Moliere's  handwriting  (apart  from  mere  autographs) 
consist  of  two  brief  formal  receipts  for  sums  of  money  paid  him  on  ac- 
count of  professional  services  dated  respectively  in  1650  and  1656. 
Both  were  discovered  comparatively  recently  (in  1873  ^■nd  1885  respec- 
tively) in  the  departmental  archives  of  the  H&ault  by  the  archivist 
there,  M.  de  la  Pijardiere.  Several  detached  signatures  of  the  French 
playwright  appended  to  legal  documents  are  also  preserved.  One  of 
these  is  exhibited  in  the  British  Museum.  No  scrap  of  Moliere's  literary 
work  in  his  own  writing  survives.  (See  H.  M.  Trollope's  Lije  of  Moliere, 
190S,  pp.  105-117.) 

'  See  p.  277  n.  supra.  The  signature  to  the  deposition  of  May  11, 
i6i2,  has  symbols  of  abbreviation  in  the  surname,  in  place  both  of  the 
middle  's'  or  'es'  and  of  the  final  letters  'ere'  or  'eare.'  It  was  common 
for  the  syllable  '-per'  or  '-pere'  to  be  represented  in  contemporary  sig- 
Mtures  by  a  stroke  or  loop  about  the  lower  stem  of  the  'p.'  Many 
surviving  autographs  of  the  surnames  'Draper,'  'Roper,'  'Cowper,' 
present  the  identical  curtailment. 


5i8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  second  extant  autograph  is  affixed  to  the  purchase- 
deed  (on  parchment),  dated  March  lo,  1612-3,  of  the 
house  in  Blackfriars,  which  the  poet  then  acquired. 
Since  1841  the  document  has  been  in  the  Guildhall 
Library,  London. 

The  third  extant  autograph  is  affixed  to  a  mortgage- 
deed  (on  parchment),  dated  March  11, 161 2-3,  relating  to 
the  house  in  Blackfriars,  purchased  by  the  poet  the  day 
before.  Since  1858  the  document  has  been  in  the  Brit- 
ish Museum  (Egerton  MS.  1787). 

The  poet's  will  was  finally  executed  in  March  1615-6. 
The  day  of  the  month  is  uncertain ;  the  original  draft 
gave  the  date  as  January  .25,  but  the  word  January  was 
deleted,  and  the  word  March  interUneated  before  the 
will  was  executed.  Shakespeare's  will  is  now  at  Somer- 
set House,  London.  It  consists  of  three  sheets  of  paper, 
at  the  foot  of  each  of  which  Shakespeare  signed  his 
name;  on  the  last  sheet  the  words  'By  me'  in  the  poet's 
handwriting  precede  the  signature.^ 

Other  signatures  attributed  to  Shakespeare  are  either 
of  questionable  authenticity  or  demonstrable  forgeries. 
Doubtful  Fabrications  appear  on  the  preliminary  pages 
signatures,  gf  many  sixteenth  or  early  seventeenth  century 
books.  Almost  all  are  the  work  of  WiUiam  Henry 
Ireland,  the  forger  of  the  late  eighteenth  century.^    In 

•  Shakespeare's  will  is  kept  in  a  locked  oaken  box  in  the  'strong 
room'  of  the  Principal  Probate  Registry  [at  Somerset  House].  'Each  of 
the  three  sheets  of  which  the  will  consists  has  been  placed  in  a  separate 
locked  oaken  frame  between  two  sheets  of  glass.  The  paper,  which 
had  suffered  from  handling,  has  been  mended  with  pelure  d'oignon,  or 
some  such  transparent  material,  and  fixed  to  the  glass.  The  work  ap- 
pears to  have  been  carried  out  above  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago.  The 
sheets  do  not  appear  to  have  been  damaged  by  dampness  or  dust  since 
they  were  framed  and  mended,  though  the  process  of  mending  has 
darkened  the  front  of  the  sheet  in  places.  Every  care  is  now  taken 
of  the  will.  Visitors  are  only  allowed  to  inspect  it  in  the  "strong  room." 
A  sloping  desk  has  been  fixed  near  the  recess  occupied  by  the  box  which 
holds  the  three  frames,  and  the  frames  are  exhibited  to  visitors  on  the 
desk.  The  frames  are  never  unlocked.  Permission  is  given  to  photo- 
graph the  wiE  under  special  precautions.'  (See  Royal  Commission  on 
Public  Records,  Second  Report,  1914,  vol.  ii.  pt.  ii.  p.  137.) 

2  See  p.  647  infra. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  519 

the  case  of  only  two  autograph  book-inscriptions  has  the 
genuineness  been  seriously  defended  and  in  neither  in- 
stance is  the  authenticity  established.  The  genuineness 
of  the  autograph  signature  ('W"  Sh®')  in  the  Aldine 
edition  of  Ovid's  'Metamorphoses'  at  the  Bodleian  Li- 
brary, Oxford,  remains  an  open  question.^  Much  has 
been  urged,  too,  in  behalf  of  the  signature  in  a  copy  of 
the  1603  edition  of  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne's 
Essays  now  at  the  British  Museum.  The  alleged  auto- 
graph, which  runs  'Willin  Shakspere,'  is  known  to  have 
been  in  the  volume  when  it  was  in  the  possession  of  the 
Rev.  Edward  Patteson,  of  Smethwick,  Staffordshire, 
in  1780.  Sir  Frederick  Madden,  Keeper  of  Manuscripts, 
purchased  the  book  for  the  British  Museum  of  Patteson's 
son  for  140/.  in  1837.  In  a  paper  in  'Archaeologia' 
(published  as  a  pamphlet  in  1838),  Madden  vouched  for 
Uie  authenticity,  but,  in  spite  of  his  authority,  later 
scrutiny  inclines  to  the  theory  of  fabrication. 

Ii^  all  the  authentic  signatures  Shakespeare  used  the 
old  'English'  mode  of  writing,  which  resembles  that  still 
in  vogue  in  Germany.  During  the  seventeenth  His  mode ' 
century  the  old  'English'  character  was  finally  of  writing, 
displaced  in  England  by  the  'Italian'  character,  which 
is  now  universal  in  England  and  in  all  English-speaking 
countries.  In  Shakespeare's  day  highly  educated  men, 
who  were  graduates  of  the  Universities  and  had  travelled 
abroad  in  youth,  were  capable  of  writing  both  the  old 
'English'  and  the  'Italian'  character  with  equal  facility. 
As  a  rule  they  employed  the  'English'  character  in  their 
ordinary  correspondence,  but  signed  their  names  in 
the  'Italian'  hand.  Shakespeare's  exclusive  use  of  the 
'English'  script  was  doubtless  a  result  of  his  provincial 
education.  He  learnt  only  the  'Enghsh'  character  at 
school  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  and  he  never  troubled  to 
exchange  it  for  the  more  fashionable  'Italian'  character 
in  later  life. 

Men  did  not  always  spell  their  surnames  in  the  same 

'See  pp.  20-1  supra. 


520  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

way  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  The 
s  eiiin  of  poet's  sumame  has  been  proved  capable  of 
the  poet's  as  many  as  four  thousand  variations.^  The 
°^'^^'  name  of  the  poet's  father  is  entered  sixty-six 
times  in  the  Council  books  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  and  is 
spelt  in  sixteen  ways.  There  the  commonest  form  is 
'Shaxpeare.'  The  poet  caimot  be  proved  to  have  ac- 
knowledged any  finahty  as  to  the  spelling  of  his  surname. 
It  is  certain  that  he  wrote  it  indifferently  Shakspere, 
Shakespere,  Shakespear  or  Shakspeare.  In  these  cir- 
cumstances it  is  impossible  to  credit  any  one  form  of 
spelling  with  a  supreme  claim  to  correctness. 

Shakespeare's  surname  in  his  abbreviated  signature 
to  the  deposition  of  1612  (WiUm  Shak'p')  may  betrans- 
rp^g  hterated  either  as  'Shaksper'  or  'Shakspere.' 

autograph  The  sumamc  is  given  as  '  Shakespeare '  wherever 
speUmgs.  -^  jg  introduced  into  the  other  records  of  the 
litigation.  The  signature  to  the  purchase-deed  of  March 
10,  1612-3,  should  be  read  as  'William  Shakspere.'  A 
flourish  above  the  first  '  e '  is  a  cursive  mark  of  abbrevi- 
ation which  was  well  known  to  professional  scribes,  and 
did  duty  here  for  an  unwritten  final  'e.'  The  signature 
to  the  mortgage-deed  of  the  following  day,  March  11, 
16 1 2-3,  has  been  interpreted  both  as  'Shakspere'  and 
'Shakspeare.'  The  letters  following  the  'pe'  are  again 
indicated  by  a  cursive  flourish  above  the  'e.'  The 
flourish  has  also  been  read  less  satisfactorily  as  'a'  or 
even  as  a  rough  and  ready  indication  that  the  writer  was 
hindered  from  adding  the  final '  re '  by  the  narrowness  of 
the  strip  of  parchment  to  which  he  was  seeking  to  restrict 
his  handwriting.  In  the  body  of  both  deeds  the  form 
'Shakespeare'  is  everywhere  adopted. 

The  ink  of  the  first  signature  which  Shakespeare  ap- 
pended to  his  will  has  now  faded  almost  beyond  recog- 
nition, but  that  it  was  'Shakspere'  may  be  inferred 
from  the  facsimile  made  by  George  Steevens  in  1776. 

'  Wise,  Autograph  of  William  Shakespeare  .  .  .  together  with  4000  ways 
of  spelling  the  name.    Philadelphia,  1869. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  521 

The  second   and   third   signatures  to  the  will,  which 
are  easier   to   decipher,  have   been   variously  ^^^^ 
read  as  'Shakspere,'  'Shakspeare,'  and  'Shake-  graphs  in 
speare' ;  but  a  close  examination  suggests  that,  *''^ '''•'• 
whatever  the  second  signature  may  be,  the  third,  which 
is  preceded  by  the  two  words  'By  me'  (also  in  the  poet's 
handwriting),  is  ' Shakspeare.'    In  the  text  of  the  instru- 
ment the  name  appears  as  'Shackspeare.'     'Shakspere' 
is  the  spelling  of  the  alleged  autograph  in  the  British 
Museum  copy  of  Florio's  'Montaigne,'  which  is  of  dis- 
putable aulJienticity. 

.  It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  'Shakespeare'  was  the 
form  of  the  poet's  surname  that  was  adopted  in  the  text 
of  most  of  the  legal  documents  relating  to  the 
poet's  property,  including  the  royal  license  speare'' the 
granted  to  him  in  the  capacity  of  a  player  in  accepted 
1603.  That  form  is  to  be  seen  in  the  inscrip-  °™' 
tions  on  the  graves  of  his  wife,  of  his  daughter  Susanna, 
and  of  her  husband,  although  in  the  rudely  cut  in- 
scription on  his  own  monument  his  name  appears  as 
'Shakspeare.'  'Shakespeare'  figures  in  the  poet's 
printed  signatures  affixed  by  his  authority  to  the  dedi- 
catory epistles  in  the  original  editions  of  his  two  narrative 
poems  'Venus  and  Adonis'  (1593)  and  'Lucrece'  (1594) ; 
it  is  seen  on  the  title-pages  of  the  Sonnets  and  of 
twenty-two  out  of  twenty-four  contemporary  quarto 
editions  of  the  plays,^  and  it  alone  appears  in  the 
sixteen  mentions  of  the  surname  in  the  prehminary 
pages  of  the  First  Folio  of  1623.  The  form  ' Shakespeare' 
was  employed  in  almost  all  the  published  references  to 
the  dramatist  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Consequently, 
of  the  form  'Shakespeare'  it  can  be  definitely  said 
that  it  has  the  predominant  sanction  of  legal  and 
literary  usage. 
^    Aubrey  reported  that -Shakespeare  was  'a  handsome 

'  The  two  exceptions  are  Love's  Labour's  Lost  (1598),  where  the  sur- 
name is  given  as  'Shakespere'  and  King  Lear  {1608,  ist  edition),  where 
the  surname  appears  as  'Shakspeare.' 


522  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

well-shap't  man,'  but  no  portrait  exists  which  can  be 
Shake-  ^^^^  ^^^  absolute  certainty  to  have  been 
speare's  executed  during  his  lifetime.  Only  two  por- 
portraits.  ^j-aits  are  positively  known  to  have  been  pro- 
duced within  a  short  period  of  his  death.  These  are  the 
bust  of  the  half-length  effigy  in  Stratford  Church  and  the 
frontispiece  to  the  folio  of  1623.  Each  was  an  attempt 
at  a  posthumous  likeness  by  an  artist  of  no  marked  skill. 

The  bust  was  executed  the  earlier  of  the  two.  It  was 
carved  before  1623,  by  Garret  Johnson  the  yoimger  and 
y^^  his    brother    Nicholas,    the    tombmakers,    of 

Stratford  Southwark.  The  sculptors  may  have  had 
monument.  gQj^jg  personal  knowledge  of  the  dramatist ;  but 
they  were  mainly  dependent  on  the  suggestions  of  friends. 
The  Stratford  bust  is  a  clumsy  piece  of  work.  The 
bald  domed  forehead,  the  broad  and  long  face,  the 
plump  and  rounded  chin,  the  long  upper  Hp,  the  fuU 
cheeks,  the  massed  hair  about  the  ears,  combine  to  give 
the  burly  countenance  a  mechanical  and  unintellectual 
expression. 

The  Warwickshire  antiquary.  Sir  William  Dugdale, 
visited  Stratford  on  July  4,  1634,  and  then  made  the 
Dugdaie's  earliest  surviving  sketch  of  the  monument. 
sketch.  Dugdaie's  drawing  figures  in  autograph  notes 
of  his  antiquarian  travel  which  are  still  preserved  at 
Merevale.  It  was  engraved  in  the  'Antiquities  of  War- 
wickshire' (1656),  and  was  reproduced  without  alteration 
in  the  second  edition  of  that  great  work  in  1730.  Owing 
to  Dugdaie's  unsatisfactory  method  of  dehneation  both 
effigy  and  tomb  in  his  sketch  differ  materially  from  their 
present  aspect.^    He  depended  so   completely  on  his 

'■  The  countenance  is  emaciated  instead  of  plump,  and,  while  the 
forehead  is  bald,  the  face  is  bearded  with  drooping  moustache.  The 
arms  are  awkwardly  bent  outwards  at  the  elbows,  and  the  hands  lie 
lightly  with  palms  downwards  on  a  large  cushion  or  well-stuffed  sack. 
Dugdaie's  presentation  of  the  architectural  features  of  the  monument 
apart  from  the  portrait-figure  also  varies  from  the  existing  form.  In 
Dugdaie's  sketch  the  two  little  nude  figures  sit  poised  on  the  extreme 
edge  of  the  cornice,  one  at  each  end,  instead  of  attaching  themselves 
without  any  intervening  space  to  the  heraldically  engraved  block  of 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  523 

memory  that  little  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the  fidelity 
of  his  draughtsmanship  in  any  part  of  his  work.  The 
drawing  of  the  Carew  monument  in  Stratford  Church 
in  his  'Antiquities  of  Warwickshire'  varies  quite  as  widely 
from  the  existing  structure  as  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare's 
tomb.^  The  figures,  especially,  in  all  his  presentations 
of  sculptured  monuments  are  sketchily  vague  and  fanci- 
ful. Dugdale's  engraving  was,  however,  literally  re- 
produced in  Rowe's  edition  of  Shakespeare,  1709,  and  in 
Grignion's  illustration  in  Bell's  edition  of  Shakespeare, 
1786. 

Later   eighteenth-century  engravers  were  more   ac- 
curate delineators,  but  they  were  not  wholly  proof  against 
the  temptation  to  improve  on  their  models,  vertue's 
In  1725  George  Vertue,  whose  artistic  skill  was  engraving, 
greater    than    that    of    preceding    engravers,  ^'''^' 
prepared  for  Pope's  edition  of  Shakespeare  a  plate  of  the 
monument  which  accurately  gives  most  of  its  present 
architectural  features,^  but,  while  the  posture  and  dress 

stone  above  the  cornice;  the  figure  on  the  right  holds  in  its  left  hand 
an  hourglass  instead  of  an  inverted  torch,  while  the  right  hand  is  free. 
The  contemporary  replicas  of  the  little  figures  on  Nicholas  Johnson's 
Rutland  tomb  at  Bottesford  here  convict  Dugdale  of  error  beyond  re- 
demption. (See  p,  496  supra.)  The  Corinthian  columns  which  sup- 
port the  entablature  are  each  fancifully  surmounted  in  Dugdale's  sketch 
by  a  leopard's  face,  of  which  the  present  monument  shows  no  trace. 
(See  Mrs.  Stopes's  The  True  Story  of  the  Spratford  Bust,  1904,  reprinted 
with  much  additional  information  in  her  Shakespeare's  Environment 
(1914),  104-123,  346-353.)  Mrs.  Stopes  has  printed  many  useful  ex- 
tracts from  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  century  correspondence 
about  the  bust  among  the  Birthplace  archives,  but  tiere  is  very  little 
force  in  her  argument  to  the  effect  that  Dugdale's  sketch  faithfully 
represents  the  original  form  of  the  monument,  which  was  subsequently 
refashioned  out  of  all  knowledge.  (See  Mr.  Lionel  Cust  and  M.  H. 
Spielmann  in  Trans.  Bibliog.  Sac.  vol.  ix.  pp.  11 7-9.) 

'  The  original  sketch  of  the  Carew  monument  does  not  appear  in 
Dugdale's  note-books  at  Merevale.  The  engraving  in  the  Antiquities 
was  doubtless  drawn  by  another  hand  which  was  no  more  accurate 
than  Dugdale's  (see  Andrew  Lang,  Shakespeare,  Bacon  and  the  Great 
Unknown,  1912,  pp.  179  seq.)! 

'  Apart  from  the  effigy  the  variations  chiefly  concern  the  hands  of  the 
nude  figures  on  the  entablature.  Each  holds  in  one  hand  an  upright 
lighted  torch.  The  other  hand  rests  in  one  case  on  an  hourglass,  and 
in  the  other  case  is  free,  although  a  skull  lies  near  by. 


524  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  eflGigy  are  correct,  Vertue's  head  and  face  differ 
alike  from  Dugdale's  sketch  of  Shakespeare  and  from 
the  existing  statue.  Vertue  would  seem  to  have  irre- 
sponsibly adapted  the  head  and  face  from  the  Chandos 
portrait.  Gravelot's  engraving  in  Hanmer's  edition  1 744 
follows  Vertue's  main  design,  but  here  again  the  face  is 
fancifully  conceived  and  presents  features  which  are  not 
found  elsewhere. 

In  1746  Shakespeare's  monument  was  stated  for  the 
first  time  (as  far  as  is  precisely  known)  to  be  much 
^jjg  decayed.    John  Ward,  Mrs.  Siddons's  grand- 

repairs  father,  gave  in  the  town-hall  at  Stratford-on- 
of  1748.  Avon,  on  September  8,  1746,  a  performance  of 
'Othello,'  the  proceeds  of  which  were  handed  to  the 
churchwardens  as  a  contribution  to  the  costs  of  repair. 
After  some  delay,  John  Hall,  a  hmner  of  Stratford,  was 
commissioned,  in  November  1748,  to  'beautify'  as  well 
as  to  'repair'  the  mommient.  Some  further  change 
followed  later.  In  1 793  Malone  persuaded  James  Daven- 
port, a  long-live4  vicar  of  Stratford,  to  have  the  monu- 
ment painted  white,  and  thereby  prompted  the  ironical 
epigram : 

Stranger,  to  whom  this  monument  is  shewn, 
Invoke  the  poet's  curse  upon  Malone ;  , 

Whose  meddling  zeal  his  barbarous  taste  betrays, 
And  daubs  his  tombstone,  as  he  mars  his  plays.' 

In  18 14  George  Bullock,  who  owned  a  museum  of  curios- 
ities in  London,  took  a  full-sized  cast  of  the  effigy,  and 
disposed  of  a  few  copies,  two  of  which  are  now  in  Shake- 

'  Gent.  Magazine,  1815,  pt.  i.  p.  390.  In  the  Stratford  Church  Album 
(now  in  the  Birthplace)  the  painter  Haydon  defended  Malone's  treat- 
ment of  the  monument,  but  wrote  with  equal  disparagement  of  his  critical 
work: 

Ye  who  visit  the  shrine 
Of  the  poet  divine 

With  patient  Malone  don't  be  vext ! 
On  his  face  he's  thrown  light 
By  painting  it  white 

Which  you  know  he  ne'er  did  on  his  text ! 

July  18,  1828.    R.  B.  H. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  525 

speare's  Birthplace.  Bullock  coloured  his  cast,  which  was 
modelled  with  strict  accuracy.^  Thomas  Phillips,  R.A., 
painted  from  the  cast  a  portrait  which  he  called  'the 
true  effigies'  of  Shakespeare,  and  this  was  engraved  by- 
William  Ward,  A.R.A.,  in  1816.  In  1861,  Simon  Collins, 
a  well-known  picture  restorer  of  London,  was  employed 
to  remove  the  white  paint  of  1793,  and  to  restore  the 
colours,  of  which  some  trace  remained  beneath.  The 
effigy  is  now  in  the  state  in  which  it  left  Collins's  hands. 
There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  substantially  pre- 
serves its  original  condition.^ 

The  effigy  in  the  church  is  clearly  the  foundation  of  the 
Stratford  portrait,  which  is  prominently  displayed  in  the 
Birthplace,  but  lacks  historic  or  artistic  value.  ,j,jjg 
It  was  the  gift  in  1864  to  the  Birthplace  Trus-  'Stratford' 
tees  of  WiUiam  Oakes  Hunt  (b.  1794,  d.  1873),  p°"™'- 
town  clerk  of  Stratford,  whose  family  was  of  old  standing 
in  Stratford  and  whose  father  Thomas  Hunt  preceded 
him  in  the  office  of  town  clerk  and  died  in  1827.  The 
donor  stated  that  the  picture  had  been  in  the  possession 
of  his  family  since  1758.  The  allegation  that  the  artist 
was  John  Hall,  the  restorer  of  the  monument,  is  mere 
conjecture. 

The  engraved  portrait  —  nearly  a  half-length  —  which 
was  printed  on  the  title-page  of  the  folio  of  1623,  was  by 

*  The  painter  Haydon,  when  visiting  Stratford  Church  in  July  1828, 
wrote  his  impressions  of  the  monument  at  length  in  the  Church  Album 
which  is  now  in  the  Birthplace  Library.  He  declared  the  whole  bust 
to  be  'stamped  with  an  air  of  fidelity,  perfectly  invaluable.'  To  this 
entry  Daniel  Maclise  added  the  ironical  words,  dated  August  1832, 
'Remarks  worthy  of  Haydon.'  Sir  Francis  Chantrey,  near  the  same 
date,  pronounced  the  'head'  to  be  'as  finely  chiselled  as  a  master  man 
could  do  it;  but  the  bust  any  common  labourer  would  produce'  (see 
Washington  Irving's  Stratford-upon-Avon  from  the  Sketch  Book,  ed. 
Savage  and  Brassington,  Stratford-upon-Avon,  1900,  pp.  127-9).  ^^ 
183s  a  Society  was  formed  at  Stratford  for  the  'renovation  and  restora- 
tion of  Shakespeare's  monument  and  bust.'  But,  although  the  church 
suffered  much  repair  in  1839,  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  monument 
received  any  attention. 

*  A  chromolithograph  issued  by  the  New  Shakspere  Society  in  1880 
is  useful  for  purposes  of  study. 


526  William  Shakespeare 

Martin  Droeshout.  On  the  opposite  page  lines  by  Ben 
Jonson  congratulate  'the  graver'  on  having  satisfac- 
Droes-  torily  'hit'  the  poet's  face.' ^  Jonson's  testi- 
hout's  mony  does  no  credit  to  his  artistic  discern- 
engravmg.  j^jgj^^ .  the  exprcssion  of  countenance  is  neither 
distinctive  nor  lifelike.  The  engraver,  Martin  Droes- 
hout, was,  like  Garret  and  Nicholas  Johnson,  the  sculp- 
tors of  the  monument,  of  Flemish  descent,  belonging  to 
a  family  of  painters  and  engravers  long  settled  in  London, 
where  he  was  born  in  1601.  He  was  thus  fifteen  years 
old  at  the  time  of  Shakespeare's  death  in  1616,  and  it  is 
improbable  that  he  had  any  personal  knowledge  of  the 
dramatist.  The  engraving  was  doubtless  produced  by 
Droeshout  just  before  the  publication  of  the  First  Folio 
in  1623,  when  he  had  completed  his  twenty-second  year. 
It  thus  belongs  to  the  outset  of  the  engraver's  profes- 
sional career,  in  which  he  never  achieved  extended  prac- 
tice or  reputation.  In  Droeshout's .  engraving  the  face , 
is  long  and  the  forehead  high;  the  one  ear  which  is 
visible  is  shapeless ;  the  top  of  the  head  is  bald,  but  the 
hair  falls  in  abundance  over  the  ears.  There  is  a  scanty 
moustache  and  a  thin  fringe  of  hair  under  the  lower  lip. 
A  stiff  and  wide  collar,  projecting  horizontally,  conceals 
the  neck.     The  coat  is  closely  buttoned  and  elaborately 

^  Ben  Jonson's  familiar  lines  run :  ^ 

This  Figure,  that  thou  here  seest  put, 

It  was  for  gentle  Shakespeare  cut ; 
Wherein  the  Graver  had  a  strife 

With  Nature,  to  out-do  the  life : 
O,  could  he  but  have  drawn  his  wit  i 

As  well  in  brass,  as  he  hath  hit 
His  face,  the  Print  would  then  surpass 

All  that  was  ever  writ  in  brass. 
But,  since  he  cannot.  Reader,  look. 

Not  on  his  Picture,  but  his  Book. 

Ben  Jonson's  concluding  conceit  seems  to  be  a  Renaissance  convention. 
The  French  poet  Malherbe  inscribed  beneath  Thomas  de  Leu's  portrait 
of  Montaigne  in  the  161 1  edition  of  his  Essais  these  lines  to  like  effect: 

Void  du  grand  Montaigne  una  entiire  figure  ; 

Le  peintre  a  peint  le  corps  et  lui  son  bel  esprit ; 
Le  premier  par  son  art,  6gale  la  nature ; 

Mais  I'autre  la  surpasse  en  tout  ce  qu'il  Icrit. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  527 

bordered,  especially  at  the  shoulders.  The  dress  in 
which  there  are  patent  defects  of  perspective  is  of  a 
pattern  which  is  common  in  contemporary  portraits  of 
the  upper  class.  The  dimensions  of  the  head  and  face 
are  disproportionately  large  as  compared  with  those  of 
the  body.  Yet  the  ordinary  condition  of  the  engraving 
does  Droeshout's  modest  ability  some  unmerited  in- 
justice. His  work  was  obviously  unfitted  for  frequent 
reproduction,  and  the  plate  was  retouched  for  The  first 
the  worse  more  than  once  after  it  left  his  hands.  ='^'''- 
Two  copies  of  the  engraving  in  its  first  state  are  known. 
One  is  in  Malone's  perfect  copy  of  the  First  Foho  which 
is  now  in  the  Bodleian  Library.  The  other  was  extracted 
by  J.  0.  HalUwell-PhiUipps  from  a  First  Folio  in  his  pos- 
session, and  framed  separately  by  him ;  it  now  belongs 
to  the  American  collector  Mr.  H.  C.  Folger  of  New  York.^ 
Although  the  first  state  of  the  engraving  offers  no  varia- 
tion in  the  general  design,  the  tone  is  clearer  than  in  the 
ordinary  exemplars,  and  the  details  are  better  defined. 
The  Kght  falls  more  softly  on  the  muscles  of  the  face, 
especially  about  the  mouth  and  below  the  eye.  The 
hair  is  darker  than  the  ■  shadows  on  the  f oreheald  and 
flows  naturally,  but  it  throws  no  reflection  on  the  collar 
as  in  the  later  impressions.  As  a  result  the  wooden 
effect  of  the  expression  is  qualified  in  the  first  state  of 
the  print.  The  forehead  loses  the  unnaturally  swollen 
or  hydrocephalus  appearance  of  the  later  states,  and 
the  hair  ceases  to  resemble  a  raised  wig.  In  the  later 
impression  all  the  shadows  have  been  darkened  by  cross- 
hatching  and  cross-dotting,  especially  about  the  chin  and 
the  roots  of  the  hair  on  the  forehead,  while  the  moustache 

*  The  copy  of  the  First  Folio  to  which  Halliwell-Phillipps's  original 
impression  of  the  engraving  belonged  is  now  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial 
Library  at  Stratford-on-Avon.  For  descriptions  of  the  first  state  of  the 
engraving  see  Sidney  Lee's  Introduction  to  Facsimile  of  the  First  Folio 
(Clarendon  Press,  1905,  p.  xxii) ;  The  Original  Bodleian  Copy  of  the  First 
Folio,  igrr,  pp.  9-10  and  plates  i.  and  ii. ;  J.  O.  Halliwell's  CoWogwe 
of  Shakespearian  Engravings  <m4  DrOiwin^s  (privately  printed;    1868, 


528  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

has  been  roughly  enlarged'.  The  later  reproductions  in 
extant  copies  of  the  First  Folio  show  many  slight  vari- 
ations among  themselves,  but  all  bear  witness  to  the 
deterioration  of  the  plate.  The  Droeshout  engraving 
was  copied  by  Wilham  Marshall  for  a  frontispiece  to 
Shakespeare's  'Poems'  in  1640,  and  William  Faithorne 
made  a  second  copy  for  the  frontispiece  of  the  edition  of 
'The  Rape  of  Lucrece'  published  in  1655.  Both  Mar- 
shall's and  Faithorne's  copies  greatly  reduce  the  dimen- 
sions of  the  original  plate  and  introduce  fresh  and  fanciful 
detail. 

Sir  George  Scharf  was  of  the  opinion  that  Droeshout 
worked  from  a  preliminary  drawing  or  'Umning.'  But 
^i^g  Mr.  Lionel  Cust  has  pointed  out  that  limnings 

original  or  'portraits  in  small'  of  this  period  were  dis- 
Droel-°  tinguished  by  a  minuteness  of  workmanship 
hout's  of  which  the  engraving  bears  small  trace.  Mr. 
Cust  makes  it  clear  however  that  professional 
engravers  were  in  the  habit  of  following  crude  pictures  in 
oils  especially  prepared  for  them  by  'picture-makers,'  who 
ranked  in  the  profession  far  below  Umners  or  portrait- 
painters  of  repute.  That  Droeshout's  engraving  re- 
produces a  picture  of  coarse  calibre  may  be  admitted; 
but  no  existing  picture  can  be  positively  identified  with 
the  one  which  guided  Droeshout's  hand. 

In  1892  Mr.  Edgar  Flower,  of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
discovered  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  H.  C.  Clements,  a 
The  private  gentleman  with  artistic  tastes  residing 

'Flower*  at  Peckham  Rye,  a  portrait  alleged  to  represent 
portrait.  Shakespeare.  It  was  claimed  that  the  picture, 
which  was  faded  and  somewhat  worm-eaten,  dated  from 
the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  fabric 
was  a  panel  formed  of  two  planks  of  old  elm,  and  in  the 
upper  left-hand  corner  was  the  inscription  'WiU""  Shake- 
speare, 1609.'  The  panel  had  previously  'served  for  a 
portrait  of  a  lady  in  a  high  ruff  —  the  line  of  which  can  be 
detected  on  either  side  of  the  head  —  clad  in  a  red  dress, 
the  colour  and  glow  of  which  can  be  seen  under  the  white 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  529 

of  the  wired  band  in  front.'  ^  Mr.  Clements  purchased 
the  portrait  from  an  obscure  dealer  about  1840,  and  knew 
nothing  of  its  history,  beyond  what  he  set  down  on  a  slip 
of  paper  when  he  acquired  it.  The  note  that  he  then 
wrote  and  pasted  on  the  box  in  which  he  preserved  the 
picture,  ran  as  follows  :  '  The  original  portrait  of  Shake- 
speare, from  which  the  now  famous  Droeshout  engraving 
was  taken  and  inserted  in  the  first  collected  edition  of 
his  works,  published  in  1623,  being  seven  years  after  his 
death.  The  picture  was  painted  nine  [vere  seven]  years 
before  his  death,  and  consequently  sixteen  [vere  fourteen] 
years  before  it  was  published.  .  .  .  The  picture  was 
publicly  exhibited  in  London  seventy  years  ago,  and 
many  thousands  went  to  see  it.'  These  statements  were 
not  independently  corroborated.  In  its  comparative 
dimensions,  especially  in  the  disproportion  between  the 
size  of  the  head  and  that  of  the  body,  this  picture  is 
identical  with  the  Droeshout  engraving,  but  the  engrav- 
ing's incongruities  of  light  and  shade  are  absent,  and  the 
ear  and  other  details  of  the  features  which  are  abnormal 
in  the  engraving  are  normal  in  the  painting.  Though 
stiffly  drawn,  the  face  is  far  more  skilfully  presented  than 
in  the  engraving,  and  the  expression  of  countenance  be- 
trays some  artistic  sentiment  which  is  absent  from  the 
print.  Connoisseurs,  including  Sir  Edward  Poynter, 
Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  and  Mr.  Lionel  Cust,  have  pronounced 
the  picture'  to  be  anterior  in  date  to  the  engraving,  and 
they  deem  it  probable  that  it  was  on  this  painting  that 
Droeshout  directly  based  his  work.  On  the  other  hand, 
Mr.  M.  H.  Spielmann,  while  regarding  the  picture  as  'a 
record  of  high  interest'  and  'possibly  the  first  of  all  the 
poet's  painted  portraits,'  insists  with  much  force  that  it 
is  far  more  likely  to  have  been  painted  from  the  Droes- 
hout engraving  than  to  have  formed  the  foundation  of 
the  print.  Mr.  Spielmann  argues  that  the  picture  differs 
materially  from  the  first  state  of  the  engraving,  while 
it  substantially  corresponds  with  the  later  states.     If  the 

1  Spielmann,  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  p.  14. 

2M 


53° 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


engraver  worked  from  the  picture  it  was  to  be  expected 
that  the  first  state  of  the  print  would  represent  the  pic- 
ture more  closely  than  the  later  states,  which  enibody 
very  crude  and  mechanical  renovations  of  the  original 
plate.  The  discrepancies  between  the  painting  and  the 
print  in  its  various  forms  are  no  conclusive  refutation  of 
the  early  workmanship  of  the  picture,  but  they  greatly 
weaken  its  pretensions  to  be  treated  as  Droeshout's 
original  inspiration  or  to  date  from  Shakespeare's  life- 
time.i  On  the  death  of  Mr.  Clements,  the  owner  of  the 
picture,  in  1895,  the  painting  was  purchased  by  Mrs. 
Charles  Flower,  and  was  presented  to  the  Memorial 
Picture  Gallery  at  Stratford,  where  it  now  hangs.  No 
attempt  at  restoration  has  been  made.  A  photogravure 
forms  the  frontispiece  to  the  present  volume.  A  fine 
coloured  reproduction  has  been  lately  issued  by  the  Medici 
Society  of  London.^ 

Of  the  same  type  as  the  Droeshout  engraving,  although 
less  closely  resembUng  it  than  the  picture  just  described, 
The 'Ely  ^^  ^^^  '^^^  Housc'  portrait  (now  the  property 
House'  of  the  Birthplace  Trustees  at  Stratford).  This 
portrait.  picture,  which  was  purchased  in  1845,  ^Y 
Thomas  Turton,  Bishop  of  Ely,  was  acquired  on  his 
death  on  January  7,  1864,  by  the  art-dealer  Henry 
Graves,  who  presented  it  to  the  Birthplace  on  April  23, 
following.  This  painting  has  much  artistic  value.  The 
features  are  far  more  delicately  rendered  than  in  the 

^  Influences  of  an  early  seventeenth-century  Flemish  school  have 
been  detected  in  the  picture,  but  little  can  be  made  of  the  suggestion 
that  it  is  from  the  brush  of  an  uncle  of  the  young  engraver  Martin  Droes- 
hout, who  bore  the  same  name  as  his  nephew,  and  was  naturalised  in  this 
country  on  January  25,  1607-8,  when  he  was  described  as  a  'painter  of 
Brabant.' 

*  Mr.  Lionel  Cust,  formerly  director  of  the  National  Portrait  Gallery, 
who  has  supported  the  genuineness  of  the  picture,  gave  an  interesting 
account  of  it  at  a  meeting  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  on  December  12, 
i8qs  (cf.  Society's  Proceedings,  second  series,  vol.  xvi.  p.  42).  See  also 
Illustrated  Catalogue  of  the  Pictures  in  the  Memorial  Gallery,  1896,  pp. 
78-83  and  Bibliog.  Trans.  1908,  pp.  118  seq.  Mr.  M.  H.  Spielinann 
ably  disputes  the  authenticity  in  his  essay  on  Shakespeare's  Portraits 
in  Stratford  Town  Shakespeare,  1906,  ygj,,  x, 


AtJTOGRAPHS,   iPORTRAltS,   MEMORIAtS  53 1 

'Flower'  painting,  or  in  the  normal  states  of  the  Droes- 
hout  engraving,  but  the  claim  of  the  'Ely  House'  por- 
trait to  workmanship  of  very  early  date  is  questioned 
by  many  experts.^ 

Early  in  Charles  II's  reign  Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon 
added  a  portrait  of  Shakespeare  to  his  great  gallery  in 
his  house  in  St.  James's.     Mention  is  made 
of  it  in  a  letter  from  the  diarist  John  Evelyn  cSren- 
to  his  friend  Samuel  Pepys  in  1689,  but  Claren-  ^9'^'^ 
don's  collection  was  dispersed  at  the  end  of  ^'"^  *"*' 
the  seventeenth  century  and  the  picture  has  not  been 
traced.^ 

Of  the  numerous  extant  paintings  which  have  been 
described  as  portraits  of  Shakespeare,  only  the  'Droes- 
hout'  portrait  and  the  'Ely  House'  portrait.  Later 
both  of  which  are  at  Stratford,  bear  any  defin-  portraits, 
able  resemblance  to  the  folio  engraving  or  the  bust  in 
the  church.  In  spite  of  their  admitted  imperfections, 
the  engraving  and  the  bust  can  alone  be  held  indisputably 
to  have  been  honestly  intended  to  preserve  the  poet's 
features.  They  must  be  treated  as  the  main  tests  of  the 
genuineness  of  all  portraits  claiming  authenticity  on  late 
and  indirect  evidence.* 

*  See  Harper's  Magazine,  May  1897,  and  Mr.  Spielmann's  careful 
account  ut  supra. 

*  Cf.  Evelyn's  Diary  and  Correspondence,  iii.  444. 

'Numberless  portraits,  some  of  which  are  familiar  in  engravings, 
have  been  falsely  identified  with  Shakespeare,  and  it  would  be  futUe 
to  attempt  to  make  the  record  of  the  supposititious  pictures  complete. 
Upwards  of  sixty  have  been  offered  for  sale  to  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery  since  its  foundation  in  1856,  and  not  one  of  these  has  proved 
to  possess  the  remotest  claim  to  authenticity.  During  the  past  ten 
years  the  present  writer  has  been  requested  by  correspondents  in  various 
parts  of  England,  America,  and  the  colonies  to  consider. the  claims  to 
authenticity  of  more  than  thirty  different  pictures  alleged  to  be  con- 
temporary portraits  of  Shakespeare.  The  following  are  some  of  the 
wholly  unauthentic  portraits  that  have  attracted  public  attention: 
Three  portraits  assigned  to  Zucchero,  who  left  England  in  1580,  and 
cannot  have  had  any  relations  with  Shakespeare  —  one  in  the  Art  Mu- 
seum, Boston,  U.S.A. ;  another,  also  in  America,  formerly  the  property 
at  various  times  of  Richard  Cosway,  R.A.,  of  Mr.  J.  A.  Langford  of 
Birmingham,  and  of  Augustine  Daly,  the  American  actor  (engraved 
in  mezzotint  by  H.  Green) ;  and  a  third,  at  one  time  in  the  possession  of 


532  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

'Of  other  alleged  portraits  which  are  extant,  the  most 
famous  and  interesting  is  the  'Chandos'  portrait  now  in 
Tjjg  the  National  Portrait   Gallery.     Its  pedigree 

'Chandos'  suggests  that  it  was  designed  to  represent  the 
portrait.  p^^^^  ^^j.  numerous  and  conspicuous  diver- 
gences from  the  authenticated  likenesses  show  that  it 
was  painted  from  fanciful  descriptions  of  him  some  years 
after  his  death.  Although  the  forehead  is  high  and  bald, 
as  in  both  the  monumental  bust  and  the  Droeshout  en- 
graving, the  face  and  dress  are  unlike  those  presentments. 
The  features  in  the  Chandos  portrait  are  of  Italian  rather 
than  of  English  type.  The  dense  mass  of  hair  at  the 
sides  and  back  of  the  head  falls  over  the  collar.  A  thick 
fringe  of  beard  runs  from  ear  to  ear.  The  left  ear,  which 
the  posture  of  the  head  alone  leaves  visible,  is  adorned  by 
a  plain  gold  ring.  Oldys  reported  the  traditions  that  the 
picture  was  from  the  brush  of  Burbage,  Shakespeare's 
fellow-actor,  who  enjoyed  much  reputation  as  a  hmner,' 
and  that  it  had  belonged  to  Joseph  Taylor,  an  actor  con- 
temporary with  Shakespeare.     These  traditions  are  not 

Mr.  Archer,  librarian  of  Bath,  which  was  purchased  in  1862  by  the 
Baroness  Burdett-Coutts  and  now  belongs  to  Mr.  Burdett-Coutts.  At 
Hampton  Court  is  a  wholly  unauthentic  portrait  of  the  Chandos  type, 
which  was  at  one  time  at  Penshurst;  it  bears  the  legend  '^tatis  suae 
34'  (cf.  Law's  Cat.  of  Hampton  Court,  p.  234).  A  portrait  inscribed 
'aetatis  suae  47,  1611,'  formerly  belonging  to  the  Rev.  Clement  Usill 
Kingston  of  Ashbourne,  Derbyshire,  now  owned  by  Mr.  R.  Levine  of 
Norwich,  was  engraved  in  mezzotint  by  G.  F.  Storm  in  1864.  (See  Mr. 
Spielmann's  art.  in  Connoisseur,  April  1910.)  At  the  end  of  lie  eigh- 
teenth century  'one  Zincke,  an  artist  of  little  note,  but  grandson  of  the 
celebrated  enameUer  of  that  name,  manufactured  fictitious  Shakespeares 
by  the  score'  (Chambers's  Journal,  Sept.  20,  1856).  One  of  the  most 
successful  of  Zincke's  frauds  was  an  alleged  portrait  of  the  dramatist 
painted  on  a  pair  of  bellows,  which  the  great  French  actor  Talma  ac- 
quired. Charles  Lamb  visited  Talma  in  Paris  in  1822  in  order  to  see 
the  fabrication,  and  was  completely  deluded.  (See  Lamb's  Works,  ed. 
Lucas,  vol.  vii.  pp.  573  seq.,  where  the  Talma  portrait,  now  the  property 
of  Mr.  B.  B.  MacGeorge  of  Glasgow,  is  reproduced.)  Zincke  had  several 
successors,  among  whom  one  Edward  Holder  proved  the  most  successful. 
To  a  very  different  category  belong  the  many  avowedly  imaginary  por- 
traits by  artists  of  repute.  Of  these  the  most  elaborately  designed  is 
that,  by  Ford  Madox  Brown,  which  was  painted  in  1850  and  was  ac- 
quired by  the  Municipal  Gallery  at  Manchester  in  1900. 
^  See  pp.  455-6  supra. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  533 

corroborated;  but  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  at 
one  time  the  property  of  Sir  Willian  D'Avenant,  Shake- 
speare's reputed  godson,  and  that  it  subsequently  be- 
longed successively  to  the  actor  Betterton  and  to  Mrs. 
Barry  the  actress.  In  1693  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  made  a 
fine  copy  as  a  gift  for  Dryden.  Kneller's  copy,  the  prop- 
erty of  Earl  FitzwilHam,  is  an  embeUished  reproduction, 
but  it  proves  that  the  original  painting  is  to-day  in  sub- 
stantially the  same  condition  as  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  After  Mrs.  Barry's  death  in  17 13  the  Chandos 
portrait  was  purchased  for  forty  guineas  by  Robert 
Keck,  a  barrister  of  the  Inner  Temple.  At  length  it 
reached  the  hands  of  one  John  Nichols,  whose  daughter 
married  James  Brydges  (third  marquis  of  Carnarvon 
and)  third  duke  of  Chandos.  In  due  time  the  Duke 
became  the  owner  of  the  picture,  and  it  subsequently 
passed,  through  Chandos's  daughter,  to  her  husband,  the 
first  Duke  of  Buckingham  and  Chandos,  whose  son,  the 
second  Duke  of  Buckinghain  and  Chandos,  sold  it  with 
the  rest  of  his  effects  at  StOwe  in  1848,  when  it  was  pur- 
chased by  the  Earl  of  Elleshiere.  '  The  latter  presented 
it  to  the  nation  in  March  1856.  Numerous  copies  of  the 
Chandos  portrait  were  made  in  the  eighteenth  century ; 
one  which  is  said  to  have  been  executed  in  1760  by  Sir 
Joshua  Re3aiolds  is  not  known  to  survive.  In  1779 
Edward  Capell  presented  a  copy  by  Ranelagh  Barret  to 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  where  it  remains  in  the 
library.  A  large  copy  in  coloured  crayons  by  Gerard 
Vandergucht  belonged  to  Charles  Jennens,  of  Gopsall, 
Leicestershire,  and  is  stiU  the  property  there  of  Earl 
Howe.  In  August  1783,  Ozias  Humphry  was  com- 
missioned by  Malone  to  prepare  a  crayon  drawing, 
which  is  now  at  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  at-  Stratford.^ 
The  portrait  was  first  engraved  by  GeoTg'e  Vertue  in  1 719 
for  'The  Poetical  Register'  and  Vertue's  work  reappeared 
in  Pope's  edition  (1725).    Among  the  later  engravings, 

'  The  print  of  the  picture  in  Malone's  Variorum  edition  was  prepared 
from  Humphry's  copy ;  cf.  ii.  Sii.  : 


534  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

those  respectively  by  Houbraken  in  his  'Heads  of  Illus- 
trious Persons'  (1747)  and  by  Vandergucht  (1750)  are 
the  best.  A  mezzotint  by  Samuel  Cousins  is  dated  1849. 
A  good  lithograph  from  a  tracing  by  Sir  George  Scharf 
was  pubhshed  by  the  trustees  of  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery  in  1864.  The  late  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts 
purchased  in  1875  a  portrait  of  the  same  type  as  the 
Chandos  picture.  This  painting  (now  the  property  of 
Mr.  Burdett-Coutts)  is  doubtfully  said  to  have  belonged 
to  John  Lord  Lumley,  who  died  in  1609,  and  who  formed 
a  collection  of  portraits  of  the  great  men  of  his  day  at 
his  house,  Lvunley  Castle,  Durham.  Its  early  history  is 
not  authenticated,  and  it  may  well  be  an  early  copy  of 
the  Chandos  portrait.  The  '  Lumley '  painting  was  finely 
chromoKthographed  in  1863  by  Vincent  Brooks,  when 
the  picture  belonged  to  one  George  Rippon. 

The  so-called  'Janssen'  portrait  was  first  identified 
as  a  painting  of  Shakespeare  shortly  before  1770,  when 
The  ^^  ^^^  ^  ^^^  possession  of  Charles  Jennens, 

'Janssen'  the  noted  dilettante,  of  Gopsall,  Leicestershire, 
portrait.  rj.^^  legend  that  it  formerly  belonged  to  Prince 
Rupert  lacks  any  firm  foundation  and  nothing  is  posi- 
tively known  of  its  history  before  1770  when  an  admirable 
mezzotint  (with  some  unwarranted  embellishment)  by 
Richard  Earlom  was  prefixed  to  Jeimens's  edition  of 
'  King  Lear.'  The  portrait  is  a  fine  work  of  art,  and  may 
well  have  come  from  the  accomplished  easel  of  the  Dutch 
painter  Cornelis  Janssen  (van  Keulen)  who  was  born  at 
Amsterdam  in  1590,  practised  his  art  in  England  for  some 
.thirty  years  before  his  departure  in  1643,  and  included 
among  his  English  sitters  the  youthful  Milton  in  1618, 
Ben  Jonson  and  many  other  men  of  literary  and  poetical 
or  social  distinction.  But  the  features,  which  have  no 
sustained  hkeness  to  those  in  the  well-authenticated  pre- 
sentments of  Shakespeare,  fail  to  justify  the  identifica- 
tion with  the  dramatist.^    The  picture  was  sold  by  Jen- 

'  A  fair  copy  of  the  picture  belonged  to  the  Duke  of  Kingston  early 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  this  has  directly  descended  with  a  com- 


AUTOCRAfHS,  iPORTRAlTS,  MEMORIALS  535 

nens's  heir  in  1809,  and  early  in  the  nineteenth  century- 
was  successively  the  property  of  the  ninth  Duke  of  Ham- 
ilton, of  the  eleventh  Duke  of  Somerset,  and  of  his  son,  the 
twelfth  Duke.  The  twelfth  Duke  of  Somerset  left  it 
to  his  daughter,  Lady  Guendolen,  who  married  Sir  John 
William  Ramsden,  fifth  baronet.  Lady  Guendolen  died 
at  her  residence,  Bulstrode  Park,  Buckinghamshire,  on 
August  14,  1910,  and  the  picture  remains  there  the 
property  of  her  son  Sir  John  Frecheville  Ramsden. 
There  is  a  fanciful  engraving  of  the  Jansen  portrait  by 
R.  Dunkarton  (181 1)  and  there  are  mezzotints  by  Charles 
Turner  (1824)  and  by  Robert  Cooper  (1825),  as  well  as 
many  later  reproductions.^ 

The  'Felton'  portrait,  a  small  head  on  an  old  panel, 
with  a  high  and  bald  sugar-loaf  forehead  (which  the 
late  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts  acquired  in  1873),  j,^^ 
was  purchased  by  S.  Felton,  of  Drayton,  Shrop-  'Feiton' 
shire,  in  1792,  of  J.  Wilson,  the  owner  of  the  p°"™'- 
Shakespeare  Museum  in  Pall  Mall ;  it  bears  a  late  in- 
scription, 'Gul.  Shakespear  1597,  R.  B.'  [i.e.  Richard 
Burbage].  A  good  copy  of  the  Felton  portrait  made  by 
Joh];i  Boaden  in  1792  is  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial 
Gallery  at  Stratford-on-Avon.  The  portrait  was  en- 
graved by  Josiah  Boydell  for  George  Steevens  in  1797, 
and  by  James  Neagle  for  Isaac  Reed's  edition  in  1803. 
Fuseli  declared  it  to  be  the  work  of  a  Dutch  artist,  but 
the  painters  Romney  and  Lawrence  doubtfully  regarded 
it  as  of  English  workmanship  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Steevens  held  that  it  was  the  original  picture  whence 
both  Droeshout  and  Marshall  made  their  engravings, 
but  there  are  practically  no  points  of  resemblance  be- 
tween it  and  the  prints.  Mr.  M.  H.  Spielmann  sug- 
gests that  the  Felton  portrait  was  based  on  'a  striking 
likeness  of  Shakespeare,'  which  was  prefixed  to  Ays- 

panion  picture  of  Ben  Jonson  to  the  Rev.  Henry  Buckston  of  Sutton 
,on-the-Hill,  Derbyshire.  Among  many  later  copies  one  belongs  to  the' 
Duke  of  Anhalt  at  Worlitz  near.  Dessau. 

^  See  Mr.  M.  H.  Spielmann's  papers  in  The  Connoisseur,  Aug.  1909, 
Feb.  and  Nov.  1910,  and  Jan.  1912. 


536  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

cough's  edition  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  works  in  1790, 
and  was  described  as  'engrav'd  by  W.  Sherwin  from  the 
original  Foho  edition.'  ^ 

The  'Soest'  or  'Zoust'  portrait  —  at  one  time  in  the 
possession  of  Sir  John  Lister-Kaye  of  the  Grange,  Wake- 
rj,^g  field  —  was  in  the  collection  of  Thomas  Wright, 

'Soest;  painter,  of  Covent  Garden,  in  1725,  when  John 
portrait.  gimon  engraved  it.  Gerard  Soest,  a  humble 
rival  of  Sir  Peter  Lely,  was  born  twenty-one  years 
after  Shakespeare's  death,  and  the  portrait  is  only  on 
fanciful  groimds  identified  with  the  poet.  A  chalk 
drawing  by  John  Michael  Wright,  obviously  inspired  by 
the  Soest  portrait,  was  the  property  of  Sir  Arthur  Hodg- 
son, of  Clopton  House,  and  is  now  at  the  Shakespeare 
Memorial  Gallery,  Stratford. 

Several  miniatures  have  been  identified  with  the  dram- 
atist's features  on  doubtful   grounds.    Pope  admitted 

.  to  his  edition  of  Shakespeare  Vertue's  engraving 

ima  ures.  ^^  ^  bcautiful  miniature  of  Jacobean  date, 
which  was  at  the  time  in  the  collection  of  Edward  Harley, 
afterwards  second  Earl  of  Oxford,  and  is  now  at  Welbeck 
Abbey.  The  engraving,  which  was  executed  in  172 1,  was 
unwarrantably  issued  as  a  portrait  of  Shakespeare; 
Oldys  declared  it  to  be  a  youthful  presentment  of  King 
James  I.  Vertue's  reproduction  has  been  many  times 
credulously  copied.  A  second  well-executed  'Shake- 
spearean' miniature  by  Nicholas  Hilliard,  successively 
the  property  of  WilUam  Somerville  the  poet,  Sir  James 
Bland  Surges,  and  Lord  Northcote,  was  engraved  by 
Agar  for  vol.  ii.  of  the  'Variorum  Shakespeare'  of  182 1, 
and  in  Wivell's  'Inquiry,'  1827.  It  has  little  claim  to 
attention  as  a  portrait  of  the  dramatist,  although  its 
artistic  merit  is  high.  A  third 'Shakespearean'  minia- 
ture of  popular  fame  (called  the  'Auriol'  portrait,  after 
a  former  owner,  Charles  Auriol),  has  no  better  claim  to 
authenticity;  it  formerly  belonged  to  Mr.  Lumsden 
Propert  and  is  now  in  America. 

'  Spielmann,  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  p.  27. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  537 

A  bust,  said  to  be  of  Shakespeare,  was  discovered  in 
1848  bricked  up  in  a  wall  in  Spode  and  Copeland's  china 
warehouse  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.     The  build-  ™    ^ 

1         -  r    t        1-  '  -^^^  Gat- 

ing was,  at  the  time  of  the  discovery,  m  course  rick  ciub 

of  demolition  by  order  of  the  College  of  Sur-  ^^*" 
geons,  who  had  acquired  the  land  for  the  purpose  of 
extending  their  adjacent  museum.  The  warehouse 
stood  on  the  site  of  the  old  Duke's  Theatre,  which  was 
originally  designed  as  a  tennis  court,  and  was  first  con- 
verted into  a  playhouse  by  Sir  WilUam  D'Avenant  in 
1660.  The  theatre  was  reconstructed  in  1695,  and  re- 
built in  1714.  After  1756  the  building  was  turned  to 
other  than  theatrical  uses.  The  Shakespearean  bust 
was  acquired  of  the  College  of  Surgeons  in  1849,  by  the 
surgeon  WUliam  Clift,  from  whom  it  passed  to  CHft's 
son-in-law,  Richard  (afterwards  Sir  Richard)  Owen, 
the  naturalist.  Owen,  who  strongly  argued  for  the 
authenticity  of  the  bust,  sold  it  to  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire, who  presented  it  in  1855  to  the  Garrick  Club,  after 
having  two  copies  made  in  plaster.  One  of  these  copies 
is  now  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial  Gallery  at  Stratford, 
and  from  it  an  engraving  has  been  made  for  reproduction 
in  this  volume.  The  bust,  a  dehcate  piece  of  work,  is 
modelled  in  red  terra-cotta,  which  has  been  painted  black. 
But  the  assumption  that  it  originally  adorned  the  pro- 
scenium of  Sir  WiUiam  D'Avenant's  old  Duke's  Theatre 
in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  will  not  bear  close  scrutiny.  The 
design  is  probably  a  very  free  interpretation  of  the  Chan- 
dos  portrait,  and  the  artistic  style  scarcely  justifies  the 
assignment  of  the  sculpture  to  a  date  anterior  to  the 
eighteenth  century.  There  is  a  likelihood  that  it  is  the 
work  of  Louis  Francois  Roubiliac,  the  French  sculptor, 
who  settled  in  London  in  1730.  Garrick  commissioned 
Roubiliac  in  1758  to  execute  a  statue  of  Shakespeare 
which  is  now  in  the  British  Museum.  Affinities  between 
the  head  in  Roubiliac's  statue  and  the  Garrick  Club 
bust  give  substance  to  this  suggestion.^ 

*  Spielmann,  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  p.  22. 


538  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

-The.Kesselstadt  death-mask  was  discovered  by  Dr. 
Ludwig  Becker,  librarian  at  the  ducal  palace  at  Darin- 
Alleged  stadt,  in  a  rag-shop  at  Mainz  in  1849.  The 
death-  features  resemble  those  of  an  alleged  portrait 
'^^'■^-  of  Shakespeare  (dated  1637)  which  Dr.  Becker 
purchased  in  1847.  This  picture  had  long  been  in  the 
possession  of  the  family  of  Count  Francis  von  Kesselstadt 
of  Mainz,  who  died  in  1843.  Dr.  Becker  brought  the 
mask  and  the  picture  to  England  in  1849,  ^^^  Richard 
Owen  supported  the  theorj'^  that  it  was  taken  from 
Shakespeare's  face  after  death  and  was  the  foundation  of 
the  bust  in  Stratford  Church.  There  are  some  specious 
similarities  between  its  features  and  those  of  the  Garrick 
Club  bust;  but  the  theory  which  identifies  the  mask 
with  Shakespeare  acqioires  most  of  its  plausibiKty  from 
the  accidental  circumstance  that  it  and  the  bust  came 
to  hght,  and  were  first  submitted  to  Shakespearean  stu- 
dents for  examination,  in  the  same  year.  The  mask  was 
for  a  long  time  in  Dr.  Becker's  private  apartments  at 
the  ducal  palace,  Darmstadt.^  The  features  are  singu- 
larly attractive ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  which  would 
identify  them  with  Shakespeare.^ 

1  The  mask  is  now  the  property  of  Frau  Oberst  Becker,  the  discoverer's 
daughter-in-law,  iii  Heidelbergerstrasse,  Darmstadt.  The  most  recent 
and  zealous  endeavour  to  prove  the  authenticity  of  the  mask  was  made 
in  Skakespeares  Totenmaske,  a  fuUy  illustrated  volume  by  Paul  Wis- 
licenus  (Darmstadt,  1910). 

2  Mr.  M.  H.  Spiebnarai  has  written  on  Shakespeare's  portraits  more 
exhaustively  than  any  other  author.  His  critical  examination  with 
photogravures  of  the  Droeshout  engraving,  the  Stratford  bust,  the 
Chandos,  Ely  House  and  Jansen  portraits,  and  the  Garrick  Club  bust,  is 
in  Stratford  Town  Shakespeare  1906-7,  vol.  x.  He  has  summarily  covered 
the  whole  ground  in  the  eleventh  edition  of  the  Encyclopiedia  BriUm- 
nica  (1911),  and  he  has  contributed  to  the  Connoisseur  (July  1908- 
March  1913)  a  series  of  twelve  admirably  full  and  detailed  articles  on 
alleged  portraits  of  repute.  His  complete  Shakespearean  iconography 
is  not  yet  published.  Earlier  works  on  Shakespeare's  portraits  are: 
James  Boaden,  Inquiry  into  various  Pictures  and  Prints  of  Shakespeare, 
1824;  Abraham  WiveU,  Inquiry  into  Shakespeare's  Portraits,  1827,  with 
engravings  by  B.  and  W.  Holl;  George  Scharf,  Principal  Portraits  0] 
Shakespeare,  1864;  J.  Hain  Friswell,  Life-Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  1864; 
William  Page,  Study  of  Shakespeare's  Portraits,  1876;  Ingleby,  Man 
and  Book,  1877,  pp.  84  seq. ;  J.  Parker  Norris,  Portraits  of  Shakespeare, 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE. 

From  a  plaster-cast  of  the  terra-cotta  bust  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Gar- 
rick  Club. 


AUTOGRAPHS,  PORTRAITS,  MEMORIALS  S39 

A  monumcnl,  the  expenses  of  which  were  defrayed 
by  public  subscription,  was  set  up  in  the  Poets'  Corner 
in  Westminster  Abbey  in  1741.  Pope  and  the 
Earl  of  Burlington  were  among  the  promoters.  m'^mMto 
The  design  was  by  William  Kent,  and  the  \p"''""= 
statue  of  Shakespeare  was  executed  by  Peter  ^°''^'^' 
Scheemalters  after  the  Chandos  portrait."  Another 
statue  was  executed  by  Roubiliac  for  Garrick,  who  be- 
queathed it  to  the  British  Museum  in  1779.  A  tliird 
statue,  freely  adapted  from  the  works  of  Scheemakers 
and  Roubiliac,  was  executed  for  Baron  Albert  Grant 
and  was  set  up  by  him  as  a  gift  to  the  metropolis  in 
Leicester  Square,  London,  in  1879.  A  fourth  statue  (by 
Mr.  J.  Q.A.Ward)  was  i)liue(i  in  1882  in  the  Central  Park, 
New  York.  In  1886  a  Iifth  statue  (by  William  Ordway 
Partridge)  was  placed  in  Lincoln  Park,  Chicago.  A 
sixth  in  bronze  (by  M.  Paul  Fournier),  which  was  erected 
in  Paris  in  1888  at  the  expense  of  an  English  resident, 
Mr.  W.  Knighton,  stands  at  tlic  point  where  the  Avenue 
de  Messine  meets  the  Boulevard  Haussmann.  A  seventh 
memorial  in  sculi)ture,  by  Lord  Ronald  Gower,  the  most 
elaborate  and  ambitious  of  all,  stands  in  the  garden  of 
tlie  Shakespeare  memorial  buildings  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  and  was  unveiled  in  1888 ;  Shakespeare  is  seated 
on  a  high  pedestal ;  below,  at  each  side  of  the  pedestal, 
stand  figures  of  four  of  Sliakespeare's  principal  charac- 
ters: Lady  Macbeth,  Hamlet,  Prince  Hal,  and  Sir  John 
Falstaff.  In  the  inihlic  park  at  Weimar  an  eighth  statue 
(by  Herr  Otto  Lessing)  was  un\'eiled  on  April  23, 1904. 
A  seated  statue  (by  the  Danish  sculptor  Luis  Hasselriis) 
lias  been  placed  in  the  room  in  the  castle  of  Kronborg 
where,  according  to  an  untrustworthy  report,  Shalce- 
speare  and  other  English  actors  performed  before  the 

Philadelphia,  1885,  with  numerous  plates.    In  1885  Mr.  Walter  Rogers 
Furness  Issued,  at  Philadelphia,  a  volume  of  composite  portraits,  combin- 
ing the  Droeshout  engraving  and  tlie  Stratford  oust  with  the  Chandos, 
Juasen,  Fdton,  and  Stratford  portraits. 
'  Cf.  GtnUtmm's  Magasim,  1741,  p.  105. 


54° 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Danish  Court.  A  tenth  monument,  consisting  of  a 
bust  of  Shakespeare  on  a  pedestal,  in  which  are  reliefs 
representing  JuHet  and  other  of  his  heroines,  was  unveiled 
in  Verona  on  October  30,  1910.  The  Verona  memorial 
stands  near  the  so-called  'tomb  of  Juhet';  a  marble 
tablet  was  previously  placed  by  the  municipality  of 
Verona  on  a  thirteenth-century  house  in  the  Via  Capello, 
which  is  said  to  have  been  the  home  of  the  Capxilets. 
On  November  4,  191 2,  a  memorial  monument  in  South- 
wark  Cathedral  (formerly  St.  Saviour's  Church)  was 
unveiled  by  the  present  writer ;  within  a  deeply  recessed 
arch  let  into  the  wall  of  the  south  nave  Hes  a  semi-recum- 
bent figure  of  the  poet  carved  in  alabaster.  The  back- 
ground shows  a  view  of  sixteenth-century  Southwark 
cut  in  low  relief.' 

At  Stratford,  the  Birthplace,  acquired  by  the  public 
in  1847,  is,  with  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage  (which  was 
^^g  purchased  by  the  Birthplace  Trustees  in  1892), 

Stratford  a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  visitors  from  all  parts 
memorials.    ^^  ^^^  ^^^^^     ^j^^  ^^^^g^  persons  who  visited 

the  Birthplace  in  1913  represented  over  seventy  nation- 
aHties.  The  site  of  the  demolished  New  Place,  with 
Nash's  adjacent  house  and  the  gardens,  is  now  also 
the  property  of  the  Birthplace  Trustees,  and  is  open  to 
pubhc  inspection.     Of  a  new  memorial  building  on  the 

1  The  Southwark  memorial,  which  was  devised  by  Dr.  R.  W.  Left- 
wich,  is  the  work  of  Mr.  Henry  McCarthy,  and  the  expenses  were  de- 
frayed by  public  subscription.  A  bust  of  the  poet  surmounts  the  monu- 
ment erected  in  1896  to  Heminges  and  Condell  in  the  churchyard  of  St. 
Mary,  Aldermanbury,  where  they  lie  buried.  Numerous  other  statues 
or  busts  of  the  poet  figure  in  the  facades  of  public  buildings,  or  form 
part  of  comprehensive  memorials  not  designed  solely  to  honour  the 
dramatist,  e.g.  the  Albert  Memorial,  in  Kensington  Gardens,  London. 
Shakespearean  portraits  of  modern  and  more  or  less  fanciful  design 
appear  in  the  stained  glass  windows  of  many  public  institutions  and 
churches,  e.g.  Stationers'  Hall,  London,  St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  and 
Southwark  Cathedral.  Through  the  eighteenth  century  Shakespeare's 
head  was  repeatedly  stamped  on  tradesmen's  copper  tokens  and  for 
nearly  two  centuries  his  features  have  formed  the  favourite  subject  of 
distinguished  medallists.  Cameos  and  gems  with  intaglio  portraits  of 
Shakespeare  have  been  frequently  carved  within  the  last  150  years. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   MEMORIALS  541 

river-bank  at  Stratford,  consisting  of  a  theatre,  picture- 
gallery,  and  library,  which  was  mainly  erected  through 
the  munificence  of  Mr.  Charles  E.  Flower  {d.  1892),  of 
Stratford,  the  foundation-stone  was  laid  on  April  23, 
1877.  The  theatre  was  opened  exactly  two  years  later, 
when  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing'  was  performed,  with 
Helen  Faucit  (Lady  Martin)  as  Beatrice  and  Barry 
Sullivan  as  Benedick.  Festival  performances  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  have  since  been  given  annually  during 
April  and  May,  while  an  additional  season  during  the 
month  of  August  was  inaugurated  in  1910.  The  Strat- 
ford festival  performances  have  since  1887  been  rendered 
by  Mr.  F.  R.  Benson  and  his  dramatic  company,  with 
the  assistance  from  time  to  time  of  the  leading  actors 
and  actresses  of  London.  Mr.  Benson  has  produced  on 
the  Stratford  stage  all  Shakespeare's  plays  save  two,  viz. 
'Titus  Andronicus'  and  'All's  Well.'  The  Hbrary  and 
picture-gallery  of  the  Shakespeare  Memorial  at  Strat- 
ford were  opened  in  1881.^  A  memorial  Shakespeare 
library  was  opened  at  Birmingham  on  April  23,  1868, 
to  commemorate  the  Shakespeare  tercentenary  of  1864, 
and,  after  destruction  by  fire  in  1879,  was  restored]  in 
1882 ;  it  now  possesses  nearly  ten  thousand  volumes 
relating  to  Shakespeare. 

'■A  History  of  the  Shakespeare  Memorial,  Stratford-on-Avon,  1882; 
Ilkistrated  Catalogue  of  Pictures  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial,  1896. 


xxm 

QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS 

Only  two  of.  Shakespeare's  works  —  his  narrative  poems 
'Venus  and  Adonis'   and  'Lucrece'  —  were  published 

with  his  sanction  and  co-operation.  These 
issues  of  poems  were  the  first  specimens  of  his  work  to 
thenarra-     appear  in  print,  and  they  passed  in  his  lifetime 

through  a  greater  number  of  editions  than  any 
of  his  plays.  At  his  death  in  1 6 1 6  there  had  been  printed 
six  editions  of  'Venus  and  Adonis'  (1593  and  1594  in 
quarto,  1596,  1599,  1600,  and  1602/  all  in  small  octavo), 
and  five  editions  of  'Lucrece'  (1594  in  quarto,  1598, 
1600,  1607,  and  1 616,  in  small  octavo). 

Within  half  a  century  of  Shakespeare's  death  two 
editions  of  'Lucrece'  were  published,  viz.  in  1624  ('the 

sixth  edition')  and  in  1655,  when  Shakespeare's 
humous  work  appeared  with  a  continuation  by  John 
issues  of       Quarles,  son  of  Francis  Quarles  the  poet  of  the 

'Emblems,'  entitled  'The  Banishment  of  Tar- 
quin,  or  the  Reward  of  Lust.'  ^  Of  'Venus'  there  were 
in  the  seventeenth  century  as  many  as  seven  posthumous 
editions  (in  1617, 1620, 1627,  two  in  1630, 1636,  and  1675), 
making   thirteen   editions   in   eighty-two   years.^    The 

'  It  has  been  erroneously  asserted  that  more  than  one  edition  appeared 
in  1602,  and  that  the  three  extant  copies  of  this  edition  represent  as 
many  different  impressions.  The  three  copies  are  identical  at  all  points 
save  that  on  the  title-page  of  the  British  Museum  copy  a  comma  re- 
places a  colon,  which  figures  in  the  other  two.  That  alteration  was 
clearly  made  in  the  standing  type  before  all  the  copies  were  worked  off. 

^  Perfect  copies  contain  a  frontispiece  engraved  by  William  Fai- 
thome;  in  the  upper  part  is  a  small  oval  portrait  of  Shakespeare  adapted 
'  from  the  Droeshout  engraving  in  the  First  Folio;  below  are  fulUength 
figures  of  Collatinus  and  Lucrece. 

'  Copies  of  the  early  editions  of  the  narrative  poems  are  now  very 
rare.    Of  the  first  edition  of  Venus  and  Adonis  the  copy  in  the  Malone 

542 


QUARTOS  AND  POLIOS  543 

two  narrative  poems  were  next  reprinted  in  'Poems  on 
Affairs  of  State'  in  1707  and  in  collected  editions  of 
Shakespeare's  'Poems'  in  1709,  1710,  and  1725.  Malone 
in  1790  first  admitted  them  to  a  critical  edition  of  Shake- 
speare's works;  his  example  has  since  been  generally 
followed. 

Three  editions  were  issued  of  the  piratical  'Passion- 
ate Pilgrim,'  fraudulently  assigned  to  Shakespeare  by 
the  publisher  William  Jaggard,  afthough  it  ,r^^ 
contained  only  a  few  occasional  poems  by  the  Passionate 
dramatist.  The  first  edition  appeared  in  1599,  ''s"™- 
and  the  third  in  161 2.  No  copy  of  the  second  edition 
survives.^ 

The  only  lifetime  edition  of  the  'Sonnets'  was  Thorpe's 
venture  of  1609,  of  which  twelve  copies  now  seem  known.^ 
Thorpe's  edition  of  the  'Sonnets'  was  first  re-  The 
printed  in  the  second  volume  of  Bernard  Lintot's  Sonnets. 
'Collections  of  Poems  by  Shakespeare'  (1710)  and  for 
a  second  time  in  Steevens's  'Twenty  of  the  Plays  of 
Shakespeare'  (1766).  Malone  first  critically  edited 
Thorpe's  text  in  1780  in  his  'Supplement  to  the  Edition 

collection  of  the  Bodleian  Library  alone  survives.  Three  copies  of  the 
second  edition  (1594)  are  known;  two  of  the  third  edition  (1596);  one 
only  of  the  fourth  edition  (1599)  in  Mr.  Christie  Miller's  library,  Brit- 
well  Court,  Maidenhead;  one  only  of  the  fifth  edition  (1600)  in  the 
Malone  Collection  of  the  Bodleian  Library;  and  three  of  the  sixth  edi- 
tion (1602).  Of  the  editions  of  1617,  1620,  and  of  the  two  editions  of 
1630  unique  copies  again  in  each  case  alone  survive.  That  of  r620  is 
in  the  CapeU  collection  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge;  the  others  are 
in  the  Bodleian  Library.  Two  copies  survive  of  each  of  the  editions 
of  1627  and  1636,  and  of  three  extant  copies  of  the  edition  of  1675  two 
are  in  America,  while  the  third  which  is  in  the  Bodleian  lacks  the  title- 
page.  Extant  copies  of  the  early  editions  of  Lucrece  are  somewhat 
more  numerous.  Ten  copies  of  the  first  edition  (1594)  have  been  traced ; 
one  only  of  the  1598  edition  (at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge);  two 
of  the  third  edition  (1600);  two  of  the  fourth  edition  (1607);  four 
of  the  fifth  edition  (1616) ;  sbc  of  the  sixth  edition  (1624) ;  five  of  the 
seventh  edition  (1632)  and  some  twelve  of  the  eighth  edition  (1655). 

'  See  p.  267  supra. 

'  See  pp.  159-60  supra.  Sales  of  the  volume  at  auction  have  been  rare 
of  late  years.  The  last  copy  to  be  sold  belonged  to  Sir  Henry  St.  John 
Mildmay,  of  Dogmersfield,  Hants.  It  was.  in  moderate  condition  and 
fetched  800/.  at  Sotheby's  on  April  20,  1907. 


544  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  published  in  1778/  vol.  i.  The 
'Sonnets'  were  first  introduced  into  a  collective  edition 
of  Shakespeare's  works  in  1 790  when  Malone  incorporated 
them  with  the  rest  of  the  poems  in  his  edition  of  that  year. 
They  reappeared  in  the  'Variorum'  edition  of  1803  and 
in  ail  the  leading  editions  that  have  appeared  since.^ 

A  so-called  first  collected  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
'Poems'  in  1640  (London,  by  T[homas].  Cotes  for 
-Pjjg  I[ohn].     Benson)    consisted   of   the   'Sonnets,' 

'Poems'  omitting  eight  (xviii.  xix.  xliii.  hd.  Ixxv.  Ixxvi. 
,  of  1640.  xcvi.  and  cxxvi.)  and  adding  the  twenty  poems 
(both  Shakespearean  and  non-Shakespearean)  of  'The 
Passionate  Pilgrim'  and  a  number  of  miscellaneous 
non-Shakespearean  pieces  of  varied  authorship.^  A 
reduced  and  altered  copy  by  WilHam  Marshall  of  the 
Droeshout  engraving  of  1623  formed  the  frontispiece  of 
the  volume  of  1640.  There  were  prefatory  poems  by 
Leonard  Digges  and  John  Warren,  as  well  as  an  address 
'to  the  reader'  signed  'J.  B.,'  the  initials  of  the  pubhsher. 
There  Shakespeare's  'poems' were  described  as  'serene, 
clear,  and  elegantly  plain;  such  gentle  strains  as  shall 
re-create  and  not  perplex  your  brain.  No  intricate  or 
cloudy  stuff  to  puzzle  intellect.  Such  as  will  raise  your 
admiration  to  his  praise.'  A  chief  point  of  interest  in 
the  'Poems'  of  1640  is  the  fact  that  Thorpe's  dedication 
to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  is  omitted,  and  that  the  'Sonnets'  were 
printed  there  in  a  different  order  from  that  which  was 

_^T}ie  first  editions  of  Ventts  and  Adonis,  Lucrece,  The  Passionate 
Pilgrim,  the  Sonnets,  with  the  play  of  Pericles,  were  reproduced  in  fac- 
simile by  the  Oxford  University  Press,  in  1905,  with  introductions  and 
full  bibliographies  by  the  present  writer.  The  1609  edition  of  the  Sonnets 
was  facsimiled  for  the  first  time  in  1862.  The  chief  origmal  editions  of 
the  poems  were  included  in  the  two  complete  series  of  facsimiles  of 
Shakespeare's  works  in  quarto  which  are  noticed  below,  p.  550. 

^  The  following  entry  appears  in  the  Stationers'  Company's  Register 
on  November  4,  1639:  'Entred  [to  John  Benson]  for  his  Copie  vnder 
the  hands  of  doctor  Wykes  and  Master  ffetherston  warden  An  Addicion 
of  some  excellent  Poems  to  Shakespeares  Poems  by  other  gentlemen. 
viz'.  His  mistris  drowne  and  her  mind  by  Beniamin  Johnson.  An 
Epistle  to  Beniamin  Johnson  by  Ffrancis  Beaumont.  His  Mistris  shade 
by  R.  Herrick,  &c.  .  .  .  vj*.'  (Arber,  iv.  461). 


QUARTOS  AND  FOLIOS  54S 

foHowed  in  the  volume  of  1 609.  Thus  the  poem  numbered 
Ixvii.  in  the  original  edition  opens  the  reissue,  and 
what  has  been  regarded  as  the  crucial  poem,  beginning 

Two  loves  I  have  of  comfort  and  despair, 

which  was  in  1609  numbered  cxUv.,  takes  the  thirty- 
second  place  in  1640.  In  most  cases  a  more  or  less  fanci- 
ful general  title  is  placed  in  Benson's  edition  at  the  head 
of  each  soimet,  but  in  a  few  instances  a  single  descriptive 
heading  serves  for  short  sequences  of  two  or  three  son- 
nets which  are  printed  continuously  without  spacing. 
The  non-Shakespearean  poems  drawn  from  'The  Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim'  include  the  extracts  (in  the  third  edition 
of  that  miscellany)  from  Thomas  Hejrwood's  'General 
History  of  Women'.;  all  are  interspersed  among  the 
Sonnets  and  no  hint  is  given  that  any  of  the  volume's 
contents  lack  claim  to  Shakespeare's  authorship.  The 
Poems  of  1640  concludes  with  three  epitaphs  on  Shake- 
speare and  with  a  short  appendix  entitled  'an  addi- 
tion of  some  excellent  poems  to  those  precedent  by 
other  Gentlemen.'  The  volume  is  of  great  rarity.^ 
In  1 7 10  it  was  reprinted  in  the  supplementary  volume 
to  Nicholas  Rowe's  edition  of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  and 
again  in  1725  in  the  supplementary  volume  to  Pope's 
edition.  Other  issues  of  Benson's  volume  appeared  in 
1750  and  1775.    An  exact  reprint  was  issued  in  1885. 

Of  Shakespeare's  plays  there  were  printed  before 
his  death  in  161 6  only  sixteen  pieces  (all  in  quarto), 
or  eighteen  pieces  if  we  include  the  'Contention'  (1594 
and  1600),  and  'The  True  Tragedy'  (1595  and  1600), 
the  first  drafts  respectively  of  the  Second  and  the  Third 

•  Perfect  copies  open  with  a  set  of  five  leaves  with  signatures  in- 
dependent of  the  rest  of  the  volume.  These  leaves  supply  the  frontis- 
piece, title-page,  and  other  preliminary  matter.  A  second  title-page 
precedes  the  'poems'  which  fill  the  main  part  of  the  book.  A  perfect 
copy  of  the  volume,  formerly  belonging  to  Robert  Hoe  of  NewYork, 
was  sold  in  New  York  on  May  3,  191 1,  for  3200Z.,  the  highest  price  yet 
reached. 


546  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Parts  of  'Henry  VI.'  These  quartos,  which  sold  at  five- 
pence  or  sixpence  apiece,  were  pubhshers'  ventures,  and 
Quartos  of  Were  undertaken  without  the  cooperation  of  the 
the  plays  author.  The  pubHcation  of  separate  plays  was 
poet's  as  we  have  seen,^  deemed  by  theatrical  share- 
lifetime,  holders,  and  even  by  dramatists,  injurious  to 
their  interests.  In  March  1599  the  theatrical  manager 
PhiKp  Henslowe  endeavoured  to  induce  a  pubhsher  who 
had  secured  a  playhouse  copy  of  the  comedy  of  'Patient 
Grissell,'  by  Dekker,  Chettle,  and  Haughton,  to  abandon 
the  pubUcation  of  it  by  offering  him  a  bribe  of  2I,  The 
publication  was  suspended  till  1603.^  In  1608  the  share- 
The  holders  of  the  Whitefriars  theatre  imposed  on 

managers'  disloyal  actors  who  yielding  to  publishers'  bribes 
to  their  causcd  plays  to  be  put  irito  print  a  penalty  of 
issue.  ^oi  a^jjfj  forfeiture  of  their  places.^    Many  times 

in  subsequent  years  the  Lord  Chamberlain  in  behalf  of 
the  acting  companies  warned  the  Stationers'  Company 
against  'procuring  pubhshing  and  printing  plays'  'by 
means  whereof  not  only  they  [the  actors]  themselves 
had  much  prejudice,  but  the  books  much  corruption,  to 
the  injury  and  disgrace  of  the  authors.'  * 

But  in  spite  of  the  manager's  repeated  protests,  the 
publishers  found  ready  opportunities  of  effecting  their  pur- 
pose. Occasionally  a  dramatist  in  self-defence  against  a 
threat  of  piracy  sent  a  piece  to  press  on  his  own  account.^ 
But  there  is  no  evidence  that  Shakespeare  assumed  any 
personal  responsibility  for  the  printing  of  any  of  his 
dramas,  or  that  any  play  in  his  own  handwriting  reached 
the  press.  Over  the  means  of  access  to  plays  which 
were   usually  open  to   pubhshers   the   author   exerted 

'  See  p.  100  n.  i  supra. 

'  Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Greg,  i.  iig. 

'  Trans.  New  Shaksp.  Soc.  (1887-92),  p.  271. 

'  Cf.  Malone's  Variorum  Shakespeare,  iii.  160  seq. ;  Malone  Soc. 
Collections,  1911,  vol.  i.  pp.  364  seq. 

'  In  1604  John  Marston  himself  sent  to  press  his  play  called  The 
Malcontent  in  order  to  protect  himself  against  a  threatened  piracy. 
He  bitterly  complained  thjit  'scenes  invented  merely  to  be  spoken 
should  be  inforcively  published  to  be  read.' 


QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS  547 

no  control.  As  a  rule,  the  publisher  seems  to  have 
bought  of  an  actor  one  of  the  copies  of  the  play 
which  it  was  necessary  for  the  manager  to  xhe  source 
provide  for  the  company.  Such  copies  were  of  the 
usually  made  from  the  author's  autograph  after  "'^^' 
the  manager,  who  habitually  abbreviated  the  text  and 
expanded  the  stage  directions,  had  completed  his  re- 
vision. The  divergences  from  the  author's  draft  varied 
with  the  character  and  length  of  the  piece  and  the  mood 
of  the  manager.  The  managerial  pencil  ordinarily  left 
some  severe  scars.  In  the  case  of  at  least  four  of  Shake- 
speare's pieces  —  *  Romeo  and  JuHet,'  '  Henry  V,'  the 
'  Merry  Wives '  and  '  Pericles '  —  the  earliest  printed 
version  lacked  even  the  slender  authority  of  a  theatrical 
transcript;  the  printers  depended  on  crude  shorthand 
reports  taken  down  from  the  hps  of  the  actors  during 
the  performances.^  A  second  issue  of  'Romeo  and 
Juliet'  presented  a  more  or  less  satisfactory  theatrical 
copy  of  the  tragedy,  but  no  attempt  was  made  in  Shake- 
speare's lifetime  to  meet  the  manifold  defects  of  the  quar- 
tos of  'Henry  V,'  the  'Merry  Wives,'  or  'Pericles.' 
Thus  the  textual  authority  of  the  lifetime  quartos  is 
variable.  Yet  despite  the  lack  of  efl&cient  protection 
the  authentic  text  at  times  escaped  material  injury. 
Most  of  the  volumes  are  of  .immense  value  for  the  Shake- 
spearean student.  The  theatrical  conventions  of  the 
day  not  only  withheld  Shakespeare's  autographs  from 
the  printing  press  but  condemned  themi  to  early  destruc- 
tion. The  quartos,  whatever  their  blemishes,  present 
Shakespeare's  handiwork  in  the  earliest  shape  in  which 
it  was  made  accessible  to  readers  of  his  own  era. 

The  popularity  of  the  quarto  versions  which  were  pub- 
lished in  Shakespeare's  lifetime  differed  greatly.  Theyari- 
Two  of  the  plays,  published  thus,  reached  five  ^^l^^' 
editions  before  1616,  viz.  'Richard  HI'  (1597,  editions.: 
1598, 1602,  1605,  1612)  and  'The  First  Part  of  Henry  IV' 
(1598,  1599,  1604,  1608,  1613). 

'  See  p.  112  n.  3  supra. 


548  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Three  reached  four  editions,  viz.  'Richard  II'  (1597, 
1598,  1608  supplying  the  deposition  scene  for  the  first 
time,  1615) ;  'Hamlet'  (1603  imperfect,  1604,  1605, 
1611) ;  and  'Romeo  and  Ju'liet'  (1597  imperfect,  1599, 
two  in  1609). 

Two  reached  three  editions,  viz.  'Titus'  (1594,  1600, 
and  1611) ;  and  'Pericles'  (two  in  1609,  1611,  all  im- 
perfect) . 

Two  reached  two  editions,  viz.  'Henry  V  (1600  and 
1602,  both  imperfect) ;  'Troilus  and  Cressida'  (both  in 
1609). 

Seven  achieved  only  one  edition,  viz.  'Love's  Labour's 
Lost'  (1598);  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  (1600); 
'  Merchant  of  Venice '  (1600) ;  '  The  Second  Part  of  Henry 
IV'  (1600) ;  'Much  Ado'  (1600) ;  'Merry  Wives'  (1602, 
imperfect),  and  'Lear'  (1608). 

Three  years  after  Shakespeare's  death,  in  1619,  a 
somewhat  substantial  addition  was  made  to  these 
The  four  quarto  editions.  In  that  year  there  was  issued 
miques-  a  second  edition  of  'Merry  Wives'  (again  im- 
quartosof  perfect)  and  a  fourth  edition  of  'Pericles,'  as 
1619.  ■^yg^  as  a  reissue  of  the  pseudo-Shakespearean 

piece  'The  Yorkshire  Tragedy'  and  a  new  edition  of  the 
two  parts  of  'The  Whole  Contention  between  the  two 
Famous  Houses,  Lancaster  and  Yorke,'  where  the  original 
drafts  of  the  Second  and  Third  Parts  of  'Henry  VI'  re- 
spectively were  here  brought  together  in  a  single  volume 
and  were  described  for  the  first  time  as  'written  by 
William  Shakespeare,  Gent.'  The  name  of  Arthur 
Johnson,  the  original  publisher  of  the  'Merry  Wives,' 
reappeared  in  the  imprint  of  the  1619  reissue.  The 
title-pages  of  the  three  other  volumes  describe  them  as 
'printed  for  T.  P.,'  i.e.  Thomas  Pavier,  a  pubhsher 
whose  principles  were  far  more  questionable  than  those 
of  most  of  his  fraternity. 

To  the  same  year  16 19  have  also  been  assigned  fresh 
editions  of  four  other  Shakespearean  quartos  and  one 
other  pseudo-Shakespearean  quarto,  all  of  which  bear 


QUARTOS  AND  FOLIOS  549 

on  their  title-pages  earlier  dates.     The  volumes  in  ques- 
tion are  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  ('printed  by 
lames  Roberts,  1600'),  'Merchant  of  Venice'  xhefive 
('printed  by  J.  Roberts,  1600'),    'Henry  V  suspected 
('printed  for  T.  P.,  1608'),  and  'Lear' ('printed  """"''■ 
for  Nathaniel  Butter,  1608 '),  as  well  as  the  pseudo-Shake- 
spearean  'Sir  John   Oldcastle'^   ('printed   for   T.   P., 
1600').    In  the  case  of  these  five  quartos  the  dates  in 
the  imprints  are  beHeved  to  be  deceptive,  and,  save  in 
the  cases  of  'Henry  V  and  'Sir  John  Oldcastle,'  the 
publishers  or  printers  are  held  to  be  falsely  named. 

The  five  volumes  were,  it  is  alleged,  first  printed  and 
published  in  16 19  at  the  press  in  the  Barbican  of  Will- 
iam Jaggard,  James  Roberts's  successor,  in  xhe  charge 
collusion  with  the  stationer  Thomas  Pavier.  against 
In  each  case  Jaggard  and,  Pavier  are  charged  *^'"' 
with  antedating  the  pubhcation.  The  five  suspected 
quartos  have  been  met  bound  up  in  a  single  volume  of 
seventeenth-century  date  along  with  the  four  Shake- 
spearean or  pseudo-Shakespearean  quartos  which  were 
admittedly  produced  in  1619.  It  is  suggested  that 
Pavier  planned  in  that  year  a  first  partial  issue  of  Shake- 
speare's collective  work,  in  which  he  intended  to  include 
all  the  nine  quartos.  But  the  resort  to  fraudulent  im- 
prints in  the  case  of  five  plays  shews  that  he  did  not 
persist  in  that  design.^ 

'  The  suspected  reprint  improves  on  the  original  by  newly  inserting 
on  the  title-page  liie  words  '  written  by  WiUiam  Shakespeare.' 

^Very  strong  technical  evidence  has  been  adduced  against  Pavier 
from  the  watermarks  of  the  paper  of  the  nine  quartos.  Eight  of  the 
suspected  quartos  bear  too  on  the  title-page  the  same  engraved  device, 
a  carnation,  with  the  Welsh  motto  'Heb  Ddim,  heb  Ddieu'  (Without 
God,  without  all).  The  suspected  quarto  of  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  bears  a  different  device,  consisting  of  a  half  eagle  and  key,  the 
arms  of  the  city  pf  Geneva,  with  the  motto  'Post  tenebras  lux.'  Both 
devices  were  of  old  standing  in  the  trade,  and  the  blocks  seem  to  have 
come  into  the  possession  of  the  printer,  William  Jaggard.  No  intelligible 
motive  has  been  assigned  to  Pavier,  apart  from  general  perversity.  The 
textual  superiority  to  its  predecessor  of  the  suspected  re-issue  of  the 
Merchant  of  Venice  conflicts  with  an  accusation  of  wholesale  piracy, 
which  presumes  the  plagiarism  of  a  pre-existing  edition.    Mr.  W.  W. 


55° 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Only  one  of  Shakespeare's  plays  which  were  hitherto 

unpublished  appeared  in  quarto  within  a  few  years  of 

his  death.     'Othello'  was  first  printed  in  1622. 

huraoul'"     In   the    same   year   there   were   issued   sixth 

issue  of  ^     editions    of    both    'Richard    III'    and    'The 

otheuo.      p.^^^  -p^^^  ^^  jj^^^y  jy^,  1  ^j^jg  Shakespeare's 

name  appeared  for  the  first  time  on  a  third  edition  of 
the  old  play  of ' King  John'  in  which  he  had  no  hand. 

The  original  quartos  are  all  to  be  reckoned  among 
bibliographical  rarities.  Of  many  of  them  less  than  a 
The  scare-  dozen  survive,  and  of  some  issues  only  one,  two, 
ityofthe  or  three  copies.  A  single  copy  alone  seems 
quartos.  gxtant  of  the  first  ( 1 594)  quarto  of  '  Titus  Andro- 
nicus'  (now  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Folger,  of  New 
York).  Two  copies  survive  of  the  1597  quarto  of 
'Richard  II,'  of  the  first  (1603)  quarto  of  'Hamlet' 
(both  imperfect),  of  the  1604  quarto  of  'i  Henry  IV,' 
and  of  the  1605  quarto  of  'Hamlet.'  Three  copies 
alone  are  known   of   the   1598   quarto  of   '  The  First 

Greg,  in  the  Library  for  1908,  pp.  113-131,  381-409,  first  questioned  the 
authenticity  of  the  imprints  of  the  nine  quartos  in  question.  His  con- 
clusions are  accepted  by  Mr.  Alfred  W.  Pollard,  in  his  Shakespeare's 
Folios  and  Quartos,  1909,  pp.  81  seq. 

^  The  publication  of  the  first  collected  edition  of  Shakespeare's  work 
in  the  First  Folio  of  1623  did  not  bring  to  an  end  the  practice  of  pub- 
lishing separate  plays  in  quarto;  but  the  value  and  interest  of  such 
volumes  fell  quickly,  in  view  of  the  higher  authority  which  was  claimed 
for  the  Folio  text.  Some  of  the  more  interesting  quarto  re-issues  of 
post-Folio  years  were  Richard  III  (1629),  Pericles,  Othello,  and  Merry 
Wives  (1630),  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  (1631)1 
Hamlet,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  The  Merchant  of  Venice  (1637).  Later 
in  the  seventeenth  century  publishers  often  reissued  in  quarto,  from 
the  text  of  the  Third  or  Fourth  Folios,  the  tragedies  of  Hamlet,  Julius 
Ccesar  and  Othello.  These  volumes  are  known  to  bibliographers  as 
'The  Players'  Quartos.'  They  include  four  editions  of  Hamlet  (1676, 
1683,  169s  and  1703),  five  editions  of  Julius  Ccesar  (the  first  dated 
1684  and  the  latest  1691)  and  five  editions  of  Othello  (1681,  1687,  1695, 
1701,  and  1705):  see  Library,  April  1913,  pp.  122  seq.  Lithographed 
facsimiles  of  the  quartos  published  before  1623,  with  some  of  the  quarto 
editions  of  the  poems  (forty-eight  volumes  in  all),  were  prepared  by  Mr. 
E.  W.  Ashbee,  and  issued  to  subscribers  by  HaUiwell-Phillipps  between 
1862  and  1871.  A  cheaper  set  of  quarto  facsimiles,  undertaken  by  Mr. 
W.  Griggs,  under  the  supervision  of  Dr.  F.  J.  Furnivall,  appeared  in 
forty-three  volumes  between  1880  and  1889. 


QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS  551 

Part  of  Henry  IV' and  of  the  second  (1604)  quarto  of 
'Hamlet.' 1 

Many,  large  collections  of  original  quartos  were  formed 
in. the  eighteenth  century.  The  chief  of  these  are  now 
preserved  in  pubHc  libraries.  To  the  British  xhe  chief 
Museum  the  actor  Garrick  bequeathed  his  coUections 
collection  in  1779;  to  the  Ubrary  of  Trinity  "^i^^^'os- 
College,  Cambridge,  Edward  Capell  gave  his  Shakespeare 
Kbrary  also  in  1779^;  and  to  the  Bodleian  Library  Ed- 
mund Malone  bequeathed  his  Shakespeare  collection  in 
1812.  The  collections  at  the  British  Museum  and  the 
Bodleian  acquired  many  supplementary  quartos  during 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  best  collection  which  re- 
mains in  private  hands  was  brought  together  by  the  actor, 
John  Phihp  Kemble,  and  was  acquired  in  182 1  by  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire,  who  subsequently  made  impor- 
tant additions  to  it.  This  collection  remained  in  the 
possession  of  the  Duke's  descendants  till  1914,  when  the 
whole  was  sold  to  the  American  collector,  Mr.  Archer 
Himtington.  Another  good  collection  of  quartos  was 
formed  in  the  eighteenth  century  by  Charles  Jennens, 
the  well-known  virtuoso,  of  Gopsall  House,  Leicester- 
shire. Gopsall  House  and  its  contents  descended  to 
Earl  Howe,  who  sold  Jennens's  Shakespearean  collec- 
tion in  December  1907.' 

'  Much  information  on  the  relative  scarcity  of  the  quartos  will  be 
found  in  Justin  Winsor's  Bibliography  of  the  Original  Quartos  and  Folios 
of  Shakespeare  with  partictdar  reference  to  copies  in  America  (Boston, 

1874-5). 

*  See  p.  SJgn.  i  infra. 

'  At  tiie  sale  at  Sotheby's  fourteen  of  the  Gopsall  quartos  were  pur- 
chased privately  en  bloc,  while  the  remaining  fourteen  were  disposed 
of  publicly  to  various  bidders.  Perfect  copies  of  Shakespeare  quartos 
range  in  price,  according  to  their  rarity,  from  300/.  to  2,500^.  In  1864, 
at  3ie  sale  of  George  Daniel's  library,  quarto  copies  of  Love's  Labour's 
Lost  and  of  Merry  Wives  (first  edition)  each  fetched  346/.  ros.  On 
April  23,  1904,  tibe  1600  quarto  of  2  Henry  IV  fetched  at  Sotheby's 
ii03Si.,  while  the  1594  quarto  of  Titus  (unique  copy  found  at  Lund, 
Sweden)  was  bought  privately  by  Mr.  Folger  of  New  York  in  January 
1905  for  2,oooZ.  On  June  i,  1907,  a  quarto  of  The  First  Part  of  the  Con- 
tention Xi  594) —  the  early  draft  of  2  Henry  VI  —  fetched  1,910^.  at 
Sotheby's;   and  on  July  9,  1914,  a  quarto,  from  the  Huth  Library,  of 


552  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  1623  the  first  attempt  was  made  to  give  the  world 
a  complete  edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  It  was  a 
The  First  Venture  of  an  exceptional  kind.  Whatever 
folio.  jnay  have  been  the  intentions  of  Pavier  and 
Jaggard  in  1619,  there  was  only  one  previous  collective 
pubhcation  of  a  contemporary  dramatist's  works  which 
was  any  way  comparable  with  the  Shakespearean  proj- 
ect of  1623.  In  1616  Ben  Jonson,  with  the  aid  of  the 
printer  WilHam  Stansby,  issued  a  folio  volume  entitled 
'The  Workes  of  Beniamin  Jonson,'  where  nine  of 
Jonson's  already  published  pieces  were  brought  to- 
gether.^ 

Two  of  Shakespeare's  intimate  friends  and  fellow- 
actors,  John  Heminges  and  Henry  Condell,  both  of  whom 
received  small  bequests  under  his  will,  were 
printers,  nominally  responsible  for  the  design  of  1623. 
^°^,. ,  Heminges  was  the  business  manager  of  Shake- 
speare's  company,  and  had  already  given  ample 
proof  of  his  mercantile  abihty  and  enterprise.  Condell 
was  closely  associated  with  Heminges  in  the  organisation 
of  the  stage.  But  a  small  syndicate  of  printers  and 
pubhshers  undertook  all  pecuniary  liability  for  the 
collective  issue  of  Shakespeare's  work.  Chief  of  the 
syndicate  was  WilUam  Jaggard,  printer  since  161 1  to  the 
City  of  London,  who  in  1594  began  business  solely  as  a 
bookseller  in  Fleet  Street,  east  of  the  churchyard  of  St. 

The  True  Chronicle  History  of  King  Leir  and  his  three  Daughters  (1605), 
the  anonymous  play  which  suggested  Shakespeare's  tragedy  of  King 
Lear,  fetched  at  Soliieby's  the  gigantic  sum  of  2,470^.  It  hardly  needs 
adding  that  American  competition  is  the  cause  of  the  recent  inflation  of 
price. 

^  This  folio  has  a  frontispiece  portrait  by  Vaughan.  Each  play  has 
a  separate  title-page.  There  was  a  re-issue  of  the  volume  in  1640. 
Three  other  of  Jonson's  plays  were  meanwhile  reprinted  in  folio  in  1631, 
and  these  were  re-issued  with  yet  another  three  pieces  and  a  fragment 
of  a  fourth  as  'The  second  volume'  of  Jonson's  Workes,  also  in  1640. 
There  was  only  one  other  collective  publication  within  the  first  half 
of  the  seventeenth  century  of  the  works  of  Elizabethan  or  Jacobean 
dramatists,  and  that  avowedly  followed  the  precedent  of  the  Shakespeare 
First  Folio.  Thirty-four  Comedies  and  Tragedies  by  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher  which  had  not  previously  been  printed  were  issued  in  a  folio 
volume  by  Humphrey  Moseley  in  1647.     See  p.  558  n. 


QUARTOS  AND  FOLIOS  553 

Dunstan  in  the  West.  As  the  piratical  publisher  of 
'The  Passionate  Pilgrim'  in  1599  he  had  acknowledged 
the  commercial  value  of  Shakespeare's  name.  In  1608 
he  extended  his  operations  by  acquiring  an  interest  in 
a  printing  press.  He  then  purchased  a  chief  share  in  the 
press  which  James  Roberts  worked  with  much  success 
in  the  Barbican.  There  Roberts  had  printed  the  first 
quarto  edition  of  the  'Merchant  of  Venice'  in  1600  and 
die  (second)  quarto  of  'Hamlet'  in  1604.  Roberts, 
moreover,  enjoyed  for  nearly  twenty-one  years  the  right 
to  print'theplayers'biUs'orprogrammes.  Thatprivilege 
he  made  over  to  Jaggard  together  with  his  other  Uterary 
property  in  161 5.  It  is  to  the  close  personal  relations 
with  the  playhouse  managers  into  which  the  acquisition 
of  the  right  of  printing  'the  players'  bills'  brought 
Jaggard  that  the  inception  of  the  comprehensive  scheme 
of  tilie  'First  Foho'  may  safely  be  attributed.  Jaggard 
associated  his  son  Isaac  with  the  enterprise.  They  alone 
of  the  members  of  the  syndicate  were  printers.  Their 
three  partners  were  publishers  or  booksellers  only.  Two 
of  these,  William  Aspley  and  John  Smethwick,  had 
already  speculated  in  plays  of  Shakespeare.  Aspley 
had  published  with  another  in  1600  the  'Second  Part  of 
Henry  IV'  and  'Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  and  in  1609 
half  of  Thorpe's  impression  of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets.' 
Smethwick,  whose  shop  was  in  St.  Dunstan's  Church- 
yard, Fleet  Street,  near  Jaggard's  first  place  of  business, 
had  purchased  in  1607  Nicholas  Ling's  rights  in  'Ham- 
let,' 'Romeo  and  Juliet'  and  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,' 
and  had  published  the  1609  quarto  of  'Romeo  and 
Juliet'  and  the  1611  quarto  of  'Hamlet.'  Edward 
Blount,  the  fifth  partner,  was  an  interesting  figure  in 
the  trade,  and,  unlike  his  companions,  had  a  true  taste 
in  literature.  He  had  been  a  friend  and  admirer  of 
Christopher  Marlowe,  and  had  actively  engaged  in  the 
posthumous  pubHcation  of  two  of  Marlowe's  poems. 
He  had  pubhshed  that  curious  collection  of  mystical 
verse  entitled  'Love's  Martyr,'  one  poem  in  which,  'a 


554  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

poetical  essay  of  the  Phoenix  and  the  Turtle,'  was  signed 
'WilUam  Shakespeare.'  ^ 

The  First  Folio  was  printed  at  the  press  in  the  Barbican 
which  Jaggard  had  acqviired  of  Roberts.  Upon  Blount 
The  license  Probably  fell  the  chief  labour  of  seeing  the 
Nov.  8,  work  through  the  press.  It  was  in  progress 
'*^^'  throughout  1623,  and  had  so  far  advanced  by 

November  8,  1623,  that  on  that  day  Edward  Blount  and 
Isaac  (son  of  William)  Jaggard  obtained  formal  license 
from  the  Stationers'  Company  to  pubhsh  sixteen  of  the 
twenty  hitherto  unprinted  plays  which  it  was  intended  to 
include.  The  pieces,  whose  approaching  publication  for 
the  first  time  was  thus  announced,  were  of  supreme 
literary  interest.  The  titles  ran:  'The  Tempest,'  'The 
Two  Gentlemen,'  'Measure  for  Measure,'  'Comedy  of 
Errors,'  'As  You  Like  It,'  'All's  WeU,'  'Twelfth  Night,' 
'Winter's  Tale,'  'The  Third  Part  of  Henry  VI,'  'Henry 
VIII,'  'Coriolanus,'  'Timon,'  'Juhus  C£esar,'  'Macbeth,' 
'Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  and  'Cymbeline.'  Four  other 
hitherto  unprinted  dramas  for  which  no  Kcense  was 
sought  figured  in  the  volume,  viz.  'King  John,'  'The 
First  and  Second  Parts  of  Henry  VI'  and  'The  Taming 
of  the  Shrew ' ;  but  each  of  these  plays  was  based  by 
Shakespeare  on  a  play  of  like  title  which  had  been  pub- 
lished at  an  earher  date,  and  the  absence  of  a  hcense 
was  doubtless  due  to  some  misconception  on  the  part 
either  of  the  Stationers'  Company's  officers  or  of  the 
editors  of  the  volume  as  to  the  true  relations  subsist- 
ing between  the  old  pieces  and  the  new.  The  only 
play  by  Shakespeare  that  had  been  previously  pub- 
hshed  and  was  not  included  in  the  First  Folio  was 
'Pericles.' 2 

.  i?^*  P-  ^70  seq.  supra,  and  a  memoir  of  Blount  by  the  present  writer 
inBtbliographica,  p.  489  seq. 

