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EX LIBRIS
BERTRAM.C.A

WINDLE
D.SC.M.D

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A LIFE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SIDNEY LEE

WITH PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES

THIRD EDITION

LONDON

SMITH, ELDER, £ CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1898

OCT 28 194B

Printed November 1898 (First Edition).
Reprinted December 1898 (Second Edition).
Reprinted December 1898 (Third Edition}.

PREFACE

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 under-
gone during my revision of it for separate publication
are so numerous as to give the book a title to be
regarded as an independent venture. In its general
aims, however, the present life of Shakespeare en-
deavours 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
criticism. 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

vi WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 in-
crease 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 ot
information. After studying Elizabethan literature,
history, and bibliography for more than eighteen
years, 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 Shake-
speare'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 revela-
tions. 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 biography will be found in my
treatment of the following subjects : the conditions
under which ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and the

PREFACE Vll

' 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 investiga-
tion. The strictly autobiographical interpretation that
critics have of late placed on these poems compelled
me, as Shakespeare'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 much help us for the future
is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for
intellectual and artistic 1 purposes, one great con-

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

Vlii WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

federation, 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 respect-
ing the intention of the vast sonnet-literature of the
Elizabethan era. In accordance with Arnold's sug-
gestion, I have studied Shakespeare's sonnets com-
paratively 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 conviction that
Shakespeare's collection of sonnets has no reasonable
title to be regarded as a personal or autobiographical
narrative.

In the Appendix (Sections III. and IV.) I have
supplied a memoir of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl
of Southampton, and an account of the Earl's rela-
tions with the contemporary world of letters. Apart
from Southampton's association with the sonnets, he
promoted Shakespeare'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

PREFACE IX

'Variorum' edition of 1821), for treating a know-
ledge of Southampton's life as essential to a full know-
ledge of Shakespeare's. I have also printed in the
Appendix a detailed statement of the precise circum-
stances under which Shakespeare's sonnets were pub-
lished 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
protege of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke,
who has been put forward quite unwarrantably 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 corre-
sponding feature of French and Italian literature
between 1550 and 1600.

Since the publication of the article on Shake-
speare 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

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

(SS

,14-

X WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

documents relating to Shakespeare 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 utility
rather than of artistic merit. My reasons for selecting
as the frontispiece the newly discovered ' Droeshout '
painting of Shakespeare (now in the Shakespeare
Memorial Gallery at Stratford-on-Avon) can be
gathered from the history of the painting and of its
discovery which I give on pages 288-90. I have to
thank Mr. Edgar Flower and the other members of
the Council of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford
for permission to reproduce the picture. The portrait
of Southampton in early life is now at Welbeck
Abbey, and the Duke of Portland not only per-
mitted the portrait to be engraved for this volume,
but lent me the negative from which the plate has
been prepared. The Committee of the Garrick
Club gave permission to photograph the interesting
bust of Shakespeare in their possession,1 but, owing
to the fact that it is moulded in black terra-cotta
no satisfactory negative could be obtained ; the

1 For an account of its history see p. 295.

PREFACE XI

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 auto-
graphs of Shakespeare's signature — all that exist of
unquestioned authenticity — appear in the three re-
maining plates. The three signatures 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 1613, has been photographed from the original
document in the British Museum, by permission of
the Trustees. Shakespeare'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
1 See pp. 309 and 311.

Xii WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 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 12, 1898.

CONTENTS

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH

Distribution of the name
of Shakespeare .

The poet's ancestry . .

The poet's father .

His settlement at Strat-
ford

PAGE

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

and baptism . . . 8

Alleged birthplace . . 8

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE

The father in municipal

office . . . .

Brothers and sisters

The father's financial

difficulties . . .

1571-7 Shakespeare's educa-

cation

His classical equipment
Shakespeare's know-
ledge of the Bible .
1575 Queen Elizabeth at

Kenilworth
1577 Withdrawal from school

1582. Dec. The poet's mar-

riage . . . . 18
Richard Hathaway of

Shottery . . .19
Anne Hathaway . . 19
Anne Hathaway's

cottage . . -19
The bond against im-
pediments . . . 20

1583, May. Birth of the poet's

daughter Susanna . . 22
Formal betrothal pro-
bably dispensed with . 23

XIV

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

III

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD

PAGE PAGE

Early married life . .

Justice Shallow . . .

Poaching in Charlecote .

1585 The flight from Stratford

Unwarranted doubts of

the tradition

ON THE LONDON STAGE

1586

The journey to London .

31 The London theatres

Richard Field, Shake-

Place of residence in

speare's townsman

London . . . .

3»

Theatrical employment .
A playhouse servitor
The acting companies .
The Lord Chamberlain's

32
33

Actors' provincial tours .
Shakespeare's alleged
travels
In Scotland . . .

40
4i

company .

In Italy ....

Shakespeare a member

Shakespeare's rdles . .

of the Lord Chamber-

His alleged scorn of an

lain's company . .

36 actor's calling

EARLY

DRAMATIC WORK

The period ot Shake-

Marlowe's influence in

speare's dramatic

tragedy . . . .

work, 1591-1611

1593 Richard III .

His borrowed plots . .

1593 Richard II . . .

The revision of plays

Shakespeare's acknow-

Chronology of the plays.

ledgments to Marlowe

Metrical tests

1593 Titus Andronicus .

IS9I

Love's Labour's Lost .

5°

1594, August. The Merchant

Two Gentlemen oj

of Venice . . .

Verona

Shylock and Roderigo

1592

Comedy of Errors . .

Lopez

1592

Romeo and Juliet .

1594 King John . . .

1592.

March. Henry VI . ,

1594, Dec. 28. Comedy oj

1592,

Sept. Greene's attack on

Errors in Gray's Inn

Shakespeare . .

Hall ....

Chettle's apology . .

Early plays doubtfully

Divided authorship of

assigned to Shake-

Henry VI .

speare . . . .

Shakespeare's coadjutors

Arden of Feversham

Shakespeare's assimi-

(1592)

lative power . . .

Edward III . . .

Lyly's influence in

Mucedorus

comedy

61 Faire Em (1592) . .

CONTENTS

THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC

FACE

1593, April. Publication of

Venus and Adonis . 74

1594, May. Publication of

Lucrece . . .76

PAGE

Enthusiastic reception of

the poems . . . 78
Shakespeare and Spenser 79
Patrons at Court . .81

VII

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY

The vogue of the Eliza-
bethan sonnet . . 83

Shakespeare's first ex-
periments . . . 84

Majority of Shake-
speare's sonnets com-
posed . . .85

Their literary value . . 87

Circulation in manu-
script . . • .88

Their piratical publica-
tion in 1609 . . . 89

A Lover's Complaint . 91

Thomas Thorpe and
• Mr. W. H.' . . 91

The form of Shake-
speare's sonnets . . 95

Their want of continuity 06

The two ' groups ' . . 96

Main topics of the first
'group' ... 98

Main topics of the second
'group' . . . 99

The order of the sonnets
in the edition of 1640 . ico

Lack of genuine senti-
ment in Elizabethan
sonnets . . . 100

Their dependence on
French and Italian
models . . . . 101

Sonnetteers' admissions
of insincerity . . 105

Contemporary censure of
sonnetteers' false senti-
ment . . . . 106

Shakespeare's scornful
allusions to sonnets in
his plays . . . 108

VIII

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OK THE SONNETS

Slender autobiographi-
cal element in Shake-
speare's sonnets . .

The imitative element .

Shakespeare's claims of
immortality for his
sonnets a borrowed
conceit . • •

109
109

Conceits in sonnets ad-
dressed to a woman . 117

The praise of ' black-
ness ' . . . . n8

The sonnets of vitupera-
tion . . . . 120

Gabriel Harvey's Amo-
rous Odious sonnet 121

Jodelle's Contr Amours 122

XVI

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON

PAGE

Biographic fact in the
' dedicatory ' sonnets . 125

The Earl of South-
ampton the poet's sole
patron . . . 126

Rivals in Southampton's
favour . . . . 130

Shakespeare's fear of
another poet . . 132

Barnabe Barnes pro-
bably the chief rival . 133

Other theories as to the
chief rival's identity . 134

Sonnets of friendship . 136

Extravagances of literary i
compliment . . 138

PAGE

Patrons habitually ad-
dressed in affectionate
terms . . . . 139

Direct references to
Southampton in the
sonnets of friendship . 142

His youthfulness . . 143

The evidence of por-
traits .... 144

Sonnet cvii. the last of
the series . . . 147

Allusions to Queen
Elizabeth's death . 147

Allusion to South-
ampton's release from
prison . . . . 149

THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS

his Avis a

Sonnets of melancholy
and self-reproach . . 151

The youth's relations
with the poet's mis-
tress . . . .153

Willobie

(iS94) • • • • 155
Summary of conclu-
sions respecting the
sonnets . . .158

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER

1594-5 Midsummer Night's

Dream . . . . 161
1595 All's Well t/iat Ends

Well. . . .162
1595 The Taming of The

Shrew . . . . 163
Stratford allusions in the

Induction . . . 164

Wincot . . . . 165

1 597 Henry IV . . . 167

Falstaff . . . . 199

1597 The Merry Wives of

Windsor . . . 171

1598 Henry V . . . . 173
Essex and the rebellion

of 1601 . . . 174
Shakespeare's popularity

and influence . . 176
Shakespeare's friendship

with Ben Jonson . 176

The Mermaid meetings . 177

1598 Meres's eulogy , . 178

CONTENTS

XV11

PAGE PAGE

Value of his name to 1601 The Phoenix and the

publishers . . . 179 ; Turtle , , . . 183

1599 The Passionate Pilgrim 182 '

XII

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE

Shakespeare's practical

temperament . . 185

His father's difficulties . 186

His wife's debt . . . 187

1596-9 The coat of arms . .188

1597, May 4. The purchase of

New Place . . . 193
1598 Fellow-townsmen appeal

to Shakespeare for aid 195
Shakespeare's financial
position before 1599 . 196

Shakespeare's financial

position after 1599 . 200
His later income . . 202
Incomes of fellow-actors 203
1601-1610 Shakespeare's for-
mation of his estate at
Stratford . . . 204
1605 The Stratford tithes . 205
1600-1609 Recovery of small

debts . . . 206

XIII

MATURITY

OF GENIUS

Literary work in 1599 . '207

1602 Hamlet ....

221

1599

Much Ado about

The problem of its

Nothing . . . 208

publication . . .

222

1599

As You Like It . . 209

The First Quarto, 1603 .

222

1600

Twelfth Night . . . 209

The Second Quarto,

1601

Julius Ccesar . .211

1604 ....

223

The strife between adult

The Folio version, 1623.

223

actors and boy actors 213

Popularity of Hamlet .

224

Shakespeare's references

1603 Troilus and Cressida

225

to the struggle . . 216

Treatment of the theme

227

1001

Ben Jonson's Poetaster . 217

1603, March 26. Queen Eliza-

Shakespeare's alleged

beth's death

229

partisanship in the

James I's patronage .

230

theatrical warfare . . 219

XIV

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY

1604, Nov. Otliello . . 235 1608

1604, Dec. Measure for Mea- 1608

sure . ... 237 1608

1606 Macbeth . . . 239 j 1609

1607 King Lear . . . 241

Timon of Atliens . . 242

Pericles . . . . 243

Antony and Cleopatra . 245

Coriolanvs . . . 247

a 2

XV111

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE LATEST PLAYS

PAGE

The placid temper of the
latest plays . . 248

1610 Cymbeline . . . 249

1611 A Winter's Tale . . 251
1611 The Tempest . . . 252

Fanciful interpretations

of The Tempest . . 256
Unfinished plays . . 258

I'AGE

The lost play of Gar-
denia .... 258

The Two Noble Kins-
men . . . . 259

Henry VIII . . .261

The burning of the Globe
Theatre . . . 262

XVI

THE CLOSE OF LIFE

Plays at Court in 1613 . 264
Actor-friends . . . 264
1611 Final settlement at

Stratford . . . 266
Domestic affairs . . 266

1613, March. Purchase of a

house in Blackfriars . 267

1614, Oct. Attempt to enclose

the Stratford common
fields .... 269

1616, April 23.
death

Shakespeare's

272

1616, April 25. Shakespeare's

burial . . . 272

The will . . . . 273
Shakespeare's bequest to

his wife . . . 273

Shakespeare's heiress . 275

Legacies to friends . 276
The tomb in Stratford

Church . . . . 276

Shakespeare's
character .

personal

XVII

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS

Mrs. Judith Quiney

(1585-1662)
Mrs. Susanna Hall

(1583-1649) . . .

280
281

XVIII

The last descendant . 282
Shakespeare's brothers,
Edmund, Richard,
and Gilbert . . . 283

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS

Spelling of the poet's

name. . . • 284
Autograph signatures . 284
Shakespeare's portraits 286
The Stratford bust . 286
The ' Stratford portrait ' 287
Droeshout's engraving . 287
The ' Droeshout ' paint-
ing . . . . 288
Later portraits . . 291

The Chandos portrait

The ' Jansen ' portrait

The ' Felton ' portrait

The ' Soest ' portrait

Miniatures

The Garrick Club bust

Alleged death-mask

292
294
294
294
295
295
296

Memorials in sculpture . 207
Memorials at Stratford . 297

CONTENTS

XIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PAGE

Quartos of the poems in

the poet's lifetime . 299
Posthumous quartos of

the poems . . . 300
The ' Poems ' of 1640 . 300
Quartos of the plays in

the poet's lifetime . . 300
Posthumous quartos of

the plays . . . 300
1623 The First Folio . . 303
The publishing syndi-
cate .... 303
The prefatory matter . 306
The value of the text . 307
The order of the plays . 307
The typography . ' . 308
Unique copies . . . 308
The Sheldon copy . . 309
Estimated number of ex-
tant copies

Reprints of the First
Folio ....
1632 The Second Folio . .
1663-4 The Third Folio .
1685 The Fourth Folio . .
Eighteenth-century edi-
tors .

310

3"
312
312

Nicholas
1718)

Rowe (1674-

313
314

PAGE

Alexander Pope (1688-

1744) • • • -315
Lewis Theobald (1688-

1744) • • • • 3J7
Sir Thomas Hanmer

(1677-1746) . . 317
Bishop Warburton

(1698-1779) . . . 318
Dr. Johnson (1709-1783) 319
Edward Capell (1713- "

1781) . . . .319
George Steevens (1736-

1800) . . . . 320
Edmund Malone(i74i-

1812) .... 322
Variorum editions . . 322
Nineteenth-century edi-
tors .... 323
Alexander Dyce (1798-

1869) . . . . 323
Howard Staunton (1810-

1874) . . . .324
Nikolaus Delius (1813-

1888) . . . . 324
The Cambridge edition

(1863-6) . . .324
Other nineteenth-century

editions . . . . 324

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION

Views of Shakespeare's

contemporaries . . 326
Ben Jonson's tribute . 327
English opinion between

1660 and 1702 . . 329
Dryden's view . . . 330
Restoration adaptations 331
English opinion from

1702 onwards . . 332
Stratford festivals . . 334
Shakespeare on the

English stage . . 334

The first appearance of
actresses in Shake-
spearean parts . .

David Garrick (1717-
1779)

John Philip Kemble

(1757-1823) . . .

Mrs. Sarah Siddons
(1755-1831)

Edmund
i833)

Kean (1787-

334
336
337
337
338

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

PAGE

William Charles Mac-
ready (1793-1873) . 339
Recent revivals . . . 339
Shakespeare in English

music and art . . 340
Boydell's Shakespeare

Gallery . . . . 341
Shakespeare in America 341
Translations . . . 342
Shakespeare in Germany 342
German translations . 343
Modern German critics . 345
Shakespeare on the
German stage . . 345

PAGE

Shakespeare in France . 347
Voltaire's strictures . . 348
French critics' gradual
emancipation from
Voltairean influence . 349
Shakespeare on the

French stage . . . 350
Shakespeare in Italy . 352
In Holland . . . 352
In Russia . . . 353
In Poland . . . 353
In Hungary . . . 353
In other countries . . 354

XXI

GENERAL ESTIMATE

General estimate .
Shakespeare's defects

355 Character of Shake-

355 speare's achievement . 356

Its universal recognition 357

APPENDIX

THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

Contemporary records

abundant . . . 361
First efforts in biography 361
Biographers of the nine-
teenth century . . 362
Stratford topography . 363
Specialised studies in

biography . . . 363
Epitomes . . . 364
Aids to study of plots
and text . . . 364

Concordances . . 364
Bibliographies . . . 365
Critical studies . . 365
Shakespearean forgeries 365
John Jordan (1746-1809) 366
The Ireland forgeries

(1796) . . . . 366
List of forgeries promul-
gated by Collier and
others (1835-1849) . 367

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY

Its source . . . 370
Toby Matthew's letter

of 1621 . . . 371

Chief exponents of the

theory . . .371

Its vogue in America . 372
Extent of the literature . 372
Absurdity of the theory . 373

APPENDIX]

CONTENTS

XXI

III

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON

PAGE

Shakespeare and South-
ampton . . . 374

Southampton's parent-
age . . . . 374
1573, Oct. 6. Southampton's

birth . . . .375

His education . . . 375

Recognition of South-
ampton's beauty in
youth . . .377

PAGE

His reluctance to marry 378
Intrigue with Elizabeth

Vernon . . . 379
1598 Southampton's marriage 379
1601-3 Southampton's im-
prisonment . . 380
Later career . . . 380
1624, Nov. 10. His death . 381

THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON

Southampton's collec-
tion of books . . 382

References in his letters
to poems and plays . 382

His love of the theatre . 383

Poetic adulation . . 384
1593 Barnabe Barnes's sonnet 384

Tom Nash's addresses . 385
1595 Gervase Markham's son-
net .... 387
1598 Florio's address . . 387
The congratulations of

the poets in 1603 . 387
Elegies on Southampton 389

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

The publication of the

' Sonnets ' in 1609 . 390
The text of the dedica-
tion . . . . 391
Publishers' dedications . 392
Thorpe's early life . 393
His ownership of the
manuscript of Mar-
lowe's Lucan . . 393
His dedicatory address
to Edward Blount in
1600 . . . .394
Character of his business 395
Shakespeare's sufferings

at publishers' hands . 396
The use of initials in

dedications of Eliza -
l>ethan and Jacobean
books . . . . 397

Frequency of wishes for
' happiness ' and ' eter-
nity ' in dedicatory
greetings . . .398

Five dedications by
Thorpe . . . . 399

' W. H.' signs dedica-
tion of Southwell's
' Poems ' . . . 400

' W. H.' and Mr. Wil-
liam Hall . . . 402

The ' onlie begetter '
means ' on!}' procurer ' 403

XX11

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

[APPKNDIX

VI
'MR. WILLIAM HERBERT'

PAGE

Origin of the notion that
'Mr. W. H.' stands
for William Herbert . 406

The Earl of Pembroke

known only as Lord
Herbert in youth . . 407
Thorpe's mode of ad-
dressing the Earl of
Pembroke . . . 408

VII

SHAKESPF.ARK AND THE EARI OF PEMBROKE

Shakespeare with the
acting company at
Wilton in 1603 . .411

The dedication of the
First Folio in 1623 . 412

No suggestion in the
sonnets of the youth's

identity with Pem-
broke . . . . 413
Aubrey's ignorance of
any relation between
Shakespeare and

Pembroke . . . 414

VIII

THE ' W I LL ' SON N ETS

Elizabethan meanings

of ' will ' . . 416
Shakespeare's uses of

the word . . . 417
Shakespeare's puns on

the word . . . 418
Arbitrary and irregular

use of italics by Eliza-

bethan and Jacobean
printers . . . 419
The conceits of Sonnets

cxxxv.— vi. interpreted 420
Sonnet cxxxv. . . 421

Sonnet cxxxvi. . . 422
Sonnet cxxxiv. . . . 425
Sonnet cxliii. . . 426

THE VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET, 1 591-1597

J557 Wyatt's and Surrey's

Sonnets published . 427 1592

1582 Watson's Centime of \ 1593

Love . . . . 428 ; 1593

1591 Sidney's Astrophel and

Stella . . .428 1593

I. Collected sonnets of ' 1593

feigned love . . . 420 1594

1592 Daniel's Delia . . 430 1594

Fame of Daniel's sonnets 431
Constable's Diana . . 431
Barnabe Barnes's sonnets 432
Watson's Tears of

Pancie . . .433
Giles Fletcher's Licia . 433
Lodge's Phi His . . 433
Drayton's Idea . . . 434
Percy's Ccclid . . 435

APPKND1XJ

CONTENTS

xxin

1594 Zepheria . ... 435 ' 1597

1595 Barnfield's sonnets to

Ganymede . . 435 '
1595 Spenser's Amoretti . . 435 .
1595 Emaricdulfe . . . 436 ;

1595 Sir John Davies's

Gullinge Sonnets . . 436

1596 Linche's Diella . . 437
1596 Griffin's Fidessa . . 437
1596 Thomas Campion's

sonnets . . . 437 III.
1596 William Smith's Chloris 437

PAGE

Robert Tofte's Laura . 438
Sir William Alexander's

Aurora . . . 438
Sir Fulke Greville's

Ccelica . . . . 438
Estimate of number of
love-sonnets issued be-
tween 1591 and 1597 . 439
Sonnets to patrons, 1591-

1597 . . . . 440
Sonnets on philosophy
and religion . . 440

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN FRANCE, 1550-1600

Ronsard (1524-1585) and

' La P16iade ' . . 442
The Italian sonnetteers of

the sixteenth century 442 n.
Philippe Desportes

^ (1546-1606) . . 443
Chief collections of

French sonnets pub-
lished between 1550
and 1584 . . . 444
Minor collections of
French sonnets pub-
lished between 1553
and 1605 . . . 444

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

From tfie ' Droeshout ' painting, ncnv in the Shake-
speare Memorial Gallery, Stratford-on-Avon.

HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, THIRD EARL OF
SOUTHAMPTON, AS A YOUNG MAN . . .

Front tlte painting at Welbeck Abbey.

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE
TO THE PURCHASE-DEED OK A HOUSE IN
BLACKFRIARS, DATED MARCH 10, 1612-3

From the original document now preserved in the
Guildhall Library, London.

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE

TO A MORTGAGE-DEED RELATING TO THE
HOUSE PURCHASED BY HIM IN BLACKFRIARS,

DATED MARCH n, 1612-3 . . . .

Front the original document now presented in tlie
British Museum.

THREE AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURES SEVE-
RALLY WRITTEN BY SHAKESPEARE ON THE
THREE SHEETS OF HIS WILL

From the original document at Somerset House,
London.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

From a plaster-cast of the terra-cotta hist now at the
Garrick Club.

Frontispiece

To face p. 145

267

269

273

295

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 Cum-

Distribu-

tionofthe berland, at Kirkland and Doncaster in
Yorkshire, as well as in nearly all the
midland counties. The surname had originally a
martial significance, implying capacity in the wield-
ing of the spear.1 Its first recorded holder is John
Shakespeare, who in 1279 was living at ' Freyndon,
perhaps Frittenden, Kent.2 The great mediaeval
guild of St. Anne at Knowle, whose members in-
cluded the leading inhabitants of Warwickshire, was
joined by many Shakespeares in the fifteenth century.3

1 Camden, Remaines, ed. 1605, p. in ; Verstegan, Restitution, 1605.
- Plac. Cor. 7 Edw. I, Kane. ; cf. Notes and Queries , 1st ser. xi. 122.
3 Cf. the Register of the Gttild of St. Anne at Knowle, ed. Bickley,
1894.

o< n

2 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the sur-
name is found far more frequently in Warwickshire
than elsewhere. The archives of no less than twenty-
four towns and villages there contain 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 seven-
teenth 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 less than three Richard
Shakespeares of Rowington, whose extant wills were
proved respectively in 1560, 1591, and 1614, were
fathers of sons called William. At least one other
William Shakespeare was during the period a resi-
dent 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 abso-
lute certainty. The poet's father, when applying for
The poet's a grant of arms in 1596, claimed that his
ancestry, grandfather (the poet's great-grandfather)
received for services rendered in war a grant of land
in Warwickshire from Henry VII.1 No precise con-
firmation 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
1 See p. 189.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 3

came of good yeoman stock, and that his ancestors to
the fourth or fifth generation were fairly substantial
landowners.1 Adam Shakespeare, a tenant by military
service of land at Baddesley Clinton in 1389, seems-
to have been great-grandfather of one Richard Shake-
speare who held land at Wroxhall in Warwickshire
during the first thirty-four years (at least) of the
sixteenth century. Another Richard Shakespeare
who is conjectured to have been nearly akin to the
Wroxhall family was settled as a farmer at Snitter-
field, a village four miles to the north of Stratford-
on-Avon, in I528.2 It is probable that he was the
poet's grandfather. In 1550 he was renting a mes-
suage and land at Snitterfield of Robert Arden ;
he died at the close of 1560, and on February 10 of
the next year letters of administration of his goods,
chattels, and debts were issued to his son John by
the Probate Court at Worcester. His goods were
valued at .£35 i/J.3 Besides the son John, Richard
of Snitterfield certainly had a son Henry ; while a
Thomas Shakespeare, a considerable landholder at

1 Cf. Times, October 14, 1895 ; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. viii.
501 ; articles by Mrs. Stopes in Genealogical Magazine, 1897.

2 Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 1887,
ii. 207.

3 The purchasing power of money was then eight times what it is
now, and this and other sums mentioned should be multiplied by eight
in comparing them with modern currency (see p. 197 «). The letters of
administration in regard to Richard Shakespeare's estate are in the district
registry of the Probate Court at Worcester, and were printed in full by
Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps in his Shakespeare's Tours (privately issued
1887), pp. 44-5- They do not appear in any edition of Mr. Halliwell-
Phillipps's Outlines. Certified extracts appeared in Notes and Queries,
8th ser. xii. 463-4.

6 2

4 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Snitterfield between 1563 and 1583, whose parentage
is undetermined, 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 embarrassed circumstances in December
1596. John, the son who administered Richard's
estate, was in all likelihood the poet's father.

About 1551 John Shakespeare left Snitterfield,
which was his birthplace, to seek a career in the
The poet's neighbouring borough of Stratford-on-Avon.
father. There he soon set up as a trader in all
manner of agricultural produce. Corn, wool, malt,
meat, skins, and leather were among the commodities
in which he dealt. Documents of a somewhat later
date often describe him as a glover. Aubrey, Shake-
speare's first biographer, reported the tradition that he
was a butcher. But though both designations doubt-
less indicated important branches of his business,
neither can be regarded as disclosing its full extent.
The land which his family farmed at Snitterfield
supplied him with his varied stock-in-trade. As long
as his father lived he seems to have been a frequent
visitor to Snitterfield, and, like his father and brothers,
he was until the date of his father's death occasionally
designated a farmer or ' husbandman ' of that place.
But it was with Stratford-on-Avon that his life was
mainly identified.

In April 1 552 he was living there in Henley Street,
a thoroughfare leading to the market town of Henley -
in-Arden, and he is first mentioned in the borough
records as paying in that month a fine of twelve-

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 5

pence for having a dirt-heap in front of his house.

His frequent appearances in the years that follow as

either plaintiff or defendant in suits heard

His settle- ,

mem at in the local court of record for the recovery
of small debts suggest that he was a keen man
of business. In early life he prospered in trade, and
in October 1556 purchased 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. In 1557 he was elected an ale-taster, whose
duty it was to test the quality of malt liquors and
bread. About the same time he was elected a burgess
or town councillor, 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 — in 1 5 59 and 1 561 — he was chosen
one of the affeerors — officers appointed to determine
the fines for those offences 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 responsibility which he held for two years. He
delivered his second statement of accounts to the cor-
poration in January 1564. When attesting docu-
ments he occasionally made his mark, but there is
evidence in the Stratford archives that he could write
with facility ; and he was credited with financial apti-
tude. The municipal accounts, which were checked
by tallies and counters, were audited by him after he

6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ceased to be chamberlain, and he more than once
advanced small sums of money to the corporation.

With characteristic shrewdness he chose a wife of
assured fortune — Mary, youngest daughter of Robert
Arden, a wealthy farmer of Wilmcote in the parish of
Aston Cantlowe, near Stratford. The Arden family
The poet's in its chief branch, which was settled at Park-
mother. hall> Warwickshire, 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, Edward Arden, who was himself
high sheriff of Warwickshire in 1575, was executed
in 1583 for alleged complicity in a Roman Catholic
plot against the life of Queen Elizabeth.1 John
Shakespeare's wife belonged to a humbler branch of
the family, and there is no trustworthy evidence to
determine the exact degree of kinship between the
two branches. Her grandfather, Thomas Arden, pur-
chased in 1501 an estate at Snitterfield, 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, survived
him ; but by her he had no issue. When he died at
the end of 1556, he owned a farmhouse at Wilmcote

1 French, Genealogica Shakespeareana, pp. 458 seq. ;cf. p. 191 infra.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 7

and many acres, 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 lived 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 December 16
following, indicates that he was an observant Catholic.
For his two youngest daughters, Alice and Mary, he
showed especial affection by nominating them his
executors. Mary received not only 61. 13^. 4</. in
money, but the fee-simple of Asbies, his chief pro-
perty at Wilmcote, consisting of a house with some
fifty acres of land. She also acquired, under an
earlier settlement, an interest in two messuages at
Snitterfield.1 But, although she was well provided
with worldly goods, she was apparently without educa-
tion ; several extant documents bear her mark, and
there is no proof that she could sign her name.

John Shakespeare's marriage with Mary Arden
doubtless took place at Aston Cantlowe, the parish
church of Wilmcote, in the autumn of 1557 (the
church registers begin at a later date). On Septem-
ber 15, 1558, his first child, a daughter, Joan, was
baptised in the church of Stratford. A second child,
another daughter, Margaret, was baptised on Decem-
ber 2, 1562 ; but both these children died in infancy.
The poet William, the first son and third child, was

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 179.

8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

born on April 22 or 23, 1564. The latter date is
generally accepted as his birthday, mainly (it would
The poefs aPPear) on tne ground that it was the day
birth and of his death. There is no positive evidence

baptism. .

on the subject, but the Stratford parish
registers attest that he was baptised on April 26.

Some doubt is justifiable as to the ordinarily
accepted scene of his birth. Of two adjoining houses
Alleged forming a detached building on the north
birthplace. s^e of Henley Street, that to the east was
purchased by John Shakespeare in 1556, but there is
no evidence that he owned or occupied the house to
the west before 1575. Yet this western house has
been known since 1759 as the poet's birthplace, and
a room on the first floor is claimed as that in which
he was born.1 The two houses subsequently came
by bequest of the poet's granddaughter to the family
of the poet's sister, Joan Hart, and while the eastern
tenement was let out to strangers for more than
two centuries, and by them converted into an inn,
the 'birthplace' was until 1806 occupied by the
Harts, who latterly carried on there the trade of
butcher. The fact of its long occupancy by the
poet's collateral descendants accounts for the identi-
fication of the western rather than the eastern tene-
ment with his birthplace. Both houses were pur-
chased in behalf of subscribers to a public fund in
1846, and, after extensive restoration, were converted
into a single domicile for the purposes of a public
museum. They were presented under a deed of

1 Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, Letter to Elze, 1888.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 9

trust to the corporation of Stratford in 1866. Much
of the Elizabethan timber and stonework survives,
but a cellar under the ' birthplace ' is the only por-
tion which remains as it was at the date of the poet's
birth.1

1 Cf. Documents and Sketches in Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 377-99-

10 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE

IN July 1564, when William was three months old,
the plague raged with unwonted vehemence at Strat-
ford, and his father liberally contributed to

The father

in munici- the relief of its poverty-stricken victims.
Fortune still favoured him. On July 4, 1565,
he reached the dignity of an alderman. From 1567
onwards he was accorded in the corporation archives
the honourable prefix of Mr.' At Michaelmas 1568
he attained the highest office in the corporation gift,
that of bailiff, and during his year of office the corpo-
ration 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.1 On September 5, 1 571, he was chief

1 The Rev. Thomas Carter, in Shakespeare, Puritan and Recusant,
1897, has endeavoured to show that John Shakespeare was a puritan
in religious matters, inclining to nonconformity. He deduces this
inference from the fact that, at the period of his prominent association
with the municipal government of Stratford, the corporation ordered
images to be defaced (1562-3) and ecclesiastical vestments to be sold
(1571). These entries merely prove that the aldermen and councillors
of Stratford strictly conformed to the new religion as by law established
in the first years of Elizabeth's reign. Nothing can be deduced from
them in regard to the private religious opinions of John Shakespeare.
The circumstance that he was the first bailiff to encourage actors to

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE II

alderman, a post which he retained till September 30
the following year. In 1573 Alexander Webbe, the
husband of his wife's sister Agnes, made him overseer
of his will ; in 1575 he bought two houses in Stratford,
one of them doubtless the alleged birthplace in Henley
Street ; in 1 576 he contributed twelvepence to the
beadle's salary. But after Michaelmas 1572 he took
a less active part in municipal affairs ; he grew
irregular in his attendance at the council meetings>
and signs were soon apparent that his luck had
turned. In 1578 he was unable to pay, with his
colleagues, either the sum of fourpence for the relief
of the poor or his contribution ' towards the furniture
of three pikemen, two bellmen, 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 chil-
dren besides the poet — three sons, Gilbert (baptised
Brothers October 13, 1566), Richard (baptised March
and sisters, II} 1574), and Edmund (baptised May 3,
1580), with a daughter Joan (baptised April 15, 1569)
— reached maturity. A daughter Ann was baptised
September 28, 1571, and was buried on April 4, 1579.
To meet his growing liabilities, the father borrowed
money from his wife's kinsfolk, and he and his wife

visit Stratford is, on the other hand, conclusive proof that his religion
was not that of the contemporary puritan, whose hostility to all forms of
dramatic representations was one of his most persistent characteristics.
The Elizabethan puritans, too, according to Guillim's Display of
Heraldrie (1610), regarded coat-armour with abhorrence, yet John
Shakespeare with his son made persistent application to the College
of Arms for a grant of arms. (Cf. infra, p. 187 seq.)

12 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

mortgaged, on November 14, 1578, Asbies, her
valuable property at Wilmcote, for 4O/. 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 apparently
of 4O/., his wife's property at Snitterfield.1

John Shakespeare obviously chafed under the
humiliation of having parted, although as he hoped
The only temporarily, with his wife's property of

financili Asbies, and in the autumn of 1 580 he offered
difficulties, to pay off 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
distraint could be levied.2 On September 6, 1586,
John was deprived of his alderman's gown, on the
ground of his long absence from the council meetings.3

1 The sum is stated to be 4/. in one document (Halliwell-Phillipps,
ii. 176) and 4O/. in another (ib. p. 179) ; the latter is more likely to be
correct. 2 Ib. ii. 238.

3 Efforts recently made to assign the embarrassments of Shake-
speare's father to another John Shakespeare of Stratford deserve little
attention. The second John Shakespeare or Shakspere (as his name is
usually spelt) came to Stratford as a young man in 1584, and was for ten
years a well-to-do shoemaker in Bridge Street, filling the office of Master

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 13

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,

which was reconstituted on a mediaeval foundation

by Edward VI. The eldest son, William,

Education.

probably entered the school in 1571, when
Walter Roche was master, and perhaps he knew some-
thing of Thomas Hunt, who succeeded Roche in 1577.
The instruction that he received was mainly confined
to the Latin language and literature. From the Latin
accidence, boys of the period, at schools of the type
of that at Stratford, were led, through conversa-
tion books like the ' Sentential Pueriles ' and Lily's
grammar, to the perusal of such authors as Seneca
Terence, Cicero, Virgil, Plautus, Ovid, and Horace.
The eclogues of the popular renaissance poet, Man-
tuanus, were often preferred to Virgil's for beginners
The rudiments of Greek were occasionally taught
in Elizabethan grammar schools to very promising
pupils ; but such coincidences as have been detected
between expressions in Greek plays and in Shake-
speare seem due to accident, and not to any study,
either at school or elsewhere, of the Athenian drama.1

of the Shoemakers' Company in 1592 — a certain sign of pecuniary
stability. He left Stratford in 1594 (cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 137-40).
1 James Russell 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 Greed et LatinZ 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 com-

14 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Dr. Farmer enunciated in his ' Essay on Shake-
speare's Learning' (1767) the theory that Shakespeare
knew no language but his own, and owed whatever
knowledge he displayed of the classics and of Italian
and French literature to English translations. But
several of the books in French and Italian whence
Shakespeare derived the plots of his dramas — Belle-
forest's 'Histoires Tragiques,' Ser Giovanni's 'II
Pecorone,' and Cinthio's ' Hecatommithi,' for example

monplace argument as that with which Hamlet's mother and uncle seek
to console him. In Electra, are the lines 1171-3 :

0C7/TOU ireQvKas ita.rp&s, 'HAeicrpa, <pp6vti'
&vr]rbs 5' 'OpeffTTjs' Sore /u^j \'iav mtvf.
Haffiv yap yfiiv TOUT' o<pfi\frai iraOelj/

(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 sq.) 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. Sophocles's CEdipus Colonens, 880 : To?j rot Smalots xa' &p<*X*>s »"««
peyav (' In a just cause the weak vanquishes the strong,' Jebb), and
2 Henry VI, iii. 233, ' Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.'
Shakespeare's ' prophetic soul ' in Hamlet (I. v. 40) and the Sonnets (cvii.
i ) may be matched by the trp6/j.avTts 6v^6s of Euripides's Andromache,
1075 ; and Hamlet's ' sea of troubles' (ill. i. 59) by the HO.KUV ite\ayos
of jEschylus's Pers<z< 443. Among all the creations of Shakespearean
and Greek drama, Lady Macbeth and ^ischylus's Clytemnestra, who
' in man's counsels bore no woman's heart ' (yvvatitbs av8p6flou\ov
f\irl£ov neap, Agamemnon, u), most closely resemble each other. But
a study of the points of resemblance attests no knowledge of ^Eschylus
on Shakespeare's part, but merely the close community of tragic genius
that subsisted between the two poets.

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 1 5

— were not accessible to him in English translations ;
and on more general grounds the theory of his igno-
rance is adequately confuted. A boy with Shake-
speare's exceptional 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 literature of France and Italy.
With the Latin and French languages, indeed,
and with many Latin poets of the school curriculum,
Shakespeare in his writings openly acknowledged his
acquaintance. In ' Henry V ' the dialogue in many
scenes is carried on in French, which is grammatically
accurate if not idiomatic. In the mouth of his school-
masters, Holofernes in ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and

Sir Hugh Evans in ' Merry Wives of
classical Windsor,' Shakespeare placed Latin phrases

drawn directly from Lily's grammar, from
the ' Sentential Pueriles,' and from ' the good old
Mantuan.' The influence of Ovid, especially the
' Metamorphoses,' was apparent throughout his earliest
literary work, both poetic and dramatic, and is dis-
cernible in the ' Tempest,' his latest play (v. i. 33 seq.)
In the Bodleian Library there is a copy of the Aldine
edition of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' (1502), and on
the title is the signature ' Wra. She., which experts
have declared — not quite conclusively — to be a
genuine autograph of the poet.1 Ovid's Latin text
was certainly not unfamiliar to him, but his closest
adaptations of Ovid's ' Metamorphoses ' often reflect
the phraseology of the popular English version by

1 Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, 1890, pp. 379 seq.

16 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Arthur Golding, of which some seven editions were
issued between 1565 and 1597. From Plautus
Shakespeare drew the plot of the ' Comedy of Errors,'
but it is just possible that Plautus's comedies, too,
were accessible in English. Shakespeare had no title
to rank as a classical scholar, and he did not disdain
a liberal use of translations. His lack of exact
scholarship fully accounts for the ' small Latin and
less Greek ' with which he was credited by his
scholarly friend, Ben Jonson. But Aubrey's report
that ' he understood Latin pretty well ' need not be
contested, and his knowledge of French may be
estimated to have equalled his knowledge of Latin,
while he doubtless possessed just sufficient acquaint-
ance with Italian to enable him to discern the drift
of an Italian poem or novel.1

Of the few English books accessible to him in his
schooldays, the chief was the English Bible, either
in the popular Genevan version, first issued in a com-
plete form in 1560, or in the Bishops' revision of 1568,
which the Authorised Version of 161 1 closely followed.
References to scriptural characters and incidents are
not conspicuous in Shakespeare's plays, but, such as
they are, they are drawn from all parts of

Shake- *

speareand the Bible, and indicate that general ac-
quaintance with the narrative of both Old
and New Testaments which a clever boy would be
certain to acquire either in the schoolroom or at
church on Sundays. Shakespeare quotes or adapts

1 Cf. Spencer Baynes, ' What Shakespeare learnt at School,' in
Shakespeare Studies, 1894, pp. 147 seq.

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 17

biblical phrases with far greater frequency than he
makes allusion to episodes in biblical history. But
many such phrases enjoyed proverbial currency, and
others, which were more recondite, were borrowed
from Holinshed's ' Chronicles ' and secular works
whence he drew his plots. As a rule his use of scrip-
tural phraseology, as of scriptural history, suggests
youthful reminiscence and the assimilative tendency
of the mind in a stage of early development rather
than close and continuous study of the Bible in
adult life.1

Shakespeare was a schoolboy in July 1575, when
Queen Elizabeth made a progress through Warwick-
shire on a visit to her favourite, the Earl of Leicester,
at his castle of Kenilworth. References have been
detected in Oberon's vision in Shakespeare's ' Mid-
summer Night's Dream ' (II. ii. 148-68) to the fantastic
pageants and masques with which the Queen during
her stay was entertained in Kenilworth Park. Lei-
cester's residence was only fifteen miles from Stratford,
and it is possible that Shakespeare went thither with
his father to witness some of the open-air festivities ;
but two full descriptions which were published in
1 576, in pamphlet form, gave Shakespeare knowledge
of all that took place.2 Shakespeare's opportunities of
recreation outside Stratford were in any case restricted
during his schooldays. His father's financial difficul-

1 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 piety are strained.

'* See p. 161 infra.

T8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ties grew steadily, and they caused his removal from
school at an unusually early age. Probably in 1577,
with- when he was thirteen, he was enlisted by his
from*1 father in an effort to restore his decay ing for-
schooi. tunes. 'I have been told heretofore,' wrote
Aubrey, ' by some of the neighbours 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 Strat-
ford tradition describes him as 'a butcher's apprentice.' '
1 When he kill'd a calf,' Aubrey proceeds less convin-
cingly, ' 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 acquaintance, and coeta-
nean, but dyed young.'

At the end of 1582 Shakespeare, when little more
than eighteen and a half years old, took a step which
The poet's was ^^e calculated to lighten his father's
marriage, anxieties. He married. His wife, accord-
ing to the inscription on her tombstone, was his
senior by eight years. Rowe states that she ' was the
daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a sub-
stantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford.'

On September i, 1581, Richard Hathaway, 'hus-
bandman ' of Shottery, a hamlet in the parishiof Old

1 Notes of John Dowdall, a tourist in Warwickshire! in 1693
(published in 1838).

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 19

Stratford, made his will, which was proved on July 9,

1582, and is now preserved at Somerset House.

His house and land. ' two and a half

Richard

Hathaway virgates,' had been long held in copyhold
by his family, and he died in fairly pro-
sperous circumstances. His wife Joan, the chief
legatee, was directed to carry on the farm with the aid
of her eldest son, Bartholomew, to whom a share in
its proceeds was assigned. Six other children — three
sons and three daughters — received sums of money ;
Agnes, the eldest daughter, and Catherine, the second
daughter, were each allotted 61. 13.$-. 4^., ' to be paid
at the day of her marriage,' a phrase common in wills
Anne of the period. Anne and Agnes were in the
Hathaway, sixteenth century alternative spellings 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,
Shakespeare's wife.

The house at Shottery, now known as Anne
Hathaway's cottage, and reached from Stratford by
field-paths, undoubtedly once formed part of Richard
Anne Hathaway's farmhouse, and, despite nume-

wa'^cot rous alterations and renovations, still pre-
tase- serves many features of a thatched farmhouse

of the Elizabethan period. The house remained in
the Hathaway family till 1838, although the male line
became extinct 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

20 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

included Shottery, and thus both bride and bride-
groom were parishioners, the Stratford parish register
is silent on the subject. A local tradition, which
seems to have come into being during the present
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 documentary evidence directly
bearing on the poet's matrimonial venture is accessible.
In the registry of the bishop of the diocese (Worcester)
a deed is extant wherein Fulk Sandells and John
Richardson, ' husbandmen of Stratford,' bound them-
selves in the bishop's consistory court, on November
28, 1582, in a surety of 4O/., to free the bishop of all
liability should a lawful impediment — ' by reason of
The bond any precontract ' [i.e. with a third party] or
fmpedt consanguinity — be subsequently disclosed to
ments. imperil the validity of the marriage, then in
contemplation, of William Shakespeare with Anne
Hathaway. On the assumption that no such impedi-
ment was known to exist, and provided that Anne
obtained the consent of her 'friends,' the marriage
might proceed 'with once asking of the bannes of
matrimony betwene them.'

Bonds of similar purport, although differing in
significant details, are extant in all diocesan registries
of the sixteenth century. They were obtainable on
the payment of a fee to the bishop's commissary, and
had the effect of expediting the marriage ceremony
while protecting the clergy from the consequences of
any possible breach of canonical law. But they were not

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 21

common, and it was rare for persons in the compara-
tively humble position in life of Anne Hathaway and
young Shakespeare to adopt such cumbrous formalities
when there was always available the simpler, less ex-
pensive, and more leisurely method of marriage by
' thrice asking of the banns.' Moreover, the wording
of the bond which was drawn before Shakespeare's
marriage differs in important respects from that
adopted in all other known examples.1 In the latter
it is invariably 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 absolutely essential to
strictly regular procedure, although clergymen might
be found who were ready to shut their eyes to the
facts of the situation and to run the risk of solemnis-
ing the marriage of an ' infant ' without inquiry as to
the parents' consent. The clergyman who united
Shakespeare in wedlock to Anne Hathaway 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 years a minor, the
Shakespeare 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

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

22 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

of the kind the name either of the bridegroom him-
self or of the 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
' supervisor ' 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
Richardson, representing the lady's family, doubt-
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 con-
sent of the bridegroom's parents — it may be without
their knowledge — soon after the signing of the
deed. Within six months — in May 1583 — a daughter
Birth of a was b°rn to the poet, and was baptised
daughter. jn the name of Susanna at Stratford parish
church on the 26th.

Shakespeare's apologists have endeavoured to
show that the public betrothal or formal ' troth-plight '
which was at the time a common prelude to a
wedding carried with it all the privileges of marriage.
But neither Shakespeare's detailed description of a

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 23

betrothal ' nor of the solemn verbal contract that
ordinarily preceded marriage lends the contention

much support. Moreover, the whole circum-
betrothai stances of the case render it highly im-
dispensed probable that Shakespeare and his bride

submitted to the formal preliminaries 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 ' William Shakespeare,' to
whom, according to an entry in the Bishop of Wor-
cester'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 is unsafe to assume that the bishop's
clerk, when making a note of the grant of the license
in his register, erred so extensively as to write ' Anne

1 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;

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
Julia after the contract of betrothal and before the formality of marriage
(cf. act i. sc. ii. 1. 155, act iv. sc. i. 1. 73).

24 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Whateley of Temple Grafton ' for { Anne Hathaway
of Shottery.' The husband of Anne Whateley cannot
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 Novem-
ber 2/,1 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 wholly supererogatory after the grant
was made.

1 No marriage registers of the period are extant at Temple Grafton
to inform us whether Anne Whately actually married her William
Shakespeare or who precisely the parties were. A Whateley family-
resided in Stratford, but there is nothing to show that Anne of Temple
Grafton was connected with it. The chief argument against the con-
clusion that the marriage license and the marriage bond concerned
different couples lies in the apparent improbability that two persons,
both named William Shakespeare, should on two successive days not
only be arranging with the Bishop of Worcester's official 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 proce-
dure than were habitual to the humbler ranks of contemporary society.
But the Worcester diocese covered a very wide area, and was honey-
combed with Shakespeare families of all degrees of gentility. The
William Shakespeare whom Anne Whately was licensed to marry may
have been of a superior station, to which marriage by license was
deemed appropriate. On the unwarranted assumption of the identity
of the William Shakespeare of the marriage bond with the William
Shakespeare of the marriage license, a romantic theory has been
based to the effect that 'Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton,' believing
herself to have a just claim to the poet's hand, secured the license on
hearing of the proposed action of Anne Hathaway's friends, and hoped,
by moving in the matter a day before the Shottery husbandmen, to
insure Shakespeare's fidelity to his alleged pledges.

III

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD

ANNE HATHAWAY'S greater burden of years and the
likelihood that the poet was forced into marrying her
by her friends were not circumstances of happy augury.
Although it is dangerous to read into Shakespeare's
dramatic utterances allusions to his personal experi-
ence, the emphasis with which he insists that a
woman should take in marriage an ' elder than her-
self,' l and that prenuptial intimacy is productive of
' barren hate, sour-eyed disdain, and discord,' suggest
a personal interpretation.2 To both these unpromis-
ing features was added, in the poet's case, the absence
of a means of livelihood, and his course of life in the

1 Twelfth Night, act ii. 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.

26 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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.
All the evidence points to the conclusion, which
the fact that he had no more children confirms,
that in the later months of the year (1585) he left
Stratford, and that, although he was never wholly
estranged from his family, he saw little of wife or
children for eleven years. Between the winter of
1585 and the autumn of 1596 — an interval which
synchronises with his first literary triumphs— there is
only one shadowy mention of his name in Stratford
records. In April 1587 there died Edmund Lambert,
who held Asbies under the mortgage of 1578, and a
few months later Shakespeare's name, as owner of a
contingent interest, was joined to that of his father
and mother in a formal assent given to an abortive
proposal to confer on Edmund's son and heir, John
Lambert, an absolute title to the estate on condition
of his cancelling the mortgage and paying 2O/. But
the deed does not indicate that Shakespeare per-
sonally assisted at the transaction.1

Shakespeare's early literary work proves that
while in 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
1 Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 11-13.

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD 2/

poems.1 And his sporting experiences passed at times
beyond orthodox limits. A poaching adventure,
according to a credible tradition, was the immediate
cause of his long severance from his native place. ' He
had,' wrote Rowe in 1709, ' by a misfortune common
enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and,
among them, some, that made a frequent practice of
deer-stealing, engaged him with them more than

once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir
at Charie- Thomas Lucy of Charlecote near Stratford.

For this he was prosecuted by that gentle-
man, as he thought, somewhat too severely ; and, in
order to revenge 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 and shelter
himself in London.' The independent testimony of
Archdeacon Davies, who was vicar of Saperton,
Gloucestershire, late in the seventeenth century, is to
the effect that Shakespeare ' was much given to all
unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, par-
ticularly 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 Eliz. cap. 21)

' Cf. Ellacombe, Shakespeare as an Angler, 1883 ; J. E. Halting,
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 William
Silence: a Study of Shakespeare and Elizabethan Sport, 1897.

28 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

punished deer-stealers with three months' imprison-
ment and the payment of thrice the amount of the
damage done.

The tradition has been challenged on the ground
that the Charlecote deer-park was of later date than
Unwar- ^e S)xteenth century. But Sir Thomas
ranted Lucy was an extensive game-preserver,

doubts of

the tradi- and owned at Charlecote a warren in which
a few harts or does doubtless found an
occasional home. Samuel Ireland was informed
in 1794 that Shakespeare stole the deer, not from
Charlecote, but from Fulbroke Park, a few miles
off, and Ireland supplied in his ' Views on the
Warwickshire Avon,' I795> an engraving of an old
farmhouse in the hamlet of Fulbroke, where he
asserted that Shakespeare was temporarily imprisoned
after his arrest. An adjoining hovel was locally
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 Elizabeth's reign, and the amended
legend, which was solemnly confided to Sir Walter
Scott in 1828 by the owner of Charlecote, seems pure
invention.1

The ballad which Shakespeare is reported to have
fastened on the park gates of Charlecote does not, as
Rowe acknowledged, survive. No authenticity can
be allowed the worthless lines beginning ' A parlia-
ment member, a justice of peace,' which were repre-

1 Cf. C. Holte Bracebridge, Shakespeare no Poacher, 1862 ; Lock-
hart, Life of Scott, vii. 123.

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD 29

sented to be Shakespeare's on the authority of an old
man who lived near Stratford and died in 1703. But
such an incident as the tradition reveals has left a
distinct impress on Shakespearean drama. Justice
justice Shallow is beyond doubt a reminiscence of
Shallow. the owner Of Charlecote. According to
Archdeacon Davies of Saperton, Shakespeare's ' re-
venge was so great that' he caricatured 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 Clod-
pate,' came to birth in the ' Second Part of Henry IV '
(1598), and he is represented in the opening scene of
the ' Merry Wives of Windsor ' as having come from
Gloucestershire to Windsor to make a Star-Chamber
matter of a poaching raid on his estate. The ' three
luces hauriant argent' were the arms borne by the
Charlecote Lucys, and the dramatist's prolonged
reference in this scene to the ' dozen white luces '
on Justice Shallow's 'old coat' fully establishes
Shallow's identity with Lucy.

The poaching episode is best assigned to 1585,

but it may be questioned whether Shakespeare, on

fleeing from Lucy's persecution, at once

The flight , . T ,

from strat- sought an asylum in London. William Bees-
ton, a seventeenth-century actor, remem-
bered 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 neighbouring village. The

30 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 Kenil-
worth was within easy reach of Stratford, is based on
an obvious confusion between him and others of his
name.1 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 evidence be conclusive, is to underrate his
intuitive power of realising life under almost every
aspect by force of his imagination.

1 Cf. W. J. Thorns, Three Notelets on Shakespeare, 1865, pp.
1 6 seq.

ON THE LONDON STAGE

To London Shakespeare naturally drifted, doubt-
less trudging thither on foot during 1586, by way
of Oxford and High Wycombe.1 Tradition

The jour- . r-i

neyto points to that as Shakespeare's favoured
route, rather than to the road by Banbury
and Aylesbury. Aubrey asserts that at Grendon
near Oxford, 'he happened to take the humour of
the constable in " Midsummer Night's Dream " ' — by
which he meant, we may suppose, ' Much Ado about
Nothing ' — but there were watchmen of the Dogberry
type all over England, and probably at Stratford
itself. The Crown Inn (formerly 3 Cornmarket
Street) near Carfax, at Oxford, was long pointed out
as one of his resting-places.

To only one resident in London is Shakespeare
likely to have been known previously.2 Richard

1 Cf. Hales, Notes on Shakespeare, 1884, pp. 1-24.

- The common assumption that Richard Burbage, the chief actor with
whom Shakespeare was associated, was a native of Stratford is wholly
erroneous. Richard was born in Shoreditch, and his father came from
Hertfordshire. John Heming, another of Shakespeare's actor-friends
who has also been claimed as a native of Stratford, was beyond reason-
able doubt born at Droitwich in Worcestershire. Thomas Greene, a

32 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Field, a native of Stratford, and son of a friend ot

Shakespeare's father, had left Stratford in 1579

to serve an apprenticeship with Thomas

Richard r

Field, his Vautrollier, the London printer. Shake-
speare and Field, who was made free of the
Stationers' Company in 1587, were soon associated
as author and publisher ; but the theory that Field
found work for Shakespeare in Vautrollier's print-
ing-office is fanciful.1 No more can be said for the
attempt to prove that he obtained employment as
a lawyer's clerk. In view of his general quickness
of apprehension, Shakespeare's accurate use of legal
terms, which deserves all the attention that has been
paid it, may be attributable in part to his observation
of the many legal processes in which his father was
involved, and in part to early intercourse with
members of the Inns of Court.2

Tradition and common-sense alike point to one

of the only two theatres (The Theatre or The Curtain)

that existed in London at the date of his

Theatrical

employ- arrival as an early scene of his regular

occupation. The compiler of ' Lives of the

Poets' (i753)3 was the first to relate the story that

popular comic actor at the Red Bull Theatre early in the seventeenth
century, is conjectured to have belonged to Stratford on no grounds
that deserve attention ; Shakespeare was in no way associated with
him.

1 Blades, Shaksperc and Typography, 1872.

- Cf. Lord Campbell, Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements, 1859.
Legal terminology abounded in all plays and poems of the period, e.g.
Barnabe Barnes's Sonnets, 1593, and Zepheria, 1594 (see Appendix ix.)

3 Commonly assigned to Theophilus Gibber, but written by Robert
Shiels and other hack-writers under Cibbcr's editorship.

ON THE LONDON STAGE 33

his original connection with the playhouse was as
holder of the horses of visitors outside the doors.
According to the same compiler, the story was related
by D'Avenant to Betterton ; but Rowe, to whom
Betterton communicated it, made no use of it. The
two regular theatres of the time were both reached on
horseback by men of fashion, and the owner of The
Theatre, James Burbage, kept a livery stable at
Smithfield. There is no inherent improbability in the
tale. Dr. Johnson's amplified version, in which Shake-
speare was represented as organising a service of boys
for the purpose of tending visitors' horses, sounds
apocryphal.

There is every indication that Shakespeare was
speedily offered employment inside the playhouse.
In 1587 the two chief companies of actors, claiming
respectively the nominal patronage of the Queen and
Lord Leicester, returned to London from a provincial
tour, during which they visited Stratford. Two subor-
dinate companies, one of which claimed the patronage
of the Earl of Essex and the other that of Lord
Stafford, also performed in the town during the same
year. Shakespeare's friends may have called the
attention of the strolling players to the homeless lad,
rumours of whose search for employment about the
London theatres had doubtless reached Stratford.
From such incidents seems to have sprung

A play- . , . f

house ser- the opportunity which ottered Shakespeare
fame and fortune. According to Rowe's
vague statement, ' he was received into the com-
pany then in being at first in a very mean rank.'

34 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Castle, the parish clerk of Stratford at the
end of the seventeenth century, was in the habit of
telling visitors that he entered the playhouse as a
servitor. Malone recorded in 1780 a stage tradition
' that his first office in the theatre was that of
prompter's attendant ' or call-boy. His intellectual
capacity and the amiability with which he turned
to account his versatile powers were probably soon
recognised, and thenceforth his promotion was
assured.

Shakespeare's earliest reputation was made as an
actor, and, although his work as a dramatist soon
The acting eclipsed his histrionic fame, he remained a
companies, prominent member of the actor's profession
till near the end of his life. By an Act of Parlia-
ment of 1571 (14 Eliz. cap. 2), which was re-enacted
in 1596 (39 Eliz. cap. 4), players were under the
necessity of procuring a license to pursue their
calling from a peer of the realm or ' personage of
higher degree ; ' otherwise they were adjudged to be
of the status of rogues and vagabonds. The Queen
herself and many Elizabethan peers were liberal in
the exercise of their licensing powers, and few actors
failed to secure a statutory license, which gave them a
rank of respectability, and relieved them of all risk
of identification with vagrants or ' sturdy beggars.'
From an early period in Elizabeth's reign licensed
actors were organised into permanent companies. In
1587 and following years, besides three companies
of duly licensed boy-actors that were formed from
the choristers of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Chapel

ON THE LONDON STAGE 35

Royal and from Westminster scholars, there were
in London at least six companies of fully licensed
adult actors ; five of these were called after the noble-
men to whom their members respectively owed their
licenses (viz. the Earls of Leicester, Oxford, Sussex,
and Worcester, and the Lord Admiral, Charles, lord
Howard of Effingham), and one of them whose actors
derived their license from the Queen was called the
Queen's Company.

The patron's functions in relation to the companies
seem to have been mainly confined to the grant
or renewal of the actors' licenses. Constant altera-
tions of name, owing to the death or change from
other causes of the patrons, render it difficult to
trace with certainty each company's history. But
there seems no doubt that the most influential of
the companies named — that under the nominal
patronage of the Earl of Leicester — passed on his
death in September 1588 to the patronage of
Ferdinando Stanley, lord Strange, who became Earl
of Derby on September 25, 1592. When the Earl of
Derby died on April 16, 1594, his place as patron and
licenser was successively filled by Henry Carey, first
The Lord l°rd Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain (d. July 23,
£iiVslber~ 1596), and by his son and heir, George
company. Carey, second lord Hunsdon, who himself
became Lord Chamberlain in March 1597. After
King James's succession in May 1603 the company
was promoted to be the King's players, and, thus ad-
vanced in dignity, it fully maintained the supremacy

D 2

36 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

which, under its successive titles, it had already long
enjoyed.

It is fair to infer that this was the company
that Shakespeare originally joined and adhered to
through life. Documentary evidence proves that he
was a member of it in December 1594; in May
A member J6o3 ne was one of its leaders. Four
Chahmbfr-d of its chief members— Richard Burbage,
Iain's. the greatest tragic actor of the day, John
Heming, Henry Condell, and Augustine Phillips
— were among Shakespeare's lifelong friends. Under
this company's auspices, moreover, Shakespeare's
plays first saw the light. Only two of the plays
claimed for him — ' Titus Andronicus ' and ' 3 Henry
VI ' — seem to have been performed by other com-
panies (the Earl of Sussex's men in the one case, and
the Earl of Pembroke's in the other).

When Shakespeare became a member of the com-
pany it was doubtless performing at The Theatre, the
playhouse in Shoreditch which James Burbage, the
father of the great actor, Richard Burbage, had con-
structed in 1576 ; it abutted on the Finsbury Fields, and
stood outside the City's boundaries. The only other
London playhouse then in existence — the Curtain
in Moorfields — was near at hand ; its name survives
in Curtain Road, Shoreditch. But at an early date
in his acting career Shakespeare's company

The Lon- . *

don sought and found new quarters. While

known as Lord Strange's men, they opened

on February 19, 1592, a third London theatre, called

the Rose, which Philip Henslowe, the speculative

ON THE LONDON STAGE 37

theatrical manager, had erected on the Bankside,
Southwark. At the date of the inauguration of the
Rose Theatre Shakespeare's company was temporarily
allied with another company, the Admiral's men, who
numbered the great actor Edward Alleyn among them.
Alleyn for a few months undertook the direction of
the amalgamated companies, but they quickly parted,
and no further opportunity was offered Shakespeare of
enjoying professional relations with Alleyn. The Rose
Theatre was doubtless the earliest scene of Shake-
speare's pronounced successes alike as actor and
dramatist. Subsequently for a short time in 1594 he
frequented the stage of another new theatre at Newing-
ton Butts, and between 1595 and 1599 the older
stages of the Curtain and of The Theatre in Shore-
ditch. The Curtain remained open till the Civil
Wars, although its vogue after 1600 was eclipsed
by that of younger rivals. In 1599 Richard Burbage
and his brother Cuthbert demolished the old build-
ing of The Theatre and built, mainly out of the
materials of the dismantled fabric, the famous theatre
called the Globe on the Bankside. It was octagonal
in shape, and built of wood, and doubtless Shake-
speare described it (rather than the Curtain) as ' this
wooden O ' in the opening chorus of ' Henry V '
(1. 13). After 1 599 the Globe was mainly occupied
by Shakespeare's company, and in its profits he
acquired an important share. From the date of its
inauguration until the poet's retirement, the Globe —
which quickly won the first place among London
theatres — seems to have been the sole playhouse with

38 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

which Shakespeare was professionally associated. The
equally familiar Blackfriars Theatre, which was created
out of a dwelling-house by James Burbage, the actor's
father, at the end of 1 596, was for many years after-
wards leased out to the company of boy-actors known
as ' the Queen's Children of the Chapel ; ' it was not
occupied by Shakespeare's company until December
1609 or January 1610, when his acting days were
nearing their end.1

In London Shakespeare resided near the theatres.
According to a memorandum by Alleyn (which
Malone quoted), he lodged in 1596 near
residence 'the Bear Garden in South wark.' In 1598
one William Shakespeare, who was assessed
by the collectors of a subsidy in the sum of 13^. ^d.
upon goods valued at 5/., was a resident in St. Helen's
parish, Bishopsgate, but it is not certain that this tax-
payer was the dramatist.2

The chief differences between the methods of
theatrical representation in Shakespeare's day and
our own lay in the fact that neither scenery nor
scenic costume nor women-actors were known to
the Elizabethan stage. All female roles were, until
the Restoration in 1660, assumed in the public
theatres by men or boys.3 Consequently the skill
needed to rouse in the audience the requisite illusions

1 The site of the Blackfriars Theatre is now occupied by the offices
of the 'Times ' newspaper in Queen Victoria Street, E.G.

2 Cf. Exchequer Lay Subsidies City of London, 146/369, Public
Record Office ; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. viii. 418.

3 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

ON THE LONDON STAGE 39

was far greater then than at later periods. But the
professional customs of Elizabethan actors approxi-
mated in other respects more closely to those of their
modern successors than is usually recognised. The
practice of touring in the provinces was followed with
even greater regularity then than now. Few companies

in the epilogue to As you like it, ' If I were a woman, I would kiss
as many,' &c. Similarly, Cleopatra on her downfall in Antony and
Cleopatra, v. ii. 220 seq. , 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. Flute is bidden
by Quince play Thisbe ' in a mask ' in Midsummer Nighfs Dream
(i. ii. 53). In French and Italian theatres of the time women seem to
have acted publicly, but until the Restoration public opinion in England
deemed the appearance of a woman on a public stage to be an act of
shamelessness on which the most disreputable of her sex would hardly
venture. With a curious inconsistency ladies of rank were encouraged
at Queen Elizabeth's Court, and still more frequently at the Courts of
James I and Charles I, to take part in private and amateur representations
of masques and short dramatic pageants. During the reign of James I
scenic decoration, usually designed by Inigo Jones, accompanied the
production of masques in the royal palaces, but until the Restoration
the public stages were bare of any scenic contrivance except a front
curtain opening in the middle and a balcony or upper platform resting
on pillars at the back of the stage, from which portions of the dialogue
were sometimes spoken, although occasionally the balcony seems to
have been occupied by spectators (cf. a sketch made by a Dutch visitor
to London in 1 596 of the stage of the Swan Theatre in Ztir Kenntniss
der altenglischen Biihne von Karl Theodor Gaedertz. Mil der ersten
authentischen innern Ansicht der Schwans Theater in London, Bremen,
1888). Sir Philip Sidney humorously described the spectator's diffi-
culties in an Elizabethan playhouse, where, owing to the absence of
stage scenery, he had to imagine the bare boards to present in rapid
succession a garden, a rocky coast, a cave, and a battlefield {Apologie for
Poetrie, p. 52). Three nourishes on a trumpet announced the beginning
of the performance, but a band of fiddlers played music between the
acts. The scenes of each act were played without interruption.

40 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

remained in London during the summer or early
autumn, and every country town with two thousand
or more inhabitants could reckon on at least one visit
from travelling actors between May and October. A
rapid examination of the extant archives of some
seventy municipalities selected at random shows that
Shakespeare's company between 1594 and 1614 fre-
quently performed in such towns as Barnstaple, Bath,
Bristol, Coventry, Dover, Faversham, Folkestone,
Hythe, Leicester, Maidstone, Marlborough, New
Romney, Oxford, Rye in Sussex, Saffron Walden,
Shake- and Shrewsbury.1 Shakespeare may be
alleged5 credited with faithfully fulfilling all his pro-
travels, fessional functions, and some of the references
to travel in his sonnets were doubtless reminiscences
of early acting tours. It has been repeatedly urged,
moreover, that Shakespeare's company visited Scot-
land, and that he went with it.2 In November 1599

1 Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps's Visits oj Shakespeare's Company of Actors
to the Provhicial Cities and Towns of England ( privately printed, 1887).
From the infonnation there given, occasionally supplemented from
other sources, the following imperfect itinerary is deduced :

1593. Bristol and Shrewsbury. 1607. Oxford.

1594. Marlborough. 1608. Coventry and Marlborough.
1597. Faversham, Bath, Rye, Bristol, 1609. Hythe, New Romney, and

Dover, and Marlborough. Shrewsbury.

1603. Richmond (Surrey), Bath, 1610. Dover, Oxford, and Shrews-

Coventry, Shrewsbury, Mort- bury.

lake, Wilton House. 1612. New Romney.

1604. Oxford. 1613. Folkestone, Oxford, and Shrews-

1605. Barnstaple and Oxford. bury.

1606. Leicester, Saffron Walden, 1614. Coventry.

Marlborough, Oxford, Dover,
and Maidstone.

1 Cf. Knight's Life of Shakespeare (1843), P- 41 ? Fleay, Stage, pp.
135-6-

ON THE LONDON STAGE 41

English actors arrived in Scotland under the leader-
in Scot- ship °f Lawrence Fletcher and one Martin,
and were welcomed with enthusiasm by
the king.1 Fletcher was a colleague of Shake-
speare in 1603, but is not known to have been one
earlier. Shakespeare's company never included an
actor named Martin. Fletcher repeated the visit in
October i6oi.2 There is nothing to indicate that any
of his companions belonged to Shakespeare's company.
In like manner, Shakespeare's accurate reference in
1 Macbeth ' to the ' nimble ' but ' sweet ' climate of
Inverness,3 and the vivid impression he conveys of

1 The favour bestowed by James VI on these English actors was
so marked as to excite the resentment of the leaders of the Kirk. The
English agent, George Nicolson, in a (hitherto unpublished) despatch
dated from Edinburgh on November 12, 1599, wrote: 'The four Ses-
sions of this Town (without touch by name of our English players,
Fletcher and Mertyn (Y. e. Martyn], with their company), and not
knowing the King's ordinances for them to play and be heard, enacted
[that] their flocks [were] to forbear and not to come to or haunt profane
games, sports, or plays. ' Thereupon the King summoned the Sessions
before him in Council and threatened them with the full rigour of the
law. Obdurate at first, the ministers subsequently agreed to moderate
their hostile references to the actors. Finally, Nicolson adds, ' the
King this day by proclamation with sound of trumpet hath commanded
the players liberty to play, and forbidden their hinder or impeach-
ment therein.' MS. State Papers, Dom. Scotland, P. R. O. vol. Ixv.
No. 64.

2 Fleay, Stage, pp. 126-44.

3 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.

Banqito. 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. 1-6.)

42 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the aspects of wild Highland heaths, have been judged
to be the certain fruits of a personal experience ; but
the passages in question, into which a more definite
significance has possibly been read than Shakespeare
intended, can be satisfactorily accounted for by his
inevitable intercourse with Scotsmen in London and
the theatres after James Fs accession.

A few English actors in Shakespeare's day occa-
sionally combined to make professional tours through
foreign lands, where Court society invariably gave
them a hospitable reception. In Denmark, Ger-
many, Austria, Holland, and France, many dramatic
performances were given before royal audiences by
English actors between 1580 and I63O.1 That Shake-
speare joined any of these expeditions is highly im-
probable. Actors of small account at home mainly
took part in them, and Shakespeare's name appears in
no extant list of those who paid professional visits
abroad. It is, in fact, unlikely that Shakespeare ever
set foot on the continent of Europe in either a private
or professional capacity. He repeatedly ridicules
the craze for foreign travel.2 To Italy, it

In Italy. . ... . . - XT

is true, and especially to cities or Northern
Italy, like Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, and
Milan, he makes frequent and familiar reference, and

1 Cf. Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany, 1865 ; Meissner, Die cngli-
schen Comodiantenzur Zeit Shakespeare's in Oesterreich, Vienna, 1884 ;
Jon Stefansson on ' Shakespeare at Elsinore ' in Contemporary Review,
January 1896 ; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. ix. 43, and xi. 520 ; and M.
Jusserand's article in the Nineteenth Century, April 1898, on English
actors in France.

2 Cf. As you like it, iv. i. 22-40.

ON THE LONDON STAGE 43

he supplied many a realistic portrayal of Italian life
and sentiment. But the fact that he represents
Valentine in the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona ' (l. i.
71) as travelling from Verona to Milan by sea,
and Prospero in ' The Tempest ' as embarking on a
ship at the gates of Milan (I. ii. 129-44), renders it
almost impossible that he could have gathered his
knowledge of Northern Italy from personal obser-
vation.1 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 Shake-
speare was ' exelent in the qualitie 2 he professes,'
and the old actor William Beeston asserted in the
next century that Shakespeare ' did act exceedingly
well.' 3 But the roles in which he distinguished

Shake-
speare's himself are imperfectly recorded. Few sur-
viving documents refer directly to perfor-
mances by him. At Christmas 1594 he joined the
popular actors William Kemp, the chief comedian of
the day, and Richard Burbage, the greatest tragic
actor, in ' two several comedies or interludes ' which
were acted on St. Stephen's Day and on Innocents'
Day (December 27 and 28) at Greenwich Palace
before the Queen. The players received ' xiii/z. \]s.
\\i\d. and by waye of her Majesties rewarde vi/z.

1 Cf. Elze, Essays, 1874, pp. 254 seq.

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

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

44 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

x'riis. iiij</., in all xx/z'.' l Neither plays nor parts are
named. Shakespeare's name stands first on the list
of those who took part in the original performances
of Ben Jonson's ' Every Man in his Humour' (1598).
In the original edition of Jonson's 'Sejanus' (1603)
the actors' names are arranged in two columns, and
Shakespeare's name heads the second column, stand-
ing parallel with Burbage's, which heads the first.
But here again the character allotted to each actor is
not stated. Rowe identified only one of Shakespeare's
parts, ' the Ghost in his own " Hamlet," ' and Rowe
asserted his assumption of that character to be ' the
top of his performance.' John Davies of Hereford
noted that he ' played some kingly parts in sport.' 2
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, when his memory was failing,
he recalled his brother's performance of Adam in
'As you like it/ In the 1623 folio edition of Shake-
speare'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 actor's calling is commonly inferred
Alleged from the ' Sonnets.' There he reproaches
actor's°caiin himself with becoming ' a motley to the view '
ins- (ex. 2), and chides fortune for having pro-

vided for his livelihood nothing better than 'public

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 121 ; Mrs. S(.o\>QsmJafirbuckdcrdctitschen
Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 1896, xxxii. 182 seq.
- Scourge of Folly, 1610, cpigr. 159.

ON THE LONDON STAGE 45

means that public manners breed,' whence his name
received a brand (cxi. 4-5). If such self-pity is to
be literally interpreted, it only reflected an evanescent
mood. His interest in all that touched the efficiency of
his profession was permanently active. He was a keen
critic of actors' elocution, and in ' Hamlet ' shrewdly
denounced their common failings, but clearly and
hopefully pointed out the road to improvement. His
highest ambitions lay, it is true, elsewhere than in
acting, and at an early period of his theatrical career
he undertook, with triumphant success, the labours of
a playwright. But he pursued the profession of an
actor loyally and uninterruptedly until he resigned
all connection with the theatre within a few years of
his death.

46 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS

THE whole of Shakespeare's dramatic work was pro-
bably begun and ended within two decades (1591-
Dramatic l^Ii)' between his twenty-seventh and forTy^"
work. seventh year. If the works traditionally
assigned to him include some contributions from
other 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 plays, nearly all of which belong to the supreme
rank of literature. Three volumes of poems must be
added to the total. Ben Jonson was often told by the
players 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 they are in the aggregate unimportant.

By borrowing his plots he to some extent econo-
mised his energy, but he transformed most of them,

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 47

and it was not probably with the object of conserv-
ing his strength that he systematically

His bor-
rowed levied loans on popular current literature like

Holinshed's ' Chronicles/ North's translation
of ' Plutarch/ widely read romances, and successful
plays. In this regard he betrayed something of the
practical temperament which is traceable in the
conduct of the affairs of his later life. It was doubt-
less with the calculated aim of ministering to the
public taste that he unceasingly adapted, as his
genius dictated, themes which had already, in the
hands of inferior writers or dramatists, proved capable
of arresting public attention.

The professional playwrights sold their plays out-
right to one or other of the acting companies, and they
retained no legal interest in them after the

The revi- -11

sion of manuscript had passed into the hands of the
theatrical manager.1 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 pro-
duced on the stage, and again whenever it was revived.
Shakespeare gained his earliest experience as a dra-
matist 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

1 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
Cuthbert Cony-Catcher's Defence of Cony- Catching, \ 592, ' if you
sold them not Orlando Furioso for twenty nobles [i.e. about 7/.],
and when they were in the country sold the same play to the Lord
Admiral's men for as many more. '

48 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

remain unidentified. In a few cases his alterations
were slight, 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 labours in that capacity are entitled to rank
among original compositions.

The determination of the exact order in which

Shakespeare's plays were written depends largely on

conjecture. External evidence is accessible

Chrono-
logy of the in only a few cases, and, although always

worthy of the utmost consideration, is not
invariably conclusive. The date of publication rarely
indicates the date of composition. Only sixteen of
the thirty-seven plays commonly assigned to Shake-
speare were published in his lifetime, and it is question-
able whether any were published under his super-
vision.1 But subject-matter and metre both afford
rough clues to the period in his career to which each

1 The playhouse authorities deprecated the publishing of plays in
the belief that their dissemination in print was injurious to the
receipts of the theatre. A very small proportion of plays acted in
Elizabeth's and James I's reign consequently reached the printing press,
and most of them are now lost. But in the absence of any law of copy-
right publishers often defied the wishes of the owner of manuscripts.
Many copies of a popular play were made for the actors, and if one
of these copies chanced to fall into a publisher's hands, it was
habitually issued without any endeavour to obtain either author's or
manager's sanction. In March 1599 the theatrical manager Philip
Henslowe endeavoured to induce a publisher who had secured a play-
house copy of the comedy of Patient Grissell by Dekker, Chettle, and
Haughton to abandon the publication of it by offering him a bribe of zl.
The publication was suspended till 1603 (cf. Henslowe's Diary, p. 167).
As late as 1633 Thomas Heywood wrote of 'some actors who think it
against their peculiar profit to have them [i.e. plays] come into print.'
(English Traveller, pref.)

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 49

play may be referred. In his early plays the spirit
of comedy or tragedy appears in its simplicity ;
as his powers gradually matured he depicted life
in its most complex involutions, and portrayed with
masterly insight the subtle gradations of human
sentiment and the mysterious workings of human
passion. Comedy and tragedy are gradually blended ;
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 fixed rule and becomes flexible enough
to respond to every phase of human feeling. In
Metrical ^e blank verse of the early plays a pause
is strictly observed at the close of each
line, and rhyming couplets are frequent. Gradually
the poet overrides such artificial restrictions ; rhyme
largely disappears ; recourse is more frequently made
to prose ; the pause is varied indefinitely ; extra
syllables are, contrary to strict metrical law, introduced
at the end of lines, and at times in the middle; the last
word of the line is often a weak and unemphatic con-
junction or preposition.1 To the latest plays fantastic
and punning conceits which abound in early work are
rarely accorded admission. But, while Shakespeare's

1 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.
Dr. Ingranvs 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 have been reissued by Dr. Furnivall in a somewhat revised
form in his introduction to Gervinus's Commentaries and in his Leopold
Shakspere, give all the information possible.

50 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

achievement from the beginning to the end of his
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 be-
come 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 con-
flicting, and no chronology.hitherto suggested receives
at all points universal assent.

There is no external evidence to prove that any piece
in which Shakespeare had a hand was produced before
the spring of 1592. No play by him was published
before 1 597, and none bore his name on the title-page
till 1 598. 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
Labour's time of all Shakespeare's dramatic produc-
tions. Internal evidence alone indicates the
date of composition, and proves that it was an early
effort ; but the subject-matter suggests that its author
had already enjoyed extended opportunities of survey-
ing London life and manners, such as were hardly open
to him in the very first years of his settlement in the

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 51

metropolis. ' Love's Labour's Lost ' embodies keen
observation of contemporary 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. Its slender plot stands almost alone
among Shakespeare's plots in that it is not known to
have been borrowed, and stands quite alone in openly
travestying known traits and incidents of current
social and political life. The names of the chief cha-
racters 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.1 Contemporary projects of academies for dis-

1 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 names of the two most strenuous
supporters of the real King of Navarre (Biron's later career subsequently
formed the subject of two plays by Chapman, The Conspiracie of Duke
Biron and The Tragedy of Biron, which were both produced in 1605).
The name of the 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 connection
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 Humourous Day's Mirth, 1599, M. Le
Mot, a sprightly courtier in attendance on the King of France, is drawn
from the same original, and his name, as in Shakespeare's play, suggests
much punning on the word ' mote.' As late as 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

E 2

52 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ciplining young men ; fashions of speech and dress
current in fashionable circles ; recent attempts on the
part of Elizabeth'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. The play was revised
in 1597, probably for a performance at Court. It was
first published next year, and on the title-page, which
described the piece as ' newly corrected and aug-
mented,' Shakespeare's name first appeared in print as
that of author of a play,

Less gaiety characterised another comedy of the

same date, ' The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' which

dramatises a romantic story of love and

'Two

Gentlemen friendship. There is every likelihood that

of Verona.' ., , ,. ,.

it was an adaptation — amounting to a re-

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 Fantasticall Monarchd'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 expedition of 1588. Braggardino in Chapman's Blind Beggar of
Alexandria, 1598, is drawn on the same lines. The scene (Love1:,
Labour's Lost, v. ii. 1 58 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 1 584 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 indications 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 carica-
ture of the Italian teacher and lexicographer, John Florio, seems
unjustified (see p. 85 «).

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 53

formation — of a lost ' History of Felix and Philomena,'
which had been acted at Court in 1584. The story is
the same as that of ' The Shepardess Felismena ' in
the Spanish pastoral romance of ' Diana ' by George
de Montemayor, which long enjoyed popularity in
England. No complete English translation of ' Diana '
was published before that of Bartholomew Yonge
in 1598, but a manuscript version by Thomas Wilson,
which was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton in
1 596, was possibly circulated far earlier. Some verses
from ' Diana ' were translated by Sir Philip Sidney
and were printed with his poems as early as 1591.
Barnabe Rich's story of ' Apollonius and Silla ' (from
Cinthio's ' Hecatommithi '), which Shakespeare em-
ployed again in ' Twelfth Night/ also gave him some
hints. Trifling and irritating conceits abound in the
' Two Gentlemen,' but passages of high poetic spirit
are not wanting, and the speeches of the clowns,
Launce and Speed — the precursors of a long line of
whimsical serving-men — overflow with farcical drol-
lery. The ' Two Gentlemen ' was not published in
Shakespeare's lifetime ; it first appeared in the folio
of 1623, after having, in all probability, undergone
some revision.1

Shakespeare next tried his hand, in the ' Comedy
of Errors ' (commonly known at the time as ' Errors '),
' Comedy at boisterous farce. It also was first pub-
of Errors.' Hshed in 1623. Again, 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 '

1 Cf. Fleay, Life, pp. 188 seq.

54 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(act iii. sc. ii. 125). Shakespeare's farcical comedy may
have been founded on a play, no longer extant, called
' The Historie of Error,' which was acted in 1576 at
Hampton Court. In subject-matter it resembles the
' Menaechmi ' of Plautus, and treats of mistakes of
identity arising from the likeness of twin-born
children. The scene (act iii. sc. i.) in which Anti-
pholus of Ephesus is shut out from his own house,
while his brother and wife are at dinner within,
recalls one in the ' Amphitruo ' of Plautus. Shake-
speare doubtless had direct recourse to Plautus as
well as to the old play, and he may have read
Plautus in English. The earliest translation of the
' Menaechmi ' was not licensed for publication before
June 10, 1594, and was not published until the
following year. No translation of any other play
of Plautus appeared before. But it was stated in the
preface to this first published translation of the
' Menaechmi ' that the translator, W. W., doubtless
William Warner, a veteran of the Elizabethan world
of letters, had some time previously ' Englished ' that
and ' divers ' others of Plautus's comedies, and had
circulated them in manuscript ' for the use of and
delight of his private friends, who, in Plautus's own
words, are not able to understand them.'

