eri SarisT iJrpifjf- ^LuibLia/n QJriaJLejfi caw from tfie (A : rocj/iott / /utuili/to rtorv in the (Imak e&n eare o/l/Lejn or Lai ya Leery at c)tra t/r rd-on-^ He wtv, A LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BY SIDNEY LEE WITH PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1898 All rights reserved .Lf„ 18923 Copyright, 1898, Bv THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Norfoootj !flircgs J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. wao^ /** c7 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 criti- cism. My estimates of the value of Shakespeare's plays and poems are intended solely to fulfil the obligation that lies on the biographer of indicating 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 of information. After studying Elizabethan literature, history, and bibliography for more than eighteen years, I believed that I might, without exposing my- self 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 ' Mer- PREFACE vii chant 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 his- tory 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 1 Dictionary of National Biography,' and a few new facts will be found in my revised estimate of the poet's pecuniary position. In my treatment of the sonnets I have pursued what I believe to be an original line of investigation. The strictly autobiographical interpretation that crit- ics 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. Mat- thew 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. Vlll WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE federation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result.' It is criticism inspired by this lib- eralising principle that is especially applicable to the vast sonnet-literature which was produced by Shake- speare 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 in. 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 Southamp- ton'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 knowledge of Shakespeare's. I have also printed in the Appendix a detailed statement of the precise cir- cumstances under which Shakespeare's sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609 (Section v.), and a review of the facts that seem to me to confute the popular theory that Shakespeare was a friend and protege of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, who has been put-forward quite unwarrantably as the hero of the sonnets (Sections vi., vil, vin.). 1 I have also included in the Appendix (Sections ix. and x.) a survey of the voluminous sonnet-literature of the Elizabethan poets between 1 591 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 docu- 1 1 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. X WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ments 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 be- lieve 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 gath- ered from the history of the painting and of its dis- covery 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 por- trait 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 autographs of Shakespeare's signature — all that exist of un- questioned authenticity — appear in the three remain- ing 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 161 3, 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 1 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 re- 1 See pp. 309, 311. Xll WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE plied 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 sug- gestions 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 . . i The poet's ancestry . . 2 The poet's father . . 4 His settlement at Strat- ford .... 5 The poet's mother . . 6 1564, April. The poet's birth and baptism ... 8 Alleged birthplace . . 8 II CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE IS7I-7. 1575 1577 The father in municipal 1582, Dec. The poet's marriage 18 office .... 10 Richard Hathaway of Brothers and sisters . 11 Shottery 19 The father's financial dif- Anne Hathaway 19 ficulties .... 12 Anne Hathaway's cot- t Shakespeare's education 13 tage .... 19 His classical equipment . 15 The bond against imped- Shakespeare's knowledge iments .... 20 of the Bible . 16 15S3. May. Birth of the poet's Queen Elizabeth at Ken- daughter Susanna 22 ilworth .... 17 Formal betrothal proba- Withdrawal from school . 18 bly dispensed with 23 XIV WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE III THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD Early married life . . 25 Poaching in Charlecote . 27 Unwarranted doubts of the tradition . . .28 1585 Justice Shallow The flight from Stratford , IV ON THE LONDON STAGE 1586 The Journey to London . 3 1 The London theatres 36 Richard Field, Shake- Place of residence in Lon- speare's townsman 32 don .... 38 Theatrical employment . 32 Actors' provincial tours . 39 A playhouse servitor 33 Shakespeare's alleged The acting companies 34 travels .... 40 The Lord Chamberlain's In Scotland 4 1 company 35 In Italy .... 42 Shakespeare a member of Shakespeare's roles . 43 the Lord Chamberlain's His alleged scorn of an company 36 actor's calling 45 V EARLY DRAMATIC WORK The period of Shake- speare's dramatic work, 1591-1611 . . .46 His borrowed plots . . 47 The revision of plays . 47 Chronology of the plays . 48 Metrical tests . . .49 1591 Love's Labour s Lost . 50 159 1 Two Gentlemen of Verona 52 1592 Comedy of Errors . . 53 1592 Romeo and Juliet . . 55 1592, March. Henry VI . .56 1592, Sept. Greene's attack on Shakespeare . . -57 Chettle's apology . . 58 Divided authorship of Henry VI . .59 Shakespeare's coadjutors 60 Shakespeare's assimilative power . . . .61 Lyly's influence in comedy 61 1593 1593 1593 Marlowe's influence in tragedy .... Richard III . Richard II Shakespeare's acknow- ledgments to Marlowe . Titus Andronicus 1594, August. The Merchant of Venice .... Shylock and Roderigo Lopez .... 1594 King John 1594, Dec. 28. Comedy of Er- rors in Gray's Inn Hall Early plays doubtfully as- signed to Shakespeare . Arden of Feversham (1592) .... Edward III . Mucedorus Faire Em (1592) CONTENTS XV VI THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 1593, April. Publication of Ve- nus and Adonis . . 74 1594, May. Publication of Lu- crece . . . .76 PAGE Enthusiastic reception of the poems . . .78 Shakespeare and Spenser 79 Patrons at Court . .81 VII THE SONNETS A-ND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY The vogue of the Eliza- bethan sonnet . . 83 Shakespeare's first experi- ments . . . .84 1594 Majority of Shakespeare's sonnets composed . 85 Their literary value . . 87 Circulation in manuscript 88 Their piratical publication in 1609 . . . .89 A Lover's Complaint 91 Thomas Thorpe and ' Mr. W. H.' . . . . 91 The form of Shakespeare's sonnets . . . .95 Their want of continuity . 96 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 . 100 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 al- lusions to sonnets in his plays .... 108 VIII THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS Slender autobiographi- cal element in Shake- speare's sonnets . The imitative element Shakespeare's claims of immortality for his son- nets a borrowed con- ceit .... "3 Conceits in sonnets ad- dressed to a woman . 117 The praise of ' blackness ' 118 The sonnets of vitupera- tion .... 120 Gabriel Harvey's Amo- rous Odious sonnet . 121 Jodelle's Contr' Amours . 122 XVI WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE IX THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON Biographic fact in the ' dedicatory ' sonnets . The Earl of Southampton the poet's sole patron . Rivals in Southampton's favour . Shakespeare's fear of an other poet ; Barnabe Barnes probably the chief rival Other theories as to the chief rival's identity Sonnets of friendship . 136 Extravagances of literary compliment . . . 138 126 • 13° 132 133 134 139 142 143 Patrons habitually ad- dressed in affectionate terms .... Direct references to Southampton in the sonnets of friendship . His youthfulness The evidence of portraits 144 Sonnet cvii. the last of the series .... 147 Allusions to Queen Eliza- beth's death . . . 147 Allusion to Southamp- ton's release from prison . . . . 149 X THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS Sonnets of melancholy and self-reproach . .151 The youth's relations with the poet's mistress . 153 Willoble his Aviso. (1594) • ■ • -155 Summary of conclusions respecting the sonnets . 158 XI THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1594-5 Midsummer Night' s Dream .... 161 1595 All's Well that Ends Well . . . .162 1595 The Taming of the Shrew 163 Stratford allusions in the Induction . . . 164 Wincot . . . .165 1598 1597- Henry IV . . . .167 Falstaff" . . . .169 1597 The Merry Wives of 1599 Windsor , . .171 1601 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 Meres's eulogy . . . 178 Value of his name to pub- lishers .... 179 The Passionate Pilgrim . 182 The Phoenix and the Turtle . ..:..-. .183 CONTENTS XV11 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 PAGE 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 1599 1599 1600 1601 1601 Literary work in 1599 . 207 Much Ado about Nothing 208 As You Like It . . . 209 Twelfth Night . . . 209 Julius Ccesar . . . 211 The strife between adult actors and boy actors . 213 Shakespeare's references to the struggle . . 