'  The  present  writer  described,  in  greater  detail  than  had  been  at- 
tempted before,  the  general  characteristics  of  the  First  Folio  m  his' 
Introduction  to  the  facsimile  published  at  Oxford  in  1902.  Some  of 
his  conclusions  are  questioned  in  Mr.  Alfred  W.  Pollard's  useful  Shake- 
speare Quartos  and  Folios,  1909,  which  has  been  already  cited. 


QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS  555 

Thirty-six  pieces  in  all  were  thus  brought  together. 
Nine  of  the  fourteen  comedies,  five  of  the  ten  histories, 
and  six  of  the  twelve  tragedies  were  issued  for  the  first 
time  and  were  rescued  from  urgent  peril  of  obHvion. 
Whatever  be  the  First  Foho's  typographical  and  editorial 
imperfections,  it  is  the  fountain-head  of  knowledge  of 
Shakespeare's  complete  achievement. 

The  plays  were  arranged  under  three  headings : 
'Comedies,'  'Histories,'  and  'Tragedies.'  It  is  clear  that 
the  volume  was  printed  and  made  up  in  three  xhe  order 
separate  sections.  Each  division  was  inde-  of  the 
pendently  paged,  and  the  quires  on  which  ^*^^' 
each  was  printed  bear  independent  series  of  signatures. 
The  arrangement  of  the  plays  in  each  division  foUows  iio 
consistent  principle.  The  comedy  section  begins  with 
'The  Tempest,'  one  of  the  latest  of  Shakespeare's  com- 
.positions,  and  ends  with  'The  Winter's  Tale.'  The 
histories  more  justifiably  begin  with  'King  John'  and  end 
with  'Henry  VIII' ;  here  historic  chronology  is  carefully 
observed.  The  tragedies  begin  with  'Troilus  and 
Cressida'  and  end  with  'C3anbehne.'  The  order  of  the 
First  FoHo,  despite  its  want  of  strict  method,  has  been 
usually  followed  in  subsequent  collective  editions. . 

The  volume  consisted  of  nearly  one  thousand  double- 
column  pages  and  was  sold  at  a  pound  a  copy.  The 
book  was  described  on  the  title-page  as  published  by 
Edward  Blount  and  Isaac  Jaggard,  and  in  the  colophon 
as  'printed  at  the  charges  of  W.  Jaggard,  I.  Smithweeke, 
and  W.  Aspley,'  as  well  as  of  Blount.  On  the  title-page 
was  engraved  the  Droeshout  portrait,  and  on  the  fly-leaf 
facing  the  title  are  printed  ten  Lines  signed  'B.  I.'  [i.e. 
Ben  Jonson]  attesting  the  Hfelike  accuracy  of  the  portrait. 
The  preliminary  pages  contain  a  dedication  in  prose,  an 
address  'to  the  great  variety  of  readers'  (also  in  prose), 
a  list  of  'The  names  of  the  Principall  Actors  in  all  these 
Playes,'  and  'A  Catalogue  of  the  seuerall  Comedies 
Histories  and  Tragedies  contained  in  this  Volume,' 
with  four  sets  of  commendatory  verses  signed  respectively 


556  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

by  Ben  Jonson,  Hugh  Holland,  Leonard  Digges,  and 
I.  M.,  perhaps  Jasper  Mayne. 

The  dedication  was  addressed  to  two  prominent 
courtiers,  the  brothers  William  Herbert,  third  earl  of 
The  actors'  Pembroke,  the  lord  chamberlain  (from  1615 
addresses,  iq  1626),  and  Philip  Herbert,  earl  of  Mont- 
gomery. Shakespeare's  friends  and  fellow-actors  John 
Heminges  and  Henry  CondeU  signed  the  dedicatory 
epistle  'To  the  most  noble  and  incomparable  paire  of 
brethren.'  The  same  signatures  were  appended  to  the 
succeeding  address  '  to  the  great  variety  of  readers.'  In 
both  compositions  the  two  actors  made  pretension  to  a 
larger  responsibihty  for  the  enterprise  than  they  probably 
incurred,  but  their  motives  in  solely  identifying  them- 
selves with  the  venture  were  beyond  reproach.  They 
disclaimed  (they  wrote)  '  ambition  either  of  selfe-profit  or 
fame  in  undertaking  the  design,'  being  solely  moved  by, 
anxiety  to  'keepe  the  memory  of  so  worthy  a  friend  and 
fellow  alive  as  was  our  Shakespeare.'  'It  had  bene  a 
thing  we  confesse  worthie  to  haue  bene  wished,'  they 
inform  the  reader, '  that  the  author  himselfe  had  lined  to 
haue  set  forth  and  ouerseen  his  owne  writings.' 

The  two  dedicatory  Addresses  —  to  the  patrons  and 
to  the  readers  — ■  which  the  actor-editors  sign,  contain 
Their  phrases  which  crudely  echo  passages  in  the 
^•eged  published  writings  of  Shakespeare's  friend  and 
by  Ben  ^  fellow-dramatist,  Ben  Jonson.  From  such  par- 
jonson.  allelisms  has  been  deduced  the  theory  that 
Ben  Jonson  helped  the  two  actors  to  edit  the  volume  and 
that  his  pen  supphed  the  two  prehminary  documents  in 
prose.  But  the  ill-rounded  sentences  of  the  actors' 
epistles  lacked  Jonson's  facihty  of  style.  His  contri- 
bution to  the  First  Folio  may  well  be  Umited  to  the 
lines  facing  the  portrait  which  he  subscribed  with  his 
initials,  and  the  poetic  eulogy  which  he  signed  with  his 
full  name.  Shakespeare's  colleagues,  Heminges  and 
CondeU,  had  acted  in  Jonson's  plays,  and  may  well 
have  gathered  from  his  writings  hints  for  their  unprac- 


QUARTOS  AND  FOLIOS  557 

tised  pens.  But  it  is  more  probable  that  they  delegated 
much  of  their  editorial  duty  to  the  pubhsher,  Edward 
Blount,  who  was  not  unversed  in  the  dedicatory  art.' 

The  title-page  states  that  all  the  plays  were  printed 
'according  to  the  true  originall  copies.'  The  dedicators 
wrote  to  the  same  effect.  'As  where  (before)  Editorial 
you  were  abus'd  with  diuerse  stolne,  and  professions, 
surreptitious  copies,  maimed  and  deformed  by  the 
frauds  and  stealthes  of  iniurious  impostors  that  expos'd 
them :  euen  those  are  now  offer'd  to  your  view  cur'd  and 
perfect  of  their  Umbes,  and  all  the  rest  absolute  in  their 
numbers  as  he  conceiued  them.'  The  writers  of  the 
Address  further  assert  that 'what  [Shakespeare]  thought 
he  vttered  with  that  easinesse  that  wee  haue  scarce 
receiued  from  him  a  blot  in  his  papers.'  Ben  Jonson 
recorded  a  remark  made  to  him  by  '  the  players'  to  the 
same  effect.^ 

The  precise  source  and  value  of  the  'copy'  which  the 
actor-editors  furnished  to  the  printers  of  the  First  Folio 
are  not  easily  determined.  The  actor-editors  xhe  source 
clearly  meant  to  suggest  that  they  had  access  of  the  ^ 
to  Shakespeare's  autographs  undefaced  by  his  '^°^^' 
own  or  any  other  revising  pen.  But  such  an  assurance 
is  in  open  conflict  with  theatrical  practice  and  with  the 
volume's  contents.  In  the  case  of  the  twenty  plays  which 
had  not  previously  been  in  print,  recourse  was  alone  pos- 
sible to  manuscript  copies.  But  external  and  internal 
evidence  renders  it  highly  improbable  that  Shakespeare's 
autographs  were  at  the  printer's  disposal.  Well-nigh 
aU  the  plays  of  the  First  Foho  bear  internal  marks  of 
transcription  and  revision  by  the  theatrical  manager. 

'  George  Steevens  claimed  the  Address  'To  the  Great  Variety  of 
Readers'  for  Ben  Jonson,  and  cited  in  support  of  his  contention  many- 
parallel  passages  from  Jonson's  works.  (See  Malone's  Variorum  Shake- 
speare, vol.  ii.  pp.  663-675.)  Prof.  W.  Dinsmore  Briggs  has  on  like 
doubtful  grounds  extended  Jonson's  claim  to  the  dedication  (cf.  The 
Times  Literary  Supplement,  Nov.  12,  1914,  and  April  22,  1915),  but  Mr. 
Percy  Simpson  has  questioned  Prof.  Briggs's  conclusions  on  grounds 
that  deserve  acceptance  (cf.  ibid.  Nov.  19,  1914,  and  May  20,  1915). 

'  See  p.  97  supra. 


558  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  spite  of  their  heated  disclaimer,  the  editors  sought 
help  too  from  the  published  Quartos.  But  most  of  the 
pieces  were  printed  from  hitherto  unprinted  copies  which 
had  been  made  for  theatrical  uses.  Owing  to  the  sudden 
destruction  by  fire  of  the  Globe  theatre  in  1613  there 
were  special  difficulties  in  bringing  material  for  the 
volume  together.  When  the  like  disaster  befel  the  For- 
tune theatre  in  162 1,  we  learn  specifically  that  none  of 
the  theatrical  manuscripts  or  prompt  books  escaped. 
Heminges,  who  was  'book-keeper'  as  well  as  general 
manager  of  the  Globe,  could  only  have  replenished  his 
theatrical  library  with  copies  of  plays  which  were  not 
at  the  date  of  the  fire  in  his  custody  at  the  theatre. 
Two  sources  were  happily  available.  Many  transcripts 
were  in  the  private  possession  of  actors,  and  there  were 
extant  several '  fair  copies '  which  the  author  or  actor  had 
according  to  custom  procured  for  presentation  to  friends 
and  patrons.^ 

^  Copies  of  plays  were  at  times  also  preserved  by  the  licenser  of  plays, 
who  was  in  the  habit  of  directing  the  'book-keeper'  of  the  theatre  to 
supply  him  with  'a  fair  copy'  of  a  play  after  he  had  examined  and  cor- 
rected the  author's  manuscript.  'A  fair  copy'  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  Honest  Man's  Fortune  (played  in  1613)  which  was  made  for 
the  licenser  Sir  Henry  Herbert  is  in  the  Dyce  Library  at  South  Kensing- 
ton ;  a  note  in  the  licenser's  autograph  states  that  the  original  manuscript 
was  lost.  Apart  from  pieces  written  by  students  for  flie  Universities, 
all  save  some  half-a-dozen  autographs  of  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
plays  seem  to  have  disappeared,  and  the  contemporary  scrivener's 
transcripts  which  survive  are  few.  A  good  example  of  a  private  trans- 
script  made  for  a  patron  by  a  professional  scribe  is  a  draft  of  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher's  Humorous  Lieutenant  dated  in  1625,  which  is  preserved 
among  the  Wynn  MSS.  at  Peniarth.  Fair  copies  of  like  calibre  of  six 
plays  of  William  Percy,  a  minor  dramatist,  were  until  lately  in  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire's  collection,  and  nine  plays  avowedly  prepared  for  a 
patron  by  their  author  Cosmo  Manuche  belonged  in  the  eighteenth 
century  to  the  Marquis  of  Northampton.  Of  private  transcripts  which 
were  acquired  and  preserved  by  contemporary  actors,  two  good  speci- 
mens are  a  copy  of  The  Telltale,  an  anonymous  comedy  in  five  acts,  among 
the  Dulwich  College  manuscripts.  No.  xx,  and  a  copy  of  Middleton's 
Witch  among  Malone's  MSS.  at  the  Bodleian.  The  actor  AUeyn's 
manuscript  copy  of  portions  of  Greene's  play  of  Orlando  Furioso  also 
at  Dulwich  (I.  No.  138)  presents  many  points  of  interest.  The  Egerton 
MS.  1994  contains  as  many  as  fifteen  transcripts  of  plays,  nearly  all  of 
which  seem  to  answer  the  description  of  private  transcripts  made  either 


QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS  559 

There  are  marked  inequalities  in  the  textual  value  of 
the  thirty-six  plays  of  the  First  Folio.     The  twerity 
newly  pubUshed  pieces  vary  greatly  in  authen-  ~  ^  ^ 
ticity.     'The  Tempest,,'  'The  Two  Gentlemen  value 
of  Verona,'  'twelfth  Night,'  'A  Winter's  Tale,'  l^^^ 
'Julius  Caesar,'  and  'Antony  and  Cleopatra'  printed 
adhere,  it  would  seem,   very  closely  to   the  ^^^^^' 
form  in  which  they  came  from  the  author's  pen.     '  The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,'  'The  Comedy  of  Errors,'  'As  You 
Like  It,'  the  three  parts  of  'Henry  VI,'  'King  John,'  and 
'Henry  VIII'  follow  fairly  accurate  transcripts.    But 
the  remaining  six  pieces,  'All's  WeU  that  Ends  Well,' 
'Measure  for  Measure,'  'Macbeth,'  ' Coriolanus,'  'Cym- 
beline,'  and  'Timon  of  Athens,'  are  very  corrupt  versions 
and  abound  in  copyists'  incoherences. 

With  regard  to  the  sixteen  plays  of,  which  printed 
Quartos  were  available,  the  editors  of  the  First  FoHo 
ignored  eight  of  the  preceding  editions.     Of  xhe  eight] 
'Richard    III,'    'Merry    Wives,'    'Henry   V,'  neglected 
'Othello,'  'Lear,'  '2  Henry  IV,'  'Hamlet,'  and  ^"^"°'- 
'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  all  of  which  were  in  print,  manu- 
script versions  were  alone  laid  under  contribution  by 
the    FoHo.    The    Quartos    of    'Richard    III,'    'Merry 
Wives,'  and  'Henry  V  lacked  authentic  value,  and  the 
FoKo  editors   did  good   service  in  superseding   them. 
Elsewhere  their  neglect  of  the  Quartos  reflects  on  their 
critical  acumen.     In  the  case  of  'Lear'   and  'Troilus 
and  Cressida,'  several  passages  of  value  which  figure  "in 

for  actors  or  for  their  friends  or  patrons.  The  publisher,  Humphrey 
Moseley,  when  he  collected  in  a  folio  volume  the  unprinted  plays  of 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  in  1647,  informed  his  readers  that  he  'had  the 
originalls  from  such  as  received  them  from  the  Authors  themselves,' 
that  'when  private  friends  desir'd  a  copy,  they  [i.e.  the  Actors]  then 
(and  justly  too)  transcribed  what  they  Acted,'  and  that  "twere  vain 
to  mention  the  chargeableness  of  this  work  [i.e.  the  cost  of  gathering 
the  scattered  plays  for  collective  publication],  for  those  who  own'd  the 
Manuscripts  too  well  knew  their  value  to  make  a  cheap  estimate  of  any 
of  these  Pieces.'  Moseley  brought  the  '  copy '  together  after  the  theatres 
were  closed  and  their  libraries  dispersed,  but  his  references  to  the  dis- 
tribution of  dramatic  manuscripts  and  the  manner  of  collecting  them 
presume  practices  of  old  standing.    See  p.  552  ». 


560  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Quartos  are  omitted  by  the  Folio,  and  the  Folio 
additions  need  supplementing  before  the  texts  can  be 
reckoned  complete.  Similar  relations  subsist  between 
the  text  of  the  Second  Quarto  of  'Hamlet'  and  the  inde- 
pendent Folio  version  of  the  play.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
new  FoUo  text  of  '  OtheUo '  improves  on  the  Quarto  text. 
The  FoKo  text  of  'The  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV'  supplies 
important  passages  absent  from  the  Quarto ;  yet  it  is 
inferior  to  its  predecessor  in  general  accuracy. 

Of  the  remaining  eight  Quartos  substantial  use  was 
made  by  the  Foho  editors,  in  spite  of  the  comprehensive 
The  eight  ^^^^  which  they  cast  on  all  pre-existing  editions, 
reprinted  At  times  the  editors  made  additions  chiefly 
Quartos.  -^^  ^j^^  ^^y  ^j  Stage  directions  to  such  Quarto 
texts  as  they  employed.  If  the  Quarto  existed  in  more 
than  one  edition,  the  Folio  editors  usually  accepted  the 
guidance  of  a  late  issue,  however  its  textual  value  com- 
pared with  its  predecessor.  The  only  Quarto  of  'Love's 
Labour's  Lost'  —  that  of  1598  —  was  reproduced  Ht- 
erally,  but  without  scrupulous  •  care.  '  A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream'  followed  rather  more  carefully  the 
text  of  Pavier's  (second)  Quarto,  which  is  said  to  have 
been  falsely  dated  1600.  The  Foho  version  of  'Richard 
II'  follows  the  late  (fourth)  Quarto  of  161 5,  which  is  for 
the  most  part  less  trustworthy  than  the  first  Quarto  of 
1597  —  in  spite  of  the  temporary  suppression  there  of 
great  part  of  the  deposition  scene  first  supphed  in  the 
third  Quarto  of  1608.  'Romeo  and  JuUet'  is  taken 
from  the  third  Quarto  of  1609,  and  though  the  punctu- 
ation is  improved  and  the  stage  directions  are  expanded, 
the  Folio  text  shows  some  typographical  degeneracy. 
The  First  Foho  prints  the  1611  (the  third)  Quarto  of 
'Titus  Andronicus'  with  new  stage  directions,  some 
textual  alterations  and  some  additions  including  one 
necessary  scene  (Act  III.  Sc.  2).  'The  First  Part  of 
Henry  IV'  is  printed  from  the  fifth  Quarto  of  16 13  with 
a  good  many  corrections.  'The  Merchant  of  Venice' 
is  faithful  to  the  1600  or  the  earher  of  two  Quarto  issues, 


QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS  561 

and  'Much  Ado'  is  loyal  to  the  only  Quarto  of  1600 ;  in 
both  cases  new  stage  directions  are  added. 

As  a  specimen  of  tj^ography  the  First  Folio  is  not  to 
be  commended.  There  are  a  great  many  contemporary 
folios  of  larger  bulk  far  more  neatly  and  cor-  xhetypog- 
rectly  printed.  It  looks  as  though  Jaggard's  raphy. 
printing  office  were  undermanned.  Proofs  that  the 
book  was  printed  off  without  adequate  supervision  could 
be  multipHed  almost  indefinitely.  Passages  in  foreign 
languages  are  rarely  intelUgible,  and  testify  with  singular 
completeness  to  the  proofreader's  inefl&ciency.  Apart 
from  misprints  in  the  text,  errors  in  pagination  and  in 
the  signatures  recur  with  embarrassing  frequency. 
Many  headlines  are  irregular.  Capital  letters  irrespon- 
sibly distinguish  words  within  the  sentence,  and  although 
italic  type  is  more  methodically  employed,  the  implicit 
rules  are  often  disobeyed.  The  system  of  punctuation 
which  was  adopted  by  Jacobean  printers  of  plays  differed 
from  our  own ;  it  would  seem  to  have  followed  rhythmi- 
cal rather  than  logical  principles ;  commas,  semicolons, 
colons,  brackets  and  hyphens  indicated  the  pauses  which 
the  rhythm  required.  But  the  punctuation  of  the  First 
Folio  often  ignored  all  just  methods.^  The  sheets  seem 
to  have  been  worked  off  very  slowly,  and  corrections,  as 
was  common,  were  made  while  the  press  was  working, 
so  that  the  copies  struck  off  later  differ  occasionally  from 
the  earher  copies. 

An  irregularity  which  is  common  to  all  copies  is  that 
'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  though  in  the  body  of  the  book 
it  opens  the  section  of  tragedies,  is  not  men-  in-eguiar 
tioned  at  all  in  the  table  of  contents,  and  the  ™p'^=- 
play 'is  unpaged  except  on  its  second  and  third  pages, 
which  bear  the  numbers  79  and  80.^    Several  copies  are 

'  To  Mr.  Percy  Simpson  is  due  the  credit  of  determining  in  his  Shake- 
spearian Punctuation  (1911)  the  true  principles  of  Elizabethan  and 
Jacobean  punctuation. 

'  Cf.  p.  368  supra.    Full  descriptions  of  this  and  other  irregularities 
of  the  First  Folio  are  given  in  tie  present  author's  Introduction  to  the 
Oxford  facsimile  of  the  First  Folio,  1902, 
2Q 


562  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

distinguished  by  more  interesting  irregularities,  in  some 
cases  unique.  Copies  in  the  Public  Library  in  New  York 
and  the  Barton  collection  in  the  Boston  Pubhc  Library, 
like  the  copy  sold  in  1897  to  an  American  collector  by 
Bishop  John  Vertue,  include  a  cancel  duphcate  of  a  leaf 
of  'As  You  Like  It'  (sheet  R  of  the  Comedies) .^  In 
Bishop  Samuel  Butler's  copy,  now  in  the  National 
Library  at  Paris,  a  proof  leaf  of  'Hamlet'  was  bound  up 
with  the  corrected  leaf  .^  . 

The  most  interesting  irregularity  yet  noticed  appears 
in  one  of  the  two  copies  of  the  book  which  belonged  to 
The  the  late  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  and  is  now 

Sheldon  the  property  of  Mr.  Burdett-Coutts.  This  copy, 
'^°^^'  which  is  known  as  the  Sheldon  Foho,  formed 

in  the  seventeenth  century  part  of  the  library  of  the 
Sheldon  family  of  Weston  Manor  in  the  parish  of  Long 
Compton,  Warwickshire,  not  very  far  from  Stratford- 
on-Avon.'  A  subsequent  owner  was  John  Home  Tooke, 
the  radical  politician  and  philologist,  who  scattered 
about  the  margins  of  the  volume  many  manuscript  notes 
attesting  an  unqualified  faith  in  the  authenticity  of  the 
First  Foho  text.*    In  the  Sheldon  FoUo  the  opening  page 

'  The  copy  in  the  New  York  Public  Library  was  bought  by  Lenox 
the  American  collector  at  Sotheby's  in  1855  for  163Z.  16^.  He  inserted 
a  title-page  (inlaid  and  bearing  lie  wilfully  mutilated  date  1622)  from 
another  copy,  which  had  been  described  in  the  Variorum  Shakespeare  of 
1821  (xxi.  449)  as  then  in  the  possession  of  Messrs.  J.  and  A.  Arch,  book- 
sellers, of  Cornhill. 

'  This  is  described  in  the  Variorum  Shakespeare  of  1821,  xxi.  44.9-^50. 

'  The  book  would  seem  to  have  been  acquired  in  1628  by  William 
Sheldon  of  Weston  (who  was  born  there  March  9,  1588-9,  and  died 
on  April  9,  1659).  Its  next  owner  was  apparently  William  Sheldon's 
son,  Ralph  Sheldon)  who  was  born  on  Aug.  4,  1623,  and  died  without 
issue  on  June  24,  1684),  and  from  him  the  book  passed  to  his  cousin  and 
heir,  also  Ralph  Sheldon,  who  died  on  Dec.  20,  1720.  A  note  in  a  con- 
temporary hand  records  that  the  copy  was  bought  in  1628  for  3^.  15^.,  a 
somewhat  extravagant  price.  A  further  entry  says  that  it  cost  three 
score  pounds  of  silver,  i.e.  pounds  Scot  (=60  shillings).  The  Sheldon 
family  arms  are  on  the  sides  of  the  volume. 

*  Home  Tooke,  whose  marginal  notes  interpret  difficult  words,  cor- 
rect misprints,  or  suggest  new  readings,  presented  the  volume  in  1810 
to  his  friend  Sir  Francis  Burdett.  On  Sir  Francis's  death  in  1844  it 
passed  to  his  only  son,  Sir  Robert  Burdett,  whose  sister,  the  late  Baroness 


QUARTOS  AND  FOLIOS  563 

of  'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  of  which  the  recto  or  front  is 
occupied  by  the  prologue  and  the  Verso  or  back  by  the 
opening  hues  of  the  text  of  the  play,  is  followed  by  a 
superfluous  leaf.  On  the  recto  or  front  of  the  unnecessary 
leaf^  are  printed  the  concluding  hnes  of ''Romeo  and 
Juliet'  in  place  of  the  prologue  to  'Troilus  and  Cressida.' 
At  the  back  or  ve;rso  are  the  opening  lines  of  'Troilus 
and  Cressida'  repeated  from  the  preceding  page.  The 
presence  of  a  different  ornamental  headpiece  on  each  page 
proves  that  the  two  are  taken  from  different  settings  of 
the  type.  At  a  later  page  in  the  Sheldon  copy  the  con- 
cluding lines  of  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  are  duly  reprinted  at 
the  close  of  the  play,  and  on  the  verso  or  back  of  the  leaf, 
which  supplies  them  in  their  right  place,  is  the  opening 
passage,  as  in  other  copies,  of  'Timon  of  Athens.'  These 
curious  confusions  attest  that  while  the  work  was  in 
course  of  composition  the  printers  or  editors  of  the  volume 
at  one  time  intended  to  place  'Troilus  and  Cressida,' 
with  the  prologue  omitted,  after  'Romeo  and  Juliet.' 
The  last  page  of  'Romeo  and  JuUet'  is  in  all  copies  num- 
bered 79,  an  obvious  misprint  for  77 ;  the  first  leaf  of 
'Troilus'  is  unpaged ;  but  the  second  and  third  pages  of 
'Troilus'  are  numbered  79  and  80.  It  was  doubtless 
determined  suddenly  while  the  volume  was  in  the  press 
to  transfer  'Troilus  and  Cressida'  to  the  head  of  the 
tragedies  from  a  place  near  the  end,  but  the  numbers  on 
the  opening  pages  which  indicated  its  first  position  were 
clumsily  retained,  and  to  avoid  the  further  extensive 

Burdett-Coutts,  inherited  it  on  Sir  Robert's  death  in  1880.  In  his  'Di- 
versions of  Purley'  (ed.,1840,  p.  338)  Home  Tooke  wrote  thus  of  the  First 
Folio  which  he  studied  m  this  copy :  'The  First  Folio,  in  my  opinion,  is 
the  only  edition  worth  regarding.  And  it  is  much  to  be  wished,  that  an 
edition  of  Shakespeare  were  given  literatim  according  to  the  first  Folio ; 
which  is  now  become  so  scarce  and  dear,  that  few  persons  can  obtain  it. 
For,  by  the  presumptuous  licence  of  the  dwarfish  commentators,  who 
are  for  ever  cutting  him  down  to  their  own  size,  we  risque  the  loss  of 
Shakespeare's  genuine  text ;  which  that  Folio  assuredly  contains ;  not- 
withstanding some  few  slight  errors  of  the  press,  which  might  be  noted, 
without  altering.' 

'  It  has  been  mutilated  by  a  former  owner,  and  the  signature  of  the 
leaf  is  missing,  but  it  was  presumably  G  G  3. 


564  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

correction  of  the  pagination  that  was  required  by  the 
play's  change  of  position,  its  remaining  pages  were 
allowed  to  go  forth  unnumbered.^     , 

Yet  another  copy  of  the  First  Folio  presents  unique 
features  of  a  diSerent  kind  of  interest.  Mr.  Coningsby 
Sibthorp  of  Sudbrooke  Holme,  Lincoln,  pos- 
prffen^ta-  scsses  a  copy  which  has  been  in  the  library  of  his 
o£°tiie°^^  family  for  more  than  a  century,  and  is  beyond 
First  doubt  one  of  the  very  earliest  that  came  from 

^°^°-  the  press  of  the  printer  William  Jaggard.  The 
title-page,  which  bears  Shakespeare's  portrait,  shows  the 
plate  in  an  early  state,  and  the  engraving  is  printed  with 
unusual  firmness  and  clearness.  Although  the  copy  is 
not  at  aU  points  perfect  and  several  leaves  have  been 
supplied  in  facsimile,  it  is  a  taller  copy  than  any  other, 
being  thirteen  and  a  half  inches  high,  and  thus  nearly 
half  an  inch  superior  in  stature  to  that  of  any  other 
known  copy.  The  binding,  rough  calf,  is  partly  original ; 
and  on  the  title-page  is  a  manuscript  inscription,  in 
contemporary  handwriting  of  indisputable  authenticity, 
attesting  that  the  copy  was  a  gift  to  an  intimate  friend 
by  the  printer  Jaggard.     The  inscription  reads  thus : 

The  fragment  of  the  original  binding  is  stamped  with  an 
heraldic  device,  in  which  a  muzzled  bear  holds  a  banner  in 
its  left  paw  and  in  its  right  a  squire's  helmet.  There  is  a 
crest  of  a  bear's  head  above,  and  beneath  is  a  scroll  with 
the  motto  'Augusta  Vincenti'  {i.e.  'proud  things  to  the 
conqueror ') .  This  motto  proves  to  be  a  pun  on  the  name 
of  the  owner  of  the  heraldic  badge  —  Augustine  Vincent, 
a  highly  respected  official  of  the  College  of  Arms,  who  is 

*  The  copy  of  the  First  Folio,  which  belonged  to  Mr.  J.  Pierpont 
Morgan,  of  New  York,  contains  a  like  irregularity.  See  the  present 
writer's  Census  of  Extant  Copies  of  the  First  Folio,  a  supplement  to  the 
Facsimile  Reproduction  (Oxford,  1902). 


QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS  ^  565 

known  from  independent  sources  to  have  been,  at  the  date 
of  the  publication,  in  intimate  relations  with  the  printer 
of  the  First  Foho.^  It  is  therefore  clear  that  it  was  to 
Augustine  Vincent  that  Jaggard  presented  as  a  free  gift 
one  of  the  first  copies  of  this  great  volume  which  came 
from  his  press.  The  inscription  on  the  title-page  is  in 
Vincent's  handwriting. 

A  copy  of  the  Folio  dehvered  in  sheets  by  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company  late  in  1623  to  the  librarian  of  the 
Bodleian,  Oxford,  was  sent  for  binding  to  an  rj^^ 
Oxford  binder  on  February  17,   1623-4,  and,  Turbutt 
being  duly  returned  to  the  library,  was  chained  '^°^' 
to  the  shelves.     The  volume  was  sold  by  the  curators  of 

'  Shortly  before  this  great  Shakespearean  enterprise  was  undertaken, 
Vincent  the  Herald  and  Jaggard  the  printer  had  been  jointly  the  object 
of  a  violent  and  slanderous  attack  by  a  peryerse-tempered  personage 
named  Ralph  Brooke.  This  Brooke  was  one  of  Vincent's  colleagues  at 
the  College  of  Arms.  He  could  never  forgive  the  bestowal,  some  years 
earlier,  of  an  office  superior  to  his  own  on  an  outsider,  a  stranger  to  the 
College,  WUliam  Camden,  the  distinguished  writer  on  history  and 
archaeology.  From  that  time  forth  he  made  it  the  business  of  his  life 
to  attack  in  print  Camden  and  his  friends,  of  whom  Vincent  was  one. 
He  raised  objection  to  the  grant  of  arms  to  Shakespeare,  for  which  Cam- 
den would  seem  to  have  been  mainly  responsible  (see  pp.  281  seq.  supra). 
His  next  step  was  to  compile  and  publish  a  Catalogue  of  the  Nobility, 
a  sort  of  controversial  Peerage,  in  which  he  claimed,  with  abusive  vigour, 
to  expose  Camden  and  his  friends'  ignorance  of  the  genealogies  of  the 
great  families  of  England.  Brooke's  book  was  printed  in  1619  by  Jag- 
gard. The  Camden  faction  discovered  in  it  abundance  of  discreditable 
errors.  The  errors  were  due,  Brooke  replied,  in  a  corrected  edition  of 
1622,  to  the  incompetence  of  his  printer  Jaggard.  Then  Augustine 
Vincent,  Camden's  friend,  the  first  owner  of  the  Sibthorp  copy  of  the 
First  Folio,  set  himself  to  prove  Brooke's  pretentious  incompetence 
and  malignity.  Jaggard,  who  resented  Brooke's  aspersions  on  his  pro- 
fessional skill  in  typography,  not  only  printed  and  published  Vincent's 
Discovery  of  Brooke's  Errors,  as  Vincent  entitled  his  reply,  but  inserted 
in  Vincent's  volume  a  personal  vindication  of  his  printing-office  from 
Brooke's  strictures.  Vincent's  denunciation  of  Brooke,  to  which  Jag- 
gard contributed  his  caustic  preface,  was  published  in  1622,  and  gave 
Brooke  his  quietus.  Incidentally,  Jaggard  and  his  ally  Vincent  avenged 
Brooke's  criticism  of  the  great  dramatist's  right  to  the  arms  that  the 
Heralds'  College,  at  the  instance  of  Vincent's  friend  Camden,  had  granted 
him  long  before.  It  was  appropriate  that  Jaggard  when  he  next  year 
engaged  in  the  great  enterprise  of  the  Shakespeare  First  Folio  should 
present  his  friend  and  feUow-victor  in  the  recent  strife  with  an  early 
copy  of  the  volume.  (See  art.  by  present  writer  in  Cornhill  Magazine, 
April  1899.) 


566  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  Bodleian  as  a  dupKcate  on  purchasing  a  copy  of  the 
Third  FoUo  in  1664 ;  but  it  was  in  1906  re-purchased  for 
the  Bodleian  from  Mr.  W.  G.  Turbutt  of  Ogsdon  Hall, 
Derbyshire,  an  ancestor  of  whom  seems  to  have  acquired 
it  soon  after  it  left  the  Bodleian  Library.  The  portrait 
is  from  the  plate  in  its  second  state.^ 

The  First  Foho  is  intrinsically  the  most  valuable  vol- 
ume in  the  whole  range  of  EngHsh  hterature,  and  extrin- 
sically  is  only  exceeded  in  value  by  some  haK- 
number  of  dozen  volumes  of  far  earlier  date  and  of  ex- 
extant  ceptional  t}^ographical  interest.  ,The  original 
copies.  e(jition  probably  numbered  500  copies.  Of 
these  more  than  one  hundred  and  eighty  are  now  trace- 
able, one-third  of  them  being  in  America.^  Several  of 
the  extant  copies  are  very  defective,  and  most  have 
undergone  extensive  reparation.  Only  fourteen  are  in 
a  quite  perfect  state,  that  is,  with  the  portrait  printed 
(not  inlaid)  on  the  title-page,  and  the  flyleaf  facing  it, 
with  all  the  pages  succeeding  it,  intact  and  uninjured. 
(The  flyleaf  contains  Ben  Jonson's  verses  attesting  the 
truthfulness  of  the  portrait.)  Excellent  copies  which 
remain  in  Great  Britain  in  this  enviable  state  are  in  the 
Grenville  Library  at  the  British  Museimi,  and  in  the 
libraries  of  the  Earl  of  Crawford  and  Mr.  W.  A.  Burdett- 
Coutts.  Two  other  copies  of  equal  merit,  which  were 
formerly  the  property  of  A.  H.  Huth  and  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire  respectively,  have  recently  passed  to  America. 
The  Huth  copy  was  presented  to  Yale  University  by  Mr. 
A.  W.  Cochran  in  191 1.  The  Duke's  famous  copy  be- 
came the  property  of  Mr.  Archer  Huntington  of  New 

'  The  Original  Bodleian  Copy  of  the  First  Folio  of  Shakespeare,  by  F. 
Madan,  G.  R.  M.  Turbutt,  and  S.  Gibson,  Oxford,  igos,  fol.  A  second 
copy  of  the  First  Folio  in  the  Bodleian  is  in  the  Malone  collection  and 
has  been  in  the  library  since  1821. 

^  One  hundred  and  sixty  copies  in  various  conditions  were  described 
by  me  in  the  Census  of  Extant  Copies  appended  to  the  Oxford  Facsimile 
of  the  First  Folio  (1902),  and  fourteen  additional  copies  in  Notes  and 
Additions  to  the  Census,  1906.  Six  further  copies  have  since  come  under 
my  notice.  Of  fourteen  first-rate  copies  which  were  in  England  in  1902, 
five  have  since  been  sold  to  American  collectors. 


QUARTOS   AND   FOLIOS    '  567 

:York  in  1914.  A  good  but  somewhat  inferior  copy, 
formerly  the  property  of  Frederick  Locker-Lampson  of 
E,owfant,  was  bequeathed  in  1913  to  Harvard  University 
by  Harry  Elkins  Widener  of  Philadelphia.  Several  good 
copies  of  the  volume  have  lately  been  acquired  by  Mr. 
H.  C.  Folger  of  New  York. 

On  the  continent  of  Europe  three  copies  of  the  First 
Folio  are  known.  One  is  in  the  Royal  Library  at  Berlin, 
and  another  in  the  Library  of  Padua  University,  continen- 
but  both  of  these  are  imperfect ;  the  third  copy,  t^'  '^"P'^^- 
which  is  in  the  Bibhotheque  Nationale  at  Paris,  is  perfect 
save  that  the  preliminary  verses  and  title-page  are 
mounted.^ 

The  'Daniel'  copy  which  belonged  to  the  late  Baroness 
Burdett-Coutts,  and  is  on  the  whole  the  finest  and  cleanest 
extant,  measures  13I  inches  by  8j,  and  was 
purchased  by  the  Baroness  for  716/.  2s.  at  vaiue^o^'^ 
the  sale  of  George  Daniel's  Hbrary  in  1864.  jSJjjq'"^^' 
This  comparatively  small  sum  was  long  the 
highest  price  paid  for  the  book.  A  perfect  copy,  meas- 
uring 12^  inches  by  7^!,  fetched  840/.  (4200  dollars) 
at  the  sale  of  Mr.  Brayton  Ives's  hbrary  in  New  York, 
in  March  1891.  A  copy,  measuring  13!  inches  by  8f, 
was  privately  purchased  for  more  than  1000/.  by  the  late 
Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  of  New  York,  in  June  1899,  of 
Mr.  C.  J.  Toovey,  bookseller,  of  Piccadilly,  London.  A 
copy  measuring  12I  inches  by  8f ,  which  had  long  been 
in  Belgium,  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Bernard  Buchanan 
Macgeorge,  of  Glasgow,  for  1700/.,  at  a  London  sale, 
jiily  II,  1899,  and  was  in  June  1905  sold,  with  copies  of 
the  Second,  Third,  and  Fourth  Folios,  to  Mr..  Marsden 
J.' Perry,  of  Providence,  U.S.A.,  for  an  aggregate  sum 
of  io,ooo^.  On  March  23,  1907,  the  copy  of  the  First 
Folio  formerly  in  the  hbrary  of  the  late  Frederick  Locker- 

,  '  The  Paris  copy  was  bought  at  the  sale  of  Samuel  Butler,  Bishop  of 
Lichfield,  in  1840,  together  with  copies  of  the  other  three  FolioB;  the 
First  FoUo^oia  for  1875  francs  (75/.)  and  each  of  the  others  for  500  francs 
(20/.).    (M.  Jusserand  in  Athenceum,  August  8,  1908.) 


568  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Lampson,  of  Rowfant,  and  now  at  Harvard,  fetched  at 
Sotheby's  3600/. ;  this  is  the  largest  sum  yet  realised  at 
public  auction.^ 

The  Second  Folio  edition  was  printed  in  1632  by 
Thomas  Cotes  for  a  syndicate  of  five  stationers,  John 
^j^g  Smethwick,  William  Aspley,  Richard  Hawkins, 

Second  Richard  Meighen  and  Robert  Allot,  each  of 
Fo'io-  whose  names  figures  separately  with  their  various 
addresses  as  pubHsher  on  different  copies.  Copies  sup- 
plying Meighen's  name  as  publisher  are  very  rare.  To 
Allot,  whose  name  is  most  often  met  with  on  the  title- 
page,  Blount  had  transferred,  on  November  16,  1630,  his 
rights  in  the  sixteen  plays  which  were  first  licensed  for 
pubHcation  in  1623.^  The  Second  Foho  was  reprinted 
from  the  First ;  a  few  corrections  were  made  in  the  text, 
but  most  of  the  changes  were  arbitrary  and  needless,  and 
prove  the  editor's  incompetence.^  Charles  I's  copy  is 
at  Windsor,  and  Charles  II's  at  the  British  Museum. 
The  'Perkins  Folio,'  formerly  in  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's 
possession,  in  which  John  Payne  Collier  introduced  forged 
emendations,  was  a  copy  of  that  of  1632.*    The  highest 

^  A  reprint  of  the  First  Folio  unwarrantedly  purporting  to  be  exact 
was  published  in  1807-8;  it  bears  the  imprint  'E.  and  J.  Wright.  St. 
John's  Square  [Clerkenwell].'  The  best  type-reprint  was  issued  in  three 
parts  by  Lionel  Booth  in  1861,  1863,  and  1B64.  A  photo-zincographic 
reproduction,  by  Sir  Henry  James  and  Howard  Staimton,  appeared  in 
sixteen  parts  (Feb.  1864-Oct.  1865).  A  greatly  reduced  photographic 
facsimile  followed  in  1876,  with  a  preface  by  HaUiwell-PhiUipps.  In 
1902  the  Oxford  University  Press  issued  a  collotj^e  facsimile  of  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire's  copy  at  Chatsworth,  with  introduction  and  a 
census  of  copies  by  the  present  writer.  Notes  and  Additions  to  the 
Census  followed  in  igo5. 

2  Arber,  Stationers'  Registers,  iii.  242-3. 

'  Malone  examined,  once  for  all,  the  textual  alterations  of  the  Second 
Folio  in  the  preface  to  his  edition  of  Shakespeare  (1790).  See  Variorum 
Shakespeare,  1821;  i.  208-26. 

*  On  January  31,  1852,  Collier  announced  in  the  Athenaum,  that  this 
copy,  which  had  been  purchased  by  him  for  thirty  shillings,  and  bore 
on  the  outer  cover  the  words  'Tho  Perkins  his  Booke,'  was  annotated 
throughout  by  a  former  owner  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Shortly  afterwards  Collier  published  all  the  'essential'  manuscript  read- 
ings in  a  volume  entitled  Notes  and  Emendations  to  the  Plays  of  Shake- 
speare.   Next  year  he  presented  the  folio  to  the  Duke  of  Devonshire. 


QUARTOS  AND   FOLIOS  569 

price  paid  at  public  auction  is  1350^.,  which  was  reached 
at  the  sale  in  New  York  of  Robert  Hoe's  Library  on  May 
3,  191 1 ;  the  copy  bore  Allot's  imprint.  Mr.  Macgeorge 
acquired  for  540/.  at  the  Earl  of  Oxford's  sale  in  1895 
the  copy  formerly  belonging  to  George  Daniel;  this 
passed  to  Mr.  Perry,  of  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  in 
1905  with  copies  of  the  First,  Third,  and  Fourth  Fohos 
for  io,oooL 

The  Third  Folio  —  mainly  a  reprint  of  the  Second  — 
was  first  published  in  1663  by  PhiUp  Chetwynde,  who 
reissued  it  next  year  with  the  addition  of  seven  j^^^^ 
plays,  six  of  which  have  no  claim  to  admission  Third 
among  Shakespeare's  works.^  'Unto  this  im-  ^°''°' 
pression,'  runs  the  title-page  of  1664,  'is  added  seven 
Playes  never  before  printed  in  folio,  viz. :  Pericles,  Prince 
of  Tyre.  The  London  Prodigal.  The  History  of  Thomas 
Ld.  Cromwell.  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  Lord  Cobham.  The 
Puritan  Widow.  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy.  The  Tragedy 
of  Locrine.'  Shakespeare's  partial  responsibiUty  for 
'Pericles'  justified  a  place  among  his  works,  but  its  six 
companions  in  the  Third  FoHo  were  all  spurious  pieces 
which  had  been  attributed  by  unprincipled  pubHshers  to 
Shakespeare  in  his  hfetime.  Fewer  copies  of  the  Third 
Folio  are  reputed  to  be  extant  than  of  the  Second  or 
Fourth,  owing  (according  to  George  Steevens)  to  the 
destruction  of  many  unsold  impressions  in  the  Fire  of 
London  in  1666.  On  June  i,  1907,  a  copy  of  the  1663 
impression  fetched  at  Sotheby's  1550/.,  and  on  May  3, 
191 1,  a  copy  of  the  1664  impression  fetched  at  the  sale 
in  New  York  of  Robert  Hoe's  library  the  large  sum  of 
3300/. 

A  warm  controversy  followed,  but  in  1859  Mr.  N.  E.  S.  A.  Hamilton,  of 
the  British  Museum,  in  letters  to  the  Times  of  July  2  and  16  pronounced 
the  manuscript  notes  to  be  recent  fabrications  in  a  simulated  seventeenth- 
century  hand. 

'  The  1633  impression  has  the  imprint  'Printed  for  Philip  Chetwynde' 
and  that  of  1664  'Printed  for  P.  C  The  1664  impression  removes  the 
portrait  from  the  title-page,  and  prints  it  as  a  frontispiece  on  the  leaf 
facing  the  title,  with  Ben  Jonson's  verses  below,  The  Fourth  Folio 
adopts  the  same  procedure. 


570  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

The  Fourth  Folio,  printed  in  1685  'for  H.  Herringman, 
E.  Brewster,  R.  Chiswell,  and  R.  Bentley,'  reprints  the 
The  folio  of  1664  without  change  except  in  the  way 

Fourth        of  modernising  the  spelling,  and  of  increasing 
°  °'         the  number  of  initial  capitals  within  the  sen- 
tence.^   Two  hundred  and  fifteen  pounds  is  the  highest 
price  yet  reached  by  the  Fourth  Folio  at  public  auction. 

'  In  the  imprint  of  many  copies  ChisweU's  name  is  omitted.  In  a  few 
copies  the  imprint  has  the  rare  variant:  'Printed  for  H.  Herringman, 
and  are  to  be  sold  by  Joseph  Knight  and  Francis  Saunders,  at  the  Anchor 
in  the  Lower  Walk  of  the  New  Exchange.' 


i  ^^^^ 

EDITORS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY  AND 
AFTER 

Dryden  in  his  'Essay  on  the  Dramatic  Poetry  of  the  last 
Age'  (1672)  1  expressed  surprise  at  the  reverence  extended 
to  Shakespeare  in  view  of  the  fact  that  every 
page  in  the  accessible  editions  presented  some  ties^or' 
'solecism  in  speech  or  some  notorious  flaw  in  tiie  early 

L6XLS 

sense.'  Many  of  the  defects  which  Dryden 
imputed  to  the  early  texts  were  due  to  misapprehension 
either  of  the  forms  of  EUzabethan  or  Jacobean  speech  or 
of  the  methods  of  EHzabethan  or  Jacobean  typography. 
Yet  later  readers  of  the  Folios,  or  Quartos^  who  were 
better  versed  than  Dryden  in  literary  archaeology,  echoed 
his  complaint.  ^It  was  natural  that,  as  Shakespearean 
study  deepened,  efforts  should  be  made  to  remove  from 
the  printed  text  the  many  perplexities  which  were  due 
to  the  early  printers'  spelling  vagaries,  their  misreadings 
of  the '  copy,'  and  their  inability  to  reproduce  intelUgently 
any  sentence  in  a  foreign  language. 

The  work  of  textual  purgation  began  very  early  in  the 
eighteenth  Century  and  the  Foho  versions,  which  at  the 
time  enjoyed   the  widest   circulation,   chiefly 
engaged  editorial  ingenuity.     The  eighteenth-  eenth-cen- 
century   editors   of   the   collected   works   en-  ^^^^^ 
deavoured  with  varying  degrees  of  success  to 
free  the  text  of  the  incoherences  of  the  Folios.     Before 
long  they  acknowledged  a  more  or  less  binding  obligation 
to  restore,  where  good  taste  or  good  sense  required  it, 
the  readings   of   the  neglected   Quartos.     Since   1685, 

-    '  Dryden's  'Essay'  was  also  entitled  Defence  0}  the  Epilogue  to  the 
second  part  of  the  Conquest  of  Granada:  see  Dryden's  Essays,  ed.  Ker,  i. 

S7I 


572  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

when  the  Fourth  FoHo  appeared,  some  two  hundred 
independent  editions  of  the  collected  works  have  been 
pubhshed  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  many 
thousand  editions  of  separate  plays.  The  vast  figures 
bear  witness  to  the  amount  of  energy  and  ingenuity 
which  the  textual  emendation  and  elucidation  of  Shake- 
speare have  engaged.  The  varied  labours  of  the  eight- 
eenth-century editors  were  in  due  time  co-ordinated  and 
winnowed  by  their  successors  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
In  the  result  Shakespeare's  work  has  been  made  intelli- 
gible to  successive  generations  of  general  readers  untrained 
in  criticism,  and  the  universal  significance  of  his  message 
has  suffered  little  from  textual  imperfections  and 
difficulties. 

A  sound  critical  method  was  not  reached  rapidly.^ 
Nicholas  Rowe,  a  popular  dramatist  of  Queen  Anne's 
Nicholas  ^eign,  and  poet  laureate  to  George  I,  made  the 
Rowe,  first  attempt  to  edit  the  work  of  Shakespeare. 
1674-1718.  jjg  produced  an  edition  of  his  plays  in  six  octavo 
volumes  in  1709,  and  another  hand  added  a  seventh 
volume  which  included  the  poems  (17 10)  and  an  essay 
on  the  drama  by  a  critic  of  some  contemporary  repute, 
Charles  Gildon.  A  new  impression  in  eight  volumes 
followed  in  17 14,  again  with  a  supplementary  (ninth) 
volume  adding  the  poems  and  a  critical  essay  by  Gildon. 
Rowe  prefixed  a  valuable  hfe  of  the  poet  embodying 
traditions  which  were  in  danger  of  perishing  without  a 
record.  The  great  actor  Betterton  visited  Stratford  in 
order   to   supply  Rowe   with  local  information.^    His 

1  A  useful  account  of  eighteenth-century  criticism  of  Shakespeare 
is  to  be  found  in  the  preface  to  the  Cambridge  edition  by  the  late  Dr. 
Aldis  Wright.  The  memoirs  of  the  various  editors  in  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography  supply  much  information.  See  also  Eighteenth- 
century  Essays  on  Shakespeare,  ed.  D.  Nichol  Smith,  1903 ;  T.  R.  Louns- 
bury,  The  First  Editors  of  Shakespeare  {Pope  and  Theobald),  1906;  and 
Ernest  Walder,  The  Text  of  Shakespeare,  in  Cambridge  History  of  Litera- 
ture, vol.  V.  pt.  i.  pp.  258-82. 

'  John  Hughes,  the  poetaster,  who  edited  Spenser,  corrected  the 
proofs  of  the  1714  edition  and  supplied  an  index  or  glossary  {Variorum 
Shakespeare,  1821,  ii.  677). 


EDITORS   OF  THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY        573 

text,  mainly  followed  that  of  the  Fourth  FoUo.  The 
plays  were  printed  in  the  same  order,  and  'Pericles'  and 
the  six  spurious  pieces  were  brought  together  at  the  end. 
Rowe  made  no  systematic  study  of  the  First  Folio  or  of 
the  Quartos,  but  in  the  case  of  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  he 
met  with  an  early  Quarto  while  his  edition  was  passing 
through  the  press  and  he  inserted  at  the  end  of  the  play 
the  prologue  which  is  met  with  only  in  the  Quartos.  A 
late  Quarto  of  'Hamlet'  (1676)  also  gave  him  some  sug- 
gestions. He  made  a  few  happy  emendations,  some  of 
which  coincide  accidentally  with  the  readings  of  the  First 
FoKo;  but  his,  text  is  deformed  by  many  palpable 
errors.  His  practical  experience  as  a  playwright  induced 
him,  however,  to  prefix  for  the  first  time  a  Ust  of  dramatis 
persona  to  each  play,  to  divide  and  number  acts  and 
scenes  on  rational  principles,  and  to  mark  the  entrances 
and  exits  of  the  characters.  Spelhng,  pimctuation,  and 
grammar  he  corrected  and  modernised. 

The  poet  Pope  was  Shakespeare's  second  editor.  His 
edition  in  six  spacious  quarto  volumes  was  completed 
in  1725,  and  was  issued  by  the  chief  publisher  Alexander 
of  the  day  Jacob  Tonson.  'Pericles'  and  the  Pope^ 
six  spurious  plays  were  excluded.  The  [poems,  ^  ^''*''' 
edited  by  Dr.  George  Sewell,  with  an  essay  on  the  rise 
and  progress  of  the  stage,  and  a  glossary,  appeared  in 
an  independent-  seventh  volume.  In  his  preface  Pope, 
while  he  fully  recognised  Shakespeare's  native  genius, 
deemed  his  achievement  deficient  in  artistic  quality. 
Pope  had  indeed  few  qualifications  for  his  task,  and 
the  venture,  moreover,  was  a  commercial  failure.  His 
claim  to  have  collated  the  text  of  the  Fourth  FoUo  with 
that  of  all  preceding  editions  cannot  be  accepted.  There 
are  indications  that  he  had  access  to  the  First  Folio  and 
to  some  of  the  Quartos.  But  it  is  clear  that  Pope  based 
his  text  substantially  on  that  of  Rowe.  His  innovations 
are  mmierous,  and  although  they  are  derived  from  'his 
private  sense  and  conjecture,'  are  often  plausible  and 
ingenious.    He  was  the  first  to  indicate  the '  place '  of  each 


574 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


new  scene,  and  he  improved  on  Rowe's  scenic  subdivision. 
A  second  edition  of  Pope's  version  in  ten  duodecimo 
volumes  appeared  in  1728  with  Sewell's  name  on  the 
title-page,  as  well  as  Pope's ;  the  ninth  volume  supplied 
'Pericles'  and  the  six  spurious  plays.  There  were  very- 
few  alterations  in  the  text,  though  a  preliminary  table 
supplied  a  list  of  twenty-eight  Quartos,  which  Pope 
claimed  to  have  consulted.  In  1734  the  publisher 
Tonson  issued  all  the  plays  in  Pope's  text  in  separate 
1 2mo.  volumes  which  were  distributed  at  a  low  price  by 
book-pedlars  throughout  the  country."-  A  fine  reissue  of 
Pope's  edition  was  printed  on  Garrick's  suggestion  at 
Birmingham  from  Basker-ville's  types  in  1768. 

Pope  found  a  rigorous  critic  in  Lewis  Theobald,  who, 
although  contemptible  as  a  writer  of  original  verse  and 
Lewis  prose,  proved  himself  the  most  inspired  of  all 

Theobald,  the  textual  critics  of  Shakespeare.  Pope 
1688-1744.  savagely  avenged  himself  on  his  censor  by 
holding  him  up  to  ridicule  as  the  hero  of  the  original 
edition  of  the  'Dunciad'  in  1728.  Theobald  first 
displayed  his  critical  skill  in  1726  in  a  volume  which 
deserves  to  rank  as  a  classic  in  Enghsh  Kterature.  The 
title  runs  'Shakespeare  Restored,  or  a  specimen  of  the 
many  errors  as  well  committed  as  unamended  by  Mr. 
Pope  in  his  late  edition  of  this  poet,  designed  not  only 
to  correct  the  said  edition  but  to  restore  the  true  reading 
of  Shakespeare  in  all  the  editions  ever  yet  pubhsh'd.' 
There  at  page  137  appears  the  classical  emendation  in 
Shakespeare's  account  of  Falstaff's  death  ('Henry  V,' 
II.  iii.  17) :  'His  nose  was  as  sharp  as  a  pen  and  a'  babbled 
of  green  fields,'  in  place  of  the  reading  in  the  old  copies, 
'His  nose  was  as  sharp  as  a  pen  and  a  table  of  green 
fields.'  ^    In  1733  Theobald  brought  out  his  edition  of 

1  This  was  the  first  attempt  to  distribute  Shakespeare's  complete 
works  in  a  cheap  form  and  proved  so  successful  that  a  rival  publisher 
R.  Walker  'of  the  Shakespeare's  Head,  London'  started  a  like  venture 
in  rivalry  also  in  1734.  Tonson  denounced  Walker's  edition  as  a  corrupt 
piracy,  and  Walker  retorted  on  Tonson  with  the  identical  charge. 

'  Theobald  does  not  claim  the  invention  of  this  conjecture.    He 


EDITORS   OF   THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY         575 

Shakespeare  in  seven  volumes.  In  1740  it  reached  a 
second  issue.  A  third  edition  was  published  in  1752. 
Others  are  dated  1772  and  1773.  It  is  stated  that  12,860 
copies  in  all  were  sold.^  Theobald  made  a  Just  use  of 
the  First  FoKo  and  of  the  contemporary  Quartos,  yet 
he  did  not  disdain  altogether  Pope's  discredited  version, 
and  his  'gift  of  conjecture'  led  him  to  reject  some  cor- 
rect readings  of  the  original  editions.  Over  300  original 
corrections  or  emendations  which  he  made  in  his  edition 
have,  however,  become  part  and  parcel  of  the  authorised 
canon. 

In  dealing  with  admitted  corruptions  Theobald  re- 
mains unrivalled,  and  he  has  every  right  to  the  title  of 
the  Person  of  Shakespearean  criticism.^  His  principles 
of  textual  criticism  were  as  enhghtened  as  his  practice 
was  ordinarily  triumphant.  'I  ever  labour,'  he  wrote 
to  Warburton,  'to  make  the  smallest  deviation  that  I 
possibly  can  from  the  text ;  never  to  alter  at  all  where  I 
can  by  any  means  explain  a  passage  with  sense;  nor 
ever  by  any  emendation  to  make  the  author  better  when 
it  is  probable  the  text  came  from  his  own  hands.'  The 
following  are  favourable  specimens  of  Theobald's  in- 
sight. In  'Macbeth'  (i.  vii.  6)  for  'this  bank  and  school 
of  time,'  he  substituted  the  familiar  'bank  and  shoal  of 
time,'  and  he  first  gave  the  witches  the  epithet  'weird' 
which  he  derived  from  Holinshed,  therewith  supplanting 
the  ineffective  'weyward'  of  the  First  Folio.     In  'An- 

writes  'I  have  an  edition  of  Shakespeare  by  Me  with  some  Marginal 
Conjectures  of  a  Gentleman  sometime  deceas'd,  and  he  is  of  the  Mind 
to  correct  the  Passage  thus.' 

'  Theobald's  editorial  fees  amounted  to  652^.  10^.,  a  substantial 
sum  when  contfasted  with  36/.  lo^.  granted  to  Rowe  (together  with 
2&I.  p.  to  his  assistant,  John  Hughes),  and  with  217/.  i2i.  received 
by  Pope,  whose  assistants  received  j&l.  iis.  6d.  Of  later  eighteenth- 
century  editors,  Warburton  received  360/.,  Dr.  Johnson  480/.,  and 
Capell  300/.  Cf.  Malone's  Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  vol.  ii. 
p.  677. 

'  Churton  Collins's  admirable  essay  on  Theobald's  textual  criticism 
of  Shakespeare,  entitled  'The  Person  of  Shakespearean  Critics,'  is  re- 
printed from  the  Quarterly  Review  in  his  Essays  and  Sttidies,  1895,  pp. 
263  et  seq. 


576  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

tony  and  Cleopatra'  the  old  copies  (v.  ii.  87)  made 
Cleopatra  say  of  Antony : 

For  his  bounty, 
There  was  no  winter  in't ;  an  Anthony  it  was 
That  grew  the  more  by  reaping. 

For  the  gibberish  'an  Anthony  it  was,'  Theobald  read 
'an  autumn  'twas,'  and  thus  gave  the  lines  true  point 
and  poetry.  A  third  notable  instance,  somewhat  more 
recondite,  is  found  in  'Coriolanus'  (n.  i.  59-60)  when 
Menenius  asks  the  tribunes  in  the  First  FoKo  version 
'what  harm  can  your  besom  conspectuities  [i.e.  vision  or 
eyes]  glean  out  of  this  character?'  Theobald  replaced 
the  meaningless  epithet  'besom'  by  'bisson'  (i.e.  pur- 
blind) ,  a  recognised  Elizabethan  word  which  Shakespeare 
had  already  employed  in  'Hamlet'  (11.  ii.  529).^ 

The  fourth  editor  was  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer,  a  country 
gentleman  without  much  hterary  culture,  but  possessing 
a  large  measure  of  mother  wit.  He  was  Speaker 
Thomas  of  the  House  of  Commons  for  a  few  months  in 
Hanmer  1 7 14,  and  retiring  soon  afterwards  from  public 
life  devoted  his  leisure  to  a  thoroughgoing 
scrutiny  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  His  edition,  which  was 
the  earliest  to  pretend  to  typographical  beauty,  was 
finely  printed  at  the  Oxford  University  Press  in  1744  in 
six  quarto  volumes.  It  contained  a  number  of  good  en- 
gravings by  Gravelot  after  designs  by  Francis  Hayman, 
and  was  long  highly  valued  by  book  collectors.  No 
editor's  name  was  given.  In  forming  his  text,  which  he 
claimed  to  have  'carefully  revised  and  corrected  from 
the  former  editions,'  Hanmer  founded  his  edition  on 
the  work  of  Pope  and  Theobald  and  he  adopted  many  of 
their  conjectures.     He  made  no  recourse  to  the  old  copies. 

1  Collier  doubtless  followed  Theobald's  hint  when  he  pretended  to 
have  found  in  his  'Perkins  Folio'  the  extremely  happy  emendation 
(now  generally  adopted)  of  'bisson  multitude'  for  'bosom  multiplied'  in 
Coriolanus's  speech : 

How  shall  this  bisson  multitude  digest 

The  senate's  courtesy?  —  Coriolanus  (m.  i.  131-2). 


EDITORS   OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY        577 

At  the  same  time  his  own  ingenuity  was  responsible  for 
numerous  original  alterations  and  in  the  result  he  supplied 
a  mass  of  common-sense  emendations,  some  of  which 
have  been  permanently  accepted.^  Hanmer's  edition 
was  reprinted  in  17  70-1. 

In  1747  Wilham  Warburton,  a  blustering  divine  of 
multifarious  reading,  who  was  a  friend  of  Pope  and 
became  Bishop  of  Gloucester  in  1759,  produced 
a  new  edition  of  Shakespeare  in  eight  volumes,  wLbur- 
on  the  title-pages  of  which  he  joined  Pope's  t™- 
name  with  his  own.  Warburton  had  smaller  '  ^  '  '• 
qualification  for  the  task  than  Pope,  whose  labours  he 
eulogised  extravagantly.  He  boasted  of  his  own  perform- 
ance that '  the  Genuine  Text  (collated  with  all  the  former 
editions  and  then  corrected  and  emended)  is  here 
settled.'  It  is  doubtful  if  he  examined  any  early  texts. 
He  worked  on  the  editions  of  Pope  and  Theobald,  mak- 
ing occasional  reference  to  Hanmer.  He  is  credited  with 
a  few  sensible  emendations,  e.g.  'Being  a  god,  kissing 
carrion,'  in  place  of  'Being  a  good  kissing  carrion'  of 
former  editions  of  'Hamlet'  (11.  ii.  182).  But  such  im- 
provements as  he  introduced  are  mainly  borrowed  from 
Theobald  or  Hanmer.  On  both  these  critics  he  arro- 
gantly and  imjustly  heaped  abuse  in  his  preface.  Most 
of  his  reckless  changes  defied  all  known  principles  of 
Elizabethan  speech,  and  he  justified  them  by  arguments 
of  irrelevant  pedantry.  The  Bishop  was  consequently 
criticised  with  appropriate  severity  for  his  pretentious 
incompetence  by  many  writers ;  among  them,  by  Thomas 
Edwards,  a  country  gentleman  of  much  literary  dis- 
crimination, whose  witty  'Supplement  to  Warburton's 

'  A  happy  example  of  his  shrewdness  may  be  quoted  from  King 
Lear,  m.  vi.  72,  where  in  all  previous  editions  Edgar's  enumeration  of 
various  kinds  of  dogs  included  the  line  'Hound  or  spaniel,  brach  or 
hym  [or  him].'  For  the  last  word  Hanmer  substituted  'lym,'  which 
was  the  Elizabethan  synonym  for  bloodhound.  In  Hamlet  (iii.  rv.  4) 
Hanmer  first  substituted  Polonius's  'I'll  sconce  me  here'  for  'I'll  silence 
me  here'  (of  the  Quartos  and  Folios),  and  in  Midsummer  Night's  Dream 
(i.  i.  187),  Helena's  '  Your  words  I  catch '  for  '  Yours  would  I  catch'  (of 
the  Quartos  and  Folios). 


57$  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Edition  of  Shakespeare'  first  appeared  in  i747>  and, 
having  been  renamed  'The  Canons  of  Criticism'  next 
year  in  the  third  edition,  passed  through  as  many  as 
seven  editions  by  1765. 

Dr.  Johnson,  the  sixth  editor,  completed  his  edition 
in  eight  volumes  in  1765,  and  a  second  issue  followed 
Pj.  three  years  later.    Although  he  made  some 

Johnson,  independent  collation  of  the  Quartos  and 
1709-1784.  restored  some  passages  which  the  Folios 
ignored,  his  textual  labours  were  slight,  and  his  verbal 
notes,  however  felicitous  at  times,  show  Kttle  close 
knowledge  of  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  htera- 
ture.  But  in  his  preface  and  elsewhere  he  displays  a 
genuine,  if  occasionally  sluggish,  sense  of  Shakespeare's 
greatness,  and  his  massive  sagacity  enabled  him  to  in- 
dicate convincingly  Shakespeare's  triumphs  of  char- 
acterisation. Dr.  Johnson's  praise  is  always  helpful, 
although  his  blame  is  often   arbitrary  and  misplaced.' 

The  seventh  editor,  Edward  Capell,  who  long  filled  the 
ofl&ce  of  Examiner  of  Plays,  advanced  on  his  predecessors 
Edward  ^  many  respects.  He  was  a  clmnsy  writer, 
Capell,  and  Johnson  declared,  with  some  justice, 
1713-1781.  ^jjg^j.  j^g  'gabbled  monstrously,'  but  his  collation 
of  the  Quartos  and  the  First  and  Second  Folios  was  con- 
ducted on  more  thorough  and  scholarly  methods  than 
those  of  any  of  his  forerunners,  not  excepting  Theo- 
bald. He  also  first  studied  with  care  the  principles  of 
Shakespeare's  metre.  Although  his  conjectural  dianges 
are  usually  clumsy  his  industry  was  untiring ;  he  is  said 
to  have  transcribed  the  whole  of  Shakespeare  ten  times. 
Capell's  edition  appeared  in  ten  small  octavo  volumes 
in  1768.  He  showed  himself  well  versed  in  EUzabethan 
Hterature  in  a  volume  of  notes  which  appeared  in  1774, 
and  in  three  further  volumes,  entitled  'Notes,  Various 
Readings,  and  the  School  of  Shakespeare,'  which  were 
not  published  till  1783,  two  years  after  his  death.  The 
last   volume,    'The   School   of   Shakespeare,'    supplied 

'  Cf.  Johnson  on  Shakespeare,  by  Walter  Raleigh,  London,  1908. 


EDITORS  OF  THE  EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY        579 

'authentic  extracts'  from  English  books  of  the  poet's 
day.^ 

George  Steevens,  a  literary  knight-errant  whose  satur- 
nine humour  involved  him  in  a  Uf  elong  series  of  quarrels 
with  rival  students  of  Shakespeare,  made  in-  q^^.  ^ 
valuable  contributions  to  Shakespearean  study,  steevens, 
In  1766  he  reprinted  twenty  of  the  plays  from  ^^^e-iSoo. 
copies  of  the  Quartos  which'  Garrick  lent  him.  Soon 
afterwards  he  revised  Johnson's  edition  without  much 
assistance  from  the  Doctor,  and  his  revision,  which 
accepted  many  of  Capell's  hints  and  embodied  numerous 
original  improvements,  appeared  in  ten  volumes  in 
1773.  It  was  long  regarded  as  the  standard  version. 
Steevens's  antiquarian  knowledge  alike  of  Elizabethan 
history  and  literature  was  greater  than  that  of  any  pre- 
vious editor ;  his  citations  of  parallel  passages  from  the 
writings  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries,  in  elucidation 
of  obscure  words  and  phrases,  have  not  been  exceeded 
in  number  or  excelled  in  aptness  by  any  of  his  successors. 
All  commentators  of  recent  times  are  more  deeply  in- 
debted in  this  department  of  their  labours  to  Steevens 
than  to  any  other  critic.  But  he  lacked  taste  as  well 
as  temper,  and  excluded  from  his  edition  Shakespeare's 
sonnets  and  poeihs,  because,  he  wrote,  '  the  strongest 
Act  of  Parliament  that  could  be  framed  would  fail  to 
compel  readers  into  their  service.'  ^  The  second  edition 
of  Johnson  and  Steevens's  version  appeared  in  ten 
volumes  in  1778.  The  third  edition,  pubhshed  in  ten 
volumes  in  1785,  was  revised  by  Steevens's  friend,  Isaac 
Reed  (1742-1807),  a  scholar  of  his  own  tj^e.  The 
fourth  and  last  edition,  pubUshed  in  Steevens's  lifetime, 
was  prepared  by  himself  in  fifteen  volumes  in  1793. 
As  he  grew  older,  he  made  some  reckless  changes  in  the 
text,  chiefly  with  the  unhallowed  object  of  mystifying 

'  Capell  gave  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  in  1779,  Ms  valuable 
Shakespearean  library,  of  which  an  excellent  catalogue  ('CapeU's  Shake- 
speareana'),  prepared  for  the  College  by  Mr.  W.  W.  Greg,  was  privately 
issued  in  1903. 

'  Edition  of  1793,  vol.  i.  p.  7. 


58o  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE - 

those  engaged  in  the  same  field.  With  a  malignity  that 
was  not  without  humour,  he  supplied,  too,  many  ob- 
scene notes  to  coarse  expressions,  and  he  pretended  that 
he  owed  his  indecencies  to  one  or  other  of  two  highly 
respectable  clergymen,  Richard  Amner  and  John  ColJins, 
whose  surnames  were  in  each  instance  appended.  He 
had  known  and  quarrelled  with  both.  Such  proofs  of 
his  perversity  justified  the  title  which  Gifford  appHed 
to  him  of  'the  Puck  of  Commentators.' 

Edmund  Malone,  who  lacked  Steevens's  quick  wit 
and  incisive  style,  was  a  laborious  and  amiable  archs- 
Edmund  ologist,  without  much  ear  for  poetry  or  dehcate 
Malone,  literary  taste.  He  threw  abundance  of  new 
1741-1812.  iig]jt;  Qjj  Shakespeare's  biography  and  on  the 
chronology  and  sources  of  his  works,  while  his  researches 
into  the  beginnings  of  the  Enghsh  stage  added  a  new 
chapter  of  first-rate  importance  to  English  hterary 
history.  To  Malone  is  due  the  first  rational  '  attempt  to 
ascertain  the  order  in  which  the  plays  attributed  to  Shake- 
speare were  written.'  His  earhest  conclusions  on  the 
topic  were  contributed  to'  Steevens's  edition  of  1778. 
Two  years  later  he  pubHshed,  as  a  'Supplement'  to 
Steevens's  work,  two  volumes  containing  a  history  of 
the  Elizabethan  stage,  with  reprints  of  Arthur  Broke's 
'Romeus  and  JuHet,'  Shakespeare's  Poems,  'Pericles' 
and  the  six  plays  falsely  ascribed  to  him  in  the  Third 
and  Fourth  Folios.  A  quarrel  with  Steevens  followed, 
and  was  never  closed.  ,In  1787  Malone  issued  'A  Dis- 
sertation on  the  Three  Parts  of  King  Henry  VI,'  tending 
to  show  that  those  plays  were  not  originally  written  by 
Shakespeare.  In  1790  appeared  his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare in  ten  volumes,  the  first  in  two  parts.  '  Pericles,' 
together  with  all  Shakespeare's  poems,  was  here  first 
admitted  to  the  authentic  canon,  while  the  six  spurious 
companions  of  'Pericles'  (in  the  Third  and  Fourth 
Fohos)  were  definitely  excluded.^ 

*  The  series  of  editions  with  which  Johnson,  Steevens,  Reed  and 
Malone  were  associated  inaugurated  Shakespearean  study  in  America. 


EDITORS   OF  THE  NINETEENTH   CENTURY        581 

What  is  known  among  booksellers  as  the  'First 
Variorum'  edition  of  Shakespeare  was  prepared  by 
Steevens's  friend,  Isaac  Reed,  after  Steevens's  variorum 
death.  It  was  based  on  a  copy  of  Steevens's  editions, 
work  of  1793,  which  had  been  enriched  with  numerous 
manuscript  additions,  and  it  embodied  the  published 
notes  and  prefaces  of  preceding  editors.  It  was  pub- 
lished in  twenty-one  volumes  in  1803.  The  'Second 
Variorum'  edition,  which  was  mainly  a  reprint  of  the 
first,  was  published  in  twenty-one  volumes  in  18 13.  The 
'Third  Variorum'  was  prepared  for  the  press  by  James 
Boswell  the  younger,  the  son  of  Dr.  Johnson's  biographer. 
It  was  based  on  Malone's  edition  of  1790,  but  included 
massive  accumulations  of  notes  left  in  manuscript  by 
Malone  at  his  death.  Malone  had  been  long  engaged  on 
a  revision  of  his  edition,  but  died  in- 181 2,  before  it  was 
completed.  BosweU's  'Malone,'  as  the  new  work  is 
often  called,'  appeared  in  twenty-one  voliunes  in  182 1. 

The  first  edition  to  be  printed  in  America  was  begun  in  Philadelphia  in 
1795.  It  was  completed  in  eight  volumes  next  year.  The  title-page 
claimed  that  the  text  was  'corrected  from  the  latest  and  best  London 
editions,  with  notes  by  Samuel  Johnson.'  The  inclusion  of  the  poems 
suggests  that  Malone's  edition  of  1790  was  mainly  followed.  This 
Philadelphia  edition  of  1795-6  proved  the  parent  of  an  enormous  fanuly 
in  the  United  States.  An  edition  of  Shakespeare  from  the  like  text  ap- 
peared at  Boston  for  the  first  time  in  8  volumes,  being  issued  by  Mun- 
roe  and  Francis  in  1802-4.  The  same  firm  published  at  Boston  in  1807 
the  variorum  edition  of  1803  which  they  reissued  in  1810-2.  Two  other 
Boston  editions  from  the  text  of  Isaac  Reed  followed  in  1813,  one  in  one 
large  volume  and  the  other  in  six  volumes.  An  edition  on  original  lines 
by  E.  W.  B.  Peabody  appeared  in  seven  volumes  at  Boston  in  1836. 
At  New  York  the  first  edition  of  Shakespeare  was  issued  by  Collins  and 
Hanney  in  1821  in  ten  volumes  and  it  reappeared  in  1824.  Meanwhile 
further  editions  appeared  at  Philadelphia  in  1809  (in  17  vols.)  and  in 
1823  (in  8  vols.).  Of  these  early  ■American  editions  only  the  Boston 
edition  of  1813  (in  6  vols.)  is  in  the  British  Museum.  (See  Catalogue 
of  the  Barton  Collection  in  the  Boston  Public  Library  by  J.  M.  -Hubbard, 
Boston  1880.)  The  first  wholly  original  critical  edition  to  be  under- 
taken in  America  appeared  in  New  York  in  serial  parts  1844-6  under  the 
direction  of  Gulian  Croramelin  Verplanck  (1786-1870),  Vice-Chancellor 
of  the  University  of  New  York,  with  woodcuts  after  previously  published 
designs  of  Kenny  Meadows,  William  Harvey,  and  others;  Verplanck's 
edition  reappeared  in  three  volumes  at  New  York  in  1847  and  was  long 
the  standard  American  edition. 


582  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

It  is  the  most  valuable  of  all  collective  editions  of  Shake- 
speare's works.  The  three  volumes  of  prolegomena, 
and  the  illustrative  notes  concluding  the  final  volume, 
form  a  rich  storehouse  of  Shakespearean  criticism  and 
of  biographical,  historical  and  bibliographical  informa- 
tion, derived  from  all  manner  of  first-hand  sources.  Un- 
luckily the  vast  material  is  confusedly  arranged  and  is 
unindexed;  many  of  the  essays  and  notes  break  off 
abruptly  at  the  point  at  which  they  were  left  at  Malone's 
death. 

A  new  '  Variorum '  edition,  on  an  exhaustive  scale,  was 
undertaken  by  Mr.  H.  Howard  Furness  of  Philadelphia, 
The  new  who  between  1871  and  his  death  in  1912  pre- 
Variorum.  pared  for  publication  the  fifteen  plays, 
'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  'Macbeth,'  'Hamlet,'  2  vols., 
'King  Lear,'  'Othello,'  'Merchant  of  Venice,'  'As  You 
Like  It,'  'Tempest,'  'Misdummer  Night's  Dream,' 
'Winter's  Tale,'  'Much  Ado,'  'Twelfth  Night,'  'Love's 
Labour's  Lost,'  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  and  'Cymbe- 
line.'  Mr.  Furness,  who  based  his  text  on  the  First 
Folio,  not  merely  brought  together  the  apparatus  criticus 
of  his  predecessors,  but  added  a  large  amount  of  shrewd 
original  comment.  Mr.  Fumess's  son,  Horace  Howard 
Furness,  junior,  edited  on  his  father's  plan  'Richard 
III'  in  1908,  and  since  his  father's  death  he  is  con- 
tinuing  the  series;    'Julius  Caesar'  was  published   in 

1913- 

Of  nineteenth-century  editors  who  have  prepared 
collective  editions  of  Shakespeare's  work  with  original 
annotations  those  who  have  best  pursued  the 
teenth-  exhaustive  tradition  of  the  eighteenth  century 
Xot7  ^^^  Alexander  Dyce,  Howard  Staunton, 
Nikolaus  Delius,  and  the  Cambridge  editors 
William  George  Clark  (1821-1878)  and  William  Aldis 
Wright  (1836-1914).  All  exemplify  a  tendency  to 
conciseness  which  is  in  marked  contrast  with  the 
expansiveness  of  the  later  eighteenth-century  com- 
mentaries. 


EDITORS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY        583 

Alexander  Dyce  was  almost  as  well  read  as  Steevens 
in  Elizabethan  literature,  and  especially  in  the  drama 
of  the  period,  and  his  edition  of  Shakespeare  in  nine  vol- 
umes, first  published  in  1857,  ^^^  many  new  and  Alexander 
valuable  illustrative    notes    and   a  few  good  Dyce, 
textual  emendations,  as  well  as  a  useful  glos-  ^'^s-iseg. 
sary ;  but  Dyce's  annotations  are  not  always  adequate, 
and  often  tantahse  the  reader  by  their  brevity.    Howard 
Staunton's    edition  first   appeared    in    three  Howard 
volumes  between  1868  and  1870.     He  also  was  Staunton, 
well  read  in  contemporary  literature  and  was  ^^^°~^^''*- 
an  acute  textual  critic.    His  introductions  bring  together 
much  interesting  stage  history.    Nikolaus  Delius's  edi- 
tion was  issued  at  Elberfeld  in  seven  volumes  Nikolaus 
between   1854   and    1861.     Delius's   text,    al-  Deiius, 
though  it  is  based  mainly  on  the  FoKos,  does  '^'^-isss. 
not  neglect  the  Quartos  and  is  formed  on  sound  critical 
principles.'    A  fifth  edition  in  two  volumes  appeared  in 
1882.    The  Cambridge  edition,  which  first  ap- 
peared  in  nine  volumes  between  1863  and  1866,  Cambridge 
exhaustively  notes  the  textual  variations  of  all  ^gg'™' 
preceding  editions,  and  supphes  the  best  and 
fullest  apparatus  criticus.     (Of  new  editions,  one  dated 
1887  is  also  in  nine  volxmies,  and  another,  dated  1893,  in 
forty  volumes.)  ^ 

The  labours  of  other  editors  of  the  complete  annotated 
works  of  Shakespeare  whether  of  the  nineteenth  or  of  the 
twentieth  century  present,  in  spite  of  zeal  and  othemine- 
learning,  fewer  distinctive  features  than  those  cm°uryor 
of  the  men  who  have  been  already  named.  The  twentieth- 
long  Ust  includes  ^  Samuel  Weller  Singer  (1826,  ed?tioS. 

'  A  recent  useful  contribution  to  textual  study  is  the  Bankside  edi- 
tion of  21  selected  plays  (New  York  Sh.  See.  1888-1906,-  21  vols.)  under 
the  general  editorship  of  Mr.  Appleton  Morgan.  The  First  Folio  text 
of  the  plays  is  printed  on  parallel  pages  with  the  earlier  versions  either 
of  the  Quartos  or  of  older  plays  on  which  Shakespeare's  work  is  based. 
The  'Bankside  Restoration'  Shakespeare,  under  the  same  general 
editorship  and  published  by  the  same  Society,  similarly  contrasts  the 
Folio  texts  with  that  of  the  Restoration  adaptations  (5  vols.  1907-8). 

'The  following  English  editors,  although  their  complete  editions 


584  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

10  vols.,  printed  at  the  Chiswick  Press  for  William 
Pickering,  with  a  hfe  of  the  poet  by  Dr.  Charles 
Synunons,  illustrated  by  wood  engravings  by  John 
Thompson  after  Stothard  and  others ;  reissued  in  New 
York  in  1843  ^^d  in  London  in  1856  with  essays  by  Wil- 
ham  Watkiss  Lloyd) ;  Charles  Knight,  with  discursive 
notes  and  pictorial  illustrations  by  William  Harvey, 
F.  W.  Fairholt,  and  others  ('Pictorial  edition,'  8  vols., 
including  biography  and  the  doubtful  plays,  1838-43, 
often  reissued  under  different  designations) ;  the  Rev. 
H.  N.  Hudson,  Boston,  U.  S.  A.,  185 1-6,  11  vols.  i6mo. 
(revised  and  reissued  as  the  Harvard  edition,  Boston, 
1881,  20  vols.) ;  J.  0.  HalliweU  (1853-61,  15  vols.  fpKo, 
with  an  encyclopaedic  'variorum'  apparatus  of  annota- 
tions and  pictorial  illustrations) ;  Richard  Grant  White 
(Boston,  U.  S.  A.,  1857-65,  12  vols.,  reissued  as  the 
'Riverside'  Shakespeare,  Boston,  1901,  3  vols.);  W.  J. 
Rolfe  (New  York,  1871-96,  40  vols.) ;  F.  A.  Marshall 
with  the  aid  of  various  contributors  ('The  Henry  Irving 
Shakespeare,'  which  has  useful  notes  on  stage  history, 
1880-90,  8  vols.);  Prof.  Israel  Gollancz  ('The  Temple 
Shakespeare,'  with  concise  annotations,  1894-6,  40 
vols.,  i2mo.);  Prof.  C.  H.  Herford  ('The  Eversley 
Shakespeare,'  1899,  1°  vols.,  8vo.) ;  Prof.  Edward 
Dowden,  W.  J.  Craig,  Prof.  R.  H.  Case  ('The  Arden 
Shakespeare,'  1899-1915,  in  progress,  31  vols.,  each 
undertaken  by  a  different  contributor) ;  Charlotte 
Porter  and  Helen  Clarke  ('The  First  Foho'  Shake- 
speare with  very  full  annotation.  New  York,  1903,  13 
vols.,  and  1912,  40  vols.) ;  Sir  Sidney  Lee  (The  'Ren- 
aissance' Shakespeare,  University  Press  of  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  1907-10,  40  vols. ;  with  general  introduction  and 
annotations  by   the   editor  and  separate  introductions 

have  now  lost  their  hold  on  students'  attention,  are  worthy  of  mention : 
William  Harness  (1825,  8  vols.);  Bryan  Waller  Procter,  i.e.  Barry 
Cornwall  (1839-43,  3  vols.),  illustrated  by  Kenny  Meadows;  John 
PajTie  Collier  (1841-4,  8  vols. ;  another  edition,  8  vols.,  privately  printed, 
1878,  4to) ;  and  Samuel  Phelps,  the  actor  (1852-4,  2  vols. ;  another 
edition,  1882-4). 


EDITORS   OF   THE  TWENTIETH   CENTURY         585 

to  the  plays  and  poems  by  various  hands;   reissued  in 
London  as  the  'Caxton'  Shakespeare,  19 10,  20  vols.)-^ 

'  Findy  printed  complete  (but  unannotated)  texts  of  recent  date  are 
the  'Edinburgh  Folio'  edition,  ed.  W.  E.  Henley  and  Walter  Raleigh 
(Edinburgh,  1901-4,  10  vols.),  and  the  'Stratford  Town'  edition,  ed. 
A.  H.  Bullen,  with  an  appendix  of  essays  (Stratford-on-Avon,  1904-7, 
10  vols.).  The  'Old  Spelling  Shakespeare,'  ed.  F.  J.  Fumivall  and 
F.  W.  Clarke,  M.A.,  preserves  the  orthography  of  the  authentic  Quartos 
and  FoUos;  seventeen  volumes  have  appeared  since  1904  and  others 
are  in  preparation. 

Of  one-volume  editions  of  the  unannotated  text,  the  best  are  the 
'Globe,'  edited  by  W.  G.  Clark  and  Dr.  Aldis  Wright  (1864,  and  con- 
stantly reprinted  —  since  1891  with  a  new  glossary);  the  'Leopold' 
from  Delius's  text,  with  preface  by  F.  J.  Fumivall  (1876) ;  and  the 
'Oxford,'  edited  by  W.  J.  Craig  (1894). 


XXV 

SHAKESPEARE'S   POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  IN 
ENGLAND  AND  AMERICA 

Shakespeare  defied  at  every  stage  in  his  career  the  laws 
of  the  classical  drama.     He  rode  roughshod  over  the 

unities  of  time,  place,  and  action.  The  formal 
sprare  critics  of  his  day  zealously  championed  the  an- 
andthe       dent  rules,  and  viewed  infringement  of  them 

with  distrust.  But  the  force  of  Shakespeare's 
genius  —  its  revelation  of  new  methods  of  dramatic  art 
—  was  not  lost  on  the  lovers  of  the  ancient  ways ;  and 
even  those  who,  to  assuage  their  consciences,  entered  a 
formal  protest  against  his  innovations,  soon  swelled  the 
chorus  of  praise  with  which  his  work  was  welcomed  by 
contemporary  playgoers,  cultured  and  uncultured  alike. 
The  unauthorised  publishers  of  'Troilus  and  Cressida' 
in  1608  faithfully  echoed  pubhc  opinion  when  they 
prefaced  that  ambiguous  work  with  the  note:  'This 
author's  comedies  are  so  framed  to  the  Hfe  that  they 
serve  for  the  most  common  commentaries  of  aU  the 
actions  of  our  Uves,  showing  such  a  dexterity  and  power 
of  wit  that  the  most  displeased  with  plays  are  pleased 
with  his  comedies.'  Shakespeare's  Hterary  eminence  was 
abundantly  recognised  while  he  lived.  At  the  period 
of  his  death  no  mark  of  honour  was  denied  his 'name. 
Dramatists  and  poets  echoed  his  phrases ;  cultured  men 
and  women  of  fashion  studied  his  works;  preachers 
cited  them  in  the  pulpit  in  order  to  illustrate  or  enforce 
the  teachings  of  Scripture.^ 

^  According  to  contemporary  evidence,  Nicholas  Richardson,  fellow 
of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  in  a  sermon  which  he  twice  preached  in 
the  University  church  (in  1620  and  162 1)  cited  Juliet's  speech  from 

S86 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  587 

The  editors  of  the  First  Folio  repeated  the  contempo- 
rary judgment,  at  the  same  time  as  they  anticipated  the 
final  verdict,  when  they  wrote,  seven  years  after 
Shakespeare's  death:    'These  plays  have  had  joTson's 
their  trial  already  and  stood  out  all  appeals.'  ^  tribute, 
Ben  Jonson,  the  staunchest  champion  of  classi-  ^  ^^' 
cal  canons,  was  wont  to  allege  in  familiar  talk  that 
Shakespeare  'wanted  art,'  but  he  allowed  him,  in  verses 
prefixed  to  the  First  Folio,  the  first  place  among  all 
dramatists,  including  those  of  Greece  and  Rome.    Jonson 
claimed  that  all  Europe  owed  Shakespeare  homage: 

Triumph,  my  Britain,  thou  hast  one  to  show, 

To  whom  all  scenes  [i.e.  stages]  of  Europe  homage  owe. 

He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time. 

Ben  Jonson's  tribute  was  followed  in  the  First  Folio  by 
less  capable  elegies  of  other  enthusiasts.  One  of  these, 
Hugh  Holland,  a  former  fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, told  how  the  bays  crowned  Shakespeare  'poet 
first,  then  poet's  king,'  and  prophesied  that 

though  his  line  of  life  went  soone  about, 
The  life  yet  of  his  lines  shall  never  out. 

In  1630  Milton  penned  in  like  strains  an  epitaph  on  '  the 
great  heir  of  fame' : 

What  needs  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honoured  bones 

The  labour  of  an  age  in  pilM  stones, 

Or  that  his  hallowed  reliques  should  be  hid 

Under  a  star-ypointing  pyramid? 

Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame. 

What  need'st  thou  such  weak  witness  of  thy  name? 

Thou  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment 

Hast  built  thyself  a  lasting  monument. 

These  Hnes  were  admitted  to  the  preliminary  pages  of 
the  Second  Folio  of  1632.    A  writer  of  fine  insight  who 

Romeo  and  Juliet  (11.  ii.  177-82)  'applying  it  to  God's  love  to  His  saints' 
(Macray's  Register  of  Magdalen  College, -vol.  iii.  p.  144)- 
'  Cf.  the  opening  line  of  Matthew  Arnold's  Sonnet  on  Shakespeare : 

Others  abide  our  question.    Thou  art  free. 


^88  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

veiled  himself  under  the  initials  I.  M.  S}  contributed 

Tjjg  to  the  same  volimie  even  more  pointed  eulogy, 

eulogies  The  Opening  lines  declare  '  Shakespeare's  free- 

°^'^3'-  hold' to  have  been 

A  mind  reflecting  ages  past,  whose  clear 
And  equal  surface  can  make  things  appear 
Distant  a  thousand  years,  and  represent 
Them  in  their  lively  colours'  just  extent. 

It  was  his  faculty 

To  outrun  hasty  time,  retrieve  the  fates, 
Roll  back  the  heavens,  blow  ope  the  iron  gates 
Of  death  and  Lethe,  where  confused  lie 
Great  heaps  of  ruinous  mortality. 

A  third  (anonymous)  panegyric  prefixed  to  the  Second 
Folio  acclaimed  as  unique  Shakespeare's  eveimess  of 
command  over  both  'the  comic  vein'  and  'the  tragic 
strain.' 

The  praises  of  the  First  and  Second  Folios  echoed  an 
unchallenged  public  opinion.^  During  Charles  I's  reign 
Admirers     ^^^  ^^^  Unanimity  prevailed  among  critics  of 

in  Charles  tastCS  SO  Varied  as  the  voluminous  actor- 
is  reign,  dramatist  Thomas  Heywood,  the  cavalier 
lyrist  Sir  John  SuckHng,  the  philosophic  recluse  John 
Hales  of  Eton,  and  the  untiring  versifier  of  the  stage 
and  court,  Sir  WiUiam  D'Avenant.  Sir  John  Suckling, 
who  introduced  many  lines  from  Shakespeare's  poetry 
into  his  own  verse,  caused  his  own  portrait  to  be  painted 
by  Van  Dyck  with  a  copy  of  the  First  Folio  in  his  hand, 
opened  at  the  play  of  'Hamlet.'^    Before  1640  John 

'  These  letters  have  been  interpreted  as  standing  either  for  the  in- 
scription 'In  Memoriam  Scriptoris'  or  for  the  name  of  the  writer.  In 
the  latter  connection,  they  have  been  variously  and  inconclusively  read 
as  Jasper  Mayne  (Student),  a  yoimg  Oxford  writer;  as  John  Marston 
(Student  or  Satirist) ;  and  as  John  Milten  (Senior  or  Student). 

'  Cf.  Shakspere's  Century  of  Praise,  iS9r-i693,  New  Shakspere  Soc., 
ed.  Ingleby  and  Toubnin  Smith,  1879 ;  and  Fresh  Allusions,  ed.  Fumi- 
vall,  1886.  The  whole  was  re-edited  with  additions  by  J.  Munro,  2 
vols.,  igog. 

'  The  picture,  which  was  exhibited  at  the  New  Gallery  in  January 
igo2,  is  the  property  of  Mrs.  Lee,  at  Hartwell  House,  Aylesbury  (see 
Walpole's  Anecdotes  of  Painting,  ed.  Womum,  L  332). 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  589 

Hales,  Fellow  of  Eton,  whose  learning  and  liberal  cul- 
ture obtained  for  him  the  epithet  of  '  ever-memorable,' 
is  said  to  have  triumphantly  established,  in  a  public 
dispute  held  with  men  of  learning  in  his  rooms  at  Eton, 
the  proposition  that  '  there  was  no  subject  of  which  any 
poet  ever  writ  but  he  could  produce  it  much  better  done 
in  Shakespeare.'  ^  Leonard  Digges,  who  bore  testimony 
in  the  First  Folio  to  his  faith  in  Shakespeare's  im- 
mortality, was  not  content  with  that  assurance;  he 
supplemented  it  with  fresh  proofs  in  the  1640  edition 
of  tilie  'Poems.'  There  Digges  asserted  that  while  Ben 
Jonson's  famous  work  had  now  lost  its  vogue,  every  re- 
vival of  Shakespeare's  plays  drew  crowds  to  pit,  boxes, 
and  galleries  aUke.^    At  a  little  later  date,  Shakespeare's 

'  Charles  Gildon,  in  1694,  in  Some  Reflections  on  Mr.  Rymer's  Short 
View  of  Tragedy  which  he  addressed  to  Dryden,  gives  the  classical 
version  of  this  incident.  'To  give  the  world,'  Gildon  informs  Dryden, 
'some  satisfaction  that  Shakespear  has  had  as  great  a  Veneration  paid 
his  Excellence  by  men  of  unquestion'd  parts  as  this  I  now  express  of 
him,  I  shall  give  some  account  of  what  1 1  have  heard  from  your  Mouth, 
Sir,  about  the  noble  Triumph  he  gain'd  over  all  the  Ancients  by  the 
Judgment  of  the  ablest  Critics  of  that  time.  The  Matter  of  Fact  (if 
my  Memory  fail  me  not)  was  this.  Mr.  Hales  of  Eaton  affirm'd  that.he 
wou'd  shew  all  the  Poets  of  Antiquity  outdone  by  Shakespear,  in  ail  the 
Topics,  and  common  places  made  use  of  in  Poetry.  The  Enemies  of 
Shakespear  wou'd  by  no  means  yield  him  so  much  Excellence :  so  that  it 
came  to  a  Resolution  of  a  trial  of  skill  upon  that  Subject;  the  place 
agreed  on  for  the  Dispute  was  Mr.  Hales's  Chamber  at  Eaton ;  a  great 
many  Books  were  sent  down  by  the  Enemies  of  this  Poet,  and  on  the 
appointed  day  my  Lord  Falkland,  Sir  John  Suckling,  and  all  the  Persons 
of  Quality  that  had  Wit  and  Learning,  and  interested  themselves  in  the 
Quarrel,  met  there,  and  upon  a  thorough  Disquisition  of  the  point,  the 
Judges  chose  by  agreement  out  of  this  Learned  and  Ingenious  Assembly 
unanimously  gave  the  Preference  to  Shakespear.  And  the  Greek  and 
Roman  Poets  were  adjug'd  to  Vail  at  least  their  Glory  in  that  of  the 
English  Hero.' 

'  Digges'  tribute  of  1640  includes  the  lines : 

So  have  I  scene,  when  Cesar  would  appeare, 
And  on  the  stage  at  halfe-sword  parley  were 
Brutus  and  Cassius:  oh  how  the  Audience 
Were  ravish'd,  with  what  wonder  they  went  thence, 
When  some  new  day  they  would  not  brooke  a  line 
Of  tedious  (though  well  laboured)  Catiline; 
S^amts  too  was  irkesome,  they  priz'de  more 
Honest  lago,  or  the  jealous  Moore.  .  . 
When  let  but  Falstafe  come, 
Hall,  Poines,  the  rest,  you  scarce  shall  have  a  roome 


590  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

writings  were  the  'closest  companions'  of  Charles  I's 
'solitudes.'  ^ 

After  the  Restoration  public  taste  in  England  veered 
towards  the  classicised  model  of  drama  then  in  vogue 

in  France.^  Literary  critics  of  Shakespeare's 
oAh?  work  laid  renewed  emphasis  on  his  neglect  of 
the  Res-       thg  ancient  principles.     They  elaborated  the 

view  that  he  was  a  child  of  nature  who  lacked 
the  training  of  the  only  authentic  school.  Some  critics 
complained,  too,  that  his  language  was  growing  archaic. 
None  the  less,  very  few  questioned  the  magic  of  his 
genius,  and  Shakespeare's  reputation  suffered  no  last- 
ing injury  from  a  closer  critical  scrutiny.  Classical 
pedantry  found  its  most  thoroughgoing  champion  in 
Thomas  Rymer,  who  levelled  colloquial  abuse  at  all 
divergences  from  the  classical  conventions  of  drama. 
In  his  'Short  View  of  Tragedy'  (1692)  Rymer  mainly 
concentrated  his  attention  on  'Othello,'  and  reached 
the  eccentric  conclusion  that  it  was  'a  bloody  farce 
without  salt  or  savour.'  But  Rymer's  extravagances 
awoke  in  England  no  substantial  echo.  Samuel  Pepys 
the  diarist  was  an  indefatigable  playgoer  who  reflected 
the  average  taste  of  the  times.  A  native  impatience  of 
poetry  or  romance  led  him  to  deny  'great  wit'  to  'The 
Tempest,'  and  to  brand  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream' 
as  '  the  most  insipid  and  ridiculous  play ' ;  but  Pepys's 
lack  of  Hterary  sentiment  did  not  deter  him  from  wit- 
nessing forty-five  performances  of  fourteen  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  between  October  11,  1660,  and  February 
6,  1668-9,  ^■iid  on  occasion  the  scales  fell  from  his  eyes. 
'Hamlet,'  Shakespeare's  most  characteristic  play,  won 

All  is  so  pester'd ;  let  but  Beatrice 
And  Benedicke  be  seene,  we  in  a  trice 
The  Cockpit,  Galleries,  Boxes,  all  are  full 
To  hear  MalvogUo,  that  crosse  garter'd  gull. 

*  Milton,  Iconoclastes,  1690,  pp.  9-10. 

'  Cf.  Evelyn's  Diary,  November  26,  1661 :  'I  saw  Hamlet,  Prince  of 
Denmark,  played,  but  now  the  old  plays  began  to  disgust  tiie  refined 
age,  since  His  Majesty's  being  so  long  abroad.' 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  59 1 

the  diarist's  ungrudging  commendation;  he  saw  four 
renderings  of  the  tragedy  with  the  great  actor  Betterton 
in  the  title-r61e,  and  with  each  performance  his  en- 
thusiasm rose.^ 

Dryden,  the  literary  dictator  of  the  day,  was  a  wide- 
minded  critic  who  was  innocent  of  pedantry,  and  he  both 
guided  and  reflected  the  enlightened  judgment  Dryden-s 
of  his  era.  According  to  his  own  account  he  verdict, 
was  first  taught  by  Sir  William  D'Avenant  'to  admire' 
Shakespeare's  work.  Very  characteristic  are  his  fre- 
quent complaints  of  Shakespeare's  inequalities  —  'he  is 
the  very  Janus  of  poets.' ^  But  in  almost  the  same  breath 
Dryden  declared  that  Shakespeare- was  held  in  as  much 
veneration  among  Englishmen  as  .^schylus  among  the 
Athenians,  and  that '  he  was  the  man  who  of  all  modern 
and  perhaps  ancient  poets  had  the  largest  and  most 
comprehensive  soul.  .  .  .  When  he  describes  any- 
thing, you  more  than  see  it  —  you  feel  it  too.' '  In 
1693,  when  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  presented  Dryden  with 
a  copy  of  the  Chandos  portrait  of  Shakespeare,  the  poet 
acknowledged  the  gift  thus: 

TO  SIR  GODITREY  KNELLER 

ShQ,kespear,  thy  Gift,  I  place  before  my  sight ; 
With  awe,  I  ask  his  Blessing  ere  I  write ; 
With  Reverence  look  on  his  Majestick  Face ; 
Proud  to  be  less,  but  of  his  Godlike  Race. 
His  Soul  Inspires  me,  while  thy  Praise  I  write, 
And  I,  like  Teucer,  under  Ajax  fight. 

Writers  of  Charles  II's  reign  of  such  opposite  tempera- 
ments as  Margaret  Cavendish,  duchess  of  Newcastle,  and 

'  Cf.  'Pepys  and  Shakespeare'  in  the  present  writer's  Shakespeare 
and  the  Modern  Stage,  1906,  pp.  82  seq. 

^  Conquest  of  Granada,  itT 2. 

'  Essay  on  Dramatic  Poesie,  1668.  Some  interesting,  if  more  qualified, 
criticism  by  Dryden  also  appears  in  his  preface  to  an  adaptation  of 
Troilus  and  Cressida  in  1679.  In  the  prologue  to  his  and  D'Avenant's 
adaptation  of  The  Tempest  in  1676,  l\e  wrote : 

But  Shakespeare's  magic  could  not  copied  be; 
Within  that  circle  none  durst  walk  but  he. 


592  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Sir  Charles  Sedley  vigorously  argued  in  Dryden's  strain 
for  Shakespeare's  supremacy.  As  a  girl  the  sober 
duchess  declares  she  fell  in  love  with  Shake- 
fpeie's  speare.  In  her  'Sociable  Letters,'  published 
fashionable  Jq  1664,  she  enthusiastically,  if  diffusely,  de- 
^°^"^'  scribed  how  Shakespeare  creates  the  illusion 
that  he  had  been  'transformed  into  every  one  of  those, 
persons  he  hath  described,'  and  suffered  all  their  emotions. 
When  she  witnessed  one  of  his  tragedies  she  felt  per- 
suaded that  she  was  witnessing  an  episode  in  real  life. 
'Indeed,'  she  concludes,  'Shakespeare  had  a  clear  judg- 
ment, a  quick  wit,  a  subtle  observation,  a  deep  appre- 
hension, and  a  most  eloquent  elocution.'  The  profligate 
Sedley,  in  a  prologue  to  the  'Wary  Widdow,'  a  comedy 
by  one  Higden,  which  was  produced  in  1693,  boldly 
challenged  Rymer's  warped  vision  when  he  apostro- 
phised Shakespeare  thus : 

Shackspear  whose  fruitfull  Genius,  happy  wit 
Was  fram'd  and  finisht  at  a  lucky  hit, 
The  pride  of  Nature,  and  the  shame  of  Schools, 
Born  to  Create,  and  not  to  Learn  from  Rules. 

Throughout  the  period  of  the  Restoration,  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  past  kept  Shakespearean  drama  to  the 
Restora-  ^^^^  °^  the  stage.^  'Hamlet,'  'Juhus  Caesar,' 
tion  'Othello,'    and   other   pieces   were   frequently 

adapters,     pj-oduced  in  the  authentic  text.     'King  Lear' 
it  was  reported  was  acted  '  exactly  as  Shakespeare  wrote 

*  After  Charles  II's  restoration  in  1660,  two  companies  of  actors 
received  licenses  to  perform  in  public :  one  known  as  the  Duke's  company 
was  directed  by  Sir  William  D'Avenant,  havihg  for  its  patron  the  Kng's 
brother  the  Duke  of  York;  the  other  company,  known  as  the  King's 
company,  was  directed  by  Tom  Killigrew,  one  of  Charles  II's  boon 
companions,  and  had  the  King  for  its  patron.  The  right  to  perform 
sixteen  of  Shakespeare's  plays  was  distributed  between  the  two  com- 
panies. To  the  Duke's  Company  were  allotted  the  nine  plays:  The 
Tempest,  Measure  for  Measure,  Mv^h  Ado,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Twelfth 
Night,  Henry  VIII,  King  Lear,  Macbeth,  Hamlet;  to  the  King's  Com- 
pany were  allotted  the  seven  plays:  Julitis  Cmsar,  Henry  IV,  Merry 
Wives,  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,- Othello,  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  Titus 
Andronicus.  In  1682  the  two  companies  were  amalgamated,  and  the 
sixteen  plays  were  thenceforth  all  vested  in  the  same  hands. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  593 

it.'  The  chief  actor  of  the  day,  Thomas  Betterton, 
won  his  spurs  as  the  interpreter  of  Shakespeare's  leading 
parts,  chiefly  in  unrevised  or  sHghtly  abridged  versions. 
Hamlet  was  accounted  that  actor's  masterpiece.  'No 
succeeding  tragedy  for  several  years,'  wrote  Downes, 
the  prompter  at  Betterton's  theatre,  'got  more  reputa- 
tion or  money  to  the  company  than  this.'  At  the  same 
time  the  change  in  the  dramatic  sentiment  of  the  Resto- 
ration was  accompanied  by  a  marked  development  of 
scenic  and  musical  elaboration  on  the  stage  in  place  of 
older  methods  of  simpUcity,  and  many  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  were  deemed  to  need  drastic  revision  in  order  to 
fit  them  to  the  new  theatrical  conditions.  Shakespeare's 
work  was  freely  adapted  by  dramatists  of  the  day  in 
order  to  satisfy  the  alteration  alike  in  theatrical  taste 
and  machinery.  No  disrespect  was  intended  to  Shake- 
speare's memory  by  those  who  engaged  in  these  acts  of 
vandaHsm.  Sir  William  D'Avenant,  who  set  the  fashion 
of  Shakespearean  adaptation,  never  ceased  to  write  or 
speak  of  the  dramatist  with  affection  and  respect,  while 
Dryden's  activity  as  a  Shakespearean  reviser  went 
hand  in  hand  with  many  professions  of  adoration. 
D'Avenant,  Dryden  and  their  coadjutors  worked  arbi- 
trarily. They  endeavoured  without  much  method  to 
recast  Shakespeare's  plays  in  a  Gallicised  rather  than 
in  a  strictly  classical  mould.  They  were  no  fanatical 
observers  of  the  unities  of  time,  place  and  action.  In 
the  French  spirit,  they  viewed  love  as  the  dominant  pas- 
sion of  tragedy,  they  gave  tragedies  happy  endings,  and 
they  qualified  tie  wickedness  of  hero  or  heroine.  While 
they  excised  much  humorous  incident  from  Shake- 
spearean tragedy,  they  dehghted  in  tragicomedy  in 
which  comic  and  pathetic  sentiment  was  hberally 
mingled.  Nor  did  the  Restoration  adapters  abide  by 
the  classical  rejection  of  scenes  of  violence.  They 
added  violent  episodes  .with  melodramatic  license. 
Shakespeare's  language  was  modernised  or  simphfied, 
passages  which  were  reckoned  to  be  difi&cult  were  re- 

2Q 


594  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

written,  and  the  calls  of  intelligibility  were  deemed  to 
warrant  the  occasibnal  transfer  of  a  speech  from  one 
character  to  another,  or  even  from  one  play  to,  another. 
It  scarcely  needs  adding  that  the  claim  of  the  Restora- 
tion adapters  to  'improve'  Shakespeare's  text  was  un- 
justifiable, save  for  a  few  omissions  or  transpositions  of 
scenes.^ 

D'Avenant  began  the  revision  of .  Shakespeare's  work 
early  in  February  1662,  by  laying  reckless  hands  on 
'  Measure  for  Measure. '  With  Shakespeare's  ro- 
' revised'  mantic  play  he  incorporated  the  characters  of 
^662-8^'  Benedick  and  Beatrice  from  'Much  Ado'  and 
rechristened  his  performance  '  The  Law  against 
Lovers.'^  D'Avenant  worked  on  'Macbeth'  in  1666, 
and  'The  Tempest'  a  year  or  two  later.  In  both  these 
pieces  he  introduced  not  only  original  characters  and 
speeches,  but  new  songs  and  dances  which  brought  the 
plays  within  the  category  of  opera.  D'Avenant  also 
turned  'The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen'  into  a  comedy  which 
he  called  'The  Rivals'  (1668). 