Such plays as these, although each gave promise
of a dramatic capacity out of the common way, can-
not be with certainty pronounced to be beyond the
ability of other men. It was in ' Romeo and Juliet,'
Shakespeare's first tragedy, that he proved himself
the possessor of a poetic and dramatic instinct of

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 55

unprecedented quality. In ' Romeo and Juliet ' he
turned to account a tragic romance of Italian ori-
• Romeo gin,1 which was already popular in English
and Juliet.1 versjonS- Arthur Broke rendered it into
English verse from the Italian of Bandello in 1562,
and William Painter had published it in prose in
his ' Palace of Pleasure ' in 1567. Shakespeare made
little change in the plot as drawn from Bandello by
Broke, but he impregnated it with poetic fervour,
and relieved the tragic intensity by developing the
humour of Mercutio, and by grafting on the story
the new comic character of the Nurse.2 The ecstasy
of youthful passion is portrayed by Shakespeare in
language of the highest lyric beauty, and although a
predilection for quibbles and conceits occasionally
passes beyond the author's control, ' 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' (l. iii. 23), be taken
literally, the composition of the play must be referred

1 The story, which has been traced back to the Greek romance
of Anthia and Abrocoinas by Xenophon Ephesius, a writer of the
second century, seems to have been first told in modern Europe about
1470 by Masuccio in his Novellino (No. xxxiii. : cf. Mr. Waters's trans-
lation, i. 155-65). It was adapted from Masuccio by Luigi da Porto
in his novel, La Giuletta, 1535, and by Bandello in his Novelle, 1554,
pt. ii., No. ix. Bandello's version became classical ; Belleforest trans-
lated it in his Histoires Tragiques, Lyons, 1564. At the same time as
Shakespeare was writing Romeo and Juliet, Lope de Vega was
dramatising the tale in his Spanish play called Casteliones y Monti sis
(i.e. Capulets and Montagus). For an analysis of Lope's play, which
ends happily, see Variorum Shakespeare, 1821, xxi. 451-60.

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

56 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

to 1591, for no earthquake in the sixteenth century
was experienced in England after 1580. There are
a few parallelisms with Daniel's ' Complainte of Rosa-
mond/ published in 1592, and it is probable that
Shakespeare completed the piece in that year. It was
first printed anonymously and surreptitiously by John
Danter in 1597 from an imperfect acting copy. A
second quarto of 1599 (by T. Creede for Cuthbert
Burbie) was printed from an authentic version, but
the piece had probably undergone revision since its
first production.1

Of the original representation on the stage of three
other pieces of the period we have more explicit
information. These reveal Shakespeare undisguisedly
as an adapter of plays by other hands. Though they
lack the interest attaching to his unaided work, they
throw invaluable light on some of his early methods
of composition and his early relations with other
dramatists.

On March 3, 1592, a new piece, called 'Henry
VI,' was acted at the Rose Theatre by Lord Strange's
• Henry men. It was no doubt the play which was
VL subsequently known as Shakespeare's ' The

First Part of Henry VI.' On its first performance it
won a popular triumph. ' How would it have joyed
brave Talbot (the terror of the French),' wrote Nash
in his ' Pierce Pennilesse ' (1592, licensed August 8),
in reference to the striking scenes of Talbot's death
(act iv. sc. vi. and vii.), ' to thinke that after he had

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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 57

lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should
triumphe againe on the Stage, and have his bones newe
embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators
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 such a play quickly followed ; for a
third piece, treating of the concluding incidents of
Henry VI's reign, attracted much attention on the
stage early in the following autumn.

The applause attending the completion of this
historical trilogy caused bewilderment in the theatrical
profession. The older dramatists awoke to the fact that
their popularity was endangered by the young stranger
who had set up his tent in their midst, and one veteran
uttered without delay a rancorous protest. Robert
Greene, who died on September 3, 1592, wrote on
his deathbed an ill-natured farewell to life, entitled ' A
Greene's Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Million
of Repentance.' Addressing three brother
dramatists — Marlowe, Nash, and Peele or Lodge — he
bade them beware of puppets ' that speak from our
mouths,' and of ' antics garnished in our colours.'
' 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 conceit, the
only Shake-scene in a countrie. . . . Never more
acquaint [those apes] with your admired inventions,

58 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

for it is pity men of such rare wits should be subject
to the pleasures of such rude groomes.' The ' only
Shake-scene ' is a punning denunciation of Shake-
speare. The tirade was probably inspired by an
established author's resentment at the energy of a
young actor — the theatre's factotum — in revising the
dramatic work of his seniors with such masterly
effect as to imperil their hold on the esteem of
manager and playgoer. The italicised quotation
travesties a line from the third piece in the trilogy of
Shakespeare's ' Henry VI : '

Oh Tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide.

But Shakespeare's amiability of character and versatile
ability had already won him admirers, and his suc-
cesses excited the sympathetic regard of colleagues
more kindly than Greene. In December 1 592 Greene's
publisher, Henry Chettle, prefixed an apology for
chettie's Greene's attack on the young actor to his
apology. < Kind Hartes Dreame,' a tract reflecting on
phases of contemporary social life. ' I am as sory,'
Chettle wrote, ' as if the originall fault had beene my
fault, because myselfe have scene his [i.e. Shakespeare's]
demeanour no lesse civill than he [is] exelent in the
qualitie 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.'

The first of the three plays dealing with the reign
of Henry VI was originally published in the collected
edition of Shakespeare's works ; the second and third

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 59

plays were previously printed in a form very dif-
Divided ferent from that which they subsequently
of^Henry assumed when they followed the first part
VI-' in the folio. Criticism has proved beyond

doubt that in these plays Shakespeare did no more
than add, revise, and correct other men's work. In
' The First Part of Henry VI ' the scene in the
Temple Gardens, where white and red roses are
plucked as emblems by the rival political parties (act
ii. sc. iv.), the dying speech of Mortimer, and perhaps
the wooing of Margaret by Suffolk, alone bear the
impress of his style. A play dealing with the
second part of Henry VI's reign was published
anonymously from a rough stage copy in 1594, with
the title ' The first part of the Contention betwixt
the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster.' A
play dealing with the third part was published with
greater care next year under the title ' The True
Tragedie of Richard, Duke of Yorke, and the death
of good King Henry the Sixt, as it was sundrie
times acted by the Earl of Pembroke his servants.'
In both these plays Shakespeare's revising hand can
be traced. The humours of Jack Cade in ' The
Contention ' can owe their savour to him alone.
After he had hastily revised the original drafts of
the three pieces, perhaps with another's aid, they
were put on the stage in 1592, the first two
parts by his own company (Lord Strange's men),
and the third, under some exceptional arrange-
ment, by Lord Pembroke's men. But Shakespeare
was not content to leave them thus. Within a brief

60 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

interval, possibly for a revival, he undertook a more
thorough revision, still in conjunction with another
writer. ' The First Part of The Contention ' was
thoroughly overhauled, and was converted into what
was entitled in the folio ' The Second Part of Henry
VI ; ' there more than half the lines are new. ' The
True Tragedie,' which became ' The Third Part of
Henry VI,' was less drastically handled ; two-thirds
of it was left practically untouched ; only a third
was thoroughly remodelled.1

Who Shakespeare's coadjutors were in the two
successive revisions of Henry VI ' is matter for con-
jecture. The theory that Greene and Peele

Shake-
speare's produced the original draft of the three

parts of ' Henry VI,' which Shakespeare
recast, may help to account for Greene's indignant
denunciation of Shakespeare as ' an upstart crow,
beautified with the feathers ' of himself and his
fellow dramatists. Much can be said, too, in behalf
of the suggestion that Shakespeare joined Marlowe,
the greatest of his predecessors, in the first revision
of which ' The Contention ' and the ' True Tragedie '
were the outcome. Most of the new passages in the
second recension seem assignable to Shakespeare
alone, but a few suggest a partnership resembling
that of the first revision. It is probable that Marlowe
began the final revision, but his task was interrupted
by his death, and the lion's share of the work fell to
his younger coadjutor.

1 Cf. Fleay, Life, pp. 235 seq. ; Trans. New Shakspere Soc.,
1876, pt. ii. by Miss Jane Lee ; Swinburne, Study, pp. 51 seq.

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 6 1

Shakespeare shared with other men of genius that
receptivity of mind which impels them to assimilate
much of the intellectual effort of their contemporaries
and to transmute it in the process from unvalued ore
into pure gold. Had Shakespeare not been profes-
sionally employed in recasting old plays by contem-
poraries, he would doubtless have shown in his
writings traces of a study of their work. The verses
of Thomas Watson, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton.
Shake- Sir Philip Sidney, and Thomas Lodge were
sfmifative5 certainly among the rills which fed the
power. mighty river of his poetic and lyric in-
vention. Kyd and Greene, among rival writers of
tragedy, left more or less definite impression on all
Shakespeare's early efforts in tragedy. It was, how-
ever, only to two of his fellow dramatists that his
indebtedness as a writer of either comedy or tragedy
was material or emphatically defined. Superior as
Shakespeare's powers were to those of Marlowe, his
coadjutor in ' Henry VI,' his early tragedies often
reveal him in the character of a faithful disciple of
that vehement delineator of tragic passion. Shake-
speare's early comedies disclose a like relationship
between him and Lyly.

Lyly is best known as the author of the affected

romance of ' Euphues,' but between 1580 and 1592

he produced eight trivial and insubstantial

Lyly's in-
fluence in comedies, of which six were written in prose,

one was in blank verse, and one was in rhyme.
Much of the dialogue in Shakespeare's comedies, from
' Love's Labour's Lost' to ' Much Ado about Nothing,'

62 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

consists in thrusting and parrying fantastic conceits,
puns, or antitheses. This is the style of intercourse in
which most of Lyly's characters exclusively indulge.
Three-fourths of Lyly's comedies lightly revolve
about topics of classical or fairy mythology — in the
very manner which Shakespeare first brought to a
triumphant issue in his ' Midsummer Night's Dream.'
Shakespeare's treatment of eccentric character like
Don Armado in ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and his boy
Moth reads like a reminiscence of Lyly's portrayal of
Sir Thopas, a fat vainglorious knight, and his boy
Epiton in the comedy of 'Endymion,' while the watch-
men in the same play clearly adumbrate Shake-
speare's Dogberry and Verges. The device of mascu-
line disguise for love-sick maidens was characteristic
of Lyly's method before Shakespeare ventured on
it for the first of many times in ' Two Gentlemen
of Verona,' and the dispersal through Lyly's comedies
of songs possessing every lyrical charm is not the
least interesting of the many striking features which
Shakespeare's achievements in comedy seem to
borrow from Lyly's comparatively insignificant ex-
periments.1

Marlowe, who alone of Shakespeare's contem-
poraries can be credited with exerting on his efforts

1 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 the affectations of its prose style, which he ridiculed in
a familiar passage in I Henry 7F, II. iv. 445 : ' For though the
camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth the
more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. '

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 63

in tragedy a really substantial influence, was in
1592 and 1593 at the zenith of his fame.

Marlowe's

influence in Two of Shakespeare s earliest historical
tragedies, 'Richard III' and 'Richard II,'
with the story of Shylock in his somewhat later
comedy of the ' Merchant of Venice,' plainly disclose
a conscious resolve to follow in Marlowe's footsteps.
In ' Richard III ' Shakespeare, working singlehanded,
takes up the history of England near the point at
which Marlowe and he, apparently working in partner-
ship, left it in the third part of ' Henry VI.' The
subject was already familiar to dramatists, but
Shakespeare sought his materials in the ' Chronicle '
of Holinshed. A Latin piece, by Dr. Thomas Legge,
had been in favour with academic audiences since 1 579,
• Richard anc^ m *594 tne ' True Tragedie of Richard
III; III ' from some other pen was published ano-

nymously ; but Shakespeare's piece bears little resem-
blance to either. Throughout Shakespeare's ' Richard
III ' the effort to emulate Marlowe is undeniable. The
tragedy is, says Mr. Swinburne, ' as fiery in passion, as
single in purpose, as rhetorical often, though never so
inflated in expression, as Marlowe's " Tamburlaine "
itself.' The turbulent piece was naturally popular.
Burbage's impersonation of the hero was one of his
most effective performances, and his vigorous enun-
ciation of ' A horse, a horse ! my kingdom for a
horse ! ' gave the line proverbial currency.

' Richard II ' seems to have followed ' Richard III '
without delay. Subsequently both were published
anonymously in the same year (1597) as they had

64 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'been publikely acted by the right Honorable the
Lorde Chamberlaine his servants ; ' but the de-
position scene in ' Richard II,' which dealt with a
topic distasteful to the Queen, was omitted from the
• Richard early impressions. Prose is avoided through-
out the play, a certain sign of early work.
The piece was probably composed very early in
1593. Marlowe's tempestuous vein is less apparent in
' Richard II ' than in ' Richard III.' But if ' Richard II'
be in style and treatment less deeply indebted
to Marlowe than its predecessor, it was clearly
suggested by Marlowe's 'Edward 1 1.' Throughout
its exposition of the leading theme — the development
and collapse of the weak king's character — Shake-
speare's historical tragedy closely imitates Marlowe's.
Shakespeare drew the facts from Holinshed, but his
embellishments are numerous, and include the mag-
nificently eloquent eulogy of England which is set in
the mouth of John of Gaunt.

In 'As you like it ' (ill. v. 80) Shakespeare

parenthetically commemorated his acquaintance with,

and his general indebtedness to, the elder

Acknow- . i . .

ledgments dramatist by apostrophising him in the

to Marlowe. . .

lines :

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

The second line is a quotation from Marlowe's poem
' Hero and Leander ' (line 76). In the ' Merry Wives
of Windsor' (ill. i. 17-21) Shakespeare places in the
mouth of Sir Hugh Evans snatches of verse from

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 65

Marlowe's charming lyric, ' Come live with me and be
my love.'

Between February 1593 and the end of the year
the London theatres were closed, owing to the pre-
valence of the plague, and Shakespeare doubtless
travelled with his company in the country. But his
pen was busily employed, and before the close of
1594 he gave marvellous proofs of his rapid powers of
production.

'Titus Andronicus' was in his own lifetime
claimed for Shakespeare, but Edward Ravenscroft,
•Titus An- wno prepared a new version in 1678, wrote
dromcus.' of jt : 'I have been told by some anciently
conversant with the stage that it was not originally
his, 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 tragedy, a san-
guinary picture of the decadence of Imperial Rome,
contains powerful lines and situations, but is far too
repulsive in plot and treatment, and too ostentatious
in classical allusions, to take rank with Shakespeare's
acknowledged work. Ben Jonson credits ' Titus
Andronicus ' with a popularity equalling Kyd's
' Spanish Tragedy,' and internal evidence shows that
Kyd was capable of writing much of 'Titus.' It
was suggested by a piece called ' Titus and Vespasian,'
which Lord Strange's men played on April 1 1, 1592 ; :
this is only extant in a German version acted by
English players in Germany, and published in
1 Henslowe, p. 24.

66 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I62O.1 'Titus Andronicus' was obviously taken in hand
soon after the production of ' Titus and Vespasian '
in order to exploit popular interest in the topic. It
was acted by the Earl of Sussex's men on January
23, 1 593-4, when it was described as a new piece ;
but that it was also acted subsequently by Shake-
speare's company is shown by the title-page of the
first extant edition of 1600, which describes it as
having been performed by the Earl of Derby's and
the Lord Chamberlain's servants (successive titles of
Shakespeare's company), as well as by those of the
Earls of Pembroke and Sussex. It was entered on
the ' Stationers' Register' to John Danter on February
6, 1 594. 2 Langbaine claims to have seen an edition
of this date, but none earlier than that of 1600 is now
known.

For part of the plot of ' The Merchant of Venice,'
in which two romantic love stories are skilfully
blended with a theme of tragic import, Shakespeare
had recourse to ' II Pecorone,' a fourteenth-century
• Merchant collection of Italian novels by Ser Giovanni
of Vemce.1 Florentine.3 There a Jewish creditor de-
mands a pound of flesh of a defaulting Christian
debtor, and the latter is rescued through the advo-
cacy of ' the lady of Belmont,' who is wife of the
debtor's friend. The management of the plot in the

1 Cf. Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany, pp. 155 et seq.

2 Arber, ii. 644.

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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 67

Italian novel is closely followed by Shakespeare.
A similar story is slenderly outlined in the popu-
lar mediaeval collection of anecdotes called ' Gesta
Romanorum,' while the tale of the caskets, which
Shakespeare combined with it in the ' Merchant/ is told
independently in another portion of the same work.
But Shakespeare's ' Merchant ' owes much to other
sources, including more than one old play. Stephen
Gosson describes 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.' This descrip-
tion suggests that the two stories of the pound of
flesh and the caskets had been combined before
for purposes of dramatic representation. The scenes
in Shakespeare's play in which Antonio negotiates
with Shylock are roughly anticipated, too, by
dialogues between a Jewish creditor Gerontus and
a Christian debtor in the extant play of ' The Three
Ladies of London,' by R[obert] W[ilson], 1584.
There the Jew opens the attack on his Christian
debtor with the lines :

Signer 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. Signer Mercatore consider what
you do.

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

F 2

68 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Above all is it of interest to note that Shakespeare
in ' The Merchant of Venice ' betrays the last defina-
ble traces of his discipleship to Marlowe. Although
the delicate comedy which lightens the serious interest

of Shakespeare's play sets it in a wholly dif-
and Rode- ferent category from that of Marlowe's ' Jew

of Malta,' the humanised portrait of the Jew
Shylock embodies distinct reminiscences of Marlowe's
caricature of the Jew Barabbas. But Shakespeare
soon outpaced his master, and the inspiration that
he drew from Marlowe in the ' Merchant ' touches
only the general conception of the central figure.
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 new and subtler study of Jewish
character.1 For Shylock (not the merchant Antonio)

1 Lopez was the Earl of Leicester's physician before 1586, and the
Queen's chief physician from that date. An accomplished linguist, with
friends in all parts of Europe, he acted in 1590, at the request of the Earl
of Essex, as interpreter to Antonio Perez, a victim of Philip IPs perse-
cution, whom Essex and his associates brought to England in order to
stimulate the hostility of the English public to Spain. Don Antonio (as
the refugee was popularly called) 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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 69

is the hero of the play, and the main interest cul-
minates in the Jew's trial and discomfiture. The
bold transition from that solemn scene which
trembles on the brink of tragedy to the gently
poetic and humorous incidents of the concluding
act attests a mastery of stagecraft ; but the in -
terest, although it is sustained to the end, is, after
Shylock's final exit, pitched in a lower key. The
' Venesyon Comedy,' which Henslowe, the manager,
produced at the Rose on August 25, 1594, was pro-
bably the earliest version of ' The Merchant of Venice,'
and it was revised later. It was not published till
1600, when two editions appeared, each printed from
a different stage copy.

To 1 594 must also be assigned ' King John,'
which, like the ' Comedy of Errors ' and ' Richard II,
altogether eschews prose. The piece, which was not
printed till 1623, was directly adapted from a worthless
. King play called ' The Troublesome Raigne of
King John ' (1591), which was fraudulently
reissued in 161 1 as ' written by W. Sh.,' and in 1622 as
by ' W. Shakespeare.' There is very small ground for
associating Marlowe 's name with the old play. Into
the adaptation Shakespeare flung all his energy, and
the theme grew under his hand into genuine tragedy.
The three chief characters — the mean and cruel king,

Roderigo Lopez in the Dictionary of National Biography ; ' The
Original of Shylock,' by the present writer, in Gent. Mag. February
1 880 ; Dr. H. Graetz, Shylock in den Sagen, in den Dramen und in
der Geschickte, Krotoschin, 1880 ; NewShakspere Soc. Trans. 1887-92,
pt. ii. pp. 158-92 ; ' The Conspiracy of Dr. Lopez,' by the Rev. Arthur
Dimock, in English Historical Review (1894), ix. 440 scq.

70 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the noblehearted and desperately wronged Constance,
and the soldierly humourist, Faulconbridge — are in all
essentials of his own invention, and are portrayed
with the same sureness of touch that marked 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.

At the close of 1594 a performance of Shake-
speare's early farce, ' The Comedy of Errors,' gave
him a passing notoriety that he could well have
spared. The piece was played on the evening of
Innocents' Day (December 28), 1594, in the hall
•Comedy of Gray's Inn, before a crowded audience
in Grabs' °^ benchers, students, and their friends,
inn Hall. 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,' the con-
temporary chronicler states, ' was begun and con-
tinued to the end in nothing but confusion and errors,
whereupon it was ever afterwards called the " Night
of Errors." ' x Shakespeare 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 the causes of the
tumult, which was attributed to a sorcerer having
' foisted a company of base and common fellows to

1 Gesta Grayorum, printed in 1688 rom a contemporary manu-
script. A second performance of the Comedy of Errors was given at
Gray's Inn Hall by the Elizabethan Stage Society on Dec. 6, 1895.

* LIBRARY U

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 7 1

make up our disorders with a play of errors and con-
fusions.'

Two plays of uncertain authorship attracted public
attention during the period under review (1591-4) —
' Arden of Feversham ' (licensed for publication April 3,
1 592, and published in 1 592) and ' Edward III' (licensed
for publication December I, 1595, and published in
1596). Shakespeare'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 evidence in favour of Shakespeare's
authorship in either case. ' Arden of Feversham '
dramatises with intensity and insight a

Early plays *

doubtfully sordid murder of a husband by a wife which

assigned to .

Shake- took place at Faversham in 1551, and was
fully reported by Holinshed. The subject
is of a different type from any which Shakespeare is
known to have treated, and although the play may be,
as Mr. 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 period
so early as 1591 or 1592. ' Edward III ' is a play in
Marlowe's vein, and has been assigned to Shakespeare
on even more shadowy grounds. Capell reprinted it
in his ' Prolusions ' in 1760, and described it as
' thought to be writ by Shakespeare.' Many speeches
scattered through the drama, and one whole scene —
that in which the Countess of Salisbury repulses the
advances of Edward III — show the hand of a master
(act ii. sc. ii.) But there is even in the style of

72 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

these contributions much to dissociate them from
Shakespeare's acknowledged productions, and to
justify their ascription to some less gifted disciple of
Marlowe.1 A line in act ii. sc. i. (' Lilies that fester
smell far worse than weeds') reappears in Shake-
speare's 'Sonnets' (xciv. 1. I4).2 It was contrary to
his practice to literally plagiarise himself. The line
in the play was doubtless borrowed from a manu-
script copy of the ' Sonnets.'

Two other popular plays of the period, ' Muce-
dorus ' and ' Faire Em,' have also been assigned to
1 Muce- Shakespeare on slighter provocation. In
Charles II.'s library they were bound to-
gether in a volume labelled ' Shakespeare, Vol. I.,' and
bold speculators have occasionally sought to justify the
misnomer.

' Mucedorus,' an elementary effort in romantic
comedy, dates from the early years of Elizabeth's
reign ; it was first published, doubtless after under-
going revision, in I595> and was reissued, 'amplified
with new additions,' in 1610. Mr. Payne Collier, who
included it in his privately printed edition of Shake-
speare in 1878, was confident that a scene interpolated
in the 1610 version (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 interpolated scene to anything
else in the piece, few will accept Mr. Collier's ex-
travagant estimate. The scene was probably from

1 Cf. Swinburne, Study of Skakspere, pp. 231-74. * Sec p. 89.

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 73

the pen of an admiring but faltering imitator of
Shakespeare.1

' Faire Em/ although not published till 1631, was
acted by Shakespeare's company while Lord Strange
• Faire was its patron, and some lines from it are
quoted for purposes of ridicule by Robert
Greene in his 'Farewell to Folly' in 1592. It is
another rudimentary endeavour in romantic comedy,
and has not even the pretension of ' Mucedorus ' to
one short scene of conspicuous literary merit.

1 Cf. Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1874, vii. 236-8.

74 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC

DURING the busy years (1591-4) that witnessed
his first pronounced successes as a dramatist, Shake-
speare came before the public in yet another literary
capacity. On April 18, 1593, Richard Field, the
printer, who was his fellow-townsman, obtained a
license for the publication of ' Venus and Adonis,' a
Pubiica- metrical version of a classical tale of love.
* Venus and ^ was published a month or two later, with-
Adonis.' out an author's name on the title-page, but
Shakespeare appended his full name to the dedication,
which he addressed in conventional style to Henry
Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton. The Earl,
who was in his twentieth year, was reckoned the
handsomest man at Court, with a pronounced dispo-
sition to gallantry. He had vast possessions, was
well educated, loved literature, and through life
extended to men of letters a generous patronage.1
' I know not how I shall offend,' Shakespeare now
wrote to him, ' in dedicating 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. . . . But if the first heir of my invention
prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble

1 See Appendix, sections iii. and iv.

FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 75

a godfather.' ' The first heir of my invention '
implies that the poem was written, or at least
designed, before Shakespeare's dramatic work. It is
affluent in beautiful imagery and metrical sweetness,
but imbued with a tone of license which may be held
either to justify the theory that it was a precocious
product of the author's youth, or to show that Shake-
speare was not unready in mature years to write with
a view to gratifying a patron's somewhat lascivious
tastes. The title-page bears a beautiful Latin motto
from Ovid's ' Amores : ' l

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

The influence of Ovid, who told the story in his
' Metamorphoses,' is apparent in many of the details.
But the theme was doubtless first suggested to
Shakespeare by a contemporary effort. Lodge's
'Scillaes Metamorphosis,' which appeared in 1589, is
not only written in the same metre (six-line stanzas
rhyming a b a b c c), but narrates in the exordium
the same incidents in the same spirit. There is
little doubt that Shakespeare drew from Lodge some
of his inspiration.2

1 See Ovid's Amores, liber i. elegy xv. 11. 35-6. Ovid's Atnores,
or Elegies of Love, were translated by Marlowe about 1 589, and were
first printed without a date on the title-page, probably about 1597.
Marlowe's version had probably been accessible in manuscript in the
eight years' interval. Marlowe rendered the lines quoted by Shakespeare

thus :

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

- Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and Lodge's Scillaes Metamor-
phosis, by James P. Reardon, in 'Shakespeare Society's Papers,' iii.

76 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A year after the issue of ' Venus and Adonis,'
in 1594, Shakespeare published another poem in
like vein, but far more mature in temper and execu-
tion. The digression (11. 939-59) on the destroying
power of Time, especially, is in an exalted key of medi-
tation which is not sounded in the earlier poem. The
metre, too, is changed ; seven-line stanzas (Chaucer's
rhyme royal, ababbcc) take the place of six-line
stanzas. The second poem was entered in the ' Sta-
tioners' Registers ' on May 9, 1 594, under the title of
'A Booke intitled the Ravyshement of

Lucrece.' .

Lucrece, and was published in the same year
under the title ' Lucrece.' Richard Field printed it,
and John Harrison published and sold it at the sign
of the White Greyhound in St. Paul's Churchyard.
The classical story of Lucretia's ravishment and
suicide is briefly recorded in Ovid's ' Fasti,' but
Chaucer had retold it in his ' Legend of Good
Women,' and Shakespeare must have read it there.
Again, in topic and metre, the poem reflected a
contemporary poet's work. Samuel Daniel's ' Com-

143-6. Cf. Lodge's description of Venus's discovery of the 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 senseles corpse she lay a-crying,
As if the boy were then but new a-dying.

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
Chasse (on a stag hunt) by the French dramatist, Estienne Jodelle, in
his CEuvres et Meslanges PoMques, 1574.

FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 77

plaint of Rosamond,' with its seven-line stanza
(1592), stood to 'Lucrece' in even closer relation
than Lodge's ' Scilla,' with its six-line stanza, to
' Venus and Adonis.' The pathetic accents of Shake-
speare's heroine are those of Daniel's heroine purified
and glorified.1 The passage on Time is elaborated
from one in Watson's ' Passionate Centurie of Love '
(No. Ixxvii.)2 Shakespeare dedicated his second
volume of poetry to the Earl of Southampton, the
patron of his first. He addressed him in terms of
devoted friendship, which were not uncommon at
the time in communications between patrons and
poets, but suggest that Shakespeare's relations with
the brilliant young nobleman had grown closer since

1 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.

2 Watson makes this comment on his poem or passion on Time,
(No. Ixxvii.) : ' The chiefe contentes of this Passion are taken out of
Seraphine [i.e. Serafino], Sonnet 132 :

Col tempo passafn] gli anni, i mesi, e 1'hore,
Col tempo le richeze, imperio, e regno,
Col tempo fama, honor, fortezza, e ingegno,
Col tempo giouentu, con belta more, &c.'

Watson adds that he has inverted Serafino's order for 'rimes
sake,' or 'upon some other more allowable consideration.' Shake-
speare was also doubtless acquainted with Giles Fletcher's similar
handling of the theme in Sonnet xxviii. of his collection of sonnets
called Licia (1593).

78 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

he dedicated ' Venus and Adonis ' to him in colder
language a year before. ' The love I dedicate to
your lordship,' Shakespeare wrote in the opening
pages of ' Lucrece,' ' is without end, whereof this pam-
phlet without beginning is but a superfluous moiety.

. . What I have done is yours ; what I have to do
is yours ; being part in all I have, devoted yours.1

In these poems Shakespeare made his earliest
appeal to the world of readers, and the reading
Enthusias- public welcomed his addresses with unquali-

oiToFthe ^e<^ enthusiasm. The London playgoer
poems. already knew Shakespeare's name as that of
a promising actor and playwright, but his dramatic
efforts had hitherto been consigned in manuscript,
as soon as the theatrical representation ceased, to the
coffers of their owner, the playhouse manager. His
early plays brought him at the outset little repu-
tation as a man of letters. It was not as the myriad-
minded dramatist, but in the restricted role of adapter
for English readers of familiar Ovidian fables, that he
first impressed a wide circle of his contemporaries with
the fact of his mighty genius. The perfect sweetness of
the verse, and the poetical imagery in ' Venus and
Adonis ' and ' Lucrece ' practically silenced censure
of the licentious treatment of the themes on the part
of the seriously minded. Critics vied with each
other in the exuberance of the eulogies in which
they proclaimed that the fortunate author had gained
a place in permanence on the summit of Parnassus.
' Lucrece,' wrote Michael Drayton in his ' Legend of
Matilda ' (i 594), was ' revived to live another age.' In

FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 79

1595 William Clerke in his ' Polimanteia ' gave 'all
praise ' to ' sweet Shakespeare ' for his ' Lucrecia.' John
Weever, in a sonnet addressed to ' honey-tongued
Shakespeare' in his 'Epigramms' (1595), eulogised
the two poems as an unmatchable achievement, al-
though he mentioned the plays ' Romeo' and ' Richard'
and ' more whose names I know not' Richard Carew
at the same time classed him with Marlowe as deserv-
ing the praises of an English Catullus.1 Printers and
publishers of the poems strained their resources to
satisfy the demands of eager purchasers. No fewer
than seven editions of ' Venus ' appeared between
1 594 and 1602 ; an eighth followed in 1617. ' Lucrece '
achieved a fifth edition in the year of Shakespeare's
death.

There is a likelihood, too, that Spenser, the greatest
of Shakespeare's poetic contemporaries, was first drawn

by the poems into the ranks of Shakespeare's
speareand admirers. It is hardly doubtful that Spenser

described Shakespeare in ' Colin Clouts
come home againe ' (completed in 1594), under the
name of ' Action ' — a familiar Greek proper name de-
rived from 'Asros, an eagle :

And there, though last not least is Action ;

A gentler Shepheard may no where be found,
Whose muse, full of high thought's invention,

Doth, like himselfe, heroically sound.

The last line seems to allude to Shakespeare's sur-
name. We may assume that the admiration was

1 ' Excellencie of the English Tongue ' in Camden's Remaines,
P- 43-

80 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

mutual. At any rate Shakespeare acknowledged
acquaintance with Spenser's work in a plain 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 stated to be the theme of one of the dramatic enter-
tainments wherewith it is proposed to celebrate
Theseus's marriage. In Spenser's ' Teares of the
Muses ' each of the Nine laments in turn her declin-
ing influence on the literary and dramatic effort of
the age. Theseus dismisses the suggestion with the
not inappropriate comment :

That is some satire keen and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.

But there is no ground for assuming that Spenser in
the same poem referred figuratively to Shakespeare
when he made Thalia deplore the recent death of ' our
pleasant Willy.' ' The name Willy was frequently
used in contemporary literature as a term of
familiarity without relation to the baptismal name of
the person referred to. Sir Philip Sidney was ad-

1 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 limned forth, are wholly now defaced . . .
And he, the man whom Nature 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).

FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 8 1

dressed as ' Willy ' by some of his elegists. A comic
actor, ' dead of late ' in a literal 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.1 Similarly the ' gentle
spirit ' who is described by Spenser in a later stanza
as sitting ' in idle cell ' rather than turn his pen to
base uses cannot be reasonably identified with Shake-
speare.2

Meanwhile Shakespeare was gaining personal
esteem outside the circles of actors and men of
letters. His genius and ' civil demeanour ' of which
Chettle wrote arrested the notice not only of South-
ampton but of other noble patrons of literature
and the drama. His summons to act at Court
with the most famous actors of the day at the
Patrons at Christmas of 1594 was possibly due in part
court. to personal interest in himself. Elizabeth
quickly showed him special favour. Until the end of
her reign his plays were repeatedly acted in her
presence. The revised version of ' Love's Labour's

1 A note to this effect, in a genuine early seventeenth-century hand,
was discovered by Halliwell-Phillipps in a copy of the 1611 edition of
Spenser's Works (cf. Outlines, ii. 394-5).

But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen

Large streames of honnie and sweete nectar flowe,

Scorning the boldnes of such base-borne men

Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe,
Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell
Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell (11. 217-22).

82 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Lost ' was given at Whitehall at Christmas 1 597, and
tradition credits the Queen with unconcealed enthu-
siasm for Falstaff, who came into being a little later.
Under Elizabeth's successor he greatly strengthened
his hold on royal favour, but Ben Jonson claimed
that the Queen's appreciation equalled that of
James I. When Jonson wrote in his elegy on Shake-
speare of

Those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James,

he was mindful of many representations of Shake-
speare's plays by the poet and his fellow-actors at
the palaces of Whitehall, Richmond, or Greenwich
during the last decade of Elizabeth's reign.

VII

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY

IT was doubtless to Shakespeare's personal rela-
tions with men and women of the Court that his
sonnets owed their existence. In Italy and France the
practice of writing and circulating series of sonnets in-
The vogue scribed to great men and women flourished
zabethan continuously throughout the sixteenth cen-
sonnet. tury. 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 Shake-
speare was a boy. But it was not until 1591, when
Sir Philip Sidney's collection of sonnets entitled
' 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 se-
quences, engaged more literary activity in this country
than it engaged at any period here or elsewhere.1

1 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.

84 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Men and women of the cultivated Elizabethan nobility
encouraged poets to celebrate in single sonnets their
virtues and graces, and under the same patronage
there were produced multitudes of 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 in the country failed to seek
a patron's ears by a trial of skill on the popular
poetic instrument, and Shakespeare, who habitually
kept abreast of the currents of contemporary literary
taste, applied himself to sonnetteering with all the
force of his poetic genius when the fashion was at its
height.

Shakespeare had lightly experimented with the
sonnet from the outset of his literary career. Three
Shake- well-turned examples figure in ' Love's
ftrsTex^eri- Labour's Lost,' probably his earliest play ;
ments. £wo of the choruses in ' Romeo and Juliet '
are couched in the sonnet form ; and a letter of the
heroine Helen, in ' All's Well that Ends Well,' which
bears traces of very early composition, takes the
same shape. It has, too, been argued ingeniously, if
not convincingly, that he was author of the some-
what clumsy sonnet, ' Phaeton to his friend Florio,'
which prefaced in 1591 Florio's 'Second Frutes,' a
series of Italian-English dialogues for students.1

1 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 arrival art thou of the Spring !
For when each branch hath left his flourishing,
And green-locked Summer's shady pleasures cease :

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 85

But these were sporadic efforts. It was not till
the spring of 1593, after Shakespeare had secured
a nobleman's patronage for his earliest publication,
' Venus and Adonis/ that he became a sonnetteer
on an extended scale. Of the hundred and fifty-four
sonnets that survive outside his plays, the greater
Majority of number were in all likelihood composed
speare's between that date and the autumn of 1594,
composed Curing his thirtieth and thirty-first years.
in 1594. His occasional reference in the sonnets to his
growing age was a conventional device — traceable to
Petrarch— of all sonnetteers of the day, and admits of

She makes the Winter's storms repose in peace,

And spends her franchise on each living thing :

The daisies sprout, the little birds do sing,

Herbs, gums, and plants do vaunt of their release.
So when that all our English 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 morality,

Were ne'er before brought out of Italy.
Cf. Shakespeare's Sonnet xcviii. beginning :

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

But like descriptions of Spring and Summer formed a topic that
was common to all the sonnets of the period. Much has been written
of Shakespeare's alleged acquaintance with Florio. Farmer and
Warburton argue that Shakespeare ridiculed Florio in Holofernes in
Love's Labour's Lost. They chiefly rely on Florio's bombastic prefaces
to his Worlde of Wordes and his translation of Montaigne's Essays
(1603). There is nothing there to justify the suggestion. Florio
writes more in the vein of Armado than of Holofernes, and, beyond
the fact that he was a teacher of languages to noblemen, he bears no
resemblance to Holofernes, a village schoolmaster. Shakespeare
doubtless knew Florio as Southampton's protege, and read his fine
translation of Montaigne's Essays with delight. He quotes from ii
in The Tempest : see p. 253.

86 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

no literal interpretation.1 In matter and in manner
the bulk of the poems suggest that they came from
the pen of a man not much more than thirty. Doubt-
less he renewed his sonnetteering efforts occasionally

1 Shakespeare writes in his Sonnets :

My glass shall not persuade me I am old (xxii. i).

But when my glass shows me myself indeed,

Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity (Ixii. 9-10).

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang (Ixxiii. 1-2).

My days are past the best (cxxxviii. 6).

Daniel in Delia (xxiii.) in 1591, when twenty-nine years old, ex-
claimed :

My years draw on my everlasting night,

. . . My days are done.

Richard Barnfield, at the age of twenty, bade the boy Ganymede, to
whom he addressed his Affectionate Shepherd and a sequence of sonnets
in 1594 (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 1 594, 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 ;

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 alive), or Sonnet Ixxxi. (to
Laura after death) ; the latter begins :

Dicemi spesso il mio fidato speglio,
L'animo stanco e la cangiata scorza
E la scemata mia destrezza e forza :
Non ti nasconder piu : 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. " ')

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 87

and at irregular intervals during the nine years which
elapsed between 1594 and the accession of James I
in 1603. But to very few of the extant examples can
a date later than 1594 be allotted with confidence.
Sonnet CVH., in which plain reference is made to
Queen Elizabeth's death, may be fairly regarded as a
belated and a final act of homage on Shakespeare's
part to the importunate vogue of the Elizabethan
sonnet. All the evidence, whether internal or ex-
ternal, points to the conclusion that the sonnet ex-
hausted 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-
tative energy that are hardly to be matched

Their *>J _, ,

literary elsewhere in poetry. The best examples
are charged with the mellowed sweetness
of rhythm and metre, the depth of thought and
feeling, the vividness of imagery and the stimulating
fervour of expression 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 Shake-
speare's sonnets betray near kinship to his early
dramatic work, in which passages of the highest
poetic temper at times alternate with unimpressive
displays of verbal jugglery. In phraseology the
sonnets often closely resemble such early dramatic
efforts as ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and ' Romeo and
Juliet.' There is far more concentration in the sonnets
than in ' Venus and Adonis ' or in ' Lucrece,' although

88 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

occasional utterances of Shakespeare's Roman heroine
show traces of the intensity that characterises the
best of them. The superior and more evenly sus-
tained energy of the sonnets is to be attributed, not to
the accession of power that comes with increase of
years, but to the innate principles of the poetic form,
and to metrical exigences, which impelled the sonnet-
teer to aim at a uniform condensation of thought and
language.

In accordance with a custom that was not un-
circuiation common> Shakespeare did not publish his
in manu- sonnets ; he circulated them in manuscript.1

script. _

But their reputation grew, and public
interest was aroused in them in spite of his unreadi-

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 01
the collection that it had been widely ' spread abroad in written copies,'
and had ' gathered much corruption by ill writers ' {i.e. copyists].
Constable produced in 1 592 a collection of twenty sonnets in a volume
which he entitled ' Diana.' This was an authorised publication. But
in 1 594 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 ;
the 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 habit of circulating litera-
ture in manuscript abound. Fulke Greville, writing to Sidney's father-in-
law, Sir Francis Walsingham, in 1587, expressed regret that uncorrected
manuscript copies of the then unprinted Arcadia were ' so common.'
In 1591 Gabriel Cawood, the publisher of Robert Southwell's Mary
Magdalen's F^meral Tears, wrote that manuscript copies of the work
had long flown about 'fast and false.' Nash, in the preface to his

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 89

ness to give them publicity. A line from one of
them :

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds (xciv. 14),'

was quoted in the play of 'Edward III,' which was
probably written before 1 595. Meres, writing in 1 598
enthusiastically commends Shakespeare's ' sugred 2
sonnets among his private friends,' and mentions them
in close conjunction with his two narrative poems.
William Jaggard piratically inserted in 1599 two of
the most mature of the series (Nos. cxxxviii. and
cxliv.) in his ' Passionate Pilgrim.'

At length, in 1609, the sonnets were surreptitiously
sent to press. Thomas Thorpe, the moving spirit
Their in the design of their publication, was a
publication camp-follower of the regular publishing
in 1609. army. He was professionally engaged in pro-
curing for publication literary works which had been
widely disseminated in written copies, and had thus
passed beyond their authors' control ; for the law then
recognised no 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

Terrors of 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. '

1 Cf. Sonnet Ixix. 12 :

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds.

2 For other instances of the application of this epithet to Shake-
speare's work, see p. 179, note i.

90 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

reference to the author's wishes. Thorpe's career as
a procurer of neglected ' 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 obtained a license for the publi-
cation of ' Shakespeares 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 to print the manuscript, and
two booksellers, William Aspley and John Wright, to
distribute it 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,1 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) pen was, unless the substitution
was specifically accounted for on other grounds, an
accepted sign that the author had no hand in the pub-
lication. Except in the case of his two narrative
poems, which were published in 1593 and 1594 respec-
tively, 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
encouraged by his passive indifference and the con-
temporary condition of the law of copyright. He

1 The actor Alleyn paid fivepence for a copy in that month (cf.
Warner's Duliaich MSS. p. 92).

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY pi

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 liberty of appending a previously unprinted
poem of forty-nine seven-line stanzas (the metre of
• A Lover's ' Lucrece ') entitled ' A Lover's Complaint,'
Complaint.1 jn wnich a giri laments her betrayal by a

deceitful youth. The poem, in a gentle Spenserian
vein, has no connection with the ' Sonnets.' If, as is
possible, it be by Shakespeare, it must have been
written in very early days.

A misunderstanding respecting Thorpe's preface
and his part in the publication has led many critics
into a serious misinterpretation of Shakespeare's
poems.1 Thorpe's dedication was couched in the
bombastic language which was habitual to him.
Thomas He advertised Shakespeare as 'our ever-
aod^Mr. living poet.' As the chief promoter of
w- H-' the undertaking, he called himself ' the
well-wishing adventurer in setting forth,' and in reso-
nant phrase designated as the patron of the venture

1 The chief editions of the sonnets that have appeared, with critical
apparatus, of late years are those of Professor Dowden (1875, reissued
1896), Mr. Thomas Tyler (1890), and Mr. George Wyndham, M.P.
(1898). Mr. Gerald Massey's Secret Drama of Shakespeare's Sonnets —
the text of the poems with a full discussion — appeared in a second revised
edition in 1888. I regret to find myself in more or less complete dis-
agreement with all these writers, although I am at one with Mr. Massey
in identifying the young man to whom many of the sonnets were ad-
dressed with the Earl of Southampton. A short bibliography of the
works advocating the theory that the sonnets were addressed to William,
third Earl of Pembroke, is given in Appendix VI., ' Mr. William
Herbert,' note i.

92 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

a partner in the speculation, ' Mr. W. H.' In the
conventional dedicatory formula of the day he wished
1 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. He is best identified with
a stationer's assistant, William Hall, who was profes-
sionally engaged, like Thorpe, in procuring ' copy.' In
1606* W. H.' won a conspicuous success in that direc-
tion, 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 South-
well who had been executed in 1 595, and he published
it with a dedication (signed ' W. H. ') vaunting his good
fortune in meeting with such treasure-trove. When
Thorpe dubbed ' Mr. W. H.,' with characteristic mag-
niloquence, 'the onlie begetter [i.e. obtainer or procurer]
of these ensuing sonnets,' he merely indicated that
that personage was the first of the pirate-publisher
fraternity to procure a manuscript of Shakespeare's
sonnets and recommend its surreptitious issue. In
accordance with custom, Thorpe gave Hall's initials
only, because he was an intimate associate who
was known by those initials to their common circle
of friends. Hall was not a man of sufficiently
wide public reputation to render it probable that the

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 93

printing of his full name would excite additional
interest in the book or attract buyers.

The common assumption that Thorpe in this boast-
ful preface was covertly addressing, under the initials
< Mr. W. H.,' a young nobleman, to whom the sonnets
were originally addressed by Shakespeare, ignores the
elementary principles of publishing transactions of the
day, and especially of those of the type to which Thorpe's
efforts were confined.1 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 solely by his
mercantile interests. He was under no inducement
and in no position to take into consideration the
affairs of Shakespeare's private life. Shakespeare,
through all but the earliest stages of his career,
belonged socially to a world that was cut off by im-
passable barriers from that in which Thorpe pursued

1 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 vin. ) Further, it has been fantastically
suggested that the line (xx. 7) describing the youth as ' A man in hue, all
hues in his controlling' (i.e. a man in colour or complexion whose
charms are so varied as to appear to give his countenance control of, or
enable it to assume, all manner of fascinating hues or complexions), and
other applications to the youth of the ordinary word ' hue,' imply that
his surname was Hughes. There is no other pretence of argument for
the conclusion, which a few critics have hazarded in all seriousness, that
the friend's name was William Hughes. There was a contemporary
musician called William Hughes, but no known contemporary of the
name, either in age or position in life, bears any resemblance to the young
man who is addressed by Shakespeare in his sonnets.

94 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

his calling. It was wholly outside Thorpe's aims in
life to seek to mystify his customers by investing a
dedication with any cryptic significance.

No peer of the day, moreover, bore a name which
could be represented by the initials ' Mr. W. H.'
Shakespeare was never on terms of intimacy (although
the contrary has often been recklessly assumed) with
William, third Earl of Pembroke, when a youth.'
But were complete 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 Pembroke was a high officer 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 publisher or author
who denied him in print his titular distinctions-
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
etiquette, but that his sycophantic temperament ren-
dered him only eager to improve on the conventional
formulas of servility. Any further consideration of
Thorpe's address to 'Mr. W. H.' belongs to the

1 See Appendix vi., 'Mr. William Herbert;' and vn. , 'Shake-
speare and the Earl of Pembroke. '

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 95

biographies of Thorpe and his friend ; it lies outside
the scope of Shakespeare's biography.1

Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' ignore the somewhat
complex scheme of rhyme adopted by Petrarch,
The form whom the Elizabethan sonnetteers, like the
sf fare's6 Frencn sonnetteers of the sixteenth century,
Sonnets. recognised to be in most respects their master.
Following the example originally set by Surrey and
Wyatt, and generally pursued by Shakespeare's con-
temporaries, his sonnets aim at far greater metrical
simplicity than the Italian or the French. They
consist of three decasyllabic quatrains with a con-
cluding couplet, and the quatrains rhyme alternately.-

1 The full results of my researches into Thorpe'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.'"

2 The form of fourteen-line stanza adopted by Shakespeare 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 Instruction concerning the
making of Verse or Ryme in English (published in Gascoigne's Posies,
1575), defined sonnets thus : ' Fouretene lynes, every lyne conteyning
enne 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. As is not
uncommon in Elizabethan sonnet-collections, one of Shakespeare's
sonnets (xcix.) has fifteen lines; another (cxxvi.) has only twelve lines,
and those in rhymed couplets (cf. Lodge's Phillis, Nos. viii. and xxvi. ) ;
and a third (cxlv. ) is in octosyllabics. But it is very doubtful whether
the second and third of these sonnets rightly belong to Shakespeare's
collection. They were probably written as independent lyrics : see p.
97, note i.

96 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A single sonnet does not always form an indepen-
dent 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 presents
the appearance of an extended series of independent
poems, many in a varying 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
Want of written. Fantastic endeavours have been
continuity. ma(je ^o detect in the original arrangement
of the poems a closely connected narrative, but the
thread is on any showing constantly interrupted.1
The two It is usual to divide the sonnets into two
•groups.' groups, and to represent that all those
numbered i.-cxxvi. by Thorpe were addressed to a
young man, and all those numbered cxxvii.-cliv. were

1 If the critical ingenuity which has detected a continuous thread of
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
subjects 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 evidence were admitted, quite as convin-
cingly, as Thorpe's collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. Almost all
Elizabethan sonnets are not merely 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.

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 97

addressed to a woman. This division cannot be
literally 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
unequivocal sign ; but among the remaining forty
there is no clear indication of the kind. Many of
these forty are meditative soliloquies which address no
person at all (cf. cv. cxvi. cxix. cxxi.) A few in-
voke abstractions like Death (Ixvi.) or Time (cxxiii.),
or ' benefit of ill ' (cxix.) The twelve-lined poem
(cxxvi.), the last of the first ' group,' does little more
than sound a variation on the conventional poetic in-
vocations of Cupid or Love personified as a boy.1 And
there is no valid 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.-cliv.) have no uniform
superscription. Six invoke no person at all. No.
cxxviii. is an overstrained compliment on a lady play-
ing on the virginals. No. cxxix. is a metaphysical
disquisition on lust. No. cxlv. is a playful lyric in

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 —
' blind hitting boy,' he calls him — in \w$, 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 Fulke Greville's collection entitled C<zlica (cf. Ixxxiv.,
beginning ' Farewell, sweet boy, complain not of my truth '). Lyly,
in his Sapho and Phao, 1584, and in his Mother Bombie, 1598, has
songs of like temper addressed in the one case to ' O Cruel love ! ' and
in the other to ' O Cupid ! monarch over kings.' 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.

98 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

octosyllabics, like Lyly'ssongof ' 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.1

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 poet's appeal to a young man to marry
so that his youth and beauty may survive in 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-
Main talising his friend's youth and accomplish-
the'firsf ments. The same asseveration is repeated
•group.' in many later sonnets (cf. Iv. Ix. Ixiii.
Ixxiv. Ixxxi. ci. cvii.) These alternate with conven-
tional adulation of the beauty of the object of the
poet's affections (cf. xxi. liii. Ixviii.) and descriptions
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.
xliii. Ixi.) 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. Ixix.
xcv.-xcvi.) In Sonnet Ixx. the young man whom
1 See p. 113, note 2.

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 99

the poet addresses is credited with a different disposi-
tion 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 !

At times melancholy overwhelms the writer : he
despairs of the corruptions of the age (Ixvi.), re-
proaches himself with carnal sin (cxix.), declares him-
self weary of his profession of acting (cxi. cxii.), and
foretells his approaching death (Ixxi.-lxxiv.) Through-
out 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 bestowing 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 ' (cxxvi.-
clii.) the poet compliments his mistress on her black
complexion and raven-black hair and eyes. In twelve
sonnets he hotly denounces his ' dark ' mistress for
her proud disdain of his affection, and for her mani-
fold infidelities with other men. Apparently con-
Main tinuing a theme of the first ' group/ the poet
the'second reDUkes the woman, whom he addresses, for
• group.' having beguiled his friend to yield himself to
her seductions (cxxxiii.-cxxxvi.) Elsewhere he makes
satiric reflections on the extravagant compliments
paid to the fair sex by other sonnetteers (No. cxxx.),

H 2

100 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

or lightly quibbles on his name of ' Will ' (cxxx.-vi.)
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 of signifi-
cance 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
appearance — they were presented in a completely
different order. The short descriptive titles which
were then supplied to single sonnets or to short
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
Lack of behalf to rank as autobiographical docu-
lendment ments can only be accepted with many
in Eliza- qualifications. Elizabethan sonnets were
sonnets. commonly the artificial products of the poet's
fancy. A strain of personal emotion is occasionally
discernible in a detached effort, and is vaguely trace-
able in a few sequences ; but autobiographical con-
fessions were very rarely the stuff of which the
Elizabethan sonnet was made. The typical collection

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY IOI

of Elizabethan sonnets was a mosaic of plagiarisms,
a medley of imitative 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 peculiar to themselves.
Daniel's fine sonnet (xlix.) on ' Care-charmer, sleep/
although directly inspired by the French, breathes a
finer melody than the sonnet of Pierre de Brach l
Their de- apostrophising ' le sommeil chasse-soin '
pendence (in the collection entitled ' Les Amours
and Italian d'Aymee '), or the sonnet of Philippe Des-
portes invoking ' Sommeil, paisible fils
de la nuit solitaire ' (in the collection entitled
' Amours d'Hippolyte ').2 But, throughout Elizabe-
than sonnet literature, the heavy debt to Italian and
French effort is unmistakable.3 Spenser, in 1569, at
the outset of his literary career, avowedly translated
numerous sonnets 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.4 Thomas Watson in 1582, in his collec-

1 1547-1604. Cf. De Brach, (Euvres Poetiques, edited by Reinhold
Dezeimeris, 1861, i. pp. 59-60.

2 See Appendix ix.

3 Section X. of the Appendix to this volume supplies a biblio-
graphical note on the sonnet in France betv/een 1550 and 1600, with
a list of the sixteenth-century sonnetteers of Italy.

4 Gabriel Harvey, in his Pierces Supererogation (1593, p. 6l), 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 that ' all the
noblest Italian, French, and Spanish poets have in their several veins

102 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

tion of metrically irregular sonnets which he entitled
<'EKATOMIIA@IA,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

Petrarchized ; and it is no dishonour for the daintiest or divinest Muse
to be his scholar, whom the amiablest invention and beautifullest
elocution acknowledge their master.' Both French and English son-
netteers habitually admit that they are open to the charge of plagiarising
Petrarch's sonnets to Laura (cf. Du Bellay's Les Amours, ed. Becq
de Fouquieres, 1876, p. 186, and Daniel's Delta, 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 Vila di M. Laura, beginning ' S' amor non e, che dunque
e quel ch' i' sento?' with a rendering of it into French like that of
De Baif in his Amours de Francine (ed. Becq de Fouquieres, p. 121),
beginning, ' Si ce n'est pas Amour, que sent donques mon cceur ? ' 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 Surrey and Wyatt. It is interesting to compare
the skill of the early and late sonnetteers in rendering the Italian master.
Petrarch's sonnet In vita di At. Laura (No. Ixxx. or Ixxxi. , 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. Bullen, i. 90). Petrarch's
sonnet (No. xcv. or cxiii.) was also rendered independently both by
Wyatt (cf. Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, ed. Arber, p. 23) and
by Drummond of Hawthornden (ed. Ward, i. 100, 221).

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 103

foreign original, and frequently appended a quotation.1
Dray ton in 1 594, 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.' 2 Lodge did not
acknowledge his borrowings more specifically than his
colleagues, 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.'3 Giles Fletcher, who in his collection of
sonnets called ' Licia ' (1593) simulated the varying

1 Eight of Watson's sonnets are, according to his own account, render-
ings from Petrarch ; twelve are from Serafino dell' Aquila (1466-1500) ;
four each come from Strozza, an Italian poet, and from Ronsard ; three
from the Italian poet Agnolo Firenzuola (1493-1548) ; two each from
the French poet, Etienne Forcadel, known as Forcatulus (I5I4?-I573),
the Italian Girolamo Parabosco (fl. 1548), and JEneas Sylvius; while
many are based on passages from such authors as (among the Greeks)
Sophocles, Theocritus, Apollonius of Rhodes (author of the epic ' Argo-
nautica ') ; 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(i448-I5i6) ; or (among other modern Frenchmen)
Gervasius Sepinus of Saumur, writer of eclogues after the manner
of Virgil and Mantuanus.

2 No importance can be attached to Drayton's pretensions to greater
originality than his neighbours. The very line in which he makes the
claim (' I am no pick-purse of another's wit') is a verbatim theft from
a sonnet of Sir Philip Sidney.

3 Lodge's Margarite, p. 79. See Appendix ix. for the text of
Desportes's sonnet (Diane, livre ii. No. iii.) and Lodge's translation
in Phillis. Lodge gave two other translations of the same sonnet of
Desportes — in his romance of AVra/zVzof (Hunterian Society's reprint,
p. 74), and in his volume of poems called Scillaes Metamorphosis (p.
44). Sonnet xxxiii. of Lodge's Phillis is rendered with equal literal-
ness from Ronsard. But Desportes was Lodge's special master.

104 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 William Drummond of Hawthorn-
den have been traced to their sources in the Italian
sonnets not merely of Petrarch, but of the sixteenth-
century poets Guarini, Bembo, Giovanni Battista
Marino, Tasso, and Sannazzaro.1 The Elizabethans
usually 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 2 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 1 594 the
French term ' amours,' but bestowed on his ima-
ginary heroine the title of Idea, which seems to have
been the invention of Claude de Pontoux,3 although it
was employed by other French contemporaries.

With good reason Sir Philip Sidney warned the
public that ' no inward touch ' was to be expected
from sonnetteers of his day, whom he describes as

' [Men] 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.'

1 See Drummond's Poems, ed. W. C. Ward, in Muses' Library,
1894, i. 207 seq.

2 Seve's Delie was first published at Lyons in 1 544.

3 I530-I579-

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY IO5

Sidney unconvincingly claimed greater sincerity for
his own experiments. But ' even amorous sonnets in
Sonnetteers1 the gallantest and sweetest civil vein,' wrote
of Sin™5 Gabriel Harvey in ' Pierces Supererogation '
cerity. jn 1 593, c are but dainties of a pleasurable
wit.' Drayton's sonnets more nearly approached
Shakespeare's in quality than those of any contem-
porary. Yet Drayton told the readers of his collec-
tion entitled ' Idea ' 1 (after the French) that if any
sought genuine passion in them, they had better go
elsewhere. ' In all humours sportively he ranged,' he
declared. 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

1 In two of his century of sonnets (Nos. xiii. and xxiv. in 1594
edition, renumbered xxxii. and liii. in 1619 edition) Drayton hints
that his ' fair Idea ' embodied traits of an identifiable lady of his ac-
quaintance, and he repeats the hint in two other short poems ; but
the fundamental principles of his sonnetteering exploits are defined
explicitly in Sonnet xviii. in 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'Idee,' left the reader in no doubt of his intent
by concluding one poem thus :

La, 6 mon ame, au plus hault ciel guid£e,
Tu y pourras recognoistre 1'Idee
De la beaute qu'en ce monde j 'adore.

(Du Bellay's Olive, No. cxiii., published in 1568.)

IO6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

husbandry and not go to the plough, or of witches
and be none, or of holiness and be profane.' 1

The dissemination of false sentiment by the
sonnetteers, and their monotonous and mechanical
Contempo- treatment of ' the pangs of despised love '
sure of" or the J°ys °f requited affection, did not
teers^faise escaPe tne censure of contemporary criti-
sentiment. cism. The air soon rang with sarcastic
protests from the most respected writers of the day.
In early life Gabriel Harvey wittily parodied the
mingling of adulation and vituperation in the con-
ventional sonnet-sequence in his ' Amorous Odious
Sonnet intituled The Student's Loove or Hatrid.' 2
Chapman in 1595, in a series of sonnets entitled ' A
Coronet for his mistress Philosophy,' appealed to his
literary comrades to abandon ' the painted cabinet '
of the love-sonnet for a coffer 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
•Gulling poetry's disgrace.' In his anxiety to stamp
Sonnets. ouj. fae folly he wrote and circulated in
manuscript a specimen series of nine ' gulling sonnets '

1 Ben Jonson pointedly noticed the artifice inherent in the metrical
principles of the sonnet when he 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 Conversation, p. 4).

2 See p. 121 infra.

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY IO/

or parodies of the conventional efforts.1 Even Shake-
speare does not seem to have escaped Davies's con-
demnation. Sir John is especially severe on the
sonnetteers who handled conceits based on legal
technicalities, and his eighth ' gulling sonnet,' in
which he ridicules the application of law terms to
affairs of the heart, may well have been suggested
by Shakespeare's legal phraseology in his Sonnets
Ixxxvii. and cxxiv. ; 2 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. 3

Echoes of the critical hostility are heard, it is curious
to note, in nearly all the references that Shakespeare
Shake- himself makes to sonnetteering in his plays,
scornful ' Tush, none but minstrels like of sonnetting,'
allusion to exciaims Biron in 'Love's Labour's Lost'

sonnets in

his plays, (rv. iii. 158). In the 'Two Gentlemen of
Verona ' (ill. ii. 68 seq.) there is a satiric touch 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

1 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. 53-62.

2 Davies's Sonnet viii. is printed in Appendix ix.

3 See p. 127 infra.

108 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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
respectfully 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 a better love to be-rhyme her.' l
In later plays Shakespeare's disdain of the sonnet is
still more pronounced. In 'Henry V (ill. vii. 33
et seq.) the Dauphin, after bestowing ridiculously mag-
niloquent 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 replies : ' 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 so ' in high
a style that no man living shall come over it.' Sub-
sequently (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.

1 Romeo and ftiliet, n. iv. 41-4.

IO9

AT a first glance a far larger proportion of Shake-
speare's sonnets give the reader the illusion of
personal confessions than those of any contemporary,
but when allowance has been made for the current
conventions of Elizabethan sonnetteering, as well as
for Shakespeare's unapproached affluence in dramatic
Slender auto- instinct and invention — an affluence which
enabled him to identify himself with every

in Shake- phaseof human emotion — the autobiographic

speare s *

sonnets. element in his sonnets, although it may not
be dismissed altogether, is seen to shrink to slender
proportions. As soon as the collection is studied
comparatively with the many thousand sonnets that
the printing presses of England, France, and Italy
poured forth during the last years of the sixteenth
century, a vast number of Shakespeare's performances
prove to be little more than professional trials of

skill, often of superlative merit, to which
tativeeie- he deemed himself challenged by the efforts

of contemporary practitioners. The thoughts
and words of the sonnets of Daniel, Drayton, Watson,
Barnabe Barnes, Constable, and Sidney were assimi-
lated by Shakespeare in his poems as consciously and

I 10 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

with as little compunction as the plays and novels of
contemporaries in his dramatic work. To Drayton he
was especially indebted.1 Such resemblances as are
visible between Shakespeare's sonnets and those of
Petrarch or Desportes seem due to his study of the
English imitators of those sonnetteers. Most of Ron-

1 Mr. Fleay in his Biographical Chronicle of the English Stage,
ii. 226 seq. , gives a striking list of parallels between Shakespeare's and
Drayton's sonnets which any reader of the two collections in conjunc-
tion could easily increase. Mr. Wyndham in his valuable edition of
Shakespeare's Sonnets, p. 255> argues that Drayton was the plagiarist
of Shakespeare, chiefly on bibliographical grounds, which he does not
state quite accurately. One hundred sonnets belonging to Drayton's
Idea series are extant, but they were not all published by him at
one time. Fifty-three were alone included in his first and only separate
edition of 1594 ; six more appeared in a reprint of Idea appended to
the Heroical Epistles in 1 599 ; twenty-four of these were gradually
dropped and thirty-four new ones substituted in reissues appended
to volumes of his writings issued respectively in 1600, 1602, 1603,
and 1605. To the collection thus re-formed a further addition of
twelve sonnets and a withdrawal of some twelve old sonnets were made
in the final edition of Drayton's works in 1619. There the sonnets
number sixty-three. Mr. Wyndham insists that Drayton's latest pub-
lished sonnets have alone an obvious resemblance to Shakespeare's
sonnets, and that they all more or less reflect Shakespeare's sonnets as
printed by Thorpe in 1609. But the whole of Drayton's century of sonnets
except twelve were in print long before 1609, and it could easily be shown
that the earliest fifty-three published in 1 594 supply as close parallels
with Shakespeare's sonnets as any of the forty-seven published subse-
quently. Internal evidence suggests that all but one or two of
Drayton's sonnets were written by him in I594> in the full tide of
the sonnetteering craze. Almost all were doubtless in circulation in
manuscript then, although only fifty-three were published in 1594.
Shakespeare would have had ready means of access to Drayton's manu-
script collection. Mr. Collier reprinted all the sonnets that Drayton
published between 1594 and 1619 in his edition of Drayton's
poems for the Roxburghe Club, 1856. Other editions of Drayton's
sonnets of this and the last century reprint exclusively the collection of
sixty-three appended to the edition of his works in 1619.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS III

sard's nine hundred sonnets and many of his numerous
odes were accessible to Shakespeare in English
adaptations, but there are a few signs that Shakespeare
had recourse to Ron sard direct.

Adapted or imitated conceits are scattered over
the whole of Shakespeare's collection. They are
usually manipulated with consummate skill, but
Shakespeare's indebtedness is not thereby obscured.
Shakespeare in many beautiful sonnets describes
spring and summer, night and sleep and their influence
on amorous emotion. Such topics are common
themes of the poetry of the Renaissance, and they
figure in Shakespeare's pages clad in the identical
livery that clothed them in the sonnets of Petrarch,
Ronsard, De Bai'f, and Desportes, or of English
disciples of the Italian and French masters.1 In

1 Almost all sixteenth-century sonnets on spring in the absence of
the poet's love (cf. Shakespeare's Sonnets xcviii., xcix. ) are variations
on the sentiment and phraseology of Petrarch's well-known sonnet
xlii., In morte di M. Laura,' beginning :

Zefiro torna e '1 bel tempo rimena,

E i fiori e 1'erbe, sua dolce famiglia,

E garrir Progne e pianger Filoraena,

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 e d' amor piena ;

Ogni animal d' amar si riconsiglia.
Ma per me, lasso, tornano i piu gravi

Sospiri, che del cor profondo tragge, &c.

See a translation by William Drummond of Hawthornden in Sonnets,
pt. ii. No. ix. Similar sonnets and odes on April, spring, and summer
abound in French and English (cf. Becq de Fouquiere's CEuvres choisies
de J. -A. de Baif, passim, and CEuvres choisies des Contemporains de
Ronsard, p. 108 (by Remy Belleau), p. 129 (by Amadis Jamyn) et
passim). For descriptions of night and sleep see especially Ronsard's

112 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sonnet xxiv. Shakespeare develops Ronsard's conceit
that his love's portrait is painted on his heart ; and in
Sonnet cxxii. he repeats something of Ronsard's phra-
seology in describing how his friend, who has just made
him a gift of tables,' is ' character'd ' in his brain.1 Son-
net xcix., which reproaches the flowers with stealing
their charms from the features of his love, is adapted
from Constable's sonnet to Diana (No. ix.), and may be
matched in other collections. Elsewhere Shakespeare
meditates on the theory that man is an amalgam of the
four elements, earth, water, air, and fire (xl.-xlv.) 2 In
all these he reproduces, with such embellishments as
his genius dictated, phrases and sentiments of Daniel,
Drayton, Barnes, and Watson, who imported them
direct from France and Italy. In two or three instances
Shakespeare showed his reader that he was engaged
in a mere literary exercise by offering him alternative
renderings of the same conventional conceit. In
Sonnets xlvi. and xlvii. he paraphrases twice over —
appropriating many of Watson's words — the unexhila-
rating notion that the eye and heart are in perpetual
dispute as to which has the greater influence on

Amours (livre i. clxxxvi., livre ii. xxii. ; Odes, livre iv. No. iv., and
his Odes Retranchtes in (Euvres, edited by Blanchemain, ii. 392-4.)
Cf. Barnes's Parthenophe and Parthenophil, Ixxxiii. cv.

1 Cf. Ronsard's Amours, livre iv. clxxviii. ; Amours pour Astree,
vi. The latter opens :

II ne falloit, rnaistresse, autres tablettes
Pour vous graver que celles de mon coeur
Oil de sa main Amour, nostre vainqueur,
Vous a gravee et vos graces parfaites.

2 Cf. Spenser, Iv. ; Barnes's Parthenophe and Parthenophil, No.
Ixxvii. ; Fulke Greville's Ctzlica, No. vii.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS 113

lovers.1 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 sub-
sequently won the notice of English, French, and
Italian sonnetteers.2

In the numerous sonnets in which Shakespeare
Shake- boasted that his verse was so certain of im-
chdmsof mortality that it was capable of immorta-
taiit10for lismg tne person to whom it was addressed,
his sonnets he gave voice to no conviction that was

a borrowed

conceit. peculiar to his mental constitution, to
no involuntary exaltation of spirit, or spontaneous

1 A similar conceit is the topic of Shakespeare's Sonnet xxiv.
Ronsard'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 Ixiii. ( ' Occhi, piangete, accompagnate il core ') is a dialogue
between 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
of Fancie, xix. xx. (a pair of sonnets on the theme which closely
resemble Shakespeare's pair) ; Drayton's Idea, xxxiii. ; Barnes's
Parthenophe and Parthenophil, xx., and Constable's Diana, vi. 7.

2 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 whc
sought to quench love's 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 cliv. 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. '

114 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ebullition of feeling. He was merely proving that he
could at will, and with superior effect, handle a theme
that Ronsard and Desportes, emulating Pindar,
Horace, Ovid, and other classical poets, had lately
made a commonplace of the poetry of Europe.1 Sir
Philip Sidney, in his ' Apologie for Poetrie ' (1595),
wrote that it was the common habit of poets ' to tell
you that they will make you immortal by their verses.' 2
' Men of great calling,' Nash wrote in his ' Pierce
Pennilesse,' 1593, 'take it of merit to have their
names eternised by poets.' 3 In the hands of Eliza-
bethan sonnetteers the ' eternising ' faculty of their

1 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 Gract.
In Latin poetry the topic is treated in Ennius as quoted in Cicero,
De Senectute, c. 207 ; in Horace's Odes, iii. 30 ; in Virgil's Georgics,
iii. 9 ; in Propertius, iii. I ; in Ovid's Metamorphoses, xv. 871 seq. ; and
in Martial, x. 27 seq. Among French sonnetteers Ronsard attacked the
theme most boldly. His 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 Carnavalet,' illustrate 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 1'airain vestu
D'un labeur vif par 1'enclume
N'animent tant la vertu
Que les Muses par la plume. . .

Les neuf divines pucelles
Gardent ta gloire chez elles ;
Et mon luth, qu'ell'ont fait estre
De leurs secrets le grand prestre,
Par cest hymne solennel
Respandra dessus ta race
Je ne sgay quoy de sa grace
Qui te doit faire eternel.

( GEuvres de Ronsard, ed. Blanchemain, ii. 58, 62. )

I quote two other instances from Ronsard on p. 116, note I.
Desportes was also prone to indulge in the same conceit ; cf. his
Cleonice, sonnet 62, which Daniel appropriated bodily in his Delia
Sonnet xxvi.) Desportes warns his mistress that she will live in his
verse like the phoenix in fire.

* Ed. Shuckburgh, p. 62. 3 Shakespeare Soc. p. 93.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS 115

verse became a staple and indeed an inevitable topic.
Spenser wrote in his ' Amoretti ' (1595, Sonnet Ixxv.) :

My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Drayton and Daniel developed the conceit with
unblushing 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. n).
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. Characteristically in Sonnet Iv.
he invested the topic with a splendour that was not
approached by any other poet : *

1 Other references to the topic appear in Sonnets xix. , liv. , Ix. , Ixiii. ,
Ixv. , Ixxxi. and cvii.

I 2

Il6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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.

The imitative element is no less conspicuous in
the sonnets that Shakespeare distinctively addresses

1 See the quotation from Ronsard on p. 114, note I. This sonnet
is also very like Ronsard 's Ode (livre v. No. xxxii.) 'A sa Muse,'

which opens :

Plus dur que fer j'ay fini mon ouvrage,
Que 1'an, dispos a demener les pas,
, Que 1'eau, le vent ou le brulant orage,
L'injuriant, ne ru'ront point a has.
Quand ce viendra que le dernier trespas
M'assoupira d'un somme dur, a 1'heure,
Sous le tombeau tout Ronsard n'ira pas,
Restant de luy la part meilleure. . . .
Sus donque, Muse, emporte au ciel la gloire
Que j'ay gaign^e, annongant la victoire
Dont a bon droit je me voy jouissant. . . .

Cf. also Ronsard's Sonnet Ixxii. in Amours (livre i. ), where he declares
that his mistress's name

Victorieux des peuples et des rois
S'en voleroit sus 1'aile de ma ryme.

But Shakespeare, like Ronsard, knew Horace's far-famed Ode (bk. iii.

30):

Exegi monumentum aere perennius
Regalique situ pyramidum altius,
Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis
Annorum series, et fuga temporum.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS 1 1/

to a woman. In two of the latter (cxxxv.-vi.j, where
he quibbles over the fact of the identity of his own
name of Will with a lady's ' will ' (the synonym in
Elizabethan English of both 'lust' and ' obstinacy '), he
derisively challenges comparison with wire-drawn con-
Conceits in celts of rival sonnetteers, especially of Bar-
dressed to nabe Barnes, who had enlarged on his disdain-
a woman. fui mistress's ' wills/ and had turned the word
' grace ' to the same punning account as Shakespeare

Nor can there be any doubt that Shakespeare wrote with a direct
reference to the concluding nine lines of 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, quae nil nisi corporis hujus
Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi ;
Parte tamen meliore mei super aha perennis
Astra ferar nomenque erit indelebile nostrum.

This passage was familiar to Shakespeare in one of his favourite books
— Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses. Golding's rendering
opens :

Now have I brought a worke to end which neither Jove's fierce wrath
Nor sword nor fire nor fretting age, with all the force it hath
Are able to abolish quite, &c.

Meres, after his mention of Shakespeare's sonnets in his Palladis Tamia
(1598), quotes parts of both passages from Horace and Ovid, and gives
a Latin paraphrase of his own, which, he says, would fit the lips of four
contemporary poets besides Shakespeare. The introduction of the name
Mars into Meres's paraphrase as well as into line 7 of Shakespeare's
Sonnet Iv. led Mr. Tyler (on what are in any case very trivial grounds) to
the assumption that Shakespeare was borrowing from his admiring critic,
and was therefore writing after 1598, when Meres's book was published.
In Golding's translation reference is made to Mars by name (the Latin
here calls the god Gradivus) a few lines above the passage already
quoted, and the word caught Shakespeare's eye there. Shakespeare
owed nothing to Meres's paraphrase, but Meres probably owed much to
passages in Shakespeare's sonnets.

Il8 WILLIAM 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,2

he satirises the conventional lists of precious stones,
metals, and flowers, to which the sonnetteers likened
their mistresses' features.

In two sonnets (cxxvii. and cxxxii.) Shakespeare

amiably notices the black complexion, hair, and

eyes of his mistress, and expresses a pre-

The praise

of • black- ference for features of that hue over those of
the fair hue which was, he tells us, more
often associated in poetry with beauty. He com-
mends the ' dark lady ' for refusing to practise those
arts by which other women of the day gave their hair
and faces colours denied them by Nature. Here
Shakespeare repeats almost verbatim his own lines
in ' Love's Labour's Lost ' (IV. iii. 241-7), where the
heroine Rosaline is described as 'black as ebony,'
with ' brows decked in black,' and in ' mourning ' for

1 See Appendix viii., '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
sonnetteers' 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 Parthenoph.il,
sonnet xlviii. , ' Her hairs no grace of golden wires want. ' The com-
parison of lips with coral is not uncommon outside the Elizabethan
sonnet, but it was universal there. Cf. ' Coral-coloured lips ' (Zepheria,
1594, 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.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS Iig

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.
Sir Philip Sidney, in sonnet vii. of his ' Astrophel
and Stella,' had anticipated it. 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. l

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 con-
ceit.2 Similarly, the sonnets, in which a dark com-
plexion 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

1 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 Sonnet 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.

2 O paradox ! Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons and the scowl of night (Love's Labour's Lost, iv. iii. 54- 5).
To look like her are chimney-sweepers black,
And since her time are colliers counted bright,
And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.
Dark needs no candle now, for dark is light (ib. 266-9).

120 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

he mock his ' dark lady ' with this uncomplimentary
interpretation of dark-coloured hair and eyes.

The two sonnets, in which this view of ' blackness '
is developed, form part of a series of twelve, which
belongs to a special category of sonnetteering effort.
In them Shakespeare abandons the sugared sentiment
which characterises most of his hundred and forty-two
remaining sonnets. He grows vituperative and pours
The son- a volley of passionate abuse upon a woman
vifupera- whom he represents as disdaining his ad-
tion. vances. The genuine anguish of a rejected

lover often expresses itself in curses both loud and deep,
but the mood of blinding wrath which the rejection of
a lovesuit may rouse in a passionate nature does
not seem from the internal evidence to be reflected
genuinely in Shakespeare's sonnets of vituperation.
It was inherent in Shakespeare's genius that he should
import more dramatic intensity than any other poet
into sonnets of a vituperative type ; but there is also
in his vituperative sonnets a declamatory parade of
figurative extravagance which suggests that the emo-
tion is feigned and that the poet is striking an attitude.
He cannot have been in earnest in seeking to conciliate
his disdainful mistress — a result at which the vitu-
perative sonnets purport to aim — when he tells her
that she is ' black as hell, as dark as night,' and with
' so foul a face ' is ' the bay where all men ride.'

But external evidence is more conclusive as to the
artificial construction of the vituperative sonnets.
Again a comparison of this series with the efforts of
the modish sonnetteers assigns to it its true character.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS 121

Every sonnetteer of the sixteenth century, at some
point in his career, devoted his energies to vituperation
of a cruel siren. Ronsard in his sonnets celebrated in
language quite as furious as Shakespeare's a ' fierce
tigress,' a ' murderess,' a ' Medusa.' Barnabe Barnes af-
fected to contend in his sonnets with a female 'tyrant,'
a 'Medusa,' a 'rock.' 'Women' (Barnes laments) 'are
by nature proud as devils.' The monotonous and arti-
ficial regularity with which the sonnetteers sounded the
vituperative stop, whenever they had exhausted their
notes of adulation, excited ridicule in both England
and France. In Shakespeare's early life the convention
was wittily parodied by Gabriel Harvey in ' An
Amorous Odious sonnet intituled The Student's Loove
or Hatrid, or both or neither, or what shall please the
looving or hating reader, either in sport or
Harvey's earnest, to make of such contrary passions

' Amorous , . , , , . -

Odious as are here discoursed. 1 After extolling the
beauty and virtue of his mistress above that
of Aretino's Angelica, Petrarch's Laura, Catullus's
Lesbia, and eight other far-famed objects of poetic
adoration, Harvey suddenly denounces her in bur-
lesque rhyme as ' a serpent in brood,' ' a poisonous
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.

In France Etienne Jodelle, a professional sonnet-

1 The parody, which is not in sonnet form, is printed in Harvey's
Letter-book (Camden Soc. pp. 101-43).

122 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

teer although he is best known as a dramatist, made
*n ^e second half of the sixteenth cen-

Todeiie's

' Contr1 tury an independent endeavour of like kind to

Amours.'

stifle by means of parody the vogue of the
vituperative sonnet. Jodelle designed a collection of
three hundred sonnets which he inscribed to ' hate of a
woman,' and he appropriately entitled them ' Contr'
Amours ' in distinction from ' Amours,' the term applied
to sonnets in the honeyed vein. Only seven of Jodelle's
' Contr' Amours ' are extant, but there is sufficient
identity of tone between them and Shakespeare's vitu-
perative efforts almost to discover in Shakespeare's in-
vectives a spark of Jodelle's satiric fire.1 The dark lady

1 No. vii. of Jodelle's Contr3 Amours runs thus:

Combien de fois mes vers ont-ils dore

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 laboure

Ay-ie applani ? et quel a fait ma Muse

Le gros sourcil, oii folle elle s'abuse,

Ayant sur luy 1'arc d' Amour figur6 ?
Quel ay-ie fait son ceil se renfoncant ?

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 ?

Qui, me sentant endurer mille morts,

Viuoit heureux de mes peines mortelles.

(Jodelle's CEuvres, 1597, pp. 91-94.)

With this should be compared Shakespeare's sonnets cxxxvii., cxlviii.,
and cl. Jodelle's feigned remorse for having lauded the black hair and
complexion of his mistress is one of the most singular of several strange
coincidences. In No. vi. of his Contr1 Amours Jodelle, after re-
proaching his ' traitres vers ' with having untruthfully described his
siren as a beauty, concludes :

' Ja si long temps faisant d'un Diablo vn Ange
Vous m'ouurez 1'oeil en 1'iniuste louange,
Et m'aueuglez en 1'iniuste tourment.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS 123

of Shakespeare's ' sonnets ' may therefore be relegated
to the ranks of the creatures of his fancy. It is quite
possible that he may have met in real life a dark-com-
plexioned siren, and it is possible that he may have
fared ill at her disdainful hands. But no such incident
is needed to account for the presence of ' the dark
lady ' in the sonnets. It was the exacting conventions
of the sonnetteering contagion, and not his personal
experiences or emotions, that impelled Shakespeare to
give ' the dark lady ' of his sonnets a poetic being.1
She has been compared, not very justly, with Shake-
speare's splendid creation of Cleopatra in his play of

With this should be compared Shakespeare's Sonnet cxliv., lines 9-10.

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell.

A conventional sonnet of extravagant vituperation, which Drummond
of Hawthornden translated from Marino (Rime, 1602, pt. i. p. 76), is
introduced with grotesque inappropriateness into Drummond's collection
of ' sugared ' sonnets (see pt. i. No. xxxv : Drummond's Poems, ed.
W. C. Ward, i. 69, 217).

1 The theories that all the sonnets addressed to a woman were
addressed to the ' dark lady,' and that the 'dark lady ' is identifiable with
Mary Fitton, a mistress of the Earl of Pembroke, are baseless con-
jectures. The extant portraits of Mary Fitton prove her to be fair.
The introduction of her name into the discussion is solely due to the
mistaken notion that Shakespeare was the protege of Pembroke, that
most of the sonnets were addressed to him, and that the poet was pro-
bably acquainted with his patron's mistress. See Appendix vii. The
expressions in two of the vituperative sonnets to the effect that the dis-
dainful 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.

124 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' 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.

125

THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF
SOUTHAMPTON

AMID the borrowed conceits and poetic figures of
Shakespeare's sonnets there lurk suggestive references
to the circumstances in his external life that attended
their composition. If few can be safely regarded as
autobiographic revelations 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 literary retainers. Twenty
Bio raphic sonnets> which may for purposes of exposition
fact in the be entitled ' dedicatory ' sonnets, are addressed

' dedica-
tory ' to one who is declared without periphrasis and

without disguise to be a patron of the poet's
verse (Nos. xxiii., xxvi., xxxii., xxxvii., xxxviii., Ixix.,
Ixxvii.-lxxxvi., c., ci., ciii., cvi.) In one of these —
Sonnet Ixxviii. — 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

126 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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
The Earl to attempt an identification of the persons
of South- whose relations with the poet are defined so
the poet's explicitly. The problem presented by the

sole patron. . . , r-i 1

patron is simple, Shakespeare states un-
equivocally 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).
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your 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 that is known
to biographical research. No contemporary document
or tradition gives the faintest suggestion that Shake-
speare was the friend or dependent of any other man of
rank. A trustworthy tradition corroborates the testi-
mony respecting Shakespeare's close intimacy with
the Earl that is given in the dedicatory epistles
of his ' Venus and Adonis ' and • Lucrece', penned re-
spectively in 1593 and 1594. According to Nicholas
Rowe, Shakespeare's first adequate biographer,
' there is one instance so singular in its magnifi-
cence of this patron of Shakespeare's that if I had not
been assured that the story was handed down by Sir
William D'Avenant, who was probably very well
acquainted with his affairs, I should not venture 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

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON I2/

mind to. A bounty very great and very rare at any
time.'

There is no difficulty 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 ' dedicatory '
sonnets merely translate into the language of poetry
the expressions of devotion which had already done
duty in the dedicatory epistle in prose that prefaces
' Lucrece.' That epistle to Southampton runs :

The love l I dedicate to your lordship is without end ; whereof this
pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant
I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored
lines, 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 rr.y worth greater, my duty would show greater ; meantime, as
it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still
lengthened with all happiness.