216 Ben Jonson's Poetaster . 217 Shakespeare's alleged par- tisanship in the theatri- cal warfare . . . 219 1602 Hamlet .... 221 The problem of its publi- cation .... 222 The First Quarto, 1603 . 222 The Second Quarto, 1604 223 The Folio version, 1623 . 223 Popularity of Hamlet . 224 1603 Troilus and Cressida . 223 Treatment of the theme . 227 1603, March 26. Queen Eliza- beth's death . . . 229 James I's patronage . 230 XIV THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 1604, 1604, Nov. Othello . Dec. Measure for Me as 235 1606 1607 ure Macbeth . King Lear 237 239 . 241 1608 Timon of Athe?is 1608 Pericles . 1608 Antony and Cleopatra 1609 Cor io I anus 242 243 245 247 XV111 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE XV THE LATEST PLAYS The placid temper of the latest plays . . . 248 1 6 10 Cymbeline .... 249 161 1 A Winter 's Tale . .251 16 1 1 The Tempest . . . 252 Fanciful interpretations of The Te?npest . . .256 Unfinished plays . . 258 The lost play of Car- denio .... 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 . . . 264 161 1 Final settlement at Strat- ford .... 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. Shakespeare's death .... 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 personal character . . . 277 XVII SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS Mrs. Judith Quiney (1585- 1662) .... 280 Mrs. Susannah Hall (1583-1649) . . .281 The last descendant . . 282 Shakespeare's brothers, Edmund, Richard, and Gilbert . . . .283 XVIII AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS poet's the Spelling of 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 . 292 The ' Jansen' portrait . 294 The ' Felton ' portrait . 294 The 'Soest' portrait. . 294 Miniatures . . . 295 The Garrick Club bust . 295 Alleged death-mask . . 296 Memorials in sculpture . 297 Memorials at Stratford . 297 CONTENTS XIX XIX BIBLIOGRAPHY PAGE PAGE Quartos of the poems in Alexander Pope (1688- the poet's lifetime . 299 1744) . 315 Posthumous quartos oi Lewis Theobald (1688- the poems 300 1744) . 317 The ' Poems ' of 1640 300 Sir Thomas Hanmei Quartos of the plays in the (1677-1746) . 317 poet's lifetime 300 Bishop Warburton (1698- Posthumous quartos of the 1779) . 318 plays .... 300 Dr. Johnson (1709-1783) 3 X 9 1623 The First Folio 303 Edward Capell (1713- The publishing syndi- 1781) . . 319 cate . . . " . 303 George Steevens (1736- The prefatory matter 306 1800) 320 The value of the text 3°7 Edmund Malone (1741- The order of the plays 307 1812) . 322 The typography 308 Variorum editions . 322 Unique copies . 308 Nineteenth-century edi The Sheldon copy . 3°9 tors. 3 2 3 Estimated number of ex- Alexander Dyce (1798- tant copies 310 1C69) 323 Reprints of the First Howard Staunton (1810- Folio .... 311 1874) . . 324 1632 The Second Folio . 312 Nikolaus Delius (1813- 1663-4 The Third Folio . 312 1888) . 3 2 4 1685 The Fourth Folio . 313 The Cambridge edition Eighteenth-century edi- (1863-1866) . 324 tors .... 313 Other nineteenth-centur> Nicholas Rowe (1674- editions . 324 1718) .... 314 XX POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION Views of Shakespeare's The first appea contemporaries 326 actresses in Ben Jonson's tribute 327 spearean parts English opinion between David Garrick 1660 and 1702 329 1779) • Dryden's view . 33o John Philip Restoration adaptations . 331 (1757-1823) . English opinion from 1702 Mrs. Sarah onwards 332 (1755-1831) . Stratford festivals 334 Edmund Kean Shakespeare on the Eng- 1833) ■ • lish stage 334 Shake- (1717- Kemble Siddons (1787- 334 336 337 337 338 XX WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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 Ger- man stage . . .345 Shakespeare in France Voltaire's strictures . French critics' gradua emancipation from Vol tairean influence . Shakespeare on the French stage . Shakespeare in Italy In Holland In Russia . In Poland. In Hungary In other countries . 347 348 349 350 352 352 353 353 353 354 XXI General estimate Shakespeare's defects GENERAL • 355 jfects . 355 ESTIMATE Character of Shake- 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 II 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 Shakespeare and South- ampton .... 374 Southampton's parentage 374 1573, Oct. 6. Southampton's birth . . . .375 His education . . . 375 Recognition of South- ampton's beauty in youth . . . .377 His reluctance to marry . 378 Intrigue with Elizabeth Vernon . 379 1598 Southampton's marriage 379 1601-3 Southampton's impris onment . 380 Later career 380 1624, Nov. 10. His death . 38i IV THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 1593 Southampton's collection of books . . . 382 References in his letters to poems and plays . 382 His love of the theatre . 383 Poetic adulation . . 384 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- bethan 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. William Hall . . . . 402 The ' onlie begetter ' means ' only procurer ' . 403 XX11 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE {APPENDIX VI MR. WILLIAM HERBERT 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 address- ing the Earl of Pem- broke .... 408 VII SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE Shakespeare with the act- ing company at Wilton in 1603 .... The dedication of the First Folio in 1623 No suggestion in the sonnets of the youth's 41 ] 412 identity with Pem- broke .... 413 Aubrey's ignorance of any relation between Shakespeare and Pem- broke .... 414 VIII THE 'WILL 1 SONNETS 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 printers Jacobean 419 The conceits of Sonnets cxxxv.-vi. interpreted . 420 Sonnet cxxxv. . . . 421 Sonnet cxxxvi. . . . 422 Sonnet cxxxiv. . . . 425 Sonnet cxliii. . . . 426 IX THE VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET, I59I-I597 1557 Wyatt's and Surrey's Son- 1582 i59i 1592 nets published Watson's Centurie Love Sidney's Astrophel Stella . Collected sonnets feigned love . Daniel's Delia . of and of 427 428 428 429 43o Fame of Daniel's sonnets 431 1592 Constable's Diana . . 431 1593 Barnabe Barnes's sonnets 432 1593 Watson's Tears of Fancie .... 433 1593 Giles Fletcher's Licia . 433 1593 Lodge's Phillis . . . 433 1594 Drayton's Idea . . . 434 1594 Percy's Ccelia . . . 435 APPENDIX] CONTENTS XX111 1594 1595 159s 1595 1595 1596 1596 1596 1596 Zepheria . 435 J 597 Robert Tofte's Laura . 438 Barnfield's sonnets to Sir William Alexander's Ganymede 435 Aurora . . . .438 Spenser's Avioretti . 435 Sir Fulke Greville's Emaricdulfe 436 Ccelica . . . .438 Sir John Davies's Gul- Estimate of number of linge Sonnets . 436 love-sonnets issued be- Linche's Diella 437 tween 1591 and 1597 . 439 Griffin's Fidessa 437 II. Sonnets to patrons, 1591- Thomas Campion's son- 1597 . . . .440 nets . 437 III. Sonnets on philosophy William Smith's Chloris . 437 and religion . . . 440 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN FRANCE, i 5 50-1 600 Ronsard (1524-1585) and ' La Pleiade ' . . . 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 ....;-.. Minor collections of French sonnets pub- lished between 1553 and 1605 .... 444 447 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE . . ■ . . Frontispiece From the ' Droeshout ' painting, now in the Shake- speare Memorial Gallery, Stratford-on-Avon. HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, Third Earl of Southampton, as a young man . To face p. 145 From the painting at Welbeck Abbey. SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE TO THE PURCHASE-DEED OF A HOUSE IN BLACK- friars, dated March io, 1612-3 . . . To face p. 267 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 ii, 1612-3 To face p. 269 From the original docutnent noiu preserved in the British Mtiseum. THREE AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURES severally WRITTEN BY SHAKESPEARE ON THE THREE SHEETS OF HIS WILL To face p. 2J$ From the original document at Somerset House, London. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE . . .To face p. 295 From a plaster-cast of the terra-cotta bust now at the Garrick Club. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE PARENTAGE AND BIRTH Shakespeare came of a family whose surname was borne through the middle ages by residents in very Distribu- m any parts of England — at Penrith in tionofthe Cumberland, 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, Remains, ed. 1605, p. Ill; Verstegan, Restitution, 1605. 2 Plac. Cor. 7 Edvv. I, Kane; cf. Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xi. 122. 3 Cf. the Register of the Guild of St. Anne at Knowle, ed. Bickley, 1894. b I 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 1528. 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/, iys. s 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 to compare them with modern currency (see p. 197 n). 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 Xotesand Queries, 8th ser. xii. 463-4. 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 suc- cess ; he died in embarrassed circumstances in Decem- ber 1596. John, the son who administered Richard's estate, was in all likelihood the poet's father. About 1 55 1 John Shakespeare left Snitterfield, which was his birthplace, to seek a career in the The poet's neighbouring borough of Stratf ord-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 1552 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 His etti either plaintiff or defendant in suits heard ment at in the local court of record for the recovery Stratford. Q £ sma yj 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 — ini559and 1561 — hewaschosen 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 account 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. \\3.