Dryden  entered  the  field  of  Shakespearean  revision  by 
aiding  D'Avenant  in  his  version  of  'The  Tempest'  which 
was  first  published  after  D'Avenant's  death  with  a  pref- 
ace by  Dryden  in  1670.  A  second  edition  which  ap- 
peared in  1674  embodied  further  changes  by  Thomas 
Shadwell.'    Subsequently  "Dryden  dealt  in  similar  fashion 

^  Dr.  F.  W.  Kilbourne's  Alterations  and  Adaptations  of  Shakespeare, 
Boston  1906. 

^  This  piece  was  first  acted  at  the  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  Theatre  on 
February  18,  1662,  and  was  first  printed  in  1673. 

'  Shadwell's  name  does  not  figure  in  the  printed  version  of  1674 
which  incorporates  his  amplifications.  Only  Dryden  and  D'Avenant 
are  cited  as  revisers.  Shadwell's  opera  of  The  Tempest  is  often  men- 
tioned in  theatrical  history  on  the  authority  of  Downes's  Roscius  An- 
glicanus  (1708),  but  it  is  his  'improvement'  of  D'Avenant  and  Dryden's 
version  which  is  in  question.  (See  W.  J.  Lawrence's  The  Elizabethan 
Playhouse,  ist  ser.  1912,  pp.  94  seq.  reprinted  from  Anglia  1904,  and  Sir 
Ernest  Clarke's  paper  on  'The  Tempest  as  an  Opera'  in  the  Athenceum, 
August  25,  1906).  Thomas  Dufiett,  a  very  minor  dramatist,  produced 
at  the  Theatre  Royal  in  1675  The  Mock  Tempest  in  ridicule  of  tie  efiorts 
of  Dryden,  D'Avenant  and  Shadwell. 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  595 

with  'Troilus'  (1679),  and  he  imitated  'Antony  and 
Cleopatra'  on  original  lines  in  his  tragedy  of  'All  for 
Love'  (1678).  John  Lacy,  the  actor,  adapted  'The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew '' (produced  as  'Sawny  the  Scot,' 
April  19,  1667,  published  in  1698).  Thomas  Shadwell 
revised  'Timon'  (1678);  Thomas  Otway  'Romeo  and 
Juliet'  (1680) ;  John  Crowne  the  'First  and  Second  Parts 
of  Henry  VI'  (1680-1) ;  Nahum  Tate  'Richard  II' 
(1681),  'Lear'  (1681),  and  'Coriolanus'  (1682) ;  and  Tom 
Durfey  'Cyjnbeline'  (1682).! 

From  the  accession  of  Queen  Anne  to  the  present  day 
the  tide  of  Shakespeare's  reputation,  both  on  the  stage 
and  among  critics,  has  flowed  onward  almost  p^gj^ 
uninterruptedly.  The  censorious  critic,  John  1702 
Dennis,  actively  shared  in  the  labours  of  adap-  °°^"  ^' 
tation;  but  in  his  'Letters'  (1711)  on  Shakespeare's 
'genius'  he  gave  his  work  whole-hearted  commendation: 
'One  may  say  of  him,  as  they  did  of  Homer,  that  he 
had  none  to  imitate ;  and  is  himself  inimitable.'  ^ 
Cultured  opinion  gave  the  answer  which  Addison  wished 
when  he  asked  in  'The  Spectator'  on  February  10, 1714, 
the  question :  '  Who  would  not  rather  read  one  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,  where  there  is  not  a  single  rule  of  the 
stage  observed,  than  any  production  of  a  modern  critic, 
where  there  is  not  one  of  them  violated?'  No  poet 
who  won  renown  in  the  age  of  Anne  or  the  early  Georges 
failed  to  pay  a  sincere  tribute  to  Shakespeare  in  the 
genuine  text.  James  Thomson,  Edward  Young,  Thomas 
Gray,  joined  in  the  chorus  of  praise.     David  Hume  the 

^  John  Sheffield,  duke  of  Buckingham,  revised  Julius  Ctssar  in  1692, 
but  his  version,  which  was  first  published  in  1722,  was  never  acted. 
Post-Restoration  adaptations  of  Shakespeare  include  Colley  Gibber's 
Richard  III  (1700);  Charles  Gildon's  Measure  for  Measure  (1700); 
John  Dennis's  Comical  Gailant  (1702  :  a  revision  of  The  Merry  Wives); 
Charles  Bumaby's  Love  Betray'd  (1703 :  a  rehash  of  All's  Well  and 
Twelfth  Night);  and  John  Dennis's  The  Invader  of  his  Country  .(1720: 
a  new  version  of  Coriolanus).  See  H.  B.  Wheatley's  Post-Restoration 
Quartos  of  Shakespeare's  Plays,  London,  1913  (reprinted  from  The  Library, 
July  1913). 

'  D.  Nichol  Smith,  Eighteenth  Century  Essays  on  Shakespeare,  1903, 
p.  24. 


596  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

philosopher  and  historian  stands  alone  among  cultured 
contemporaries  in  questioning  the  justice  'of  much  of 
this  eulogy/  on  the  specious  ground  that  Shakespeare's 
'beauties'  were  'surrounded  with  deformities.'  Two 
of  the  greatest  men  of  letters  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
Pope  and  Johnson,  although  they  did  not  withhold 
censure,  paid  the  dramatist,  as  we  have  seen,  the  practi- 
cal homage  of  becoming  his  editor. 

As  the  eighteenth  century  closed,  the  outlook  of  the 
critics  steadily  widened,  and  they  brought  to  the  study 
The  growth  increased  learning  as  well  as  profounder  insight, 
of  critical  Richard  Farmer,  Master  of  Emmanuel  College, 
insig  t. .  Cambridge,  in  his  'Essay  on  the  Learning  of 
Shakespeare'  (1767)  deduced  from  an  exhaustive  study 
of  Ehzabethan  literature  the  sagacious  conclusion  that 
Shakespeare  was  well  versed  in  the  writings  of  his 
English  contemporaries.  Meanwhile  the  chief  of  Shake- 
speare's dramatis  persona  became  the  special  topic  of 
independent  treatises.^  One  writer,  Maurice  Morgann,. 
in  his  'Essay  on  the  Dramatic  Character  of  Sir  John 
Falstaff'  (1777)  claimed  to  be  the  first  to  scrutinise  a 
Shakespearean  character  as  if  he  were  a  Hving  creature 
belonging  to  the  history  of  the  human  race  rather  than 
to  the  annals  of  Uterary  invention.  William  Dodd's 
'Beauties  of  Shakespeare'  (1752),  the  most  cyclopaedic 
of  anthologies,  brought  home  to  the  popular  mind,  in 
numberless  editions,  the  range  of  Shakespeare's  obser- 
vations on  human  experience. 

Shakespearean  study  of  the  eighteenth  century 
not  only  strengthened  the  foundations  of  his  fame 
Modem  ^ut  Stimulated  its  subsequent  growth.  The 
schools  of  school  of  textual  criticism  which  Theobald 
en  icism.  ^^^  Capell  founded  in  the  middle  years  of 
the  century  has  never  ceased  its  activity  since  their 

*  See  William  Richardson's  Philosophical  Analysis  and  Illustration  of 
Some  of  Shakespeare's  remarkable  Characters  (2  vols.  1774,  1789),  and 
Thomas  Whately's  Remarks  on  Some  of  the  Characters  of  Shakespeare 
(published  in  1785  but  completed  before  1772). 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  597 

day.^  Edmund  Malone's  devotion  at  the  end  of.  the 
eighteenth  century  to  the  biography  of  the  poet  and 
the  contemporary  history  of  the  stage  inspired  a  vast 
band  of  disciples,  of  whom  Joseph  Hunter  (1783-1861), 
John  Payne  Collier  (1789-1883)  and  James  Orchard 
HaUiwell,  afterwards  Halliwell-Phillipps  (1820-1889), 
best  deserve  mention. 

Meanwhile,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
there  arose  a  school  of  critics  to  expound  more  system- 
atically than  before  the  aesthetic  excellence  of  xhenew 
the  plays.  Eighteenth-century  writers  like  esthetic 
Richardson,  Whately  and  Maurice  Morgann  ^  °°' 
had  pointed  out  the  way.  Yet  in  its  inception  the  new 
aesthetic  school  owed  much  to  the  example  of  Schlegel 
and  other  admiring  critics  of  Shakespeare  in  Germany. 
The  long-lived  popular  fallacy  that  Shakespeare  was  the 
unsophisticated  child  of  nature  was  finally  dispelled,  and 
his  artistic  instinct,  his  sound  judgment  and  his  psycho- 
logical certitude  were  at  length  estabUshed  on  firm  foun- 
dations. Hazhtt  in  his  'Characters  of  Shakespeare's 
Plays'  (1817)  interpreted  with  a  light  and  rapid  touch 
the  veracity  or  verisimihtiide  of  the  chief  personages  of 
the  plays.  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  in  his  'Notes  and 
Lectures  on  Shakespeare'  proved  himself  the  subtlest 
spokesman  of  the  modern  aesthetic  school  in  this  or  any 
other    country.^    Although    Edward    Dowden    in    his 

'  W.  Sidney  Walker  (1795-1846),  sometime  Fellow  of  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  deserves  special  mention  among  textual  critics  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  He  was  author  of  two  valuable  works :  Shakespeare's 
Versification  and  its  apparent  Irregularities  explained  by  Examples  from 
Early  and  Late  English  Writers,  1854,  and  A  Critical  Examination  of  the 
Text  of  Shakespeare,  with  Remarks  on  his  Language  and  that  of  his  Con- 
temporaries, together  with  Notes  on  his  Plays  and  Poems,  i860,  3  vols. 
Walker's  books  were  published  from  his  notes  after  his  death,  and  are 
ill-arranged  and  unindexed,  but  they  constitute  a  rich  quarry,  which 
no  succeeding  editor  has  neglected  without  injury  to  his  work. 

^  See  Notes  and  Lectures -on  Shakespeare  and  other  Poets  by  S.  T.  Coler- 
idge, now  first  collected  by  T.  Ashe,  1883.  Coleridge  hotly  resented  the 
remark,  which  he  attributed  to  Wordsworth,  that  a  German  critic  first 
taught  us  to  think  correctly  concerning  Shakespeare  (Coleridge  to  Mud- 
ford,  1818;  cf.  Dykes  Campbell's  Memoir  of  Coleridge,  p.  cv,  and  see 
p.  614  note,  infra.  .  ... 


598  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

'Shakespeare,  his  Mind  and  Art'  (1874;  nth  edit. 
1897)  and  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  in  his  'Study  of 
Shakespeare'  (1880)  were  worthy  disciples  of  the  new 
criticism,  Coleridge  as  an  aesthetic  critic  remains  unsur- 
passed. Among  living  English  critics  in  the  same 
succession,  Mr.  A.  C.  Bradley  fills  the  first  place. 

In  the  effort  to  supply  a  fuller  interpretation  of  Shake- 
speare's works  —  textual,  historical,  and  aesthetic  —  two 
publishing  societies  have  done  much  valuable 
speie'  work.  The  Shakespeare  Society  was  founded 
publishing  Jq  jg^j  by  CoUier,  Halliwell,  and  their  friends, 
soaeties.  ^^^  pubKshed  some  forty-eight  volumes  before 
its  dissolution  in  1853.  The  New  Shakspere  Society, 
which  was  founded  by  Dr.  Furnivall  in  1874,  issued 
during  the  ensuing  twenty  years  twenty-seven  publica- 
tions, illustrative  mainly  of  lie  text  and  of  contemporary 
life  and  literature. 

Almost  from  the  date  of  Shakespeare's  death  his  native 
town  of  Stratford-on-Avon  was  a  place  of  pilgrimage^  f or 
Shake-  liis  admirers.  As  early  as  1634  Sir  William 
speare's  Dugdale  visitcd  the  town  and  set  on  record 
Stotford-  Shakespeare's  association  with  it.  Many  other 
on-Avon.  visitors  of  the  seventeenth  century  enthusias- 
tically identified  the  dramatist  with  the  place  in  extant 
letters  and  journals.^    John  Ward,  who  became  Vicar 

^  See  p.  471,  n.  2  supra.  As  early  as  1630  a  traveller  through  the  town 
put  on  record  that  'it  was  most  remarkable  for  the  birth  of  famous 
William  Shakespeare'  ('A  Banquet  of  Feasts  or  Change  of  Cheare,'  1630, 
in  Shakespeare's  Ceniurie  of  Praise,  p.  181).  Four  years  later  another 
tourist  to  the  place  described  in  his  extant  diary  'a  neat  Monument  of 
that  famous  EngUsh  Poet,  Mr.  Wm.  Shakespere ;  who  was  borne  heere' 
(Brit.  Mus.  Lansdowne  MS.  213  f.  332;  A  Relation  of  a  Short  Survey, 
ed.  Wickham  Legg,  1904,  p.  77).  Sir  William  Dugdale  concluded  Hs 
account  of  Stratford  in  his  Antiquities  of  Warwickshire  (1656,  p.  523) : 
'One  thing  more  in  reference  to  this  antient  Town  is  observable,  that 
it  gave  birth  and  sepulture  to  our  late  famous  Poet  Will.  Shakespere, 
whose  Monument  I  have  inserted  in  my  discourse  of  the  Church.'  Sir 
Aston  Cokayne  in  complimentary  verses  to  Dugdale  on  his  great  book 
wrote: 

Now  Stratford  upon  Avon,  we  would  choose 

Thy  gentle  and  ingenuous  Shakespeare  Muse, 

(Were  he  among  the  Kving  yet)  to  raise 

T'our  Antiquaries  merit  some  just  praise. 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  S99 

of  Stratford  in  1662,  bore  witness  to  the  genius  loci 
when  he  made  the  entry  in  his  'Diary':  'Remember 
to  peruse  Shakespeare's  plays  and  bee  much  versed  in 
them,  that  I  may  not  bee  ignorant  in  that  matter.'  ^ 
In  the  eighteenth  century  the  visits  of  Shakespearean 
students  rapidly  grew  more  frequent.  In  the  early  years 
the  actor  Betterton  came  from  London  to  make  Shake- 
spearean researches  there. 

It  was  Better  ton's  successor,   Garrick,  who,  at  the 
height  of  his  fame  in  the  middle  years  of  the  century, 
gave  an  impetus  to  the  Shakespearean  cult  at  Garrick  at 
Stratford  which  thenceforth  steadily  developed  Stratford. 
into  a  national  vogue,  and  helped  to  quicken  the  popular 
enthusiasm.     In  May  1769  the  Corporation  did  Garrick 
the  honour   of   making  him   the  first  honorary  free- 
man of  the  borough  on  the  occasion  of  the  opening  of 
the  new  town  hall.    He  acknowledged  the  compliment 
by  presenting  a  statue  of  the '  dramatist  to  adorn  the 
fajade  of  the  building,  together  with  a  portrait  of  him- 
self embracing  a  bust  of  Shakespeare,  by  Gainsborough, 
which  has  since  hung  on  the  walls  of  the  chief  chamber. 
Later  in  the  year  Garrick  personally  devised  and  con- 
ducted a  Shakespearean  celebration  at  Strat- 
ford    which    was    called    rather    inaccurately  stratford 
'Shakespeare's  Jubilee.'    The  ceremonies  lasted  J"gg^^'' 
from   September    6    to    9,    1769,    and   under 
Garrick's  zealous  direction  became  a  national  demon- 
stration in  the  poet's  honour.     The  musical  composer. 
Dr.  Arne,  organised  choral  services  in  the  church ;  there 
were  public  entertainments,  a   concert,  and  a  horse- 
race, and  odes  were  recited  and  orations  dehvered  in 
praise  of  the  poet.     The  visitors  represented  the  rank 
and  fashion  of  the  day.    Among  them  was  James  Bos- 

{Smatt  Toems  of  Divers  Sorts,  1658,  p.  iii.)  Edward  Phillips,  Milton's 
nephew,  in  his  Theatrum  Poetarum,  1677,  begins  his  notice  of  the  poet 
thus:  'William  Shakespear,  the  Glory  of  the  English  Stage;  whose 
nativity  at  Stratford  upon  Avon  is  the  highest  honour  that  Town  can 
boast  of.'  ,  . 

'  Ward's  Diary,  1839,  p.  184. 


6oo  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

well,  the  friend  and  biographer  of  Dr.  Johnson.  The 
irrelevance  of  most  of  the  ceremonials  excited  ridicule, 
but  a  pageant  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre  during  the  follow- 
ing season  recalled  the  chief  incidents  of  the  Stratford 
Jubilee  and  proved  attractive  to  the  London  playgoer.^ 

Like  festivities  were  repeated  at  Stratford  from  time 
to  time  on  a  less  ambitious  scale.  A  birthday  celebra- 
tion took  place  in  April  1827,  and  was  renewed  three 
years  later.  A  'Shakespeare  Tercentenary  Festival,' 
which  was  held  from  April  23  to  May  4,  1864,  was 
designed  as  a  national  commemoration.^  Since  1879 
there  have  been  without  interruption  annual  Shake- 
spearean festivals  in  April  and  May  at  Shakespeare's 
native  place,  and  they  have  steadily  grown  in  popular 
favour  and  in  features  of  interest.^ 

On  the  English  stage  the  name  of  every  eminent  actor 
since  Burbage,  the  great  actor  of  the  dramatist's  own 
On  the  period,  has  been  identified  with  Shakespearean 
EngKsh  drama.  Betterton,  the  chief  actor  of  the 
stage.  J  Restoration,  was  loyal  to  Burbage's  tradition. 
Steele,  writing  in  the  'Tatler'  (No.  167)  in  reference  to 
Betterton's  funeral  in  the  cloisters  of  Westminster 
Abbey  on  May  2,  17 10,  instanced  his  rendering  of 
Othello  as  a  proof  of  an  unsurpassable  talent  in  reahsing 
Shakespeare's  subtlest  conceptions  on  the  stage.  One 
great  and  welcome  innovation  in  Shakespearean  act- 
ing is  closely  associated  with  Betterton's  name.  The 
substitution  of  women  for  boys  in  female  parts  was  in- 
The  first  auguratcd  by  KiUigrew  at  the  opening  of 
appearance  Charles  II's  reign,  but  Betterton's  encourage- 
taShaS^^  ment  of  the  innovation  gave  it  permanence, 
spearean  The  first  rSle  that  was  professionally  rendered 
P"'^-  by  a  woman  in  a  public  theatre  was  that  of 
Desdemona  in  'Othello,'  apparently  on  December  8, 
1660.'*    The  actress  on  that  occasion  is  said  to  have 

'  See  Wheler's  History  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  1812,  pp.  164-209. 

'  R.  E.  Hunter,  Shakespeare  and  the  Tercentenary  Celebration,  1864. 

'  See  pp.  540-1  supra.  *  See  pp.  78-9  supra. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  6oi 

been  Mrs.  Margaret  Hughes,  Prince  Rupert's  mistress; 
but  Betterton's  wife,  who  was  at  first  known  on  the 
stage  as  Mrs.  Saunderson,  was  the  first  actress  to  pre- 
sent a  series  of  Shakespeare's  great  female  characters. 
Mrs.  Betterton  ,  gave  her  husband  powerful  support, 
from  1663  onwards,  in  such  roles  as  Opheha,  Juliet, 
Queen  Katharine,  and  Lady  Macbeth.  Betterton 
formed  a  school  of  actors  who  carried  on  his  traditions 
for  many  years  after  his  death-.  Robert  Wilks  (1670- 
1732)  as  Hamlet,  and  Barton  Booth  (1681-1733)  as 
Henry  VIH  and  Hotspur,  were  popularly  accounted 
no  unworthy  successors.  Colley  Gibber  (1671-1757), 
as  actor,  theatrical  manager,  and  dramatic  critic,  was 
both  a  loyal  disciple  of  Betterton  and  a  lover  of  Shake- 
speare, though  his  vanity  and  his  faith  in  the  ideals  of 
the  Restoration  incited  him  to  perpetrate  many  outrages 
on  Shakespeare's  text  when  preparing  it  for  theatrical 
representation.  His  notorious  adaptation  of  'Richard 
HI,'  which  was  first  produced  in  1700,  long  held  the 
stage  to  the  exclusion  of  the  original  version.  But 
towards  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  all  earUer 
efforts  to  interpret  Shakespeare  in  the  playhouse  were 
eclipsed  in  public  esteem  by  the  concentrated  energy 
and  intelligence  of  David  Garrick.  Garrick's  enthu- 
siasm for  the  poet  and  his  histrionic  genius  riveted 
Shakespeare's  hold  on  public  taste.  His  claim  to  have 
restored  to  the  stage  the  text  of  Shakespeare  —  purified 
of  Restoration  defilements  —  cannot  be  allowed  with- 
out serious  qualifications.  Garrick  had  no  scruple  in 
presenting  plays  of  Shakespeare  in  versions  ^^^y 
that  he  or  his  friends  had  recklessly  garbled.  Garrick, 
He  supplied  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  with  a  happy  ^''^  ^"^' 
ending;  he  converted  'The  Taming  of  the  Shrew'  into 
the  farce  of  'Katherine  and  Petruchio,'  1754 ;  he  was  the 
first  to  venture  on  a  revision  of  'Hamlet'  (in  1771) ;  he 
introduced  radical  changes  in  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,' 
'Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  'Cymbeline,'  and  'Mid- 
summer  Night's   Dream.'    Neither   had    Garrick   any 


602  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

faith  in  stage-archseology ;  he  acted  'Macbeth'  in  a 
bagwig  and  'Hamlet'  in  contemporary  court  dress. 
Nevertheless,  no  actor  has  won  an  equally  exalted  repu- 
tation in  so  vast  and  varied  a  repertory  of  Shake- 
spearean rdles.  His  triumphant  debut  as  Richard  III 
in  1 741  was  followed  by  equally  successful  performances 
of  Hamlet  (first  given  for  his  benefit  at  the  Smock  Alley 
Theatre,  Dublin,  on  August  12,  1742),^  Lear,  Macbeth, 
King  John,  Romeo,  Henry  IV,  lago,  Leontes,  Benedick, 
and  Antony  in  'Antony  and  Cleopatra.'  Garrick  was 
not  quite  undeservedly  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey 
on  February  i,  1779,  at  the  foot  of  Shakespeare's  statue. 
Garrick  was  ably  seconded  by  Mrs.  Chve  (1711-1785), 
Mrs.  Gibber  (1714-1766),  and  Mrs.  Pritchard  (1711- 
1768).  Mrs.  Gibber  as  Constance  in  'King  John,'  and 
Mrs.  Pritchard  in  Lady  Macbeth,  excited  something  of 
the  same  enthusiasm  as  Garrick  in  Richard  III  and  Lear. 
There  were,  too,  contemporary  critics  who  judged  rival 
actors  to  show  in  certain  parts  powers  equal,  if  not 
superior,  to  those  of  Garrick.  Charles  Macklin  (1697?- 
1797)  for  nearly  half  a  century,  from  1735  to  1785, 
gave  many  hundred  performances  of  a  masterly  render- 
ing of  Shylock.  The  character  had,  for  many  years 
previous  to  Macklin's  assumption  of  it,  been  allotted 
to  comic  actors,  but  Macklin  effectively  concentrated 
his  energy  on  fhe  tragic  significance  of  the  part  with  an 
effect  that  Garrick  could  not  surpass.  Mackhn  was 
also  reckoned  successful  in  Polonius  and  lago.  John 
Henderson,  the  Bath  Roscius  (1747-1785),  who,  like 
Garrick,  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey,  derived  im- 
mense popularity  from  his  representation  of  Falstaff; 
while  in  such  subordinate  characters  as  Mercutio, 
Slender,  Jaques,  Touchstone,  and  Sir  Toby  Belch,  John 
Palmer  (i742?-i798)  was  held  to  approach  perfection. 
But  Garrick  was  the  accredited  chief  of  the  theatrical 
profession  until  his  death.     He  was  then  succeeded  in 

''W.  J.  Lawrence,  The  Elizabethan  Playhome  and  other  Studies,  2nd 
ser.  229-230.  * 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  603 

his  place  of  pre-eminence  by  John  Philip  Kenlble,  who 
derived  invaluable  support  from  his  association  with  one 
abler  than  himself,  his  sister,  Mrs.  Siddons. 

Somewhat  stilted  and  declamatory  in  speech,  Kemble 
enacted  a  wide  range  of  characters  of  Shakespearean 
tragedy  with  a  dignity  that  won  the  admira- 
tion of  Pitt,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Charles  Lamb,  puiip 
and  Leigh  Hunt.     Coriolanus  was  regarded  as  kemble, 
his  masterpiece,  but  his  renderings  of  Hamlet,  ^'^^  ^  ^^' 
King  John,  Wolsey,  the  Duke  in  'Measure  for  Measure,' 
Leontes,  and  Brutus  satisfied  the  most  exacting  -^^^  g^^^j^ 
canons  of  contemporary   theatrical  criticism.  Sidd'ons, 
Kemble's  sister,  Mrs.  Siddons,  was  the  greatest  ^'ss-1831. 
actress   that   Shakespeare's    countrymen  have  known. 
Her   noble    and    awe-inspiring    presentation    of   Laldy 
Macbeth,  her  Constance,  her  Queen  Katharine,  have, 
according  to  the  best  testimony,  not  been  equalled  even 
by  the  achievements  of  the  eminent  actresses  of  France. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  the  most  conspicuous 
histrionic  successes  in  Shakespearean  drama  were  won  by 
Edmund  Kean,  whose  triumphant  rendering  ^jjimnd 
of  Shylock  on  his  first  appearance  at  Drury  Kean, 
Lane  Theatre  on  January  26,  1814,  is  one  of  '^  ^"'  ^^' 
the  most  stirring  incidents  in  the  history  of  the  English 
stage.  Kean  defied  the  rigid  convention  of  the  '  Kemble 
School,'  and  gave  free  rein  to  his  impe1|ious  passions. 
Besides  Shylock,  he  excelled  in  Richard  III,  Othello, 
Hamlet,  and  Lear.  No  less  a  critic  than  Coleridge  de- 
clared that  to  see  him  act  was  like  '  reading  Shakespeare 
by  flashes  of  Hghtning.'  Among  other  Shakespearean 
actors  of  Kean's  period  a  high  place  was  allotted  by 
public  esteem  to  George  Frederick  Cooke  (1756-1811), 
whose  Richard  III,  first  given  in  London  at  Covent 
Garden  Theatre,  October  31,  1801,  was  accounted  his 
masterpiece.  Charles  Lamb,  writing  in  1822,  declared 
that  of  all  the  actors  who  flourished  in  his  time,  Robert 
Bensley  'had  most  of  the  swell  of  soul,'  and  Lamb  gave 
with  a  fine  enthusiasm  in  his  'Essays  of  Elia'  an  analysis 


6o4  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

(which  has  become  classical)  of  Bensley's  performance 
of  Malvolio.  But  Bensley's  powers  were  rated  more 
moderately  by  more  experienced  playgoers.^  Lamb's 
praises  of  Mrs.  Jordan  (1762-1816)  as  Ophelia,  Helena, 
and  Viola  in  'Twelfth  Night,'  are  corroborated  by  the 
eulogies  of  Hazlitt  and  Leigh  Hunt.  In  the  part  of 
Rosalind  Mrs.  Jordan  is  reported  on  all  sides  to  have 
beaten  Mrs.  Siddons  out  jf  the  field. 

The  torch  thus  Ut  by  Garrick,  by  the  Kembles,  by 

Kean  and  his  contemporaries  was  worthily  kept  alive 

by  William   Charles  Macready,   a  cultivated 

William  -^  ^  ...  .  1.  J       • 

Charles  and  conscientious  actor,  who,  durmg  a  pro- 
Macready,  fessional  Career  of  more  than  forty  years  (1810- 
1851),  assumed  every  great  part  in  Shake- 
spearean tragedy.  Although  Macready  lacked  the 
classical  bearing  of  Kemble  or  the  intense  passion  of 
Kean,  he  won  as  the  interpreter  of  Shakespeare  the 
whole-hearted  suffrages  of  the  educated  public.  Ma- 
cready's  chief  associate  in  women  characters  was  Helen 
Faucit  (1820-1898,  afterwards  Lady  Martin),  whose 
refined  impersonations  of  Imogen,  Beatrice,  Juliet, 
and  Rosalind  form  an  attractive  chapter  in  the  history 
of  the  stage. 

The  most  notable  tribute  paid  to  Shakespeare  by  any 
actor-manager  of  recent  times  was  rendered  by  Samuel 
Recent  Phelps  (1804-1878),  who  gave  during  his  tenure 
revivals.  of  Sadler's  Wells  Theatre  between  1844  and 
1862  competent  representations  of  all  the  plays  save 
six;  only  'Richard  II,'  the  three  parts  of  'Henry  VI,' 
'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  and  'Titus  Andronicus'  were 
omitted.  The  ablest  actress  who  appeared  with  Phelps 
at  Sadler's  Wells  was  Mrs.  Warner  (1804-1854),  who  had 
previously  supported  Macready  in  many  of  Shakespeare's 
dramas,  and  was  a  partner  in  Phelps's  Shakespearean 
speculation  in  the  early  days  of  the  venture.  Charles 
Kean  (1811-1868),  Edmund  Kean's  son,  between  1851 
and  1859  produced  at  the  Princess's  Theatre,  London, 

'  Essays  of  Elia,  ed.  Canon  Ainger,  pp.  180  seq. 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  6d5 

some  thirteen  plays  of  Shakespeare ;  his  own  roles  in- 
cluded Macbeth,  Richard  II,  Cardinal  Wolsey,  Leontes, 
Richard  III,  Prospero,  King  Lear,  Shylock,  Henry  V. 
But  the  younger  Kean  depended  for  the  success  of  his 
Shakespearean  productions  on  their  spectacular  attrac- 
tions rather  than  on  his  histrionic  efl&ciency.  He  may 
be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the  spectacular  system  of 
Shakespearean  representation.  Sir  Henry  Irving  (1838- 
1905),  who  from  1878  till  1901  was  ably  seconded  by 
Miss  Ellen  Terry,  revived  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre  be- 
tween 1874  and  1902  twelve  plays  ('Hamlet,'  'Macbeth,' 
'Othello,'  'Richard  III,'  'The  Merchant  of  Venice,' 
'Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  'Twelfth  Night,'  'Romeo 
and  JuUet,'  'King  Lear,'  'Henry  VIII,'  'Cymbeline,' 
and  '  Coriolanus ') ,  and  gave  each  of  them  all  the  advan- 
tage they  could  derive  from  thoughtful  acting  reinforced 
by  lavish  scenic  elaboration.^  Sir  Henry  Irving  was  the 
first  actor  to  be  knighted  (in  1895)  for  his  services  to 
the  stage,  and  the  success  which  crowned  his  efforts 
to  raise  the  artistic  and  intellectual  temper  of  the  theatre 
was  acknowledged  by  his  burial  in  Westminster  Abbey 
(October  20,  1905).  Sir  Henry  Irving's  mantle  was 
assumed  at  his  death  by  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree, 
who  produced  three  of  Shakespeare's  plays  at  the  Hay- 
market  Theatre  between  1889  and  1896  and  no  less  than 
fifteen  more  at  His  Majesty's  Theatre  since  1897.  In  the 
course  of  each  of  the  nine  years  (1905-13)  Sir  Herbert 
also  organised  at  His  Majesty's  Theatre  a  Shakespeare 
festival  in  which  different  plays  of  Shakespeare  were 
acted  on  successive  days  during  several  weeks  by  his  own 
and  other  companies.^  Much  scenic  magnificence  has 
distinguished  Sir  Herbert's  Shakespearean  productions 

^Hamlet  in  1874-5  and  Macbeth  in  1888-9  were  each  performed  by 
Sir  Henry  Irving  for  200  nights  in  uninterrupted  succession ;  these  are 
the  longest  continuous  runs  that  any  of  Shakespeare's  plays  are  known 
to  have  enjoyed. 

'  In  April  1907  Sir  Herbert  appeared  on  the  Berlin  stage  in  five  of 
Shakespeare's  plays,  Richard  II,  Twelfth  Night,  Antony  and,  Cleofa(ra, 
Merry  Wives,  and  Hamlet. 


6o6  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

in  Which  he  has  played  leadings  parts  of  very  varied 
range ;  his  impersonations  include  Hamlet,  Antony  in 
both  'Julius  Cassar'  and  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  Shy- 
lock,  MalvoHo,  and  Falstaff.  Mr.  F.  R.  Benson,  since 
1883,  has  devoted  himself  almost  exclusively  to  the 
representation  of  Shakespearean  drama  and  has  pro- 
duced all  but  two  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Mr.  Benson's 
activities  have  been  chiefly  confined  to  the  provinces,, 
and  for  twenty-six  years  he  has  organised  the  dramatic 
festivals  at  Stratford-on-Avon.^  Many  efficient  actors 
owe  to  association  with  him  and  his  company  their 
earhest  training  in  Shakespearean  parts.  In  isolated 
Shakespearean  rSles  high  reputations  of  recent  years  have 
been  won  by  several  actors,  among  whom  may  be 
mentioned  Sir  Johnston  Forbes  Robertson  in  'Hamlet' 
(first  rendered  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre  on  September  11, 
1897),  Lewis  Waller  in  Henry  V  (first  rendered  at 
Christmas  1900  at  the  Lyric  Theatre,  London),  and  Mr. 
Arthur  Bourchier  at  the  Garrick  Theatre  as  Shylock 
(first  rendered  on  October  11,  1905)  and  as  Macbeth 
(first  rendered  on  January  16,  1907). 

In  spite  of  the  recent  efforts  of  Sir  Henry  Irving,  Sir 
Herbert  Beerbohm  Tree,  and  Mr.  F.  R.  Benson,  no 
theatrical  manager  since  Phelps's  retirement  from 
Sadler's  Wells  in  1862  has  systematically  and  continu- 
ously illustrated  on  the  London  stage  the  full  range  of 
Shakespearean  drama.  Far  more  in  this  direction  has 
been  attempted  in  Germany.  The  failure  to  represent 
in  the  chief  theatres  of  London  and  the  other  great 
cities  of  the  country  Shakespeare's  plays  constantly  and 
in  their  variety  is  mainly  attributable  to  the  demand, 
by  a  large  section  of  the  playgoing  pubUc,  for  the 
Spectacular  spectacular  methods  of  production  which 
||"™g  of  were  inaugurated  by  Charles  Kean  in  the  me- 
speaiean  tropolis  in  1851  and  have  since  been  practised 
drama.  from  time  to  time  on  an  ever-increasing  scale  of 
splendour.    The  cost  of  the  spectacular  display  involves 

'  See  p.  541  supra. 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  607 

financial  risks  which  prohibit  a  frequent  change  of 
programme  and  restrict  the  manager's  choice  to  such 
plays  as  lend  themselves  to  spectacular  setting.  In 
189s  Mr.  William  Poel  founded  in  London  'The  Eliza- 
bethan Stage  Society'  with  a  View  to  producing  Shake- 
spearean and  other  Elizabethan  dramas  either  without 
any  scenery  or  with  scenery  of  a  simple  kind  conforming 
to  the  practice  of  the  Elizabethan  or  Jacobean  epoch. 
Although  Mr.  Poel's  zealous  effort  received  a  respectful 
welcome  from  scholars,  it  exerted  no  appreciable  in- 
fluence on  the  taste  of  the  general  public.^  In  one  re- 
spect, however,  the  history  of  recent  Shakespearean 
representations  can  be  viewed  by  the  literary  student 
with  unqualified  satisfaction.  Although  some  changes 
of  text  or  some  rearrangement  of  the  scenes  are  found 
imperative  in  all  theatrical  productions  of  Shakespeare, 
a  growing  public  sentiment  in  England  and  elsewhere 
has  for  many  years  favoured  as  loyal  an  adherence  as 
is  practicable  to  the  authorised  version  of  the  plays  on 
the  part  of  theatrical  managers.  In  this  regard,  the 
evil  traditions  of  the  eighteenth-century  stage  are  well- 
nigh  extinct. 

Music  and  art  in  England  owe  much  to  Shakespeare's 
influence.  From  Thomas  Morley,  Purcell,  Matthew 
Locke,  and  Arne  to  William  Linley,  Sir  Henry  in  musk 
Bishop,  and  Sir  Arthur  Sullivan,  every  dis-  ^'^  ^^■ 
■  tinguished  musician  of  the  past  has  sought  to  improve 
on  his  predecessor's  setting  of  one  or  more  of  Shake- 
speare's songs,  or  has  composed  concerted  music  in 
illustration  of  some  of  his  dramatic  themes.^  Of  living 
composers  Mr.  Edward  German  has  musically  illustrated 
with  much  success  'Henry  VIII'  (1894),  'Richard  II,' 
'Richard  III,'  'Romeo  and  JuUet'  and  'Much  Ado.' 
Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie  is  responsible  for'  an  Overture 

'  See  William  Poel's  Shakespeare  in  the  Theatre,  1913,  pp.  203  seq. 

^  Cf.  Alfred  Roffe,  Shakspere  Music,  1878.;  Songs  in  Shakspere, ..;,  , 
set  to  Music,  1884,  New  Shakspere  Soc. ;  E.  W.  Naylor,  Shakespeare 
ani  Music,  1896,  and  L.  C.  Elsoh,  Shakespeare  in  Music,  igoi. 


6o8  WttLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

to  'Twelfth  Night'  and  music  for  ' Coriolanus,'  and  Sir 
Edward  Elgar  is  the  composer  of  '  Falstaff ,'  a  symphonic 
study  (1913). 

In  art,  the  pubhsher  John  Boydell  in  1787  organised 
a  scheme  for  illustrating  scenes  in  Shakespeare's  work 
by  the  greatest  living  English  artists.  Some  fine  pic- 
tures were  the  result.  A  hundred  and  sixty-eight  were 
painted  in  all,  and  the  artists  whom  Boydell  employed 
included  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  George  Romney,  Thomas 
Stothard,  John  Opie,  Benjamin  West,  James  Barry,  and 
Henry  Fuseh.  All  the  pictures  were  exhibited  from  time 
to  time  between  1789  and  1804  at  a  gallery  specially 
built  for  the  purpose  in  Pall  Mall,  and  in  1802  Boydell 
published  a  collection  of  engravings  of  the  chief  pic- 
tures. The  great  series  of  paintings  was  dispersed  by 
auction  in  1805.  Few  eminent  painters  of  later  date, 
,  from  Daniel  MacUse  to  Sir  John  Millais,  have  lacked  the 
ambition  to  interpret  some  scene  or  character  of  Shake- 
spearean drama,  while  English  artists  in  black  and  white 
who  have  in  the  late  nineteenth  or  early  twentieth  century 
devoted  themselves  to  the  illustration  of  Shakespeare's 
writings  include  Sir  John  Gilbert,  R.A.,  Walter  Crane, 
Arthur  Rackham, '  Hugh  Thomson  and  E.  J.  Sullivan. 

In  America  of  late  years  no  less  enthusiasm  for  Shake- 
speare has  been  manifested  than  in  England.  The  first 
In  edition  of  Shakespeare's  works  to  be  printed 

America,  j^  America  appeared  in  Philadelphia  in  1795-6,' 
but  editors  and  critics  have  since  the  middle  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  been  hardly  less  numerous  there  than 
in  England.  Some  criticism  from  American  pens,  like 
that  of  James  Russell  Lowell,  has  reached  the  highest 
literary  level.  Prof.  G.  P.  Baker  and  Prof.  Brander 
Matthews  have  recently  developed  more  zealously  than 
Enghsh  writers  the  study  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic 
technique.  Nowhere,  perhaps,  has  more  labour  been 
devoted  to  the  interpretation  of  his  works  than  that 
bestowed  by  Horace  Howard  Furness  of  Philadelphia 

'  See  pp.  580-1  n.  i,  supra. 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  609 

on  the  preparation  of  his  '  New  Variorum  '  edition.^  The 
-passion  for  acquiring  early  editions  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  and  poems  or  early  illustrative  Hterature  has 
grown  very  rapidly  in  the  past  and  present  generations. 
The  library  of  the  chief  of  early  Shakespearean  col- 
lectors, James  Lenox  (1800-1880),  now  forms  part  of 
the  Pubhc  Library  of  New  York.^  Another  important 
collection  of  Shakespeareana  was  formed  at  an  early 
date  by  Thomas  Peimant  Barton  (1803-1869)  and  was 
acquired  by  the  Boston  Public  Library  in  1873 ;  the 
elaborate  catalogue  (1878-80)  contains  some  2500 
entries.  Private  collections  of  later  periods  hke  those 
formed  by  Mr.  Marsden  J.  Perry,  of  Providence,  Rhode 
Island,  Mr.  H.  C.  Folger,  of  New  York,  and  Mr.  W.  A. 
White,  of  Brooklyn,  are  all  rich  in  rare  editions. 

First  of  Shakespeare's  plays  to  be  represented  in 
America,  'Richard  III'  was  performed  in  New  York 
on  March  5,  1750.  More  recently  Junius  Brutus  Booth 
(1796-1852),  Edwin  Forrest  (1806-1892),  John  Edward 
McCullough,  Forrest's  disciple  (1837-1885),  Edwin 
Booth,  Junius  Brutus  Booth's  son  (1833-1893),  Charlotte 
Cushman  (1816-1876),  Ada  Rehan  (&.  1859),  Julia 
Marlowe,  and  Maud  Adams  have  maintained  on  the 
American  stage  the  great  traditions  of  Shakespearean 
acting.  Between  1890  and  1898  Augustin  Daly's  com- 
pany included  in  their  repertory  nine  Shakespearean 
comedies  which  were  rendered  with  admirable  effect, 
chiefly  with  Ada  Rehan  and  John  Drew  in  the  leading 
rdles.  Of  late  years  Shakespearean  performances  in 
America  have  been  intermittent.  Among  American 
artists  Edwin  Austin  Abbey  (1852-1911)  devoted  high 
gifts  to  pictorial  representation  of  scenes  from  Shake- 
speare's plays. 

'  See  p.  582  supra. 

'  See  Henry  Stevens's  Recollections  of  James  Lenox  and  the  formation 
of  his  Library.    London,  1886. 


2K 


XXVI 

SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE 

Save  the  Scriptures  and  the  chief  writings  of  classical 
antiquity,  no  literary  compositions  compare  with  Shake- 
speare's plays  and  poems  in  their  appeal  to 
fpewe's  readers  or  critics  who  do  not  share  the  author's 
foreign  nationality  or  speak  his  language.  The  Bible, 
^°^^'  alone  of  Uterary  compositions,  has  been  trans- 
lated more  frequently  or  into  a  greater  number  of  lan- 
guages. The  progress  of  the  dramatist's  reputation  in 
France,  Italy  and  Russia  was  somewhat  slow  at  the  out- 
set. But  ever3rwhere  it  advanced  steadily  through  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  Germany  the  poet  has  received 
for  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  a  recognition  scarcely 
less  pronounced  than  that  accorded  him  in  his  own 
country.^ 

English  actors  who  made  professional  tours  through 
Germany  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  beginning 
In  of  the  seventeenth  centuries  frequently;  per- 

Germany.  formed  plays  by  Shakespeare  before  German 
audiences.  At  first  the  English  actors  spoke  in  EngHsh, 
but  they  soon  gave  their  text  in  crude  German  transla- 
tions. German  adaptations  of  'Titus  Andronicus'  and 
'The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona'  were  published  in 
1620.  In  1626  'Hamlet,'  'King  Lear,'  'JuUus  Caesar,' 
and  'Romeo  and  JuUet'  were  acted  by  Enghsh  players 
at  Dresden,  and  German  versions  of  'The  Merchant  of 
Venice,'  of  'The  Taming  of  the  Shrew'  and  of  the  inter- 
lude in  'A  Midsimmier  Night's  Dream,'  as  well  as  a 

^  See  Prof.  J.  G.  Robertson's  'Shakespeare  on  the  Continent'  in 
Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  vol.  v.  chap.  xii.  pp.  283-308. 

610 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE  6ll 

crude  German  adaptation  of  'Hamlet,'  ^  were  current  in 
Germany  later  in  the  century.  But  no  author's  name 
was  at  the  time  associated  with  any  of  these  pieces. 
Meanwhile  German-speaking  visitors  to  England  carried 
home  even  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime  copies  of  his  works 
and  those  of  his  contemporaries.  Among  several 
EngHsh  volumes  which  Johann  Rudolf  Hess  of  Ziirich 
brought  to  that  city  on  returning  from  London  about 
1614  were  Smethwick's  quartos  of  'Romeo  and  Juliet' 
(1609)  and  'Hamlet'  (161 1).  The  books  are  still 
preserved  in  the  pubhc  lilsrary  of  the  town.^ 

Shakespeare  was  first  specifically  mentioned  in  1682 
by  a  German  writer  Daniel  Georg  Morhof  in  his'Un- 
terricht  von  der  teutschen  Sprache  und  Poesie' 
(Kiel,  p.  250).     But  Morhof  merely  confesses  oeman 
that  he  had  read  of  Shakespeare,  as  well  as  of  shake- 
Fletcher   and   Beaumont,   in    Dryden's   work 
'Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy.'     Morhof,  however,  broke 
the  ice.    A  notice  of  the  pathos  of  '  the  English  tragedian 
Shakespeare'  was  transferred  from  a  French  translation 
of  Sir  William  Temple's  -'Essay  on  Poetry'  to  Barthold 
Feind's  'Gedanken  von  der  Opera'   (Stade)   in   1708. 
Next  year  Johann  Franz  Buddeus  copied  from  ColUer's 
'Historical  Dictionary'  (1701-2)  a  farcically  inadequate 
biographical  sketch  of  Shakespeare  into  his  'Allgemeines 
historisches  Lexicon'  (Leipzig),  and  this  brief  memoir 
was  reprinted  in  Johann  Burckhart  Mencke's  '  Gelehrten 
Lexicon'  (Leipzig,  1715)  and  in  popular  encyclopaedias 
of  later  date.^    Of  greater  significance  was  the  appearance 
at  Berhn  in  1741  of  a  poor  German  translation  of  'Julius 
Csesar'  by  Baron  Caspar  Wilhehn  von  Borck,  formerly 

'  See  p.  355  supra. 

'  The  purchaser  Hess  who  was  at  a  later  date  a  member  of  the  Great 
Council  of  Zurich,  carried  home  from  London  nine  English  books  of 
recent  publication.  Besides  the  Shakespearean  quartos,  they  included 
Ben  Jonson's  Volpone  (1607)  and  George  WiUdns's  novel  of  Pericles 
Prince  of  Tyre  (1608)  of  which  only  one  other  copy  (in  the  British  Mu- 
seum) survives ;  see  Tycho  Mommsen's  Preface  (pp.  ii-iii)  to  his  reprint 
of  George  Wilklns's  novel  of  Pericles  (Oldenburg,  1857). 

•  Cf.  Zedler's  Cyclopaedia  1743  and  Jocher's  Gelehrten  Lexicon  (1751). 


6l2  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Prussian  minister  in  London.  This  was  the  earliest 
complete  and  direct  translation  of  any  play  by  Shake- 
speare into  a  foreign  language.  A  prose  translation  of 
'  Richard  III '  from  another  pen  followed  in  1756.  Shake- 
speare was  not  suffered  to  receive  such  first  halting 
marks  of  German  respect  without  a  protest.  Johann 
Christopher  Gottsched  (1700-1766),  a  champion  of 
classicism,  warmly  denounced  the  barbaric  lawlessness 
of  Shakespeare  in  a  review  of  von  Borck's  effort  in 
'Beitrage  zur  kritischen  Historic  der  deutschen  Sprache' 
(1741).  The  attack  bore  unexpected  fruit.  Johann 
Elias  Schlegel,  one  of  Gottsched's  disciples,  offended 
his  master  by  defending  in  the  same  periodical  Shake- 
speare's neglect  of  the  classical  canons,  and  within  twenty 
years  the  influential  pen  of  Gotthold  Ephraim  Lessing 
Lessing's  Came  to  Shakcspeare's  rescue  with  triumphant 
tribute,  effect.  Lessing  first'  drew  to  Shakespeare  the 
^^^'"  earnest    attention    of    the    educated    German 

public.  It  was  on  February  16,  1759,  in  No.  17  of  a 
journal  entitled  '  Brief e  die  neueste  Literatur  betreffend' 
that  Lessing,  after  detecting-  in  Shakespeare's  work 
afl&nity  with  the  German  Volks-drama,  urged  his 
superiority,  not  only  to  the  French  dramatists  Racine 
and  Corneille,  who  hitherto  had  dominated  European 
taste,  but  to  all  ancient  or  modern  poets  save  Sophocles : 
'After  the  "(Edipus"  of  Sophocles  no  piece  can  have 
more  power  over  our  passions  than  "Othello,"  "King 
Lear,"  "Hamlet."'  Lessing  restated  his  doctrine  with 
greater  reservation  in  his  ' Hamburgische  Dramaturgic' 
(Hamburg,  1767,  2  vols,  8vo),  but  the  seed  which  he 
had  sown  proved  fertile,  and  the  tree  which  sprang  from 
it  bore  rich  fruit. 

A  wide  expansion  of  German  knowledge  and  curiosity 
is  traceable  to  a  prose  translation  of  Shakespeare  which 
Christopher  Martin  Wieland  (1733-1813)  began  in  1762 
and  issued  at  Zurich  in  1763-6  (in  8  vols.).  Before  long 
Wieland's  useful  work  was  thoroughly  revised  by 
Johann  Joachim  Eschenburg  (1743-1820),  whose  edition 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE       613 

appeared  also  at  Zurich  in  13  vols.  (1775-7).  The 
dissemination  of  all  Shakespeare's  writings  in  a  German 
garb  greatly  strengthened  the  romantic  tendencies  of 
German  literary  sentiment,  and  the  English  dramatist 
•  soon  attracted  that  wide  German  worship  which 
he  has  since  retained.  Heinrich  Wilhelm  von  study'and 
Gerstenberg  in  1766-7,  in  'Briefe  iiber  Merk-  ^P'^'^"- 
wiirdigkeiten  der  Litteratur,'  treated  Shake- 
spearean drama  as  an  integral  part  of  the  world  of  nature 
to  which  criticism  was  as  inapplicable  as  to  the  sea  or 
the  sky.  The  poet  Johann  Gottfried  Herder  in  1773 
showed  a  more  chastened  spirit  of  enthusiasm  when  he 
sought  to  account  historically  for  the  romantic  temper  of 
Shakespeare.  Goethe,  king  of  the  German  romantic 
movement,  and  all  who  worked  with  him  thenceforth 
eagerly  acknowledged  their  discipleship  to  Shakespeare. 
Unwavering  veneration  of  his  achievement  became  a 
first  article  in  the  creed  of  German  romanticism,  and 
the  form  and  spirit  of  the  German  romanticists'  poetry 
and  drama  were  greatly  influenced  by  their  Shake- 
spearean faith.  Goethe's  criticism  of  'Hamlet'  in 
'Wilhelm  Meisters  Lehrjahre'  (1795-6)  was  but  one  of 
the  many  masterly  tributes  of  the  German  romantic 
school  to  Shakespeare's  supremacy.^ 

A  fresh  and  vital  impetus  to  the  Shakespearean  cult 
in  Germany  was  given  by  the  romantic  leader,  August 
Wilhelm    von    Schlegel.     Between    1797    and  Schiegei's 
1801  he  issued  metrical  versions  of  thirteen  translation, 
plays,  adding  a  fourteenth  play  'Richard  III'  in  1810. 

*  "throughout  his  long  life  Goethe  was  the  most  enthusiastic  of  Shake- 
speare's worshippers.  In  1771,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  he  composed 
an  oration  which  he  delivered  to  fellow-students  at  Strasburg  by  way 
of  justifying  his  first  passionate  adoration  (see  Lewes,  Lije  of  Goethe, 
1890,  pp.  92-5).  Besides  the  detailed  analysis  of  the  character  of  Ham- 
let, which  occupies  much  space  in  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meister,  many 
eulogistic  references  to  Shakespeare  figure  in  Goethe's  Wahrheit  und 
Dkhtung,  and  in  Eckermann's  Reports  of  Goethe's  Conversation.  A 
remarkable  essay  on  Shakespeare's  pre-eminence  was  written  by  Goethe 
in  1815  under  the  title  Shakespeare  und  kein  Ende.  This  appears  in 
the  chief  editions  of  Goethe's  coUected  prose  works  in  the  section  headed 
'Theater  und  dramatische  Dichtung.' 


6 14  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Schlegel  reproduced  the  spirit  of  the  original  with  such 
magical  efl&ciency  as  to  consummate  Shakespeare's 
naturahsation  in  German  poetry.  Ludwig  Tieck,  who 
pubHshed  a  prose  rendering  of  'The  Tempest'  in  1796, 
completed  Schlegel's  imdertaking  in  1825,  but  he  chiefly 
confined  himself  to  editing  translations  by  various  hands 
of  the  plays  which  Schlegel  had  neglected.^  Many 
other  German  translations  in  verse  were  undertaken  in 
emulation  of  Schlegel  and  Tieck's  version  —  by  J.  H. 
Voss  and  his  sons  (Leipzig,  1818-29),  by  J.  W.  O.  Benda 
(Leipzig,  1825-6),  by  J.  Korner  (Vienna,  1836),  by  A. 
Bottger  (Leipzig,  1836-7),  by  E.  Ortlepp  (Stuttgart, 
1838-9),  and  by  A.  Keller  and  M.  Rapp  (Stuttgart, 
1843-6).  The  best  of  more  recent  German  translations 
is  that  by  a  band  of  poets  and  eminent  men  of  letters 
including  Friedrich  von  Bodenstedt,  Ferdinand  Freih- 
grath,  and  Paul  Heyse  (Leipzig,  1867-71,  38  vols.). 
But,  despite  the  high  merits  of  von  Bodenstedt  and  his 
companions'  performance,  Schlegel  and  Tieck's  achieve- 
ment stiU  holds  the  field.  Schlegel  may  be  justly 
reckoned  one  of  the  most  effective  of  aU  the  promoters 
of  Shakespearean  study.  His  lectures  on  'Dramatic 
Literature,'  which  include  a  suggestive  survey  of  Shake- 
speare's work,  were  delivered  at  Vienna  in  1808,  and 
were  translated  into  English  in  1815.  They  are  worthy 
of  comparison  with  the  •  criticism  of  Coleridge,  who 
owed  much  to  their  influence.  Wordsworth  in  1815 
declared  that  Schlegel  and  his  disciples  first  marked  out 
the  right  road  in  aesthetic  appreciation,  and  that  they 
enjoyed  at  the  moment  superiority  over  all  EngKsh 
Eesthetic  critics  of  Shakespeare.^    In  1815,  too,  Goethe 

'  Revised  editions  of  Schegel  and  Tieck's  translation  appeared  in 
Leipzig,  ed.  A.  Brandl,  1897-9,  10  vols.,  and  at  Stuttgart,  ed.  Hermann 
Conrad,  1905-6.  In  1908  Friedrich  Gundolf  began  a  reissue  of  Schlegel's 
translations  with  original  versions  of  many  of  the  dramas  with  which 
Schlegel  failed  to  deal. 

'  In  his  'Essay  Supplementary  to  the  Preface'  in  the  edition  of  his 
Poems  of  1815  Wordsworth  wrote:  'The  Germans,  only  of  foreign 
nations,  are  approaching  towards  a  knowledge  of  what  he  [i.e.  Shake- 
speare] is.    In  some  respects  they  have  acquired  a  superiority  over  the 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FOREIGN  VOGUE  615 

lent  point  to  Wordsworth's  argument  in  his  stimulating 
essay  'Shakespeare  und  kein  Ende'  in  which  he  brought 
his  voluminous  criticism  to  a  close.  A  few  years  later 
another  very  original  exponent  of  German  romanticism, 
Heinrich  Heine,  enrolled  himself  among  German  Shake- 
speareans.  Heine  pubhshed  in  1838  charming  studies  of 
Shakespeare's  heroines,  acknowledging  only  one  defect 
in  Shakespeare  —  that  he  was  an  Englishman.  An 
EngUsh  translation  appeared  in  1895. 

During  the  last  eighty  years  textual,  eesthetic,  and 
biographical  criticism  has  been  pursued  in  Germany 
with  unflagging  industry  and  energy ;  and  al-  Modem 
though  laboured  and  ■  supersubtle  theorising  German 
characterises  much  German  aesthetic  criticism,  sh'ake-°° 
its  mass  and  variety  testify  to  the  impres-  speare. 
siveness  of  the  appeal  that  Shakespeare's  work  makes 
in  permanence  to  the  German  intellect.  The  efforts  to 
stem  the  current  of  Shakespearean  worship  essayed  by 
the  realistic  critic,  Gustav  Riimelin,  in  his  '  Shakespeare- 
studien'  (Stuttgart,  1866),  and  subsequently  by  the 
dramatist,  J.  R.  Benedix,  in  'Die  Shakespearomanie' 
(Stuttgart,  1873,  8vo),  proved  of  no  effect.  In  studies  of 
the  text  and  metre  Nikolaus  Delius  (1813-1888)  should, 
among  recent  German  writers,  be  accorded  the  first  place ; 
and  in  studies  of  the  biography  and  stage  history  Fried- 
rich  Karl  Elze  (1821-1889).  Among  recent  aesthetic 
critics  in  Germany  a  high  place  should  be  accorded 
Friedrich  Alexander  Theodor  Kreyssig  (1818-1879),  in 
spite  of  the  frequent  cloudiness  of  vision  with  which  a 
study  of  Hegel's  aesthetic  philosophy  infects  his  'Vor- 
lesungen  iiber  Shakespeare'  (Eerhn,  1858  and  1874)  and 
his  'Shakespeare-Fragen'  (Leipzig,   187 1).     Otto  Lud- 

fellow-countrymen  of  the  poet ;  for  among  us,  it  is  a  common  —  I  might 
say  an  established  —  opinion  that  Shakespeare  is  justly  praised  when  he 
is  pronounced  to  be  "a  wild  irregular  genius  in  whom  great  faults  are 
compensated  by  great  beauties."  How  long  may  it  be  before  this  mis- 
conception passes  away  and  it  becomes  universally  acknowledged  that 
the  judgment  of  Shakespeare  .  .  .  is  not  less  admirable  than  his  imagina- 
tion?' 


6l6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

wig  the  poet  (1813-1865)  pubKshed  some  enlightened 
criticism  in  his  'Shakespeare-Studien'  (Leipzig,  1871)/ 
and  Eduard  Wilhelm  Sievers  (1820-1895)  is  author  of 
many  valuable  essays  as  well  as  of  an  uncompleted 
biography.^  Ulrici's  Shakespeare's  Dramatic  Art'  (first 
pubHshed  at  Halle  in  1839)  and  Gervinus's  'Commen- 
taries' (first  published  at  Leipzig  in  1848-9),  both  of 
which  are  familiar  in  EngUsh  translations,  are  suggestive 
interpretations,  but  too  speculative  to  be  convincing. 
The  Deutsche  Shakespeare-Gesellschaf  t,  founded  at  Wei- 
mar in  1865,  has  published  fifty-one  year-books  (edited 
successively  by  von  Bodenstedt,  Delius,  Elze,  F.  A.  Leo, 
and  Prof.  Brandl,  with  Wolfgang  Keller  and  Max  Fors- 
ter) ;  each  contains  useful  contributions  to  Shakespearean 
study,  and  the  whole  series  admirably  and  exhaustively 
illustrates  the  merits  and  defects  of  Shakespearean  criti- 
cism and  research  in  Germany. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Romantic  movement  Shake- 
speare's plays  were  admitted  to  the  repertory  of  the 
On  the  national  stage,  and  the  fascination  which  they 
German  exerted  on  German  playgoers  in  the  last 
stage.  years   of    the   eighteenth    century  has  never 

waned.  Although  Goethe  deemed  Shakespeare's  works 
unsuited  to  the  stage,  he  adapted  'Romeo  and  Juliet ' 
in  1812  for  the  Weimar  Theatre,  while  Schiller  prepared 
'Macbeth'  (Stuttgart,  1801).  The  greatest  of  German 
actors,  Friedrich  Ulrich  Ludwig  Schroder  (1744-1816), 
may  be  said  to  have  established  the  Shakespearean  vogue 
on  the  German  stage  when  he  produced  'Hamlet'  at  the 
Hamburg  theatre  on  September  20,  1776.  Schroder's 
most  famous  successors  among  German  actors,  Ludwig 
Devrient   (1784-1832),   his  nephew   Gustav  Emil  De- 

*  See  his  Nachlass-Schriften,  edited  by  Moritz  Heydrich,  Leipzig,  1874, 
Bd.  ii. 

^  Cf.  Sievers,  William  Shakespeare:  Sein  Leben  und  Dichten  (Gotha, 
1866),  vol.  i.  (all  published),  and  his  Shakespeare's  Zweite  Mittelalter- 
lichen  Dramen-Cyclus  (treating  mainly  of  Richard  II,  Henry  IV,  and 
Henry  V),  edited  with  a  notice  of  Sievers's  Shakespearean  work  by  Dr. 
W.  Wetz,  Berlin,  1896. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE  617 

vrient  (1803-1872),  and  Ludwig  Barnay  (b.  1842),  largely- 
derived  their  fame  from  their  successful  assumptions 
of  Shakespearean  characters.  Another  of  Ludwig  De- 
vrient's  nephews,  Eduard  (1801-1877),  also  an  actor, 
prepared,  with  his  son  Otto,  a  German  acting  edition 
(Leipzig,  1873,  and  following  years).  An  acting  edition 
by  Wilhelm  Oechelhauser  appeared  previously  at  Berlin 
in  187 1.  Thirty-two  of  the  thirty-seven  plays  assigned 
to  Shakespeare  are  now  on  recognised  Ksts  of  German 
acting  plays,  including  all  the  histories.  ,  In  the  year 
1913  no  fewer  than  1133  performances  were  given  of  23 
plays,  an  average  of  three  Shakespearean  representations 
a  day  in  the  German-speaking  regions  of  Europe.^  It 
is  not  only  in  capitals  like  Berhn  and  Vienna  that  the 
representations  are  frequent  and  popular.  In  towns 
like  Altona,  Breslau,  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  Hamburg, 
Magdeburg,  and  Rostock,  Shakespeare  is  acted  con- 
stantly, and  the  greater  number  of  his  dramas  is  regularly 
kept  in  rehearsal.  'Othello,'  'Hamlet,'  'Romeo  and 
Juliet,'  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  'The  Merchant 
of  Venice,'  and  'The  Taming  of  the  Shrew'  usually 
prove  the  most  attractive.  Much  industry  and  ingenuity 
have  been  devoted  to  the  theatrical  setting  of  Shake- 
spearean drama  in  Germany.  Simple  but  adequate 
scenery  and  costume  which  reasonably  respected  archaeo- 
logical accuracy  was  through  the  nineteenth  century  the 
general  aim  of  the  most  enlightened  interpreters.  A  just 
artistic  method  was  inaugurated  by  K.  Immermann, 
the  director,  at  the  Diisseldorf  theatre  in  1834,  and  was 
developed  on  scholarly  Unes  at  the  Meiningen  court 
theatre  from  1874  onwards,  and  at  the  Munich  theatre 
during  1889  and  the  following  years.  A  new  and  some- 
what revolutionary  system  of  Shakespearean  represen- 
tation which  largely  defies  tradition  was  inaugurated  in 
1904  by  Max  Reinhardt,  then  director  of  the  Neue 
Theater  at  Berlin,  with  the  production  of  'A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream';  from  1905  onwards  Rein- 
'  Cf.  Jahrbiicher  d.  Deutschen  Shakespeare-GeseUschaft,  1894-1914. 


6l8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

hardt  developed  his  method  at  the  Deutsche  Theater, 
in  his  presentation  of  twelve  further  Shakespearean 
pieces,  including  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice,'  '  Much  Ado,' 
'Hamlet,'  'King  Lear,'  The  First  and  Second  Parts  of 
'  Henry  IV '  and  '  Romeo  and  JuHet.'  With  the  help  of 
much  original  stage  mechanism  Reinhardt  made  the 
endeavour  to  beautify  the  stage  illusion  and  to  convey 
at  the  same'  time  a  convincing  impression  of  naturalism.' 
Reinhardt's  ingenious  innovations  have  enjoyed  much 
vogue  in  Germany  for  some  eleven  years  past,  and  have 
exerted  some  influence  on  recent  Shakespearean  revivals 
in  England  and  America.     Of  the  many  German  musical 

composers  who  have  worked  on  Shakespearean 
spearean  themes,^  Mendelssohn  (in  'A  Midsummer 
German       Night's    Dreani,'     1826),    Otto    Nicolai    (in 

'Merry  Wives,'  1849),  Schumann  and  Franz 
Schubert  (in  setting  separate  songs)  have  achieved  the 
greatest  success. 

In  France  Shakespeare  won  recognition  after  a  longer 
struggle  than  in  Germany.  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  (1619- 
in France.    ^^SS),  in  his  tragedy  of  'Agrippine,'  seemed  to 

echo  passages  in  'CymbeUne,'  'Hamlet,'  and 
'The  Merchant  of  Venice,'  but  the  resemblances  prove 
to  be  accidental.  It  was  Nicolas  Clement,  Louis  XIV's 
librarian,  who,  first  among  Frenchmen,  put  on  record 
an  appreciation  of  Shakespeare.  When,  about  1680,  he 
entered  in  the  catalogue  of  the  royal  library  the  title 
of  the  Second  FoHo  of  1632,  he  added  a  note  in  which 
he  allowed  Shakespeare  imagination,  natural  thoughts, 
and  ingenious  expression,  but  deplored  his  obscenity.^ 
Nearly  half  a  century  elapsed  before  France  evinced  any 
general  interest  in  Shakespeare.  A  popular  French  trans- 
lation of  Addison's  'Spectator'  (Amsterdam,  17 14)  first 

'  Cf.  Jahrbuch  d.  Deutschen  Shakespeare-Gesellschaft,  igi4,  pp.  107  seq. 

^  Joseph  Haydn  composed  as  early  as  1774  music  for  the  two  tragedies 
of  Hamlet  and  King  Lear  {ib.  pp.  51-9). 

'  Jusserand,  A  French  Ambassador,  p.  56.  This  copy  of  the  Second 
Folio  remains  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris.    See  p.  567  supra. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE  619 

gave    French    readers    some    notion    of    Shakespeare's 
English  reputation. 

It  is  to  Voltaire  that  his  countrymen  owe,  as  he  him- 
self boasted,  their  first  effective  introduction  to  Shake- 
speare.^ Voltaire  studied  Shakespeare  thor- 
oughly on  his  visit  to  England  between  1726  ^3°-^^^ 
and  1729,  and  the  English  dramatist's  in- 
fluence is  visible  in  his  own  dramas.  His  tragedy  of 
'Brutus'  (1730)  evinces  an  intimate  knowledge  of 
'Julius  Caesar,'  of  which  he  also  prepared  a  direct  para- 
phrase in  1731.  His  'Er3^hile'  (1732)  was  the  prod- 
uct of  many  perusals  of  'Hamlet.'  His  'Zaire'  (1733) 
is  a  pale  reflection  of  'Othello,'  and  his  'Mahomet' 
(1734)  of  'Macbeth.'  In  his  'Lettre  sur  la  Tragedie' 
(1731)  and  in  his  'Lettres  Philosophiques'  (1733), 
afterwards  reissued  as  'Lettres  sur  les  Anglais,'  1734 
(Nos.  xviii.  and  xix.),  Voltaire  fully  defined  his  critical 
attitude  to  Shakespeare.  With  an  obstinate  per- 
sistency he  measured  his  work  by  the  rigid  standards  of 
classicism.  While  he  expressed  admiration  for  Shake- 
speare's genius,  he  attacked  with  vehemence  his  want 
of  taste  and  art.  'En  Angleterre,'  Voltaire  wrote, 
'Shakespeare  cr6a  le  theatre.  II  avait  un  g^nie  plein  de 
force  et  de  f econdit^,  de  naturel  et  de  sublime ;  mais 
sans  la  moindre  etincelle  de  bon  gout,  et  sans  la  moindre 
connaissance  des  regies.'  In  Voltaire's  view  Shake- 
speare was,  in  spite  of  'des  morceaux  admirables,'  'le 
Corneille  de  Londres,  grand  fou  d'ailleurs.' 

Voltaire's  influence  failed  to  check  the  growth  of 
sounder  views  in  France.  The  Abbe  Prevost  in  his 
periodical  'Le  Pour  et  le  Contre'  (1738  et  seq.)  Voltaire's 
showed  freedom  from  classical  prejudice  in  a  opponents, 
sagacious  acknowledgment  of  Shakespeare's  power. 
The  Abbe  Leb.lanc  in  his  'Lettres  d'un  Franjais'  (174s) 

'  Cf.  Alex.  Schmidt,  Voliaires  Verdienst  von  der  Einfuhrung  Shake- 
speares  in  Frankreich,  Konigsberg,  1864;  Prof.  T.  Lounsbury,  Shake- 
speare and  Voltaire,  1902,  an  exhaustive  examination  of  Voltaire's  at- 
titude to  Shakespeare's  Work;  J.  Churton  Collins,  Voltaire,  Montesquieu 
and  Rousseau  in  England,  1908. 


620  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

while  he  credited  Shakespeare  with  grotesque  ex- 
travagance paid  an  unqualified  tribute  to  his  sublim- 
ity. Portions  of  twelve  plays  were  translated  in  De 
la  Place's  'Theatre  Anglais'  (1745-8,  8  vols.),  with  an 
appreciative  preface,  and  Voltaire's  authority  was 
thenceforth  diminished.  The  'Anglomanie'  which 
flourished  in  France  in  the  middle  years  of  the  century 
did  much  for  Shakespeare's  reputation.  Under  the 
headings  of  'Genie,'  'Stratford,'  and  'Tragedie,'  Diderot 
made  in  his  ' Encyclop6die '  (1751-72)  a  determined  stand 
against  the  Voltairean  position.  <  Garrick  visited  Paris 
in  1763  and  1764,  and  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by 
cultivated  society  and  by  the  chief  actors  of  the  Comedie 
Franf aise,  and  his  recitations  of  scenes  from  Shakespeare 
in  the  salons  of  the  capital  were  loudly  applauded. 

But  Voltaire  was  not  easily  silenced.  He  rephed  many 
times  to  the  critics  of  his  earher  Shakespearean  pro- 
nouncement. His  'Observations  sur  le  Jules  Cesar  de 
Shakespeare'  appeared  in  1744  and  there  followed 
his  'Appel  k  toutes  les  nations  de  I'Europedes  juge- 
ments  d'un  ecrivain  anglais,  ou  manifeste  au  sujet 
des  hormeurs  du  pavilion  entre  les  th6S,tres  de 
Londres  et  de  Paris'  (1761).  Johnson  replied  to 
Voltaire's  general  criticism  in  the  preface  to  his 
edition  of  Shakespeare  (1765),  and  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Montagu  in  1769  in  a  separate  volume,  which  was 
translated  into  French  in  1777.  Further  opportunity 
of  studying  Shakespeare's  work  in  the  French  language 
increased  the  poet's  vogue  among  Voltaire's  fellow- 
countrymen.  Jean-Franfois  Ducis  (1733-1816)  metri- 
cally adapted,  without  much  insight  and  with  reckless 
changes,  six  plays  for  the  French  stage,  beginning  in 
1769  with  'Hamlet,'  and  ending  with  'Othello'  in  1792. 
The  first  ^^^  Versions  were  welcomed  in  the  Paris  theatres, 
French  and  Were  admitted  to  the  stages  of  other  con- 
iltioas.  tinental  countries.  In  1776  Pierre  Le  Tourneur 
began  a  prose  translation  of  all  Shakespeare's 
plays,  which  he  completed  in  1782  (20  vols.).     In  the 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE  621 

preface  to  his  first  volume  Le  Tourneur,  who  was  more 
faithful  to  his  original  than  any  of  his  French  predeces- 
sors, declared  Shakespeare  to  be  'the  god  of  the 
theatre.'  Such  praise  exasperated  Voltaire  anew.  He 
was  in  his  eighty-third  year,  but  his  energetic  vanity 
was  irrepressible  and  he  now  retorted  on  Le  Tourneur 
in  two  "violent  letters,  the  first  of  which  was  read  by 
D'Alembert  before  the  French  Academy  on  August  25, 
1776.  Here  Shakespeare  was  described  as  a  barbarian, 
whose  works — '  a  huge  dunghill ' — concealed  some  pearls, 
whose  'sparks  of  genius'  shone  'in  a  horrible  night.' 

Although    Voltaire's    verdict    was    rejected    by    the 
majority  of  later  French  critics,  it  expressed  a  senti- 
ment born  of  the  genius  of  the  nation,  and  made 
an  impression  that  was  never  entirely  effaced,  critics' 
The  pioneers  of  the  Romantic  School  at  the  gradual 
extreme  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  tlo^rom 
divided  in   their   estimates   of    Shakespeare's  y^^gj^^g" 
achievement.     Marmontel,  La  Harpe,  Marie- 
Joseph  Chenier,  and  Chateaubriand,  in  his  'Essai  sur 
Shakespeare,'    1801,   inclined   to   Voltaire's   valuation; 
but  Madame  de  Stael  in  her  'De  la  Litterature,'  1800 
(i.  caps.  13,  14,  ii.  5),  and  Charles  Nodier  in  his  'Pensees 
de   Shakespeare'    (1805)    supplied   effective   antidotes.^ 
None  the  less,  'at  this  day,'  wrote  Wordsworth,  as  late 
as  1815,  'the  French  critics  have  abated  nothing  of  their 
aversion  to  "this  darling  of  our  nation.''     "The  Erig- 
lish  with  their  bouffon  de  Shakespeare"  is  as  familiar 
an  expression  among  them  as  in  the  time  of  Voltaire. 
Baron  Grimm  is  the  only  French  writer  who  seems  to 
have  perceived  his  infinite  superiority  to  the  first  names 
of  the  French  theatre ;  an  advantage  which  the  Parisian 
critic  owed  to  his  German  blood  and  German  educa- 
tion.'^    But  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Romantic  move- 

1  See  the  present  writer's  Shakespeare  and  the  Modern  Stage,  1906, 

pp.  HI— 3. 

=iFriedricli  Melchior,  Baron  Grimm  (1723-1807),  for  some  years  a 
friend  of  Rousseau  and  the  correspondent  of  Diderot  and  the  encycio- 


622  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ment  tended  to  discountenance  all  unqualified  deprecia- 
tion. Paul  Duport,  in  'Essais  Litteraires  sur  Shake- 
speare' (Paris,  1828,  2  vols.),  was  the  last  French  critic 
of  repute  to  repeat  Voltaire's  censure  unreservedly,  al- 
though Ponsard,  when  he  was  admitted  to  the  French 
Academy  in  1856,  gave  Voltaire's  views  a  modified 
approval  in  his  inaugural  'discours.'  The  revision  of 
Le  Tourneur's  translation  by  Frangois  Guizot  and  A. 
Pichot  in  1821  secured  for  Shakespeare  a  fresh  and 
fruitful  advantage.  Guizot's  prefatory  discourse  'Sur 
la  Vie  et  les  (Euvres  de  Shakespeare '  (reprinted  separately 
from  the  translation  of  18 21  and  rewritten  as  'Shake- 
speare et  son  Temps'  1852)  set  Shakespeare's  fame  in 
France  on  firm  foundations  which  were  greatly  strength- 
ened by  the  monograph  on  'Racine  et  Shakespeare' 
by  Stendhal  (Henri  Beyle)  in  1825  and  by  Victor  Hugo's 
preface  to  his  tragedy  of  'Cromwell'  (1827).  At  the 
same  time  Barante  in  a  study  of  'Hamlet'  ^  and  Ville- 
main  in  a  general  essay  ^  acknowledged  with  compara- 
tively few  qualifications  the  mightiness  of  Shakespeare's 
genius.  The  latest  champions  of  French  romanticism 
were  at  one  in  their  worship  of  Shakespeare.  Alfred 
de  Musset  became  a  dramatist  under  Shakespeare's 
spell.  Alfred  de  Vigny  prepared  a  version  of  'Othello' 
for  the  Theatre-Frangais  in  1829  with  eminent  success. 
A  somewhat  "free  adaptation  of  'Hamlet'  by  Alexandre 
Dirnias  was  first  performed  in  1847,  and  a  rendering 
by  the  ChevaUer  de  Ch^telain  (1864)  was  often  re- 
peated. George  Sand  translated  'As  You  Like  It' 
(Paris,  1856)  for  representation  by  the  Comedie  Fran- 
Saise  on  April  12,  1856.  To  George  Sand  everything 
in  hterature  seemed  tame  by  the  side  of  Shakespeare's 
poetry. 

pidistes,  scattered  many  appreciative  references  to  Shakespeare  in  his 
voluminous  Correspondance  Littgraire  Philosophique  et  Critique,  extend- 
ing over  the  period  17S3-1770,  the  greater  part  of  which  was  published 
m  16  vols.  1812-13. 

'  Melanges  Hisiorigues,  1824,  iii.  217-34. 

2  M&anges,  1827,  iii.  141-87. 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FOREIGN  VOGUE  623 

Guizot's  complete  translation  was  followed  by  those 
of  Frandsque  Michel  (1839),  of  Benjamin  Laroche 
(1851),  of  Emile  Montdgut  (1868-73,  10  vols.),  and  of 
G.  Duval  (1903  and  following  years,  8  vols.) :  but  the 
best  of  all  French  renderings  was  the  prose  version  by 
Frangois  Victor  Hugo  (1850-67,)  whose  father,  Victor 
Hugo  the  poet,  renewed  his  adoration  in  a  rhapsodical 
eulogy  in  1864.  Alfred  Mezieres's  'Shakespeare,  ses 
(Euvres  et  ses  Critiques'  (faris,  i860),  and  Lamar  tine's 
'Shakespeare  et  son  CEuvre'  (1865)  are  saner  apprecia- 
tions. Ernest  Renan  bore  witness  to  the  stimulus  which 
Shakespeare  exerted  on  the  enlightened  French  mind 
in  his  'CaKban  suite  de  la  Temp6te'  (1878).  The  latest 
appreciation  of  Shakespeare  is  to  be  found  in  M.  Jusse- 
rand's  'Histoire  Litt6raire  du  peuple  anglais'  (1908)  : 
it  illustrates  French  sentiment  at  its  best.  - 
'  Before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  'Hamlet' 
and  '  Macbeth,' '  Othello,'  and  a  few  other  Shakespearean 
plays,  were  in  Ducis's  renderings  stock  pieces  on  q^  jj^^ 
the  French  stage.  The  great  actor  Talma  as  French 
Othello  in  Ducis's  version  reached  in  1792  the  ^'^^^' 
climax  of  his  career.  A  powerful  impetus  to  theatrical 
representation  of  Shakespeare  in  France  was  given  by 
the  performance  in  Paris  of  the  chief  plays  by  a  strong 
company  of  English  actors  in  the  autumn  of  1827. 
'Hamlet'  and  'Othello'  were  acted  successively  by 
Charles  Kemble  and  Macready;  Edmund  Kean  ap- 
'peared  as  Richard  III,  Othello,  and  Shylock;  Miss 
Harriet  Constance  Smithson,  who  became  the  wife  of 
Hector  Berlioz  the  musician,  filled  the  rdles  of  Ophelia, 
Juliet,  Desdemona,  CordeKa,  and  Portia.  French  critics 
were  divided  as  to  the  merits  of  the  performers,  but  most 
of  them  were  enthusiastic  in  their  commendations  of  the 
I)lays.i    Lady  Macbeth  has  been  represented  in  recent 

'  Very  interesting  comments  on  these  performances  appeared  day 
by  day  in  the  Paris  newspaper  Le  Globe.  They  were  by  Charles  Maginn, 
who  reprinted  them  in  his  Causeries  et  Miditations  Historiques  et  LUtlr 
rams  (Paris,  1843,  ii.  62  et  seq.) 


624  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

years  by  Madame  Sarah  Bernhardt,  and  Hamlet  by  M. 
Mounet  Sully  of  the  Theitre-Franfais.  The  actor  and 
manager  Andre  Antoine  at  the  Theatre  Antoine  in  Paris 
recently  revived  Shakespearean  drama  in  an  admirable 
artistic  setting  and  himself  played  effectively  the  leading 
roles  in  'King  Lear'  (1904)  and  'Julius  Csesar'  (1906). 
Four  French  musicians  —  Berlioz  in  his  symphony  of 
'Romeo  and  Juhet,'  Gounod  in  his  opera  of  'Romeo  and 
Juliet,'  Ambroise  Thomas  in  his  opera  of  'Hamlet,' 
and  Saint-Saens  in  his  opera  of  'Henry  VHI'  —  have 
interpreted  musically  portions  of  Shakespeare's  work. 
The  classical  painter  Ingres  introduced  Shakespeare's 
portrait  into  his  famous  picture  'Le  Cortege  d'Homere' 
(now  in  the  Louvre) } 

In  Italy  it  was  chiefly  under  the  guidance  of  Voltaire 
that  Shakespeare  was  first  studied,  and  Italian  critics  of 
'  the  eighteenth  century  long  echoed  the  French 

^^'  philosopher's  discordant  notes.  Antonio  Conti 
(1677-1749),  an  Itahan  who  distinguished  himself  in 
science  as  well  as  in  letters,  Hved  long  in  England  and 
was  the  friend  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  In  1 726  he  pubUshed 
his  tragedy  of  'II  Cesar,'  in  which  he  acknowledged  in- 
debtedness to  'Sasper,'  but  he  only  knew  Shakespeare's 
play  of  'JuUus  Cassar'  in  the  duke  of  Buckingham's 
adaptation.  Conti's  plays  of  '  Giunio  Bruto '  and  '  Marco 
Bruto'  show  better  defined  traces  of  Shakespearean 
study,  although  they  were  cast  in  the  mould  of  Voltaire's 
tragedies.  Francis  Quadrio  in  his  'DeUa  Storia  e  della 
Ragione  d'ogni  Poesia'  (Milan,  1739-52)  thoroughly 
familiarised  Italian  readers  with  Voltaire's  view  of 
Shakespeare.  Giuseppe  Baretti  (1719-1789),  the  Anglo- 
Itahan  lexicographer,  who  long  lived  in  England,  was 

'  M.  Jusserand,  Shakespeare  en  France  sous  VAncien  Regime,  Paris, 
i8g8  (English  translation  entitled  Shakespeare  in  France,  London,  1899), 
is  the  chief  authority  on  its  subject.  Cf.  Lacroix,  Histoire  de  I'Influence 
de  Shakespeare  sur  le  TMdtre-Franqais,  1867;  Edinburgh  Review,  1849, 
PP-  39~77;  and  Elze,  Essays,  pp.  193  seq.  Some  supplementary  infor- 
mation appears  in  'Esquisse  d'une  histoire  de  Shakespeare  en  France' 
in  F.  Baldensperger's  Etudes  d'Histoire  Liltiraire,  2=  serie  (1910). 


SHAKESPEARE'S   FOREIGN  VOGUE  625 

in  1777  the  first  Italian  to  defend  Shakespeare  against 
Voltaire's  strictures.' 

The   subsequent   Romantic   movement   which   owed 
much  to  German  influence  planted  in  Italy  the  seeds  of  a 
potent  faith  in  Shakespeare.     IppoUto  Pinde-  shake- 
monte  of  Verona  (1735-1828),  in  spite  of  his  speare 
classicist     tendencies,     respectfully     imitated  romiitic 
Shakespeare   in   his    tragedy    'Arminio,'    and  pioneers. 
Vincenzo  Monti  (i 754-1828)  who  is  reckoned  a  regenera- 
tor of  Italian  literature  bore  witness  to  Shakespearean 
influence  in  his  great  tragedy  'Caius  Gracchus.'    Ales- 
sandro  Manzoni   (1785-1873),   author  of   'I  Promessi 
Sposi,'   acknowledged   discipleship   to   Shakespeare   no 
less  than  to  Goethe,  Byron  and  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

Many  Italian  translations  of  separate  plays  were  pub- 
lished before  the  eighteenth  century  closed.  The  French 
adaptation  of  'Hamlet'  by  Ducis  was  issued  in  kalian 
Italian  blank  verse  (Venice,  1774,  8vo).  trans- 
Soon  afterwards  Alessandro  Verri  (1741-  ^''°°^- 
1816),  a  writer  of  romance,  turned  'Hamlet'  and 
'OtheUo'  into  ItaUan  prose.  Complete  translations  of 
all  the  plays  direct  from  the  English  were  issued  in  verse 
by  Michele  Leoni  at  Verona  (1819-22,  14  vols.),  and  in 
prose  by  Carlo  Rusconi  at  Padua  in  1838  (new  edit. 
Turin,  1858-9).  Giuho  Carcano  the  Milanese  poet  ac- 
curately but  rather  baldly  rendered  selected  plays 
(Florence  1857-9)  and  he  subsequently  published  a 
complete  version  at  Milan  (1875-82,  12  vols.).  'Othello' 
and  'Romeo  and  Juhet'  have  been  often  translated  into 
Italian  separately  in  late  years,  and  these  and  other 
dramas  have  been  constantly  represented  in  the  Italian 
theatres  for  nearly  150  years.  The  ItaKan  players, 
Madame  Ristori  (as  Lady  Macbeth),  Eleonora  Duse, 
Salvini  (as  Othello) ,  and  Rossi  rank  among  Shakespeare's 
most  effective  interpreters.     Rossini's  opera  of  Othello 

'  Cf.  L.  Pignotti,  La  tomba  di  Shakespeare,  Florence,  1779,  and  Gio- 
vanni Andres,  DelV  Origine,  Progressi  e  Stato  attuale  d'ogni  Letteratura, 
1782. 

2S 


626  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

and  Verdi's  operas  of  Macbeth,  Othello,  and  Falstaff  (the 
last  two  with  libretti  by  Boito),  manifest  close  and  appre- 
ciative study  of  Shakespeare. 

In  Spain  Shakespeare's  fame  made  slower  progress 
than  in  France  or  Italy.  During  the  eighteenth  century 
Spanish  Uterature  was  dominated  by  French 
In  Spam,  ijjfl^ences.  Ducis's  versions  of  Shakespeare 
were  frequently  rendered  on  the  Spanish  stage  in  the 
native  language  before  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. In  1 798  Leandro  Fernandez  di  Moratin,  the  reviver 
of  Spanish  drama  on  the  French  model,  published  at 
Madrid  a  prose  translation  of  'Hamlet'  with  a  hfe  of 
the  author  and  a  commentary  condemning  Shakespeare's 
defiance  of  classical  rule.  Yet  the  Spanish  romanticists 
of  the  earher  nineteenth  century  paid  Shakespeare  some- 
thing of  the  same  attention  as  they  extended  to  Byron. 
The  appearance  of  a  Spanish  translation  of  Schlegel's 
lectures  on  'Dramatic  Literature'  in  18 18  stimulated 
Shakespearean  study.  Blanco  White  issued  select  pas- 
sages in  Spanish  in  1824.  Jose  di  Espronceda  (1809- 
1842),  a  chieftain  among  Spanish  romanticists,  zealously 
I  studied  Shakespearean  drama,  and  Jose  Maria  Quadrado 
(18 1 9-1896),  a  man  of  much  literary  refinement,  boldly 
recast  some  plays  in  the  native  language.  The  Spanish 
critic  and  poet  Menendez  y  Pelayo  (b.  1856)  subsequently 
set  Shakespeare  above  Calderon.  Two  Spanish  transla- 
tions of  Shakespeare's  complete  works  were  set  on  foot 
independently  in  1875  and  1885  respectively;  the  earlier 
(by  J.  Clark)  appeared  at  Madrid  in  five  volumes,  and 
three  volumes  of  the  other  (by  G.  Macpherson)  have 
been  published.  An  interesting  attempt  to  turn  Shake- 
speare into  the  Catalan  language  has  lately  been  init- 
iated at  Barcelona.  A  rendering  of  'Macbeth'  by  C. 
Montoliu  appeared  in  1908  and  an  admirable  version  of 
'King  Lear'  by  Anfos  Par  with  an  elaborate  and  en- 
lightened commentary  followed  in  1912.^ 

'  A  curious  imaginary  conversation  by  Senor  Carlos  Navarro  Lamarca 
on  the  possibilities  of  successfully  translating  Hamlet  into  Spanish  ap- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE  627 

It  was  through  France  that  Holland  made  her  first 
acquaintance  with  Shakespeare's  work.  In  1777  Ducis's 
version  of  'Hamlet'  appeared  in  Dutch  at  in 
the  Hague ;  '  Lear '  followed  nine  years  later,  HoUand. 
and  'Othello'  in  1802.  Between  1778  and  1782  fourteen 
plays  were  translated  direct  from  the  original  English 
text  into  Dutch  prose  in  a  series  of  five  volumes  with 
notes  translated  from  Rowe,  Pope,  Theobald,  Hanmer, 
Warburton,  Johnson  and  Capell.  Two  complete  Dutch 
translations  have  since  been  published;  one  in  prose 
by  A.  S.  Kok  (Amsterdam,  1873-1880,  7  vols.),  the 
other  in  verse  by  Dr.  L.  A.  J.  Burgersdijk  (Leyden, 
1884-8,  12  vols.). 

In  Denmark  French  classical  influence  delayed  ap- 
preciation of  Shakespeare's  work  till  the  extreme  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  A  romantic  school  in 
of  poetry  and  criticism  was  then  founded  and  Denmark, 
in  the  nineteenth  century  it  completely  established 
Shakespeare's  supremacy.  Several  of  his  plays  were 
translated  into  Danish  by  N.  Rosenfeldt  in  1791.  Some 
twenty  years  later  the  Danish  actor  Peter  Foersom, 
who  was  a  disciple  of  the  German  actor  Schroder, 
secured  for  Shakespearean  drama  a  chief  place  in  the 
Danish  theatre.  Many  of  the  tragedies  were  rendered 
into  Danish  by  Foersom  with  the  aid  of  P.  F.  WulfE 
(Copenhagen,  1807-25,  7  vols.).  Their  labours  were 
revised  and  completed  by  E.  Lembcke  (Copenhagen, 
1868-73,  18  vols.).  Georg  Brandes,  the  Danish  critic, 
published  in  1895  at  Copenhagen  a  Danish  study  of 
Shakespeare  which  at  once  won  a  high  place  in  critical 
literature,  and  was  translated  into  English,  French  and 
German. 

In  Sweden  a  complete  translation  by  C.  A.  Hagberg 
appeared  at  Lund  in  1847-51  (12  vols.)  and  a  valuable 

peared  in  the  Spanish  magazine  Helios,  Madrid,  July  1903.  The  sup- 
posed interiocutors  are  Sir  Edward  Maunde  Thompson,  Libranan  of  the 
British  Museum,  the  present  writer,  and  Lopez  and  Gonzales,  two  pre- 
tended Spanish  students.    See  also  Helios,  January  1904. 


628  WILLIAM-  SHAKESPEARE 

biography  by  H.  W.  Schiick  at  Stockholm  in  1883. 
In  An   interesting  version  of   the  'Sonnets'   by 

Sweden.       Q    R    Nyblom  Came  out  at  Upsala  in  1871. 

In  Eastern  Europe,^  Shakespeare's  plays  became 
known  rather  earher  than  in  Scandinavia,  mainly 
In  through    French    translations.     The    Russian 

Russia.  dramatist  Alexander  Soumarakov  published 
in  Petrogirad  as  early  as  1748  a  version  of  'Hamlet'  in 
Russian  verse  which  was  acted  in  the  Russian  capital 
two  years  later.  The  work  was  based  on  De  la  Place's 
free  French  rendering  of  Shakespeare's  play.  In  1783 
'  Richard  III '  was  rendered  into  Russian  with  the  help 
of  Le  Tourneur's  more  literal  French  prose.  The 
Empress  Catherine  II  in  1786  encouraged  the  incipient 
Shakespearean  vogue  by  converting  Eschenburg's  Ger- 
man rendering  of  the  'Merry  Wives'  into  a  Russian 
farce  .^  In  the  same  year  she  introduced  many  Shake- 
spearean touches  through  the  German  into  two  Russian 
history  plays  called  respectively  'Rurik'  and  'Oleg,' 
and  she  prepared  a  Uberal  adaptation  of  'Timon  of 
Athens.' 

Shakespeare  found  his  first  whole-hearted  Russian 
champion  in  N.  Karamzine,  a  foe  to  French  classicism 
who,  having  learned  Shakespeare's  language 
Russian  on  a  visit  to  this  country,  turned  'JuUus 
romantic  Caesar'  from  English  into  Russian  prose  at 
and  Moscow  in  1 787.    A  preface  claims  for  Shake- 

Shake-  speare  complete  insight  into  himian  nature. 
Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  tragedies 
'Othello,'  'Lear,'  'Hamlet'  were  rendered  into  Russian 
from  the  French  of  Ducis  and  were  acted  with  great 
success  on  Russian  stages.  The  romantic  movement  in 
Russian  literature  owed  much  to  the  growing  worship 
and   study  of   Shakespeare.     Pushkin  learnt  English  in 

^  See  Andr6  Lirondelle,  Shakespeare  en  Russie,  1748-1840,  Paris,  1912. 

^  The  scene  of  the  piece  was  transferred  to  St.  Petersburg  [Petrograd], 
and  the  characters  bore  Russian  names ;  FalstafiE  becomes  lakov  \^asie- 
vitch  Polkadov. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE  629 

)rder  to  read  Shakespeare  and  Byron  in  the  original, 
ind  his  Russian  plays  are  dyed  in  Shakespearean  colours. 
Lermontov  poured  contempt  on  the  French  version  of 
Ducis  and  insisted  that  Shakespearean  drama  must  be 
studied  as  it  came  from  the  author's  pen.  Tourgeniev 
md  the  younger  romanticists  were  deeply  indebted  to 
Shakespeare's  ^  inspiration.  At  the  instigation  of  Be- 
insky,  the  chief  of  Russian  critics,  a  scholarly  transla- 
tion into  Russian  prose  was  begun  by  N.  Ketzcher  in 
1841 ;  eighteen  plays  appeared  at  Moscow  (8  vols. 
1841-50),  and  the  work  was  completed  in  a  new  edition 
[Moscow,  9  vols.  1862-79).  In  1865  there  appeared  at 
Petrograd  the  best  translation  in  verse  (direct  from  the 
EngKsh)  by  Nekrasow  and  Gerbel.  Gerbel  also  issued 
1  Russian  translation  of  the  'Sonnets'  in  1880.  An- 
jther  rendering  of  all  the  plays  by  P.  A.  Kanshin,  12 
rols.,  followed  in  1893.  A  new  verse  translation  by 
irarious  hands,  edited  by  Professor  Vengerov  of  Petro- 
prad,  with  critical  essays,  notes,  and  a  vast  number  of 
illustrations,  appeared  there  in  1902-4  (5  vols.  4to). 
IVIore  recent  are  the  translations  of  A.  L.  Sokolovski 
[Petrograd,  1913,  12  vols.)  and  of  A.  E.  Gruzinski 
[Moscow,  1913,  3  vols.).  Almost  every  play  has  been 
represented  in  Russian  on  the  Russian  stage;  and  a 
large  critical  literature  attests  the  general  enthusiasm. 
The  Grand  Duke  Constantine  Constantinovitch  privately 
issued  at  Petrograd  in  three  sumptuous  volumes  in  1899- 
tgoo  a  Russian  translation  of  '  Hamlet '  with  exhaustive 
lotes  and  commentary  in  the  Russian  language ;  the  work 
ivas  dedicated  to  the  widow  of  Tsar  Alexander  III.^ 

A  somewhat  perverse  protest  against  the  Russian 
dolisation  of  Shakespeare  was  launched  by  Count  Leo 
Tolstoy  in  his  declining  days.     In  1906  Tolstoy  xoistoy's 
DubKshed  an  elaborate  monograph  on  Shake-  attack, 
ipeare   in   which   he   angrily   denounced   the  ''°  ' 
English  dramatist  as  an  eulogist  of  wealth  and  rank  and 
I  contemner  of  poverty  and  humble  station.     Nor  would 

*  The  Grand  Duke  presented  a  copy  to  the  library  of  Shakespeare's 
Sirthplace  at  Stratford. 


630  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Tolstoy  allow  the  English  dramatist  genuine  poetic 
thought  or  power  of  characterisation.  But  throughout 
his  philippic  Tolstoy  shows  radical  defects  of  judgment. 
After  a  detailed  comparison  of  the  old  play  of  'King 
Leir'  with  Shakespeare's  finished  tragedy  of  'Lear' 
he  pronounces  in  favour  of  the  earlier  production.^ 

In  Poland  the  study  of  Shakespeare  followed  much  the 
same  course  as  in  Russia.  The  last  King  of  the  country, 
In  PI  d  Stanislas  Augustus  Poniatowski  (173  2-1 798), 
°^°  ■  while  in  England  from  February  to  Jime  1754 
first  saw  a  play  of  Shakespeare  on  the  stage ;  he  there- 
upon abandoned  all  classical  prejudices  and  became  for 
life  an  ardent  worshipper  of  Shakespeare's  work  and 
art.^  After  his  accession  to  the  PoHsh  throne  in  1764  he 
found  opportunities  of  disseminating  his  faith  among  his 
fellow  countrymen,  and  the  nobility  of  Poland  soon 
idohsed  the  English  poet.* 

*  See  Tolstoy's  Shakespeare,  trad,  de  Russe  par  J.  W.  Bienstock  (Paris, 
1906) ;  and  Joseph  B.  Mayor,  Tolstoi  as  Shakespearean  Critic  (in  Trans. 
Roy.  Soc.  Lit.  1908,  2nd  ser.  vol.  28,  pt.  i.  pp.  23-55).  Prof.  Leo  Wiener 
in  his  j4re  Interpretation  of  the  Russian  People  (New  York,  1915,  pp.  187- 
91)  supplies  the  best  refutation  of  Tolstoy"s  verdict  in  a  description  of  the 
strong  sympathetic  interest  excited  in  a  Russian  peasant  girl  at  a  Sunday 
School  by  a  reading  of  a  Russian  translation  of  Shakespeare's  King  Lear. 
Tolstoy  selects  the  identical  play  for  special  condemnation. 

*  See  Poniatowski's  Memoires,  ed.  Serge  Goriainow,  Petrograd,  1914 ; 
i.  ri2-3.  In  1753  Poniatowski  translated  into  French  some  scenes  from 
Juliits  Casar;  the  manuscript  survives  in  the  Czartoryski  Museum  at 
Cracow  and  was  printed  by  Dr.  Bernacki  in  Shakespeare  Jahrbiich  (1906), 
xlii.  186-202.  , 

'  The  Polish  princess,  Isabella  wife  of  Prince  Adam  Czartoryski, 
visited  Stratford-on-Avon  in  July  1790  and  on  November  28  following, 
her  secretary.  Count  Orlovski,  purchased  on  her  behalf  for  20  guineas  a 
damaged  arm-chair  at  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  which  was  reported  to 
have  belonged  to  the  poet.  The  vendor  was  Thomas  Hart,  who  was  then 
both  tenant  and  owner  of  the  Birthplace.  A  long  account  of  the  trans- 
action at  the  Birthplace  is  in  the  Sanders  MS.  1191.  (See  also  George 
Burnet's  View  of  the  Present  State  of  Poland,  1807,  and  Gent.  Mag.  May 
1815.)  The  descendants  of  the  princess  long  preserved  the  chair  in  a 
museum  known  as  'Das  Gothische  Haus'  erected  by  her  in  the  grounds 
of  her  chS,teau  at  Pulawy  (Nova  Alexandrova)  near  Lublin,  together  with 
an  attestation  of  the  chair's  authenticity  which  was  signed  at  Stratford 
on  June  17,  1791,  by  J.  Jordan,  Thomas  Hart,  and-  Austin  Warrilow. 
The  chair  is  described  JD  their  certificate,  a  copy  of  which  has  been  com- 


SHAKESPEARE'S  FOREIGN  VOGUE  63 1 

German  actors  seem  to  have  first  performed  Shake- 
speare's plays  at  Warsaw,  where  they  produced  '  Romeo 
and  Juhet'  in  1775  and  'Hamlet'  in  1781.  p^^^^ 
A  Polish  translation  through  the  French  of  trans- 
' Merry  Wives'  appeared  in  1782,  and  'Hamlet'  '^''°°^- 
was  acted  in  a  Pohsh  translation  of  the  German  actor 
Schroder's  version  at  Lemberg  in  1797.  As  many  as 
sixteen  plays  now  hold  a  recognised  place  among  Polish 
acting  plays.  A  PoHsh  translation  of  Shakespeare's 
collected  works  appeared  at  Warsaw  in  1875  (edited  by 
the  Polish  poet  Jozef  Ignacy  Kraszewski) ,  and  was  long 
reckoned  among  the  most  successful  renderings  in  a 
foreign  tongue.  It  has  been  lately  superseded  by  a 
fresh  translation  by  eight  prominent  Polish  men  of 
letters,  which  was  completed  in  twelve  volumes  in  1913 
under  the  editorship  of  Prof.  Roman  Dyboski,  professor 
of  Enghsh  Language  and  Literature  at  Cracow.^ 

In  Hungary,  Shakespeare's  grpatest  works  have  since 
the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  enjoyed  the 
enthusiastic  regard  of  both  students  and  play-  in 
goers.  'Romeo  and  Juhet'  was  translated  Hungary, 
into  Hungarian  in  1786  and  'Hamlet'  in  1790.  In 
1830,  1845,  2.nd  1848,  efforts  were  made  to  issue  complete 
translations,  but  only  portions  were  published.  The 
first  complete  translation  into  Hungarian  appeared  at 
Budapest  under  the  auspices  of  the  Kisfaludy  Society 
(1864-78,  19  vols.).  At  the  National  Theatre  at  Buda- 
pest twenty-two  plays  have  been  of  late  included  in  the 
repertory.^ 

Other  complete  translations  have  been  pubhshed  in 

municated  to  the  present  writer,  as  'an  ancient  back  chair,  commonly 
called  Shakespeare's  chair,  which  at  this  time  is  much  deformed  owing 
to  its  being  cut  to  pieces  and  carried  away  by  travellers.' 

'■  Dr.  Bemacki,  vice-custodian  of  the  Ossolinski  Institute  at  Lemberg, 
adds  a  valuable  account  of  Shakespeare  in  Poland  down  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  Polish  independence  in  1798. 

2  See  August  Greguss's  Shakspere  .  .  .  elso  kotet:  Shakspere  pdlyaja, 
Budapest,  1880  (an  account  of  Shakespeare  in  Hungarian),  and  Shake- 
speare Drdmdi  Hazduk  Ban  (a  full  bibliography  with  criticisms  of  Hun- 
garian renderings  of  Shakespeare),  by  J.  Bayer,  2  vols.  Budapest,  1909. 


632  WILLtAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Bohemian  (Prague,  1856-74),  and  Finnish  (Helsingfors, 
1892-5).  In  Armenian,  three  plays  ('Hamlet,'  in  other 
'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  and  'As  You  Like  It')  countries, 
have  been  issued.  Separate  plays  have  appeared  in 
Welsh,  Portuguese,  Friesic,  Flemish,  Servian,  Rouma- 
nian, Maltese,  Ukrainian,  Wallachian,  Croatian,  modern 
Greek,  Latin,  Hebrew,  Chinese  and  Japanese;  while  a 
few  have  been  rendered  into  Bengah,  Hindustani, 
Marathi,  Hindi,  Tamil,  Gujarati,  Urdu,  Kanarese,  and 
other  languages  of  India,  and  have  been  acted  in  native 
theatres. 