Your lordship's in all duty,

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Sonnet xxvi. is a gorgeous rendering of these
sentences : —

1 ' Lover ' and ' love ' in Elizabethan English were ordinary
synonyms for ' friend ' and ' friendship.' Brutus opens his address to
the citizens of Rome with the words, ' Romans, countrymen, and lovers,'
and subsequently describes Julius Caesar as ' my best lover ' (Julius
Cczsar, 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, in. iv. 17). Ben Jonson in his letters to Donne
commonly described himself as his correspondent's ' ever true lover ; '
and Drayton, writing to William Drummond of Hawthornden, in-
formed 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 his patron. Nash, when dedicating Jack
Wilton in 1594 to Southampton, calls him 'a dear lover ... of the
lovers of poets as of the poets themselves. '

128 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written ambassage,

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 rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.

1 There is little doubt that this sonnet was parodied by Sir John
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.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 29

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.'

A like vein is pursued in greater exaltation of spirit
in Sonnet 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 light ?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate ;

And he that calls 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 1 592, inscribed his volume of sonnets

1 Mr. Tyler assigns this sonnet to the year 1 598 or later, on the
fallacious ground that this line was probably imitated from an ex-
pression in Marston's Pigmaliori'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. Nash, in
his preface to Green's Menaphon, which was published in 1589, wrote
that the works of the poet Watson ' march in equipage of honour with
any of your ancient poets.'

130 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

entitled ' Delia ' to the Countess of Pembroke, he
played in the prefatory sonnet on the same note, and
used in the concluding 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 still 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 son-
netteer renew the assurance given there that his patron
is ' part 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 (Ixxiv. 8) ;

while ' the love without end ' which Shakespeare had
vowed to Southampton in the light 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 ' ex-
cited Shakespeare's jealousy is a more difficult
inquiry than the identification of the patron. The
rival poets with their 'precious phrase by all the
Muses filed' (Ixxxv. 4) must be sought among
Rivals in tne writers who eulogised Southampton and
Southamp- are known to have shared his patronage.

tons r

favour. The field of choice is not small. Southampton
from boyhood cultivated literature and the society of

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 131

literary men. In 1594 no nobleman received so
abundant a measure of adulation from the con-
temporary world of letters.1 Thomas Nash justly
described the Earl, when dedicating to him his
1 Life of Jack Wilton' in 1594, as ' a dear lover and
cherisher as well of the lovers of poets as of the
poets themselves.' Nash addressed to him many
affectionately phrased sonnets. The prolific sonnet-
teer Barnabe Barnes and the miscellaneous literary
practitioner Gervase Markham confessed, respectively
in 1593 and 1595, yearnings for Southampton's counte-
nance 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 traditionally reckoned among Shakespeare's
literary acquaintances,2 wrote to Southampton in
1 598, in his dedicatory epistle before his ' Worlde of
Wordes' (an Italian-English dictionary), 'as to me
and many more, the glorious and gracious sunshine
of your honour hath infused light and life.'

Shakespeare magnanimously and modestly de-
scribed that/ft>A&/o£ Southampton, whom he deemed
a specially dangerous rival, as an ' able ' and a ' better '
'spirit,' 'a worthier pen,' a vessel 'of tall building and
of goodly pride,' compared with whom he was himself
' a worthless boat.' He detected a touch of magic in
the man's writing. His ' spirit,' Shakespeare hyperboli-
cally declared, had been ' by spirits taught to write

1 See Appendix iv. for a full account of Southampton's relations
with Nash and other men of letters.

'-' See p. 85, note

K 2

132 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

above a mortal pitch,' and ' an affable familiar ghost '
Shake nightly gulled him with intelligence. Shake-
speare's speare's dismay at the fascination exerted on

fear of

a rival 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 benevo-
lent tendency into admiration by his promise rather
than by his achievement. ' Eloquence and courtesy,'
wrote Gabriel Harvey at the time, ' are ever bountiful in
the amplifying vein ; ' and writers of amiability, Harvey
adds, habitually blazoned the perfections that they
hoped to see their young friends achieve, in language
implying that they had already achieved them. All
the conditions of the problem are satisfied by the
rival's identification with the young poet and scholar
Barnabe Barnes, a poetic panegyrist of Southampton
and a prolific sonnetteer, who was deemed by con-
temporary critics certain to prove a great poet. His
first collection of sonnets, ' Parthenophil and Parthe-
nophe,' with many odes and madrigals interspersed,
was printed in 1 593 ; and his second, ' A Centurie of
Spiritual Sonnets,' in 1595. Loud applause greeted
the first book, which included numerous adaptations
from the classical, Italian, and French poets, and dis-
closed, among many crudities, some fascinating lyrics
and at least one almost perfect sonnet (No. Ixvi.
' Ah, sweet content, where is thy mild abode ? ')

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 133

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 ; ' Campion judged his verse
Bamabe to be ' heady and strong.' In a sonnet that
probably Barnes addressed in this earliest volume to
the rival, 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.' Shakespeare sorrowfully
pointed out in Sonnet Ixxviii. that his lord's eyes

that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
And given grace a double majesty ;

while in the following sonnet he asserted that the
' worthier pen ' of his 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 hotly 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 fol-
lowed Ronsard's practice of bestowing the title of hymn
on miscellaneous poems, but Barnes twice applies

134 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the word to his poems of love.1 When, too, Shake-
speare in Sonnet Ixxx. employs nautical metaphors to
indicate the relations 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 ! 2

Gervase Markham is equally emphatic in his
sonnet to Southampton on the potent influence of
other kis Peon's 'eyes,' which, he says, crown
theories as « the most victorious pen ' — a possible refe-

to the

rival's rence to Shakespeare. Nash's poetic praises
of the Earl are no less enthusiastic, 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 Nash
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 Shakespeare confessed in the sonnets was
more likely to be evoked by the work of George
Chapman than by that of any other contemporary
poet. But Chapman had produced no conspicuously
1 great verse ' till he began his translation of Homer in
1 598 ; and although he appended in 1610 to a complete

1 Cf. Parthenophil, Madrigal i. line 1 2 ; Sonnet xvii. line 9.

2 Parthenophil, Sonnet xci.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 135

edition of his translation a sonnet to Southampton,
it was couched in the coldest terms of formality, and
it was one of a series of sixteen sonnets each addressed
to a distinguished nobleman with whom the writer
implies that he had no previous relations.1 Drayton,

1 Much irrelevance has been introduced into the discussion of
Chapman's claim to be the rival poet. Prof. Minto in his Charac-
teristics of English Poets, p. 291, argued that Chapman was the man
mainly because Shakespeare declared his competitor to be taught to
write by ' spirits ' — ' his compeers by night ' — as well as by ' an affable
familiar ghost ' which gulled him with intelligence at night (Ixxxvi. 5
seq. ) Professor Minto saw in these phrases allusions to some remarks by
Chapman in his Shadows of Night ( 1 594), 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 their
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 really no connection between Shakespeare's
theory of the supernatural and nocturnal sources of his rival's influence
with Chapman's trite allusion to the current faith in the power of
' nightly familiars ' over men's minds and lives, or in Chapman's invita-
tion to his literary comrades to honour Night with him. It is superero-
gatory to assume that Shakespeare had Chapman's phrases in his mind
when alluding to superstitions which were universally acknowledged.
It could be as easily argued on like grounds that Shakespeare was
drawing on other authors. Nash in his prose tract called independently
The Terrors of the Night, which was also printed in 1 594, described
the nocturnal habits of ' familiars ' more explicitly than Chapman.
The publisher Thomas Thorpe, in dedicating in 1600 Marlowe's trans-
lation 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, Nash, Thorpe, or Blount,
whose ' familiar ' 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 and equally impotent argument in
Chapman's favour has been suggested. Chapman in the preface to his

136 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Ben Jonson, and Marston have also been identified
by various critics with ' the rival poet,' but none of
these shared Southampton's bounty, nor are the
terms which Shakespeare applies to his rival's verse
specially applicable to the productions of any of them.
Many besides the ' dedicatory ' sonnets are ad-
dressed to a handsome youth of wealth and rank, for
whom 'the poet avows 'love,' in the Elizabethan sense
of friendship.1 Although no specific reference is made
outside the twenty ' dedicatory ' sonnets to the youth
Sonnets of as a literary patron, and the clues to his
friendship, ^entity are elsewhere vaguer, there is good
ground for the conclusion that the sonnets of dis-
interested love or friendship also have Southampton
for their subject. The sincerity of the poet's senti-
ment is often open to doubt in these poems, but they
seem to illustrate a real intimacy subsisting between
Shakespeare and a young Maecenas.

translation of \helliads (1611) 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 no ground for
identifying Chapman's ' windsucker ' with Shakespeare (cf. Wyndham,
p. 255). The strongest point in favour of the theory of Chapman's
identity with the rival poet lies in the fact that each of the two sections
of his poem The Shadow of the Night (1594) is styled a 'hymn,' and
Shakespeare in Sonnet Ixxxv. 6-7 credits his rival with writing
'hymns.' But Drayton, in his Harmonic of the Chzirch, 1591, and
Barnes, as we have just seen, both wrote ' hymns. ' The word was not
loosely used in Elizabethan English, as in sixteenth-century French, in
the general sense of ' poem.'
1 See p. 127, note i.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 137

Extravagant compliment — ' gross painting' Shake-
speare calls it — was more conspicuous in the inter-
course of patron and client during the last years of
Elizabeth's reign than in any other epoch. For this
result the sovereign herself was in part responsible.
Contemporary schemes of literary compliment seemed
infected by the feigned accents of amorous passion
and false rhapsodies on her physical beauty with
which men of letters servilely sought to satisfy
the old Queen's incurable greed of flattery.1 Sir

1 Sir Walter Ralegh was wont to apostrophise his aged sovereign

thus :

Oh, hopeful love, my object and invention,

Oh, true desire, the spur of my conceit,
Oh, worthiest spirit, my mind's impulsion,

Oh, eyes transparent, my affection's bait ;
Oh, princely form, my fancy's adamant,

Divine conceit, my pain's acceptance,
Oh, all in one ! Oh, heaven on earth transparent !

The seat of joy and love's abundance !

(Cf. Cynthia, a fragment in Poems of Raleigh, ed. Hannah, p. 33. )
When Ralegh leaves Elizabeth's presence he tell us his 'forsaken
heart ' and his ' withered mind ' were ' widowed of all the joys ' they
'once possessed.' Only some 500 lines (the twenty-first book and a
fragment of another book) survive of Ralegh's poem Cynthia, the whole
of which was designed to prove his loyalty to the Queen, and all the
extant lines are in the same vein as those I quote. The complete
poem extended to twenty-two books, and the lines exceeded 10,000, or
five times as many as in Shakespeare's sonnets. Richard Barnfield
in his like-named poem of Cynthia, 1595, and Fulke Greville in sonnets
addressed to Cynthia, also extravagantly described the Queen's beauty
and graces. In 1 599 Sir John Davies, poet and lawyer, apostrophised
Elizabeth, who was then sixty-six years old, thus :

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 ' Hymnes of Astrea on

138 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Philip Sidney described with admirable point the
adulatory excesses to which less exalted patrons were
habituated by literary dependents. He gave the
warning that as soon as a man showed interest in
poetry or its producers, poets straightway pronounced
him ' to be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all.'
' You shall dwell upon superlatives . . . Your soule
shall be placed with Dante's Beatrice.' ! The warmth
of colouring which distinguishes many of the sonnets
Extrava- ^at Shakespeare, under the guise of dis-
gances of interested friendship, addressed to the youth

literary J

compli- can be matched at nearly all points in the
adulation that patrons were in the habit of
receiving from literary dependents in the style that
Sidney described.2

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.

1 Apologie for Poetrie (1595), ed. Shuckburgh, p. 62.

2 Adulatory sonnets to patrons are met with in the preliminary or
concluding pages of numerous sixteenth and seventeenth century books
(e.g. the collection of sonnets addressed to James VI of Scotland in his
Essayes of a Prentise, I S91 > and the sonnets to noblemen before Spenser's
Faerie Queene, at the end of Chapman's Iliad, and at the end of John
Davies's Microcosrnos, 1603). Other sonnets to patrons are scattered
through collections of occasional poems, such as Ben Jonson's Forest
and Underwoods and Donne's Poems. Sonnets addressed to men are
not only found in the preliminary pages, but are occasionally interpolated
in sonnet-sequences of fictitious love. Sonnet xi. in Drayton's sonnet-
fiction called ' Idea' (in 1599 edition) seems ad dressed 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 collection 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. xlix. of the substantive collection invokes

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 139

Shakespeare assured his friend that he could
never grow old (civ.), that the finest types of beauty
Patrons and chivalry in mediaeval romance lived
addressed again in him (cvi.), that absence from him
maffec- was misery, an(j faat hjs affection for him

tionate J '

terms. was unalterable. Hundreds of poets openly

the affectionate notice of Edmund Spenser. Throughout Europe
' dedicatory ' sonnets or poems to women betray identical charac-
teristics to those that were addressed to men. The poetic addresses
to the Countess of Bedford and other noble patronesses of Donne,
Ben Jonson, and their colleagues are always affectionate, 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, 1 592, and
another work of his, The Countess of Pembroke's Passion (first printed
from manuscript in 1867), pays the Countess, who was merely his
literary patroness, a homage which is indistinguishable from the
ecstatic utterances of a genuine and overmastering passion. The diffe-
rence in the sex of the persons addressed by Breton and by Shakespeare
seems to place their poems in different categories, but they both really
belonged to the same class. They both merely display a protegfs
loyalty to his patron, couched, according to current convention, in the
strongest possible terms of personal affection. In Italy and France
exactly the same vocabulary of adoration was applied by authors indif-
ferently to patrons and patronesses. It is known that one series of
Michael Angelo's impassioned sonnets was addressed to a young noble-
man Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and another series to a noble patroness
Vittoria Colonna, but the tone is the same in both, and internal evidence
fails to enable the critic to distinguish between the two series. Only
one English contemporary of Shakespeare published a long series of
sonnets addressed to a man who does not prove on investigation to have
been a professional patron. In 1595 Richard Barnfield appended to
his poem Cynthia a set of twenty sonnets, in which he feignedly
avowed affection for a youth called Ganymede. These poems do not
belong to the same category as Shakespeare's, but to the category
of sonnet-sequences of love in which it was customary to invoke a
fictitious mistress. Barnfield explained that in his sonnets he attempted
a variation on the conventional practice by fancifully adapting to the
sonnet-form the second of Virgil's Eclogues, in which the shepherd
Corydon apostrophises the shepherd-boy Alexis.

140 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

gave the like assurances to their patrons. Southamp-
ton was only one of a crowd of Maecenases whose
panegyrists, writing without concealment in their own
names, credited them with every perfection of mind
and body, and ' placed them/ in Sidney's apt phrase,
' with Dante's " Beatrice." '

Illustrations of the practice abound. 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,
Admiral Lord Charles Howard, that ' his good per-
sonage and noble deeds ' made him the pattern to
the present age of the old heroes of whom ' the antique
poe'ts ' were ' wont so much to sing.' This compli-
ment, which Shakespeare turns to splendid account in
Sonnet cvi., recurs constantly in contemporary sonnets
of adulation.1 Ben Jonson apostrophised the Earl of
Desmond as ' my best-best lov'd.' Campion told Lord
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.2

1 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.

2 Campion's Poems, ed. Bullen, pp. 148 seq. Cf. Shakespeare's

sonnets :

O how I faint when I of you do write.— (Ixxx. i.)
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise. — (Ixxxii. 6.)

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 141

Dr. John Donne includes among his ' Verse Letters '
to patrons and patronesses several sonnets of similar
temper, one of which, acknowledging a letter of news
from a patron abroad, concludes thus :

And now thy alms is given, thy letter's read,
The body risen again, the which was dead,
And thy poor starveling bountifully fed.
After this banquet my soul doth say grace,
And praise thee for it and zealously embrace
Thy love, though I think thy love in this case
To be as gluttons', which say 'midst their meat
They love that best of which they most do eat. '

The tone of yearning for a man's affection is
sounded by Donne and Campion almost as plaintively
in their sonnets to patrons as it was sounded by
Shakespeare. There is nothing, therefore, in the
vocabulary of affection which Shakespeare employed
in his sonnets of friendship to conflict with the theory
that they were inscribed to a literary patron with
whom his intimacy was of the kind normally sub-
sisting at the time between literary clients and their
patrons.

We know Shakespeare had only one literary pa-
tron, the Earl of Southampton, and the view that that
nobleman is the hero of the sonnets of ' friendship ' is
strongly corroborated by such definite details as can
be deduced from the vague eulogies in those poems
of the youth's gifts and graces. Every compliment, in
fact, paid by Shakespeare to the youth, whether it be

1 Donne's Poems (in Muses' Library), ii. 34. See also Donne's
sonnets and verse-letters to Mr. Rowland Woodward and Mr. I. W.

142 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

vaguely or definitely phrased, applies to Southampton
without the least straining of the words. In real life
Direct beauty, birth, wealth, and wit sat ' crowned '
references fn the Earl, whom poets acclaimed the

to South-
ampton in handsomest of Elizabethan courtiers, as

the sonnets . . , -^11 r ^.1 *_>

of friend- plainly as in the hero of the poets verse.
sblp- Southampton has left in his correspon-

dence ample proofs of his literary learning and taste,
and, like the hero of the sonnets, was ' as fair in
knowledge as in hue.' The opening sequence of
seventeen sonnets, in which a youth of rank and
wealth is admonished to marry and beget a son so
that ' his fair house ' may not fall into decay, can only
have been addressed to a young peer like Southamp-
ton, who was as yet unmarried, 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 are the words exactly
applicable. The ' lascivious comment ' on his ' wanton
sport ' which pursues the young friend through the
sonnets, and is so adroitly contrived as to add point
to the picture of his fascinating youth and beauty,
obviously associates itself with the reputation for
sensual indulgence that Southampton acquired both at
Court and, according to Nash, among men of letters.1
There is no force in the objection that the
young man of the sonnets of ' friendship ' must have

1 See p. 386 note I.

143

been another than Southampton because the terms
in which he is often addressed imply extreme youth
In 1594, a date to which I refer most of the sonnets
His youth- Southampton was barely twenty-one, and
fulness. ^g yOung man haci obviously reached man-
hood. In Sonnet civ. Shakespeare notes that the
first meeting between him and his friend took
place three years before that poem was written, so
that, if the words are to be taken literally, the poet
may have at times embodied reminiscences of South-
ampton when he was only seventeen or eighteen.1
But Shakespeare, already worn in worldly experience,
passed his thirtieth birthday in 1594, and he probably
tended, when on the threshold of middle life, to
exaggerate the youthfulness of the nobleman almost
ten years his junior, who even later impressed his
acquaintances by his boyish appearance and disposi-
tion.2 ' Young ' was the epithet invariably applied
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

1 Three years was the conventional period which sonnetteers allotted
to the development of their passion. Cf. Ronsard, Sonnets pour
Hettne (No. xiv.), beginning : ' Trois ans sont ja passez que ton ceil
me tient pris.'

2 Octavius Caesar 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, III. ii. 17 seq.) Spenser in his Astrophel
apostrophises 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). Conversely it was a recognised convention among sonnetteers
to exaggerate their own age. See p. 86, note.

144 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

youth of the sonnets of ' friendship ' with Southamp-
Theevi- ton 'ls ^oun<^ 'm tne likeness of feature and
denceof complexion which characterises the poet's

portraits.

description of the youth s outward appear-
ance and the extant pictures of Southampton as a
young man. Shakespeare's many references to his
youth's ' painted counterfeit ' (xvi., xxiv., xlvii.,
Ixvii.) suggest that his hero often sat for his portrait.
Southampton's countenance survives in probably
more canvases than that of any of his contemporaries.
At least fourteen extant portraits have been identified
on good authority — nine paintings, three miniatures
(two by Peter Oliver and one by Isaac Oliver), and two
contemporary prints.1 Most of these, it is true,

1 Two portraits, representing the Earl in early manhood, are at Wei
beck Abbey, and are described above. Of the remaining seven paintings,
two are assigned to Van Somer, and represent the Earl in early middle
age; one, a half-length, a very charming picture, now belongs to
James Knowles, Esq. , of Queen Anne's Lodge ; the other, a full-length
in drab doublet and hose, is in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at
Stratford-on-Avon. Mireveldt twice painted the Earl at a later period
of his career ; one of the pictures is now at Woburn Abbey, the pro-
perty of the Duke of Bedford, the other is at the National 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 educated. 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
belong respectively to Mr. Jeffery Whitehead and Sir Francis Cook,
Bart. (Cf. Catalogue of Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures at the Bur-
lington Fine Arts Club, London, 1889, pp. 32, 7 1, 100. ) In all the best
preserved of these portraits the eyes are blue and the hair a dark shade
of auburn. Among the middle-life portraits Southampton appears to best
advantage in the one by Van Somer belonging to Mr. James Knowles .

a. xi i/i'ii fit/ »nw./rt>m I/if ortgitiat fii&turt at U'

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 145

portray their subject in middle age, when the roses
of youth had faded, and they contribute nothing to the
present argument. But the two portraits that are
now at Welbeck, the property of the Duke of Port-
land, give all the information that can be desired of
Southampton's aspect ' in his youthful morn.' l One
of these pictures represents the Earl at twenty-one, and
the other at twenty-five or twenty-six. The earlier
portrait, which is reproduced on the opposite page,
shows a 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 damascened, 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 per-
sonal 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

1 I describe these pictures from a personal inspection of them which
the Dake kindly permitted me to make.

146 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

that is also at Welbeck.1 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 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
Southampton 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.2

1 Cf. Shakespeare's Sonnet iii. :

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.

2 Southampton's singularly long hair procured him at times un-
welcome attentions When, in January 1598, he struck Ambrose
Willoughby, an esquire of the body, for asking him to break off

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 147

A few only of the sonnets that Shakespeare
addressed to the youth can be allotted to a date
subsequent to 1 594 ; only two bear onthe surface signs,
of a later composition. In Sonnet Ixx. the poet no
longer credits his hero with juvenile wantonness,
but with a ' pure, unstained prime,' which has ' passed
Sonnet by the ambush of young days.' Sonnet
last'ofthe cv"-» apparently the last of the series, was
series. penned almost a decade after the mass of
its companions, for it makes references that cannot
be mistaken 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
had been in prison since he was convicted in 1601
of complicity in the rebellion of the Earl of Essex.
The first two events are thus described :

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured
And the sad augurs mock 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 felicitating the nation on

the unexpected turn of events, by which

Allusion to ^ *

Elizabeth's Elizabeth s crown had passed, without

civil war, to the Scottish King, and thus

the revolution that had been foretold as the inevitable

owing to the lateness 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, in the presence, thanks for what he did ' (Sydney lasers,
ii 83).

I. 2

148 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

consequence of Elizabeth's demise was 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 Greville, and
Ralegh, and her elegists involuntarily followed 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
Showered 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 :
1 Naught can eclipse her light, but that her star will
shine in darkest night.' A third varied the formula
thus:

When winter had cast off her weed
Our sun eclipsed did set. Oh ! light 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 olives round
about him, for he brought not peace to this kingdom
alone ' but to all Europe.2

' 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
rarely rivalled clemency, which was reckoned of the

1 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).

1 Gervase Markham's Honour in her Perfe'.tior. , 1624.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 149

happiest augury. 'All things look fresh,' one poet
sang, ' to greet his excellence.' ' The air, the seasons,

Allusions to anc^ ^e eart^ ' were represented as in sym-
Southamp- pathy with the general joy in ' this sweetest
lease from of all sweet springs.' One source of grief
alone was acknowledged : Southampton
was still a prisoner in the Tower, ' supposed as forfeit
to a confined doom.' All men, wrote Manningham,
the diarist, on the day following the Queen's death,
wished him at liberty.1 The wish was fulfilled quickly.
On April 10, 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 spirits
. . . and the very poets with their idle pamphlets
promised themselves ' great things.2 Samuel Daniel
and John Davies celebrated Southampton's release
in buoyant verse.3 It is improbable that Shake-
speare remained silent. ' My love looks fresh,' he
wrote in the concluding lines of Sonnet cvii., and
he repeated the conventional premise 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 in-
ference that Shakespeare thus saluted his patron on
the close of his days of tribulation. Shakespeare's
genius had then won for him a public reputation that
rendered him independent of any private patron's

1 Manningham's Diary, Camden Soc., p. 148.

2 Court and Times of James I, I. i. 7.

3 See Appendix iv.

ISO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

favour, and he made no further reference in his
writings to the patronage that Southampton had
extended to him in earlier years. But the terms in
which he greeted his former protector for the last
time in verse justify the belief 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 encouragement that
the young peer offered him while he was still on the
threshold of the temple of fame.

THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE
SONNETS

IT is hardly possible to doubt that had Shake-
speare, who was more prolific in invention than any
other poet, poured out in his sonnets his personal
passions and emotions, he would have been carried
by his imagination, at every stage, far beyond the
beaten tracks of the conventional sonnetteers of his
day. The imitative element in his sonnets is large
enough to refute the assertion that in them as a
whole he sought to ' unlock his heart.' It is likely
enough that beneath all the conventional adulation
bestowed by Shakespeare on Southampton there
lay a genuine affection, but his sonnets to the Earl
were no involuntary ebullitions of a devoted and
disinterested friendship ; they were celebrations of a
patron's favour in the terminology — often raised by
Shakespeare's genius to the loftiest heights of poetry
— that was invariably consecrated to such a purpose
by a current literary convention. Very few of
Shakespeare's 'sugared sonnets' have a substantial
right to be regarded as untutored cries of the soul.
It is true that the sonnets in which the writer re-
proaches himself with sin, or gives expression to a

152 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

sense of melancholy, offer at times a convincing
illusion of autobiographic confessions ; and it is
just possible that they stand apart from the rest,
and reveal the writer's inner consciousness, in which
case they are not to be matched in any other of
Shakespeare's literary compositions. But they may
be, on the other hand, merely literary medita-
tions, conceived by the greatest of dramatists, on
infirmities incident to all human nature, and only
attempted after the cue had been given by rival
sonnetteers. At any rate, their energetic lines are
often adapted from the less forcible and less coherent
utterances of contemporary poets, and the themes
are common to almost all Elizabethan collections of
sonnets.1 Shakespeare's noble sonnet on the ravages
of lust (cxxix.), for example, treats with marvellous
force and insight a stereotyped theme of sonnetteers,

1 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 Barnes's vituperative sonnet (No xlix. ), where,
after denouncing his mistress as a 'siren,' the poet incoherently ejacu-
lates :

From my love's limbeck [sc. have I] still [dijstilled 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 Ixvi. (' Tired with all these,
for restful death I cry'). Drummond of Hawthornden 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 all mishaps be my poor life ') are pitched in the
identical key.

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 153

and it may have owed its whole existence to Sir
Philip Sidney's sonnet on ' Desire.' l

Only in one group, composed of six sonnets scat-
tered through the collection, is there traceable a
strand of wholly original sentiment, not to be readily
defined and boldly projecting from the web into
which it is wrought. This series of six sonnets deals
with a love adventure of no normal type. Sonnet
cxliv. opens with the lines :

Two loves I have of comfort and despair

Which like two angels do suggest (i.e. tempt) me still :

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.2

The woman, the sonnetteer continues, has corrupted
the man and has drawn him from his ' side.' Five
The other sonnets treat the same theme. In

relations three addressed to the man (xl., xli., and
Woet'she xlii.) the poet mildly reproaches his youthful
mistress. friend for having sought and won the favours
of a woman whom he himself loved ' dearly,' but the
trespass is forgiven on account of the friend's youth and

1 Sidney's Certain Sonnets (No. xiii.) appended to Astrophel ana
Ste Ha in the edition of 1598. In Emaricdulfe : Sonnets written by
E.G., 1595, 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 volume is reprinted in the
Lamport (7ar/0»</(Roxburghe Club), 1881.

2 Even this sonnet is adapted from Drayton. See Sonnet xxii. in

1 599 edition :

An evil spirit your beauty haunts me still . . .

Thus am I still provoked to every evil

By this good-wicked spirit, sweet Angel-Devil.

But Shakespeare entirely alters the point of the lines by contrasting the
influence exerted on him by the woman with that exerted on him by a

154 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

beauty. In the two remaining sonnets Shakespeare
addresses the woman (cxxxiii. and cxxxiv.), and he
rebukes her for having enslaved not only himself but
' his next self — his friend. Shakespeare, in his
denunciation elsewhere of a mistress's disdain of his
advances, assigns her blindness, like all the profes-
sional sonnetteers, to no better defined cause than
the perversity and depravity of womankind. In these
six sonnets alone does he categorically assign his
mistress's alienation to the fascinations of a dear friend
or hint at such a cause for his mistress's infidelity.
The definite element of intrigue that is developed here
is not found anywhere else in the range of Elizabethan
sonnet-literature. The character of the innovation
and its treatment seem only capable of explanation by
regarding the topic as a reflection of Shakespeare's
personal experience. But how far he is sincere in his
accounts of his sorrow in yielding his mistress to his
friend in order to retain the friendship of the latter
must be decided by each reader for himself. If all the
words be taken literally, there is disclosed an act of self-
sacrifice that it is difficult to parallel or explain. But it
remains very doubtful if the affair does not rightly be-
long to the annals of gallantry. The sonnetteer's com-
placent condonation of the young man's offence chiefly
suggests the deference that was essential to the mainte-
nance by a dependent of peaceful relations with a
self-willed and self-indulgent patron. Southampton's
sportive and lascivious temperament might easily impel
him to divert to himself the attention of an attractive
woman by whom he saw that his poet was fascinated,

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 155

and he was unlikely to tolerate any outspoken protest
on the part of \i\sprotege. There is no clue to the lady's
identity, and speculation on the topic is useless. She
may have given Shakespeare hints for his pictures of
the ' dark lady,' but he treats that lady's obduracy
conventionally, and his vituperation of her sheds no
light on the personal history of the mistress who left
him for his friend.

The emotions roused in Shakespeare by the episode,
even if potent at the moment, were not likely to be
deep-seated or enduring. And it is possible that a half-
jesting reference, which would deprive Shakespeare's
amorous adventure of serious import, was made to it
by a literary comrade in a poem that was licensed for
publication on September 3, 1 594, and was published
•wiiiobie immediately under the title of Willobie his
hisAvisa.1 Avisa, or the True Picture of a Modest
Maid and of a Chaste and Constant'Wife.' 1 In this
volume, which mainly consists of seventy-two cantos
in varying numbers of six-line stanzas, the chaste
heroine, Avisa, holds converse — in the opening sec-
tion 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

1 The work was reprinted by Dr. Grosart in his Occasional Issues,
1880, and extracts from it appear in the New Shakspere Society's
' Allusion Books,' i. 169 seq.

156 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

prefixed an argument in prose (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 familiar friend W. S., who not long before had tried
the courtesy of the like passion and was now newly re-
covered 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 willing
conceit,' encouraging Willobie to believe that Avisa
would ultimately yield ' with pains, diligence, and some
cost in time.' ' The miserable comforter ' [W. S.], the
passage continues, was moved to comfort his friend
' with an impossibility/ 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 actor. 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 unflinching
rectitude. Happily, ' time and necessity ' effected a
cure. In two succeeding cantos in verse W. S. is in-
troduced in dialogue with Willobie, and he gives him,
in oratio recta^ light-hearted and mocking counsel

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 157

which Willobie accepts with results disastrous to his
mental health.

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,1 and doubt is justi-
fiable as to whether the story of A visa ' and her lovers
is not fictitious. In a preface signed Hadrian Dorell,
the writer, after mentioning that the alleged author
(Willobie) was abroad, discusses somewhat enigmati-
cally whether or no the work is ' a poetical fiction.' In
a new edition of 1 596 the same editor decides the ques-
tion in the affirmative. But Dorell, while making this
admission, leaves untouched the curious episode of
' W. S.' The mention of ' W. S.' as ' the old actor,' 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 eulogised by name as the
author of ' Lucrece ' in some prefatory verses to the
volume. From such considerations the theory of
' W. S.'s ' identity with Willobie's acquaintance ac-
quires substance. If we assume that it was Shake-
speare who took a roguish delight in watching his
friend Willobie suffer the disdain of ' chaste Avisa '
because he had ' newly recovered ' from the effects of

1 W. S. are common initials, and at least two authors bearing them
made some reputation in Shakespeare's day. There was a dramatist
named Wentworth Smith (see p. 180 infra), 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 Willobie's counsellor. But Shakespeare, of
the two, has the better claim.

158 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

a like experience, it is clear that the theft of Shake-
speare's mistress by another friend did not cause him
deep or lasting distress. The allusions that were
presumably made to the episode by the author of
' Avisa ' bring it, in fact, nearer the confines of comedy
than of tragedy.

The processes of construction which are discernible
in Shakespeare's sonnets are thus seen to be identical
Summary w^ those that are discernible in the rest of his
of conciu- literary work. They present one more proof

sions re-
specting the of his punctilious regard for the demands

of public taste, and of his marvellous genius
and skill in adapting and transmuting for his own
purposes the labours of other workers in the field that
for the moment engaged his attention. Most o*
Shakespeare's sonnets were produced in 1594 under
the incitement of 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 literary energy
than has been applied to sonnetteering within the
same space of time here or elsewhere before or since.
The thousands of sonnets that were circulated in Eng-
land between 1591 and 1597 were of every literary
quality, from sublimity to inanity, and they illustrated
in form and topic every known phase of sonnetteering
activity. Shakespeare's collection, which was put to-
gether at haphazard and published surreptitiously many
years after the poems were written, was a medley, at
times reaching heights of literary excellence that none

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 159

other scaled, but as a whole reflecting the varied features
of the sonnetteering vogue. Apostrophes to meta-
physical abstractions, vivid picturings of the beauties
of nature, adulation of a patron, idealisation of a
protege's regard for a nobleman in the figurative lan-
guage of amorous passion, amiable compliments on a
woman's hair or touch on the virginals, and vehement
denunciation 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.
Genuine emotion or the writer's personal experience
very rarely inspired the Elizabethan sonnet, and Shake-
speare's sonnets proved no exception to the rule. A
personal note may have escaped him involuntarily in
the sonnets in which he gives voice to a sense of melan-
choly and self-remorse, but his dramatic instinct never
slept, and there is no proof that he is doing more in
those sonnets than produce dramatically the illusion of
a personal confession. Only in one scattered series of
six sonnets, where he introduced a topic, unknown to
other sonnetteers, of a lover's supersession by his friend
in a mistress's graces, does he seem to show indepen-
dence of his comrades and draw directly on an incident
in his own life, but even there the emotion is wanting
in seriousness. The sole biographical inference de-
ducible from the sonnets is that at one time in his career
Shakespeare disdained no weapon of flattery in an
endeavour to monopolise the bountiful patronage of a
young man of rank. External evidence agrees with

l6o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

internal evidence in identifying the belauded patron
with the Earl of Southampton, and the real value to a
biographer of Shakespeare's sonnets is the corrobora-
tion 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 literary career help and encouragement, which
entitles the Earl to a place in the poet's biography
resembling that filled by the Duke Alfonso d'Este in
the biography of Ariosto, or like that filled by Margaret,
duchess of Savoy, in the biography of Ronsard.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER

BUT, 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. To the
•Mid- winter season of 1595 probably belongs
N$S'esr ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' l The comedy
Dream.' may weu have been written to celebrate a
marriage — perhaps the marriage of the universal
patroness of poets, Lucy Harington, to Edward
Russell, third earl of Bedford, on December 12,
1594; or that of William Stanley, earl of Derby,
at Greenwich on January 24, 1594-5. The elaborate
compliment to the Queen, ' a fair vestal throned by
the west' (ll. 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
description (ll. ii. 148-68) of the spot where he saw
the little western flower called ' Love-in-idleness ' that
he bids Puck fetch for him, has been interpreted as
a reminiscence of one of the scenic pageants with

1 No edition appeared before 1600, and then two were published.

1 62 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

which the Earl of Leicester entertained Queen
Elizabeth on her visit to Kenilworth in i$7$.1 The
whole play is in the airiest and most graceful vein
of comedy. Hints for the story can be traced to a
variety of sources — to Chaucer's ' Knight's Tale,' to
Plutarch's ' Life of Theseus,' to Ovid's ' Metamor-
phoses' (bk. iv.), and to the story of Oberon, the
fairy-king, in the French mediaeval romance of ' Huon
of Bordeaux,' of which an English translation by
Lord Berners was first printed in 1534. The influ-
ence of John Lyly is perceptible in the raillery in
which both mortals and immortals indulge. In the
humorous presentation of the play of ' Pyramus and
Thisbe ' by the ' rude mechanicals ' of Athens, Shake-
speare improved upon a theme which he had already
employed in ' Love's Labour's Lost' But the final
scheme of the ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' is of the
author's freshest invention, and by endowing — practi-
cally for the first time in literature — the phantoms of
the fairy world with a genuine and a sustained
dramatic interest, Shakespeare may be said to have
conquered a new realm for art.

More sombre topics engaged him in the comedy
of ' All's Well that Ends Well,' which may be tenta-
• Ail's tively assigned to 1595. Meres, writing
Weil.1 three years later, attributed to Shakespeare
a piece called ' Love's Labour's Won.' This title,
which is not otherwise known, may well be applied

1 Oberon's Vision, by the Rev. W. J. Halpin (Shakespeare Society),
1843. Two accounts of the Kenilworth fetes, by George Gascoigne
and Robert Laneham respectively, were published in 1576.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 163

to ' All's Well.' ' The Taming of The Shrew,' which
has also been identified with ' Love's Labour's Won,'
has far slighter claim to the designation. The plot
of ' All's Well,' like that of ' Romeo and Juliet' was
drawn from Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure ' (No.
xxxviii.) The original source is Boccaccio's ' Deca-
merone' (giorn. iii. nov. 9). Shakespeare, after his
wont, grafted on the touching story of Helena's love
for the unworthy Bertram the comic characters of the
braggart Parolles, the pompous Lafeu, and a clown
(Lavache) less witty than his compeers. Another
original creation, Bertram's mother, Countess of
Roussillon, is a charming portrait of old age. In
frequency of rhyme and other metrical characteristics
the piece closely resembles ' The Two Gentlemen,'
but the characterisation betrays far greater power,
and there are fewer conceits or crudities of style.
The pathetic element predominates. The heroine
Helena, whose ' pangs of despised love ' are expressed
with touching tenderness, ranks with the greatest oi
Shakespeare's female creations.

' The Taming of The Shrew ' — which, like ' All's
Well,' was first printed in the folio — was probably
composed soon after the completion of that solemn
comedy. It is a revision of an old play on lines
somewhat differing from those which Shakespeare

. had followed previously. From 'The
of The Taming of A Shrew,' a comedy first pub-
lished in I594,1 Shakespeare drew the In-
duction and the scenes in which the hero Petruchic

1 Reprinted by the Shakespeare Society in 1844.

M 2

164 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

conquers Catherine the Shrew. He first infused into
them the genuine spirit of comedy. But while follow-
ing the old play in its general outlines, Shakespeare's
revised version added an entirely new underplot —
the story of Bianca and her lovers, which owes
something to the ' Supposes ' of George Gascoigne,
an adaptation of Ariosto's comedy called ' I Sup-
positi.' Evidence of style — the liberal introduction
of tags of Latin and the exceptional beat of the
doggerel — makes it difficult to allot the Bianca scenes
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 literal references to
Stratford and his native county. Such personalities 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 attributed to
such a renewal of Shakespeare's personal relations
Stratford with the town, as is indicated by external
fnthTin- facts in his history of the same period.
duction. jn 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 tinker in like vein
confesses that he has run up a score with Marian
Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot.1 The references
1 All these details are of Shakespeare's invention, and do not figure

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 165

to Wincot and the Rackets 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 consisting of a single farmhouse which
was once an Elizabethan 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 Racket family
resided in Shakespeare's day. On November 21,
1591, ' Sara Racket, the daughter of Robert Racket,'
was baptised in Quinton church.1 Yet by Warwick-
shire contemporaries the Wincot of the ' Taming of The
Shrew ' was unhesitatingly identified with Wilnecote,
near Tamworth, on the Staffordshire border of War-
wickshire, at some distance from Stratford. That

in the old play. But in the crude induction in the old play the non-
descript 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 ap-
pearance in the old play is not in itself, as has been suggested, sufficient
to prove that the old play was written by a Warwickshire man. There
are no other names or references in the old play that can be associated
with Warwickshire.

1 Mr. Richard Savage, the secretary and librarian of the Birthplace
Trustees at Stratford, has generously placed at my disposal this interest-
ing fact, which he lately discovered.

1 66 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

village, whose name was pronounced 'Wincot,' 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 Wincott ' (a well-known resident at Wilne-
cote) verses which begin

Shakspearc 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
' Wincot ' (i.e. Wilnecote) to drink

Such ale as Shakspeare fancies
Did put Kit Sly into such lordly trances.

It is therefore probable that Shakespeare con-
sciously invested the home of Kit Sly and of Kit's
hostess with 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 effect 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 asso-
ciated with the village of Wilmcote. But the links

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 167

that connect Shakespeare's tinker with Wilmcote are
far slighter than those which connect him with Win-
cot 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 all likelihood a reminiscence of contemporary
Warwickshire life as literal 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 Winchmere
in Gloucestershire, not far removed from Shakespeare's
native town.

In 1597 Shakespeare turned once more to English
history. From Holinshed's ' Chronicle, and from a
• Henry valueless but very popular piece, ' The
IV-' Famous Victories of Henry V,' which was

repeatedly acted between 1588 and 1595,' he worked
up with splendid energy two plays on the reign of
Henry IV. They form one continuous whole, but
are known respectively as parts i. and ii. of ' Henry
IV.' The 'Second Part of Henry IV is almost
as rich as the Induction to ' The Taming of The
Shrew ' in direct references to persons and districts
familiar to Shakespeare. Two amusing scenes pass
at the house of Justice Shallow in Gloucestershire,
a county which touched the boundaries of Strat-

1 It was licensed for publication in 1594, and published in 1598.

1 68 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ford (ill. ii. and V. i.) When, in the second of these
scenes, the justice's factotum, Davy, asked his master
' to countenance William Visor of Woncot l against
Clement Perkes of the Hill,' the local references are
unmistakable. Woodmancote, where the family of
Visor or Vizard has flourished since the sixteenth
century, is still pronounced Woncot. The adjoining
Stinchcombe Hill (still familiarly known to natives as
' The Hill ') was in the sixteenth century the home of
the family of Perkes. Very precise too are the allu-
sions 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 (ill. ii. 23) ; and when Shallow's servant Davy
receives his master's instructions to sow 'the head-
land ' ' with red wheat,' in the early autumn, there
is an obvious reference to the custom almost peculiar
to the Cotswolds of sowing ' red lammas ' wheat at
an unusually early season of the agricultural year.2

The kingly hero of the two plays of ' Henry IV '
had figured as a spirited young man in ' Richard II ;'
he was now represented as weighed down by care
and age. With him are contrasted (in part i.) his
impetuous and ambitious subject Hotspur and (in

1 The quarto of 1 600 reads Woncote : all the folios read Woncot.
Yet Malone in the Variorum of 1803 introduced the new and un-
warranted reading of Wincot, which has been unwisely adopted by
succeeding editors.

2 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 Neighbourhood, Huntley's Glossary of the Cotswold Didlect, and
Marshall's Rural Economy of Cotswold ( 1 796).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 169

both parts) his son and heir Prince Hal, whose
boisterous disposition drives him from Court to seek
adventures among the haunters of taverns. Hotspur
is a vivid and fascinating portrait of a hot-headed
soldier, courageous to the point of rashness, and
sacrificing his life to his impetuous sense of honour.
Prince Hal, despite his 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 Hotspur,
but on the chief of Prince Hal's riotous companions.
At the outset the propriety of that great creation
was questioned on a political or historical ground of
doubtful relevance. Shakespeare in both parts of
' Henry IV ' originally named the chief of the prince's
associates after Sir John Oldcastle, a character in the
old play. But Henry Brooke, eighth lord Cobham,
who succeeded to the title early in 1597, and claimed
descent from the historical Sir John Oldcastle, the
Lollard leader, raised objection ; and when the first
part of the play was printed by the acting-company's
authority in 1598 (' newly corrected ' in 1599), Shake-
speare bestowed on Prince Hal's tun-bellied
follower the new and deathless name of
FalstafF. A trustworthy edition of the second part
of ' Henry IV ' also appeared with FalstafT's name
substituted for that of Oldcastle in 1600. There the
epilogue expressly denied that Falstaff had any cha-
racteristic in common with the martyr Oldcastle.

I/O WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.
But the substitution of the name ' Falstaff' did not pass
without protest. It hazily recalled Sir John Fastolf,
an historical warrior who had already figured in
' Henry VI ' and was owner at one time of the Boar's
Head Tavern in Southwark ; according to traditional
stage directions,1 the prince and his companions in
' Henry IV ' frequent the Boar's Head, Eastcheap.
Fuller in his 'Worthies,' first published in 1662, while
expressing satisfaction that Shakespeare had ' put
out' of the play Sir John Oldcastle, was eloquent
in his avowal of regret that ' Sir John Fastolf was
'put in,' on the ground that it was making over-
bold with a great warrior's memory to make him a
' Thrasonical puff and emblem of mock-valour.'

The offending introduction and withdrawal of
Oldcastle's name left a curious mark on literary
history. Humbler dramatists (Munday, Wilson,
Drayton, and Hathaway), seeking to profit by the
attention drawn by Shakespeare to the historical
Oldcastle, produced a poor dramatic version of Old-
castle's genuine history ; and of two editions of ' Sir
John Oldcastle' published in 1600, one printed for
T[homas] P[avier] was impudently described on the
title-page as by Shakespeare.

But it is not the historical traditions which are
connected with Falstaff that give him his perennial
attraction. It is the personality that owes nothing
to history with which Shakespeare's imaginative

1 First adopted by Theobald in 1733 ; cf. Halliwell-Phillipps,
ii. 257

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 171

power clothed him. The knight's unfettered indul-
gence 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 supplies
that tinge of melancholy which is inseparable from
the highest manifestations of humour. The Eliza-
bethan public recognised the triumphant success of
the effort, and many of Falstaffs telling phrases, with
the names of his foils, Justice 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 comedy inclining to farce, and unqualified by
any pathetic interest, followed close upon
Wives of ' Henry IV.' In the epilogue to the ' Second
Part of Henry IV ' Shakespeare had written :
' If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our
humble author will continue the story with Sir John
in it ... where for anything I know Falstaff shall
die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard
opinions.' Rowe asserts that 'Queen Elizabeth was
so well pleased with that admirable character of Fal-
staff in the two parts of " Henry IV " that she com-
manded him to continue it for one play more, and to
show him in love.' Dennis, in the dedication of ' The
Comical Gallant ' ( 1 702), noted that the ' Merry Wives '
was written at the Queen'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

172 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased
with the representation.' In his 'Letters' (1721, p.
232) Dennis reduces the period of composition to ten
days — ' a prodigious thing,' added Gildon,1 ' where all
is so well contrived and carried on without the least
confusion.' The localisation of the scene at Windsor,
and the complimentary references to Windsor Castle,
corroborate the tradition that the comedy was prepared
to meet a royal command. An imperfect draft of
the play was printed by Thomas Creede in 1602 ; 2
the folio of 1623 first supplied a complete version.
The plot was probably suggested by an Italian novel.
A tale from Straparola's ' Notti ' (ii. 2), of which an
adaptation figured in the miscellany of novels called
Tarleton's ' Newes out of Purgatorie ' (1590), another
Italian tale from the ' Pecorone ' of Ser Giovanni
Fiorentino (ii. 2), and a third romance, the Fishwife's
tale of Brainford in the collection of stories called
' Westward for Smelts,' 3 supply incidents distantly
resembling episodes in the play. Nowhere has Shake-
speare so vividly reflected the bluff temper of contem-
porary middle-class society. The presentment of the
buoyant domestic life of an Elizabethan country town
bears distinct impress of Shakespeare's own experi-
ence. Again, there are literal references to the neigh-

1 Remarks, p. 291.

1 Cf. Shakespeare Society's reprint, 1842, ed. Haiti well.

3 This collection of stories is said by both Malone and Steevens
to have been published in 1603, although no edition earlier than 1620
is now known. The 1620 edition of Westward for Smelts, written by
Kinde Kit of Kingston, was reprinted by the Percy Society in 1848.
Cf. Shakespeare's Library, ed. Hazlitt, I. ii. I -80.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 173

bourhood of Stratford. Justice Shallow, whose coat-
of-arms is described as consisting of ' luces,' is thereby
openly identified 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 Cotsall '
(l. i. 93), he testifies to his interest in the coursing
matches for which the Cotswold district was famed.

: The spirited character of Prince Hal was pecu-
liarly congenial to its creator, and in ' Henry V '
Shakespeare, during 1598, brought his

1 Henry V ' ,

career to its close. The play was performed
early in 1599, probably in the newly built Globe
Theatre. Again Thomas Creede printed, in 1600,
an imperfect draft, which was thrice reissued before
a complete version was supplied in the First Folio
of 1623. The dramatic interest of 'Henry V is
slender. There is abundance of comic element, but
death has removed Falstaff, whose last moments are
described with the simple pathos that comes of a
matchless art, and, though Falstaff 's companions sur-
vive, 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
telling effect. The irascible Irishman, Captain Mac-
Morris, is the only representative of his nation who
figures in the long list of Shakespeare's dramatis
persona. The scene in which the pedantic but
patriotic Welshman, Fluellen, avenges the sneers of
the braggart Pistol at his nation's emblem, by

174 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

forcing him to eat the leek, overflows in vivacious
humour. The piece in its main current presents a
series of loosely connected episodes in which the hero's
manliness is displayed as soldier, ruler, and lover. The
topic reached its climax in the victory of the English
at Agincourt, which powerfully appealed to patriotic
sentiment. Besides the ' Famous Victories,' l there was
another lost piece on the subject, which Henslowe
produced for the first time on November 28, 1595.
'Henry V may be regarded as Shakespeare's final
experiment in the dramatisation of English history,
and it artistically 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, he 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
exciting episode in current history. In the prologue to
act v. Shakespeare foretold for Robert Devereux,
Essex and second earl of Essex, the close friend of his
fion'of61 patron Southampton, an enthusiastic re-
l6oi< ception by the people of London when he

should come home after 'broaching' 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.)

Essex had set out on his disastrous mission as

1 Diary ', p. 6 1 ; see p. 167.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 175

the would-be pacificator of Ireland on March 27, 1599.
The fact that Southampton went with him probably
accounts for Shakespeare's avowal of sympathy.
But Essex's effort failed. He was charged, soon
after ' Henry V ' was produced, with treasonable
neglect of duty, and he sought in 1 60 1, again with the
support of Southampton, to recover his position by
stirring up rebellion in London. Then Shakespeare's
reference to Essex's popularity with Londoners bore
perilous fruit. The friends of the rebel leaders sought
the dramatist's countenance. They paid 40^. to
Augustine Phillips, a leading member of Shake-
speare's company, to induce him to revive at the
Globe Theatre 'Richard II' (beyond doubt Shake-
speare's play), in the hope that its scene of the killing
of a king might encourage a popular outbreak.
Phillips subsequently deposed that he 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, 1601), the day preceding that
fixed by Essex for the rising. The Queen, in a later
conversation with William Lambarde (on August 4,
1601), complained 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 the trial of Essex
and his friends, Phillips gave evidence of the circum-
stances under which the tragedy was revived at the

1 Nichols, Progresses of Elizabeth, iii. 552.

176 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Globe Theatre. Essex was executed and South-
ampton was imprisoned until the Queen's death.
No proceedings were taken against the players,1 but
Shakespeare wisely abstained, for the time, from any
public reference to the fate either of Essex or of his
patron Southampton.

Such incidents served to accentuate Shakespeare's
growing reputation. For several years his genius as
dramatist and poet had been acknowledged by critics
Shake- anc^ playgoers alike, and his social and pro-
speare's fessional position had become considerable,
and influ- Inside the theatre his influence was supreme
When, in 1 598, the manager of the company
rejected Ben Jonson's first comedy — his ' Every Man
in his Humour ' — -Shakespeare intervened, accord-
ing 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. He took a part
when the piece was performed. Jonson was of a
difficult and jealous temper, and subsequently he gave
vent to an occasional expression of scorn at Shake-
speare's expense, but, despite passing manifestations
of his unconquerable surliness, there can be no doubt
that Jonson cherished genuine esteem and affection
for Shakespeare till death.2 Within a very few years
of Shakespeare's death Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, an

1 Cf. Domestic MSS. (Elizabeth) in Public Record Office, vol.
cclxxviii. Nos. 78 and 85 ; and Calendar of Domestic State Papers,
1598-1601, pp. 575-8.

2 Cf. Gilchrist, Examination of the charges . , . of fonsorf s Enmity
towards Shakspearet 1808.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 177

industrious collector of anecdotes, put into writing an
anecdote for which he made Dr. Donne responsible,
attesting the amicable relations that habitually sub-
sisted between Shakespeare and Jonson. ' Shake-
speare,' 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 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." ' 1

The creator of FalstafT could have been no
stranger to tavern life, and he doubtless took part with
zest in the convivialities of men of letters. Tradition

reports that Shakespeare joined, at the
maid meet- Mermaid Tavern in Bread Street, those

meetings of Jonson and his associates which
Beaumont described in his poetical ' Letter ' to Jonson:

' What things have we seen

Done at the Mermaid ? heard words thai, 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 life.'

1 Latten is a mixed metal resembling brass. Pistol in Merry
Wives of Windsor (I. 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. Thorns for the Camden
Society, p. 2.

1 78 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Many were the wit-combats,' wrote Fuller of
Shakespeare 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 (like the former) was built far higher
in learning, solid but slow in his performances.
Shakespear, with the Englishman of war, lesser in
bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all iides}
tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the
quickness of his wit and invention.'

Of the many testimonies paid to Shakespeare's
literary reputation at this period of his career, the
Meres'seu- most striking was that of Francis Meres,
logy, 1598. ]y[eres was a learned graduate of Cambridge
University, a divine and schoolmaster, who brought out
in 1 598 a collection of apophthegms on morals, religion,
and literature which he entitled ' Palladis Tamia.' In
the book 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 was the most
excellent in both kinds for the stage ' (i.e. tragedy and
comedy). The titles of six comedies (' Two Gentle-
men of Verona, ' Errors,' ' Love's Labour's Lost,'
' Love's Labour's Won,' ' Midsummer Night's Dream,'
and ' Merchant of Venice ') and of six tragedies
('Richard II,' 'Richard III,' 'Henry IV,' 'King

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER

John,' ' Titus,' and ' Romeo and Juliet ') were set
forth, and mention followed of his 'Venus and Adonis,'
his ' Lucrece,' and his ' sugred ' sonnets among his
private friends.1 These were cited as proof ' that the
sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and
honey-tongued Shakespeare.' In the same year a
rival poet, Richard Barnfield, in ' Poems in divers
Humors,' predicted immortality for Shakespeare
with no less confidence.

And Shakespeare, thou whose honey-flowing vein
(Pleasing the world) thy Praises doth obtain,
Whose Venus and whose Lucrece (sweet and chaste)
Thy name in Fame's immortal Book have placed,
Live ever you, at least in fame live ever :
Well may the Body die, but Fame dies never.

Shakespeare's name was thenceforth of value to

unprincipled publishers, and they sought to palm off

on their customers as his work the productions of

inferior pens. As early as 1595, Thomas Creede,

the surreptitious printer of ' Henry V ' and

Value of

his name to the ' Merry Wives, had issued the crude
' Tragedie of Locrine,' as ' newly set foorth,
overseene and corrected by W. S.' It appropriated
many passages from an older piece called ' Selimus,'
which was possibly by Greene and certainly came

1 This, or some synonym, is the conventional epithet applied at the
date to Shakespeare and his work. Weever credited such characters
of Shakespeare as Tarquin, Romeo, and Richard III with ' sugred
tongues ' in his Epigrams of 1 595. In the Return from Parnassus
(1601 ?) Shakespeare is apostrophised as 'sweet Master Shakespeare.'
Milton did homage to the tradition by writing of ' sweetest Shakespeare '
in L1 Allegro.

N 2

180 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

into being long before Shakespeare had written a line
of blank verse. The same initials — ' W. S.' ] — figured
on the title-pages of ' The Puritaine, or the Widdow of
Watling-streete ' (printed by G. Eld in 1607), and of
' The True Chronicle Historic of Thomas, Lord
Cromwell' (licensed August n, 1602, and printed by
Thomas Snodham in 1613). Shakespeare's full name
appeared on the title-pages of ' The Life of Oldcastle '
in 1600 (printed by T[homas] P[avier]), of ' The
London Prodigall' in 1605 (printed by T. C. for
Nathaniel Butter), and of ' The Yorkshire Tragedy '
in 1608 (by R. B. for Thomas Pavier). None of these
six plays have any internal claim to Shakespeare's
authorship ; nevertheless all were uncritically included
in the third folio of his collected works (1664). Schlegel
and a few other critics of repute have, on no grounds
that merit acceptance, detected signs of Shakespeare's
genuine work in one of the six, ' The Yorkshire
Tragedy ; ' it is ' a coarse, crude, and vigorous im-
promptu,' which is clearly by a far less experienced
hand.

1 A hack-writer, Wentworth Smith, took a hand in producing
thirteen plays, none of which are extant, for the theatrical manager,
Philip Henslowe, between 1601 and 1603. The Hector of Germanic,
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 pub-
lishers' belief that Wentworth Smith was the author, but to their en-
deavour to delude their customers into a belief that the plays were by
Shakespeare

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER l8l

The fraudulent practice of crediting Shakespeare
with valueless plays from the pens of comparatively
dull-witted contemporaries was in vogue among enter-
prising traders in literature both early and late in the
seventeenth century. The worthless old play on the
subject of King John was attributed to Shakespeare
in the reissues of 161 1 and 1622. Humphrey Moseley,
a reckless publisher of a later period, fraudulently
entered on the ' Stationers' Register ' on September 9,
1653, two pieces which he represented to be in whole
or in part by Shakespeare, viz. ' The Merry Devill of
Edmonton ' and the ' History of Cardenio,' a share in
which was assigned to Fletcher. ' The Merry Devill
of Edmonton,' which was produced on the stage before
the close of the sixteenth century, was entered on
the ' Stationers' Register,' October 22, 1607, and was
first published anonymously in 1608 ; it is a delight-
ful comedy, abounding in both humour and romantic
sentiment ; at times it recalls scenes of the ' Merry
Wives of Windsor,' but no sign of Shakespeare's
workmanship is apparent. The ' History of Cardenio '
is not extant.1 Francis Kirkman, another active
London publisher, who first printed William Rowley's
' Birth of Merlin' in 1662, described it on the title-
page as ' written by William Shakespeare and William
Rowley ; ' it was unwisely reprinted at Halle in a so-
called ' Collection of pseudo- Shakespearean plays ' in
1887.

But poems no less than plays, in which Shake-
speare had no hand, were deceptively placed to his

1 Cf. p. 258 infra.

1 82 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

credit as soon as his fame was established. In 1599
William Jaggard, a well-known pirate publisher,
issued a poetic anthology which he entitled ' The

Passionate Pilgrim, by W. Shakespeare.'
sipnate The volume opened with two sonnets by

Shakespeare which were not previously in
print, and there followed three poems drawn from
the already published ' Love's Labour's Lost ; ' but
the bulk of the volume was by Richard Barnfield
and others.1 A third edition of the ' Passionate Pil-
grim' was printed in 1612 with unaltered title-page,
although the incorrigible Jaggard had added two new
poems which he silently filched from Thomas Hey-
wood's ' Troia Britannica.' Heywood called attention
to his own grievance in the dedicatory epistle before
his ' Apology for Actors ' (1612), and he added that
Shakespeare resented the more substantial injury
which the publisher had done him. ' I know,' wrote
Heywood of Shakespeare, ' [he was] much offended
with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknown to him) pre-
sumed to make so bold with his name.' In the result

1 There were twenty pieces in all. The five 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 Barnfield 's Poems in divers Humours (1598).
' Venus with Adonis sitting by her ' (No. xi. ) is from Bartholomew
Griffin's Fidessa (1596) ; ' My flocks feed not' (No. xvii.) is adapted
from Thomas Weelkes's Madrigals (1597) ; ' Live with me and be my
love ' is by Marlowe ; and the appended stanza, entitled ' Love's Answer,'
by Sir Walter Ralegh (No. xix.) ; ' Crabbed age and youth cannot live
together ' (No. xii.) is a popular song often quoted by the Elizabethan
dramatists. Nothing has been ascertained of the origin and history of
the remaining nine poems (iv. vi. vii. ix. x. xiii. xiv. xviii. )

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 183

the publisher seems to have removed Shakespeare's
name from the title-page of a few copies. This is
the only instance on record of a protest on Shake-
speare's part against the many injuries which he
suffered at the hands of contemporary publishers.

In 1 60 1 Shakespeare's full name was appended to
' a poetical essaie on the Phcenix and the Turtle,'
. The which was published by Edward Blount in an
ancUhe appendix to Robert Chester's ' Love's Martyr,
Turtle.1 or Rosalins complaint, allegorically shadow-
ing the Truth of Love in the Constant Fate of the
Phcenix and Turtle.' The drift of Chester's crabbed
verse is not clear, nor can the praise of perspicuity be
allowed to the appendix to which Shakespeare contri-
buted, together with Marston, Chapman, Ben Jonson,
and ' Ignoto.' The appendix is introduced by a new
title-page running thus : ' Hereafter follow diverse
poeticall Essaies on the former subject, viz : the
Turtle and Phcenix. Done by the best and chiefest
of our modern writers, with their names subscribed
to their particular workes : never before extant.'
Shakespeare's alleged contribution consists of thir-
teen four-lined stanzas in trochaics, each line being of
seven syllables, with the rhymes disposed as in Ten-
nyson's ' In Memoriam.' The concluding ' threnos' is
in five three-lined stanzas, also in trochaics, each
stanza having a single rhyme. The poet describes in
enigmatic language the obsequies of the Phcenix
and the Turtle-dove, who had been united in life by
the ties of a purely spiritual love. The poem may be
a mere play of fancy without recondite intention, or it

1 84 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

may be of allegorical import ; but whether it bear
relation to pending ecclesiastical, political, or meta-
physical controversy, or whether it interpret popular
grief for the death of some leaders of contemporary
society, is not easily determined.1 Happily Shake-
speare wrote nothing else of like character.

1 A unique copy of Chester's Love's Martyr is in Mr. Christie-
Miller's library at Britwell. 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 'Occa-
sional Issues.' It was also printed in the same year as one of the pub-
lications of the New Shakspere Society. Matthew Roydon in his elegy
on Sir Philip Sidney, appended to Spenser's Colin Clouts Come Home
Againe, 1595, describes the part figuratively played in Sidney's obsequies
by the turtle-dove, swan, phoenix, and eagle, in verses that very closely
resemble Shakespeare's account of the funereal functions fulfilled by the
same four birds in his contribution to Chester's volume. This resemblance
suggests that Shakespeare's poem may be a fanciful adaptation of Roy-
don's elegiac conceits without ulterior significance. Shakespeare's con-
cluding ' Threnos ' is imitated in metre and phraseology by Fletcher in
his Mad Lover in the song ' The Lover's Legacy to his Cruel Mistress. '

i8s

XII

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE

SHAKESPEARE, in middle life, brought to practical
affairs a singularly sane and sober temperament.
Shake ^n ' Ratseis Ghost ' (1605), an anecdotal
speare's biography of Gamaliel Ratsey, a notorious

practical . , ,

tempera- highwayman, who was hanged at Bed-
ford on March 26, 1605, the highwayman is
represented as compelling a troop of actors whom he
met by chance on the road to perform in his presence.
At the close of the performance Ratsey, according to
the memoir, addressed himself to a leader of the
company, and cynically urged him to practise the
utmost frugality in London. ' When thou feelest thy
purse well lined (the counsellor proceeded), buy thee
some place or lordship in the country that, growing
weary of playing, thy money may there bring thee to
dignity and reputation.' Whether or no Ratsey's
biographer consciously identified the highwayman's
auditor with Shakespeare, it was the prosaic course
of conduct marked out by Ratsey that Shakespeare
literally followed. As soon as his position in his pro-
fession was assured, he devoted his energies to re-esta-
blishing the fallen fortunes of his family in his native

1 86 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

place, and to acquiring for himself and his successors
the status of gentlefolk.

His father's pecuniary embarrassments had steadily
increased since his son's departure. Creditors harassed

him unceasingly. In 1 587 one Nicholas Lane
father's pursued him for a debt for which he had

become liable as surety for his brother 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 creditor, Adrian Quiney, obtained a writ of
distraint against him, and although in 1 592 he attested
inventories taken on the death of two neighbours, Ralph
Shaw and Henry Field, father of the London printer,
he was on December 25 of the same year ' presented '
as a recusant for absenting himself from church.
The commissioners reported that his absence was
probably due to ' fear of process for debt.' He figures
for the last time in the proceedings of the local court,
in his customary role of defendant, on March 9, 1595.
He was then joined with two fellow traders — Philip
Green, a chandler, and Henry Rogers, a butcher— as
defendant in a suit brought by Adrian Quiney and
Thomas Barker for the recovery of the sum of five
pounds. Unlike his partners in the litigation, his name
is not followed in the record by a mention of his
calling, 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

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 187

conveyed a slip of land attached to his dwelling in
Henley Street to one George Badger.

There is a likelihood that the poet's wife fared,
in the poet's absence, no better than his father. The
only contemporary mention made of her between her
His wife's marriage in 1582 and her husband's death in
1616 is as the borrower at an unascertained
date (evidently before 1595) of forty shillings from
Thomas Whittington, who had formerly been her
father's shepherd. The money was unpaid when Whit-
tington died in i6oi,and he directed his executor to
recover the sum from the poet and distribute it among
the poor of Stratford.1

It was probably in 1596 that Shakespeare re-
turned, after nearly eleven years' absence, to his
native town, and worked a revolution in the affairs of
his family. The prosecutions of his father in the
local court ceased. Thenceforth the poet's rela-
tions with Stratford were uninterrupted. He still
resided in London for most of the year ; but until the
close of his professional career he paid the town at
least one annual visit, and he was always formally
described as ' of Stratford-on-Avon, gentleman.' He
was no doubt there on August 11, 1596, when his
only son, Hamnet, was buried in the parish church ;
the boy was eleven and a half years old.

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

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 186.

1 88 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

poet's intervention.1 He made application to the
College of Heralds for a coat-of-arms.2 Then, as
now, the heralds when bestowing new coats-of-arms
commonly credited the applicant's family with an
imaginary antiquity, and little reliance need be placed
on the biographical or genealogical statements alleged
in grants of arms. The poet's father or the poet
himself when first applying to the College stated that
The coat- John Shakespearean 15 68, while he was bailiff
of-arms. 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
noticed in the records of the College, and may be a
formal fiction designed by John Shakespeare and his
son to recommend their claim to the notice of the
heralds. The negotiations of 1568, if they were not
apocryphal, were certainly abortive ; otherwise there
would have been no necessity for the further action
of 1596. In any case, on October 20, 1596, a draft,
which remains in the College of Arms, was pre-

1 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 (Out-
lines, ii. 56, 60), but does not distinguish the character of the negotia-
tion of the earlier year from that of the negotiation of the later year.

2 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.

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 1 89

pared under the direction of William Dethick,
Garter King-of-Arms, granting John's request for
a coat-of-arms. Garter stated, with characteristic
vagueness, that he had been ' by credible report '
informed that the applicant's ' parentes and late
antecessors were for theire valeant and faithfull 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 reputacion and credit;' and that
'the said John [had]maryed Mary, daughter and heiress
of Robert Arden, of Wilmcote, gent.' In considera-
tion 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, and for his crest or cog-
nizance 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.' l A second
copy of the draft, also dated in 1596, is extant at the
College. The only alterations are the substitution of
the word ' grandfather ' for ' antecessors ' in the account
of John Shakespeare's 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, appeared some disconnected and un-

1 In a manuscript in the British Museum (Harl. MS. 6140, f. 45) is a
copy of the tricking of the arms of William 'Shakspere,' which is
described ' as a pattent per WilFm Dethike Garter, principale King of
Armes ; ' this is figured in French's Shakespeareana Genealogica, p. 524.

190 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

verifiable memoranda which John Shakespeare or his
son had supplied to the heralds, to the effect that John
had been bailiff of Stratford, had received a ' pattern '
of a shield from Clarenceux Cook, was a man of
substance, and had married into a worshipful family.1
Neither of these drafts was fully executed. It
may have been that the unduly favourable representa-
tions made to the College respecting John Shake-
speare's social and pecuniary position excited sus-
picion even in the habitually credulous minds of the
heralds, or those officers may have deemed the
profession of the son, who was conducting the nego-
tiation, a bar to completing the transaction. At any
rate, Shakespeare 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 officials
at the College may have facilitated the proceedings.
In 1 597 the Earl of Essex had become Earl Marshal
and chief of the Heralds' College (the office had been
in commission in 1 596) ; while the great scholar and

1 These memoranda, which were as follows, were first written with-
out the words here enclosed in brackets ; those words were afterwards
interlineated in the manuscript in a hand similar to that of the original
sentences :

1 [This John shoeth] A patieme therof under Clarent Cookes hand
in paper, xx. 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 wealth and substance
[500 li.]

That he mar[ried a daughter and heyre of Arden, a gent, of
worship.] '

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE igi

antiquary, William Camden, had joined the College,
also in 1597, as Clarenceux King-of-Arms. The poet
was favourably known to both Camden and the Earl
of Essex, the close friend of the Earl of Southampton.
His father's application now took a new form. No
grant of arms was asked for. It was asserted without
qualification that the coat, as set out in the draft-grants
of 1 596, had been assigned to John Shakespeare while
he was bailiff, and the heralds were merely invited to
give him a ' recognition ' or ' exemplification ' of it.1
At the same time he asked permission 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 ' exemplification ' and authorising the
required impalement and quartering. On one point
only did Dethick and Camden betray conscientious
scruples. Shakespeare and his father obviously
desired the heralds to recognise the title of Mary
Shakespeare (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

1 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.

192 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

protest against any hasty assumption of identity be-
tween their line and that of the humble farmer of Wilm-
cote. After tricking the Warwickshire Arden coat in
the margin of the draft-grant for the purpose of indicat-
ing the manner of its impalement, the heralds on second
thoughts erased it. They substituted in their sketch
the arms of an Arden family living 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 shield, and the heralds were less
liable to the risk of litigation. But the Shakespeares
wisely relieved the College of all anxiety by omitting
to assume the Arden coat. The Shakespeare arms
alone are displayed 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 ; l and they alone were
quartered by Thomas Nash, the first husband of the
poet's granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall.2

Some objection was taken a few years later to the
grant even of the Shakespeare shield, but it was based
on vexatious grounds that could not be upheld.
Early in the seventeenth century Ralph Brooke, whc
was York herald from 1593 till his death in 1625, and
was long engaged in a bitter quarrel with his fellow

1 On the gravestone of John Hall, Shakespeare's elder son-in-law,
the Shakespeare arms are similarly impaled with those of Hall.

2 French, Genealogica Shakespeareana, p. 413.

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 193

officers at the College, complained that the arms
' exemplified ' to Shakespeare usurped the coat of Lord
Mauley, on whose shield ' a bend sable ' also figured.
Dethick and Camden, who were responsible for any
breach of heraldic etiquette in the matter, answered
that the Shakespeare shield bore no more resemblance
to the Mauley coat than it did to that of the Harley
and the Ferrers families, 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 Strat-
ford-on-Avon ; he maried the daughter and heire of
Arderne, and was able to maintain that Estate.' '

Meanwhile, in 1597, the poet had taken openly
in his own person a more effective step in the way of
rehabilitating himself and his family in the eyes of

Purchase of ^IS feU°w townsmen. On May 4 he pur-
New Place. chased the largest house in the town,
known as New Place. It 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 6o/. Owing
to the sudden death of the vendor, William Under-

1 The details of Brooke's accusation are not extant, and are only to
be deduced from the answer of Garter and Clarenceux to Brooke's
complaint, two copies of which 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.

194 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

hill, on July 7, 1597, the original transfer of the
property was left at the time incomplete. Underhill's
son Fulk died a felon, and he was succeeded in the
family estates by his brother Hercules, who on
coming of age, May 1602, completed in a new deed
the transfer of New Place to Shakespeare.1 On
February 4, 1597-8, Shakespeare was described as a
householder in Chapel Street ward, in which New
Place was situated, and as the owner of ten quarters
of corn. The inventory was made owing to the
presence of famine in the town, and only two inha-
bitants were credited with a larger holding. In the
same year (1598) he procured stone for the repair
the house, and before 1602 had planted a fruit
orchard. He is traditionally said to have interested
himself in the garden, and to have planted with
his own hands a mulberry-tree, which was long a
prominent feature of it. When this was cut down,
in 1758, numerous relics were made from it, and
were treated with an almost superstitious venera-
tion.2 Shakespeare does not appear to have per-
manently settled at New Place till 1611. In 1609

1 Notes attd Queries, 8th ser. v. 478.

2 The tradition that Shakespeare planted the mulberry tree was not
put on record till it was cut down in 1758. In 1760 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 the testimony
of oldinhabi tarts confided to Malone (cf. his Life of Shakespeare, 1790,
p. 1 1 8), the legend had been orally current in Stratford since Shake-
speare's lifetime. The tree was perhaps planted in 1609, when a French-
man 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).

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 195

the house, or part of it, was occupied by the town
clerk, Thomas Greene, ' alias Shakespeare,' who
claimed to be the poet's cousin. His grandmother
seems to have been a Shakespeare. He often acted
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 lawsuit against John Lambert for the
recovery of the mortgaged estate of Asbies in Wilm-
cote. The litigation dragged on for some years
without result.

Three letters written during 1598 by leading men
at Stratford are still extant among the Corporation's
archives, and leave no doubt of the reputation for
wealth and influence with which the purchase of New
Place invested the poet in his fellow-townsmen's
Appeals eves- Abraham Sturley, who was once
for aid bailiff, writing early in 1 598, apparently
fellow- to a brother in London, says : ' This is

townsmen. . , , .. ,. ,

one special remembrance from our father s
motion. It seemeth by him that our countryman, Mr.
Shakspere, is willing 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 in-
structions 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 would do us much good.'
Richard Quiney, another townsman, father of Thomas
(afterwards one of Shakespeare's two sons-in-law),

196 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

was, in the autumn of the same year, harassed by
debt, and on October 25 appealed to Shakespeare fora
loan of money. ' Loving countryman,' the applica-
tion ran, ' I am bold of you as of a friend craving
your help with xxx/z.' Quiney was staying at the
Bell Inn in Carter Lane, London, and his main business
in the metropolis was to procure exemption for the
town of Stratford from the payment of a subsidy.
Abraham Sturley, writing to Quiney from Stratford
ten days later (on November 4, 1598), pointed out to
him that since the town was wholly unable, in conse-
quence of the dearth of corn, to pay the tax, he hoped
' that our countryman, Mr. Wm. Shak., would procure
us money, which I will like of, as I shall hear when
and where, and how.'

The financial prosperity to which this corre-
spondence and the transactions immediately pre-
ceding it point has been treated as one of

Financial , . /- . r-i

position the chief mysteries of Shakespeare s career,
*' but the difficulties are gratuitous. There is
practically nothing in Shakespeare's financial position
that a study of the contemporary conditions of
theatrical life does not fully explain. It was not
until 1599, when the Globe Theatre was built, 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.
His gains in the capacity of dramatist formed the
smaller source of income. The highest price known
to have been paid before 1599 to an author for a
play by the manager of an acting company was 1 1/. ;

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 197

61. was the lowest rate.1 A small additional gratuity—
rarely apparently exceeding ten shillings — was be-
stowed on a dramatist whose piece on its first produc-
tion was especially well received ; and the author was
by custom allotted, by way of ' benefit/ a certain pro-
portion of the receipts of the theatre on the production
of a play for the second time.2 Other sums, amount-
ing at times to as much as 4/., 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 eight
years, cannot consequently have brought him less
than 2OO/., or some 2O/. a year. Eight or nine of
these plays were published during the period, but the

1 I do not think we shall over-estimate the present value of Shake-
speare's income if we multiply each of its items by eight, but it is diffi-
cult to state authoritatively the ratio between the value of money in
Shakespeare's time and in our own. 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 by comparison ludi-
crously cheap in Shakespeare's day. If we strike the average between
the low price of these commodities and the comparatively high price of
corn, the average price of necessaries will be found to be in Shakespeare's
day about an eighth of what it is now. The cost of luxuries is also now
about eight times the price that it was in the sixteenth or seventeenth
century. Sixpence was the usual price of a new quarto or octavo book
such as would now be sold at prices ranging between three shillings
and sixpence and six shillings. Half a crown was charged for the best-
placed seats in the best theatres. The purchasing power of one Eliza-
bethan pound might be generally denned in regard to both necessaries and
luxuries as equivalent to that of eight pounds of the present currency.

2 Cf. Henslowe's Diary, ed. Collier, pp. xxviii seq. After the
Restoration the receipts at the third performance were given for the
author's ' benefit

198 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

publishers operated independently of the author,
taking all the risks and, at the same time, all the re-
ceipts. The publication of Shakespeare's plays in no
way affected his monetary resources, although 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 con-
tinuous sale of his poems.

But it was as an actor that at an early date he
acquired a genuinely substantial and secure income.
There is abundance of contemporary evidence to show
that the stage was for an efficient actor an assured
avenue to comparative wealth. In 1 590 Robert Greene
describes in his tract entitled ' Never too Late ' a meet-
ing with a player whom he took by his ' outward habit '
to be ' a gentleman of great living ' and a ' substan-
tial 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 speak-
ing ' his very share in playing apparel would not be
sold for 2OO/.' 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 com-
plains 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 ;

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE

With mouthing words that better wits had framed,
They purchase lands and now esquires are made.1

The travelling actors, from whom the highway-
man Gamaliel Ratsey extorted a free performance in
1604, were represented as men with the certainty
of a rich competency in prospect.2 An efficient
actor received in 1635 as large a regular salary
as i8o/. The lowest known valuation set an actor's
wages at 3^. a day, or about 45/. a year. Shake-
speare's emoluments as an actor before 1599 are
not likely to have fallen below ioo/. ; while the re-
muneration due to performances at Court or in noble-
men's houses, if the accounts of 1594 be accepted
as the basis of reckoning, added some 1 5/.

Thus over I3O/. (equal to i,O4O/. of to-day) would
be Shakespeare's average annual revenue before 1599.
Such a sum would be regarded as a very large income
in a country town. According to the author of
' Ratseis Ghost,' the actor, who may well have been
meant for Shakespeare, practised in London a strict
frugality, and there seems no reason why Shakespeare
should not have been able in 1597 to draw from his

1 Return from Parnassus, v. i. 10-16.

2 Cf. H[enry] P[arrot]'s Laquei 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 gaines :
That now are cedars growne from shrubs and sprigs,

Since Greene's Tu Quoque and those Garlicke Jigs.

Greene's Tu Quoque was a drolling piece very popular with the rougher
London playgoers, and ' Garlicke Jigs ' alluded derisively to step-dances
which won much esteem from patrons of the smaller playhouses.

200 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

savings 6o/. wherewith to buy New Place. His
resources might well justify his fellow-townsmen's
opinion of his wealth in 1598, and suffice be-
tween 1597 and 1599 to meet his expenses, in re-
building the house, stocking the barns with grain, and
conducting various legal proceedings. But, according
to tradition, he had in the Earl of Southampton a
wealthy and generous friend who on one occasion
gave him a large gift of money 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.

After 1 599 his sources of income from the theatre
greatly increased. In 1635 the heirs of the actor
Financial Richard Burbage were engaged in litigation
lotion respecting their proprietary rights in the two
1599- playhouses, the Globe and the Blackfriars

theatres. The documents relating to this litigation
supply authentic, although not very detailed, informa-
tion of Shakespeare's interest in theatrical property.1
Richard Burbage, with his brother Cuthbert, erected
at their sole cost the Globe Theatre in the winter of
1598-9, and the Blackfriars Theatre, which their father
was building at the time of his death in 1 597, was also
their property. After completing the Globe they
leased out, for twenty-one years, shares in the receipts
of the theatre to ' those deserving men Shakespeare,

1 The documents which are now in the Public Record Office among
the papers relating to the Lord Chamberlain's Office, were printed in
full by Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 312-19.

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 2OI

Hemings, Condell, Philips, and others.' All the share-
holders named were, like Burbage, active members of
Shakespeare's company of players. The shares, which
numbered sixteen in all, carried with them the obli-
gation of providing for the expenses of the playhouse,
and were doubtless in the first instance freely bestowed.
Hamlet claims, in the play scene (ill. ii. 293), that
the success of his improvised tragedy deserved to ' get
him a fellowship in a cry of players ' — a proof that
a successful dramatist might reasonably expect such
a reward for a conspicuous effort. In ' Hamlet,'
moreover, both a share and a half-share of ' a fellow-
ship in a cry of players ' are described as assets of
enviable value (ill. ii. 294-6). How many shares
originally fell to Shakespeare there is no means of
determining. Records of later subdivisions suggest
that they did not exceed two. The Globe was an
exceptionally large and popular playhouse. It would
accommodate some two thousand spectators, whose
places cost them sums varying between twopence and
half a crown. The receipts were therefore considerable,
hardly less than 25/. daily, or some 8,ooo/. a year.
According to the documents of 1635, an actor-sharer
at the Globe received above 2OO/. a year on each share,
besides his actor's salary of i8o/. Thus Shakespeare
drew from the Globe Theatre, at the lowest estimate,
more than 5oo/. a year in all.

His interest in the Blackfriars Theatre was com-
paratively unimportant, and is less easy to estimate.
The often quoted documents on which Collier de-
pended to prove him a substantial shareholder in that

202 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

playhouse have long been proved to be forgeries. The
pleas in the lawsuit of 1635 show that the Burbages,
the owners, leased the Blackfriars Theatre after its
establishment in 1 597 for a long term of years to the
master of the Children of the Chapel, but bought out
the lessee at the end of 1609, and then ' placed ' in
it ' men-players which were Hemings, Condell, Shake-
speare, &c.' To these and other actors they allotted
shares in the receipts, the shares numbering eight in
all. The profits were far smaller than at the Globe,
and if Shakespeare held one share (certainty on the
point is impossible), it added not more than ioo/. a
year to his income, and that not until 1610.

His remuneration as dramatist between 1 599 and
1611 was also by no means contemptible. Prices
paid to dramatists for plays rose rapidly in the early
years of the seventeenth century,1 while the value
of the author's ' benefits ' grew with the growing
Later vogue of the theatre. The exceptional
income. popularity of Shakespeare's plays after 1599
gave him the full advantage of higher rates of pecu-
niary reward in all directions, and the seventeen plays
which were produced by him between that year and the
close of his professional career in 1611 probably
brought him an average return of 2O/. each or 34O/. in
all — nearly 3<D/. a year. At the same time the increase
in the number of Court performances under James I,
and the additional favour bestowed on Shakespeare's

1 In 1613 Robert Daborne, a playwright of insignificant reputation,
charged for a drama as much as 25/. Alleyn Papers, ed. Collier,
p. 65.

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 203

company, may well have given that source of income
the enhanced value of 2O/. a year.1

Thus Shakespeare in the later period of his life
was earning above 6oo/. a year in money of the period.
With so large a professional income he could easily,
with good management, have completed those pur-
chases of houses and land at Stratford on which he
laid out, between 1599 and 1613, a total sum of 97O/.,
or an annual average of /o/. These properties, it
must be remembered, represented investments, and he
drew rent from most of them. He traded, too, in
agricultural produce. There is nothing inherently im-
probable in the statement of John Ward, the seven-
teenth-century vicar of Stratford, that in his last years
' he spent at the rate of a thousand a year, as I have
heard,' although we may reasonably make allowance
for exaggeration in the round figures.