\\, 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 1 501 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 id. 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. 13s. 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 poet's a PP ear ) on the ground that it was the day birth and of his death. There is no positive evidence aptism. on t ^ e su kj ec ^ 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. side 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 1 846, 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 II CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE In July 1564, when William was three months old, the plague raged with unwonted vehemence at Strat- The father f° r d> aR d n ^ s father liberally contributed to in munici- the relief of its poverty-stricken victims. pa o ce. Fortune s tiU 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 1 575 he bought two houses in Stratford, one of them doubtless the alleged birthplace in Henley Street; in 1576 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. l x 1574), and Edmund (baptised May 3, 1580), with a daughter Joan (baptised April 15, 1569) — reached maturity. A daughter Ann was baptised September 28, 1 571, 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 for a grant of arms to the College of Arms. (Cf. infra, pp. 186 seq.) 12 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE mortgaged, on November 14, 1578, Asbies, her valuable property at Wilmcote, for 40/. to Edmund Lambert of Barton-on-the-Heath, who had married her sister, Joan Arden. Lambert was to receive no interest on his loan, but was to take the ' rents and profits ' of the estate. Asbies was thereby alienated for ever. Next year, on October 15, 1579, John and his wife made over to Robert Webbe, doubtless a relative of Alexander Webbe, for the sum apparently of 40/., 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 financial 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 40/. 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 1 3 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 conversation 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 Greece et Latine edition. I believe Lowell's parallelisms to be no more than curious accidents — proofs of consanguinity of spirit, not of any indebtedness on Shakespeare's part. In the Electra of Sophocles, which is akin in its leading motive to Hamlet, the Chorus consoles Electra for the supposed death of Orestes with the same 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 Electro, are the lines 1171-3: QprfTou ireipvKas irarpos, HXeKrpa, (ppovef QvrjTos 5' '0pe8p6f3ov\ov £\irl£ov K.£ap, Agamemnon, n), 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 The oet's Sir Hugh Evans in ' Merry Wives of classical Windsor,' Shakespeare placed Latin phrases eqmpmen . ^ rawn directly from Lily's grammar, from the 'Sententiae 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 ' W m . Sh e .,' 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. 1 6 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 Shake- they are, they are drawn from all parts of speareand the Bible, and indicate that general ac- the Bible. q Uam tance 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 1 7 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 ' (11. 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 1576, 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 ed. 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. 2 See p. 160 infra. 1 8 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* father in an effort to restore his decaying 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.' 2 ' 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 little 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 1, 1 581, Richard Hathaway, 'hus- bandman ' of Shottery, a hamlet in the parish of Old 1 Notes of John Duwdall, a tourist in Warwickshire in 1693 (published in 1838). CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 1 9 Stratford, made his will, which was proved on July 9, 1582, and is now preserved at Somerset House. Richard ^ s nouse an ^ land, ' two and a half Hathaway virgates,' had been long held in copyhold ofShottery. by ^ family> and he died [n fairly pr0 _ 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 6/. 13J. 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 H[athaway_'s will be- came, 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- way's^ot- rous alterations and renovations, still pre- tage. 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 40/., 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 Tmpedi- 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 Shake- speare bond stipulated merely for the consent of the bride's 'friends,' and ignored the bridegroom's pa- rents 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 farm- ers 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, doubtless secured the deed on their own initiative, so that Shakespeare might have small opportunity of evad- ing 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 daugh- Birthofa ter was born to the poet, and was baptised daughter. - m ^ Q 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 wed- ding 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 Formal much support. Moreover, the whole circum- betrothai stances of the case render it highly im- probably dispensed probable that Shakespeare and his bride with. submitted to the formal preliminaries of a betrothal. In that ceremony the parents of both con- tracting 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. scii. 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 27, 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 Whateley 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 proced- ure 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 Whateley 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. THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD 25 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,' 1 and that prenuptial intimacy is productive of 'barren hate, sour-ey'd 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. . . 2 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 20/. 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. n-13. THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD 2/ poems. 1 And his sporting experiences passed at times beyond orthodox limits. A poaching adventure, ac- cording 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 Poachin°- once * n r °bbing a park that belonged to Sir atcharie- 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 uhluckiness 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) 1 Cf. Ellacombe, Shakespeare as an Angler, 1883; J- E. Harting, Ornithology of Shakespeare, 1872. The best account of Shakespeare's knowledge of sport is given by the Right Hon. D. H. Madden in his entertaining and at the same time scholarly Diary of Master 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- the sixteenth century. But Sir Thomas ranted Lucy was an extensive game-preserver, doubts of / -,^11 ..,.■, thetradi- and owned at Charlecote a warren in which tion. a f ew h ar t_ s 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,' 1795, an engraving of an old farmhouse in the hamlet of Fulbroke, where he as- serted 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. ^g owner f 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 The flight A eem g from Lucy's persecution, at once 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. 16 seq. ON THE LONDON STAGE IV ON THE LONDON STAGE To London Shakespeare naturally drifted, doubt- less trudging thither on foot during 1586, by way The jour- of Oxford" and High Wycombe. 1 Tradition 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. 2 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 of Shakespeare's father, had left Stratford in 1579 Richard to serve an apprenticeship with Thomas 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) Theatrical tnat ex i ste d m London at the date of his employ- arrival as an early scene of his regular occupation. The compiler of ' Lives of the Poets' (1753) 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, Shakspere and Typography, 1872. 2 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 Cibber, but written by Robert Shiels and other hack-writers under Cibber'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. ^ ]a From such incidents seems to have sprung house ser- the opportunity which offered 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 1 571 (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 lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain {d. July 23, kdn™ ber ~ J 59 6 )' and b y his son and heir ' Ge0I "g e company. Carey, second lord Hunsdon, who himself became Lord Chamberlain in March 1 597. 