XXVII 

GENERAL  ESTIMATE 

The  study  of  Shakespeare's  biography  in  the  light  of 
contemporary  Uterary  history  shows  tJiat  his  practical 
experiences    and    fortunes    closely    resembled  gj^^^^ 
those  of  the  many  who  in  his  epoch  followed  the  speare's 
profession  of  dramatist.     His  conscious  aims  ^°ebio-'^ 
and  practices  seem  indistinguishable  from  those  graphic 
of  contemporary  men  of  letters.     It  is  beyond  ^^^^' 
the  power  of  biographical  research  to  determine  the  final 
or  efficient  cause  of  his  poetic  individuahty.    Yet  the 
conception  of  his  dramatic  and  poetic  powers  grows 
more  real  and  actual  after  the  features  in  his  life  and 
character  which  set  him  on  a  level  with  other  men  have 
been  precisely  defined  by  the  biographer.    The  infinite 
difference   between   his   endeavours   and   those   of   his 
fellows  was  due  to  the  magical  and  involuntary  working 
of  genius,  which,  since  the  birth  of  poetry,  has  owned 
as  large  a  charter  as  the  wind  to  blow  on  whom  it  pleases. 
The  Hterary  history  of  the  world  proves  the  hopelessness 
of  seeking  in  biographical  data,  or  in  the  facts  of  every- 
day business,  the  secret  springs  of  poetic  inspiration. 

Emerson's   famous   aphorism  —  '  Shakespeare   is   the 
only  biographer  of  Shakespeare '  —  seems,  until  it  be 
submitted  to  a  radical  qualification,  to  rest  on        . 
a  profound  misapprehension.    An  unquestion-  personal 
able  characteristic  of  Shakespeare's  art  is  its  ||P^fj°* 
imperspnality.     The  plain  and  positive  refer- 
snces  in  the  plays  to  Shakespeare's  personal  experiences 
sither  at  Stratford-on-Avon  or  in  London  are  rare  and 
fragmentary,  and  nowhere  else  can  we  point  with  con- 
idence  to  any  autobiographic  revelations.    As  a  drama- 

6ii 


634  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

tist  Shakespeare  lay  under  the  obligation  of  investing  a 
great  crowd  of  characters  with  all  phases  of  sentiment 
and  passion,  and  no  critical  test  has'  yet  been  found 
whereby  to  disentangle  Shakespeare's  personal  feehngs 
or  opinions  from  those  which  he  imputes  to  the  creatures 
of  his  dramatic  world.  It  was  contrary  to  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  aim  to  label  or  catalogue  in  drama  his  private 
sympathies  or  antipathies.  The  most  psychological  of 
English  poets  and  a  dramatic  artist  of  no  mean  order, 
Robert  Browning,  bluntly  declared  that  Shakespeare 
'  ne'er  so  Uttle '  at  any  point  in  his  work  '  left  his  bosom's 
gate  ajar.'  Even  in  the  'Sormets'  lyric  emotion  seems 
to  Browning  to  be  transfused  by  dramatic  instinct.  It  is 
possible  to  deduce  from  his  plays  a  broad  practical  philos- 
ophy which  is  alive  with  an  active  moral  sense.  But  we 
seek  in  vain  for  any  self-evident  revelation  of  personal 
experience  of  emotion  or  passion.^ 

Many  forces  went  to  the  making  of  Shakespeare's 
mighty  achievement.  His  national  affinities  lie  on 
Domestic  th^  surface.  A  love  of  his  own  country  and 
and  foreign  a  Confident  faith  in  its  destiny  find  exalted 
and  expression   in   his   work.     Especially   did   he 

affinities,  interpret  to  perfection  the  humour  peculiar 
to  his  race.  His  drama  was  cast  in  a  mould  which 
English  predecessors  had  invented.  But  he  is  free  of  all 
taint  of  insularity.  His  lot  was  thrown  in  the  full  current 
of  the  intellectual  and  artistic  movement  known  as  the 
Renaissance,  which  taking  its  rise  in  Italy  of  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  centuries  was  in  his  Hfetime  stiU 
active  in  every  country  of  western  Europe.  He  shared 
in  the  great  common  stock  of  thought  and  aspiration  — 
in  the  certain  hope  of  intellectual  enfranchisement  and 
in  the  enthusiastic  recognition  of  the  beauty  of  the  world 
and  humanity  —  to  which  in  his  epoch  authors  of  all 
countries  under  the  sway  of  the  Renaissance  enjoyed 
access. 

'  See  the  present  writer's  The  Impersonal  Aspect  of  Shakespeare's  Art 
(English  Association,  Leaflet  xiii,  July  1909). 


GENERAL   ESTIMATE  635 

Like  all  great  poets  Shakespeare  was  not  merely 
gifted  with  a  supreme  capacity  for  observing  what  was 
passing  about  him  in  nature  and  human  life,  but  he  was 
endowed  with  the  rare  power  of  assimilating  with  rapidity 
the  fruits  of  reading.  Literary  study  rendered  his  im- 
agination the  more  productive  and  robust.  His  genius 
caught  light  and  heat  from  much  foreign  as  well  as 
domestic  Uterature.  But  he  had  the  faculty  of  trans- 
muting in  the  crucible  of  his  mind  the  thought  and 
style  of  others  into  new  substance  of  an  unprecedented 
richness.  His  mind  may  best  be  likened  to  a  highly 
sensitised  photographic  plate,  which  need  only  be  ex- 
posed for  however  brief  a  period  to  anything  in  hfe  or 
literature,  in  order  to  receive  upon  its  surface 
the  firm  outHne  of  a  picture  which  could  be  speart's 
developed  and  reproduced  at  will.  If  Shake-  f|^** 
speare's  mind  came  in  contact  in  an  alehouse 
with  a  burly,  good-humoured  toper,  the  conception  of  a 
Falstaff  found  instantaneous  admission  to  his  brain. 
The  character  had  revealed  itself  to  him  in  most  of  its 
invplutions,  as  quickly  as  his  eye  caught  sight  of  its 
external  form,  and  his  ear  caught  the  sound  of  the 
voice.  Books  ofifered  Shakespeare  the  same  opportunity 
of  realising  human  life  and  experience.  A  hurried  peru- 
sal of  an  ItaUan  story  of  a  Jew  in  Venice  conveyed  to 
him  the  mental  picture  of  Shylock,  with  all  his  racial 
temperament  in  energetic  action,  and  aU  the  background 
of  Venetian  scenery  and  society  accurately  defined.  A 
few  hours  spent  over  Plutarch's  'Lives'  brought  into 
being  in  Shaikespeare's  brain  the  true  aspects  of  Roman 
character  and  Roman  inspiration.  Whencesoever  the 
external  impressions  came,  whether  from  the  world 
of  books  or  the  world  of  Uving  men,  the  same  mental 
process  was  at  work,  the  same  visualising  instinct 
which  made  the  thing,  which  he  saw  or  read  of,  a  Uving 
and  a  lasting  reality. 

No  analysis  of  the  final  fruits  of  Shakespeare's  genius 
can  be  adequate.    In  knowledge  of  human  character, 


636  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

in  perception  and  portrayal  of  the  workings  of  passion, 
in  wealth  of  humour,  in  fertility  of  fancy,  and  in  sound- 
ness of  judgment,  he  has  no  rival.  It  is  true 
estimate  of  him,  as  of  no  other  writer,  that  his  lan- 
orus  guage  and  versification  adapt  themselves  to 
^^""^  •  every  phase  of  sentiment,  and  sound  every  note 
in  the  scale  of  felicity.  Some  defects  are  to  be  acknow- 
ledged, but  they  sink  into  insignificance  when  they 
are  measured  by  the  magnitude  of  his  achievement. 
Sudden  transitions,  elliptical  expressions,  mixed  meta- 
phors, verbal  quibliles,  and  fantastic  conceits  at  times 
create  an  atmosphere  of  obscurity.  The  student  is 
perplexed,  too,  by  obsolete  words  and  by  some  hope- 
lessly corrupt  readings.  But  when  the  whole  of  Shake- 
speare's vast  work  is  scrutinised  with  due  attention,  the 
glow  of  his  imagination  is  seen  to  leave  few  passages 
wholly  unillumined.  Some  of  his  plots  are  hastily  con- 
structed and  inconsistently  developed,  but  the  intensity 
of  the  interest  with  which  he  contrives  to  invest  the 
personality  of  his  heroes  and  heroines  triumphs  over 
halting  or  digressive  treatment  of  the  story  in  which 
they  have  their  being.  Although  he  was  versed  in  the 
technicalities  of  stagecraft,  he  occasionally  disregarded 
its  elementary  conditions.  The  success  of  his  present- 
ments of  human  hfe  and  character  depended  indeed 
little  on  his  manipulation  of  theatrical  machinery.  His 
unassailable  supremacy  springs  from  the  versatile  work- 
ing of  his  intellect  and  imagination,  by  virtue  of  which 
his  pen  limned  with  unerring  precision  almost  every 
gradation  of  thought  and  emotion  that  animates  the 
living  stage  of  the  world. 

Shakespeare,  as  Hazlitt  suggested,  ultimately  came  to 
know  how  human  faculty  and  feeling  would  develop 
His  final  ^  ^^y  conceivable  change  of  fortune  on  the 
achieve-  highways  of  life.  His  great  characters  give 
"^^'^ '  voice  to  thought  or  passion  with  an  individu- 
ality and  a  naturalness  that  commonly  rouse  in  the 
intelligent  playgoer  and  reader  the  illusion  that  they 


GENERAL   ESTIMATE  637 

are  ovierhearing  men  and  women  speak  unpremeditat- 
ingly  among  themselves,  rather  than  that  they  are 
reading  written  speeches  or  hearing  written  speeches 
recited.  The  more  closely  the  words  are  studied,  the 
completer  the  illusion  grows.  Creatures  of  the  imagina- 
tion —  fairies,  ghosts,  witches  —  are  deUneated  with  a 
like  potency,  and  the  reader  or  spectator  feels  instinc- 
tively that  these  supernatural  entities  could  not  speak, 
feel,  or  act  otherwise  than  Shakespeare  represents  them. 
The  creative  power  of  poetry  was  never  manifested  to 
such  effect  as  in  the  corporeal  semblances  in  which 
Shakespeare  clad  the  spirits  of  the  air. 

So  mighty  a  faculty  sets  at  naught  the  common  limita- 
tions of  nationality,  and  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe 
to  which  civihsed  life  has  penetrated   Shake- 
speare's power  is  recognised.    All  the  world  universal 
over,  language  is  apphed  to  his  creations  that  J?™^'" 
ordinarily  applies  to  beings  of  flesh  and  blood. 
Hamlet  and  Othello,  Lear  and  Macbeth,  Falstaff  and 
Shylock,   Brutus   and   Romeo,   Ariel   and   Caliban   are 
studied  in  almost  every  civihsed  tongue  as  if  they  were 
historic  personahties,  and  the  chief  of  the  impressive 
phrases  that  fall  from  their  hps  are  rooted  in  the  speech 
of  civihsed   humanity.    To   Shakespeare   the  intellect 
of  the  world,  speaking  in  divers  accents,  appUes  with 
one  accord  his  own  words :  'How  noble  in  reason !  how 
infinite  in  faculty!    in  apprehension  how  Hke  a  god!' 
The  prince  of  French  romancers,  the  elder  Dumas,  set 
the  Enghsh  dramatist  next  to  God  in  the  cosmic  system ; 
'after  God,'  wrote  Dumas,   'Shakespeare  has  created 
most.' 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 


THE  SOURCES   Or  BIOGRAPHICAL  KNOWLEDGE 

The  scantiness  of  contemporary  records  of  Shakespeare's  career 
has  been  much  exaggerated.  An  investigation  extending  over 
two  centuries  has  brought  together  a  mass  of  detail  contempo- 
which  far  exceeds  that  accessible  in  ,the  case  of  any  rary  records 
other  contemporary  professional  writer.  Nevertheless,  abundant, 
a  few  links  are  missing,  and  at  some  points  appeal  to  conjecture 
is  inevitable.  But  the  fully  ascertained  facts  are  numerous  enough 
to  define  sharply  the  general  direction  that  Shakespeare's  career 
followed.  Although  the  clues  are  in  some  places  faiat,  the  trail 
never  eludes  the  patient  investigator. 

Fuller, in  his  'Worthies'  (1662),  attempted  the  first  biographical 
notice  of  Shakespeare,  with  poor  results.  Aubrey,  the  Oxford 
antiquary,  in  his  gossiping  'Lives  of  Eminent  Men,' '  pj^^^ 
based  his  ampler  information  on  reports  communicated  efforts  in 
to  him  by  WiUiam  Beeston  {d.  1682),  an  aged  actor,  biography, 
whom  Dryden  called  'the  chronicle  of  the  stage,'  and  who  was 
doubtless  in  the  main  a  trustworthy  witness.  Beeston's  father, 
Christopher  Beeston,  was  a  member  of  Shakespeare's  company 
of  actors,  and  he  for  a  long  period  was  himself  connected  with 
the  stage.  Beeston's  friend,  John  Lacy,  an  actor  of  the  Resto- 
ration, also  supplied  Aubrey  with  further  information.^  A  few 
additional  detaUs  were  recorded  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  the 
Rev.  John  Ward  (1629-1681),  vicar  of  Stratford-on-Avon  from  1662 
to  1668,  in  a  diary  and  memorandum-book  written  between  1661 
and  1663  .(ed.  Charles  Severn,  1839) ;  by  the  Rev.  William  Fulman, 
whose  manuscripts  are  at  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford  (with 
valuable  interpolations  made  before  1708  by  Archdeacon  Richard 
Davies,  vicar  of  Sapperton,  Gloucestershire) ;   by  John  DowdaU, 

1  Compiled  between  1669  and  1696;  first  printed  in  LeUers  from  the  Bodleian  Library, 
1813,  and  admirably  re-eSted  for  the  Clarendon  Press  in  1898  by  the  Rev.  Andrew 
Clark  (2  vols.).  .  »       .^    1     01   t    i         ■    j 

2 See  art.  'Shakespeare  in  Oral  Tradition'  in  the  present  writers  Shakespeare  and 
the  Modern  Stage,  1906,  pp.  49  seq. 

2  T  641 


642  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

who  recorded  his  experiences  of  travel  through  Warwickshire  in 
1693  (London,  1838) ;  and  by  William  Hall,  who  described  a  visit 
to  Stratford  in  1694  (London,  1884,  from  Hall's  letter  among  the 
Bodleian  MSS.).  Phillips  in  his  'Theatrum  Poetarum'  (1675), 
and  La;ngbaine  in  his  'English  Dramatick  Poets'  (1691),  confined 
themselves  to  elementary  criticism.  In  1709  Nicholas  Rowe 
prefixed  to  his  edition  of  the  plays  a  more  ambitious  memoir  than 
had  yet  been  attempted,  and  embodied  some  hitherto  umecorded 
Stratford  and  London  traditions  with  which  the  actor  Thomas 
Betterton  (1635-1710)  supplied  him.  A  httle  fresh  gossip  was 
collected  by  William  Oldys,  and  was  printed  from  his  manuscript 
'Adversaria'  (now  in  .the  British  Museum)  as  an  appendix  to 
Yeowell's  'Memoir  of  Oldys,'  1862.  Pope,  Johnson,  and  Steevens, 
in  the  biographical  prefaces  to  their  editions,  mainly  repeated  the 
narratives  of  their  predecessor,  Rowe. 

In  the  Prolegomena  to  the  Variorum  editions  of  1803,  1813, 
and  especially  in  that  of  1821,  there  was  embodied  a  mass  of  fresh 
,  information  derived  by  Edmund  Malone  from  sys- 
.of  tle^^  ™  tematic  researches  among  the  parochial  records  of 
nineteenth  Stratford,  the  manuscripts  accumulated  by  the  actor 
cen  ury.  ^Ueyn  at  Dulwich,  and  ofiidal  papers  of  state  preserved 
in  the  public  offices  in  London  (now  collected  in  the  Public  Record 
Office).  The  available  knowledge  of  Elizabethan  stage  history, 
as  well  as  of  Shakespeare's  biography,  was  thus  greatly  extended, 
and  Malone's  information  in  spite  of  subsequent  discoveries  re- 
mains of  supreme  value.  John  Payne  CoUier,  in  his  'History  of 
English  Dramatic  Poetry'  (1831),  in  his  'New  Facts'  about  Shake- 
speare (183s),  his  'New  Particulars'  (1836),  and  his  'Further  Par- 
ticulars' (1839),  and  in  his  editions  of  Henslowe's  'Diary'  and  the 
'AUeyn  Papers'  for  the  Shakespeare  Society,  while  occasionally 
throwing  some  further  Hght  on  obscure  places,  foisted  on  Shake- 
speare's biography  a  series  of  ingeniously  forged  documents  which 
have  greatly  perplexed  succeeding  biographers.^  Joseph  Hunter 
in  'New  Illustrations  of  Shakespeare'  (1845)  and  George  Russell 
French's  '  Shakespeareana  Genealogica'  (1869)  occasionally  supple- 
mented Malone's  researches.  James  Orchard  HaUiweU  (after- 
wards Halliwell-Phillipps  1820-1889)  printed  separately,  between 
1850  and  1884,  in  various  privately  issued  publications,  ample 
selections  from  the  Stratford  archives  and  the  extant  legal  docu- 
ments bearing  on  Shakespeare's  career,  many  of  them  for  the  first 
time.  In  1881  Halliwell-Phillipps  began  the  collective  publication 
of  materials  for  a  fuU  biography  in  his  'Outlines  of  the  Life  of 
Shakespeare ' ;  this  work  was  generously  enlarged  in  successive 
editions  untU  it  acquired  massive  proportions;  in  the  seventh 
edition  of  1887,  which  embodied  the  author's  final  corrections  and 

*  See  pp.  647  seq. 


THE  SOURCES   OF   BIOGRAPHICAL   KNOWLEDGE     643 

additions,  it  reached  near  1000  pages.  (Subsequent  editions  re- 
print the  seventh  edition  without  change.)  Frederick  Gard  Fleay 
(1831-1900),  in  his  'Shakespeare  Manual'  (1876),  in  his  'Life  of 
Shakespeare'  (1886),  in  his  'History  of  the  Stage'  (1890),  and  his 
'Biographical  Chronicle  of  the  Enghsh  Drama'  (1891),  adds  much 
usefid  information  respecting  stage  history  and  Shakespeare's 
relations  with  his  fellow-dramatists,  mainly  derived  from  a  study 
of  the  original  editions  of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  of  his 
contemporaries;  but  many  of  Mr.  Fleay's  statements  and  con- 
jectures are  unauthenticated.  Dr.  C.  W.  Wallace,  of  Nebraska, 
has  since  1904  added  some  subsidiary  biographical  details  of 
much  interest  from  documents  at  the  PubUc  Record  OflSce  which 
he  has  examined  for  the  first  time.^ 

The  history  of  Stratford-on-Avon  and  Shakespeare's  relations 
with  the  town  are  treated  in  Wheler's  'History  and  Antiquities' 
(1806),  and  his  'Birthplace  of  Shakespeare'  (1824) ;  in  gtratford 
John  R.  Wise's  'Shakespeare,  his  Birthplace  and  its  topog- 
Neighbourhood' (1861) ;  in  the  present  writer's  '  Strat-  ^^P^y- 
ford-on-Avon  to  the  Death  of  Shakespeare'  (new  edit.  1907) ;  in  J. 
Harvey  Bloom's  'Shakespeare's  Church'  (1902) ;  in  C.  I.  Elton's 
'WiUiam  Shakespeare :  his  Family  and  Friends'  (1904) ;  in  J.  W. 
Gray's  'Shakespeare's  Marriage!  (1905),  and  in  Mrs.  Stopes's 
'Shakespeare's  Warwickshire  Contemporaries'  (new  edit.  1907), 
and  her  'Shakespeare's  Environment'  (1914).  Wise  appends  a 
'glossary  of  words  still  used  in  Warwickshire  to  be  found  in  Shak- 
spere.'  The  parish  registers  of  Stratford  have  been  edited  by  Mr. 
Richard  Savage  for  the  Parish  Registers  Society  (1898-9).  Har- 
rison's 'Description  of  England'  and  Stubbes's  'Anatomy  of 
Abuses'  (both  reprinted  by  the  New  Shakspere  Society)  supply 
contemporary  accounts  of  the  social  conditions  prevailing  in 
Shakespeare's  time.  Later  compilations  on  the  subject  are 
Nathan  Drake's  'Shakespeare  and  his  Tunes'  (1817)  and  G.  W. 
Thombury's  Shakspere's  England'  (1856). 

The  chief  monographs  on  special  points  in  Shakespeare]s  bio- 
graphy are  Dr.  Richard  Farmer's  'Essay  on  the  Learning  of 
Shakespeare'     (1767),     reprinted     in     the  Variorum  specialised 
editions;    Octavius   Gilchrist's   'Examination   of   the  studies  in 
Charges  ...  of  Ben  Jonson's  Enmity  towards  Shake-  "lography. 
speare'  (1808) ;  W.  J.  Thoms's  'Was  Shakespeare  ever  a  Soldier?' 


already  1 

Actors'),     vx.   V  v^"  ^"c  ijwiiuu"  vjM^e-  /,    -.-'*■   V r -~ -. J         -.' 

see  especially  pp.  310-1,  note.  An  epitome  of  the  biographical  information  to  Qate  B 
Sttoplied  in  Karl  Elze's  Life  of  Shakespeare  (Halle,  187S;  English  translation,  1888), 
with  which  Elze's  Essays  from  the  publications  of  the  German  Shakespeare  bociety 
(English  translation,  1874)  are  worth  studying.  Samuel  Neil's  Shakespeare,  a  critical 
Biography  (1861),  Edward  Dowden's  Shakespere  Primer  (1877)  and  Introductum  tobhak- 
spere  (1893),  and  F.  J.  Fumivall's  Introduction  to  the  Leopold  Shakspere,  reissued  as  Shake- 
speare: Life  and  Work  (1908),  are  useful. 


644  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

(1849),  a  study  based  on  an  erroneous  identification  of  the  poet 
with  another  William  Shakespeare;  John  Charles  Bucknill's 
'Medical  Knowledge  of  ^Shakespeare'  (i860);  C.  F.  Green's 
'Shakespeare's  Crab-Tree,  with  its  Legend'  (1862) ;  C.  H.  Brace- 
bridge's  'Shakespeare  no  Deer-stealer'  (1862)  ;  H.  N.  EUacombe's 
'Plant  Lore  of  Shakespeare'  (1878) ;  William  Blades's  'Shakspere 
and  Typography'  (1872) ;  J.  E.  Harting's  'Ornithology  of  Shake- 
speare' (1871) ;  D.  H.  Madden's  '  Diary  of  Master  William  Silence 
(Shakespeare  and  Sport),'  new  edit.  1907  ;  and  H.  T.  Stephenson's 
'Shakespeare's  London'  (1910).  Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  law 
has  been  the  theme  of  many  volumes,  among  which  may  be  men- 
tioned W.  L.  Rushton's  four  volumes  —  'Shakespeare  a  Lawyer' 
(1858),  'Shakespeare's  Legal  Maxims'  (1859,  new  edit.  1907), 
'Shakespeare's  Testamentary  Language'  (1869)  and  'Shakespeare 
illustrated  by  the  Lex  Scripta'  (1870) ;  Lord  Campbell's  'Shake- 
speare's Legal  Acquirements'  (1859) ;  C.  K.  Davis's  'The  Law  in 
Shakespeare'  (St.  Paul,  U.S.A.,  1884)  and  E.  J.  White's  'Com- 
mentaries on  the  Law  in  Shakespeare'  (St.  Louis,  1911).  Specula- 
tions on  Shakespeare's  religion  may  be  found  in  T.  Carter's '  Shake- 
speare, Puritan  and  Recusant'  (1897)  and  in  H.  S.  Bowden's 
'The  Religion  of  Shakespeare'  (1899),  which  attempts  to  prove 
Shakespeare  a  Catholic.  Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  music  is  also 
the  theme  of  many  volumes :  see  E.  M.  Naylor's  '  Shakespeare  and 
Music'  (1896),  and  'Shakespeare  Music'  (1912);  L.  C.  Elson's 
'Shakespeare  in  Music'  (6th  ed.  1908);  and  G.  H.  Cowling's 
'Music  on  the  Shakespearian  Stage'  (1913). 

Francis  Douce's  'Illustrations  of  Shakespeare'  (1807,  new 
edit.  1839),  'Shakespeare's  Library'  (ed.  J.  P.  Collier  and  W.  C. 
Aids  to  Hazlitt,   1875),   'Shakespeare's  Plutarch'   (ed.   Skeat, 

study  of  187s,  and  ed.  Tucker-Brooke,  1909),  and  'Shake- 
texte™''  speare's  Holinshed'  (ed.  W.  G.  Boswell-Stone,  1896) 
are,  with  H.  R.  D.  Anders's  'Shakespeare's  Books' 
(Berlin,  1904),  of  service  in  tracing  the  sources  of  Shakespeare's 
plots.  M.  W.  MacCallum's  '  Shakespeare's  Roman  Plays  and  their 
Background'  (19 10)  is  a  very  complete  monograph.  The  sources 
of  the  plots  are  presented  methodically  in  Messrs.  Chatto  and 
Windus's  series  of  'Shakespeare  Classics'  of  which  ten  volumes 
have  appeared.  Alexander  Schmidt's  'Shakespeare  Lexicon' 
(1874,  3rd  edit.  1902),  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott's  'Shakespearian  Gram- 
mar' (1869,  new  edit.  1893),  and  Prof.  W.  Franz's  ' Shakespeare- 
Graramatik,'  2  pts.  (HaUe,  1898-1900,  2nd  ed.  1902),  with  his 
'Die  Grundziige  der  Sprache  Shakespeares '  (Berlin,  1902),  and 
'  Orthographie,  Lautgebung  und  Wortbildung  in  den  Werken  Shake- 
Concor-  speares'  (Heidelberg,  1905),  and  Wilhelm  Victor's 
dances.  ' Shakespeare's  Pronunciation '  (2  vols.,  Marburg,  906), 

are  valuable  aids  too  a  philological  study  of  the  text.    Useful  con- 


THE  SOURCES  OF  BIOGRAPHICAL  KNOWLEDGE     645 

cordances  to  the  Plays  have  been  prepared  by  Mrs.  Cowden-Clarke 
(184s;  revised  ed.  1864),  to  the  Poems  by  Mrs.  H.  H.  Furness 
(PhUadelphia,  1875),  and  to  Plays  and  Poems  in  one  volume,  with 
references  to  numbered  lines,  by  John  Bartlett  (London  and  New 
York,  1895).^  With  these  works  may  be  classed  the  briefer  com- 
pilations, R.  J.  Cunlifife's  'A  new  Shakespearean  Dictionary' 
(1910)  and  C.  T.  Onions's  'Shakespeare  Glossary'  (1911).  Ex- 
tensive bibliographies  are  given  in  Lowndes's  'Library  Manual' 
(ed.  Bohn)  ;  in  Franz  Thimm's  Shakespeariana'  (1864  Bibiipg- 
and  1871)  ;  in  'British  Museum  Catalogue'  (the  Shake-  rapties. 
spearean  entries  —  3680  titles  —  separately  pubUshed  in  1897) ; 
in  the  'Encyclopaedia  Britannica,'  nth  edit,  (skilfully  classified  by 
Mr.  H.  R.  Tedder) ;  and  in  Mr.  WiUiam  Jaggard's  '  Shakespeare 
Bibliography,'  Stratford-on-Avon,  1911.  The  Oxford  University 
Press's  facsimile  reproductions  of  the  First  FoUo  (1902),  and  of 
Shakespeare's  'Poems'  and  'Pericles'  (1905),  together  with  'Four 
Quarto  Editions  of  Plays  of  Shakespeare.  The  Property  of  the 
Trustees  of  Shakespeare's  Birthplace.  With  five  illustrations  in 
facsimile.'  (Stratford-on-Avon.  Printed  for  the  Trustees,  1908) 
contain  much  bibliographical  information  collected  by  the  present 
writer.  Mr.  A.  W.  PoUard's  'Shakespeare  FoUos  and  Quartos' 
(1909)  is  the  most  comprehensive  treatise  on  its  subject  which  has 
yet  been  pubhshed. 

The  valuable  publications  of  the  Shakespeare  Society,  the 
New  Shakspere  Society,  and  of  the  Deutsche  Shakespeare-Gesell- 
schaft,  are  noticed  above  (see  pp.  600,  618).  To  the  critical 
critical  studies  by  Coleridge,  HazHtt,  Dowden,  and  studies. 
Swinburne,  on  which  comment  has  been  made  (see  p.  599),  there 
may  be  added  the  essays  on  Shakespeare's  heroines  respectively 
by  Mrs.  Jameson  in  1833  and  Lady  Martin  in  1885 ;  Sir  A.  W. 
Ward's  'English  Dramatic  Literature'  (1875,  new  edit.  1898) ; 
Richard  G.  Moulton's  'Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatic  Artist'  (1885) ; 
'Shakespeare  Studies'  by  Thomas  Spencer  Baynes  (1893) ;  F.  S. 
Boas's  'Shakspere  and  his  Predecessors'  (1895) ;  Georg  Brandes's 
'William  Shakespeare'  —  a  somewhat  fanciful  study  (Lon- 
don, 1898,  2  vols.  8vo) ;  W.  J.  Courthope's  'History  of  English 
Poetry,'  1903,  vol.  iv. ;  A.  C.  Bradley's  'Shakespearean  Tragedy' 
(London,  1904),  and  his  'Oxford  Lectures  in  Poetry'  (1909) ;  the 
present  writer's  'Great  JEnglishmen  of  the  Sixteenth  Century' 
(1904),  and  his  'Shakespeare  and  the  Modern  Stage'  (1906); 
J.  C.  Collins's '  Studies  in  Shakespeare '  (1904) ;  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's 
'Shakespeare'  in  'EngUsh  Men  of  Letters'  series  (1907);  G.  P. 
Baker's  'The  Development  of  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatist'  (1907) ; 

'  Tlie  earliest  attempts  at  a  concordance  were  A  Complete  Verbal  Index  to  the  Plays, 
by  F.  Twiss  (1805),  and  An  Index  to  the  Remarkable  Passages  and  Words,  by  Samuel 
^scough  (1827),  but  these  are  now  superseded. 


646  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Felix  E.  Schelling's  'Elizabethan  Drama  1558-1642'  (1908)  2 
vols.;    and  Brander  Matthews's  'Shakespeare  as  a  Pla)rwright' 

(1913)- 

The  intense  interest  which  Shakespeare's  hfe  and  work  have 
long  universally  excited  has  tempted  unprincipled  or  sportively 
Shake-  mischievous  writers  from  time  to  time  to  deceive  the 

spearean  public  by  the  forgery  of  documents  purporting  to 
forgenes.  supply  new  information.  George  Steevens  made  some 
fooUsh  excursions  in  this  direction,  and  his  example  seems  to  have 
stimidated  the  notable  activity  of  forgers  which  persisted  from 
1780  to  1850.  The  frauds  have  caused  students  so  much  per- 
plexity that  it  may  be  useful  to  warn  them  against  those  Shake- 
spearean forgeries  which  have  obtained  the  widest  currency.  In 
the  'Theatrical  Review,'  1763  (No.  2),  there  was  inserted  in  an 
George  anonymous  biography  of  Edward  Alleyn  (from  the  pen 

steevens's  of  George  Steevens)  a  letter  purporting  to  be  signed 
fabrication,  'G.  Peel'  and  to  have  been  addressed  to  Marlowe 
1763.  ,  ('Friend  Marie').  The  writer  pretends  to  describe  his 
meeting  at  the  'Globe'  with  Edward  Alleyn  and  Shakespeare, 
when  Alleyn  taunted  the  dramatist  with  having  borrowed  from  his 
own  conversation  the  'speech  about  the  quahtyes  of  an  actor's 
exceUencye,  in  Hamlet  his  tragedye.'  This  clumsy  fabrication 
was 'reproduced  unquestioningly  in  the  'Annual  Register'  (1770), 
in  Berkenhout's  'Biographia  Literaria'  (1777),  in  the  'Gentle- 
man's Magazine'  (1801),  in  the  'British  Critic'  (1818,  p.  422),  in 
Charles  Severn's  introduction  to  John  Ward's  'Diary'  (1839,  p.  81), 
in  the  'Academy'  (London,  18  Jan.  1902),  in  'Poet  Lore'  (Boston, 
April  1902),  and  elsewhere.  Alexander  Dyce  in  his  first  edition  of 
George  Peek's  'Works'  (1829,  1st  ed.  vol.  i.  p.  in)  reprinted  it 
with  a  very  slender  reservation ;  Dyce's  example  was  followed  in 
Wilham  Young's  'History  of  Dulwich  College'  (1889,  ii.  41-2). 
The  fraud  was  justly  denounced  without  much  effect  by  Isaac 
Disraeh  in  his  'Curiosities  of  Literature'  (1823)  and  more  recently 
by  the  present  writer  in  an  article  entitled  'A  Peril  of  Shakespearean 
Research.' '  The  futile  forgery  still,  continues  to  mislead  unwary 
inquirers  who  unearth  it  in  early  periodicals. 

Much  notoriety  was  obtained  by  John  Jordan  (1746-1809),  a 
resident  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  whose  most  important  achievement 
John  Jordan,  was  the  forgery  of  the  will  of  Shakespeare's  father; 
1746-1809.  but  many  other  papers  in  Jordan's  'Original  Collec- 
tions on  Shakespeare  and  Stratford-on-Avon'  (1780),  and  'Original 
Memoirs  and  Historical  Accounts  of  the  Families  of  Shakespeare 
and  Hart,'  are  open  to  the  gravest  suspicion.^ 

^  Shakespeare  and  the  Modem  Stage,  1906,  pp.  188-197. 

=  Jordan's  Collections,  including  this  fraudulent  will  of  Shakespeare's  father,  was  printed 
privately  by  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps  in  1864. 


THE   SOURCES  OF   BIOGRAPHICAL  KNOWLEDGE     647 

The  best  known  Shakespearean  forger  of  the  eighteenth  century- 
was  William  Henry  Ireland  (1777-1835),  a  barrister's  clerk,  who, 
with  the  aid  of  his  father,  Samuel  Ireland  (1740?-  The  Ireland 
1800),  an  author  and  engraver  of  some  repute,  produced  forgeries, 
in  1796  a  volume  of  forged  papers  claiming  to  relate  ''^iS- 
to  Shakespeare's  career.  The  title  ran:  'Miscellaneous  Papers 
and  Legal  Instruments  under  the  Hand  and  Seal  of  William  Shake- 
speare, including  the  tragedy  of  "King  Lear"  and  a  small  frag- 
ment of  "Hamlet"  from  the  original  MSS.  in  the  possession  of 
Samuel  Ireland.'  On  April  2,  1796,  Sheridan  and  Kemble  pro- 
duced at  Drury  Lane  Theatre  a  bombastic  tragedy  in  blank  verse 
entitled  'Vortigem'  imder  the  pretence  that  it  was  by  Shake- 
speare, and  that  it  had  been  recently  found  among  the  manuscripts 
of  the  dramatist  which  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Irelands. 
The  piece,  which  was  pubHshed,  was  the  invention  of  young 
Ireland.  The  fraud  of  the  Irelands  for  some  time  deceived  a 
section  of  the  literary  public,  but  it  was  finally  exposed  by  Malone 
in  his  valuable  '  Inquiry  into  the  Authenticity  of  the  Ireland  MSS ' 
(1796).  Young  Ireland  afterwards  pubUshed  his  'Confessions' 
(1805).  He  had  acquired  much  skill  in  copying  Shakespeare's 
genuine  signature  from  the  facsimile  in  Steevens's  edition  of  Shake- 
speare's works  of  the  mortgage-deed  of  the  Blackfriars  house  of 
1612-13.1  He  conformed  to  that  style  of  handwriting  in  his 
forged  deeds  and  literary  compositions.''  He  also  inserted  copies 
of  the  dramatist's  signature  on  the  title-pages  of  many  sixteenth- 
century  books,  and  often  added  notes  in  the  same  feigned  hand  on 
their  margins.  Nimierous  sixteenth-century  volumes  embellished 
by  Ireland  in  this  manner  are  extant  in  the  British  Museum  and 
in  private  collections.  Ireland's  forged  signatures  and  marginalia 
have  been  frequently  mistaken  for  genuine  autographs  of  Shake- 
speare. 

But  Steevens's,  Ireland's  and  Jordan's  frauds  are  .clumsy  com- 
pared with  those  that  belong  to  the  nineteenth  century.    Most 
of  the  works  relating  to  the  biography  of  Shakespeare  Forgeries 
or  the  history  of  the  EUzabethan  stage  produced  by  ^°^^^^'^ 
John  Payne  Collier,  or  under  his  supervision,  between  and  others, 
1835  and  1849  are  honeycombed  with  forged  references   1835-1849- 
to  Shakespeare,  and  many  of  the  forgeries  have  been  admitted 
unsuspectingly  into  literary  history.    The  chief  of  these  forged 
papers  I  arrange  below  in  the  order  of  the  dates  that  have  been 
allotted  to  them  by  their  manufacturers.' 


'  See  pp.  4S6-7- 

^  See  a  full  desc 

italogue  of  John  E 

made  by  Collier  in  a  copy  of  the  Second  Folio  of  1632,  known  as  the  Perkins  Folio.    See 
p.  568,  note  I.    The  chief  authorities  on  the  subject  of  the  Collier  forgeries  are:   An 


'  See  a  full  description  of  a  large  private  collection  of  Ireland  forgeries  m  the  sale 
catalogue  of  John  Eliot  Hodgkin's  library' dispersed  at  Sotheby's  May  19,  _i9i4. 

'  Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  character  of  the  manuscript  conrections 


648  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

1589  (November).  Appeal  from  the  Blackfriars  players  (16  in 
number)  to  the  Privy  Council  for  favour.  Shakespeare's 
name  stands  twelfth.  From  the  manuscripts  at  Bridge- 
water  House,  belonging  to  the  Earl  of  EUesmere.  First 
printed  in  Collier's  'New  Facts  regarding  the  Life  of 
Shakespeare,'  1835. 

1596  (July).  List  of  inhabitants  of  the  Liberty  of  Southwark, 
Shakespeare's  name  appearing  in  the  sixth  place.  First 
printed  in  Collier's  'Life  of  Shakespeare,'  1858,  p.  126. 

1596.  Petition  of  the  owners  and  players  of  the  Blackfriars 
Theatre  to  the  Privy  Council  in  reply  to  an  alleged  petition 
of  the  inhabitants  requesting  the  closing  of  the  play- 
house. Shakespeare's  name  is  fifth  on  the  list  of  petitioners. 
This  forged  paper  is  in  the  PubUc  Record  0£&ce,  and  was 
first  printed  in  Collier's  'History  of  English  Dramatic 
Poetry'  (1831),  vol.  i.  p.  297,  and  has  been  constantly 
reprinted  as  if  it  were  genuine.' 

1596  {circa).  A  letter  signed  H.  S.  {i.e.  Henry,  Earl  of  South- 
ampton), addressed  to  Sir  Thomas  Egerton,  praying 
protection  for  the  players  of  the  Blackfriars  Theatre, 
and  mentioning  Burbage  and  Shakespeare  by  name. 
First  printed  in  CoUier's  'New  Facts.' 

1596  {circa).  A  list  of  sharers  in  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  with 
the  valuation  of  their  property,  in  which  Shakespeare 
is  credited  with  four  shares,  worth  933/.  (>s.  8d.  This  was 
first  printed  in  Collier's  'New  Facts,'  1835,  p.  6,  from  the 
Egerton  MSS.  at  Bridgewater  House. 

1602  (August  6).  Notice  of  the  performance  of  'Othello^  by 
Burbages  'players'  before  Queen  Elizabeth  when  on 
a  visit  to  Sir  Thomas  Egerton,  the  lord-keeper,  at  Hare- 
field,  in  a  forged  account  of  disbursements  by  Egerton's 
steward,  Arthur  Mainwaringe,  from  the  manuscripts  at 
Bridgewater  House,  belonging  to  the  Earl  of  EUesmere. 
Printed  in  Collier's  'New  Particulars  regarding  the  Works 
of  Shakespeare,'  1836,  and  again  in  Collier's  edition  of  the 
'Egerton  Papers,'  1840  (Camden  Society),  pp.  342-3. 

1603  (October  3).  Mention  of  'Mr.  Shakespeare  of  the  Globe' 
in  a  letter  at  Dulwich  from  Mrs.  Alleyn  to  her  husband ; 

Inquiry  into  the  Genuineness  of  the  Manuscript  Corrections  in  Mr.  J.  Payne  CoUier^s  An- 
notated Shakspere  Folio,  1632,  a-nd  of  certain  Shaksperian  Documents  likewise  published  by  Mr. 
Collier,  by  N.  E.  S.  A.  Hamilton,  London,  i860;  A  Complete  View  of  the  Shakespeare  Con- 
troversy concerning  the  Authenticity  and  Genuineness  of  Manuscript  Matter  a^ectirtg  the 
Works  and  Biography  of  Shakspere,  published  by  J.  Payne  Collier  as  the  Fruits  of  his  Re- 
searches, by  C.  M.  Ingleby,  LL.D.  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  London,  i86i ;  Catalogue 
of  the  Manuscripts  and  Muniments  of  Alleyn's  College  of  God's  Gift  at  Dulwich,  by  George 
F.  Warner,  M.A.,  1881 ;  Notes  on  the  Life  of  John  Payne  Collier,  with  a  Complete  List  of 
his  Works  and  an  Account  of  such  Shakespeare  Documents  as  are  believed  to  be  spurious,  by 
Henry  B.  Wheatley,  London,  1884. 

1  See  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  iS95-7>  P-  3io- 


THE   SOURCES  OF  BIOGRAPHICAL  KNOWLEDGE      649 

part  of  the  letter  is  genuine.  First  published  in  Collier's 
'Memoirs  of  Edward  Alleyn,'  1841,  p.  63.1 

1604  (April  9) .  List  of  the  names  of  eleven  players  of  the  King's 
Company  fraudulently  appended  to  a  genuine  letter  at 
Dulwich  College  from  the  Privy  Council  bidding  the  Lord 
Mayor  permit  performances  by  the  King's  players. 
Prmted  in  Collier's  'Memoirs  of  Edward  Alleyn,'  1841, 
p.  68.2 

1667.  Notes  of  performances  of  'Hamlet'  and  'Richard  II' 
I  by  the  crews  of  the  vessels  of  the  East  India  Company's 

f.  fleet  ofi  Sierra  Leone.     First  printed  in  'Narratives  of 

Voyages  towards  the  North-West,  1496-1631,'  edited  by 
Thomas  Rimdall  for  the  Hakluyt  Society,  1849,  p.  231, 
from  what  purported  to  be  an  exact  transcript  'in  the 
India  Office'  of  the  'Journal  of  William  KeeUng,'  captain 
of  one  of  the  vessels  in  the  expedition.  Keeling's  manu- 
script journal  is  stiU  at  the  India  Office,  but  the  leaves 
that  should  contain  these  entries  are  now,  and  have  long 
been,  missing  from  it. 

1609  Qanuary  4).  A  warrant  appointing  Robert  Daborne, 
William  Shakespeare,  and  other  instructors  of  the  Children 
of  the  Revels.  From  the  Bridgewater  House  MSS.  First 
printed  in  Collier's  'New  Facts,'  1835. 

1609  (April  6).  List  of  persons  assessed  for  poor  rate  in  South- 
wark,  April  6,  1609,  in  which  Shakespeare's  name  appears. 
First  printed  in  Collier's  'Memoirs  of  Edward  Alleyn,' 
1841,  p.  91.    The  forged  paper  is  at  Dulwich.' 

The  entries  in  the  Master  of  the  Revels  Account  books  noting 
court  performances  of  the  'Moor  of  Venice'  (or  'OtheUo')  on  Nov- 
ember I,  1604,  of  'Measure  for  Measure'  on  December  p^iseiy 
26,  1604,  of  'The  Tempest'  on  November  1,   1611,   suspected 
and  of  'The  Winter's  Tale'  on  November  5,  1611,  were  do^fflents. 
for  a  time  suspected  of  forgery.    These  entries  were  first  printed 
by  Peter  Cunningham,  a  friend  of  Collier,  in  the  volxmie  'Extracts 
from  the  Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court '  published  by  the  Shake- 
speare Society  in  1842.     The  originals  were  at  the  time  in  Cunning- 
ham's possession,  but  were  restored  to  the  Pubhc  Record  Office  in 
1868  when  they  were  suspected  of  forgery.    The  authenticity  of  the 
documents  was  completely  vindicated  by  Mr.  Ernest  Law  in  his 
'Some  Supposed  Shakespeare  Forgeries'  (1911)  and  'More  about 
Shakespeare  "Forgeries'"  (1913).    Mr.  Law's  conclusions  were 
supported  by  Sir  George  Warner,  Sir  H.  Maxwell  Lyte,  Dr.  C.  W. 

1  See  Warner's  Catalogue  of  Dulwich  MSS.  pp.  24-6. 
'  Cf.  ibid.  pp.  26-7. 
»  See  ibii.  pp.  30-3i- 


650 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Wallace  and  Sir  James  Dobbie,  F.R.S.,   Government  Analyst, 
who  analysed  the  ink  of  the  suspected  handwriting.^ 

1  The  Revels'  Accounts  were  originally  among  the  papers  of  the  Audit  Office  at  Somer- 
set House,  where  Mr.  Cunningham  was  employed  as  a  clerk,  from  1834  to  1858.  In  1859 
the  Audit  Office  papers  were  transferred  from  Somerset  House  to  the  Public  Record  Office. 
But  the  suspected  account  books  for  1604-5  and  certain  accounts  for  1636-7  were  retained 
in  Cunningham's  possession.  In  1868  he  offered  to  sell  the  two  earlier  books  to  the  British 
Museum,  and  the  later  papers  to  a  bookseller.  All  were  thereupon  claimed  by  the  Public 
Record  Office,  and  were  placed  in  that  repository  with  the  rest  of  the  Audit  Office  archives. 
Cunningham's  reputation  was  not  rated  high.  The  documents  were  submitted  to  no  care- 
ful scrutiny;  Mr.  E.  A.  Bond,  Keeper  of  the  MSB.  in  the  British  Museum,  expr^sed 
doubt  of  the  genuineness  of  the  Booke  of  1604-5,  mainly  owing  to  the  spelling  of  Shake- 
speare's name  as  '  Shaxberd ' ;  the  Deputy  Keeper  of  the  Public  Record  Office,  Sir  Thomas 
Duffus  Hardy,  inclined  to  the  same  view.  Shakespearean  critics,  who  on  jesthetic  groimds 
deemed  1604  to  be  too  early  a  date  to  which  to  ascribe  Othello,  were  disinclined  to  recognise 
the  Revels  Account  as  genuine.  On  the  other  hand  Malone  had  access  to  the  Audit 
Office  archives  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  various  transcripts  dating  be- 
tween 1571  and  1588  are  printed  in  the  Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  iii.  360-409.  An 
extract  from  them  for  the  year  1604-5  is  preserved  among  the  Malone  papers  at  the 
Bodleian  Library  (Malone  29).  This  memorandum  agrees  at  all  points  with  Cunning- 
ham's 'Revells  Booke'  of  1604-5.  Moreover  Malone  positively  assigned  the  date  i6n 
to  The  Tempest  in  1809  on  information  which  he  did  not  specify  {Variorum  Shakespeare, 
XV.  423),  but  which  corresponds  with  the  suspected  'Revells  Booke'  of  the  same  year.  A 
series  of  papers  in  the  Athenaum  for  igii  and  1912  (signed  'Audi  alteram  partem'}  vainly 
attempted  to  question  Mr.  Law's  vindication  of  the  documents. 


11 

THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CONTROVERSY 

The  accepted  version  of  Shakespeare's  biography  rests  securely  on 
documentary  evidence  and  on  a  continuous  stream  of  oral  tradition, 
which  went  wholly  unquestioned  for  more  than  three  peryersity  ■ 
centuries,  and  has  not  been  seriously  impugned  since,  of  the  , 
Yet  the  apparent  contrast  between  the  homeUness  of  ""it'oveisy. 
Shakespeare's  Stratford  career  and  the  breadth  of  observation  and 
knowledge  displayed  in  his  literary  work  has  evoked  the  fantastic 
theory  that  Shakespeare  was  not  the  author  of  the  literature  that 
passes  imder  his  name.  Perverse  attempts  have  been  made  either 
to  pronounce  the  authorship  of  his  works  an  open  question  or  to 
assign  them  to  his  contemporary,  Francis  Bacon  (i  561-1626),  the 
great  prose- writer,  philosopher  and  lawyer.' 

AU  the  argument  bears  witness  to  a  phase  of  that  more  or  less 
morbid  process  of  scepticism,  which  was  authoritatively  analysed 
by  Archbishop  Whately  in  his  'Historic  Doubts  relative  to  Na- 
poleon Bonaparte'  (1819).  The  Archbishop  there  showed  how 
'obstinate  habits  of  doubt,  divorced  from  full  knowledge  or  parted 
from  the  power  of  testing  evidence,  can  speciously  challenge  any 
narrative,  however  circumstantial,  however  steadily  maintained, 
however  public  and  however  important  the  events  it  narrates, 
however  grave  the  authority  on  which  it  is  based.' 

Joseph  C.  Hart  (U.S.  Consul  at  Santa  Cruz,  d.  1855),  in  his 
'Romance  6f  Yachting'  (1848),  first  raised  doubts  of  Shakespeare's 
authorship.  There  followed  in  a  like  temper  'Who  chief 
wrote  Shakespeare?'  in  'Chambers's  Journal,'  August  exponents. 
7,  1852,  and  an  article  by  Miss  Delia  Bacon,  in  'Putnams' 
MoHthly,'  January  1856.  On  the  latter  was  based  'The  Philosophy 
of  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare  unfolded  by  Delia  Bacon,'  with  a 
neutral  preface  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  London  and  Boston, 
1857.  Miss  Delia  Bacon,  who  was  the  first  to  spread  abroad  a 
spirit  of  scepticism  respecting  the  established  facts  of  Shakespeare's 
career,  died  insane  on  September  2,  1859.'    Mr.  William  Henry 

'  Equally  ludicrous  endeavours  have  been  made  to  transfer  Shakespeare's  responsi- 
bility to  the  shoulders  of  other  contemporaries  besides  Bacon.  Karl  Bleibtreu  s  Oer 
■uiahre  Shakespeare  (Munich  1907),  and  C.  Demblon's  Lord  RuaandesI  ShakespeareJPa.ns 
1913),  are  fantastic  attempts  to  identify.  Shakespeare  with  Francis  Manners  sixth  tari  of 
Rutland;  see  p.  453  supra. 

'  Of.  Life  by  Theodore  3acon,  London,  1888. 

651 


652  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Smith,  a  resident  in  London,  seems  first  to  have  suggested  the 
Baconian  hypothesis  in  'Was  Lord  Bacon  the  author  of  Shake- 
speare's plays?  —  a  letter  to  Lord  Ellesmere'  (1856),  which  was 
republished  as  'Bacon  and  Shakespeare'  (1857).  The  chief  early 
exponent  of  this  strange  theory  was  Nathaniel  Holmes,  an  Amer- 
ican lawyer,  who  pubhshed  at  New  York  in  1866  'The  Authorship 
of  the  Plays  attributed  to  Shakespeare,'  a  monument  of  misapphed 
ingenuity  (4th  edit.  1886,  2  vols.).  Bacon's  'Promus  of  Formu- 
laries and  Elegancies,'  a  commonplace  book  in  Bacon's  hand- 
writing in  the  British  Museum  (London,  1883),  was  first  edited 
by  Mrs.  Henry  Pott,  a  voluminous  advocate  of  the  Baconian 
theory ;  it  contained  many  words  and  phrases  common  to  the 
works  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  and  Mrs.  Pott  pressed  the 
argument  from  parallelisms  of  expression  to  its  extremest  limits. 
Mr.  Edwin  Reed's  'Bacon  and  Shakespeare'  (2  vols.,  Bostoft, 
1902),  continued  the  wasteful  labours  of  Holmes  and  Mrs.  Pott. 
Its  vogue  The  Baconian  theory,  which  long  found  its  main  accept- 
in  America,  ^nce  in  America,  achieved  its  wildest  manifestation  in 
the  book  called  'The  Great  Cryptogram:  Francis  Bacon's  Cypher 
in  the  so-caUed  Shakespeare  Plays'  (Chicago  and  London,  1887, 
2  vols.),  which  was  the  work  of  Mr.  Ignatius  Donnelly  of  Hastings, 
Minnesota.  The  author  professed  to  apply  to  the  First  Folio  text 
a  numerical  cypher  which  enabled  him  to  pick  out  letters  at  certain 
intervals  forming  words  and  sentences  which  stated  that  Bacon 
was  author  not  merely  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  but  also  of  Mar- 
lowe's work,  Montaigne's  'Essays,'  and  Burton's  'Anatomy  of 
Melancholy.'  Many  refutations  were  published  of  Mr.  Donnelly's 
arbitrary  and  baseless  contention.  Another  bold  effort  to  discover 
in  the  First  Folio  a  cypher-message  in  the  Baconian  interest  was 
made  by  Mrs.  Gallup,  of  Detroit,  in  'The  Bi-Literal  Cypher  of 
Francis  Bacon'  (1900).  The  absurdity  of  this  endeavour  was 
demonstrated  in  numerous  letters  and  articles  published  in  The 
Times  newspaper  (December  1901-January  1902).  The  Baconians 
subsequently  found  an  Enghsh  champion  in  Sir  Edwin  Durning 
Lawrence  (1837-1914)  who  pressed  into  his  service  every  manner 
of  misapprehension  in  his  'Bacon  is  Shakespeare'  (1900),  of  a 
penny  abridgment  of  which  he  claimed  to  have  circulated  300,^00 
copies  during  1912.  Sir  Edwin,  Uke  Donnelly,  freakishly  credited 
Bacon  with  the  composition  not  only  of  Shakespeare's  works  but 
of  almost  all  the  great  literature  of  his  time.^ 

^  A  Bacon  Society  was  founded  in  London  in  1885  to  develope  and  promulgate  the 
unintelligible  theory,  and  it  inaugurated  a  magazine  (named  since  Ma]y  1893  Baconiana). 
A  quarterly  periodical  also  called  Baconiana,  and  issued  in  the  same  mterest,  was  estab- 
lished at  Chicago  in  1892.  The  Bibliography  of  the  Shakespeare-Bacon  Controversy  by 
W.  H.  Wyman,  Cincinnati,  1884,  gives  the  titles  of  255  books  or  pamphlets  on  both 
sides  of  the  subject,  published  since  1848 ;  the  list  was  continued  during  1886  in  Shake- 
speariana,  a  monthly  journal  published  at  Philadelphia,  and  might  now  be  extended  to 
fully  thrice  its  original  number. 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE  CONTROVERSY         653 

_  The  argument  from  the  alleged  cypher  is  unworthy  of  sane  con- 
sideration. Otherwise  the  Baconians  presume  in  Shakespeare's 
plays  a  general  omniscience  (especially  a  knowledge  of  law)  of 
which  no  contemporary  except  Bacon  is  alleged  to  show  command.' 
At  any  rate  such  accomplishment  is  held  by  the  Baconians  to  be 
incredible  in  one  enjo3dng  Shakespeare's  limited  opportunities 
of  education.  They  insist  that  there  are  many  close  parallelisms 
between  passages  in  Shakespeare's  and  in  Bacon's  works,  and  that 
Bacon  makes  enigmatic  references  in  his  correspondence  to  secret 
'recreations'  and  'alphabets'  and  concealed  poems  for  which  his 
alleged  employment  as  a  concealed  dramatist  can  alone  account. 
No  substance  attached  to  any  of  these  pleas.  There  is  a  far  closer 
and  more  constant  resemblance  between  Shakespeare's  vocabulary 
and  that  of  other  contemporaries  than  between  his  and  Bacon's 
language,  and  the  similarities  merely  testify  to  the  general  usage 
of  the  day.^  Again  Shakespeare's  frequent  employment  of  legal 
terminology  conforms  to  a  literary  fashion  of  the  day,  and  was 
practised  on  quite  as  liberal  a  scale  and  with  far  greater  accuracy 
by  Edmimd  Spenser,  Ben  Jonson  and  many  other  eminent  writers 
who  enjoyed  no  kind  of  legal  training  and  were  never  engaged  in 
legal  work.  (See  pp.  43-4  supra.)  The  allegation  that  Bacon 
was  the  author  of  works  which  he  hesitated  to  claim  in  gj^,  rj,^^^.^ 
his  lifetime  has  no  just  bearing  on  the  issue.  The  Ba-  Matthew's 
conians'  case  commonly  rests  on  an  arbitrary  misinter-  ''""• 
pretation  of  the  evidence  on  this  subject.     Sir  Tobie  Matthew 

^  Most  of  the  parallels  that  are  commonly  quoted  by  Baconians  are  phrases  m  ordinary 
use  by  all  writers  of  the  day.  The  only  pomt  of  any  interest  raised  in  the  argument 
from  parallelisms  of  expression  centres  about  a  quotation  from  Aristotle  which  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare  both  make  in  what  looks  at  a  &:st  glance  to  be  the  same  erroneous  form. 
Aristotle  wrote  in  his  Nicomachean  Ethics,  i.  8,  that  young  men  were  unfitted  for  the  study 
of  political  philosophy.  Bacon,  in  the  Advancement  of  Learning  (1605),  wrote :  'Is.  not 
the  opinion  of  Aristotle  worthy  to  be  regarded  wherein  he  saith  that  young  men  are  not 
fit  auditors  of  moral  philosophy  ? '  (bk.  ii.  p.  255,  ed.  Kitchin).  Shakespeare,  about  1603, 
in  Troilus  and  Cresstda,  n.  li.  r66,  wrote  of  'young  men  whom  Aristotle  thoughtunfit  to 
hear  moral  philosophy,'  But  the  alleged  error  of  substituting  moral  for  political  philosophy 
in  Aristotle's  text  is  more  apparent  than  real.  By  'political'  philosophy  Aristotle,  as  his 
context  amply  shows,  meant  the  ethics  of  civil  society,  which  are  hardly  distmguishable 
from  what  is  commonly  called  'morals.'  In  the  summary  paraphrase  of  Aristotle's  Ethics 
which  was  transited  into  English  from  the  Italian,  and  published  in  1547,  the  passage 
to  which  both  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  refer  is  not  rendered  literally,  but  its  general  drift 
is  given  as  a  warning  that  moral  philosophy  is  not  a  fit  subject  for  study  by  youths  who 
are  naturally  passionate  and  headstrong.  Such  an  interpretation  of  Aristotle's  language 
is  common  among  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  writers.  Erasmus,  in  the  epistle 
at  the  close  of  his  popular  Colloquia  (Florence,  1S31.  sig.  Q  Q),  wrote  of  his  endeavour  to 
insmuate  serious  precepts  'into  the  minds  of  young  men  whom  Aristotle  rightly  described 
as  unfit  auditors  of  inoral  philosophy'  ('in  animos  adolescentium,  quos  recte  scripsit 
Aristoteles  inidoneos  auditores  ethiae  philosophise').  In  the  Latin  play,  Pedantius 
(1581  ?),  a  philosopher  tells  his  pupil,  'Tu  non  es  idoneus  auditor  moralis  philosophiie' 
(1.  327).  In  a  French  translation  of  the  Ethics  by  the  Comte  da  Plessis  (Paris,  ifss), 
the  passage  is  rendered  'parquoy  le  ieune  enfant  n'est  sufiisant  auditeur  de  la  science 
civile';  and  an  English  commentator  (in  a  manuscript  note  written  about  1605  m  a  copy 
in  the  British  Museum)  Englished  the  sentence:  'Whether  a  young  man  may  be  a  fitte 
schoUer  of  marall  philosophie.'  In  1622  an  Italian  essayist,  Virgilio  Malvezzl,  in  his 
preface  to  his  Discorsi  sopra  Cornelia  Tacito,  has  the  remark,  'E  non  6  discordante  da  questa 
mia  opinione  Aristotele/  il  qual  dice,  che  i  giovani  non  sono  buoni  ascultatori  delle  morali' 
(cf.  Speddmg,  Works  of  Bacon,  i.  739.  >"•  44o). 


654  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

wrote  to  Bacon  (as  Viscount  St.  Albans)  at  an  uncertain  date  after 
January  1621 :  'The  most  prodigious  wit  that  ever  I  knew  of  my 
nation  and  of  this  side  of  the  sea  is  of  your  Lordship's  name,  though 
he  be  known  by  another.'  1  This  unpretending  sentence  is  dis- 
torted into  conclusive  evidence  that  Bacon  composed  works  of^ 
commanding  excellence  under  another's  name,  and  among  them 
probably  Shakespeare's  plays.  According  to  the  only  sane  m- 
terpretation  of  Matthew's  words,  his  'most  prodigious  wit'  was 
some  EngUshman  named  Bacon  whom  he  met  abroad.  There 
is  little  doubt  that  Matthew  referred  to  his  friend  Father  Thomas 
Southwell,  a  learned  Jesuit  domiciled  chiefly  in  the  Low  Countries, 
whose  real  surname  was  Bacon.  (He  was  bom  in  1592  at  Scul- 
thorpe,  near  Walsingham,  Norfolk,  being  son  of  Thomas  Bacon  of 
that  place;  he  died  at  Watten  in  1637.)  ^ 

Such  authentic  examples  of  Bacon's  efior£  to  write  verse  as 
survive  prove  beyond  all  possibility  of  contradiction  that,  great 
as  he  was  as  a  prose  writer  and  a  philosopher,  he  was  incapable  of 
penning  any  of  the  poetry  assigned  to  Shakespeare.  His  'Trans- 
lation of  Certaine  Psalmes  into  English  Verse'  (1625)  convicts 
him  of  inability  to  rise  above  the  level  of  clumsy  doggerel. 

Recent  Enghsh  sceptics  have  fought  shy  of  the  manifest  absur- 
dities of  the  Baconian  heresy  and  have  concentrated  their  efEort 
The  legal  on  the  negative  argument  that  the  positive  knowledge 
sceptics.  of  Shakespeare's  calreer  is  too  slight  to  warrant  the 
accepted  tradition.  These  writers  have  for  the  most  part  been 
lawyers  who  lack  the  required  literary  training  to  give  their  work 
on  the  subject  any  genuine  authority.  Many  of  them  after  the 
manner  of  ex-parte  advocates  rest  a  part  of  their  case  on  minor 
discrepancies  among  orthodox  critics  and  biographers.  Like  the 
Baconians,  they  exaggerate  or  misrepresent  the  extent  of  Shake- 
speare's classical  and  legal  attainments.  They  faU  to  perceive 
that  the  curriculum  of  Stratford  Grammar  School  and  the  general 
cultivation  of  the  epoch,  combined  with  Shakespeare's  rare  faculty 
of  mental  assimilation,  lea,ve  no  part  of  his  acquired  knowledge 
unaccounted  for.  They  ignore  the  cognate  development  of  poetic 
and  intellectual  power  which  is  convincingly  illustrated  by  the 
careers  of  many  'contemporaries  and  friends  of  Shakespeare, 
notably  by  that  of  the  actor-dramatist  Thomas  Heywood.  To 
crown  all,  they  make  no  just  allowance  for  the  mysterious  origin 

1  Cf.  Birch,  Letters  of  Bacon,  1763,  p.  302.  A  foolish  suggestion  has  been  made  that 
Matthew  was  referring  to  Francis  Bacon's  brother  Anthony,  who  died  in  1601 ;  Matthew 
was  writing  of  a' man  who  was  alive  more  than  twenty  years  later. 

2  It  was  with  reference  to  a  book  published  by  this  man  that  Sir  Henry  Wotton  wrote, 
in  language  somewhat  resembling  Su:  Tobie  Matthew's,  to  Sir  Edmund  Bacon,  half- 
brother  to  the  great  Francis  Bacon,  on  December  5,  1638:  'The  Book  of  Controversies 
issued  under  the  name  of  F.  Baconus  hath  this  addition  to  the  said  name,  alias  Southwell, 
as  those  of  that  Society  shift  their  names  as  often  as  their  shirts'  {Reliquice  Wottoniaius, 
1672,  p.  475). 


THE   BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CONTROVERSY     655 

and  miraculous  processes  of  all  poetic  genius  —  features  which 
are  signally  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Chatterton,  Burns,  Keats 
and  other  poets  of  humbler  status  and  fortune  than  Shakespeare. 
The  most  plausible  manifestoes  from  the  pens  of  the  legal  sceptics 
are  Judge  Webb's  'The  Mystery  of  William  Shakespeare,'  Mr. 
G.  C.  Bompas's  'The  Problem  of  the  Shakespeare  Plays,'  Lord 
Penzance's  'The  Bacon-Shakespeare  Controversy,'  all  of  which 
were  published  in  1902.  A  more  pretentious  effort  on  the  same 
lines  was  Mr.  G.  G.  Greenwood's  'The  Shakespeare  Problem 
Restated'  (1908),  which  the  author  supplemented  with  'In  re 
Shakespeare :  Beeching  v.  Greenwood.  Rejoinder'  (1909)  and 
'The  Vindicators  of  Shakespeare:  A  reply  to  Critics'  (191 1). 
Perhaps  the  chief  interest  attaching  to  Mr.  Greenwood's  per- 
formance was  the  adoption  of  his  point  of  view  by  the  American 
humourist  Mark  Twain,  who  in  his  latest  book  'Is  Shakespeare 
dead?'  (1909)  attacked  the  accredited  belief.  Mark  Twain's 
intervention  in  what  he  called  '  the  Bacon-Shakespeare  scuffle ' 
proved  as  might  be  expected  that  his  idiosyncrasies  unfitted  him 
for  treating  seriously  matters  of  literary  history  or  criticism.  A 
wholesome  corrective  in  a  small  compass  to  the  whole  attitude  of 
doubt  may  be  found  in  Mr.  Charles  Allen's  'Notes  on  the  Bacon- 
Shakespeare  Question'  (Boston,  1900),  and  many  later  vindications 
of  the  orthodox  faith  are  worthy  of  notice.  Judge  Willis  in  '  The 
Shakespeare-Bacon  Controversy'  (1903)  very  carefully  examined 
in  legal  form  the  documentary  evidence  and  pronounced  it  to 
establish  conclusively  Shakespeare's  position  from  a  strictly  legal 
point  of  view.  Forcible  replies  to  Mr.  Greenwood's  attack  were 
issued  by  Dean  Beeching  in  his  'William  Shakespeare,  Player, 
Playmaker,  and  Poet'  (1908),  and  by  Andrew  Lang  in  his  'Shake- 
speare, Bacon  and  the  Great  Unknown'  (1912).  The  most  com- 
prehensive exposure  of  both  the  Baconian  and  sceptical  delusions 
was  made  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson,  M.P.,  in  'The  Baconian 
Heresy:  A  Confutation'  (1913). 


Ill 

THE  YOUTHFUL  CAREER  OF  THE  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON 

From  the  dedicatory  epistles  addressed  by  Shakespeare  to  the 
Earl  of  Southampton  in  the  opening  pages  of  his  two  narrative 
poems,  'Venus  and  Adonis'  (1593)  and  'Lucrece' 
ampton  and  (iS94)>^  from  the  account  given  by  Sir  WiUiam  D'Ave- 
Shate-  nant,  and  recorded  by  Nicholas  Rowe,  of  the  earl's  lib- 

speare.  ^^^^  bounty  to  the  poet,''  and  from  the  language  of  the 

'Sonnets,'  it  is  abundantly  clear  that  Shakespeare  enjoyed  very 
friendly  relations  with  Southampton  from  the  time  when  the 
dramatist's  genius  was  nearing  its  maturity.  No  contemporary 
document  or  tradition  suggests  that  Shakespeare  was  the  friend  or 
protege  of  any  man  of  rank  other  than  Southampton;  and  the 
student  of  Shakespeare's  biography  has  reason  to  ask  for  some 
information  respecting  him  who  enjoyed  the  exclusive  distinction 
of  serving  Shakespeare  as  his  patron. 

Southampton  was  a  patron  worth  cultivating.  Both  his  parents 
came  of  the  New  Nobility,  and  enjoyed  vast  wealth.  His  father's 
p  father  was  Lord  Chancellor  under  Henry  VIII,  and 

^''  when  the  monasteries  were  dissolved,  although  he  was 
faithful  to  the  old  religion,  he  was  granted  rich  estates  in  Hamp- 
shire, including  the  abbeys  of  Titchfield  and  Beaulieu  in  the  New 
Forest.  He  was  created  Earl  of  Southampton  early  in  Edward 
VI's  reign,  and,  dying  shortly  afterwards,  was  succeeded  by  his 
only  son,  the  father  of  Shakespeare's  friend.  The  second  earl 
loved  magnificence  in  his  household.  'He  was  highly  reverenced 
and  favoured  of  all  that  were  of  his  own  rank,  and  bravely  at- 
tended and  served  by  the  best  gentlemen  of  those  counties  wherein 
he  lived.  His  muster-roll  never  consisted  of  four  lacqueys  and  a 
coachman,  but  of  a  whole  troop  of  at  least  a  hundred  well-moimted 
gentlemen  and  yeomen.''  The  second  earl  remained  a  CathoUc, 
like  his  father,  and  a  chivalrous  avowal  of  sjmipathy  with  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots  procured  him  a  term  of  imprisonment  in  the  year 
preceding  his  distinguished  son's  birth.  At  a  youthful  age  he 
married  a  lady  of  fortune,  Mary  Browne,  daughter  of  the  first 
Viscount  Montague,  also  a  Catholic.  Her  portrait,  now  at 
Welbeck,  was  painted  in  her  early  married  days,  and  shows  regu- 

^  See  pp.  142,  146.  2  See  p.  197. 

B  Gervase  Markham,  Honour  in  his  Perfection,  1624. 

656 


YOUTHFUL   CAREER  OF  SOUTHAMPTON  657 

larly  formed  features  beneath  bright  auburn  hair.  Two  sons  and 
a  daughter  were  the  issue  of  the  union.  Shakespeare's  friend,  the 
second  son,  was  born  at  her  father's  residence,  Cowdray  Birth  on 
House,  near  Midhurst,  on  October  6,  1573.  He  was  Oct.  6, 1573. 
thus  Shakespeare's  junior  by  nine  years  and  a  half.  'A  goodly 
boy,  God  bless  him!'  exclaimed  the  gratified  father,  writing  of 
his  birth  to  a  friend.'  But  the  father  barely  survived  the  boy's 
infancy.  He  died  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-iive  —  two  days 
before  the  chUd's  eighth  birthday.  The  elder  son  was  already 
dead.  Thus,  on  October  4,  1581,  the  second  and  only  surviving 
son  became  third  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  entered  on  his  great 
inheritance.'' 

As  was  customary  in  the  case  of  an  infant  peer,  the  little  earl 
became  a  royal  ward  —  'a  child  of  state'  —  and  Lord  Burghley, 
the  Prime  Minister,  acted  as  the  boy's  guardian  in  the  ^j^^yon 
Queen's  behalf.  Burghley  had  good  reason  to  be  satis- 
fied with  his  ward's  intellectual  promise.  'He  spent,'  wrote  a 
contemporary,  'his  childhood  and  other  younger  terms  in  the 
study  of  good  letters.'  At  the  age  of  twelve,  in  the  autumn  of 
1585,  he  was  admitted  to  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  'the 
sweetest  nurse  of  knowledge  in  all  the  University.'  Southampton 
breathed  easily  the  cultured  atmosphere.  Next  summer  he  sent 
his  guardian,  Burghley,  an  essay  in  Ciceronian  Latin  on  the  some- 
what cynical  text  that  'AU  men  are  moved  to  the  pursmt  of  virtue 
by  the  hope  of  reward.'  The  argument,  if  unconvincing,  is  pre- 
cocious. 'Every  man,'  the  boy  tells  us,  'no  matter  how  well  or 
how  ill  endowed  with  the  graces  of  humanity,  whether  in  the  en- 
joyment of  great  honour  or  condemned  to  obscurity,  experiences 
that  yearning  for  glory  which  alone  begets  virtuous  endeavour.' 
The  paper,  still  preserved  at  Hatfield,  is  a  model  of  caligraphy ; 
every  letter  is  shaped  with  delicate  regularity,  and  betrays  a  re- 
finement most  uncommon  in  boys  of  thirteen.^  Southampton  re- 
mained at  the  University  for  some  two  years,  graduating  M.A.  at 
sixteen  in  1589.  Throughout  his  after  life  he  cherished  for  his 
college  'great  love  and  affection.' 

Before  leaving  Cambridge  Southampton  entered  his  name  at 
Gray's  Inn.  Some  knowledge  of  law  was  deemed  needful  in  one 
who  was  to  control  a  landed  property  that  was  not  only  large 
already  but  likely  to  grow.*    Meanwhile  he  was  sedulously  culti- 

1  Loseley  MSS.  ed.  A.  J.  Kempe,  p.  240. 
^  *-His  mother,  after  thirteen  years  of  widowhood,  married  in  1504  Sir  Thomas  Heneage, 
vice-chamberlain  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  household ;    but  he  died  within  a  year,  and  in 
1596  she  took  a  third  husband.  Sir  William  Hervey,  who  distinguished  himself  in  military 
service  in  Ireland  and  was  created  a  peer  as  Lord  Hervey  by  James  I. 

*  By  kind  permission  of  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury  I  lately  copied  out  this  essay  at 

'  In  1388  his  brother-in-law,  Thomas  Arundel,  afterwards  first  Lord  Arundel  of  War- 
doiir  (husband  of  his  only  sister,  Mary),  petitioned  Lord  Burghley  to  grant  him  an  addi- 

2tJ 


658  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

vating  his  literary  tastes.  He  took  into  his  'pay  and  patronage' 
John  Florio,  the  well-known  author  and  Italian  tutor,  and  was 
soon,  according  to  Florio 's  testimony,  as  thoroughly  versed  in 
Italian  as  'teaching  or  learning'  could  make  him. 

'When  he  was  young,'  wrote  a  later  admirer,  'no  ornament  of 
youth  was  wanting  in  him';  and  it  was  naturally  to  the  Court 
that  his  friends  sent  him  at  an  early  age  to  display  his  varied  graces. 
He  can  hardly  have  been  more  than  seventeen  when  he  was  pre- 
sented to  his  sovereign.  She  showed  him  kindly  notice,  and  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  her  brilhant  favourite,  acknowledged  his  fascination. 
Thenceforth  Essex  displayed  in  his  welfare  a  brotherly  interest 
which  proved  in  course  of  time  a  very  doubtful  blessing. 

While  stiU  a  boy,  Southampton  entered  with  as  much  zest 
into  the  sports  and  dissipations  of  his  fellow  courtiers  as  into  their 
Recognition  hterary  and  artistic  pursuits.  At  tennis,  in  jousts 
anfton^s  ^^^  toumaments,  he  achieved  distinction;  nor  was 
youthful  he  a  stranger  to  the  dehghts  of  gambhng  at  primero, 
beauty.  jjj  15^2,  when  he  was  in  his  eighteenth  year,  he  was 
recognised  as  the  most  handsome  and  accomphshed  of  all  the  young 
lords  who  frequented  the  royal  presence.  In  the  autumn  of  that 
year  Elizabeth  paid  Oxford  a  visit  in  state.  Southampton  was 
in  the  throng  of  noblemen  who  bore  her  company.  In  a  Latin 
poem  describing  the  brilliant  ceremonial,  which  was  pubHshed  at 
the  time  at  the  University  press,  eulogy  was  lavished  without 
stint  on  all  the  Queen's  attendants;  but  the  academic  poet  de- 
clared that  Southampton's  personal  attractions  exceeded  those  of 
any  other  in  the  royal  train.  'No  other  youth  who  was  present,' 
he  wrote,  'was  more  beautiful  than  this  prince  of  Hampshire  {quo 
non  formosior  alter  affuit),  nor  more  distinguished  in  the  arts  of 
learning,  although  as  yet  tender  down  scarce  bloomed  on  his  cheek.' 
The  last  words  testify  to  Southampton's  boyish  appearance.' 
Next  year  it  was  rumoured  that  his  'external  grace'  was  to  receive 
signal  recognition  by  his  admission,  despite  his  juvenility,  to  the 
Order  of  the  Garter.  'There  be  no  Knights  of  the  Garter  new 
chosen  as  yet,'  wrote  a  well-informed  courtier  on  May  3,  1593, 
'but  there  were  four  nominated.'^    Three  were  eminent  pubHc 

tional  tract  of  the  New  Forest  about  his  house  at  Beaulieu.  Although  in  his  'nonage,' 
Arundel  wrote,  the  Earl  was  by  no  means  'of  the  smallest  hope.'  Arundel,  with  almost 
prophetic  insight,  added  that  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  was  Southampton's  'most  feared 
nvai'  in  the  competition  for  the  land  in  question.  Arundel  was  referring  to  the  father 
of  that  third  Earl  of  Pembroke  who,  despite  the  absence  of  evidence,  has  been  described 
as  Shakespeare's  friend  of  the  Sonnets  (cf.  Calendar  of  Hatfield  MSS.  iii.  365.) 

'  Cf.  ApoUinis  et  Musanim  Eukthch  EiSiJMm  Oxford,  1592,  reprinted  m  Elizabethan 
Oxford  (Oxford  Historical  Society),  edited  by  Charles  Plummet,  eox.  294: 

Comes  ?°^*  ''"™  .''■'■  ^^^^  °^  Essex)  insequitur  dari  de  stirpe  Dynasta 

South-  ^^^  ^^^  dmes  quem  South-Hamptonia  magnum 

Eamii-  Vendicat  heroem ;  quo  non  formosior  alter 

tonia  ASuit,  aut  docta  iuuenis  prsestantior  arte; 

Ora  licet  tener^  vit  dum  lanugine  vement. 

=  Historical  MSS.  Commission,  7th  Report  (Appendix),  p.  521  J, 


YOUTHFUL  CAREER  OF  SOUTHAMPTON  659 

servants,  but  first  on  the  list  stood  the  name  of  young  Southampton. 
The  purpose  did  not  take  effect,  but  the  compliment  of  nomination 
was,  at  his  age,  without  precedent  outside  the  circle  of  the  Sov- 
ereign's kinsmen.  On  November  17,  1595,  he  appeared  in  the  Usts 
set  up  in  the  Queen's  presence  in  honour  of  the  thirty-seventh 
anniversary  of  her  accession.  The  poet  George  Peele  pictured  in 
blank  verse  the  gorgeous  scene,  and  likened  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton to  that  ancient  type  of  chivalry,  Bevis  of  Southampton, 
so  'valiant  in  arms,'  so  'gentle  and  debonair,'  did  he  appear  to  aU 
beholders.^ 

But  clouds  were  rising  on  this  sunlit  horizon.  Southampton, 
a  wealthy  peer  without  brothers  or  uncles,  was  the  only  male 
representative  of  his  house.  A  lawful  heir  was  essential  Reluctance 
to  the  entail  of  his  great  possessions.  Early  marriages  *"  "arry. 
—  child-marriages  —  were  in  vogue  in  all  ranks  of  society,  and 
Southampton's  mother  and  guardian  regarded  matrimony  at  a 
tender  age  as  especially  incumbent  on  him  in  view  of  his  rich 
heritage.  When  the  boy  was  seventeen  Burghley  accordingly 
offered  him  a  wife  in  the  person  of  his  granddaughter.  Lady  Eliza- 
beth Vere,  eldest  daughter  of  his  daughter  Anne  and  of  the  Earl  of 
Oxford.  The  Countess  of  Southampton  approved  the  match,  and 
told  Burghley  that  her  son  was  not  averse  from  it.  Her  wish  was 
father  to  the  thought.  Southampton  declined  to  marry  to  order, 
and,  to  the  confusion  of  his  friends,  was  stUl  a  bachelor  when 
he  came  of  age  in  1594.  Nor  even  then  did  there  seem  much 
prospect  of  his  changing  his  condition.  He  was  in  some  ways  as 
young  for  his  years  in  inward  disposition  as  in  outward  appearance. 
Although  gentle  and  amiable  in  most  relations  of  life,  he  could 
be  childisUy  self-willed  and  impulsive,  and  outbursts  of  anger 
involved  him,  at  Court  and  elsewhere,  in  many  petty  quarrels 
which  were  with  difficulty  settled  without  bloodshed.  Despite  his 
rank  and  wealth,  he  was  consequently  accounted  by  many  ladies 
of  far  too  uncertain  a  temper  to  sustain  marital  responsibilities 
with  credit.  Lady  Bridget  Maimers,  sister  of  his  friend  the  Earl 
of  Rutland,  was  in  1594  looking  to  matrimony  for  means  of  release 
from  the  servitude  of  a  lady-in-waiting  to  the  Queen.  Her  guardian 
suggested  that  Southampton  or  the  Earl  of  Bedford,  who  wasi 
intimate  with  Southampton  and  exactly  of  his  age,  would  be  an 
eligible  suitor.  Lady  Bridget  dissented.  Southampton  and  hi^ 
friend  were,  she  objected,  'so  young,'  'fantastical,'  and  volatile 
('so  easily  carried  away'),  that  should  ill  fortune  befall  her  mother, 
who  was  'her  only  stay,'  she  'doubted  their  carriage  of  themselves.' 
She  spoke,  she  said,  from  observation.^ 

*  Peele's  Ahglorum  Ferits,  „        .    «  ,  r'  c-     *.i. 

'  Co(.  0/  the  Duke  of  Rutland's  MSS.  i.  321-  Bamabe  Barnes,  who  was  one  of  South- 
ampton's poetic  admirers,  addressed  a  crude  sonnet  to  'the  Beautiful  Lady,  ihe  Laay 
Bridget  Manners,'  in  1593,  at  the  same  time  as  he  addressed  one  to  Southampton.    Botn 


66o  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

In  IS9S,  at  two-and-twenty,  Southampton  justified  Lady- 
Bridget's  censure  by  a  public  proof  of  his  fallibility.    The  fair 

Mistress  Vernon  (first  cousin  of  the  Earl  of  Essex), 
^n^rigue  ^  passionate  beauty  of  the  Court,  cast  her  spell  on 
Elizabeth       iijjji_    jjgr  virtue  was  none  too  stable,  and  in  September 

the  scandal  spread  that  Southampton  was  courting  her 
'with  too  much  familiarity.'  The  entanglement  with  'his  fair 
mistress '  opened  a  new  chapter  in  Southampton's  career,  and  Hfe's 
tempests  began  in  earnest.  Either  to  free  himself  from  his  mis- 
tress's toils,  or  to  divert  attention  from  his  intrigue,  he  in  1596 
withdrew  from  Court  and  sought  sterner  occupation.  Despite  his 
mistress's  lamentations,  which  the  Court  gossips  duly  chronicled, 
he  played  a  part  with  his  friend  Essex  in  the  military  and  naval 
expedition  to  Cadiz  in  1596,  and  in  that  to  the  Azores  in  1597. 
He  developed  a  martial  ardour  which  brought  him  renown,  and 
Mars  (his  admirers  said)  vied  with  Mercury  for  his  allegiance.  He 
travelled  on  the  Continent,  and  finally,  in  1598,  he  accepted  a 
subordinate  place  in  the  suite  of  the  Queen's  Secretary,  Sir  Robert 
CecU,  who  was  going  on  an  embassy  to  Paris.  But  Mistress  Ver- 
non was  stiU  fated  to  be  his  evil  genius,  and  Southampton  learnt 
Marriage  while  in  Paris  that  her  condition  rendered  marriage 
in  IS98.  essential  to  her  decaying  reputation.  He  hurried  to 
London  and,  yielding  his  own  scruples  to  her  entreaties,  secretly 
made  her  his  wife  during  the  few  days  he  stayed  in  this  country. 
The  step  was  full  of  peril.  To  marry  a  lady  of  the  Court  without 
the  Queen's  consent  infringed  a  prerogative  of  the  Crown  by  which 
Elizabeth  set  exaggerated  store. 

The  story  of  Southampton's  marriage  was  soon  pubhc  property. 
His  wife  quickly  became  a  mother,  and  when  he  crossed  the  Chan- 
nel a  few  weeks  later  to  revisit  her  he  was  received  by  pursuivants, 
who  had  the  Queen's  orders  to  carry  him  to  the  Fleet  prison.  For 
the  time  his  career  was  ruined.  Although  he  was  soon  released 
from  gaol,  all  avenues  to  the  Queen's  favour  were  dosed  to  him. 
He  sought  employment  in  the  wars  in  Ireland,  but  high  command 
was  denied  him.  Helpless  and  hopeless,  he  late  in  1600  joined 
Essex,  another  fallen  favourite,  in  fomenting  a  rebellion  in  Lon- 
don, in  order  to  regain  by  force  the  positions  each  had  forfeited. 
The  attempt  at  insurrection  failed,  and  the  conspirators  stood 
their  trial  on  a  capital  charge  of  treason  on  February  19,  1 600-1. 
Southampton  was  condemned  to  die,  but  the  Queen's  Secretary 
pleaded  with  her  that  'the  poor  young  eari,  merely  for  the  love 

are  appended  to  Barnes's  collection  of  sonnets  and  other  poems  entitled  Parthemilte 
and  Farthenophtl  (c£.  Arber's  Garner,  v.  486).  Barnes  apostrophises  Lady  Brideet  as 
fairest  and  sweetest 

Of  all  those  sweet  and  fair  flowers, 

The  pride  of  chaste  Cynthia's  [i.e.  Queen  Elizabeth's)  rich  crown.' 


YOUTHFUL   CAREER  OF  SOUTHAMPTON  66 1 

of  Essex,  had  been  drawn  into  this  action,'  and  his  punishment 
was  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life.    Further  mitigation  was 
not  to  be  looked  for  while  the  Queen  lived.    But  Essex,   i^prison- 
Southampton's  friend,  had  been  James's  sworn  ally,   ment, 
The  first  act  of  James  I  as  monarch  of  England  was   '^"-s- 
to  set  Southampton  free  (April  lo,  1603).    After  a  confinement 
of  more  than  two  years,  Southampton  resumed,  under  happier 
auspices,  his  place  at  Court. 

Southampton's  later  career  does  not  directly  concern  the  student 
of  Shakespeare's  biography.  After  Shakespeare  had  congratulated 
Southampton  on  his  liberty  in  his  Sonnet  cvii.,  there  ^  ^.^^ 
is  no  trace  of  further  relations  between  them,  although 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  they  remained  friends  to  the  end. 
Southampton  on  his  release  from  prison  was  immediately  installed 
a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  and  was  appointed  governor  of  the  Isle 
of  Wight,  while  an  Act  of  Parliament  relieved  him  of  all  the  dis- 
abilities incident  to  his  conviction  of  treason.  He  was  thenceforth 
a  prominent  figure  in  Court  festivities.  He  twice  danced  a  coranto 
with  the  Queen  at  the  magnificent  entertainment  given  at  White- 
hall on  August  19,  1604,  in  honour  of  the  Constable  of  Castile,  the 
special  ambassador  of  Spain,  who  had  come  to  sign  a  treaty  of 
peace  between  his  sovereign  and  James  I.^  But  home  politics 
proved  no  congenial  field  for  the  exercise  of  Southampton's  energies. 
Quarrels  with  fellow-courtiers  continued  to  jeopardise  his  fortunes. 
With  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  with  Philip  Herbert,  Earl  of  Montgomery, 
and  with  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  he  had  violent  disputes.  It 
was  in  the  schemes  for  colonising  the  New  World  that  Southamp- 
ton found  an  outlet  for  his  impulsive  activity.  He  helped  to  equip 
expeditions  to  Virginia,  and  acted  as  treasurer  of  the  Virginia 
Company.  The  map  of  the  country  commem,orates  his  labours 
as  a  colonial  pioneer.  In  his  honour  were  named  Southampton 
Hundred,  Hampton  River,  and  Hampton  Roads  in  Virginia. 
Finally,  in  the  summer  of  1624,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one,  Southampton, 
with  characteristic  spirit,  took  command  of  a  troop  of  EngUsh 
volunteers  which  was  raised  to  aid  the  Elector  Palatine,  husband 
of  James  I's  daughter  Elizabeth,  in  his  struggle  with  the  Emperor 
and  the  Catholics  of  Central  Europe.  With  him  went  his  eldest 
son,  Lord  Wriothesley.  Both  on  landing  in  the  Low  Countries 
were  attacked  by  fever.  The  younger  man  succumbed  at  once. 
The  Earl  regained  sufficient  strength  to  accompany  his  son's  body 
to  Bergen-op-Zoom,  but  there,  on  November  10,  he  Death  on 
himself  died  of  a  lethargy.  Father  and  son  were  both  Nov.  10, 
buried  in  the  chancel  of  the  church  of  Titchfield,  '*"■*• 
Hampshire,  on  December  28.  Southampton  thus  outhved  Shake- 
speare by  more  than  eight  years. 

1  See  p.  381  and  Ttote. 


IV 

THE  EARL  OE  SOUTHAMPTON  AS  A  LITERARY  PATRON 

Southampton's  close  relations  with  men  of  letters  of  his  time 
give  powerful  corroboration  of  the  theory  that  he  was  the  patron 
whom  Shakespeare  commemorated  in  the  'Sonnets.' 
ton's  rafi?^-  From  earliest  to  latest  manhood  —  throughout  the 
tion  of  dissipations  of  Court  hfe,  amid  the  torments  that  his 

°°  ^'  intrigue  cost  him,  in  the  distractions  of  war  and  travel  — 

the  earl  never  ceased  to  cherish  the  passion  for  Uterature  which 
was  implanted  in  him  in  boyhood.  His  devotion  to  his  old  college, 
St.  John's,  is  characteristic.  When  a  new  library  was  in  course 
of  construction  there  during  the  closing  years  of  his  life,  South- 
ampton collected  books  to  the  value  of  360I.  wherewith  to  furnish 
it.  This  'monument  of  love,'  as  the  College  authorities  described 
the  benefaction,  may  stUl  be  seen  on  the  shelves  of  the  College 
library.  The  gift  largely  consisted  of  illuminated  manuscripts  — 
books  of  hours,  legends  of  the  saints,  and  mediaeval  chronicles. 
Southampton  caused  his  son  to  be  educated  at  St.  John's,  and 
his  wife  expressed  to  the  tutors  the  hope  that  the  boy  would 
'imitate'  his  father  'in  his  love  to  learning  and  to  them.' 

Even  the  State  papers  and  business  correspondence  in  which 
Southampton's  career  is  traced  are  enlivened  by  references  to 
Refer  es  ^'®  Uterary  interests.  Especially  refreshing  are  the 
in  his  letters  active  signs  vouchsafed  there  of  his  sympathy  with 
a.nd°!a \  ^^^  great  birth  of  English  drama.  It  was  with  plays 
pays.  ^j^^^  j^^  joined  other  noblemen  in  1598  in  entertaining 
his  chief.  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  on  the  eve  of  the  departure  for  Paris 
of  that  embassy  in  which  Southampton  served  Cecil  as  a  secretary. 
In  July  following  Southampton  contrived  to  enclose  in  an  official 
despatch  from  Paris  'certain  songs'  which  he  was  anxious  that 
Sir  Robert  Sidney,,  a  friend  of  Uterary  tastes,  should  share  his 
deUght  in  reading.  Twelve  months  later,  while  Southampton 
was  in  Ireland,  a  letter  to  him  from  the  countess  attested  that 
current  literature  was  an  everyday  topic  of  their  private  talk. 
'AU  the  news  I  can  send  you,'  she  wrote  to  her  husband,  'that 
I  think  will  make  you  merry,  is  that  I  read  in  a  letter  from  London 
that  Sir  John  FalstafE  is,  by  his  mistress  Dame  Pintpot,  made 
father  of  a  goodly  miUer's  thumb  —  a  boy  that's  aU  head  and  very 

662 


SOUTHAMPTON  AS  A  LITERARY  PATRON  663 

little  body;  but  this  is  a  secret.' '  This  cryptic  sentence  proves 
on  the  part  of  both  earl  and  countess  familiarity  with  Falstaff's 
adventures  in  Shakespeare'-s  'Henry  IV,'  where  the  fat  knight 
apostrophised  Mrs.  Quickly  as  'good  pint  pot'  (Pt.  I.  n.  iv.  443). 
Who  the  acquaintances  were  about  whom  the  countess  jested 
thus  hghtly  does  not  appear,  but  that  Sir  John,  the  father  of  'the 
boy  that  was  all  head  and  very  little  body,'  was  a  playful  allusion 
to  Sir  John's  creator  is  by  no  means  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility. 
In  the  letters  of  Sir  Tobie  Matthew,  many  of  which  were  written 
very  early  in  the  seventeenth  century  (although  first  pubUshed 
in  1660),  the  sobriquet  of  Sir  John  Falstaff  seems  to  have  been 
bestowed  on  Shakespeare:  'As  that  excellent  author  Sir  John 
Falstaff  sayes,  "what  for  your  businesse,  news,  device,  foolerie, 
and  hbertie,  I  never  dealt  better  since  I  was  a  man.'"  ''■ 

When,  after  leaving  Ireland,  Southampton  spent  the  autumn 
of  1599  in  London,  it  was  recorded  that  he  and  his  friend  Lord 
Rutland  'come  not  to  Court'  but  'pass  away  the  time  His  love  of 
merely  in  going  to  plays  every  day.' '  It  seems  that  ""  theatre, 
the  fascination  that  the  drama  had  for  Southampton  and  his 
friends  led  them  to  exaggerate  the  influence  that  it  was  capable 
of  exerting  on  the  emotions  of  the  multitude.  Southampton  and 
Essex  in  February  1601  requisitioned  and  paid  for  the  revival  of 
Shakespeare's  'Richard  II'  at  the  Globe  Theatre  on  the  day  pre- 
ceding that  fixed  for  their  insurrection,  in  the  hope  that  the  play- 
scene  of  the  deposition  of  a  king  might  excite  the  citizens  of 
London  to  countenance  their  rebeUious  design.^  Imprisonment 
sharpened  Southampton's  zest  for  the  theatre.  Within  a  year  of 
his  release  from  the  Tower  in  1603  he  entertained  Queen  Anne  of 
Denmark  at  his  house  in  the  Strand,  and  Burbage  and  his  fellow 
players,  one  of  whom  was  Shakespeare,  were  bidden  present  the 
'old'  play  of  'Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  whose  'wit  and  mirth'  were 
calculated  'to  please  her  Majesty  exceedingly.' ' 

But  these  are  merely  accidental  testimonies  to  Southampton's 
literary  predilections.  It  is  in  literature  itself,  not  in  the  prosaic 
records  of  his  political  or  domestic  life,  that  the  amplest  Poetic 
proofs  survive  of  his  devotion  to  letters.  From  the  adulation, 
hour  that,  as  a  handsome  and  accomplished  lad,  he  joined  the 
Court  and  made  London  his  chief  home,  authors  acknowledged 
his  appreciation  of  literary  effort  of  almost  every  quahty  and 
form.  He  had  in  his  Italian  tutor  Florio,  whose  circle  of  acquaint- 
ance included  aU  men  of  literary  reputation,  a  mentor  who  allowed 
no  work  of  promise  to  escape  his  observation.    Every  note  in  the 

'  The  original  letter  is  at  Hatfield.  The  whole  is  printed  in  Historical  Manuscripts 
Commission,  3rd  Rep.  p.  145.  ,    .       „         „,  „  . 

'  The  quotation  is  a  confused  reminiscence  of  Falstatf  s  remarks  in  /  Henry  IV,  II.  iv. ' 
The  last  nine  words  are  an  exact  quotation  of  lines  1 90-1. 

'Sidney  Papers,  ii.  r32.  *  See  pp.  254-5-  '  See  p.  383  supra. 


664  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

scale  of  adulation  was  sounded  in  Southampton's  honour  in  con- 
temporary prose  and  verse.  Soon  after  the  pubUcation,  in  April 
1593,  of  Shakespeare's  'Venus  and  Adonis,'  with  its  salutation  of 
Southampton,  a  more  youthful  apprentice  to  the  poet's 
BaSls's  craft,  Barnabe  Barnes,  confided  to  a  published  sonnet 
sonnet,  1593.  of  unrestrained  fervour  his  conviction  that  South- 
ampton's eyes  —  'those  heavenly  lamps'  —  were  the  only  sources 
of  true  poetic  inspiration.  The  sonnet,  which  is  superscribed  'to 
the  Right  Noble  and  Virtuous  Lord,  Henry,  Earl  of  Southampton,' 

nms : 

Receive,  sweet  Lord,  with  thy  thnce  sacred  hand 

(Which  sacred  Muses  make  their  instrument) 

These  worthless  leaves,  which  I  to  thee  present, 
Sprung  from  a  rude  ^nd  unmanurM  land 
That  with  your  countenance  graced,  they  may  withstand 

Hundred-eyed  Envy's  rough  encounterment. 

Whose  patronage  can  give  encouragement, 
To  scorn  back-wounding  Zoilus  his  band. 
Vouchsafe,  right  virtuous  Lord,  with  gracious  eyes  — 
Those  heavenly  lamps  which  give  the  Muses  Ught, 
Which  give  and  take  in  course  that  holy  fire  — 
To  view  my  Muse  with  your  judicial  sight : 
Whom,  when  time  shall  have  taught,  by  flight,  to  rise. 
Shall  to  thy  virtues,  of  much  worth,  aspire. 

Next  year  a  writer  of  greater  power,  Tom  Nashe,  evinced 
little  less  enthusiasm  when  dedicating  to  the  earl  his  masterly 
TomNashe's  essay  in  romance,  'The  Life  of  Jack  WUton.'  He 
addresses.  describes  Southampton,  who  was  then  scarcely  of 
age,  as  '  a  dear  lover  and  cherisher  as  well  of  the  lovers  of  poets 
as  of  the  poets  themselves.'  'A  new  brain,'  he  exclaims,  'a  new 
wit,  a  new  style,  a  new  soul,  will  I  get  me,  to  canonise  your  name  to 
posterity,  if  in  this  my  first  attempt  I  be  not  taxed  of  presumption.'^ 
Although  'Jack  Wilton'  was  the  first  book  Nashe  formally  dedi- 
cated to  Southampton,  it  is  probable  that  Nashe  had  made  an 
earlier  bid  for  the  earl's  patronage.  In  a  digression  at  the  close 
of  his  '  Pierce  PennUesse '  he  grows  eloquent  in  praise  of  one  whom 
he  entitles  'the  matchless  image  of  honour  and  magnificent  re- 

1  See  Nashe's  Works,  ed.  Mckerrow,  ii.  201.  The  whole  passage  runs :  'How  wel  or  iU 
I  haue  done  in  it,  I  am  ignorant:  (the  eye  that  sees  round  about  it  selfe  sees  not  into  it 
selfe) :  only  your  Honours  applauding  encouragement  hath  power  to  make  mee  arrogant. 
Incomprehensible  is  the  hei|th  of  your  spirit  both  in  heroical  resolution  and  matters  of 
conceit.  Vnrepriueably  pensheth  that  booke  whatsoeuer  to  wast  paper,  which  on  the 
diamond  rocke  of  your  iudgement  disasterly  chanceth  to  be  shipwradtt.  A  dere  loner 
and  cherisher  you  are,  as  well  of  the  loners  of  Poets,  as  of  Poets  them  seines.  Amongst 
their  sacred  number  I  dare  not  ascribe  my  selfe,  though  now  and  then  I  speak  English: 
that  smal  braine  I  haue,  to  no  further  vse  I  conuert  saue  to  be  kmde  to  my  frends,  and 
fatall  to  my  enemies.  A  new  brain,  a  new  wit,  a  new  stile,  a  new  soule  will  I  get  mee  to 
canonize  your  name  to  posteritie,  if  in  this  my  first  attempt  I  be  not  taxed  of  presump- 
tion. Of  your  ^acious  fauor  I  despaire  not,  for  I  am  not  altogether  Fames  out-cast.  .  .  . 
Your  Lordship  is  the  large  spreading  branch  of  renown,  from  whence  these  my  idle  leaues 
seeke  to  deriue  their  whole  nourishing.' 


SOUTHAMPTON  AS  A  LITERARY  PATRON  665 

warder  of  vertue,  Jove's  eagle-borne  Ganimede,  thrice  noble 
Amintas.'  In  a  sonnet  addressed  to  'this  renowned  lord,'  who 
'draws  all  hearts  to  his  love,'  Nashe  expresses  regret  that  the  great 
poet,  Edmund  Spenser,  had  omitted  to  celebrate  'so  special  a 
pillar  of  nobility '  in  the  series  of  adulatory  sonnets  prefixed  to  the 
'Faerie  Queene' ;  and  in  the  last  lines  of  his  sonnet  Nashe  suggests 
that  Spenser  suppressed  the  nobleman's  name 

Because  few  words  might  not  comprise  thy  fame.^ 

Southampton  was  beyond  doubt  the  nobleman  in  question.  It 
is  certain,  too,  that  the  Earl  of  Southampton  was  among  the  young 
men  for  whom  Nashe,  in  hope  of  gain,  as  he  admitted,  penned 
'amorous  viUaneUos  and  qui  passas.'  One  of  the  least  reputable 
of  these  efforts  of  Nashe  survives  in  an  obscene  love-poem  entitled 
'The  Choise  of  Valentines,'  which  may  be  dated  in  1595.  Not 
only  was  this  dedicated  to  Southampton  in  a  prefatory  sonnet, 
but  in  an  epilogue,  again  in  the  form  of  a  sonnet,  Nashe  addressed 
his  young  patron  as  his  friend.'  ^ 

^  The  complimentary  title  of  'Amyntas/  which  was  naturalised  in  English  literature 
by  Abraham  Fraunce's  two  renderings  of  Tasso's  Aminta  —  one  direct  from  the  Italian 
and  the  other  from  the  Latin  version  of  Thomas  Watson  —  was  apparently  bestowed  by 
Spenser  on  the  Earl  of  Derby  in  his  Colin  Clouts  come  home  againe  (iS9S);  and  some 
critics  assume  tliat  Nashe  referred  in  Pierce  Pennilesse  to  that  nobleman  rather  than  to 
Southampton.  But  Nashe's  comparison  of  his  i)aragon  to  Ganymede  suggests  extreme 
youth,  and  Southampton  was  nineteen  in  1592  while  Derby  was  thirty-three.  '  Amyntas* 
as  a  complimentary  designation  was  widely  used  by  the  poets,  and  was  not  applied  ex- 
clusively to  any  one  patron  of  letters.  It  was  bestowed  on  the  poet  Watson  by  Richard 
Barnfield  and  by  other  of  Watson's  panegyrists. 
"  ,,  '  Two  manuscript  copies  of  the  poem,  which  was  printed  (privately)  for  the  first  time, 
under  the  editorship  of  Mr.  John  S.  Farmer,  in  1899,  are  extant  —  one  among  the  Raw- 
linson  poetical  manuscripts  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  and  the  other  among  the  manuscripts 
in  the  Inner  Temple  Library  (No.  538).  The  opening  dedicatory  sonnet,  which  is  in- 
scribed 'to  the  right  honorable  the  Lord  S[outhampton]'  runs: 

'Pardon,  sweete  flower  of  matchles  poetrye. 

And  fairest  bud  the  red  rose  euer  bare. 
Although  my  muse,  devorst  from  deeper  care. 

Presents  mee  with  a  wanton  Elegie. 
'Ne  blame  my  verse  of  loose  unchastitye 

For  painting  forth  the  things  that  bidden  are. 
Since  all  men  act  what  I  in  speeche  declare, 

Onlie  induced  with  varietie. 
'Complaints  and  praises,  every  one  can  write, 
■  And  passion  out  their  pangs  in  statlie_  rimes; 
But  of  loues  pleasures  none  did  euer  write. 

That  have  succeeded  in  theis  latter  times. 
'Accept  of  it,  deare  Lord,  in  gentle  gree. 
And  better  lines,  ere  long  shall  honor  thee. 

The  poem  follows  in  about  three  hundred  lines,  and  is  succeeded  by  a  second  sonnet 
addressed  by  Nashe  to  his  patron ; 

'  Thus  hath  my  penne  presum'd  to  please  my  friend. 

Oh  mightst  thou  lykewisej)lease_  Apollo's  eye. 
No,  Honor  brookes  no  such  mipietie. 

Yet  Ovid's  wanton  muse  did  not  offend. 
'He  is  the  fountaiue  whence  my^treames  do  flowe  — 

Forgive  me  if  I  speak  as  I  was  taught; 


666  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Meanwhile,  in  1595,  the  versatile  Gervase  Markhani  inscribed 
to  Southampton,  in  a  sonnet,  his  patriotic  poem  on  Sir  Richard 
Markham's  GrenviUe's  glorious  fight  off  the  Azores.  Markham 
sonnet,  1595.  was  not  content  to  acknowledge  with  Barnes  the  in- 
spiriting force  of  his  patron's  eyes,  but  with  blasphemous  temerity- 
asserted  that  the  sweetness  of  his  lips,  which  stilled  the  music  of 
the  spheres,  delighted  the  ear  of  Ahnighty  God.  Markham's 
sonnet  runs  somewhat  haltingly  thus : 

Thou  glorious  laurel  of  the  Muses'  hill, 

Whose  eyes  doth  crown  the  most  victorious  pen, 
Bright  lamp  of  virtue,  in  whose  sacred  skiU 

Lives  all  the  bliss  of  ear-enchanting  men, 
From  graver  subjects  of  thy  grave  assays, 

Bend  thy  courageous  thoughts  unto  these  lines  — 
The  grave  from  whence  my  humble  Muse  doth  raise 
True  honour's  sphit  in  her  rough  designs  — 
And  when  the  stubborn  stroke  of  my  harsh  song 
Shall  seasonless  glide  through  Almighty  ears 
Vouchsafe  to  sweet  it  with  thy  bless6d  tongue 
Whose  weU-tuned  sound  stills  music  in  the  spheres ; 

So  shall  my  tragic  lays  be  blest  by  thee 

And  from  thy  lips  suck  their  eternity. 