Shakespeare realised his theatrical shares several
years before his death in 1616, when he left, ac-
cording to his will, 35O/. in money in addition to an
extensive real estate and numerous personal belong-
, ings. There was nothing exceptional in this

Incomes of . '. •

fellow- comparative affluence. His friends and fellow-
actors, Heming and Condell, amassed equally
large, if not larger, fortunes. Burbage died in 1619
worth 3OO/. in land, besides personal property ; while a
contemporary actor and theatrical proprietor, Edward

1 Ten pounds was the ordinary fee paid to actors for a performance
at the Court of James I. Shakespeare's company appeared annually
twenty times and more at Whitehall during the early years of James I's
reign, and Shakespeare, as being both author and actor, doubtless
received a larger share of the receipts than his colleagues.

204 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Alley n, purchased the manor of Duhvich for io,ooo/.
(in money of his own day), and devoted it, with much
other property, to public uses, at the same time as he
made ample provision for his family out of the residue
of his estate. Gifts from patrons may have continued
occasionally to augment Shakespeare's resources, but
his wealth can be satisfactorily assigned to better at-
tested agencies. There is no ground for treating it
as of mysterious origin.1

Between 15 99 and 1611, while London remained
Shakespeare's chief home, he built up at Stratford a
large landed estate which his purchase of New Place
had inaugurated. In 1601 his father died, being buried
on September 8. He apparently left no will, and the
poet, as the eldest son, inherited 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 credftors. Shakespeare permitted his mother
to reside in one of the Henley Street houses till her
death (she was buried September 9, 1608), and he
Formation derived a modest rent from the other. On
of the May i, 1602, he purchased for 32O/. of the
Stratford rich landowners William and John Combe
of Stratford 107 acres of arable land near
the town. The conveyance was delivered, in the
poet's absence, to his brother Gilbert, ' to the use of
the within named William Shakespere.' 2 A third
purchase quickly followed. On September 28, 1602,
at a court baron of the manor of Rowington, one

1 Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 312-19; Fleay, Stage, pp. 324-8.

2 Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 17-19.

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 2O5

Walter Getley transferred to the poet a cottage and
garden which were situated at Chapel Lane, opposite
the lower grounds of New Place. They were held
practically in fee-simple at the annual rental of 2s. 6d.
It appears from the roll that Shakespeare did not
attend the manorial court held on the day fixed for
the transfer of the property at Rowington, and it was
consequently stipulated then that the estate should
remain in the hands of the lady of the manor until he
completed the purchase in person. At a later period he
was admitted to the copyhold, and he settled the re-
mainder on his two daughters in fee. In April 1610
he purchased from the Combes 20 acres of pasture
land, to add to the 107 of arable land that he had
acquired of the same owners in 1602.

As early as 1 598 Abraham Sturley had suggested
that Shakespeare should purchase the tithes of Strat-
ford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605,
Stratford he bought for 44O/. of Ralph Huband an
unexpired term of thirty-one years of a
ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of
Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe.
The moiety was subject to a rent of ly 'I. to the
corporation, who were the reversionary owners on
the lease's expiration, and of 5/. to John Barker, the
heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought
Shakespeare, under the most favourable circum-
stances, no more than an annuity of 38/., and the
refusal of persons who claimed an interest in the
other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their
liability to the corporation led that body to demand

206 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from the poet payments justly due from others.
After 1609 he joined with two interested persons,
Richard Lane of Awston and Thomas Greene, the
town clerk of Stratford, in a suit in Chancery to deter-
mine the exact responsibilities of all the tithe-owners,
and in 1612 they presented a bill of complaint to
Lord-chancellor Ellesmere, with what result is un-
known. His acquisition of a part-ownership in the
tithes was fruitful in legal embarrassments.

Shakespeare inherited his father's love of litigation,

and stood rigorously by his rights in all his business

relations. In March 1600 he recovered

Recovery

of small in London a debt of 7/. from one John
Clayton. In July 1604, m tne local court
at Stratford, he sued one Philip Rogers, to whom
he had supplied since the preceding March malt
to the value of i/. igs. iod., and had on June
25 lent 2s. ' in cash. Rogers paid back 6s., and
Shakespeare sought the balance of the account,
i/. 15-y. lod. During 1608 and 1609 ne was at law
with another fellow-townsman, John Addenbroke.
On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare, who was ap-
parently represented by his solicitor and kinsman
Thomas Greene,1 obtained judgment from a jury
against Addenbroke for the payment of 6/., and
i/. 5-y. costs, but Addenbroke left the town, and the
triumph proved barren. Shakespeare avenged him-
self by proceeding against one Thomas Horneby,
who had acted as the absconding debtor's bail.2

1 See p. 195. z Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 77-80.

207

XIII

MATURITY OF GENIUS

WITH an inconsistency that is more apparent than
real, the astute business transactions of these years

(1597-1611) synchronise with the produc-
work in tion of Shakespeare's noblest literary work

— of his most sustained and serious efforts in
comedy, tragedy, and romance. In 1 599, after aban-
doning English history with ' Henry V,' he addressed
himself to the composition of his three most perfect
essays in comedy—' Much Ado about Nothing,' 'As
you like it,' and ' Twelfth Night' Their good-
humoured tone seems to reveal their author in his
happiest frame of mind ; in each the gaiety and
tenderness of youthful womanhood are exhibited in
fascinating union ; while Shakespeare's lyric gift
bred no sweeter melodies than the songs with which
the three plays are interspersed. At the same time
each comedy enshrines such penetrating reflections on
mysterious problems of life as mark the stage of
maturity in the growth of the author's intellect. The
first two of the three plays were entered on the
'Stationers' Registers' before August 4, 1600, on
which day a prohibition was set on their publication,
as well as on the publication of ' Henry V ' and of Ben

208 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Jonson's ' Every Man in his Humour.' This was one
of the many efforts of the acting company to stop the
publication of plays in the belief that the practice was
injurious to their rights. The effort was only partially
successful. ' Much Ado,' like ' Henry V,' was pub-
lished before the close of the year. Neither ' As You
Like It ' nor ' Twelfth Night,' however, was printed
till it appeared in the Folio.

In ' Much Ado,' which appears to have been
written in 1 599, the brilliant and spirited comedy of
Benedick and Beatrice, and of the blundering watch-
men Dogberry and Verges, is wholly original ; but the
• Much sombre story of Hero and Claudio, about which
Ado. t^ comic incident revolves, is drawn from
an Italian source, either from Bandello (novel, xxii.)
through Belleforest's ' Histoires Tragiques,' or from
Ariosto's ' Orlando Furioso ' through Sir John Haring-
ton's translation (canto v.). Ariosto's version, in which
the injured heroine is called Ginevra, and her lover
Ariodante, had been dramatised before. According
to the accounts of the Court revels, ' A Historic of
Ariodante and Ginevra was showed before her
Majestic on Shrovetuesdaie at night' in I583.1
Throughout Shakespeare's play the ludicrous and
serious aspects of humanity are blended with a con-
vincing naturalness. The popular comic actor
William Kemp filled the role of Dogberry, and
Cowley appeared as Verges. In both the Quarto of
1600 and the Folio of 1623 these actors' names are

1 Accounts of the Revels, ed. Peter Cunningham (Shakespeare
Society), p. 177 ; Variorum Shakespeare, 1821, iii. 406.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 2OQ

prefixed by a copyist's error to some of the speeches
allotted to the two characters (act IV. scene ii.)

'As You Like It,' which quickly followed, is a
dramatic adaptation of Lodge's romance, ' Rosalynde,
•AS YOU Euphues Golden Legacie' (1590), but
Like it; Shakespeare added three new characters
of first-rate interest — Jaques, the meditative cynic ;
Touchstone, the most carefully elaborated of all
Shakespeare's fools ; and the hoyden Audrey. Hints
for the scene of Orlando's encounter with Charles the
Wrestler, and for Touchstone's description of the
diverse shapes of a lie, were clearly drawn from a
book called ' Saviolo's Practise,' a manual of the art
of self-defence, which appeared in 1595 from the pen
of Vincentio Saviolo, an Italian fencing-master in
the service of the Earl of Essex. None of Shake-
speare's comedies breathes a more placid temper or
approaches more nearly to a pastoral drama. Yet
there is no lack of intellectual or poetic energy in the
enunciation of the contemplative philosophy which is
cultivated in the Forest of Arden. In Rosalind, Celia,
Phcebe, and Audrey, four types of youthful woman-
hood are contrasted with the liveliest humour.

The date of 'Twelfth Night' is probably 1600,
, Twelfth and its name, which has no reference to the
Night.1 story, doubtless commemorates the fact that
it was designed for a Twelfth Night celebration.
' The new map with the augmentation of the Indies,'
spoken of by Maria (ill. ii. 86), was a respectful
reference to the great map of the world or ' hydro-
graphical description' which was first issued with

210 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hakluyt's ' Voyages ' in 1599 or 1600, and first dis-
closed the full extent of recent explorations of the
1 Indies ' in the New World and the Old.1 Like the
' Comedy of Errors,' ' Twelfth Night ' achieved the
distinction, early in its career, of a presentation at an
Inn of Court. It was produced at Middle Temple
Hall on February 2, 1601-2, and Manningham, a bar-
rister who was present, described the performance.2
Manningham wrote that the piece was ' much like the
" Comedy of Errors " or " Menechmi " in Plautus,
but most like and neere to that in Italian called
" Inganni." ' Two sixteenth-century Italian plays
entitled 'Gl' Inganni' ('The Cheats'), and a third
called ' Gl' Ingannati,' bear resemblance to ' Twelfth
Night.1 It is possible that Shakespeare had recourse
to the last, which was based on Bandello's novel of
Nicuola,3 was first published at Siena in 1538, and
became popular throughout Italy. But in all
probability he drew the story solely from the ' His-
toric of Apolonius and Silla,' which was related in
' Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession' (1581).
The author of that volume, Barnabe Riche, translated
the tale either direct from Bandello's Italian novel
or from the French rendering of Bandello's work in
Belleforest's 'Histoires Tragiques.' Romantic pathos,

1 It was reproduced by the Hakluyt Society to accompany The
Voyages and Workes of John Davis the Navigator, ed. Captain A. H.
Markham, 1 880. Cf. Mr. Coote's note on the New Map, Ixxxv-
xcv. A paper on the subject by Mr. Coote also appears in New Shak-
spere Society's Transactions, 1877-9, pt- *• PP- 88-ioo.

2 Diary, Camden Soc. p. 18 ; the Elizabethan Stage Society
repeated the play on the same stage on February 10, n, and 12,
1897. s Bandello's Novelle, ii. 36.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 211

as in ' Much Ado,' is the dominant note of the main
plot of ' Twelfth Night,' but Shakespeare neutrallises
the tone of sadness by his mirthful portrayal of
Malvolio, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek,
Fabian, the clown Feste, and Maria, all of whom are
his own creations. The ludicrous gravity of Malvolio
proved exceptionally popular on the stage.

In 1 60 1 Shakespeare made a new departure by
drawing a plot from North's noble translation of
' Plutarch's Lives.' l Plutarch is the king of biogra-
phers, and the deference which Shakespeare paid his
work by adhering to the phraseology wherever it was
practicable illustrates his literary discrimination. On
Plutarch's lives of Julius Caesar, Brutus, and Antony,
Shakespeare based his historical tragedy of 'Julius
Caesar.' Weever, in 1601, in his ' Mirror of Martyrs,'
plainly refers to the masterly speech in the

' Julius

Caesar,' Forum at Caesar's funeral which Shakespeare
put into Antony's mouth. There is no sugges-
tion of the speech in Plutarch ; hence the composition
of 'Julius Caesar' may be held to have preceded the
issue of Weever's book in 1601. The general topic
was already familiar on the stage. Polonius told
Hamlet how, when he was at the university, he ' did
enact Julius Caesar ; he was kill'd in the Capitol :
Brutus kill'd him.'2 A play of the same title was
known as early as 1589, and was acted in 1594 by
Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare's piece is a
penetrating study of political life, and, although the

1 .First published in 1579 ; 2nd edit. 1595.

2 Hamlet, m. ii. 109-10.

p 2

212 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

murder and funeral of Caesar form the central episode
and not the climax, the tragedy is thoroughly well
planned and balanced. Caesar is ironically depicted
in his dotage. The characters of Brutus, Antony, and
Cassius, the real heroes of the action, are exhibited
with faultless art. 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.

While ' Julius Caesar ' was winning its first laurels
on the stage, the fortunes of the London theatres were
menaced by two manifestations of unreasoning prejudice
on the part of the public. The earlier manifestation,
although speciously the more serious, was in effect in-
nocuous. The puritans of the city of London had long
agitated for the suppression of all theatrical perfor-
mances, and it seemed as if the agitators triumphed when
they induced the Privy Council on June 22, 1600, to
issue to the officers of the Corporation of London and
to the justices of the peace of Middlesex and Surrey an
order forbidding the maintenance of more than two
playhouses — one in Middlesex (Alleyn's newly erected
playhouse, the ' Fortune ' in Cripplegate), and the
other in Surrey (the ' Globe ' on the Bankside). The
contemplated restriction would have deprived very
many actors of employment, and driven others to seek
a precarious livelihood in the provinces. Happily,
disaster was averted by the failure of the municipal
authorities and the magistrates of Surrey and Middle-
sex to make the order operative. All the London

MATURITY OF GENIUS 213

theatres that were already in existence went on their
way unchecked.1

More calamitous was a temporary reverse of for-
tune which Shakespeare's company, in common with
The strife the other companies of adult actors, suffered
aduiTand soon afterwards at the hands, not of fanatical
boy actors, enemies of the drama, but of playgoers who
were its avowed supporters. The company of boy-
actors, chiefly recruited from the choristers of the
Chapel Royal, and known as ' the Children of the
Chapel,' had since 1597 been installed at the new
theatre in Blackfriars, and after 1600 the fortunes of
the veterans, who occupied rival stages, were put in
jeopardy by the extravagant outburst of public favour
that the boys' performances evoked. In ' Hamlet,'
the play which followed ' Julius Caesar,' Shakespeare
pointed out the perils of the situation.2 The adult

1 On December 31, 1601, the Lords of the Council sent letters to the
Lord Mayor of London and to the magistrates of Surrey and Middlesex
expressing their surprise that no steps had yet been taken to limit the
number of playhouses in accordance with 'our order set down and
prescribed about a year and a half since.' But nothing followed, and
no more was heard officially of the Council's order until 1619, when the
Corporation of London remarked on its practical abrogation at the
same time as they directed the suppression (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.

2 The passage, act ii. sc. ii. 348-394, which deals in ample detail
with the subject, only appears in the folio version of 1623. In the
First Quarto a very curt reference is made to the misfortunes of the
' tragedians of the city : '

' Y' faith, my lord, noveltie carries it away,
For the principal publike audience that
Came to them are turned to private playes
And to the humours of children.'

1 Private playes ' were plays acted by amateurs, with whom the
' Children ' might well be classed.

214 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

actors, Shakespeare asserted, were prevented from per-
forming in London through no falling off in their
efficiency, but by the ' late innovation ' of the children's
vogue.1 They were compelled to go on tour in the
provinces, at the expense of their revenues and repu-
tation, because ' an aery [i.e. nest] of children, little
eyases [i.e. young hawks],' dominated the theatrical
world, and monopolised public applause. ' These
are now the fashion,' the dramatist lamented,2 and he
made the topic the text of a reflection on the fickle-
ness of public 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 ducats apiece for his picture in little.

Jealousies in the ranks of the dramatists accen-
tuated the actors' difficulties. Ben Jonson was, at the
end of the sixteenth century, engaged in a fierce
personal quarrel with two of his fellow dramatists,
Marston and Dekker. The adult actors generally
avowed sympathy with Jonson's foes. Jonson, by
way of revenge, sought an offensive alliance with ' the
Children of the Chapel.' Under careful tuition the
boys proved capable of performing much the same
pieces as the men. To ' the children' Jonson offered

1 All recent commentators follow Steevens in interpreting the ' late
innovation ' as the Order of the Privy Council of June 1600, restricting
the number of the London playhouses to two ; but that order, which
was never put in force, in no way affected the actors' fortunes. The
First Quarto's reference to the perils attaching to the ' noveltie ' of the
boys' performances indicates the true meaning.

2 Hamlet> II. ii. 349-64.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 215

in 1600 his comical satire of ' Cynthia's Revels,' in
which he held up to ridicule Dekker, Marston, and
their actor-friends. The play, when acted by ' the
children' at the Blackfriars Theatre, was warmly
welcomed by the audience. Next year Jonson
repeated his manoeuvre with greater effect. He
learnt that Marston and Dekker were conspiring with
the actors of Shakespeare's company to attack him
in a piece called ' Satiro-Mastix, or the Untrussing of
the Humourous Poet.' He anticipated their design
by producing, again with ' the Children of the Chapel,'
his ' Poetaster,' which was throughout a venomous
invective against his enemies — dramatists and actors
alike. Shakespeare's company retorted by producing
Dekker and Marston's ' Satiro-Mastix ' at the Globe
Theatre next year. But Jonson's action had given
new life to the vogue of the children. Playgoers took
sides in the struggle, and their attention was for a
season riveted, to the exclusion of topics more ger
mane to their province, on the actors' and dramatists'
boisterous war of personalities.1

1 At the moment offensive personalities seemed to have infected all
the London theatres. On May IO, 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 quality,'
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 of the Poetaster},
in which he somewhat truculently qualified his hostility to the
players :

' 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

2l6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

In his detailed references to the conflict in
Shake ' Hamlet ' Shakespeare protested against the
speare's abusive comments on the men-actors of ' the

references

to the common stages or public theatres which
were put into the children's mouths. Rosen-
crantz declared that the children ' so berattle [i.e. assail]
the common stages — so they call them — that many
wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare
scarce come thither [i.e. to the public theatres].'
Hamlet in pursuit of the theme pointed out that the
writers who encouraged the vogue 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 which 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 ?

GUILDENSTERN. O, there has been much throwing about of
brains !

To think well of themselves. But impotent they

Thought each man's vice belonged to their whole tribe ;

And much good do it them. What they have done against m

I am not moved with, if it gave them meat

Or got them clothes, 'tis well ; 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.

MATURITY OF GENIUS

Shakespeare clearly favoured the adult actors in
their rivalry with the boys, but he wrote more like a
disinterested spectator than an active partisan when
he made specific reference to the strife between the
poet Ben Jonson and the players. In the prologue
to 'Troilusand Cressida' which he penned in 1603,
he warned his hearers, with obvious allusion to Ben
Jonson's battles, that he hesitated to identify himself
with either actor or poet.1 Passages in Ben Jonson;s
' Poetaster,' moreover, pointedly suggest that Shake-
speare cultivated so assiduously an attitude of neutra-
lity that Jonson acknowledged him to be qualified for
the role of peacemaker. The gentleness of disposition
with which Shakespeare was invariably credited by his
friends would have well fitted him for such an office.

Jonson figures personally in the ' Poetaster ' under
the name of Horace. Episodically Horace and his
Jonson's friends, Tibullus and Gallus, eulogise the
•Poetaster.' work and genius of another character, Virgil,
in terms so closely resembling those which Jonson
is known to have applied to Shakespeare that they
may be regarded as intended to apply to him (act
V. sc. i.) Jonson points out that Virgil, by his pene-
trating intuition, 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 generalities of arts —

1 See p. 229, note i, ad fat.

2l8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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.

Tibullus gives Virgil equal credit for having in his
writings touched with telling truth upon every vicis-
situde 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, Virgil in the play is nominated by Caesar
to act as judge between Horace and his libellers, and
he advises the administration of purging pills to the
offenders. That course of treatment is adopted with
satisfactory results.1

As against this interpretation, 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,
and by administering to him, with their aid, the identical
course of medicine which in the 4 Poetaster ' is meted
out to his enemies. In the same year (1601) as the
' Poetaster ' was produced, ' The Return from Par-
nassus ' — a third piece in a trilogy of plays — was ' acted

1 The proposed identification of Virgil in the ' Poetaster ' with
Chapman has little to recommend it. Chapman's literary work did
not justify the commendations which were bestowed on Virgil in the
play.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 219

by the students in St. John's College, Cambridge.'
In this piece, as in its two predecessors, Shakespeare
received, both as a playwright and a poet, high com-
mendation, although his poems were judged to reflect
somewhat too largely ' love's lazy foolish languish-
ment.' The actor Burbage was introduced in his
own name instructing an aspirant to the actor's
profession in the part of Richard the Third, and the
familiar lines from Shakespeare's play —

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York —

are recited by the pupil as part of his lesson. Subse-
quently in a prose dialogue between Shakespeare's
fellow-actors Burbage and Kempe, Kempe remarks
of university dramatists, ' Why, here's our fellow
Shakespeare puts them all down ; aye, and Ben Jon-
son, 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 : ' He is
a shrewd fellow indeed.' This perplexing passage
has been held to mean that Shakespeare took a
decisive part against Jonson in the controversy with
Dekker and Dekker's actor friends. But such a con-
Shake- elusion is nowhere corroborated, and seems
speare's to be confuted by the eulogies of Virgil

alleged . '

partisan- in the ' Poetaster ' and by the general hand-
ling of the theme in ' Hamlet.' The words
quoted from ' The Return from Parnassus ' hardly
admit of a literal interpretation. Probably the
' purge ' that Shakespeare was alleged by the author

220 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 vein,1
and had in fact outrun his churlish comrade on his
own ground.

1 The most scornful criticism that Jonson is known to have passed
on any composition by Shakespeare was aimed at a passage in Julius
C<zsar, 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 when hee said in the person of C&sar, one speaking to him [i.e.
Caesar] ; Ctzsar, thou dost me -wrong. Hee [i.e. Caesar] replyed : Ccesar
did never wrong, butt with just cause : and such like, which were
ridiculous.' Jonson derisively quoted the same passage in the induc-
tion to The Staple of News (1625) : ' Cry you mercy, you did not wrong
but with just cause.' Possibly the words that were ascribed by Jonson
to Shakespeare's character of Casar 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 Caesar's remark :

Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied

(ill. i. 47-8). The rhythm and sense seem to require the reinsertion
after the word ' wrong ' of the phrase ' but with just cause,' which
Jonson needlessly reprobated. Leonard Digges (1588-1635), one
of Shakespeare's admiring critics, emphasises the superior popu-
larity of Shakespeare's Julius Casar in the theatre to Ben Jonson's
Roman play of Catiline, in his eulogistic lines on Shakespeare
(published after Digges's death in the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's

Poems') :

So have I seen when Caesar would appear,
And on the stage at half-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 brook a line
Of tedious, though w«ll laboured, Catiline.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 221

At any rate, in the tragedy that Shakespeare
brought out in the year following the production of
'Julius Caesar,' he finally left Jonson and all friends
and foes lagging far behind both in achievement and
reputation. This new 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 quickly brought to an end. In 1602
Shakespeare produced ' Hamlet,' ' that piece of his
which most kindled English hearts.' The story of the
• Hamlet,1 Prmce of Denmark had been popular on the
1602. stage as early as 1 589 in a lost dramatic ver-

sion by another writer — doubtless Thomas Kyd, whose
tragedies of blood, ' The Spanish Tragedy ' and ' Jero-
nimo,' long held the Elizabethan stage. To that lost
version of ' Hamlet ' Shakespeare's tragedy certainly
owed much.1 The story was also accessible in the

1 I wrote on this point in the article on Thomas Kyd in the
Dictionary of National Biography (vol. xxxi.): 'The argument in
favour of Kyd's authorship of a pre-Shakespearean play (now lost) on
the subject of Hamlet deserves attention. Nash in 1589, when
describing [in his preface to Menaphon] the typical literary hack,
who at almost every point suggests Kyd, notices that in addition to
his other accomplishments ' ' he will afford you whole Hamlets, I
should say handfuls of tragical speeches. " Other references in popular
tracts and plays of like date prove that in an early tragedy concern-
ing Hamlet there was a ghost who cried repeatedly, " Hamlet,
revenge ! " and that this expression took rank in Elizabethan slang beside
the vernacular quotations from f Kyd's sanguinary tragedy of] Jeronimo,
such as " What outcry calls me from my naked bed," and "Beware,
Hieronimo, go by, go by." The resemblance between the stories of
Hamlet and Jeronimo suggests that the former would have supplied
Kyd with a congenial plot. In Jeronimo a father seeks to avenge his
son's murder ; in Hamlet the theme is the same with the position of

222 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Histoires Tragiques ' of Belleforest, who adapted it
from the ' Historia Danica' of Saxo Grammaticus.1
No English translation of Belleforest's ' Hystorie of
Hamblet' appeared before 1608; Shakespeare doubt-
less read it in the French. But his authorities give
little hint of what was to emerge from his study of
them.

Burbage created the title-part in Shakespeare's
tragedy, and its success on the stage led to the play's
publication immediately afterwards. The bibliography
of ' Hamlet ' offers a puzzling problem. On July 26,
1602, ' A Book called the Revenge of Hamlet, Prince
The pro- of Denmark, as it was lately acted by the
pubHwf-'15 Lord Chamberlain his Servants,' was entered
tion. on {fog Stationers' Company's Registers, and

it was published in quarto next year by Nicholas]

father and son reversed. In feronimo the avenging father resolves to
reach his end by arranging for the performance of a play in the presence
of those whom he suspects of the murder of his son, and there is good
ground for crediting the lost tragedy of Hamlet with a similar play-scene.
Shakespeare's debt to the lost tragedy is a matter of conjecture, but the
stilted speeches of the play-scene in his Hamlet read like intentional
parodies of Kyd's bombastic efforts in The Spanish Tragedy, and it is
quite possible that they were directly suggested by an almost identical
episode in a lost Hamlet by the same author. ' Shakespeare elsewhere
shows acquaintance with Kyd's work. He places in the mouth ot
Kit Sly in the Taming of the Shrew the current phrase ' Go by, Jero-
nimy,' from The Spanish Tragedy. Shakespeare quotes verbatim a
line from the same piece in Much 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 Shake-
speare may have met it.

1 Cf. Gericke und Max Moltke, Hamlet-Quelkn, Leipzig, 1881.
The story was absorbed into Scandinavian mythology : cf. Ambales-
Saga, edited by Mr. Israel Gollancz, 1898.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 223

L[ing] and John Trundell. The title-page stated that
the piece had been ' acted divers times in the city of
. London, as also in the two Universities of
Quarto, Cambridge and Oxford and elsewhere.' The
text here appeared in a rough and im-
perfect state. In all probability it was a piratical
and carelessly transcribed copy of Shakespeare's first
draft of the play, in which he drew largely on the
older piece.

A revised version, printed from a more complete
and accurate manuscript, was published in 1604 as
' The Tragical History of Hamlet Prince of Denmark,
by William Shakespeare, newly imprinted and en-
larged to almost as much again as it was,

The Second

Quarto, according to the true and perfect copy. This
was printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for the
publisher Nicholas] L[ing]. The concluding words
— ' according to the true and perfect copy ' — of the
title-page of the second quarto were intended to
stamp its predecessor as surreptitious and unauthentic.
But it is clear that the Second Quarto was not a perfect
version of the play. It was itself printed from a copy
which had been curtailed for acting purposes.

A third version (long the textus receptus) figured
in the Folio of 1623. Here many passages, not to be
found in the quartos, appear for the first time, but a
The Folio few others that appear in the quartos are
Version. omitted. The Folio text probably came
nearest to the original manuscript ; but it, too, followed
an acting copy which had been abbreviated some-
what less drastically than the Second Quarto and in a

224 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

different fashion.1 Theobald in his ' Shakespeare
Restored' (1726) made the first scholarly attempt to
form a text from a collation of the First Folio with
the Second Quarto, and Theobald's text with further
embellishments by Sir Thomas Hanmer, Edward
Capell, and the Cambridge editors of 1866, is now
generally adopted.

' Hamlet ' was the only drama by Shakespeare
that was acted in his lifetime at the two Universities.
It has since attracted more attention from actors,
playgoers, and readers of all capacities than any other
of Shakespeare's plays. Its world-wide popularity
from its author's day to our own, when it is

Popularity

of • Ham- as warmly welcomed in the theatres of France
and Germany as in those of England and
America, is the most striking of the many testimonies
to the eminence of Shakespeare's dramatic instinct.
At a first, glance there seems little in the play to
attract the uneducated or the unreflecting. ' Hamlet '
is mainly a psychological effort, a study of the reflec-
tive temperament in excess. The action develops
slowly ; at times there is no movement at all. Except
< Antony and Cleopatra,' which exceeds it by sixty
lines, the piece is the longest of Shakespeare's plays,
while the total length of Hamlet's speeches far exceeds
that of those allotted by Shakespeare to any other
of his characters. Humorous relief is, it is true,

1 Cf. Hamlet — parallel texts of the first and second quarto, and
first folio — ed. Wilhelm Victor, Marburg, 1891 ; The Devonshire
Hamlets, 1860, parallel texts of the two quartos edited by Mr. Sam
Timmins ; Hamlet, ed. George Macdonald, 1885, a study with the text
of the folio.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 225

effectively supplied to the tragic theme by Polonius
and the grave-diggers, and if the topical references to
contemporary theatrical history (II. ii. 350-89) could
only count on an appreciative reception from an
Elizabethan audience, the pungent censure of actors'
perennial defects is calculated to catch the ear of the
average playgoer of all ages. But it is not to these
subsidiary features that the universality of the play's
vogue can be attributed. It is the intensity of
interest which Shakespeare contrives to excite in
the character of the hero that explains the position
of the play in popular esteem. The play's un-
rivalled power of attraction lies in the pathetic
fascination exerted on minds of almost every calibre
by the central figure — a high-born youth of chivalric
instincts and finely developed intellect, who, when
stirred to avenge in action a desperate private wrong,
is foiled by introspective workings of the brain that
paralyse the will.

Although the difficulties of determining the date

of ' Troilus and Cressida ' are very great, there are

many grounds for assigning its composition

' Troilus _ °

and to the early days of 1603. In 1599 Dekker

and Chettle were engaged by Henslowe to
prepare for the Earl of Nottingham's company — a
rival of Shakespeare's company — a play of ' Troilus
and Cressida/ of which no trace survives. It doubtless
suggested the topic to Shakespeare. On February 7,
1602-3, James Roberts obtained a license for 'the
booke of Troilus and Cresseda as yt is acted by my

226 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Lord Chamberlens men,' i.e. Shakespeare's company.1
Roberts printed the Second Quarto of ' Hamlet ' and
others of Shakespeare's plays ; but his effort to pub-
lish ' Troilus ' proved abortive owing to the inter-
position of the players. Roberts's ' book ' was pro-
bably Shakespeare's play. The metrical character-
istics of Shakespeare's ' Troilus and Cressida ' —
the regularity of the blank verse — powerfully con-
firm the date of composition which Roberts's license
suggests. Six years later, however, on January 28,
1608-9, a new license for the issue of ' a booke called
the history of Troylus and Cressida ' was granted to
other publishers, Richard Bonian and Henry Walley,2
and these publishers, more fortunate than Roberts
soon printed a quarto with Shakespeare's full name
as author. The text seems fairly authentic, but ex-
ceptional obscurity attaches to the circumstances
of the publication. Some copies of the book bear
an ordinary type of title-page stating that the piece
was printed ' as it was acted by the King's majesties
servants at the Globe.' But in other copies, which
differ in no way in regard to the text of the play,
there was substituted for this title-page a more pre-
tentious announcement running : ' The famous His-
toric of Troylus and Cresseid, excellently expressing
the beginning of their loues with the conceited wooing
of Pandarus, prince of Lacia.' After this pompous
title-page there was inserted, for the first and only
time in the case of a play by Shakespeare that was

1 Arber's Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, iii. 226.
* Ib. iii. 400.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 22?

published in his lifetime, an advertisement or preface.
In this interpolated page an anonymous scribe, writ-
ing in the name of the publishers, paid bombastic
and high-flown compliments to Shakespeare as a
writer of ' comedies,' and defiantly boasted that the
' grand possessers ' — i.e. the 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.
This address was possibly the 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 editors of the Folio
evinced distrust of the Quarto edition by printing
their text from a different copy showing many devia-
tions, which were not always for the better.

The work, which in point of construction shows

signs of haste, and in style is exceptionally unequal,

is the least attractive of the efforts of Shakespeare's

middle life. The story is based on a romantic legend

of the Trojan war. which is of mediaeval

Treatment J

of the origin. Shakespeare had possibly read Chap-
man's translation of Homer's ' Iliad,' but he
owed his plot to Chaucer's ' Troilus and Cresseid ' and
Lydgate's ' Troy Book.' In defiance of his authori-
ties he presented Cressida as a heartless coquette ;
the poets who had previously treated her story —
Boccaccio, Chaucer, Lydgate, and Robert Henryson
— had imagined her as a tender-hearted, if frail,
beauty, with claims on their pity rather than on their

Q 2

228 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

scorn. But Shakespeare's innovation is dramatically
effective, and accords with strictly moral canons.
The charge frequently brought against the dramatist
that in ' Troilus and Cressida ' he cynically invested
the Greek heroes of classical antiquity with con-
temptible characteristics is ill supported by the text
of the play. Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon figure
in Shakespeare's play as brave generals and sagacious
statesmen, and in their speeches Shakespeare con-
centrated a marvellous wealth of pithily expressed
philosophy, much of which has fortunately obtained
proverbial currency. Shakespeare's conception of
the Greeks followed traditional lines except in the
case of Achilles, whom he transforms into a brutal
coward. And that portrait quite legitimately inter-
preted the selfish, unreasoning, and exorbitant pride
with which the warrior was credited by Homer and
his imitators.

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 literature by more learned dramatists
of the day, like Ben Jonson and Chapman. Although
Shakespeare knew the Homeric version of the Trojan
war, he worked in ' Troilus and Cressida ' upon a
mediaeval romance, which was practically uninflu-
enced either for good or evil by the classical spirit.1

1 Less satisfactory is the endeavour that has been made by Mr. F. G.
Fleay and Mr. George Wyndham to treat Troilus and Cressida as Shake-

MATURITY OF GENIUS 22Q

Despite the association of Shakespeare's company
with the rebellion of 1601, and its difficulties with the
children of the Chapel Royal, he and his fellow actors

speare's contribution to the embittered controversy of 1601-2, between
Jonson and Marston and Dekker and their actor friends, and to represent
it as a pronouncement against Jonson. According to this fanciful view,
Shakespeare held up Jonson to savage ridicule in Ajax, while in Thersites
he denounced Marston, despite Marston's intermittent antagonism
to Jonson, which entitled him to freedom from attack by Jonson's
foes. The appearance of the word ' mastic ' in the line (l. iii. 73)
' When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws ' is treated as proof
of Shakespeare's identification of Thersites with Marston, who
used the pseudonym ' Therio-mastix ' in his Scourge of Villainy.
It would be as reasonable to identify him with Dekker, who
wrote the greater part of Satiro-mastix. ' Mastic ' is doubtless an
adjective formed without recondite significance from the substantive
' mastic,' i.e. the gum commonly used at the time for stopping decayed
teeth. No hypothesis of a polemical intention is needed to account for
Shakespeare's conception of Ajax or Thersites. There is no trait in
either character as depicted by Shakespeare which a reading of Chap-
man's Homer would fail to suggest. The controversial interpretation of
the play is in conflict with chronology (for Troihts cannot, on any show-
ing, be assigned to the period of the war between Jonson and Dekker,
in 1601-2), and it seems confuted by the facts and arguments already
adduced in the discussion of the theatrical conflict (see pp. 213-219). If
more direct disproof be needed, it may be found in Shakespeare's
prologue to Troilus, where there is a good-humoured and expressly
pacific allusion to the polemical aims of Jonson's Poetaster. Jonson
had introduced into his play ' an armed prologue ' on account, he
asserted, of his enemies' menaces. Shakespeare, after describing in his
prologue to Troilus the progress of the Trojan war before his story
opened, added that his ' prologue ' presented itself ' amid,' not to
champion 'author's pen or actor's voice,' but simply to announce in a
guise befitting the warlike subject-matter that the play began in the
middle of the conflict between Greek and Trojan, and not at the begin-
ning. These words of Shakespeare put out of court any interpretation
of Shakespeare's play that would represent it as a contribution to
the theatrical controversy.

230 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

retained their hold on Court favour till the close of
Queen Elizabeth's reign. As late as February 2,
Elizabeth's 1 603, the company entertained the dying
March 26, Queen at Richmond. Her death on March
26, 1603, drew from Shakespeare's early
eulogist, Chettle, a vain appeal to him under the
fanciful name of Melicert, 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. '

But, except on sentimental grounds, the Queen's death
justified no lamentation on the part of Shakespeare.
On the withdrawal of one royal patron he and his
friends at once found another, who proved far more
liberal and appreciative.

On May 19, 1603, James I, very soon after his
accession, extended to Shakespeare and other mem-
bers of the Lord Chamberlain's company a very
marked and valuable recognition. To them he
granted under royal letters patent a license ' freely
to use and exercise the arte and facultie of playing
comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, moralls.
pastoralles, stage-plaies, 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 pleasure, when we shall thinke
good 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 per-

1 England's Mourning Garment, 1603, sign. D. 3.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 231

form in the town-hall or moot-hall of any country
James FS town. Nine actors are named. Lawrence
patronage. Fietcher stands first on the list ; he had
already performed before James in Scotland in 1 599
and 1 60 1. Shakespeare comes second and Burbage
third. The company to which they belonged was
thenceforth styled the King's company ; its members
became ' the King's Servants ' and they took rank with
the Grooms of the Chamber.1 Shakespeare's plays
were thenceforth repeatedly performed in James's
presence, and Oldys related that James wrote Shake-
speare a letter in his own hand, which was at one
time in the possession of Sir William D'Avenant, and
afterwards, according to Lintot, in that of John
Sheffield, first duke of Buckingham.

In the autumn and winter of 1603 the prevalence
of the plague led to the closing of the theatres in
London. The King's players were compelled to
make a prolonged tour in the provinces, which
entailed some loss of income. For two months from
the third week in October, the Court was tempo-
rarily installed at Wilton, the residence of William
Herbert, third earl of Pembroke, and late in November
the company was summoned by the royal officers

1 At the same time the Earl of Worcester's company was taken
into the Queen's patronage, and its members were known as ' the
Queen's servants,' while the Earl of Nottingham's company was taken
into the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and its members were
known as the Prince's servants. 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 Trium-
phant, 1604, sig. B.

232 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

to perform in the royal presence. The actors travelled
from Mortlake to Salisbury ' unto the Courte afore-
saide,' and their performance took place at Wilton
House on December 2. They received next day
' upon the Councells warrant ' the large sum of 3O/.
' by way of his majesties reward.' l Many other
gracious marks of royal favour followed. On March
15, 1604, Shakespeare and eight other actors of the
company walked from the Tower of London to West-
minster in the procession which accompanied the
King on his formal entry into London. Each actor
received four and a half yards of scarlet cloth to wear
as a cloak on the occasion, and in the document
authorising the grant Shakespeare's name stands first
on the list.2 The dramatist Dekker was author of a
somewhat bombastic account of the elaborate cere-
monial, which rapidly ran through three editions. On

1 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 Accounts — Treasurer of the Chamber, bundle 388, roll
41) shows that it is accurate. The Earl of Pembroke was in no way re-
sponsible for the performance at Wilton House. At the time, the 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.

- The grant is transcribed in the New Shakspere Society's Trans-
actions, 1877-9, Appendix ii., from the Lord Chamberlain's papers in
the Public Record Office, where it is now numbered 660. The number
allotted it in the Transactions is obsolete.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 233

April 9, 1604, the King gave further proof of his
friendly interest in the fortunes of his actors by
causing an official letter to be sent to the Lord
Mayor of London and the Justices of the Peace for
Middlesex and Surrey, bidding them 'permit and
suffer ' the King's players to ' exercise their playes '
at their ' usual house,' the Globe.1 Four months
later — in August — every member of the company
was summoned by the King's order to attend at
Somerset House during the fortnight's sojourn
there of the Spanish ambassador extraordinary,
Juan Fernandez de Velasco, duke de Frias, and
Constable of Castile, who came to London to ratify
the treaty of peace between England and Spain,
and was magnificently entertained by the English
Court.2 Between All Saints' Day [November i]

1 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, is at Dulwich
College (cf. G. F. Warner's Catalogue of the Dulwich Manuscripts,
pp. 26-7). Collier printed it in his New Facts with fraudulent addi-
tions, in which the names of Shakespeare and other actors figured.

• Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps in his Outlines, i. 213, cites a royal order
to this effect, but gives no authority, and I have sought in vain for the
document at the Public Record Office, at the British Museum, and
elsewhere. But there is no reason to doubt the fact that Shakespeare
and his fellow-actors took, as Grooms of the Chamber, part in the
ceremonies attending the Constable's visit to London. In the
unprinted accounts of Edmund Tilney, master of the revels, for the
year October 1603 to October 1604, charge is made for his three
days' attendance with four men to direct the entertainments ' at the
receaving of the Constable of Spayne ' (Public Record Office, Declared
Accounts, Pipe Office Roll 2805). The magnificent festivities culmi-
nated in a splendid banquet given in the Constable's honour by James I
at Whitehall on Sunday, August }§ — the day on which the treaty

234 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and the ensuing Shrove Tuesday, which fell early
in February 1605, Shakespeare's company gave no
fewer than eleven performances at Whitehall in the
royal presence.1

was signed. In the morning all the members of the royal household
accompanied the Constable in formal procession from Somerset House.
After the banquet, at which the earls of Pembroke and Southampton
acted as stewards, there was a ball, and the King's guests subsequently
witnessed exhibitions of bear baiting, bull baiting, rope dancing, and
feats of horsemanship. (Cf. Stow's Chronicle, 1631, pp. 845-6, and
a Spanish pamphlet, Relacion de la Jornada del exctll° Condestabile
de Castilla, &c. , Antwerp, 1604, 410, which was summarised in
Ellis's Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. Hi. pp. 207-215, and was partly
translated in Mr. W. B. Rye's England as seen by Foreigners, pp. 117-
124).

1 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
November 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 Monday, and Shrove Tuesday, 1605.

235

XIV

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY

UNDER the incentive of such exalted patronage,
Shakespeare's activity redoubled, but his work shows
1 Othello ' none of the conventional marks of literature
sure fofea ^at *s Pr°duced in the blaze of Court favour.
Measure.1 The first six years of the new reign saw him
absorbed in the highest themes of tragedy, and an
unparalleled intensity and energy, which bore few
traces of the trammels of a Court, thenceforth illu-
mined every scene that he contrived. To 1604 the
composition of two plays can be confidently assigned,
one of which — ' Othello ' — ranks with Shakespeare's
greatest achievements ; while the other — ' Measure for
Measure ' — although as a whole far inferior to ' Othello,'
contains one of the finest scenes (between Angelo and
Isabella, II. ii. 43 sq.) and one of the greatest speeches
(Claudio on the fear of death, in. i. 116-30) in the
range of Shakespearean drama. ' Othello ' was doubt-
less the first new piece by Shakespeare that was acted
before James. It was produced at Whitehall on
November I. 'Measure for Measure' followed on
December 26.' Neither was printed in Shakespeare's

1 These dates are drawn from a memorandum of plays performed at
Court in 1604 and 1605 which is among Malone's manuscripts in the

236 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

lifetime. The plots of both ultimately come from the
same Italian collection of novels — Giraldi Cinthio's
' Hecatommithi,' which was first published in 1565.

Cinthio's painful story of ' Othello ' (decad. iii.
nov. 3) is not known to have been translated into
English before Shakespeare dramatised it. He fol-
lowed its main drift with fidelity, but he introduced
the new characters of Roderigo and Emilia, and he
invested the catastrophe with new and fearful intensity
by making lago's cruel treachery known to Othello at
the last, after lago's perfidy has impelled the noble-
hearted Moor in his groundless jealousy tp murder
his gentle and innocent wife Desdemona. / lago be-
came in Shakespeare's hands the subtlest of all studies
of intellectual villany and hypocrisy. The whole
tragedy displays to magnificent advantage the drama-
tist's fully matured powers. An unfaltering equili-

Bodleian Library, and was obviously derived by Malone from authentic
documents that were in his day preserved at the Audit Office in Somerset
House. The document cannot now be traced at the Public Record
Office, whither the Audit Office papers have been removed since
Malone's death. Peter Cunningham professed to print the original
document in his accounts of the revels at Court (Shakespeare Society,
1842, pp. 203 et sey.), but there is no doubt that he forged his so-called
transcript, and that the additions which he made to Malone's memo-
randum were the outcome of his fancy. Collier's assertion in his New
Particulars, p. 57, that Othello was first acted at Sir Thomas Egerton's
residence at Harefield on August 6, 1602, was based solely on a docu-
ment among the Earl of Ellesmere's MSS. at Bridgwater House, which
purported to be a contemporary account by the clerk, Sir Arthur Mayn-
waring, of Sir Thomas Egerton's household expenses. This document,
which Collier reprinted in his Egerton Papers (Camden Soc. ), p. 343,
was authoritatively pronounced by experts in 1860 to be 'a shameful
forgery ' (cf. Ingleby's Complete View of the Shakspere Controversy,
1861, pp. 261-5).

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 237

brium is maintained in the treatment of plot and
characters alike.

Cinthio made the perilous story of ' Measure for
Measure ' the subject not only of a romance, but of a
tragedy called ' Epitia.' Before Shakespeare wrote his
play, Cinthio's romance had been twice rendered into
English by George Whetstone. Whetstone had not
only given a somewhat altered version of the Italian
romance in his unwieldy play of ' Promos and Cassan-
dra' (in two parts of five acts each, 1578), but he
had also freely translated it in his collection of prose
tales, 'Heptameron of Civil Discources' (1582). Yet
there is every likelihood that Shakespeare also knew
Cinthio's play, which, unlike his romance, was untrans-
lated ; the leading character, who is by Shakespeare
christened Angelo, was known by another name to
Cinthio in his story, but Cinthio in his play (and not
in his novel) gives the character a sister named Angela,
which doubtless suggested Shakespeare's designation.1
In the hands of Shakespeare's predecessors the tale
is a sordid record of lust and cruelty. But Shake-
speare prudently showed scant respect for their
handling of the narrative. By diverting the course of
the plot at a 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 yields her virtue as
the price of her brother's life. The central fact of
Shakespeare's play is Isabella's inflexible and un-
conditional chastity. Other of Shakespeare's altera-

1 Dr. Garnett's Italian Literature, 1898, p. 227.

238 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

tions,like the Duke's abrupt proposal to marry Isabella,
seem hastily conceived. But his creation of the
pathetic character of 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 on terms of marriage. Shakespeare's
argument is throughout philosophically subtle. The
poetic eloquence in which Isabella and the Duke pay
homage to the virtue of chastity, and the many exposi-
tions 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 first performed. But
the two emphatic references to a ruler's dislike of mobs,
despite his k>ve of his people, were perhaps penned in
deferential 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 affect it.

Of like tenor is the succeeding speech of Angelo (act
II, sc. iv. 27-30) :

The general [i.e. the public], subject to a well-wish'd king, . . .
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offance.

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 239

In ' Macbeth/ his ' great epic drama/ which he

began in 1605 and completed next year, Shakespeare

employed a setting wholly in harmony with

•Macbeth.' J „ y

the accession of a Scottish king. The story
was drawn from Holinshed's ' Chronicle of Scottish
History/ with occasional reference, perhaps, to earlier
Scottish sources.1 The supernatural machinery of
the three witches accorded with the King's super-
stitious faith in demonology ; the dramatist lavished
his sympathy on Banquo, James's ancestor ; while
Macbeth's vision of kings who carry 'twofold balls
and treble sceptres ' (IV. i. 20) plainly adverted to the
union of Scotland with England and Ireland under
James's sway. The allusion by the porter (n. iii. 9) to
the ' equivocator . . . who committed treason ' was
perhaps suggested by the notorious defence of the
doctrine of equivocation made by the Jesuit Henry
Garnett, who was executed early in 1 606 for his share
in the ' Gunpowder Plot' The piece was not printed
until 1623. It is in its existing shape the shortest of all
Shakespeare's plays, and it is possible that it survives
only in an abbreviated acting version. Much scenic
elaboration characterised the production. Dr. Simon
Forman witnessed a performance of the tragedy at
the Globe in April 1611, and noted that Macbeth
and Banquo entered the stage on horseback, and
that Banquo's ghost was materially represented (ill.
iv. 40 seq.) Like ' Othello/ the play ranks with
the noblest tragedies either of the modern or the
ancient world. The characters of hero and heroine
1 Cf. Letter by Mrs. Slopes in Atkenaum, July 25, 1896.

240 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

— Macbeth and his wife — are depicted with the
utmost subtlety and insight. In three points ' Mac-
beth ' differs somewhat from other of Shakespeare's
productions in the great class of literature to which
it belongs. The interweaving with the tragic story
of supernatural interludes in 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 Shakespeare's plays. Nowhere,
moreover, has Shakespeare introduced comic relief
into a tragedy with bolder effect than in the porter's
speech after the murder of Duncan (ll. iii. I seq.)
The theory that this passage was from another hand
does not merit acceptance.1 It cannot, however, be
overlooked that the second scene of the first act —
Duncan's interview with the ' bleeding sergeant ' — falls
so far below the style of the rest of the play as to
suggest that it was an interpolation by a hack of the
theatre. The resemblances between Thomas Middle-
ton's later play of 'The Witch' (1610) and por-
tions of ' Macbeth' may safely be ascribed to plagia-
rism on Middleton's part. Of two songs which, ac-
cording to the stage directions, were to be sung during
the representation of ' Macbeth ' (in. v. and IV. i.),
only the first line of each is noted there, but songs
beginning with the same lines 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.

1 Cf. Macbeth, ed/Clark and Wright, Clarendon Press Series.

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 241

' King Lear,' in which Shakespeare's tragic
genius moved without any faltering on Titanic
•King heights, was written during 1606, and was
Lear-' produced before the Court at Whitehall on
the night of December 26 of that year.1 It was
entered on the ' Stationers ' Registers ' on November
26, 1607, and two imperfect editions, published by
Nathaniel Butter, appeared in the following year ;
neither exactly corresponds with the other or with
the improved and fairly satisfactory text of the Folio.
The three versions present three different playhouse
transcripts. Like its immediate predecessor, ' Mac-
beth,' the tragedy was mainly founded on Holins-
hed's ' Chronicle.' The leading theme had been
dramatised as early as 1593, but Shakespeare's atten-
tion was no doubt directed to it by the publication of
a crude dramatic adaptation of Holinshed's version in
1605 under the title of ' The True Chronicle History
of King Leir and his three Daughters — Gonorill,
Ragan, and Cordelia.' Shakespeare did not adhere
closely to his original. He invested the tale of Lear
with a hopelessly tragic conclusion, and on it he grafted
the equally distressing tale of Gloucester and his two
sons, which he drew from Sidney's ' Arcadia.' 2 Hints
for the speeches of Edgar when feigning madness
were drawn from Harsnet's ' Declaration of Popish

1 This fact is stated on the title-page of the quartos.

- Sidney tells the story in a chapter entitled ' The pitiful state and
story of the Paphlagonian unkind king and his blind son ; first related
by the son, then by his blind father' (bk. ii. chap. 10, ed. 1590, 410 ;
pp. 132-3, ed. 1674, fol.)

242 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Impostures,' 1603. I" 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 of language could adequately characterise the
scenes of agony — ' the living martyrdom ' — to which
the fiendish ingratitude of his daughters condemns
the abdicated king — 'a very foolish, fond old man,
fourscore and upward.' The elemental passions burst
forth in his utterances with all the vehemence of the
volcanic tempest which beats about his defence-
less head in the scene on the heath. The brutal
blinding of Gloucester by Cornwall exceeds in horror
any other situation that Shakespeare created, if we
assume that he was not responsible for the like scenes
of mutilation in ' Titus Andronicus.' At no point in
' Lear ' is there any loosening 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 de-
solating pathos.

Although Shakespeare's powers showed no sign
of exhaustion, he reverted in the year following the
colossal effort of 'Lear' (1607) to ms earlier habit
"Timon of °^ collaboration, and with another's aid corn-
Athens.' posed two dramas — ' Timon of Athens ' and
' Pericles.' An extant play on the subject of ' Timon
of Athens ' was composed in I6OO,1 but there is nothing
to show that Shakespeare and his coadjutor were
acquainted with it. They doubtless derived a part

1 It was edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1842 by Dyce, who
owned the manuscript.

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY

243

of their story from Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure,'
and from a short digression in Plutarch's ' Life of
Marc Antony,' where Antony is described as emu-
lating the life and example of ' Timon Misanthropes
the Athenian.' The dramatists may, too, have
known a dialogue of Lucian entitled ' Timon,' which
Boiardo had previously converted into a comedy
under the name of ' II Timone.' Internal evidence
makes it clear that Shakespeare's colleague was
responsible for nearly the whole of acts III. and V.
But the character of Timon himself and all the scenes
which he dominates are from Shakespeare's pen.
Timon is cast in the mould of Lear.

There seems some ground for the belief that
Shakespeare's coadjutor in ' Timon ' was George
Wilkins, a writer of ill-developed dramatic power,
who, in 'The Miseries of Enforced Marriage' (1607),
first treated the story that afterwards served for
the plot of ' The Yorkshire Tragedy.' At any rate,
Wilkins may safely be credited with por-
tions of ' Pericles,' a romantic play which
can be referred to the same year as ' Timon.' Shake-
speare contributed only acts III. and V. and parts of IV.,
which together form a self-contained whole, and
do not combine satisfactorily with the remaining
scenes. The presence of a third hand, of inferior merit
to Wilkins, has been suspected, and to this collaborator
(perhaps William Rowley, a professional reviser of
plays who could show capacity on occasion) are
best assigned the three scenes of purposeless coarse-
ness which take place in or before a brothel (IV. ii., v.,

Pericles.'

244 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and vi.) From so distributed a responsibility the
piece naturally suffers. It lacks homogeneity, and
the story is helped out by dumb shows and pro-
logues. But a matured felicity of expression charac-
terises Shakespeare's own contributions, narrating
the romantic quest of Pericles for his daughter
Marina, who was born and abandoned in a shipwreck.
At many points he here anticipated his latest dra-
matic effects. The shipwreck is depicted (iv. i.)
as impressively as in the ' Tempest,' and Marina
and her mother Thaisa enjoy many experiences in
common with Perdita and Hermione in the 'Winter's
Tale.' The prologues, which were not by Shake-
speare, were spoken by an actor representing the
mediaeval poet John Gower, who in the fourteenth
century had versified Pericles's story in his ' Confessio
Amantis ' under the title of ' Apollonius of Tyre.' It
is also found in a prose translation (from the French),
which was printed in Lawrence Twyne's ' Patterne ot
Painfull Adventures' in 1576, and again in 1607.
After the play was produced, George Wilkins, one of
the alleged coadjutors, based on it a novel called
' The Painful Adventures of Pericles, Prynce of
Tyre, being the True History of the Play of Pericles
as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient
Poet, John Gower' (1608). The play was issued as
by William Shakespeare in a mangled form in 1608,
and again in 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635. It was
not included in Shakespeare's collected works till
1664.

In May 1608 Edward Blount entered in the

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 245

' Stationers' Registers,' by the authority of Sir
George Buc, the licenser of plays, a ' booke

' Antony

and cieo- called " Anthony and Cleopatra." ' 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. The source
of the tragedy is the life of Antonius in North's
' Plutarch.' Shakespeare closely followed the historical
narrative, and assimilated not merely its temper, but,
in the first three acts, much of its phraseology. A few
short scenes are original, but there is no detail in such a
passage, for example, as Enobarbus's gorgeous descrip-
tion of the pageant of Cleopatra's voyage up the
Cydnus to meet Antony (ll. ii. 194 seq.), which is not
to be matched in Plutarch. In the fourth and fifth
acts Shakespeare's method changes and he expands
his material with magnificent freedom.1 The whole
theme is in his hands instinct with a dramatic grandeur
which lifts into sublimity even Cleopatra's moral
worthlessness and Antony's criminal infatuation. The
terse and caustic comments which Antony's level-
headed friend Enobarbus, in the role of chorus, passes
on the action accentuate its significance. Into the
smallest as into the greatest personages Shakespeare
breathed all his vitalising fire. The ' happy valiancy '
of the style, too — to use Coleridge's admirable phrase
— sets the tragedy very near the zenith of Shake-
speare's achievement, and while differentiating it

1 Mr. 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.

246 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from ' Macbeth,' ' Othello,' and ' Lear,' renders it a
very formidable rival.

' Coriolanus ' (first printed from a singularly bad
text in 1623) similarly owes its origin to the biography
• Corio- °f ^e hero in North's ' Plutarch,' although
lanus.' Shakespeare may have first met the story in
Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure ' (No. iv.) He again
adhered to the text of Plutarch with the utmost
literalness, and at times — even in the great crises of the
action — repeated North's translation word for word.1
But the humorous scenes are wholly of Shakespeare's
invention, and the course of the narrative was at times
slightly changed for purposes of dramatic effect. The
metrical characteristics prove the play to have been
written about the same period as ' Antony and

1 See the whole 01 Coriolanus's great speech on offering his services
to Aufidius, the Volscian general, iv. v. 71-107 :

My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
To thee particularly and to all the Volsces,
Great hurt and mischief ; thereto witness may
My surname, Coriolanus ... to do thee service.

North's translation of Plutarch gives in almost the same terms Corio-
lanus's speech on the occasion. It opens : ' I am Caius Martius, who
hath done to thyself particularly, and to all the Volsces generally,
great hurt and mischief, which I cannot deny for my surname of
Coriolanus that I bear. ' Similarly Volumnia's stirring appeal to her son
and her son's proffer of submission, in act v. sc. iii. 94-193, reproduce
with equal literalness North's rendering of Plutarch. ' If we held our
peace, my son, ' Volumnia begins in North, ' the state of our raiment
would easily betray to thee what life we have led at home since thy
exile and abode abroad ; but think now with thyself,' and so on. The
first sentence of Shakespeare's speech runs :

Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment

And state of bodies would bewray what life

We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself . .

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 247

Cleopatra,' probably in 1609. In its austere temper
it contrasts at all points with its predecessor. The
courageous self-reliance of Coriolanus's mother,
Volumnia, is severely contrasted with the submissive
gentleness of Virgilia, Coriolanus's wife. The hero
falls a victim to no sensual flaw, but to unchecked
pride of caste, and there is a searching irony in the
emphasis laid on the ignoble temper of the rabble,
who procure his overthrow. By way of foil, the
speeches of Menenius give dignified expression to
the maturest political wisdom. The dramatic interest
throughout is as single and as unflaggingly sustained
as in ' Othello.'

248 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

XV
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IN 'Cymbeline,' 'The Winter's Tale/ and 'The
Tempest,' the three latest plays that came from his
The latest unaided pen, Shakespeare dealt with roman-
piays. tic themes which all end happily, but he in-
stilled into them a pathos which sets them in a cate-
gory of their own apart alike from comedy and
tragedy. The placidity of tone conspicuous in these
three plays (none of which was published in his life-
time) has been often contrasted with the storm and
stress of the great tragedies that preceded them. But
the commonly accepted theory that traces in this
change of tone a corresponding development in the
author's own emotions ignores the objectivity of Shake-
speare's dramatic work. All phases of feeling lay
within the scope of his intuition, and the successive
order in which he approached them bore no expli-
cable relation to substantive incident in his private
life or experience. In middle life, his temperament,
like that of other men, acquired a larger measure of
gravity and his thought took a profounder cast than
characterised it in youth. The highest topics of
tragedy were naturally more congenial to him, and

THE LATEST PLAYS 249

were certain of a surer handling when he was nearing
his fortieth birthday than at an earlier age. The
serenity of meditative romance was more in harmony
with the fifth decade of his years than with the
second or third. But no more direct or definite
connection can be discerned between the progres-
sive stages of his work and the progressive stages
of his life. To seek in his biography for a chain of
events which should be calculated to stir in his own
soul all or any of the tempestuous passions that ani-
mate his greatest plays is to under-estimate and to
misapprehend the resistless might of his creative
genius.

In ' Cymbeline ' Shakespeare freely adapted a frag-
ment of British history taken from Holinshed, inter-
•Cymbe- weaving with it a story from Boccaccio's
'Decameron' (day 2, novel ix.) Ginevra,
whose falsely suspected chastity is the theme of the
Italian novel, corresponds to Shakespeare's Imogen.
Her story is also told in the tract called ' Westward
for Smelts,' which had already been laid under con-
tribution by Shakespeare in the ' Merry Wives.' ' The
by-plot of the banishment 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, is Shakespeare's
invention. Although most of the scenes are laid
in Britain in the first century before the Chris-
tian era, there is no pretence of historical vraisem-
blance. With an almost ludicrous inappropriateness

1 See p. 172 and note 2.

250 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the British king's courtiers make merry with technical
terms peculiar to Calvinistic theology, like ' grace '
and ' election.' ' The action, which, owing to the com-
bination of three threads of narrative, is exceptionally
varied and intricate, wholly belongs to the region
of romance. On Imogen, who is the central figure
of the play, Shakespeare lavished all the fascina-
tion of his genius. She is the crown and flower
of his conception of tender and artless womanhood.
Her husband Posthumus, her rejected lover Cloten,
her would-be seducer lachimo are contrasted with
her and with each other with consummate ingenuity.
The mountainous retreat in which Belarius and his
fascinating boy-companions play their part has
points of resemblance to the Forest of Arden in ' As
You Like It ; ' but life throughout ' Cymbeline ' is
grimly earnest, and the mountains nurture little of the
contemplative quiet which characterises existence in
the Forest of Arden. The play contains the splendid
lyric ' Fear no more the heat of the sun ' (IV. ii.
258 seq.) The 'pitiful mummery' of the vision of
Posthumus (V. iv. 30 seq.) must have been sup-
plied by another hand. Dr. Forman, the astrologer
who kept notes of some of his experiences as a
playgoer, saw 'Cymbeline' acted either in 1610 or
1611.

' A Winter's Tale ' was seen by Dr. Forman at
the Globe on May 15, 1611, and it appears to

1 In I. i. 136-7 Imogen is described as ' past grace' in the theolo-
gical sense. In I. ii. 30-31 the Second Lord remarks : ' If it be a sin
to make a true election, she is damned.'

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have been acted at court on November 5 following.1
•A Win- It is based upon Greene's popular romance
ter'sTaie.' which was called ' Pandosto ' in the first
edition of 1588, and in numerous later editions, but
was ultimately in 1648 re-christened ' Dorastus and
Fawnia.' Shakespeare followed Greene, his early foe,
in allotting a seashore to Bohemia — an error over
which Ben Jonson and many later critics have made
merry.2 A few lines were obviously drawn from that
story of Boccaccio with which Shakespeare had dealt
just before in ' Cymbeline.' 3 But Shakespeare created
the high-spirited Paulina and the thievish pedlar Au-
tolycus, whose seductive roguery has become prover-
bial, and he invented the reconciliation of Leontes, the
irrationally jealous husband, with Hermione, his wife,
whose dignified resignation and forbearance lend the
story its intense pathos. In the boy Mamilius, the poet
depicted childhood in its most attractive guise, while
the courtship of Florizel and Perdita is the perfection
of gentle romance. The freshness of the pastoral
incident surpasses that of all Shakespeare's presenta-
tions of country life.

1 See p. 255, note I. 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.

2 Conversations with Drummond, p. 16.

8 In Winter's Tale (iv. iv. 760 etseq.) 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 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 wherewith
that country abounded ' (cf. Decameron, translated by John Payne,
1893, i. 164).

252 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' The Tempest ' was probably the latest drama that
Shakespeare completed. In the summer of 1 609 a fleet
bound for 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 climate, but sorely tried by the hogs which over-
ran 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 Sep-
tember 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, otherwise called the He 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 Company in December, and
a third by one of the leaders of the expedition, Sir
Thomas Gates. Shakespeare, who mentions the
' still vexed Bermoothes ' (I. i. 229), incorporated
in ' The Tempest ' many hints from Jourdain, Gates,
and the other pamphleteers. The references to the

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gentle climate of the island on which Prospero is
cast away, and to the spirits and devils that infested
it, seem to render its identification with the newly
discovered Bermudas unquestionable. But Shake-
speare incorporated the result of study of other
books of travel. The name of the god Setebos
whom Caliban worships is drawn from Eden's trans-
lation of Magellan's 'Voyage to the South Pole'
(in the ' Historic of Travell,' 1577), where the giants
of Patagonia are described as worshipping a ' great
devil they call Setebos.' No source for the complete
plot has been discovered, but the German writer,
Jacob Ayrer, who died in 1605, dramatised a some-
what similar story in ' Die schone Sidea,' where
the adventures of Prospero, Ferdinand, Ariel, and
Miranda are roughly anticipated.1 English actors
were performing at Nuremberg, where Ayrer lived,
in 1604 and 1606, and may have brought reports
of the piece to Shakespeare. Or perhaps both
English and German plays had a common origin in
some novel that has not yet been traced. Gonzalo's
description of an ideal commonwealth (II. i. 147 seq.)
is derived from Florio's translation of Montaigne's
essays (1603), while into Prospero's great speech
renouncing his practice of magical art (V. i. 33-57)
Shakespeare wrought reminiscences of Golding's trans-
lation of Medea's invocation in Ovid's ' Metamorphoses '
(vii. 1 97-206). 2 Golding's rendering of Ovid had been
one of Shakespeare's best-loved books in youth.

1 Printed in Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany.

• Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, edit. 1612, p. 82 b.
The passage begins :

Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, ye brooke> and woods alone.

254 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A highly ingenious theory, first suggested by Tieck,
represents ' The Tempest ' (which, excepting ' Mac-
beth ' and the ' Two Gentlemen,' is the shortest of
Shakespeare's plays) as a masque written to celebrate
the marriage of Princess Elizabeth (like Miranda,
an island-princess) with the Elector Frederick.
This marriage took place on February 14, 1612-13,
and ' The Tempest ' formed one of a series of nineteen
plays which were performed at the nuptial festivities
in May 1613. But none of the other plays produced
seem to have been new ; they were all apparently
chosen because they were established favourites at
Court and on the public stage, and neither in subject-
matter nor language bore obviously specific relation to
the joyous occasion. But 1613 is, in fact, on more
substantial ground far too late a date to which to assign
the composition of ' The Tempest.' According to in-
formation which was accessible to Malone, the play
had 'a being and a name' in the autumn of 1611,
and was no doubt written some months before.1

1 Variorum Shakespeare, 1821, xv. 423. In the early weeks of 161 1
Shakespeare's company presented no fewer than fifteen plays a Court.
Payment of I SO/, was made to the actors for their services on February
12, l6lO-ii. The council's warrant is extant in the Bodleian Library
MS. Rawl. A 204 (f. 305). The plays performed were not specified by
name, but some by Shakespeare were beyond doubt amongst them, and
possibly ' The Tempest. ' A forged page which was inserted in a detached
account-book of the Master of the Court- Revels for the years 1611
and 1612 at the Public Record Office, and was printed as genuine in
Peter Cunningham's Extracts from the Revels'1 Accounts, p. 210,
supplies among other entries two to the effect that ' The Tempest ' was
performed at Whitehall at Hallowmas (i.e. November i) 1611
and that ' A Winter's Tale ' followed four days later, on November 5.
Though these entries are fictitious, the information they offer may be
true. Malone doubtless based his positive statement respecting the

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The plot, 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, is,
moreover, hardly one that a shrewd playwright would
deliberately choose as the setting of an official epitha-
lamium in honour of the daughter of a monarch so
sensitive about his title to the crown as James I.1

In the theatre and at court the early representa-
tions of ' The Tempest ' evoked unmeasured applause.
The success owed something to the beautiful lyrics
which were dispersed through the play and had been
set to music by Robert Johnson, a lutenist in high
repute.2 Like its predecessor ' A Winter's Tale,'
' The Tempest ' long maintained its first popularity
in the theatre, and the vogue of the two pieces drew
a passing sneer from Ben Jonson. In the 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 ' servant-monster ' was an

date of the composition of ' The Tempest 'in 161 1 on memoranda made
from papers then accessible at the Audit Office, but now, since the
removal of those archives to the Public Record Office, mislaid. All
the forgeries introduced into the Revels' accounts are well considered
and show expert knowledge (seep. 235, note I). The forger of the 1612
entries probably worked either on the published statement of Malone, or
on fuller memoranda left by him among his voluminous manuscripts.

1 Cf. Universal Revieiv, April 1889, article by Dr. Richard Garnetl.

2 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.

256 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

obvious allusion to Caliban, and ' the nest of Antics
was a glance at the satyrs who figure in the sheep-
shearing feast in ' A Winter's Tale.'

Nowhere did Shakespeare give rein to his
imagination with more imposing effect than in ' The
Fanciful Tempest.' As in ' Midsummer Night's
tlonso^The Dream,' magical or supernatural agencies
Tempest.1 are the mainsprings of the plot. But the
tone is marked at all points by a solemnity and pro-
fundity of thought and sentiment which are lacking
in the early comedy. The serious atmosphere has
led critics, without much reason, to detect in the
scheme of ' The Tempest ' something more than the
irresponsible play of poetic fancy. Many of the
characters have been represented as the outcome of
speculation respecting the least soluble problems of
human existence. Little reliance should be placed
on such interpretations. The creation of Miranda is
the apotheosis in literature of tender, ingenuous
girlhood unsophisticated by social intercourse, but
Shakespeare had already sketched the outlines of
the portrait in Marina and Perdita, the youthful
heroines respectively of ' Pericles ' and ' A Winter's
Tale,' and these two characters were directly deve-
loped from romantic stories of girl-princesses, cast by
misfortune on the mercies of nature, to which Shake-
speare had recourse for the plots of the two plays.
It is by accident, and not by design, that in Ariel
appear to be discernible the capabilities of human
intellect when detached from physical attributes.
Ariel belongs to the same world as Puck, although

THE LATEST PLAYS 257

he is delineated in the severer colours that were
habitual to Shakespeare's fully developed art. Cali-
ban— Ariel's antithesis — did not owe his existence to
any conscious endeavour on Shakespeare's part to
typify human nature before the evolution of moral
sentiment.1 Caliban is an imaginary portrait, con-
ceived with matchless vigour and vividness, of the
aboriginal savage of the New World, descriptions of
whom abounded in contemporary travellers' speech
and writings, and universally excited the liveliest
curiosity.2 In Prospero, the guiding providence of the
romance, who resigns his magic power in the closing
scene, traces have been sought of the lineaments of
the dramatist himself, who in this play probably bade
farewell to the enchanted work of his life. Prospero
is in the story a scholar-prince of rare intellectual
attainments, whose engrossing study of the mysteries
of science has given him command of the forces of
nature. His magnanimous renunciation of his magical
faculty as soon as by its exercise he has restored his
shattered fortunes is in perfect accord with the general
conception of his just and philosophical temper. Any
other justification of his final act is superfluous.

While there is every indication that in 161 1 Shake-
speare abandoned dramatic composition, there seems

1 Cf. Browning, Caliban upon Setebos ; Daniel Wilson, Caliban,
or the Missing Link (1873) ; and Kenan, Caliban (1878), adrama con-
tinuing Shakespeare's play.

2 When Shakespeare wrote Troilus and Cressida he had formed
some conception of a character of the Caliban type. Thersites says of
Ajax (in. iii. 264), ' He's grown a very land-fish, languageless, a
monster. '

258 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

little doubt that he left with the manager of his com-
pany unfinished drafts of more than one play which
Unfinished others were summoned at a later date to
plays. complete. His place at the head of the
active dramatists was at once filled by John Fletcher,
and Fletcher, with some aid possibly from his
friend Philip Massinger, undertook the working
up of Shakespeare's unfinished sketches. On Sep-
tember 9, 1653, the publisher Humphrey Moseley
obtained a license for the publication of a play which
he described as ' History of Cardenio, by Fletcher
and Shakespeare.' This was probably identical with
the lost play, ' Cardenno,' or ' Cardenna,'
play of which was twice acted at Court by Shake-

' Cardenio.' , - . ,. ,

speare s company in 1613 — in May during
the Princess Elizabeth's marriage festivities, and on
June 8 before the Duke of Savoy's ambassador.1
Moseley, whose description may have been fraudulent,2
failed to publish the piece, and nothing is otherwise
known of it with certainty ; but it was no doubt a
dramatic version of the adventures of the lovelorn
Cardenio which are related in the first part of ' Don
Quixote' (ch. xxiii.-xxxvii.) Cervantes's amorous
story, which first appeared in English in Thomas
Shelton's translation in 1612, offers much incident in
Fletcher's vein. When Lewis Theobald, the Shake-

1 Treasurer's accounts in Rawl. MS. A 239, leaf 47 (in the
Bodleian), printed in New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1895-6,
part ii. p. 419.

The Merry Devill of Edmonton, a comedy which was first
published in 1608, was also re-entered by Moseley for publication on
September 9, 1653, as the work of Shakespeare (see p. 181 supra).

THE LATEST PLAYS 259

spearean critic, brought out his ' Double Falshood,
or the Distrest Lovers,' in 1727, he mysteriously
represented that the play was based on an unfinished
and unpublished draft of a play by Shakespeare.
The story of Theobald's piece is the story of Car-
denio, although the characters are renamed. There
is nothing in the play as published by Theobald
to suggest Shakespeare's hand,1 but Theobald doubt-
less took advantage of a tradition that Shakespeare
and Fletcher had combined to dramatise the Cer-
vantic theme.

Two other pieces, ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' and
' Henry VIII,' which are attributed to a similar partner-
ship, survive.2 ' The Two Noble Kinsmen' was first
printed in 1634, and was written, accord -

' Two

Noble ing to the title-page, 'by the memorable
worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher
and Mr. William Shakespeare, gentlemen.' It was
included in the folio of Beaumont and Fletcher of
1679. On grounds alike of aesthetic criticism and
metrical tests, a substantial portion of the play was
assigned to Shakespeare by Charles Lamb, Coleridge,
and Dyce. The last included it in his edition of Shake-
speare. Coleridge detected Shakespeare's hand in act
I., act II. sc. i., and act III. sc. i. and ii. In addition to

1 Dyce thought he detected traces of Shirley's workmanship, but it
was possibly Theobald's unaided invention.

2 The 1634 quarto of the play was carefully edited for the New
Shakspere Society by Mr. Harold Littledale in 1876. See also
Spalding, Shakespeare's Atithorship of ' Two Noble Kinsmen? 1833,
reprinted by New Shakspere Society, 1876; article by Spalding in
Edinburgh Review ', 1847 ; Transactions, New Shakspere Society, 1874

s 2

260 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

those scenes, act iv. sc. iii. and act v. (except sc. ii.)
were subsequently placed to his credit. Some recent
critics assign much of the alleged Shakespearean work
to Massinger, and they narrow Shakespeare's contri-
bution to the first scene (with the opening song, ( Roses
their sharp spines being gone ') and act V. sc. i. and
iv.1 An exact partition is impossible, but frequent
signs of Shakespeare's workmanship are unmistak-
able. All the passages for which Shakespeare
can on any showing be held responsible develop the
main plot, which is drawn from Chaucer's ' Knight's
Tale ' of Palamon and Arcite, and seems to have
been twice dramatised previously. A lost play,
' Palaemon and Arcyte,' by Richard Edwardes, was
acted at Court in 1566, and a second piece, called
' Palamon and Arsett ' (also lost), was purchased by
Henslowe in 1594. The non-Shakespearean residue
of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' is disfigured by
indecency and triviality, and is of no literary
value.

A like problem is presented by ' Henry VIII.'
The play was nearly associated with the final scene
in the history of that theatre which was identified
with the triumphs of Shakespeare's career. ' Henry
VIII' was in course of performance at the Globe
Theatre on June 29, 1613, when the firing of some
•Henry cannon incidental to the performance set
VI1L' fire to the playhouse, which was burned
down. The theatre was rebuilt next year, but the

1 Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in Transactions of the New Shakspere
Society, 1882.

THE LATEST PLAYS 261

new fabric never acquired the fame of the old. Sir
Henry Wotton, describing the disaster on July 2,
entitled the piece that was in process of representa-
tion at the time as ' All is True representing some
principal pieces in the Reign of Henry VIII.'1 The
play of 'Henry VIII ' that is commonly allotted to
Shakespeare is loosely constructed, and the last act ill

1 Rtliquia Wottoniana, 1675, pp. 425-6. Wotton adds ' that the
piece 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 : sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very
familiar, if not ridiculous. 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, consuming 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 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. ' John Chamberlain 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 ' (Win-
wood'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 I, 1848, vol. i. p. 253).
A contemporary sonnet on ' the pittifull burning of the Globe playhouse
in London,' first printed by Haslewood ' from an old manuscript
volume of poems ' in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1816, was again
printed by Halliwell-Phillipps(i. pp. 310, 311) from an authentic manu-
script in the library of Sir Matthew Wilson, Bart., of Eshton Hall,
Yorkshire.

262 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

coheres with its predecessors. The whole resembles an
' historical masque.' It was first printed in the folio of
Shakespeare's works in 1623, but shows traces of more
hands than one. The three chief characters — the king,
Queen Katharine of Arragon, and Cardinal Wolsey
— bear clear marks of Shakespeare's best workman-
ship ; but only act i. sc. i., act ii. sc. iii. and iv.
(Katharine's trial), act iii. sc. ii. (except 11. 204-460),
act v. sc. i., can on either aesthetic or metrical grounds
be confidently assigned to him. These portions may,
according to their metrical characteristics, be dated,
like the 'Winter's Tale,' about 1611. There are good
grounds for assigning nearly all the remaining thirteen
scenes to the pen of Fletcher, with occasional aid from
Massinger. Wolsey's familiar farewell to Cromwell
(ill. ii. 204-460) is the only passage the authorship
of which excites really grave embarrassment. It
recalls at every point the style of Fletcher, and no-
where that of Shakespeare. But the Fletcherian
style, as it is here displayed, is invested with a great-
ness that is not matched elsewhere in Fletcher's work.
That Fletcher should have exhibited such faculty once
and once only is barely credible, and we are driven to
the alternative conclusion that the noble valediction was
by Shakespeare, who in it gave proof of his versatility
by echoing in a glorified key the habitual strain of
Fletcher, his colleague and virtual successor. James
Spedding's theory that Fletcher hastily completed
Shakespeare's unfinished draft for the special purpose
of enabling the company to celebrate the marriage of
Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, which

THE LATEST PLAYS 263

took place on February 14, 1612-13, seems fanciful.
During May 1613, according to an extant list, nineteen
plays were produced at Court in honour of the event,
but 'Henry VIII' is not among them.1 The con-
jecture that Massinger and Fletcher alone collaborated
in ' Henry VIII' (to the exclusion of Shakespeare
altogether) does not deserve serious consideration.2

1 Bodl. MS. Rawl. A 239 ; cf. Spedding in Gentleman's Maga-
zine, 1850, reprinted in New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1874.

2 Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in New Shakspere Society's Transactions,
1884.

264 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

XVI

THE CLOSE OF LIFE

THE concluding years of Shakespeare's life (1611-
1616) were mainly passed at Stratford. It is probable
that in 161 1 he disposed of his shares in the Globe and
Blackfriars theatres. He owned none at the date of
his death. But until 1614 he paid frequent visits to
London, where friends in sympathy with his work
were alone to be found. His plays continued to form
the staple of Court performances. In May 1613,

during the Princess Elizabeth's marriage
Court in festivities, Heming, Shakespeare's former

colleague, produced at Whitehall no fewer
than seven of his plays, viz. ' Much Ado,' ' Tempest,'
'Winter's Tale/ 'Sir John FalstafT (i.e. 'Merry
Wives'), 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar,' and 'Hotspur'
(doubtless ' I Henry I V ').* Of his actor-friends, one
Actor- °f tne cnief> Augustine Phillips, had died in
friends. 1605, leaving by will ' to my fellowe, William
Shakespeare, a thirty-shillings piece of gold.' With
Burbage, Heming, and Condell his relations remained
close to the end. Burbage, according to a poetic
elegy, made his reputation by creating the leading
parts in Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. Hamlet,

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 87.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 265

Othello, and Lear were roles in which he gained
especial renown. But Burbage and Shakespeare
were popularly credited with co-operation in less
solemn enterprises. They were reputed to be
companions in many sportive adventures. The sole
anecdote of Shakespeare that is positively known
to have been recorded in his lifetime relates that
Burbage, when playing Richard III, agreed with
a lady in the audience to visit her after the perform-
ance ; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation,
anticipated the actor's visit, and met Burbage on his
arrival with the quip that ' William the Conqueror
was before Richard the Third.' l

Such gossip possibly deserves little more accep-
tance than the later story, in the same key, which
credits Shakespeare with the paternity of Sir William
D'Avenant. The latter was baptised at Oxford on
March 3, 1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, the
landlord of the Crown Inn, where Shakespeare lodged
in his journeys to and from Stratford. The story
of Shakespeare's parental relation to D'Avenant
was long current in Oxford, and was at times com-
placently accepted by the reputed son. Shakespeare
is known to have been a welcome guest at John
D'Avenant's house, and another son, Robert, boasted
of the kindly notice which the poet took of him
as a child.2 It is safer to adopt the less compro-
mising version which makes Shakespeare the god-

1 Manningham, Diary, March 13, 1601, Camd. Soc. p. 39.

2 Cf. Aubrey, Lives ; Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 43 ; and art. Sir
William D'Avenant in the Dictionary of National Biography.

266 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

father of the boy William instead of his father. But
the antiquity and persistence of the scandal belie the
assumption that Shakespeare was known to his con-
temporaries as a man of scrupulous virtue. Ben
Jonson and Drayton — the latter a Warwickshire man
— seem to have been Shakespeare's closest literary
friends in his latest years.

At Stratford, in the words of Nicholas Rowe, ' the

latter part of Shakespeare's life was spent, as all men

of good sense will wish theirs may be. in ease,

Final set- J

tiement at retirement, and the conversation of his friends.'
As a resident in the town, he took a full share
of social and civic responsibilities. On October 16, 1608,
he stood chief godfather to William, son of Henry
Walker, a mercer and alderman. On September n,
1 6 1 1, when he had finally settled in New Place, his name
appeared in the margin of a folio page of donors (in-
cluding all the principal inhabitants of Stratford) to a
fund that was raised 'towards the charge of prose-
cuting the bill in Parliament for the better repair of
the highways.'

Meanwhile his own domestic affairs engaged some
of his attention. Of his two surviving children —
both daughters— the eldest, Susanna, had married, on
June 5, 1607, John Hall (1575-1635), a rising phy-
sician of Puritan leanings, and in the following Fe-
bruary there was born the poet's only granddaughter,
Elizabeth Hall. On September 9, 1608, the poet's
Domestic mother was buried in the parish church, and
affairs. on February 4, 1613, his third brother
Richard. On July 15, 1613, Mrs. Hall preferred,

v "nX

; Y i - j? i •».. H v -

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURE APPENDED TO THE PURCHASE-
DEED OF A HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS ON MARCH IO, 1612-13.

Reproduced from the original document now preserved in the Guildhall Library, London

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 267

with her father's assistance, a charge of slander
against one Lane in the ecclesiastical court at Wor-
cester ; the defendant, who had apparently charged
the lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith,
did not appear, and was excommunicated.

In the same year (1613), when on a short visit to
London, Shakespeare invested a small sum of money
Purchase m a new property. This was his last invest-
in Black36 ment m rea^ estate. He then purchased a
friars. house, the ground-floor of which was a haber-
dasher's shop, with a yard attached. It was situated
within six hundred feet of the Blackfriars Theatre — on
the west side of St. Andrew's Hill, formerly termed
Puddle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in the near neigh-
bourhood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The
former owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought
the property for ioo/. in 1604. Shakespeare in 1613
agreed to pay him i^ol. The deeds of conveyance
bear the date of March 10 in that year.1 Next day, on
March 1 1 , Shakespeare executed another deed (now in
the British Museum) which stipulated that 6o/. of the
purchase-money was to remain on mortgage until the
following Michaelmas. The money was unpaid at
Shakespeare's death. In both purchase-deed and
mortgage-deed Shakespeare's signature was witnessed
by (among others) Henry Lawrence, ' servant ' or
clerk to Robert Andrewes, the scrivener who drew

1 The indenture prepared for the purchaser is in the Halliwell-Phil-
lipps collection, which was sold to Mr. Marsden J. Perry of Providence,
Rhode Island, U. S. A., in January 1897. That held by the vendor
is in the Guildhall Library.