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 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 1603 he was one of its leaders. Four Chamber^ °^ * ts c ^' lQ ^ 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 1 576 ; 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 The Lon- * n n * s actni g career Shakespeare's company 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 New- ington 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 1599 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 16 10, when his acting days were nearing their end. 1 In London Shakespeare resided near the theatres. According to a memorandum by Alleyn (which Place of Malone quoted), he lodged in 1596 near residence ' the Bear Garden in Southwark.' 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 facts 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 Victoria Street, London, E.C. 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 in the epilogue to As You Like Lt, 'Lf L were a woman, I would kiss 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 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 Night's Dream (1. 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 1596 of the stage of the Swan Theatre in Zur Kenntniss der altenglischen Biihne von Karl Theodor Gaedertz. Mit der ersten anthentischen innem Ansicht der Sckwans Theatre 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 flourishes 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 inter- ruption. 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 alleged 5 credited with faithfully fulfilling all his pro- travels, f essional 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 of Shakespeare's Company of Ac- tors to the Provincial Cities and Towns of England (privately printed, 1887). From the information 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. 1 603. 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. 2 Cf. Knight's Life of Shakespeare (1843), p. 41; Fleay, Stage, pp. 135-6. ON THE LONDON STAGE 4 1 English actors arrived in Scotland under the leader- in Scot- ship of Lawrence Fletcher and one Martin, land. anc | 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 1601. 2 There is nothing to indicate that any of his companions belonged to Shakespeare's company. In like manner, Shakespeare's accurate reference in * 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 [i.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. lxv. 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. Banquo. This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve, By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here. {Macbeth I. vi. 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 Shake- speare's inevitable intercourse with Scotsmen in London and the theatres after James I's 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 an hospitable reception. In Denmark, Germany, Austria, Holland, and in France, many dramatic performances were given before royal audiences by English actors between 1580 and 1630. 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 imtaiy. . -, • f, . • r ^t ; is true, and especially to cities of .Northern Italy, like Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, and Milan, he makes frequent and familiar reference, and 1 Cf. Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany, 1 865; Meissner, Die englis- chen Comodianten zur Zeit Shakespeare in Oestereich, Vienna, 1884; Jon Stefansson on ' Shakespeare at Elsinore ' in Contemporaiy Reviezv, January 1896; A T otes and Queries, 5 th 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' (1. 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 (1. ii. 129-44), renders it almost impossible that he could have gathered his knowledge of Northern Italy from personal ob- servation. 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 1 592 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 shake- ^ u ^ ^ e r ^ es m which he distinguished 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. v]s. viiid. and by waye of her Majesties rewarde \ili. 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 xiiis. iiij^., in all xx/z.' 1 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°ca^ himself witn becoming ' a motley to the view ' ing. (ex. 2), and chides fortune for having pro- vided for his livelihood nothing better than 'public 1 Hallivvell-Phillipps, i. 121 ; Mrs. Stopes mjahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare- Gesellschaft, 1896, xxxii. 182 seq. 2 Scourge of Folly, 1610, epigr. 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 1 6 1 1 ), 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- es bor- ing his strength that he systematically rowed levied loans on popular current literature like plots. 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 capa- ble of arresting public attention. The professional playwrights sold their plays out- right to one or other of the acting companies, and they The revi- retained no legal interest in them after the sionof manuscript had passed into the hands of the p ays " 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, 1592, '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 Chrono- conjecture. External evidence is accessible 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 2/. 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 the blank verse of the early plays a pause tests. j s 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 syl- lables 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. Ingram's paper on ' The Weak Endings ' in New Shakspere Society s Transactions (1874), vol. i., is of great value. Mr. Fleay's metrical tables, which first appeared in the same society's Transac- tions (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 pre- cise chronology can be placed on the merely mechani- cal tests afforded by tables of metrical statistics. The chronological order can only be deduced with any confidence from a consideration of all the internal characteristics as well as the known external history of each play. The premisses are often vague and conflicting, and no chronology hitherto suggested re- ceives 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 pub- lished before 1597, and none bore his name on the title- page till 1 598. But his first essays have been with con- fidence allotted to 1 591 . To 'Love's Labour's Lost' , Love>s may reasonably be assigned priority in point Labour's of 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 so- cial and political life. The names of the chief char- acters 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 sup- porters 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 pop- ular 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, sug- gests much punning on the word 'mote.' As late as 1602 Middleton, in his Blurt, Master Constable, act ii. sc. ii. 1. 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 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 augmented,' 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 J 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 Venice.' 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 seq. 2 Arber, ii. 644. 3 Cf. W. G. Waters's translation of II Pecorone, pp. 44-60 (fourth day, novel 1). 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 6/ 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] Wplson], 1584. There the Jew opens the attack on his Christian debtor with the lines : Signor Mercatore, why do you not pay me ? Think you I will be mocked in this sort ? This three times you have flouted me — it seems you make thereat a sport. Truly pay me my money, and that even now presently, Or by mighty Mahomet, I swear I will forthwith arrest thee. Subsequently, when the judge is passing judgment in favour of the debtor, the Jew interrupts : Stay, there, most puissant judge. Signor Mercatore, consider what you do. Pay me the principal, as for the interest I forgive it you. 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 Shyiock °f Shakespeare's play sets it in a wholly dif- and Rode- ferent category from that of Marlowe's ' Jew ngo opez. Q £ ^jgj ta ^ t j ie humanised portrait of the Jew Shyiock 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 Shyiock (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 II's 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 Shyiock. 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 1594 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 John.' King John' (1 591), 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 1880 ; Dr. H. Graetz, Shylock in den Sagen, in den Dramen und in der Geschichte, Krotoschin, 1880 ; New Shakspere Soc. Trans., 1887-92, pt. ii. 158-92; 'The Conspiracy of Dr. Lopez,' by the Rev. Arthur Dimock, in English Historical Review (1894), ix. 440 seq. yo 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 o Eirors ^ kg^^g™ students, and their friends. in Gray s ' ' inn Hail. 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."' 1 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 Gesia Grayorum, printed in 1688 from 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. 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 (i 591-4) — ' Arden of Feversham ' (licensed for publication April 3, 1 592, and published in 1 592) and ' Edward III' (licensed for publication December 1, 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 ' Early plays dramatises with intensity and insight a doubtfully sordid murder of a husband by a wife which assigned to . Shake- took place at raversnam in 1 55 1, and was speare. 