Subsequently,  Fldrio,   in   associating   the  earl's  name  with  his 
great  Italian-English  dictionary  —  the  '  Worlde  of  Wordes '  —  more 
Fiorio's         soberly  defined  the  earl's  place  in  the  republic  of  letters 
address.         when  he  wrote :  'As  to  me  and  many  more  the  glorious 
and  gracious  sunshine  of  your  honour  hath  infused  light  and  life.'  ^ 
A  tribute  which  Thomas  Heywood,  the  dramatist  and  Shake- 
Alike  to  women,  utter  all  I  knowe, 
As  longing  to  unlade  so  bad  a  fraught. 
'My  mynde  once  purg'd  of  such  lascivious  witt. 

With  purifiM  words  and  hallowed  verse, 

Thy  praises  in  large  volumes  shall  rehearse. 

That  better  male  thy  grauer  view  befitt. 

'Meanwhile  ytt  rests,  you  smile  at  what  I  write 

Or  for  attempting  banish  me  your  sight. 

'Thomas  Nasee.' 

■  In  IS97  William  Burton  (1575-1645)  dedicated  to  Southampton  his  tragslation  of 
Achilles  Tatius  —  a  very  rare  book  (cf.  Times  Lit.  Suppl.  Feb.  10, 1905).  In  1600  Edward 
Blount,  a  professional  friend  of  the  publisher  Thorpe,  dedicated  one  of  his  publications 
(r/te  Bistorie  of  the  Uniting  of  the  Kingdom  of  Portugall  to  the  Crowne  of  CastiU)  'to  the 
most  noble  and  aboundant  president  both  of  Honor  and  Vertue,  Henry  Earle  of  South- 
ampton.' 'In  such  proper  and  plaine  language'  (Blount  wrote  'to  the  right  honourable 
and  worthy  Earl')  'as  a  most  humble  and  affectionate  duetie  I  doo  heere  offer  upon  the 
altar  of  my  hart,  the  first  fruits  of  my  long  growing  endevors;  which  (with  much  con- 
stancie  and  coniidence)  I  have  cherished,  onely  waitmg  this  happy  opportunity  to  m^e 
them  manifest  to  your  Lordship :  where  now  if  (in  respect  of  the  knowne  distance  betwixt 
the  height  of  your  Honorable  spirit  and  the  flatnesse  of  my  poofe  abilities)  they  tume 
into  smoake  and  vanish  ere  they  can  reach  a  de^ee  of  your  merite,  vouchsafe  yet  (most 
excellent  Earle)  to  remember  it  was  a  fire  that  kindled  them  and  gave  them  life  at  least, 
if  not  lasting.  Your  Honor's  patronage  is  the  onely  object  I  aune  at;  and  were  the 
worthinesse  of  this  Historic  I  present  sudi  as  might  warrant  me  an  election  out  of  a  worlde 
of  nobilitie,  I  woulde  still  pursue  the  happines  of  my  first  choise.' 


SOUTHAMPTON  AS  A  LITERARY   PATRON  667 

speare's    friend,    rendered    the   Earl's    memory   just    after    his 
death,  suggests  that  Heywood  was  an  early  member  of  that 
circle  of  poetic   clients  whom  Florio  had  in  mind,   jijomas 
In  'A  Funeral  Elegie  upon  the  death  of  King  James'   Heywood's 
which  Heywood  pubhshed  in  1625  within  a  few  months  '"'>"'=• 
of  Southampton's  death  he  thus  commemorates  his  relations  with 
Southampton : 

Henry,  Southampton's  Earle,  a  souldier  proved, 
Dreaded  in  wane,  and  in  milde  peace  beloved : 
O !  give  me  leave  a  little  to  resound 
His  memory,  as  most  in  dutie  bound, 
Because  his  servant  once. 

The  precise  significance  which  attaches  to  the  word  'servant'  in 
He3rwood's  lines  is  an  open  question.  Hesrwood  was  a  prominent 
actor  as  well  as  dramatist,  and  his  earUest  theatrical  patron  was  the 
Earl  of  Worcester,  to  whom  he  dedicates  his  elegy  on  King  James. 
There  is  no  evidence  that  Southampton  took  any  company  of 
actors  under  his  patronage,  and  Heywood  when  he  calls  himself 
Southampton's  'servant  once'  was  doubtless  vaguely  recaUing  his 
association  with  the  Earl  as  one  of  his  many  poetic  clients.^ 

The  most  notable  contribution  to  this  chorus  of  praise  is  to 
be  found,  as  I  have  already  argued,  in  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets.' 
The  same  note  of  eulogy  was  sounded  by  men  of  letters  ^j^^  ^^_ 
until  Southampton's  death.    When  he  was  released  gratuiations 
from  prison  on  James  I's  accession  in  April   1603,  ^^^s"*** 
his  praises  in  poets'  mouths  were  especially  abundant. 
Not  only  was  that  grateful  incident  celebrated  by  Shakespeare 
in  what  is  probably  the  latest  of  his  'Sonnets'  (No.  cvii.),  but 
Samuel  Daniel  and  John  Davies  of  Hereford  offered  the  Earl 
congratulation  in  more  prolonged  strains.    Daniel  addressed  to 
Southampton  many  hues  like  these : 

The  world  had  never  taken  so  full  note 
Of  what  thou  art,  hadst  thou  not  been  undone  : 

'And  only  thy  affliction  hath  begot 

More  fame  than  thy  best  fortunes  could  have  won; 

For  ever  by  adversity  are  wrought 

The  greatest  works  of  admiration : 

And  all  the  fair  examples  of  renown 

Out  of  distress  and  misery  are  grown ;  .  .  . 

Only  the  best-compos'd  and  worthiest  hearts 

God  sets  to  act  the  hard'st  and  constant'st  parts." 


'  J.  P.  Collier's  Bibliographical  Account  of  Early  English  LiteraPure,  i.  371-; 
'  Daniel's  Certaine  Epistles,  1603 :  see  Daniel's  Works,  ed,  Grosart,  1.  217  i 


■3- 
seq. 


668  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Davies  was  more  jubilant : 

Now  wisest  men  with  mirth  do  seem  stark  mad, 
And  cannot  choose  —  their  hearts  are  all  so  glad. 
Then  let's  be  merry  in  our  God  and  King, 
That  made  us  merry,  being  ill  bestead. 
Southampton,  up  thy  cap  to  Heaven  fling. 
And  on  the  viol  there  sweet  praises  sing. 
For  he  is  come  that  grace  to  all  doth  bring.' 

Many  like  praises,  some  of  later  date,  by  Henry  Locke  (or 
Lok),  George  Chapman,  Joshua  Sylvester,  Richard  Brathwaite, 
George  Wither,  Sir  John  Beaumont,  and  others  could  be  quoted. 
Musicians  as  well  as  poets  acknowledged  his  cultivated  tastes,  and 
a  popular  piece  of  instrumental  music  which  Captain  Tobias  Hume 
included  in  his  volume  of  'Poetical  Musicke'  in  1607  bore  the  title 
of  'The  Earl  of  Southamptons  favoret.' "  Sir  John  Beaumont, 
on  Southampton's  death,  wrote  an  elegy  which  panegyrises  him  in 
the  varied  capacities  of  warrior,  councillor,  courtier,  father,  and 
husband.  But  it  is  as  a  literary  patron  that  Beaumont  insists 
that  he  chiefly  deserves  remembrance : 

I  keep  that  glory  last  which  is  the  best, 
The  love  of  learning  which  he  oft  expressed 
In  conversation,  and  respect  to  those 
Who  had  a  name  in  arts,  in  verse  or  prose. 

To  the  same  effect  are  some  twenty  poems  which  were  pub- 
lished in  1624,  just  after  Southampton's  death,  in  a  volume  en- 
Eieeieson  titled  'Teares  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  shed  on  theTombe 
South-  of  their  most  noble  valorous  and  loving  Captaine  and 

ampton.  Govemour,  the  right  honorable  Henrie,  Earl  of  South- 
ampton.' The  keynote  is  struck  in  the  opening  stanza  of  the 
first  poem  by  one  Francis  Beale : 

Ye  famous  poets  of  the  southern  isle, 
Strain  forth  the  raptures  of  your  tragic  muse. 
And  with  your  Laureate  pens  come  and  compile 
The  praises  due  to  this  great  Lord :  peruse 
His  globe  of  worth,  and  eke  his  vertues  brave. 
Like  learned  Maroes  at  Mecaenas'  grave. 

1  See  Preface  to  Davies's  Microcosmos,  1603  (Davies's  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  i.  14). 
At  the  end  of  Davies's  Microcosmos  there  is  also  a  congratulatory  sonnet  addressed  to 
Southampton  on  his  liberation  (i6.  p.  96),  beginning: 

'Welcome  to  shore,  unhappy-happy  Lord, 
From  the  deep  seas  of  danger  and  distress 
There  like  thou  wast  to  be  thrown  overboard 
In  every  storm  of  discontentedness,' 

*  Other  pieces  in  the  collection  bore  such  titles  as  'The  Earle  of  Sussex  delight,'  'The 
Lady  Arabellas  favoret,'  'The  Earl  of  Pembrokes  Galiard,'  and  'Sir  Christopher  Hattons 
Choice'  (cf.  Rimbault,  Bibliotheca  Madrigalia,  p.  25). 


THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THOMAS  THORPE  AND   'MR.  W.   H.' 

fe  TO  .  THE  .  ONLIE  .  BEGETTER  .  OF  . 

li';'  THESE  .  INSVING  .  SONNETS  . 

I  (  MR  .  W  .  H  .  ALL  .  HAPPINESSE  . 

AND  .  THAT  .  ETERNITIE  . 
PROMISED  . 
BY  . 
OtTR  .  EVER-LIVING  .  POET  . 
WISHETH  . 
THE  .  WELL-WISHING  . 
ADVENTURER  .  IN  . 
SETTING  . 
FORTH  . 

T.  T. 

In  1598  Francis  Meres  enumerated  among  Shakespeare's  best 
known  works  his  'sugar'd  sonnets  among  his  private  friends.' 
None  of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  are  known  to  have 
been  in  print  when  Meres  wrote,  but  they  were  doubt-  tion  lithT 
less  in  circulation  in  manuscript.  In  1599  two  of  ISonnets' 
them  were  printed  for  the  first  time  by  the  publisher,  " '  °^' 
Wilham  Jaggard,  in  the  opening  pages  of  the  first  edition  of  'The 
Passionate  PUgrim.'  On,  January  3,  1599-1600,  Eleazar  Edgar, 
a  pubUsher  of  small  account,  obtained  a  license  for  the  pubhcation 
of  a  work  bearing  the  title  'A  Booke  called  Amours  by  J.  D., 
with  certein  other  Sonnetes  by  W.  S.'  No  book  answering  this 
description  is  extant.  In  any  case  it  is  doubtful  if  Edgar's  venture 
concerned  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets.'  It  is  more  probable  that  his 
'W.  S.'  was  William  Smith,  who  had  published  a  collection  of 
sonnets  entitled  'Chloris'  in  1596.^  On  May  20,  1609,  a  Hcense 
for  the  publication  of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  was  granted  by 
the  Stationers'  Company  to  a  publisher  named  Thomas  Thorpe, 

1  Amours  of  J.  D.  were  doubtless  sonnets  by  Sir  John  Davies,  of  which  only  a  few 
llaye  reached  us.  There  is  no  ground  for  J.  P.  Collier's  su^^estion  that  J.  D.  was  a  mis- 
I>rint  for  M.  D.,  i.e.  Michael  Drayton,  who  gave  the  first  edition  of  his  sonnets  in  1594  the 
title  of  A  mours.  That  word  was  in  France  a  common  designation  of  collections  of  sonnets 
(cf.  Drayton's  Poems,  ed.  Collier,  Roxburghe  Club,  p.  xxv). 

669 


670  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

and  shortly  afterwards  the  complete  collection  as  they  have  reached 
us  was  published  by  Thorpe  for  the  first  time.i  To  the  volume 
Thorpe  prefixed  a  dedication  in  the  terms  which  are  printed  above. 
The  words  are  fantastically  arranged.  In  ordinary  grammatical 
order  they  would  run:  'The  well-wishing  adventurer  in  setting 
forth  [i.e.  the  publisher]  T[homas]  T[horpe]  wisheth  Mr.  W.  H., 
the  only  begetter  of  these  ensuing  sonnets,  all  happiness  and  that 
eternity  promised  by  our  ever-hving  poet.' 

Few  books  of  the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century  were  ushered 
into  the  world  without  a  dedication.  In  most  cases  it  was  the 
work  of  the  author,  but  numerous  volumes,  besides  Shakespeare's 
'Sonnets,'  are  extant  in  which  the  publisher  (and  not  the  author) 
fills  the  rSle  of  dedicator.  The  cause  of  the  substitution  is  not 
far  to  seek.  The  signing  of  the  dedication  was  an  assertion  of 
fuU  and  responsible  ownership  in  the  pubhcation,  and  the  publisher 
in  Shakespeare's  hfetime  was  the  full  and  responsible  owner  of  a 
publication  quite  as  often  as  the  author.'  The  modern  conception 
of  copyright  had  not  yet  been  evolved.  Whoever  in  the  sixteenth 
or  early  seventeenth  century  was  in  actual  possession  of  a  manu- 
script was  for  practical  purposes  its  fuU  and  responsible  owner. 
Literary  work  largely  circulated  in  manuscript.^  Scriveners 
made  a  precarious  Uvelihood  by  multiplying  written  copies,  and 
an  enterprising  pubhsher  had  many  opportunities  of  becoming 
the  owner  of  a  popular  book  without  the  author's  sanction  or 
knowledge.  When  a  volume  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  or  James  I 
was  published  independently  of  the  author,  the  pubhsher  exercised 
unchallenged  all  the  owner's  rights,  not  the  least  valued  of  which 
was  that  of  choosing  the  patron  of  the  enterprise,  and  of  pen- 
Publishers'  ning  the  dedicatory  compliment  above  his  signature, 
dedications.  Occasionally  circumstances  might  speciously  justify 
the  pubhsher's  appearance  in  the  guise  of  a  dedicator.  In  the  case 
of  a  posthumous  book  it  sometimes  happened  that  the  author's 
friends  renounced  ownership  or  neglected  to  assert  it.  In  other 
instances,  the  absence  of  an  author  from  London  while  his  work 
was  passing  through  the  press  might  throw  on  the  pubhsher  the 
task  of  supplying  the  dedication  without  exposing  him  to  any 
charge  of  sharp  practice.  But  as  a  rule  one  of  only  two  inferences 
is  possible  when  a  pubhsher's  name  figured  at  the  foot  of  a  dedica- 
tory epistle:  either  the  author  was  ignorant  of  the  publisher's 
design,  or  he  had  refused  to  countenance  it,  and  was  openly  defied. 
In  the  case  of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  it  may  safely  be  assumed 
that  Shakespeare  received  no  notice  of  Thorpe's  intention  of  pub- 
Ushing  the  work,  and  that  it  was  owing  to  the  author's  ingnorance 

'  A  full  account  of  Thorpe's  relations  with  the  Sonnets  appears  in  my  introduction  to 
the  facsimile  of  the  original  edition  (Clarendon  Press,  1905). 
2  See  note  to  p.  158  supra. 


THOMAS   THORPE  AND   'MR.   W.   H.'  671 

of  the  design  that  the  dedica'tion  was  composed  and  signed  by  the 
'well-wishing  adventurer  in  setting  forth.' 

But  whether  author  or  publisher  chose  the  patron  of  his  wares, 
the  choice  was  determined  by  much  the  same  considerations. 
Self-interest  was  the  principle  underlying  transactions  between 
literary  patron  and  protegS.  Publisher,  like  author,  commonly 
chose  as  patron  a  man  or  woman  of  wealth  and  social  influence 
who  might  be  expected  to  acknowledge  the  compliment  either  by 
pecuniary  reward  or  by  friendly  advertisement  of  the  volume  in 
their  own  social  circle.  At  times  the  publisher,  slightly  extending 
the  field  of  choice,  selected  a  personal  friend  or  mercantile  ac- 
quaintance who  had  rendered  him  some  service  in  trade  or  pri- 
vate life,  and  was  likely  to  appreciate  such  general  expressions  of 
good  will  as  were  the  accepted  topic  of  dedications.  Nothing  that 
was  fantastic  or  mysterious  entered  into  the  Elizabethan  or  the 
Jacobean  publishers'  shrewd  schemes  of  business,  and  it  may 
be  asserted  with  confidence  that  it  was  in  the  everyday  prosaic 
conditions  of  current  literary  traffic  that  the  pubUsher  Thorpe, 
selected  'Mr.  W.  H.'  as  the  patron  of  the  original  edition  of  Shake- 
speare's 'Sonnets.' 

A  study  of  Thorpe's  character  and  career  clears  the  point  of 
doubt.  Thorpe  has  been  described  as  a  native  of  Warwickshire, 
Shakespeare's  county,  and  a  man  eminent  in  his  pro-  Thorpe's 
fession.  He  was  neither.  He  was  a  native  of  Barnet  early  life, 
in  Middlesex,  where  his  father  kept  an  inn,  and  he  himself  through 
thirty  years'  experience  of  the  book  trade  held  his  own  with 
difficulty  in  its  himiblest  ranks.  He  enjoyed  the  customary  pre- 
liminary training.'  At  midsummer  1584  he  was  apprenticed  for 
nine  years  to  a  reputable  printer  and  stationer,  Richard  Watkins.^ 
Nearly  ten  years  later  he  took  up  the  freedom  of  the  Stationers' 
Company,  and  was  thereby  qualified  to  set  up  as  a  publisher  on 
his  own  accoimt.'  He  was  not  destitute  of  a  taste  for  literature ; 
he  knew  scraps  of  Latin,  and  recognised  a  good  manuscript  when 
he  saw  one.  But  the  ranks  of  London  publishers  were  over- 
crowded, and  such  accomplishments  as  Thorpe  possessed  were 
poor  compensation  for  a  lack  of  capital  or  of  family  connections 
among  those  already  established  in  the  trade.^  For  many  years 
he  contented  himself  with  an  obscure  situation  as  assistant  or 
clerk  to  a  stationer  more  favourably  placed. 

It  was  as  the  self-appointed  procurer  and  owner  of  an  unprinted 
manuscript  —  a  recognised  rSle  for  novices  to  fill  in  the  book  trade 

'  The  details  of  his  career  are  drawn  from  Mr.  Arber's  Transcript  of  the  Registers  of  the 
Stationers'  Company.  „   ,. 

2  Arber,  ii.  124-  ,  ">.-  "■  ^'A  , 

*  A  younger  brother,  Richard,  was  apprenticed  to  a  stationer,  Martin  Ensor,  for  seven 
years  from  August  24,  1596,  but  he  disappeared  before  gaining  the  freedom  of  the  com- 
Dany,  either  dying  young  or  seeking  another  occupation  (cf.  Arber  s  Iranscript,  u.  213). 


672  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  period  — that  Thorpe  made  his  first  distinguishable  appear- 
ance on  the  stage  of  literary  history.  In  1600  there  fell  into  his 
His  owner-  hands  in  an  unexplained  manner  a  written  copy  of 
ship  of  the  Marlowe's  imprinted  translation  of  the  first  book  of 
S  Marlowe's  'Lucan.'  Thorpe  confided  his  good  fortune  to  Edward 
'Lucan.'  Blount,  then  a  stationer's  assistant  like  himself,  but 
with  better  prospects.  Blount  had  already  achieved  a  modest 
success  in  the  same  capacity  of  procurer  or  picker-up  of  neglected 
'copy.'  ^  In  1598  he  became  proprietor  of  Marlowe's  unfinished 
and  unpublished  'Hero  and  Leander,'  and  found  among  better- 
equipped  friends  in  the  trade  both  a  printer  and  a  publisher  for 
his  treasure-trove.  Blount  good-naturedly  interested  himself 
in  Thorpe's  'find,'  and  it  was  through  Blount's  good  offices  that 
Peter  Short  undertook  to  print  Thorpe's  manuscript  of  Marlowe's 
'Lucan,'  and  Walter  Burre  agreed  to  sell  it  at  his  shop  in  St.  Paul's 
Churchyard.  As  owner  of  the  manuscript  Thorpe  exerted  the 
right  of  choosing  a  patron  for  the  venture  and  of  supplying  the 
Hisdedica-  dedicatory  epistle.  The  patron  of  his  choice  was 
tory  address  his  friend  Blount,  and  he  made  the  dedication  the 
Blount"  vehicle  of  his  gratitude  for  the  assistance  he  had 
in  1600.  just  received.  The  style  of  the  dedication  was  some- 
what bombastic,  but  Thorpe  showed  a  literary  sense  when  he 
designated  Marlowe  'that  pure  elemental  wit,'  and  a  good  deal 
of  dry  humour  in  offering  to  'his  kind  and  true  friend'  Blount 
'some  few  instructions'  whereby  he  might  accommodate  himself 
to  the  unaccustomed  rdle  of  patron.^  For  the  conventional  type 
of  patron  Thorpe  disavowed  respect.  He  preferred  to  place 
himself  under  the  protection  of  a  friend  in  the  trade  whose  good 
will  had  already  stood  him  in  good  stead,  and  was  capable  of 
benefiting  him  hereafter. 

This  venture  laid  the  foundation  of  Thorpe's  fortunes.  Three 
years  later  he  was  able  to  place  his  own  name  on  the  title-page 
of  two  humbler  literary  prizes  —  each  an  insignificant  pamphlet 
on  current  events.'  Thenceforth  for  a  dozen  years  his  name 
reappeared  annually  on  one,  two,  or  three  volumes.  After  1614 
his  operations  were  few  and  far  between,  and  they  ceased  altogether 
in  1624.    He  seems  to  have  ended  his  days  in  poverty,  and  has 

^  Cf.  my  paper  'An  Elizabethan  Bookseller'  in  Bihliographica,  i.  474-98. 

^  Thorpe  gives  a  sarcastic  description  of  a  typical  patron,  and  amply  attests  the  purely 
commercial  relations  ordinarily  subsisting  between  dedicator  and  dedicatee.  'When  I 
bring  you  the  book,'  he  advises  Blount,  *  take  physic  and  keep  state.  Assign  me  a  time 
by  your  man  to  come  again.  .  .  .  Censure  scornfully  enough  and  somewhat  like  a  travel- 
ler. Commend  nothing  lest  you  discredit  your  (that  which  you  would  seem  to  have) 
judgment.  .  .  .  One  special  virtue  in  our  patrons  of  these  days  I  have  promised  myself 
you  shall  fit  excellently,  which  is  to  give  nothing.'  Finally  Thorpe,  changing  his  tone, 
challenges  his  patron's  love  'both  in  this  and,  I  hope,  many  more  succeeding  offices.' 

3  One  gave  an  account  of  the  East  India  Company's  fleet ;  the  other  reported  a  speech 
delivered  Dy  Richard  Martin,  M.P.,  to  James  I  at  Stamford  Hill  during  the  royal  progress 
to  London. 


THOMAS  THORPE  AND   'MR.   W.   H."  673 

been  identified  with  the  Thomas  Thorpe  who  was  granted  an 
alms-room  in  the  hospital  of  Ewelme,  Oxfordshire,  on  December  3, 
1635-' 

Thorpe  was  associated  with  the  pubUcation  of  twenty-nine 
volumes  in  all,''  including  Marlowe's  'Lucan';  but  in  almost  all 
his  operations  his  personal  energies  were  confined,  character 
as  in  his  initial  enterprise,  to  procuring  the  manuscript,  of  his 
For  a  short  period  in  1608  he  occupied  a  shop.  The  business. 
Tiger's  Head,  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  and  the  fact  was  duly 
announced  on  the  title-pages  of  three  publications  which  he  issued 
in  that  year.'  But  his  other  undertakings  were  described  on  their 
title-pages  as  printed  for  him  by  one  stationer  and  sold  for  him  by 
another ;  and  when  any  address  found  mention  at  all,  it  was  the 
shopkeeper's  address,  and  not  his  own.  He  never  enjoyed  in 
permanence  the  profits  or  dignity  of  printing  his  'copy'  at  a  press 
of  his  own,  or  selling  books  on  premises  of  his  own,  and  he  can  claim 
the  distinction  of  having  pursued  in  this  homeless  fashion  the 
well-defined  profession  of  procurer  of  manuscripts  for  a  longer 
period  than  any  other  known  member  of  the  Stationers'  Company. 
Though  many  others  began  their  career  in  that  capacity,  all  except 
Thorpe,  as  far  as  they  can  be  traced,  either  developed  into  printers 
or  booksellers,  or,  failing  in  that,  betook  themselves  to  other  trades. 

Very  few  of  his  wares  does  Thorpe  appear  to  have  procured 
direct  from  the  authors.  It  is  true  that  between  1605  and  1611 
there  were  issued  under  his  auspices  some  eight  volumes  of  genuine 
literary  value,  including,  besides  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets,'  three 
plays  by  Chapman,*  four  works  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  Coryat's 
'Odcombian  Banquet.'  But  the  taint  of  mysterious  origin  at- 
tached to  most  of  his  literary  properties.  He  doubtless  owed  them 
to  the  exchange  of  a  few  pence  or  shillings  with  a  scrivener's  hire- 
Img;   and  the  transaction  was  not  one  of  which  the  author  had 

cognisance. 

« 

'  Calendar  of  Stale  Papers,  Domestic  Series,  163s,  P-  527. 

'Two  bore  his  name  on  the  title-page  in  1603;  one  in  1604;  two  m  1605;  two  m 
1606;  two  in  1607;  tliree  in  1608;  one  in  1609  (i.e.  the  Sonnets);  three  m  1610  (i.e. 
Bistrio^mastix,  or  the  Playwright,  as  well  as  Healey's  translations);  two  in  1611 ;_  one  in 
1612:  three  in  1613 ;  twoinl6i4:  two  in  1616;  oneini6i8;  and  finally  one  m  1624. 
The  last  was  a  new  edition  of  George  Chairman's  Conspiracie  and  Tragedie  of  Charles 
D«J«  0/ BjPTOM,  which  Thorpe  first  published  in  1608.  „   „,        ,„    j, 

'  They  were  Wits  A.B.C.  or  a  centurie  of  Epigrams  (anon.),  by  R.  West  of  Magdalen 
College,  Oxford  (a  copy  is  in  the  Bodleian  Library) ;  Chapman's  Byron,  and  Jonson  s 
Masgues  of  Blackness  and  Beauty.  j    ■   .         ■  v^ 

'  Chapman  and  Jonson  were  very  volummous  authors,  and  their  works  were  sought 
after  by  almost  all  the  publishers  of  London,  many  of  whom  were  successful  m  launcbmg 
one  or  two  with  or  without  the  author's  sanction.  Thorpe  seems  _  to  have  taken  par- 
ticular care  with  Jonson's  books,  but  none  of  Jonson's  works  fell  mto  his  hands  before 
1605  or  after  1608,  a  small  fraction  of  Jonson's  literary  life.  It  is  significant  that  the 
author's  dedication  —  the  one  certain  mark  of  publication  with  the  authors  sanction  — 
appears  in  only  one  of  the  three  plays  by  Chapman  that  Thorpe  issued,  viz.  in  Byron. 
One  or  two  copies  of  Thorpe's  impression  of  All  Fools  have  a  dedication  by  the  author, 
but  it  is  absent  from  most  of  them.  No  known  copy  of  Thorpe  s  edition  of  Chapman  s 
GenUeman  Usher  has  any  dedication. 


674  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

It  is  quite  plain  that  no  negotiation  with  the  author  preceded 
the  formation  of  Thorpe's  resolve  to  publish  for  the  first  time 
Shake-  Shakespeare's   'Sonnets'   in   1609.    Had   Shakespeare 

spare's  associated  himself  with  the  enterprise,  the  world  would 
pubi^era^'  fortxmately  have  been  spared  Thorpe's  dedication  to 
hands.  'Mr.  W.  H.'     'T.  T.'s'  place  would  have  been  filled 

by  '  W.  S.'  The  whole  transaction  was  in  Thorpe's  vein.  Shake- 
speare's 'Sonnets'  had  been  already  circulating  in  manuscript  for 
eleven  years ;  only  two  had  as  yet  been  printed,  and  those  were 
issued  by  the  publisher,  William  Jaggard,  in  the  fraudulently 
christened  volume,  'The  Passionate  PUgrim,  by  WUham  Shake- 
speare,' in  1599.  Shakespeare,  except  in  the  case  of  his  two  nar- 
rative poems,  showed  indiflEerence  to  aU  questions  touching  the 
pubKcation  of  his  works.  Of  the  sixteen  plays  of  his  that  were 
pubUshed  in  his  lifetime,  not  one  was  printed  with  his  sanction. 
He  made  no  audible  protest  when  seven  contemptible  dramas  in 
which  he  had  no  hand  were  pubhshed  with  his  name  or  initials  on 
the  title-page  while  his  fame  was  at  its  height.  With  only  one 
publisher  of  his  time,  Richard  Field,  his  feUow-townsman,  who  was 
responsible  for  the  issue  of  'Venus'  and  'Lucrece,'  is  it  likely  that 
he  came  into  personal  relations,  and  there  is  nothing  to  show  that 
he  maintained  relations  with  Field  after  the  publication  of  'Lucrece ' 
in  1594. 

In  fitting  accord  with  the  circumstance  that  the  publication 
of  the  'Sonnets'  was  a  tradesman's  venture  which  ignored  the 
author's  feelings  and  rights,  Thorpe  in  both  the  entry  of  the  book 
in  the  Stationers'  Registers  and  on  its  title-page  brusquely  desig- 
nated it  '  Shakespeares  Sonnets,'  instead  of  following  the  more 
urbane  collocation  of  words  commonly  adopted  by  hving  authors, 
viz.  'Sonnets  by  William  Shakespeare.'  ^ 

In  framing  the  dedication  Thorpe  followed  estabUshed  precedent. 
Initials  run  riot  over  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  books.  Printers 
The  use  of  ^^^  publishers,  authors  and  contributors  of  prefatory 
initials  in  commendations  were  all  in  the  habit  of  masking  them- 
ofEife!™^  selves  behind  such  symbols.  Patrons  figured  under 
bethanand  initials  in  dedications  somewhat  less  frequently  than 
books'*"  other  sharers  in  the  book's  production.  But  the 
conditions  determining  the  employment  of  initials  in 
that  relation  were  weU  defined.  The  emplo3anent  of  initials  in 
a  dedication  was  a  recognised  mark  of  close  friendship  or  intimacy 
between  patron  and  dedicator.  It  was  a  sign  that  the  patron's 
fame  was  limited  to  a  small  circle,  and  that  the  revelation  of  his  • 
full  name  was  not  a  matter  of  interest  to  a  wide  public.    Such 

_  '  The  nearest  parallel  is  the  title  Brittons  Bmvre  of  Delights  (isgi),  a  poetic  miscellany 
piratically  assigned  to  the  poet  Nicholas  Breton  by  the  stationer  Richard  Jones.  But 
compare  Churchyards  Chippes  (1575)  and  Churchyards  Challenge  (1593). 


THOMAS  THORPE  AND   'MR.  W.   H.'  675 

are  the  dommant  notes  of  almost  all  the  extant  dedications  in  which 
the  patron  is  addressed  by  his  initials.  In  1598  Samuel  Rowlands 
addressed  the  dedication  of  his  'Betraying  of  Christ'  to  his  'deare 
aSected  friend  Maister  H.  W.,  gentleman.'  An  edition  of  Robert 
Southwell's  '  Short  Rule  of  Life '  which  appeared  in  the  same  year 
bore  a  dedication  addressed  '  to  my  deare  affected  friend  M.  [i.e. 
Mr.]  D.  S.,  gentleman.'  The  poet  Richard  Barnfield  also  in  the 
same  year  dedicated  the  opening  sonnet  in  his  'Poems  in  divers 
Humoiurs'  to  his  'friend  Maister  R.  L.'  In  1617  Dunstan  Gale 
dedicated  a  poem,  'Pyramus  and  Thisbe,'  to  the  'worshipfuU  his 
vene  friend  D.  [i.e.  Dr.]  B.  H.'  * 

There  was  nothing  exceptional  in  the  words  of  greeting  which 
Thorpe  addressed  to  his  patron  'Mr.  W.  H.'    Dedications  of 
Shakespeare's  time  usually  consisted  of  two  distinct  p^^  ^^^ 
.parts.    There  was  a  dedicatory  epistle,  which  might  of  wishes 
touch  at  any  length,  in  either  verse  or  prose,  on  the  ^°^  'happi- 
subject  of  the  book  and  the  writer's  relations  with  his   'etemity'  in 
patron.    But  there  was  usually,  in  addition,  a  pre-  dedicatory 
liminary  salutation  confined  to  such  a  single  sentence  as 
Thorpe  displayed  on  the  first  page  of  his  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
'Sonnets.'    In  that  prehminary  sentence  the  dedicator  usually 
followed  a  widely  adopted  formula  which  was  of  great  antiquity.^ 
He  habitually  'wisheth'  his  patron  one  or  more  of  such  blessings 
as  health,  long  life,  happiness,  and  eternity.     'AU  perseverance 
with  soules  happiness'  Thomas  Powell  'wisheth'  the  Countess  of 
Kildare  on  the  first  page  of  his  'Passionate  Poet'  in  1601.     'AH 
happines'  is  the  greeting  of  Thomas  Watson,  the  sonnetteer,  to 
his  patron,  the  Earl  of  Oxford,  on  the  threshold  of  Watson's 
'Passionate  Century  of  Love.'    There  is  hardly  a  book  published 
by  Robert  Greene  between  1580  and  1592  that  does  not  open  with 

an  adjuration  before  the  dedicatory  epistle  in  the  form :  'To 

Robert  Greene  wisheth  increase  of  honour  with  the  fuU 

fruition  of  perfect  felicity.' 

Thorpe  in  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  left  the  conventional  saluta- 
tion to  stand  alone ;  he  omitted  the  supplement  of  a  dedicatory 
epistle.'    There  exists  an  abundance  of  contemporary  examples 

1  Many  other  instances  of  initials  figuring  in  dedications  under  slightly  different  cir- 
cumstances will  occur  to  bibliographers,  but  all,  on  examination,  point  to  the  existence 
of  a  close  intimacy  between  dedicator  and  dedicatee.  R.  S.'s  [t.e.  possibly  Richard 
Stafford's]  'Epistle  dedicatorie'  before  Ms  Heraditus  (Oxford,  1609)  was  inscribed  'to 
his  much  honoured  father  S.  F.  S.'  An  Apologiejor  Women,  or  an  Opposition  to  Mr. 
D.  G.  his  assertion  .  .  .  by  W.  B.  of  Ex.  in  Ox.  (Oxford,  i6og),  was  dedicated  to  'the 
honourable  and  right  vertuous  ladie,  the  Ladie  M.  H.'  This  volume,  published  in  the 
'  Sme  year  as  Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  offers  a  pertinent  example  of  the  generous  freedom 
mh  which  initials  were  scattered  over  the  preliminarjr  pages  of  books  of  the  day. 

'  Dante"  employed  it  in  the  dedication  of  his  Divina  Cammedia  which  ran  Dommo 
Kani  Grandi  de  Scala  devotissimus  suus  Dante  Aligherius  .  .  .  vitam  optat  pertempora 
<^utuma  felicem  et  gloriosi  nominis  in  perpetuum  incrementura.'  ,      ,    .  « 

'  Thorpe's  dedicatory  formula  and  the  type  in  which  it  was  set  were  clearly  mfluenced 
by  Ben  Jonson's  form  of  dedication  before  the  first  edition  of  his  Volpone  (1607),  which. 


676  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  dedicatory  salutation  without  the  sequel  of  the  dedicatory 
epistle.  Edmund  Spenser's  dedication  of  the  'Faerie  Queene' 
to  Elizabeth  consists  solely  of  the  salutation  in  the  form  of  an 
assurance  that  the  writer  'consecrates  these  his  labours  to  live 
with  the  eternitie  of  her  fame.'  Michael  Drayton  both  in  his 
'Idea,  The  Shepheard's  Garland'  (1593)  and  in  his  'Poemes  Lyrick 
and  PastoraE'  (1609)  confined  his  address  to  his  patron  to  a  single 
sentence  of  salutation.^  Richard  Brathwaite  in  161 1  exclusively 
saluted  the  patron  of  his  'Golden  Fleece'  with  'the  continuance 
of  God's  temporal!  blessings  in  this  life,  with  the  crowne  of  im- 
mortahtie  in  the  world  to  come' ;  while  in  like  manner  he  greeted 
the  patron  of  his  'Sonnets  and  Madrigals'  in  the  same  year  with 
'the  prosperitie  of  times  successe  in  this  hfe,  with  the  reward  of 
eternitie  in  the  world  to  come.'  It  is  'happiness'  and  'eternity,' 
or  an  equivalent  paraphrase,  that  had  the  widest  vogue  among  the 
good  wishes  with  which  the  dedicator  in  the  early  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century  besought  his  patron's  favour  on  the  first  page 
of  his  book.  But  Thorpe  was  too  self-assertive  to  be  a  slavish 
imitator.  His  addiction  to  bombast  and  his  elementary  appreci- 
ation of  literature  recommended  to  him  the  practice  of  incorporat- 
ing in  his  dedicatory  salutation  some  high-sounding  embellish- 
ments of  the  accepted  formula  suggested  by  his  author's  writing.^ 
In  his  dedication  of  the  'Sonnets'  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  he  grafted  on  the 
common  formula  a  reference  to  the  immortality  which  Shakespeare, 
after  the  habit  of  contemporary  sonnetteers,  prophesied  for  his 
verse  in  the  pages  that  succeeded.  With  characteristic  magnilo- 
quence, Thorpe  added  the  decorative  and  supererogatory  phrase, 
'promised  by  our  ever-living  poet,'  to  the  conventional  dedicatory 
wish  for  his  patron's  'aU  happiness'  and  'eternitie.'^    Thorpe 

like  Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  was  published  by  Thorpe  and  printed  for  him  by  George 
Eld.  The  preliminary  leaf  in  Volpone  was  in  short  lines  and  in  the  same  fount  of  capitals 
as  was  employed  in  Thorpe's  dedication  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  On  the  opening  leaf  of  Volpone 
stands  a  greeting  of 'The  Two  Famous  Universities,'  to  which  'Ben:  Jonson  (The  Grateful 
Acknowledger)  dedicates  both  it  [the  play]  and  Himselfe.'  In  very  small  type  at  the 
right-hand  comer  of  the  page,  below  the  dedication,  run  the  words  'There  follows  an 
Epistle  if  (you  dare  venture  on)  the  length.'    The  Epistle  begins  overleaf. 

1  In  the  volume  of  1593  the  words  run:  'To  the  noble  and  valorous  gentleman  Mas- 
ter Robert  Dudley,  enriched  with  all  vertues  of  the  minde  and  worthy  of  all  honorable 
desert.    Your  most  affectionate  and  devoted  Michael  Drayton.' 

=  In  1610,  in  dedicating  St.  Augustine,  Of  the  Citie  of  God  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
Thorpe  awkwardly  describes  the  subject-matter  as  'a  desired  citie  sure  in  heaven,'  and 
assigns  to  'St.  Augustine  and  his  commentator  Vives'  a  'savour  of  the  secular.'  In  the 
same  year,  in  dedicating  Bpictetus  his  Manuall  to  Florio,  he  bombastically  pronounces 
the  book  to  be  'the  hand  to  philosophy;  the  instrument  of  instruments;  as  Nature 
greatest  in  the  least ;  as  Homer's  Ilias  in  a  nutshell ;  in  lesse  compasse  more  cunning.' 
For  other  examples  of  Thorpe's  pretentious,  half-educated  and  ungrammatical  style, 
see  pp.  679-80  note,  and  pp.  684-5. 

3  The  suggestion  is  often  made  that  the  only  parallel  to  Thorpe's  salutation  of  happi- 
ness is  met  with  in  George  Wither's  Abuses  Wkipt  and  Stript  (London,  1613).  There  the 
dedicatory  epistle  is  prefaced  by  the  ironical  salutation  "To  himselfe  G.  W.  wisheth  all 
happinesse.'  It  is  further  asserted  that  Wither  had  probably  Thorpe's  dedication  to 
'Mr.  W.  H.'  in  view  when  he  wrote  that  satirical  sentence.  It  will  now  be  recognised 
that  Wither  aimed  very  gently  at  no  identifiable  book,  but  at  a  feature  common  to  scores 
of  books.    Since  his  Abuses  was  printed  by  George  Eld  and  sold  by  Francis  Burton  — 


THOMAS  THORPE  AND    'MR.   W.   H.'  677 

'wisheth'  'Mr.  W.  H.'  'eternity'  no  less  grudgingly  than  'our 
ever-living  poet'  offered  his  own  friend  the  'pronoise'  of  it  in  his 
'Sonnets.' 

Other  phrases  in  Thorpe's  dedicatory  greeting  have  a  tech- 
nical significance  which  exclusively  concerns  Thorpe's  position 
as  the  pubhsher.  In  accordance  with  professional  custom  he 
dubbed  himself  'the  well-wishing  adventurer  in  setting  forth.' 
Similarly,  John  Marston  called  himself  'my  own  setter-out'  when 
he  assumed  the  rare  responsibility  of  pubhshing  one  of  his  own 
plays  ('Parasitaster  or  the  Fawne'  1606),  while  the  pubhsher 
Thomas  Walkley,  when  reprinting  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  '  PhU- 
aster'  in  1622,  wrote  that  he  'adventured  to  issue  it'  'knowing  how 
many  well-wishers  it  had  abroad.' 

Thorpe,  as  far  as  is  known,  penned  only  one  dedication  before 
that  to  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets.'  His  dedicatory  experience  was 
previously  limited  to  the  inscription  of  Marlowe's  pj^^ 
'Lucan'  in  1600  to  Bloimt,  his  friend  in  the  trade,  dedications 
Three  dedications  by  Thorpe  survive  of  a  date  subse-  ''y  Thorpe, 
quent  to  the  issue  of  the  'Sonnets.'  One  of  these  is  addressed  to 
John  Florio,  and  the  other  two  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.^  But 
these  three  dedications  all  prefaced  volumes  of  translations  by  one 
John  Healey,  whose  manuscripts  had  become  Thorpe's  prey  after 
the  author  had  emigrated  to  Virginia,  where  he  died  shortly  after 
landing.  Thorpe  chose,  he  tells  us,  Florio  and  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke as  patrons  of  Healey's  unprinted  manuscripts  because  they 
had  been  patrons  of  Healey  before  his  expatriation  and  death. 
There  is  evidence  to  prove  that  in  choosing  a  patron  for  the  '  Son- 
nets,' and  penning  a  dedication  for  the  second  time,  he  pursued 
the  exact  procedure  that  he  had  followed  —  deliberately  and  for 
reasons  that  he  fuUy  stated  —  in  his  first  and  only  preceding  dedi- 
catory venture.  He  chose  his  patron  from  the  circle  of  his  trade 
associates,  and  it  must  have  been  because  his  patron  was  a  personal 
friend  that  he  addressed  him  by  his  initials,  'W.  H.' 

Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  is  not  the  only  volume  of  the  period 
in  the  introductory  pages  of  which  the  initials  'W.  H.'  play  a 
prominent   part.    In  ,  1606    one  who    concealed  him-   ,^  g . 
self  under  the  same  letters  performed  for  'A  Foure-  signs  d'edi- 
fould  Meditation'  (a  collection  of  pious  poems  which  |ou?hwell's 
the  Jesuit  Robert  Southwell  left  in  manuscript  at  his  poems 
death)   the  identical  service  that  Thorpe  performed  "i'^"*- 

the  printer  and  publisher  concerned  in  1606  in  the  publication  of  '  W.  H.'s '  Southwell 
manuscript  —  there  is  a  bare  chance  that  Wither  had  m  mmd  W.  H.s  greeting  ot 
Mathew  Saunders  (see  below),  but  fifty  recently  published  volumes  would  have  supplied 
him  with  similar  hints.  ,  ^  ,      , .    _  . ,        ,    ^  ,-.     i 

'  Thorpe  dedicated  to  Florio  E^ctetus  his  ManmU,  and  Cebes  his  Table,  out  0}^  (rree* 
triginaUbylo.Eeahy,  1610.  He  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  5/.  /iKgMfsM,  0/ 
(he  CiOe  of  God.  .  .  .  Englished  by  I.  H.,  1610,  and  a  second  edition  of  Healey  s  Epictehis, 
1616. 


678  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

for  Marlowe's  'Lucan'  in  1600,  and  for  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets' 
in  1609.  In  1606  Southwell's  manuscript  fell  into  the  hands  of 
this  '  W.  H.,'  and  he  pubhshed  it  through  the  agency  of  the  printer, 
George  Eld,  and  of  an  insignificant  bookseller,  Francis  Burton.' 
'W  H.,'  in  his  capacity  of  owner,  suppUed  the  dedication  with 
his 'own  pen  under  his  initials.  Of  the  Jesuit's  newly  recovered 
poems  'W.  H.'  wrote,  'Long  have  they  hen  hidden  m  obscuritie, 
and  haply  had  never  seene  the  light,  had  not  a  meere  accident 
conveyed  them  to  my  hands.  But,  having  seriously  perused  them, 
loath  I  was  that  any  who  are  religiously  afiected,  should  be  deprived 
of  so  great  a  comfort,  as  the  due  consideration  thereof  may  brmg 
unto  them.'  'W.  H.'  chose  as  patron  of  his  venture  one  Mathew 
Saunders,  Esq.,  and  to  the  dedicatory  epistle  prefixed  a  conven- 
tional salutation  wishing  Saunders  long  life  and  prosperity.  The 
greeting  was  printed  in  large  and  bold  type  thus : 

To  the  Right  Worfhipfull  and 

Vertuous  Gentleman,  Mathew 
Saunders,  Efquire. 

W.  H.  wifheth,  with  long  life,  a  profperous 
achieuement  of  his  good  difires. 

There  follows  in  small  type,  regularly  printed  across  the  page, 
a  dedicatory  letter  —  the  frequent  sequel  of  the  dedicatory  salu- 
tation—  in  which  the  writer,  'W.  H.,'  commends  the  religious 
temper  of  'these  meditations'  and  deprecates  the  coldness  and 
sterUity  of  his  own  '  conceits.'  The  dedicator  signs  himself  at  the 
bottom  of  the  page  'Your  Worships  unfained  affectionate,  W.  H."' 
The  two  books  —  Southwell's  'Foure-fould  Meditation'  of  1606, 

1  Southwell's  Foure-fotild  Meditation  of  1606  is  a  book  of  excessive  rarity,  only  one 
complete  printed  copy  (lately  in  the  library  of  Mr.  Robert  Hoe,  of  New  York)  having 
been  met  with  in  our  time.  A  fragment  of  the  only  other  printed  copy  known  is  now  in 
the  British  Museum.  The  work  was  reprinted  in  iSps,  diiefly  from  an  early  copylin 
manuscript,  by  Mr.  Charles  Edmonds,  the  accomplished  bibliographer,  who  in  a  letter 
to  the  Athenmum  on  November  i,  187^,  suggested  for  the  first  time  the  identity  of  *  W.  H.,' 
the  dedicator  of  Southwell's  poem,  with  Thorpe's  *  Mr.  W.  H.* 

2  A  manuscript  volume  at  Oscott  College  contains  a  contemporary  copy  of  those  poems 
by  Southwell  which  'unfained  affectionate  W.  H.'  first  gave  to  the  printing  pr^.  The 
owner  of  the  Oscott  volume,  Peter  Mowle  or  Moulde  (as  he  indifferently  spells  his  name)' 
entered  on  the  first  page  of  the  manuscript  in  his  own  handwriting  an  *  epistel  dedicatorie ' 
which  he  confined  to  the  conventional  greeting  of  happiness  here  and  hereafter.  _  The 
words  ran:  *To  the  right  worshipfuU  Mr.  Thomas  Knevett  Esquire,  Peter  Mowle  wisheth 
the  perpetuytie  of  true  felysitie,  the  health  of  bodie  and  soule  with  continwance  of  wor- 
shipp  in  this  worlde.  And  after  Death  the  participation  of  Heavenlie  happiness  dewringe 
all  worldes  for  ever.' 


THOMAS  THORPE  AND   'MR.   W.   H.'  679 

and  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  of  1609 — ^^have  more  in  common 
than  the  appearance  on  the  preliminary  pages  of  the  initials  'W.  H.' 
in  a  prominent  place,  and  of  the  common  form  of  dedicatory  saluta- 
tion. Both  volumes,  it  was  announced  on  the  title-pages,  came 
from  the  same  press  —  the  press  of  George  Eld.  Eld  for  many 
years  co-operated  with  Thorpe  in  business.  In  1605,  and  in  each 
of  the  years  1607,  1608,  1609,  and  1610  at  least  one  of  his  ventures 
was  publicly  declared  to  be  a  specimen  of  Eld's  typography. 
Many  of  Thorpe's  books  came  forth  without  any  mention  of  the 
printer ;  but  Eld's  nanie  figures  more  frequently  upon  them  than 
that  of  any  other  printer.  Between  1605  and  1609  it  is  likely  that 
Eld  printed  all  Thorpe's  '  copy'  as  matter  of  course  and  that  he  was 
in  constant  relations  with  him. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  the  'W.  H.'  of  the  Southwell  volume 
was  Mr.  WiUiam  Hall,  who,  when  he  procured  that  manuscript 
for  publication,  was  an  humble  auxiliary  in  the  pub-  ,^  g .  ^^^ 
lishing  army.i  WilUam  HaU,  the  'W.  H.'  of  the  South-  Mr!  William 
well  dedication,  was  too  in  all  probability  the  'Mr.  W.  ■'^^'■ 
H.'  of  Thorpe's  dedication  of  the  'Sonnets.'^ 

The  objection  that  'Mr.  W.  H.'  could  not  have  been  Thorpe's 
friend  in  trade,  because  while  wishing  him  all  happiness  and 
eternity  Thorpe  dubs  him  '  the  onlie  begetter  of  these   ,j.^^    ^^j.^ 
insuing  sonnets,' is  not  formidable.    Thorpe  did  not  em-  begetter' 
ploy  'begetter'  in  the  ordinary  sense '  but  in  much  the  "o^j.^^?''' 
same  technical  significance  which  other  of  his  dedicatory 

'  Hall  flits  rapidly  across  the  stage  of  literary  history.  He  served  an  apprenticeship 
to  the  printer  and  stationer  John  AlTde  from  1577  to  1584,  and  was  admittai  to  the  free- 
dom of  the  Stationers'  Company  in  the  latter  year.  For  the  long  period  of  twenty-two 
years  after  his  release  from  lus  indentures  he  was  connected  with  the  trade  in  a  dependent 
capacity,  doubtless  as  assistant  to  a  master-stationer.  When  in  1606  the  manuscript 
o(  Southwell's  poems  was  conveyed  to  his  hands  and  he  adopted  the  recognised  rdle  of 

Erocurer  of  their  publication,  he  had  not  set  up  in  business  for  himself.  It  was  only 
iter  in  the  same  year  (1606)  that  he  obtamed  the  license  of  the  Stationers'  Company 
to  inaugurate  a  press  in  his  own  name,  and  two  years  passed  before  he  began  busmess. 
In  1608  he  obtamed  for  publication  a  theological  manuscript  which  appeared  next  year 
with  his  name  on  the  title-page  for  the  first  time.  This  volume  constituted  the  earliest 
credential  of  his  independence.  It  entitled  him  to  the  prefix  'Mr.'  in  all  social  relations. 
Between  1609  and  1614  he  printed  some  twenty  volumes,  most  of  them  sermons  and 
ahnost  all  devotional  in  tone.  The  most  important  of  his  secular  undertaking  was  Guil- 
lim's  far-famed  Display  0/  Heraldrie,  a  folio  issued  in  1610.  .In  1612  Hall  prmted  an 
account  of  the  conviction  and  execution  of  a  noted  pickpocket,  John  Selnian,  who  had 
been  arrested  while  professionally  engaged  in  the  Royal  Chapel  at  Whitehall.  On  the 
title-page  Hall  gave  his  own  name  by  his  initials  only.  The  book  was  described  in  bold 
type  as  'printed  by  W.  H.'  and  as  on  sale  at  the  shop  of  Thomas  Archer m  St._ Pauls 
Churchyard.  Hall  was  a  careful  printer  with  a  healthy  dread  of  misprints,  but  his  busi- 
ness dwindled  after  1613,  and,  soon  disposing  of  it  to  one  John  Beale,  he  disappeared  mto 
private  life.  t-       «  v 

'  A  bookseller  (not  a  printer),  William  Holmes,  who  was  in  busmess  for  himself  be- 
tween 1590  and  161S,  was  the  only  other  member  of  the  Stationers'  Company  beanng 
at  the  required  dates  the  initials  of  '  W.  H.'  But  he  was  ordinarily  known  by  his  full 
name,  and  there  is  no  indication  that  he  had  either  professional  or  private  relations  with 
Thorpe.  . 

'  Most  of  his  dedications  are  penned  in  a  loose  diction  of  pretentious  bombast  which 
it  is  often  difficult  to  interpret  exactly.  When  dedicating  in  i6ro  —  the  year  after  the 
issue  of  the  Satinets  —  Healey 's  Epictelits  his  Manmll '  to  a  true  f auorer  of  forward  spirits. 


68o  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

expressions  bear.  'Begetter'  when  literally  interpreted  as  applied 
to  a  literary  work,  means  father,  author,  producer,  and  it  cannot 
be  seriously  urged  that  Thorpe  intended  to  describe  'Mr.  W.  H.' 
as  tjie  author  of  the  'Sonnets.'  'Begetter'  has  been  used  in  the 
figurative  sense  of  inspirer,  and  it  is  often  assumed  that  by  'onhe 
begetter'  Thorpe  meant  'sole  inspirer,'  and  that  by  the  use  of 
those  words  he  intended  to  hint  at  the  close  relations  subsisting 
between  'W.  H.'  and  Shakespeare  in  the  dramatist's  early  life; 
but  that  interpretation  presents  as  we  have  seen  numberless 
difficulties.  Of  the  figurative  meanings  set  in  Elizabethan  Enghsh 
on  the  word  'begetter,'  that  of  'inspirer'  is  by  no  means  the  only 
one  or  the  most  common.  'Beget'  was  not  infrequently  employed 
in  the  attenuated  sense  of  'get,'  'procure,'  or  'obtain,'  a  sense 
which  is  easily  deducible  from  the  original  one  of  'bring  into  being.' 
Hamlet,  when  addressing  the  players,  bids  them  'in  the  very  whirl 
wind  of  passion  acquire  and  beget  a  temperance  that  may  give  it 
smoothness.'  'I  have  some  cousins  german  at  Court,'  wrote 
Dekker  in  1602,  in  his  ' Satiro-Mastix,'  '[that]  shall  beget  you  the 
reversion  of  the  Master  of  the  King's  Revels.'  'Mr.  W.  H.,'  whom 
Thorpe  described  as  '  the  onlie  begetter  of  these  insuing  sonnets,' 
was  in  aU  probability  the  acquirer  or  procurer  of  the  manuscript, 
who  brought  the  book  into  being  either  by  first  placing  the  manu- 
script in  Thorpe's  hands  or  by  pointing  out  the  means  by  which  a 
copy  might  be  acquired.  To  assign  such  significance  to  the  word 
'begetter'  was  entirely  in  Thorpe's  vein.^  Thorpe  described  his 
rdle  in  the  enterprise  of  the  'Sonnets'  as  that  of  'the  well-wishing 
adventurer  in  setting  forth,'  i.e.  the  hopeful  speculator  in  the 
scheme.  'Mr.  W.  H.'  doubtless  played  the  almost  equally  impor- 
tant part  —  one  as  well  known  then  as  now  in  commercial  oper- 
ations—  of  the  'vendor'  of  the  property  to  be  exploited.  A  few 
years  earlier,  in  1600,  one  John  Bodenham  in  similar  circumstances 

Maister  John  Florio,'  Thorpe  writes  of  Epictetus's  work:  'In  all  languages,  ages,  by  all 
persons  high  jjrized,  imbraced,  yea  inbosomed.  It  filles  not  the  hand  with  leaues,  but 
fills  ye  head  with  lessons :  nor  would  bee  held  in  hand  but  had  by  harte  to  boote.  He  is 
more  senceless  than  a  stocke  that  hath  no  good  sence  of  this  stoick.'  In  the  same  yeEir, 
when  dedicating  Healey's  translation  of  St.  Augustine's  Citie  of  God  to  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, Thorpe  clumsily  refers  to  Pembroke's  patronage  of  Healey's  earlier  efforts  in  trans- 
lation thus:  'He  that  against  detraction  beyond  expectation,  then  found  your  sweete 
patronage  in  a  matter  of  small  moment  without  distrust  or  disturbance,  in  this  work  of 
more  weight,  as  he  approoued  his  more  abilitie,  so  would  not  but  expect  your  Honours 
more  acceptance.' 

1  This  IS  the  sense  allotted  to  the  word  in  the  great  Variorum  edition  of  1821  by  Malone's 
disciple,  James  Boswell  the  younger,  who,  like  his  master,  was  a  bibliographical  expert 
of  the  highest  authority.  For  further  evidence  of  the  use  of  the  word  'beget'  in  the 
sense  of  'get,'  'gain,'  or  'procure'  in  English  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
see  the  present  writer's  Introduction  to  the  Sonnets  Facsimile  (Oxford,  1905)  pp.  38-9. 
The  fact  that  the  eighteenth-century  commentators  —  men  like  Malone  and  Steevens 
—  who  were  thoroughly  well  versed  in  the  literary  history  of  the  sixteenth  century  should 
have  failed  to  recognise  any  connection  between  'Mr.  W.  H.'  and  Shakespeare's  personal 
history  is  in  itself  a  very  strong  argument  against  the  interpretation  foisted  on  the  dedica- 
tion during  the  nineteenth  century  by  writers  who  have  no  pretensions  to  be  reckoned 
the  equals  of  Malone  and  Steevens  as  literary  archaeologists. 


THOMAS  THORPE  AND   'MR.   W.   H.'  68l 

made  over  to  a  'stationer'  Hugh  Astley  an  anthology  of  published 
and  unpublished  poetic  quotations,  which  Astley  issued  under  the 
title  of  'Belvedere  or  The  Garden  of  the  Muses.'  In  a  prefatory 
page  Bodenham  was  called  'First  causer  and  coUectour  of  these 
Flowers,'  and  at  the  end  of  the  book  '  The  Gentleman  who  was  the 
cause  of  this  collection.'  Thorpe  apphed  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  the  word 
'begetter'  in  the  same  sense  as  Astley  applied  the  words  'first 
causer'  and  'the  cause'  to  John  Bodenham,  the  procurer  of  the 
copy  for  his  volume  known  as  'Belvedere'  in  1600. 


VI 

'MR.    WILLIAM  HERBERT' 

For  some  eighty  years  it  has  been  very  generally  assumed  that 
Shakespeare  addressed  the  bulk  of  his  somiets  to  the  young  Earl 
_  .  .  ,  ,  of  Pembroke.  This  theory  owes  its  origin  to  a  spe- 
no"tfoSthat°  ciously  lucky  guess  which  was  first  disclosed  to  the 
'Mr.  w.  H."  public  in  1832,  and  won  for  a  time  almost  universal 
\M?  wS-  acceptance.^  Thorpe's  form  of  address  was  held  to 
liam  Her-  justify  the  mistaken  inference  that,  whoever '  Mr.  W.  H.' 
may  have  been,  he  and  no  other  was  the  hero  of  the 
alleged  story  of  the  'Poems' ;  and  the  cornerstone  of  the  Penibroke 
theory  was  the  assumption  that  the  letters  'Mr.  W.  H.'  in  the 
dedication  did  duty  for  the  words  'Mr.  William  Herbert,'  by  which 
name  the  (third)  Earl  of  Pembroke  was  represented  as  having  been 
known  in  youth.  The  originators  of  the  theory  claimed  to  dis- 
cover in  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  the  only  young  man  of  rank  and 
wealth  to  whom  the  initials  'W.  H.'  applied  at  the  needful  dates. 
In  thus  interpreting  the  initials,  the  Pembroke  theorists  made  a 
blunder  that  proves  on  examination  to  be  fatal  to  their  whole 
contention. 

The  nobleman  under  consideration  succeeded  to  the  earldom  of 
Pembroke  on  his  father's  death  on  January  ig,  1601  (N.S.),  when 
The  Earl  of  ^^  ^^®  twenty  years  and  nine  months  old,  and  from  that 
Pembroke  date  it  is  unquestioned  that  he  was  always  known  by 
a°iSH«-  *>is  lawful  title.  But  it  has  been  overlooked  that  the 
bertin  designation    'Mr.    William   Herbert,'    for   which   the 

youth.  initials  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  have  been  long  held  to  stand,  could 

never  in  the  mind  of  Thomas  Thorpe  or  any  other  contemporary 

1  James  Boaden,  a  journalist  and  the  biographer  of  Kemble  and  Mrs.  Siddons,  was 
the  first  to  suggest  the  Pembroke  theory  in  a  letter  to  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  in  1832. 
A  few  months  later  Mr,  James  Heywood  Bright  wrote  to  the  magazine  dainiing  to  have 
reached  the  same  conclusion  as  early  as  i8ig,  although  he  had  not  published  it.  Boaden 
re-stated  the  Pembroke  theory  in  a  volume  on  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  which  he  published 
in  r837.  C.  Armitage  Brown  adopted  it  in  1838  in  his  Shakespeare's  Autobiographical 
Poems.  The  Rev,  Joseph  Hunter,  who  accepted  the  theory  without  qualification,  sig- 
nificantly pointed  out  in  his  New  Illustrations  0/  Shakespeare  in  1845  (ii,  346)  that  it  had 
not  occurred  to  any  of  the  writers  in  the  great  Variorum  editions  of  Shakespeare  nor  to 
critics  so  acute  in  matters  of  literary  history  as  Malone  or  George  Chalmers,  The  most 
arduous  of  its  recent  supporters  was  Thomas  Tyler,  who  published  an  edition  of  the 
Sonnets  in  1890,  and  there  further  advanced  a  claim  to  identify  the  'dark  lady'  of  the 
Sonnets  with  Mary  Fitton,  a  lady  of  the  Court  and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  mistress. 
Tyler  endeavoured  to  substantiate  both  the  Pembroke  and  the  Fitton  theories,  by  mereb' 
repeating  his  original  arguments,  in  a  pamphlet  which  appeared  in  April  1899  under  the 
title  of  2^he  Herbert-Fitton  Theory:  a  Reply  [i.e.  to  criticisms  of  the  theories  by  Lady  New- 
degate  and  by  myself]. 

682 


'MR.   WILLIAM  HERBERT'  683 

have  denominated  the  earl  at  any  moment  of  his  career.  When 
he  came  into  the  world  on  April  9,  1580,  his  father  had  been  (the 
second)  Earl  of  Pembroke  for  ten  years,  and  he,  as  the  eldest  son, 
was  from  the  hour  of  his  birth  known  in  aU  relations  of  life  —  even 
in  the  baptismal  entry  in  the  parish  register  —  by  the  title  of  Lord 
Herbert,  and  by  no  other.  Durmg  the  lifetime  of  his  father  and 
his  own  minority  several  references  were  made  to  him  in  the  extant 
correspondence  of  friends  of  varying  degrees  of  intimacy.  He  is 
called  by  them,  without  exception,  'my  Lord  Herbert,'  'the  Lord 
Herbert,'  or  'Lord  Herbert.'  ^  It  is  true  that  as  the  eldest  son  of 
an  earl  he  held  the  title  by  courtesy,  but  for  all  practical  purposes 
it  was  as  well  recognised  in  common  speech  as  if  he  had  been  a  peer 
in  his  own  right.  No  one  nowadays  would  address  in  current 
parlance,  or  entertain  the  conception  of,  Viscount  Cranborne,  the 
heir  of  the  present  Marquis  of  Salisbury,  as  'Mr.  R.  C  or  'Mr. 
Robert  CecU.'  It  is  no  more  legitimate  to  assert  that  it  would 
have  occurred  to  an  Elizabethan  —  least  of  aU  to  a  personal  ac- 
quaintance or  to  a  publisher  who  stood  toward  his  patron  in  the 
relation  of  a  personal  dependent  —  to  describe  'young  Lord  Her- 
bert,' of  Elizabeth's  reign,  as  'Mr.  WUliam  Herbert.'  A  lawyer, 
who  in  the  way  of  business  might  have  to  mention  the  young 
lord's  name  in  a  legal  document,  would  have  entered  it  as  'Wil- 
liam Herbert,  commonly  called  Lord  Herbert.'  The  appellation 
'Mr.'  was  not  used  loosely  then  as  now,  but  indicated  a  precise 
social  grade.  Thorpe's  employment  of  the  prefix  'Mr.'  without 
qualification  is  in  itself  fatal  to  the  pretension  that  any  lord,  whether 
by  right  or  courtesy,  was  intended.* 

Proof  is  at  hand  to  establish  that  Thorpe  was  under  no  mis- 
apprehension as  to  the  proper  appellation  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
and  was  incapable  of  venturing  on  the  meaningless  misnomer 
of  'Mr.   W.   H.'    Insignificant  pubUsher  though  he  was,   and 

'  Cf.  Sydney  Papers,  ed.  Collins,  i.  353.  'My  Lord  (of  Pembroke)  himself  with  my 
tori  Harbert  (is)  come  up  to  see  the  Queen'  (Rowland  Whyte  to  Sir  Robert  Sydney, 
October  8,  1591),  and  again  p.  361  (November  16,  IS9S) ;  and  p.  372  (December  s,  IS9S)- 
John  Chamberlain  wrote  to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton  on  August  i,  1599,  '  Young  Lord  Harbert, 
Sir  Henrie  Carie,  and  Sir  William  Woodhouse,  are  all  m  election  at  Court,  who  shall  set 
the  best  legge  foremost.'    CItamherlain's  Letters  (Camden  Soc),  p.  57. 

'  Thomas  Sackville,  the  author  of  the  Induction  to  The  Mirror  for  Magistrates  and 
other  poetical  pieces,  and  part  author  of  Gorboduc,  was  bom  plain  Thomas  Sackville,' 
and  was  ordinarily  addressed  in  youth  as  'Mr.  Sackville.'  He  wrote  all  his  literary 
work  while  he  bore  that  and  no  other  designation.  He  subsequently  abandoned  literature 
for  politics,  and  was  knighted  and  created  Lord  Buckhurst.  Very  late  in  life,  in  1604  — 
at  the  age  of  sbrty-eight  —  he  became  Earl  of  Dorset.  A  few  of  his  youthful  effusions, 
which  bore  his  early  signature, '  M.  [i.e.  Mr.J  Sackville,'  were  reprinted  with  that  signature 
unaltered  m  an  encyclopaedic  anthology,  England's  Parnassus,  which  was  published, 
wholly  independently  of  him,  in  1600,  after  he  had  become  Baron  Buckhurst.  About 
the  same  date  he  was  similarly  designated  Thomas  or  Mr.  Sackville  m  a  reprmt,  unau- 
thorised by  him,  of  his  Induction  to  The  Mirror  Jor  Magistrates,  which  was  m  the  ongmal 
text  ascribed,  with  perfect  correctness,  to  Thomas  or  Mr;  Sackville.  There  is  clearly  no 
sort  of  parallel  (as  has  been  urged)  between  such  an  explicable,  and  not  unwarrantable, 
metachronism  and'the  misnaming  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  Mr.  W.  H.  As  might  be 
anticipated,  persistent  research  affords  no  parallel  for  the  latter  irregulanty. 


684  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

sceptical  as  he  was  of  the  merits  of  noble  patrons,  he  was  not  proof 
against  the  temptation,  when  an  opportunity  was  directly  offered 
Thorpe's  him,  of  adorning  the  prefatory  pages  of  a  publication 
mode  of  ^jtij  thg  name  of  a  nobleman,  who  enjoyed  the  high 
the  Eaifof  official  Station,  the  literary  culture,  and  the  social  influ- 
Pembroke.  ence  of  the  third  Earl  of  Pembroke.  In  1610 — a. 
year  after  he  published  the  '  Sonnets '  —  there  came  into  his  hands 
the  manuscripts  of  John  Healey,  that  humble  literary  aspirant  who 
had  a  few  months  before  emigrated  to  Virginia,  and  had,  it  woidd 
seem,  died  there.  Healey,  before  leaving  England,  had  secured 
through  the  good  offices  of  John  Florio  (a  man  of  influence  in  both 
fashionable  and  literary  circles)  the  patronage  of  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke  for  a  translation  of  Bishop  Hall's  fanciful  satire,  'Mim- 
dus  alter  et  idem.'  Calling  his  book  'The  Discoverie  of  a  New 
World,'  Healey  had  prefixed  to  it,  in  1609,  an  epistle  inscribed  in 
garish  terms  of  flattery  to  the  'Truest  mirrour  of  truest  honor, 
WUHam  Earl  of  Pembroke.'  ^  When  Thorpe  subsequently  made 
up  his  mind  to  publish,  on  his  own  account,  other  translations  by 
the  same  hand,  he  found  it  desirable  to  seek  the  same  patron. 
Accordingly,  in  1610,  he  prefixed  in  his  own  name,  to  an  edition  of 
Healey's  translation  of  St.  Augustine's  '  Citie  of  God,'  a  dedicatory 
address  '  to  the  honorablest  patron  of  the  Muses  and  good  mindes, 
Lord  WiUiam,  Earle  of  Pembroke,  Knight  of  the  Honourable 
Order  (of  the  Garter),  &c.'  In  involved  sentences  Thorpe  tells  the 
'right  gracious  and  gracefule  Lord'  how  the  author  left  the  work 
at  death  to  be  a  '  testimonie  of  gratitude,  observance,  and  heart's 
honor  to  your  honour.'  'Wherefore,'  he  explains,  'his  legacie, 
laide  at  your  Honour's  feete,  is  rather  here  delivered  to  your  Hon- 
our's humbly  thrise-kissed  hands  by  his  poore  delegate.  Your 
Lordship's  true  devoted,  Th.  Th.' 

Again,  in  1616,  when  Thorpe  procured  the  issue  of  a  second 
edition  of  another  of  Healey's  translations,  'Epictetus  Manuall. 
Cebes  Table.  Theophrastus  Characters,'  he  supplied  more  con- 
spicuous evidence  of  the  servility  with  which  he  deemed  it  incum- 
bent on  him  to  approach  a  potent  patron.  As  this  address  by 
Thorpe  to  Pembroke  is  difficult  of  access,  I  give  it  in  extenso : 

'To  the  Right  Honourable,  William  Earle  of  Pembroke,  Lord 

Chamberlaine  to  His  Majestie,  one  of  his  most  honorable  Privie 

Counsell,  and  Knight  of  the  most  noble  order  of  the  Garter,  &c. 

'Right  Honorable.  —  It  may  worthily  seeme  strange  unto  your 

Lordship,  out  of  what  frenzy  one  of  my  meanenesse  hath  presumed 

to  commit  this  Sacriledge,  in  the  straightnesse  of  your  Lordship's 

'  An  exammation  of  a  copy  of  the  book  in  the  Bodleian  —  none  is  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum —  shows  that  the  dedication  is  signed  J.  H.,  and  not,  as  Mr.  Fleay  infers,  by  Thorpe. 
Thorpe  had  no  concern  in  this  volume. 


'MR.    WILLIAM  HERBERT'  685 

leisure,  to  present  a  peece,  for  matter  and  model  so  unworthy,  and 
in  this  scribbling  age,  wherein  great  persons  are  so  pestered  dayly 
with  Dedications.  AH  I  can  alledge  in  extenuation  of  so  many 
incongruities,  is  the  bequest  of  a  deceased  Man ;  who  (in  his  life- 
time) haviiig  offered  some  translations  of  his  unto  your  Lordship, 
ever  wisht  if  these  ensuing  were  published  they  might  onely  bee 
addressed  unto  your  Lordship,  as  the  last  Testimony  of  his  dutiful! 
affection  (to  use  his  own  termes)  The  true  and,  reall  upholder  of 
Learned  endeavors.  This,  therefore,  beeing  left  imto  mee,  as  a 
Legacie  unto  your  Lordship  (pardon  my  presumption,  great  Lord, 
from  so  meane  a  man  to  so  great  a  person)  I  could  not  without 
some  impiety  present  it  to  any  other ;  such  a  sad  priviledge  have 
the  bequests  of  the  dead,  and  so  obligatory  they  are,  more  than  the 
requests  of  the  living.  In  the  hope  of  this  honourable  acceptance 
I  will  ever  rest, 

'Your  lordship's  humble  devoted, 

'T.  Th.' 

With  such  obeisances  did  publishers  then  habitually  creep  into 
the  presence  of  the  nobility.  In  fact,  the  law  which  rigorously 
Aaintained  the  privileges  of  peers  left  them  no  option.  The  alleged 
erroneous  form  of  address  in  the  dedication  of  Shakespeare's 
'  Sonnets '  —  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  f or  Lord  Herbert  or  the  Earl  of  Pembroke 

—  would  have  amounted  to  the  offence  of  defamation.  And  for 
that  misdemeanour  the  Star  Chamber,  always  active  in  protecting 
the  dignity  of  peers,  would  have  promptly  called  Thorpe  to  ac- 
count.^ 

Of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  of  his  brother  the  Earl  of  Mont- 
gomery, it  was  stated  a  few  years  later,  'from  just  observation,' 
on  very  pertinent  authority,  that '  no  men  came  near  their  lordships 
[in  their  capacity  of  literary  patrons],  but  with  a  kind  of  religious 
address.'  These  words  figure  in  the  prefatory  epistle  which  two 
actor-friends  of  Shakespeare  addressed  to  the  two  Earls  in  the 
posthumously  issued  First  Folio  of  the  dramatist's  works.  Thorpe's 
'kind  of  religious  address'  on  seeking  Lord  Pembroke's  patronage 
for  Healey's  books  was  somewhat  more  unctuous  than  was  cus- 
tomary or  needful.  But  of  erring  conspicuously  in  an  opposite 
direction  he  may,  without  misgiving,  be  pronounced  innocent. 

'  On  January  27,  1607-8,  one  Sir  Henry  Colte  was  indicted  for  slander  in  the  Star 
Chamber  for  addressing  a  peer,  Lord  Morley,  as  'goodman  Morley.'    A  technical  defect 

—  the  omission  of  the  precise  date  of  the  alleged  offence  —  in  the  bill  of  mdictment  led 
to  a  dismissal  of  the  cause.    See  Les  Reporles  del  Cases  in  Camera  Stellata,  1593  to  1609, 

-edited  from  the  manuscript  of  John  Hawarde  by  W.  P.  Baildon,  F.S.A.  (privately  pnnted 
.  for  Alfred  Morrison),  p.  348. 


VII 

SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  EARL  OF  PEMBROKE 

With  the  disposal  of  the  allegation  that '  Mr.  W.  H.'  represented  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke's  youthful  name,  the  whole  theory  of  that  earl's 
identity  with  Shakespeare's  friend  collapses.  Outside  Thorpe's 
dedicatory  words,  only  two  scraps  of  evidence  with  any  title  to 
consideration  have  been  adduced  to  show  that  Shakespeare  was  at 
any  time  or  in  any  way  associated  with  Pembroke. 

In  the  late  autumn  of  1603  James  I  and  his  Court  were  installed 
at  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  house  at  Wilton  for  a  period  of  two 
Shakespeare  months,  Owing  to  the  prevalence  of  the  plague  in 
with  the  London.  By  order  of  the  officers  of  the  royal  house- 
company  '^°^'^'  *-^®  King's  company  of  players,  of  which  Shake- 
atwaton  speare  was  a  member,  gave  a  performance  before  the 
in  1603.  King  at  Wilton  House  on  December  2.  The  actors 
travelled  from  Mortlake  for  the  purpose,  and  were  paid  in  the  ordi- 
nary manner  by  the  treasurer  of  the  royal  household  out  of  the 
public  funds.  There  is  no  positive  evidence  that  Shakespeare  at- 
tended at  Wilton  with  the  company,  but  assuming,  as  is  probable, 
that  he  did,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  can  be  held  no  more  responsible 
for  his  presence  than  for  his  repeated  presence  under  the  same 
conditions  at  Whitehall.  The  visit  of  the  King's  players  to  Wilton 
in  1603  has  no  bearing  on  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  alleged  relations 
with  Shakespeare."^ 

*  See  p.  377.  A  tradition  sprang  up  at  Wilton  at  the  end  of  the  last  century  to  the 
effect  that  a  letter  once  existed  there  in  which  the  Countess  of  Pembroke  bade  her  son 
the  earl  while  he  was  in  attendance  on  James  I  at  Salisbury  bring  the  King  to  Wilton  to 
witness  a  performance  of  As  You  Like  It.  The  countess  is  said  to  have  added,  'We  have 
the  man  ^Shakespeare  with  us.*  No  tangible  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  letter  is 
forthcoming,  and  its  tenor  stamps  it,  if  it  exists,  as  an  ignorant  invention.  The  circum- 
stances under  which  both  King  and  players  visited  Wilton  in  1603  are  completely  mis- 
represented. The  Court  temporarily  occupied  Wilton  House,  and  Shakespeare  and  his 
comrades  were  ordered  by  the  officers  of  the  royal  household  to  give  a  performance  there 
in  the  same  way  as  they  would  have  been  summoned  to  play  before  the  King  had  he  been 
'  at  Whitehall.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  Countess  of  Pembroke's  mode 
of  referring^  to  literary  men  is  well  known :  she  treated  them  on  terms  of  equality,  and 
could  not  in  any  aberration  of  mind  or  temper  have  referred  to  Shakespeare  as  'the 
man  Shakespeare.'  Similarly,  the  present  Earl  of  Pembroke  purchased  of  a  London 
picture-dealer  in  1897  what  purported  to  be  a  portrait  of  the  third  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
and  on  the  back^was  pasted  a  paper,  that  was  represented  to  date  from  the  seventeenth 
century,  containing  some  lines  from  Shakespeare^  Sonnet  Ixxxi.  (9-14),  subscribed  with 
the  words  'Shakespeare  unto  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  1603.'  The  ink  and  handwriting 
are  quite  modern,  and  hardly  make  pretence  to  be  of  old  date  in  the  eyes  of  anyone  ac- 
customed to  study  manuscripts.  On  May  5,  1898,  an  expert  examination  was  made 
of  the  portrait  and  the  inscription,  on  the  invitation  of  the  present  earl,  and  the  inscrip- 
tion was  unanimously  rejected. 

686 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  LORD  PEMBROKE  687 

The  second  instance  of  the  association  in  the  seventeenth  century 
of  Shakespeare's  name  with  Pembroke's  tells  wholly  against  the 
conjectured  intimacy.  Seven  years  after  the  drama-  xhededica- 
tist's  death,  two  of  his  friends  and  fellow-actors  pre-  tionofthe 
pared  the  collective  edition  of  his  plays  known  as  the  ^'^^*-  ^°'"°- 
First  Folio,  and  they  dedicated  the  volume,  in  the  conventional 
language  of  eulogy,  '  To  the  most  noble  and  incomparable  paire  of 
brethren,  William  Earl  of  Pembroke,  &c.,  Lord  Chamberlaine  to 
the  King's  most  excellent  Majesty,  and  Philip,  Earl  of  Mont- 
gomery, &c.,  Gentleman  of  His  Majesties  Bedchamber.  Both 
Knights  of  the  most  Noble  Order  of  the  Garter  and  our  singular  good 
Lords.' 

The  choice  of  such  patrons,  whom,  as  the  dedication  intimated, 
'no  one  came  near  but  with  a  kind  of  religious  address,'  proves 
no  private  sort  of  friendship  between  them  and  the  dead  author. 
To  the  two  earls  in  partnership  books  of  literary  pretension  were 
habitually  dedicated  at  the  period.'  Moreover,  the  third  Earl  of 
Pembroke  was  Lord  Chamberlain  in  1623,  and  exercised  supreme 
authority  in  theatrical  affairs.  That  his  patronage  shovdd  be 
sought  for  a  collective  edition  of  the  works  of  the  acknowledged 
master  of  the  contemporary  stage  was  natural.  It  is  only  sur- 
prising that  the  editors  should  have  jdelded  to  the  vogue  of  solicit- 
ing the  patronage  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  brother  in  conjunction 
with  the  Lord  Chamberlain. 

The  sole  passage  in  the  editors'  dedication  that  can  be  held 
to  bear  on  the  question  of  Shakespeare's  alleged  intimacy  with 
Pembroke,  is  to  be  found  in  their  remarks :  'But  since  your  lord- 
ships have  beene  pleas'd  to  thinke  these  trifles  something,  hereto- 
fore ;  and  have  prosequuted  both  them,  and  their  Authour  living, 
with  so  much  favour :  we  hope  that  (they  outhving  him,  and  he 
not  having  the  fate,  common  with  some,  to  be  exequutor  to  his 
owne  writings)  you  wiU  use  the  like  indulgence  toward  them  you 
have  done  unto  their  parent.  There  is  a  great  difference,  whether 
any  Booke  choose  his  Patrones,  or  find  them:  This  hath  done 
both.  For,  so  much  were  your  lordships'  likings  pf  the  severaU 
parts,  when  they  were  acted,  as,  before  they  were  pubUshed,  the 
Volume  ask'd  to  be  yours.'  There  is  nothing  whatever  in  these 
sentences  that  does  more  than  justify  the  inference  that  the 
brothers  shared  the  enthusiastic  esteem  which  James  I  and  all  the 
noblemen  of  his  Court  extended  to  Shakespeare  and  his  plays  in  the 
dramatist's  lifetime.  Apart  from  his  work  as  a  dramatist,  Shake- 
speare, in  his  capacity  of  one  of  '  the  King's  servants '  or  company  of 
players,  was  personally  known  to  all  the  officers  of  the  royal  house- 

'  Cf.  Ducci's  Ars  Atdica  or  The  Courtier's  Arte,  1607 ;  Stephens's  A  World  of  Wonders, 
1607;  and  Gerardo  The  Unfortunate  Spaniard,  Leonard  Digges's  translation  from  the 
Spanish,  1622. 


688  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

hold  who  collectively  controlled  theatrical  representations  at 
Court.  Throughout  James  I's  reign  his  plays  were  repeatedly 
performed  in  the  royal  presence,  and  when  the  dedicators  of  the 
First  Folio,  at  the  conclusion  of  their  address  to  Lords  Pembroke 
and  Montgomery,  describe  the  dramatist's  works  as  'these  remaines 
of  your  Servant  Shakespeare,'  they  make  it  quite  plain  that  it  was 
in  the  capacity  of  'King's  servant'  or  player  that  they  knew  him 
to  have  been  the  object  of  their  noble  patrons'  favour. 

The  'Sonnets'  offer  no  internal  indication  that  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke  and  Shakespeare  ever  saw  each  other.  Nothing  at  all 
J.  is  deducible  from  the  vague  paraUehsms  that  have  been 

tion^in  the"  adduced  between  the  earl's  character  and  position  in  hfe 
'Sonnets'  and  those  with  which  the  poet  credited  the  youth  of  the 
youth's iden-  'Sonnets.'  It  may  be  granted  that  both  had  a  mother 
titywith  (Sonnet  iii.),  that  both  enjoyed  wealth  and  rank,  that 
em  ro  e.  ^,qj.Jj  ^gj-g  regarded  by  admirers  as  cultivated,  that 
both  were  self-indulgent  in  their  relations  with  women,  and  that 
both  in  early  manhood  were  indisposed  to  marry,  owing  to  habits 
of  gallantry.  Of  one  alleged  point  of  resemblance  there  is  no 
evidence.  The  loveliness  assigned  to  Shakespeare's  youth  was 
not,  as  far  as  we  can  learn,  definitely  set  to  Pembroke's  account. 
Francis  Davison,  when  dedicating  his  'Poetical  Rhapsody'  to  the 
earl  in  1602  in  a  very  eulogistic  sonnet,  makes  a  cautiously  quali- 
fied reference  to  the  attractiveness  of  his  person  in  the  lines : 

[His]  outward  shape,  though  it  most  lovely  be, 
Doth  in  fair  robes  a  fairer  soul  attire. 

The  only  portraits  of  him  that  survive  represent  him  in  middle 
age,^  and  seem  to  confute  the  suggestion  that  he  was  reckoned 
handsome  at  any  time  of  life ;  at  most  they  confirm  Anthony 
Wood's  description  of  him  as  in  person  'rather  majestic  than 
elegant.'  But  the  point  is  not  one  of  moment,  and  the  argument 
neither  gains  nor  loses,  if  we  allow  that  Pembroke  may,  at  any  rate 
in  the  sight  of  a  poetical  panegyrist,  have  at  one  period  reflected, 
like  Shakespeare's  youth,  'the  lovely  April  of  his  mother's  prime.' 
But  when  we  have  reckoned  up  the  traits  that  can,  on  any 
,  showing,  be  admitted  to  be  common  to  both  Pembroke  and  Shake- 
speare's alleged  friend,  they  all  prove  to  be  equally  indistinctive. 
AU  could  be  matched  without  difiiculty  in  a  score  of  youthful 
noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  Elizabeth's  Court.  Direct  external 
evidence  of  Shakespeare's  friendly  intercourse  with  one  or  other 
of  Elizabeth's  young  courtiers  must  be  produced  before  the  '  Son- 
nets' '  general  references  to  the  youth's  beauty  and  grace  can 
render  the  remotest  assistance  in  establishing  his  identity. 

'  Cf.  the  engravings  of  Simon  Pass,  Stent,  and  Vandervoerst,  after  the  portrait  by 
Myteus. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  LORD  PEMBROKE  689 

Although  it  may  be  reckoned  superfluous  to  adduce  more  argu- 
ments, negative  or  positive,  against  the  theory  that  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke  was  a  youthful  friend  of  Shakespeare,  it  is  .  ,  , 
worth  noting  that  John  Aubrey,  the  Wiltshire  anti-  igSoranceof 
quary,  and  the  biographer  of  most  Englishmen  of  dis-  ?^y  relation 
tinction  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  was  Shakespeare 
zealously  researching  from  1650  onwards  into  the  l^^^ . 
careers  alike  of  Shakespeare  and  of  various  members  of  ^"^  '"  °' 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  family  —  one  of  the  chief  in  Wiltshire. 
Aubrey  rescued  from  oblivion  many  anecdotes  —  scandalous  and 
otherwise  —  both  about  the  third  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  about 
Shakespeare.  Of  the  former  he  wrote  in  his  'Natural  History  of 
Wiltshire'  (ed.  Britton,  1847),  recalling  the  earl's  relations  with 
Massinger  and  many  other  men  of  letters.  Of  Shakespeare, 
Aubrey  narrated  much  hvely  gossip  in  his  'Lives  of  Eminent 
Persons.'  But  neither  in  his  account  of  Pembroke  nor  in  his 
account  of  Shakespeare  does  he  give  any  hint  that  they  were  at 
any  time  or  in  any  manner  acquainted  or  .associated  with  one 
another.  Had  close  relations  existed  between  them,  it  is  impos- 
sible that  aU  trace  of  them  would  have  faded  from  the  traditions 
that  were  current  in  Aubrey's  time  and  were  embodied  in  his 
writings.^ 

1  It  is  unnecessary,  after  wliat  has  been  said  above  (pp.  194,  195  n.),  to  consider  se- 
riously the  suggestion  that  the  *  dark  lady '  of  the  Sonnets  was  Mary  Fitton,  maid  of  honour 
to  Queen  Eli^^eth.  This  frolicsome  lady,  who  was  at  one  time  Pembroke's  mistress  and 
bore  him  a  child,  has  been  introduced  into  a  discussion  of  the  Sonnets  only  on  the  assump- 
tion that  her  lover,  Pembroke,  was  the  youth  to  whom  the  Sonnets  were  addressed.  Lady 
Newdegate's  Gossip  from  a  Muniment  Baom  (1897),  which  furnishes  for  the  first  time  a 
connected  biography  of  Pembroke's  mistress,  adequately  disposes  of  any  lingering  hope 
that  Shakespeare  may  have  commemorated  her  in  his  black -complexioned  heroine.  Lady 
Newdegate  states  that  two  well-preserved  portraits  of  Mary  Fitton  remain  at  Arbury, 
and  that  they  reveal  a  lady  of  fair  complexion  with  brown  hair  and  grey  eyes.  Family 
history  places  the  authenticity  of  the  portraits  beyond  doubt,  and  the  endeavour  lately 
made  by  Mr.  Tyler,  the  chief  champion  of  the  hopeless  Fitton  theory,  to  dispute  their 
authenticity  is  satisfactorily  met  by  Mr.  C.  O.  Bridgeman  in  an  appendix  to  the  second 
edition  of  Lady  Newdegate's  book.  We  also  learn  from  Lady  Newdegate's  volume  that 
Miss  Fitton,  during  her  girlhood,  was  pestered  by  the  attentions  of  a  middle-aged  admirer, 
a  married  friend  of  the  family,  Sir  William  Knollys.  It  has  been  lamely  suggested  by 
some  of  the  supporters  of  the  Pembroke  theory  that  Sir  William  Knollys  was  one  of  the 
persons  named  Will  who  are  alleged  to  be  noticed  as  competitors  with  Shakespeare  and 
the  supposititious  'Will  Herbert'^  for  'the  dark  lady's'  favours  in  the  Sonnets  (cxxxv., 
cxxxvi.,  and  perhaps  clxiii.).  But  that  is  a  shot  wholly  out  of  range.  The  wording  of 
those  Sonnets,  when  it  is  thoroughly  tested,  proves  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  the  poet 
was  the  only  lover  named  Will  who  is  represented  as  courting  the  disdainful  lady  of  the 
Sonnets,  and  that  no  reference  whatever  is  made  there  to  any  other  person  of  that  Christian 
name. 


VIII 

THE   '  WILL  '    SONNETS 

No  one  has  had  the  hardihood  to  assert  that  the  text  of  the  '  Son- 
nets'  gives  internally  any  indication  that  the  youth's  name  took 
the  hapless  form  of  'William  Herbert' ;  but  many  commentators 
argue  that  in  three  or  four  sonnets  Shakespeare  admits  in  so  many 
words  that  the  youth  bore  his  own  Christian  name  of  Will,  and 
even  that  the  disdainful  lady  had  ^mong  her  admirers  other 
gentlemen  entitled  in  familiar  intercourse  to  similar  designation. 
These  are  fantastic  assumptions  which  rest  on  a  misconception  of 
Shakespeare's  phraseology  and  of  the  character  of  the  conceits  of 
the  '  Sonnets,'  and  are  solely  attributable  to  the  fanatical  anxiety 
of  the  supporters  of  the  Pembroke  theory  to  extort,  at  all  hazards, 
some  sort  of  evidence  in  their  favour  from  Shakespeare's  text.' 

In  two  sonnets  (cxxxv.-vi.)  —  the  most  artificial  and  'con- 
ceited '  in  the  collection  —  the  poet  plays  somewhat  enigmatically 
Elizabethan  °^  ^^^  Christian  name  of  'WiU,'  and  a  similar  pun  has 
meanings  o£  been  doubtfuUy  detected  in  Sonnets  cxxxiv.  and  cxiiii. 
'will.'  That  Shakespeare  was  known  to  his  intimates  as  'WiU' 

is  attested  by  the  well-known  lines  of  his  friend  Thomas  Heywood : 

'Mellifluous  Shakespeare,  whose  enchanting  quiU 
Commanded  mirth  and  passion  was  but  Will.' ' 

The  groundwork  of  the  sonnetteer's  pleasantry  is  the  identity  in 
form  of  the  proper  name  with  the  common  noun  'will.'  This 
word  connoted  in  Elizabethan  English  a  generous  variety  of  con- 
ceptions, of  most  of  which  it  has  long  since  been  deprived.  Then, 
as  now,  it  was  employed  in  the  general  psychological  sense  of 
vohtion ;  but  it  was  more  often  specifically  appUed  to  two  limited 
manifestations  of  the  volition.  It  was  the  commonest  of  syn- 
onyms ahke  for  'self  will'  or  'stubbornness'  —  in  which  sense  it 
still  survives  in  'wilful'  —  and  for  'lust,'  or  'sensual  passion.' 
It  also  did  occasional  duty  for  its  own  diminutive  'wish,'  for  'ca- 
price,' for  'goodwill,'  and  for  'free  consent'  (as  nowadays  in  'will- 
ing,' or  'willingly'). 

•  Edward  Dqwden  {Sonnets,  p.  xxxv)  writes:  'It  appears  from  the  punning  sonnets 
(cxxxv.  and  cxiiii.)  that  the  Christian  name  of  Shakspere's  friend  was  the  same  as  his 
own,  Will'  and  thence  is  deduced  the  argument  that  the  friend  could  only  be  identicij 
with  one  who,  like  William  Earl  of  Pembroke,  bore  that  Christian  name. 

'  Hierarchic  of  the  Blessed  Angells  (163s). 

690 


THE   'WILL'   SONNETS  691 

Shakespeare  constantly  used  'will'  in  all  these  significations., 
lago  recognised  its  general  psychological  value  when  he  said  'Our 
bodies  are  our  gardens,  to  the  which  our  wills  are  gar-  ghake- 
deners.'  The  conduct  of  the  'will'- is  discussed  after  speare's  uses 
the  manner  of  philosophy  in  'Troilus  and  Cressida'  ""''eword. 
(n.  ii.  51-68).  In  another  of  lago's  sentences,  'Love  is  merely 
a  lust  of  the  blood  and  a  permission  of  the  will,'  light  is  shed  on 
the  process  by  which  the  word  came  to  be  specifically  apphed  to 
sensual  desire.  The  last  is  a  favourite  sense  with  Shakespeare  and 
his  contemporaries.  Angelo  and  Isabella,  in '  Measure  for  Measure,' 
are  at  one  in  attributing  their  conflict  to  the  former's  'wUl.'  The 
self-indulgent  Bertram,  in  'All's  Well,'  'fleshes  his  "will"  in  the 
spoil  of  a  gentlewoman's  honour.'  In  'Hamlet'  (in.  iv.  88)  the 
prince  warns  his  mother:  'And  reason  panders  wfll.'  In  'Lear' 
(iv.  vi.  279)  Regan's  heartless  plot  to  seduce  her  brother-in-law 
is  assigned  to  '  the  undistinguished  space '  —  the  boundless  range  — 
'of  woman's  wfll.'  Simflarly,  Sir  Philip  Sidney  apostrophised 
lust  as  'thou  web  of  wfll.'  Thomas  Lodge,  in  'PhUlis'  (Sonnet 
xi.),  warns  lovers  of  the  ruin  that  menaces  aU  who  'guide  their 
course  by  wiU.'  Nicholas  Breton's  fantastic  romance  of  1599, 
entitled  'The  Wfll  of  Wit,  Wit's  Wfll  or  Wfll's  Wit,  Chuse  you 
whether,'  is  especially  rich  in  like  illustrations.  Breton  brings 
into  marked  prominence  the  antithesis  which  was  familiar  in  his 
•day  between  'wiU'  in  its  sensual  meaning,  and  'wit,'  the  Eliza- 
bethan synonym  for  reason  or  cognition.  'A  song  between  Wit 
and  Wfll'  opens  thus :  ' 

Wit:  What  art  thou,  Wfll?    WiU:  A  babe  of  nature's  brood. 
Wit:  Who  was  thy  sire?    WiU:  Sweet  Lust,  as  lovers  say. 
Wit:  Thy  mother  who?    WiU:  Wfld  lusty  wanton  blood. 
Wit:  When  wast  thou  born?    WiU:  In  merry  month  of  May. 
Wit:  And  where  brought  up?    Will:  In  school  of  little  skfll. 
Wit:  What  leam'dst  thou  there  ?    WiU:  Love  is  my  lesson  stfll. 

Of  the  use  of.  the  word  in  the  sense  of  stubbornness  or  self-wiU, 
Roger  Ascham  gives  a  good  instance  in  his  'Scholemaster'  (157°), 
where  he  recommends  that  such  a  vice  in  chfldren  as  'wfll,'  which 
he  places  in  the  category  of  lying,  sloth,  and  disobedience,  should 
be  'with  sharp  chastisement  dafly  cut  away.' ^  'A  woman  wiU 
have  her  wiU'  was,  among  Elizabethan  wags,  an  exceptionaUy  pop- 
ular proverbial  phrase,  the  point  of  which  revolved  about  the 
equivocal  meaning  of  the  last  word.  The  phrase  supplied  the  title 
of  'a  pleasant  comedy,'  by  Wflliam  Haughton,  which  —  from  1597 
onwards  —  held  the  stage  for  the  unusuaUy  prolonged  period  of 
forty  years.     'Women,  because  they  cannot  have  their  wflls  when 

•  Ed.  Mayor,  p.  35- 


692  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

they  dye,  they  will  have  their  wills  while  they  live,'  was  a  current 
witticism  which  the  barrister  Manningham  deemed  worthy  of 
record  in  his  'Diary'  in  1602.^  In  William  Goddard's  'Satirycall 
Dialogue'  (1615?)  'Will'  is  personified  as  'women's  god,'  and  is 
introduced  in  female  attire  as  presiding  over  a  meeting  of  wives 
who  are  discontented  with  their  husbands.  'Dame  WiU'  opens 
the  proceedings  with  an  'oration'  addressed  to  her  'subjects'  in 
which  figure  the  lines : 

Know't  I  am  Will,''  and  mil  yeild  you  releife. 
Be  bold  to  speake,  I  am  the  wiue's  delight, 
And  euer  was,  and  wilbe,  th'usbandes  spight. 

It  was  not  only  in  the  'Sonnets'  that  Shakespeare  —  almost 
invariably  with  a  glance  at  its  sensual  significance  —  rang  the 
Shak  changes  on  this  many-faced  verbal  token.    In  his  earliest 

speare's  play,  'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  (n.  i.  97-101),  after  the 
gins  on  princess  has  tauntingly  assured  the  King  of  Navarre 
that  he  will  break  his  vow  to  avoid  women's  society,  the 
king  replies  'Not  for  the  world,  fair  madam,  by  my  will'  {i.e. 
willingly).  The  princess  retorts  'Why  will  [i.e.  sensual  desire] 
shall  break  it  [i.e. the  vow],  ■will  and  nothing  else.'  In  'Much 
Ado'  (v.  iv.  26  seq.),  when  Benedick,  anxious  to  marry  Beatrice, 
is  asked  by  the  lady's  uncle,  'What's  yoiur  will?'  he  playfully 
lingers  on  the  word  in  his  answer.  As  for  his  'wiU,'  his  'will'  is 
that  the  uncle's  'goodwill  may  stand  with  his'  and  Beatrice's 
'  will '  —  in  other  words  that  the  uncle  may  consent  to  their  union. 
Slender  and  Anne  Page  vary  the  tame  sport  when  the  former 
misinterprets  the  young  lady's  '  What  is  your  wiU  ? '  into  an  inquiry 
into  the  testamentary  disposition  of  his  property.  To  what  depth 
of  vapidity  Shakespeare  and  contemporary  punsters  could  sink 
is  nowhere  better  illustrated  than  in  the  favour  they  bestowed  on 
efforts  to  extract  amusement  from  the  parities  and  disparities  of 
form  and  meaning  subsisting  between  the  words  'will'  and  'wish,' 
the  latter  being  in  vernacular  use  as  a  diminutive  of  the  former. 
Twice  in  the  'Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona'  (i.  iii.  63  and  rv.  ii.  96) 
Shakespeare  almost  strives  to  invest  with  the  flavour  of  epigram 
the  unpretending  announcement  that  one  interlocutor's  'wish' 
is  in  harmony  with  another  interlocutor's  '  wUl.' 

It  is  in  this  vein  of  pleasantry  —  'will'  and  'wish'  are  identically 

1  Manningham's  Diary,  p.  92 ;  cf.  Bamabe  Barnes's  Odes  Pastoral,  sestine  2 : 

'But  women  will  have  their  own  wills, 
Alas,  why  then  should  I  complain  ? ' 

J  The  text  of  this  part  of  Goddard's  volume  is  printed  in  italics,  but  the  word  'Will.' 
which  constantly  recurs,  is  always  distinguished  by  roman  type.  Goddard's  very  rare 
Dialogue  was  reprinted  privately  by  Mr.  John  S.  Farmer  in  1897. 


THE   'WILL'   SONNETS  693 

contrasted  in  Sonnet  cxxxv.  —  that  Shakespeare,  to  the  confusion 
of  modern  readers,  makes  play  with  the  word  'will'  in  the  'Son- 
nets,' and  especially  in  the  two  sonnets  (cxxv-vi.)  which  alone 
speciously  justify  the  delusion  that  the  lady  is  courted  by  two,  or 
more  than  two,  lovers  of  the  name  of  Will. 

One  of  the  chief  argimients  advanced  in  favour  of  this  inter- 
pretation is  that  the  word  'will'  in  these  sonnets  is  frequently 
italicised  in  the  original  edition.     But  this  has  little 
or  no  bearing  on  the  argument.    The  corrector  of  the  ^^^^ . 
press  recognised  that  Sonnets  cxxxv.  and  cxxxvi.  largely  IS-  um°^ 
turned  upon  a  simple  pim  between  the  writer's  name  of  ISbeSian 
'Will'  and  the  lady's  '  wiU.'    That  fact,  and  no  other,   and 
he  indicated  very  roughly  by  occasionally  italicising  the  inters" 
crucial  word.    Typography  at  the  time  followed  no 
firmly  fixed  rules,  and,  although  'wUl'  figures  in  a  more  or  less 
punning  sense  nineteen  times  in  these  sonnets,  the  printer  be- 
stowed on  the  word  the  distinction  of  italics  in  only  ten  instances, 
and  those  were  selected  arbitrarily.     The  italics  indicate  the 
obvious  equivoque,  and  indicate  it  imperfectly.    That  is  the  ut- 
most that  can  be  laid  to  their  credit.     They  give  no  hint  of  the  far 
more  complicated  punning  that  is  alleged  by  those  who  believe 
that  'WiU'  is  used  now  as  the  name  of  the  writer,  and  now  as  that 
of  one  or  more  of  the  rival  suitors.     In  each  of  the  two  remaining 
sonnets  that  have  been  forced  into  the  service  of  the  theory,  Nos. 
cxxxiv.  and  cxliii., '  wUl'  occurs  once  only;  it  alone  is  italicised  in 
the  second  sonnet  in  the  original  edition,  and  there,  in  my  opinion, 
arbitrarily  and  without  just  cause.' 

The  general  intention  of  the  complex  conceits  of  Sonnets  cxxxv. 
and  cxxxvi.  becomes  obvious  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  in  them 
Shakespeare  exploits  to  the  uttermost  the  verbal  coin-  ™  ; 

cidences  which  are  inherent  in  the  Elizabethan  word  of  Sonnets 
'wiU.'    'Will'  is  the  Christian  name  of  the  enslaved  ^I^^j^j 
writer;    'wiU'  is  the  sentiment  with  which  the  lady 
inspires  her  worshippers;    and  'will'  designates  stubbornness  as 
weU  as  sensual  desire.     These  two  characteristics,  according  to 
the  poet's  reiterated  testimony,  are  the  distinguishing  marks  of 
the  lady's  disposition.     He  often  dwells  elsewhere  on  her  'proud 
heart'  or  'fold  pride,'  and  her  sensuality  or  'foul  faults.'    These 
are  her  'wills,'  and  they  make  up  her  being.    In  crediting  the 
lady  with  such  a  constitution  Shakespeare  was  not  recording  any 

'  Besides  punning  words,  printers  of  poetry  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
made  an  effort  to  italicise  proper  names,  unfamiliar  words,  and  words  deemed  worthy  of 
special  emphasis.  But  they  did  not  strictly  adhere  to  these  rules,  and,  while  they  often 
failed  to  italicise  the  words  that  deserved  italicisation,  they  freely  italicised  others  that 
did  not  merit  it.  Capital  initial  letters  were  employed  with  like  irregularity.  George 
Wyndham  in  his  careful  note  on  the  typography  of  the  Quarto  of  1609  (pp.  259  seq.) 
suggests  that  Elizabethan  printers  were  not  erratic  in  their  uses  of  italics  or  capitallettere, 
but  an  exnmination  of  a  very  large  number  of  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  books  has  brought 
Die  to  an  exactly  opposite  conclusion. 


694  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

definite  observation  or  experience  of  his  own,  but  was  following, 
as  was  his  custom, -the  conventional  descriptions  of  the  disdainful 
mistress  common  to  all  contemporary  collections  of  sonnets. 
Bamabe  Barnes  asks  the  lady  celebrated  in  his  sonnets,  from 
whose  'proud  disdainfulness'  he  suffered. 

Why  dost  thou  my  delights  delay, 

And  with  thy  cross  unkindness  kills  (iic) 

Mine  heart,  bound  martyr  to  thy  wills? 