268 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 inden-
tures and the mortgage-deed — Shakespeare is de-
scribed as 'of Stratford-on-Avon, in the Countie of
Warwick, Gentleman.' There is no reason to sup-
pose that he acquired the house for his own residence.
He at once leased the property to John Robinson,
already a resident in the neighbourhood.

With puritans and puritanism Shakespeare was
not in sympathy,1 and he could hardly have viewed
with unvarying composure the steady progress that
puritanism was making among his fellow-townsmen.
Nevertheless a preacher, doubtless of puritan pro-
clivities, was entertained at Shakespeare's residence,
New Place, after delivering a sermon in the spring of
1614. The incident might serve to illustrate Shake-
speare's characteristic placability, but his son-in-law
Hall, who avowed sympathy with puritanism, was pro-

1 Shakespeare's references to puritans in the plays of his middle
and late life are so uniformly discourteous that they must be judged to
reflect his personal feeling. The discussion between Maria and Sir
Andrew Aguecheek regarding Malvolio's character in Twelfth Night
(II. iii. 153 et seq.) runs :

MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.

SIR ANDREW. O I if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.

SIR TOBY. What, for being a puritan ? thy exquisite reason, dear knight.

SIR ANDREW. I have no exquisite reason for 't, but I have reason good enough.

In Winters Tale (IV. iii. 46) the Clown, after making contemptuous
references to the character of the shearers, remarks that there is ' but one
puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.' Cf. the
allusions to ' grace ' and ' election ' in Cymbeline, p. 250, note i.

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURE APPENDED TO A DEED MORTGAGING.
HIS HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS ON MARCH II, I&I2-I3.

Reproduced from the original document now preserved in the British Museum

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 269

bably in the main responsible for the civility.1 In July
John Combe, a rich inhabitant of Stratford, died and
left 5/. to Shakespeare. The legend that Shakespeare
alienated him by composing some doggerel on his
practice of lending money at ten or twelve per cent,
seems apocryphal, although it is quoted by Aubrey and
accepted by Rowe.2 Combe's death involved Shake-
speare more conspicuously than before in civic affairs.
Combe's heir William no sooner succeeded to his
father's lands than he, with a neighbouring owner,
Arthur Mannering, steward of Lord-chancellor Elles-
mere (who was ex-officio lord of the manor), attempted

1 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» 1612,
when they passed a resolution that plays were unlawful and ' the suffer-
ance 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 heretofore] be x/z. henceforward.' Ten years later
the King's players were bribed by the council to leave the city without
playing. (See the present writer's Sti -at ford-on- Avon , p. 270. )

2 The lines as quoted by Aubrey (Lives, ed. Clark, ii. 226) run :

Ten-in-the-hundred the Devil allows,

But Combe will have twelve he sweares and he vowes ;

If any man ask, who lies in this tomb?

Oh ! ho ! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

Rowe's version opens somewhat differently :

Ten-in-the-hundred lies here ingrav'd.
'Tis a hundred to ten, his soul is not sav'd.

The lines, in one form or another, seem to have been widely familiar in
Shakespeare's lifetime, but were not ascribed to him. The first two in
Rowe's version were printed in the epigrams by H[enry] P[arrot], 1608,
and again in Camden's Remaines, 1614. The whole first appeared in
Richard Brathwaite's Remains in 1618 under the heading : ' Upon one
John Combe of Stratford upon Aven, a notable Usurer, fastened upon
a Tombe that he had Caused to be built in his Life Time.'

2/0 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

to enclose the common fields, which belonged to the
corporation of Stratford, about his estate at

Attempt to r

enclose the Welcombe. The corporation resolved to
common offer the scheme a stout resistance. Shake-
speare had a twofold interest in the matter by
virtue of his owning the freehold of 106 acres at Wel-
combe and Old Stratford, and as joint owner — now
with Thomas Greene, the town clerk — of the tithes of
Old Stratford, Welcombe, and Bishopton. His interest
in his freeholds could not have been prejudicially
affected, but his interest in the tithes might be depre-
ciated by the proposed enclosure. Shakespeare conse-
quently joined with his fellow-owner Greene in obtain-
ing from Combe's agent Replingham in October 1614
a deed indemnifying both against any injury they
might suffer from the enclosure. But having thus
secured himself against all possible loss, Shakespeare
threw his influence into Combe's scale. In November
1614 he was on a last visit to London, and Greene,
whose official position as town clerk compelled him
to support the corporation in defiance of his private
interests, visited him there to discuss the position of
affairs. On December 23, 1614, the corporation in
formal meeting drew up a letter to Shakespeare im-
ploring him to aid them. Greene himself sent to the
dramatist ' a note of inconveniences [to the corpora-
tion that] would happen by the enclosure.' But
although an ambiguous entry of a later date (Septem-
ber 1615) in the few extant pages of Greene's
ungrammatical diary has been unjustifiably tortured
into an expression of disgust on Shakespeare's part

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 271

at Combe's conduct,1 it is plain that, in the spirit of
his agreement with Combe's agent, he continued to
lend Combe his countenance. Happily Combe's
efforts failed, and the common lands remain un-
enclosed.

At the beginning of 1616 Shakespeare's health
was failing. He directed Francis Collins, a solicitor of
Warwick, to draft his will, but, though it was prepared
for signature on January 25, it was for the time laid
aside. On February 10, 1616, Shakespeare's younger
daughter, Judith, married, at Stratford parish church,
Thomas Quiney, four years her junior, a son of an old
friend of the poet. The ceremony took place appa-
rently without public asking of the banns and before
a license was procured. The irregularity led to
the summons of the bride and bridegroom to the
ecclesiastical court at Worcester and the imposition
of a fine. According to the testimony of John Ward,
the vicar, Shakespeare entertained at New

Death

Place his two friends, Michael Drayton and
Ben Jonson, in this same spring of 1616, and ' had a

1 The clumsy entry runs : ' Sept. Mr. Shakespeare tellyng J.
Greene that I was not able to beare the encloseing of Welcombe. '
J. Greene is to be distinguished from Thomas Greene, the writer of the
diary. The entry therefore implies that Shakespeare told J. Greene
that the writer of the diary, Thomas Greene, was not able to bear the
enclosure. Those who represent Shakespeare as a champion of popular
rights have to read the ' I ' in 'I was not able ' as ' he. ' Were that
the correct reading, Shakespeare would be rightly credited with telling
J. Greene that he disliked the enclosure ; but palaeographers only
recognise the reading ' I. ' Cf. Shakespeare and the Enclosure of
Common Fields at Welcombe, a facsimile of Greene's diary, now at
the Birthplace, Stratford, with a transcript by Mr. E. J. L. Scott, edited
by Dr. C. M. Ingleby, 1885.

272 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

merry meeting,' but ' itt seems drank too hard, for
Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted.5 A
popular local legend, which was not recorded till
1762,* credited Shakespeare with engaging at an
earlier date in a prolonged and violent drinking bout
at Bidford, a neighbouring village,2 but his achieve-
ments as a hard drinker may be dismissed as
unproven. The cause of his death is undetermined,
but probably his illness seemed likely to take a fatal
turn in March, when he revised and signed the will
that had been drafted in the previous January. On
Tuesday, April 23, he died at the age of fifty-two.3
On Thursday, April 25 (O.S.), the poet was
buried inside Stratford Church, near the
northern wall of the chancel, in which, as part-owner
of the tithes, and consequently one of the lay-rectors,
he had a right of interment. Hard by was the charnel-
house, where bones dug up from the churchyard were
deposited. Over the poet's grave were inscribed the

lines :

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed heare ;
Bleste be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

According to one William Hall, who described a

1 British Magazine, June 1762.

2 Cf. Malone, Shakespeare, 1821, ii. 500-2 ; Ireland, Confes-
sions, 1805, p. 34 ; Green, Legend of the Crab Tree, 1857.

3 The date is in the old style, and is equivalent to May 3 in the
new ; Cervantes, whose death is often described as simultaneous, died
at Madrid ten days earlier — on April 13, in the old style, or April 23,
1616, in the new.

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THE CLOSE OF LIFE 273

visit to Stratford in 1694,* these verses were penned
by Shakespeare to suit ' the capacity of clerks and
sextons, for the most part a very ignorant set of
people.' Had this curse not threatened them, Hall
proceeds, the sexton would not have hesitated in
course of time to remove Shakespeare's dust to ' the
bone-house.' As it was, the grave was made seven-
teen feet deep, and was never opened, even to receive
his wife, although she expressed a desire to be buried
with her husband.

Shakespeare's will, the first draft of which was

drawn up before January 25, 1616, received many

interlineations and erasures before it was

The will. . ,, ,

signed in the ensuing March. Francis
Collins, the solicitor of Warwick, and Thomas Russell,
' esquier,' of Stratford, were the overseers ; it was
proved by John Hall, the poet's son-in-law and joint-
executor with Mrs. Hall, in London on June 22
following. The religious exordium is in conventional
phraseology, and gives no clue to Shakespeare's
personal religious opinions. What those opinions
were, we have neither the means nor the warrant for
discussing. But while it is possible to quote from the
plays many contemptuous references to the puritans
and their doctrines, we may dismiss as idle gossip
Davies's irresponsible report that ' he dyed a papist.'
The name of Shakespeare's wife was omitted from
the original draft of the will, but by an interlineation
in the final draft she received his second best bed

1 Hall's letter was published as a quarto pamphlet at London in
1884, from the original, now in the Bodleian Library Oxford.

274 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

with its furniture. No other bequest was made her.
Bequest to Several wills of the period have been dis-
his wife. covered in which a bedstead or other article
of household furniture formed part of a wife's inheri-
tance, but none except Shakespeare's is forthcoming
in which a bed forms the sole bequest. At the same
time the precision with which Shakespeare's will
accounts for and assigns to other legatees every known
item of his property refutes the conjecture that he
had set aside any portion of it under a previous
settlement or jointure with a view to making inde-
pendent provision for his wife. Her right to a widow's
dower — i.e. to a third share for life in freehold estate
— was not subject to testamentary 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.1 Such pro-

1 Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., has been 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 Shakespeare barred the dower.' Mr.
Mackay's opinion is couched in the following terms : ' The conveyance
of the Blackfriars estate to William Shakespeare in 1613 shows that
the estate 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 bar-
gainees.' 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 pur-
poses 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. Cf. Davidson on Conveyancing \ Littleton, sect.
45 ; Coke upott Littleton, ed. Hargrave, p. 379 b, note I.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 275

cedure 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 Shake-
speare to make public his indifference or dislike.
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 affec-
tion. 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 his own shrewdness, and had a capable adviser
in her husband.

This elder daughter, Susanna Hall, was, accord-
ing to 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, all the land, barns, and
gardens at and near Stratford (except the tenement
in Chapel Lane), and the house in Blackfriars, London,
while she and her husband were appointed executors
and residuary legatees, with full rights over nearly all
the poet's household furniture and personal belong-
ings. To their only child and the testator's grand-
daughter, or ' niece,' Elizabeth Hall, was bequeathed

T 2

276 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the poet's plate, with the exception of his broad silver
and gilt bowl, which was reserved for his younger
daughter, Judith. To his younger daughter he also left,
with the tenement in Chapel Lane (in remainder to the
elder daughter), i$ol. in money, of which ioo/., her
marriage portion, was to be paid within a year, and
another 1 5O/. to be paid to her if alive three years after
the date of the will.1 To the poet's sister, Joan Hart,
whose husband, William Hart, predeceased the
testator by only six days, he left, besides a con-
tingent reversionary interest in Judith's pecuniary
legacy, his wearing apparel, 2O/. in money, a life
interest in the Henley Street property, with 5/. for
each of her three sons, William, Thomas, and Michael.
To the poor of Stratford he gave io/., and to Mr.
Legacies Thomas Combe (apparently a brother of
to friends. William, of the enclosure controversy) his
sword. To each of his Stratford friends, Hamlett
Sadler, William Reynoldes, Anthony Nash, and John
Nash, and to each of his ( fellows ' (i.e. theatrical
colleagues in London), John Heming, Richard Bur-
bage, and Henry Condell, he left xxvjj. viijdl, with
which to buy memorial rings. His godson, William
Walker, received ' xx ' shillings in gold.

Before 1623 2 an elaborate monument, by a London
sculptor of Dutch birth, Gerard Johnson, was erected

1 A hundred and fifty pounds is described as a substantial jointure
in Merry Wives, III. iii. 49.

2 Leonard Digges, in commendatory verses before the First Folio of
1623, wrote that Shakespeare's works would be alive

[When] Time dissolves thy Stratford monumen

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 277

to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of the parish
church.1 It includes a half-length bust, de-

The tomb.

pictmg the dramatist on the point of writing.
The fingers of the right hand are disposed as if
holding a pen, and under the left hand lies a
quarto sheet of paper. The inscription, which was
apparently by a London friend, runs :

Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, populus moeret, Olympus habet.

Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast ?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast
Within this monument ; Shakespeare with whome
Quick nature dide ; whose name doth deck ys tombe
Far more than cost ; sith all yt he hath writt
Leaves living art but page to serve his witt.

Obiit ano. doi 1616 yEtatis 53 Die 23 Ap.

At the opening of Shakespeare's career Chettle
wrote of his ' civil demeanour ' and of the reports of
Personal ' his uprightness of dealing which argues his
character. nonesty/ In 1601 — 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 associ-
ated with his name. In 1604 one Anthony Scoloker
in a poem called ' Daiphantus ' bestowed on him the
epithet ' friendly.' After the close of his career
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

1 Cf. Dugdale, Diary, 1827, p. 99 ; see under article on Bernard
Janssen in the Dictionary of National Biography.

278 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

nature.' l No other contemporary left on record any
definite impression of Shakespeare's personal cha-
racter, and the ' Sonnets,' which alone of his literary
work can be held to throw any illumination on a
personal trait, mainly reveal him in the light of one
who was willing to conform to all the conventional
methods in vogue for strengthening the bonds between
a poet and a great patron. His literary practices
and aims were those of contemporary men of letters,
and the difference in the quality of his work and theirs
was due not to conscious 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 com-
rades. The references in his will to his fellow-actors,
and the spirit in which (as they announce in the First
Folio) they approached 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 together by Aubrey
depict him as ' very good company, and of a very
ready and pleasant smooth wit,' and there is much in
other early posthumous references to suggest a genial,
if not a convivial, temperament, linked to a quiet turn
for good-humoured satire. But Bohemian ideals and
modes of life had no genuine attraction for Shake-
speare. His extant work attests his ' copious ' and
continuous industry,2 and with his literary power and

1 ' Timber,' in Works, 1641.

2 John Webster, the dramatist, made vague reference in the
address before his ' White Divel ' in 1612 to ' the right happy and
copious industry of M. Shakespeare, M. Decker, and M. Hey wood.'

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 279

sociability 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 providing per-
manently for himself and his daughters. His highest
ambition was to restore among his fellow-townsmen
the family repute which his father's misfortunes had
imperilled. Ideals so homely are reckoned rare among
poets, but Chaucer and Sir Walter Scott, among
writers of exalted genius, vie with Shakespeare in the
sobriety of their personal aims and in the sanity of
their mental attitude towards life's ordinary incidents.

280 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

XVII

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS

SHAKESPEARE'S widow died on August 6, 1623, at
the age of sixty-seven, and was buried near her
The husband inside the chancel two days later.

sumvors. some affectionately phrased Latin elegiacs
— doubtless from Dr. Hall's pen — were inscribed on
a brass plate fastened to the stone above her grave.1
The younger daughter, Judith, resided with her hus-
band, Thomas Quiney, at The Cage, a house which he
leased in Bridge Street from i6i6till 1652. There he
carried on the trade of a vintner, and took part

Mistress . . .

Judith in municipal affairs, acting as a councillor

from 1617 and as chamberlain in 1621-2
and 1622-3 ; but after 1630 his affairs grew embar-
rassed, and he left Stratford late in 1652 for London,
where he seems to have died a few months later. Of
his three sons by Judith, the eldest, Shakespeare
(baptised on November 23, 1616), was buried in Strat-
ford Churchyard on May 8, 1617 ; the second son,

1 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 mallem, amoueat lapidem bonus Angel[us] ore,

Exeat ut Christ! Corpus, imago tua.
Sed nil vota valent ; venias cito, Christe ; resurget,
Clausa licet tumulo, mater, et astra petet.'

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS 28 1

Richard (baptised on February 9, 1617-18), was
buried on January 28, 1638-9 ; and the third son,
Thomas (baptised on January 23, 1619-20), was
buried on February 26, 1638-9. Judith survived her
husband, sons, and sister, dying at Stratford on
February 9, 1661-2, in her seventy-seventh year.

The poet's elder daughter, Mrs. Susanna Hall, re-
sided at New Place till her death. Her sister Judith
alienated to her the Chapel Place tenement before
1633, but that, with the interest in the
Susannah Stratford tithes, she soon disposed of. Her
husband, Dr. John Hall, died on Novem-
ber 25, 1635. In 1642 James Cooke, a surgeon in
attendance on some Royalist troops stationed at
Stratford, visited Mrs. Hall and examined manu-
scripts in her possession, but they were apparently of
her husband's, not of her father's, composition.1 From
July 1 1 to 13, 1643, Queen Henrietta Maria, while jour-
neying from Newark to Oxford, was billeted on Mrs.
Hall at New Place for three days, and was visited
there by Prince Rupert. Mrs. Hall was buried beside
her husband in Stratford Churchyard on July II,
1649, and a rhyming inscription, describing her as
'witty above her sex,' was engraved on her tomb-
stone. The whole inscription ran : ' Heere lyeth ye.
body of Svsanna, wife to John Hall, Gent ye. davghter
of William Shakespeare, Gent. She deceased ye.
nth of Jvly, A.D. 1649, aged 66.

' Witty above her sexe, but that's not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall,

1 Cf. Hall, Select Observations, ed. Cooke, 1657.

282 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Something of Shakespere was in that, but this
Wholy of him with whom she's now in blisse.
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 cordiall.
Her Love shall live, her mercy spread,
When thou hast ne're a teare to shed.'

Mrs. Hall's only child, Elizabeth, was the last
surviving descendant of the poet. In April 1626 she
married her first husband, Thomas Nash of
descen- Stratford (b. 1593), who studied at Lincoln's
Inn, was a man of property, and, dying
childless at New Place on April 4, 1647, was buried
in Stratford Church next day. At Billesley, a village
four miles from Stratford, on June 5, 1649, Mrs. Nash
married, as a second husband, a widower, John Bernard
or Barnard of Abington, Northamptonshire, who was
knighted by Charles II in 1661. About the same
date she sqems to have abandoned New Place for her
husband's residence at Abington. Dying without
issue, she was buried there on February 17, 1669-70.
Her husband survived her four years, and was buried
beside her.1 On her mother's death in 1649 Lady
Barnard inherited under the poet's will the land near
Stratford, New Place, the house at Blackfriars, and (on
the death of the poet's sister, Joan Hart, in 1646) the
houses in Henley Street, while her father, Dr. Hall, left
her in 1635 a house at Acton with a meadow. She
sold the Blackfriars house, and apparently the Strat-
ford land, before 1667. By her will, dated January

1 Baker, Northamptonshire, i. IO ; New Shaksp. Soc. Trans.
1 880-5, pt. ii- pp. I3t-I5t-

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS 283

1669-70, and proved in the following March, she left
small bequests to the daughters of Thomas Hatha-
way, of the family of her grandmother, the poet's
wife. The houses in Henley Street passed to her
cousin, Thomas Hart, the grandson of the poet's
sister Joan, and they remained in the possession of
Thomas's direct descendants till 1806 (the male line
expired on the death of John Hart in 1800). By her
will Lady Barnard also ordered New Place to be sold,
and it was purchased on May 18, 1675, by Sir Edward
Walker, through whose daughter Barbara, wife of
Sir John Clopton, it reverted to the Clopton family.
Sir John rebuilt it in 1702. On the death of his son
Hugh in 1752, it was bought by the Rev. Francis
Gastrell (d, 1768), who demolished the new building
in I759-1

Of Shakespeare's three brothers, only one, Gilbert,

seems to have survived him. Edmund, the youngest

brother, ' a player,' was buried at St.

Shake-

speare's Saviour's Church, Southwark, ' with a fore-
noone knell of the great bell,' on December
3 1 , 1607 ; he was in his twenty-eighth year. Richard,
John Shakespeare's third son, died at Stratford in
February 1613, aged 29. ' Gilbert Shakespeare ado-
lescens,' who was buried at Stratford on February 3,
1611-12, was doubtless son of the poet's next
brother, Gilbert ; the latter, having nearly completed
his forty-sixth year, could scarcely be described as
' adolescens ; ' his death is not recorded, but according
to Oldys he survived to a patriarchal age.

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, Hist, of New Place, 1864, fol.

284 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

XVIII

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS

MUCH controversy has arisen over the spelling of

the poet's surname. It has been proved capable of

four thousand variations.1 The name of the

Spelling of . .

the poet's poet s father is entered sixty-six times in
the council books of Stratford, and is spelt
in sixteen ways. The commonest form is ' Shax-
peare.' Five autographs of the poet of undisputed
authenticity are extant : his signature to the indenture
Autograph relating to the purchase of the property in
signatures. Blackfriars, dated March 10, 1612-13 (since
1841 in the Guildhall Library); his signature to the
mortgage-deed relating to the same purchase, dated
March 11, 1612-13 (since 1858 in the British Museum),
and the three signatures on the three sheets of his
will, dated March 25, 1615-16 (now at Somerset
House). In all the signatures some of the letters are
represented by recognised signs of abbreviation. The
signature to the first document is 'William Shakspere,'
though in all other portions of the deed the name is
spelt ' Shakespeare.' The signature to the second

1 Wise, Autograph of William Shakespeare . . . together with 4,000
•ways of spelling the name, Philadelphia, 1 869.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 285

document has been interpreted both as Shakspere and
Shakspeare. The ink of the first signature in the
will has now faded almost beyond decipherment, but
that it was ' Shakspere ' may be inferred from the
facsimile made by Steevens in 1776. The second and
third signatures to the will, which are also somewhat
difficult to decipher, have been read both as Shakspere
and Shakspeare ; but a close examination suggests that
whatever the second signature may be, the third is
' Shakespeare.' Shakspere is the spelling of the
alleged autograph in the British Museum copy of
Florio's ' Montaigne,' but the genuineness of that
signature is disputable.1 Shakespeare was the form
adopted in the full signature appended to the dedica-
tory epistles of the ' Venus and Adonis ' of 1 593 and
the ' Lucrece ' of 1594, volumes which were produced
under the poet's supervision. It is the spelling
adopted on the title-pages of the majority of contem-
porary editions of his works, whether or not produced
under his supervision. It is adopted in almost all
the published references to the poet during the seven-
teenth century. It appears in the grant of arms in
1596, in the license to the players of 1603, and in the
text of all the legal documents relating to the poet's
property. The poet, like most of his contemporaries,
acknowledged no finality on the subject. According
to the best authority, he spelt his surname in two
ways when signing his will. There is consequently

1 See the article on John Florio in the Dictionary of National
Biography, and Sir Frederick Madden's Observations on an Autograph
of Shakspere, 1838.

286 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

no good ground for abandoning the form Shakespeare,
which is sanctioned by legal and literary custom.1

Aubrey reported that Shakespeare was ' a hand-
some well-shap't man,' but no portrait exists which can
be said with absolute certainty to have been

Shake- . . .

speare's executed during his lifetime, although one
has recently been discovered with a good
claim to that distinction. Only two of the extant
portraits are positively known to have been produced
within a short period after his death. These are the
bust in Stratford Church and the frontispiece to the
folio of 1623. Each is an inartistic attempt at a
posthumous likeness. There is considerable dis-
crepancy between the two ; their main points of re-
semblance are the baldness on the top of the head
and the fulness of the hair about the ears. The bust
was by Gerard Johnson or Janssen, who was a Dutch
The strat- stonemason or tombmaker settled in South-
ford bust. Wark. It was set up in the church before
1623, and is a rudely carved specimen of mortuary
sculpture. There are marks about the forehead and
ears which suggest that the face was fashioned from
a death mask, but the workmanship is at all points
clumsy. The round face and eyes present a heavy,
unintellectual expression. The bust was originally
coloured, but in 1793 Malone caused it to be white-
washed. In 1 86 1 the whitewash was removed, and
the colours, as far as traceable, restored. The eyes
are light hazel, the hair and beard auburn. There

1 Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, New Lamps or Old, 1880 ; Malone,
Inquiry, 1796.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 287

have been numberless reproductions, both engraved
and photographic. It was first engraved — very im-
perfectly— for Rowe's edition in 1709 ; then by
Vertue for Pope's edition of 1725 ; and by Gravelot
for Hanmer's edition in 1744. A good engraving by
William Ward appeared in 1816. A phototype and
a chromo-phototype, issued by the New Shakspere
Society, are the best reproductions for the purposes

of study. The pretentious painting known
ford1 por- as the ' Stratford ' portrait, and presented in

1867 by W. O. Hunt, town clerk of Stratford,
to the Birthplace Museum, where it is very promi-
nently displayed, was probably painted from the bust
late in the eighteenth century ; it lacks either historic
or artistic interest.

The engraved portrait — nearly a half-length —
which was printed on the title-page of the folio of 1623,

was by Martin Droeshout. On the oppo-

Droes- 7 . _.

bout's en- site page lines by Ben J onson congratulate
mg* ' the graver ' on having satisfactorily ' hit '
the poet's ' face.' Jonson's testimony does no credit
to his artistic discernment ; the expression of counte-
nance, which is very crudely rendered, is neither
distinctive nor lifelike. The face is long and the
forehead high ; the top of the head is bald, but the
hair falls in abundance over the ears. There is a scanty
moustache and a thin tuft under the lower lip. A stiff
and wide collar, projecting horizontally, conceals the
neck. The coat is closely buttoned and elaborately
bordered, especially at the shoulders. The dimensions
of the head and face are disproportionately large as

288 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

compared with those of the body. In the unique proof
copy which belonged to Halliwell-Phillipps (now with
his collection in America) the tone is clearer than in
the ordinary copies, and the shadows are less darkened
by cross-hatching and coarse dotting. The engraver,
Martin Droeshout, belonged to a Flemish 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
consequently improbable that he had any personal
knowledge of the dramatist. The engraving was
doubtless produced by Droeshout very shortly 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 professional
career, in which he never achieved extended practice
or reputation. A copy of the Droeshout engraving,
by William Marshall, was prefixed to Shakespeare's
'Poems' in 1640, and William Faithorne made
another copy for the frontispiece of the edition of
' The Rape of Lucrece ' published in 1655.

There is little doubt that young Droeshout in

fashioning his engraving worked from a painting, and

there is a likelihood that the original picture

The'Droes- _

hout ' from which the youthful engraver worked has

painting. fa^y cQme tQ jjght Ag recently

Mr. Edgar Flower, of Stratford-on-Avon, discovered
in the possession of Mr. H. C. Clements, a private
gentleman with artistic tastes residing at Peckham
Rye, a portrait alleged to represent Shakespeare.
The picture, which was faded and somewhat worm-

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 289

eaten, dated beyond all doubt from the early years of
the seventeenth century. It was painted on a panel
formed of two planks of old elm, and in the upper
left-hand corner was the inscription ' Willm Shake-
speare, 1609.' Mr. Clements purchased the portrait of
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
Shakespeare, 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 [fere fourteen] years before it was published.
. . . The picture was publicly exhibited in London
seventy years ago, and many thousands went to see it.'
In all its details and 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. Though
coarsely and stiffly drawn, the face is far more
skilfully presented than in the engraving, and the
expression of countenance betrays some artistic
sentiment which is absent from the print Connois-
seurs, including Sir Edward Poynter, Mr. Sidney
Colvin, and Mr. Lionel Cust, have almost unre-
servedly pronounced the picture to be anterior in
date to the engraving, and they have reached the
conclusion that in all probability Martin Droeshout

290 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

directly based his work upon the painting. Influences
of an early seventeenth-century Flemish school are
plainly discernible in the picture, and it is just possible
that it is the production of an uncle of the young en-
graver Martin Droeshout, who bore the same name as
his nephew, and was naturalised in this country on
January 25, 1608, when he was described as a ' painter
of Brabant.' Although the history of the portrait
rests on critical conjecture and on no external con-
temporary evidence, there seems good ground for re-
garding it as a portrait of Shakespeare painted in his
lifetime — in the forty-fifth year of his age. No other
pictorial representation of the poet has equally serious
claims to be treated as contemporary with himself, and
it therefore presents features of unique interest. On
the death of its owner, Mr. Clements, 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 restora-
tion has been made. A photogravure forms the
frontispiece to the present volume.1

Of the same type as the Droeshout engraving,
although less closely resembling it than the picture
just described, is the ' Ely House ' portrait (now the
property of the Birthplace Trustees at Stratford),

1 Mr. Lionel Cust, director of the National Portrait Gallery, who has
little doubt of the genuineness of the picture, gave an interesting account
of it at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries on December 12, 1895.
Mr. Gust's paper is printed in the Society's Proceedings, second series,
vol. xvi. p. 42. Mr. Salt Brassington, the librarian of the Shakespeare
Memorial Library, has given a careful description of it in the Illustrated
Catalogue of the Pictures in the Memorial Gallery, 1896, pp. 78-83.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 29 1

which formerly belonged to Thomas Turton, Bishop
of Ely, and it is inscribed ' &. 39 x. 1603.' l This
painting is of high artistic value. The features are of
a far more attractive and intellectual cast than in either
the Droeshout painting or engraving, and the many
differences in detail raise doubts as to whether the
person represented can have been intended for
Shakespeare. Experts are of opinion that the picture
was painted early in the seventeenth century.

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
to his friend Samuel Pepys in 1689, but Clarendon's
collection was dispersed at the end of the seventeenth
century and the picture has not been traced.2

Of the numerous extant paintings which have
been described as portraits of Shakespeare, only the
Later por- ' Droeshout ' portrait and the Ely House
traits. portrait, both of which are at Stratford,
bear any definable resemblance to the folio engrav-
ing or the bust in the church.3 In spite of their

1 Harper's Magazine, May 1897.

2 Cf. Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence, iii. 444.

3 Numberless portraits have been falsely identified with Shakespeare,
and it would be futile to attempt to make the record of the pretended
portraits 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. The
following are some of the wholly unauthentic portraits that have at-
tracted public attention : Three portraits assigned to Zucchero, who
left England in 1580, and cannot have had any relations with Shake-
speare— one in the Art Museum, Boston, U.S.A. ; another, formerly

U 2

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

admitted imperfections, those presentments can alone
be held indisputably to have been honestly designed
to depict the poet's features. They must be treated
as the standards of authenticity in judging of the
genuineness of other portraits claiming to be of an
early date.

Of other alleged portraits which are extant, the
most famous and interesting is the ' Chandos ' portrait,
The 'Chan- now *n ^e National Portrait Gallery. Its
dos ' por- pedigree suggests that it was intended to

trs.it.

represent the poet, but numerous and con-
spicuous divergences from the authenticated likenesses
show that it was painted from fanciful descriptions
of him some years after his death. The face is
bearded, and rings adorn the ears. Oldys reported
that it was from the brush of Burbage, Shakespeare's
fellow-actor, who had some reputation as a limner,1
and that it had belonged to Joseph Taylor, an actor
contemporary with Shakespeare. These rumours are
not corroborated ; but there is no doubt that it was
at one time the property of D'Avenant, and that it
subsequently belonged successively to the actor

the property of Richard Cosway, R.A., and afterwards of Mr. J. A.
Langford of Birmingham (engraved in mezzotint by H. Green) ; and
a third belonging to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who purchased it in
1862. At Hampton Court is a wholly unauthentic portrait of the
Chandos type, which was at one time at Penshurst ; it bears the legend
' yEtatis suae 34 ' (cf. Law's Cat. of Hampton Court, p. 234). A
portrait inscribed 'setatis suse 47, 1611,' belonging to Clement Kingston
of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was engraved in mezzotint by G. F. Storm
in 1846.

1 In the picture-gallery at Dulwich is ' a woman's head on a boord
done by Mr. Burbidge, ye actor ' — a well-authenticated example of the
actor's art.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 293

Betterton and to Mrs. Barry the actress. In 1693
Sir Godfrey Kneller made a copy as a gift for
Dryden. After Mrs Barry's death in 1713 it 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 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 Buck-
ingham, whose son, the second Duke of Bucking-
ham, sold it with the rest of his effects at Stowe in
1848, when it was purchased by the Earl of Ellesmere.
The latter presented it to the nation. Edward Capell
many years before presented a copy by Ranelagh
Barret to Trinity College, Cambridge, and other
copies are attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Ozias
Humphrey (1783). It was engraved by George Vertue
in 1719 for Pope's edition (1725), and often later, one
of the best engravings being by Vandergucht. A
good lithograph from a tracing by Sir George Scharf
was published by the trustees of the National Portrait
Gallery in 1864. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts pur-
chased in 1875 a portrait of similar type, which is
said, somewhat doubtfully, to have belonged to John
lord Lumley, who died in 1609, and to have formed
part of a collection of portraits of the great men of his
day at his house, Lumley Castle, Durham. Its early
history is not positively authenticated, and it may
well be an early copy of the Chandos portrait. The

294 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Lumley ' painting was finely chromo-lithographed in
1863 by Vincent Brooks.

The so-called ' Jansen ' or Janssens portrait, which

belongs to Lady Guendolen Ramsden, daughter of

the Duke of Somerset, and is now at her

The ' Jan-
sen • por- residence at Bulstrode, was first doubtfully

identified about 1770, when in the posses-
sion of Charles Jennens. Janssens did not come to
England before Shakespeare's death. It is a fine
portrait, but is unlike any other that has been asso-
ciated with the dramatist An admirable mezzotint
by Richard Earlom was issued in 1811.

The ' Felton ' portrait, a small head on a panel, with
a high and very bald forehead (belonging since 1873
to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts), was pur-
ton * por- chased by S. Felton of Drayton, Shropshire,
in 1792 of J. Wilson, the owner of the
Shakespeare Museum in Pall Mall ; it bears a late
inscription, ' Gul. Shakespear 1597, R. B.' [i.e.
Richard Burbage]. It was engraved by Josiah Boy-
dell 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 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
between it and the prints.

The ' Soest ' or ' Zoust ' portrait — in the posses-
sion of Sir John Lister-Kaye of the Grange, Wake-

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

From a plaster-cast of the terra-cotta bust now in the possession of the Garrick Club

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 295

field— was in the collection of Thomas Wright,

painter, of Covent Garden in 1725, when

•Soest1 John Simon engraved it. Soest was born

twenty-one years after Shakespeare's death,

and the portrait is only on fanciful grounds identified

with the poet. A chalk drawing by Joseph Michael

Wright, obviously inspired by the Soest portrait, is the

property of Sir Arthur Hodgson of Clopton House,

and is on loan at the Memorial Gallery, Stratford.

A well-executed miniature by Hilliard, at one
time in the possession of William Somerville the poet,

and now the property of Sir Stafford North-
Miniatures.

cote, bart, was engraved by Agar for vol. n.

of the 'Variorum Shakespeare' of 1821, and in
Wivell's ' Inquiry,' 1827. It has little claim to atten-
tion as a portrait of the dramatist. Another miniature
(called the ' Auriol ' portrait), of doubtful authenticity,
formerly belonged to Mr. Lumsden Propert, and a
third is at Warwick Castle.

A bust, said to be of Shakespeare, was discovered
in 1845 bricked up in a wall in Spode & Copeland's
The china warehouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Garrick Tne warehouse had been erected on the site

Club bust .

of the Duke's Theatre, which was built by
D'Avenant in 1660. The bust, which is of black
terra cotta, and bears traces of Italian workmanship, is
believed to have adorned the proscenium of the Duke's
Theatre. It was acquired by the surgeon William
Clift, from whom it passed to Clift's son-in-law,
Richard (afterwards Sir Richard) Owen the natural-
ist. The latter sold it to the Duke of Devonshire,

296 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

who presented it in 1851 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 Kesselstadt death-mask was discovered by

Dr. Ludwig Becker, librarian at the ducal palace at

Darmstadt, in a rag-shop at Mayence in

Alleged '

death- 1849. The 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 Mayence, who died in
1843. Dr. Becker brought the mask and the picture
to England in 1849, and Richard Owen supported
the theory that the mask was taken from Shake-
speare's face after death, and was the foundation of
the bust in Stratford Church. The mask was for a
long time in Dr. Becker's private apartments at the
ducal palace, Darmstadt.1 The features are singularly
attractive ; but the chain of evidence which would
identify them with Shakespeare is incomplete.2

1 It is now the property of Frau Oberst Becker, the discoverer's
daughter-in-law, Darmstadt, Heidelbergerstrasse in.

2 Some account of Shakespeare's portraits will be found in the follow-
ing works : James Boaden, Inquiry into various Pictures and Prints
of Shakespeare, 1824 ; Abraham Wivell, Inquiry into Shakespeare's
Portraits, 1827, with engravings by B. and W. Holl ; George Scharf,
Principal Portraits of Shakespeare, 1864 ; J. Hain Friswell, Life- Por-
traits 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, Philadelphia, 1885, with numerous
plates ; Illustrated Cat. of Portraits in Shakespeare 's Memorial at

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 297

A monument, the expenses of which were defrayed

by public subscription, was set up in the Poets'

Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1741. Pope

Memorials '

in sculp- and the Karl of Burlington were among
the promoters. The design was by William
Kent, and the statue of Shakespeare was executed
by Peter Scheemakers.1 Another statue was executed
by Roubiliac for Garrick, who bequeathed it to the
British Museum in 1779. A third statue, freely
adapted from the works of Scheemakers and Roubi-
liac, 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. A. Q. Ward) was placed in 1882 in the Central
Park, New York. A fifth in bronze, by M. Paul Four-
nier, which was erected in Paris in 1888 at the expense
of an English resident, Mr. W. Knighton, stands at the
point where the Avenue de Messine meets the Boule-
vard Haussmann. A sixth memorial in sculpture, by
Lord Ronald Gower, the most elaborate and ambitious
of all, stands in the garden of the Shakespeare Memo-
rial 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 Shakespeare's principal characters : Lady
Macbeth, Hamlet, Prince Hal, and Sir John Falstaff.
At Stratford, the Birthplace, which was acquired

Stratford, 1896. In 1885 Mr. Walter Rogers Furness issued, at
Philadelphia, a volume of composite portraits, combining the Droeshout
engraving and the Stratford bust with the Chandos, Jansen, Felton,
and Stratford portraits.

1 Cf. Gentleman's Magazine, 1741, p. 105.

298 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

by the public in 1 846 and converted into a museum, is,
with Anne Hathaway's cottage (which was acquired
by the Birthplace Trustees in 1892), a place of pilgrim-
age for visitors from all parts of the globe. The
27,038 persons who visited it in 1896 and the 26,510
persons who visited it in 1897 represented over forty
nationalities. The site of the demolished New Place,
with the gardens, was also purchased by public sub-
scription in 1 86 1, and now forms a public garden.
Of a new memorial building on the river-bank at
Stratford, consisting of a theatre, picture-gallery, and
library, the foundation-stone was laid on April 23,
1877. The theatre was opened exactly two years
later, when ' Much Ado about Nothing ' was per-
formed, with Helen Faucit (Lady Martin) as Beatrice
and Barry Sullivan as Benedick. Performances of
Shakespeare's plays have since been given annually
during April. The library and picture-gallery were
opened in iSSi.1 A memorial Shakespeare library
was opened at Birmingham on April 23, 1868, to
commemorate the tercentenary of 1864, and, although
destroyed by fire in 1879, was restored in 1882; it
now possesses nearly ten thousand volumes relating
to Shakespeare.

1 A History of the Shakespeare Memorial, Stratford-on- Avon, 1882 ;
Illustrated Catalogue of Pictures in the Shakespeare Memorial, 1896.

299

XIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ONLY two of Shakespeare's works — his narrative
poems ' Venus and Adonis ' and ' Lucrece ' — were
published with his sanction and co-operation. These
poems were the first specimens of his work to appear
in print, and they passed in his lifetime through a
greater number of editions than any of his plays.
At the time of his death in 1616 there had been
printed in quarto seven editions of his ' Venus and
Quartos of Adonis ' (i593> 1594, 1596, I599> 1600,
iSthepoTt^s and two in 1602), and five editions of
lifetime. hjs « Lucrece ' (i 594, 1598, 1600, 1607, 1616).
There was only one lifetime edition of the ' Sonnets,'
Thorpe's surreptitious venture of 1609 '•> l but three
editions were issued of the piratical ' Passionate
Pilgrim,' which was fraudulently assigned to Shake-
speare by the publisher William Jaggard, although
it contained only a few occasional poems by him
(1599, 1600 no copy known, and 1612).

Of posthumous editions in quarto of the two
narrative poems in the seventeenth century, there

1 This was facsimiled in 1862, and again by Mr. Griggs in 1880.

300 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

were two of ' Lucrece ' — viz. in 1624 ('the sixth
Posthu- edition') and in 1655 (with John Quarles's
™s°of?hear" ' Banishment of Tarquin ')— and there were
poems. as many as six editions of 'Venus' (1617,
1620, 1627, two in 1630, and 1636), making thir-
teen editions in all in forty-three years. No later
editions of these two poems were issued in the seven-
teenth century. They were next reprinted together
with 'The Passionate Pilgrim' in 1707, and thence-
forth they usually figured, with the addition of the
' Sonnets/ in collected editions of Shakespeare's
works.

A so-called first collected edition of Shakespeare's

'Poems' in 1640 (London, by T. Cotes for I. Benson)

was mainly a reissue of the ' Sonnets,'

The . ... /XT ... . ....

•Poems' but it omitted six (Nos. xvm., xix., xlin.,
1640. jvj^ jxxv<) anci ixxvi.) and it included the
twenty poems of ' The Passionate Pilgrim,' with
some other pieces by other authors. Marshall's copy
of the Droeshout engraving of 1623 formed the
frontispiece. There were prefatory poems by Leonard
Digges and John Warren, as well as an address ' to the
reader ' signed with the initials of the publisher. There
Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' 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 volume of ' Poems ' of 1640 is the fact
that the ' Sonnets ' were printed then in a different
order from that which was followed in the volume of

BIBLIOGRAPHY 30 1

1609. 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 cxliv., takes the thirty-
second place in 1640. In most cases a more or less
fanciful general title is placed in the second edition at
the head of each sonnet, but in a few instances a
single title serves for short sequences of two or three
sonnets which are printed as independent poems
continuously without spacing. The poems drawn
from ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' are intermingled with
the ' Sonnets,' together with extracts from Thomas
Hey wood's ' General History of Women,' although no
hint is given that they are not Shakespeare's work.
The edition concludes with three epitaphs on Shake-
speare and a short section entitled ' an addition of
some excellent poems to those precedent by other
Gentlemen.' The volume is of great rarity. An
exact reprint was published in 1885.

Of Shakespeare's plays there were in print in

1616 only sixteen (all in quarto), or eighteen if we

. include the ' Contention,' the first draft of

Quartos of

the plays <2 Henry VI ' (1594 and 1600), and 'The
poet's life- True Tragedy,' the first draft of ' 3 Henry
VI ' (1595 and 1600). These sixteen quartos
were publishers' ventures, and were undertaken with-
out the co-operation of the author.

Two of the plays, published thus, reached five
editions before 1616, viz. ' Richard III' (1597, 1598,

302 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1602, 1605, 1612) and 'I Henry IV (1598, 1599,

1604, 1608, 1615).

Three reached four editions, viz. 'Richard II'
(IS97> 159%> r6o8 supplying the deposition scene for
the first time, 1615) ; ' Hamlet '(1603 imperfect, 1604,

1605, 161 1), and ' Romeo and Juliet ' (1597 imperfect,
1599, two in 1609).

Two reached three editions, viz. ' Henry V (1600
imperfect, 1602, and 1608) and ' Pericles ' (two in
1609, 1611).

Four reached two editions, viz. ' Midsummer
Night's Dream' (both in 1600) ; 'Merchant of Venice'
(both in 1600) ; ' Lear ' (both in 1608) ; and ' Troilus
and Cressida ' (both in 1609).

Five achieved only one edition, viz. ' Love's
Labour's Lost ' (1598), ' 2 Henry IV ' (1600), ' Much
Ado' (1600), 'Titus' (1600), 'Merry Wives' (1602
imperfect).

Three years after Shakespeare's death — in 1619 —
there appeared a second edition of ' Merry Wives '
Posthu- (again imperfect) and a fourth of ' Pericles.'
quartos of ' Othello ' was first printed posthumously in
the plays. 1622 (4to), and in the same year sixth edi-
tions of ' Richard III ' and ' I Henry IV ' appeared.1
The largest collections of the original quartos —

1 Lithographed facsimiles of most of these volumes, 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 Halliwell-
Phillipps between 1862 and 1871. A cheaper set of quarto facsimiles,
undertaken by Mr. W. Griggs, and issued under the supervision of Dr.
F. J. Furnivall, appeared in forty-three volumes between 1880 and
1889.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 303

each of which survives in only four, five, or six copies
— are in the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the
British Museum, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and
in the Bodleian Library.1 All the quartos were issued
in Shakespeare's day at sixpence each.

In 1623 the first attempt was made to give the
world a complete edition of Shakespeare's plays.
The First Two of the dramatist's intimate friends and

fellow-actors, John Heming and Henry
Condell, were nominally responsible for the venture,
but it seems to have been suggested by a small syndi-
cate of printers and publishers, who undertook all
pecuniary responsibility. Chief of the syndicate was
William Jaggard, printer since 1611 to the City of
London, who was established in business in Fleet
Street at the east end of St. Dunstan's Church. As
the piratical publisher of ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' he
had long known the commercial value of Shake-
speare's work. In 1613 he had extended his business
by purchasing the stock and rights of a rival pirate,

James Roberts, who had printed the quarto
Hshing editions of the ' Merchant of Venice ' and
syndicate. < Midsummer Night's Dream' in 1600 and
the complete quarto of 'Hamlet' in 1604. Roberts
had enjoyed for nearly twenty years the right to print
1 the players' bills/ or programmes, and he made over

1 Perfect copies range in price, according to their rarity, from
2OO/. to 3OO/. In 1864, at the sale of George Daniel's library, quarto
copies of ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and of ' Merry Wives ' (first edition)
each fetched 34&/. los. On May 14, 1897, a copy of the quarto of
' The Merchant of Venice ' (printed by James Roberts in 1600) was
sold at Sotheby's for 3I.S/.

304 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

that privilege to Jaggard with his other literary pro-
perty. It is to the close personal relations with the
playhouse managers into which the acquisition of the
right of printing ' the players' bill ' brought Jaggard
after 1613 that the inception of the scheme of the ' First
Folio ' 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. Dun-
stan's Churchyard, Fleet Street, near Jaggard's, had
published in 1611 two late editions of 'Romeo and
Juliet ' and one 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 publication of two of Marlowe's
poems. He had published that curious collection of
mystical verse entitled ' Love's Martyr,' one poem in
which, ' a poetical essay of the Phoenix and the Turtle,'
was signed ' William Shakespeare.' l

The First Folio was doubtless printed in Jaggard's
printing office near St. Dunstan's Church. Upon
Blount probably fell the chief labour of seeing the
1 See p. 183.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 305

work through the press. It was in progress through-
out 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 publish sixteen
of the twenty hitherto unprinted plays that it was
intended to include. The pieces, whose approach-
ing publication for the first time was thus an-
nounced, 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 Well,' 'Twelfth Night,' 'Winter's Tale,' '3
Henry VI,' ' Henry VIII," Coriolanus/'Timon,' 'Julius
Caesar,' ' Macbeth,' 'Antony and Cleopatra,' and 'Cym-
beline.' Four other hitherto unprinted dramas for
which no license was sought figured in the volume,
viz. ' King John,' ' i and 2 Henry VI,' and the ' Tam-
ing of the Shrew ; ' but each of these plays was based
by Shakespeare on a play of like title which had been
published at an earlier date, and the absence of a license
was doubtless due to an ignorant misconception on the
past 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 published
and was not included in the First Folio was ' Pericles.'
Thirty-six pieces in all were thus brought together.
The volume consisted of nearly one thousand double-
column pages and was sold at a pound a copy. Steevens
estimated that the edition numbered 250 copies. The
book was described on the title-page as published by

306 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 Blount1 On the title-
page was engraved the Droeshout portrait. Com-
mendatory verses were supplied by Ben Jonson, Hugh
Holland, Leonard Digges, and I. M., per-
fatoryr6 haps Jasper Maine. The dedication was
matter. addressed to the brothers William Herbert,
earl of Pembroke, the lord chamberlain, and Philip
Herbert, earl of Montgomery, and was signed by
Shakespeare's friends and fellow-actors, Heming and
Condell. The same signatures were appended to a
succeeding address ' to the great variety of readers.'
In both addresses the two actors made pretension
to a larger responsibility for the enterprise than they
really incurred, but their motives in identifying them-
selves with the venture were doubtless irreproachable.
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 him-
selfe had liued to haue set forth and ouerseen his
owne writings. . . .' A list of contents follows the
address to the readers.

The title-page states that all the plays were printed
' according to the true originall copies.' The dedi-
cators wrote to the same effect. ' As where (before)
we were abus'd with diuerse stolne and surreptitious

1 Cf. Sibliographica, i. 489 seq.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 307

copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and
stealthes of incurious impostors that expos'd them :
even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd and
perfect in their limbes, and all the rest absolute in
their numbers as he conceived them.' There is no
doubt that the whole volume was printed from the
acting versions in the possession of the manager of
the company with which Shakespeare had been asso-
ciated. But it is doubtful if any play were printed
exactly as it came from his pen. The First Folio
text is often markedly inferior to that of the six-
The value teen prc-existent quartos, which, although
of the text. surreptitiously and imperfectly printed, fol-
lowed playhouse copies of far earlier date. From
the text of the quartos the text of the First Folio differs
invariably, although in varying degrees. The quarto
texts of ' Love's Labour's Lost,' ' Midsummer Night's
Dream,' and 'Richard II,' for example, differ very
largely and always for the better from the folio texts.
On the other hand, the folio repairs the glaring de-
fects of the quarto versions of ' The Merry Wives of
Windsor' and of Henry V.' In the case of twenty
of the plays in the First Folio no quartos exist for com-
parison, and of these twenty plays, ' Coriolanus,' ' All's
Well,' and ' Macbeth ' present a text abounding in
corrupt passages.

The plays are arranged under three headings —

' Comedies,' ' Histories,' and ' Tragedies '-
of ther ' and each division is separately paged. The
plays. arrangement of the plays in each division
follows no principle. The comedy section begins

x 2

308 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

with the ' Tempest ' and ends with the ' Winter's
Tale.' The histories more justifiably begin with
'King John' and end with 'Henry VIII.' The
tragedies begin with ' Troilus and Cressida ' and end
with ' Cymbeline.' This order has been usually
followed in subsequent collective editions.

As a specimen of typography the First Folio is not
to be commended. There are a great many con-
Thetypo- temporary folios of larger bulk far more
graphy. neatly and correctly printed. It looks as
though Jaggard's printing office were undermanned.
The misprints are numerous and are especially
conspicuous in the pagination. The sheets seem to
have been worked off very slowly, and corrections
were made while the press was working, so that
the copies struck off later differ occasionally from
the earlier copies. One mark of carelessness on the
part of the compositor or corrector of the press, 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 mentioned at all in the table of
contents, and the play is unpaged except on its second
and third pages, which bear the numbers 79 and 80.

Three copies are known which are distinguished
by more interesting irregularities, in each case unique.
Unique The copy m the Lenox Library in New York
copies. includes a cancel duplicate of a leaf of ' As
You Like It ' (sheet R of the comedies), and the title-
page bears the date 1622 instead of 1623 ; but it is
suspected that the figures were tampered with outside
the printing office.1 Samuel Butler, successively head

1 This copy was described in the Variorum Shakespeare of 1821

BIBLIOGRAPHY 309

master of Shrewsbury and Bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry, possessed a copy of the First Folio in which
a proof leaf of ' Hamlet ' was bound up with the
corrected leaf.1

The most interesting irregularity yet noticed ap-
pears in one of the two copies of the book belonging
to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. This copy is known
as the Sheldon Folio, having formed in the seven-
teenth century part of the library of Ralph Sheldon
of Weston Manor in the parish of Long Compton,
Warwickshire.2 In the Sheldon Folio the opening
page of ' Troilus and Cressida,' of which the

The

Sheldon recto or front is occupied by the prologue
and the verso or back by the opening lines of
the text of the play, is followed by a superfluous leaf.
On the recto or front of the unnecessary leaf3 are
printed the concluding lines of ' Romeo and Juliet '
in place of the prologue to ' Troilus and Cressida.'
At the back or verso are the opening lines of Troi-
lus and Cressida ' repeated from the preceding page.

(xxi. 449) as in the possession of Messrs. J. and A. Arch, booksellers, of
Cornhill. It was subsequently sold at Sotheby's in 1855 for 1637. l6s.

1 I cannot trace the present whereabouts of this copy, but it is
described in the Variorum Shakespeare of 1821, xxi. 449-50.

2 The copy seems to have been purchased by a member of the
Sheldon family in 1628, five years after publication. There is a note
in a contemporary hand which says it was bought for 3/. 15^., a
somewhat extravagant price. The entry further says that it cost three
score pounds of silver, words that I cannot explain. The Sheldon
family arms are on the sides of the volume, and there are many
manuscript notes in the margin, interpreting difficult words, correcting
misprints, or suggesting new readings.

3 It has been mutilated by a former owner, and the signature of the
leaf is missing, but it was presumably G G 3.

310 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The presence of a different ornamental headpiece on
each page proves that the two are not taken from the
same setting of the type. At a later page in the Shel-
don copy the concluding 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 composi-
tion 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 Juliet' is in all copies numbered
79, an obvious misprint for 77 ; the first leaf of
' Troilus ' is paged 78 ; the second and third pages of
' Troilus ' are numbered 79 and 80. It was doubtless
suddenly determined 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 num-
bers on the opening pages which indicated its first
position were clumsily retained, and to avoid the exten-
sive typographical corrections that were required by
the play's change of position, its remaining pages were
allowed to go forth unnumbered.1

It is difficult to estimate how many copies survive
of the First Folio, which is intrinsically and extrinsi-
cally the most valuable volume in the whole range

1 Correspondents inform me that two copies of the First Folio, one
formerly belonging to Leonard Hartley and the other to Bishop Virtue
of Portsmouth, showed a somewhat similar irregularity. Both copies
were bought by American booksellers, and I have not been able lo trace
them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 311

of English literature. It seems that about 140 copies
Estimated have been traced within the past century.
extTnter°f Of these fewer than twenty are in a per-
copies. fect 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 in this enviable state are in the
Grenville Library at the British Museum, and in
the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of
Crawford, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and Mr. A. H.
Huth. Of these probably the finest and cleanest is the
' Daniel ' copy belonging to the Baroness Burdett-
Coutts. It measures 13 inches by 8£, and was pur-
chased by its present owner for 7i6/. 2s. at the sale
of George Daniel's library in 1864. Some twenty
more copies are defective in the preliminary pages,
but are unimpaired in other respects. There remain
about a hundred copies which have sustained serious
damage at various points.

A reprint of the First Folio unwarrantably pur-
porting to be exact was published in I8O7-8.1 The
best reprint was issued in three parts by
thePFirst° Lionel Booth in 1861, 1863, and 1864. The
valuable photo-zincographic reproduction
undertaken by Sir Henry James, under the direction
of Howard Staunton, was issued in sixteen folio parts
between February 1864 and October 1865. A reduced

1 Cf. Notes and Queries, 1st ser., vii. 47.

312 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

photographic facsimile, too small to be legible, appeared
in 1876, with a preface by Halliwell-Phillipps.

The Second Folio edition was printed in 1632 by
Thomas Cotes for Robert Allot and William Aspley,
each of whose names figures as publisher on different
The copies. To Allot Blount had transferred, on

Second November 16, 1630, his rights in the sixteen
plays which were first licensed for publica-
tion in I623.1 The Second Folio was reprinted from
the First ; a few corrections were made in the
text, but most of the changes were arbitrary and
needless. Charles I's copy is at Windsor, and
Charles I I's at the British Museum. The 'Perkins
Folio,' now in the Duke of Devonshire's possession,
in which John Payne Collier introduced forged emen-
dations, was a copy of that of i632.2 The Third
Folio — for the most part a faithful reprint of the
The Third Second — was first published in 1663 by Peter
Folio. Chetwynde, who reissued it next year with
the addition of seven plays, six of which have no

1 Arber, Stationers' Registers, iii. 242-3.

2 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 anno-
tated throughout by a former owner in the middle of the seventeenth
century. Shortly afterwards Collier published all the ' essential ' manu-
script readings in a volume entitled Notes and Emendations to the Plays
of Shakespeare. Next year he presented the folio to the Duke of
Devonshire. A warm controversy as to the date and genuineness of
the corrections followed, but in 1859 all doubt as to their origin was set
at rest by Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton of the manuscript department of
the British Museum, who in letters to the Times of July 2 and 16 pro-
nounced all the manuscript notes to be recent fabrications in a simulated
seventeenth -century hand.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 313

claim to admission among Shakespeare's works.
' Unto this impression,' runs the title-page of 1664,
1 is added seven Playes never before printed in folio,
viz. : Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The London Prodi-
gall. The History of Thomas Ld. Cromwell. Sir
John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow.
A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine.'
The six spurious pieces which open the volume were
attributed by unprincipled publishers to Shakespeare
in his lifetime. Fewer copies of the Third Folio are
reputed to be extant than of the Second or Fourth,
owing to the destruction of many unsold impressions in
The Fourth tne Fire of London in 1666. The Fourth
Foho. Folio, printed in 1685 ' for H. Herringman,
E. Brewster, R. Chiswell, and R. Bentley,' reprints the
folio of 1664 without change except in the way of
modernising the spelling; it repeats the spurious
pieces.

Since 1685 some two hundred independent

editions of the collected works have been published

in Great Britain and Ireland, and many

Eighteenth- '

century thousand editions of separate plays. The
eighteenth-century editors of the collected
works endeavoured with varying degrees of success
to purge the text of the numerous incoherences
of the folios, and to restore, where good taste or
good sense required it, the lost text of the contem-
porary quartos. It is largely owing to a due co-ordina-
tion of the results of the efforts of the eighteenth-
century editors by their successors in the present cen-
tury that Shakespeare's work has become intelligible

314 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

to general readers unversed in textual criticism, and
has won from them the veneration that it merits.1

Nicholas Rowe, a popular dramatist of Queen
Anne's reign, and poet laureate to George I., was the
first critical editor of Shakespeare. He produced an
edition of his plays in six octavo volumes in 1709.

A new edition in eight volumes followed in
Rowe, 1714, and another hand added a ninth

volume which included the poems. Rowe
prefixed a valuable life of the poet embodying
traditions which were in danger of perishing without
a record. His text followed that of the Fourth Folio.
The plays were printed in the same order, except
that he transferred the spurious pieces from the
beginning to the end. Rowe did not compare his
text with that 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 inserted at the end of the play the pro-
logue which is met with only in the quartos. He
made a few happy emendations, some of which
coincide accidentally with the readings of the First
Folio ; 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 list
of dramatis personate each play, to divide and number
acts and scenes on rational principles, and to mark the

1 The best account of eighteenth-century criticism of Shakespeare
is to be found in the preface to the Cambridge edition by Mr. Aldis
Wright. The memoirs of the various editors in the Dictionary of
National Biography supply useful information. I have made liberal
use of these sources in the sketch given in the following pages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 315

entrances and exits of the characters. Spelling, punc-
tuation, and grammar he corrected and modernised.

The poet Pope was Shakespeare's second editor.
His edition in six quarto volumes was completed in
1725. The poems, edited by Dr. George
Pope, Sewell, with an essay on the rise and pro-
gress of the stage, and a glossary, appeared
in a seventh volume. Pope had few qualifications
for the task, and the venture was a commercial
failure. In his preface Pope, while he fully re-
cognised Shakespeare's native genius, deemed his
achievement deficient in artistic quality. Pope
claimed to have collated the text of the Fourth Folio
with that of all preceding editions, and although his
work indicates that he had access to the First Folio
and some of the quartos, it is clear that his text
was based on that of Rowe. His innovations are.
numerous, and are derived from ' his private sense
and conjecture,' but they are often plausible and
ingenious. He was the first to indicate the place of
each new scene, and he improved on Rowe's subdivi-
sion of the scenes. 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.
There were few alterations in the text, though a pre-
liminary table supplied a list of twenty-eight quartos.
Other editions followed in 1735 and 1768. The last
was printed at Garrick's suggestion at Birmingham
from Baskerville's types.

Pope found a rigorous critic in Lewis Theobald, who,
although contemptible as a writer of original verse and

3l6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

prose, proved himself the most inspired of all the tex
tual critics of Shakespeare. Pope savagely
Theobald, avenged himself on his censor by holding him
up to ridicule as the hero of the ' Dunciad.'
Theobald first displayed his critical skill in 1726 in a
volume which deserves to rank as a classic in English
literature. 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 publish'd.' There at page 137
appears Theobald's great emendation in Shakespeare's
account of FalstafFs 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 Shakespeare in seven volumes. In 1740 it
reached a second issue. A third edition was pub-
lished in 1752. Others are dated 1772 and 1773. It
is stated that 12,860 copies in all were sold. Theobald
made the First Folio the basis of his text, although he
failed to adopt all the correct readings of that version,
but over 300 corrections or emendations which he
made in his edition have become part and parcel of
the authorised canon. Theobald's principles of textual
criticism were as enlightened as his practice was
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

BIBLIOGRAPHY 317

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.'
Theobald has every right to the title of the Person of
Shakespearean criticism.1 The following are favour-
able specimens of his insight. In ' Macbeth ' (I. vii. 6)
for 'this bank and school of time/ he substituted
the familiar ' bank and shoal of time.' In ' Antony
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 ' (ll. i. 59-60)
where Menenius asks the tribunes in the First Folio
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. purblind), a recognised Elizabethan
word which Shakespeare had already employed in
'Hamlet' (n. ii. 529).2

1 Mr. Churton Collins's admirable essay on Theobald's textual
criticism of Shakespeare, entitled ' The Person of Shakespearean Critics,'
is reprinted from the Quarterly Review in his Essays and Studies,
1895, pp. 263 et seq.

2 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? — (Coriolanns, HI. i 131-2.)

318 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The fourth editor was Sir Thomas Hanmer, a
country gentleman without much literary culture, but
sir possessing a large measure of mother wit.

Hanmer He was sPea^er in the House of Commons
1677-1746. for a few months in 1714, 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 typogra-
phical beauty, was printed at the Oxford University
Press in 1744 in six quarto volumes. It contained a
number of good engravings 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, Hanmer depended exclusively on his own
ingenuity. He made no recourse to the old copies.
The result was a mass of common-sense emendations,
some of which have been permanently accepted.1
Hanmer's. edition was reprinted in 1770-1.

In 1747 Bishop Warburton produced a revised
version of Pope's edition in eight volumes. Warbur-
Bishop ton was hardly better qualified for the task
torsos- tnan P°Pe> and such improvements as he
X779- introduced are mainly borrowed from

Theobald and Hanmer. On both these critics he
arrogantly and unjustly heaped abuse in his preface.
The Bishop was consequently criticised with appro-

1 A happy example of his shrewdness may be quoted from King
Lear, III. 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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 319

priate severity for his pretentious incompetence by
many writers ; among them, by Thomas Edwards,
whose ' Supplement to Warburton's Edition of Shake-
speare ' first appeared in 1747, and, having been re-
named l 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

three years later. Although he made some

Dr. John-
son, 1709- independent collation of the quartos, his

textual labours were slight, and his verbal
notes show little close knowledge of sixteenth and
seventeenth century literature. 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 indicate convincingly
Shakespeare's triumphs of characterisation.

The seventh editor, Edward Capell, advanced on
his predecessors in many respects. He was a clumsy
writer, and Johnson declared, with some
Capeii, justice, that he ' gabbled monstrously,' but
his collation of the quartos and the First and
Second Folios was conducted on more thorough and
scholarly methods than thoseof any of his predecessors
not excepting Theobald. His industry was untiring,
and he is said to have transcribed the whole of Shake-
speare ten times. Capell's edition appeared in ten
small octavo volumes in 1768. He showed himself
well versed in Elizabethan literature in a volume of
notes which appeared in 1774, and in three further

320 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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/ consisted of ' authentic
extracts from divers English books that were in print
in that author's time/ to which was appended ' Notitia
Dramatica ; or, Tables of Ancient Plays (from their
beginning to the Restoration of Charles II).'

George Steevens, whose saturnine humour involved
him in a lifelong series of literary quarrels with rival

students of Shakespeare, made invaluable
Steevens, contributions to Shakespearean study. In

1766 he reprinted twenty of the plays from
the quartos. Soon afterwards he revised Johnson's
edition without much assistance from the Doctor, and
his revision, which embodied numerous improvements,
appeared in ten volumes in 1773. It was long
regarded as the standard version. Steevens's anti-
quarian knowledge alike of Elizabethan history and
literature was greater than that of any previous
editor ; his citations of parallel passages from the
writings of Shakespeare's contemporaries, in elucida-
tion of obscure words and phrases, have not been ex-
ceeded in number or excelled in aptness by any of his
successors. All commentators of recent times are more
deeply indebted 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 poems, because, he wrote,
' the strongest Act of Parliament that could be framed
would fail to compel readers into their service.'1
1 Edition of 1793, vol. i. p. 7.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 321

The second edition of Johnson and Steevens's ver-
sion appeared in ten volumes in 1778. The third
edition, published in ten volumes in 1785, was re-
vised by Steevens's friend, Isaac Reed (1742-1807), a
scholar of his own type. The fourth and last edition,
published 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
those engaged in the same field. With a malignity
that was not without humour, he supplied, too, many
obscene 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 Collins, whose surnames were in each instance
appended. He had known and quarrelled with both.
Such proofs of his perversity justified the title which
Gifford applied to him of 'the Puck of Commen-
tators,'

Edmund Malone, who lacked Steevens's quick wit
and incisive style, was a laborious and amiable archaeo-
logist, without much ear for poetry or deli-
Edmund TT 1 1

Maione, cate literary taste. He threw abundance of
new light on Shakespeare's biography, and
on the chronology and sources of his works, while
his researches into the beginnings of the English
stage added a new chapter of first-rate importance to
English literary history. To Malone is due the first
rational ' attempt to ascertain the order in which the
plays attributed to Shakespeare were written.' His
earliest results on the topic were contributed to

322 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Steevens's edition of 1778. Two years later he
published, as a supplement to Steevens's work, two
volumes containing a history of the Elizabethan stage,
with reprints of Arthur Brooke's ' Romeus and Juliet,'
Shakespeare's Poems, and the 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 Dissertation 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 Shakespeare in ten
volumes, the first in two parts.

What is known among booksellers as the ' First
Variorum ' edition of Shakespeare was prepared by
Variorum Steevens's friend, Isaac Reed, after Steevens's
editions. death. It was based on a copy of Steevens's
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 1813.
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 1812, before it was completed. Boswell's
' Malone,' as the new work is often called, appeared
in twenty-one volumes in 1821. It is the most valu-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 323

able of all collective editions of Shakespeare's works,
but the three volumes of preliminary essays on Shake-
speare's biography and writings, and the illustrative
notes brought together in the final volume, are con-
fusedly arranged and are 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 under-
taken by Mr. H. Howard Furness of Philadelphia, and
eleven volumes have appeared since 1871 (' Romeo
and Juliet,' ' Macbeth,' ' Hamlet,' 2 vols., ' King Lear,'
< Othello,' ' Merchant of Venice,' ' As You Like It,'
' Tempest,' ' Midsummer Night's Dream,' and ' Win-
ter's Tale ').

Of nineteenth- century editors who have prepared
collective editions of Shakespeare's work with original
Nine- annotations those who have most successfully
SlJ-y pursued the great traditions of the eigh-
editors. teenth century are Alexander Dyce, Howard
Staunton, Nikolaus Delius, and the Cambridge editors
William George Clark (1821-1878) and Dr. Aldis
Wright.

Alexander Dyce was almost as well read as
Steevens in Elizabethan literature, and especially in
Alexander t^ie drama of the period, and his edition of

Dyoe> o, Shakespeare in nine volumes, which was

1798-1869. *•

first published in 1857, has many new and
valuable illustrative notes and a few good textual
emendations, as well as a useful glossary ; but Dyce's
annotations are not always adequate, and often tan-
talise the reader by their brevity. Howard Staunton's

v 2

324 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

edition first appeared in three volumes between 1 868

and 1870. He also was well read in con-
Howard
staunton, temporary literature and was an acute tex-

1 74' tual critic. His introductions bring together

much interesting stage history. Nikolaus Delius's

edition was issued at Elberfeld in seven vo-

Nikolaus •> ns -i-^ *•

Deiius, lumes between 1 8 54 and 1 86 1. Dehusstext
is formed on sound critical principles and is to
be trusted thoroughly. A fifth edition in two volumes
appeared in 1882. The Cambridge edition, which
The Cam- first appeared in nine volumes between 1863
edition an(^ ! 866, exhaustively notes the textual
1863-6. variations of all preceding editions, and
supplies the best and fullest apparatus criticus. (Of
new editions, one dated 1887 is also in nine volumes,
and another, dated 1893, in forty volumes.)

Other editors of the complete works of Shake-
speare of the nineteenth century whose labours,
although of some value, present fewer distinctive cha-
racteristics are: — William Harness (1825, 8 vols.) ;
Samuel Weller Singer (1826, 10 vols., printed at the
other Chiswick Press for William Pickering, illus-
ceneturVnth" trated b7 Stothard and others ; reissued in
editions. ^56 with essays by William Watkiss
Lloyd) ; Charles Knight, with discursive notes and
pictorial illustrations by F. W. Fairholt and others
(' Pictorial edition,' 8 vols., including biography
and the doubtful plays, 1838-43, often reissued
under different designations) ; Bryan Waller Procter,
i.e. Barry Cornwall (1839-43, 3 vols.) ; John
Payne Collier (1841-4, 8 vols.; another edition,

BIBLIOGRAPHY 325

8 vols., privately printed, 1878, 4to) ; Samuel
Phelps, the actor (1852-4, 2 vols.; another edition,
1882-4) ; J. O. Halliwell(i853-6i, 15 vols. folio, with
an encyclopaedic collection of annotations of earlier
editors and pictorial illustrations) ; Richard Grant
White (Boston, U.S.A., 1857-65, 12 vols.) ; W. J.
Rolfe (New York, 1871-96, 40 vols.) ; the Rev.
H. N. Hudson (the Harvard edition, Boston, 1881,
20 vols.) The latest complete annotated editions
published in this country are ' The Henry Irving
Shakespeare,' edited by F. A. Marshall and others —
especially useful for notes on stage history (8 vols.
1888-90) — and 'The Temple Shakespeare,' concisely
edited by Mr. Israel Gollancz(38 vols. I2mo, 1894-6).
Of one-volume editions of the unannotated text,
the best are the Globe, edited by W. G. Clark and
Dr. Aldis Wright (1864, and constantly reprinted —
since 1891 with a new and useful glossary); the
Leopold (1876, from the text of Delius, with preface
by Dr. Furnivall) ; and the Oxford, edited by Mr.
W. J. Craig (1894).

326 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION

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. There
were critics in his day who zealously championed the
ancient rules, and viewed with distrust any infringe-
ment of them. 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 faith-
fully echoed public opinion when they prefaced
the work with the note : ' This author's comedies are so
framed to the life that they serve for the most com-
mon commentaries of all actions of our lives, showing
such a dexterity and power of wit that the most dis-
pleased with plays are pleased with his comedies. . . .
So much and such savoured salt of wit is in his
comedies that they seem for their height of pleasure
to be born in the sea that brought forth Venus.'

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 327

Anticipating the final verdict, the editors of the
First Folio wrote, seven years after Shakespeare's
death : ' These plays have had their trial already
and stood out all appeals.' l Ben Jonson, the staunch-
est champion of classical canons, noted that Shake-
speare ' wanted art,' but he allowed him,
son's tri- in verses prefixed to the First Folio, the
first place among all dramatists, includ-
ing those of Greece and Rome, and claimed that
all Europe owed him homage :

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,

To whom all scenes [t. e. stages] of Europe homage owe.

He was not of an age, but for all time.

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 piled 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 lifelong monument.

A writer of fine insight who veiled himself under
the initials I. M. S. 2 contributed to the Second

1 Cf. the opening line of Matthew Arnold's Sonnet on Shake-
speare :

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

• These letters have been interpreted as standing for the inscription

In Memoriam Scriptoris ' as well as for the name of the writer. In the

latter connection, they have been variously and inconclusively read as

Jasper Mayne (Student), a young Oxford writer ; as John Marston

(Student or Satirist) ; and as John Milton (Senior or Student).

328 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Folio of 1632 a splendid eulogy. The opening lines
declare ' Shakespeare's freehold ' 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.

Milton and I. M. S. were followed within ten years
by critics of tastes so varied as the dramatist of
domesticity Thomas Heywood, the gallant lyrist Sir
John Suckling, the philosophic and ' ever-memorable '
John Hales of Eton, and the untiring versifier of the
stage and court, Sir William D'Avenant Before 1640
Hales 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

1 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 Venera-
tion paid his Excellence by men of unquestion'd parts as this I now
express of him, I shall give some account of what I 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 all 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

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 329

(in the 1640 edition of the 'Poems') asserted that
every revival of Shakespeare's plays drew crowds
to pit, boxes, and galleries alike. At a little later date,
Shakespeare's plays were the ' closet companions ' of
Charles I's ' solitudes.' ]

After the Restoration public taste in England
veered towards the French and classical dramatic
models.2 Shakespeare's work was subjected to some

unfavourable criticism as the product of
1660-1702. ...

nature to the exclusion of art, but the eclipse

proved more partial and temporary than is commonly
admitted. The pedantic censure of Thomas Rymer
on the score of Shakespeare's indifference to the
classical canons attracted attention, but awoke in
England no substantial echo. 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.' In Pepys's eyes ' The Tempest ' had ' no
great wit,' and ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' was
' the most insipid and ridiculous play ; yet this

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 adjudg'd to
Vail at least their Glory in that of the English Hero.'

1 Milton, Iconoclastes, 1690, pp. 9-10.

2 Cf. Evelyn's Diary, November 26, 1661 : ' I saw Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark, played, but now the old plays began to disgust
the refined age, since His Majesty's being so long abroad.'

33O WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

exacting critic witnessed thirty-six performances of
twelve of Shakespeare's plays between October n,
1660, and February 6, 1668-9, seeing 'Hamlet'
four times, and ' Macbeth,' which he admitted to be
' a most excellent play for variety,' nine times.
Dryden's Dryden, the literary dictator of the day,
view. repeatedly complained of Shakespeare's in-

equalities— 'he is the very Janus of poets.' l But in
almost the same breath Dryden declared that Shake-
speare was held in as much veneration among English-
men as ^Eschylus 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 anything, you more than see it —
you feel it too.' 2 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 GODFREY KNELLER.

Shakespear, 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
temperaments as Margaret Cavendish, duchess of

1 Conquest of Granada, 1672.

- Essay on Dramatic Poeste, 1668. Some interesting, if more
qualified, criticism by Dryden also appears in his preface to an adapta-
tion of ' Troilus and Cressida ' in 1679. 1° tne prologue to his and
D'Avenant's adaptation of ' The Tempest' in 1676, he wrote :

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be ;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 331

Newcastle, and Sir Charles Sedley vigorously argued
for Shakespeare's supremacy. As a girl the sober
duchess declares she fell in love with Shakespeare. In
her ' Sociable Letters,' which were published in 1664,
she enthusiastically, if diffusely, described how Shake-
speare creates the illusion that he had been ' trans-
formed into every one of those persons he hath
described,' and suffered all their emotions. When
she witnessed one of his tragedies she felt persuaded
that she was witnessing an episode in real life.
' Indeed,' she concludes, ' Shakespeare had a clear
judgment, a quick wit, a subtle observation, a deep
apprehension, and a most eloquent elocution.' The
profligate Sedley, in a prologue to the ' Wary Widdow,'
a comedy by one Higden, produced in 1693, 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.

Many adaptations of Shakespeare's plays were
contrived to meet current sentiment of a less admirable
type. But they failed efficiently to supersede the
originals. Dryden and D'Avenant converted ' The
Tempest ' into an opera (1670). D'Avenant single-
handed adapted 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' (1668) and
'Macbeth' (1674). Dryden dealt similarly
tion adap- with ' Troilus' (1679) ; Thomas Duffett with
'The Tempest' (1675); Shadwell with
'Timon' (1678); Nahum Tate with 'Richard II'
(i68i),'Lear'(i68i), and ' Coriolanus ' (1682); John

332 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Crowrie with 'Henry VI' (168 1) ; D'Urfey with 'Cym-
beline' (1682) ; Ravenscoft with ' Titus Andronicus '
(1687) ; Otway with ' Romeo and Juliet ' (1692), and
John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, with 'Julius
Caesar ' (1692). But during the same period the chief
actor of the day, Thomas Betterton, won his spurs as
the interpreter of Shakespeare's leading parts, often
in unrevised versions. Hamlet was accounted that
actor's masterpiece.1 ' No succeeding tragedy for
several years,' wrote Downes, the prompter at Better-
ton's theatre, ' got more reputation or money to the
company than this.'

From the accession of Queen Anne to the present
day the tide of Shakespeare's reputation, both on the
From 1702 stage and among critics, has flowed onward
onwards, almost uninterruptedly. The censorious
critic, John Dennis, in his ' Letters ' on Shakespeare's
' genius,' gave his work in 1711 whole-hearted com-
mendation, and two of the greatest men of letters of
the eighteenth century, Pope and Johnson, although
they did not withhold all censure, paid him, as we have
seen, the homage of becoming his editor. The school
of textual criticism which Theobald and Capell founded
in the middle years of the century has never ceased
its activity since their day.2 Edmund Malone's devo-
tion at the end of the eighteenth century to the bio-

1 Cf. Shakspere's Century of Praise, 1591-1693, New Shakspere
Soc., ed. Ingleby and Toulmin Smith, 1879 ; and Fresh Allusions, ed.
Furnivall, 1886.

- Cf. W. Sidney Walker, Critical Examination of the Text of
Shakespeare, \ 859.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 333

graphy of the poet and the contemporary history of
the stage, secured for him a vast band of disciples, of
whom Joseph Hunter and John Payne Collier well
deserve mention. But of all Malone's successors, James
Orchard Halliwell, afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps
(1820-1889), has made the most important additions
to our knowledge of Shakespeare's biography.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, there arose a third school to expound exclu-
sively the aesthetic excellence of the plays. In its in-
ception the aesthetic school owed much to the methods
of Schlegel and other admiring critics of Shakespeare
in Germany. But Coleridge in his ' Notes and Lec-
tures ' ' and Hazlitt in his ' Characters of Shake-
speare's Plays' (1817) are the best representatives
of the aesthetic school in this or any other country.
Although Professor Dowden. in his ' Shakespeare, his
Mind and Art ' ( 1 874), and Mr. Swinburne in his ' Study
of Shakespeare' (1880), are worthy followers, Coleridge
and Hazlitt remain as aesthetic critics unsurpassed. In
the effort to supply a fuller interpretation of Shake-
speare's works — textual, historical, and aesthetic — two
publishing societies have done much valuable work.
'The Shakespeare Society ' was founded in 1841 by
Collier, Halliwell, and their friends, and published
some forty-eight volumes before its dissolution in 1853.

1 See Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare and other Poets by S. T.
Coleridge, noiu first collected by T. A she, 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
Mudford, 1818 ; cf. Dykes Campbell's memoir of Coleridge, p. cv.) But
there is much to be said for Wordsworth's general view (see p. 344, note I ).

334 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The New Shakspere Society, which was founded by
Dr. Furnivall in 1874, issued during the ensuing
twenty years twenty-seven publications, illustrative
mainly of the text and of contemporary life and
literature.

In 1769 Shakespeare's 'jubilee' was celebrated
for three days (September 6-8) at Stratfords under
Stratford the direction of Garrick, Dr. Arne, and
festivals. Boswell. The festivities were repeated
on a small scale in April 1827 and April 1830.
' The Shakespeare tercentenary festival,' which was
held at Stratford from April 23 to May 4, 1864,
claimed to be a national celebration.1

On the English stage the name of every eminent

actor since Betterton, the great actor of the period

of the Restoration, has been identified

On the . . ,- t

English with Shakespearean parts. Steele, writing
in the 'Tatler' (No. 167) in reference to
Betterton's funeral in the cloisters of Westminster
Abbey on May 2, 1710, instanced his rendering of
Othello as proof of an unsurpassable talent in
realising Shakespeare's subtlest conceptions on the
stage. One great and welcome innovation in Shake-
spearean acting is closely associated with Betterton's
The first name. He encouraged the substitution, that
of aSresses was inaugurated by Killigrew, of women fo
in Shake- bOyS in female parts. The first role that was

spear ean

parts. professionally rendered by a woman in a
public theatre was that of Desdemona in ' Othello,'

1 R. E Hunter, Shakespeare and the Tercentenary Celebration
1864.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 335

apparently on December 8, I66O.1 The actress on
that occasion is said to have been Mrs. Margaret
Hughes, Prince Rupert's mistress ; but Betterton's wife,
who was at first known on the stage as Mrs. Saunder-
son, was the first actress to present a series of Shake-
speare's great female characters. Mrs. Betterton gave
her husband powerful support, from 1663 onwards, in
such roles as Ophelia, Juliet, Queen Catherine, 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 VIII 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 Shakespeare, 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 noto-
rious adaptation of ' Richard III,' which was first pro-
duced in 1 700, long held the stage to the exclusion of
the original version. But towards the middle of the
eighteenth century all earlier efforts to interpret
Shakespeare in the playhouse were eclipsed in public
esteem by the concentrated energy and intelligence
of David Garrick. Garrick's enthusiasm for the poet

1 Thomas Jordan, a very humble poet, wrote a prologue to notify
the new procedure, and referred to the absurdity of the old custom :

For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen
With bone so large and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call DESDEMONA, enter GIANT.

336 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 Restora-
tion defilements — cannot be allowed without serious
qualifications. Garrick had no scruple in presenting
plays of Shakespeare in versions that he or
Garrick, his friends had recklessly garbled. He sup-
1717 I779' plied ' Romeo and Juliet' with a happy
ending ; he converted the ' Taming of the Shrew ' into
the farce of ' Katherine and Petruchio,' 1754; he
introduced radical changes in ' Antony and Cleopatra,'
' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' ' Cymbeline,' and ' Mid-
summer Night's Dream.' Nevertheless, no actor has
won an equally exalted reputation in so vast and
varied a repertory of Shakespearean roles. His trium-
phant debut as Richard III in 1741 was followed by
equally successful performances of Hamlet, Lear,
Macbeth, King John, Romeo, Falconbridge, Othello,
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. Clive (1711-
1785), Mrs. Gibber (1714-1766), and Mrs. Pritchard
(1711-1 768). Mrs. Cibber as Constance in ' King John,'
and Mrs. Pritchard in Lady Macbeth, excited some-
thing 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 P-I797) for nearly half a century, from

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 337

1735 to 1785, gave many hundred performances of a
masterly rendering 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 the tragic significance of
the part with an effect that Garrick could not surpass.
Macklin was also reckoned successful in Polonius and
lago. John Henderson, the Bath Roscius (1747-1785),
who, like Garrick, was buried in Westminster Abbey,
derived immense popularity from his representation
of Falstaff; while in subordinate characters like
Mercutio, Slender, Jaques, Touchstone, and Sir Toby
Belch, John Palmer (i742?-i798) was held to ap-
proach perfection. But Garrick was the accredited
chief of the theatrical profession until his death. He
was then succeeded in his place of predominance by
John Philip Kemble, 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
John Shakespearean tragedy with a dignity that

Sbie, won the admiration of Pitt, Sir Walter
1757-1823. Scott, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt.
Coriolanus was regarded as his masterpiece, but his
renderings of Hamlet, King John, Wolsey, the Duke in
' Measure for Measure,' Leontes, and Brutus satisfied
the most exacting canons of contemporary

Mrs. Sarah , ... T_ 11, • •, .-

Siddons, theatrical criticism. Kemble s sister, Mrs.
I755~I 31- Siddons, was the greatest actress that Shake-
speare's countrymen have known. Her noble and

338 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

awe-inspiring presentation of Lady Macbeth, her
Constance, her Queen Katherine, have, according to
the best testimony, not been equalled even by the
achievements of the eminent actresses of France.