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. 14). 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 • Muce- Shakespeare on slighter provocation. In dorus.' 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 1595, 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 16 10 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 Shakspere, pp. 231-74. 2 See p. 89. EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 73 the pen of an admiring but faltering imitator of Shakespeare. 1 1 Faire Em/ although not published till 163 1, was acted by Shakespeare's company while Lord Strange •Faire was its patron, and some lines from it are Em -' 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, ii. 236-8. 74 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE VI THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC During the busy years (i 591-4) 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 P UDnsne d 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 a godfather.' ' The first heir of my invention ' 1 See Appendix, Sections III. and IV. FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 75 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 ' : a Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua. The influence of Ovid, who told the story in his 1 Metamorphoses,' is apparent in many of the details. But the theme was doubtless first suggested to Shakespeare by a contemporary effort. Lodge's 1 Scillas 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 Amores, or Elegies of Love, were translated by Marlowe about 1589, 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 Shake- speare thus : Let base conceited wits admire vile things, Fair Phcebus lead me to the Muses' springs! 2 Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and Lodge's Scillas Metamor- phosis, by James P. Reardon, in ' Shakespeare Society's Papers,' iii. j6 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, a b a b b c c) take the place of six-line stanzas. The second poem was entered in the ' Sta- tioners' Registers ' on May 9, 1594, under the title of ' A Booke intitled the Ravyshement of 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 Liicretia'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 senseless 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 (Euvres et Meslanges Po'etiques, 1574. FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC ~J 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 of Time is elaborated from one in Watson's ' Passionate Centurie of Love ' (Xo. lxxvii.). 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 challenges 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 game 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. Lxxvii.) : 'The chiefe contentes of this Passion are taken out of Seraphine [i.e. Serafino], Sonnet 132: Col tempo passa gli anr.i. i mesi. e l'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 Serafmo'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.' In these poems Shakespeare made his earliest appeal to the world of readers, and the reading Enthusias- public welcomed his addresses with unquali- tionofThe ^ 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 ' (1594), 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 1 602 ; an eighth followed in 1 6 1 7. ' 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 Shake ^y the poems into the ranks of Shakespeare's speare and admirers. It is hardly doubtful that Spenser described Shakespeare in ' Colin Clouts come home again e ' (completed in 1594), under the name of 'Aetion,' — a familiar Greek proper name derived from 'Aero'?, an eagle : And there, though last not least is Aetion ; A gentler shepheard may no where be found, Whose muse, full of high thought's invention, Doth, like 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' (i 591) 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 entertainments 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.' x The name Willy was fre- quently 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 man's 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 merriment Is also deaded or in dolour drent. — (11. 198-210.) 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's 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 Christmas Patrons at of 1 594 was possibly due in part to personal court. 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 Lost' was given at Whitehall at Christmas 1597, and tradition 1 A note to this effect, in a genuine early seventeenth-century hand, was discovered by Halliwell-Phillipps in a copy of the 161 1 edition of Spenser's Works (cf. Outlines, ii. 394-5). 2 But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen Large streams 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.) G 82 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE credits the Queen with unconcealed enthusiasm 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. Those flights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza and our James, — of which Jonson wrote in his elegy on Shakespeare — included many representations of Shakespeare's plays by himself and his fellow-actors at the palaces of Whitehall, Richmond, or Greenwich during the last decade of Elizabeth's reign. THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 83 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 owe 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 1 591, when Sir Philip Sidney's collection of sonnets entitled ' Astrpphel 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 firsfexperi- Labour's Lost,' probably his earliest play; ments. two 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 somewhat 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 pleasure 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 Shake- speare's between that date and the autumn of 1594, sonnets during his thirtieth and thirty-first years. composed __. . - - . J in 1594. His occasional reterence m 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 it 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 (lxii. 9-10). That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang (lxxiii. 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 Barn field, 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 1594, 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 lxxxi. (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 often shows me my weary spirit and my wrinkled skin, and my decaying wit and strength : 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 cvn., 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- Their tative energy that are hardly to be matched literary elsewhere in poetry. The best examples are charged with the mellowed sweetness of rhythm and metre, the depth of thought and feel- ing, the vividness of imagery and the stimulating fer- vour of expression which are the finest proofs 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 But their reputation grew, and public in- terest 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 of 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 1592 a collection of twenty sonnets in a volume which he entitled ' Diana.' This was an authorised publication. But in 1594 a printer and a publisher, without Constable's knowledge or sanction, reprinted these sonnets and scattered them through a volume of nearly eighty miscellaneous sonnets by Sidney and many other hands; 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 1 59 1 Gabriel Cawood, the publisher of Robert Southwell's Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears, wrote that manuscript copies of the work had long flown about ' fast and false.' Nash, in the preface to his THE SOXXETS AXD 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), 1 was quoted in the play of 'Edward III,' which was probably written before 1595. Meres, writing in 1598, 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 in Their the design of their publication, was a camp- pubHcation follower of the regular publishing army. in 1609. He was professionally engaged in procur- ing 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 author- ity] from one scrivener's shop to another, and at length grew so com- mon 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 lxix. 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 1. 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 licence for the publi- cation of 'Shakespeare's Sonnets,' and this tradesman- like form of title figured not only on the ' Stationers' Company's Registers,' but on the title-page. Thorpe employed George Eld 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 pro- duction 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 publication. 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 Didwich MSS., p. 92). THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 9 1 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 imprinted poem of forty-nine seven-line stanzas (the metre of ■a Lovers ' Lucrece ' ) entitled 'A Lover's Complaint,' Complaint: - m w hi c h a girl 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- and'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 " x 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 com- plete disagreement with all these writers, although I am at one with Mr. Massey in identifying the young man to whom many of the sonnets were addressed 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 1. 