Barnes  answers  his  question  in  the  next  lines : 

But  women  will  have  their  own  wills, 
Since  what  she  lists  her  heart  fulfils.^ 

Similar  passages  abound  in  Elizabethan  sonnets,  but  certain 
verbal  similarities  give  good  ground  for  regarding  Shakespeare's 
'wiU'  sonnets  as  deliberate  adaptations  —  doubtless  with  satiric 
purpose  —  of  Barnes's  stereotyped  reflections  on  women's  obdu- 
racy. The  form  and  the  constant  repetition  of  the  word  'will'  in 
these  two  sonnets  of  Shakespeare  also  seem  to  imitate  derisively 
the  same  rival's  Sonnets  Ixxii.  and  Ixxiii.  in  which  Barnes  puts  the 
words  'grace'  and  'graces'  through  much  the  same  evolutions  as 
Shakespeare  puts  the  words  'will'  and  'wills'  in  the  Sonnets  cxxxv. 
and  cxxxvi.^ 

Shakespeare's  Sonnet  cxxxv.  runs : 

Whoever  hath  her  wish,  thou  hast  thy  Will, 
And  will  to  boot,  and  will  in  over-plus'; 
More  than  enough  am  I  that  vex  thee  still, 
To  thy  sweet  will  making  addition  thus. 
Wilt  tiiou,  whose  will  is  large  and  spacious,' 
Not  once  vouchsafe  to  hide  my  will  in  thine? 
Shall  will  in  others  seem  right  gracious, 
And  in  my  will  no  fair  acceptance  shine? 
The  sea,  all  water,  yet  receives  rain  sdll. 
And  in  abundance  addeth  to  his  store ; 
So  thou,  being  rich  in  wUl,  add  to  thy  will 
One  will  of  mine,  to  make  thy  large  will  more. 

Let  no  unkind  no  fair  beseechers  kill ; 

Think  all  but  one,  and  me  in  that  one  —  Will. 

^  Barnes's  Parlhenopkil  in  Arber's  Garner,  v.  440.  ' 

^  2  After  quibbling  in  Sonnet  Ixxii.  on  the  resemblance  between  the  graces  of  his  cruel 
mistress's  face  and  the  Graces  of  classical  mythology,  Barnes  develops  the  topic  in  the 
next  sonnet  after  this  manner  (the  italics  are  my  own) : 

'Why  did  rich  Nature  graces  grant  to  thee, 
Since  thou  art  such  a  niggard  of  thy  grace  ? 
O  how  can  graces  in  thy  body  be  ? 
Where  neither  they  nor  pity  find  a  i^lace  !  .  .  . 
Grant  me  some  grace  1    For  thou  with  grace  art  wealthy 
And  kindly  may'st  afiord  some  gracious  thing.' 

'  Cf.  Lear,  iv.  vi.  279,  'O  undistinguish'd  space  of  woman's  will';   i.e.  *0  boundless 
range  of  woman's  lust.' 


THE   'WILL'   SONNETS  695 

In  the  opening  words,  'Whoever  hath  her  wish,'  the  poet  pre- 
pares the  reader  for  the  punning  encounter  by  a  slight  variation 
on  the  current  catch-phrase  'A  woman  will  have  her  sonnet 
will.'  At  the  next  moment  we  are  in  the  thick  of  the  ™v- 
wordy  fray.  The  lady  has  not  only  her  lover  named  Will,  but 
untold  stores  of  'will'  —  in  the  sense  alike  of  stubbornness  and  of 
lust  —  to  which  it  seems  supererogatory  to  make  addition.'  To 
the  lady's  'over-plus'  of  'will'  is  punningly  attributed  her  defiance 
of  the  'will'  of  her  suitor  Will  to  enjoy  her  favours.  At  the  same 
time  'will'  in  others  proves  to  her  'right  gracious,'  ^  although  in 
him  it  is  unacceptable.  All  this,  the  poet  hazily  argues,  should 
be  otherwise ;  for  as  the  sea,  although  rich  in  water,  does  not  re- 
fuse the  falling  rain,  but  freely  adds  it  to  its  abundant  store,  so 
she,  'rich  in  will,'  should  accept  her  lover  Will's  'will'  and  'make 
her  large  will  more.'  The  poet  sums  up  his  ambition  in  the  final 
couplet : 

Let  no  unkind  no  fair  beseechers  kill ; 

Think  all  but  one,  and  me  in  that  one  —  Will. 

This  is  as  much  as  to  say,  'Let  not  my  mistress  in  her  unkindness 
kfll  any  of  her  fair-spoken  adorers.  Rather  let  her  think  all  who 
beseech  her  favours  incorporate  in  one  alone  of  her  lovers  —  and 
that  one  the  writer  whose  name  of  "WiU"  is  a  synonym  for  the 
passions  th^t  dominate  her.'  The  thought  is  wiredrawn  to  inanity, 
but  the  words  make  it  perfectly  clear  that  the  poet  was  the  only 
one  of  the  lady's  lovers  —  to  the  definite  exclusion  of  all  others  — 
whose  name  justified  the  quibbling  pretence  of  identity  with  the 
'will'  which  controls  her  being. 

The  same  equivocating  conceit  of  the  poet  Will's  title  to  identity 
with  the  lady's  'wUl'  in  all  senses  is  pursued  in  Sonnet  sonnet 
cxxxvi.    The  sonnet  opens :  raiExvi. 

If  thy  soul  check  thee  that  I  come  so  near. 
Swear  to  thy  blind  soul  that  I  was  thy  will,' 
And  will  thy  soul  knows  is  admitted  there. 

'  Edward  Dowden  says  'will  to  boot'  is  a  reference  to  the  Christian  name  of  Shake- 
speare's friend,  'William  [?  Mr.  W.  Et.]'  (Sonnets,  p.  236);  but  in  my  view  the  poet, 
in  the  second  line  of  the  sonnet,  only  seeks  emphasis  by  repetition  in  accordance  with 
no  unconunon  practice  of  his.  The  line  'And  will  to  boot,  and  will  in  over-plus,'  is  par- 
alleled in  its  general  form  and  intention  in  such  lines  of  other  sonnets  as  — 

'Kind  is  my  love  to-day,  to-morrow  kind'  (cv.  s). 

'Beyond  all  date,  even  to  eternity'  (cxxii.  4). 

'Who  art  as  black  as  hell,  as  dark'as  night   (cxlvii.  14). 

In  all  these  instances  the  second  half  of  the  line  merely  repeats  the  first  half  with  a  slight 
intensification. 

'  Cf.  Barnes's  Sonnet  Ixxiii. : 

'All  her  looks  gracious,  yet  no  grace  do  bring 
To  me,  poor  wretch !    Yet  be  the  Graces  there.' 

'  Shakespeare  refers  to  the  blindness,  the  'sightless  view'  of  the  soul,  in  Sonnet  xxvii., 
and  apostrophises  the  soul  as  the  'centre  of  his  smful  earth'  in  Sonnet  crivi. 


696  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Here  Shakespeare  adapts  to  his  punning  purpose  the  familiar 
philosophic  commonplace  respecting  the  soul's  domination  by 
'will'  or  volition,  which  was  more  clearly  expressed  by  his  con- 
temporary, Sir  John  Davies,  in  the  philosophic  poem,  'Nosce 
Teipsum' : 

Will  holds  the  royal  sceptre  in  the  soul, 
And  on  the  passions  of  the  heart  doth  reign. 

Whether  Shakespeare's  lines  be  considered  with  their  context 
or  without  it,  the  tenor  of  their  thought  and  language  positively 
refutes  the  commentators'  notion  that  the  'will'  admitted  to  the 
lady's  soul  is  a  rival  lover  named  Will.    The  succeeding  lines  run : 

Thus  far  for  love,  my  love-suit,  sweet,  fulfil.^ 
Will  will  fulfil  the  treasure  of  thy  love ; 
Ay,  fill  it  fuU  with  wills,  and  my  will  one. 
In  things  of  great  receipt  with  ease  we  prove 
Among  a  number  one  is  reckon'd  none : 
Then  in  the  number  let  me  pass  untold, 
Though  in  thy  stores'  account,  I  one  must  be ; 
For  nothing  hold  me,  so  it  please  thee  hold 
That  nothing  me,  a  something  sweet  to  thee. 

Here  the  poet  WiU  continues  to  claim,  in  punning  right  of  his 
Christian  name,  a  place,  however  small  and  inconspicuous,  among 
the  'wills,'  the  varied  forms  of  wUl  (i.e.  lust,  stubbornness,  and 
willingness  to  accept  others'  attentions),  which  are  the  constituent 
elements  of  the  lady's  being.  The  plural  'wills'  is  twice  used  in 
identical  sense  by  Barnabe  Barnes  in  the  lines  already  quoted : 

Mine  heart,  bound  martyr  to  thy  wills. 
But  women  will  have  their  own  wills. 

Impulsively  Shakespeare  brings  his  fantastic  pretension  to  a  some- 
what more  practical  issue  in  the  concluding  apostrophe : 

Make  but  my  name  thy  love,  and  love  that  still. 
And  then  thou  lovest  me — for  my  name  is  Will.' 

That  is  equivalent  to  saying  'Make  "wUl"  '  (i.e.  that  which  is 
yourself)  'your  love,  and  then  you  love  me,  because  Will  is  my 
name.'  The  couplet  proves  even  more  convincingly  than  the 
one  which  clinches  the  preceding  sonnet  that  none  of  the  rivals 

'  Tho  use  of  the  word  '  fulfil '  in  this  and  the  next  line  should  be  compared  with  Barnes's 
introduction  of  the  word  in  a  like  context  in  the  passage  given  above : 

'  Since  what  she  lists  her  heart  fulfils.' 

'Thomas  Tyler  paraphrases  these  lines  thus:  'You  love  your  other  admirer  named 
Will.  Love  the  name  alone,  and  then  you  love  me,  for  my  name  is  Will,'  p.  297.  Edward 
Dowden,  hardly  more  illuminating,  says  the  lines  mean :  'Love  only  my  name  (something 
less  than  loving  myself),  and  then  thou  lovest  me,  for  my  name  is  Will,  and  I  myself  am 
all  will,  I.e.  all  desire.' 


THE   'WILL'   SONNETS  697 

whom  the  poet  sought  to  displace  in  the  lady's  affections  could 
by  any  chance  have  been,  like  himself,  called  Will.  The  writer 
could  not  appeal  to  a  mistress  to  concentrate  her  love  on  his  name 
of  Will,  because  it  was  the  emphatic  sign  of  identity  between  her 
being  and  him,  if  that  name  were  common  to  him  and  one  or  more 
rivals,  and  lacked  exclusive  reference  to  himself. 

Loosely  as  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  were  constructed,  the 
couplet  at  the  conclusion  of  each  poem  invariably  smnmarises  the 
general  intention  of  the  preceding  twelve  lines.  The  concluding 
couplets  of  these  two  Sonnets  cxxxv.-vi.,  in  which  Shakespeare 
has  been  alleged  to  acknowledge  a  rival  of  his  own  name  in  his 
suit  for  a  lady's  favour,  are  consequently  the  touchstone  by  which 
the  theory  of  'more  Wills  than  one'  must  be  tested.  As  we  have 
just  seen,  the  situation  is  summarily  embodied  in  the  first  couplet 
thus: 

Let  no  unkind  no  fair  beseechers  kill ; 

Think  all  but  one,  and  me  in  that  one  —  Will. 

It  is  re-embodied  in  the  second  couplet  thus : 

Make  but  my  name  thy  love,  and  love  that  stUl, 
And  then  thou  lovest  me  —  for  my  name  is  Will. 

The  whole  significance  of  both  couplets  resides  in  the  twice- 
repeated  fact  that  one,  and  only  one,  of  the  lady's  lovers  is  named 
Will,  and  that  that  one  is  the  writer.  To  assume  that  the  poet 
had  a  rival  of  his  own  name  is  to  denude  both  couplets  of  all  point. 
'Will,'  we  have  learned  from  the  earlier  lines  of  both  sonnets,  is 
the  lady's  ruling  passion.  Punning  mock-logic  brings  the  poet 
in  either  sonnet  to  the  ultimate  conclusion  that  one  of  her  lovers 
may,  above  all  others,  reasonably  claim  her  love  on  the  ground 
that  his  name  of  WUl  is  the  name  of  her  ruling  passion.  Thus  his 
pretension  to  her  affections  rests,  he  punningly  assures  her,  on  a 
strictly  logical  basis. 

Unreasonable  as  any  other  interpretation  of   these   sonnets 
(cxxxv.-vi.)  seems  to  be,  I  believe  it  far  more  fatuous  to  seek  in 
the  single  and  isolated  use  of  the  word  'will'  in  each  Sonnet 
of  the  Sonnets  cxxxiv.  and  cxliii.  any  confirmation  <:™=iv. 
of  the  theory  of  a  rival  suitor  named  Will. 

Sonnet  cxxxiv.  runs : 

So  now  I  have  confess'd  that  he  is  thine, 
And  I  myself  am  mortgaged  to  thy  will.^ 
Myself  I'U  forfeit,  so  that  other  mine 
Thou  wilt  restore,  to  be  my  comfort  still. 

'  The  word  'will'  is  not  here  italicised  in  the  original  edition  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets, 
and  there  is  no  ground  whatever  for  detecting  in  it  any  sort  of  pun.  The  line  resembles 
Barnes's  line  quoted  above : 

'Mine  heart,  bound  martyr  to  thy  wills.' 


698  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

But  thou  wilt  not,  nor  he  will  not  be  free, 
For  thou  art  covetous  and  he  is  kind. 
He  leam'd  but  surety-like  to  write  for  me, 
Under  that  bond  that  him  as  fast  doth  bind. 
The  statute  of  thy  beauty  thou  wilt  take. 
Thou  usurer,  that  putt'st  forth  all  to  use, 
And  sue  a  friend  came  debtor  for  my  sake; 
So  him  I  lose  through  my  unkind  abuse. 

Him  have  I  lost ;  thou  hast  both  him  and  me ; 

He  pays  the  whole,  and  yet  am  I  not  free. 

Here  the  poet  describes  himself  as  'mortgaged  to  the  lady's  will' 
(i.e.  to  her  personality,  in  which  'will,'  in  the  dpuble  sense  of 
stubbornness  and  sensual  passion,  is  the  strongest  element).  He 
deplores  that  the  lady  has  captivated  not  merely  himself,  but  also 
his  friend,  who  made  vicarious  advances  to  her. 
Sonnet  cxliii.  runs : 

Lo,  as  a  careful  housewife  runs  to  catch 
One  of  her  feathered  creatures  broke  away, 
Sets  down  her  babe,  and  makes  all  swift  despatch 
In  pursuit  of  the  thing  she  would  have  stay; 
Whilst  her  neglected  child  holds  her  in  chase, 
Cries  to  catch  her  whose  busy  care  is  bent 
To  follow  that  which  flies  before  her  face. 
Not  prizing  her  poor  infant's  discontent : 
So  runn'st  thou  after  that  which  flies  from  thee. 
Whilst  I,  thy  babe,  chase  thee  afar  behind ; 
But  if  thou  catch  thy  hope  turn  back  to  me. 
And  play  the  mother's  part,  kiss  me,  be  kind  : 
So  wiU  I  pray  that  thou  mayst  have  thy  will,* 
If  thou  turn  back  and  my  loud  crying  still. 

In  this  sonnet  —  which  presents  a  very  clear-cut  picture,  although 
its  moral  is  somewhat  equivocal  —  the  poet  represents  the  lady  as 
Meaning  of  a  Country  housewife  and  himself  as  her  babe;  while 
Sonnet  cxliii.  a,n  acquaintance,  who  attracts  the  lady  but  is  not  at- 
tracted by  her,  is  figured  as  a '  feathered  creature '  in  the  house- wife's 
poultry-yard.  The  fowl  takes  to  flight ;  the  housewife  sets  down 
her  infant  and  pursues  '  the  thing.'  The  poet,  believing  apparently 
that  he  has  little  to  fear  from  the  harmless  creature,  lightly  makes 
play  with  the  current  catch-phrase  ('a  woman  will  have  her  will'), 
and  amiably  wishes  his  mistress  success  in  her  chase,  on  condition 
that,  having  recaptured  the  truant  bird,  she  turn  back  and  treat 
him,  her  babe,  with  kindness.  In  praying  that  the  lady  'may 
have  her  will '  the  poet  is  clearly  appropriating  the  current  catch- 
phrase,  and  no  pun  on  a  second  suitor's  name  of 'WiU'  can  be  fairly 
wrested  from  the  context. 

'  Because  'will'  by  what  is  almost  certainly  a  typographical  accident  is  here  printed 
Will  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Sonnets,  Professor  Dowden^is  inclined  to  accept  a  reference 
to  the  supposititious  friend  Will,  and  to  believe  the  poet  to  pray  that  the  lady  may  have 
her  Will,  i.e,  the  friend  'Will  [?  W.  H.]'  This  interpretation  seems  to  introduce  a  need- 
less complication. 


IX 

THE  VOGUE  OF  THE  ELIZABETHAN  SONNET,  1591-1597 

The  sonnetteering  vogue,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,'  reached 
its  full  height  between  1591  and  1597,  and  when  at  its  briskest  it 
drew  Shakespeare  into  its  current.  An  enumeration  of  volumes 
containing  sonnet-sequences  or  detached  sonnets  that  were  in  cir- 
culation during  the  period  best  illustrates  the  overwhelming  force 
of  the  sonnetteering  rage  of  those  years,  and,  with  that  end  in 
view,  I  give'here  a  bibliographical  account,  with  a  few  critical  notes, 
of  the  dbief  efforts  of  Shakespeare's  rival  sonnetteers.^ 

The  earliest  collections  of  sonnets  to  be  published  in  England 
were  those  by  the  Earl  of  Surrey  and  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  which 
first  appeared  in  the  publisher  Tottel's  poetical  mis- 
cellany caUed  'Songes  and  Sonnetes'  in  1557.    This  l^^^^l'''"^ 
volume  included  sixteen  sonnets  by  Surrey  and  twenty  Sonnets, 
by  Wyatt.    Many  of  them  were  translated  directly  ^\f^^'^ 
from  Petrarch,  and  most  of  them  treated  conventionally 
of  the  torments  of  an  unrequited  love.     Surrey  included,  however, 
three  sonnets  on  the  death  of  his  friend  Wyatt,  and  a  fourth  on  the 
death  of  one  Clere,  a  faithful  follower.    Tottel's  volume  was  seven 
times  reprinted  by  1587.    But  no  sustained  endeavour  was  made 
to  emulate  the  example  of  Surrey  and  Wyatt  tiU  Thomas  Watson 
about  1580  circulated  in  manuscript  his  'Booke  of  Passionate 
Sonnetes,'  which  he  wrote  for  his  patron,  the  Earl  of  Oxford.    The 
volume  was  printed  in  1582  under  the  title  of  '  EKATOMHAOIA' 
or  Passionate  Centurie  of  Loue.    Divided  into  two  ^^j^^^.g 
parts:   whereof  the  first  expresseth  the  Authours  suf-   'Centurieof 
ferance  on  Loue :   the  latter  his  long  farewell  to  Loue  Loue,'  1582. 
and  all  his  tyrannie.     Composed  by  Thomas  Watson,  and  pub- 

*  See  p.  154  supra.  A  fuller  account  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnet  and  its  indebtedness 
to  foreign  masters  is  to  be  found  in  my  preface  to  the  two  volumes  of  Elizabethan  SoTmets 
(1904),  m  Messrs.  Constable's  revised  edition  of  Arber's  English  Garner.  The  Elizabethan 
sonnetteers'  indebtedness  to  the  French  sonnetteers  of  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth 
century  is  treated  in  detail  in  my  French  Renaissance  in  England,  Oxford,  IQIO. 

'  The  word  'sonnet'  was  often  irregularly  used  for  'song'  or  'poem.'  Neither  Bamabe 
Googe's  Eghgs,  Epyllapkes,  and  Sonmeltes,  1563,  nor  George  Turbervile's  Epitaphes, 
Epigrams,  Songs  and  Sonets,  1567,  contains  a  single  fourteen-lined  poem.  The  French 
word  'quatorzain'  was  the  term  almost  as  frequently  applied  as  'sonnet'  to  the  fourtcen- 
line  stanza  in  regular  sonnet  form,  which  alone  falls  withm  my  survey ;  cf .  crazed  quator- 
ziins'  in  Thomas  Nashe's  preface  to  his  edition  of  Sidney's  Astrophel  and  Stella,  iS9i ; 
and  Amours  in  Quatorzains  on  the  title-page  of  the  first  edition  of  Drayton  s  Sonnets, 
1594- 

6qq 


700  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

lished  at  the  request  of  certaine  Gentlemen  his  very  frendes.' 
Watson's  work,  which  he  called  'a  toy,'  is  a  curious  literary  mosaic. 
He  supplied  to  each  poem  a  prose  commentary,  in  which  he  not 
only  admitted  that  every  conceit  was  borrowed,  but  quoted  chapter 
and  verse  for  its  origin  from  classical  literature  or  from  the  work 
of  French  or  Italian  sonnetteers.^  Two  regular  quatorzains  are 
prefixed,  but  to  each  of  the  'passions'  there  is  appended  a  four-line 
stanza  which  gives  each  poem  eighteen  instead  of  the  regular  four- 
teen lines.  Watson's  efforts  were  so  well  received,  however,  that 
he  applied  himself  to  the  composition  of  a  second  series  of  sonnets 
in  strict  metre.  This  collection,  entitled  'The  Tears  of  Fancie,' 
only  circulated  in  manuscript  in  his  lifetime.^ 

Meanwhile  a  greater  poet,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  who  died  in  1586, 
had  written  and  circulated  among  his  friends  a  more  ambitious 
g.j     ,  collection  of  a  hundred  and  eight  sonnets.    Most  of 

'AstropLi  Sidney's  sonnets  were  addressed  by  him  under  the 
iso/'^"^''  name  of  Astrophel  to  a~  beautiful  woman  poetically 
designated  Stella.  Sidney  had  in  real  life  courted 
assiduously  the  favour  of  a  married  lady,  Penelope,  Lady  Rich, 
and  a  few  of  the  sonnets  are  commonly  held  to  reflect  the  heat 
of  passion  which  the  genuine  intrigue  developed.  But  Petrarch, 
Ronsard,  and  Desportes  inspired  the  majority  of  Sidney's  efforts, 
and  his  addresses  to  abstractions  like  sleep,  the  moon,  his  muse, 
grief,  or  lust,  are  almost  verbatim  translations  from  the  French. 
Sidney's  sonnets  were  first  published  surreptitiously,  under  the 
title  of  'Astrophel  and  Stella,'  by  a  publishing  adventurer  named 
Thomas  Newman,  and  in  his  first  issue  Newman  added  an  appen- 
dix of  '  sundry  other  rare  sonnets  by  divers  noblemen  and  gentle- 
men.' Twenty-eight  sonnets  by  Daniel  were  printed  in  the  ap- 
pendix anonymously  and  without  the  author's  knowledge.  Two 
other  editions  of  Sidney's  'Astrophel  and  Stella'  without  the 
appendix  were  issued  in  the  same  year.  Eight  other  of  Sidney's 
sonnets,  which  still  circulated  only  in  manuscript,  were  first  printed 
anonymously  in  1594,  with  the  sonnets  of  Henry  Constable,  and 
these  were  appended  with  some  additions  to  the  authentic  edition 
of  Sidney's  'Arcadia'  and  other  works  that  appeared  in  1598. 
Sidney  enjoyed  in  the  decade  that  followed  his  death  the  reputation 
of  a  demi-god,  and  the  wide  dissemination  in  print  of  his  numerous 
sonnets  in  1591  spurred  nearly  every  living  poet  in  England  to 
emulate  his  achievement.^ 

^  See  pp.  170-1  supra. 

!  All  Watson's  sonnets  are  reprinted  by  Mr.  Arber  in  Watson's  Poems  i8os  •  'The 
lears  of  Fancie   are  in  Elizabetftan  Sonnets,  ed.  Lee,  i.  137-1G4. 

'In  a  preface  to  Newman's  first  edition  of  Astrophel  and  'stella  the  editor  Thomas 
Mashe,  m  a  burst  of  exultation  over  what  he  deemed  the  surpassing  merits  of  Sidney's 
sonnets,  exclaimed:  'Put  out  your  rushlights,  you  poets  and  rhymers'  and  bequeath 
your  crazed  quatorzains  to  the  chandlers,  forlo,  here  he  cometh  that  hath  broken  yoUr 
lifLf,?"  Tf  '  °*i  °^  Sidneys  work  was  just  the  opposite  to  that  which  Nashe  an- 
ticipated.    It  gave  the  sonnet  in  England  a  vogue  that  it  never  enjoyed  before  or  since. 


VOGUE  OF  THE  ELIZABETHAN  SONNET  701 

In  order  to  facilitate  a  comparison  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets 
with  those  of  his  contemporaries  it  will  be  best  to  classify  the 
sonnetteering  efforts  that  immediately  succeeded  Sidney's  under 
the  three  headings  of  (i)  sonnets  of  more  or  less  feigned  love, 
addressed  to  a  more  or  less  fictitious  mistress;  (2)  sonnets  of 
adulation,  addressed  to  patrons ;  and  (3)  sonnets  invoking  meta- 
physical abstractions  or  treating  impersonally  of  religion  or 
philosophy.^ 

In  February  1592   Samuel  Daniel  published  a  collection  of 
fifty-five  sonnets,  with  a  dedicatory  sonnet  addressed  to  his 
patroness,  Sidney's  sister,  the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  j  collected 
As  in  many  French  volumes,  the  collection  concluded  sonnets  of 
with  an  'ode.'^    At  every  point  Daniel  betrayed  his  ie«™diove. 
indebtedness  to  French*  sonnetteers,  even  when  apologising  for 
his  inferiority  to  Petrarch  (No.  xxxviii.).    His  title  he  borrowed 
from  the  collection  of  Maurice  Seve,  whose  assemblage  of  dixains 
called    'Delie,   objet    da    plus    haute    vertu'    (Lyon,  Daniel's 
1544),  "was  the  pattern  of  many  later  sonnet  sequences  'Delia,' 
on  love.    Many  of  Daniel's  sonnets  are  adaptations  '592- 
or  translations  from  the  Italian.      But  he  owes  much  to  the 
French  sonnetteers  Du  Bellay  and  Desportes.    His  methods  of 
handling  his  material  may  be  judged  by  a  comparison  of  his  Son- 
net xxvi.  with  Sonnet  Ixii.  in  Desportes'  collection,  'Cleonice: 
Dernieres  Amours,'  which  was  issued  at  Paris  in  iS7S. 

Desportes'  sonnet  runs : 

Je  verray  par  les  ans  vengeurs  de  men  njartyre 
Que  I'or  de  vos  cheveux  argente  deviendra, 
Que  de  vos  deux  soleils  la  splendeur  s'esteindra, 

Et  qu'U  faudra  qu' Amour  tout  confus  s'en  retire. 

La  beauts  qui  si  douce  S.  present  vous  inspire, 
Cedant  aux  lois  du  Temps  ses  f  aveurs  reprendra, 
L'hiver  de  vostre  teint  les  fleurettes  perdra, 

Et  ne  laissera  rien  des  thresors  que_i'admire_. 

Cfist  orgueil  desdaigneux  qui  vous  fait  ne  m'aimer, 

En  regret  et  chagrin  se  verra  transformer, 

Avec  le  changement  d'une  image  si  belle : 

Et  pent  estre  qu'alors  vous  n'aurez  desplaisir_ 
De  revivre  en  mes  vers  chauds  d'amoureux  desir, 

Ainsi  que  le  Phenix  au  feu  se  renouvelle. 

This  is  Daniel's  version,  which  he  sent  forth  as  an  original  pro- 
duction : 

'  With  collections  of  sonnets  of  the  first  kind  are  occasionally  interspersed  sonnets 
of  the  second  or  third  class,  but  I  classify  each  sonnet-collection  according  to  its  pre- 
dommant  characteristic.  ...  ..  ti  j  j 

'  Daniel  reprinted  all  but  nine  of  the  sonnets  that  had  been  unwarrantably  appended 
to  Sidney's  Astrophd.    These  nine  he  permanently  dropped. 


702  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

I  once  may  see,  when  years  may  wreck  my  wrong, 
And  golden  hairs  may  change  to  silver  wire ; 
And  those  bright  rays  (that  kindle  all  this  fire) 

Shall  fail  in  force,  their  power  not  so  strong. 

Her  beauty,  now  the  burden  of  my  song. 

Whose  glorious  blaze  the  world's  eye  doth  admire, 
Must  yield  her  praise  to  tyrant  Time's  desire; 

Then  fades  the  flower,  which  fed  her  pride  so  long, 

When  if  she  grieve  to  gaze  her  in  her  glass, 
Which  then  presents  her  winter- withered  hue : 
Go  you  my  verse  !  go  tell  her  what  she  was  ! 
For  what  she  was,  she  best  may  find  in  you. 

Your  fiery  heat  lets  not  her  glory  pass. 
But  Phoenix-Uke  to  make  her  live  anew. 

In  Daniel's  beautiful  sonnet  (xlix.)  beginning 

Care-charmer  Sleep,  son  of  the  sable  Night, 
Brother  to  DeatJi,  in  silent  darkness  bom, 

he  echoes  De  Baif  and  Pierre  de  Brach's  invocations  of  'O  Sbmmeil 
chasse-soin.'  But  again  he  chiefly  relies  on  Desportes,  whose 
words  he  adapts  with  very  slight  variations.  Sonnet  Ixxv.  of 
Desportes'  'Amours  d'Hippolyte'  opens  thus: 

Sommeil,  paisible  fils  de  la  Nuict  solitaire  .  .  . 
O  fr6re  de  la  Mort,  que  tu  m'es  ennemi ! 

Daniel's  sonnets  were  enthusiastically  received.    With  some 
additions  they  were  republished  in  1594  with  his  narrative  poem 
Fame  of         'Tiic    Complaint   of   Rosamund.'    The   volume   was 
Daniel's         called  'Delia  and  Rosamund  Augmented.'    Spenser, 
sonnets.         jj^  jjjg  'Colin  Clouts  come  home  againe,'  lauded  the 
'well-tuned  song'  of  Daniel's  soimets,  and  Shaiespeare  has  some 
claim  to  be  classed  among  Daniel's  many  sonnetteering  disciples. 
The  anonymous  author  of  'Zepheria'  (1594)  declared  that  the 
.'sweet   tuned   accents'   of   'Delian   sonnetry'   rang   throughout 
I  England;    while  Bartholomew  GriflSn,  in  his  'Fidessa'   (1596) 
|openly  plagiarised  Daniel,  invoking  in  his  Sonnet  xv.   'Care- 
charmer  Sleep,  .  .  .  brother  of  quiet  Death.' 

In  September  of  the  same  year  (1S92)  that  saw  the  first  complete 
version  of  Daniel's  'Delia,'  Henry  Constable  published  'Diana: 
Constable's  ^^^  Praises  of  his  Mistres  in  certaine  sweete  Sonnets.' 
•Diana,'  Like  the  title,  the  general  tone  and  many  complete 
'S92-  poems    were    drawn    from    Desportes'    'Amours   de 

Diane.'  Twenty-one  poems  were  included,  all  in  the  French  vein. 
The  collection  was  reissued,  with  very  ntmierous  additions,  in  1594 
under  the  title  'Diana;  or,  The  excellent  conceitful  Sonnets  of 
H.  C.  Augmented  with  divers  Quatorzains  of  honourable  and 
learned  personages.'    This  volume  is  a  typical  venture  of  the  book- 


VOGUE  OF  THE  ELIZABETHAN  SONNET  703 

sellers.^  The  printer,  James  Roberts,  and  the  publisher,  Richard 
Smith,  supplied  dedications  respectively  to  the  reader  and  to 
Queen  Elizabeth's  ladies-in-waiting.  They  had  swept  together 
sonnets  in  manuscript  from  all  quarters  and  presented  their  cus- 
tomers with  a  disordered  miscellany  of  what  they  called  'orphan 
poems.'  Besides  the  twenty  sonnets  by  Constable,  eight  were 
claimed  for  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  the  remaining  forty-seven  are 
by  various  hands  which  have  not  as  yet  been  identified. 

In  1593  the  legion  of  sormetteers  received  notablfe  reinforce- 
ments. In  May  came  out  Barnabe  Barnes's  interesting  volume, 
'Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe:  Sonnets,  Madrigals,  Barnes's 
Elegies,  and  Odes.  To  the  right  noble  and  virtuous  sonnets, 
gentleman, M.  William  Percy,  Esq.,  his  dearest  friend.' '^  '593- 
The  contents  of  the  volimie  and  their  arrangement  closely  resemble 
the  sonnet-collections  of  Petrarch  or  the  'Amours'  of  Ronsard. 
There  are  a  hundred  and  five  sonnets  altogether,  interspersed  with 
twenty-six  madrigals,  five  sestines,  twenty-one  elegies,  three 
'canzons,'  and  twenty  'odes,'  one  in  sonnet  form.  There  is, 
morepver,  included  what  purports  to  be  a  translation  of  'Moschus' 
first  eidiUion  describing  love,'  but  is  clearly  a  rendering  of  a  French 
poem  by  Amadis  Jamyn,  entitled  'Amour  Fuitif,  du  grec  de  Mos- 
chus,' in  his  'CEuvres  Po6tiques,'  Paris,  1579.^  At  the  end  of 
Barnes's  volume  there,  also  figure  six  dedicatory  sonnets.  In 
Sonnet  xcv.  Barnes  pays  a  compliment  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  'the 
Arcadian  shepherd,  Astrophel,'  but  he  did  not  draw  so  largely  on 
Sidney's  work  as  on  that  of  Ronsard,  Desportes,  De  Baif,  and  Du 
Bellay.  Legal  metaphors  abound  in  Barnes's  poems,  but  amid 
many  crudities  he  reaches  a  high  level  of  beauty  in  Sonnet  Ixvi., 
which  runs : 

Ah,  sweet  Content!  where  is  thy  mild  abode? 
Is  it  with  shepherds,  and  light-hearted  swains. 
Which  sing  upon  the  downs,  and  pipe  abroad. 
Tending  their  flocks  and  cattle  on  the  plains? 

Ah,  sweet  Content!  where  dost  thou  safely  rest? 
In  Heaven,  with  Angels?  which  the  praises  sing 
Of  Him  that  made,  and  rules  at  His  behest. 
The  minds  and  hearts  of  every  living  thing. 
;  Ah,  sweet  Content !  where  doth  thine  harbour  hold? 

^  Is  it  in  churches,  with  religious  men, 

Which  please  the  gods  with  prayers  manifold; 
And  in  their  studies  meditate  it  then? 

Whether  thou  dost  in  Heaven,  or  earth  appear ; 

Be  where  thou  wilt !    Thou  wilt  not  harbour  here !  * 

,       EUzaiethan  Sonnets,  ed.  Lee,  ii.  7S-"4.  '  ^^^■•j;  'fe"^'*-.  ^       ,     ^     .j 

'  Ben  Jonson  developed  the  same  conceit  in  his  masque.  The  Hue  and  Cry  after  Cupid, 

1608. 
,'     'Dekker's  well-known  song,  'Oh,  sweet  content,'  in  his  play  of  'Patient  Grisselde' 

(1599),  echbes  this  sonnet  of  Barnes. 


704  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

In  August  1593  there   appeared  a  posthumous  collection  of 
,         sixty-one  sonnets  by  Thomas  Watson,  entitled  'The 
'T»™of       Tears  of  Fancie,  or  Love  Disdained.' '  They  are  through-  ' 
Fancie,  out  of  the  imitative  type  of  his  previously  published  ,' 

'^^'''  'Centurie  of  Love.'    Many  of  them  sound  the  same 

note  as  Shakespeare's  sonnets  to  the  'dark  lady.' 

In  September  1593  followed  Giles  Fletcher's  'Licia,  or  Poems 
of  Love  in  honour  of  the  admirable  and  singular  virtues  of  his 
Fletcher's  Lady.'  This  collection  of  fifty- three  sonnets  is  dedi- 
'  Licia,'  cated  to  the  wife  of  Sir  Richard  Mollineux.     Fletcher 

"593-  makes  no  concealment  that  his  sonnets  are  literary 

exercises.  'For  this  kind  of  poetry,'  he  tells  the  reader,  'I  did  it 
to  try  my  humour' ;  and  on  the  title-page  he  notes  that  the  work 
was  written  'to  the  imitation  of  the  best  Latin  poets  and  others.' ' 

The  mbst  notable  contribution  to  the  sonnet-literature  of  1593 
was  Thomas  Lodge's  'PhiUis  Honoured  with  Pastoral  Sonnets, 
Lodge's  Elegies,  and  Amorous  Delights.' '  Besides  forty  son- 
'Phiiiis,'  nets,  some  of  which  exceed  fourteen  lines  in  length  and 
'593-  others  are  shorter,  there  are  included  three  elegies  and 

an  ode.  A  large  number  of  Lodge's  sonnets  are  literally  translated 
from  Ronsard  and  Desportes,  but  Lodge  also  made  free  with  the 
works  of  the  Italian  sonnetteers  Petrarch,  Ariosto,  Sannazaro, 
Bembo  and  Lodovico  Paschale.  How  servile  Lodge  could  be 
may  be  learnt  from  a  comparison  of  his  Sonnet  xxxvi.  with  Des- 
portes' sonnet  from  'Les  Amours  de  Diane,'  livre  11.  sonnet  iii. 

Thomas  Lodge's  Sonnet  xxxvi.  runs  thus : 

If  BO  I  seek  the  shades,  I  presently  do  see 
The  god  of  love  forsake  his  bow  and  sit  me  by; 
If  that  I  think  to  write,  his  Muses  pliant  be ; 
If  so  I  plain  my  grief,  the  wanton  boy  wiU  cry. 

If  I  lament  his  pride,  he  doth  increase  my  pain ; 
If  tears  my  cheeks  attaint,  his  cheeks  are  moist  with  moan ; 
If  I  disclose  the  wounds  the  which  my  heart  hath  slain, 
He  takes  his  fascia  off,  and  wipes  them  dry  anon. 

If  so  I  walk  the  woods,  the  woods  are  his  delight; 
If  I  myself  torment,  he  bathes  him  in  my  blood ; 
He  win  my  soldier  be  if  once  I  wend  to  fight. 
If  seas  delight,  he  steers  my  bark  amidst  the  flood. 

In  brief,  the  cruel  god  doth  never  from  me  go, 

But  makes  my  lasting  love  eternal  with  my  woe. 

Desportes  wrote  in  'Les  Amours  de  Diane,'  book  ir.  sonnet  iii. : 

Si  ie  me  si6s  3, 1'ombre,  aussi  soudainement 
Amour,  laissant  son  arc,  s'assiet  et  se  repose  : 

1  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  ii.  23-74. 

2  There  is  a  convenient  reprint  of  Lodge's  PhiUis  in  Elizabethan  Sonnet-Cycles  hy 
Martha  Foote  Crow,  1896 ;  s&e  also  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  sd.  Lee,  ii.  1—22. 


VOGUE  OF  THE  ELIZABETHAN  SONNET  705 

Si  ie  pense  a  des  vers,  ie  le  voy  qu'U  compose : 
_  Si  ie  plains  mes  douleurs,  il  se  plaint  hautement. 

Si  ie  me  plains  du  mal,  il  accroist  mon  tourment : 
Si  ie  respan  des  pleurs,  son  visage  U  arrose : 
Si  ie  monstre  la  playe  en  ma  poitrine  enclose, 
_  II  d6f ait  son  bandeau  I'essuyant  doucement. 

Si  ie  yay  par  les  bois,  aux  bois  il  m'accompagne : 
Si  ie  me  suis  cruel,  dans  mon  sang  il  se  bagne : 
Si  ie  vais  3,  la  guerre,  il  deuient  mon  soldart : 

Si  ie  passe  la  mer,  il  conduit  ma  nacelle : 
Bref,  iamais  I'inhumain  de  moy  ne  se  depart. 
Pour  rendre  mon  amour  et  ma  peine  eternelle. 

Three  new  volumes  in  1594,  together  with  the  reissue  of  Daniel's 
'Deha'  and  of  Constable's  'Diana'  (in  a  piratical  miscellany  of 
sonnets  from  many  pens),  prove  the  steady  growth  of  Drayton's 
the  sonnetteering  vogue.  Michael  Drayton  in  June  'idea,' 
produced  his  'Ideas  Mirrour,  Amours  in  Quatorzains,'  ^^^*- 
containing  fifty-one  'Amours'  and  a  sonnet  addressed  to  'his 
ever  kind  Mecsenas,  Anthony  Cooke.'  Drayton  acknowledged 
his  devotion  to  'divine  Sir  PhUip,'  but  by  his  choice  of  title,  style, 
and  phraseology,  the  English  sonnetteer  once  more  betrayed  his 
indebtedness  to  French  compeers.  'L'Idee'  was  the  name  of  a 
collection  of  sonnets  by  Claude  de  Pontoux  in  1579.  Many 
additions  were  made  by  Drayton  to  the  sonnets  that  he  published 
in  1594,  and  many  were  subtracted  before  1619,  when  there 
appeared  the  last  edition  that  was  prepared  in  Drayton's  life- 
time. A  comparison  of  the  various  editions  (1594,  1599,  1605, 
and  1619)  shows  that  Drayton  published  a  hundred  sonnets,  but 
the  majority  were  apparently  circulated  by  him  in  early  life. 

William  Percy,  the  'dearest  friend'  of  Barnabe  Barnes,  published 
in  1594,  in  emulation  of  Barnes,  a  collection  of  twenty  'Sonnets 
to  the  fairest  Coelia.' '    He  explains,  in  an  address  p^g^.j 
to  the  reader,  that  out  of  courtesy  he  had  lent   the   'Coelia,' 
sonnets  to  friends,  who  had  secretly  committed  them  ^^^*- 
to  the  press.     MaJdng  a  virtue  of  necessity,  he  had  accepted  the 
situation,  but  begged  the  reader  to  treat  them  as  '  toys  and  amorous 
devices.' 

A  collection  of  forty  sonnets  or  'canzons,'  as  the  anonymous 
author  calls  them,  also  appeared  in  1594  with  the  title  'Zepheria.'^ 
In  some  prefatory  verses  addressed  'AUi  veri  figlioli  'Zepheria,' 
deUe  Muse'  laudatory  reference  was  made  to  the  son-  '594- 
nets  of  Petrarch,  Daniel,  and  Sidney.  Several  of  the  sonnets 
.labour  at  conceits  drawn  from  the  technicalities  of  the  law,  and 
Sir  John  Davies  parodied  these  efforts  in  the  eighth  of  his  'gullmg 
sonnets'  beginning  'My  case  is  this.    I  love  Zepheria  bright.' 

»  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  ii.  137-151.  '  -f*-  "•  1S3-178. 

2Z 


7o6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Four  interesting  ventures  belong  to  1595.  In  January,  appended 
to  Richard  Barnfield's  poem  of  'Cynthia,'  a  panegyric  on  Queen 
Elizabeth,  was  a  series  of  twenty  sonnets  extolling  the 
foZetl  to  ■  personal  charms  of  a  young  man  in  emulation  of  Virgil's 
Ganymede,  Eclogue  ii.,  in  which  the  shepherd  Corydon  addressed 
'^'^'  the  shepherd-boy  Alexis.^    In  Sormet  xx.  the  author 

expressed  regret  that  the  task  of  celebrating  his  young  friend's 
praises  had  not  fallen  to  the  more  capable  hand  of  Spenser  ('great 
Colin,  chief  of  shepherds  all')  or  Drayton  ('gentle  Rowland, 
my  professed  friend').    Barnfield  at  times  imitated  Shakespeare. 

Almost  at  the  same  date  as  Barnfield's  'Cynthia'  made- its 
appearance  there  was  published  the  more  notable  collection  by 
Spenser's  Edmund  Spenser  of  eighty-eight  sonnets,  which,  in 
' Amoretd,"  reference  to  their  Italian  origin,  he  entitled  '  Amoretti.'  ^ 
'S9S.  Spenser  had  already  translated  many  sormets  on  phil- 

osophic topics  of  Petrarch  and  Joachim  Du  BeUay.  Some  of  the 
'Amoretti'  were  doubtless  addressed  by  Spenser  in  1593  to  the 
lady  who  became  his  wife  a  year  later.  But  the  sentiment  was 
largely  ideal,  and,  as  he  says  in  Sonnet  Ixxxvii.,  he  wrote,  like 
Drayton,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  'Idaea.'  Several  of  Spenser's 
sonnets  are  unacknowledged  adaptations  of  Tasso  or  Desportes. 

An  unidentified  'E.  C,  Esq.,'  produced  also  in  1595,  under 
the  title  of  'Emaricdulfe,' '  a  collection  of  forty  sonnets,  echomg 
'Emaric-  English,  and  French  models.  In  the  dedication  to  his 
duUe,'  'two  very  good   friends,   John  Zouch   and   Edward 

IS95-  Fitton  Esquiers,'  the  author  tells  them  that  an  ague 

confined  him  to  his  chamber,  '  and  to  abandon  idleness  he  com- 
pleted an  idle  work  that  he  had  already  begun  at  the  command 
and  service  of  a  fair  dame.' 

To  159s  may  best  be  referred  the  series  of  nine  '  Gullinge  sonnets' 
or  parodies,  which  Sir  John  Davies  wrote  and  circulated  in  manu- 
Sirjohn  Script,  in  order  to  put  to  shame  what  he  regarded  as 
^Gum'^e  'the  Isastard  sonnets'  in  vogue.  He  addressed  his 
Sonne^,^  collection  to  Sir  Anthony  Cooke,  whom  Drayton  had 
'S9S-  already  celebrated  as  the  'Mecasnas'  of  his  soimetteer- 

ing  efforts.^  Davies  seems  to  have  aimed  at  Shakespeare  as  well 
as  at  insignificant  rhymers  like  the  author  of  'Zepheria.'  *  No. 
viii.  of  Davies's  'guUinge  sonnets,'  which  ridicules  the  legal  met- 
aphors of  the  sonnetteers,  may  be  easily  matched  in  the  collections 
of  Barnabe  Barnes  or  of  the  author  of  'Zepheria,'  but  Davies's 

'  Reprinted  in  Arber's  English  Scholars'  Library,  1882. 

^  It  was  licensed  for  the  press  on  November  19,  1594. 

'  Reprinted  for  the  Roxburghe  Club  in  A  Lamport  Garland,  1881,  edited  by  Mr.  Charles 
Edmonds.  'Emaricdulfe'  is  an  anagram  of  a  lady's  name,  Marie  Cufeld,  alias  Cufaud, 
alias  Cowfold,  of  Cufaud  Manor  near  Basingstoke.'  Her  mother,  a  daughter  of  Sir 
Geoffrey  Pole,  was  maid  of  honour  to  Queen  Mary  (cf.  MontlUy  Packet,  1884-3).  She 
seems  to  have  married  one  William  Ward. 

'  Davies's  Poems,  ed.  Grosart,  i.  51-62.  6  gee  p.  17s,  note. 


VOGUE   OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN  SONNET  707 

phraseology  suggests  that  he  also  was  glancing  at  Shakespeare's 
legal  sonnets  kxxvii.  and  cxxxiv.    Davies's  sonnet  runs : 

My  casp  is  this.     I  love  Zepheria  bright, 

Of  her  I  hold  my  heart  by  fealty : 

Which  I  discharge  to  her  perpetually, 

Yet  she  thereof  will  never  me  acquit[e]. 

For,  now  supposing  I  withhold  her  right, 

She  hath  distrained  my  heart  to  satisfy 

The  duty  which  I  never  did  deny. 

And  far  away  impounds  it  with  despite.  - 

I  labour  therefore  justly  to  repleave  [i.e.  recover] 

My  heart  which  she  unjustly  doth  impound. 

But  quick  conceit  which  now  is  Love's  high  shreive 

Returns  it  as  eslojoied  [i.e.  absconded],  not  to  be  found. 

Then  what  the  law  affords  —  I  only  crave 

Her  h^art,  for  mine  inwit  her  name  to  have. 

'R.  L.,  gentleman,'  probably  Richard  Linche,  published  in  1596 
thirty-nine  sonnets  under  the  title  'DieUa.'  ^    The  effort  is  J;hor- 
oughly  conventional.    In  an  obsequious  address  by  the  Lin^he's 
publisher,  Henry.  Olney,  to  Anne,  wife  of  Sir  Henry  'DieUa,' 
Glenham,    Linche's   sonnets    are   described   as    'pas-   '^^*' 
sionate'  and  as  'conceived  in  the  brain  of  a  gallant  gentleman.' 

To  the  same  year  belongs  Bartholomew  Griflfin's   'Fidessa,' 
sixty-two   sonnets   inscribed   to  'William   Essex,   Esq.'     GriflBn 
designates  his  sonnets  as  '  the  first  fruits  of  a  young   grffEn's 
beginner.'    He  is  a  shameless  plagiarist.    Daniel  is   'Fidessa,' 
his  chief  model,  but  he  also  imitated  Sidney,  Watson,   '''*• 
Constable,   and   Drayton.    Sonnet   iii.,   begirming   'Venus   and 
young  Adonis  sitting  by  her,'  is  almost  identical  with  the  fourth 
poem  —  a  sonnet  beginning  'Sweet  Cytheraea,  sitting  by  a  brook' 
—  in  Jaggard's  piratical  miscellany,  'The  Passionate  Pilgrim,' 
which  bore   Shakespeare's  name  on   the   title-page.^  Thomas 
Jaggard  doubtless  borrowed  the  poem   from  Griffin.   Campion, 
Three  beautiful  love-sonnets  by  Thomas   Campion,   '^s*- 
which  are  found  in  the  Harleian  MS.  6910,  are  there  dated  1596.' 

William  Smith  was  the  author  of  'Chloris,'  a  third  collection 
of  sonnets  appearing  in  1596.^    The  volume  contains  forty-eight 
sonnets  of  love  of  the  ordinary  type,  with  three  adulat-  ^m^^ 
ing  Spenser ;   of  these,  two  open  the  volume  and  one  smitii's  _ 
concludes  it.     Smith  says  that  his  sonnets  were  'the  j^^°"*'' 
budding  springs  of  his  study.'    In  1600  a  license  was 
issued  by  the  Stationers'  Company  for  the  issue  of  'Amours' 

'  EKoAethan  Sonnets,  ed.  Lee,  ii.  297-320.  '  Ih.  ii.  261-296. 

:  »  Cf.  Biydges's  Excerpta  Tudoriana,  1814,  i.  3S-7-    One  was  printed  witti  some  altera- 
icms  in  Rosseter's  Book  of  Ayres  (1610),  and  another  m  the  Third  Book  of  Ayres  (1617  ?) ; 
IjSeS  Campion's  Works,  ed.  A.  H.  BuUen,  pp.  15-16,  102. 

*  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  ed.  Lee,  ii.  321-349* 


7o8  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

by  W.  S.  This  no  doubt  refers  to  a  second  collection  of  sonnets 
by  William  Smith.     The  projected  volume  is  not  extant.^ 

In  1597  there  came  out  a  similar  volume  by  Robert  Tofte, 
entitled  'Laura,  the  Joys  of  a  Traveller,  or  the  Feast  of  Fancy.' 
The  book  is  divided  into  three  parts,  each  consisting 
Toto^  of  forty   'sonnets'   in  irregular  metres.    There  is  a 

'Laura,'  prose  dedication  to  Lucy,  sister  of  Henry,  ninth  Earl 
'^'^'  of  Northumberland.    Tofte  tells  his  patroness  that 

most  of  his  'toys'  'were  conceived  in  Italy.'  As  its  name  implies, 
his  work  is  a  pale  reflection  of  Petrarch.  A  postscript  by  a  friend 
— 'R.  B.' —  complains  that  a  publisher  had  intermingled  with 
Tofte's  genuine  efforts  'more  than  thirty  sonnets  not  his.'  But 
the  style  is  throughout  so  uniformly  tame  that  it  is  not  possible 
to  distinguish  the  work  of  a  second  hand.'' 

To  the  same  era  belongs  Sir  WiUiam  Alexander's  'Aurora,' 
a  collection  of  a  himdred  and  six  sonnets,  with  a  few  songs  and 
Sir  William  elegies  interspersed  on  French  patterns.  Sir  William 
Aiexanjier's  describes  the  work  as  'the  first  fancies  of  his  youth,' 
■Aurora.'  g^^^j  formally  inscribes  it  to  Agnes,  Countess  of  Argyle. 
It  was  not  published  till  1604.^ 

Sir  Fulke  GrevUle,  afterwards  Lord  Brooke,  the  intimate  friend 
of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  Recorder  of  Stratford-on-Avon  from 
SirFuike  ^^°^  ^^^  ^^^  death,  was  author  of  a  like  collection  of 
Greviiie's  sonnets  called  '  Caslica.'  The  poems  number  a  himdred 
'  Caeiica '  gj^^  nine,  but  few  are  in  strict  sonnet  metre.  Only  a 
small  proportion  profess  to  be  addressed  to  the  poet's  fictitious 
mistress,  CseHca.  Many  celebrate  the  charms  of  another  beauty 
named  Myra,  and  others  invoke  Queen  Elizabeth  under  her 
poetic  name  of  Cynthia  (cf.  Sonnet  xvii).  There  are  also  many 
addresses  to  Cupid  and  meditations  on  more  or  less  metaphysical 
themes,  but  the  tone  is  never  very  serious.  GreviUe  doubtless 
wrote  the  majority  of  his  'Sonnets'  during  the  period  under  survey, 
though  they  were  not  published  until  their  author's  works 
appeared  in  folio  for  the  first  time  in  1633,  five  years  after  his 
death. 

^  See  p.  669  and  note.  __         , 

2  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  ed.  Lee,  ii.  351-424. 

s  Practically  to  the  same  category  as  these  collections  of  sonnets  belong  the  volu- 
minous laments  of  lovers,  in. six,  eight,  or  ten  lined  stanzas,  which,  though  not  in  strict 
sonnet  form,  closely  resemble  in  temper  the  sonnet-sequences.  Such  are  Willobie  his 
Avisa,  1594;  Alcilia:  Fhiloparthen's  Loving  FoUy,  by  J.  C,  159s;  Arbor  of  Amorous 
Deuices,  1597  (containing  two  regular  sonnets),  by  Nicholas  Breton;  Alba,  the  Months 
Minde  of  a  Melancholy  Lover,  by  Robert  Tofte,  1598;  Daiphantus,  or  the  Passions  of 
Love,  by  Anthony  Scoloker,  1604;  Breton's  The  Passionate  Shepheard,  or  The  Shep- 
heardes  Loue:  set  downe  in  passions  to  his  Shepheardesse  Aglaia:  with  tnany  excellent 
conceited  poems  and  pleasant  sonets  fit  for  young  heads  to  passe  away  idle  houres,  1604  (none 
of  the  'sonets'  are  in  sonnet  metre);  and  John  Reynolds's  Dolarnys  Primerose  .  .  . 
■wherein  is  expressed  the  liuely  passions  of  Zeale  and  Loue,  1606.  Though  George  Withers's 
similar  productions  —  his  exquisitely  fanciful  Fidelia  (1617)  and  his  Faire-Virtue,  the 
Mistresse  of  Phil'  Arete  (1622)  —  were  published  at  a  later  period,  they  were  probably  . 
designed  in  the  opening  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


VOGUE  OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN  SONNET  709 

With  Tofte's  volume  in  1597  the  publication  of  collections  of 
love-sonnets  practically  ceased.  Only  two  collections  on  a  volu- 
minous scale  seem  to  have  been  written  in  the  early  jst^j^tg  „£ 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century.  About  1607  WiUiam  number  of 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  penned  a  series  of  sixty-  jss^eTbe''^ 
eight  interspersed  with  songs,  madrigals,  and  sextains,  tween  1591 
nearly  all  of  which  were  translated  or  adapted  from  """^  '597- 
modern  Itahan  sonnetteers.'  About  1610  John  Davies  of  Hereford 
published  his  '  Wittes  Pilgrimage  .  .  .  through  a  world  of  Amorous 
Sonnets.'  Of  more  than  two  hundred  separate  poems  in  this 
volume,  only  the  hundred  and  four  sonnets  in  the  opening  section 
make  any  claim  to  answer  the  description  on  the  title-page,  and  the 
majority  of  those  are  metaphysical  meditations  on  love  which  are 
not  addressed  to  any  definite  person.  Some  years  later  William 
Browne  penned  a  sequence  of  fourteen  love-sonnets  entitled  '  Cselia ' 
and  a  few  detached  sonnets  of  the  same  type.^  The  dates  of  produc- 
tion of  Drummond's,  Davies's,  and  Browne's  sonnets  exclude  them 
from  the  present  field  of  view.  Omitting  them,  we  find  that  be- 
tween £5oi_and  1597  there  had  been  printetLnearbLlwelve  hundred 
sonnets  of  the  amorous  kind.  If  to  these  we  addShakespeafe's 
poems7anci  make  allowance  for  others  which,  only  circulating  in 
manuscript,  have  not  reached  us,  it  is  seen  that  more  than  two 
hundred  love-sonnets  were  produced  in  each  of  the  six  years  under 
survey.  The  literary  energies  of  France  and  Italy  pursued  a  like 
direction  during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  century,  but  at  no  other 
period  and  in  no  other  -country  did  the  love-sonnet  dominate 
literature  to  a  greater  extent  than  in  England  between  1591  and 

1597. 

Of  sonnets  to  patrons  between  1591  and  1597,  of  which  detached 
specimens  may  be  found  in  nearly  every  published  book  of  the 
period,  the  chief  collections  were : 

A  long  series  of  sonnets  .prefixed  to  'Poetical  Exercises  of  a 
Vacant  Hour'  by  King  James  VI  of  Scotland,  1591;    twenty- 
three  sonnets  in  Gabriel  Harvey's  'Four  Letters  and  jj  gonnets 
certain    Sonnets    touching    Robert  Greene'     (1592),   to  patrons, 
including  Edmimd  Spenser's  fine  sonnet  of  compli-   '^'^  '■ 
ment  addressed  to  Harvey ;  a  series  of  sonnets  to  noble  patronesses 
by  Constable  circulated  in  manuscript  about  1592  (first  prmted 
in  'Harleian  Miscellany,'  1813,  ix.  491) ;    six  adulatory  sonnets 
appended  by  Bamabe  Barnes  to  his  '  Parthenophil '  in  May  1593  ; 
four  sonnets  to  'Sir  Philip  Sidney's  soul,'  prefixed  to  the  first 
edition  of  Sidney's  'Apologie  for  Poetrie'  (1595) ;  seventeen  son- 

'  They  were  first  printed  in  1656,  seven  years  after  the  author's  death,  in  Poems  by 
thalfammis  wit,  WiUiam  Drummond,  London,  fol.  The  volume  was  edited  by  Edward 
PhilUps,  Milton's  nephew.  The  best  modem  edition  is  that  of  Prof.  L.  E.  Kastner  m 
1913     A  useful  edition  by  Mr.  W.  C.  Ward  appeared  m  the  'Muses'  Library    (1894). 

'  Cf  William  Browne's  Poems  in  'Muses'  Library'  (1894),  ii.  217  et  seq. 


yio 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


nets  which  were  originally  prefixed  to  the  first  edition  of  Spenser's 
'Faerie  Queene,'  bk.  i.-iii.,  in  1590,  and  were  reprinted  in  the 
edition  of  1596;'  sixty  sonnets  to  peers,  peeresses,  and  officers 
of  state,  appended  to  Henry  Locke's  (or  Lok's)  'Ecclesiasticus' 
(1597) ;  forty  sonnets  by  Joshua  Sylvester  addressed  to  Henry  IV 
of  France  'upon  the  late  miraculous  peace  in  Fraunce'  (1599); 
Sir  John  Davies's  series  of  twenty-six  octosyllabic  sonnets,  which 
he  entitled  'Hymnes  of  Astraea,'  all  extravagantly  eulogising 
Queen  Elizabeth  (1599). 

The  collected  sonnets  on  religion  and  philosophy  that  appeared 
in  the  period  1591-7  include  sixteen  'Spiritual!  Sonnettes  to  the 
„  honour  of  God  and  Hys  Sa}mts,'  written  by  Constable 

onpha^*^  about  1593,  and  circulated  only  in  manuscript ;  these 
phyand  ^gre  first  printed  from  a  manuscript  in  the  Harleian 
religion.  collection  (5993)  by  Thomas  Park  in  'Heliconia,'  1815, 
vol.  II.  In  159s  Bamabe  Barnes  published  a  'Divine  Centurie 
of  Spirituall  Sonnets,'  and,  in  dedicating  the  collection  to  Toby' 
Matthew,  bishop  of  Durham,  mentions  that  they  were  written  a. 
year  before,  while  travelling  in  France.  They  are  closely  modelled 
on  the  two  series  of  'Sonnets  Spirituels'  which  the  Abbe  Jacques 
de  Billy  published  in  Paris  in  1573  and  1578  respectively.  A  long 
series  of  'Sonnets  Spirituels'  written  by  Anne  de  Marquets,  a  sister 
of  the  Dominican  Order,  who  died  at  Poissy  in  1598,  was  first  pub- 
lished in  Paris  in  1605.  In  1594  George  Chapman  published  ten 
sonnets  in  praise  of  philosophy,  which  he  entitled  'A  Coronet  for 
his  Mistress  Philosophy.'  In  the  opening  poem  he  states  that  his 
aim  was  to  dissuade  poets  from  singing  in  sonnets  'Love's  Sensual 
Empery.'  In  1597  Henry  Locke  (or  Lok)  appended  to  his  verse- 
rendering  of  Ecclesiastes  "  a  collection  of  '  Stmdrie  Sonets  of  Chris- 
tian Passions,  with  other  Affectionate  Sonets  of  a  Feeling  Con- 
science.' Lok  had  in  1 593  obtained  a  license  to  publish  '  a  hundred 
Sonnets  on  Meditation,  Humiliation,  and  Prayer,'  but  that  work 
is  not  extant.  In  the  volume  of  1597  his  sonnets  on  religious  or 
philosophical  themes  number  no  fewer  than  three  hundred  and 
twenty-eight.' 

Thus  in  the  total  of  sonnets  published  between  1591  and  1597 
must  be  included  at  least  five  hundred  sonnets  addressed  to  patrons, 
and  as  many  on  philosophy  and  religion.  The  aggregate  far 
exceeds  two  thousand. 

1  Chapman  imitated  Spenser  by  appending  fourteen  like  sonnets  to  his  translation 
of  Homer  in  1610;  they  were  increased  in  later  issues  to  twenty-two.  Very  numerous 
sonnets  to  patrons  were  appended  by  ^ohn  Davies  of  Hereford  to  his  Microcosmcs  (1603) 
and  to  his  Scourge  of  Polly  (1611).  Divers  sonnets,  epistles,  &c.  addressed  to  patrons  by 
Joshua  Sylvester  between  1590  and  his  death  in  i6i8  were  collected  in  the  1641  edition 
of  his  Du  Bartas  his  divine  weekes  and  workes. 

*  Remy  Belleau  in  1566  brought  out  a  similar  poetical  version  of  the  Book  of  Eccle- 
siastes entitled  Vaniti. 

2  There  are  forty-eight  sonnets  on  the  Trinity  and  similar  topics  appended  to  Davies's 
Wittes  Pilgrimage  (1610?). 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE   ON  THE   SONNET  IN  FRANCE, 
f  1550-1600 

In  the  earlier  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  Melin  de  Saint-Gelais 
(1487-1558)  and  Clement  Marot  (1496-1544)  made  a  few  scattered 
efforts  at  sonnetteering  in  France ;  and  Maurice  Seve  _  , 
laid  down  the  lines  of  all  sonnet-sequences  on  themes  of  (1524-1585) 
love  in  his  dixains  entitled  'Delie'  (1544).  But  it  was  |°^.  ^^, 
Ronsard  (1524-1585),  in  the  second  half  of  the  century, 
who  first  gave  the  sonnet  a  pronounced  vogue  in  France.  The 
sonnet  was  handled  with  the  utmost  assiduity  not  only  by  Ron- 
sard,  but  by  the  literary  comrades  whom  he  gathered  round  him, 
and  on  whom  he  bestowed  the  title  of  'La  Pleiade.'  The  leading 
aim  that  united  Ronsard  and  his  friends  was  the  reformation  of 
the  French  language  and  literature  on  classical  models.  But 
they  assimilated  and  naturalised  in  France  not  only  much  that 
was  admirable  in  Latin  and  Greek  poetry,^  but  all  that  was  best 
in  the  recent  Italian  literature;^  Although  they  were  learned 
poets,  Ronsard  and  the  majority  of  his  associates  had  a  natural 
lyric  vein,  which  gave  their  poetry  the  charms  of  freshness  and 

>  Graphic  illustrations  of  the  attitude  of  Ronsard  and  his  friends  to  a  Greek  poet 
like  Anacreon  appear  in  AnacrSon  et  les  Poimes  anacriontigues,  Texie  grec  avec  les  Tra^ 
iucUmts  et  Imitations  des  Poites  du  XVIe  slide,  par  A.  Delboulle  (Havre,  iSoi).  A  trans- 
lation of  Anacreon  by  Remy  Belleau  appeared  in  1556.  Cf.  Sainte-Beuve's  essay, 
'Anacrfon  au  XVP  siMe,'  in  his  Tableau  de  la  Polsie  francaise  au  XVIe  siicle  (1893), 
pp.  432-47.  In  the  same  connection  Antkologie  ou  Recueil  des  plus  beaux  Epigrammes 
Grecs,  .  .  .  mis  en  vers  fransois  sur  la  version  Latine,  par  Pierre  Tamisier  (Lyon,  1589, 
new  edit.  1607),  is  of  interest. 

'  Italy  was  the  original  home  of  the  sonnet,  and  it  was  as  popular  a  poetic  form  with 
Italian  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century  as  with  those  of  the  three  preceding  centuries. 
The  Italian  poets  whose  sonnets,  after  those  of  Petrarch,  were  best  known  in  England 
and  France  in  the  later  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  Serafino  dell'  Aquila  (1466- 
1500),  Jacopo  Sannazaro  (1458-1530),  Agnolo  Firenzuola  (1497-1S47).  Cardinal  Bembo 
(1470-1547),  Gaspara  Stampa  (1524-1553),  Pietro  Aietino  (1492-15S7),  Bernardo  Tasso 
(1493-1568),  Luigi  TansiUo  (1510-1568),  Gabriello  Fiamma  id.  1585),  Torquato  Tasso 
(1544-1595),  Luigi  Groto  (fl-  iS7o),  Giovanni  Battista  Guarini  (1537-1612),  and  Giovanni 
BittBta  Marino  (r565-i625)  (cf.  Tiraboschi's  Storia  della  Letleratura  Italtana,  1770-1782 } 
Bi;.  Gamett's  History  of  Italian  Literature,  1897 ;  Symonds's  Renaissance  in  Italy,  edit. 
■i^B,  vols.  iv.  and  vi. ;  and  Francesco  Flamini,  II  Cinquecento,  Milan,  n.d.).  The  present 
'iter's  preface  to  Elizabethan  Sonnets  (2  vols.  1904),  and  the  notes  to  Watson  s  Passtonate 
iCenlurie  of  Love,  published  in  1582  (see  p.  171  note),  to  Davison  s  Poetical  Rhapsody 
(ed.  Mr.  A.  H.  BuUen,  1891),  and  to  Poems  of  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  (ed.  W.  C. 
Ward,  1894,  and  L.  E.  Kastner,  1913),  give  many  illustrations  of  Eng  ish  sonnetteers 
indebtedness  to  Serafino,  Groto,  Marino,  Guarini,  Tasso,  and  other  Italian  sonnetteers 
of  the  sixteenth  century. 

711 


712  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

spontaneity.  The  true  members  of  'La  P16iade,'  according  to 
Ronsard's  own  statement,  were,  besides  himself,  Joachim  du 
Bellay  (1524-1560) ;  Estienne  Jodelle  (1532-1S73) ;  Remy  Belleau 
(1528-1577) ;  Jean  Dinemandy,  usually  known  as  Daurat  or  Dorat 
(i  508-1 588),  Ronsard's  classical  teacher  in  early  Ufe ;  Jean-Antoine 
de  Baif  (1532-1589) ;  and  Pontus  de  Thyard  (1521-1605).  Others 
of  Ronsard's  literary  allies  are  often  loosely  reckoned  among  the 
'Pleiade.'  These  writers  include  Jean  de  la  Peruse  (1529-1554). 
Olivier  de  Magny  (1530-1559),  Amadis  Jamyn  (iS38?-iS85),  Jean 
Passerat  (1534-1602),  PhUippe  Desportes  (1546-1606),  Etienne 
Pasquier  (1529-1615),  Scevole  de  Sainte-Marthe  (1536-1623),  and 
Jean  Bertaut  (1552-1611).  These  subordinate  members  of  the 
Desportes  'Pleiade'  were  no  less  devoted  to  sonnetteering  than 
(1S46-1606).  the  original  members.  Of  those  in  this  second  rank, 
Desportes  was  most  popular  in  France  as  well  as  in  England. 
Although  many  of  Desportes's  sonnets  are  graceful  in  thought 
and  melodious  in  rhythm,  most  of  them  abound  in  overstrained 
conceits.  Not  only  was  Desportes  a  more  slavish  imitator  of 
Petrarch  than  the  members  of  the  'Pleiade,'  but  he  encouraged 
niunerous  disciples  to  practise  'Petrarchism,'  as  the  imitation  of 
Petrarch  was  called,  beyond  healthful  limits.  Under  the  influence 
of  Desportes  the  French  sonnet  became,  during  the  latest  years  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  little  more  than  an  empty  and  fantastic 
echo  of  the  Italian. 

The  following  statistics  will  enable  the  reader  to  realise  how 
closely  the  sonnetteering  movernent  in  France  adumbrated  that 

in  England.  The  collective  edition  in  1 584  of  the  works 
collections  '^^  Ronsard,  the  master  of  the  'Pleiade,'  contains  more 
o£  French  than  nine  hundred  separate  sonnets  arranged  under  such 
puuShed  titles  as  'Amours  de  Cassandre,'  'Amours  de  Marie,' 
between  '  Amours  pour  Astree,' '  Amours  pour  Helene' ;  besides 
1584^°"^        'Amours  Divers'  and  'Sonnets  Divers,'  complimentary 

addresses  to  friends  and  patrons.  Du  BeUay's  'OUve,' 
a  collection  of  love-sonnets,  first  published  in  1549,  reached  a 
total  of  a  hundred  and  fifteen.  'Les  Regrets,'  Du  BeUay's  son- 
nets on  general  topics,  some  of  which  Edmund  Spenser  first  trans- 
lated into  English,  numbered  in  the  edition  of  1565  a  hundred  and 
eighty-three.  Pontus  de  Thyard  produced  between  1549  and  1555 
three  series  of  his  'Erreurs  Amoureuses,'  sonnets  addressed  to 
Pasithee.  De  Baif  published  two  long  series  of  sonnets,  entitled 
respectively  'Les  Amours  de  Meline'  (1552)  and  'Les  Amours  de 
Francine'  (1555).  Amadis  Jamyn  was  responsible  for  'Les 
Amours  d'Oriane,'  'Les  Amours  de  Calliree,'  and  'Les  Amours 
d'Artemis'  (1575).  Desportes'  'Premieres  CEuvres'  (1575),  a 
very  popular  book  in  England,  included  more  than  three  hundred 
sonnets  —  a  hundred  and  fifty  being  addressed  to  Diane,  eighty- 


THE   SONNET  IN  FRANCE 


713 


six  to  Hippolyte,  and  ninety-one  to  Cleonice.     Belleau  brought 
out  a  volume  of 'Amours' in  1576. 

Among  other  collections  of  sonnets  published  by  less  known 
writers  of  the  period,  and  arranged  here  according  to  date  of  first 
pubUcation,    were    those    of    Guillaume    des    Autels, 
'Amoureux    Repos'     (1553);      Olivier    de     Magny,   Minor 
'Amours,  Soupirs,'  &c.   (1553,   1559);    Louise  Labe,   of  French 
'CEuvres'  (iSSS);  Jacques  Tahureau,  'Odes,  Sonnets,'  ™^^?^  . 
&c.   (iS54,   IS74);    Claude  de  BiUet,   'Amalthee,'  a  between 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  love  sonnets  (1561);   Vau-   i||^  ^"^ 
quelin  de  la  Fresiiaye,   'Foresteries'   (1555   at  annis  '  °^' 
seq.);  Jacques  Grevm,  'Olynipe'  (1561);  Nicolas  EUain,  'Son- 
nets'  (1561) ;    Scevole  de  Sainte-Marthe,  '(Euvres  Franpaises' 
(1569,  1579) ;  Etienne  de  la  Boetie,  'CEuvres'  (1572),  and  twenty- 
nine  sonnets  published  with  Montaigne's  'Essais'  (1580);  Jean 
et  Jacques  de  la  Taille,  '(Euvres'  (1573) ;  Jacques  de  Billy,  'Son- 
nets Spirituels'  (first  series  1573,  second  series  1578) ;    Etienne 
Jodelle,  '(Euvres  Poetiques'  (1574) ;  Claude  de  Pontoux,  'Soimets 
de  I'ldee'  (1579) ;   two  himdred  and  eighty-eight  regular  sonnets 
with  odes,  chansons  and  other  verse;    Les  Dames  des  Roches, 
'CEuvres'   (1579,    1584);    Pierre  de  Brach,  'Amours  d'Aymee' 
(cwca  1580);    Cjilles  Durant,   'Poesies' — ^  sonnets  to  Charlotte 
and  Camille  (1587,  1594);   Jean  Passerat,  'Vers  .  .  .  d'Amours' 
(1597);    and  Anne  de  Marquets,  who  died  in  1588,  'Sonnets 
Spirituels'  (1605) .^ 

1  There  are  modem  reprints  of  most  of  these  books,  but  not  of  all.  The  writings  of 
the  seven  original  members  of  'La  Pl^iade'  are  reprinted  in  La  PUiade  Francaise,  edited 
by  Marty-Laveaux,  i6  vols.,  1866-93.  Ronsard's  Amours,  bk.  i.  ed.  Vaganay  (1910)  has 
an  admirable  apparatus  criticus.  The  reprint  of  Ronsard's  works,  edited  by  Prosper 
Blanchemain,  in  La  Bibliothdgue  ElzSmrienne,  8  vols.  1867,  is  useful.  The  works  of 
Remy  Belleau  are  issued  in  the  same  series.  Maurice  Sfeve's  DUie  was  reissued  at  Lyons 
in  1862.  Pierre^  de  Bracb's  poems  were  carefully  edited  by  Reinhold  Dezeimeris  (2  vols., 
Paris,  1862).  A  complete  edition  of  Desportes's  works,  edited  by  Alfred  Michiels,  ap- 
peared in  r863.  Prosper  Blanchemain  edited  a  reissue  of  the  works  of  Louise  LaM  m 
1875.  The  works  of  Jean  de  la  Taille,  of  Amadis  Jarayn,  and  of  Guillaume  des  Autels 
are  reprinted  in  Trisor  des  Vieux  Poiles  Fran^ais  C1877  et  annis  seq.).  See  Sainte-Beuve*s 
Tableau  Eistorique  et  Critique  de  la  Po&sie  Franqaise  du  XVle  SUcle  (Paris,  1893) ;  Henry 
Francis  Gary's  Early  French  I'oets  (London,  r846) ;  Becq  de  Fouquiferes'  (Euvres  choisies 
desPoites  Prangais  du  XVle  Siicle  contempormns  avec  Ronsard  (1880),  and  the  same  editor's 
selections  from  De  Baif ,  Du  Bellay,  and  Ronsard ;  Darmesteter  et  Hatzfeld's  Le  Seizieme 
'SUcle  en  France  —  Tableau  de  la  LittSrature  et  de  la  Langue  (6th  edit.,  1897) ;  Petit  de 
Julleville's  Eistorie  de  la  Langue  et  de  la  LittSrature  Francaise  (1897,  iii.  136-260),  and  the 
present  writer's  French  Renaissance  in  England  (Oxford,  1910),  bk.  iv. 


INDEX 


Abbey,  Edwin  Austin,  6oq 

Abbott,  Dr.  E.  A.,  644 

Actor-dramatists.  See  under  Bark- 
stead,  William;  Field,  Nathaniel; 
Heywood,  Thomas;  Jonson,  Ben; 
Peele,  George;  Rowley,  William; 
Shakespeare,  William ;  Wilson, 
Robert 

Actors:  their  licenses  to  act,  46 
and  47  n  I ;  tHeir  status,  48  and 
notes;  their  patrons,  52  seq.;  com- 
panies of,  so  seq.;  provincial  tours, 
.  8r  seq.,  358  n  see  esp.  82  n;  Scottish 
tours,  83-4;  foreign  tours,  85-6: 
Shakespeare's  view  of,  88-9;  privi- 
leges of  the  Lord  Admiral's  and 
Lord  Chamberlain's  companies  of, 
337  and  «  I,  338 ;  and  the  Privy 
Council,  337-39;  strife  between 
adult  and  boy  actors,  340-49  {See 
also  under  Boy-actors) ;  account 
of  their  misfortunes  in  Hamlet, 
341  and  n  3,  342;  their  share  in 
Jensen's  literary  controversies,  342- 
8;  performances  in  University 
towns,  361  »  2 ;  in  Germany,  610 ; 
in  Paris,  623.  See  also  under  Women- 
actors 

Actors;  companies  of.  See  under 
Berkeley,  Lord ;  Boy-actors ; 
Chandos,  Lord;  Chapel  Royal, 
Children  of ;  Derby,  Earl  of ;  EKza- 
beth,  Queen ;  Essex,  Earl  of ; 
Howard,  Lord  Charles  of  Effingham, 
Lord  High  Admiral;  Hunsdon,  Lord ; 
James  I,  King;  Leicester,  Earl 
of;  Oxford,  Earl  of;  Pembroke, 
Earl  of;  St.  Paul's,  children  of; 
Stafford,  Lord;  Sussex,  Earl  of; 
Warwick,  Earl  of ;  Worcester,  Earl  of 

Actors'  Remonstrance:  cited  on  money 
taken  at  theatres,  308  » ;  on  drama- 
tists' incomes,  31s  n 

Adams,  Maud,  American  actress,  609 

Addenbroke,  John,  sued  by  Shake- 
speare for  debt,  322  and  «  i 

Addison,  Josepli,  on  Shakespeare, 
595,  618 


jEschylus,  17  » 

Alabaster,  William,  his  Roxana,  74  «  i, 
iSi  »  2 

Alcilia,  708  »  3. 

Alexander,  Sir  William,  his  Aurora, 
708 

All  is  true,  alternative  title  of  Henry 
VIII,  441  and  »  I 

Allde,  John,  printer,  679  »  i 

Allen,  Charles,  on  Shakespeare's  legal 
knowledge,  43  n,  653 

Allen,  Giles,  63  »  r 

Alleyn,  Edward,  in  the  Lord  Ad- 
miral's company  of  actors,  61  and 
«  T ;  pays  fivepence  for  the  pirated 
Sonnets,  160  «;  acts  before  Queen 
Elizabeth  at  Richmond,  373  n  3, 
456  «  2 ;  his  bequests,  493  and  n  i ; 
his  Dulwich  property,  493 ;  his 
manuscripts,  558  n,  646,  649 

All's  Well  that  Ends  WeU:  debt  to 
Boccaccio,  98;  sonnet  form  in, 
iSS,  see  esp.  233-5;  probable  date 
of  composition,  233,  234;  sources 
of  plot,  234;  probably  identical 
with  Love's  Labour's  Won,  234,  259; 
chief  characters,  234;  style,  234, 
23s;  mentioned  by  Meres,  259; 
editions  of,  SS4  seq. ;  passages 
cited,  44  »  I,  186  n  2,  216  »  2 

Allot,  Robert,  568 

Alvanley,  seat  of  an  Arden  family, 
284 

America,  editions  of  Shakespeare, 
printed  and  published  in,  581  «; 
'Bankside'  edition,  583  «  i;  'Har- 
vard' edition,  584:  'Riverside' 
edition,  584;  'First  Folio'  edition, 
584;     'Renaissance'    edition,    s84> 

58s 
Amner,  Richard,  580 
'Amours',    use    of    word    in    France, 

669  »,  7r2  seq. 
Amsterdam,    English    actors    at,    8s 

»  2 
'Amyntas',    complimentary    title    of, 

151  »  2,  66s  n  I  ' 

Anacreon,  711  »  i 


71S 


7i6 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Anders,  H.  R.  D.,  644 

Andrewes,  Lancelot,  4g5  »  2 

Andrewes,  Robert,  457 

Angerianus,  148  n  2 

Anne,  Queen,  wife  of  James  I  (of 
England),  66;  and  the  omissions 
from  the  quartos  of  Hamlet,  364  and 
n  i;  her  patronage  of  actors,  96, 
376  and  n  i ;  witnesses  Love's 
Labour's  Lost,  383 

Anti-Semitism  in  Tudor  times,  13s  n  i 

Antoine,  Andre,  French  actor,  in 
Shakespearean  roles,  624 

Antony  and  Cleopatra,  account  of, 
406-10;  date  of  publication,  407; 
story  derived  from  Plutarch,  98,  407- 
9;  the  theme  in  French  tragedy, 
417  n  I ;  Shakespeare's  treatment 
of  the  story,  409  and  408  n  i ;  the 
metre  and  'happy  valiancy'  of  the 
style,  410 ;  editions  of,  554  seq. ; 
Dryden's  adaptation  in  All  for 
Love,  59s;  passages  cited,  78, 
223  n  3,  576 

Apollonius  of  Tyre,  ancient  story  of, 
402,  403 

Appian,  Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to, 
Hi 

Apuleius,  42s  »  I 

Archer,  Thomas,  bookseller,  679  «  i 

'Arden  Shakespeare,  The,'  584 

Arden  family,  6,  282  seq. 

Arden,  Agnes  or  Anne,  7 

Arden,  Alice,  8 

Arden,  Edward,  high  sheriff  of  War- 
wickshire (iS7s),  7 

Arden,  Joan,  14 

Arden,  Mary.    See  Shakespeare,  Mary 

Arden,  Robert,  sheriff  of  Warwick- 
shire (1438),  7 

Arden,  Robert,  son  of  Thomas  Arden, 
7 ;  landowner  at  Snitterfield,  3,  7 ; 
his  family,  7-8;  death,  and  will,  7, 
282  seq. 

Arden,  Thomas,  7 

Arden  of  Fever  sham,  assigned  to 
Shakespeare,  140;  sources  of,  140; 
Swinburne's  view  of,  140-1 

Aremberg,  Count  d',  382  n  i 

Aretino,  Pietro,  711  n  2 

Argyle,  Agnes,  Countess  of,  708 

Ariodante  and  Ginevra,  Historie  of, 
324  and  n  i 

Ariosto,  22,  42  »  I,  92, 172  and  «  2,  324 

Aristotle,  quotation  from,  by  Bacon 
and  Shakespeare,  653  n  2 

Armenian  translations  of  Shakespeare, 
632 


Armin,  Robert,  37s,  379  »  2.  382  »  i, 

4SI  »  I 

Arms,  Coat  of,  John  Shakespeare's  ap- 
plication for,  2,  13  »,  281  seq. 

Ame,  Dr.,  musician,  599,  607 

Arnold,  Matthew,  587  n  i 

Arundel,  Thomas,  first  Lord  Arundel 
of  Wardour,  6s7  n  4 

As  You  Like  It:  Shakespeare's  r61e  of 
Adam  in,  88;  use  of  prose  in,  loi 
n  2;  reference  to  Marlowe  in,  136; 
account  of,  325-7;  adapted  from 
Lodge's  Rosalynde,  98,  325,  326;  its 
pastoral  character,  325;  hints  taken 
from  Saviolo's  FracUse,  326;  debt 
to  Ariosto's  Orlando,  326  k  i;  ad- 
dition of  three  new  characters,  327;- 
publication  of,  331,  332;  alleged 
performance  before  King  James  I 
at  Wilton,  378  n,  686  n ;  editions  of, 
554  seq.;  passages  cited,  20  »  2, 
30  »  I,  78,  86  »  2, 136 

Asbies,  Mary  Shakespeare's  property 
at  Wilmcote,  8;  mortgaged  to 
Edmund  Lambert,  14  and  »  2, 
33,  236 ;  Shakespeare's  unsuccessful 
claim  for  its  recovery,  289-90. 

Ascham,  Roger,  his  use  of  the  word 
'will,'  691 

Ashbee,  E.  W.,  his  quarto  facsimiles, 
550  n  I 

Aspinall,  Mr.,  291  »  i 

Aspley,  William,  bookseller,  160, 
242  n  I,  331,  553  seq.,  568 

Astley,  Hugh,  stationer,'  680 

Aston  Canflow,  6-8 

Aubrey,  John,  on  Shakespeare,  501, 
521,  641,  see  also  5,  22,  25,  39,  275, 
276  n  2,  448,  484  n  I,  689 :  on  John 
Combe's  epitaph,  471  and  n  2, 
484  n  I 

Augsburg,  English  actors  at,  85 

'Auriol'  miniature  portrait  of  Shake- 
speare, S36 

Austria,  English  actors  in,  85 

Autels,  Guillaume  des,  713  and  » 

Awdley,  Thomas,  321 

Ayrer,  Jacob,  his  Comedia  von  der 
schonen  Sidea,  427  and  n  2,  428 

Ayscough,  Samuel,  645  re 


Bacon,  Anne,  459  and  n  i 

Bacon,  Anthony,  654  n  i 

Bacon,  DeUa,  651 

Bacon,  Sir  Edmund,  457  „  2,  654  »  2 

Bacon,  Franas,  490;    alleged  author- 


INDEX 


717 


ship  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  651 
seq. ;  his  poetic  incapacity,  654 

Bacon,  Matthew  of  Holborn,  457,  458 

Bacon,  Sir  Nicholas,  495  »  2 

Bacon,  Richard,  458 

Bacon,  Thomas,  634 

Bacon-Shakespeare  controversy,  651- 
5;  bibliography  of,  652  «  i 

Baddesley  Clinton,  Shakespeares  at,  2 

Badger,  George,  280 

Badsey,  Thomas,  291  «  i 

Bagley,  Edward,  513 

Baif,  Jean  Antoine  de,  183,  702,  703, 
712,  713  n 

Baker,  G.  P.,  608,  645 

Bale,  Bishop,  his  King  Johan,  138 

Bales,  Peter,  113  n 

Bandello,  22,  98,  108  n,  no  and  », 
141,  147,  324.  330 

Bankside,  Southwark.  See  under 
'Globe,'  'Rose,'  and  'Swan'  theatres 

'Bankside'  edition  of  Shakespeare, 
583  »  I 

Barante,  on  Shakespeare,  624 

Barber  or  Barbor,  Joan,  478  n 

Barber  or  Barbor,  Thomas,  478  n 

Bardolph,  William  Phillipp,  Lord,  286 

Baretti,  Giuseppe,  bis  appreciation 
of  Shakespeare,  627 

Barker,  John,  320 

Barker,  Thomas,  280 

Barker,  William,  319 

Barkstead,  William,  actor  and  drama- 
tist, 97  n 

Barlichway,  Shakespeares  at,  2 

Barnard.    See  Bernard 

Baraay,  Ludwig,  German  actor  of 
Shakespearean  roles,  617 

Barnes,  Bamabe,  his  use  of  legal 
terminology,  43  »  i,  703;  resem- 
blance of  the  conceits  in  his  sonnets 
to  those  in  Shakespeare's,  190,  191 ; 
the  probable  rival  of  Shakespeare 
for  Southampton's  favour,  201-3 ; 
his  sonnets  to  Southampton  and 
Lady  Bridget  Manners,  200,  659 
n  2,  664;  his  sonnets  on  women's 
obduracy,  694  and  » i,  «  2,  69s  »  3 ; 
his  use  of  word  'will,'  696;  703,  706, 
^09-10 

Barnes,  William,  467 

Bamfield,  Richard,  his  praise  of  Shake- 
speare's narrative  poems,  150,  159, 
209  n ;  adoration  of  Queen  Elizabeth 
in  his  Cynthia,  207  and  »,  227,  706; 
his  contributions  to  the  Passionate 
Pilgrim,  267  and  «  2 ;  his  use  of  in- 
itials in  'dedications,'  67s 


BELLEFOREST 

Barnstaple,  players  at,  82  and  83  n 

Barret,  Ranelagh,  his  copy  of  the 
'Chandos'  portrait,  333 

Barry,  James,  608 

Barry,  Lodowick  (or  Lording),  share- 
holder in  Whitetriars  theatre,   303 

Barry,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  533 

Bartholomew  Fair,  suppresse'd  owing 
to  the  plague,  130 

Bartlett,  John,  64s 

Barton,  Thomas  Pennant,  his  collec- 
tion of  Shakespeareana,  609 

Barton-on-the-Heath,  identical  with 
Burton  Heath  in  the  Taming  of 
the  Shrew,  236 

Basse,  William,  ,497;  his  elegy  on 
Shajcespeare,    49S-9  and  n 

Bath,  players  at,  82,  83  » 

Bathurst,  Charles,  loi  n  i 

Baynes,  Thomas  Spencer,   64s 

Beale,  Francis,  668 

Beale,  John,  bookseller,  679  «  i 

Bear  Garden,  Southwark,  274  «  i 

Beaumont,  Francis,  residence  in  South- 
wark, 275;  see  also  455  n,  498- 
Soo;  on  'things  done  at  the  Mer- 
maid,' 258;  his  tragicomedies  in 
collaboration  with  John  Fletcher, 
418  and  n  i ;  collected  works, 
SS2  »  I ;  Faithful  Shepherdess,  The, 
418;  A  King  and  no  King,  418  and 
n  i;  'fair  copies'  of  Honest  Man's 
Fortune,  and  Humorous  Lieutenant, 
418  and  n  i,  558  n  i ;  Philaster, 
677 ;   Scornful  Lady,  66  n  s 

Beaumont,  Sir  John,  668 

Becker,  Ludwig,  538 

Bedford,  Edward  Russell,  third  Earl 
of,  his  marriage,  232,  659 

Bedford,  Lucy,  Countess  of,  209  n  i 

Beeching,  Dean  H.  C.',  162  n,  655 

Beeston,  Christopher,  actor,  S3  »  2, 
451  n  I,  641 

Beesfon,  William,  36;  his  view  of 
Shakespeare's  acting,  87;  his  ac- 
count of  Shakespeare,  36,  276  n, 
641 

'Begetter,'  in  sense  of  procurer,  679, 
680  and  n  i 

BeUnsky,  Russian  critic  of  Shake- 
speare, 629 

Bell  inn,  Gracechurch  Street,  60  »  2 

Bellay.    See  Du  Bellay 

Belleau,  Remy,  710  n  1,  711  n  1, 
712 

Belleforest,  Franfois  de,  Shake- 
speare's indebtedness  to  Les  His- 
toires  Tragiques  of,   18,  98,   no  «, 


7i8 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


324.  33°;  li's  version  of  the  'Ham- 
let' story,  353 

Bellott,  Stephen,  277  n  i,  517 

Bel  Sauvage  inn,  Ludgate,  60  »  2 

Bembo,  Pletro,  epitaph  on  Raphael, 
497  n  I.  See  also  172,  704,  711 
n  2 

Benda,  J.  W.  0.,  his  translation  of 
Shakespeare,  614 

Bendish,  Sir  Thomas,  458-9 

Benedix,  J.  R.,  his  opposition  to  the 
worship  of.  Shakespeare  in  Ger- 
many, 615 

Benfield,  Robert,  303  «,  306  »,  307  n 

Benger,  Sir  Thomas,  master  of  the 
revels,  70  n 

Bei^sley,  Robert,  actor,  603 

Benson,  F.  R.,  his  performances  at 
Stratford,  541,  606 

Benson,  John,  printer  of  the  Poems 
of  1640,  .  .  .  544  and  n  2 

Bentley,  R.,  570 

Bergerac,  Cyrano  de,  618 

Berkeley,  Lord,  visit  of  his  company 
of  actors  to  Stratford,  24  »  2 

Berkenhead,  Sir  John,  directions  for 
his  burial,  484  «  i 

Berlin,  copy  of  First  Folio  at,  567 

Berlioz,  Hector,  624 

Bernard  or  Barnard,  Sir  John,  second 
husband  of  Shakespeare's  grand- 
daughter, Elizabeth,  510-11 ;  ac- 
count of,  5ri;    his  estate,  511  »  2 

Bernard,  Lady.  See  under  Hall, 
Elizabeth 

Bemers,  Lord,  his  translation  of 
Huon  of  Bordeaux,  233 

Bernhardt,  Mme.  Sarah,  as  Lady 
Macbeth,  624 

Bertaut,  Jean,  712 

Betterton,  Thomas,  actor,  45,  533, 
SQO,  593,  599,  600,  6or,  642 

Betterton,  Mrs.,  actress,  in  great 
Shakespearean  rdles,  601 

Beverley,   miracles  pkys  at,   91   n 

Bible,  versions  of  the,  22;  Shake- 
speare's use  of  the  Genevan  version, 
22  and  23  »  I 

Bidford,  Shakespeare's  alleged  drink- 
ing bouts  at,  48r  and  »  i ;  Shake- 
speare's crabtree  at,  481  n  i 

Billet,  Claude  de,  713 

Billy,  Abbe  Jacques,  de,  710 

Bingham,  John,  495 

Birmingham,  Shakespeare  memorial 
library  at,  541 

Birth  of  Merlin,  265  and  n  t 

Bishop,  George,  printer,  41 


Bishop,  Sir  Henry,  607 

Blackfriars,  Shakespeare's  property 
at,  456-9 

'Blackfriars'  theatre,  60  »  2;  accoimt 
of,  63-7 ;  site  of,  65  »  i ;  its  struc- 
ture, 67 ;  its  demolition,  66  »  i ; 
seating  capacity,  73;  Shakespeare's 
shares  in,  306;  its  lessees,  306-7; 
shareholders,  307  »  i ;  takings  at, 
308  and  n;  prices  of  admission 
to,  309;  lawsuits  relating  to,  310  «}. 
310  »;  boy  actors'  activities  at, 
338-40  and  note;  value  of  shares 
iuj  312  »  I ;  Collier's  forged  docu- 
ments relating  to,  648-9;  perform- 
ances at,  Othello,  386,  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen,  437 

Blackness,  Shakespeare's  praise  of, 
191-2 

Blades,  William,  644 

Bleibtreu,  Karl,  651  « 

Bloom,  J.  Harvey,  643 

Blount,  Edward,  publisher,  159  «, 
162,  270,  404,  408,  S53-4,  568, 
666  »,  672,  677 

Blount,  Sir  Edward,  469  » 

Boaden,  James,  682  » 

Boaden,  John,  on  Shakespeare's  por- 
traits, 535,  538  B  2 

Boaistuau  de  Launay,  Pierre,   iro  » 

Boar's  Head  Tavern,  Eastcheap, 
60  n  2,  243  n  I 

Boar's  Head  Tavern,  Southwark, 
243,  and  n  i 

Boas,  F.  S.,  361  «,  646 

Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  his  treatment 
of  friendship,  215-7;  Chaucer's 
indebtedness  to,  369  and  n  i ; 
Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to,  22, 
98,  232,  42  T,  425  and  »  I 

Bodenham,  John,  680,  681 

Bodenstedt,  Friedrich  von,  German 
translator  of  Shakespeare,  614 

Bodleian  Library,  collection  of  quartos 
in,  551 ;  copies  of  First  Folio  in, 
566  and  n  1 

Bo6tie,  Etienne  de  la,  713 

Bohemian  translations  of  Shakespeare, 
632 

Boiardo,  Matteo,  his  comedy,  II 
Timone,  400 

Boito,  Arrigo,  his  Ubretti  for  Verdi's 
Shakespearean  operas,  626 

Bompas,  G.  C,  655 

Bond,  Sir  E.  .\.,  650  n  2 

Bonian,  Richard,  publisher,  366 

Booth,  Barton,  actor,  601 

Booth,  Edwin,  American  actor,  609 


INDEX 


719 


Booth,  Junius  Brutus,  American  actor, 

609 
Booth,  Lionel,  reprint  of  First  Folio, 

568  »  I 
Borck,  Baron  Caspar  Wilhelm  von,  5i  i 
Boswell,  James,  514  »,  599 
Boswell,  James,  the  younger,  581 
Bottger,    A.,    German    translator    of 

Shakespeare,  614 
Bourchier,  Arthur,  606 
Bowden,  H.  S.,  644 
Boy-actors,   companies  of,  formed  of 

dioristers    of    St.    Paul's    and    the 

Chapel  Royal,   50;    take  women's 

parts,     78-9;      strife     with     adult 

actors,     340    seq.;      references    in 

Hamlet  to,  348-49 
Boydell,  John,  his  scheme  for  pictorial 

illustration  of  Shakespeare's  plays, 

608 
BoydeU,  Josiah,  his  engraving  of  the 

'Felton'  portrait,  S35 
Bracebridge,  C.  H.,  644 
Brach,   Pierre   de,    170   and   n,    702, 

713  and  n 
Brachygraphy ;   see  under  Shorthand 
Bradley,  A.  C.,  598,  645 
Braines,  Mr.  W.  W.,  on  the  site  of 

'The  Theatre,'  s8  » 
Brandes,    Georg,    Danish    critic,    on 

Shakespeare,  627,  646 
Brandon,  Samuel,  his  Tragicomedy  0] 

the  Virtuous  Octavia,  408  « 
Brathwaite,   Richard,   his  account  of 

John  Combe's  epitaph,  470  ».    See 

also  668,  676 
Brend,  Matthew,  301 
Brend,  Nicholas,  301  and  »  \ 
Brend,  Thomas,  301  n  i 
Bretchgirdle,    John,    vic^.r    of    Strat- 

ford-on-Avon,  8  «  2 
Breton,  Nicholas,  his  homage  to  the 

Countess   of   Pembroke,    208   n   i ; 

268  »  I ;   his  use  of  the  word  'will,' 

691 ;  his  poetry,  708  n  2 
Brewster,  E.,  57° 
Bridgeman,  C.  O.,  689  »  i 
Briggs,  W.  Dinsmore,  557  «  i 
Bright,  James  Heywood,  682  n 
Bright,  Timothy,  his  system  of  short- 
hand, 113  n 
Bristol,  players  at,  82  and  n,  130 
British  Museum,  collection  of  quartos 

in,  SSI 
Broke,  Arthur,  his  version  of  Romeo 

and  Juliet,  no  and  »,  580 
Brome,    Ridiard,    his   fees   for   play- 
writing,  31S  n 


Brooke,  Ralph,  286  seq.  and  notes, 
565  n 

Brooks,  Vincent,  S34 

Brown,  C.  Armitage,  682  « 

Brown,  Carleton,  his  Poems  by  Sir 
John  Salusbury  and  Robert  Chester, 
273  »  I 

Brown,  John,  creditor  to  John  Shake- 
speare, 14 

Browne,  Mary,  mother  of  the  third 
Earl  of  Southampton,  656,  657  n  2 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  on  scandal  of 
irregular  exhumation,   484   »   i 

Browne,  William,  499  n;  his  CoeUa, 
709 

Bruno,  Giordano,  41 

Bryan,  George,  actor,  53  n  2 

Buc,  Sir  George,  licenser  of  plays, 
113  n,  406 

Buckhurst,  Lord.  See  imder  Sackville, 
Thomas 

Buckingham,  George  Villiers,  Duke  of, 
661 

Buckingham,  John  Sheffield,  Duke 
of,  377  n  1,  S9S  » 

Buckingham  and  Chandos,  Richard 
Grenville,  first  Duke  of,  533 

Bucknill,  John  C,  644 

Buddeus,  Johann  Franz,  611 

Bullen,  A.  H.,  s8s  n  i 

Bull  inn,  Bishopsgate,  60  «  2 

Bullock,  George,  his  cast  of  Shake- 
speare's bust,  524 

Burbage,  Cuthbert,  brother  of  Richard 
Burbage,  succeeds  father  James  in 
management  of  'The  Theatre,'  62; 
erects  Globe  theatre,  63 ;  his 
shares  in  the  Globe  300  seq.;  his 
lease  of  the  Globe  site,  300-1 ; 
his  purchase  of  property  in  Black- 
friars,  456 

Burbage,  James,  member  of  the 
Earl  of  Leicester's  company  of 
actors,  51  and  n  i ;  built  first 
theatre,  'The  Theatre,'  in  London, 
SI ;  joined  Lord  Chamberlain's 
company,  53;  manager  of  'The 
Theatre,'  46,  51,  SS  seq.;  shares 
in  management  of  the  Curtain, 
59;  his  death,  62,  65;  his  litiga- 
tion concerning  'The  Theatre,'  62 
n  I ;  purchases  Blackfriars  theatre, 
64;  financial  arrangements  with 
investors  in  'The  Theatre,'  302 
»  I ;   theatrical  lawsuits,  310  » 

Burbage,  Richard,  son  of  James 
Burbage  [?.».],  leading  actor  in 
Lord  Chamberlain's  company,   53- 


720 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


4,  54  »  I,  55;  succeeds  father  in 
management  of  'The  Theatre,' 
62 ;  erects  Globe  theatre,  63 ; 
mherits  Blackfrairs  theatre  by 
father's  wilJ,  65;  leases  Blackfriars 
to  Children  of  Chapel  Royal,  65 
and  n  2;  recovers  possession  of 
Blackfriars,  66  and  n  3;  sole  pro- 
prietor, 306  seq. ;  acts  at  Court,  55,  87, 
88,  153 ;  his  impersonation  of  Rich- 
ard III,  124  and  n  2,  452  ;  residence 
in  Shoreditch,  276 ;  his  fee  for  acting 
at  Court,  299  n  2 ;  shares  in  Globe 
theatre,  279  n,  300  seq. ;  has  articled 
pupils,  314;  creates  title  part  in 
Hamlet,  Lear  and  Othello,  357,  452 ; 
later  relations  with  Shakespeare, 
451  seq.,  and  notes;  executor  of 
Phillip's  will,  451  «  I ;  summoned 
for  giving  dramatic  performances 
during  Lent,  451,  n  2 ;  his  device 
for  the  Earl  of  Rutland's  impresa, 
4S4i  455  and  notes,  456  and  n  2 ; 
his  fee  for  the  device,  456 ;  his  repute 
as  a  painter,  456  n  2 ;  piurchases 
land  in  Blackfriars,  456  and  n  i ; 
legatee  under  Shakespeare's  will, 
490;  reputed  painter  of  the 
'Chandos'  portrait  of  Shake- 
speare, 532  n;  of  the  'Felton'  por- 
trait, 535.     See  also  375,  378,  379,  383 

Burbie,  Cuthbert,  publisher,  106  and 
n  2,  113  and»  i 

Burdett,  Sir  Francis,  562  n 

Burdett,  Sir  Robert,  562  n 

Burdett-Coutts,  W.  A.,  owner  of  al- 
leged portrait  of  Shakespeare,  532  n; 
owner  of  'Lumley'  portrait,  534; 
owner  of  First  Folio,  566 

Burdett  Coutts,  Baroness,  her  copies 
of  the  First  Folio,  562  and  n  4,  567 

Burgersdijk,  Dr.  L.  A.  J.,  Dutch 
translator  of  Shakespeare,  627 

Burges,  Sir  James  Bland,  536 

Bmrghley,  Lord,  657,  659 

Burnaby,  Charles,  595  n  1 

Burre,  Walter,  bookseller,  672 

Burton,  Francis,  bookseller,  678 

Burton,  William,  666  n 

Busby,  John,  stationer,  249, 395  and  n  1 

Butler,  Samuel,  on  the  Sonnets,  162  « 

Butler,  Bishop  Samuel,  his  copy 
of  First  Folio,  562,  567  n  1 

Butter,  Nathaniel,  publisher,  113 
»,  261 ;  share  in  the  1608  quarto 
of  Lear,  395,  396  n  2 

Byfield,  Richard,  vicar  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  8  »  2 


C.  E.,  author  of  Emaricdulfe,  179  »  2, 
706  and  »  r 

Casar's  Fall,  a  rival  play  to  Shake- 
speare's Julius  Casar,  336 

Calderon,  626 

Caliban,  his  character  based  on 
Elizabethan  conception  of  aborigines, 
429,  430  and  »  I,  «  2,  431  and  n; 
and  his  god  Setebos,  431 ;  his  dis- 
torted shape,  432  and  »  i,  »  2 

'Cambridge'  edition  of  Shakespeare, 
582,  583 

Cambridge,  players  at,  82,  83  » ;  Ham- 
let acted  at,  361  and  n  2 

Camden,  William,  Clarenceux  King 
of  Arms,  284  and  283  n  2,  565  n ;  on 
'imprese,'  453  n;  Remaines  ated,  i 
n  I,  143  n  I 

Campbell,  Lord,  on  Shakespeare's 
legal  knowledge,  43  «,  644 

Campion,  Thomas,  his  opinion  of 
Barnes's  verse,  202;  his  sonnet 
to  Lord  Walden,  210,  211 ;  his  son- 
nets, 707  and  n  3 

Canterbury,  players  at,  82  and  « 

Capell,  Edward,  35  »  2 ;  view  of  Edward 
III,  141 ;  plants  slip  of  Shakespeare's 
mulberry  tree  at  Troston  Hall,  289 
n;  his  copy  of  Chandos  portrait, 
533 ;  his  collection  of  quartos, 
551 ;  his  notes  to  the  Taming  of  the 
Shrew,  237, 364 ;  his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare, 580,  581  and  «  I ;  his  edi- 
torial fees,  575  n  2 ;  his  critical  works 
on  Shakespeare,  581,  596 

Carcano,  Giulio,  Italian  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  625 

Cardenio;  the  lost  play  of,  263,  435-7 ; 
acted  at  court,  449 

Carew,  Sir  George,  15  «  2 ;  his  monu- 
ment, 523  and  «  I 

Carew,  Richard,  143  n 

Carleton,  Dudley,  66  n 

Caroline,  Queen,  79  »  i 

Carter,  The  Rev.  Thomas,  13  ?(, 
23  n  2,  644 

Case,  Prof.  R.  H.,  584 

Cassel,  English  actors  at,  85 

Castle,  WiUiam,  46  and  n  2 

Catherine    II,    Empress    of    Russia, 
influence    of    Shakespeare    on,    628  ^ 
and»  2 

Catullus,  Shakespeare  compa,red  with, 
r43  »  I 

Cawood,  Gabriel,  publisher,  159  » 

Caxton,  William,  his  Recuyell  of  the 
historyes  of  Troy  and  the  story  of 
Troilus  arid  Cressida,  370 


INDEX 


721 


'Caxton  Shakespeare,  The,'  585 

Cecil,  Sir  Robert,  380  n  2,  383  n  i,  660, 
661,  662 

Censorship  of  plays.    See  esp.  127-g 

Cervantes,  his  Don  Quixote,  founda- 
tion of  lost  play  of  Cardenio,  436 

Chalmers,  George,  71  n 

Chamberlain,  John,  228 

Chambers,  E.  K.,  on  court  perform- 
ances.   See  especially  70  n 

Chandos,  Lord,  visit  of  his  com- 
pany of  actors  to  Stratford,  24  m  2 

Chandos,  John  Brydges,  third  duke 
of,  owner  of  'Chandos'  portrait  of 
Shakespeare,  533 

'Chandos'  portrait  of  Shakespeare, 
S32-4 ;  copies  of,  533 ;  engravings  of, 
533-4 

Chantrey,  Sir  Francis,  his  view  of 
Shakespeare's  bust,  525  n  i 

Chapel  Lane,  Stratford-on-Avon, 
Shakespeare's  property  in,  318 

Chapel  Royal,  Children  of  the,  so; 
perform  at  Blackfriars,  65  seq.; 
rechristened ,  Children  of  the 
Queen's  Revels,  66;  their  per- 
formances and  dissolution,  66  «  3 ; 
share  in  strife  with  adult  actors, 
340  seq. ;  cf.  417 

Chapman,  George,  his  Duke  oj  Byron, 
103  «,  673  n  3 ;  An  Humorous  Day^s 
Mirth  cited,  103  n ;  his  Blind  Beggar 
oj  Alexandria,  104  n;  his  share  in 
The  Two  Italian  Gentlemen,  107  n  1 ; 
falls  under  ban  of  censor,  128; 
finishes  Marlowe's  uncompleted  Hero 
and  Leander,  143  «;  his  censure  of 
sonnetteering,  174;  his  alleged 
rivalry  with  Shakespeare  for  South- 
ampton's favour,  203,  204,  and  n  1 ; 
and  The  Phoenix  and  the  Turtle,  270 ; 
and  the  boy-actors,  340;  his  trans- 
lation of  Homer's  lUad,  370;  his 
Gentleman  Usher,  a  tragicomedy, 
417.  See  also  374,  668,  673  n,  710 
and  n  i. 