During the present century the most conspicuous
histrionic successes in Shakespearean drama have
been won by Edmund Kean, whose trium-
Kean, phant rendering of Shylock on his first ap-
17 7-1 33- pearance at Drury 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 impetuous passions. Besides Shylock, he ex-
celled in Richard III, Othello, Hamlet, and Lear. No
less a critic than Coleridge declared that to see him
act was like ' reading Shakespeare by flashes of
lightning.' Among other Shakespearean actors of
Kean's period a high place was allotted by public
esteem to George Frederick Cooke (1756-181 1), whose
Richard III, first given in London at Covent Garden
Theatre, October 31, 1801, was accounted his master-
piece. 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,5 and Lamb
gave with a fine enthusiasm in his ' Essays of Elia '
an analysis (which has become classical) of Bensley's
performance of Malvolio. But Bensley's powers were
rated more moderately by more experienced play-
goers.1 Lamb's praises of Mrs. Jordan (1762-1816)
in Ophelia, Helena, and Viola in ' Twelfth Night,' are

1 £ssqys of Elia, ed. Canon Ainger, pp. 180 et seq.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 339

corroborated by the eulogies of Hazlitt and Leigh
Hunt. In the part of Rosalind Mrs. Jordan is re-
ported on all sides to have beaten Mrs. Siddons out
of the field.

The torch thus lit by Garrick, by the Kembles,
by Kean and his contemporaries was worthily kept
alive by William Charles Macready, a cultivated and
conscientious actor, who, during a professional career
William of more than forty years (1810-1851), as-
Macready sumed every great part in Shakespearean
i793-i873- 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. Mac-
ready's chief associate in women characters was Helen
Faucit (now Lady Martin), whose refined impersona-
tions 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 paid by
Samuel Phelps (1804-1878), who gave during his
Recent tenure of Sadler's Wells Theatre between
revivals. 1844 and 1 862 competent representations of
all the plays save ' Troilus and Cressida ' and ' Titus
Andronicus.' Sir Henry Irving, who since 1878 has
been ably seconded by Miss Ellen Terry, has revived
at the Lyceum Theatre between 1 874 and the present
time eleven plays (' Hamlet,' ( Macbeth,' ' Othello,'
' Richard III," The Merchant of Venice,' ' Much Ado
about Nothing,' ' Twelfth Night,' ' Romeo and Juliet,'
'King Lear,' 'Henry VIII,' and ' Cymbeline '), and

Z 2

340 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

has given each of them all the advantage they can
derive from thoughtful acting as well as from lavish
scenic elaboration.1 But theatrical revivals of plays
of Shakespeare are in England intermittent, and no
theatrical manager since Phelps's retirement has
sought systematically to illustrate on the stage the
full range of Shakespearean drama. Far more in
this direction has been attempted in Germany.2
In one respect 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 representations of Shake-
speare, a growing public sentiment in England and
elsewhere has for many years favoured as loyal an
adherence to the authorised version of the plays as
is practicable on the part of theatrical managers ; and
the evil traditions of the stage which sanctioned the
perversions of the eighteenth century are happily well-
nigh extinct.

Music and art in England owe much to Shake-
speare's influence. From Thomas Morley, Purcell,
in music Matthew Locke, and Arne to William
and art. Linley, Sir Henry Bishop, and Sir Arthur
Sullivan, every distinguished musician has sought to
improve on his predecessor's setting of one or more
of Shakespeare's songs, or has composed concerted

1 Hamlet in 1874-5 and Macbeth in 1888-9 were eacn 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. '-' See p. 346.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 341

music in illustration of some of his dramatic themes.1
In art, the publisher John Boydell organised in 1787
a scheme for illustrating scenes in Shakespeare's work
by the greatest living English artists. Some fine
pictures were the result. A hundred and sixty-eight
were painted in all, and the artists, whom Boydell
employed, included Sir Joseph Reynolds, George
Romney, Thomas Stothard, John Opie, Benjamin
West, James Barry, and Henry Fuseli. All the pictures
were exhibited from time to time between 1789 and
1 804 at a gallery specially built for the purpose in
Pall Mall, and in 1802 Boydell published a collection of
engravings of the chief pictures. The great series of
paintings was dispersed by auction in 1805. Few emi-
nent artists of later date, from Daniel Maclise to Sir
John Millais, have lacked the ambition to interpret
some scene or character of Shakespearean drama.

In America no less enthusiasm for Shakespeare

has been manifested than in England. Editors and

critics are hardly less numerous there, and

In America. ...

some criticism from American pens, like that
of James Russell Lowell, has reached the highest
literary level. Nowhere, perhaps, has more labour
been devoted to the study of his works than that
given by Mr. H. H. Furness of Philadelphia to the
preparation of his ' New Variorum ' edition. The
Barton collection of Shakespeareana in the Boston
Public Library is one of the most valuable extant,
and the elaborate catalogue (1878-80) contains some

1 Cf. Alfred Roffe, Shakspere Music, 1878 ; Songs in Shakspert
. . . set to MHSJ'C, 1884, New Shakspere Soc.

342 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

2,500 entries. First of Shakespeare's plays to be
represented in America, ' Richard III ' was performed
in New York in March 1750. More recently Edwin
Forrest, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Booth, Charlotte
Cushman, and Miss Ada Rehan have maintained
on the American stage the great traditions of Shake-
spearean acting ; while Mr. E. A. Abbey has devoted
high artistic gifts to pictorial representation of scenes
from the plays.

The Bible, alone of literary compositions, has been
translated more frequently or into a greater number
Transia- °f languages than the works of Shakespeare,
tions. The progress of his reputation in Germany,
France, Italy, and Russia was somewhat slow at the
outset. But in Germany the poet has received for
nearly a century and a half a recognition scarcely less
pronounced than that accorded him in America and in
his own country. Three of Shakespeare's plays, now
in Ger- m tne Zurich Library, were brought thither
many. j-,y j R Hess from England in 1614. As early
as 1626 ' Hamlet,' ' King Lear,' and ' Romeo and Juliet '
were acted at Dresden, and a version of the ' Taming
of The Shrew ' was played there and elsewhere at the
end of the seventeenth century. But such mention
of Shakespeare as is found in German literature
between 1640 and 1740 only indicates a knowledge
on the part of German readers either of Dryden's
criticisms or of the accounts of him printed in English
encyclopaedias.1 The earliest sign of a direct acquaint-

1 Cf. D.G.ltf.oi\io&,Unterrichtvonde}-tetitschenSjt>rache nitd Poesie,
Kiel, 1682, p. 250.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 343

ance with the plays is a poor translation of ' Julius
Caesar' into German by Baron C. W. von Borck,
formerly Prussian minister in London, which was pub-
lished at Berlin in 1741. A worse rendering of Romeo
and Juliet' followed in 1758. Meanwhile J. C. Gott-
sched ( 1 700-66), an influential man of letters, warmly
denounced Shakespeare in a review of Von Borck's
effort in ' Beitrage zur deutschen Sprache ' and else-
where. Lessing came without delay to Shakespeare's
rescue, and set his reputation, in the estimation of the
German public, on that exalted pedestal which it has
not ceased to occupy. It was in 1759, in a journal
entitled ' Litteraturbriefe,' that Lessing first claimed
for Shakespeare superiority, not only to the French
dramatists Racine and Corneille, who hitherto had
dominated European taste, but to all ancient or
modern poets. Lessing's doctrine, which he developed
in his ' Hamburgische Dramaturgic ' (Hamburg, 1767,
2 vols. 8vo), was at once accepted by the poet
Johann Gottfried Herder in the ' Blatter von deutschen
Art und Kunst,' 1771. Christopher Martin Wieland
(1733-1813) in 1762 began a prose translation which
Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1743-1820) completed
(Zurich, 13 vols., 1775-84). Between 1797 and 1833
there appeared at intervals the classical German render-
ing by August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Ludwig
Tieck, leaders of the romantic school of

German

transia- German literature, whose creed embodied, as
one of its first articles, an unwavering venera-
tion for Shakespeare. Schlegel translated only seven-
teen plays, and his workmanship excels that of the

344 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

rest of the translation. Tieck's part in the undertak-
ing was mainly confined to editing translations by
various hands. Many other German translations in
verse were undertaken during the same period — 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 andM. Rapp
(Stuttgart, 1 843-6). The best of more recent German
translations is that by a band of poets and eminent men
of letters including Friedrich von Bodenstedt, Ferdi-
nand Freiligath, and Paul Heyse (Leipzig, 1867-71, 38
vols.) Most of these versions have been many times
reissued, but, despite the high merits of von Bodenstedt
and his companions' performance, Schlegel and Tieck's
achievement still holds the field. Schlegel's lectures on
' Shakespeare and the Drama,' which were delivered
at Vienna in 1 808, and were translated into English
in 1 815, are worthy of comparison with those of Cole-
ridge, who owed much to their influence. Wordsworth
in 1815 declared that Schlegel and his disciples first
marked out the right road in aesthetic criticism, and
enjoyed at the moment superiority over all English
aesthetic critics of Shakespeare.1 Subsequently Goethe

1 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
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 com-
pensated by great beauties." How long may it be before this misconcep-
tion passes away and it becomes universally acknowledged that the judg-
ment of Shakespeare ... is not less admirable than his imagination ? . . .'

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 345

poured forth, in his voluminous writings, a mass of
criticism even more illuminating and appreciative
than Schlegel's.1 Although Goethe deemed Shake-
speare's works unsuited to the stage, he adapted
' Romeo and Juliet ' for the Weimar Theatre, while
Schiller prepared ' Macbeth ' (Stuttgart, 1 801 ). Heine
published in 1838 charming studies of Shakespeare's
heroines (English translation 1895), and acknowledged
only one defect in Shakespeare — that he was an
Englishman.

During the last half-century textual, aesthetic, and
biographical criticism has been pursued in Germany
with unflagging industry and energy ; and although
laboured and supersubtle theorising characterises
much German aesthetic criticism, its mass and variety
testify to the impressiveness of the appeal that Shake-
speare's work has made to the German

Modern •

German intellect. The vain effort to stem the current

writers °n

Shake- of Shakespearean worship made by the
dramatist, J. R. Benedix, in ' Die Shakespearo-
manie ' (Stuttgart, 1873, 8vo), stands practically alone.
In studies of the text and metre Nikolaus Delius
(1813-1888) should, among recent German writers, be
accorded the first place ; in studies of the biography
and stage history Friedrich Karl Elze (1821-1889) ;
in aesthetic studies Friedrich Alexander Theodor
Kreyssig (1818-1879), author of 'Vorlesungen liber
Shakespeare' (Berlin, 1858 andi874), and ' Shake-
speare- Fragen ' (Leipzig, 1871). Ulrici's 'Shake-
speare's Dramatic Art' (first published at Halle in

Cf. Wilhelm Meister.

346 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1 839) and Gervinus's Commentaries (first published at
Leipzig in 1848-9), both of which are familiar in
English translations, are suggestive but unconvincing
aesthetic interpretations. The German Shakespeare
Society, which was founded at Weimar in 1865, has
published thirty-tour year-books (edited successively
by von Bodenstedt, Delius, Elze, and F. A. Leo) ;
each contains useful contributions to Shakespearean
study.

Shakespeare has been no less effectually nationa-
lised on the German stage. The three great actors —
OntheGer- Frederick Ulrich Ludwig Schroeder (1744-
man stage. ^16) of Hamburg, Ludwig Devrient (1784-
1832), and his nephew Gustav Emil Devrient (1803-
1872) — largely derived their fame from their suc-
cessful assumptions of Shakespearean characters.
Another of Ludwig Devrient's nephews, Eduard
(1801-1877), also an actor, prepared, with his son
Otto, an acting German edition (Leipzig, 1873 and
following years). An acting edition by Wilhelm
Oechelhaeuser appeared previously at Berlin in 1871.
Twenty-eight of the thirty-seven plays assigned to
Shakespeare are now on recognised lists of German
acting plays, including all the histories.1 In 1895 as
many as 706 performances of twenty-five of Shake-
speare's plays were given in German theatres.2 In
1896 no fewer than 910 performances were given of
twenty-three plays. In 1 897 performances of twenty-
four plays reached a total of 930 — an average of

1 Cf. Jahrbuch der Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft for 1894.

2 Ibid. 1896, p. 438.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 347

nearly three Shakespearean representations a day in
the German-speaking districts of Europe.1 It is not
only in capitals like Berlin and Vienna that the
representations are frequent and popular. In towns
like Altona, Breslau, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Ham-
burg, Magdeburg, and Rostock, Shakespeare is acted
constantly and the greater number of his dramas is
regularly kept in rehearsal. ' Othello,' ' Hamlet,'
' Romeo and Juliet,' and ' The Taming of the Shrew '
usually prove most attractive. Of the many German
musical composers who have worked on Shake-
spearean themes, Mendelssohn (in ' Midsummer Night's
Dream '), 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 Ber-

gerac (1619-1655) plagiarised ' Cymbeline,'

' Hamlet,' and ' The Merchant of Venice' in

his ' Agrippina.' About 1680 Nicolas Clement,

Louis XIV's librarian, allowed Shakespeare imagina-

' The exact statistics for 1896 and 1897 were : 'Othello,' acted
135 and 121 times for the respective years ; ' Hamlet,' 102 and 91 ;
' Romeo and Juliet,' 95 and 118 ; ' Taming of the Shrew,' 91 and 92 ;
' The Merchant of Venice,' 84 and 62 ; ' A Midsummer Night's Dream,'
68 and 92 ; ' A Winter's Tale,' 49 and 65 ; ' Much Ado about Nothing,'
47 and 32 ; ' Lear,' 41 and 34 ; 'As You Like It,' 37 and 29 ;
' Comedy of Errors,' 29 and 43 ; 'Julius Caesar,' 27 and 29 ; ' Mac-
beth,' 10 and 12; ' Timon of Athens,' 7 and o; 'The Tempest,' 5
and I ; ' Antony and Cleopatra,' 2 and 4 ; ' Coriolanus,' o and 20 ;
' Cymbeline,' o and 4 ; ' Richard II,' 15 and 5 ; ' Henry IV,' Part I,
26 and 23, Part II, 6 and 13 ; ' Henry V,' 4 and 7 ; ' Henry VI,' Part
I, 3 and 5, Part II, 2 and 2 ; ' Richard III,' 25 and 26 (Jahrbuch der
Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft for 1897, pp. 306 seq., and for 1898,
pp. 440 seq.)

348 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

tion, natural thoughts, and ingenious expression, but
deplored his obscenity.1 Haifa century elapsed before
public attention in France was again directed to Shake-
speare.2 The Abbe Prevost, in his periodical ' Le Pour
et Centre' (1733 et seq.), acknowledged his power.
But it is to Voltaire that his countrymen owe, as he him-
self boasted, their first effective introduction to Shake-
speare. Voltaire studied Shakespeare thoroughly on
his visit to England between 1726 and 1729, and his
influence is visible in his own dramas. In his ' Lettres
Philosophiques ' (1731), afterwards reissued as ' Lettres
sur les Anglais,' 1734 (Nos. xviii. and xix.), and in
his ' Lettre sur la Tragedie ' (1731), he expressed
admiration for Shakespeare's genius, but attacked his
Voltaire'^ want °f taste and art. He described him as
strictures. < \e Corneille de Londres, grand fou d'ailleurs
mais il a des morceaux admirables.' Writing to the
Abbe des Fontaines in November 1735, Voltaire
admitted many merits in ' Julius Caesar,' on which he
published ' Observations ' in 1764. Johnson replied to
Voltaire's general criticism in the preface to his edition
(1765), and Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu in 1769 in a sepa-
rate volume, which was translated into French in
1777. Diderot made, in his ' Encylopedie,' the first
stand in France against the Voltairean position, and
increased opportunities of studying Shakespeare's
works increased the poet's vogue. Twelve plays were
translated in De la Place's ' Theatre Anglais '

1 Jusserand, A French Ambassador, p. 56.

2 Cf. Al. Schmidt, Voltairfs Verdienst von der Einfiihrung
Shakespeare's in Frankreich, Konigsberg, 1864.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 349

(1745-8). Jean-Francois Duels (1733-1816) adapted
without much insight six plays for the French stage,
beginning in 1769 with ' Hamlet,' his version of which
was acted with applause. In 1776 Pierre Le Tourneur
began a bad prose translation (completed in 1782) of all
Shakespeare's plays, and declared him to be ' the god
of the theatre.' Voltaire protested against this estimate
in a new remonstrance consisting of two letters, of
which the first was read before the French Academy
on August 25, 1776. Here Shakespeare was de-
scribed as a barbarian, whose works — ' a huge dung-
hill ' — concealed some pearls.

Although Voltaire's censure 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 only gradually effaced. Mar-
montel,La Harpe, Marie- Joseph Chenier, and Chateau-
briand, in his 'Essai sur Shakespeare,' 1 80 1, inclined
French to Voltaire's view ; but Madame de Stael
critics' wrote effectively on the other side in her

gradual

emantipa- ' De la Littcrature,' 1804 (Leaps. 13, 14, ii.
Voitairean $)• ' At this day,' wrote Wordsworth in
influence. ! 8 x 5 ? « the French critics have abated nothing
of their aversion to " this darling of our nation." " The
English 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 advan-
tage which the Parisian critic owed to his German

350 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

blood and German education.' 1 The revision of Le
Tourneur's translation by Francois Guizot and A.
Pichot in 1821 gave Shakespeare a fresh advantage.
Paul Duport, in ' Essais Littdraires sur Shakespeare '
(Paris, 1828, 2 vols.), was the last French critic of
repute to repeat Voltaire's censure unreservedly.
Guizot, in his discourse ' Sur la Vie et les CEuvres de
Shakespeare' (reprinted separately from the translation
of 1821), as well as in his ' Shakespeare et son Temps '
(1852) ; Villemain in a general essay,2 and Barantein
a study of ' Hamlet,' 3 acknowledge the mightiness of
Shakespeare's genius with comparatively few qualifi-
cations. Other complete translations followed — by
Francisque Michel (1839), by Benjamin Laroche
(1851), and by Emil Montegut (1867), but the best
is that in prose by Francois Victor Hugo (1859-66),
whose father, Victor Hugo the poet, published a
rhapsodical eulogy in 1 864. Alfred Mezieres's ' Shake-
speare, ses QEuvres et ses Critiques' (Paris, 1860),
is a saner appreciation.

Meanwhile ' Hamlet ' and ' Macbeth,' ' Othello,'
and a few other Shakespearean plays, became stock
pieces on the French stage. A powerful
French impetus to theatrical representation of Shake-
speare in France was given by the perform-
ance in Paris of the chief plays by a strong company

1 Frederic Melchior, Baron Grimm (1723-1807), for some years a
friend of Rousseau and the correspondent of Diderot and the encyclo-
pedistes, scattered many appreciative references to Shakespeare in his
voluminous Correspondance Litteraire Philosophiqtte et Critique, extend-
ing over the period 1753-1770, the greater part of which was published
in 16 vols. 1812-13.

2 Melanges Historiques, 1827, iii. 141-87.

3 Ibid. 1824, iii. 217-34.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 351

of English actors in the autumn of 1827. ' Hamlet '
and ' Othello ' were acted successively by Charles
Kemble and Macready ; Edmund Kean appeared
as Richard III, Othello, and Shylock ; Miss Smith-
son, who became the wife of Hector Berlioz the musi-
cian, filled the roles of Ophelia, Juliet, Desdemona,
Cordelia, and Portia. French critics were divided as
to the merits of the performers, but most of them
were enthusiastic in their commendations of the plays.1
Alfred de Vigny prepared a version of ' Othello ' for
the Theatre-Fran^ais in 1829 with eminent success.
An adaptation of ' Hamlet ' by Alexandre Dumas
was first performed in 1 847, and a rendering by the
Chevalier de Chatelain (1864) was often repeated.
George Sand translated ' As You Like It ' (Paris, 1856)
for representation by the Comedie Franchise on
April 12, 1856. 'Lady Macbeth' has been repre-
sented in recent years by Madame Sarah Bernhardt,
and ' Hamlet ' by M. Mounet Sully of the Theatre-
Fran^ais.2 Four French musicians — Berlioz in his
symphony of ' Romeo and Juliet,' Gounod in his
opera of ' Romeo and Juliet,' Ambroise Thomas
in his opera of ' Hamlet,' and Saint-Saens in his
opera of ' Henry VIII ' — have sought with public

1 Very interesting comments on these performances appeared day
by day in the Paris newspaper Le Globe. They were by Charles Magnin,
who reprinted them in his Catiseries et Meditations Historiques et
Litteraires (Paris, 1843, ii. 62 et seq.)

- Cf. Lacroix, Histoire de F Influence, de Shakespeare stir le Theatre
Francais, 1867 ; Edinburgh Review, 1849, pp. 39-77 ; Elze, Essays,
pp. 193 sq. ; M. Jusserand, Shakepseare en France sous PAneien
Regime, Paris, 1898.

352 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

approval to interpret musically portions of Shake-
speare's work.

In Italy Shakespeare was little known before the
present century. Such references as eighteenth-cen-
tury Italian writers made to him were based
on remarks by Voltaire.1 The French adap-
tation of ' Hamlet ' by Ducis was issued in Italian
blank verse (Venice, 1774, 8vo). Complete trans-
lations of all the plays made direct from the English
were issued by Michele Leoni in verse at Verona in
1819-22, and by Carlo Rusconi in prose at Padua
in 1831 (new edit. Turin, 1858-9). 'Othello' and
'Romeo and Juliet' have been very often translated
into Italian separately. The Italian actors, Madame
Ristori (as Lady Macbeth), Salvini (as Othello), and
Rossi rank among Shakespeare's most effective inter-
preters. Verdi's operas on Macbeth, Othello, and
Falstaff (the last two with libretti by Boito), manifest
close and appreciative study of Shakespeare.

Two complete translations have been published in

Dutch ; one in prose by A. S. Kok (Amsterdam 1 873-

1880), the other in verse by Dr. L. A. J.

In Holland.

Burgersdijk (Leyden, 1884-8, 12 vols.)

In Eastern Europe, Shakespeare first became

known through French and German translations.

Into Russian 'Romeo and Juliet' was translated in

1772, 'Richard III' in 1783, and 'Julius Caesar 'in

1786. Sumarakow translated Ducis' version

In Russia.

of 'Hamlet in 1784 for stage purposes,
while the Empress Catherine II adapted the 'Merry

1 Cf. Giovanni Andres, DelC Ortgine, Progressi e Stalo attuale
d' ogni Lttteraiura, 1782.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 353

Wives ' and ' King John.' Numerous versions of all
the chief plays followed ; and in 1865 there appeared
at St. Petersburg the best translation in verse (direct
from the English), by Nekrasow and Gerbel. A prose
translation, by N. Ketzcher, begun in 1862, was com-
pleted in 1879. Gerbel issued a Russian translation
of the 'Sonnets' in 1880, and many critical essays in
the language, original or translated, have been pub-
lished. Almost every play has been represented in
Russian on the Russian stage.1

A Polish version of ' Hamlet ' was acted at Lem-

berg in 1797 ; and as many as sixteen plays now

hold a recognised place among Polish acting

In Poland.

plays. The standard Polish translation of
Shakespeare's collected works appeared at Warsaw
in 1875 (edited by the Polish poet Kraszewski), and
is reckoned among the most successful renderings in
a foreign tongue.

In Hungary, Shakespeare's greatest works have
since the beginning of the century been highly
In appreciated by students and by playgoers.
Hungary. ^ complete translation into Hungarian
appeared at Kaschau in 1824. At the National
Theatre at Budapest no fewer than twenty-two plays
have been of late years included in the actors'
repertory.2

1 Cf. New Shaksp. Soc. Trans. 1880-5, pt. ii. 431 seq.

2 Cf. Ungarische Revue (Budapest) Jan. 1881, pp. 8 1 -2; and
August Greguss's Shakspere . . . elso kbtet: Shakspere pdlydja
Budapest, 1880 (an account in Hungarian of Shakespeare's Life and
Works).

A A

354 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Other complete translations have been published
in Bohemian (Prague 1874), in Swedish (Lund, 1847-
inother 185 1), in Danish (1845-1850), and Finnish
countries. (Helsingfors, 1892-5). In Spanish a com-
plete translation is in course of publication (Madrid,
1885 et seq.), and the eminent Spanish critic MeneYidez
y Pelayo has set Shakespeare above Calderon. In
Armenian, although only three plays (' Hamlet/
' Romeo and Juliet,' and ' As You Like It ') have
been issued, the translation of the whole is ready for
the press. Separate plays have appeared in Welsh,
Portuguese, Friesic, Flemish, Servian, Roumanian,
Maltese, Ukrainian, Wallachian, Croatian, modern
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Japanese; while a few have
been rendered into Bengali, Hindustani, Marathi,1
Gujarati, Urdu, Kanarese, and other languages of
India, and have been acted in native theatres.

1 Cf. Macmillarfs Magazine, May 1 880.

355

XXI

GENERAL ESTIMATE

No estimate of Shakespeare's genius can be
adequate. In knowledge of human character, in
General wealth of humour, in depth of passion, in
estimate. fertility of fancy, and in soundness of judg-
ment, he has no rival. It is true of him, as of no
other writer, that his language and versification adapt
themselves to every phase of sentiment, and sound
every note in the scale of felicity. Some defects
are to be acknowledged, but they sink into insignifi-
cance when measured by the magnitude of his
achievement. Sudden transitions, elliptical expres-
sions, mixed metaphors, indefensible verbal quibbles,
and fantastic conceits at times create an atmosphere
of obscurity. The student is perplexed, too, by obso-
lete words and by some hopelessly corrupt readings.
But when the whole of Shakespeare's vast work is
scrutinised with due attention, the glow of his magina-
tion is seen to leave few passages wholly unillumined.
Some of his plots are hastily constructed and incon-
sistently developed, but the intensity of the interest
with which he contrives to invest the personality of
his heroes and her ines triumphs over halting or

A A 2

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

digressive treatment of the story in which they have
their being. Although he was versed in the techni-
calities of stagecraft, he occasionally disregarded its
elementary conditions. But the success of his pre-
sentments of human life and character depended
little on his manipulation of theatrical machinery.
His unassailable supremacy springs from the versatile
working of his insight and intellect, 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's mind, as Hazlitt suggested, con-
tained within itself the germs of all faculty and feeling.
He knew intuitively how every faculty and feeling
would develop in any conceivable change of fortune.
Men and women — good or bad, old or young, wise
or foolish, merry or sad, rich or poor — yielded their
secrets to him, and his genius enabled him to give
being in his pages to all the shapes of humanity that
present themselves on the highway of life. Each
of his characters gives voice to thought or passion
with an individuality and a naturalness that rouse
in the intelligent playgoer and reader the

Character J fe

of Shake- illusion that they are overhearing men and
achieve3- women speak unpremeditatingly among
ment themselves, rather than that they are read-
ing written speeches or hearing written speeches
recited. The more closely the words are studied,
the completer the illusion grows. Creatures of the
imagination — fairies, ghosts witches— are delineated
with a like potency, and the reader or spectator

GENERAL ESTIMATE 357

feels instinctively that these supernatural entities
could not speak, feel, or act otherwise than Shake-
speare 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
limitations of nationality, and in every quarter of the
Its globe to which civilised life has penetrated

rec'ognu1 Shakespeare's power is recognised. All the
don. world over, language is applied to his crea-

tions that 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 civilised tongue
as if they were historic personalities, and the chief
of the impressive phrases that fall from their lips are
rooted in the speech of civilised humanity. To
Shakespeare the intellect of the world, speaking
in divers accents, applies with one accord his own
words : ' How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty !
in apprehension how like a god ! '

APPENDIX

THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.

THE scantiness of contemporary records of Shakespeare's career
has been much exaggerated. An investigation extending over
Contem two centuries has brought together a mass of detail
rary records which far exceeds that accessible in the case of any

other contemporary professional writer. Nevertheless,
some important links are missing, and at some critical points
appeal to conjecture is inevitable. But the fully ascertained
facts are numerous enough to define sharply the general direc-
tion that Shakespeare's career followed. Although the clues
are in some places faint, the trail never altogether eludes the
patient investigator.

Fuller, in his 'Worthies' (1662), attempted the first bio-
graphical notice of Shakespeare, with poor results. Aubrey,

in his gossiping ' Lives of Eminent Men,' 1 based his
efforts in ampler information on reports communicated to him
biography. by \villiam Beeston (d. 1682), an aged actor, whom
Dryden called ' the chronicle of the stage,' and who was doubt-
less in the main a trustworthy witness. A few additional details
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. C. A. Severn, 1839) ; by the Rev. William

1 Compiled between 1669 and 1696; first printed in Letters from the Bodleian
Library, 1813, and admirably re-edited for the Clarendon Press during the present
year by the Rev. Andrew Clark (2 vols.)

362 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Fulman, whose manuscripts are at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford (with valuable interpolations made before 1708 by the
Rev. Richard Davies, vicar of Saperton, Gloucestershire) ; by
John Dowdall, 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 Langbaine 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 unrecorded Stratford and London
traditions with which the actor Thomas Betterton supplied
him. A little 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 ot
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

Biographers- . , , ... ,

of the nine- systematic researches among the parochial records
'entur °^ Stratford, the manuscripts accumulated by the

actor Alleyn at Dulwich, and official 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. John Payne Collier, in his ' History of
English Dramatic Poetry' (1831), in his 'New Facts' about
Shakespeare (1835), his 'New Particulars' (1836), and his
' Further Particulars' (1839), and in his editions of Henslowe's
' Diary' and the 'Alleyn Papers' for the Shakespeare Society,
while occasionally throwing some further light on obscure
places, foisted on Shakespeare's biography a series of ingeniously
forged documents which have greatly perplexed succeeding
biographers.1 Joseph Hunter in ' New Illustrations of Shake-
speare" (1845) and George Russell French's ' Shakespeareana

1 See pp. 367-8.

SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE 363

Genealogica' (1869) occasionally supplemented Malone's re-
searches. James Orchard Halliwell ( afterwards Halliwell-
Phillipps) printed separately, between 1850 and 1884, in various
privately issued publications, all the Stratford archives and
extant legal documents bearing on Shakespeare's career, many
of them for the first time. In 1881 Halliwell-Phillipps began the
collective publication of materials for a full biography in his
' Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare ; ' this work was generously
enlarged in successive editions until it acquired massive propor-
tions ; in the fourth and last edition of 1887 it numbered near
1,000 pages. Mr. Frederick Card Fleay, in his 'Shakespeare
Manual' (1876), in his 'Life of Shakespeare' (1886), in his
' History of the Stage' (1890), and his 'Biographical Chronicle
of the English Drama' (1891), adds much useful 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 unfortunately many of Mr. Fleay's statements and conjec-
tures are unauthenticated. For notices of Stratford, R. B.
Wheler's 'History and Antiquities' (1806), John R. Wise's
' Shakespere, his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood '

Stratford , 0 . . , . , _ r .b

topo- (1861), the present writers ' Stratford-on-Avon to

graphy. the Death of Shakespeare' (1890), and Mrs. C. C.
Stopes's 'Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries' (1897),
may be consulted. Wise appends to his volume a tentative
' glossary of words still used in Warwickshire to be found in
Shakspere.' The parish registers of Stratford have been edited
by Mr. Richard Savage for the Parish Registers Society (1898-9).
Nathan Drake's 'Shakespeare and his Times' (1817) and
G. W. Thornbury's 'Shakespeare's England' (1856) collect
much material respecting Shakespeare's social environment.

The chief monographs on special points in Shakespeare's
biography are Dr. Richard Fanner's ' Essay on the Learning of
Specialised Shakespeare' (1767), reprinted in the Variorum
studies in editions ; Octavius Gilchrist's ' Examination of the
biography, charges .... of Ben Jonson's Enmity towards
Shakespeare' (1808) ; W. J. Thoms's 'Was Shakespeare ever
a Soldier?' (1849), a study based on an erroneous identification
of the poet with another William Shakespeare ; Lord Campbell's

364 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements considered' (1859); John
Charles BucknilFs ' Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare' (1860) ;
C. F. Green's ' Shakespeare's Crab-Tree, with its Legend' (1862) ;

C. H. Bracebridge's 'Shakespeare no Deer-stealer' (1862);
William Blades's 'Shakspere and Typography' (1872); and

D. H. Madden's ' Diary of Master William Silence (Shakespeare
and Sport),' 1897. A full epitome of the biographical informa-
tion accessible at the date of publication is supplied in Karl

Elze's 'Life of Shakespeare ' (Halle, 1876; English
tomes1 ep'" translation, 1888), with which Elze's 'Essays' from

the publications of the German Shakespeare Society
(English translation, 1874) are worth studying. A less ambitious
effort of the same kind by Samuel Neil (1861) is seriously
injured by the writer's acceptance of Collier's forgeries. Pro-
fessor Dowden's 'Shakspere Primer' (1877) and his 'Intro-
duction to Shakspere ' ( 1893 ), and Dr. Furnivall's ' Intro-
duction to the Leopold Shakspere,' are all useful summaries
of leading facts.

Francis Douce's 'Illustrations of Shakespeare' (1807, new
edit. 1839), ' Shakespeare's Library' (ed. J. P. Collier and W. C.

Hazlitt, 1875), 'Shakespeare's Plutarch' (ed. Skeat,

l875)> and 'Shakespeare's Holinshed (ed. W. G.
plots and Boswell-Stone, 1896) are of service in tracing the

sources of Shakespeare's plots. Alexander Schmidt's
' Shakespeare Lexicon' (1874) and Dr. E. A. Abbott's 'Shake-
spearian Grammar' (1869, new edit. 1893) are valuable aids to

a study of the text. Useful concordances to the
d'ance?" Plays have been prepared by Mrs. Cowden-Clarke

(1845), to the Poems by Mrs. H. H. Furness
(Philadelphia, 1875), and to Plays and Poems, in one volume,
with references to numbered lines, by John Bartlett (London
and New York, iSgs).1 A ' Handbook Index 'by J. O. Halliwell
(privately printed 1866) gives lists of obsolete words and phrases,
songs, proverbs, and plants mentioned in the works of Shake-
speare. An unprinted glossary prepared by Richard Warner
between 1750 and 1770 is at the British Museum (Addit. MSS.

1 The earliest attempts at a concordance were A Complete Verbal Index to the
Plays, by F. Twiss (1805), and An Index to the Remarkable Passages attd Words,
by Samuel Ayscough (1827), but these are now superseded.

SHAKESPEAREAN FORGERIES 365

10472-542). Extensive bibliographies are given in Lowndes's
'Library Manual' (ed. Bohn) ; in Franz Thimm's

graphics ' Shakespeariana' (1864 and 1871) ; in the 'Encyclo-
paedia Britannica,' gth edit, (skilfully classified by

Mr. H. R. Tedder) ; and in the ' British Museum Catalogue '

(the Shakespearean entries in which, comprising 3,680 titles,

were separately published in 1897).

The valuable publications of the Shakespeare Society, the

New Shakspere Society, and of the Deutsche Shakespeare-
Gesellschaft, comprising contributions alike to the

Critical aesthetic, textual, historical, and biographical study of

studies. '

Shakespeare, are noticed above (see pp. 333-4, 346).
To the critical studies, on which comment has already been
made (see p. 333) — viz. Coleridge's ' Notes and Lectures,' 1883,
Hazlitt's 'Characters of Shakespeare's Plays,' 1817, Professor
Dowden's ' Shakspere : his Mind and Art,' 1875, and
Mr. A. C. Swinburne's 'A Study of Shakespeare,' 1879— there
may be added the essays on Shakespeare's heroines respectively
by Mrs. Jameson in 1833 and Lady Martin in 1885 ; Dr. 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), and
Georg Brandes's ' William Shakespeare ' — an elaborately critical
but somewhat fanciful study — in Danish (Copenhagen, 1895,
8vo), in German (Leipzig, 1895), and m English (London, 1898,
2 vols. 8vo).

The intense interest which Shakespeare's life and work have
long universally excited has tempted unprincipled or sportively
mischievous writers from time to time to deceive the
spearean public by the forgery of documents purporting to
forgeries. SUppiy new information. The forgers were espe-
cially active at the end of last century and during the middle
years of the present century, and their frauds have caused
students so much perplexity that it may be useful to warn them
against those Shakespearean forgeries which have obtained the
widest currency.

The earliest forger to obtain notoriety was John Jordan

366 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(1746-1809), a resident at Stratford-on-Avon, whose most impor-
tant achievement was the forgery of the will of
J°h£j°rdan> Shakespeare's father; but many other papers in
Jordan's ' Original Collections on Shakespeare and
Stratford-on-Avon' (1780), and ' Original Memoirs and Histori-
cal Accounts of the Families of Shakespeare and Hart,' are
open to the gravest suspicion.1

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

The Ireland ' .

forgeries, ( 1 740 ?- 1 8oo), an author and engraver of some repute,
produced in 1796 a volume of forged papers claiming
to relate to Shakespeare's career. The title ran : ' Miscellaneous
Papers and Legal Instruments under the Hand and Seal of
William Shakespeare, including the tragedy of " King Lear" and
a small fragment of "Hamlet" from the original MSS. in the
possession of Samuel Ireland.' On April 2, 1796 Sheridan and
Kemble produced at Drury Lane Theatre a bombastic tragedy
in blank verse entitled 'Vortigern' under the pretence that it
was by Shakespeare, and had been recently found among the
manuscripts of the dramatist that had fallen into the hands of the
Irelands. The piece, which was published, was the invention of
young Ireland. The fraud of the Irelands, which for sometime
deceived a section of the literary public, was finally exposed by
Malone in his valuable ' Inquiry into the Authenticity of the
Ireland MSS.' (1796). Young Ireland afterwards published his
'Confessions' (1805). He had acquired much skill in copying
Shakespeare's genuine signature from the facsimile in Steevens's
edition of Shakespeare's works of the mortgage-deed of the
Blackfriars house of i6i2-i3,2 and, besides conforming to that
style of handwriting in his forged deeds and literary com-
positions, he inserted copies of the signature on the title-pages
of many sixteenth-century books, and often added notes n
the same feigned hand on their margins. Numerous sixteenth-
century volumes embellished by Ireland in this manner are
extant, and his forged signatures and marginalia have been
frequently mistaken for genuine autographs of Shakespeare.

1 Jordan's Collections, including this fraudulent will of Shakespeare's father,
was printed privately by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps in 1864. 2 See p. 267.

SHAKESPEAREAN FORGERIES 367

But Ireland's and Jordan's frauds are clumsy compared with
those that belong to the present century. Most of the works
Forgeries relating to the biography of Shakespeare or the
promulgated history of the Elizabethan stage produced by John

by Collier _. .-,,,• , , • ... _

and others, Payne Collier, or under his supervision, between 1835
1835-1849. an(j jg^ are honeycombed with forged references
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.1

1589 (November). Appeal from the Blackfriars players
(16 in number) to the Privy Council for favour. Shake-
speare's name stands twelfth. From the manuscripts
at Bridgewater House, belonging to the Earl ot
Ellesmere. 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.

1 596. 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
playhouse. Shakespeare's name is fifth on the list ot
petitioners. This forged paper is in the Public Record
Office, 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.2

1 Reference has already been made to the character of the manuscript correc-
tions made by Collier in a copy of the Second Folio of 1632, known as the Perkins
Folio. See p. 312, note 2. The chief authorities on the subject of the Collier for-
geries are : An Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr.
J. Payne Colliers Annotated Shakspere Folio, 1632, and of certain Shaksperian
Documents likewise published by Mr. Collier, by N. E. S. A. Hamilton, London,
1860 ; A Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy concerning the Authen-
ticity and Genuineness of Manuscript Matter affecting tlie Worksand Biography oj
Shakspere, publislied by J. Payne Collier as the Fruits of his Researches, by C. M.
Ingleby, LL.D. of Trinity College, Cambridge, London, 1861 ; Catalogue of the
Manuscripts and Muniments of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulivich, by
George F. Warner, M.A., 1881 ; Notes on the Life of James 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.

2 See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1595-7, p. 310.

368 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1 596 (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 Collier's ' New Facts.'

1596 (circa). A list of sharers in the Blackfriars Theatre,
with the valuation of their property, in which Shake-
speare is credited with four shares, worth 933/. 6s. 8dl
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
Burbage' s ' players' before Queen Elizabeth when on
a visit to Sir Thomas Egerton, the lord-keeper, at
Harefield, in a forged account of disbursements by
Egerton's steward, Arthur Mainwaringe, from the
manuscripts at Bridgewater House, belonging to the
Earl of Ellesmere. Printed in Collier's ' New Par-
ticulars 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 ; 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. Printed in Collier's 'Memoirs of
Edward Alleyn,' 1841, p. 68.3

1605 (November-December). Forged entries in Master of
the Revels' account-books (now at the Public Record
Office) of performances at Whitehall by the King's
players of the 'Moor of Venice' — i.e. 'Othello' — on No-
vember i, and of ' Measure for Measure' on December
26. Printed in Peter Cunningham's ' Extracts from
the Accounts of the Revels at Court ' (pp. 203-4), pub-

1 See Warner's Catalogue of DuliuicJi MSS. pp. 24-6.
3 Cf. ibid. pp. 26-7.

SHAKESPEAREAN FORGERIES 369

lished by the Shakespeare Society in 1842. Doubt-
less based on Malone's trustworthy memoranda (now
in the Bodleian Library) of researches among genuine
papers formerly at the Audit Office at Somerset
House.1

1607. Notes of performances of ' Hamlet ' and ' Richard II '
by the crews of the vessels of the East India Com-
pany's fleet off Sierra Leone. First printed in ' Narra-
tives of Voyages towards the North- West, 1496-1631,'
edited by Thomas Rundall for the Hakluyt Society,
1849, P- 23r) from what purported to be an exact
transcript 'in the India Office' of the 'Journal of
William Keeling,' captain of one of the vessels in
the expedition. Reeling's manuscript journal is still
at the India Office, but the leaves that should contain
these entries are now, and have long been, missing
from it.

1609 (January 4). A warrant appointing Robert Daborne,
William Shakespeare, and others 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.2

161 1 (November). Forged entries in Master of the Revels'
account-books (now at the Public Record Office) of
performances at Whitehall by the King's Players of
the ' Tempest ' on November i, and of the ' Winter's
Tale ' on November 5. Printed in Peter Cunningham's
'Extracts from the Revels Accounts,' p. 210. Doubt-
less based on Malone's trustworthy memoranda of
researches among genuine papers formerly at the
Audit Office at Somerset House.3

1 See p. 235, note i.

2 Cf. Warner's Dulwich MSS. pp. 30 -31.

3 See p. 254, note i.

B B

370 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

II.

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY.

THE apparent contrast between the homeliness of Shakespeare's

Stratford career and the breadth of observation and knowledge

displayed in his literary work has evoked the fantastic

Its source. « i

theory that Shakespeare was not the author of the
literature that passes under his name, and perverse attempts
have been made to assign his works to his great contemporary,
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the great contemporary prose-writer,
philosopher, and lawyer. It is argued that Shakespeare's plays
embody a general omniscience (especially a knowledge of law)
which was possessed by no contemporary except Bacon ; that
there are many close parallelisms between passages in Shake-
speare's and passages in Bacon's works,1 and that Bacon makes

1 Most of those that are commonly quoted are phrases in ordinary use by all
writers of the day. The only "point of any interest raised in the argument from
parallelisms of expression centres about a quotation from Aristotle which Bacon and
Shakespeare not merely both make, but make in what looks at a first glance to be
the same erroneous form. Aristotle wrote in his Nicontachean Ethics, \. 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 philo-
sophy?' (bk. ii. p. 255, ed. Kitchin). Shakespeare, about 1603, in Troilus and
Cressida, u. ii. 166, wrote of ' young men whom Aristotle thought unfit 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 distin-
guishable from what is commonly called ' morals.' In the summary paraphrase of
Aristotle's Ethics which was translated 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. In a French translation of the Ethics by the Comte de Plessis, pub-

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY 371

enigmatic references in his correspondence to secret ' recrea-
tions ' and ' alphabets ' and concealed poems for which his
alleged employment as a concealed dramatist can alone account.
Toby Matthew wrote to Bacon (as Viscount St.
Matthew's Albans) at an uncertain date after January' 1621 :
letter. '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.' l This unpretending sentence
is distorted into conclusive evidence that Bacon wrote works
of commanding excellence under another's name, and among
them probably Shakespeare's plays. According to the only
sane interpretation of Matthew's words, his ' most prodigious
wit ' was some Englishman named Bacon whom he met abroad
— probably a pseudonymous Jesuit like most of Matthew's
friends. (The real surname of Father Thomas Southwell, who
was a learned Jesuit domiciled chiefly in the Low Countries,
was Bacon. He was born in 1592 at Sculthorpe, near Wal-
singham, Norfolk, being son of Thomas Bacon of that place,
and he died at Watten in 1637.)

Joseph C. Hart (U. S. Consul at Santa Cruz, d. 1855), in his
'Romance of Yachting' (1848), first raised doubts of Shake-
speare's authorship. There followed in a like temper
' Who wrote Shakespeare ? ' in ' Chambers's Journal,
August 7, 1852, and an article by Miss Delia Bacon
in ' Putnams' Monthly,' 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,

lished at Paris in 1553, the passage is rendered ' parquoy le ieune enfant n'est suffisant
auditeur de la science civile ; ' and an English commentator (in a manuscript note
written about 1605 in a copy of the book in the British Museum) turned the sentence
into English thus : ' Whether a young man may be a fitte scholler of morall philo-
sophic." In 1622 an Italian essayist, Virgilio Malvezzi, in his preface to his Discorsi
sopra Cornelia Tacito, has the remark, ' E non e discordante da questa mia
opinione Aristotele, il qual dice, che 5 giovani non sono buoni ascultatori delfc
tnorali ' (cf. Spedding, Works of Bacon, i. 739, iii. 440).

1 Cf. Birch, Letters of Bacon, 1763, p. 39*. 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.

6 B 2

372 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I859-1 Mr. William Henry Smith, a resident in London, seems
first to have suggested the Baconian hypothesis in ..' Was Lord
Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays ? — a letter to Lord
Ellesmere' (1856), which was republished as 'Bacon and
Shakespeare' (1857). The most learned exponent of this
strange theory was Nathaniel Holmes, an American lawyer,
who published at New York in 1866 'The Authorship of the
Plays attributed to Shakespeare,' a monument of misapplied
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. The Baconian theory has found its widest acceptance
in America. There it achieved its wildest manifestation in the

book called ' The Great Cryptogram : Francis Bacon's
i^Ymfrica. cyPher in the so-called Shakespeare Plays ' (Chicago

and London, 1887, 2 vols.), which was the work of
Mr. Ignatius Donnelly of Hastings, Minnesota. The author
pretended to have discovered among Bacon's papers a numerical
cypher which enabled him to pick out letters appearing at certain
intervals in the pages of Shakespeare's First Folio, and the
selected letters formed words and sentences categorically stating
that Bacon was author of the plays. Many refutations have
been published of Mr. Donnelly's arbitrary and baseless con-
tention.

A Bacon Society was founded in London in 1885 to develop
and promulgate the unintelligible theory, and it inaugurated a
Extent of magazine (named since May 1893 ' Baconiana'). A
theiitera- quarterly periodical also called 'Baconiana,' and
issued in the same interest, was established at
Chicago in 1892. 'The Bibliography of the Shakespeare- Bacon
Controversy' by W. H. Wyman, Cincinnati, 1884, gives the
titles of two hundred and fifty-five books or pamphlets on both
sides of the subject, published since 1848 ; the list was continued
during 1886 in ' Shakespeariana,' a monthly journal published

1 Cf. Life by Theodore Bacon, London, 1888.

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY 373

at Philadelphia, and might now be extended to fully twice its
original number.

The abundance of the contemporary evidence attesting
Shakespeare's responsibility for the works published under his
name gives the Baconian theory no rational right to a hearing ;
while such authentic examples of Bacon's effort 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 Shake-
speare. Defective knowledge and illogical or casuistical argu-
ment alone render any other conclusion possible.

374 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

III.

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'
fmp'tonand ('594),1 from the account given by Sir William
Shake- D'Avenant, and recorded by Nicholas Rowe, of the
earl's liberal bounty to the poet,2 and from the
language of the sonnets, it is abundantly clear that Shakespeare
enjoyed very friendly relations with Southampton from the time
when his genius was nearing its maturity. No contemporary
document or tradition gives the faintest suggestion that Shake-
speare was the friend or prottgt 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 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
Hampshire, 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 Shake-
speare'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 attended and served by the

1 See pp. 4, 77, 127. * See p. 126.

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 375

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-mounted gentlemen
and yeomen.' ' The second earl remained a Catholic, like his
father, and a chivalrous avowal of sympathy 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 regularly formed features beneath bright auburn hair.
Two sons and a daughter were the issue of the union. Shake-
speare's friend, the second son, was born at her father's

residence, Cowdray House, near Midhurst, on
o'ct'Vis October 6, 1573. He was 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-five — two days before the child'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 inheri-
tance.3

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 Queen's behalf. Burghley had good reason to be satisfied

with his ward's intellectual promise. ' He spent,'

Education. ,,. , ., ,, , j ,1

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

1 Gervase Markham, Honour in his Perfection, 1624.

* Loseley MSS. ed. A. J. Kempe, p. 240.

3 His mother, after thirteen years of widowhood, married in 1594 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.

376 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

atmosphere. Next summer he sent his guardian, Burghley, an
essay in Ciceronian Latin on the somewhat cynical text that
' All men are moved to the pursuit of virtue by the hope of
reward.' The argument, if unconvincing, is precocious. ' Every
man,' the boy tells us, 'no matter how well or how ill endowed
with the graces of humanity, whether in the enjoyment 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 refine-
ment most uncommon in boys of thirteen.1 Southampton
remained at the University for some two years, graduating
M.A. at sixteen in 1589. Thoughout 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.2 Meanwhile he was sedu-
lously cultivating 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 presented to his sovereign. She showed him
kindly notice, and the Earl of Essex, her brilliant favourite,
acknowledged his fascination. Thenceforth Essex displayed in

1 By kind permission of the Marquis of Salisbury I lately copied out this essay at
Hatfield.

2 In 1588 his brother-in-law, Thomas Arundel, afterwards first Lord Arundel of
Wardour (husband of his only sister, Mary), petitioned Lord Burghley to grant him
an additional 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 rival ' in the competition for the land in question. Arundel was refer-
ring 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).

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 377

his welfare a brotherly interest which proved in course of time
a very doubtful blessing.

While still a boy, Southampton entered with as much
zest into the sports and dissipations of his fellow courtiers as
Recognition mto ^eir literary and artistic pursuits. At tennis, in
of South- jousts and tournaments, he achieved distinction ;
youthfuf nor was he a stranger to the delights of gambling at
primero. In 1592, when he was in his eighteenth
year, he was recognised as the most handsome and accom-
plished 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 cere-
monial, which was published at the time at the University Press,
eulogy was lavished without stint on all the Queen's attendants ;
but the academic poet declared 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 affuii\
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.1 Next year it was
rumoured that his ' external grace ' was to receive signal recog-
nition 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, 1 593, ' but there
were four nominated.' y Three were eminent public 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
Sovereign's kinsmen. On November 17, 159";, he appeared in
the lists set up in the Queen's presence in honour of the

1 Cf. Apollinis et M-usarum EUKTIKO EiJuAAia, Oxford, 1592, reprinted in
Elizabethan Oxford (Oxford Historical Society), edited by Charles Plummer, xxix.
204:

Post hunc (i.e. Earl of Essex) insequitur clara de stirpe Dynasta,
Comes lure suo dines quern South-Hamptonia magnum

Vendicat heroem : quo non formosior alter
namp- . , A . .

toniee. Affuit, aut docta muenis przstanuor arte ;

Ora licet tenera vix dum lanugine vernent.
* Historical MSS. Commission, 7th Report (Appendix) p. 521^.

3/8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

thirty-seventh anniversary of her accession. The poet George
Peele pictured in blank verse the gorgeous scene, and likened
the Earl of Southampton to that ancient type of chivalry, Bevis
of Southampton, so 'valiant in arms,' so 'gentle and debonair,'
did he appear to all beholders.1

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 to the
entail of his great possessions. Early marriages — child-mar-
riages— were in vogue in all ranks of society, and South-
ampton's mother and guardian regarded matrimony at a

tender age as especially incumbent on him in view
uTmawy.06 of his rich heritage. When he was seventeen

Burghley accordingly offered him a wife in the
person of his granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth 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 still 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 childishly 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
Manners, 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 was
intimate with Southampton and exactly of his age, would be
an eligible suitor. Lady Bridget dissented. Southampton
and his friend were, she objected, ' so young,' ' fantastical,'
and volatile (' so easily carried away '), that should ill fortune

1 Peek's Anglorum Feri<e.

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 379

befall her mother, who was 'her only stay,' she 'doubted
their carriage of themselves.' She spoke, she said, from
observation.1

In 1595, 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

wlth^Hza- Essex), a passionate beauty of the Court, cast her

beth Vernon. ^jj Qn njm pjer vjrtue was none too stable, and

in September the scandal spread that Southampton was court-
ing her ' with too much familiarity.'

The entanglement with ' his fair mistress ' opened a new
chapter in Southampton's career, and life's tempests began in
earnest. Either to free himself from his mistress'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 expedi-
tion 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 Cecil, who was going on an embassy to
S"age '" Paris- But Mistress Vernon was still fated to be his

evil genius, and Southampton learnt while in Paris
that her condition rendered marriage 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.

1 Cal. of the Duke of Rutland's MSS. i. 321. Barnabe Barnes, who was one 01
Southampton's poetic admirers, addressed a crude sonnet to ' the Beautiful Lady, The
Lady Bridget Manners," in 1593, at the same time as he addressed one to South-
ampton. Both are appended to Barnes's collection of sonnets and other poems
entitled Parthenopheand ParthenophiKfX. Arber's Garner, v. 486). Barnes apostro-
phises Lady Bridget as ' fairest and sweetest '

Of all those sweet and fair flowers,

The pride of chaste Cynthia's [i.e. Queen Elizabeth's] rich crown.

380 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The story of Southampton's marriage was soon public pro-
perty. His wife quickly became a mother, and when he crossed
the Channel 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
closed 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 London, 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
imprison- on February 19, 1600-1. Southampton was con-
sent, demned to die, but the Queen's Secretary pleaded
with her that ' the poor young earl, merely for the
love of Essex, had been drawn into this action,' and his punish-
ment was commuted to imprisonment for life. Further mitiga-
tion was not to be looked for while the Queen lived. But Essex,
Southampton's friend, had been James's sworn ally. The first
act of James I as monarch of England was to set Southampton
free (April 10, 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

Writer csreer. _ ... . /• /• i i •

Sonnet cvn., 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 disabilities incident to his
conviction of treason. He was thenceforth a prominent figure
in Court festivities. He twice danced a correnta with the
Queen at the magnificent entertainment given at Whitehall 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.1 But home politics

1 See p. 233, note 2.

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 381

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 Southampton 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
commemorates 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 English 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

Nov. 10, himself died of a lethargy. Father and son were
16241 both buried in the chancel of the church of Titch-

field, Hampshire, on December 28. Southampton thus outlived
Shakespeare by more than eight years.

382 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

IV.

THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY
PA TRON.

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. From
earliest to latest manhood — throughout the dissipations of
Court life, amid the torments that his intrigue cost him, in the
distractions of war and travel — the earl never ceased to cherish
the passion for literature which was implanted in him in boy-
hood. His devotion to his old college, St. John's, is charac-
teristic. When a new library was in course of construction
there during the closing years of his life, Southamp-
ton's coilec- ton collected books to the value of 36o/. wherewith

tionofbooks. to famish jt This 'monument of love,' as the
College authorities described the benefaction, may still 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 refer
ences to his literary interests. Especially refreshing are the
active signs vouchsafed there of his sympathy with the grea
birth of English drama. It was with plays that he
£eh!netters joined other noblemen in 1598 in entertaining his
topoems and 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

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 383

of literary tastes, should share his delight in reading. Twelve
months later, while Southampton was in Ireland, a letter to him
from the Countess attested that current literature was an every-
day topic of their private talk. ' All the news I can send you,1
she wrote to her husband, ' that I think will make you merry, is
that I read in a letter from London that Sir John Falstaff is, by
his mistress Dame Pintpot, made father of a goodly miller's thumb
— a boy that's all head and very little body ; but this is a secret.' 1
This cryptic sentence proves on the part of both earl and
countess familiarity with Falstaffs adventures in Shakespeare's
' Henry IV,' where the fat knight apostrophised Mrs. Quickly
as ' good pint pot ' (Pt. I. II. iv. 443). Who the acquaintances
were about whom the countess jested thus lightly 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 Toby Matthew, many of which were written
very early in the seventeenth century (although first published
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 libertie, I never dealt better since I was a man." ' a

When, after leaving Ireland, Southampton spent the autumn
of 1 599 in London, it was recorded that he and his friend Lord
Rutland ' come not to Court ' but ' pass away the time merely in

going to plays every day.' s It seems that the fas-
th^t'heatre cmation 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. South-
ampton and Essex in February 1601 requisitioned and paid for
the revival of Shakespeare's ' Richard II ' at the Globe Theatre
on the day preceding 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 rebellious design.4
Imprisonment sharpened Southampton's zest for the theatre.

1 The original letter is at Hatfield. The whole is printed in Historical Manu-
scripts Commission, 3rd Rep. p. 145.

a The quotation is a confused reminiscence of Falstaffs remarks in i Henry IV.
n. iv. The last nine words are an exact quotation of lines 190-1.

* Sidney Papers, ii. 132. * See p. 175.

384 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Within a year of his release from the Tower in 1603 he enter-
tained Queen Anne of Denmark at his house in the Strand,
and Burbage and his fellow players, one of whom was Shake-
speare, were bidden to 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 proofs
survive of his devotion to letters. From the hour that, as a
handsome and accomplished lad, he joined the Court and made

London his chief home, authors acknowledged his
ktfonC adu appreciation of literary effort of almost every quality

and form. He had in his Italian tutor Florio, whose
circle of acquaintance included all men of literary reputation, a
mentor who allowed no work of promise to escape his observa-
tion. Every note in the scale of adulation was sounded in
Southampton's honour in contemporary prose and verse. Soon
after the publication, in April 1 593, of Shakespeare's ' Venus
and Adonis,' with its salutation of Southampton, a more youth-
Barn b ^ aPPrentice to t*16 poet's craft, Barnabe Barnes,
Barnes'sson- confided to a published sonnet of unrestrained
net, 1593. i fervour his conviction that Southampton'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,' runs :

Receive, sweet Lord, with thy thrice sacred hand

(Which sacred Muses make their instrument)

These worthless leaves, which I to thee present,
(Sprung from a rude and unmanured 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 baud.
Vouchsafe, right virtuous Lord, with gracious eyes—
Those heavenly lamps which give the Muses light,
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.

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 385

Next year a writer of greater power, Tom Nash, betrayed
little less enthusiasm when dedicating to the earl his masterly

essay in romance, ' The Life of Jack Wilton.' He
Jddresses.hs 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 am
not taxed of presumption.' ' Although 'Jack Wilton' was the
first book Nash formally dedicated to Southampton, it is probable
that Nash had made an earlier bid for the earl's patronage. In
a digression at the close of his ' Pierce Pennilesse ' he grows
eloquent in praise of one whom he entitles ' the matchless image
of honour and magnificent rewarder 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,' Nash
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 Nash suggests that Spenser suppressed
the nobleman's name

Because few words might not comprise thy fame.2

1 See Hash's Works, ed. Grosart, v. 6. The whole passage runs : 'How wel or ill
I haue done in it I am ignorant : (the eye that sees round about it selfe sees not into
it selfs) : only your Honours applauding encouragement hath power to make me
arrogant. Incomprehensible is the height of your spirit both in heroical resolution
and matters of conceit. Vnrepriuebly perisheth that booke whatsoeuer to wast
paper, which on the diamond rocke of your judgement disasterly chanceth to be
shipwrackt. A dere louer and cherisher you are, as well of the louers of Poets, as
of Poets them selues. 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 kinde to my frends, and fatal! 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 am not taxed of presumption. Of your gracious fauer
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.'

* The complimentary title of ' Amyntas,' which was naturalised in English
literature by Abraham Fraunce's two renderings of Tasso's Arninta— 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 againc
('595) ; and some critics assume that Nash referred in Pierce Pennilesse to that
nobleman rather than to Southampton. But Nash's comparison of his paragor
to Ganymede suggests extreme youth, and Southampton was nineteen in 155.

c c

386 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Southampton was beyond doubt the nobleman in question.
It is certain, too, that the Earl of Southampton was among
the young men for whom Nash, in hope of gain, as he admitted,
penned ' amorous villanellos and qui passas.' One of the least
reputable of these efforts of Nash survives in an obscene love-
poem entitled ' The Choosing 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, Nash addressed his young patron as his ' friend.' l

while Derby was thirty-three. 'Amyntas' as a complimentary designation was
widely used by the poets, and was not applied exclusively 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 has not been printed, are extant
— one among the Rawlinson poetical manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and the
ather among the manuscripts in the Inner Temple Library (No. 538). Mr. John S.
Farmer has kindly sent me transcripts of the opening and concluding dedicatory
sonnets. The first, which is inscribed ' to the right honorable the Lord S[outhamp-
ton] ' runs :

Pardon, sweete flower of matchles poetrye,

And fairest bud the red rose euer bare,
Although my muse, devorst from deeper care,

Presents thee with a wanton Elegie.
Ne blame my verse of loose unchastitye

For painting forth the things that hidden 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 parte,
And better lines, ere long shall honor thee.

The poem follows in about three hundred lines, and the manuscript ends with a
second sonnet addressed by Nash to his patron :

Thus hath my penne presum'd to please my friend.

Oh mightst thou lykewise please Apollo's eye.
No, Honor brookes no such impietie,

Yet Ovid's wanton muse did not offend.
He is the fountaine whence my streames do flowe —

Forgive me if I speak as I was taught ;
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 purified words and hallowed verse,
Thy praises in large volumes shall rehearse.

That better maie thy grauer view befitt.
Meanwhile ytt rests, you smile at what I write
Or for attempting banish me your sight.

THO. NASH.

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 387

Meanwhile, in 1595, the versatile Gervase Markham in-
scribed to Southampton, in a sonnet, his patriotic poem on Sir

Richard Grenville's glorious fight off the Azores.
nme^»5. Markham was not content to acknowledge with Barnes

the inspiriting 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
Almighty 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 skill

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 spirit 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 blessed tongue
Whose well-tuned sound stills music in the spheres ;

So shall my tragic lays be blest by thee

And from thy lips suck their eternity.

Subsequently Florio, in associating the earl's name with his

great Italian-English dictionary — the ' Worlde of Wordes ' —

more soberly defined the earl's place in the republic

drelsf 1593! of letters when he wrote : ' As to me and many more

the glorious and gracious sunshine of your honour

hath infused light and life.'

The most notable contribution to this chorus of praise
is to be found, as I have already shown, in Shakespeare's
' Sonnets.' The same note of eulogy was sounded by men of
letters until Southampton's death. When he was released
from prison on James I's accession in April 1603,
gratiSations his praises in poets' mouths were especially abun-
of the poets dant. Not only was that grateful incident cele-
brated 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

c c 2

388 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

prolonged strains. Daniel addressed to Southampton many
lines 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 constanst'st parts. l

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. a

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. 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 lite-
rary 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.

1 Daniel's Certaine Epistles, 1603 : see Daniel's Works, ed. Grosart, i. 216 seq.
* 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 (z<5. 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.

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 389

To the same effect are some twenty poems which were pub-
lished in 1624, just after Southampton's death, in a volume en-
Elegies on titled ' Teares of the Isle of Wight, shed on the Tombe
Southamp- of their most noble valorous and loving Captaine
and Governour, the right honorable Henrie, Earl of
Southampton.' 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 virtues brave,
Like learned Maroes at Mecaenas' grave.

390 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE TRUE HISTORY OF THOMAS THORPE
AND *MR. W. H:

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 doubtless in circulation
in manuscript. In 1599 two of them were printed for the first

time by the piratical publisher, William Jaggard, in
donofth'ea" the °Penm£ pages of the first edition of 'The
sonnets in Passionate Pilgrim.' On January 3, 1599-1600,

Eleazar Edgar, a publisher of small account, obtained
a license for the publication 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 Shake-
speare's ' Sonnets.' It is more probable that his ' W. S.' was
William Smith, who had published a collection of sonnets
entitled ' Chloris' in I596.1 On May 20, 1609, a license for the
publication of Shakespeare's ' Sonnets' was granted by the
Stationers' Company to a publisher named Thomas Thorpe,
and shortly afterwards the complete collection as they have
reached us was published by Thorpe for the first time. To

1 'Amours of J. D.' were doubtless sonnets by Sir John Davies, of which only a
few have reached us. There is no ground for J. P. Collier's suggestion that J. D.
was a misprint for M. D., i.e. Michael Drayton, who gave the first edition of his
sonnets in 1594 the title of Amours. That word was in France the common
designation of collections of sonnets (cf. Drayton's Poems, ed. Collier, Roxburghe
Club, p. xxv).

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 391

the volume Thorpe prefixed a dedication in the following
terms :

TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF

THESE INSUING SONNETS

MR. W. H., ALL HAPPINESSE

AND THAT ETERNITIE

PROMISED

BY
OUR EVER-LIVING POET

WISHETH

THE WELL-WISHING

ADVENTURER IN

SETTING

FORTH

T. T.

The words are fantastically arranged. In ordinary gram-
matical 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-living 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 rdle of dedicator. The cause of the
substitution is not far to seek. The signing of the dedication
was an assertion of full and responsible ownership in the
publication, and the publisher in Shakespeare's lifetime 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 manuscript was for practical
purposes its full and responsible owner. Literary work largely
circulated in manuscript.1 Scriveners made a precarious liveli-
hood by multiplying written copies, and an enterprising pub-
lisher 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 publisher exercised

1 See note to p. 88 supra.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

unchallenged all the owner's rights, not the least valued of
which was that of choosing the patron of the enter-
dedlcations. P"se> and °f penning the dedicatory compliment
above his signature. Occasionally circumstances
might speciously justify the publisher'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 publisher the task of supplying the dedica-
tion without exposing him to any charge of sharp practice. But
as a rule one of only two inferences is possible when a publisher's
name figured at the foot of a dedicatory 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 Shake-
speare received no notice of Thorpe's intention of publishing
the work, and that it was owing to the author's ignorance of
the design that the dedication 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 considera-
tions. Self-interest was the principle underlying transactions
between literary patron and protege. 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 advertise-
ment of the volume in their own social circle. At times the
publisher, slightly extending the field of choice, selected a
personal friend or mercantile acquaintance who had rendered
him some service in trade or private 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 under the everyday prosaic conditions
of current literary traffic that the publisher Thorpe selected
' Mr. W. H.' as the patron of the original edition of Shake-
speare's ' Sonnets.'

THOMAS THORPE AND ' MR. W. H.' 393

A study of Thorpe's character and career clears the point
of doubt. Thorpe has been described as a native of Warwick-
Thorpe's shire, Shakespeare's county, and a man eminent in his
early life, profession. He was neither of these things. He
was a native of Barnet 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 humblest ranks. He
enjoyed the customary preliminary training.1 At midsummer
1584 he was apprenticed for nine years to a reputable printer
and stationer, Richard Watkins.2 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 account.3
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 overcrowded, and
such accomplishments as Thorpe possessed were poor com-
pensation for a lack of capital or of family connections among
those already established in the trade.4 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 un-
printed manuscript — a recognised role for novices to fill in the book
trade of the period — that Thorpe made his first distinguishable
apppearance on the stage of literary history. In 1600 there
fell into his hands in an unexplained manner a written copy of
His owner- Marlowe's unprinted translation of the first book of
ship of the ' Lucan.' Thorpe confided his good fortune to Edward
oTMariowe's Blount, then a stationer's assistant like himself, but
' Lucan.' w^ Detter prospects. Blount had already achieved
a modest success in the same capacity of procurer or picker-
up of neglected 'copy.'5 In 1598 he became proprietor of
Marlowe's unfinished and unpublished ' Hero and Leander,'

1 The details of his career are drawn from Mr. Arber's Transcript of the
Registers ofthf Stationers' Company.

- Arber, li. 124. " Ib. ii. 713.

4 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 company, either dying young or seeking another occupation (cf. Arber's
Transcript, ii. 213).

5 Cf. Bibliographica. \. 474-98, where I have given an account of Blount's pro-
fessional career in a paper called ' An Elizabethan Bookseller.'

394 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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
BiountTn vehicle of his gratitude for the assistance he had
l6o°- just received. The style of the dedication was

somewhat 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 accom-
modate himself to the unaccustomed role of patron.1 For the
conventional type of patron Thorpe disavowed respect. He
preferred to place himself under the protection of a friend in
the trade whose goodwill 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.8 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 been identified with the Thomas Thorpe who

1 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. As-
sign me a time by your man to come again. . . . Censure scornfully enough and
somewhat like a traveller. Commend nothing lest you discredit your (that which
you would seem to have) judgment. . . . One special virtue incur 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.'

- One gave an account of the East India Company's fleet ; the other reported
a speech delivered by Richard Martin, M.P., to James I at Stamford Hill during
the royal progress to London.

THOMAS THORPE AND ' MR. W. H.' 395

was granted an alms-room in the hospital of Ewelme, Oxford-
shire, on December 3, 1635. l

Thorpe was associated with the publication of twenty-nine
volumes in all,2 including Marlowe's ' Lucan ; ' but in almost all
his operations his personal energies were confined, as in his
initial enterprise, to procuring the manuscript. For
of his 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.3 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 ot
genuine literary value, including, besides Shakespeare's ' Son-
nets,' three plays by Chapman,4 four works of Ben Jonson, and

1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1635, p. 527.

3 Two bore his name on the title-page in 1603 ; one in 1604 ; two in 1605 ; two
in 1606 ; two in 1607 ; three in 1608 ; one in 1609 (i.e. the Sonnets) ; three in
1610 (i.e. Histrio-mastix, or the Playwright, as well as Healey's translations) ;
two in 1611 ; one in 1612 ; three in 1613 ; two in 1614 ; two in 1616 ; one in 1618 ;
and finally one in 1624. The last was a new edition of George Chapman's
Conspiracie and Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron, which Thorpe first published
in 1608.

3 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 Masques of Blackness and Beauty.

* Chapman and Jonson were very voluminous authors, and their works were
sought after by almost all the publishers of London, many of whom were successful
in launching one or two with or without the author's sanction. Thorpe seems to
have taken particular care with Jonson's books, but none of Jonson's works fell into

396 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Coryat's 'Odcombian Banquet.' But the taint of mysterious
origin attached to most of his literary properties. He doubtless
owed them to the exchange of a few pence or shillings with a
scrivener's hireling ; and the transaction was not one of which
the author had cognisance.

It is quite plain that no negotiation with the author preceded
the formation of Thorpe's resolve to publish for the first time
Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' in 1609. Had Shakespeare associated
himself with the enterprise, the world would fortunately have
been spared Thorpe's dedication to ' Mr. W. H.' ' T. T.'s '
place would have been filled by ' W. S.' The whole transaction
was in Thorpe's vein. Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' had been
Shake- already circulating in manuscript for eleven years ;
speare's only two had as yet been printed, and those were
publishers* issued by the pirate publisher, William Jaggard, in
hands. the fraudulently christened volume, ' The Passionate

Pilgrim, by William Shakespeare,' in 1 599. Shakespeare, ex-
cept in the case of his two narrative poems, showed utter in-
difference to all questions touching the publication of his
works. Of the sixteen plays of his that were published 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 published 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 fellow-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 pub-
lication of ' Lucrece ' in 1 594.

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

Thorpe's hands before 1605 or after 1608, a minute fraction of Jonson's literary
life. It is significant that the author's dedication — the one certain mark of publica-
tion with the author's 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 Fooh have a dedication by the author, but it is absent from most of them. No
known capy of Thorpe's edition of Chapman's Gentleman Usher has any dedica-
tion.

THOMAS THORPE AND ' MR. W. H.' 397

brusquely designated it ' Shakespeares Sonnets,' instead of
following the more urbane collocation of words invariably
adopted by living authors, viz. ' Sonnets by William Shake-
speare.'

In framing the dedication Thorpe followed established
precedent. Initials run riot over Elizabethan and Jacobean
The use of books. Printers and publishers, authors and con-
initials in tributors of prefatory commendations were all in the
of Eliza- habit of masking themselves behind such symbols.
Jacobean™1 Patrons figured under initials in dedications some-
books, what less frequently than other sharers in the book's
production. But the conditions determining the employment of
initials in that relation were well defined. The employment of
initials in a dedication was a recognised mark of a 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 are the dominant 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 affected 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 Humours '
to his ifriend Maister R. L.' In 1617 Dunstan Gale dedicated
a poem, ' Pyramus and Thisbe,' to the ' worshipfull his verie
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.' They

1 Many other instances of initials figuring in dedications under slightly different
circumstances will occur to bibliographers, but all, on examination, point to the
existence of a close intimacy between dedicator and dedicatee. R. S.'s [i.e. possibly
Richard Stafford's] ' Epistle dedicatorie ' before his Heraclitits (Oxford, 1609) was
inscribed ' to his much honoured father S. F. S.' An Apologiefor Women, or an
Opposition to Mr. D. G. his assertion . . . 6y W. H. of Ex. in Ox. (Oxford, 1609),
was dedicated to ' the honourable and right vertuous ladie, the Ladie M. H.' This
volume, published in the same year as Shakespeare's Sonnets, offers a pertinent
example of the generous freedom with which initials were scattered over the pre
iminary pages of books of the day.

398 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

followed a widely adopted formula. Dedications of the time
usually consisted of two distinct parts. There was a dedicatory
epistle, which might touch at any length, in either verse or
prose, on the subject of the book and the writer's relations with
his patron. But there was usually, in addition, a preliminary
salutation confined to such a single sentence as Thorpe dis-
Frequency played on the first page of his edition of Shake -
of wishes for speare's sonnets. In that preliminary sentence the

happiness , .. , , . ,, . , , , , •

and'eter- dedicator habitually 'wisheth' his patron one or
catorv'greet1- more of such blessings as health, long life, happiness,
'ngs- and eternity. ' Al perseverance with soules happi-

ness ' Thomas Powell ' wisheth ' the Countess of Kildare on
the first page of his 'Passionate Poet' in 1601. 'All happi-
nes' is the greeting of Thomas Watson, the sonnetteer, to his
patron, the Earl of Oxford, on the threshold of Watson's ' Pas-
sionate 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

full fruition of perfect felicity.'

Thorpe in Shakespeare's sonnets left the salutation to stand
alone, and omitted the supplement of a dedicatory epistle ;
but this, too, was not unusual. There exists an abundance
of contemporary examples 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 eter-
nitie of her fame.' Michael Drayton both in his ' Idea,
The Shepheard's Garland ' ( 1 593), and in his ' Poemes Lyrick
and Pastorall' (1609), confined his address to his patron to a
single sentence of salutation.1 Richard Brathwaite in 1611
exclusively saluted the patron of his ' Golden Fleece ' with ' the
continuance of God's temporall blessings in this life, with the
crowne of immortalitie in the world to come ; ' while in like
manner he greeted the patron of his ' Sonnets and Madrigals '

1 In the volume of 1593 the words run : ' To the noble and valorous gentleman
Master Robert Dudley, enriched with all vertues of the minde and worthy of all
honorable desert. Your most affectionate and devoted Michael Drayton.'

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 399

in the same year with ' the prosperitie of times successe in this
life, 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 dedi-
cator 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 appreciation of
literature recommended to him the practice of incorporating in
his dedicatory salutation some high-sounding embellishments
of the accepted formula suggested by his author's writing.1 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,
promised the hero of his sonnets in the pages that succeeded.
With characteristic magniloquence, Thorpe added the decora-
tive and supererogatory phrase, 'promised by our ever-living
poet,' to the conventional dedicatory wish for his patron's ' all
happiness' and 'eternitie.' 2

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

lions by " of Marlowe's 'Lucan'in 1600 to Blount, his friend

in the trade. Three dedications by Thorpe survive

1 In 1610, in dedicating St. Augustine, Of tlie 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 Epictetus 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 p. 403, note 2.

- The suggestion is often made that the only parallel to Thorpe's salutation ol
happiness 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 - the printer and publisher con-
cerned in 1606 in the publication of ' W. H.'s ' Southwell manuscript — there is a
bare chance that Wither had in mind ' W. H.'s' greeting of Mathew Saunders,
but fifty recently published volumes would have supplied him with similar hints.

400 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

of a date subsequent to the issue of the ' Sonnets.' One of
these is addressed to John Florio, and the other two to the
Earl of Pembroke.1 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 Pembroke 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 ' Sonnets,' and penning
a dedication for the second time, he pursued the exact procedure
that he had followed — deliberately and for reasons that he fully
stated— in his first and only preceding dedicatory 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-
sign's dedi- self under the same letters performed for ' A Foure-
Southwell's fould Meditation ' (a collection of pious poems which
poems in the Jesuit Robert Southwell left in manuscript at his

death) the identical service that Thorpe performed
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 published it through the agency of the
printer, George Eld, and of an insignificant bookseller, Francis
Burton.2 ' W. H.,' in his capacity of owner, supplied the dedi-
cation with his own pen under his initials. Of the Jesuit's newly
recovered poems ' W. H.' wrote, 'Long have they lien hidden

1 Thorpe dedicated to Florio Epictetus his Manuall, and Cebes his Table, out
of Greek origina.ll by lo. Healey, 1610. He dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke
St. Augustine, Of the Citie of God. . . . Englished by 1. H., 1610, and a second
edition of Healey's Epictetus, 1616.

a Southwell's Foure-fould Meditation of 1606 is a book of excessive rarity, only
one complete printed copy 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 re-
printed in 1895, chiefly from an early copy in manuscript, by Mr. Charles Edmonds,
the accomplished bibliographer, who in a letter to the Athcnteuiit on November i,
1873, suggested for the first time the identity of ' W. H.,' the dedicator of
Southwell's poem, with Thorpe's 'Mr. W. H.'

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 40!

in 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
affected, should be deprived of so great a comfort, as the due
consideration thereof may bring unto them.' ' W. H.' chose as
patron of his venture one Mathew Saunders, Esq., and to the
dedicatory epistle prefixed a conventional 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 . \vifheth, with long life, a profperous
achieuement of his good denies.

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
sterility of his own 'conceits.' The dedicator signs him self at
the bottom of the page ' Your Worships unfained affectionate,
W. H.' '

The two books — Southwell's ' Foure-fould Meditation ' of
1606, 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 salutation. Both volumes, it was announced on
the title-pages, came from the same press — the press of George

1 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 press. 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 worshipfull Mr.
Thomas Knevett Esquire, Peter Mowle wisheth the perpetuytie of true felysitie, the
health of bodie and soule with continwance of worshipp in this worlde, And after
Death tte participation of Heavenlie happiness dewringe all worldes lor ever.'

D D

4O2 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Eld. Eld for many years co-operated with Thorpe in business.
In 1605 he printed for Thorpe Ben Jonson's 'Sejanus,' 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 name 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. William Hall, who, when he procured that

manuscript for publication, was an humble auxiliary
Mr. william in the publishing army. Hall flits rapidly across the

stage of literary history. He served an apprentice-
ship to the printer and stationer John Allde from 1577 to 1584,
and was admitted to the freedom of the Stationers' Company in
the latter year. For the long period of twenty-two years after
his release from his indentures he was connected with the trade
in a dependent capacity, doubtless as assistant to a master-
stationer. When in 1606 the manuscript of Southwell's poems
was conveyed to his hands and he adopted the recognised role
of procurer of their publication, he had not set up in business
for himself. It was only later in the same year (1606) that he
obtained the license of the Stationers' Company to inaugurate
a press in his own name, and two years passed before he began
business. In 1608 he obtained 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 almost all
devotional in tone. The most important of his secular under-
taking was Guillim's far-famed ' Display of Heraldrie,' a folio
issued in 1610. In 1612 Hall printed an account of the con-
viction and execution of a noted pickpocket, John Selman, 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

THOMAS THORPE AND ' MR. W. H.' 403

Archer in St. Paul's Churchyard. Hall was a careful printer
with a healthy dread of misprints, but his business dwindled
after 1613, and, soon disposing of it to one John Beale, he dis-
appeared into private life.

' W. H.' are no uncommon initials, and there is more interest
attaching to the discovery of ' Mr. W. H.'s ' position in life and his
function in relation to the scheme of the publication of the
1 Sonnets ' than in establishing his full name. But there is
every probability that William Hall, the <W. H.' of the
Southwell dedication, was one and the same person with the
' Mr. W. H.' of Thorpe's dedication of the ' Sonnets.' No other
inhabitant of London was habitually known to mask himself
under those letters. William Hall was the only man bearing
those initials who there is reason to suppose was on familiar
terms with Thorpe.1 Both were engaged at much the same
period in London in the same occupation of procuring manu-
scripts for publication ; both inscribed their literary treasure-
trove in the common formula to patrons for whom they claimed
no high rank or distinction, and both engaged the same printer
to print their most valuable prize.

No condition of the problem of the identity of Thorpe's
friend ' Mr. W. H.' seems ignored by the adoption of the inter-
pretation that he was the future master-printei
lJgheett°er1?e William Hall. The objection that « Mr. W. H.' could
means 'only noj. have been Thorpe's friend in trade, because

procurer. .... . .

while wishing him all happiness and eternity Thorpe
dubs him ' the onlie begetter of these insuing sonnets,' is not
formidable. Thorpe rarely used words with much exactness.2

1 A bookseller (not a printer), William Holmes, who was in business for himself
between 1590 and 1615, was the only other member of the Stationers' Company bear-
ing 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 difficult to interpret exactly. When dedicating in 1610 — the year after
the issue of the Sonnets — Healey's Epictetiis his Manuall ' to a true fauorer of for-
ward spirits, Maister John Florio,' Thorpe writes of Epictetus's work : ' In all
languages, ages, by all persons high prized, imbraced, yea inbosomed. It fillcs 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 stcick.' In the same year, when dedicating Healey's translation of St.
Augustine's Citie of God to the Earl of Pembroke, Thorpe clumsily refers to

D D 2

404 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

It is obvious that he did not employ ' begetter ' in the ordinary
sense. ' 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 the author of the ' Sonnets.' ' Begetter' has been used in
the figurative sense of inspirer, and it is often assumed that by
' onlie 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 numberless difficulties.
It was contrary to Thorpe's aims in business to invest a dedica-
tion with any cryptic, significance, and thus mystify his customers.
Moreover, his career and the circumstances under which he
became the publisher of the sonnets confute the assumption that
he was in such relations with Shakespeare or with Shake-
speare's associates as would give him any knowledge of Shake-
speare's early career that was not public property. All
that Thorpe — the struggling pirate-publisher, ' the well-wishing
adventurer in setting forth ' wares mysteriously come by — knew
or probably cared to know, of Shakespeare was that he was the
most popular and honoured of the literary producers of the day.
When Thorpe had the luck to acquire surreptitiously an un-
printed manuscript by ' our ever-living poet,' it was not in the
great man's circle of friends or patrons, to which hitherto he had
had no access, that he was likely to seek his own patron.
Elementary considerations of prudence impelled him to publish
his treasure-trove with all expedition, and not disclose his design
prematurely to one who might possibly take steps to hinder its
fulfilment. But that Thorpe had no ' inspirer' of the ' Sonnets '
in his mind when he addressed himself to ' Mr. W. H.' is
finally proved by the circumstance that the only identifiable
male 'inspirer' of the poems was the Earl of Southampton, to
whom the initials ' W. H.' do not apply.