92 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE a partner in the speculation, 'Mr. W. H.' In the conventional dedicatory formula of the day he wished 'Mr. W. H.' 'all happiness' and 'eternity,' such eternity as Shakespeare in the text of the sonnets conventionally foretold for his own verse. When Thorpe was organising the issue of Marlowe's ' First Book of Lucan ' in 1600, he sought the patronage of Edward Blount, a friend in the trade. ' W. H.' was doubtless in a like position. 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-fold Meditation ' — -by the Jesuit Robert South- well who had been executed in 1595, and he published it with a dedication (signed ' W. H.') vaunting his good fortune in meeting with such treasure-trove. When Thorpe dubbed ' Mr. W. H.,' with characteristic mag- niloquence, 'the onlie begetter [i.e. obtainer or pro- curer] 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- 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 viil.). 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 passable barriers from that in which Thorpe pursued 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. 1 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 considerations of Thorpe's address to 'Mr. W. H.' belongs to the 1 See Appendix VI., ' Mr. William Herbert ; and VII. « 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 ° re's 6 " French 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. 2 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 tenne syllables. The first twelve to ryme in staves of foure lynes by cross metre and the last two ryming togither, do conclude the whole.' In twenty-one of the 108 sonnets of which Sidney's collection entitled Astrophel and Stella consists, the rhymes are on the foreign model and the final couplet is avoided. But these are exceptional. 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. g6 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. m ade to 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 addressed to a woman. This division cannot be 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 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 (lxvi.) 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 his Astrophel (No. xlvi.). Cupid is similarly invoked in three of Drayton's sonnets (No. xxvi. in the edition of 1594, and Nos. xxxiii. and xxxiv. in that of 1605), and in six in Fulke Greville's collection entitled C of friend- plainly as in the hero of the poets verse. ship. 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 sen- sual 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 been another than Southampton because the terms 1 See p. 386, note. PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 43 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. the young man had obviously reached manhood. 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 Southampton when he was only seventeen or eighteen. 1 But Shakespeare, already worn in worldly experience, passed his thirtieth birthday in 1594, and he proba- bly 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, So?i7iets pour Helene (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 son- netteers to exaggerate their own age. See p. 86, note. 144 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE youth of the sonnets of ' friendship ' with Southamp- ~, . ton is found in the likeness of feature and 1 he evi- dence of 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., lxvii.) 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 Wel- beck Abbey, and are described above. Of the remaining seven paint- ings, 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 Gal- lery 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, ths property of the Duke of Bedford, the other is at the National Por- trait Gallery. A fifth picture, assigned to Mytens, belongs to Viscount Powerscourt; a sixth, by an unknown artist, belongs to Mr. WingfielJ 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, 71, 100.) In all the best preserved of these portraits the eyes are blue and the hair a dark shade of auburn. Among the middle-life portraits Southampton appears to best advantage in the one by Van Somer belonging to Mr. James Knowles. ^^ It m ^>l sT ^^M p i M>A & ' 'fl ^B".. v : ">jj*«i . Bl^^ ?^k^b^hh Wp§$«^| SL»i««rr "'iii|nmn| j!?L fMaeka-S^Sautaie, <7tenrtL- Wrio^ftc^yL&u^Aftirc (b art erf c) (ntt/uimntcm 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 Allusion to t ^ ie unex pected turn of events, by which 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 Papers, ii. S3). 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 : ' 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. 1 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 Sorr owes Joy, a collection of elegies on Queen Elizabeth by Cambridge writers (Cambridge, 1603), and from Chettle's England's Mourning Garment (London, 1603). 2 Gervase Markham's Honour in her Perfection, 1624. Allusions to South- ampton's PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 49 happiest augury. 'All things look fresh,' one poet sang, ' to greet his excellence.' ' The air, the seasons, and the earth ' were represented as in sym- pathy with the general joy in 'this sweetest of all sweet springs.' One source of grief prison. 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 1 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 promise that he had so often made before, that his friend should live in his ' poor rhyme,' ' when tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.' It is impossible to resist the inference that Shakespeare thus saluted his patron on the close of his days of tribulation. Shakespeare's genius had then won for him a 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. 150 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. STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 1 5 I X THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS It is hardly possible to doubt that had Shakespeare, 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 bestow r ed 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 poe- try — that was invariably consecrated to such a pur- pose 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 ejaculates : From my love's limbeck [sc. have I] still [di]stilled tears! Almost every note in the scale of sadness or self-reproach is sounded from time to time in Petrarch's sonnets. Tasso in Scelta delle Rime, 1582, part 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 lxvi. ('Tired with all these, for restful death I cry'). Drummond of Hawthornden trans- lated Tasso's sonnet in his sonnet (part i. No. xxxiii.) ; while Drum- mond'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.' : 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 p other sonnets treat the same theme. In relations three addressed to the man (xl., xli., and with the xlii.) the poet mildly reproaches his youthful mistress. friend for having sought and w r on 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 and Stella in the edition of 1598. In Emaricdnlfe : Sonnets written by E. C, 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 Garland (Roxburghe Club), 1881. 2 Even this sonnet is adapted from Drayton. See Sonnet xxii. in 1599 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 man. * 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 1 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 denned 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 it 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 main- tenance 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 1 55 and he was unlikely to tolerate any outspoken protest on the part of his proteg/. 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, 1594, and was published • wmobie immediately under the title of ' Willobie his hisAvisa: a visa, 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 1 57 which Wiliobie 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 ' Avisa ' and her lovers is not fictitious. In a preface signed Hadrian Dorell, the writer, after mentioning that the alleged author (Wiliobie) 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 Wiliobie, 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.V 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 Wiliobie 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 love-lorn 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 ^vith those that are discernible in the rest of ofconciu- hi s literary work. They present one more sions re- spectingthe proof of his punctilious regard for the de- sonnets, mands 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 of 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 1 59 other scaled, but as a whole reflecting the varied feat- ures 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- ductible 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 160 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 l6l XI 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 SnST ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' 1 The comedy Dream. 