Charlecote,  Shakespeare's  poaching 
adventure  at,  34  seq. 

Charles  I,  his  copy  of  the  Second  Folio 
at  Windsor,  568 ;  his  study  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,  sgo 
Charles  II,   his  copy  of  the   Second 
Folio    at    British    Museum,    568; 
Shakespeare's   plays   performed   by 
his  acting  company,  592  n  i 
Charlewood,  John,  printer,  132  n  3 
Chateaubriand,   and   the  Shakespear- 
ean controversy  in  France,  621 

3A 


Chsltelain,  Chevalier  de,  622 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  his  story  of  Lucrece, 
14s,  147 ;  source  of  his  Knight's  Tale, 
216;  hints  in  his  Knights  Tale 
for  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  232 ; 
the  plot  of  Troihis  and  Cressida 
taken  from  his  Troyhis  and  Criseyde, 
36g  and  n  i ;  Cleopatra  in  his  Legend 
of  Good  Women,  407;  plot  of  Two 
Noble  -Kinsmen  drawn  from  his 
Knight's  Tale,  438 ;  burial  at  West- 
minster Abbey,  498-9,  502 

Chehnsford,  players  at,  82,  83  n,  130 

ChSnier,  Marie- Joseph,  and  the  Shake- 
spearean controversy  in  France, 
621 

Chester,  players  at,  82,  83  n,  130; 
miracle  plays  at,  91  n 

Chester,  Robert,  his  Love's  Martyr, 
270-3,  273  n  I 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  79  «  i 

Chettle,  Henry,  publisher,  descrip- 
tion of  Shakespeare's  acting,  87; 
his  apology  for  Robert  Greene's 
attack  on  Shakespeare,  118,  153, 
500;  his  panegyric  on  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, 373-4;  share  in  pre-Shake- 
spearean  drama  on  TroUus  and  Cres- 
^"■t  365-6  and  n  i ;  and  plays  on 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  440  »  i;  his 
Patient  Grissell,  546 

Chetwynde,  PhiUp,  publisher  of  Third 
Folio,  569  and  n  i 

Chiswell,  R.,  570  and  « 

Chorus,  use  of  the,  in  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  2  Henry  IV  and  Henry  V, 
251-2 ;  in  Pericles,  403 ;  of.  409,  413 

Chronicle  plays,  94 

Churchyard,  Thomas,  104  »,  151  n  2; 
calls  Barnes  'Petrarch's  Scholar,'  202 

Gibber,  CoUey,  59s  «  i,  601 

Gibber,  Mrs.,  602 

Gibber,  Theophilus,  45  and  « 

Cicero,  16 

Ginthio,  Giraldi,  his  Hecatommithi, 
Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to,  18, 
98,  108  n ;  330, 387,  388  »  I,  «  2, 407 
«  2 ;  his  Epitia,  389 

Clare  Market,  theatre  in,  78-9 

Clarendon,  Lord,  owner  of  portrait  of 
Shakespeare,  531 

Clark,  The  Rev.  Andrew,  6  n,  276  n  2 

Clark,  J.,  his  Spanish  translation  of 
Shakespeare,  626 

Clark,  W.  G.,  582.  585  « 

Clarke,  F.  W.,  585  n 

Clarke,  Helen,  584  ' 

Clarke,  Thomas,  51  »  i 


722 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Clayton,  John,  sued  by  a  William 
Shakespeare  for  debt,  321 

Clement,  Nicolas,  criticism  of  Shake- 
speare by,  618 

Clements,  H.  C,  528-30 

Clifford  Chambers,  seat  of  Sir  Henry 
Rainsford  [?.».],  15,  466  and  »  i 

Clift,  WiUiam,  537 

Clink,  Liberty  of  the,  Southwark,  274-5 

Clive,  Mrs.,  602 

Clopton,  Edward,  513  and  n  2 

Clopton,  Sir  Hugh,  builds  New  Place, 
288,  S13-14 

Clopton,  Sir  John,  513 

Clopton,  Lady,  513 

Cobham,  Henry  Brooke,  eighth  Lord, 
242,  337 

Cochran,  A.  W.,  566 

Cockpit  theatre,  Drury  Lane,  60  n  2; 
lawsuit  relating  to,  311  «,  315  « 

Cokain,  Sir  Aston,  lines  on  Shake- 
speare and  Wincot  ale  by,  237,  238, 
598  « 

Coke,  Sir  Edward,  lord  chief  justice, 
denounces  William  Combe's  enclo- 
sure of  land,  477  and  n  i,  479 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  on  the  style  of  An- 
tony and  Cleopatra,  410;  on  the 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  438,  439;  and 
Shakespearean  criticism,  597  and  n 
I,  645;  his  view  of  Kean's  acting, 
603 

'College,  The, '  Stratford-on-Avon,  288, 
319.    5ee  o/jo  MtKfef  Combe,  Thomas 

Collier,  John  Payne,  62  «;  his  forged 
emendations  in  the  Perkins  Second 
Folio,  568  and  n  i ;  includes  Miice- 
dorus  in  his  edition  of  Shakespeare, 
584  »  I,  S97,  598;  his  works  on 
Shakespeare,  642 ;  his  Shakespearean 
forgeries,  647-50,  648  n  i 

Collins,  Francis,  drafts  Shakespeare's 
will,  479;  his  relations  with  the 
Combes,  480;  legatee  under  John 
Combe's  will,  480  and  n  i ;  suc- 
ceeds Thomas  Greene  as  town 
clerk  of  Stratford,  482 ;  his  will, 
4S2  «  I ;  overseer  of  and  legatee 
under  Shakespeare's  will,  482,  488- 
90 

Collins,  John,  580 

Collins,  John  Churton,  645 

Collins,  Simon,  repairs  the  Stratford 
monument,  525 

Colonna,  Guido  della,  his  Bistoria 
Trojana,  370-71 

Colonna,  Vittoria,  209  n 

Colte,  Sir  Henry,  685  » 


Colvin,  Sir  Sidney,  on  the  'Flower' 
portrait,  529 

Combe,  George,  brother  of  Thomas 
Combe  of  'The  College,'  468  and  n 

Combe,   John,  of  Alvediurch,  488  n 

Combe,  John,  brother  of  Thomas 
Combe  of  'The  College,'  37  », 
317-19;  wealthy  resident  of  Strat- 
ford, 317,  322  »  I,  468;  sells  land 
to  Shakespeare,  318,  319,  460,' 
467 ;  a  local  money-lender,  46^  seq.  { 
a  bachelor,  468  ni;  his  substantial 
property  in  Warwickshire,  468; ' 
his  will,  468  and  n  2;  legacy  to 
Shakespeare,  469;  other  bequests, 
469  and  n;  his  tomb,  470;  his 
epitaph,  470  seq.  and  notes 

Combe,  Mary,  wife  of  Thomas  Combe 
of  'The  College,'  468  n 

Combe,  Thomas  the  elder,  nephew 
of  William  Combe  of  Warwick, 
37  »,  318  »,  463  n  2;  -purchases 
'The  College'  at  Stratford,  288, 
467  seq. ;  friend  of  Sir  Henry  Rains- 
ford,  467;  his  death,  burial  and 
will,  318  n,  468  n;  bequest  of  his 
'best  bed,'  486  »  i ;  cf.  480 

Combe,  Thomas  the  younger,  son 
of  Thomas  Combe  of  'The  College,' 
468 ;  executor  of  uncle  John  Combe's 
will,  468  «  2;  succeeds  to  uncle's 
property,  472 ;  joins  brother  William 
[q.v.\  in  attempt  to  endose  common 
lands  at  Stratford,  473  seq.,  478  n; 
receives  Shakespeare's  sword  as 
legacy,  488  and  n;   his  will,  488  n 

Combe,  William,  of  Alvechurch,  legatee 
of  Thomas  Combe  the  younger,  488  » 

Combe,  William  the  elder,  of  War- 
wick, 317-19;  owns  much  property 
in  Warwick,  317 ;  account  of,  318  n; 
sells  land  to  Shakespeare,  317,  319, 
460  n;  cf.  467,  468 

Combe,  William  the  yovmger,  son  of 
Thomas  Combe  of  'The  College,' 
37  n,  318  n,  468;  succeeds  to 
father's  property,  472 ;  account  of, 
472;  joins  brother  Thomas  in  at- 
tempt to  enclose  common  lands 
at  Stratford,  473;  comes  to  terms 
with  Shakespeare,  475;  his  stub- 
bornness, 477;  his  defeat,  479  and 
«/  his  harsh  treatment  of  a  debtor, 
478  n;  his  death  and  burial,  479  n; 
lessee  of  some  of  Shakespeare's 
property,  491 

Combes,  The,  account  of,  466  seq. 

Comedy    0}   Errors,    The:     acted    in 


INDEX 


723 


'  Gray's  Inn  Hall,  71,  139  and  »  i ; 
at  Court,  8g,  383;.  pubKcation  of, 
108;  contemporaiy  allusions,  108; 
sources  of,  108;  debt  to  Plautus, 
108-9;  mentioned  by  Meres,  258; 
editions,  see  554  seg. 

Condell,  Henry,  actor,  member  of 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company 
and  lifelong  friend  of  Shakespeare, 
53  »  2,  S6.  375,  379  »  2,  282  n; 
residence  in  Aldermanbury,  276; 
acquires  share  in  Globe  theatre, 
304,  305  n;  in  Blackfriars  theatre, 
306;  later  relations  with  Shake- 
speare, 451  seg.;  legatee  under 
Shakespeare's  will,  490;  his  be- 
quests, 492-3;  his  share  in  pub- 
lication of. First  Folio,  552  seq. 

Constable,  Henry,  publication  of 
his  'Diana,'  158  »  i,  702,  705; 
derives  name  'Diana'  from 
Desportes,  173,  702;  Shakespeare's 
debt  to,  178,  183  and  »  i,  184. 
See  also  707,  710 

Constantinovitch,  the  Grand  Duke 
Constantine,  his  translation  of 
Hamlet,  629  and  n 

CmtenHon,  The  First  Part  of.  the,  119 
seq.    See  under  Henry  VI  (pt.  i.) 

Conti,  Antonio,  624 

Contile,  Luca,  his  work  on  'Im- 
prese,'  453  « 

Cook,  Alexander,  451  n  i 

Cooke,  Sir  Anthony,  friend  of  Sir 
John  Davies,  174,  70s,  706 

Cooke,   George  Frederick,  actor,   603 

Cooke,  James,  ^5o8  and  « 

Cooper,  <Robert,  535 

Cope,  Sir  Walter,  382-3,  383  ».i 

'Copy'  of  plays,  private  transcripts, 
558  and  n 

Corbet,  Richard,  124  «  2 

Coriolanus,  410-14;  date  of  com- 
position and  of  publication,  410, 
411  n  I ;  treatment  of  the  theme 
by  French  dramatists,  411  and  n  1 ; 
debt  to  North's  Plutarch,  98,  411 
and  n  2 ;  Shakespeare's  present- 
ment of  the  characters,  412-13; 
the  politics  of  the  play,  413-14; 
editions  of,  see  554  seq.;  Tate's 
revision  of,  595;  Dennis's  version 
o^i  595  n  I ;  passages  dted,  80  »  i, 
410  n  2,  576  and  n 

Coryat,  Thomas,  his  travels  on  Con- 
tinent, 38  n  2,  673 

Costume  in  Elizabethan  theatres, 
77-8,  308  « 


CYiaBELINE 

Cotes,  Thomas,  printer  of  Second 
Folio,  s68 

Cotswolds,  the,  Shakespeare's  allu- 
sions to,  240  and  241  n  1 

Cotton,  John,  15 

Court,  dramatic  performances  .  at, 
47,  SI  and  n  2,  $$,  67  seq. ;  theatrical 
season  at,  68;  scenery  and  cos- 
tumes, 69-70;  oflBcial  organisation 
and  expenses  of,  70  »  2 ;  documents 
relating  to,  70  «  i ;  Shakespeare's 
company  at,  87,  139,  383  n  2; 
records  of,  87  n  it,  plays  acted, 
89,  106,  108,  IS3,  327,  372-3,  377, 
378,  383  seq.;  385-6,  397,  404  «  I, 
420,  423,  432-3,  436,  442,  449  and  «; 
fees  from,  313,  384;  Lyly's  comedies 
at,  327;  last  performances  before 
Queen  Elizabeth,  372-3 

Court,  Thomas,  10 

Courthope,  W.  J.,  64s 

Cousins,  Samuel,  534 

Covell,  William,  his  praise  of  Lucrece, 
150 

Coventry,  players  at,  82,  83  » ;  miracle 
plays  at,  91  « 

Cowden  Clarke,  Mrs.,  645 

Cowley,  Richard,  actor,  S3  «  2 ; 
375,  379  »  2,  382  «  I,  451  «  i; 
creator  of  Verges  in  Much  Ado, 
.  286,  32s 

Cowling,  G.  H.,  644 

Craig,  W.  J.,  584,  585  » 

Crtoe,  Walter,  608 

Crawford,  Earl  of,  his  copy  of  the 
First  Folio,  566 

Creede,  Thomas,  printer,  113  n  i,  119, 
125  »  I,  249,  2So;  fraudulently 
ascribes  plays  to  Shakespeare,  260-1 

Cromwell,  Historic  of  Thomas,  Lord,  261 

'Crosskeys'  Inn,  Gracechurch  Street, 
60  and  n  2,  61,  81  » 

Crowne,  John,  595 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  American  actress, 
609 

Cufeld  or  Cowfold,  Marie,   706  n  3 

Cunlifie,  R.  J.,  645 

Cunningham,  Peter,  71  n,  649,  6?o  n 

Curie,  Mr.,  452  n 

'Curtain'  theatre,  Shoreditch,  59  and 
n,  60  «  I,  »  2,  61,  338,  380  n  I ; 
performance  of  Eiiery  Man  in  His 
Humour  at,  88 ;  shares  in,  302  n  i ; 
takings  at,  308  n;  order  for  its 
demolition,  338 

Cust,  Lionel,  on  Shakespeare's  por- 
traits, 523  »,  328,  529,  530  n  2 

Cymbelme:    prose  in,  102  n,  418-20; 


724 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


position  of,  in  First  Folio,  419; 
first  performance  of,  419-20,  421- 
23 ;  sources,  98,  421,  422 ;  construc- 
tion and  characterisation,  422-3 ;  in- 
troduction of  Calvinistic  terms, 
422  and  «  I ;  comparison  with  As 
You  Like  It,  422;  editions  of, 
554  seq.;  Durfey's  revision,  597; 
passage  cited,  422  n  i 

'Cynthia,'  name  appKed  by  poets  to 
Queen  Elizabeth,   207  and  n,  706 

Czartoryski,  Princess  Isabella,  her 
worsWp  of  Shakespeare,  630  «  3 


Daboene,  Robert,  playwright,  fee 
for  writing  plays,  314  n  3 

Daly,  Augustin,  his  productions  of 
Shakespeare's  plays,  609 

Daniel,  George,  of  Beswick,  243 

Daniel,  George,  his  copies  of  Shake- 
spearean quartos,  551  «  i ;  his 
copy  of  First  Folio,  567 ;  of  Second 
Foho,  569 

Daniel,  Samuel,  his  Complainte  of 
Rosamond,  112,  148  and  n  1;  allu- 
sion to  by  Spenser,  isr  n  2,  701 ; 
pubUcation  of  his  sonnets,  158  «; 
his  soimet  on  'sleep,'  170;  derives 
name  'Delia'  from  Maurice  Seve, 
173;  Shakespeare's  debt  to,  178; 
on  ^e  immortalising  power  of  verse, 
188;  his  prefatory  sonnet  to  'Delia,' 
199;  celebrates  Southampton's  re- 
lease from  prison,  228,  667;  his 
tragedy  of  Cleopatra,  408  »;  his 
work  on  'imprese,'  453  n;  indebted- 
ness to  French  sonnetteers,  701—2. 
See  also  374,  700,  705,  707 

Dante,  145;  the  dedication  of  his 
Dimnfi  Commedia,  67s  n  2 

Danter,  John,  112  and  n  3,  132 

'Dark  Lady,  The,'  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets,  194—5 

Daurat.    See  Dorat 

Davenant,  John,  of  Oxford,  father  of 
Sir  William  D'Avenant,  39,  449; 
his  wife,  449;  his  children,  450 
and  n 

Davenant,  Robert,  450 

D'Avenant,  Sir  WilUara,  Shakespeare's 
godson,  39,  45-6;  story  of  South- 
ampton's gift  to  Shakespeare,  197; 
owner  of  letter  of  James  I  to  Shake- 
speare, 377;  relations  with  Shake- 
speare, 450  and  n ;  owner  of  '  Chan- 
dos'  portrait,  533;    his  admiration 


of  Shakespeare,  588,  591  and  «  3; 
director  of  the  Duke's  (i.e.  the  Duke 
of  York's)  company  of  actors,  537, 
592  n;  as  adapter  of  Shakespeare, 
593,  594 
Davenport,  John,  vicar  of  Stratford, 

524 

Davenport,  Robert,  263 

Davies,  John,  of  Hereford,  88, 144  » i, 
667,  668  and  »  i,  709,  710  n 

Davies,  Sir  John,  45;  his  'gulling 
sormets'  a  satire  on  conventional 
sonnetteering,  17s,  198  n  i,  706; 
adoration  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
207-8  «;  celebrates  Southampton's 
release  in  verse,  228;  his  sonnets 
entitled  Amours,  669  n;  his  Nosce 
Teipsum,  696;  his  Hymnes  of 
As^(sa,  710 

Davies,  Richard,  vicar  of  Sapperton, 
his  account  of  Shakespeare's  poach- 
ing adventure  and  prosecution  by 
Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  34-6;  of  Shake- 
speare's dying  a  papist,  485  and  » ; 
his  notes  on  Shakespeare,  641-2 

Davison,  Francis,  his  translation  of 
Petrarch's  sonnets,  171  n;  dedica- 
tion of  his  Poetical  Rhapsody  to  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  688 

Davis,  C.  K.,  644 

Dawes,  Robert,  actor,  303  n 

Dedications,  669-71,  674—81;  use  of 
initials  in  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean, 
674,  675  » 

Dekker,  Thomas,  his  Guls  Hornbook 
cited,  46  »  I,  73  «  2 ;  his  additions 
to  OldcasUe,  244;  his  portrait 
of  Ben  Jonson  in  Saliromastix, 
256  • »  I ;  reference  in  plays  to 
theatrical  shares,  303  n  and  »  2; 
his  quarrel  with  B^n  Jonson,  345 
seq. ;  his  allusion  to  the  old  play  of 
Hamlet,  357  and  notes;  revises  a  pre- 
Shakespearean  drama  on  Troilus 
and  Cressida,  366  and  n  1 ;  descrip- 
tion of  James  I's  progress  through 
London,  379.    See  also  501  «,  546 

De  la  Motte,  Philip,  11  n 

Delius,  Nikolaus,  his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare, 582-5 ;  his  study  of  Shake- 
speare's metre,  615 

Deloney,  Thomas,  268  n 

Demblon,  C,  651  n 

Denmark,  English  actors  in,  84, 
85  »  2 ;  Lord  Leicester's  company  of 
players  in,  85  «  2 ;  translations  of 
Shakespeare  in,  627 

Dennis,   John,   on   the   Merry   Wives 


INDEX 


725 


DE  QTHNCEY 

of  Windsor,  246,  247  and  n  i ;    his 

;.  tribute  to  Shakespeare,  595;  his 
'-adaptation  of  Coriolanus,  595  n  i 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  438 

Derby,  Ferdinando  Stanley,  Lord 
Strange,  fifth  Earl  of,  his  company 
of  actors,  52;  merged  in  Lord 
Chamberlain's  company,  52-3,  61 ; 
visit  of  company  to  Stratford,  24  n 
2;  performances  by,  56,  115,  131, 
266;  referred  to  as  'Amyntas'  by 
Spenser,  665  n  i 

Derby,  William  Stanley,  sixth  Earl  of 
his  company  of  actors,  52  »  i ;  a 
playwright,  52  n  i,  232  and  »  i 

Desportes,  Philippe,  his  sonnet  on 
'Sleep,'  170;  plagiarised  by  English 
sonnetteers,  172 ;  imitated  by  Shake- 
speare, 178, 183.     See  also  701—2,  712 

Dethick,  William,  282  and  n  i,  287 
and  n  i 

Deutsche  Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 
,  618,  64s 

Devonshire,  Charles  Blount,  Earl  of, 
380  «  2 

Devonshire,  William  Cavendish,  sixth 
Duke  of,  owner  of  Garrick  club  bust 
of  Shakespeare,  S3  7;  bis  collection 
of  quartos,  551 ;  his  copy  of  First 
Folio,  566 ;  facsimile  reprint,  568  «  i 

Devrient,  Otto,  617 

Devrient,  Eduard,  617 

Devrient,  Gustav  Emil,  617 

Devrient,  Ludwig,  617 

De  Witt,  John,  his  drawing  of  interior 
of  'Swan'  theatre,  74  »  i 

Dibdin,  Charles,  his  verses  on  Anne 
Hathaway,  26  »  i 

Diderot,  his  opposition  to  Voltaire's 
strictures  on  Shakespeare,  620 

Digges,  Leonard,  on  Shakespeare's 
monument,  493,  497 ;  his  tributes 
to  Shakespeare,  352  »  i,  544,  556, 
589  and  «  2 

Dighton,  Job,  512  and  »  3 

Disraeh,  Isaac,  646 

Dixon,  Thomas,  292  n 

Dobbie,  Sir  James,  650 

Dobyns,  Robert,  his  account  of  John 
Combe's  epitaph,  471  »  3 ;  of  in- 
scription on  Shakespeare's  grave, 
484  n  2 

Dodd,  William,  his  Beauties  of  Shake- 
speare, S96 

Dolce,  Lodovico,  92 

Doncaster,  Shakespeares  at,  i 

Donne,  John,  his  addresses  to  the 
Countess  of  Bedford,  209  n ;  his  anec- 


DROESHOUT 

dote  about  Shakespeare  and  Jonson, 
256,  2S7;  his  MS.  of  Basse's  elegy 
on  Shakespeare,  499  n 

Donnelly,  Ignatius,  652 

Dorat,  Daurat  or  Dinemandy,  Jean,  712 

Dorell,  Hadrian,  221 

Dormer,  Marie,  458     ' 

Dormer,  Robert,  458 

Douce,  Francis,  644 

Dover,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Dowdall,  John,  his  notes  on  Shake- 
speare, 25  »  2,  46  «  2,  641 

Dowden,  Edward,  161  n  2,  584, 597, 690 , 
n  I,  6gs  n  2,  696  n,  698  n;  his  work 
on  Shakespeare,  643  n,  645 

Drake,  Nathan,  643 

Drama,  pre-Elizabethan ;  mirades, 
mysteries,  moralities  and  interludes, 
90 ;  Elizabethan,  91 ;  its  debt  to 
classical  models,  91  seq.;  Italian 
influence,  92  ;  romantic  drama,  92 ; 
amorphous  developments,  93 ;  Sir 
Philip  Sidney's  criticism  of,  93; 
'Chronicle  plays,'  94;  university 
drama,  94;  developments  by  Lyly, 
Greene,  Peele,  Kyd,  and  Marlowe, 
94—5.    See  also  under  Tragicomedy 

Drayton,  Michael,  his  knowledge  of 
Mantuanus  and  Virgil,  16  n,  his 
lyric  verse,  95 ;  shareholder  in  White- 
friars  theatre,  97  n,  303 ;  his  praise 
of  Lucrece,  150;  his  invocations  to 
Cupid,  166  «  I ;  plagiarisms  in  his 
sonnets,  172  and  «;  173  and  n  i; 
on  insincerity  of  sonnetteers,  174; 
Shakespeare's  debt  to,  184;  on  the 
immortalising  power  of  verse,  188; 
identified  by  some  as  the  'rival  poet' 
with  Shakespeare  for  Southampton's 
favour,  204;  part  author  of  play  of 
OldcasUe,  244;  supposed  allusion  in 
his  Barons'  Wars  to  Antony's  elegy 
on  Brutus,  332  »  2,  336;  his  rela- 
tions with  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Rains- 
ford,  466  and  n;  patient  of  Dr. 
John  Hall,  466,  505  n ;  his  intimacy 
with  Shakespeare,  480;  relations 
with  Thomas  Russell,  490;  burial 
in  Westminster  Abbey,  soo;  his 
Idea,  70s ;  his  praise  of  Sidney,  70s. 
See  also  374,  379,  676,  699  n  2,  717. 

Drew,  John,  American  actor,  609 

Droeshout,  Martin,  his  engraved 
portrait  of  Shakespeare,  526  seq.; 
Jonson's  tribute,  526;  description 
of,  526-329;  source  of,  528;  its 
relation  to  the  'Flower'  portrait, 
S29.     See  also  544,  555 


726 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Drummond,  William,  of  Hawthornden, 
his  translations  of  Petrarch's  sonnets, 
171  n;  Italian  and  French  origin  of 
many  of  his  love-sonnets,  172,  179 
n  I,  193  n;  his  work  on  'imprese,' 
453  n.    See  also  472  »,  709  and  » 

Dryden,  John,  his  criticism  of  Mercu- 
tio,  in  and  »  2;  his  copy  of  the 
Chandos  portrait,  533 ;  his  criticism 
of  Shakespeare,  571,  591  and  n  3; 
as  adapter  of  Shakespeare,  593, 
594;   his  All  for  Love,  595 

•Du  Bellay,  Joachim,  Spenser's  transla- 
tions of  some  of  his  sonnets,  170; 
anticipates  Drayton  in  name  'Idee,' 
173  «  3 ;  on  the  immortality  of 
verse,  187  ».  See  also  701,  703, 
706,  712,  713  « 

Ducis,  Jean-Franf  ois,  French  translator 
of  Shakespeare,  620,  623 

Duffett,  Thomas,  S94.»  3 

Dugdale,  Gilbert,  376  n  i 

Dugdale,  Sir  Wilham,  his  transcript 
of  inscription  over  Shakespeare's 
grave,  484  n  2 ;  his  sketch  of  Shake- 
speare's monument,  496  n  2,  522-3 
and  notes;  his  sketch  of  the  Carew 
monument,  523  and  n  i.  See  also 
69  «,  598  and  n 

Duke,  John,  actor,  53  »  2 

Duke  Humphrey,  263,  264  »  i 

Duke's  theatre,  537 

Dulwich  manor.  See  under  Alleyn, 
Edward 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  his  version  of 
Hamiet,  622 ;  his  criticism  of  Shake- 
speare, 637 

Dunkarton,  R.,  his  engraving  of  the 
'Janssen*'  portrait,  535 

Duport,  Paul,  and  the  Shakespearean 
controversy  in  France,  622 

Durant,  Gilles,  713 

Duse,  Eleonora,  Italian  actress  of 
Shakespearean  roles,  625 

Duval,  G.,  French  translator  of  Shake- 
speare, 623 

Dyboski,  Prof.  Roman,  PoUsh  trans- 
lator of  Shakespeare,  631 

Dyce,  Alexander,  on  the  Two  Nolle 
Kinsmen,  438 ;  his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare, 582,  583;  his  acceptance  of 
Steevens's  'Peele'  forgery,  646 

Eaele,  John,  piratical  publication  of 
his  Micro-cosmographie,  159  »;  the 
work  cited,  80  «  i ;  452  » 

Earlom,  Richard,  534 


Eden,  Richard,  his  History  of  Travel, 

431 

Edgar,  Eleazar,  publisher,  669 

'Edinburgh  Foho'  edition,  585  n  i 

Editors  of  Shakespeare,  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  571-82;  in  the 
nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries, 
582-5 

Edward  III,  assigned  to  Shakespeare, 
140  seq.,  159;  sources  of,  140-1; 
views  of  authorship  by  Capell, 
Tennyson,  and  Swinburne,  141; 
of.  159,  265  » 

Edwards,  Richard,  author  of  two 
'friendship'  plays,  217  n  i;  his 
Damon  and  Pythias,  a  tragicomedy, 
417  »  I ;  his  lost  play,  Palemon  and 
Arcyte,  438 

Edwards,  Thomas,  his  Canons  of 
Criticism,  579 

Eld,  George,  printer,  160,  261,  367, 
678-9 

Elgar,  Sir  Edward,  608 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  at  Kenilworth, 
24,  232;  her  palaces,  69;  extrava- 
gant compliments  to,  207  and  n  i ; 
her  death,  373;  poetic  panegyrics, 
227,  373-4;  witnesses  dramatic 
performance  at  Christ  Church, 
Oxford,  438;  her  visit  to  Oxford 
(1592),  658 ;  relations  with  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  661 ;  her  company 
of  actors,  47,  50  and  «  2,  51;  com- 
pany visits  Stratford,  12 ;  performs 
Henry  V,  239 ;  its  later  patrons,  376 
n  I 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  marriage  of,  384, 
432  and  n  1,  443,  435,  449 

Ellacombe,  H.  N.,  644 

Ellain,  Nicolas,  713 

Ellesmere,  Francis  Egerton,  first  Earl 
of,  533 

Ellesmere,  Sir  Thomas  Egerton,  Baron, 
Lord  Chancellor,  320,  458,  648-9 

Elsinore,    Lord    Leicester's    company  . 
at,  86  n 

Elson,  L.  C,  644 

Elton,  Charles  I.,  643 

'Ely  House'  portrait  of  Shakespeare, 

S30 
Elze,  Friedrich  Karl,  615,  643  « 
Emaricdulfe,  sonnets  by  E.  C,  179  » 

2,  706  and  n  3 
Enclosure  of  common  lands :   attempts 
by  William  and  Thomas  Combe  at 
Stratford,  472  seq.;   popular  resent- 
ment, 473 
Ensor,  Martin,  stationer,  671  »  3 


INDEX 


727 


Erasmus,  653  «  i 

Eschenburg,  Johann  Joachim,  612,  628 

Eslava,     Antonio     de,     his     'Winter 

Evenings'    (a    collection    of    tales) 

and  the  plot  of  The  Tempest,  423  », 

426  n,  427  «  I 
Espronceda,  Jos6  di,  his  appreciation 

of  Shakespeare,  626 
Essex,  Robert  Devereux,  second  Earl 

of,  relations  with  Lopez,  135  »  i; 

allusions   to   in   Henry    V,    253-5 ; 

Earl  Marshal  of  Ireland,  283-4 ;    his 

rebellion     and     death,     25s,     372, 

455  and  n,  660-1 
Essex,  Walter  Devereux,  first  Earl  of, 

visit  of  his   company   of   actors  to 

Stratford,  24  »  2 
Eton   College,   Ralph  Roister  Doister 

acted  at,  91 
Euripides,  17  »  i,  92 
Evans,   Henry,   lessee   of   Blackfriars 

Theatre,  65  and  n  2,  66,  306  seq.; 

shareholder,  306,  312 
Evelyn,  John,  mentions  Lord  Claren- 
don's portrait  of  Shakespeare,  531 ; 

criticism  of  Shakespeare,  590  n  2 
'Eversley  Shakespeare,  The,'  584 
Exeter,  players  at,  82,  83  n 


Faithome,  William,  528 

Paire  Em,  play  of  doubtful  authorship, 
264,  265  and  n  1,  266,  267  and  n  i 

Fairholt,  F.  W.,  584 

Falstaff,  Sir  Jolm,  named  originally 
'Sir  John  Oldcastle,'  242;  protests 
against  the  name,  242 ;  attraction  of 
his  personality,  245,  246;  Queen 
Elizabeth  and,  246,  247;  last  mo- 
ments of,  252 ;  the  Countess  of 
Southampton  on,  663  and  »  2 

Farmer,  Richard,  on  Shakespeare's 
learning,  17,  596,  643 

Fastolf,  Sir  John,  243 

Faucit,  Helen,  afterwards  Lady  Martin, 
541,  604,  645 

Faversham,  players  at,  82,  83  « 

Feind,  Barthold,  611 

FeHx  and  PUUmena,  The  History  of,  107 

'Felton'  portrait  of  Shakespeare, 
535-6 

Felton,  S.,  535 

Ferro,  Giovanni,  his  work  on  'Imprese,' 
453  « 

Feuillerat,  Prof.  Albert,  65  » 

Fiamma,  Gabriello,  711  »  2 

Fidele  and  Fortunio,  107  n  i 


Field,  Henry,  father  of  Richard  Field, 
.41.  279 

Field,  Jasper,  brother  and  apprentice 
of  Richard  Field,  42 

Field,  Nathaniel,  actor  and  dramatist, 
97  »,  305  »;  as  boy-actor,  340 

Field,  Richard,  of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
settled  in  London,  as  printer's  ap- 
prentice, 41 ;  assistant  to  Thomas 
Vautrollier,  41 ;  succeeds  VautrolUer, 
41 ;  master  of  Stationers'  Company, 
42,  147;  death,  42;  publishes 
Shakespeare's  Verms  and  Adonis,  and 
Lucrece,  42,  142,  147.  See  also  277 
seq.,  334,  396,  674 

Fiorentino,  Giovanni.  See  under  Gio- 
vanni 

Firenzuola,  Agnolo,  711  »  2 

Fisher,  Thomas,  bookseller,  231  »  i 

Fitton,  Edward,  706 

Fitton,  Mary,  and  the  'dark  lady,' 
igs  n,  689  n 

Fitzwilliam,  Earl,  533 

Fleay,  F.  G.,  his  History  of  the  Stage, 
49  n  2,  and  passim;  his  works  on 
Shakespeare,  643 

Flecknoe,  Richard,  77  n  2,  403  n 

Fletcher,  Dr.  Giles,  148  and  n  2 ;  ad- 
mits imitation  of  other  poets,  172; 
on  insincerity  of  sonnetteers,  174; 
his  lAcia,  704 

Fletcher,  John,  residence  in  Southwark, 
275,  276  »  2 ;  his  tragicomedies  in 
collaboration  with  Francis  Beau- 
mont [5.0.],  418  and  n  i ;  Shake- 
speare's relations  with,  43s;  Mas- 
singer's  relations  with,  43s;  col- 
laborates with  Shakespeare  in  Two 
Noble  Kinsmen,  and  Hetfpi  VIII, 
435,  437-47.    •See  also  449,  498 

Fletdier,  Lawrence,  83,  84  and  notes, 
375,  379,  382  »  I,  451  »  I 

Florio,  John,  alleged  original  of  Holo- 
femes,  104  « ;  sonnet  prefaced  to  his 
Second  Frutes,  155  and  »  2 ;  South- 
ampton's prottgi  and  Italian  tutor, 
15s  n  2,  156  n,  201,  658,  663 ;  his 
translation  of  Montaigne's  Essays, 
156  «;  his  Worlde  of  Wordes,  15  n  2, 
201,  666,  667,  677  and  n 

'Flower'  portrait  of  Shakespeare,  528- 

S30 
Flower,  Charles  E.,  541 
Flower,  Mrs.  Charles,  S30 
Flower,  Edgar,  528 
Foersom,    Peter,    Danish   actor,    and 

Shakespeare,  627 
Folger,  H.  C,  owner  of  'Droeshout' 


728 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


engraving  of  Shakespeare,  527 ;   his 
unique  copy  of  the  1594  quarto  of 
Tikis  Andronicus,  131 »,  550,  551 »  2 ; 
his  copies  of  the  First  Folio,   567. 
See  also.  551  n  2,  609 
Folio  editions  of  Shakespeare's  plays : 
First  Folio,  names  of  principal  actors 
mentioned  in,  S3  »  2  ;   account  of, 
SS2-68;  editors,  printers  and  pub- 
lishers,   552-3;     the    license    to 
publish,  554;  order  of  the  plays, 
555 ;     form   and   price   of,    555 ; 
actors'  addresses  to  patrons,  556; 
Ben  Jonson's  share,  556;    source 
and  textual  value  of  the  'copy,' 
557-59 ;  relations  of  text  to  that  of 
the  quartos,  560 ;  the  typography 
and  punctuation,  561  and  notes;  ir- 
regularities of  pagination,  561-3 ; 
,  the '  Sheldon '  Folio,  562 ;  Jaggard's 
presentation    copy,    564-5 ;     the 
'Turbutt'   copy,   566;    census   of 
extant  copies,  566-7;    pecimiary 
value  of,  567-8;  reprints  of,  568 
n  I 
Second  Folio,  568-9 
Third  Folio,  569-70 
Fourth  Folio,  570 
Folkestone,  players  at,  82,  83  n 
Ford,  John,  166  «  i 
Forman,  Simon,  on  Macbeth,  393  and 
»  I ;  his  notes  on  the  early  perform- 
ances of  Winter's  Tale,  CymbeUne  and 
Tempest,  420,  423 
Forrest,  Edwin,  American  actor,  609 
Fortune  theatre.  Golden  Lane,  60  n  2; 
internal  structure,  74  n ;   takings  at, 
308  » ;  allowed  to  continue,  338,  380 
»  I ;  its  destruction  by  fire,  446  «  2 
Fournier,  Paul,  his  bronze  statue  of 

Shakespeare  in  Paris,  539 
Fowkes,    Thomas,     London    printer, 

40  «  2 
France,  Tudor  English  actors  in,  85; 
criticism  and  versions  of  Shakespeare 
in,  618-23;  stage  representation  of 
Shakespesire  in,  623 
Frankfort-on-the-Main,  English  actors 

at,  85 
Franz,  W.,  644 

Fraunce,  Abraham,  his  Victoria,  107  n 
i;  Spenser's  allusion  to,  151  n  2; 
his  translation  of  Tasso's  Aminta, 
665  «  I 
Frederick,  King  of  Denmark,  384 
Frederick  V,  Elector  Palatine,  husband 
of  Princess  Elizabeth,  376  n  i,  384, 
432,  432  »  I,  442.  449 


Freiligrath,  Ferdinand,  German  trans- 
lator of  Shakespeare,  614 

French,  George  Russell,  his  Shake- 
speareana  Genealogica,  642 

Friendship,  sonnets  of,  205,  210-14; 
classical  traditions  of,  205 ;  medieval 
and  renaissance  literary  examples  of, 
205  and  «  I,  206 

Friswell,  J.  Hain,  his  account  of  Shake- 
peare's  portraits,  538  n  2 

Frittenden,  Shakespeares  at,  i 

Fulbroke  Park,  35 

Fuller,  Thomas,  allusion  in  his 
'Worthies'  to  Sir  John  Fastolf,  243, 
244;  on  the  'wit-combats'  between 
Shakespeare  and  Jonson,  258;  his 
notice  of  Shakespeare,  151  n  3,  641 

Fulman,  William,  485  n,  641 

Furness,  Horace  Howard,  his  'Vari- 
oriun'  edition  of  Shakespeare,  582, 
609 

Furness,  Horace  Howard,  junior,  con- 
tinues his  father's  Varionmi  edition 
of  Shakespeare,  582 

Furness,  Mrs.  Horace  Howard,  645 

Furness,  Walter  Rogers,  on  the  por- 
traits of  Shakespeare,  539  » 

Furnivall,  F.  J.,  550  n  i,  585  »  i,  598, 
643  n 

Fuseli,  Henry,  535,  608 


Gale,  Dunstan,  675 

Gallup,  Mrs.,  652 

Gambe,  Come  de  la,  no  » 

Gamett,  Henry,  th&  Jesuit,  probably 
alluded  to  in  Macbeth,  393 

Gamier,  Robert,  his  Roman  tragedies 
on  Caesar  and  Antony,  333  »  i ;  his 
tragedy  Marc  Antoine,  407  n  2 

Garrick,  David,  27  n,  574,  599,  6or-2; 
in  Paris,  622;  his  collection  of 
quartos,  551 

Garrick  club  bust  of  Shakespeare, 
537-8 

Gascoigne,  George,  his  Supposes  and 
Jocasta,  performed  at  Gray's  Inn 
Hall,  92 ;  his  '  tragicall  comedie,'  93 ; 
his  prose  translation  of  Ariosto's 
Gli  Suppositi,  loi  n  2 ;  his  definition 
of  a  Sonnet,  165  »  i ;  Shakespeare's 
indebtedness  to  the  Supposes,  236 

Gastrell,  Francis,  his  demolition  of 
New  Place,  and  the  mulberry  tree 
there,  514  and» 

Gates,  Sir  Thomas,  428 

Gerbel,  Russian  translator  of  Shake- 
speare, 629 


INDEX 


729 


German,  Edward,  musician,  607 

Germany,  English  actors  in,  84-5  and 
notes;  Shakespearean  representa- 
tions in,  _6io,  616-18;  translations 
and  criticism  of  Shakespeare  in, 
8s  »  I,  6ii-i6 ;  Shakespeare  society 
in,  616 

Gerstenberg,  Heinrich  Wilhelm  von,  613 

Gervinus,  Commentaries  by,  6r6 

Gesta  Romanorum,  133 

Getley,  Walter,  318 

Gilbert,  Sir  John,  608 

Gilborne,  Samuel,  451 »  i 

Gilchrist,  Octavius,  643 

Gildon,  Charles,  on  the  rapid  composi- 
tion of  Merry  Wives,  247  ;  his  criti- 
cism of  Shakespeare,  572,  589  «  i ; 
his  adaptation  of  Measure  Jor 
Measure,  595  »  i 

Giles,  Nathaniel,  64  «  i 

Giovanni  Fiorentino,  18,  133,  247 

Glenham,  Anne,  Lady,  707, 

Glenham,  Sir  Henry,  707 

Globe  theatre,  Bankside,  60  n  2; 
erected  from  dismantled  fabric  of 
'The  Theatre,'  60  n  2,  63  and  n  2 ; 
its  site,  63  »  4;  performance  at 
described  by  foreign  visitor,  73  »  i, 
cf.  386  n;  seating  capacity,  74; 
internal  structure,  74  »  r ;  perform- 
ances at,  88,  127-8,  250,  254-5, 
264,  325,  346,  357,  367,  387,  393  and 
»  I,  404-5,  420,  423,  442  seqr,  ref- 
erence to  structure  in  henry  V,  250 ; 
its  use  in  the  Earl  of  Essex's  rebel- 
lion, 254-5;  Shakespeare's  close 
relations  with,  275-296;  share- 
holders in,  300  seq.;  Shakespeare's 
shares  in,  304  seq.,  305  «  i ;  its 
destruction  by  fire,  and  rebuilding, 
305,  308,  445  seg. ;  its  later  demoli- 
tion, 301  »  2;  prices  of  admission,' 
307-9;  takings  at,  307-9;  lawsuits 
relating  to,  310  »;  value  of  shares 
in,  312  »  r ;  city's  attitude  to,  337 
seq.,  forged  documents  relating  to, 
649.    See  also  379,  380 

'Globe'  edition,  585  » 

Gloucester,  players  at,  82,  83  n. 

Goddard,  William,  his  Satirycall  Dia- 
logue, 692  and  n  2 

Goethe,  Johann  Wolfgang,  on  acting  in 
Rome,  79  «  I ;  criticism  and  adapta- 
tion of  Shakespeare  by,  613  and  n, 
614,  616 

Gelding,  Arthur,  his  English  version  of 
Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  21,  151  »  2, 
180,  181  and  »  I,  182,  426 


Gollancz,  Israel,  584 

Goodere,  Sir  Henry,  466 

Googe,  Bamabe,  699  n  2 

Gorges,  Arthur,  151  »  2 

Gosson,  Henry,  stationer,  406 

Gosson,  Stephen,  133 

Gottsched,  Johann  Christoph,  his 
denunciation  of  Shakespeare,  612 

Gounod,  Charles,  his  opera  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  624 

Gower,  John,  represented  by  the 
speaker  of  'the  chorus'  in  Pericles, 
402 ;  his  Confessio  Amantis,  403 

Gower,  Lord  Ronald,  his  statue  of 
Shakespeare  at  Stratford,  539 

Grammar  schools,  number  of  in  Tudor 
England,  15  »  i 

Grammaticus,  Saxo,  353  and  n  i 

Grant,  Baron  Albert,  539 

Gravelot,  Hubert  F.,  engraver,  524, 
576 

Graves,  Henry,  530 

Gray,  J.  W.,  on  Shakespeare's  marriage, 
3  «,  643 

Gray,  Thomas,  59s 

Gray's  Inn  Hall,  Comedy  of  Errors 
acted  at,  139  and  n  i 

Graz,  English  actors  at,  85 

Green,  C.  F.,  644 

Green,  Philip,  279 

Greene,  John,  478  and  n  2 ;  491  n 

Greene,  Joseph,  headmaster  of  Strat- 
ford grammar  school,  11  » 

Greene,  Richard,  11  » 

Greene,  Robert,  94,  95;  Shake- 
speare's indebtedness  to,  in  'Win- 
ter's Tale,'  98;  his  fraudulent 
disposal  of  his  plays,  99  n;  his 
attack  on  Shakespeare,  116  seq.; 
117  «  2;  his  repentance,  266; 
his  share  in  the  original  draft  of 
Henry  VI,  122;  in  Titus  An- 
dronicus,  131 ';  treatment  of  Adonis 
fable,  145 ;  his  use  of  the  induction 
in  King  James  of  Scotland,  235  n  2; 
on  affluence  of  actors,  298;  his 
use  of  the  dedicatory  epistle,  675 

Greene,  Thomas,  comedian,  54  »  i ; 
lawsuit  relating  to,  311  n;  cf. 
374  and  n  2,  382  n  i 

Greene,  Thomas,  town  clerk  of  Strat- 
ford, contributes  to  Stratford  high- 
ways fund,  460  n  I ;  represents 
townsmen  of  Stratford  against  the 
enclosure  of  common  lands  by  the 
Combes,  473  seq.;  his  career, 
474  n;  his  alleged  kinship  with 
Shakespeare,    474    and    « ;     joint 


730 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


owner  with   Shakespeare  of    Strat- 
ford tithes,  320-2,  475;    his  diary, 

475  K  I ;    negotiations  with  Shake- 
speare    over     Combe's     enclosure, 

476  and  n  i,  478 

Greene,  Thomas,  yeoman  of  Bishop- 
ton,  474  n 

Greenstreet,  James,  310  n 

Greenwich,  royal  palace  at,  69,  87, 153 

Greenwood,  G.  G.,  655 

Greet,  hamlet  in  Gloucestershire, 
238  and  n  2 

Greg,  W.  W.,  his  view  of  the  au- 
thenticity of  the  suspected  1619 
quartos,  550  » 

Grendon,  near  Oxford,  39 

Greville,  Sir  Edward,  claim  against 
Stratford-on-Avon,  316 

Greville,  Sir  Fulke,  regrets  circula- 
tion of  uncorrected  manuscript 
copies  of  the  Arcadia,  158  n  i ; 
gives  Queen  Elizabeth  the  ap- 
pellation of  'Cynthia'  in  his  verse, 
227;  invocatioiis  to  Cupid  in  his 
CceHca,  166  n  i,  708;  his  relations 
with  Stratford,  465,  469 

Gr^vin,  Jacques,  his  tragedy  on 
Julius  Csesar,  333  »  i ;  his  sonnets, 
713 

Griffin,  Bartholomew,  his  Fidessa, 
267,  268  »,  707 

Griggs,  W.,  sso  »  I 

Grlgnion,  engraving  of  Shakespeare's 
tomb,  523 

Grimm,  FrMMc  Melchior,  Baron, 
his  appreciation  of  Shakespeare, 
621  and  n  i 

Grooms  of  the  Chamber,  375-82  and 
notes 

Groto,  Luigi,  no  »,  711  n  2 

Gruzinski,  A.  E.,  Russian  translator 
of  Shakespeare,  629 

Guarini,  Giovanni  Battista,  his  pas- 
toral drama  Pastor  Fido  and  Shake- 
speare's sonnets,  185,  418  n  i, 
711  n  2 

Guillim,  John,  his  Display  of  Eeraldrie 
cited,  13  n 

Guizot,  Franfois,  his  criticism  of 
Shakespeare,  622,  623 


'H.,  Mr.  W., '  'patron'  of  Thorpe's 
pirated  issue  of  the  Sonnets,  162, 
544;  relations  with  Thorpe,  669- 
81;  identified  with  William  Hall, 
162   n  1,   679;    his  publication  of 


BALIIWELL 

Southwell's  A  Foure-fold  ileiita- 
Hon,  162  «;  erroneously  said  to 
indicate  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
164,  682-5 

Hacket,  Marian  and  Cicely,  in  the 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,  236-8 

Hagberg,  C.  A.,  Swedish  translator 
of  Shakespeare,  627 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  his  Principal  Navi- 
gations and  the  'new  map,'  327  n  3 

Hales,  Bartholomew,  469 

Hales,  John,  of  Eton,  on  superiority 
of  Shakespeare  to  all  poets,  588, 
589  » 

HaU,  Bishop,  684 

Hall,  Elizabeth,  Shakespeare's  grand- 
daughter and  last  surviving  descen'd- 
dant,  285,  461 ;  legatee  under 
Shakespeare's  will,  487;  marriage 
to  Thomas  Nash,  489,  505;  d. 
507 ;  marriage  to  second  husband 
John  Bernard,  sio-ii,  cf.  9,  321 
n  4;  death  and  burial,  511  and  n  2; 
her  will,  512-13 ;  her  estate  at  Strat- 
ford,' 512-13 

Hall,  John,  physician,  Shakespeare's 
son-in-law,  account  of,  461  seq., 
505  seq.;  his  sympathy  with  Puri- 
tanism, 463,  505;  his  Warwick- 
shire patients,  466,  476,  505 ; ' 
co-executor  of  Shakespeare's  will, 
487-8,  491  ;  his  Ubrary,  492,  506; 
his  sale  of  Shakespeare's  theatrical 
shares  to  John  Heminges,  492 
and  «  3 ;  his  death  and  will,  506 ; 
his  epitaph,  506  « ;  his  note-books, 
508 

Hall,  John,  limner,  repaired  Shake- 
speare's monument,  524,  525    ■ 

HaU,  Susaima,  daughter  of  the  drama- 
tist, 9,  285 ;  her  marriage,  461  seq. ; 
victim  of  slander,  462;  heiress  to 
the  dramatist's  property,  497  seq.) 
executor  of  Shakespeare's  will,  487- 
8,  49r ;  her  residence  at  Stratford, 
S05  seq.;  account  of,  506-8;  en- 
tertains Queen  Henrietta  Maria 
at  New  Place,  507 ;  her  death  and 
burial,  510;    epitaph,  510  and  « 

HaU.  WiUiam  (see  also  'Mr.  W.  H.'), 
679  and  n  i 

HaU,  WUliam,!  visitor  to  Stratford, 
account  of  inscription  over  Shake- 
speare's grave,  484  and  »  3,  642 

HaUiweU,  afterwards  HaUiweU- 
PhilUpps,  J.  O.,  initiates  pubUc 
purchase  of  New  Place,  514;  his 
edition   of    Shakespeare,    584,   597, 


INDEX 


731 


S98;  his  Outlines  (cited  passim), 
642-3, 

Hamlet,  mention  of  travelling  com- 
,  panies  in,  71 ;  Shakespeare's  role 
in,  88;  use  of  prose  in,  102  «; 
debt  to  John  Lyiy,  loi  »  2 ;  refer- 
ence to  theatrical  shares  in,  309; 
allusions  to  boy-actors,  348,  349; 
account  of,  353 ;  date  of  produc- 
tion, 353;  sources  of  the  plot, 
353i  354;  previous  popularity  of 
the  story  on  the  stage,  354  and  «  i, 
355  and  »  i ;  the  old  play  and  its 
authorship,  355-7;  Burbage  creates 
the  title-role,  357 ;  contemporary 
comment  on,  358-60;  problem  of 
its  publication,  360;  the  First 
Quarto,  361-2 ;  the  Second  Quarto, 
363;  the  First  Folio  version,  364; 
its  world-wide  popularity,  357, 
364-S.   593;    the   characters,   365; 

■  the  humorous  element,  365;  the 
length  of,  36s ;  the  German  version 
of  Hamlet  {Dcr  bestrafte  Bruder- 
mord),  8s  n,  355  n  i ;  editions  of, 
553  seq.;  witnessed  by  Pepys  and 
Evelyn,  590  and  n  2;  passages 
cited,  17  n  i,  19,  80  n  i,  104  «  i, 
309,  334.  341.  342,  348,  362,  577 
and» 

Hamlet,  the  old  play  of,  355  seq.; 
Kyd's  share  in,  356;  revivals  of, 
356-7;  contemporary  references  to, 
357 

Hampton  Court,  royal  palace  at 
69;  plays  at,  378 

Handwriting,  Tudor  modes  of,  16; 
Shakespeare's  use  of  'Old  English' 
script,  16,  S19 

Hamner,  Sir  Thomas,  364 ;    his  edi- 

*    tion  of  Shakespeare,  576,  S77  and 

B  I 

flardy,    Alexandre,    his    tragedy    of 

Coriolan,  411  and  »  i 
Hardy,  Sir  Thomas  Duffus,   650  »  2 
Harington,   Sir  John,   his  translation 

of  Ariosto  [q.v.],  324 
Harington,  Lucy,  her  marriage  to  the 

third  Earl  of  Bedford,  232 
Harness,  William,  584  » 
Harriot,  Thomas,  297  »  2 
Harrison,    John,    stationer,    publisher 

of    Venus    and    Adonis,    142;     of 

Lucrece,  147 
Harrison,     William,     his    Description 

of  England,  643 
Harsnet,    Samuel,    his   Declaration   of 

Popish  Impostures,  399 


Hart,  Mrs.  Joan,  Shakespeare's  sister, 
9,  316,  460;  legatee  under  Sh^e- 
speare's  will,  488;  residence  at 
Shakespeare's  birthplace,  and  death, 
503.  507,  Si  2 

Hart,  John,  10  «  i 

Hart,  Joseph  C,  651 

Hart,  Michael,  488 

Hart,  Thomas,  son  of  Mrs.  Joan 
Hart,  488,  512 

Hart,  Thomas,  the  poet's  grand- 
nephew,  9,  512 

Hart,  William,  Shakespeare's  brother- 
in-law,  483,  488 

Hart,  \Mlliam,  son  of  William  above, 
488 

Harting,  J.  E.,  644 

Harvard,  copy  of  First  Folio  at,  568 

Harvey,  Gabriel  his  mention  of 
VenMS  and  Adonis  and  Lucrece, 
150;  bestows  on  Spenser  the  title 
of  'an  English  Petrarch,'  170; 
justifies  imitation  of  Petrarch,  170 
«  2;  on  insincerity  of  sonnetteers, 
173;  his  parody  of  sonnetteering, 
174,    194;    his   advice   to   Barnes, 

■  202;  his  allusion  to  Harriet,  358 
and  n  i ;  Spenser's  complimentary 
sonnet  to,  709 

Harvey,  William,  584 

Hasselriis,  Luis,  his  statue  of  Shake- 
speare at  Kronberg,  539 

Hathaway,  Anne  or  Agnes,  26  seq.; 
her  cottage,  26,  540.  See  also  under 
Shakespeare,  Aime 

Hathaway,  Bartholomew,  26 

Hathaway,  Cath^ine,  26 

Hathaway,  Elizabeth,  509,  512 

Hathaway,  Joan,  26,  280  n,  512 

Hathaway,  John,  27  n  1,  280  n  2 

Hathaway,  Judith,  509,  512 

Hathaway,  Richard,  part  author  of 
play  of  Oldcastle,  244 

Hathaway,  Richard  of  Shottery,  26  seg. 

Hathaway,  Rose,  512 

Hathaway,  Susanna,  512 

Hathaway,  Thomas,  506,  509,  512 

Hathaway,  WiUiam,  26  «  i,  280  »  506 

Haughton,  William,  546,  691 

Hawkins,  Richard,  568 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  651 

Haydon,  Benjamin,  criticism  of  Ma- 
lone,  524  «;  his  visit  to  Stratford, 
525  K I ;  his  opinion  of  Shakespeare's 
bust,  52S-'»  I 

Hayman,  Francis,  576 

Hazlitt,  William,  his  Shakespearean 
criticism,  597,  645 


732 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Healey,  John,  677  and  «,  680  n,  68,4, 
68s 

Hearne,  Thomas,  450  « 

Heine,  Heinrich,  studies  of  Shake- 
speare's heroines,  615 

Heminges,  John,  actor,  member  of 
Lord  Chamberlain's  company  and 
life-long  friend  of  Shakespeare, 
Si  n  2,  54  «,  56,  62,  37S,  379, 382  »  i ; 
residence  in  Aldermanbnry,  276; 
shareholder  in  Globe  theatre,  300 
segi. ;  defendant  in  lawsuit  respecting 
shares,  ''302  »  i ;  shareholder  in 
Blackfriars  theatre,  306,  ,307  n; 
lawsuits  relating  to,  310  n;  later 
relations  with  Shajtespeare,  451; 
reputed  creator  of  Falstaff,  451 ; 
executor  of  Phillip's  will,  451  n  i ; 
summoned  for  giving  dramatic 
performances  during  Lent,  451  »  2 ; 
legatee  under  Shakespeare's  will, 
490;  acquires  Shakespeare's  shares 
in  Globe  and  Blackfriars,  492  and 
n  3 ;  organised  printing  of  First 
Folio,  552  seq. 

Heminges,  William,  303  n,  306  «,  307  » 

Hemynge,  John,  probably  John  Henr- 
ing^s,  457,  486  n  2,  4gi  » 

Henderson,  John,  actor,  602 

Henley  Street,  Shakespeare's  property 
in,  316-17 

Henrietta  Maria,  Queen,  visits  Black- 
friars theatre,  66  «  i ;  at  Stratford, 
S07 

Henry  I  and  Henry  II,  plays  attributed 
to  Shakespeare,  263 

Henry  IV  (pt.  i.),  80  «  i ;  performed 
at  Court,  89,  433 ;  use  of  prose  in, 
xoi  n  2 ;  debt  to  Lyly's  Euphues, 
104  n  2;  debt  to  Holinshed,  239; 
characterisation,  240  seq. ;  men- 
tioned by  Meres,  259;  licensed  for 
publication,  242 ;  the  inclusion  of 
Oldcastle  in  dramatis  personoe, 
243-S;  editions  of,  547  seq.;  pas- 
sages cited,  7  »  I ;  23  »  i,  93  »  i, 
104  n  I 

Henry  IV  (pt.  ii.),  use  of  prose  in,  loi 
n  2;  references  to  Stratford  per- 
sonages, 240 ;  publication  of,  242  ; 
the  inclusion  of  Oldcastle  in  dramatis 
persona,  243—5 ;  characterisation, 
245-6;  editions  of,  548  seq.;  pas- 
sages cited,  36,  240,  241  n  i,  242, 
243,  246 

Henry  V,  French  dialogue  in,  22; 
mention  of  the  Globe  theatre  in, 
63 ;    performed  at  Court,  89,  383  ; 


use  of  prose  in,  loi  n  2 ;  sonnet 
form  in,  157 ;  references  to  sonnet 
in,  176;  account  of,  250—4;  date  of 
production,  250;  imperfect  drafts 
of  the  play,  250 ;  First  Folio  version 
of,  251 ;  sources,  251 ;  popularity 
of  the  main  topic  (victory  of'Agin- 
court),  251 ;  the  Choruses,  251, 
252 ;  comic  characters  in,  252 ; 
Shakespeare's  final  experiment  in 
the  dramatisation  of  English  his- 
tory, 252 ;  allusions  to  the  Earl  of 
Essex  in,  253-5;  editions  of,  548 
seq.;  Theobald's  emendation  in, 
575;  passages  cited,  176,  250,  253, 
575 

Henry  V,  The  Famous  Victories  oj, 
groundwork  of  Henry  IV  and 
Henry  V,  239  and  «  i,  241,  251,  252 

Henry  VI  (pt.  i.),  Shakespeare's 
share  in  revision  of,  115  seq.,  118- 
19;  acted  at  Rose  theatre,  115; 
Nashe's  praise  of,  116;  Greene's 
attack  on  Shakespeare's  share  in, 
116— 17;  publication  of,  118;  Shake- 
speare's coadjutors,  122  seq.;  edi- 
tions of,  546  seq. ;  Crowne's  re- 
vision, 595;   passage, cited,  117 

Henry  VI  (pt.  ii.),  editions  of,  118, 
545  seq.;  publication  of,  119;  full 
title  of,  119-20;  Shakespeare's  share 
in,  120-21;  his  coadjutors,  122  seq. 

Henry  VI  (pt.  iii.),  editions  of,  118, 
545  seq.;  publication  of,  120;  full 
title  of,  120;  Shakespeare's  share 
in,  120-21;   his  coadjutors,  122  seq. 

Henry  -■  VIII,  attributed  to  Shake- 
speare and  Fletcher,  435;  account 
of,  439-46;  previous  plays  on  the 
topic,  440  and  »  i,  «  2 ;  prologue 
to,  441  and  n  i ;  material  drawn 
from  Holinshed,  441 ;  defects  of 
the  play,  441  and  »  i,  k  2,  442; 
dates  of  production  and  publica- 
tion, 442,  443 ;  scenic  elaboration 
of,  78,  81,  443 ;  Sir  Henry  Wotton 
on,  443  n ;  Shakespeare's  share  in, 
443-S;  Fletcher's  share,  443-4; 
Massinger's  possible  share  in,  443; 
Wolsey's  farewell  speech,  444,  445; 
perfonnance  of,  causes  fire  at  Globe 
theatre,  445  seq.;  editions  of,  554 
seq. ;    passages  cited,  430  n  i,  441 

'Henry  Irving  Shakespeare,  The,' 
584 

Henryson,  Robert,  his  treatment  of 
the  story  of  Cressida,  370 

Henslowe,  Philip,  builds  Rose  theatre, 


INDEX 


733 


6i ;  manager,  336,  366,  546 ;  owner 
of  Paris  Garden,  302  » ;  his  takings 
as  manager  of  Rose  and  Newington 
theatres,  307  »;  produces  a  play 
Palamon  and  Arsett,  438 ;  his  Diary, 
"      642 

Heraldic  grants,  281  seq. 

Herbert,  Sir  Henry,  licenser  of  plays, 

308  »,  55,8  n 
'Herbert,    Mr.    William,'   his   alleged 

identity  with  'Mr.  W.  H.,'  682-5 
Herder,  Johaun  Gottfried,  613 
Herford,  C.  H.,  584 
i:  Tlerringmari,  H.,  570  and  n 
i    Hess,  Johann  Rudolf,  611 

Heyes,    Laurence,     son    of    Thomas 

Heyes,  137  n 
Heyes  or  Haies,   Thomas,   publisher, 
,,  ,.  137  and«  2 

i,,,;  Heyse,   Paul,    German    translator    of 
i       Shakespeare,  614 

Heywood,  Thomas,   his  references  to 
adtors'  provincial  tours,   82  »;    to 
!       'foreign  tours,  86  «  2 ;   as  actor  and 
dramatist,  96,  654;  his  pride  in  the 
■•       actor's  profession,  g^ ;   complains  of 
i       publication  of  crude  shorthand  re- 
ports of  plays,  112  «  3;   his  poems 
pirated  in  the  Passionate  Pilgrim, 
269;  his  allusion  to  the  boy-actors, 
348 ;  a  member  of  the  Lord  Admiral's 
company,    366;     a   'groom   of   the 
<       chamber,'  376  and  n  i,  381 ;    his 
admiration  of  Shakespeare,   501   n, 
588;    his   elegy    on    Southampton, 
667;    his  reference  to  Shakespeare 
'as    'Win,'    6go;     his    Apology  for 
Actors  cited,  48  «  i,  82   n,  &$  n  2; 
his    London    Florentine,    373,    376 
and  »   I ;    his  General  History    of 
Women,  54s 
Higden,    Henry,    his    Wary    Widdow, 

SQ2 
Hilliard,  Nicholas,  his'  Shakespearean ' 

miniature,  536 
Historie  of  Error,  The,  108 
;   Histriomastix,  343,  366  n  i 
Hodgson,  Sir  Arthur,  536 
Hoe,  Robert,  54s  n,  569-70 
Holinshed,    Ralph,    Shakespeare's   in- 
-     debtedness  to,  23,  98,  119,  124,  127, 
140,  239,  392,  397,  398,  421,  441 
Holland,  English  actors  in,  8s  and  n  2 ; 
translations  of  Shakespeare  in,  627 
Holland,  Hugh,  his  tribute  to  Shake- 
speare in  First  FoUo,  556,  587 
Holmes,  Nathaniel,  652 
Hohnes,  William,  bookseller,  679  n  2 


Holyoake,  Francis,  505  n 

Holyoake,  Thomas,  505  n 

Holywell,  Benedictine  priory,  the  site 
of  'The  Theatre,'  58  and  n 

Home,  Sir  Gregory,  379 

Homer,  21 

Hondius,  his  'View  of  London,'  63  «  2 

Hooker,  Richard,  38  »  2 

Hoole,  Charles,  16  «  3 

Hope  theatre,  Southwark,  60  n  2, 
74  »,i 

Horace,  his  claim  for  the  immortality 
of  verse,  16,  21,  186  and  n  3 

Home,  William,  489  «  2 

Homeby,  Richard,  322 

Horneby,  Thomas,  322 

Houbraken,  engraving  of  'Chandos' 
portrait,  534 

Howard  of  Effingham,  Lord  Charles; 
Lord  High  Admiral,  patron  of 
Spenser,  210;  his  company  of 
actors,  50,  96,  367 ;  performs  in  Lon- 
don 55  K  I ;  includes  Edward  Alleyn, 
61  and  n  i ;  temporarily  amalgam- 
ated with  Lord  Chamberlain's  com- 
pany, 61  »  I ;  perform  before  Queen 
Elizabeth,  373  and  n  3 ;  taken  under 
patronage  respectively  of  Prince 
Henry  of  Wales  and  Elector  Pala- 
tine, 376  n  I 

Howe,  Earl,  owner  of  Vandergucht's 
crayon  copy  of  'Chandos'  portrait, 
533 ;  his  collection  of  quartos,  551 

Huband,  Sir  John,  320 

Huband,  Ralph,  319 

Hubbard,  George,  64  » 

Hudson,  Rev.  H.  N.,  584 

Hughes,  Mrs.  Margaret,  plays  female 
parts  in  the  place  of  boys,  601 

Hughes,  WiUiam,  and  *Mr.  W.  H.,' 
163  and  n 

Hugo,  Francois  Victor,  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  623 

Hugo,  Victor,  623 

Hume,  David,  his  censure  of  Shake- 
speare, 595 

Hume,  Captain  Tobias,  his  Poetical 
Musicke,  668 

Humphry,  Ozias,  crayon  copy  of 
'Chandos'  portrait,  533. 

Hungary,  translation  and  performance 
of  Shakespeare's  plays  in,  631  and 
»  2 

Hunsdon,  George  Carey,  second  Lord, 
entertains  Flemish  envoy  at  Hunsdon 
House,  24s  n;  succeeds  first  Lord 
Hunsdon  as  Lord  Chamberlain  and 
patron  of    the  company  of  actors. 


734 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


known  later  as  the  '  King's  servants,' 
S3— 4,  cf.  66  »  I,  8i  »  I ;  plays  per- 
formed by,  88,  112-13,  I2S,  132, 
231  «  I,  24s  n,  249,  3467s  2, 360, 366, 
375 

Himsdon,  Henry  Carey,  first  Lord, 
Lord  Chamberlain,  his  company  of 
actors,  known  later  as  the  'King's 
servants,'  52-3;  Shakespeare's  as- 
sociation with,  ss-6;  places  of 
performances,  61,  81  »  i ;  pro- 
vincial tours,  81  seq.;  plays  per- 
formed, 235,  357.    See  aiso  245  n,  3S7 

Hunt,  Simon,  15     • 

Hunt,  Thomas,  525 

Hunt,  William,  514 

Hunt,  William  Oakes,  52s 

Hunter,  Rev.  Joseph,  S97,  642,  682  n 

Huntington,  Archer,  551,  566 

Huth,  A.  H.,  566 

Hyatt,  Mrs.,  a  married  sister  of  John 
Combe  of  'The  College,'  469 

Hyde,  John,  mortgagee  of  'The 
Theatre,'  52  »  2 

'Hymn,'  term  applied  to  secular 
poems,  202,  202  n 

Hythe,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Immeemann,  K.,  his  staging  of  Shake- 
speare in  Germany,  617 

Imprese,  see  453  seq.,  and  especially 
453  »;  Shakespeare's  use  of  the 
word,  454  »_i 

India,  translations  and  representations 
of  Shakespeare  in,  632 

Induction,  the  device  of  the,  in  Eliza- 
bethan dr^ma,  235  »  2 

IngannaU,  Gli,  its  resemblance  to 
.  Twelfth  Nigjit,  329  and  n  3,  330 

Inganvi,  Gli,  and  Twelfth  Night,  329 
and  ft  I,  «  2 

Ingram,  Dr.,  loi  n  i 

Ingres,  J.  D.  A.,  his  portrait  of  Shake- 
speare, 624 

Inns,  used  for  theatrical  performances, 
see  especially,  60  »  2 

Inns  of  Court,  dramatic  performances 
at,  71 

Interludes,  90,  91  n 

Inverness,  84  and  n  1 

I  phis  and  lantha,  263 

Ipswich,  players  at,  82,  83  »,  84  «  i 

Ireland,  Samuel,  on  Shakespeare's  poach- 
ing episode,  35 ;  his  forgeries,  647 

Ireland,  William,  457  n  1 

Ireland,  William  Henry,  forgeries 
of  Shakespeare's  signatures,  S18; 
his  Shakespearean  forgeries,  647 


Irishman,  the  only,  in  Shakespeare's 
dramatis  personae,  252 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  605  and  n  i 

Italics,  use  of,  by  Elizabethan  and 
Jacobean  printers,  693  and  » 

Italy,  Shakespeare's  alleged  travels 
in,  86;  translations  and  perform- 
ances of  Shakespeare  in,  624,  626; 
the  sonnet  vogue  in,  718  n  2 

Ives,  Brayton,  567 

Jack  Drum's  Entertainment,  344  and  », 
34S 

Jackson,  John,  457,  486  n  2   491  n 

Jacob,  Edward,  140  «  3 

Jaggard,  Isaac,  553  seq. 

Jaggard,  William,  printer,  132  n  3; 
prints  unauthorised  edition  of  Mer- 
chant of  Venice,  137  n,  549  and  »  2; 
piratically  inserts  two  of  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  in  his  Passionate 
Pilgrim,  159,  267,  268  n,  669,  674; 
his  Passionate  Pilgrim,  267-8,  356 
«  2,  543,  553,  707 ;  prints  suspected 
Shakespearean  quartos  of  1619,  549 
and  n  2;  prints  the  First  FoMo, 
552  seq.;  acquires  right  to  print 
'players'  bills,'  553;  his  presenta- 
tion copy  of  the  First  Folio,  564  seq. 

Jaggard,  William,  his  Shakespeare 
Bibliography,  64s 

Jairies  VI  of  Scotland  and  I  of  England, 
his  accession  to  the  English  throne, 
226,  227,  228;  his  progress  through 
London,  378  seq.;  his  dislike  of 
crowds  referred  to  by  Shakespeare, 
391  and  »;  appeal  to,  in  Macbeth, 
392 ;  his  sonnets,  709 ;  his  en- 
couragement of  drama,  48,  54, 
84  «;  his  patronage  and  payment 
of  actors,  313-14,  432-3  and  notes; 
grants  recognition  as  the  'King's 
Servants'  to  Lord  Chamberlam's 
company,  375  seq.  and  notes;  mem- 
bers of  company,  451 ;  act  at  Wilton, 
377 ;  at  Hampton  Court,  378 ;  take 
part  in  royal  processions  and  func- 
tions, 379  and  ft  3;  at  Somerset 
House,  380  seq.  and  notes;  perform- 
ances of  Shakespeare's  plays,  113, 
127,  361,  367.  383  seq.,  385-6,  395-6, 
405,437  ;  performances  of  other  plays. 
88,  262-6,  346 

James  II,  Shakespeare's  plays  per- 
formed by  his  (the  Duke's)  company, 
592  ft 

James,  Sir  Henry,  568  n  t 

James,  Dr.  Richard,  243 


INDEX 


735 


JAUESON 

Jameson,  Mrs.  Anna,  645 

Jamyn,  Amadis,  191  »  i,  703,  713, 
713  » 

Jansen  or  Johnson,  Garret,  tomb- 
maker.    See  Johnson,  Garret 

'Janssen'  portrait  of  Shakespeare,  534- 
5 ;  copies  of,  534  n 

Janssen,  Bernard.  See  Johnson,  Ber- 
nard 

Janssen  van  Keulen,  Comelis,  his  por- 
traits of  Shakespeare,  Jonson,  and 
Milton,  534 

Jenkins,  Thomas,  15 

Jennens,  Charles,  533;  owner  of 
'Janssen'  portrait,  534-5;  his  edi- 
tion of  King  Lear,  534;  his  collec- 
tion of  quartos,  551 

Jewel,  Bishop,  38  «  2 

Jbdelle,  Etienne,  Shakespeare's  prob- 
able debt  to,  146  n  i,  193,  and  «; 
212,213,  214;  his  Cliopatre  Captive, 
408  n;  his  interpretations  of  'im- 
prese, '  453  n;   his  sonnets,  712-13 

John,  King,  97;  absence  of  prose 
in,  loi  »  2,  137 ;  date  of  composi- 
tion, 137;  debt  to  contemporary 
plays  on  the  theme,  138;  publication 
of,  139 ;  mentioned  by  Meres,  259 ; 
editions  of,  550  seq. ;  passages  cited, 
121  »  I 

John,  The  Troublesome  Raigne  0/  King, 
attributed  to  Shakespeare,  137-8, 
263 

Johnson,  Arthur,  publisher  of  Merry 
Wives,  249,  548 

Johnson,  Bernard,  495  n  2,  496  n  2 

Johnson,  Garret,  senior,  makes  John 
Combe's  tomb,  470;  his  tombs  for 
the  third  and  fourth  Earls  of  Rut- 
land, 494-s  and  notes;  his  family, 
494-S 

Johnson,  Garret,  jimior,  494;  the 
probable  maker  of  Shakespeare's 
tomb,  495  and  »  2;  his  bust  of 
Shakespeare,  522 

Johnson,  Mrs.  Joan,  277  n  i 

Johnson,  Nicholas,  tombmaker;  his 
tomb  for  the  fifth  Earl  of  Rutland, 
495  and  fwtes,  496  re  2,  523  » ;  other 
work  by,  49s  »  2 

Johnson,  Robert,  of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
317  and  n  i 

Johnson,  Robert,  lyrics  set  to  music  by, 
433  and  n  3 

Johnson,  Samuel,  on  English  vogue  of 
Mantuanus,  16  »  ;  on  Shakespeare's 
early  employment  in  London,  46; 
on  Othetto,   389;    on   Shakespeare's 


JONSON 

share  in  Henry  VIII,  443 ;  his  edi- 
tion of  Shakespeare,  580,  581;  his 
editorial  fees,  575  »  2 ;  his  biography 
of  Shakespeare,  642 

Johnson,  William,  51  n  1,  457,  486  n  2, 
491  « 

Jones,  Inigo,  70 

Jones,  Robert,  ]as  First  booke  of  Songes, 
328  »  I 

Jones,  Thomas,  35 

Jonson,  Ben,  his  knowledge  of  the 
classics,  22  and  n;  his  walking  tour 
from  London  to  Edinburgh,  38  n; 
his  use  of  legal  phrases,  44  and  n, 
654;  his  references  to  the  Globe 
theatre,  63,  447 ;  as  actor  and  dram- 
atist, 96;  his  criticism  of  Shake- 
speare's hasty  workmanship,  98 ;  his 
plays  censored,  128;  his  reference 
to  Titus  Andrormus,  130;  tributes 
to  Shakespeare,  151,  153;  his  view 
of  Petrardi,  174  »  i ;  identified  by 
some  as  the  'rival  poet,'  204;  his 
apostrophe  to  the  Earl  of  Desmond, 
210;  his  use  of  the  'induction,'  235  n 
2;  relations  with  Shakespeare,  256, 
257 ;  and  The  Phoenix  and  Turtle,  270 ; 
his  relations  with  the  boy  actors,  340 ; 
the  actors'  share  in  his  literary 
controversies,  342-6;  Shakespeare's 
attitude  to,  in  the  controversy  about 
the  actors,  348-52;  his  criticism  of 
Julius  Caesar,  352  n  i;  and-Kyd's 
Spanish  Tragedy,  356  n  i ;  sneers  at 
Pericles,  404  n  i ;  allusion  to  Corio- 
lanus  in  his  Silent  Woman,  410  n  i ; 
sneering  references  to  Winter's  Tale 
and  Tempest,  423,  433,  455  n; 
Shakespeare's  reputed  epitaph  on, 
472  »;  his  latest  relations  with 
Shakespeare,  480;  his  elegy  on 
Shakespeare,  499;  his  tribute  to 
Shakespeare,  500  and  n  2,  587 ;  his 
lines  on  the  Droeshout  engraving  of 
Shakespeare,  526  and  «  i ;  his  Imes 
on  portrait  in  First  Folio,  555; 
alleged  authorship  of  dedicatory 
address  in  First  Folio,  5S6-8,  557  « ; 
on  Shakespeare's  ease  in  writing,  557 ; 
his  burial  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
500 ;  portrait  by  Janssen,  534 ;  edi- 
tion of  his  works,  552  and  n  i ;  his 
works  referred  to,  Bartholomew  Fair, 
261,  433,  438;  The  Case  is  Altered, 
343  and  n  i ;  Catiline,  353  re,  589  «  2 ; 
Cynthia's  Revels,  235  re  2,  344  and  »  2, 
348  re  i;  Eastward  Ho,  346;  Every 
Man    in    his    Humour,    periEormed, 


736 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


88  and  « i ;  use  of  name  of '  Prospero ' 
in,  426  n  i;  Shakespeare's  rSle  in, 
25s;  Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour ^ 
23s  »  2.  343 ;  Sue  and  Cry  after 
Cupid,  703  n  3 ;  New  Inn,  404  n  i  ; 
Poetaster,  144  n,  345-6,  347  n,  34g— 
51 ;  Sejarms,  produced  at  the  Globe, 
88  and  n  i ;  Siient  Woman,  276  n  i, 
410  «  i;  Staple  of  News,  352  n; 
Timber,  or  Discoveries,  352  n,  500  and 
n  2 ;  Underwoods,  447  and  »  i ;  Fo/- 
pone,  Thorpe's  dedication,  675  n  3 

Jotisonus  Virbius,  22  n 

Jordan,  John,  account  of  Shakespeare's 
drinking  bout  at  Bidford,  481  n  i ; 
his  Shakespearean  forgeries,  646  and 
n  2 

Jordan,  Thomas,  79  » i 

Jordan,  Mrs.,  actress,  604 

Jourdain,  Sylvester,  428 

Julius  Caesar,  use  of  prose  in,  102  « ; 
date  of  composition,  332, 333  and  » i ; 
earlier  plays  on  the  topic,  332, 333  n  i, 
334;  debt  to  Plutarch,  g8,  333; 
characterisation,  335;  a  rival  piece 
on  the  subject,  336;  acted  at  Court, 
433 ;  editions  of,  S54 ;  the  Duke  of 
Buciingham's  revision,  595  n  i ; 
passage  cited,  334 

Jusserand,  J.  J.,  his  appreciation  of 
Shakespeare,  623 


Kanshin,  p.  a.,  Russian  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  629 

Karamzine,  N.,  Russian  translator  of 
JuUus  Caesar,  628 

Kean,  Charles,  604 

Kean,  Edmund,  603 

Keats,  John,  180 

Keck,  Robert,  533 

Keller,  A.,  German  translator  of  Shake- 
speare, 614 

Kelway,  Robert,  496  n  2 

Kemble,  Charles,  actor,  623 

Kemble,  John  Philip,  his  collection  of 
quartos,  ssi;  his  acting,  603;  pro- 
duction of  Vorligern,  647 

Kemp,  William,  actor,  36  «  2 ;  mem- 
ber of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  com- 
pany, 53  «  2 ;  acts  at  Court,  55,  153 ; 
his  fee  for  acting  there,  299  and  n  2 ; 
joins  Burbage  in  building  of  Globe 
theatre,  62;  at  Elsinore,  86  «; 
creator  of  Peter  in  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
87,  in;  and  of  Dogberry  in  Much 
Ado,    324;     his    shares    in    Globe 


theatre,    300    seq.;     abandons    his 
share,  304 

^Kenilworth,  Queen  Elizabeth's  visit  to, 
24,  232- 

Kent,  William,  designs  Shakespeare's 
monument  in  Westminster  Abbey,  539 

Kesselstadt  death  mask  of  Shakespeare, 
538 

Kesselstadt,  Francis  von,  538 

Ketzcher,  N.,  Russian  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  629 

Keysar,  Robert,  lawsuit  against  Hem- 
inges  and  Condell,  310  k;  estimate 
of  his  shares  in  Blackfriars  theatre, 
312-13,  312  » 

Kildare,  Countess  of,  675 

Killigrew,  Thomas,  director  of  King's 
(i.e.  Charles  n)  company  of  actors, 
592  n ;  his  substitution  of  women  for 
boys  in  female  parts,  600 

'King's  servants.'    See  under 'ia.m^l 

Kirkland,  Shakespeares  at,  i 

Klrkman,  Francis,  publisher,  264-5 

Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,  his  copy  of 
'Chandos'  portrait,  533,  591 

Knight,  Charles,  588 

Knight,  Joseph,  570  « 

Kuollys,  Sir  William,  689  » 

Kok,  A.  S.,  Dutch  translator  of  Shake- 
speare, 627 

Kijnigsberg,  English  actors  at,  85 

Komer,  J.,  German  translator  of  Shake- 
speare, 614 

Kraszewski,  Jozef  Ignacz,  Polish  trans- 
lator of  Shakespeare,  631 

Kreyssig,  Friedrich  Alexander  Theodor, 
his  studies  of  Shakespeare,  615 

Kyd,  Thomas,  94,  95,  140  n  3;  his 
share  in  Titm  Andronicus,  131 ;  and 
the  story  of  Hamlet,  355,  356; 
Shakespeare's  acquaintance  with  the 
work  of,  356  n  i 


Labe,  Louise,  713  and  « 

Lacy,  John,  276  n  2,  595,  641 

La  Harpe,  and,  the  Shakespearean  con- 
troversy in  France,  621 

Lamartine,  A.  de,  on  Shakespeare,  623 

Lamb,  Charles,  438,  532  «,  603 

Lambarde,  William,  255 

Lambert,  Edmund,  mortgagee  of  the 
Asbies  property,  14  and  n  2,  236 

Lambert,  John,  14  n  2,  290 

Lane,  John,  his  slander  of  Mrs.  Susanna 
Hall,  462 


INDEX 


737 


Lane,  Nicholas,  creditor  of  John 
Shakespeare,  27g 

Lane,  Richard,  320 

Laneham,  John,  actor,  51  »  i 

Lang,  Andrew,  655 

Langbaine,  Gerard,  266;  notice  of 
first  edition  of  Titus  Andronicus, 
132  B  I 

Larivey,  Pierre  de,  his  La  FideUe,  107 
«  I 

Laroche,  Benjamin,  French  translator 
of  Shakespeare,  623 

Law,  Ernest,  379  seq.,  and  notes,  649, 
650  n 

Lawe,  Matthew,  publisher,  acquires 
rights  in  Richard  III  and  Richard  II, 
125  n  I,  242  n  I 

Lawrence,  Sir  Edwin  D.,  652 

Lawrence,  Henry,  457 

Lawrence,  Sir  Thomas,  535 

Lear,  King,  performed  at  Court,  89, 
sot;  prose  in,  102  «;  account  of, 
3QS-400;  dates  of  composition  and 
publication,  395,  396  and  »  i,  »  2, 
397;  Butter's  imperfect  editions, 
396  and  »  I,  «  2,  397  and  n  i ; 
sources  of  the  plot,  397-399 ;  Shake- 
speare's innovations,  399 ;  the  great- 
ness of  the  tragedy,  399, 400;  editions 
of,  S48 ;  Tate's  revision,  595 ;  passage 
cited,  S77  n 

Leblanc,  Abb£,  619 

Legal  knowledge  of  Shakespeare,  43-4 
and  noles,  175,  706 

Legge,  Thomas,  his  Ricardus  Tertius, 
124 

Leicester,  players  at,  82,  83  ». 

Leicester,  Robert  Dudley,  Earl  of,  his 
entertainment  of  Queen  Elizabeth  at 
Kenilworth  24, 232 ;  his  Warwickshire 
regiment  in  the  Low  Countries,  36 ; 
his  early  company  of  players,  47  «,  49, 
51;  names  of  his  licensed  players, 
SI  »  i;  their  visits  to  Stratford, 
24  n  2,  55 ;  growth  of  company,  52 ; 
merged  in  Earl  of  Derby's  company, 
52,  55 ;  his  actors  in  London,  55  «  i ; 
in  Germany  and  Denmark,  85  «  2 

irir.  King,  the  old  play  of,  398  and  n 

Lembeke,  G.,  Danish  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  627 

Lenox,  James,  609 

Lenox,  Lodovlck  Stuart,  Earl  of,  376 
n  I 

Lent,  dramatic  performances  pro- 
hibited in,  80  and  n  i.  See  also  340, 
451  »  2 

Leo,  F.  A.,  21  »  I 

3  B 


Leoni,  Michele,  Italian  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  625 

'Leopold'  edition,  585  «  i 

Lermontov,  and  Shakespeare,  629 

Lessing,  Gotthold  Ephraun,  his  defence 
of  Shakespeare,  612 

Lessing,  Otto,  his  statue  of  Shake- 
speare at  Weimar,  539 

L'Estrange,  Sir  Nicholas,  256 

Le  Toumeur,  Pierre,  French  translator 
of  Shakespeare,  620 

Life  and  Death  of  Jack  Straw,  The,  126 

Lilly,  John.    See  Lyly,  John 

Lily,  William,  his  'Sententiae  Pueriles,' 
16,  18 

Linche,  Richard,  his  Diella,  707 

Ling,  Nicholas,  publisher,  106  «  2, 
113  »  I,  360  n  2,  363  and  «  i,  553 

Linley,  WUliam,  607 

Lintot,  Bernard,  377  n  i,  543 

Lister-Kaye,  Sir  John,  536 

Lloyd,  William  Watkis,  584 

Locke  (or  Lok),  Henry,  668,  710 

Locke,  John,  glover,  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  40  »  2 

Locke,  Matthew,  musician,  607 

Locke,  Roger,  son  of  John  Locke,  of 
Stratford,  printer's  apprentice  in 
London,  40  n  2 

Locker-Lampson,  Frederick,  567,  568 

Locrine,  Tragedie  of,  260 

Lodge,  Thomas,  17  »,  95;  Shake- 
speare's indebtedness  to  his  Rosalynde 
in  As  you  like  it,  98,  325-6 ;  in  Venus 
and  Adonis,  145-6,  146  n  \;  his  use 
of  the  'sixain,'  146;  Spenser's  ref- 
erence to,  151  n  2;  his  plagiarisms 
in  his  Phillis,  172  and  n  2,  704;  and 
the  old  play  of  Hamlet,  357;  his 
use  of  the  word  'will,'  691 

London,   plague   in,    80,    81    n,   378; 
routes  to,  from  Stratford-on-Avon,  1 
39-40 ;  population  of,  40 ;  natives  of 
Stratford  settled  in,  37  and  «,  41  seq. 

London  Prodigall,  The,  261 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  26  »  i 

Lopeji,  Roderigo,  original  of  Shylock, 
135  and  n  i 

Lord  Admiral's  company  of  actors. 
See  under  Howard  of  Effingham, 
Lord  Charles 

Lord  Chamberlain's  company  of  actors. 
See  under  Hunsdon,  first  and  second 
Lords,  and  Sussex,  Earl  of 

Lorkin,  Rev.  Thomas,  on  the  burning  of 
the  Globe  theatre,  446  n  i 

Love,  language  of,  in  Elizabethan  poets, 
206,  207 ;  similar  in  poems  addressed 


738 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


either  to  men  (friends  and  patrons) 
or  to  women,  208,  209  » 

'Lover'  and  'love.'  synonymous  with 
'friend'  and  'friendship'  in  Eliza- 
bethan English,  206  n  i 

Lover's  Complaint,  A,  Shakespeare's 
responsibility  for.  161  and  »  i 

Love's  Labour's  Lost,  performed  at 
Court,  89,  106  IS3,  383;  use  of 
prose  in,  loi  n  2 ;  &st  play  written 
by  Shakespeare,  102 ;  Robert  Tofte's 
reference  to  (1598),  102  n  i ;  the 
plot,  103 ;  reference  to  contemporary 
persons  and  Incidents,  103  and  n\ 
debt  to  John  Lyly,  104  seq.;  publi- 
cation of,  106  and  notes,  113  «  i; 
state  of  text,  106 ;  sonnet  form  in, 
'  iss  and  n  1 ;  alleged  ridicule  of 
Flotio  in,  156  n;  affinities  with  the 
Sonnets,  157;  reference  to  sonnets 
in,  I7S ;  mentioned  by  Meres,  259 ; 
editions  of,  548;  passages  cited,  18 
and  «  I,  20,  17s,  191,  192  n  i,  692 

Love's  Labour's  Won,  234,  259 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  17  n  i,  608 

Lowin,  John,  shareholder  in  Globe 
theatre,  306  n,  307  » 

Lowndes,  William  T.,  645 

Lucian,  his  dialogue  of  Timon,  402 

Lucrece,  account  of,  146  seq.;  metre 
of,  146-7;  publication  of,  42,  147; 
sources  of  the  story,  147-8;  echoes 
of  Daniel's  Rosamorid  in,  147 ;  dedi- 
catory letter  to  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton, 148-9 ;  popularity  of,  149 ; 
contemporary  praise  of,  rso;  edi- 
tions, 151,  177,  22r,  2S9,  S42;  Ga- 
briel Harvey's  mention,  358 ;  extant 
copies  of  early  editions,  543  n; 
passages  cited,  7  k  i ;  76  »  i 

Lucy,  Sir  Thomas,  of  Charlecote,  his 
prosecution  of  Shakespeare  for 
poaching,  34-s;  caricatured  as 
Justice  Shallow,  36,  240,  248,  465 ; 
Shakespeare's  pun  on  the  name,  36 
and  n  i ;  his  funeral,  283  »  2 

Lucy,  William,  grandson  of  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy,  36  «  I 

Ludwig,  Otto,  his  studies  of  Shake- 
speare, 61S-16 

Lumley,  John  Lord,  his  portrait  of 
Shakespeare,  S34 

Lydgate,  John,  his  Troy  hooke  drawn 
on  for  Troilus  and  Cressida,  370. 

Lyly,  John,  94,  95,  loi  »  2 ;  influence 
of  his  Eupitues  on  Shakespeare's 
comedies,  104  and  n  i,  i65,  233  ;  his 
Court  comedies,  104-5  and  «;    his 


repartee,  word-play,  and  conceits, 
los;  influence  on  Two  Gentlemen, 
106-7;  his  treatment  of  friendship 
in  Euphues,  iiy,  21S;  laisCampaspe, 
and  Midas,  327 

Lynn,  plague  at,  82  »  i 

Lyte,  Sir  H.  Maxwell,  649 


Macbeth,  use  of  prose  in,  102  » ;  account 
of,  392-s ;  date  of  composition,  391 ; 
the  story  drawn  from  Holinshed,  392 ; 
Shakespeare's  manipulation  of  the 
story  and  the  additions  of  his  own 
invention,  392 ;  its  appeal  to  James  I 
(of  England),  392,  393 ;  publication, 
393 ;  the  scenic  elaboration,  393  and 
n  I ;  the  chief  characters,  394 ;  points 
of  difference  from  the  other  great 
Shakespearean  tragedies,  394 ;  inter- 
polations by  other  pens,  395 ;  Mid- 
dleton's  plagiarisms,  395 ;  editions  of, 
554;  D'Avenant's  adaptation,  594; 
passages  cited,  19  k  i,  84  » i,  121 «  i, 
392,  395,  407  n,  575 

MacCallum,  M.  W.,  644 

McCarthy,  Henry,  monument  of 
Shakespeare  in  Southwark  cathedral, 
54°  » 

McCuUough,  John  Edward,  American 
actor,  609 

MacGeorge,  Bernard  Buchanan,  567- 
9 

Mackenzie,  Sir  Alexander,  607 

Macklin,  Charles,  602 

Madise,  Daniel,  525  n,  608 

Macpherson,  G.,  his  Spanish  trans- 
lation of  Shakespeare,  626 

Macready,  William  C,  604,  623 

Madden,  D.  H.,  644 

Madden,  Sir  Frederick,  519 

Magellan,  43r 

Magny,  Olivier  de,  712-13 

Maid  Lane,  Southwark,  63  «  4 

'Maidenhead'  inn,  Stratford-on-Avon, 
9-10 

Maidstone,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Maine  or  Mayenne,  Due  de,  103  »  i 

Mainwaring,  Arthur,  473  seq.,  476  and 
n  2,  648 

Malherbe,  lines  on  Montaigne,  526  « 

Malone,  Edmund,  46;  on  Shake- 
speare's first  theatrical  employ- 
ment, 46;  his  share  in  repair  of 
Shakespeare's  monuments,  524;  his 
edition  of  the  Sonnets,  543-4;  his 
Shakespeare    collection,    551;      his 


INDEX 


739 


critical  works  on  Shakespeare,  580; 
his  edition  of  Shakespeare,   580-2, 

\  597 ;    his  life  of  Shakespeare,  642 ; 

*  his  Shakespeare  papers,  650  n 

Malvezzi,  Virgilio,  653  n 

Manners,  Lady  Bridget,  435  «,  659 

Manningham,  John,  diarist,  records 
general  desire  for  Southampton's 
release,  228;  his  description  of 
Twdfth  Night,  328,  420;  anecdote 
of  Burbage,  452  and  n;  his  account 
of  'imprese'  at  Whitehall,  453  n; 
on  'will,'  692  and  n  i 

Mantuanus,  or  Mantuan,  Baptista, 
his  Latin  eclogues,  16  and  n  3,  18 
and»  2 

Manuche,  Cosmo,  558  n 

Manzoni,  Alessandro,  his  apprecia- 
tion of  Shakespeare,  62s 

Marino,  Giovanni  Battista,  172,  711 «  2 

Markham,     Gervase,     his     adulation 

,  of    Southampton    in    his    soimets, 

i.200,  203,  666 

Marlborough,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  95,  iis,  116, 
118, 140-1 ;  his  share  in  2  Henry  VI, 
122  and  «,  123;  his  influence  on 
Slmkespeare's  work,  no,  123  seq., 
126-7, 134-S ;  his  violent  death,  123 ; 
Shakespeare's  allusions  to,  136; 
influence  of  his  Sero  and  Leander 
on  Venus  and  Adorns,  143,  672; 
his  translation  of  Ovid's  Amores, 
144  »  I ;  his  translation  of  Lucan, 
160,  162,  672,  673,  678;  absence  of 
his  autographs,  517.  See  also  553, 
646,  652 

Marlowe,  Julia,  Americaii  actress,  609 

Marmontel,  and  the  Shakespearean 
controversy  in  France,  621 

Marot,  C16ment,  his  treatnient  of 
love  and  friendship,  218;  his  inter- 
pretation of  'imprese,'  453  »;  his 
sormets,  711 

Marquets,  Anne  de,  709,  713 

Marshall,  F.  A.,  588 

Marshall,  John,  his  library  at  Strat- 
ford, IS  »  2 

Marshall,  William,  528,  544 

Maiston,  John,  on  popularity  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  61 »  3, 112  and  n  i ; 
identified  by  some  as  the '  rival  poet, ' 
204 ;  his  use  of  the  'induction, '  233  n 
2;  contributes  to  The  Phoenix  and 
the  Turtle,  270;    his  comedy.  What 

■  You  Will,  327  n  2 ;  relations  with 
the  boy  actors,  340;  his  Scourge  of 
Villanie,    342;       his   Bislriomastix, 


343  and  » i ;  his  quarrel  with  Jonson, 
342-6;  publication  of  his  Malcon- 
tent, 346 ;  publishes  his  Farasitaster 
himself,  677 ;  his  share  in  Blackfriars 
theatre,  303,  312  » 

Martin,  Martyn  or  Mertyn.  See 
under  Slater,  Martin 

Martin,  Lady.    See  Faudt,  Helen 

Martin,  Dr.  William,  64  » 

Mason,  John,  shareholder  in  White- 
friars  flieatre,  303 

Massey,  Gerald,  on  the  Sonnets,  161  n  2 

Massinger,  Philip,  his  use  of  legal 
phrases,  44;  his  association  with 
John  Fletcher,  435,  443 

Masuccio,  no  » 

Matthew,  Sir  Tobie,  653,  663 

Matthew,  Toby,  bishop  of  Durham, 
709 

Matthews,  Brander,  608,  646 

Mayne,  Jasper,  22  n,  556 

Meade,  Jacob,  303  n 

Meadows,  Kenny,  584  « 

Measure  for  Measure,  performance  at 
Court,  89,  383,  386,  649;  use  of 
prose  in,  loi  n  2 ;  dates  of  composi- 
tion and  production,  385,  386 ;  first 
published  in  First  Folio,  386 ;  treat- 
ment of  theme  in  French  and  Italian 
sixteenth-century  drama  and  fiction, 
389,  390;  sources,  389;  Shake- 
speare's variations  on  the  old  treat- 
ment, 390,  391 ;  the  name  of  Angelo, 

390  and  n  2;  creates  character  of 
Mariana,  391 ;  philosophic  subtlety 
of  Shakespeare's  argument,  391 ; 
references  to  a  ruler's  dislike  of  mobs, 

391  and  n  1 ;  D'Avenant's  revision 
of,  594;  passages  cited,  30  n  1,  216 
n  2,  385,  391 

Meighen,  Richard,  568 

Mencke's  Lexicon,  611 

Mendelssohn,  Felix  Bartholdy,  618 

Mennes,  Sir  John,  6  » 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  performed 
at  Court,  89,  383 ;  Marlowe's  influ- 
ence in,  123;  sources,  133  seq.; 
debts  to  II  Pecorone,  Gesta  Romans 
orum,  and  Wilson's  Three  Ladies  of 
London,  134;  traces  of  Marlowe's 
influence,  isi' seq.;  Shakespeare's 
study  of  Jewish  character,  13S-6; 
date  of  composition,  136;  pubUca- 
tion  of,  137 ;  state  of  text,  137 ;  im- 
authorised  reprint  of,  137  n  i ; 
mentioned  by  Meres,  259 ;  editions 
of,  S48  seq.;  passages  cited,  12  «  2, 
19  »  I,  23  »  I 


740 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Merchant  Taylors'  School,  dramatic 
performance  by  boy  actors  of,  324 

Meres,  Francis,  credits  Shakespeare 
with  Titus  Andromicus,  130;  his 
commendation  of  Shakespeare's 
'sugred  sonnets,'  ISO,  I77,  669; 
testimony  to  Shakespeare's  reputa- 
tion, 258,  2SQ 

Mermaid  Tavern,  257,  258 

Merry  Demll  of  Edmonton,  The,  263, 
264,  265  and  n  1 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  The,  35," 
performed  at  Court,  89,  383 ;  use 
of  prose  in,  loi  n  2 ;  reminiscences 
of  Marlowe  in,  136;  account  of,  246- 
g ;  date  of  composition,  246 ;  sources, 
247 ;  publication  of,  249 ;  editions  of, 
547  seq.;  passages  cited,  18,  38  n, 
136,  249,  257  »  I,  268  «,  463   n  2, 

«3 

Mertyn.    See  under  Martin 

Metrical  tests  in  Shakespearean  drama, 
loi  and  n  i 

M6ziferes,  Alfred,  on  Shakespeare,  623 

Michael  Angelo,  'dedicatory'  sormets 
of,  209  n 

Michel,  Francisque,  French  trans- 
lator of  Shakespeare,  623 

Middle  Temple,  Gorboduc  produced 
at,  91 ;    Twelfth  Night  at,  328 

Middleton,  Thomas,  his  allusion  to 
mortality  from  plague,  80  »  2 ;  his 
allusion  to  La  Mothe,  104  n;  his 
plagiarisms  of  Macbeth  in  The  Witch, 
39S ;   MS.  of  The  Witch,  558  » 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  date  of 
composition,  231  and  n  1,  232,  231- 
3 ;  reference  to  Queen  Elizabeth's 
visit  to  Kenil worth,  232 ;  sources, 
106,  232,  233 ;  mentioned  by  Meres, 
259;  editions  of,  548  jeg.;  witnessed 
by  Pepys,  590;  passages  cited,  24, 
78,  93  n  I,  577  n 

Millais,  Sir  John,  608 

Millington,  ^Thomas,  publisher,  119, 
120  and  n  132 

Milton,  John,  applies  epithet  'sweet- 
est' to  Shakespeare,  259  «  i;  his 
Minor  Poems  (1645)  printed  by 
Moseley,  263 ;  his  portrait  by  Jans- 
sen,  534 ;  his  tribute  to  Shakespeare 
printed  in  Second  Folio,  587 

Miniatures  of  Shakespeare,  536 

Minto,  Prof.  W.,  204  n 

Miracle  plays,  go  and  «  r 

Molifere,  extant  signatures  of,  517  «  i 

MoUineux,  Sir  Richard,  704 

Monarcho,  104  n 


Money,    value    of,    in    Shakespeare's 

England.    See  3  n  2,  296  n  i 
Monmouth,  Geoffrey  of,  3g7 
Montagu,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  620 
Montaigne,     Michel    de,     519,    652; 

Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to,   22, 

429 ;  lines  on  T.  de  Leu's  portrait  of, 

526  n 
Montfigut,    Emile,    French   translator 

of  Shakespeare,  623 
Montemayor,   George  de,  his  Diana, 

107  and  notes  2  and  3,  427  »  i 
Montesquieu,  on  English  acting,  79  n 
Montgomery,    Philip    Herbert,    Earl 

of,  556,  661,  685 ;  his  'impresa,'  455 

n  I 
Monti,     Vincenzo,     his     appreciation 

of  Shakespeare,  625 
Montjoy,  Christopher,  276  seq.,  517 
Montjoy,  Mary,  277  n  i 
Montolin,    C,    Catalan   translator  of 

Macbeth,  626 
Montreux,  Nicolas  de,  his  tragedy  of 

Cllopatre,  407  n  2 
Moorfields,  58-^ 
Moralities,  90,  gi  n 
Moratin,      Leandro     Fernandez     di, 

Spanish  translator  of  Eamlet,  626 
Morgan,  J.  Pierpont,  his  copy  of  the 

First  Folio,  564  »  2,  567 
Morgann,  Maurice,  on  Falstaff,  596, 

597 

Morhof,  Daniel  Georg,  611 

Morley,  Lord,  685  n 

Morley,  Thomas,  musician,  his  First 
Boohe  of  Consort  Lessons,  328,  607 

Morris,  Matthew,  491  » 

Mortlake,  377 

Moschus,  703 

Moseley,  Humphrey,  publisher,  263, 
264,  435,  436  and  n  2,  559  n 

Mothe  or  La  Mothe,  103  »  i 

Moulton,  Richard  G.,  645 

Mucedorus,  play  of  doubtful  author- 
ship, 264,  265,  266,  403  »  I 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  performed 
at  Court,  89,  433 ;  use  of  prose  in, 
loi  «  2 ;  references  to  sonnets  in, 
176;  accoimt  of,  324-5;  date  of 
composition,  324;  sources,  98,  324, 
325;  characters  of  Shakespeare's 
invention,  325 ;  parts  taken  by  the 
actors  Kemp  and  Cowley,  in  »  3, 
325;  publication  of,  331;  editions 
of,  SS3 ;  passages  cited,  20  »  2,  39, 
149  n  2,  176,  357  «,  692 

Mulberry  tree,  Shakespeare's,  288, 
289  n,  514  and  n 


INDEX 


741 


MULCASTER 

Mulcaster,  Richard,  head  master  of 
Merchant  Taylors'  School,  324 

Munday,  Anthony,  his  use  of  the 
'induction,'  235  n  2 ;  part  author 
of  play  of  Oldcastle,  244,  336.  See 
also  107  n  I,  134  n  2 

Mimich,  English  actors  at,  85 

Muret,  Marc-Antoine,  his  tragedy 
on  Julius  Csesar,  333  n 

Murray,  Sir  David,  of  Gorthy,  490 

Murray,  John  Tucker,  his  English 
Dramatic  Companies,  49  »  2  and 
,     passim 

Mussus,  143 

Music,  on  the  Elizabethan  stage,  79 
and»  I 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  influence  of  Shake- 
speare on,  622 

Mystery  plays,  90,  91  » 


Nash,  Anthony,  322  n  i;  legatee 
under  Shakespeare's  will,  489  and  n  2 

Nash,  Edward,  509-10,  513 

Nash,  John,  legatee  under  Shake- 
speare's will,  489  and  n  2 

Nash,  John,  son  of  Anthony  Nash, 
489  n  2 

Nash,  Thomas,  son  of  Anthony  Nash, 
285  and  n  i ;  married  Elizabeth 
Hail,  489,  s°4;  account  of,  504; 
legatee  under  John  Hall's  will,  506, 
507;  death  and  burial,  508-9,  511; 
his  will,  509  and  n  i 

Nash's  House,  514-15,  540 

Nashe,  Thomas,  112  »  3,  116;  his 
mention  of  i  Henry  VI,  116;  falls 
under  ban  of  censor,  128;  piracy 
of  his  Terrors  of  the  Night,  159  «; 
on  the  immortalising  power  of  verse, 
187;  his  dedication  of  Jack  Wilton 
to,  and  his  sonnets  addressed  to 
Southampton,  200;  on  the  perse- 
cution of  actors,  337;  and  the  old 
play  of  Hamlet,  355;  his  praise  of 
Southampton,  664  and  «,  665  and 
«  I,  »  2 ;  his  Life  of  Jack  Wilton, 
664,  665 ;  his  Pierce  Penniless,  664 ; 
on  the  sonnet,  699  n  2 ;  his  praise  of 
Sidney's  sonnets,  700  «  3 

Navarre,  King  of,  103  n  i 

Naylor,  E.  M.,  644 

Neagle,  James,  535 

Neil,  Samuel,  643  » 

Nekrasow,  Russian  translator  of  Shake- 
speare, 629 

Newcastle,  Margaret,  Duchess  of,  her 
criticism  of  Shakespeare,  5Q1-2 


Newcastle,  miracle  plays  at,  91  » 

Newdegate,  Lady,  682  »,  689  n 

Newington  Butts  theatre,  60  »  2,  61 ; 
takings  at,  307  n ;  performances  at, 
23s,  357,  438 

Newman,  Thomas,  piratical  publisher 
of  Sidney's  Sonnets,  158  n  1,  700 

New  Place,  Stratford-on-Avon,  built 
by  Sir  Hugh  Clopton,  288 ;  purchase 
and  repair  of,  by  Shakespeare,  288 ; 
mulberry  tree  at,  288;  its  owners 
and  occupants,  289  and  k,  514  »  2 ; 
later  fortimes,  512  seg.,  540 

Newport,  Edward,  4SS-9 

New  Romney,  players  at,  82, 83  n 

New  Shakspere  Society,  645 

Nichols,  John,  S33 

Nicholson,  George,  84  n 

Nicolai,  Otto,  618 

Nodier,  Charles,  his  appreciation  of 
Shakespeare,  621 

Nonsuch,  royal  residence  at,  69 

Norris,  J.  Parker,  his  account  of  Shake- 
speare's portraits,  538  n  2 

North,  Sir  Thomas.  See  under  Plu- 
tarch 

Northampton,  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of, 
28s  »  3,  505 

Northampton,  William  Parr,  marquis 
of,  287  n 

Northcote,  Lord,  536 

Northumberland,  Henry,  ninth  Earl  of, 
patron  of  men  of  letters,  297  »  2,  708 

Northumberland,  Lucy,  Countess  of, 
708 

Norton,  Thomas,  his  Gorboduc,  91 

Norwich,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Nottingham,  Earl  of.  See  under 
Howard,  Charles 

Nottingham,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Nuremburg,  English  actors  at,  85, 
86  » 

Nyblom,  C.  R.,  Swedish  translator  of 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  628 


Oberon,  vision  of,  232;    in  Huon  of 

Bordeaux,  233 
Oechelhaeuser,  Wilhelm,  617 
Ogilby,  John,  276  n  2 
Okes,  Nicholas,  printer,  387,  396 
'Old  Spelling  Shake^eare,  The,'   585 

n  I 
Oldcastle,  Sir  John,  play  on  his  history, 

244  and  n  i,  24s  and  n,  261 ;   acted 

at  Hunsdon  House,  66  «  i 
Oldcastle,  Sir  John,  the  original  name 

of  Falstaff  in  Henry  IV,  241,  242,  243 


742 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Oldys,  William,  35  n  u,  88  and  »  4, 
377  «  I,  S32,  642 

Olney,  Henry,  707 

Onions,  C.  T.,  64s 

Opie,  John,  608 

Orator  J  The,  134  «  2 

Orford,  Earl  of,  569 

Oman,  alias  Currance,  Allan,  son  of 
Thomas  Oman,  of  Stratford,  printer's 
apprentice  in  London,  40  »  2 

Orrian,  Thomas,  tailor  of  Stratford-on- 
Avou,  40  «  2 

Ortelsburg,  English  actors  at,  8s 

Ortlepp,  E.,  German  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  614 

Ostler,  Thomasina,  lawsuit  against 
her  father  John  Heminges,  310  n, 
312;  estimate  of  the  value  of  her 
theatrical  shares  in  Globe  and  Black- 
friars  theatres,  311,  312  and  n 

Ostler,  William,  shareholder  in  Globe 
theatre,  305 ;  in  Blackf  riars  theatre, 
307  n ;   a  boy  actor,  340 

Othello,  use  of  prose  in,  102  n ;  account 
of.  385-9 ;  dates  of  composition  and 
production,  385;  performed  at 
Court,  38s,  433,  649 ;  publication  of, 
386,  387;  indebtedness  to  Cinthio, 
98,  387,  388  and  n  i,n  2;  new  char- 
acters and  features  introduced  by 
Shakespeare,  388 ;  exhibits  his  fully 
matured  powers,  389;  its  posthu- 
mous printing,  550;  passages  cited, 
432  n  I,  500  »  2 

Otway,  Thomas,  595 

Ovid,  16,  22 ;  his  influence  on  Shake- 
speare, 177,  180,  181  aad»,  233,  426; 
has  claim  for  the  immortality  of  verse, 
186  and  »  3;  his  Amores,  20; 
quoted  on  title  page  of  Venus  and 
Adonis,  144  n;  partly  translated 
by  Marlowe,  144  n  i ;  popular  with 
Elizabethans,  144  «  i ;  his  Fasti, 
147;  his  Metamorphoses  {see  also 
under  Golding,  Arthur),  20  and  notes 
I  and  2,  21  and  n  i,  144-5,  180,  181 
and  « 1, 182,  426 ;  Shakespeare's  copy 
of,  21,  519 

Owen,  Sir  Richard,  537,  538 

Oxford,  players  at,  82,  83  n,  440; 
Hamlet  at,  361  and  n  2 

'Oxford'  edition,  585  n 

Oxford,  Earl  of,  his  company  of  actors 
at  Stratford,  24  k  2;  in  London, 
SO  »  I,  55  »  I ;  patron  of  Watson, 
67s,  699 

Oxford,  Edward  Harley,  Earl  of,  his 
alleged  miniature  of  Shakespeare,  536 


Padua,  copy  of  First  Folio  at,  567 

Page,  William,  his  accoimt  of  Shake- 
speare's portraits,  538  n  2 

'Painted  cloths,'  7  and  »  i 

Painter,  William,  indebtedness  of 
Shakespeare  to  his  Palace  of  Pleasure, 
no  and  »,  141,  147,  400,  411. 