Of the figurative meanings set in Elizabethan English on the
word 'begetter,' that of 'inspirer' is by no means the only one

Pembroke's patronage of Healey's earlier efforts in translation 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.

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR, W. H.: 405

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 whirlwind of passion acquire and beget a tem-
perance 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 all probability the
acquirer or procurer of the manuscript, who, figuratively speak-
ing, brought the book into being either by first placing the
manuscript in Thorpe's hands or by pointing out the means
by which a copy might be acquired. To assign such signifi-
cance to the word 'begetter' was entirely in Thorpe's vein.1
Thorpe described his rdle in the piratical 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 important part — one as
well known then as now in commercial operations — of the
' vendor ' of the property to be exploited.

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 biblio-
graphical expert of the highest authority. 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 con-
nection between ' Mr. W. H.'and Shakespeare's personal history is in itself a very
strong argument against the interpretation foisted on the dedication during the
present century by writers who have no pretensions to be reckoned the equals of
Malone and Steevens as literary archaiologists.

406 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

VI.

« MR. WILLIAM HERBERT:

FOR fully sixty years it has been very generally assumed

that Shakespeare addressed the bulk of his sonnets to the

young Earl of Pembroke. This theory owes its

Origin of the . .°

notion that origin to a speciously lucky guess which was first
sumdsforH' disclosed to the public in 1832, and won for a time
'Mr. William almost universal acceptance.1 Thorpe's form of

Herbert. , , , . .,. . ,

address was held to 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 corner-
stone of the Pembroke 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 Pem-
broke was represented as having been known in youth. The

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 claiming to have reached the same conclusion as early as 1810, although
he had not published it. Boaden re-stated the Pembroke theory in a volume on
Shakespeare's Sonnets which he published in 1837. C. Armitage Brown adopted
it in 1838 in his Shakespeare's A-utobiographicai. Poems. The Rev. Joseph Hunter,
who accepted the theory without qualification, significantly pointed out in his Ne-w
Illustrations of Shakespeare in 1845 (ii. 346) that it had not occurred to any of the
writers in the great Variorum editions of Shakesp are, nor to critics so acute in
matters of literary history as Malone or George Chalmers. The theory is treated
as proved fact in many recent literary manuals. Of its supporters at the date of
writing the most ardent is Mr. 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. Mr. Tyler has endeavoured to substantiate both the Pembroke and th«
Fitton theories, by merely repeating his original arguments, in a pamphlet which
appeared in April of this year under the title of The H erbert- Fitton Theory : a
Reply {i.e. to criticisms of the theories by Lady Newdegate and by myself ]. The
Pembroke theory, whose adherents have dwindled of late, will henceforth be
relegated, I trust, to the category of popular delusions.

'MR. WILLIAM HERBERT' 407

originators of the theory claimed to discover 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 inter-
preting the initials, the Pembroke theorists made a blunder
that proves on examination to be fatal to their whole con-
tention.

The nobleman under consideration succeeded to the earl-
dom of Pembroke on his father's death on January 19, 1601
The Earl of (^ • S.)> when he was twenty years and nine months
Pembroke o\d an(j from that date jt js unquestioned that he was

known only

as Lord Her- always known by his lawful title. But it has been
:inyouth. overlooked that the designation « Mr. William
Herbert,' for which the initials 'Mr. W. H.' have been long
held to stand, could never in the mind of Thomas Thorpe or
any other contemporary 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 Pem-
broke for ten years, and he, as the eldest son, was from the
hour of his birth known in all relations of life — even in the
baptismal entry in the parish register — by the title of Lord
Herbert, and by no other. During 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.' l 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 com-
mon speech as if he had been a peer in his own right. No one
nowadays would address in current parlance, or even entertain
the conception of, Viscount Cranborne, the heir of the present
Prime Minister, as ' Mr. J. C.' or < Mr. James Cecil.' It is no more
legitimate to assert that it would have occurred to an Eliza-
bethan —least of all to a personal acquaintance or to a publisher

1 Cf. Sydney Papers, ed. Collins, i. 353. ' My Lord (of Pembroke) himself with
my Lord Harbert (is) come up to see the Queen ' (Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert
Sydney, October 8, 1591), and again p. 361 (November 16, 1595) ; and p. 372
(December 5, 1595). John Chamberlain wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton on August i,
IS99. ' Vouug Lord Harbert, Sir Henrie Carie, and Sir William Woodhouse, are all
in election at Court, who shall set the best legge foremost.' Chamberlains Letters
Camden Soc.), p. 57.

408 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

who stood toward his patron in the relation of a personal
dependent — to describe 'young Lord Herbert,' of Elizabeth's
reign, as ' Mr. William 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 ' William 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 quali-
fication is in itself fatal to the pretension that any lord, whether
by right or courtesy, was intended.1

Proof is at hand to establish that Thorpe was under no
misapprehension as to the proper appellation of the Earl of
Thorpe's Pembroke, and was incapable of venturing on the
mode of ad- meaningless misnomer of ' Mr. W. H.' Insignificant

dressing the , ,. , , , -

Earl of publisher though he was, and sceptical as he was of
Pembroke, ^g merjts of noble patrons, he was not proof against
the temptation, when an opportunity was directly offered him, of
adorning the prefatory pages of a publication with the name
of a nobleman, who enjoyed the high official station, the literary
culture, and the social influence 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 would seem, died there. Healey, before
leaving England, had secured through the good offices of John
Florio(aman of influence in both fashionable and literary circles)
the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke for a translation of
Bishop Hall's fanciful satire, ' Mundus alter et idem.' Calling

1 Thomas Sackville, the author of five. Induction to The Mirror for Magistrates
and other poetical pieces, and part author of Gorboduc, was born 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 sixty-eight — he became Earl of Dorset. A
few of his youthful effusions, which bore his early signature, ' M. [i.e. Mr.] Sackville,'
were reprinted with that signature unaltered in 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 in a reprint, unauthorised by him, of his
Induction to The Mirror for Magistrates, which was in the original 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 irregularity.

' MR. WILLIAM HERBERT ' 409

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, William Earl of Pembroke.' l
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 William,
Earle of Pembroke, Knight of the Honourable Order (of the
Garter), &c.' In involved sentences Thorpe tells the Bright
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
Honour'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. Theoprastus Characters,' he supplied more con-
spicuous evidence of the servility with which he deemed it
incumbent on him to approach a potent patron. As this address
by Thorpe to Pembroke is difficult of access, I give it in
cxtenso :
'To the Right Honourable, WTilliam Earle of Pembroke, Lord

Chamberlaine to His Majestic, 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 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. All I can
alledge in extenuation of so many incongruities, is the bequest
of a deceased Man ; who (in his lifetime) having offered some

1 An examination of a copy of the book in the Bodleian— none is in the British
Museum — shows that the dedication is signed J. H., and not, as Mr. Fleay infers,
by Thorpe. Thorpe had no concern in this volume.

410 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 dutifull affection (to
use his own termes) The true and reall upholder of Learned
endeavors. This, therefore, beeing left unto 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 accep-
tance 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 maintained the privileges of peers left them no
option. The alleged erroneous form of address in the dedica-
tion of Shakespeare's ' Sonnets' — ' Mr. W. H.' for 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 account.1

Of the Earl of Pembroke, and of his brother the Earl of
Montgomery, it was stated a few years later, 'from just obser-
vation,' 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 customary or needful. But
of erring conspicuously in an opposite direction he may, without
misgiving, be pronounced innocent.

1 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 indict-
ment led to a dismissal of the cause. See Les Reportes del Cases in Camera
Stellata, 1593 to '609, edited from the manuscript of Henry Hawarde by W. P
Baildon, F.S.A. (privately printed for Alfred orrison), p. 348.

VII.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF
PEMBROKE.

WITH the disposal of the allegation that ' Mr. W. H. repre-
sented 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 months, owing to the prevalence of the plague

Shakespeare . T . „ , e ^ a- r i i

with the in London. By order of the officers of the royal
panylt^°m household, the King's company of players, of which
Wilton iii Shakespeare was a member, gave a performance
before the King at Wilton House on December 2.
The actors travelled from Mortlake for the purpose, and were
paid in the ordinary manner by the treasurer of the royal house-
hold out of the public funds. There is no positive evidence that
Shakespeare attended at Wilton with the company, but assum-
ing, 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.1

1 See pp. 23, 231-2. A tradition has lately sprung up at Wilton to the effect
that a letter once existed there in which the Countess of Pembroke bade her son the
ear! while he was in attendance on James I at Salisbury bring the King to Wilton
to witness a performance of A s You Like It. The countess is said to have added,
1 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 in-
vention. The circumstances under which both PC ing and players visited Wilton in
1603 are completely misrepresented. The Court temporarily occupied Wilton

412 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

The dedica- ° • ....... J

tionofthe after the dramatist's death, two of his friends and
First Foho. fellow-actors prepared 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 excel-
lent Majesty, and Philip, Earl of Montgomery, &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 inti-
mated, ' 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 nearly every work of
any literary pretension was 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 should be sought for a collective edition of the works
of the acknowledged master of the contemporary stage was a
matter of course. It is only surprising that the editors should
have yielded to the passing vogue of soliciting 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

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 last year 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's Sonnet Ixxxi. (9-14), subscribed with the words ' Shake-
speare 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 any one accustomed to
study manuscripts. On May 5 of this year some persons interested in the matter,
including myself, examined the portrait and the inscription, on the kind invitation
of the present Earl, and the inscription was unanimously declared by palsco-
graphical experts to be a clumsy forgery unworthy of serious notice.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE 413

to bear on the question of Shakespeare's alleged intimacy with
Pembroke is to be found in their remarks : ' But since your
lordships have beene pleas'd to thinke these trifles something,
heretofore ; and have prosequuted both them, and their Authour
living, with so much favour : we hope that (they outliving him,
and he not having the fate, common with some, to be exequutor
to his owne writings) you will 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 of
the severall parts, when they were acted, as, before they were
published, 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, Shakespeare, in his capacity
of one of ' the King's servants ' or company of players, was
personally known to all the officers of the royal household
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 is deducible from the vague parallelisms that have been
adduced between the earl's character and position in life and
those with which the poet credited the youth of the sonnets.
No sugges- I* mav De granted that both had a mother (Sonnet
tion in the jjj.) that both enjoyed wealth and rank, that both

sonnets J '

of the were regarded by admirers as cultivated, that both

tityw;thden were self-indulgent in their relations with women,
Pembroke. anci that both in early manhood were indisposed to
marry, owing to habits of gallantry. Of one alleged point of

414 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

resemblance there is no evidence. The loveliness assigned
to Shakespeare's youth was not, as far as we can learn, defi-
nitely 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 qualified 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,1 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
Shakespeare's alleged friend, they all prove to be equally
indistinctive. All could be matched without difficulty 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 sonnets' general references to the youth's beauty
and grace can render the remotest assistance in establishing his
identity.

Although it may be reckoned superfluous to adduce more
arguments, 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 antiquary, and the
biographer of most Englishmen of distinction of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, was zealously researching from 1650
onwards into the 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 —

1 Cf. the engravings of Simon Pass, Stent, and Vaudervoerst, after the portrait
by MyUns.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE 4! 5

scandalous and otherwise — both about the third Earl of Pern-
Aubrey's broke and about Shakespeare. Of the former he wrote
ignorance of }n hjs 'Natural History of Wiltshire' (ed. Britton,

any relation . . x

between io47), recalling the earl's relations with Massmger
SdSST" and many other men of letters. Of Shakespeare,
broke. Aubrey narrated much lively 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 impossible that all trace of them would have faded from the
traditions that were current in Aubrey's time and were embodied
in his writings.1

1 It is unnecessary, after what has been said above (p. 123), to consider seriously
the suggestion that the ' dark lady ' of the sonnets was Mary Fitton, maid of honour
to Queen Elizabeth. 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 assumption that her lover, Pembroke, was the youth to whom the
sonnets were addressed. Lady Newdegate's recently published Gossip front a
Muniment Room, 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 L:idy 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 refe-
rence whatever is made there to any other person of that Christian name.

41 6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

VIII.
THE ' WILL' SONNETS.

No one has had the hardihood to assert that the text of the
sonnets gives internally any indication that the youth's name
took the hapless form of ' William Herbert ; ' but many com-
mentators 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 among 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 evi-
dence in their favour from Shakespeare's text.1

In two sonnets (cxxxv.-vi.) — the most artificial and ' con-
ceited' in the collection — the poet plays somewhat enig-
matically on his Christian name of ' Will,' and a similar
pun nas oeen doubtfully detected in sonnets cxxxiv. and
cxlvii. The groundwork of the pleasantry is the identity
in form of the proper name with the common noun ' will.'
This word connoted in Elizabethan English a

Elizabethan . - . r ° , . ,

meanings of generous variety or conceptions, ot most 01 which
'will.' jt ^5 jong sjnce been deprived. Then, as now, it

was employed in the general psychological sense of volition ;
but it was more often specifically applied to two limited
manifestations of the volition. It was the commonest of syno-
nyms alike for ' self will ' or ' stubbornness ' — in which sense it

1 Professor Dowden (Sonnets, p. xxxv) writes : ' It appears from the punning
sonnets (cxxxv. and cxliii.) 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 identical with one who, like William Earl of Pembroke, bore that Christian
name.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 417

still survives in ' wilful ' — and for ' lust,' or ' sensual passion.'
It also did occasional duty for its own diminutive 'wish,' for
' caprice,' for ' good-will,' and for ' free consent ' (as nowadays
in 'willing,' of 'willingly').

Shakespeare constantly used 'will' in all these significa-
tions, lago recognised its general psychological value when
he said, ' Our bodies are our gardens, to the which
speare's uses our wills are gardeners.' The conduct of the ' will '
of the word. js discussecl after the manner of philosophy in
'Troilus and Cressida' (II. 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 applied to sensual desire. The last is a
favourite sense with Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
Angelo and Isabella, in ' Measure for Measure,' are atone in
attributing their conflict to the former's ' will.' The self-indul-
gent Bertram, in 'All's Well,' ' fleshes his " will " in the spoil of
a gentlewoman's honour.' 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
will.' Similarly, Sir Philip Sidney apostrophised lust as ' thou
web of will.' Thomas Lodge, in 'Phillis' (Sonnet xi.), warns
lovers of the ruin that menaces all who ' guide their course by
will.' Nicholas Breton's fantastic romance of 1599, entitled
'The Will of Wit, Wit's Will or Will'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 ' will ' in its sensual meaning, and ' wit,' the
Elizabethan synonym for reason or cognition. ' A song
between Wit and Will ' opens thus :

Wit : What art thou, Will ? Will: A babe of nature's brood.
Wit : Who was thy sire ? Will : Sweet Lust, as lovers say.
Wit : Thy mother who ? Will: Wild lusty wanton blood.
Wit: When wast thou born ? Will : In merry month of May.
Wit: And where brought up ? Will : In school of little skill.
Wit : What learn' dst thou there ? Will : Love is my lesson still.

Of the use of the word in the sense of stubbornness or self-will
Roger Ascham gives a good instance in his ' Scholemaster,'

E E

418 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(1570), where he recommends that such a vice in children as
' will,' which he places in the category of lying, sloth, and
disobedience, should be 'with sharp chastisement daily cut
away.' l ' A woman will have her will ' was, among Elizabethan
wags, an exceptionally popular 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
William Haughton, which — from 1597 onwards — held the stage
for the unusually prolonged period of forty years. ' Women,
because they cannot have their wills when 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 i6o2.2

It was not only in the sonnets that Shakespeare — almost
invariably with a glance at its sensual significance — rang the
changes on this many-faced verbal token. In his earliest play,
'Love's Labour's Lost' (n. i. 97-101), after the princess has
tauntingly assured the King of Navarre that he will break his vow
to avoid women's society, the king replies, ' Not for
speare's t^e world, fair madam, by my will' (i.e. willingly),
puns on The princess retorts ' Why will (i.e. sensual desire)
shall break it (i.e. the vow), will and nothing else.'
In ' Much Ado,' when Benedick, anxious to marry Beatrice, is
asked by the lady's father ' What's your will ? ' he playfully
lingers on the word in his answer. As for his ' will,' his ' will '
is that the father's ' goodwill may stand with his ' and Beatrice's
'will ' — in other words that the father may consent to their union.
Slender and Anne Page vary the tame sport when the former
misinterprets the young lady's 'What is your will?' 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

1 Ed. Mayor, p. 35.

a Manningham's Diary, p. 92 ; cf. Barnabe Barnes's Odes Pastoral, sestine 2 :

' But women will have their own wills,
Alas, why then should I complain ? '

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 419

as a diminutive of the former. Twice in the ' Two Gentlemen
of Verona' (i. iii. 63 and iv. ii. 96) Shakespeare almost strives
to invest with the flavour of epigram the unpretending announce-
ment that one interlocutor's ' wish ' is in harmony with another
interlocutor's ' will.'

It is in this vein of pleasantry — ' will ' and ' wish ' are
identically contrasted in Sonnet cxxxv. — that Shakespeare, to
the confusion of modern readers, makes play with the word
' will ' in the sonnets, and especially in the two sonnets
(cxxxv.-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 arguments advanced in favour of this
interpretation 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
Arbitrary press recognised that Sonnets cxxxv. and cxxxvi.
andirregu- largely turned upon a simple pun between the
italics by writer's name of ' Will ' and the lady's ' will.' That
Imfjacobean fact, and no other, he indicated very roughly by
printers. occasionally italicising the crucial word. Typogra-
phy at the time followed no firmly fixed rules, and, although
' will ' figures in a more or less punning sense nineteen times in
these sonnets, the printer bestowed on the word the distinc-
tion of italics in only ten instances, and those were selected
arbitrarily. The italics indicate the obvious equivoque, and
indicate it imperfectly. That is the utmost 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 'Will' 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., ' will ' 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.1

1 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

E E 2

420 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 conceits . , i_ i • • j , • i • i ,

of sonnets the verbal coincidences which are inherent in the
interpreted. Elizabethan word 'will.' 'Will' is the Christian
name of the enslaved writer ; ' will ' is the sentiment
with which the lady inspires her worshippers ; and ' will '
designates stubbornness as well 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 ' foul 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 definite ob-
servation 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.
Barnabe 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 (sic)
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.1

Similar passages abound in Elizabethan sonnets, but
certain verbal similarities give good ground for regarding
Shakespeare's ' will ' sonnets as deliberate adaptations — doubt-
less with satiric purpose — of Barnes's stereotyped reflections
on women's obduracy. 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

irregularity. Mr. 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 capital letters, but an examination of a very large number of
Elizabethan and Jacobean books has brought me to an exactly opposite conclusion.
' Barnes's Parthenopkil in Arber's Garner, v. 440.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 421

much the same evolutions as Shakespeare puts the words ' will
and ' wills ' in the Sonnets cxxxv. and cxxxvi.1
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 thou, whose will is large and spacious,2
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 still,
And in abundance addeth to his store ;
So thou, being rich in will, 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.

In the opening words, 'Whoever hath her wish,' the poet
prepares the reader for the punning encounter by a slight

variation on the current catch-phrase 'A woman will
cxxxv1 have her will.' At the next moment we are in the

thick of the 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.3 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

1 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 1

O how can graces in thy body be?

Where neither they nor pity find a place ! . . .

Grant me some grace ! For thou with grace art wealthy

And kindly may'st afford some gracious thing.

2 Cf. Lear, iv. vi. 279, ' O undistinguish'd space of woman's will ;' i.e. 'O bound-
less range of woman's lust.'

3 Professor Dowden says ' will to boot ' is a reference to the Christian name of
Shakespeare's friend, ' William [? Mr. W. H.] ' (Sonnets, p. 236) ; but in my view the
poet, in the second line of the sonnet, only seeks emphasis by repetition in accord-

422 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

proves to her ' right gracious,' l although in him it is unaccept-
able. All this, the poet hazily argues, should be otherwise ; for
as the sea, although rich in water, does not refuse 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 unkind-
ness kill 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 "Will" is a
synonym for the passions that 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 ' will ' in all senses is pursued in Sonnet
cxxxvi. The sonnet opens :

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy will,2
And will thy soul knows is admitted there.

Here Shakespeare adapts to his punning purpose the familiar
Sonnet philosophic commonplace respecting the soul's domi-
cxxxvi. nation by ' will ' or volition, which was more clearly

ance with no uncommon practice of his. The line ' And will to boot, and will in
over-plus,' is paralleled in its general form and intention in such lines of other
sonnets as

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind (cv. 5).

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.

1 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 sinful earth" in Sonnet cxlvi.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 423

expressed by his contemporary, Sir John Davies, in the
philosophic poem, c 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.1
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love ;
Ay, fill it full 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 Will continues to claim, in punning right of
his Christian name, a place, however small and inconspicuous,
among the 'wills,' the varied forms of will (i.e. lust, stubborn-
ness, 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
somewhat 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.2

1 The 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.

1 Mr. 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.
Professor 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 mvself am all will, i.e. all desire.'

424 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

That is equivalent to saying ' Make " will " ' (t.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
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 him-
self.

Loosely as Shakespeare's sonnets were constructed, the
couplet at the conclusion of each poem invariably summarises
the general intention of the preceding twelve lines. The con-
cluding 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 still,
And then thou lovest me — for my name is Will.

The whole significance of both couplets resides in the
twice-repeated fact tnat 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 Will is the name of her
ruling passion. Thus his pretension to her affections rests, he
punningly assures her, on a strictly logical basis.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 425

Unreasonable as any other interpretation of these sonnets

(cxxxv.-vi.) seems to be, I believe it far more

cxxxiv fatuous to seek in the single and isolated use of the

word ' will ' in each of the sonnets cxxxiv. and

cxliii. any confirmation 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. l
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still.
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous and he is kind.
He learn'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 double 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 :

1 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.

426 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 will I pray that thou mayst have thy will,1
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

In this sonnet — which presents a very clear-cut picture, al-
though its moral is somewhat equivocal — the poet represents

the lady as a country housewife and himself as her
SomietwcHii DaDe ', while an acquaintance, who attracts the

lady but is not attracted by her, is figured as a
' feathered creature ' in the housewife'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 man's name of ' Will ' can be fairly
wrested from the context.

1 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 needless complication.

427

IX.

THE VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN
SONNET,

THE sonnetteering vogue, as I have already pointed out,1
reached its full height between 1591 and 1597, and when at its
briskest in 1594 it drew Shakespeare into its current. An
enumeration of volumes containing sonnet-sequences or de-
tached sonnets that were in circulation 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 biblio-
graphical account, with a few critical notes, of the chief efforts
of Shakespeare's rival sonnetteers.2

The earliest collections of sonnets to be published in
England were those by the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas
Wyatt's and Wyatt, which first appeared in the publisher Tottel's
Surrey's poetical miscellany called ' Songes and Sonnetes ' in

Sonnets, r _, . , J ° .

published in 1557- This volume included sixteen sonnets by
Surrey and twenty by Wyatt. Many of them were
translated directly 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

1 See p. 83 supra.

- The word ' sonnet * was often irregularly used for ' song or ' poem.' ' A proper
sonnet in Clement Robinson's poetical anthology, A Handefull of Pleasant Delites,
1584, is a lyric in ten four-line alternatively rhymed stanzas. Neither Barnabe
Googe's Eglogs, Epyttaplies, and Sonnettes, 1 563, nor George Turbervile's EpitapJies,
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 fourteen-line stanza in regular sonnet form, which alone falls within my survey.
Watson is congratulated on ' scaling the skies in lofty quatorzains ' in verses
before his Passionate Centurie, 1582 ; cf. 'crazed quatorzains' in Thomas Nash s
preface to his edition of Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, 1591 ; and Amours in Qua-
torzains on the title-page of the first edition of Drayton's Sonnets, 1594.

428 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 till 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 ''EKATOMIIAeiA,
or Passionate Centurie of Loue. Divided into two

Watson s ,

' Centurie of parts : whereof the first expresseth the Authours
Love,' 1582. sufferance on Loue : the latter his long farewell to
Loue and all his tyrannic. Composed by Thomas Watson, and
published 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.1
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 fourteen 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 Teares of Fancie,' only
circulated in manuscript in his lifetime.2

Meanwhile a greater poet, Sir Philip Sidney, who died in
1586, had written and circulated among his friends a more

ambitious collection of a hundred and eight sonnets.
^Jdtrophel Most of Sidney's sonnets were addressed by him under
and Stella,' the 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,

1 See p. 103 supra.

' All Watson's sonnets are reprinted by Mr. Arber in Watson's Poems, 1895.

VOGUE OF THE 'ELIZABETHAN SONNET 429

under the title of ' Astrophel and Stella,' by a publishing adven-
turer named Thomas Newman, and in his first issue Newman
added an appendix of 'sundry other rare sonnets by divers
noblemen and gentlemen.' Twenty-eight sonnets by Daniel
were printed in the appendix 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.1

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.2

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 Pem-

I. Collected * . ' . ' _ ' , „ .

sonnets of broke. As in many French volumes, the collection
feigned love. conciucjed with an ' ode.' s At every point Daniel

1 In a preface to Newman's first edition of A strophe I ami Stella the editor, Thomas
Nash, in 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 ! for lo, here he cometh that hath broken
your legs.' But the effect of Sidney's work was just the opposite to that which
Nash anticipated. It gave the sonnet in England a vogue that it never enjoyed
before or since.

'J 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 predominant characteristic.

3 Daniel reprinted all but nine of the sonnets that had been unwarrantably
appended to Sidney's Astrophel. These nine he permanently dropped.

430 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

betrayed his 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 as-
Daniei's semblage of dixains called ' De'lie, objet de plus haute
Delia,' 1592. vertu'(Lyon, 1544), was the pattern of all sonnet-
sequences on love, and was a constant theme of commendation
among the later French sonnetteers. But it is to Desportes
that Daniel owes most, and his methods of handling his mate-
rial may be judged by a comparison of his Sonnet xxvi. with
Sonnet Ixiii. in Desportes' collection, ' Cleonice : Dernieres
Amours,' which was issued at Paris in 1575.
Desportes' sonnet runs :

Je verray par les ans vengeurs de mon martyre
Que 1'or de vos cheveux argente' deviendra,
Que de vos deux soleils la splendeur s'esteindra,

Et qu'il faudra qu' Amour tout confus s'en retire.

La beaute1 qui si douce a present vous inspire,
Cedant aux lois du Temps ses faveurs reprendra,
L'hiver de vostre teint les fleurettes perdra,

Et ne laissera rien des thresors que i'admire.

Cest orgueil desdaigneux qui vous fait ne m'aimer,

En regret et chagrin se verra transformer,

Avec le changement d'une image si belle :
Et peut 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
production :

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 Phcenix-like to make her live anew.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 43!

In Daniel's beautiful sonnet (xlix.) beginning,

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,

he has borrowed much from De Baif and Pierre de Brach, sonnet-
teers with whom it was a convention to invocate ' O Sommeil
chasse-soin.' But again he chiefly relies on Desportes, whose
words he adapts with very slight variations. Sonnet Ixxiii. of
Desportes' 'Amours d'Hippolyte ' opens thus :

Sommeil, paisible fils de la Nuict solitaire ....
O frere 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,
'The Complaint of Rosamund.' The volume was
Daniel's called ' Delia and Rosamund Augmented.' Spenser,
in his ' Colin Clouts come Home againe,' lauded the
' well-tuned song ' of Daniel's sonnets, and Shakespeare 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
England; while Bartholomew Griffin, 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 (1592) that saw the first
complete version of Daniel's ' Delia,' Henry Constable published
' Diana : the Praises of his Mistres in certaine sweete
'Diana,1 Sonnets.' Like the title, the general tone was drawn
from Desportes' ' Amours de Diane.' Twenty-one
poems were included, all in the French vein. The collection
was reissued, with very numerous 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-
sellers.1 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

1 It is reprinted in Arber's Garner, ii. 225-64.

432 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

customers with a disordered miscellany of what they called ' or-
phan 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 1 593 the legion of sonnetteers received notable reinforce-
ments. In May came out Barnabe Barnes's interesting volume,
' Parthenophil and Parthenophe : Sonnets, Madrigals,

Barnes . • «j ». i • i •.•

sonnets, Elegies, and Odes. To the right noble and virtuous
1593- gentleman, M. William Percy, Esq., his dearest

friend.' 1 The contents of the volume 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, moreover, included what purports
to be a translation of ' Moschus' first eidillion describing love,'
but is clearly a rendering of a French poem by Amadis
Jamin, entitled 'Amour Fuitif, du grec de Moschus,' in his
'CEuvres Poetiques,' Paris, I579-2 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.

1 Arber's Garner, v. 333-486.

* Ben Jonson developed the same conceit in his masque, The Hue and Cry after
Cupid, 1608.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 433

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 ! l

In August 1593 there appeared a posthumous collection of
sixty-one sonnets by Thomas Watson, entitled ' The Tears of

Fancie, or Love Disdained.' They are throughout of
Watson's^ t^e imitative type of his previously published ' Cen-
Fancie,' turie 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 Lady.' This collection of fifty-three sonnets is
'Licia,' dedicated to the wife of Sir Richard Mollineux.
1593- Fletcher 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.' 2

The most notable contribution to the sonnet-literature
of 1593 was Thomas Lodge's 'Phillis Honoured with Pastoral

Sonnets, Elegies, and Amorous Delights.' s Besides
' Phfilis,' forty sonnets, some of which exceed fourteen lines

in length and others are shorter, there are in-
cluded three elegies and an ode. Desportes is Lodge's chief
master, but he had recourse to Ronsard and other French
contemporaries. How servile he could be may be learnt from
a comparison of his Sonnet xxxvi. with Desportes's sonnet from
' Les Amours de Diane,' livre II. sonnet iii.
Thomas Lodge's Sonnet xxxvi. runs thus :

If so 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 will cry.

' Dekker's well-known song, ' Oh, sweet content,' in his play of ' Patient
Grisselde' (1599), echoes this sonnet of Barnes. 2 Arber's Garner, viii. 413-52.

' There is a convenient reprint of Lodge's Phillis in Elizaoethan Sonnet-Cycles
by Martha Foote Crow, 1896.

F F

434 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If I lament his pride, he doth increase my pain
If tears my cheeks attaint, his cheeks are mois 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 will 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 II. son-
net iii. :

Si ie me si6s k 1'ombre, aussi soudainement
Amour, laissant son arc, s'assiet et se repose :
Si ie pense £ des vers, ie le voy qu'il 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 il arrose :
Si ie monstre la playe en ma poi trine enclose,
II d6fait son bandeau 1'essuyant doucement.

Si ie vay par les bois, aux bois il m'accompagne :
Si ie me suis cruel, dans mon sang il se bagne :
Si ie vais £ la guerre, il deuient mon soldart :

Si ie passe la mer, il conduit ma nacelle :

Bref, iamais 1'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 ' Delia ' and of Constable's ' Diana' (in a piratical mis-
cellany of sonnets from many pens), prove the steady growth
of the sonnetteering vogue. Michael Drayton in June pro-
duced his ' Ideas Mirrour, Amours in Quatorzains,' containing
Drayton's fifty-one ' Amours ' and a sonnet addressed to
1 idea,' 1594. « his ever kind Mecaenas, Anthony Cooke.' Drayton
acknowledged his devotion to 'divine Sir Philip,' but by
his choice of title, style, and phraseology, the English sonnet-
teer once more betrayed his indebtedness to Desportes and
his compeers. ' L'Ide"e ' 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 lifetime. A com-
parison of the various editions (1594, 1599, 1005, and 1619) shows

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 435

that Drayton published a hundred sonnets, but the majority
were apparently circulated by him in early life.1

William Percy, the ' dearest friend ' of Barnabe Barnes, pub-
lished in 1594, in emulation of Barnes, a collection of twenty
Percy's ' Sonnets to the fairest Ccelia.' * He explains, in an
'Coelia, 1594. address to the reader, that out of courtesy he had
lent the sonnets to friends, who had secretly committed them to
the press. Making 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 anony-
mous author calls them, also appeared in 1594 with the title
Zepheria, ' Zepheria.' 3 In some prefatory verses addressed
1594- 'Alii veri figlioli delle Muse' laudatory reference

was made to the sonnets 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 ' gulling sonnets ' beginning, ' My case
is this, I love Zepheria bright.'

Four interesting ventures belong to 1595. In January,
appended to Richard Barnfield's poem of ' Cynthia,' a pane-
gyric on Queen Elizabeth, was a series of twenty sonnets
extolling the personal charms of a young man in emulation of
Virgil's Eclogue ii., in which the shepherd Corydon addressed
Barnfield's the shepherd-boy Alexis.4 In Sonnet xx. the author
sonnets to' expressed regret that the task of celebrating his

Uanymeue, °

1595. 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 '). Barnfiely
at times imitated Shakespeare.

Almost at the same date as Barnfield's ' Cynthia ' made its
appearance there was published the more notable collection by

Edmund Spenser of eighty-eight sonnets, which in
'Amoretti,' reference to their Italian origin he entitled 'Amo-

retti.' •"' Spenser had already translated many son-

1 See p. no, note. a Arber's Garner, vi. 135-49.

* Ib. v. 61-86.

* Reprinted in Arber's English Scholars' Library, 1882.

* It was licensed for the press on November 19, 1594,

436 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

nets on philosophic topics of Petrarch and Joachim Du Bellay.
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.'

An unidentified ' E.G., Esq.,' produced also in 1595, under
the title of ' Emaricdulfe,' 1 a collection of forty sonnets, echoing
'Emark- English and French models. In the dedication to his
dulfe,' 1595. < two very good friends, John Zouch and Edward
Fitton Esquiers,' the author tells them that an ague confined him
to his chamber, ' and to abandon idleness he completed an idle
work that he had already begun at the command and service of
a fair dame.'

To 1 595 may best be referred the series of nine ' Gullinge
sonnets,' or parodies, which Sir John Davies wrote and circulated
Sir John m n13111180"?^ m order to put to shame what he
Davies's regarded as 'the bastard sonnets' in vogue. He
Sonnets^ addressed his collection to Sir Anthony Cooke,
1595- whom Drayton had already celebrated as the

Mecasnas of his sonnetteering efforts.2 Davies seems to have
aimed at Shakespeare as well as at insignificant rhymers like
the author of ' Zepheria.' 3 No. viii. of Davies's ' gullinge
sonnets,' which ridicules the legal metaphors of the sonnetteers,
may be easily matched in the collections of Barnabe Barnes or
of the author of ' Zepheria,' but Davies's phraseology suggests
that he also was glancing at Shakespeare's legal sonnets Ixxxvii.
and cxxxiv. Davies's sonnet runs :

My case 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.

1 Reprinted for the Roxburghe Club in A Lamport Garland, 1881, edited by Mr.
Charles Edmonds.

* Sir John Davies's Complete Poems, edited by Dr. Grosart, i. 51-6?.
3 See p. 128, note.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 437

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 esloyned [i.e. absconded], not to be found.

Then what the law affords I only crave,

Her heart for mine, in wit her name to have (sic).

' R. L., gentleman,' probably Richard Linche, published in
1 596 thirty-nine sonnets under the title ' Diella.' l The effort is
Linche's thoroughly conventional. In an obsequious address
'Diella,1 by the publisher, Henry Olney, to Anne, wife of Sir
Henry Glenham, Linche's sonnets are described as
' passionate ' and as ' conceived in the brain of a gallant
gentleman.'

To the same year belongs Bartholomew Griffin's ' Fidessa,'
sixty-two sonnets inscribed to 'William Essex, Esq.' Griffin
Griffin's designates his sonnets as ' the first fruits of a young
' Fidessa,' beginner.' He is a shameless plagiarist. Daniel is
his chief model, but he also imitated Sidney, Watson,
Constable, and Drayton. Sonnet Hi., beginning '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.2 Jaggard doubt-
less stole the poem from Griffin, although it may be in its essen-
tials the property of some other poet. Three beautiful

Thomas UTM_ /- i.- i. r j

Campion, love-sonnets by Thomas Campion, which are found

in the Harleian MS. 6910, are there dated I59&.3
William Smith was the author of ' Chloris,' a third collection
of sonnets appearing in 1 596.* The volume contains forty-eight
William sonnets of love of the ordinary type, with three
Smith's i adulating Spenser ; of these, two open the volume and
1596. one concludes it. Smith says that his sonnets were

'the budding springs of his study.' In 1600 a license was
issued by the Stationers' Company for the issue of ' Amours ' by

1 Arber's Garner, vii. 185-208.

3 Ib. v. 587-622.

3 Cf. Brydges's Excerpta. Titdoriana, 1814, i. 35-7. One was printed with some
alterations in Rosseter's Book of Ayres (1610), and another in the Third Book of
Ayres (1617?); see Campion's Works, ed. A. H. Bullen, pp. 15-16, 102.

* Arber's Garner, viii. 171-99.

438 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

W. S. This no doubt refers to a second collection of sonnets
by William Smith. The projected volume is not extant.1

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 of forty
' sonnets ' in irregular metres. There is a prose dedication o
Lucy, sister of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland. Tofte
Robert tells his patroness that most of his ' toys ' ' were
^Laura,' conceived in Italy.' As its name implies, his work
1597- 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 William Alexander's ' Aurora,'

a collection of a hundred and six sonnets, with a few songs

and elegies interspersed on French patterns. Sir

Sir William ..,.,,. , ... , .,-... -

Alexander's William describes the work as ' the first fancies of
Aurora.' ^s yOU{hj an(j formally inscribes it to Agnes,
Countess of Argyle. It was not published till i6o4.2

Sir Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, the intimate
friend of Sir Philip Sidney, was author of a like collection of
sonnets called ' Caelica.' The poems number a
Greviiie's hundred and nine, but few are in strict sonnet metre.
' Csehca. Only a small proportion profess to be addressed to
the poet's fictitious mistress, Caelica. Many celebrate the

1 See p. 390 and note.

3 Practically to the same category as these collections of sonnets belong the
voluminous 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's Avisa, 1594; Alcilia: Philoparthens Loving Folly, byJ.C., T.y)$;Arbor
of Amorous Devices, 1597 (containing two regular sonnets), by Nicholas Breton ;
Alba, the Months Minde of a Melancholy Lwer, by Robert Tofte, 1598; Dai-
phantus, or the Passions of Love, by Anthony Scoloker, 1604; Breton's The Pas-
sionate Shepheardi or The Shepheardes Lo-ue : set downe in passions to his Shcp-
heardesse Aglaia '. -with many excellent conceited poems and pleasant sonets Jit
for young heads to passe away id.'e houres, 1604 (none of the 'sonets1 nre in sonnet
metre) ; and John Reynolds's Dolarnys Primerose . . . wherein is expressed the
liuely passions of Zeale and Loue, 1606. Though George Wither 's similar pro-
ductions— his exquisitely fanciful Fidelia (1617) and his Faire-Virtuet the Mistressc
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 439

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 medita-
tions on more or less metaphysical themes, but the tone is never
very serious. Greville 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.

With Tofte's volume in 1597 the publication of collections

of love-sonnets practically ceased. Only two collections on

a voluminous scale seem to have been written in

Estimate of . . - , , . .

number of the early years ot the seventeenth century. About
issvueesd°beets 1607 William Drummond of Hawthornden penned
tween 1591 a series of sixty-eight interspersed with songs,
madrigals, and sextains, nearly all of which were
translated or adapted from modern Italian sonnetteers.1 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 ot
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
' Caelia ' and a few detached sonnets of the same type.2 The
dates of production of Drummond's, Davies's, and Browne's
sonnets exclude them from the present field of view. Omitting
them, we find that between 1591 and 1597 there had been
printed nearly twelve hundred sonnets of the amorous kind.
If to these we add Shakespeare's poems, and make allow-
ance 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.
France and Italy directed their literary energies in like direc-
tion during nearly the whole of the century, but at no other

1 They were first printed in 1656, seven years after the author's death, in Poems
by tliat famous -wit, William Drummond, London, fol. The volume was edited by
Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew. The best modern edition is that edited by Mr
W. C. Ward in the ' Muses' Library ' (1894).

* Cf. William Browne's Poems in ' Muses' Library (1894), ii. 217 et seq.

440 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

II. oonnets . _ *

to patrons, certain Sonnets touching Robert Greene' (1592),
including Edmund 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 printed in 'Harleian Miscellany,' 1813, ix. 491); six
adulatory sonnets appended by Barnabe Barnes to his ' Par-
thenophil' in May 1593 ; four sonnets to ' Sir Philip Sidney's
soul,' prefixed to the first edition of Sidney's ' Apologie for
Poetrie' (1595); seventeen sonnets which were originally pre-
fixed to the first edition of Spenser's ' Faerie Queene,' bk. i.-iii.,
in 1590, and were reprinted in the edition of I596;1 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 Astrasa,' all extravagantly eulogising Queen Eliza-
beth (1599).

The collected sonnets on religion and philosophy that
appeared in the period 1591-7 include sixteen 'Spirituall
Sonnettes to the honour of God and Hys Saynts,' written by
in. Son- Constable about 1593, and circulated only in manu-
"osophy^jd script i these were first printed from a manuscript in
religion. the Harleian collection (5993) by Thomas Park
in ' Heliconia,' 1815, vol. ii. In 1595 Barnabe Barnes published

1 Chapman imitated Spenser by appending fourteen like sonnets to his transla-
tion of Homer in 1610 ; they were increased in later issues to twenty-two. Very
numerous sonnets to patrons were appended by John Davies of Hereford to his
Microcosmos (1603) and to his Scourge of Folly (1611). 'Divers sonnets, epistles,
&c." addressed to patrons by Joshua Sylvester between 1590 and his death in 1618
were collected in the 1641 edition of his Du Bartas his divine iveekes and workes.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 441

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
1 573 and 1 578 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 published in Paris in 1605.
In 1594 George Chapman published ten sonnets in praise of
philosophy, which he entitled ' A Coronet for his Mistress Philo-
sophy.' 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 ' Sundrie Sonets of Christian
Passions, with other Affectionate Sonets of a Feeling Conscience.'
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.8

Thus in the total of sonnets published between 1591 and
1 597 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 Remy Belleau in 1566 brought out a similar poetical version of the Book of
Ecclesiastes entitled Vanite.

2 There are forty-eight sonnets on the Trinity and similar topics appended to
Davies's Wittes Pilgrimage (1610 ?).

442 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN
FRANCE, 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 love
Ronsard in his dixains entitled ' Delie' (1544). But it was
anSd4rLa8s) Ronsard (J 524-i 585), m tne second half of the
Pleiade.' century, who first gave the sonnet a pronounced
vogue in France. The sonnet was handled with the utmost
assiduity not only by Ronsard, but by all 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 re-formation 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,1 but all that was best in the recent
Italian literature.'2 Although they were learned poets, Ronsard

1 Graphic illustrations of the attitude of Ronsard and his friends to a Greek poet
like Anacreon appear in A nacreon et les Poemes anacreontiques, Texte grec avec les
Traductions et Imitations des Pastes du XVIe slecle, par A. Delboulle (Havre, 1891).
A translation of Anacreon by Remy Belleau appeared in 1556. Cf. Sainte-Beuve's
essay, ' Anacreon au XVI6 siecle,' in his Tableau de la Potsie franfaise au XVIt
siecle (1893), pp. 432-47. In the same connection Recueildesplus beaux Epigrammes
grecs, mis en versfrancois, par Pierre Tamisier (edit. 1617), is of interest.

2 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 Sannazzaro (1458-1530), Agnolo Firenzuola (1497-1547),
Cardinal Bembo (1470-1547), Gaspara Stampa (1524-1553), Pietro Aretino

THE SONNET IN FRANCE 443

and the majority of his associates had a natural lyric vein,
which gave their poetry the charms of freshness and spontaneity.
The true members of ' La Pleiade,' according to Ronsard's
own statement, were, besides himself, Joachim duBellay (1524-
1560); Estienne Jodelle (1532-1573); Remy Belleau (1528-
1577); Jean Dinemandy, usually known as Daurat or Dorat
(1508-1588), Ronsard's classical teacher in early life ; Jean-
Antoine de Baif (1532-1589) ; and Ponthus 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 (1538 P-I585), Jean Passerat (1534-1602), Philippe Des-
portes (1546-1606), Estienne Pasquier (1529-1615), Scevole de
Sainte-Marthe (1536-1623), and Jean Bertaut (1552-1611).
These subordinate members of the ' Ple"iade ' were no less
Desportes devoted to sonnetteering than the original members.
(1546-1606). 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 numerous disciples
to practise ' Petrarchism,' as the imitation of Petrarch was
called, beyond healthful limits. Under the influence of Des-
portes 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 movement in France adumbrated that

(1492-1557), Bernardo Tasso (1493-1568), Luigi Tansillo (1510-1568), Gabriello
Fiamma (d. 1585), Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), Luigi Groto (Jl. 1570), Giovanni
Battista Guarini (1537-1612), and Giovanni Battista Marino (1565-1625) (cf. lira-
boschi's Storia delta, Letteratura Italiana, 1770-1782 ; Dr. Garnett's History oj
Italian Literature, 1897 ; and Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, edit. 1898,
vols. iv. and vi.) The notes to Watson's Passionate Centurie of Love, published
in 1582 (see p. 103, note), to Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, edited by Mr. A. H.
Bullen in 1891, and to the Poems of Druminond of Hawthomden, edited by
Mr. W. C. Ward in 1894, give many illustrations of English sonnetteers' indebted-
ness to Serafino, Groto, Marino, Guarini, Tasso, and other Italian sonnetteers of the
sixteenth century.

444 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

in England. The collective edition in 1584 of the works of
Ronsard, the master of the ' Ple"iade,' contains more than nine
hundred separate sonnets arranged under such titles as ' Amours
Chief collec- ^e Cassandre,' 'Amours de Marie,' 'Amours pour
tions of Astree,3 ' Amours pour Helene ; ' besides ' Amours

French son- '

nets pub- Divers and 'Sonnets Divers,' complimentary ad-
between 1550 dresses to friends and patrons. Du Bellay's ' Olive,'
and 1584. a collection of love sonnets, first published in 1549,
reached a total of a hundred and fifty. ' Les Regrets,' Du Bellay's
sonnets on general topics, some of which Edmund Spenser first
translated into English, numbered in the edition of 1565 a
hundred and eighty-three. De Bai'f 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
Callirde,' and 'Les Amours d'Artemis '(1575). Desportes's
'Premieres CEuvres' (1575), a very popular book in England,
included more than three hundred sonnets — a hundred and fifty
being addressed to Diane, eighty-six to Hippolyte, and ninety-
one to Cleonice. Belleau brought out a volume of 'Amours'
in 1576 ; and Ponthus de Thyard produced in 1587 his ' Erreurs
Amoureuses,' sonnets addressed to Pasithee.

Among other collections of sonnets published by less known
writers of the period, and arranged here according to date of
Minor collec- ^rst publication, were those of Guillaume des Autels,
dons of 'Amoureux Repos' (1553) ; Olivier de Magny,
netTpubHsh- ' Amours, Soupirs,' &c. (1553, 1559); Louise Labe",
i553eantTn ' CEuvres' (1555) ; Jacques Tahureau, 'Odes, Son-
1605. nets,' &c. (1554, 1574); Claude de Billet, 'Amal-

thee,' a hundred and twenty-eight love sonnets (1561) ;
Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, ' Foresteries ' (1555 et annis seq.) ;
Jacques Grevin, 'Olympe' (1561); Nicolas Ellain, 'Sonnets'
(1561) ; Scevole de Sainte-Marthe, ' CEuvres Franchises' (1569,
1579); Estienne de la Bodtie, 'CEuvres' (1572), and twenty-
nine sonnets published with Montaigne's 'Essais' (1580) ; Jean
et Jacques de la Taille, 'CEuvres' (1573); Jacques de Billy,
'Sonnets Spirituels ' (first series 1573, second series 1578);
Estienne Jodelle 'CEuvres Poetiques ' (1574); Claude de Pon-

THE SONNET IN FRANCE 44$

toux, 'Sonnets de I'ldeV (1579); Les Dames des Roches,
' CEuvres' (1579, 15 84); Pierre de Brach, 'Amours d'Aymee '
(circa 1 580) ; Gilles Durant, ' Poe'sies ' — sonnets to Charlotte
and Camille (1587, 1594) ; Jean Passerat, ' Vers . . . d' Amours '
(1597); and Anne de Marquet, who died in 1588, 'Sonnets

' There are modern reprints of most of these books, but not of all. There is a
good reprint of Ronsard's works, edited by M. P. Blanchemain, in La Bibliotheque
Elzeviricnne, 8 vols. 1867 ; the Etude sur la Vic de Ronsard, in the eighth volume,
is useful. The works of Remy Belleau are issued in the same series. The writings
of the seven original members of ' La P16iade ' are reprinted in La PUiade Fran-
caise, edited by Marty- Laveaux, 16 vols., 1866-93. Maurice Seve's Delie was re-
issued at Lyons in 1862. Pierre de Brach's poems were carefully edited by Reinhold
Dezeimeris(2 vols., Paris, 1862). A complete edition of Desportes's works, edited by
Alfred Michiels, appeared in 1863. Prosper Blanchemain edited a reissue of the
works of Louise Labe in 1875. The works of Jean de la Taille, of Amadis Jamyn,
and of Guillaume des Autels are reprinted in Tresor des Vieux Poetes Franfais
(1877 et annis seq.) See Sainte-Beuve's Tableau Historique et Critique de la Poisie
Franfaise du XVle Siecle (Paris, 1893) ; Henry Francis Gary's Early French Poets
(London, 1846) ; Becq de Fouquieres' CEuvres choisies des Poetes Franfais du XVIe
Siecle contemporains avec Ronsard (1880), and the same editor's selections from De
Baif, Du Bellay, and Ronsard ; Darmesteter et Hatzfeld's Le Seizihne Siicle en
France— Tableau de la Litterature et de la Langue (6th edit., 1897) ; and Petit
de Julleville's Histoire de la Langue et de la Littirature Francaise (1897, iii. 136-
260).

INDEX

ABBEY

ABBEY, Mr. E. A., 342

Abbott, Dr. E. A., 364

Actor, Shakespeare as an, 43-45.
See also Rdles, Shakespeare's

Actors : entertained for the first
time at Stratford-on-Avon, 10 ;
return of the two chief companies
to London in 1587, 33 ; the
players' licensing Act of Queen
Elizabeth, 34 ; companies of boy
actors, 34, 35, 38, 213 ; com-
panies of adult actors in 1587,
35 ; the patronage of the com-
pany which was joined by Shake-
speare, 35, 36 ; women's parts
played by men or boys, 38 and
n 2 ; tours in the provinces, 39-
42 ; foreign tours, 42 ; Shake-
speare's alleged scorn of their
calling, 44, 45 ; ' advice ' to actors
in Hamlet, 45 ; their incomes,
198, 199 and n 2, 201 ; the strife
between adult actors and boy
actors, 213-17, 221 ; patronage
of actors by King James, 232
and n 2 ; substitution of women
for boys in female parts, 334,

335
Adam, in As You Like It, played

by Shakespeare, 44
Adaptations by Shakespeare of old

plays, 56
Adaptations of Shakespeare's plays

at the Restoration, 331, 332
Adulation, extravagance of, in the

days of Queen Elizabeth, 137,

138 and n 2
^Eschylus, Hamlet's ' sea of trou-

AMYNTAS

bles ' paralleled in the Perses
of, 13 n ; resemblance betwee n
Lady Macbeth and Clytemnestra
in the Agamemnon of, 13 n

Esthetic school of Shakespearean
criticism, 333

Alexander, Sir William, sonnets by,

438

Alleyn, Edward, manages the amal-
gamated companies of the
Admiral and Lord Strange, 37 ;
pays fivepence for the pirated
Sonnets, 90 n ; his large savings,
204

Allot, Robert, 312

Alfs Well that Ends Well: the
sonnet form of a letter of Helen,
84 ; probable date of production,
162 ; plot drawn from Painter's
' Palace of Pleasure, ' 163 ; proba-
bly identical with Love's Labour's
Won, 162 ; chief characters, 163 ;
its resemblance to the Two Gen-
tlemen of Verona, 163. For edi-
tions see Section xix. (Bibliogra-
phy), 301-25

America, enthusiasm for Shake-
speare in, 341, 342 ; copies of
the First Folio in, 308, 310 n

Amner, Rev. Richard, 321

' Amoretti,' Spenser's, 115, 435 and
» 5- 436

' Amours ' by ' J. D.,' 390 and n

Amphitruo of Plautus, the, and
a scene in The Comedy of Errors,

' Amyntas,' complimentary title of,
385 n 2

448

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ANGELO

Angelo, Michael, ' dedicatory ' son-
nets of, 138 n 2

' Anthia and Abrocomas,' by Xeno-
phon Ephesius, and the story of
Romeo and Juliet, 55 n i
Antony and Cleopatra: allusion to
the part of Cleopatra being played
by a boy, 39 n ; the youthful-
ness of Octavius Caesar, 143 n 2 ;
the longest of the poet's plays,
224 ; date of entry in the ' Sta-
tioners' Registers,' 244; date of
publication, 245 ; the story derived
from Plutarch, 245 ; the ' happy
valiancy' of the style, 245. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Apollonius and Silla, Historic of,
210

'Apologie for Poetrie,' Sidney's,
allusion to the conceit of the im-
mortalising power of verse in,
114; on the adulation of pa-
trons, 138

' Apology for Actors,' Heywood's,
182

Apsley, William, bookseller, 90,
304, 312

' Arcadia,' Sidney's, 88 n, 241 and
n 2, 429

Arden family, of Warwickshire, 6,
191

Arden family, of Alvanley, 192

Arden, Alice, 7

Arden, Edward, executed for com-
plicity in a Popish plot, 6

Arden, Joan, 12

Arden, Mary. See Shakespeare,
Mary

Arden, Robert (i), sheriff of War-
wickshire and Leicestershire in
1438, 6

Arden, Robert (2), landlord at Snit-
terfield of Richard Shakespeare,
3, 6 ; marriage of his daughter
Mary to John Shakespeare, 6, 7 ;
his family and second marriage,
6 ; his property and will, 7

Arden, Thomas, grandfather of
Shakespeare's mother, 6

A rden of Feversham, a play of un-
certain authorship, 71

Ariel, character of, 256

ASTROPHEL

Ariodante and Ginevra, Historie of,
208

Ariosto, / Suppositi of, 164 ; Or
lando Furioso of, and Much Ado
about Nothing, 208

Aristotle, quotation from, made by
both Shakespeare and Bacon
37° n

Armado, in Love's Labour's Lost
51 n, 62

Armenian language, translation of
Shakespeare in the, 354

Arms, coat of, Shakespeare's, 189,
190, 191, 193

Arms, College of, applications of
the poet's father to, 2, 10 n,
188-92

Arne, Dr., 334

Arnold, Matthew, 327 n i

Art in England, its indebtedness to
Shakespeare, 340, 341

As You Like It : allusion to the
part of Rosalind being played by
a boy, 38 n 2 ; ridicule of foreign
travel, 42 n 2 ; acknowledgments
to Marlowe (HI. v. 8), 64;
adapted from Lodge's ' Rosa-
lynde, 209 ; addition of three new
characters, 209 ; hints taken from
' Saviolo's Practise,' 209 ; its pas-
toral character, 209 ; said to have
been performed before King
James at Wilton, 232 n i, 411 n.
For editions see Section xix. (Bi-
bliography), 301-25

Asbies, the chief property of Robert
Arden at Wilmcote, bequeathed
to Shakespeare's mother, 7 ;
mortgaged to Edmund Lambert,
12 ; proposal to confer on John
Lambert an absolute title to the
property, 26 ; Shakespeare's en-
deavour to recover, 195
Ashbee. Mr. E. W. , 302 »
Assimilation, literary, Shakespeare's

power of, 61, 109 seq.
Aston Cantlowe, 6 ; place of the
marriage of Shakespeare's pa-
rents, 7

'Astrophel,' apostrophe to Sidney
in Spenser's, 143 n 2

'Astrophel and Stella,' 83; the
metre of, 95 n 2 ; address to

INDEX

449

AUBREY

Cupid, 97 n ; the praise of ' black-
ness' in, 119 and n i, 153 n i ;
editions of, 428, 429
Aubrey, John, the poet's early bio-
grapher, on John Shakespeare's
trade, 4 ; on the poet's know-
ledge of Latin, 16 ; on John
Shakespeare's relations with the
trade of butcher, 18 ; on the poet
at Grendon, 31 ; lines quoted by
him on John Combe, 269 n ;
on Shakespeare's genial disposi-
tion, 278 ; value of his biography
of the poet, 362 ; his ignorance
of any relation between Shake-
speare and the Earl of Pembroke,

414. 4iS

' Aurora, ' title of Sir W. Alexander's
collection of sonnets, 438

Autobiographical features of Shake-
speare's plays, 164-7, 168, 248 ;
of Shakespeare's sonnets, the
question of, 100, 109, 125, 152,
160

Autographs of the poet, 284-6

' Avisa,' heroine of Willobie's
poem, 155 seq

Ayrer, Jacob, his Die schone Sidea,
253 and n i

Ayscough, Samuel, 364 n

BACON, Miss Delia, 371

Bacon Society, 372

Bacon-Shakespeare controversy,
(Appendix n.), 370-73

Baddesley Clinton, the Shake-
speares of, 3

Ba'if, De, plagiarised indirectly by
Shakespeare, in and n ; in-
debtedness of Daniel and others
to, 431, 432 ; one of ' La Ple'iade,'

443. 444

Bandello, the story of Romeo and
Juliet by, 55 n i ; the story of
Hero and Claudio by, 208 ; the
story of Twelfth Night by, 210

Barante, recognition of the great-
ness of Shakespeare by, 350

Barnard, Sir John, second husband
of the poet's granddaughter Eliza-
beth, 282

Barnes, Barnabe, legal terminology

in his Sonnets, 32 n 2 and (Ap-
pendix ix. ) 432 ; use of the word
'wire,' 118 n 2; his sonnets
of vituperation, 121 ; the pro-
bable rival of Shakespeare for
Southampton's favour, 131, 132,
J33. J35 n I nis sonnets, 132, 133,
432 ; called ' Petrarch's scholar '
by Churchyard, 133 ; expressions
in his sonnet (xlix.) adopted by
Shakespeare, 152 n ; sonnet to
Lady Bridget Manners, 379 « ;
sonnet to Southampton's eyes,
384 ; compliment to Sidney in
Sonnet xcv. 432 ; Sonnet Ixvi.
('Ah, sweet Content') quoted,
432 ; his sonnets to patrons,
440 ; his religious sonnets, 441

Barnfield, Richard, feigning old age
in his 'Affectionate Shepherd,'
86 n ; his adulation of Queen Eli-
zabeth in 'Cynthia,' 137 n, 435 ;
sonnets addressed to 'Ganymede,'
138 n 2, 435 ; predicts immortality
for Shakespeare, 179; chief author
of the ' Passionate Pilgrim,' 182
and n

Bartholomew Fair, 255

Bartlett, John, 364

Barton collection of Shakespeareana
at Boston, Mass., 341

Barton-on-the-Heath, 12 ; identical
with the ' Burton ' in the Taming
oj the Shrew, 164

Bathurst, Charles, on Shake-
speare's versification, 49 n

Baynes, Thomas Spencer, 365

Beale, Francis, 389

' Bear Garden in South wark, The,'
the poet's lodgings near, 38

Bearley, 6

Beaumont, Francis, on ' things
done at the Mermaid,' 177

Beaumont, Sir John, 388

Bedford, Edward Russell, third Earl
of: his marriage to Lucy Haring-
ton, 161

Bedford, Lucy, Countess of, 138 n
2, 161

Beeston, William (a seventeenth-
century actor), on the report that
Shakespeare was a schoolmaster,
29 ; on the poet's acting, 43

G G

450

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Bellay, Joachim du, Spenser's
translations of some of his sonnets,
101 ; 105 n, 432, 436. 443, 444

Belleau, Remy, poems and sonnets
by, 441 n i, 444, 445 n

Belleforest, Shakespeare's indebted-
ness to the ' Histoires Tragiques '
of, 14, 208, 222 ; translates the
story of Romeo and Juliet, 55 n i

Benda, J. W. O., German transla-
tion of Shakespeare by, 344

Benedick and his ' halting sonnet,'
108 ; 208

Benedix, J. R. , opposition to Shake-
spearean worship by, 345

Bentley, R., 313

Berlioz, Hector, 351

Bermudas, the, and The Tempest,
252

Berners, Lord, translation of
1 Huon of Bordeaux ' by, 162

Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 351

Bertaut, Jean, 443

Betterton, Mrs. , 335

Betterton, Thomas, 33, 332, 334,
335. 362

Bianca and her lovers, story of,
partly drawn from the ' Supposes '
of George Gascoigne, 164

Bible, the, Shakespeare and, 16, 17
and n i

Bibliography of Shakespeare, 299-
325

Bensley, Robert, actor, 338

Bidford, near Stratford, legend of a
drinking bout at, 271

Biography of the poet, sources of
(Appendix I.), 361-5

Birmingham, memorial Shake-
speare library at, 298

Biron, in Love's Labour's Lost, 51
and n

Birth of Merlin, 181

Birthplace, Shakespeare's, 8, 9

' Bisson,' use of the word, 317

Blackfriars, Shakespeare's purchase
of property in, 267

Blackfriars Theatre, built by James
Burbage (1596), 38, 200; leased
to ' the Queen's Children of the
Chapel,' 38, 202, 213; occupied
by Shakespeare's company, 38 ;
litigation of Burbage's heirs, 200 ;

Shakespeare's interest in, 201,
202 ; shareholders in, 202 ; Shake-
speare's disposal of his shares in,
264

'Blackness,' Shakespeare's praise
of, 118-120, cf. 155. See also
Fitton, Mary

Blades, William, 364

Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Chap-
man's, 51 n

Blount, Edward, publisher, 92,
135 «• !83. 244. 3°4- 305. 3*2.
393- 394 and n

Blurt, Master Constable, 51 n

Boaden, James, 406 n

Boar's Head Tavern, 170

Boas, Mr. F. S., 365

Boccaccio, Shakespeare's indebted-
ness to, 163, 249, 251 and n 2

Bodenstedt, Friedrich von, German
translation of Shakespeare by,

344

Bohemia, allotted a seashore in
Winter's Tale, 251 ; translations
of Shakespeare in, 354

Boiardo, 243

Bond against impediments respect-
ing Shakespeare's marriage, 20,
21

Bonian, Richard, printer, 226

Booth, Barton, actor, 335

Booth, Edwin, 342

Booth, Junius Brutus, 342

Booth, Lionel, 311

Borck, Baron C. W. von, transla-
tion of Julius Ccesar into
German by, 343

Boswell, James, 334

Boswell, James (the younger), 322,

405 »

Boswell-Stone, Mr. W. G., 364
Bottger, A., German translation of

Shakespeare by, 344
Boy-actors, 34, 35, 38 ; the strife

between adult actors and, 213-

217
Boydell, John, his scheme for

illustrating the work of the poet,

34i

Bracebridge, C. H. , 364

Brach, Pierre de, his sonnet on
Sleep echoed in Daniel's Sonnet
xlix., 101 and n i, 431, 445 n

INDEX

451

BRANDES

Brandes, Mr. Georg, 365
Brassington, Mr. W. Salt, 290 n
Brathwaite, Richard, 269 n i, 388,

398

Breton, Nicholas, homage paid to
the Countess of Pembroke in
his poems, 138 n 2 ; his play on
the words ' wit ' and ' will/ 417
Brewster, E., 313
Bridgeman, Mr. C. O., 415 n
Bright, James Heywood, 406 n
Broken Heart, Ford's, similarity of
theme of Shakespeare's Sonnet
cxxvi. to that of a song in,

97 «
Brooke or Broke, Arthur, his

translation of the story of Romeo

and Juliet, 55, 322
Brooke, Ralph, complains about

Shakespeare's coat-of-arms, 192,

193

Brown, C. Armitage, 406 n

Brown, John, obtains a writ of
distraint against Shakespeare's
father, 12

Browne, William, love-sonnets by,
439 and n 2

Buc, Sir George, 245

Buckingham, John Sheffield, first
Duke of, a letter from King
James to the poet said to have
been in his possession, 231

Bucknill, Dr. John Charles, on the
poet's medical knowledge, 364

Burbage, Cuthbert, 37, 200

Burbage, James, owner of The
Theatre and keeper of a livery
stable, 33, 36 ; erects the Black-
friars Theatre, 38

Burbage, Richard, erroneously
assumed to have been a native of
Stratford, 31 n ; a lifelong friend
of Shakespeare's, 36 ; demolishes
The Theatre and builds the
Globe Theatre, 37, 200; per-
forms, with Shakespeare and
Kemp, before Queen Elizabeth at
Greenwich Palace, 43 ; his im-
personation of the King in
Richard HI, 63 ; litigation of
his heirs respecting the Globe
and the Blackfriars Theatres,
200 ; his income, 203 ; 219 ;

CECIL

creates the title-part in Hamlet,
222 ; 231 ; his reputation made by
creating the leading parts in the
poet's greatest tragedies, 264,
265 ; anecdote of, 265 ; the
poet's bequest to, 276 ; as a
painter, 292

Burgersdijk, Dr. L. A. J., transla-
tion in Dutch by, 352

Burghley, Lord, 375, 376, 378

Burton, Francis, bookseller, 399
n 2, 400

Butter, Nathaniel, 180, 241

' C. , E. ,' sonnet by, on lust, 153 « i ;

his collection of sonnets, ' Ema-

ricdulfe,' 436
Caliban, the character of, 253, 256,

257, and notes

Cambridge, Hamlet acted at, 224
Cambridge edition of Shakespeare,

324

Camden, William, 191
Campbell, Lord, on the poet's legal

acquirements, 364
Campion, Thomas, his opinion of

Barnes's verse, 133 ; his sonnet to

Lord Walden, 140; sonnets in

Harleian MS. , 437 and n 3
Capell, Edward, reprint of Edward

III in his ' Prolusions,' 71 ; 224 ;

his edition of Shakespeare, 319 ;

his works on the poet, 320
Cardenio, the lost play of, 181, 258,

259

Carter, Rev. Thomas, on the alleged
Puritan sympathies of Shake-
speare's father, 10 n

Casteliones y Montisis, Lope de
Vega's, 55 n i

Castille, Constable of, entertain-
ments in his honour at Whitehall,
233. 234

Castle, William, parish clerk of
Stratford, 34

Catherine II of Russia, adaptations
of the Merry Wives and King
John by, 352, 353

Cawood, Gabriel, publisher of
' Man' Magdalene's Funeral
Tears',' 88 n

Cecil, Sir Robert, and the Earl

G G 2

452

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CENTURIE

of Southampton, 143, 379, 381,
382

' Centurie of Spiritual Sonnets, A,'
Barnes's, 132

' Certain Sonnets,' Sidney's, 153 n i

Cervantes, his 'Don Quixote,'
foundation of lost play of Car-
denio, 258 ; death of, 272 n i

Chamberlain, the Lord, his com-
pany of players. See Hunsdon,
first Lord and second Lord

Chamberlain, John, 149, 261 n

Chapman, George, plays on Biron's
career by, 51 n, 395 n i ; his An
Humourous Day's Mirth, 51 n ;
his Blind Beggar of Alexandria,
51 n ; his censure of sonnetteer-
ing, 106 ; his alleged rivalry with
Shakespeare for Southampton's
favour, 134, 135 n, 183 ; his
translation of the ' Iliad,' 227 ;
his sonnets to patrons, 388, 440 n ;
sonnets in praise of philosophy,
441

Charlecote Park, probably the scene
of the poaching episode, 27, 28

Charles I and the poet's plays,
329 ; his copy of the Second
Folio, 312

Charles II, his copy of the Second
Folio, 312

Chateaubriand, 349

Chatelain, Chevalier de, rendering
of Hamlet by, 351

Chaucer, the story of ' Lucrece ' in
his ' Legend of Good Women,'
76 ; hints in his ' Knight's Tale '
for Midsummer Nights Dream,
162 ; the plot of Troilus and
Cressida taken from his ' Troilus
and Cresseid,' 227 ; plot of The
Two Noble Kinsmen drawn from
his ' Knight's Tale," 260

Chenier, Marie-Joseph, sides with
Voltaire in the Shakespearean con-
troversy in France, 349

Chester, Robert, his ' Love's Mar-
tyr,' 183, 184 n

Chettle, Henry, the publisher, his
description of Shakespeare as an
actor, 43 ; 48 n ; his apology for
Greene's attack on Shakespeare,
58, 277 ; 225 ; appeals to Shake-

COLERIDGE

speare to write an elegy on Queen
Elizabeth, 230

Chetwynde, Peter, publisher, 312

Chiswell, R., 313

' Chloris,' title of William Smith's
collection of sonnets, 437 and « 4

Chronology of Shakespeare's plays :
48-57, 59, 63-72 ; partly deter-
mined by subject-matter and
metre, 48-50 ; 161 seq. , 207 seq. ,
235 seq. , 248 seq.

Churchyard, Thomas, his Fantas-
ticall Monarches Epitaph, 51 n ;
calls Barnes ' Petrarch's scholar,'

133

Gibber, Colley, 335
Gibber, Mrs., 336
Gibber, Theophilus, the reputed

compiler of ' Lives of the Poets,'

32 and n 3, 33
Cinthio, the ' Hecatommithi ' of,

Shakespeare's indebtedness to,

J4' 53- 236 I n's tragedy, Epitia,

237

Clark, Mr. W. G. , 325
Clement, Nicolas, criticism of the

poet by, 347, 348
Cleopatra : the poet's allusion to

her part being played by a boy,

38 n 2 ; compared with the ' dark

lady' of the sonnets 123, 124;

her character, 245
Clive, Mrs., 336
Clopton, Sir Hugh, the former

owner of New Place, 193
Clopton, Sir John, 283
Clytemnestra, resemblance between

the characters of Lady Macbeth

and, 13 n
Cobham, Henry Brooke, eighth

Lord, 169
' Ccelia,' love-sonnets by William

Browne entitled, 439 and n 2
'Coelia,' title of Percy's collection

of sonnets, 435
'Ccelica,' title of Fulke Greville's

collection of poems, 97 n
Cokain, Sir Aston, lines on Shake-
speare and Wincot ale by, 166
Coleridge, S. T., on the style of

Antony and Cleopatra, 245 ; on

The Two Noble Kinsmen, 259 ;

representative of the a-sthetic

INDEX

453

school, 333 ; on Edmund Kean,

33.8 ; 365

Collier, John Payne, includes Mu-
cedorus in his edition of Shake-
speare, 72 ; his reprint of Dray-
ton's sonnets, no n ; his forgeries
in the ' Perkins Folio,' 312 and
« 2, 317 n 2 ; 324, 333, 362 ; his
other forgeries (Appendix I.),

367-9

Collins, Mr. Churton, 317 n i

Collins, Francis. Shakespeare's soli-
citor, 271, 273

Collins, Rev. John, 321

Colte, Sir Henry, 410 n

Combe, John, bequest left to the
poet by, 269 ; lines written upon
his money-lending, 269 n

Combe, Thomas, legacy of the
poet to, 276

Combe, William, his attempt to
enclose common land at Strat-
ford, 269

Comedy of Errors : the plot drawn
from Plautus, 16, 54 ; date of
publication, 53; allusion to the
civil war in France, 53 ; possibly
founded on The Historic of
Error, 54 ; performed in the hall
of Gray's Inn 1594, 70. For edi-
tions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

' Complainte of Rosamond,'
Daniel's, parallelisms in Romeo
and Juliet with, 56 ; its topic
and metre reflected in ' Lucrece,'
76, 77 and » i, 431

Concordances to Shakespeare, 364
and n

Condell, Henry, actor and a life-
long friend of Shakespeare, 36,
202, 203, 264 ; the poet's bequest
to him, 276 ; signs dedication of
First Folio, 303, 306

Confessio A mantis, Govver's, 244

Conspiracie of Duke Biron, The,
51 n

Constable, Henry, piratical publi-
cation of the sonnets of, 88 n ;
followed Desportes in naming
his collection of sonnets ' Diana,'
104, 431 ; dedicatory sonnets, 440 ;
religious sonnets, 440

CURTAIN

Contention betwixt the two famous
houses of Yorke and Lancaster,
first part of the, 59

' Contr' Amours,' Jodelle's, parody
of the vituperative sonnet in, 122
and n

Cooke, Sir Anthony, 436

Cooke, George Frederick, actor,
338

Coral, comparison of lips with, 118
and n 2

Coriolanus : date of first publica-
tion, 246 ; derived from North's
' Plutarch,' 246 ; literal reproduc-
tion of the text of Plutarch,
246 and n ; originality of the
humorous scenes, 246 ; date of
composition, 246, 247 ; general
characteristics, 247. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),

301-25

' Coronet for his mistress Philo-
sophy, A,' by Chapman, 106

Coryat, ' Odcombian Banquet ' by,

395

Cotes, Thomas, printer, 312

Cotswolds, the, Shakespeare's allu-
sion to, 168

Court, the, Shakespeare's relations
with, 81, 83, 230, 232-4, cf.
251 n, 254 n, 256 n i, 264

Cowden-Clarke, Mrs., 364

Cowley, actor, 208

' Crabbed age and youth, ' &c.
182 n

Craig, Mr. W. J., 325

Creede, Thomas, draft of the Merry
Wives of Windsor printed by,
172 ; draft of Henry V printed
by. 173 ; fraudulently assigns
plays to Shakespeare, 179, 180

Cromwell, History of Thomas,
Lord, 313

' Cryptogram, The Great,' 372

Cupid, Shakespeare's addresses to,
compared with the invocations
of Sidney, Drayton, Lyly, and
others, 97 n

Curtain Theatre, Moorfields, one of
the only two theatres existing in
London at the period of Shake-
speare's arrival, 32, 36 ; the scene
of some of the poet's perfor-

454

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

mances, 37 ; closed at the period
of the Civil War, 37 ; 233 n i

Cushman, Charlotte, 342

C'ust, Mr. Lionel, 290 n

Cymbeline : sources of plot, 249 ;
introduction of Calvinistic terms,
250 and n; Imogen, 250; com-
parison with As You Like It,
250 ; Dr. Forman's note on its
performance, 250. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography)
301-25

'Cynthia,' Barnfield's, adulation of
Queen Elizabeth in, 137 n, 435

' Cynthia," Ralegh's, extravagant
apostrophe to Queen Elizabeth
in, 137 n

Cynthia's Revels, performed at
Blackfriars Theatre, 215

Cyrano de Bergerac, plagiarisms of
Shakespeare by, 347

' DAIPHANTUS,' allusion to the poet
in Scoloker's, 277

Daniel, Samuel, parallelisms in
Romeo and Juliet with his ' Com-
plainte of Rosamond,' 56, 61 ;
the topic and metre of the ' Com-
plainte of Rosamond ' reflected
in 'Lucrece, ' 76, 77 and n i ; feign-
ing old age, 86 n ; his sonnet
(xlix. ) on Sleep, 101 ; admits
plagiarism of Petrarch in his
'Delia,' 101 n 4; followed Mau-
rice Seve in naming his collec-
tion of sonnets, 104, 430 ; claims
immortality for his sonnets, 115;
his prefatory sonnet in 'Delia,'
130, 429 ; celebrates in verse
Southampton's release from
prison, 149, 388 ; his indebted-
ness to Desportes, 430, and to
De Bai'f and Pierre de Brach,
431 ; popularity of his sonnets, 431

Danish, translations of Shake-
speare in, 354

Danter, John, prints surreptitiously
Romeo and Juliet, 56 ; Titus
Andronicus entered at Stationers'
Hall by, 66

Daurat (formerly Dinemandy),
Jean, one of ' La Pteiade,' 443

DELIA

D'Avenant, John, keeps the Crown
Inn, Oxford, 265

D'Avenant, Sir William, relates the
story of Shakespeare holding
horses outside playhouses, 33 ;
on the story of Southampton's
gift to Shakespeare, 126, 374 ; a
letter of King James to the poet
once in his possession, 231 ;
Shakespeare's alleged paternity
of, 265, 328

Davies, Archdeacon, vicar of Sa-
perton, on Shakespeare's ' un-
luckiness ' in poaching, 27 ; on
' Justice Clodpate ' (Justice Shal-
low), 29 ; 362

Davies, John, of Hereford, his
allusion to the parts played by
Shakespeare, 44 ; celebrates in
verse Southampton's release from
prison, 149, 388 ; his ' Wittes
Pilgrimage,' 439; sonnets to pa-
trons, 440 n

Davies, Sir John : his ' gulling son-
nets,' a satire on conventional
sonnetteering, 106, 107 and n i,
128 n, 435, 436 ; his apostrophe
to Queen Elizabeth, 137 n • 273

Davison, Francis, his translation of
Petrarch's sonnet, 102 n ; dedi-
cation of his ' Poetical Rhapsody '
to the Earl of Pembroke, 414

Death-mask, the Kesselstadt, 296
and n i

' Decameron,1 the, indebtedness ot
Shakespeare to, 163, 249, 251
and n 2

Dedications, 392-400

' Dedicatory ' sonnets, of Shake-
speare, 125 seq. ; of other Eliza-
bethan poets, 138 n 2, 140, 141

Defence of Cony-Catching, 47 n

Dekker, Thomas, 48 n ; the quar-
rel with Ben Jonson, 214-20,
228 n ; 225 ; on King James's
entry into London, 232 ; his
song ' Oh, sweet content ' an
echo of Barnes's ' Ah, sweet Con-
tent,' 433 n i

' Delia,' title of Daniel's collection
of sonnets, 104, 118 n 2, 130, 430,
434. See also under Daniel,
Samuel

INDEX

455

D^LIE

' Delie, sonnets by Sevc entitled,

44^

Delius, Nikolaus, edition of Shake-
speare by, 324 ; studies of the
text and metre of the poet by,

345

Dennis, John, on the Merry Wives
of Windsor, 171, 172 ; his tribute
to the poet, 332

Derby, Ferdinando Stanley, Earl
of, his patronage of actors, 35 ;
performances by his company,
56, 59, 66, 73 ; Spenser's be-
stowal of the title of ' Amyntas '
on, 385 n 2

Derby, William Stanley, Earl of,
161

Desmond, Earl of, Ben Jonson's
apostrophe to the, 140

Desportes, Philippe, his sonnet on
Sleep, 101 and 431 ; plagiarised
by Drayton and others, 103 and
n 3, 430 seq. ; plagiarised indi-
rectly by Shakespeare, no, in ;
his claim for the immortality of
verse, 114 and n i ; Daniel's in-
debtedness to him, 430, 431, 443 ;
444, 445 n

Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft,

365

Devrient family, the, stage repre-
sentation of Shakespeare by, 346

Diana, George de Montemayor's,
and Two Gentlemen of Verona,
53 ; translations of, 53

' Diana ' the title of Constable's
collection of sonnets, 88 n, 96 «,
104, 431

Diderot, opposition to Voltaire's
strictures by, 348

'Diella,' sonnets by ' R. L.1 [Ri-
chard Linche], 437

Digges, Leonard, on the superior
popularity of Julius Ceesar to
Jonson's Catiline, 220 » ; com-
mendatory verses on the poet,
276 n i, 300, 306 ; on the poet's
popularity, 329

' Don Quixote ' and the lost play
Cardenio, 258

Doncaster, the name of Shakespeare
at, i

Donne Dr. John, his poetic ad-

DRUMMOND

dresses to the Countess of Bed-
ford, 138 n 2 ; expression of
' love ' in his ' Verse Letters, '
141 ; his anecdote about Shake-
speare and Jonson, 177

Donnelly, Mr. Ignatius, 372

Dorell, Hadrian, writer of the pre-
face to the story of ' Avisa,'
157

Double Falsehood, or the Distrest
Lovers, 258, 259 and n i

Douce, Francis, 364

Dowdall, John, 362

Dowden, Professor, 333,416 «, 364,

365

Drake, Nathan, 363

Drayton, Michael, 61 ; feigning old
age in his sonnets, 86 n ; his in-
vocations to Cupid, 97 n • pla-
giarisms in his sonnets, 103 and
n 2, 434 ; follows Claude de Pon-
toux in naming his heroine ' Idea,'
104, 105 n i ; his admission of
insincerity in his sonnets, 105 ;
Shakespeare's indebtedness to his
sonnets, no n ; claims immor-
tality for his sonnets, 115 ; use
of the word love,' 127 n ; title
of ' Hymn ' given to some of his
poems, 135 n ; identified by some
as the ' rival poet,' 135 ; adula-
tion in his sonnets, 138 n 2 ;
Shakespeare's Sonnet cxliv.
adapted from, 153 n 2 ; enter-
tained by Shakespeare at New
Place, Stratford, 271 ; 427 n 2 ;
greetings to his patron in his
works, 398

Droeshout, Martin, engraver of the
portrait in the First Folio, 287-8 ;
his uncle of the same name, a
painter, 290

Droitwich, native place of John
Heming, one of Shakespeare's
actor-friends, 31 n

Drummond, William, of Hawthorn-
den, his translations of Petrarch's
sonnets, 104 n 4, in « ; Italian
origin of many of his love-
sonnets, 104 and n ; translation
of a vituperative sonnet from
Marino, 122 n i ; translation of
a sonnet by Tasso, 152 n • two

456

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

self-reproachful sonnets by him,

152 n. See also (Appendix) 439

and n i
Dryden, a criticism of the poet's

work by, 330 ; presented with

a copy of the Chandos portrait

of the poet, 330 ; 361
Ducis, Jean-Fran9ois, adaptations

of the poet for the French stage

by, 349- 352
Dugdale, Gilbert, 231 n
Dulwich, manor of, purchased by

Edward Alleyn, 204, 233 « i
Dumain, Lord, in Love's Labour's

Lost, 51 n
Dumas, Alexandre, adaptation of

Hamlet by, 351
Duport, Paul, repeats Voltaire's

censure, 350
Dyce, Alexander, 259 n i ; on The

Two Noble Kinsmen, 259 ; his

edition of Shakespeare, 323

ECCLESIASTES, Book of, poetical

versions of, 441 and n i
Eden, translation of Magellan's

' Voyage to the South Pole ' by,

253

Edgar, Eleazar, publisher, 390

Editions of Shakespeare's works.
See under Quarto and Folio

Editors of Shakespeare, in the
eighteenth century, 313-22 ; in
the nineteenth century, 323-5 ;
of variorum editions, 322, 323

Education of Shakespeare : the
poet's masters at Stratford
Grammar School, 13 ; his in-
struction in Latin, 13 ; no proof
that he studied the Greek trage-
dians, 13 n; alleged knowledge of
the classics and of Italian and
French literature, 13, 14, 15, 16 ;
study of the Bible in his school-
days, 16, 17 and n i ; removal
from school, 18

Edward II, Marlowe's, Richard II
suggested by, 64

Edward III, a play of uncertain
authorship, 71 ; quotation from
one of Shakespeare's sonnets, 72,
89, and n 2

EURIPIDES

Edwardes, Richard, author of the
lost play Palcemon and Arcyte,
260

Edwards, Thomas, ' Canons of
Criticism' of, 319

Eld, George, printer, 90, 180, 399
n 2, 401, 402

Elizabeth, Princess, marriage of,
performance of The Tempest, &c.
at, 254, 258, 262, 264

Elizabeth, Queen : her visit to
Kenilworth, 17 ; Shakespeare
and other actors play before her,
43, 70, 81 ; shows the poet special
favour, 81, 82 ; her enthusiasm for
Falstaff, 82 ; extravagant compli-
ments to her, 137 ; called
' Cynthia ' by the poets, 148 ;
elegies on her, 147, 148 ; com-
pliment to her in Midsummer
Nights Dream, 161 ; her objec-
tions to Richard II, 175 ; death,
230 ; her imprisonment of South-
ampton, 380