1 may well 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 ' (11. i. 157 seq.), was at once an acknowledg- ment of past marks of royal favour and an invitation for their extension to the future. Oberon's fanciful description (11. 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 x No edition appeared before 1600, and then two were published. M 1 62 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE which the Earl of Leicester entertained Queen Elizabeth on her visit to Kenilworth in 1575. 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 — prac- tically 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 ten- « All's tatively assigned to 1595. Meres, writing Weil.' 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 1 63 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 of 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 'Tamin ^ad followed previously. From 'The of The Taming of A Shrew,' a comedy first pub- lished in 1594, 1 Shakespeare drew the In- duction and the scenes in which the hero Petruchio 1 Reprinted by the Shakespeare Society in 1844. 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 ' Gli Sup- positi.' Evidence of style — the liberal introduction of tags of Latin and the exceptional beat of the dog- gerel — 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 fathe°in- f acts i n his history of the same period, duction. In the Induction the tinker, Christopher Sly, describes himself as ' Old Sly's son of Burton Heath.' Burton Heath is Barton-on-the-Heath, the home of Shakespeare's aunt, Edmund Lambert's wife, and of her sons. The 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 1 65 to Wincot and the Hackets are singularly precise. The name of the maid of the inn is given as Cicely Hacket, 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 Hacket family resided in Shakespeare's day. On November 21, 1 591, 'Sara Hacket, the daughter of Robert Hacket,' was baptised in Quinton church. 1 Yet by Warwick- shire contemporaries the Wincot of 'The Taming of The Shrew ' was unhesitatingly identified with Wilne- cote, near Tamworth, on the Staffordshire border of Warwickshire, 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 ' She.' 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, suffi- cient 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 Birth- place Trustees at Stratford, has generously placed at my disposal this interesting 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 Shakspeare 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 4 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 1 67 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 Shake- speare's native town. In 1597 Shakespeare turned once more to English history. From Holinshed's ' Chronicle,' and from a , valueless but very popular piece, ' The Famous Victories of Henry V,' which was repeatedly acted between 1588 and 1595, 1 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 (m. ii. and v. L). When, in the second of these scenes, the justice's factotum, Davy, asked his master 'to countenance William Visor of Woncot 1 against Clement Perkes of the Hill,' the local references are unmistakable. Woodmancote, where the family of Visor or Vizard has nourished since the sixteenth century, is still pronounced Woncot. The adjoining Stinchcombe Hill (still familiarly known to natives as 1 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 (hi. 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 1600 reads Woncote : all the folios read Woncot. Yet M alone 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 Mad- den in his Diary of Master Silence, pp. 87 seq., 372-4. Cf. Blunt's Dursley and its Neighbourhood ; Huntley's Glossary of the Cotszvold Dialect, and Marshall's Rural Economy of Cotswold (1796). 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 1 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 Falstaff' s name substituted for that of Oldcastle in 1600. There the epilogue expressly denied that Falstaff had any char- acteristic 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 [nomas] 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 \J\ 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 Falstaff's telling phrases, with the names of his foils, Justices Shallow and Silence, at once took root in popular speech. Shakespeare's purely comic power culminated in Falstaff ; he may be claimed as the most humorous figure in literature. In all probability 'The Merry Wives of Windsor,' a comedy inclining to farce, and unqualified by , Merr 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' (1702), 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 1 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. 2 Cf. Shakespeare Society's reprint, 1842, ed. H alii 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. 1-80. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 73 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 ' (1. 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 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 person 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,' 1 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 lionof 61 " P a tron Southampton, an enthusiastic re- 1601. 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. 61 ; see p. 167. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 75 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 1601, 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 40s. 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 kill- ing 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, 1 601), 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.' 1 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. E^sex 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- an d playgoers alike, and his social and pro- speare's fessional position had become considerable. popularity . . and inriu- Inside the theatre his influence was supreme, ence. When, in 1598, the manager of the company rejected Ben Jonson's first comedy — his ' Every Man in his Humour' — Shakespeare intervened, accor ] - ing to a credible tradition (reported by Rowe but denounced by GifTord), 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 the 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 ' Jonson? s Enmity towards Shakespeare, 1808. THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 77 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 prythee, what?" says he. "T faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good Lattin spoons, and thou shalt translate them." ' 1 The creator of Falstaff could have been no stranger to tavern life, and he doubtless took part with zest in the convivialities of men of letters. Tradition The Mer- re P orts 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 that have been So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that ever} 7 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 (act i. scene i. 1. 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. N 178 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 tides, 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. Meres 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 1 79 John,' ' Titus,' and ' Romeo and Juliet ') were enumer- ated, and mention followed of his 'Venus and Adonis,' his ' Lucrece,' and his 'sugred 1 sonnets among his private friends.' 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 Humours,' 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. Already, in 1595, Thomas Creede, Value of ^ e surre ptitious printer of 'Henry V and his name to the 'Merry Wives,' had issued the crude pu is 1 , ' 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 Vietor, Marburg, 1891; The Devonshire Hamlets, i860, parallel texts of the two quartos edited by Mr. Sam Timmins; Ha?nlet, ed. George Macdonald, 1885, a study with the text of the folio. MATURITY OF GENIUS 22 5 effectively supplied to the tragic theme by Polonius and the grave-diggers, and if the topical references to contemporary theatrical history (n. 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 •Troiius man y grounds for assigning its composition and to the early days of 1603. In 1599 Dekker da ° 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 Q 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 interpo- sition of the players. Roberts's * book ' was probably Shakespeare's play. The metrical characteristics of Shakespeare's ' Troilus and Cressida ' — the reg- ularity of the blank verse — powerfully confirm 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 his- tory 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 excep- tional 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. 2 lb. iii. 400. MATURITY OF GENIUS 227 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 manu- sci ipt 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 print- ing of the piece. The editors of the Folio evinced distrust of the quarto edition by printing their text from a different copy showing many deviations, 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 t, : . 