Palamon  and  Arsett,  438 

Palmer,  John,  462  n,  469  n  i 

Palmer  or  Palmes,  Valentine,  322  «  i 

Par,  Anfos,  Catalan  translator  of 
King  Lear,  626 

Paris,  copy  of  First  Folio  at,  562,  567 
and  n  i 

Paris  Garden  theatre,  shares  in,  302  n  2 ; 
performance  of  the  old  Bamlet  at, 
357 

Parrot,  Henry,  298  n  i,  470  n  i 

Partridge,  William  Ordway,  his  statue 
of  Shakespeare  in  Chicago,  539 

Paschale,  Lodovico,  704 

Pasqualigo,  Luigi,  his  II  Fedele, 
107  n  I 

Pasquier,  Etienue,  712 

Passerat,  Jean,  712-13 

Passionate  Pilgrim,  The,  piratical 
insertion  of  two  sonnets  in,  267; 
contents  of,  267  n  2 ;  editions  of, 
543 ;  included  in  Poems  of  1640,  544 

Patteson,  Rev.  Edward,  519 

Pavier,  Thomas,  printer,  113  », 
120  n,  231  M  I,  244,  245  n,  261, 
262,  396  K  2 ;  his  share  in  the  sus- 
pected quartos  of  1619,  137  «, 
548,  549  and  notes 

Pavy,  Salathiel,  boy  actor,  Jonson's 
elegy  on,  340 

Pedantius,  Latjn  play  of,  653  » 

Peele,  George,  94,  95,  116,  151  »  2; 
as  actor  and  dramatist,  96;  his 
alleged  share  in  Eenry  VI,  122; 
in  Titus  Andronicus,  131 ;  his  use 
of  the  'induction'  in  Old  Wives' 
Tale,  ?3S  «  2 ;  prot^gd  of  the  Earl 
of  Northumberland,  297  »  2 ;  his 
praise  of  Southampton,  659;  forged 
letter  of,  646 

Pelayo,  M&iendez  y,  his  apprecia- 
tion of  Shakespeare,  626 

Pembroke,  Countess  of,  dedication 
of  Daniel's  Delia  to,  199,  701; 
her  translation  of  Garnier's  Marc 
Antoine,  407  n  2 

Pembroke,  Henry  Herbert,  second 
earl  of,  659  b  i;  his  company  of 
actors,  49  and  »  3;  performances 
by,  56,  120,  131,  235  n  I 

Pembroke,     WilUam    Herbert,    third 


INDEX 


743 


Earl  of,  164,  377  and  n  2,  381,  556, 
658  »,  677  and  n  i ;   his  'impresa,' 

■;  4SS  «  2;    question  of  identification 

{with    'Mr.    W.    H.,'    164,    682-5; 

?  Shakespeare's  relations  with,  686-9, 
dedication  of  First  Folio  to,  687 

Penrith,  Cumberland,  Shakespeares 
at,  I 

iPenzance,  Lord,  6ss 

fepys,  Samuel,  531 ;  his  criticisms 
of  tie  Tempest,  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  and  Hamlet,  590 

Percy,  Sir  Charles,  his  testimony 
to    Shakespeare's    growing    popu- 

'  ladty,  259  »  2 

Percy,  William,  plays  of,  558  n  i ; 
friend  of  Bamabe  Barnes,  703; 
his  CaUa,  705 

Perez,  Antonio,  135  «  i 

Pericles,  402-6;  date  of  composition, 
402 ;  Shakespeare's  collaboration 
in,  402 ;  sources,  402,  403,  404  and 
»  I ;  incoherences  of  the ,  piece, 
403;  contemporary  criticism  of, 
404  n  i;  the  quarto  editions, 
404  and  »,  405 ;  Shakespeare's 
share  in,  405;  reference  to  'im- 
presa' in,  459  n 

Perkes,  Clement,  in  Henry  IV,  240 

Perkin,  John,  51  «  i 

Perkins,  Thomas,  his  copy  of  the 
Second  Folio,  568  and  n  2,  569 

Perrin,  Cornwall,  players  at,  82  » 

Perry,  Marsden  J.,  his  collection  of 
the  Folios,  567-9,  609 

P&use,  Jean  de  la,  712 

Pescetti,  Orlando,  his  tragedy  on 
Julius  CtEsar,  333  n  i 

Petowe,  Henry,  elegy  on  Queen 
Elizabeth,  227 

Petrarch,  emulated  by  Elizabethan 
sonnetteers,  154,  156,  171,  172,  705 
seq.;  Spenser's  translations  from, 
170;  Shakespeare's  indebtedness 
to,  177,  178,  183  and  n  3 

Phelps,  Samuel,  584  »  i,  604 

Phillips,  Augustine,  member  of  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  company,  53  n 
2 ;  56,  62 ;  induced  to  revive 
Richard  II  at  the  Globe  (1601), 
2S4,  255;  residence  in  Southwark, 
275;    his   false    claim   to   heraldic 

,  honours,  285  seq.;  shares  in  Globe 
theatre,  300  seq.,  302  »  i ;  has 
articled  pupils,  314;  a  'groom 
of  the  Chamber,'  37s,  379,  382  «  i ; 
later  relations  with  Shakespeare, 
451  seq.  and  notes  ;  his  will,  451 » i>  49* 


Phillips,  Edward,  Milton's  nephew, 
his  criticism  of  Shakespeare,  599  « 
I,  642;  editor  of  Drummond's 
poems,  709  n  i 

Phillips,  Thomas,  his  portrait  of 
Shakespeare,  525 

Phcenix  theatre,  Drury  Lane,  60  »  2 

Phomix  and  the  TurUe,  Tfe,  account 
of,  270  jeg.','~'Sliakespeare's  con- 
tribution to,  272-3 

Pichot,  A.,  622 

Pickering,  William,  London  printer, 
40  n,  584 

'Pictorial  edition'  of  Shakespeare, 
.584 

Pike,  William,  pseudonym  for  WiUiam 
Lucy,  36  »  I 

Pilgrimage  lo  Parnassus,  The,  259, 
299 

Pindar,  his  claim  for  the  immor- 
tality of  verse,  186  and  n  3 

Pindemonte,  Ippolito,  of  Verona,  his 
imitation  of  Shakespeare,  625 

Plague,  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  12 
and  »  I ;  in  London  and  provinces, 
12  n  I,  377-9;  dramatic  perform- 
ances prohibited  during  time  of, 
80,  81  »,  348,  378 

Plato,  his  influence  on  Shakespeare, 
. 177-180 

Plautus,  16,  19,  20;  his  influence 
on  English  drama,  91 ;  his  Men- 
achmi,  108;  in  English  translation, 
109;    his  Amphitruo,  109 

Players'  quartos,  100  n  i,  547,  558 
and  n 

Playhouse  yard,   Blackfriars,  65  «  i 

Plays,  sale  of,  99  and  «;  revision 
of,  99;  their  publication  depre- 
cated by  playhouse  proprietors, 
100  «;  fees  paid  for,  99  «;  313-14, 
315  » 

Pl^iade,  La,  711-12 

Plessis,  Comte  de,  653  «  i 

Plume,  Archdeacon  Thomas,  his  MS. 
collection  of  anecdotes,  6  «,  472  »  i 

Plutarch,  Shakespeare's  indebted- 
ness to,  98,  232,  332,  333-4,  400,  407 
and  n  i,  408  and  n,  409,  411  and  n  2, 
412,  413 ;  North's  translation  of 
his  Lives,  41,  334  and  n  1,  407 

Plymouth,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Poel,  WiUiam,  607 

Poems  (1640)  Shakespeare's,  544 
and  n  2,  545 ;  stationer's  entry  of, 
544  n  2 ;  contents,  545 ;  rarity  of 
volume,  545  and  «  i ;  later  editions, 
545 


744 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Poems  on  Afairs  of  Slate,  543 

Poland,  study  of  Shakespeare  in, 
630  and  «  3,  631  and  n  i 

Pole,  Sir  Geoffrey,  706  n  3 

Pollard,  A.  W.,  his  Shakespeare 
Folios  and  Quartos,  550  «,  554  n  2, 
64s 

Pollard,  Thomas,  holder  of  theatrical 
shares,  303  »,  306  n 

Poniatowski,  King  Stanislas,  his  appre- 
ciation of  Shakespeare,  630  and  »  2 

Ponsard,  Franjois,  and  the  Shake- 
spearean controversy  in  France, 
622 

Pontoux,  Claude  de,  name  of  his 
heroine  copied  by  Drayton,  173; 
Shakespeare's  probable  debt  to, 
193;   his  work,  70s,  713 

Pope,  Alexander,  450  n;  tribute  to 
Shakespeare,  501 ;  his  edition  of 
Shakespeare,  573-4,  575  and  »  2, 
642 

Pope,  Thomas,  actor,  member  of 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company, 
53  «  2 ;  residence  in  Southwark, 
27s;  his  false  claim  to  heraldic 
honours,  285  seq.;  shares  in  Globe 
and  Curtain  theatres,  300  seq., 
302  »  I ;  his  will  and  bequests, 
61  «  2,  62,  492  n  2,  493 

Pope,  Sir  Thomas,  286 

Pope,  Sir  William,  496  «  2 

Porter,  Charlotte,  584 

Porto,  Luigi  de,  no  » 

Pott,  Mrs.  Henry,  652 

Powell,  Thomas,  67s 

Poynter,  Sir  Edward,  on  the  'Flower' 
portrait,  529 

Preston,  Thomas,  his  tragedy  of 
Cambises,  93  n 

Provost,  Abbe,  619 

Pritchard,  Mrs.,  602 

'Private'  theatres,  60  n  2,  67  and  n  i, 
338 

Privy  Council,  orders  for  regulation  of 
the  theatres,  337-9  and  notes 

Procter,  Bryan  Waller  (Barry  Corn- 
wall), 584  n  I 

Propert,  Lumsden,  536 

Prose,  use  of,  in  Elizabethan  drama, 
loi  and  n  2 

Provincial  tours  of  actors.  See  esp. 
81  seq. 

Puckering,  Lady  Jane,  wife  of  William 
Combe  of  Warwick,  317  »  3 

Puckering,  Sir  John,  first  husband 
of  Lady  Jane  Puckering,  317  »  3 

Purcell,  Henry,  607 


QTJINEY 

Puritaine,  The,  or  the  Widdow  of 
Walling  Streeie,   261,    262 

Puritanism,  hostility  to  the  drama, 
337;  prevalence  of,  at  Stratford, 
13  »,  463-4;  Shakespeare's  refer- 
ences to,  463  n  3 

Pushkin,  and  Shakespeare,  628 

Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  233 


QuADEADO,  Jos^  Maria,  his  Spanish 
versions  of  Shakespeare,  626 

Quadrio,  Francis,  624 

'Quality,'  meaning  of,  87  »  2 

Quarles,  Francis,  542 

Quarles,  John,  his  continuation  of 
Lucrece,  542 

Quarto  editions  of  Shakespeare's  plays : 
publication,  545  seq. ;  original  price 
of,  546;  pubKcation  objected  to 
by  theatrical  managers,  546;  pi- 
rated editions,  546;  the  'copy,' 
547;  textual  value  of,  547;  popu- 
larity of,  547 ;  suspected  quartos  of 
1619,  548-9  and  notes;  scarcity 
of,  549;  lithographed  facsimiles  of, 
550  n  I ;  chief  collections  of,  551 ; 
bibliography  of,  551  «  i ;  present 
prices  of,  551  n  2 ;  quartos  neglected 
by  the  editors  of  the  First  Folio, 
559;  relation  of  text  of  quartos  to 
that  of  First  Folio,  560 

Quartorzain,  meaning  and  use  of, 
699  n  2,  700  n  3 

'Queen's  players'  in  Henry  Vlil's 
reign,  50  «  2 

Quiney,  Adrian,  sues  John  Shake- 
speare for  .debt,  279-80.  See  also 
292  seq.,  295  »  I 

Quiney,  Judith,  Shakespeare's 
daughter,  32,  281,  460  n;  her 
marriage  to  Thomas  Quiney,  38  », 
462-3 ;  excommunication  for  irregu- 
larity of  marriage,  480;  legatee 
under  Shakespeare's  will,  488;  her 
residence  at  Stratford,  504;  her 
sons,  504;  her  death  and  burial, 
504;  cf.  509 

Quiney,  Richard,  the  elder,  his  knowl- 
edge of  Latin,  18  k  i  ;  account 
of,  38  »;  bailiff  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  292 ;  appeals  in  London  for 
help  for  Stratford,  292  seq.;  his 
letter  to  Shakespeare,  294—5,  295  » 
I ;  cf.  462,  478  n  2 

Quiney,  Richard,  the  younger,  brother 
of  Thomas  Quiney  the  elder,  38  n, 
504 


INDEX 


745 


Quiney,    Richard,     son    of    Thomas 

Quiney  the  elder,  504,  507 
Quiney,  Thomas,  the  elder,  his  knowl- 
edge of  French,  18  »  i ;  his  marriage 
j       to  Judith  Shakespeare,  38  «,  462; 

account  of,  504 ;  cf.  509 
[  Quiney,  Thomas,  the  younger,  sou  of 
'      Thomas  Quiney  the  elder,  504 
Quinton,  Hacket  family  at,  237 


Rackham,  Arthur,  608 
,    Radcliffe,  Ralph,  his  version  of  Tito 
and  Gesipfo,  217  k  i 

Rainsford,  Sir  Henry,  the  elder,  465; 
patron  of  Michael  Drayton,  465, 
466  «  I ;  his  wife,  46s ;  friend  of 
Thomas  Combe,  467-8;  legatee 
under  John  Combe's  will,  469;  cf. 
512  «  3 

Ejtinsfbrd,  Sir  Henry,  the  younger, 
466  n,  512  »  3 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  adoration  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  207,  227 

Raleigh,  Prof.  Sir  Walter,  his  life  of 
Shakespeare,  645 

Ramsay,  Henry,  22  » 

Ramsden,  Lady  Guendolen,  535 

Raphael,  epitaph  on  tomb  of,  497  » 

Rapp,  M.,  German  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  614 

Ratseis  Ghost,  278,  279  n  i,  300 
I'  Ratsey,  Gamaliel,  278,  298 
i  .Ravenscroft,   Edward,    on    Titus  An- 
ironicus,  130 

Red  Bull  Theatre,  54  »  i,  74  »  i ; 
lawsuit  relating  to,  311  n 

Reed,  Edwin,  652 

Reed,  Isaac,  579,  580  »,  581 

Rehan,  Ada,  American  actress,  609 

Reinhardt,  Max,  his  staging  of  Shake- 
speare in  Germany,  617,  618 

Renan,  Ernest,  his  Caliban,  623 

Replingham,  William,  473 

Restoration,  the,  adapters  of  Shake- 
speare tmder,  592-3 

Return  from  Parnassm,  The,  259,  260, 
|.      298;    Shakespeare  and,  351,  352 

Revels,  Master  of  the,  70  seq.  and 
notes ;  account  books  of,  649,  650  n 

Reynoldes,  Thomas,  489 
i/j&eynoldes,    William,     legatee    under 
■■     Shakespeare's  will,  489  and  »  i 

Reynolds,  John,  708  n  3 

Reynolds,    Sir    Joshua,    his    copy    of 

the   'Chandos'   portrait,  .533;    his 

'     illustrations    of    Shakespeare,    608 


Rhyme  royal,  used  by  Shakespeare  in 
Lucrece,  146-7;  by  Daniel  in  his 
Complaint  of  Rosamond,  147—8 

Rich,  Penelope,  Lady,  700 

Richard  II,  absence  of  prose  in,  loi  n 

2,  126;  Marlowe's  influence  in, 
123,  126;  date  of  composition, 
12s;  debt  to  Holmshed,  127;  pub- 
lication of,  127;  editions  of,  127; 
state  of  text,  127 ;  lines  censored 
by  the  licenser  of  plays,  128;  its 
use  in  the  Earl  of  Essex's  rebeUion, 
129;  mentioned  by  Meres,  239; 
reference  to  'impresa'  in,  454  »  i; 
editions  of,  548  seq. ;  Tate's  revision, 
S9S 

Richard  II,  old  play  of,  witnessed  by 
Simon  Fonuan  at  Globe  theatre, 
126  n 

Richard  III,  99;  Marlowe's  influence 
in,  123-4;  debt  to  Holinshed,  124; 
contemporary  Latin  and  English 
plays  on  the  subject,  123-4;  Swin- 
burne's praise  of,  124;  publication 
of,  I2S,  126  n,  S48;  editions  of,  125 ; 
mentioned  by  Meres,  259 ;  passages 
cited,  124,  351 

Richard,  Duke  of  Yorke,  The  True 
Tragedie  of,  first  draft  of  Henry  VI, 
pt.  3  [g.v.]  acted  by  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke's company,  56 

Richards,  Nathaniel,  his  Tragedy  of 
MessaUna,  74  f^  i 

Richardson,  John,  27  and  n  2,  29 

Richardson,  Nicholas,  586  n  1 

Richardson,  William,  596  »  i,  597 

Riche,  Bamabe,  his  Apolonms  and 
Silla,  107  n  3,  330  and  «  i 

Richmond,  royal  palace  at,  69,  153, 
373  and  n  3 

Rippon,  George,  534 

Ristori,  Mme.,  Italian  actress  of 
Shakespearean  roles,  62s 

Roberts,   James,   printer,   132   and  n 

3,  136-7  and  n,  231  n  i,  360  and 
n  2,  364  and  «   i,  366,   S49.   553. 

703 

Robertson,  J.  M.,  on  Shakespeare's 
legal  knowledge,  43  »,  655 

Robertson,   Sir  Johnston  Forbes,  606 

Robin  GoodfeUdw,  378 

Robinson,  John,  witness  of  Shake- 
speare's will,  483  and  n  i 

Robinson,  John,  lessee  of  Shakspeare's 
house  in  Blackfriars,  458,  483  «  i, 
491 « 

Roche,  Walter,  15 

Rogers,  Henry,  279 


746 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Rogers,  John,  vi;ar  of  Stratford, 
483  »  1 

Rogers,  Philip,  sued  by  Shakespeare 
for  debt,  321,  322  W  i 

Rolfe,  W.  J.,  584 

Roman  de  TroyesA  Benoit  de  Ste. 
More's,  the  first  mediaeval  version 
of  the  story  of  Troilus  and  Cressida, 
369 «  \ 

Romantic  drama,  g2\ 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  rtevived  at  'The 
Theatre,'  61,  75,  81  «;  early  German 
translation  of,  85  n;  influence  of 
Marlowe  in,  109;  siiurces  of,  no 
and  n  i ;  debt  to  Bai\dello,  98,  no ; 
Kemp's  acting  in,  rn;  date  of 
composition,  in;  its  popularity, 
112-13;  editions  of,  112-13,  547«?.; 
sonnet  form  in,  155;  references  to 
sonnetteering  in,  175;  'mentioned 
by  Meres,  259;  Otway's  revision, 
5QS;  passages  cited,  17s,  186 

Romney,  George,  535,  608 

Ronsard,  Pierre  de,  plagiarised  by 
English  sonnetteers,  171;  imi- 
tated by  Shakespeare,  145,  177, 
178,  183,  184,  189  n  I,  193 ;  on  the 
immortality  of  verse,  187  »;  his 
mottoes  for  'imprese,'  453  n.  See 
also  703-4,  711-13  and  notes 

Rose  Theatre,  Bankside,  56  n  2; 
60  n  2,  6r,  274  n  i;  takings  at, 
307  n;  performances  at,  115, 
398 

Rosenfeldt,  N.,  Danish  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  627 

Rosseter,  PhiUp,  707  n  3 

Rossi,  Italian  actor  of  Shakespearean 
r61es,  62s 

Rossini,  his  opera  of  Otello,  625 

Roubiliac,  Louis  Franjois,  probable 
sculptor  of  the  Garrick  Club  bust, 
S3  7;  his  statue  of  Shakespeare  in 
British  Museum,  537,  S39 

Rowe,  Nicholas,  on  Anne  Hathaway's 
family,  26 ;  on  Shakespeare's  poach- 
ing adventure,  35 ;  on  Shakespeare's 
early  employment,  45-6 ;  on  Shake- 
speare's acting,  88;  on  the  story  of 
Southampton's  gift  to  Shakespeare, 
197 ;  on  Queen  Elizabeth's  enthu- 
siasm for  the  character  of  Falstaff, 
246;  on  Shakespeare's  later  life, 
448;  account  of  John  Combe's 
epitaph,  470  »  2,  471  and  n  2; 
his  edition  of  the  plays,  545,  572—3 ; 
his  editorial  fees,  S7S  »  2;  hjs 
Hiemoir  of  Shakespeare,  642 


Rowington,  Shakespeares  at,  2;  ac- 
count of  manor  of,  318 

Rowlands,  Samuel,  67s 

Rowley,  Samuel,  his  play  on  Henry 
VIII,  440  and  n  2 

Rowley,  William,  actor  and  dramatist, 
97  n,  26s 

Roydon,  Matthew,  poem  on  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  210,  272 

Rumelm,  Gustav,  615 

Rupert,  Prince,  at  Stratford-on-Avon, 
S07-8 

Rusconi,  Carlo,  Italian  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  625 

Rushton,  W.  L.,  644 

Ruskin,  John,  on  receptivity  of  genius, 
96  n 

Russell,  Henry,  490  »  i 

Russell,  Thomas,  overseer  of  and 
legatee  imder  Shakespeare's  will, 
490  and  n  i ;  account  of,  490 

Russia,  translations  and  performances 
of  Shakespeare  in,  628-30 ;  romantic 
movement  in,  and  Shakespeare,  628 

Rutland,  Edward  Manners,  third 
Earl  of,  tomb  of,  494 

Rutland,  Elizabeth,  Countess  of, 
wife  of  Roger,  fifth  Earl  and  daughter 
of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  patroness  of 
men  of  letters,  455  » 

Rutland,  Francis  Manners,  sixth  Earl 
of,  invites  Shakespeare  to  devise 
his  'imprese,'  453  seq.;  his  rela- 
tions with  the  Earls  of  Southampton 
and  Essex,  455 ;  his  entertainment 
of  James  I  at  Belvoir,  455  seq.  and 
notes;  cf.  651  « 

Rutland,  John  Manners,  fourth  Earl 
of,  tomb  of,  494 

Rutland,  Roger  Manners,  fifth  Earl 
of,  tomb  of,  493,  523  n;  friend  of 
Southampton,  659,  663 

Rye,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Rymer,  Thomas,  his  censure  of  Shake- 
speare, sgo,  592 


S.  I.  M.,  tribute  by,  to  Shakespeare  in 
Second  Folio,  588  and  «  i 

Sackville,  Thomas,  Earl  of  Dorset  and 
Lord  Buckhurst,  author  of  Gorboduc, 
91,  380  «  2,  683  n  2 

Sadler,  Hamnet  or  Hamlet,  godfather 
to  Shakespeare's  son  Hamnet,  32, 
37  n,  482 ;  account  of  his  family,  482 
and  n  3  ;  witness  to  and  legatee  under 
Shakespeare's  will,  482,  489 


INDEX 


747 


Sadler,  John  the  elder,  322  n  i,  460  n, 
482 

Sadler,  John  the  younger,  son  of  John 
Sadler,  and  nephew  of  Hamnet 
Sadler,  37  n 

Sadler,  Judith,  32 

Sadler,  William,  son  of  Hamnet  Sadler, 
483  « 

Saffron  Walden,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Saint  Evremond,  on  friendship  and 
love,  2ig  n  i 

Saint-Gelais,  Melin  de,  711 

St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  Shake- 
speare's residence  in,  274;  stained 
glass  portrait  of  Shakespeare  at, 
54°  » 

St.  Paul's  theatre,  6o«  2 ;  performances 
at,  340  seq. ;  '  Children  of  St.  Paul's,' 
SO,  67  »,  340 

Saint-Saens,  Charles  C,  his  opera 
of  Henry  VIII,  624 

Sainte-Marthe,  Sc^vole  de,  712-13 

Salisbiny,  377 

.  Salisbury  Court  theatre,  315  n 

Salisbury  (or  Salusbury),  Sir  John, 
his  patronage  of  poets,  270,  271, 
273 ;   his  poems,  273  «  i 

Salvini,  Tommaso,  Italian  actor,  his 
rendering  of  Othello,  62s 

Sand,  George,  her  translation  of  As 
You  Like  It,  and  her  appreciation  of 
Shakespeare,  622 

Sandells,  Fulk,  27  and  «  2,  29 

Sands,  James,  451  »  i 

Sannazaro,  Jacopo,  172,  704,  711 »  2 

Sarrazin,  Dr.  Gregor,  on  Shake- 
speare's alleged  Italian  travels,  87 
»i 

Saunders,  Francis,  570  n 

Saunders,  Mathew,  678 

Saunderson,  Mrs.,  first  actress  to 
play  Shakespeare's  great  female 
characters,  &01 

Savage,  Richard,  237  n  i,  317  n  2,  643 

Saviolo,  VinCentio,  his  Practise  and 
As  You  Like  It,  326 

Scenery  on  the  EUzabethan  stage. 
See  under  Theatres;  scenic  elabora- 
tion at  Court  dramatic  performances, 
69-70,  69  «  I 

Scharf,  Sir  George,  his  opinion  _  of 
'Droeshout' engraving,  528;  tracing 

,  of  'Chandos'  portrait,  534;  his  ac- 
count of  Shakespeare's  portraits,  538 
»  2 

Scheemakers,  Peter,  his  statue  of 
Shakespeare,  539 

Schelling,  Felix  E.,  646 


SHAKESPEARE 

Schiller,  Friedrich  von,  his  transla- 
tion of  Macbeth,  616 

Schlegel,  August  Wilhelm,  597;  his 
German  translation  and  criticism  of 
Shakespeare,  613,  614 

Schlegel,  Johann  Elias,  612 

Schmidt,  Alexander,  644 

Schroder,  Friedrich  Ulrich  Ludwig, 
German  actor  of  Shakespearean 
parts,  616 

Sdiubert,  Franz,-  618 

Schiick,  H.  W.,  Swedish  biographer  of 
Shakespeare,.  627 

Schumann,  Robert,  618 

Scoloker,  Anthony,  his  Daiphantus, 
708  »  3;  allusions  to  Hamlet  in, 
3  59-60 ;  his  tribute  to  Shakespeare, 
Soo 

Scotland,  actors'  tours  to,  83  and 
notes,  84 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  35,  502 

Sedley,  Sir  Charles,  his  praise  of  Shake- 
speare, 592 

SeH-mus,  260 

Seneca,  his  influence  on  English  drama, 
16,  19  and  »  I,  22,  gi  ■ 

Serafino  dell'  Aquila,  Watson's  in- 
debtedness to,  148  re  2,  171  and 
n  I,  711  »  2 

S6ve,  Maurice,  173,  701,  711,  713  » 

Severn,  Charles,  646 

Sewell;  Dr.  George,  S73,  574 

Shadwell,  Thomas,  his  adaptations  of 
Shakespeare,  594  and  n  3 

Shakespeare,  distribution  of  the  name, 
1—2 ;   its  significance,  i 

Shakespeare,  Adam,  2 

Shakespeare,  Ann,  the  dramatist's 
sister,  13 

Shakespeare  (bom  Hathaway),  Anne, 
the  dramatist's  wife,  26  seq.;  her 
cottage,  26-7,  540;  debtor  to 
Thomas  Whittington,  280  and  n  2 ; 
Shakespeare's  bequest  of  'second 
best  bed '  to,  486-7 ;  death,  503  and 
n  2 ;  burial,  504 ;  epitaph,  504  n  i 

Shakespeare,  Edmund,  the  dramatist's 
brother,   13;    burial  in  Southwark, 

27s,  503 
Shakespeare,   Gilbert,  the  dramatist's 

brother,   13,  460-1   and  notes;    ac- . 

count  of  his  brother's  acting,   88; 

negotiates  in  behalf  of  the  poet  for 

purchase   of   land   near    Stratford, 

318,  460  and  »  2 ;  Mrs.  Stopes  on, 

461  »;  burial  of,  462 
Shakespeare,  Hamnet,  the  dramatist's 

son,  32 ;  death  of,  281 


748 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


SHAKESFEAHS 

Shakespeare,  Henry,  the  dramatists' 
uncle,  3  and  re  3,  27Q 

Shakespeare,  Joan  (i),  the  dramatist's 
sister,  8 

Shakespeare,  Joan  (2),  the  dramatist's 
sister,  13.  See  under  Hart,  Mrs. 
Joan 

Shakespeare,  John,  of  Frittenden, 
Kent  ifi.  1279),  I 

Shakespeare  or  Shakspere,  John, 
shoemaker  at  Stratford,  confused 
with  the  dramatist's  father,  14  »  4 

Shakespeare,  John,  son  of  Richard,  of 
Snitterfield,  the  dramatist's  father, 
3;  settles  at  Stratford,  4-5;  his 
business,  s ;  in  municipal  office,  5—6, 
490  n  I ;  property,  5 ;  characteristics, 
6  and  n ;  his  marriage,  6 ;  his  family, 
8,  13 ;  his  tenancy  of  Shakespeare's 
birthplace,  9-10;  alderman  and 
bailifE  at  Stratford,  12-13;  welcomes 
actors  to  Stratford,  12 ;  purchases 
Shakespeare's  birthplace,  13;  his 
alleged  puritanism,  13  re;  apphes 
for  coat-of-arms,  2,  13  »,  282 ; 
financial  difficulties,  14-1S,  279-80; 
deprived  of  alderman's  gown,  14; 
prosecuted  for  non-attendance  at 
church,  279-80;   his  death,  316 

Shakespeare,  Judith,  see  Quiney,  Judith 

Shakespeare,  Margaret,  the  dramatist's 
aunt,  3  n  3 

Shakespeare,  Margaret,  the  dramatist's 
sister,  8 

Shakespeare,  Maiy,  the  dramatist's 
mother,  parentage  and  ancestry, 
6,  284-s ;  her  property,  8 ;  289-90 ; 
her  death  and  burial,  317,  460,  48s 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  the  dramatist's 
brother,  13 ;   his  death,  461,  503 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  of  Rowington,  2 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  of  Snitterfield 
[d.  1560),  probably  the  dramatist's 
grandfather,  3 ;  his  family  and 
estate,  3  and  n  2 

Shakespeare,  Richard  of  Wroxall,  2-3 

Shakespeare,  Susanna,  daughter  of  the 
poet,  29,  281 

Shakespeare,  Thomas,  3 

Shakespeare,  William,  husband  of 
Anne  Whateley,  30  seq. 

Shakespeare  or  'Sakspere,'  William, 
of  Clapton,  Gloucestershire  {d.  1248), 
I 

Shakespeare,  William,  of  Rowington,  2 

Shakespeake,  William  :  ancestry, 
2  seq.;  parentage,  3-8;  birth  and 
baptism,      8;       birthplace,      8-11; 


SHAKESPEARE 

brothers  and  sisters,  13-14;  edu- 
cation, IS  seq.;  school  curriculum, 
16-17;  study  of  Greek  and  Latin 
classics,  16-17 ;  affinities  with  Greek 
tragedians,  17  »  i ;  study  of  Italiaa 
and  French  Uterature,  18-19,  22; 
reminiscences  of  Mantuanus,  18  and 
»  2 ;  of  Seneca,  19  and  n  1 ;-  in- 
debtedness to  Ovid,  19-22;  his  use 
of  the  Bible,  22-3,  23  n  2;  youthful 
recreation,  23-4 ;  references  to  visit 
to  Kenilworth,  24 ;  withdrawal  from 
school,  25;  marriage,  26  seq.;  the 
marriage  bond,  27  seq.;  birth  of 
his  fiist  daughter,  29;  his  other 
children,  32-3;  his  knowledge  of 
nature  and  of  sport,  33  and  »  2; 
his  poaching  adventure  at  Charle- 
cote,  34  seq.;  prosecution  by  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy,  34-6;  flight  from 
Stratford,  36 ;  migration  to  London, 
37  seq.;  relations  with  Richard 
Field,  publisher,  41—3;  his  alleged 
legal  experience,  43-4 ;  early  theatri- 
cal employment,  45-6 ;  early  reputa- 
tion as  actor,  46  seq.;  joined  Earl 
of  Leicester's  company,  later  known 
as  the  'King's  Servants,'  54;  writes 
plays  for  the  company,  55-6 ;  at  'The 
Theatre,'  58;  his  successes  at  the 
Rose  theatre,  61 ;  at  the  Curtain,  61 ; 
prominent  in  afl^airs  of  the  Globe 
theatre,  63,  and  of  the  Blackfriars 
theatre,  65;  performs  at  Court, 
67,  89;  his  alleged  travels  in 
England  and  abroad,  81-6 ;  his  roles, 
87-8;  his  view  of  the  acting  pro- 
fession, 88 ;  his  first  dramatic  efforts, 
90  seq.;  his  receptivity,  93;  as 
actor-dramatist,  96;  Ben  Jonson's 
criticism  of  his  hasty  workmanship, 
98;  his  borrowed  plots,  98;  re- 
vision of  old  plays,  99;  chronology 
of  the  plays,  100 ;  metrical  tests,  loi ; 
his  use  of  prose,  loi  and  «  2;  his 
Love's  Labour's  Lost  [q.v.],  102-6; 
his  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  [q.v.], 
106—8;  his  Comedy  of  Errors  [q-ii], 
108-9 ;  his  Romeo  and  Juliet  {q.v\, 
109-13;  his  adaptations  of  others' 
plays,  IIS  seq. ;  Henry  VI  [q.v.],  IIS 
seq.;  attacked  by  Robert  Greene,  116 
seq. ;  influence  of  Marlowei  on,  109, 
123,  134-S;  his  Richard  III  [q.v], 
123-s;  his  Richard  II  [q.v.],  125-9; 
relations  with  the  censor,  127  seq.; 
his  Titus  Andronicus  [q.v.],  129-32; 
his  Merchant  of  Venice  [q.v.],  132-7, 


INDEX 


749 


his  King  John  [g.v.],  137-9;  early 
plays  assigned  to,  140  seq.  [see  wnder 
Arden  ofFeversham  and  Edward  III] ; 
his  Verms  and  Adonis  [q.v.],  142-6; 
Lucrece  [j.bJ,  146-9;  tributes  to, 
150;  Spenser's  praise  of,  151;  his 
popularity  at  Court,  153;  his 
Sonnets  [q.v.],  154-95;  his  use  of 
sonnet  form  in  his  plays,  155 ; 
his  relations  with  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton, 196-230,  656  seq. ;  develop- 
ment of  dramatic  power,  231  seq.; 
his  Midsummer  Nighfs  Dream  [q.v.], 
231  seq.;  All's  Well  [q.ii.],  234-5; 
Taming  of  the  Shrew  [q.v.\,  235  seq. ; 
Benry  IV  [q.v.],  239  seq. ;  fus  creation 
of  Falstaff,  241  seq. ;  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  [g.v.],  246  seq.;  Henry  V 
[q.v.],  250  seq. ;  his  use  of  choruses, 
251-2;  relations  with  the  Earl  of 
Essex,  252  seq.;  his  growing  repu- 
tation, 255 ;  his  share  in  meetings  at 
the  'Mermaid,'  257;  praised  by 
Meres  and  other  contemporaries, 
258  seq.;  unprincipled  use  of  his 
name,  260;  plays  falsely  ascribed  to, 
260  seq.  [see  under  Locrine  ;  Cromwell, 
Lord;  Yorkshire  Tragedy,  A ;  Merry 
Devill  of  Edmonton,  The;  Car- 
demio;  Henry  I ;  Benry  II;  King 
Stephen;  Duke  Humphrey;  Iphis 
and  lantha;  Faire  Em;  Muce- 
dorus] ;  his  Passionate  Pilgrim  [q.v.], 
267  seq. ;  his  share  in  the  Phtenix 
arid  Turtle  [q.v.],  270  seq. ;  his  Lon- 
don residences,  274  seq.;  taxpayer 
of  St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  274; 
in  Southwark,  274,  275;  in  Cheai> 
side,  276  seq.;  alleged  residence 
in  Shoreditch,  276  n  2 ;  his  practical 
temperament,  278;  his  application 
for  a  coat-of-arms,  281  seq.;  pur- 
chase of  New  Place,  288 ;  litigation 
with  John  Lambert,  289;  his  po- 
sition among  his  fellow  townsmen, 
290  seq.;  his  supply  of  com  and 
malt,  291-2;  appeals,  to,  from 
Stratford  for  aid,  292  seq.;  his 
financial  position  before  1599,- 296; 
acquires  theatrical  shares,  296;  his 
fees  as  dramatist,  296  seq. ;  his  in- 
come as  actor,  298  seq. ;  his  shares  in 
Globe  theatre,  300  seq.,  304-5  and 
»,  309 ;  shares  in  Blackfriars  theatre, 
306  seq.,  309  seq.;  liis  income  from 
performances  at  Court,  313  seq.; 
as  'groom  of  the  Chamber,'  314,  37S 
seq.;   later  income  as  actor,  and  as 


SHAKESPEARE 

dramatist,  314  seq. ;  his  final  income, 
315-16;  his  parents' death,  316-17; 
formation  of  his  estate  at  Stratford, 
317  seq.;  acquires  property  near 
Stratford  of  the  Combes,  317;  pur- 
chases cottage  and  land  in  Chapel 
Lane,  318 ;  purchases  lease  of  moiety 
of  the  tithes  of  Stratford,  319;  re- 
covery of  small  debts,  321-3; 
maturity  of  his  genius,  324  seq.; 
Much  Ado  about  Nothing  [q.v.],  324-5 ; 
As  you  like  it  [g.v.],  325-7 ;  Twelfth 
Night  [q.v.],  327-31 ;  Julius  Casar 
'  [Q'V.],  332-6;  his  share  in  actor's 
quarrels,  340  seq. ;  his  Bamlet  [q.v.], 
353  seq. ;  Troihis  and  Cressida  [g.v.], 
365  seq. ;  his  plays  at  Court,  372-3, 
383  seq.;  his  Othello  [q.v.],  387-9; 
Measure  for  Measure  [q.v.],  389-91 ; 
Macbeth  [q.v.],  391-5;  King  Lear 
Iff-^-].  3Q5— 400;  Timon  of  Athens 
[q.v.],  400-2;  Pericles  [q.v.],  402-6; 
his  Antony  and  Cleopatra  [q.v.], 
406-10 ;  his  Coriolarms  [q.v.],  410-14 ; 
the  latest  plays  —  his  tragic  period, 

415  seq.;    his  return   to   romance, 

416  seq.;  CymbeUnt  [q.v.],  419-23; 
The  Winter's  Tale  [q.v.]  423-5; 
The  Tempest  [q.v.],  425-35;  his 
collaboration  witii  John  Fletcher  in 
Cardenio  [q.v.],  436-7;  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen  [q.v.],  437-g;  and  Henry 
VIII  [q.v.],  440-5 ;  his  retirement  to 
Stratford,  448;  his  financial  in- 
terest in  London  theatres,  449; 
visits  to  Oxford,  449-50;  relations 
with  Burbage,  452;  his  device  for 
the  Earl  of  Rutland's  impresa,  453 
seq.;  his  purchase  of  a  house  in 
Blackfriars,  456;  his  litigation 
over  the  property,  458-9;  relations 
with  Stratford  and  neighbourhood, 
459  seq.;  friendship  with  the 
Combes,  467  seq. ;  his  attitude  to 
the  Stratford  enclosures,  475  seq.; 
his  will,  479-82,  485  seq. ;  his  death 
and  burial,  483;  his  grave,  484; 
his  bequests,  486  seq. ;  his  theatrical 
shares,  490  seq.;  his  monument, 
494-7,  522-5;  pleas  for  his  burial 
in  Westminster  Abbey,  498  seq.; 
his  character,  500;  his  survivors 
and  descendants,  503  seq.;  his 
estate,  512  seq.;  autographs,  516 
seq.;  his  mode  of  writing,  .  519; 
spelling  of  his  name,  520-1 ;  por- 
traits of,  522-37;  his  death  mask, 
538;     public    memorials,    539-41; 


75° 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


SHAKESPEAK£ 

quarto  and  folio  editions  of  his  works, 
S42-70;  his  eighteenth-century  edi- 
tors, 571-82;  nineteenth-century 
editors,  582-4;  his  reputation  in 
England,  586-607;  on  the  English 
stage,  600  seg.;  in  music  and  art, 
607-S;  reputation  in  America, 
608-9;  his  foreign  vogue,  610; 
in  Germany,  610-18;  in  France, 
618-24;  in  Italy,  625-6;  in  Spain, 
626 ;  in  Holland,  627 ;  in  Denmark, 
627;  in,  Sweden,  627-8;  in  Russia, 
628--30;  in  Poland,  630-1 ;  in  Hun- 
gary, 631 ;  in  other  fountries,  63s ; 
impersonality  of  his  art,  633 ;  his 
foreign  affinities,  634-5;  his  recep- 
tive faculty,  635-6;  his  univer- 
sality, 637 

Shakespeare  Memorial,  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  540-1 

Shakespeare's  Birthplace,  8-12; 
visitors  to,  540 

'Shakespeare  Society,'  The,  598,  645 

'Shakspere  Society,  The  New,'  598 

Shallow,  Justice,  Sir  Thomas  Lucy 
caricatured  as,  35-6,  240;  his 
house  in  Gloucestershire,  240, 246, 248 

Shanks,  John,  holder  of  theatrical 
shares,  303  »,  306  n,  307  » 

Sharp,  Thomas,  289  » 

Shaw,  Julius,  279,  292  »,  460  «; 
witness  to  Shakespeare's  will,  482 ; 
account  of  his  career,  482  n  2 

Sheldon    copy    of    the    First    Folio, 

'    562,  564 

Sheldon,  Ralph,  562  »  3 

Sheldon,  William,  562  »  3 

Shelton,  Thomas,  translator  of  Don 
Quixote,  436 

Sheridan,  R.  B.,  647 

Sherwin,  W.,  536 

Shiels,  Robert,  45  n 

Shoreditch,  first  theatrical  quarter, 
54  n  I,  58  and»,  64.  See  also  under 
'The  Curtain'  and  'The  Theatre' 

Short,  Peter,  printer,  242  «  i,  672 

Shorthand  versions  of  plays,  100  », 
112  n  3 

Shottery,  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage 
at,  26  seq.,  540;  Shakespeare's  prop- 
erty at,  293 ;  John  Combe's  property 
at,  468  and  n 

Shrewsbury,  players  at,  82,  83  n,  129 

Sibthorp,  Coningsby,  his  copy  of 
the  First  Folio,  564-5 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  603 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  reference  to  William 
Kemp,    actor,    36   »    2 ;    on    stage 


scenery,  76-7;  his  view  of  early 
Elizabethan  drama,  93;  Ws  lyric 
verse,  95;  translates  verses  from 
Montemayor's  Diana,  107  »  3; 
his  family  connections,  377,  455  n; 
brings  the  sonnet  into  vogue  in 
England,  154;  publication  of  his 
sonnets,  158  n;  warns  readers 
against  insincerity  of  sonnetteers, 
173,  209;  Shakespeare's  debt  to, 
177,  179.  186;  on  the  conceit  of  the 
immortalising  power  of  verse,  186, 
187;  his  praise  of  'blackness,'  191; 
his  proficiency  in  mottoes  for 
'imprese,'  453  «  i ;  his  use  of  the 
word  'will,'  6gi;  Shakespeare's 
debt  to  his  Arcadia,  399  and  »  2, 
403  n  I ;  his'  Astrophd  and  SteUa, 
154  seq.,  176  n,  700,  703 ;  Nashe's 
praise  of,  700  n  3 ;  metre  of,  165  « 
I ;  address  to  Cupid  in,  166  »  i 

Sidney,  Sir  Robert,  662 

Sievers,  Eduard  Wilhelm,  his  studies 
of  Shakespeare,  616  and  «  2 

Silver  Street,  Cheapside,  Shakespeare's 
residence  in,  276  seq.  and  notes 

Simmes  (or  Sims),  Valentine,  printer, 
120  n,  125  n  I,  242  n  i,  360  n 

Simpson,  Percy,  on  Jonson's  contri- 
butions to  First  Folio,  557  »  i; 
on  Shakespearean  punctuation,  561 
»  I 

Singer,  Samuel  Weller,  583 

Sir  Thomas  More,  fee  for  performance 
of,  299  n  2 

Sixain  or  six-lined  stanza,  its  use  by 
Shakespeare,  Spenser,  and  Lodge, 
I4S-6 

Slater,  Martin,  also  known  as  Martin, 
83  and  «  2,  84  «;  law-suit  relating 
to,  311  n 

Sly,  Christopher,  probably  drawn 
from  life,  236,  237,  238 

Sly,  William,  actor,  member  of  Lord 
Chamberlain's  company,  53.  «  2, 
375,  379  "  2,  382  n  1 ;  shareholder 
in  Blacldriars  theatre,  306,  307  n 
I ;  executor  of  Phillips's  will,  451  «  i 

Smethwick,  John,  publisher,  106  n  2; 
ir3  n  I,  363,  553  seq.,  568 

Smith,  Henry,  512 

Smith,  Rafe,  462  n 

Smith,  Richard,  publisher,  703 

Smith,  Sir  Thomas,  his  ComTnon- 
wealth  of  England  cited,  12  »  2 

Smith,  Wentworth,  plays  produced 
by  and  ascribed  to  Shakespeare, 
260  and  n  i,  261 


INDEX 


7SI 


Smith,  William,  Rouge  Dragon,  cen- 
sures actors'  heraldic  claims,  285 
and  »  3,  286 

Smith,  WiUiam,  sonnets  of,  209  n, 
672;   his  Chloris,  707 

Smith,  William  Henry,  651-2 

Smithson,  Miss  Harriet,  actress,  623 
,  Smyth,  Lady  Ann,  469 

Smyth,  Sir  Francis,  469,  477  « 

Snitterfield,  birthplace  of  the  drama- 
tist's father,  3-8;  Arden  property 
at,  3;  sale  of  Mary  Shakespeare's 
property  at,  14 

Snodham,  Thomas,  printer,  261 

'Soest'  or  'Zoust'  portrait  of  Shake- 
speare, S36 

Sokolov^,  A.  L.,  Russian  translator 
of  Shakespeare,  629 

Somers,  Sir  George,  wreck  of  his 
ship  off  the  Bermudas,  428-9 

Somerset,  Duke  of,  535 

Somerset  House,  Shakespeare's  com- 
pany of  actors  at,  380-1 

Somerville,  William,  536 

Sonnet,  Gascoigne's  definition  of, 
165  n  i;  meaning  of,  267  »  2; 
699  n  2;  vogue  of,  in  Elizabethan 
'England,  154  seq.,  699-710;  form 
of,  164 ;  French  and  Italian  models, 
170-3;  its  vogue  in  France,  711-13, 
in  Italy,  711  and  n  2 

Sonnets,  Shakespeare's  debt  to  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses,  20  n  3,  21,  180  seq.; 
Shakespeare's  view  of  actor's  call- 
ing in,  89 ;  the  poet's  first  attempts, 
I5S;  majority  composed  in  1594, 
156-7;  a  few  composed  later 
(e.g.  cvii.  in  1603),  157 ;  their  liter- 
ary value,  158;  circulation  in 
manuscript,  158;  commended  by 
Meres,  159,  177;  their  piratical 
publication  in  1609,  160-4;  their 
form,  164,  165 ;  want  of  continuity, 
165;  the  two  'groups,'  166-7; 
main  topics  of  the  first  'group,' 
167;  of  the  second  'group,'  168-9, 
re-arrangement  in  the  edition  of 
1640,  168;  not  to  be  regarded  as 
unqualified  autobiography,  169-70, 
177,  178;  censured  by  Sir  John 
Davies,  175;  comparative  study  of, 
177,  178;  their  borrowed  conceits, 
179-186;  the  poet's  claims  of 
immortality  for  his  sonnets,  186-9; 
.  the  'will'  sonnets,  igo,  690-8; 
the  praise  of  'blackness,'  191-2; 
sonnets  of  vituperation,  192-4; 
'the   dark   lady,'    194-5;     'dedica- 


SOUTHAMPTON 

tory'  sonnets,  and  biographic  facts, 
196-200;  the  'rival  poet,'  200-4; 
sormets  .  of  friendship,  205-14 ; 
Southampton  and  the  sonnets  of 
friendship,  222-8;  sonnets  of  in- 
trigue, 214-22;  treatment  of  theme 
of  conflict  between  love  and  friend- 
ship by  other  writers,  215-18;  the 
likelihood  of  a  personal  experience 
in  Shakespeare's  case,  218-22; 
external  evidence  of  this  in  Willobie 
his  Ainsa  (1594),  219-21;  summary 
of  conclusions  respecting  the  son- 
nets, 229,  230;  editions  of,  543-4; 
extant  copies  of  1609  edition,  543 
and»  2 

Sonnets,  Shakespeare's,  quoted  with 
explanatory  comments:  xiv.,  180 
n  2 ;  XX.,  163  n ;  xxii.,  156  »  i ; 
xxvi.,  196,  ig8;  xxxii.,  198;  xxxvii., 
200;  xxxviii.,  184,  199;  xxxix,,  200, 
213;  xlvii.,  212;  liii.,  179;  Iv.,  185; 
Ivii.,  213;  Iviii.,  213  m;  lix.,  210  n; 
k.,  181 ;  Ixii.,  155  »,  214;  bail.,  188; 
Ixiv.,  182;  Ixix.,  159  »i;  Ixx.,  167; 
Ixxiii.,  IS5»;  Ixxiv.,  200;  Ixxvi.,  178; 
Ixxviii,  196,  202 ;  kxx.,  203 ;  Ixxxi., 
188;  xciv.,  141,  159;  c,  196;  ci., 
180  »;  dii.,  197;  dv.,  163  »;  cvi., 
196;  cvii.,  17  »  i;  227,  228,  667; 
cxix.,  i79«;  ex.,  89;  cxi.,  89;  cxxx., 
190;  cxxxv.,  cxxxvi.,  163  »;  cxxxviii., 
156  »;  cxliii.,  163  »;  cxliv.,  214 
n;  div.,  166  n;  cxxxv-vi.,  693,  69s, 
697 ;  cxxxiv.,  697 ;  cxliii.,  697 

Soothem,  John,  sonnets  to  the  Earl  of 
Oxford,  209  n  i 

Sophodes,  17  «  i 

Soumarakov,  Alexander,  Russian  trans- 
lator of  Hamlet  and  Richard  III,  628 

Southampton,  players  at,  82,  83  » 

Southampton,  Henry  Wriothesley,  sec- 
ond Earl  of,  656,  657 

Southampton,  Henry  Wriothesley, 
third  Earl  of,  as  a  literary  patron, 
107  n  2,  297,  662-8;  his  relations 
with  Shakespeare,  142-4, 148-9, 153, 
197  seq.,  300,  656 ;  his  parentage  and 
birth,  658-8;  his  career,  657-60;  his 
youthful  beauty,  223,  658-9;  direct 
references  to,  in  the  sonnets,  222, 
223 ;  his  identity  with  the  youth  of 
Shakespeare's  sonnets  of  'friend- 
ship' evidenced  by  his  portraits,  223 
and  »,  225,  226 ;  his  long  hair,  226  « ; 
his  marriage,  660 ;  his  relations  with 
the  Earl  of  Essex,  253-5,  455 ;  his 
imprisonment,  22fr-8,  660;   his  later 


752 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


SOUTHAMPTON 

career,  66i ;  his  death,  66i ;  fascina- 
tion of  the  drama  for,  663 

Southampton,  Thomas  Wriothesley, 
first  Earl  of,  656 

Southwark,  Shakespeare's  residence  in, 
274  seq. 

Southwark  Cathedral,  Shakespeare 
memorial  at,  540 ;  stained  glass  por- 
trait at,  S40  » 

Southwell,  Robert,  manuscript  copies  of 
his  Mary  Magdalen's  Funeral  Tears, 
IS9  n;  his  Fourefotdd  Meditation, 
162  n  I,  677,  67S  n  I,  679;  dedica- 
tion of  his  Short  Ride  of  Lije,  675 

Southwell,  alias  Bacon,  Thomas,  654 

Spain,  translations  of  Shakespeare  in, 
626  and  n 

Spanish  romances  in  Elizabethan  Eng- 
land, 427  n  I 

Spenser,  Edmund,  his  use  of  legal 
phrases,  44,  653 ;  treatment  of 
Adonis  fable,  145;  his  use  of  the 
'sixain,'  146;  his  reference  to  Shake- 
speare, 1 5 1-2 ;  referred  to  by  Shake- 
speare, isi-2  ;  sonnets  of,  164-5,  702, 
706 ;  translations  of  sonnets  ■  from 
Du  Bellay  and  Petrarch,  170,  712 ;  on 
the  immortalising  power  of  verse, 
187 ;  adulation  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
207  and  n  i,  227,  374;  his  sonnet 
to  Admiral  Lord  Charles  Howard, 
210;  his  indebtedness  to  Ariosto, 
324-s;  story  of  Lear  in  his  Faerie 
Queene,  398;  burial  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  49&-500;  absence  of  his 
manuscripts,  Si7-r8;  dedication  of 
the  Faerie  Queene,  676 

Spielmann,  M.  H.,  his  view  of  Shake- 
speare's monument,  523  n;  his 
opinion  of  the  'Flower'  portrait  of 
Shakespeare,  529,  530  re  2 ;  of  the 
'Felton' portrait,  S3  s-6;  his  account 
of  Shakespeare's  portraits,  538  n  2 

Stael,  Mme.  de,  and  the  Shakespearean 
controversy  in  France,  621 

Stafford,  Lord,  his  company  of  actors 
at  Stratford,  24  re  2 

Stafford,  Simon,  printer,  242  re  i 

Stage,  Elizabethan,  see  esp.  75  re  i. 
See  also  under  Theatres 

Stampa,  Gaspara,  711  re  2 

Stanhope,  Sir  John,  Lord  Stanhope  of 
Harrington,  381,  383  re  2 

Stansby,  William,  printer 

Staunton,  Howard,  568  re  r ;  his  edition 
of  Shakespeare,  582-3 

Steele,  Sir  Richard,  on  Betterton's 
rendering  of  Othello,  600 


Steevens,  George:    his  edition  of  the 
Sonnets,  543 ;   his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare,  579,    580;     his   revision  of 
Johnson's  edition,  579;    his  critical 
comments,    579,    580;     styled    the 
'Puck  of  commentators,'  580;    his 
Shakespearean    forgeries,    646.    See 
also  557  n  I,  569 
Stendhal    (Henri   Beyle),    on    Shake- 
speare, 622 
Stephen,  King,  The  history  of,  263 
Stephenson,  H.  T.,  644 
Stinchcombe  Hill,  referred  to  as  'the 

HiU'  in  Henry  IV,  240 
Stone,  Nicholas,  495  n  2,  496  re  2 
Stopes,  Mrs.  Charlotte,  her  account  of 
Shakespeare's    bust,    523    re;     her 
researcies    on    Shakespeare    (dted 
passim),  643 
Storm,  G.  F.,  engraver  of  Shakespeare's 

portrait,  532  re 
Stothard,  Thomas,  608 
Stow,  John,  38  re  2,  134  re  i,  T40 
Strange,  Lord.    See  Derby,  Earl  of 
Straparola,  his  Notti,  and  the  Merry 

Wives  of  Windsor,  247 
Strasburg,  EngUsh  actors  at,  85 
Stratford-on-Avon,  population  of,  4 
and  re  i ;  settlement  by  John  Shake- 
speare, the  dramatist's  father,  at, 
4-6 ;  industries  at,  4  and  re  2 ;  church 
at,  8  and  re  2;  parish  registers  at, 
8  re  2 ;  Shakespeare's  birthplace  at, 
8-1 1 ;  plague  at,  12  and  re  i ;  actors 
at,  12,  24  and  re  2;  grammar  school 
and  curriculum  at,  15-17  (for 
Masters  see  under  Cotton,  John; 
Greene,  Joseph;  Hunt,  Simon; 
Jenkins,  Thomas;  Roche,  Walter); 
natives  of,  settled  in  London,  37  seq. 
{See  under  Combe,  William;  Field, 
Richard;  Locke,  Roger;  Orrian, 
Allan;  Quiney,  Richard;  Sadler, 
John ;  Shakespeare,  William ;  Wood- 
ward, Richard) ;  routes  from  to  Lon- 
don, 39,  40  and  re  i ;  allusions  to  in 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,  236 ;  destruc- 
tive fires  at,  290,  466;  disastrous 
harvests  at,  291  seq.;  malting  at, 
29t ;  appeals  for  aid  to  London  and 
to  Shakespeare,  292-5,  459,  464  n  2 ; 
Shakespeare's  purchase  of  property 
andtithes  at,  317-321 ;  Shakespeare's 
support  for  repair  of  highways,  459, 
460  re  I ;  Shakespeare's  posthumous 
fame  at,  598  and  re ;  Garrick  at,  599 ; 
the  'Jubilee'  at,  599;  the  'Ter- 
centenary' at,  600.    See  also  under 


INDEX 


753 


STRATFORD 

Chapel  Lane ;  Combe,  Thomas  and 
William ;  Enclosure ;  New  Place ; 
Shakespeare,    William ; 

'Stratford  Town'  edition,  585  n  1 

'Stratford'  portrait  of  Shakespeare, 
525 

Street,  Peter,  63  «  i 

Stubbes,  Philip,  his  Anatomy  of  Abuses, 
643 

Sturley,  Abraham,  bailiff  of  Stratford- 
on-Avon;  his  knowledge  of  Latin, 
18  «  I ;  his  letter  to  Richard  Quiney, 
293,  29s  »  I.    See  also  319,  460  n 

Suckling,  Sir  John,  588 

'Sugred,'  applied  to  Shakespeare's 
work,  178,  259  and  n  i 

Sullivan,  Sir  Arfiiur,  607 

Sullivan,  Barry,  541 

Sullivan,  E.  J.,  608 

Sullivan,  Sir  Edward,  on  Shakespeare's 
Italian  travels,  87  »  i 

Sully,  Moimet,  French  actor,  as  Ham- 
let, 624  ^ 

Sunday,  dramatic  performances  on,  80, 
338 

Surrey,  Earl  of,  sonnets  of,  154,  165; 
imitation  of  Petrarch,  171  »,  699 

Sussex,  Earl  of,  lord  chamberlain,  52 ; 
his  company  of  actors,  50  «  i ;  per- 
formances by,  56  n  2,  131,  398 

Sutton,  Thomas,  495  n  2,  496  «  2 

Swan  theatre,  Bankside,  60  »  2,  274 
»  I ;  description  of  interior  by  John 
de  Witt,  74  »  I ;  seating  capacity, 
74  »  I ;  lawsuit  relating  to,  311  » 

'Swan  and  Maidenhead'  inn,  10 

Swanston,  HiHiard,  theatrical  share- 
holder, 303  n,  306  »,  307  »     _ 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  his  criti- 
cism of  Richard  III,  124;  of  Arden 
of  Feversham,  140 ;  of  Edward  III, 
141.    See  also  438,  598,  64s 

Sylvester,  Joshua,  668,  710  and  »  i 

Sjfmmons,  Dr.  Charles,  584 


Tahiikeau,  Jacques,  713 
Taille,  Jacques  de  la,  713  and  n 
Taille,  Jean  de  la,  713  and  n 
Tailor,  Robert,  his  allusion  to  Pericles, 

404  n  I 
Talma,  the  French  actor,  532  n;    as 

Othello,  623 
Taming  of  A  Shrew,  The,  235  and  noles 
Taming  of  The  Shrew,  The,  reference 

to  travelling  companies  in,  71 ;  early 

German  translation  of,  85  »  i ;  pub- 

3C 


lication  of,  113  n  1;  account  of, 
235-8;  probable  date  of  composi- 
tion, 235 ;  its  doubtful  identity  with 
Love's  Labour's  Won,  234;  sources, 
23s,  236 ;  biographical  bearing  of  the 
induction,  236-8;  editions  of,  S54 
seg.;  passages  cited,  20  »  2,  238, 
356  »  2 

Tamisier,  Pierre,  711  » 

Tansillo,  Luigi,  711  »  2 

Tarleton,  Richard,  151,  247 

Tasso,  Bernardo,  711 «  2 

Tasso,  Torquato,  22,  711  n  2 ;  influence 
of,  on  Shakespeare,  179  n  ;,  211,  212 ; 
on  Spenser,  706 ;  relations  with  the 
Duke  of  Ferrara,  211,  212;  his  dia- 
logue on  'imprese,'  453  n 

Tate,  Nahum,  595 

Taylor,  John,  water-poet,  38  »  2 

Taylor,  Joseph,  actor  and  theatrical 
shareholder,  305  n,  306  n,  307  »,  532 

Teares  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  elegies  on 
the  Earl  of  Southampton,  668 

Tell  tale.  The,  'fair  copy'  of,  558  « 

Tempest,  The,  75,  77,  80  «.  1,  418,  419, 
420;  performed  at  Court,  89,  420, 
432,  435  and  notes,  649 ;  use  of  prose 
in,  102  n;  quotation  from  Mon- 
taigne's Essays  in,  156  n,  429;  posi- 
tion of,  in  First  Folio,  419 ;  first  per- 
formance of,  419,  420,  and  n  2 ;  ac- 
count of;  425-34;  contrasted  with 
CymbeUne,  Winter's  Tale,  and  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  425-6 ;  traces 
of  the  influence  of  Ovid,  426 ;  sources, 
426-9;  shipwreck  of  Sir  George 
Somers'  fleet  off  the  Bermudas  and 
the  plot  of  The  Tempest,  428-9; 
significance  of  Caliban,  429-32 ; 
vogue  of,  433;  fanciful  interpreta- 
tions of,  434-5;  reflects  Shake- 
speare's highest  imaginative  powers, 
434;  editions  of,  554 ;  witnessed  by 
Pepys,  590;  Dryden's  and  Dave- 
nant's  adaptation  and  Shadwell's 
revision,  594;  passages  cited,  20, 
32  n  2,  87,  426,  428,  431  n,  432. 

'Temple  Shakespeare,  The,'  584 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  his  view  of 
Edward  III,  141 ;  metre  of  his  In 
Memoriam,  272 

Terence,  16 

Terry,  Miss  Ellen,  605 

Tetherton,  WilUam,  322  »  i 

'Theatre,  The,'  Shoreditch,  the  first 
English  playhouse,  built  by  James 
Burbage,  51,  52  »  2,  55 ;  its  site  and 
construction,  58  and  » ;  61  and  »  i ; 


754 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


THEATRES 

change  of  ownership  and  demolition, 
62  and  n;  residence  of  Shakespeare 
near,  274;  his  shares  in,  302  n  i ;  per- 
formance of  the  old  play  of  Hamlet 
at,  357 

Theatres,  see  esp.  pp.  s8-88  and  60  «  2 ; 
methods  of  representation,  72  seq.; 
structural  plans,  73 ;  prices  of  admis- 
sion, 73;  the  stage,  74  seq.;  the  set 
scenery,  76 ;  crudity  of  scenic  appa- 
ratus, 76-7  and  n  2 ;  costume,  77  and 
«  3,  78,  308  n ;  absence  of  women 
actors,  78-9  and  n ;  programmes  and 
advertisements  at,  79-80 ;  music  at, 
79;  Sunday  performances  at,  80; 
Puritan  outcry  against,  80;  prohi- 
bition of  during  Lent  and  seasons  of 
plague,  80;  time  of  performances,  81 
and  »  I ;  value  of  shares  in,  312  »  i  ; 
city's  attempt  to  suppress,  336-9. 
See  also  under  Blackfriars,  Cockpit, 
Crosskeys,  Curtain,  Fortune,  Globe; 
Hope,  Inn  yards,  Newington  Butts, 
PhcEnix,  'Private'  theatres.  Red 
Bull,  Rose,  Swan,  The  Theatre, 
Whitefriars 

Theatrical  lawsuits.    See  309  n 

Theobald,  Lewis,  his  emendations  of 
Hamlet,  364 ;  his  play  Double  False- 
hood alleged  to  be  by  Shakespeare, 
436  and  n  3,  437  and  «  i ;  his  criti- 
cism of  Pope,  574;  his  edition  of 
Shakespeare,  574,  575  and  notes;  his^ 
textual  emendations,  575  and  notes, 
576;  his  editorial  fees,  57s  »  2,  596 

Theobalds,  royal  palace  at,  69 

Thimm,  Franz,  645 

Thomas,  Ambroise,  his  opera  of 
Hamlet,  624 

Thompson,  John,  engraver,  584 

Thoms,  W.  J.,  643 

Thomson,  Hugh,  608 

Thomson,  James,  595 

Thoresbie,  WilUam,  458 

Thornbury,  G.  W.,  643 

Thorpe,  Thomas,  piratical  publisher  of 
Shakespeare's  sonnets,  160-4,  544, 
553  ;  his  relations  with  Marlowe,  160; 
adds  A  Lover's  Complaint  to  the 
collection  of  sonnets,  161 ;  his  bom- 
bastic dedication  to  'Mr.  W.  H.,' 
162,  164;  his  arrangement  of  the 
'Sonnets,'  i58;  the  true  history  of, 
and  'Mr.  W.  H.,'  669-81 

Thrale,  Henry,  63  »  4 

Thyard,  Pontus  de,  712 

Tieck,  Ludwig,  German  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  614 


Tilney,  Edmund,  383  n 

Twion  of  Athens,  75,  400—1  ;^  date  of 
composition,  400;  a  previous  play 
on  the  same  subject,  400  and  n  i ; 
sources,  400-1 ;  the  divided  author- 
ship, 401 ;    Shadwell's  revision,  595 

Tito  Andronico:  a  German  play, 
131  n  2 

Tito  and  Gesippo,  story  of,  216  and 
»  3,  217  and  n  i 

Titus  Andrordcus,  acted  by  Earl  of 
Pembroke's  company,  56,  131 ;  and 
by  Lord  Sussex's  men,  56  n  2,  131 ; 
performed  in  Germany,  85  »  i; 
publication  of,  112  n  3,  130-1; 
Meres's  reference  to,  130;  Ravens- 
croft's  assertion  as  to  its  authenticity, 
130;  Shakespeare's  share  in,  130; 
his  coadjutors,  131 ;  plays  on  the 
theme,  131  and  «  2 ;  editions  of, 
131-2,  548;  mentioned  by  Meres, 
258-9;  passages  dted,  19  »  i, 
20  n  1,  34 

Titus  arid  Vespasian,  ^13^  and  »  2 

Tofte,  Robert,  describes  performance 
of  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  102  and  «  i ; 
his  Laura,  708,  709;  his  Alba,  708  »  3 

Tolstoy,  his  attack  on  Shakespeare, 
629,  630  and  »  I 

Tompson,  John,  279 

Tonson,  Jacob,  bookseller,  573,  574 
and  n 

Tooke,  John  Home,  his  copy  of  the 
First  Folio,  562  and  n  4 

Tooley,  Nicholas,  451  «  i 

Tottel,  Henry,  699 

Tourgeniev,  influence  of  Shakespeare 
on,  629 

Tragicomedy,  definition  of,  417,  418 
« I ;_  first  experiments  in,  due  to 
Italian  or  Franco-Italian  influence, 
417 ;  vogue  of,  assured  by  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher  in  The  Faithful  Shep- 
herdess, PkUaster,  and  A  King  and  no 
King,  4x8;  other  Elizabethan  tragi- 
comedies, 417  and  »  I,  418  and  »  i ; 
Shakespeare's  contributions  to,  417-8 

Tree,  Sir  Herbert  Beerbohm,  605 
and  n  2 

Treheme,  John,  495  n  2 

Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  collection 
of  quartos  at,  551 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  365-71 ;  use  of 
prose  in,  loi  n  2;  reference  to 
theatrical  shares  in,  303  n;  date  of 
production,  365-6;  the  quarto 
edition  of  1609,  367-8;  the  First 
Folio  version  of,  368  and  n  i    561 


INDEX 


7SS 


seq.;  treatment  of  the  theme,  368; 
plot  drawn  from  medisval  not  from 
classical  tradition,  370;  attempt  to 
treat  play  as  Shakespeare's  contribu- 
tion to  controversy  between  Jonson, 
Marston,  and  Dekker,  371  «  i ; 
Dryden's  adaptation,  394-5;  pas- 
sages cited,  349,  430,  653  n  i 

Trundell,  John,  stationer,  360  and  n  2 

Turbervile,  George,  699  n  2 

Turbutt,  W.  G.,  his  copy  of  the  First 
Folio,  566  and  n  i 

Turner,  Charles,  53s 

Turton,  Thomas,  bishop  of  Ely,  530 

Twain,  Mark,  655 

Twelfth  Night,  use  of  prose  in,  loi  n  2 ; 
accoimt  of,  327—31 ;  date  of  produc- 
.  tion,  327;  allusionto  the 'newmap,' 
327and«3;  producedat Court, 327; 
at  Middle  Temple  Hall,  71,  328; 
Manningham's  description  of,  328, 
420;  ItaUan  sources  of,  98,  328^9; 
the  new  characters,  331 ;  publication 
of,  331,  332;  reference  to  Puritans 
in,  463  »  3 ;  editions  of,  554 ;  pas- 
sages cited,  29  »  I ;  32  «  i ;  186  n  2 ; 
328  »  I ;  463  n  3 

Twine,  Laurence,  his  translation  of 
ApoUonius  of  Tyre,  403  n  2 

Twiss,  F.,  64s  n 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  The,  early 
German  rendering,  85  »  i ;  debt  to 
John  Lyly,  106,107;  sources  of,  107 
and  n  i ;  debt  to  Montemayor,  107 
and  »;  publication  of,  108;  refer- 
ence to  sonnetteering  in,  17s;  the 
struggle  of  friendship  with  love  in, 
218;  mentioned  by  Meres,  239; 
editions  of,  554 ;   passages  cited,  87, 

175 
Two  ItaUan  Gentlemen,  106, 107  and  n  i 
Two  Nohle  Kinsmen,  216, 437-9 ;  attrib- 
uted to  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare, 
437. 438 ;  plot  drawn  from  Chaucer's 
Knight's   Tale,   438;    Shakespeare's 
alleged  share  in,  438r-9;  Massinger's 
alleged  share  in,  439;   D'Avenant's 
adaptation  of,  594 
Tyler,  Thomas,  on  the  Sonnets,  162  n, 
682  »,  68g  »,  696  » 


Udall,    Nicholas,    his   RtUph  Roister 

Doister,  91 
Ubici :  his  criticism  of  Shakespeare,  616 
Underhill,  Fulk,  288 
UnderhiU,  Hercules,  288 


Underhill,    William,    owner    of    New 

Place,  288 
Underwood,  John,  his  will,   61  «  2 ; 

shareholder  in  Curtaui  theatre,  302 

«  I ;    in  Globe  theatre,  305  »;    in 

Blackfriars,  305  n;  307  n 
University  dramatic  performances,  71, 


Vandergucht,  Gerard,  his  crayon 
copy  and  engraving  of  the '  Chandos' 
portrait,  533-4 

Variorum  editions  of  Shakespeare,  581, 
582 

Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye,  713  n 

Vautrollier,  Thomas,  Huguenot  printer 
of  London,  41-2,  334 

Vega,  Lope  de,  no  « 

Velasco,  Juan  Fernandez  de,  duke  de 
Frias,  Constable  of  Castile,  enter- 
tained at  Somerset  House,  380-2 

Venesyon  Comedy,  The,  136 

Vengerov,  Prof.,  Russian  translator  of 
Shakespeare,  629 

Vemis  and  Adonis,  publication  of,  42, 
142 ;  the  dedicatory  letter  to  the 
Earl  of  Southampton,  142 ;  its 
debt  to  Ovid,  144;  influence  of 
Lodge,  145-6 ;  vogue  of  the  classical 
story,  14s  and  146  n  i ;  the  metre, 
146;  the  poem's  popularity,  149; 
editions,  130-1,  542;  praised  by 
Meres,  177,  259;  Gabriel  Harvey's 
mention,  358  and  n  i ;  extant  copies 
of  early  editions,  542  n  3;  passage 
cited,  186 

Verdi,  his  operas  of  Macbeth,  Othello, 
and  Falstaff,  626 

Vere,  Lady  Elizabeth,  232,  639 

Verney,  Sir  Richard,  469 

Vernon,  Mistress  Elizabeth,  660 

Verona,  statue  of  Shakespeare  at,  540 
s-  -Verplanck,  Gulian  Crommelin,  581  » 

Verreiken,  Louis,  ^6  »  i,  382  «  i 

Verri,  Alessandro,  Italian  translator  of 
Hamlet  and  Othello,  623 

Vertue,  George:  his  engraving  of 
Shakespeare's  monument,  523-4;  of 
'Chandos'  portrait,  333;  of  a 
miniature  of  Shakespeare,  336 

Vietor,  Wilhelm,  644 

Vigny,  Alfred  de,  his  version  of  Othello, 
622 

ViUemain,  on  Shakespeare,  622 

Vmcent,  Augustine,  365  and  » 

Virgil,  16,  21,  22 


7S6 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Virginia,  expeditions  to,  equipped  by 

Southampton,  66i 
Virginia  Company,  66 1 
Visor,  William,  in  Henry  IV,  240 
Visscher,  his  view  of  London,  63  «  2 
Voltaire,  adverse  criticisms  of  Shake- 
speare by,  619  and«  I,  620,  621,  622  ; 
opponents  of  his  views  in  France, 
619—20 
Voss,    J.    H.,    German    translator   of 
Shakespeare,  614 


Wales,  Henry,  Prince  of,  his  patronage 
of  actors,  376  »  2 

Walker,  Barbara.  See  under  Clopton, 
Lady 

Walker,  Sir  Edward,  513  and  »  3 

Walker,  Henry  of  Stratford,  316  and 
»  I,  457,  460  n,  469  n 

Walker,  Henry,  citizen  of  London,  316 
n  I 

Walker,  R.,  publisher,  574  n 

Walker,  W.  Sidney,  on  Shakespeare's 
versification,  597  n  i 

Walker,  William,  godson  of  the  drama- 
tist, 316  and  »,  469  n,  489 

Walkley,  Thomas,  publisher,  387,  677 

Wallace,  Charles  William,  his  Shake- 
spearean researches,  quoted  passim 
(see  esp.  62-6  and  notes,  71  n,  74  n  i, 
643) ;  his  researches  into  Shake- 
speare's residence  in  Silver  Street, 
276  M  2 ;  his  researches  into  theatrical 
lawsuits,  310  »;  discovery  of  docu- 
ments relating  to  Shakespeare's 
.  Blackfriars  property,  459  n  2 

Waller,  Lewis,  606 

Walley,  Henry,  publisher,  366 

Walmisley,  Gilbert,  514  n 

Walsh,  C.  M.,  on  the  Sonnets,  162  n 

Walsingham,  Sir  Francis,  36  «  2,  55  »  i 

Walton,  Izaak,  38  »  2 

Warburton,  John,  264  and  n  i 

Warburton,  William,  bishop  of  Glouces- 
ter, his  edition  of  Shakespeare,  577 ; 
his  editorial  fees,  575  »  i 

Ward,  Sir  A.  W.,  646 

Ward,  J.  Q.  A.,  his  statue  of  Shake- 
speare in  New  York,  539 

Ward,  John,  actor,  524 

Ward,  John,  vicar  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon;  notices  of  Shakespeare,  315, 
448  «,  S98 ;  account  of  Shakespeare's 
death,  480 ;  his  diary,  641 

Ward,  WilUam,  engraving  of  Shake- 
speare's portrait,  525 


Warner,  Sir  George,  649 

Warner,  Mrs.  Mary,  actress,  604 

Warner,  Walter,  297  n  2 

Warner,  William,  translation  of  Plau- 
tus'  comedies,  109 ;  the  story  of  Lear 
in  his  Albion's  England,  398 

Warren,  John,  544 

Warwiti,  Ambrose  Dudley,  Earl  of, 
his  company  of  actors  at  Stratford, 
24  »  2 ;  lord  of  the  manor  of  Rowing- 
ton,  318 

Watkins,  Richard,  printer,  671 

Watson,  Thomas,  sonnets  of,  95,  iS4, 
170,  171,  699-700,  704;  their  pubh- 
cation,  158  n;  their  foreign  origin, 
148  and  n  2,  171  and  n  i ;  Shake- 
speare's debt  to,  178;  Daniel's  debt 
to,  707.    See  also  663  n  1,  675 

Webb,  Judge,  655 

Webbe,  Alexander,  14 

Webbe,  Robert,  14 

Webster,  John,  his  use  of  legal  phrases, 
44  and  n ;  his  share  in  Casar's  Fall, 
336;  his  tribute  to  Shakespeare, 
SOI  n;   loss  of  his  manuscripts,  517 

Weelkes,  Thomas,  268  » 

Weever,  John,  his  praise  of  Venus 
and  Adonis  and  Lwrece,  150;  his 
Mirror  of  Martyrs,  245;  allusion 
in,  to  Antony's  speech  at  Caesar's 
funeral,  332  »  2 

Welcombe,  enclosure  of  common  lands 
at,  473  seq. 

Welles,  Thomas,  of  Carleton,  Bed- 
fordshire, 'cousin'  to  Lady  Bernard, 

321  »4  . 

West,  Benjamin,  608 

Westminster  Abbey,  resting-place  of 
Chaucer  and  of  Shakespeare's  con- 
temporaries, 498-500;  poetic  pleas 
for  Shakespeare's  burial  in,  498-9 

Westward  for  Smelts,  collection  of 
stories  called,  248  n ;  421 

Whatcote,  Robert,  462 ;  witness  of 
Shakespeare's  will,  483  and  n  i 

Whateley,  Anne,  30  seq. 

Whately,  Archbishop  Richard,  651 

Whately,  Thomas,  597 

Wheler,  R.  B.,  his  papers  at  Strat- 
ford, 4  «  I ;  his  works  on  Shake- 
speare, 643 

Whetstone,  George,  his  Promos  and 
Cassandra,  _  390;  his  Heptameron 
of  Ciuill  Discourses,  390 

White,  Blanco,  626 

White,  E.  J.,  644 

White,  Edward,  132  and  n  2 

White,  Richard  Grant,  584 


INDEX 


757 


White,  William,  printer,  io6  n  i ; 
120  n,  404  n  2 

White,  W.  A.,  609 

Whitrfriars  theatre,  5o  «  2,  66  »  3; 
shareholders  in,  302  n  i,  303 ;  law- 
suits relating  to,  303  n  i,  311  n; 
value  of  share  in,  312  »  i 

Whitehall,  royal  palace  at,  perform- 
ances at,  69,  153,  378,  381,  383-4, 
38s,  386  and  «,  395,  416,  454,  661, 
686 

Whittington,  Thomas,  of  Shottery, 
creditor  of  Shakespeare's  wife,  26  b, 
280  and  n  i 

Widener,  Hairy  E.,  568 

Wieland,  Christoph  Martin,  612 
^-.Wilkins,  George,  his  collaboration 
with  Shakespeare  in  Timon  of 
Athens  and  Pericles,  402,  406;  his 
Miseries  of  Enforced  Marriage,  402 ; 
his  novel  of  Pericles,  406  and  n  i, 
» 2     ' 

Wilks,  Robert,  actor,  601 

'Will' sonnets,  the,  190,  690-8;  Eliza- 
bethan meanings  of  'will,'  690; 
Shakespeare's  use  of  word  'will,' 
691—2 ;  Shakespeare's  puns  on  the 
word  'will,'  692—3;  the  play  upon 
'wish'  and  'will,'  692,  693;  inter- 
pretation of  the  word  in  Sonnets 
cxxxiv,  cxxxv,  cxxxvi,  cxliii,  693-8 

Willis,  R.,  24  »  I 

Willis,  Judge,  655 

WUlobie  his  Avisa,  219-21,  708  n  3 

Wilmcote,  native  place  of  Shakespeare's 
mother,  6,  282  seq.;  alleged  refer- 
ence in  Taming  of  the  Shrew  to,  238 

Wilson,  J.,  S3S 

Wilson,  Robert,  actor  and  dramatist, 
SI  «  I,  97  »  I,  134  «  I ;  anticipates 
Shakespeare's  Shylock  in  his  Three 
Ladies  of  London,  134  and  n  i ;  part 
author  of  play  of  Oldcastle,  244 

Wilson,  Thomas,  107  n  2 

Wilton,  Shakespeare  and  his  company 
at,  377,  686  and  n 

Winchester,  players  at,  82,  83  n 

Winchester,  Bishop  of,  jurisdiction  of, 

275 
Wincot  (in  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew), 

its  identification,  237,  238 
Windsor,  royal  palace  at,  69,  153,  247, 

S68 
Winsor,    Justin,    his    Bibliography    of 

Quartos  and  Folios  of  Shakespeare, 

SSI  n  I 
Winstanley,  WUliam,  265 
Winter's  Tale,  A,  performed  at  Court, 


89, 420, 423, 433,  649 ;  prose  in,  102  » 
418,  419,  420;  position  of,  in  First 
Folio,  419;  first  performance  of 
at  the  Globe,  420,  423—5;  notice 
by  Simon  Forman,  420 ;  account  of, 
423-2S ;  based  on  Gt&ene'sPandosto, 
98,  423,  424 ;  Shakespeare's  innova- 
tions, 424,  425  ;  his  presentment 
of  country  life,  of  boyhood,  425 ; 
of  girlhood,  42s,  434;  reference  to 
Puritans  in,  463  «  3 ;  editions  of, 
554;  passages  cited,  423  n,  425  », 
463  »  3 

Wire,  use  of  the  word,  for  women's 
hair,  190  and  n  2 

Wise,  Andrew,  publisher,  125  n,  242  n 

Wise,  John  R.,  643 

Wislicenus,  Paul,  his  Shakespeare's 
Totenmaske,  538  n  i 

Wither,  George,  his  indictment  of 
publishers,  100  n.  See  also  668, 
708  »  3 

Wits,  or  Sport  upon  Sport,  The,  74  »  i 

Witter,  John,  shareholder  in  Globe 
theatre,  305;  lawsuit  relating  to, 
310  n ;  estimate  of  the  value  of  his 
share,  310 

WiveU,  Abraham,  his  account  of 
Shakespeare's  portraits,  538  n  2 

Women  actors,  absence  of,  from 
Elizabethan  stage,  78-9  and  notes; 
first  introduced  by  Thomas  Killi- 
grew,  592  » ;  the  first  women  actors 
in  Shakespearean  parts,  600-1 

Woncot  in  Henry  IV  identified  as 
Woodjnancote,  240 

Wood,  Anthony  a,  449 

Woodmancote.    See  Woncot 

Woodward,  Richard,  37  n 

Worcester,  Earl  of,  his  company  of 
actors  at  Stratford,  12-13,  24  »  2; 
his  company  of  actors  on  the  Conti- 
nent, 86  «;  taken  imder  patronage 
of  Anne  of  Denmark,  96,  376  n  i 

Wordsworth,  Charles,  on  Shake- 
speare's knowledge  of  the  Bible, 
23  »  2 

Wordsworth,  William,  the  poet,  on 
German  aesthetic  criticism  of  Shake- 
speare, 614  and  n  2 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  on  the  burning  of 
the  Globe  theatre,  446  «  i ;  on  the 
Earl  of  Rutland's  entertainment  of 
King  James  I,  45s  and  n  2;  letter 
to  Sir  Edmund  Bacon,  654  »  2 

Wright,  John,  bookseller,  160 

Wright,  John  Michael,  his  chalk  draw- 
ing of  Shakespeare's  portrait,  536 


758 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


Wright,  Thomas,  536 

Wright,  W.  Aldis,  582,  585  « 

Wriothesley,  Lord,  661 

Wroxall,  Shakespeares  at,  2-3 

Wulfi,   P.   F.,   Danish    translator    of 

Shakespeare,  627 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  sonnets  of,   154, 

165;     his  translations  of  Petrarch's 

sonnets,  171  k  i,  699 
Wyman,  W.  H.,  652  n 
Wyndham,    George,   on   the   sonnets, 

162  «,  180  n  I,  693  n 

Xenophon  Ephesius,  no  » 


Yale,  copy  of  First  Folio  at,  566 

Yonge,  Bartholomew,  107  n  2 

York,  players  at,  82,  83  n,  130 ;  miracle 

plays  at,  gi  n 
Yorkshire  Tragedy,  A,  262,  402 
Yomig,  Edward,  595 
YouBg,  William,  646 

Zepheria,  702,  705,  706 

Zincke,  his  fraudulent  Shakespeare 
portraits,  532  » 

Zouch,  John,  706 

Zucchero,  alleged  portraits  of  Shake- 
speare by,  S3I  »  3 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


T 


HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of  books 
by  the  same  author  or  on  kindred  subjects. 


The  New  Ideal   Edition   of   Shakespeare 

THE    TUDOR    SHAKESPEARE 

Published  under  the  general  editorship  of  Professor  William  Allan  Neil- 
son,  Ph.D.,  of  Harvard  University,  and  Professor  ASHLEY  HORACE 
Thorndike,  L.H.D.,  of  Columbia  University. 

THE    FACTS    ABOUT    SHAKESPEARE.         By  the 

Editors 

Supplements  the  introductions  and  the  notes  to  the  individual  plays,  and  as 
the  Fortieth  and  Final  Volume  of  the  TUDOR  Shakespeare,  gives  a  cor- 
rected account  of  Shakespeare's  life,  environment,  work,  and  reputation. 
( Tudor  Edition^  sold  only  with,  the  superior  clotk  and  leather  sets.) 

Complete  sets  of  forty  volumes,  including  The  Facts  About  Shakespeare,  in 
box. 

Superior  Cloth,  $14.00  the  set.        Leather,  $22.00  the  set. 

Each  play  or  volume  is  edited  vfith  an  introduction,  complete  text,  notes 
and  glossary,  by  a  scholar  of  unquestioned  standing,  so  that  the  edition  repre- 
sents all  that  is  best  in  American  scholarship. 

Alphabetical  List  of  Plays  and  Editors 


All's  Well  That  Ends  Well.  John  L. 
lAjwes,  Ph.D. 

Antony  and  Cleopatra.  George  Wyllys 
Benedict,  Ph.D. 

As  You  Like  It.  Martha  M.  Shack- 
ford,  Ph.D. 

Comedy  of  Errors.  Frederick  Morgan 
Padclford,  Ph.D. 

Coriolanus.    Stuart  P.  Sherman,  Ph.D. 

Cymbeline.    Will.  D.  Howe,  Ph.D. 

Hamlet.    George  Pierce  Baker,  A.  B. 

Henry  IV,  Part  I.  Frank  W.  Chandler, 
Ph.D. 

Henry.  IV,  Part  II.  Elizabeth  Deering 
Hanscom,  Ph.D. 

Henry  V.    Lewis  F.  Mott,  Ph  D. 

Henry  VI,  Part  I.     Louise  Pound,  Ph.D. 

Henry  VI,  Part  II.  Charles  H.  Barn- 
well, Ph.D. 

Henry  VI,  Part  III.  Robert  Adger 
Law,  Ph.D. 

Henry  VIII.    Charles  G.  Dunlap,  Ph.D. 

Julius  Ccesar.     Robert  M.  Lovett,  A.B. 

King  John.    Henry  M.  Belden,  Ph.D. 

King  Lear.  Virginia  C.  Gildersleevc, 
Ph.D. 

Love's  Labour's  Lost.  James  F.  Roy- 
ster,  Ph.D. 

Macbeth.    Arthur  C.  L.  Brown,  Ph.D. 

Measure  for  Measure.  Edgar  C.  Mor- 
ris, A.M. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The.    Hariy  M. 


Merry    Wives   of    Windsor.    Fred   P. 

Emery,  A.M. 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  A.    John 

Cunliffe,  D.LlTT. 
Much  Ado  About    Nothing.    William 

W.  Lawrence,  Ph.D. 
Othello.    Thomas  M.  Parrott,  Ph.D. 
Pericles.    C.  Alphonso  Smith,  LL.D. 
Richard  II.    Harding  Craig,  Ph.D. 
Richard    III.      George     B.    Churchill, 

Ph.D. 
Romeo  and  Juliet.    The  General  Editors. 
Sonnets,    The.     Raymond     M.    Alden, 

Ph.D. 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,  The.    Frederick 

Tupper,  Jr.,  Ph.D. 
Tempest,    The.     Herbert    E.    Greene, 

Ph.D. 
Tinion  of  Athens.    Robert  Huntington 

Fletcher,  Ph.D. 
Titus    Andronicus.      Elmer    E.    Stoll, 

Ph.D. 
Troilus  and  Cressida.    John  S.  P.   Tat- 

lock,  Ph.D. 
Twelfth    Night.     Walter    Morris    Hart, 

Ph.D. 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  The.    Mar- 
tin W.  Sampson,  M.A. 
Venus     and     Adonis,     and     Lucrece. 

Carleton  Brown,  Ph.D. 
Winter's  Tale,  The.    Laura  J.   Wylic, 

Ph.D. 


Ayres,  Ph.D. 

Each  volume  of  the  Plays  and  Poems  may  also  be  had  separately.    Illustrated. 
Superior  cloth:  one  color,  25  cents;  two  colors,  35  cents;  leather,  55  cents. 


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The  Development  of  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatist 

By  GEORGE  PIERCE  BAKER,  Professor  of  English  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. Cloth,  crown  8vo,  $r.y; 

The  book  endeavors  to  fill  a  gap  in  the  discussion  of  Shalcespeare's  art  by 
distinguishing  his  debt  as  a  dramatic  writer  to  his  predecessors  or  contempo- 
raries, indicating  his  contribution  to  each  of  the  varied  forms,  chronicle,  play, 
farce,  melodrama,  comedy  of  manners,  high  comedy,  and  tragedy.  Professor 
Baker  has  made  clear  the  interesting  progress  of  the  dramatist  toward  the  mas- 
tery of  his  art,  and  has  illustrated  the  work  with  views  of  London  and  of  the 
life  of  the  theatre  in  Shakespeare's  day. 

What  is  Shakespeare  ?     An  introduction  to  the  Great  Plays 

By  L.  A.  SHERMAN,  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  the  University  of 
Nebraska.  Cloth,  large  i2mo,  xii  4-  414pp.,  $1.00 

Short  Sketches  of  Shakespeare's  Plots 

By  CYRIL  RANSOME,  Professor  of  Modem  Literature  and  History  in 
the  Yorkshire  College  of  the  Victoria  University. 

Cloth,  i2mo,  viii  +  zggpp.,  $r.3S 

Shakespeare's  Heroines 

By  ANNA  JAMESON.    With  twenty-six  portraits  of  famous  players  in 

character.  Cloth,  8vo,  341  pp.,  $i.oo 

The  same  without  the  illustrations.    Bohn  Library.  jS'^-y 

Shakespeare  in  Tale  and  Verse 

By  LOIS  G.  HUFFORD.  Cloth,  izmo,  ix  +  44s pp.,  $iJOO 

The  same.    Standard  School  Library.  f.^o 

Lamb's  Tales  from  Shakespeare 

By  CHARLES  and  MARY  LAMB.    Illustrated  by  Byam  Shaw.         $2.2; 
The  same.    Bohn  Library  Edition.  S-f-^J 

Pocket  Classics  Edition.    Edited  by  Canon  Ainger.     jf.jf.    English 
Classics  Edition.     $.40.    Golden  Treasury  Series.     $1.00 

Characters  of  Shakespeare's  Plays 

By  WILLIAM  HAZLITT.    Library  of  English  Classics.  Cloth,  $r.so 

Shakespeare's  Songs  and  Sonnets 

Edited  by  FRANCIS  T.  PALGRAVE.    Golden  Treasury  Series.       $t.oo 


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Shakespearean  Tragedy  Second  Edition 

Lectures  on  Hamlet,  Othello,  King  Lear,  and  Macbeth 
By  a.  C.  BRADLEY,  LL.D.,  Litt.D. 

Professor  of  Poetry  in  the  University  of  Oxford 

CioiA,  Svo,  xii-\-4gS pp.,  S2./0 
The  Times,  London :  — 

"  Nothing  has  been  written  for  many  years  that  has  done  so  much  as 
these  lectures  will  do  to  advance  the  understanding  and  the  appreciation 
of  the  greatest  things  in  Shakespeare's  greatest  plays.  .  .  .  One  may  well 
doubt  whether  in  the  whole  field  of  English  literary  criticism  anything  has 
been  written  in  the  last  twenty  years  more  luminous,  more  masterly,  more 
penetrating  to  the  very  centre  of  its  subject." 

Shakespeare :  A  Critical  Study 

By  GEORGE    BRANDES 

Author  of"  Main  Currents  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,"  etc. 

ClotA,  Svo,  6gopp.  and  index,  $zj6o 
The  Athenaum,  London :  — 

"  On  these  volumes  as  a  whole  we  can  bestow  hearty  praise  and  com- 
mendation. No  other  single  work  on  Shakespeare  includes  so  much,  and 
so  much  that  is  valuable.  Dr.  Brandes  is  a  good,  a  first-rate  'all-round 
man.'  There  is  no  side  of  his  subject  which  he  neglects.  He  is  both  an 
antiquary  and  a  critic,  interested  in  the  smallest  details  of  biography,  and 
also  taking  broad  and  comprehensive  views  of  Shakespeare's  thought  and 
style.  His  book  is  in  its  way  encyclopedic,  and  we  venture  to  say  that 
there  are  few  people  —  few  scholars  —  who  would  not  find  themselves  the 
better  informed  and  the  wiser  for  its  perusal.  He  has  equipped  himself 
for  his  task  by  wide  study  and  research;  and  on  all  the  materials  he  has 
amassed  he  has  brought  to  bear  a  judgment  well  balanced  and  vigorous, 
and  a  mind  liberal  and  independent.  It  is  many  years  since  there  has 
been  any  contribution  to  Shakespearean  literature  of  such  importance  as 
this.  These  two  volumes  are  of  solid  worth,  and  deserve  a  place  in  every 
Shakespearean  student's  library." 


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Shakespeare  —  English  Men  of  Letters 

By    Professor    WALTER    RALEIGH 

B/ue  cloth,  gilt  tops,  $.yj 
Professor  Dowden  in  the  Nation  :  — 

"  Professor  Raleigh  has  felt  over  again,  with  penetrative,  imaginative, 
and  fine  intelligence,  the  beauty  and  the  greatness  of  Shakespeare's  poetry; 
he  has  only  placed  these  in  their  proper  environment,  and  by  virtue  of  a 
rare  charm  of  style  enabled  us  to  see  with  his  eyes  a  most  harmonious 
vision.  ...     A  wise  and  beautiful  book." 

Waiiam  Shakespeare  :  Poet,  Dramatist,  and  Man 

By   HAMILTON   W.    MABIE 

Illustrated,  $2.oo 
Also  an  edition  without  illustrations,  $/.oo 
Also  Macmillan  Standard  Library,      $.jo 

This  work  is  far  more  than  a  mere  life  of  the  poet.  Indeed,  it  is  con- 
ceived on  lines  so  broad  and  executed  in  a  spirit  so  generous  that  it  is 
rather  an  interpretation  than  a  record.  It  is  written  throughout  from  a 
literary  standpoint  and  stands  almost  alone  in  the  fidelity,  the  sanity,  and 
the  candor  of  its  appreciations. 

A  History  of  English  Dramatic  Literature  to  the 
Death  of  Queen  Anne 

By   a.    W.    ward 

3  vols.,  cloth,  tq.oo 

A  SUMMARY  OF  CONTENTS 

Volume  I  —  The  origins  of  the  English  Drama.  The  beginnings  of  the 
Regular  Drama.     Shakespeare's  Predecessors.     Shakespeare. 

Volume  II  —  Shakespeare  (continued).  Ben  Jonson.  The  Later  Eliza- 
bethans.    Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 

Volume  III  — The  End  of  the  Old  Drama.     The  Later  Stuart  Drama. 


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