Elizabethan Stage Society, 70 « i,
210 n 2

Elton, Mr. Charles, Q.C., on the
dower of the poet's widow,

274 «

Elze, Friedrich Karl, ' Life of
Shakespeare ' by, 364 ; Shake-
speare studies of, 345

' Emaricdulfe, ' sonnets by 'E.C.,'
153 n i, 436

Endymion, Lyly's, and Love's
Labour's Lost, 62

Eschenburg, Johann Joachim, com-
pletes Wieland's German prose
translation of Shakespeare, 343

Error, Historie of, and Comedy of
Errors, 54

Essex, Robert Devereux, second
Earl of, company of actors under
the patronage of, 33 ; an en-
thusiastic reception predicted for
him in London in Henry V,
174 ; trial and execution, 175,
176 ; his relations with the Earl
of Southampton, 376, 377, 380,

383
Euphues, Lyly's, Polonius's advice

to Laertes borrowed from, 62 n
Euripides, Andromache of, 13 n

INDEX

457

Evans, Sir Hugh, quotes Latin
phrases, 15 ; sings snatches of
Marlowe's ' Come live with me
and be my love,' 65

Evelyn, John, on the change of
taste regarding the drama, 329
n 2

Every Man in his Humour, Shake-
speare takes a part in the per-
formance of, 44, 176 ; prohibition
on its publication, 208

FAIRE EM, a play of doubtful
authorship, 72

Falstaff, Queen Elizabeth's en-
thusiasm for, 82, 171 ; named
originally ' Sir John Oldcastle,'
169 ; objections raised to the
name, 170 ; the attraction of his
personality, 170; his last mo-
ments, 173 ; letter from the
Countess of Southampton on,
383 and n i

Farmer, Dr. Richard, on Shake-
speare's education, 14, 15 ; 363

Farmer, Mr. John S. , 386 n i

' Farmer MS., the Dr.,' Davies's
' gulling sonnets ' in, 107 n i

Fastolf, Sir John, 170

Faucit, Helen, 339. See also
Martin, Lady

Felix and Philomena, History of, 53

' Fidessa,' Griffin's, 182 n, 431, 437

Field, Henry, father of the London
printer, 186

Field, Richard, a friend of Shake-
speare, 32 ; apprenticed to the
London printer, Thomas Vau-
trollier, 32 ; his association with
the poet, 32 ; publishes ' Venus
and Adonis,' 74, 396, and
1 Lucrece,' 76, 396

Finnish, translations of Shakespeare

in. 354

Fisher, Mr. Clement, 166
Fitton, Mary, and the ' dark lady,'

123 n, 406 «, 415 n
Fleay, Mr. F. G., metrical tables

by, 49 n ; on Shakespeare's and

Drayton's sonnets, no n ; 363
Fletcher, Giles, on Time, 77 n 2 ;

his ' imitation ' of other poets,

103 ; admits insincerity in his
sonnets, 105 ; his ' Licia,' 433

Fletcher, John, 181, 184, 258 ;
collaborates with Shakespeare in
The Two Noble Kinsmen and
Henry VIII , 259, 262

Fletcher, Lawrence, actor, takes
a theatrical company to Scotland,
41 and n i, 231

Florio, John, and Holofernes, 51 n,
84 n ; the sonnet prefixed to his
' Second Frutes,' 84 and n ;
Southampton's protege', 84 n ;
his translation of Montaigne's
' Essays,' 84 n, 253 ; his 'Worlde
of Wordes,' 84 n, 387 ; his praise
of Southampton, 131 (and
Appendix iv. ) ; Southampton's
Italian tutor, 376, 384

Folio, the First, 1623 : editor's note
as to the ease with which the
poet wrote, 46 ; the syndicate for
its production, 303, 304 ; its con-
tents, 305, 306 ; prefatory matter,
306, 307 ; value of the text, 307 ;
order of the plays, 307, 308 ; the
typography, 308 ; unique copies,
308-10 ; the Sheldon copy,
309 and n, 310 ; number of extant
copies, 311; reprints, 311; the
'Daniel' copy, 311; dedicated
to the Earl of Pembroke, 412

Folio, the Second, 312

Folio, the Third, 312, 313

Folio, the Fourth, 313

Ford, John, similarity of theme
between a song in his Broken
Heart and Shakespeare's Sonnet
cxxvi., 97 n

Forgeries in the ' Perkins Folio,
312 and n 2

Forgeries, Shakespearean (Ap-
pendix I.), 365-9 ; of John
Jordan, 365, 366 ; of the Ire-
lands, 366 ; promulgated by John
Payne Collier and others, 367-

369

Forman, Dr. Simon, 239, 250
Forrest, Edwin, American actor,

342

Fortune Theatre, 212, 233 « i
France, versions and criticisms of

Shakespeare in, 347-50 ; stage

458

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

representation of the poet in,
350, 351 ; bibliographical note
on the sonnet in (1550-1600)
(Appendix x.)( 442-5
Fraunce, Abraham, 385 n 2
Freiligrath, Ferdinand von, German
translation of Shakespeare by,

344

French, the poet's acquaintance
with, 14, 15

French, George Russell, 363

' Freyndon ' (or Frittenden), i

Friendship, sonnets of, Shake-
speare's, 136, 138-47

Frittenden, Kent. See Freyndon

Fulbroke Park and the poaching
episode, 28

Fuller, Thomas, allusion in his
' Worthies ' to Sir John Fastolf,
170 ; on the ' wit combats ' be-
tween Shakespeare and Jonson,
178 ; the first biographer of the
poet, 361

Fulman, Rev. W., 362

Furness, Mr. H. H., his ' New
Variorum ' edition of Shake-
speare, 323, 341

Furness, Mrs. H. H., 364

Furnivall, Dr. F. J., 49 n, 30272,
325. 334- 364

GALE, Dunstan, 397

Ganymede, Barnfield's sonnets to,
435 and n 4

Garnett, Henry, the Jesuit, pro-
bably alluded to in Macbeth,

239

Gamck, David, 315, 334, 335^7

Gascoigne, George, his definition of
a sonnet, 95 n 2 ; his Supposes,
164

Gastrell, Rev. Francis, 283

Gates, Sir Thomas, 252

Germany, Shakespearean represen-
tations in, 340, 346 ; translations
of the poet's works and criticisms
in, 342-6 ; Shakespeare Society
in, 346

Gervinus, ' Commentaries ' by,
49 n, 346

' Gesta Romanorum ' and the Mer-
chant of Venice, 67

GRAY'S

Ghost in Hamlet, the, played by
Shakespeare, 44

Gilchrist, Octavius, 363

Gildon, Charles, on the rapid pro-

. duction of the Merry Wives of

Windsor, 172 ; on the dispute

at Eton as to the supremacy of

Shakespeare as a poet, 328 n

Giovanni (Fiorentino), Ser, Shake-
speare's indebtedness to his ' II
Pecorone,' 14, 66, 172
' Giuletta, La, by Luigi da Porto,

55 » i

' Globe ' edition of Shakespeare, 325
j Globe Theatre : built in 1599,
37, 196 ; described by Shake-
speare, 37, cf. 173 ; mainly occu-
pied by the poet's company after
1599, 37 ; profits shared by Shake-
speare, 37, 196, 200, 201 ; the
leading London theatre, 37 ; re-
vival of Richard II at, 175 ;
litigation of Burbage's heirs, 200 ;
prices of admission, 201 ; annual
receipts, 201 ; performance of A
Winter's Tale, 251 ; its destruc-
tion by fire, 260, 261 n ; the new
building, 260 ; Shakespeare's dis-
posal of his shares, 264

Goethe, criticism and adaptation of
Shakespeare by, 345

Golding, Arthur, his English ver-
sion of the 'Metamorphoses,'
15, 16, 116 n, 162, 253

Gollancz, Mr. Israel, 222 n, 325

Googe, Barnabe, his use of the
word ' sonnet,' 427 n 2

Gosson, Stephen, his ' Schoole of
Abuse,' 67

Gottsched, J. C., denunciation of
Shakespeare by, 343

Gounod, opera of Romeo and
Juliet by, 351

Gower, John, represented by the
speaker of the prologues in
Pericles, 244 ; his ' Confessio
Amantis,' 244

Gower, Lord Ronald, 297

Grammaticus, Saxo, 222

Grave, Shakespeare's, 272

Gray's Inn Hall, performance of
The Comedy of Errors in, 70
and n

INDEX

459

Greek, Shakespeare's alleged ac-
quaintance with, 13 and n, 16

Green, C. F., 364

Greene, Robert, charged with sell-
ing the same play to two com-
panies, 47 n ; his attack on
Shakespeare, 57 ; his publisher's
apology, 58 ; his share in the ori-
ginal draft of Henry VI, 60 ;
his influence on Shakespeare, 61 ;
describes a meeting with a player,
198 ; A Winter s Tale founded
on his Pandosto, 251 ; dedicatory
greetings in his works, 398

Greene, Thomas, actor at the Red
Bull Theatre, 31 n

Greene, Thomas (' alias Shake-
speare'), a tenant of New Place,
and Shakespeare's legal adviser,
195, 206, 269, 270 and «

Greenwich Palace, Shakespeare and
other actors play before Queen
Elizabeth at, 43, 44 n i, 70, 81,
82

Greet, hamlet in Gloucestershire,
identical with the ' Greece ' in
the Taming of the Shrew , 167

Grendon, near Oxford, Shake-
speare's alleged sojourn there, 31

Greville, Sir Fulke, complains of the
circulation of uncorrected manu-
script copies of the ' Arcadia,'
88 n ; invocations to Cupid in his
collection, 'Ccelica,' 97 n ; his
' Sonnets,' 438, 439

Griffin, Bartholomew, 182 n ; pla-
giarises Daniel, 431, 437

Griggs, Mr. W., 302 n

Grimm, Baron, recognition of
Shakespeare's greatness by, 349,
350 n i

' Groats- worth of Wit,' Greene's
pamphlet containing his attack
on Shakespeare, 57

Guizot, Fran9ois, revision of Le
Tourneur's translation by, 350

'Gulling sonnets, 'Sir John Davies's,
106, 107, 435, 436 ; Shakespeare's
Sonnet xxvi. parodied in, 128 n

'H., Mr. W.,' 'patron' of Thorpe's
pirated issue of the Sonnets, 92 ;

identified with William Hall,
92, 402, 403 ; his publication of
Southwell's ' A Foure-fould Medi-
tation,' 92 ; erroneously said to
indicate the Earl of Pembroke,
94, 406-415 ; improbability of the
suggestion that a William Hughes
was indicated, 93 n; ' W. H.'s '
true relations with Thomas
Thorpe, 390-405

Hacket, Marian and Cicely, in the
Taming of the Shrew , 164-6

Hal, Prince, 169, 173

Hales, John (of Eton), on the superi-
ority of Shakespeare to ail other
poets, 328 and n

Hall, Elizabeth, the poet's grand-
daughter, 192, 266, 275 ; her first
marriage to Thomas Nash, and
her second marriage to John
Barnard (or Bernard), 282 ; her
death and will, 282, 283

Hall, Dr. John, the poet s son-in-
law, 266, 268, 273, 281

Hall, Mrs. Susanna, the poet's
elder daughter, 192, 205, 266 ;
inherits the chief part of the
poet's estate, 275 ; 281 ; her
death, her ' witty ' disposition,
281

Hall, William ( i ), on the inscription
over the poet's grave, 272 and n

Hall, William (2), see ' H., Mr. W.'
Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard,
the indenture of the poet's pro-
perty in Blackfriars in the col-
lection of, 267 n ; his edition of
Shakespeare, 325, 312 ; his great
labours on Shakespeare's bio-
graphy, 333, 363, 364
Hamlet: parallelisms m\heElectra
of Sophocles, the Andromache of
Euripides, and the Persa of
^Eschylus, 13 n ; Polonius's ad-
vice to Laertes borrowed from
Lyly's Euphues, 62 n ; allusion
to boy-actors, 213 n 2, 214 and
n i, 216 ; date of production,
221 ; previous popularity of the
story on the stage, 221 and n ;
sources drawn upon by the poet,
221-2; success of Burbage in

460

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the title-part, 222 ; the problem
of its publication, 222-4 '< tne
three versions, 222-4 '< Theo-
bald's emendations, 224 ; its
world-wide popularity, 224 ; the
longest, except Antony and Cleo-
patra, of all the poet's plays, 224 ;
the humorous element, 224, 225 ;
its central interest, 225. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 224 ; his
edition of Shakespeare, 318

Harington, Sir John, translates
Ariosto, 208

Harington, Lucy, her marriage
to the third Earl of Bedford,
161

Harness, William, 324

Harrison, John, publisher of ' Lu-
crece.' 76

Harsnet, ' Declaration of Popish
Impostures ' by, 241

Hart family, the, and the poet s
reputed birthplace, 8

Hart, Joan, Shakespeare's sister, 8 ;
his bequest to her, 276 ; her three
sons, 276, 283

Hart, John, 283

Hart, Joseph. C., 371

Harvey, Gabriel, bestows on Spenser
the title of ' an English Petrarch,'
101 ; justifies the imitation of
Petrarch, 101 n 4 ; his parody of
sonnetteering, 106, 121 and n ;
his advice to Barnes, 133 ; his
' Four Letters and certain Son-
nets,1 440

Hathaway, Anne. See Shakespeare,
Anne

Hathaway, Catherine, sister of Anne
Hathaway, 19

Hathaway, Joan, mother of Anne
Hathaway, 19

Hathaway, Richard, marriage of
his daughter Anne (or Agnes) to
the poet, 18, 19-22 ; his position
as a yeoman, 18, 19 ; his will,

Haughton, William, 48 n, 418
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 371
Hazlitt, William, and Shakespearean

criticism, 333 ; 364, 365

Healey, John, 400, 403 n 2, 408, 409

' Hecatommithi,' Cinthio's, Shake-
speare's indebtedness to, 14, 53,
236

Heine, studies of Shakespeare's
heroines by, 345

Helena in All's Well that Ends
Well, 163

Heming, John (actor-friend ot
Shakespeare), wrongly claimed
as a native of Stratford, 31 n, 36,
202, 203, 264 ; the poet's bequest
to, 276 ; signs dedication of First
Folio, 303, 306

Henderson, John, actor, 337

Heneage, Sir Thomas, 375 n 3

Henley-in-Arden, 4

Henrietta Maria, Queen, billeted
on Mrs. Hall (the poet's daughter)
at Stratford, 281

Henry IV (parts i. and ii. ) : passage
ridiculing the affectations of
Euphues, 62 n ; sources drawn
upon, 167 ; Justice Shallow, 29,
168 ; references to persons and
districts familiar to the poet,
167, 168 ; the characters, 68,
169, 170. For editions see Sec-
tion xix. (Bibliography), 301-

325

Henry V, The Famous Victories of,
the groundwork of Henry /F'and
of Henry V, 167, 174

Henry V : French dialogues, 15 ;
disdainful allusion to sonnet-
teering, 108 ; date of production,
173 ; imperfect drafts of the
play, 173 ; First Folio version of
1623, 173 ; the comic characters,

173 ; the victory of Agincourt, 174 ;
the poet's final experiment in the
dramatisation of English history,

174 ; the allusions to the Earl
of Essex, 175. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),
301-25

Henry VI (pt. i.): performed at
the Rose Theatre in 1592, 56 ;
Nash's remarks on, 56, 57 ; first
publication, 58 ; contains only a
slight impress of the poet's style,
59 ; performed by Lord Strange's
men, 59

INDEX

461

Henry VI (pt. ii. ) : parallel in the
(Edipus Coloneus of Sophocles
with a passage in, 13 n ; publica-
tion of a first draft with the title
of The first part of the Contention
betwixt the two famous Houses of
Yorke and Lancaster, 59 ; per-
formed by Lord Strange's men,
59 ; revision of the play, 60 ; the
poet's coadjutors in the revision,
60

Henry VI (pt. iii.) : performed by
a company other than the poet's
own, 36 ; performed in the autumn
of 1592, 57 ; publication of a
first draft of the play under the
title of The True Tragedie of
Richard, Duke of Yorke, &c.,
59 ; performed by Lord Pem-
broke's men, 36, 59 ; partly re-
modelled, 60 ; the poet's coad-
jutors in the revision, 60. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Henry VIII, 174; attributed to
Shakespeare and Fletcher, 259 ;
noticed by Sir Henry Wotton,
260 ; first publication, 261 ; the
portions that can confidently be
assigned to Shakespeare, 262 ;
uncertain authorship of Wolsey's
farewell to Cromwell, 262 ;
Fletcher's share, 262. /^editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),
301-25

Henryson, Robert, 227

Henslowe, Philip, erects the Rose
Theatre, 36; bribes a publisher
to abandon the publication of
Patient Grissell, 48 n ; 180 n,
225, 260

' Heptameron of Civil Discources,'
Whetstone's, 237

' Herbert, Mr. William,' his alleged
identity with 'Mr. W. H.' (Ap-
pendix vi.), 406-10

Herder, Johann Gottfried, 343

' Hero and Leander,' Marlowe's,
quotation in As You Like It
from, 64

Herringman, H., 313

Hervey, Sir William, 375 n 3

Hess, J. R., 342

HUNSDON

Heyse, Paul, German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

Heywood, Thomas, his allusion to
the dislike of actors to the publi-
cation of plays, 48 n ; his poems
pirated in the ' Passionate Pil-
grim,' 182, 301 ; 328

Hill, John, marriage of his widow,
Agnes or Anne, to Robert Arden,
6

Holinshed's ' Chronicles,' mate-
rials taken by Shakespeare from,
17. 47. 63, 64, 167, 239, 241,
249

Holland, translations of Shake-
speare in, 352

Holland, Hugh, 306

Holmes, Nathaniel, 372

Holmes, William, bookseller, 403
n i

Holofernes, quotes Latin phrases
from Lily's grammar, 15 ; ground-
less assumption that he is a carica-
ture of Florio, 51 n, 84 n

Horace, his claim for the immor-
tality of verse, 114 and n i, 116 n

Hotspur, 168, 169

Howard of Effingham, the Lord
Admiral, Charles, Lord, his com-
pany of actors, 35 ; its short
alliance with Shakespeare's com-
pany, 37 ; Spenser's sonnet to,
140

Hudson, Rev. H. N., 325

Hughes, Mrs. Margaret, plays
female parts in the place of boys,

335

Hughes, William, and ' Mr. W.
H.,' 93 «

Hugo, Franfois Victor, translation
of Shakespeare by, 350

Hugo, Victor, 350

Humourous Day's Mirth, An, 51 n

Hungary, translations and per-
formances of Shakespeare in,

353

Hunsdon (Lord Chamberlain),
George Carey, second Lord, his
company of players, 35 ; promo-
tion of the company to be the
King's players on the accession
of King James, 35

Hunsdon (Lord Chamberlain),

462

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Henry Carey, first Lord, his
company of players, 35 ; Shake-
speare a member of this com-
pany, 36

Hunt, Thomas, master of Stratford
Grammar School, 13

Hunter, Rev. Joseph, 333, 363,
406

' Huon of Bordeaux,' hints for the
story of Oberon from, 162

' Hymn,' use of the word as the
title of poems, 133, 134, 135 «

' Hymnes of Astrsea,' Sir John
Davies's, 440

' IDEA,' title of Drayton's collection
of sonnets, 104, 105, 434

' Ignoto,' 183

Immortality of verse, claimed by
Shakespeare for his sonnets, 113,
114, 115 and n ; a common theme
with classical and French writers,
114 and n i ; treated by Drayton
and Daniel, 115

Imogen, the character of, 249, 250

Income, Shakespeare's, 196-204

Incomes of actors, 198, 199 and
n 2

India, translations and representa-
tions of Shakespeare in, 354

Ingannati, (Gf], its resemblance to
Twelfth Night, 210

Ingram, Dr., on the 'weak end-
ings ' in Shakespeare, 49 n

Ireland forgeries, the (Appendix I.),
366

Ireland, Samuel, on the poaching
episode, 28

Irishman, the only, in Shakespeare's
dramatis persona, 173

Irving, Sir Henry, 339

Italian, the poet's acquaintance
with, 14-16, cf. 66 n 3

Italy, Shakespeare's knowledge of,
43 ; translations and perfor-
mances of Shakespeare in, 352 ;
the original home of the sonnet,
442 « 2 ; list of sonnetteers of the
sixteenth century in, 442 n 2

Itinerary of Shakespeare's company
in the provinces between 1593
and 1614, 40 and « i

JOHNSON

JAGGARD, Isaac, 305

Jaggard, William, piratically inserts
two of Shakespeare's sonnets in
his ' Passionate Pilgrim," 89, 182,
299, 390, 396 ; prints the First
Folio, 303, 304

James VI of Scotland and I of
England, his favour bestowed on
actors, 41 n i ; sonnets to, 440 ;
his appreciation of Shakespeare,
82 ; his accession to the English
throne, 147, 148, 149 ; grants a
license to the poet and his com-
pany, 230 ; his patronage of
Shakespeare and his company.
232-4, 411 ; performances of A
Winters Tale and The Tempest
before him, 251 and n, 254, 255,
256 n.

James, Sir Henry, 311

Jameson, Mrs. , 365

Jamyn, Amadis, 432, 443, 444,

455 «
Jansen, Cornelius, alleged portrait

of Shakespeare by, 294
Jansen or Janssen, Gerard, 276
Jeronimo, resemblance between
the stories of Hamlet and,
221 n

Jew of Malta, Marlowe's, 68
Jew . . . showne at the Bull, a lost

play, 67

Jodelle, Estienne, resemblances in
' Venus and Adonis ' to a poem
by, 75 » 2 ; his parody of the
vituperative sonnet, 121, 122
and n. ; and ' La Plelade,'

443

John, King, old play on, attributed
to the poet, 181

John, King, Shakespeare's play of,
printed in 1623, 69 ; the origina-
lity and strength of the three
chief characters in, 69, 70. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy) 301-325

Johnson, Dr., his story of Shake-
speare, 33 ; his edition of Shake-
speare, 319, 320, 321 ; his reply
to Voltaire, 348

Johnson, Gerard, his monument to
the poet in Stratford Church,
276

INDEX

463

JOHNSON

Johnson, Robert, lyrics set to music
by, 255 and n

Jones, Inigo, designs scenic decora-
tion for masques, 38 » 2

Jonson, Ben, on Shakespeare's lack
of exact scholarship, 16 ; Shake-
speare takes part in the perform-
ance of Every Man in his
Humour and in Sejatius, 44 ;
on Titus Andronicus, 65 ; on
the appreciation of Shakespeare
shown by Elizabeth and James I,
82 ; on metrical artifice in son-
nets, 106 n i ; use of the word
' lover,' 127 n ; identified by
some as the 'rival poet,' 136;
his ' dedicatory ' sonnets, 138 n
2 ; his apostrophe of the Earl of
Desmond, 140 ; relations with
Shakespeare, 176, 177 ; gift of
Shakespeare to his son, 177 ;
share in the appendix to ' Love's'
Martyr,' 183 ; quarrel with Mars-
ton and Dekker, 214-20 ; his
' Poetaster,' 217, 218 and n ;
allusions to him in the Return
from Parnassus, 219 ; his scorn-
ful criticism of Julius Ccesar, 220
» ; satiric allusion to A Winter's
Tale, 251 ; his sneering refe-
rence to The Tempest in Bartho-
lomew Fair, 255 ; entertained by
Shakespeare at New Place, Strat-
ford, 271 ; testimony to Shake-
speare's character, 277 ; his tri-
bute to Shakespeare in the First
Folio, 306, 311, 327 ; his Hue
and Cry after Cupid, 432 n 2 ;
Thorpe's publication of some of
his works, 395 n 3, 401

Jordan, John, forgeries of (Appen-
dix i.), 365, 366

Jordan, Mrs. , 338, 339

Jordan, Thomas, his lines on men
playing female parts, 335 n

Jourdain, Sylvester, 252
Jubilee,' Shakespeare's, 334

Julius Ccesar: use of the word
' lovers,' 127 n ; plot drawn from
Plutarch, 211 ; date of produc-
tion, 211 ; a play of the same
title acted in 1594, 211 ; general
features of the play 211, 212 ;

L., H.

Jonson's hostile criticism, 220 n.
For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25
Jusserand, M. J. J., 42 « i,
348 n i, 351 « 2.

K.EAN, Edmund, 338, 351

Keller, A., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

Kemble, Charles, 351

Kemble, John Philip, 337

Kemp, William, comedian, plays
at Greenwich Palace, 43 ; 208, 219

Kenilworth, Elizabeth's visit to, 17,
cf. 162

Ketzcher, N., translation into
Russian by, 353

Killigrew, Thomas, and the sub-
stitution of women for boys in
female parts, 334

King's players, the company of, 35 ;
Shakespeare one of its members,
36 ; the poet's plays performed
almost exclusively by, 36 ;
theatres at which it performed,
36, 37 ; provincial towns which
it visited between 1594 and 1614,
40 and n i ; King James's
license to, 230, 231

Kirkland, the name of Shakespeare
at, i

Kirkman, Francis, publisher, 181

Knight, Charles, 324

Knollys, Sir William, 415 n

Kok, A. S., translation in Dutch
by, 3S2

Korner, J., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 345

Kraszewski, Polish translation
edited by, 353

Kreyssig, Friedrich A. T. , studies
of the poet by, 345

Kyd, Thomas, influence of, on
Shakespeare, 61, 222 n ; and
Titus Andronicus, 65 ; his
Spanish Tragedy, 65, 221 ; and
the story of Hamlet, 221 and n ;
Shakespeare's acquaintance with
his work, 222 n

4 L. , H. ,' initials on seal attesting
Shakespeare's autograph. See
Lawrence, Henry

464

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

LA HARPE

La Harpe and the Shakespearean
controversy in France, 349

Lab^, Louise, 445 n

Lamb, Charles, 259, 338

Lambarde, William, 175

Lambert, Edmund, mortgagee of
the Asbies property, 12, 26, 164

Lambert, John, proposal to confer
upon him an absolute title to the
Asbies property, 26 ; John
Shakespeare's lawsuit against,

I9S

Lane, Nicholas, a creditor of John

Shakespeare, 186
Langbaine, Gerard, 66, 362
Laroche, Benjamin, translation by,

3$°

Latin, the poet's acquaintance
with, 13, 15, 16

' Latten,' use of the word in Shake-
speare, 177 n

' Laura,' Shakespeare's allusion to
her as Petrarch's heroine, 108 ;
title of Tofte's collection of
sonnets, 438

Law, the poet's knowledge of, 32
and ci. n 2, and 107

Lawrence, Henry, his seal beneath
Shakespeare's autograph, 267

Lear, King : date of composition,
241 ; produced at Whitehall,
241 ; Butter's imperfect editions,
241 ; sources of story, 241 ; the
character of the King, 242. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy) 301-25

Legal terminology in plays and
poems of the Shakespearean
period, 32 n 2, 430, cf. 107

Legge, Dr. Thomas, a Latin piece
on Richard III by, 63

Leicester, Earl of, his entertain-
ment of Queen Elizabeth at
Kcnilworth, 17, 162 ; his regi-
ment of Warwickshire youths for
service in the Low Countries, 30 ;
his company of players, 33, 35

Leo, F. A., 346

Leoni, Michele, Italian translation
of the poet issued by, 352

' Leopold ' Shakspere, the, 325

Lessing, defence of Shakespeare by,
343

LOVE'S

L'Estrange, Sir Nicholas, 176
Le Tourneur, Pierre, French prose
translation of Shakespeare by,

349

' Licia,' Fletcher's collection of
sonnets called, 77 n 2, 103, 105,
113 n 5, 433

Linche, Richard, his sonnets en-
titled 'Diella,' 437

Lintot, Bernard, 231

Locke (or Lok), Henry, sonnets
by, 388, 441

Locrine, Tragedie of, 179

Lodge, Thomas, 57, 61 ; his ' Scillaes
Metamorphosis ' drawn upon by
Shakespeare tor ' Venus and
Adonis,' 75 and n 2 ; his plagia-
risms, 103 and n 3,433 ; compari-
son of lips with coral in ' Phillis,'
118 n 2; his ' Rosalynde ' the
foundation of As You Like It,
209 ; his ' Phillis,' 417, 433

London Prodigall, 180, 313

Lope de Vega dramatises the story
of Romeo and Juliet, 55 n i

Lopez, Roderigo, Jewish physi-
cian, 68 and n

Lorkin, Rev. Thomas, on the burning
of the Globe Theatre, 261 n

Love, treatment of, in Shakespeare's
sonnets, 97 and «, 98, 112, 113
and n 2 ; in the sonnets of other
writers, 104-6, 113 n 2

' Lover ' and ' love ' synonymous
with ' friend ' and ' friendship ' in
Elizabethan English, 127 n

' Lover's Complaint, A,' possibly
written by Shakespeare, 91

Love's Labour's Lost : Latin phrases
in, 15 ; probably the poet's first
dramatic production, 50 ; its plot
not borrowed, 51 ; its characters,

51 and n, 52 ; its revision in 1597,

52 ; date of publication, 52 ; in-
fluence of Lyly, 62 ; performed at
Whitehall, 81 ; examples of the
poet's first attempts at sonnetteer-
ing, 84 ; scornful allusion to
sonnetteering, 107 ; the praise of
' blackness,' 118, 119 and n 2 ;
performed before Anne of Den-
mark at Southampton's house in
the Strand, 384. For editions

INDEX

465

LOVE

see Section xix. (Bibliography),
301-25

Laves Labour's Won, attributed by
Meres to Shakespeare, 162. See
Alts Well

' Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's Com-
plaint,' 183, 184 n, 304

Lowell, James Russell, 13 n, 341

Lucian, the Timon of, 243

' Lucrece : ' published in 1594, 76 ;
Daniel's ' Complainte of Rosa-
mond ' reflected, 76, 77 and n i ;
the passage on Time elaborated
from Watson, 77 and n 2 ; dedi-
cated to the Earl of Southampton,
77, 78, 126, 127 ; enthusiastic
reception of, 78-9 ; quarto editions
in the poet's lifetime, 299 ; pos-
thumous editions, 300

Lucy, Sir Thomas, his prosecution
of Shakespeare for poaching, 27,
28; caricatured in Justice Shallow,

29- 173

Luddington, 20

Lydgate, ' Troy Book ' of, drawn
upon for Troilus and Cressida,
227

Lyly, John, 61 ; followed by Shake-
speare in his comedies, 61,62; his
addresses to Cupid, 97 n ; his in-
fluence on Midsummer Night's
Dream, 162

Lyrics in Shakespeare's plays, 207,
250, 255 and n

' M. I.,' 306. See also ' S. , I. M.'
Macbeth : references to the climate

of Inverness, 41 n 3, 42 ; date of

composition, 239 ; the story

drawn from Holinshed, 239 ;

points of difference from other

plays of the same class, 240 ;

Middleton's plagiarisms, 240 ;

not printed until 1623, 239 ; the

shortest of the poet's plays, 239 ;

performance at the Globe, 239.

For editions see Section xix.

(Bibliography), 301-25
Macbeth, Lady, and ^Eschylus's

Clytemnestra, 13 n
Mackay, Mr. Herbert, on the dower

of the poet's widow, 274

MASSINGER

Macklin, Charles, 336, 337
S Macready, William Charles, 339,

351
j Madden, Rt. Hon. D. H., on

Shakespeare's knowledge of

sport, 27 n ; 168, 364
Magellan, ' Voyage to the South

Pole' by, 253
I Magny, Olivier de, 443
| Malone, Edmund, on Shakespeare's

first employment in the theatre,

34 ; on the poet's residence, 38 ;

on the date of The Tempest, 254 ;

S32. 333 ; his writings on the

poet, 321, 322, 362
Malvolio, 211
Manners, Lady Bridget, 378, 379

and n

Manningham, John (diarist), a de-
scription of Twelfth Night by,

2IO

Manuscript, circulation of sonnets
in, 88 and n (Appendix ix.), 391,

™39-6

Marino, vituperative sonnet by, 122

n i, 442 n 2

Markham, Gervase, his adulation
of Southampton in his sonnets,
131, 134, 387

Marlowe, Christopher, 57 ; his
share in the revision of Henry VI,
60 ; his influence on Shakespeare,
61, 63-4 ; Shakespeare's acknow-
ledgments, 64 ; his translation of
Lucan, 90, 393, 399

Marmontel and the Shakespearean
controversy in France, 349

Marot, Clement, 442

Marriage, treatment of, in the Son-
nets, 98

Marshall, Mr. F. A., 325

Marston, John, identified by some
as the ' rival poet,' 136 ; 183 ; his
quarrel with Jonson, 214-20
. Martin, one of the English actors
who played in Scotland, 41 and
n i

Martin, Lady, 339, 365

Masks worn by men playing wo-
men's parts, 38 n 2

Massey, Mr. Gerald, on the Sonnets,

91 n i
. Massinger, Philip, 258 ; portions of

H H

466

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

MASTIC

The Two Noble Kinsmen assigned

to, 259 ; and Henry VIII, 263

and n 2

' Mastic,' use of the word, 228 n
Masuccio, the story of Romeo

and Juliet told in his Novellino,

Matthew, Sir Toby, 371, 383

Measure for Measure : the offence of
Claudio, 23 n ; date of composi-
tion, 235 ; produced at Whitehall,
235 ; not printed in the poet's life-
time, 235 ; source of plot, 236 ;
deviations from the old story, 237,
238 ; creation of the character of
Mariana, 238 ; the philosophic
subtlety of the poet's argument,
238 ; references to a ruler's dislike
of mobs, 238. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-
25

Melin de Saint-Gelais, 442

Memorials in sculpture to the poet,
297

Menachmi of Plautus, 54

Mendelssohn, setting of Shake-
spearean songs by, 347

Merchant of Venice : the influence
of Marlowe, 63, 68 ; sources of
the plot, 66, 67 ; the last act, 69 ;
date of, 69 ; use of the word
' lover,' 127 n. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-

325

Meres, Francis, recommends Shake-
speare's ' sugred ' sonnets, 89 ;
his quotations from Horace and
Ovid on the immortalising power
of verse, 116 n ; attributes Love's
Labour's Won to Shakespeare,
162 ; testimony to the poet's
reputation, 178, 179, 390

Mermaid Tavern, 177, 178

Merry Devill of Edmonton, 181,
258 n 2

Merry Wives of Windsor: Latin
phrases put into the mouth of Sir
Hugh Evans, 15 ; Sir Thomas
Lucy caricatured in Justice Shal-
low, 29 ; lines from Marlowe sung
by Sir Hugh Evans, 64, 65 ;
period of production, 171 ;
publication of, 172 ; source of

the plot, 172 ; chief charac-
teristics, 173. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-

325

Metre of Shakespeare's plays a
rough guide to the chronology,
48-50 ; of Shakespeare's poems,
75-77 ; of Shakespeare's sonnets,
95 and n 2

Me'zieres, Alfred, 350

Michel, Francisque, translation by,
35°

Middle Temple Hall, performance
of Twelfth Night at, 210

Middleton, Thomas, his allusion
to Le Motte in Blurt, Master
Constable, 51 n ; his plagiar-
isms of Macbeth in The Witch,
240

Midsummer Night's Dream: re-
ferences to the pageants at Kenil-
worth Park, 17, 162 ; reference
to Spenser's ' Teares of the
Muses, 80 ; date of production,
161 ; sources of the story, 162 ; the
final scheme, 162. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),

301-325

Milton, applies the epithet 'sweetest '
to Shakespeare, 179 n ; his epi-
taph on Shakespeare, 327

Minto, Professor, claims Chapman
as Shakespeare's ' rival ' poet,

135 «

Miranda, character of, 256
' Mirror of Martyrs," 211
Miseries of Enforced Marriage,

243

' Monarcho, Fantasticall,' 51 n
Money, its purchasing power in

the sixteenth century, 3 » 3,

19772

Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 348
Montaigne, ' Essays ' of, 85 n,

253
Monte'gut, Emile, translation by,

350

Montemayor, George de, 53

Montgomery, Philip Herbert, Earl
of, 306, 381, 410

Monument to Shakespeare in Strat-
ford Church, 276, 286

Morley, Lord, 410 n

INDEX

467

Moseley, Humphrey, publisher, 181,
258

Moth, in Love's Labour's Lost, 51 n

Moulton, Dr. Richard G. , 365

Mucedorus, a play by an unknown
author, 72

Much Ado about Nothing : a jesting
allusion to sonnetteering, 108 ;
its publication, 207, 208 ; date of
composition, 208 ; the comic
characters, 208 ; Italian origin of
Hero and Claudio, 208 ; parts
taken by William Kemp and
Cowley, 208 ; quotation from the
Spanish Tragedy, 221 n. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Mulberry-tree at New Place, the,
194 and n

Music at stage performances in
Shakespeare's day, 38 » a ; its
indebtedness to the poet, 340

NASH, Anthony, the poet's legacy
to, 276

Nash, John, the poet's legacy to,
276

Nash, Thomas (i), marries Eliza-
beth Hall, Shakespeare's grand-
daughter, 282

Nash, Thomas (2), on the per-
formance of Henry VI, 56, 57 ;
piracy of his ' Terrors of the
Night,' 88 n ; on the immorta-
lising power of verse, 114 ; use
of the word ' lover,' 127 n ; his
appeals to Southampton, 131,

134. 135 «. 38s. 386; 221 »;

427 n 2 ; his preface to ' Astrophel
and Stella,1 429 n i

Navarre, King of, in Love's Labour's
Lost, 51 n

Neil, Samuel, 364.

Nekrasow and Gerbel, translation
into Russian by, 353

New Place, Stratford, Shakespeare's
purchase of, 193, 194 ; entertain-
ment of Jonson and Drayton at,
271 ; the poet's death at, 272 ;
sold on the death of Lady Bar-
nard (the poet's granddaughter)

OXFORD

to Sir Edward Walker, 283 ;
pulled down, 283

Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish,
Duchess of, criticism of the poet

by, 331

Newdegate, Lady, 406 n, 415
Newington Butts Theatre, 37
Newman, Thomas, piratical publi-
cation of Sir Philip Sidney's
sonnets by, 88 n, 429 and n i
Nicolson, George, English agent in

Scotland, 41 n i

Nottingham, Earl of, his company
of players, 225 ; taken into the
patronage of Henry, Prince of
Wales, 231 n

OBERON, vision of, 17, 161 ; in
' Huon of Bordeaux,' 162

Oechelhaeuser, W. , acting edition
of the poet by, 346

Oldcastle, Sir John, play on his
history, 170, 313

' Oldcastle, Sir John,' the original
name of Falstaff in Henry IV, 169

Oldys, William, 231, 362

Olney, Henry, publisher, 437

Orlando Furioso, 47 n, 208

Ortlepp, E., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

Othello : date of composition, 235 ;
not printed in the poet's lifetime,
235 ; plot drawn from Cinthio's
' Hecatommithi,' 236 ; new cha-
racters and features introduced
into the story, 236 ; exhibits the
poet's fully matured powers, 236.
for editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

Ovid, influence on Shakespeare of
his ' Metamorphoses,' 15, 75 and
n i, 76, 162, 253 ; claims immor-
tality for his verse, 114 and » i,
116 n ; the poet's alleged signature
on the title-page of a copy of
the ' Metamorphoses ' in the
Bodleian Library, 15

Oxford, the poet's visits to, 31, 265,
266 ; Hamlet acted at, 224

Oxford, Earl of, his company of
actors, 35

H H 2

468

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Oxford ' edition of Shakespeare,
the, 325

PAINTER, William, his ' Palace of
Pleasure ' and Romeo and Juliet,
55, All's Well that Ends Well,
163, Timon of A thens, 243, and
Coriolanus, 246

Palcemon and Arcyte, a lost play,
260

Palamon and Arsett, a lost play, 260

Palmer, John, actor, 337

' Palladis Tamia,' eulogy on the poet
in, 178

' Pandora,' Soothern's collection of
love-sonnets, 138 n z

Pandosto (afterwards called Dorastus
and Fawnia), Shakespeare's in-
debtedness to, 251

Parodies on sonnetteering, 106-8,
122 and n

' Parthenophil and Parthenophe,'
Barnes's, 132

Pasquier, Estienne, 443

Passerat, Jean, 443

' Passionate Centurie of Love,'
Watson's, the passage on Time
in, 77; plagiarisation of Petrarch
in, 101 n 4, 102, 427 n 2, 428

' Passionate Pilgrim,' piratical in-
sertion of two sonnets in, 98,
182, 437 ; the contents of, 182 n ;
299 ; printed with Shakespeare's
poems, 300

Patrons of companies of players,
35 ; adulation offered to, 138 and
n 2, 140, 141, 440 and n

Pavier, Thomas, printer, 180

' Pecorone, II,' by Ser Giovanni
Fiorentino, Shakespeare's indebt-
edness to, 14, 66 and n 3, 172 ;
W. G. Waters's translation of,
66 n 3

Peele, George, 57 ; his share in
the original draft of Henry VI,
60

Pembroke, Countess of, dedication
of Daniel's ' Delia ' to, 130, 429 ;
homage paid to, by Nicholas
Breton, 138 n 2

Pembroke, Henry, second Earl of,
his company of players, perform

PETRARCH

Henry VI (part iii.), 36, 59 ; and
Titus Andronicus, 66
Pembroke, William, third Earl of,
the question of the identification of
'Mr. W. H.'with, 94, 406-15; per-
formance at his Wilton residence,
231, 232 n i, 411 ; dedication
of the First Folio to, 306 ; his al-
leged relations with Shakespeare,
411-15 ; the identification of the
' dark lady ' with his mistress,
Mary Fitton, 123 n, 409 ; the
mistaken notion that Shakespeare
was his prottg£, 123 n ; dedica-
tions by Thorpe to, 399 and n i,
403 n 2

Penrith, Shakespeares at, i
Pepys, his criticisms of The Tempest
and Midsummer Night s Dream,

329

Percy, William, his sonnets, en-
titled ' Ccelia,' 435

Perez, Antonio, and Antonio in
The Merchant of Venice, 68 n

Pericles : date of composition, 242 ;
a work of collaboration, 242 ; the
poet's contributions, 244 ; dates
of the various editions, 244 ; not
included in the First Folio, 305 ;
included in Third Folio, 313. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Perkes (Clement), in Henry IV.,
member of a family at Stinch-
combe Hill in the sixteenth cen-
tury, 1 68

' Perkins Folio,' forgeries in the,
312, 317 n 2, 367 and n

Personalities on the stage, 215 n i

PeYuse, Jean de la, 443

Petowe, Henry, elegy on Queen
Elizabeth by, 148

Petrarch, emulated by Elizabethan
sonnetteers, 84, 85, 86 n ; feigns
old age in his sonnets, 86 n ; his
metre, 95 ; Spenser's translations
from, 101 ; imitation of his son-
nets justified by Gabriel Harvey,
101 n 4 ; plagiarisms of, admitted
by sonnetteers, 101 n 4 : Wyatt's
translations of two of his sonnets,
101 n 4, 427 ; plagiarised in-
directly by Shakespeare, no, in

INDEX

469

and n, 113 n i ; the melancholy
of his sonnets, 152 n ; imitated
in France, 443

Phelps, Samuel, 325, 339

Phillips, Augustine, actor, friend of
Shakespeare, 36; induced to re-
vive Richard II at the Globe in
1601, 175 ; his death, 264

Phillips, Edward (Milton's nephew),
criticism of the poet by, 362 ;
editor of Drummond's Sonnets,

439 « i
' Phillis,' Lodge's, 118 n 2, 433 and

»3

Philosophy, Chapman's sonnets in

praise of, 441
' Phcenix and the Turtle, The,' 183,

184, 304
Pichot, A., 350
'Pierce Pennilesse.' See Nash,

Thomas (2)
' Pierces Supererogation,' by Gabriel

Harvey, 101 n 4, 105
Pindar, his claim for the immortality

of verse, 114 and n i
Plague, the, in Stratford-on-Avon,

10 ; in London, 65, 231
Plautus, the plot of the Comedy of

Errors drawn from, 16 ; transla-
tion of, 54
Plays, sale of, 47 and n ; revision of,

47 ; their publication deprecated
by playhouse authorities, 48 n ;
only a small proportion printed,

48 n ; prices paid for, 202 n

' Ple'iade, La,' title of the literary
comrades of Ronsard, 442 ; list

of, 443

' Plutarch,' North's translation of,
Shakespeare's indebtedness to,
47, 162, 211, 243, 245 and «, 246
and n

Poaching episode, the, 27, 28

' Poetaster,' Jonson's, 217, 218
and n

Poland, translations and perfor-
mances of Shakespeare in, 353

Pontoux, Claude de, name of his
heroine copied by Drayton, 104

Pope, Alexander, 297 ; edition of
Shakespeare by, 315

Porto, Luigi da, adapts the story of
Romeo and Juliet, 55 n \

QUINEY

Portraits of the poet, 286-93, 296 n 2;
the ' Stratford ' portrait, 287 ;
Droeshout's engraving, 287, 288,
300, 306 ; the ' Droeshout ' paint-
ing, 288-91 ; portrait in the
Clarendon gallery, 291 ; ' Ely
House ' portrait, 290, 291 ; Chan-
dos portrait, 292, 293 ; ' Jansen '
portrait, 293, 294 ; ' Felton ' and
' Soest ' portraits, 294 ; minia-
tures, 295

Pott, Mrs. Henry, 372

Provost, Abb6, 348

Pritchard, Mrs., 336

Procter, Bryan Waller ( Barry Corn
wall), 324

Promos and Cassandra, 237

Prospero, character of, 257

Provinces, the, practice of theatrical
touring in, 39-42, 65 -

Publication of dramas : deprecated
by playhouse authorities, 48 n ;
only a small proportion of the
dramas of the period printed,
48 n ; sixteen of Shakespeare's
plays published in his lifetime, 48

Punning, 418, 419 n

Puritaine, or the Widdow of Wat-
ling-streete. The, 180, 313

Puritanism, alleged prevalence in
Stratford-on-Avon of, 10 n ; 268
n 2 ; its hostility to dramatic re-
presentations, ion, 212, 213 n i ;
the poet's references to, 268 n i

' Pyramus and Thisbe,' 397

QUARLES, John, ' Banishment of
Tarquin ' of, 300

Quarto editions of the plays, in the
poet's lifetime, 301 , 302 ; pos-
thumous, 302, 303 ; of the poems
in the poet's lifetime, 299 ; pos-
thumous, 300

' Quatorzain, ' term applied to the
Sonnet, 427 n 2, cf. 429 n i

'Queen's Children of the Chapel,'
the, 34, 35, 38, 213-17

Queen's Company of Actors, the,
welcomed to Stratford-on-Avon
by John Shakespeare, 10 ; its re-
turn to London, 33, 35, 231 n

Quiney, Thomas, marries Judith

470

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

QUINTON

Shakespeare, 271 ; his residence
and trade in Stratford, 280 ; his
children, 281

Quinton, baptism of one of the
Racket family at, 165

RAPP, M., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

Ralegh, Sir Walter, extravagant
apostrophe to Queen Elizabeth by,
137 n i ; 182 n

' Ratseis Ghost," and Ratsey's ad-
dress to the players, 185, 199

Ravenscroft, Edward, on Titus
Andronicus, 65, 332

Reed, Isaac, 321, 322

Reformation, the, at Stratford-on-
Avon, ion

Rehan, Miss Ada, 342

Religion and Philosophy, sonnets on,

44°. 44i

Return from Parnassus, The, 198,
199 n i, 218-20, 277

Revision of plays, the poet's, 47, 48

Reynoldes, William, the poet's
legacy to, 276

Rich, Barnabe, story of ' Apollonius
and Silla' by, 53, 210

Rich, Penelope, Lady, Sidney's pas-
sion for, 428

Richard // .• the influence of Mar-
lowe, 63, 64 ; published anony-
mously, 63 ; the deposition scene,
64 ; the facts drawn from Ho-
linshed, 64 ; its revival on the
eve of the rising of the Earl of
Essex, 175, 383. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),

3°i-25

Richard /// .- the influence of Mar-
lowe, 63 ; materials drawn from
Holinshed, 63 ; Mr. Swinburne's
criticism, 63 ; Burbage's imperso-
nation of the hero, 63 ; published
anonymously, 63; Colley Gib-
ber's adaptation, 335. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),

301-25

Richardson, John, one of the sure-
ties for the bond against impedi-
ments respecting Shakespeare's
marriage, 20, 22

ROUSSILLON

Richmond Palace, performances at,

82, 230

Ristori, Madame, 352
Roberts, James, printer, 225, 226,

3°3. 43i

Robinson, Clement, use of the word
' sonnet ' by, 427 « 2

Roche, Walter, master of Stratford
Grammar School, 13

R6les, Shakespeare's : at Greenwich
Palace, 43, 44 n i ; in Every
Man in his Humour, 44 ; in
Sejanus, 44; the Ghost in
Hamlet, 44 ; ' played some kingly
parts in sport,' 44 ; Adam in As
You Like It, 44

Rolfe, Mr. W. J., 325

Romeo and Juliet, 54 ; plot drawn
from the Italian, 55 ; date of
compositien, 56 ; first printed,
56 ; authentic and revised version
of 1599, 56 ; two choruses in the
sonnet form, 84 ; satirical allusion
to sonnetteering, 108. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),

301-35
Romeus and Juliet, Arthur Brooke s,

55- 322

Ronsard, plagiarised by English
sonnetteers, 102, 103 n 3, 432
seq.; by Shakespeare, in, 112 and
n i ; his claim for the immorta-
lity of verse, 114 and n i , 116 n ;
his sonnets of vituperation, 121 ;
first gave the sonnet a literary
vogue in France, 442 ; and ' La
Plelade,' 442 ; modern reprint of
his works, 445 n

Rosalind, played by a boy, 38 n z

Rosaline, praised for her ' black-
ness,' 118, 119

' Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Le-
gacie,' Lodge's, 209

Rose Theatre, Bankside : erected by
Philip Henslowe, 36 ; opened by
Lord Strange's company, 36 ;
the scene of the poet's first suc-
cesses, 37 ; performance of Henry
VI, 56 ; production of the Vene-
syon Comedy, 69

Rossi, representation of Shake-
speare by, 352

Roussillon, Countess of, 163

INDEX

471

Rowe, Nicholas, on the parentage
of Shakespeare's wife, 18 ; on
Shakespeare's poaching escapade,
27 ; on Shakespeare's perform-
ance of the Ghost in Hamlet, 44 ;
on the story of Southampton's
gift to Shakespeare, 126; on
Queen Elizabeth's enthusiasm for
the character of Falstaff, '171 ;
on the poet's last years at Strat-
ford, 266 ; on John Combe's
epitaph, 269 n ; his edition of
the poet's plays, 314, 362

Rowington, the Richard and
William Shakespeares of, 2

Rowlands, Samuel, 397

Rowley, William, 181, 243

Roydon, Matthew, adulatory lines
to Sir Philip Sidney by, 140 ;
elegy on Sidney, 184 n.

Rupert, Prince, at Stratford-on-
Avon, 281

Rusconi, Carlo, Italian prose ver-
sion of Shakespeare issued by,

352

Russia, translations and perfor-
mances of Shakespeare in, 352,

353

Rymer, Thomas, his censure of
the poet, 329

S., M. I., tribute to the poet thus

headed, 327 and n, 328
S , W. , initials in Willobie's book,

I5^. 157 ; commonness of the

initials, 157 n. ; use of the initials

on works fraudulently attributed

to the poet, 179, 180
Sackville, Thomas, 408 n
Sadler, Hamlett, the poet's legacy

to, 276
Saint-Saens, M., opera of Henry

VIII by, 351
St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, a William

Shakespeare in 1598 living in,

38 and n i

Sainte-Marthe, SceVole de, 443
Salvini, representation of Othello

by, 352

Sand, George, translation of As

You. Like It by, 351
Sandells, Fulk, one of the sureties

SfeVE

for the bond against impediments
with respect to Shakespeare's
marriage, 20, 22 ; supervisor of
Richard Hathaway' s will, 22

Saperton, 27, 29

' Sapho and Phao,' address to

Cupid in, 97 »

j Satiro-Mastix , a retort to Jonson's
Cynthia's Revels, 215

Savage, Mr. Richard, 165 n, 363

' Saviolo's Practise,' 209

Scenery unknown in Shakespeare's
day, 38 and n 2 ; designed by
Inigo Jones for masques, 38 « 2 ;
Sir Philip Sidney on difficulties
arising from its absence, 38 n 2

Schiller, adaptation of Macbeth for
the stage by, 345

Schlegel, A. W. von, 180 ; German
translation of Shakespeare by,
343 ; lectures on Shakespeare by,

344

Schmidt, Alexander, 364
' Schoole of Abuse,' 67
Schroeder, F. U. L. , German actor

of Shakespeare, 346
Schubert, Franz, setting of Shake-

pearean songs by, 347
Schumann, setting of Shakespearean

songs by, 347
1 Scillaes Metamorphosis,' Lodge's,

drawn upon by Shakespeare for

' Venus and Adonis,' 75 and n 2
Scoloker, Anthony, in ' Daiphantus,'

277
Scotland, Shakespeare's alleged

travels in, 40-42 ; visits of actors

to, 41
Scott, Reginald, allusion to Mo-

narcho in ' The Discoverie of

Witchcraft' of, 51 n
Scott, Sir Walter, at Charlecote, 28
Scourge of Folly, 44 n 2
Sedley, Sir Charles, apostrophe to

the poet, 331
Sejanus, Shakespeare takes part in

the performance of, 44, 401
Selimus, 179

Serafino dell' Aquila, Watson's in-
debtedness to, 77 n 2, 102, 103

n i, 442 n
Seve, Maurice, 104 and n, 430, 442,

445 " *

472

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SEWELL

Sewell, Dr. George, 315

' Shadow of the Night, The,'
Chapman's, 135 n

Shakespeare, the surname of, i, 2,
cf. 24 «

Shakespeare, Adam, i

.Shakespeare, Ann, a sister of the
poet, ii

Shakespeare, Anne (or Agnes) : her
parentage, 18, 19 ; her marriage
to the poet, 18, 19-22 ; assumed
identification of her with Anne
Whateley, 23, 24 and n ; her debt,
187 ; her husband's bequest to
her, 273 ; her widow's dower
barred, 274 and n ; her wish to be
buried in her husband's grave,
274 ; committed by her hus-
band to the care of the elder
daughter, 275 ; her death, 280
and n

Shakespeare, Edmund, a brother of
the poet, ii ; 'a player,' 283;
death, 283

Shakespeare, Gilbert, a brother of
the poet, ii ; witnesses his
brother's performance of Adam
in As You Like It, 44 ; appa-
rently had a son named Gilbert,
283 ; his death not recorded, 283

Shakespeare, ' Hamnet, son of the
poet, 26, 187

Shakespeare, Henry, one of the
poet's uncles, 3, 4, 186

Shakespeare, Joan (i), 7

Shakespeare, Joan (2), see Hart,
Joan

Shakespeare, John (i), the first
recorded holder of this surname
(thirteenth century), i

Shakespeare, John (2), the poet's
father, administrator of Richard
Shakespeare's estate, 3, 4 ; claims
that his grandfather received a
grant of land from Henry VII, 2,
189 ; leaves Snitterfield for Strat-
ford-on-Avon, 4 ; his business, 4 ;
his property in Stratford and his
municipal offices, 5 ; marries
Mary Arden, 6, 7 ; his children,
7 ; his house in Henley Street,
Stratford, 8, ii ; appointed alder-
man and bailiff, 10 ; welcomes

SHAKESPEARE

actors at Stratford, 10 ; his alleged
sympathies with puritanism, 10 n ;
his application for a grant of
arms, 2, 10 n, 188-92; tis
financial difficulties, ii, 12 ; his
younger children, ii ; writ of
distraint issued against him, 12 ;
deprived of his alderman's gown,
12 ; his trade, of butcher, 18 ;
increase of pecuniary difficulties,
186 ; relieved by the poet, 187 ;
his death, 204

Shakespeare or Shakspere, John (a
shoemaker), another resident at
Stratford, 12 n 3

Shakespeare, Judith, the poet's
second daughter, 26, 205 ; her
marriage to Thomas Quiney, 271 ;
her father's bequest to her, 275 ;
her children, 280, 281; her death,
281

Shakespeare, Margaret, 7

Shakespeare, Mary, the poet's
mother : her marriage, 6, 7 ; her
ancestry and parentage, 6, 7 ; her
property, 7 ; her title to bear the
arms of the Arden family, 191 ;
her death, 266

Shakespeare, Richard, a brother ot
the poet, n, 266 ; his death, 283

Shakespeare, Richard, of Rowing-
ton, 2

Shakespeare, Richard, of Snitter-
field, probably the poet's grand-
father, 3 ; his family, 3, 4 ; letters
of administration of his estate, 3
and n 3

Shakespeare, Richard, of Wroxhall,

Shakespeare, Susanna, a daughter
of the poet, 22. See also Hall, Mrs.
Susanna

Shakespeare, Thomas, probably one
of the poet's uncles, 3, 4

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM : paren-
tage and birthplace, 1-9; child-
hood, education, and marriage,
10-24 (see a^so Education of
Shakespeare ; Poaching ; Shake-
speare, Anne), departure from
Stratford, 27-31 ; theatrical em-
ployment, 32-4 ; joins the Lord
Chamberlain's company, 36 ; his

INDEX

473

SHAKESPEARE

roles, 43 ; his first plays, 50-73 ;
publication of his poems, 74, 76
seq. ; his Sonnets, 83-124, 151-6 ;
patronage of the Earl of South-
ampton, 125-50, 374 ; plays com-
posed between 1595 and 1598,
161-73 ; his popularity and
influence, 176-79 ; returns to
Stratford, 187 ; buys New Place,
193 ; financial position before
1599, 196 seq. ; financial position
after 1599, 200 seq. ; formation
of his estate at Stratford, 204
seq. ; plays written between 1599
and 1609, 207-47 ; tne latest plays,
248 seq. ; performance of his plays
at Court, 264 (see also Court ;
Whitehall ; Elizabeth, Queen ;
James I) ; final settlement in
Stratford (1611), 266 seq. ; death
(1616), 272; his will, 2735^.;
monument at Stratford, 276 ;
personal character, 277-9 > his
survivors and descendants, 280
seq. ; autographs, portraits, and
memorials, 284-98 ; bibliogra-
phy, 299-325 ; his posthumous
reputation in England and
abroad, 326-54 ; general esti-
mate of his work, 355-7 ; bio-
graphical sources, 361-5 ; alleged
relation between him and the Earl
of Pembroke, 411-15
Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall,

' Shakespeare Society,' the, 333,

365
Shallow, Justice, Sir Thomas Lucy

caricatured as, 29 ; his house in

Gloucestershire, 167, 168 ; 173
Sheldon copy of the First Folio,

the, 309, 310
Shelton, Thomas, translator of

' Don Quixote,' 258
Shiels, Robert, compiler of ' Lives

of the Poets,' 32 n 3
Shottery, Anne Hathaway's

Cottage at, 19
Shylock, sources of the portrait of,

67, 68 and n

Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 337, 338
Sidney, Sir Philip : on the absence

of scenery in a theatre, 38 « 2 ;

translation of verses from 'Diana,'
53 ; Shakespeare's indebtedness
to him, 61 ; addressed as ' Willy '
by some of his eulogists, 81 ; his
' Astrophel and Stella,' brings the
sonnet into vogue, 83 ; piracy of
his sonnets, 88 n, 432 ; circu-
lation of manuscript copies of his
'Arcadia,' 88 n; his addresses
to Cupid in his ' Astrophel,' 97 n ;
warns the public against the
insincerity of sonnetteers, 104 ;
on the conceit of the immortalis-
ing power of verse, 114 ; his
praise of ' blackness,' 119 and
n i ; sonnet on ' Desire,' 153 ;
use of the word ' will,' 417 ;
editions of ' Astrophel and
Stella,' 428, 429; popularity of
his works, 429
Sidney, Sir Robert, 382
Singer, Samuel Weller, 324
Sly, Christopher, probably drawn
from life, 164, 165, 166, 167 ;
221 n

Smethwick, John, bookseller, 304
Smith, Richard, publisher, 431
Smith, Wentworth, 157 n ; plays

produced by, 180 n
Smith, William, sonnets of, 138

n 2, 157 n, 390, 437
Smith, Mr. W. H., and the

Baconian hypothesis, 372
Smithson, Miss, actress, 351
Snitterfield, Richard Shakespeare
rents land of Robert Arden at,
3, 6 ; departure of John Shake-
speare, the poet's father, from, 4;
the Arden property at, 7 ; sale of
Mary Shakespeare's property at,
12 and n i ; 186
Snodham, Thomas, printer, 180
Somers, Sir George, wrecked off the

Bermudas, 252
Somerset House, Shakespeare and

his company at, 233 and n 2
Sonnet in France (1550-1600), the,
bibliographical note on (Appendix
X.), 442-5

Sonnets, Shakespeare's : the poet's
first attempts, 84 ; the majority
probably composed in 1594, 85 ;
n few written between 1594 and

474

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1603 (e.g. cvii.); their literary
value, 87, 88 ; circulation in
manuscript, 88, 396; commended
by Meres, 89 ; their piratical pub-
lication in 1609, 89-94, 390 ; their
form, 95, 96 ; want of continuity,
96, loo ; the two 'groups,' 96,
97 ; main topics of the first
'group, '98, !99 ; main topics of
second ' group,' 99, 100 ;
rearrangement in the edition of
1640, 100 ; autobiographical only
in a limited sense, 100, 109, 125,
152, 160; censure of them by Sir
John Davies, 107 ; their borrowed
conceits, 109-24 ; indebtedness
to Drayton, Petrarch, Ronsard,
De Baif, Desportes, and others,
110-12; the poet's claim of
immortality for his sonnets,
113-16, cf. 114 n i ; the ' Will
Sonnets,' H7( and Appendix vin. );
praise of 'blackness,' 118; vitu-
peration, 120-4; 'dedicatory'
sonnets, 125 seq. ; the ' rival poet,'
130-6 ; sonnets of friendship,
136, 138-47 ; the supposed story
of intrigue, 153-8 ; summary of
conclusions respecting the son-
nets, 158-60 ; edition of 1640,
300

Sonnets, quoted with explanatory
comments : xx. , 93 n ; xxvi.,
128 n ; xxxii., 128, 129 n ; xxxvii.,
130; xxxviii. , 129; xxxix. , 130;
xlvi.-xlvii., 112, ii3« i; lv.,
115, 116 ; Ixxiv., 130 (quot.}\
Ixxviii. , 125 ; Ixxx. , 134 ; Ixxxv.
133; Ixxxvi. ,132; Ixxxviii., 133;
Ixxxix. , 133; xciv. 1. 14, 72, 89;
c. , 126; ciii., 126; cvii., 13^,87,
147, 149, 380; cviii. , 130; ex.,
44, 130 ; cxi., 45 ; cxix., 152 and
n ; cxxiv. , 425 ; cxxvi. , 97 and
n ; cxxvii. , 118 ; cxxix. , 152,
153 and n i ; cxxxii., 118 ;
cxxxv. - cxxxvi. , 420 - 424 ;
cxxxviii., 89 ; cxliii., 93 n, 425,
426 and n ; cxliv. , 89, 153, 301 ;
cliii-cliv. , 113 and n 2

— the vogue of the Elizabethan:
English sonnettering inaugu-
rated by Wyatt and Surrey, 83,

SOUTHWELL

427, 428 ; followed by Thomas
Watson, 83, 428 ; Sidney's
' Astrophel and Stella,' 83, 428,
429 and «.-; poets celebrate
patrons' virtues in sonnets, 84 ;
conventional device of sonnetteers
of feigning old age, 85, 86 n ;
lack of genuine sentiment, 100 ;
French and Italian models, 101
and n i, 102-5 > Appendices ix.
and x. ; translations from Du
Bellay, Desportes, and Petrarch,
101 and n 4, 102, 103 ; admissions
of insincerity, 105 ; censure of
false sentiment in sonnets, 106 ;
Shakespeare's scornful allusions to
sonnets in his plays, 107, 108;
vituperative sonnets, 120-24 •
the word ' sonnet ' often used for
'song' or 'poem,' 427 n 2;
I. Collected sonnets of feigned
love, 1591-7, 429-40 ; II. Sonnets
to patrons, 440 ; ill. Sonnets on
philosophy and religion, 440,
441 ; number of sonnets pub-
lished between 1591 and 1597,
439-41 ; various poems in other
stanzas practically belonging
to the sonnet category, 438 « 2

Soothern, John, sonnets to the Earl
of Oxford, 138 n 2

Sophocles, parallelisms with the
works of Shakespeare, 13 n

Southampton, Henry Wriothesley,
third Earl of, 53 ; the dedications
to him of ' Venus and Adonis '
and ' Lucrece,' 74, 77 ; his pa-
tronage of Florio, 84 n ; his pa-
tronage of Shakespeare, 126-50 ;
his gift to the poet, 126, 200 ; his
youthful appearance, 143 ; his
identity with the youth of Shake-
speare's sonnets of ' friendship '
evidenced by his portraits, 144
and n, 145, 146 ; imprisonment,
146, 147, 380 ; his long hair, 146
n 2 ; his beauty, 377 ; his youth-
ful career, 374-381 ; as a literary
patron, 382-9

Southwell, Robert, circulation of
incorrect copies of -'Mary Mag-
dalene's Tears ' by, 88 n ; publi-
cation of ' A Foure-fould Medita-

INDEX

475

SOUTHWELL

tion' by, 92, 400 and n, 401 n;
dedication of his ' Short Rule of
Life,' 397

Southwell, Father Thomas, 371

Spanish, translation of Shake-
speare's plays into, 354

Spanish Tragedy, Kyd's, popularity
of, 65, 221 ; quoted in the
Taming of the Shrew \ 221 n

Spedding, James, 262

Spelling of the poet's name, 284-6

Spenser, Edmund : probably at-
tracted to Shakespeare by the
poems ' Venus and Adonis ' and
' Lucrece,' 79 ; his description of
Shakespeare in ' Colin Clouts
come home againe,' 79 ; Shake-
speare's reference to Spenser's
work in Midsummer Night's
Dream, 80 ; Spenser's allusion to
' our pleasant Willy ' not a refe-
rence to the poet, 80 and n •
his description of the ' gentle
spirit ' no description of Shake-
speare, 81 and n 2 ; translation of
sonnets from Du Bellay and Pe-
trarch, 101 ; called by Gabriel
Harvey 'an English Petrarch,'
101, and cf. n 4; on the immor-
talising power of verse, 115 ; his
apostrophe to Admiral Lord
Charles Howard, 140 ; his ' Amo-
retti,' 115, 435 and n 5, 436 ;
dedication of his ' Faerie Queene,'
3?8

' Spirituall Sonnettes ' by Constable,
440

Sport, Shakespeare's knowledge of,
26, 27 and n, 173

Stael, Madame de, 349

Stafford, Lord, his company of
actors, 33

Stage, conditions of, in Shake-
speare's day : absence of scenery
and scenic costume, 38 and n 2 ;
the performance of female parts
by men or boys, 38 and n 2 ; the
curtain and balcony of the stage,
38 n 2

Stanhope of Harrington, Lord, 234 n

' Staple of News, The,' Jonson's
quotations from Julius Ccesar
in, 220 n

SUPPOSES

Staunton, Howard, 311 ; his edition
of the poet, 323, 324

Steele, Richard, on Betterton's
rendering of Othello, 334

Steevens, George : his edition of
Shakespeare, 320 ; his revision of
Johnson's edition, 320, 321 ; his
criticisms, 320, 321 ; the ' Puck
of commentators,' 321

Stinchcombe Hill referred to as
' the Hill ' in Henry IV, 168

Slopes, Mrs. C. C., 363

Strange, Lord. See Derby, Earl

] Straparola, ' Notti ' of, and the
Merry Wives of Windsor, 172

Stratford-on-Avon, settlement of
John Shakespeare, the poet's
father, at, 4 ; property owned by
John Shakespeare in, 5, 8 ; the
poet's birthplace at, 8, 9 ; the
Shakespeare Museum at, 8, 297 ;
the plague in 1564 at, 10 ; actors
for the first time at, 10 ; and
the Reformation, 10 n ; the
Shoemakers' Company and its
Master, 12 n 3 ; the grammar
school, 13 ; Shakespeare's de-
parture from, 27, 29, 31 ; native
place of Richard Field, 32 ;
allusions in the Taming of the
Shrew to, 164 ; the poet's return
in 1596 to, 187 ; the poet's pur-
chase of New Place, 193 ; ap-
peals from townsmen to the poet
for aid, 195, 196; the poet's pur-
chase of land at, 203, 204-6 ;
the poet's last years at, 264, 266 ;
attempt to enclose common lands
and Shakespeare's interest in it,
269, 270 ; the poet's death and
burial at, 272 ; Shakespeare me-
morial building at, 298 ; the
' Jubilee ' and the tercentenary,

334

Suckling, Sir John, 328

' Sugred,' an epithet applied to the
poet's work, 179 and n, 390

Sully, M. Mounet, 351 and n i

Sumarakow, translation into Rus-
sian by, 352

Supposes, the, of George Gascoigne,
164

476

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Surrey, Earl of, sonnets of, 83, 95,
101 n 4, 427, 428

Sussex, Earl of, his company of
actors, 35 ; Titus Andronicus
performed by, 36, 66

Swedish, translations of Shake-
speare in, 354

' Sweet,' epithet applied to Shake-
speare, 277

Swinburne, Mr. A. C. , 63, 71, 72 «,

333- 365

Sylvester, Joshua, sonnets to pa-
trons by, 388, 440 and n

TAILLE, Jean de la, 445 n

Tamburlaine, Marlowe's, 63

Taming of A Shrew, 163

Taming of The Shrew : probable
period of production, 163 ;
identical with Love's Labour's
Won, 163 ; and The Taming of
A Shrew, 163, 164 ; the story
of Bianca and her lovers and the
Supposes of George Gascoigne,
164 ; biographical bearing of the
Induction, 164 ; quotation from
the Spanish Tragedy, 221 n. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Tarleton, Richard, 81 ; his ' Newes
out of Purgatorie ' and the Merry
Wives of Windsor, 172

Tasso, similarity of sentiment with
that of Shakespeare's sonnets,
152 n

' Teares of Fancy,' Watson's, 428,

433

' Teares of the Isle of Wight,'
elegies on Southampton, 389

' Teares of the Muses,' Spenser's,
referred to in Midsummer Night's
Dream, 80

Tempest, The : traces of the influence
of Ovid, 15 ; 25 n ; 43 ; the ship-
wreck akin to a similar scene in
Pericles, 244 ; probably the latest
drama completed by the poet,
251 ; and the shipwreck of Sir
George Somers's fleet on the Ber-
mudas, 252; the source for the
plot, 253 ; performed at the Prin-

THORPE

cess Elizabeth's nuptial festivities,
254 ; the date of composition, 254
and n ; its performance at White-
hall in 1611, 254 n \ its lyrics, 255
and n ; Ben Jonson's scornful allu-
sion to, 255 ; reflects the poet's
highest imaginative powers, 256 ;
fanciful interpretations of, 256,
257 ; chief characters of, 256, 257
and notes i and 2. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-

325

Temple Grafton, 23, 24 and n

'Temple Shakespeare, The,' 325

Tercentenary festival, the Shake-
speare, 334

' Terrors of the Night,' piracy of,
88 n ; nocturnal habits ot
' familiars ' described in, 135 n

Terry, Miss Ellen, 339

Theatre, The, at Shoreditch, 32;
owned byJamesBurbage, 33, 36 ;
Shakespeare at, between 1595
and 1599, 37 ; demolished, and
the Globe Theatre built with the
materials, 37

Theatres in London : Blackfriars
(<f.v.)\ Curtain (q.v.)\ Duke's,
295 ; Fortune, 212, 233 n i ;
Globe (q.v.} ; Newington Butts,

?7 ; Red Bull, 31 n 2 ; Rose
j.v.) ; Swan, 38 n 2 ; The
Theatre, Shoreditch (q.v. }

Theobald, Lewis, his emendations
of Hamlet, 224 ; publishes a play
alleged to be by Shakespeare,
258 ; his criticism of Pope, 316 ;
his edition of the poet's works,
316, 317

Thomas, Ambroise, opera of Ham-
let by, 351

Thorns, W. J., 363

Thornbury, G. W. , 363

Thorpe, Thomas, the piratical
publisher of Shakespeare's Son-
nets, 89-95 1 his relations with
Marlowe, 90, 135 n ; adds ' A
Lover's Complaint' to the col-
lection of Sonnets, 91 ; his bom-
bastic dedication to ' Mr. W. H.,'
92-5 ; the true history of ' Mr.
W. H.' and, (Appendix v.) 390-
405

INDEX

477

Three Ladies of London, The, some
of the scenes in the Merchant of ,
Venice anticipated in, 67
Thyard, Ponthus de, a member of j

'La Pteiade,' 443, 444
Tieck, Ludwig, theory respecting
The Tempest of, 254, 333, 344

Tilney, Edmund, master of the '
revels, 233 n 2

Timon of Athens : date of composi- j
tion, 242 ; written in collabora- ]
tion, 242 ; a previous play on the I
same subject, 242 ; its sources, '
243. For editions see Section
xix. (Bibliography), 301-25

Timon, Lucian's, 243

Titus Andronicus : one of the only
two plays of the poet's performed
by a company other than his
own, 36 ; doubts of its authen-
ticity, 65 ; internal evidence of
Kyd's authorship, 65 ; suggested
by Titus and Vespasian, 65 ;
played by various companies,
66 ; entered on the ' Stationers'
Register ' in 1594, 66. For edi-
tions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Titus and Vespasian, Titus An-
dronicus suggested by, 65

Tofte, Robert, sonnets by, 438 and
n 2

Topics of the day, Shakespeare's
treatment of, 51 n, 52

Tottel's ' Miscellany,' 427, 428

Tours of English actors : in foreign
countries between 1580 and 1630,
42, and see n i ; in provincial
towns, 39, 40-42, 65, 214 ; itine-
rary from 1593 to 1614, 40 n i,
231

Translations of the poet's works,
342 seg.

Travel, foreign, Shakespeare's ridi-
cule of, 42 and n

' Troilus and Cresseid,' 227

Troilus and Cressida: allusion to
the strife between adult and boy
actors, 217 ; date of production,
217, 225 ; the quarto and folio
editions, 226, 227; treatment of
the theme, 227, 228 ; the endea-
vour to treat the olay as the poet's ,

TYLER

contribution to controversy be-
tween Jonson and Marston and
Dekker, 228 n ; plot drawn from
Chaucer's ' Troilus ' and Cresseid,
and Lydgate's 'Troy Book,' 227.
For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

1 Troy Book,' Lydgate's, 227

True Tragedie of Richard III, The,
an anonymous play, 63, 301

True Tragedie of Richard, Duke oj
Yorke, and the death of good King
Henry the Six t, as it was sundrie
times acted by the Earl of Pem-
broke his servants. The, 59

Turbervile, George, use of the word
' sonnet ' by, 427 n 2

Twelfth Night: description of a
betrothal, 23 n ; indebtedness to
the story of ' Apollonius and
Silla,' 53; date of production,
209; allusion to the 'new map,'
209, 210 n i ; produced at Middle
Temple Hall, 210 ; Manningham's
description of, 210 ; probable
source of the story, 210. For
editions see Section xix. (Biblio-
graphy), 301-25

Twiss, F., 364 n

Two Gentlemen of Verona : allusion
to Valentine travelling from
Verona to Milan by sea, 43 ;
date of production, 52 ; probably
an adaptation, 53 ; source oft i :
story, 53 ; farcical drollery, 53
first publication, 53 ; influence of
Lyly, 62 ; satirical allusion to
sonnetteering, 107, 108 ; resem-
blance of it to All's Well that
Ends Well, 163. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),

301-25

Two Noble Kinsmen, The: at-
tributed to Fletcher and Shake-
speare, 259 and n ; Massinger's
alleged share in its production,
259 ; plot drawn from Chaucer's
' Knight's Tale/ 260

Twyne, Lawrence, the story of
Pericles in the ' Patterne of Pain-
full Adventures ' by, 244

Tyler, Mr. Thomas, on the sonnets,
129 n, 406 n, 415 n

478

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ULRICI

ULRICI, 'Shakespeare's Dramatic
Art ' by, 345

VARIORUM editions of Shakespeare,
322, 323, 362

Vautrollier, Thomas, the London
printer, 32

Venesyon Comedy, The, produced by
Henslowe at the Rose, 69

' Venus and Adonis : ' published in
1593, 74 ; dedicated to the Earl
of Southampton, 74, 126 ; its
imagery and general tone, 75 ;
the influence of Ovid, 75 ; and
of Lodge's ' Scillaes Metamor-
phosis,' 75 and n 2 ; the motto,
75 and n i ; eulogies bestowed
upon it, 78, 79 ; early editions,

79- 299. 3°°

Verdi, operas by, 352

Vere, Lady Elizabeth, 378

Vernon, Mistress Elizabeth, 379

Versification, Shakespeare's, 49 and
n, 50

Vigny, Alfred de, version of Othello
by, 351

Villemain, recognition of the poet's
greatness by, 350

Virginia Company, 381

Visor, William, in Henry IV, mem-
ber of a family at Woodman-
cote, 168

Voltaire, strictures on the poet by,
348, 349

Voss, J. H., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

WALDEN, Lord, Campion's sonnet
to, 140

Wales, Henry, Prince of, the Earl
of Nottingham's company of
players taken into the patronage
of, 231 n

Walker, William, the poet's god-
son, 276

Walker, W. Sidney, on Shake-
speare's versification, 49 n

Walley, Henry, printer, 226

Warburton, Bishop, revised version
of Pope's edition of Shakespeare
by, 318, 319

Ward, Dr. A. W., 365

WHETSTONE

Ward, Rev. John, on the poet's
annual expenditure, 203 ; on the
visits of Drayton and Jonson to
New Place before the poet's death,
271 ; his account of the poet, 361

Warner, Richard, 364

Warner, William, the probable
translator of the Mencechmi, 54

Warren, John, 300

Warwickshire : prevalence of the
surname Shakespeare, i, a ; posi-
tion of the Arden family, 6 ;
Queen Elizabeth's progress on
the way to Kenil worth, 17

Watchmen in the poet's plays, 31,
62

Watkins, Richard, printer, 393

Watson, Thomas, 61 ; the passage
on Time in his ' Passionate Cen-
turie of Love' elaborated in
' Venus and Adonis,' 77 and n 2 ;
his sonnets, 83, 427 n 2, 428 ;
plagiarisation of Petrarch, 101
n 4, 102 ; foreign origin of his
sonnets, 103 n i, 112; his 'Tears
of Fancie,' 113 n i, 433 ; 398

' Weak endings ' in Shakespeare,

49 n

Webbe, Alexander, makes John
Shakespeare overseer of his will,
ii

Webbe, Robert, buys the Snitter-
field property from Shakespeare's
mother, 12 and n i

Webster, John, alludes in the
White Divel to Shakespeare's
industry, 278 n

Weelkes, Thomas, 182 n

Weever, Thomas : his eulogy of
the poet, 179 n ; allusion in his
' Mirror of Martyrs ' to Antony's
speech at Caesar's funeral, 211

Welcombe, enclosure of common
fields at, 269, 270 and n

' Westward for Smelts ' and the
Merry Wives of Windsor, 172
and n 3 ; story of Ginevra in, 249

Whateley, Anne, the assumed iden-
tification of her with Anne Hatha-
way, 23, 24 and n

Wheler, R. B., 363

Whetstone, George, his Promos and
Cassandra, 237

INDEX

479

WHITE

White, Mr. Richard Grant, 325

Whitehall, performances at, 8r, 82,
234, 235 and n, 241, 254 n,
264

Wieland, Christopher Martin : his
translation of Shakespeare, 343

Wilkins, George, his collaboration
with Shakespeare in Timon of
Athens and Pericles, 242, 243 ;
his novel founded on the play of
Pericles, 244

Wilks, Robert, actor, 335

Will, Shakespeare's, 203, 271, 273-
276

'Will' sonnets, the, 117; Eliza-
bethan meanings of 'will, '416;
Shakespeare's uses of the word,
417 ; the poet's puns on the word,
418 ; play upon ' wish ' and ' will,'
419 ; interpretation of the word
in Sonnets cxxiv.-vi. and cxliii.,
420-26

' Willobie his Avisa," 155-158

Wilmcote, house of Shakespeare's
mother, 6, 7 ; bequest to Mary
Arden of the Asbies property at,
7 ; mortgage of the Asbies pro-
perty at, 12, 26; and 'Wincot'
in The Taming of the Shrew, 166,
167

Wilnecote. See under Wincot

Wilson, Robert, author of The
Three Ladies of London, 67

Wilson, Thomas, his manuscript
version of ' Diana,' 53

Wilton, Shakespeare and his com-
pany at, 231, 232, 411 and n

'Wilton, Life of Jack,' by Nash,
385 and n i

Wincot (in The Taming of the
Shrew), its identification, 165, 166
Windsucker," Chapman's, 135 n

Winter's Tale, A : at the Globe in
1611, 251 ; acted at Court, 251
and n ; based on Greene's Pan-
dosto, 251 ; a few lines taken from
the ' Decameron,' 251 and n ; the
presentation of country life, 251.
For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

' Wire,' use of the word, for women's
hair, 118 and n z

ZEPHERIA

Wise,}. R., 363

Wither, George, 388, 399 n 2

'Wittes Pilgrimage,' Davies's, 441

n 2
Women, excluded from Elizabethan

stage, 38 and n 2 ; in masques at

Court, 38 n 2 ; on the Restora-

tion stage, 334
Women, addresses to, in sonnets,

92, 117-20, 122 n, 123, 124, 154
Woncot in Henry IV identical

with Woodmancote, 168
Wood, Anthony a, on the Earl of

Pembroke, 414
Woodmancote. See Woncot
Worcester, Earl of, his company of

actors at Stratford, 10, 35 ; under

the patronage of Queen Anne of

Denmark, 231 n
Worcester, registry of the diocese

of, 3, 20
Wordsworth, Bishop Charles, on

Shakespeare and the Bible, 17 n i
Wordsworth, William, the poet,

on German and French aesthetic

criticism, 344, 349
Wotton, Sir Henry, on the burning

of the Globe Theatre, 260, 261 n
Wright, Dr. Aldis, 314 n, 325
Wright, John, bookseller, 90
Wriothesley, Lord, 381
Wroxhall, the Shakespeares of, 3
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, sonnetteering

of, 83, 95, 101 n 4, 427 ; his trans-

lations of Petrarch's sonnets,

104 n 4

Wyman, W. H., 372
Wyndham, Mr. George, on the

sonnets, no n ; on Antony and

Cleopatra, 245 n ; on Jacobean

typography, 419 n

YONGE, Bartholomew, translation

of ' Diana ' by, 53
Yorkshire Tragedy, The, 180, 243,

ZEPHERIA, a collection of sonnets
called, 435 ; legal terminology in,
32 n 2, 435 ; the praise of Daniel's
•Delia' in, 431, 435; 436

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ALISON PHILLIPS, M.A., late Scholar of Merton College, Senior Scholar of
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IN 1814. By J. B. ATLAV._ With a Preface by EDWARD DOWNES LAW,

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A BROWNING COURTSHIP ; and other Stories. By ELIZA ORNE
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INDIAN FRONTIER POLICY. An Historical Sketch. By General
Sir JOHN ADYE, G.C.B., R. A., Author of ' Recollections of a Military Life.' With
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GABRIELE VON BULOW, Daughter of Wilhelm von Humboldt.

A Memoir compiled from the Family Papers of Wilhelm von Humboldt and his

Children, 1791-1887. Translated by CLARA NoRDi.iNr;ER. With Portraits and a

Preface by Sir EDWARD B. MALKT, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., &c. Demy 8vo. i&r.

'Miss Nordlinger's excellent translation gives English readers an opportunity or

becoming acquainted with a very charming personality, and of following the events of

a life which was bound up with many interesting incidents and phases, of English

history.' — TIMES.

London : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.

Lee Sidney

Life of William Shake-
apeare.

2894

J-

PR
2894
.IA

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