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 scorn. But Shakespeare's innovation is dramatically 228 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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 sen- timent 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 unin- fluenced 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 T?-oilus and Cressida as Shake- speare's contribution to the embittered controversy of 1 601-2, between MATURITY OF GENIUS 229 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 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 (1. 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 Troilus cannot, on any show- ing, be assigned to the period of the war between Jonson and Dekker, in 1 601-2), and it seems confuted by the facts and arguments already adduced in the discussion of the theatrical conflict (see pp. 213-19). 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 ' ar??t'd,' 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 its hold on Court favour till the close of Eliza- Queen beth's reign. As late as February 2, 1603, Elizabeth's ^ Q company entertained the dying Queen March 26, at Richmond. Her death on March 26, l6o 3- 1603, drew from Shakespeare's early eulo- gist, 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. 1 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 23 1 form in the town-hall or moot-hall of any country James i's town. Nine actors are named. Lawrence patronage. Fletcher stands first on the list; he had already performed before James in Scotland in 1599 and 1601. 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 porformed 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 Novem- ber 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 30/. ' by way of his majesties reward.' 1 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. 2 The grant is transcribed in the New Shakspere Society's Trans- actions, 1877-9, Appendix 11., 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 1] 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. • 2 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 part, as Grooms of the Chamber, in the ceremonies attending the Constable's visit to London. In the un- printed 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, Relation de la Jornada del exc mo Condestabile di Castilla, etc., Antwerp, 1604, 4to, which was summarised in Ellis's Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. iii. pp. 207-15, and was partly translated in Mr. W. B. Rye's England as seen by Foreigners, pp. 1 1 7- 24). 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. THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 2^5 XIV THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY Under the incentive of such exalted patronage, Shakespeare's activity redoubled, but his work shows •Othello' none of the conventional marks of literature sure fo? ea ~ *hat 1S P r od uce( i m the blaze of Court favour. Measure.' 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, 11. ii. 43 seq.)and one of the greatest speeches (Claudio on the fear of death, in. i. 116-30) in the range of Shakespearean drama. 'Othello' was doubt- less the first new piece by Shakespeare that was acted before James. It was produced at Whitehall on November 1. 'Measure for Measure' followed on December 26. 1 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. hi. 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 Iago's cruel treachery known to Othello at the last, after Iago's perfidy has impelled the noble- hearted Moor in his groundless jealousy to murder his gentle and innocent wife Desdemona. Iago be- came in Shakespeare's hands the subtlest of all studies of intellectual villainy and hypocrisy. . The whole tragedy displays to magnificent advantage the dram- atist's fully matured powers. An unfaltering equi- 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 seq.), 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 Harerield 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- vvaring, 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 i860 to be 'a shameful forgery ' (cf. Ingleby's Complete View of the Shakspere Controversy, 1861, pp. 261-5). THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 237 librium 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 pa- thetic 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 love of his people, were perhaps penned in deferential allusion to James I, whose horror of crowds was notorious. In act 1. 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 11. 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 offence. 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.' r J . ~ ' . y the accession of a Scottish king. 1 he 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 (act 11. 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 1606 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 161 1 and noted that Macbeth and Banquo entered the stage on horseback, and that Banquo's ghost was materially represented (111. 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 Letter by Mrs. Stopes in Athenaum, 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 (11. iii. 1 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 Middleton's later play of 'The Witch' (16 10) and portions 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 24 1 ' 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 Holin- shed'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. 2 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, 4to; pp. 132-3, ed. 1674, fol.). R 242 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Impostures,' 1603. In every act of ' Lear ' the pity and terror of which tragedy is capable reach their climax. Only one who has something of the Shakespearean gift 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 fortune in penetrating earnest and deepens the deso- lating pathos. Although Shakespeare's powers showed no sign of exhaustion, he reverted in the year following the colossal effort of 'Lear' (1607) to his earlier habit ' Timon of 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 1600 1 but there is noth- ing 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. I 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 Misanthropos 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 in. 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- ' Pericles.' . . . tions of ' Pericles,' a romantic play which can be referred to the same year as ' Timon.' Shake- speare contributed only acts 111. 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 col- laborator (perhaps William Rowley, a professional re- viser 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., 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 (act 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 ' Conf essio 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 of 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 161 1, 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 1 Stationers' Registers,' by the authority of Sir •Antony George Buc, the licenser of plays, a 'booke 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 1 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 de- scription of the pageant of Cleopatra's voyage up the Cydnus to meet Antony (11. 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 gran- deur 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 accentuates 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- of the 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 Cleo- 1 See the whole of 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 patra,' probably in 1609. In its austere temper it contrasts at all points with its predecessor. The courageous self-reliance of Coriolanus's mother, Vo- lumnia, 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 THE LATEST PLAYS 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. t j c themes which all end happily, but he instilled into them a pathos which sets them in a category 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 near- ing 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 line.' t 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.' x 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.' 1 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 Iachimo, 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 con- templative quiet which characterises existence in the Forest of Arden. The play contains the splendid f lyric ' Fear no more the heat of the sun ' (iv. ii. 258 seq.). The 'pitiful mummery' of the vision of Posthumus (v. iv. lines 30 seq.) must have been supplied by another hand. Dr. Forman, the astrolo- ger who kept notes of some of his experiences as a playgoer, saw 'Cymbeline ' acted either in 16 10 or 1611. 'A Winter's Tale' was seen by Dr. Forman at the Globe on May 15, 161 1, and it seems to have been 1 In 1. i. 136-7 Imogen is described as ' past grace ' in the theologi- cal sense. In I. ii. 30-1 the Second Lord remarks : ' If it be a sin to make a true election, she is damned.' THE LATEST PLAYS 25 I acted at Court on November 5 following. 1 It is based 'A Win- upon Greene's popular romance which was ter'sTaie/ ca n e d ' Pandosto ' in the first edition of 1588, and in numerous later editions, but was ultimately in 1648 re-christened ' Dorastus and Fawnia.' Shake- speare 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 .Autolycus, whose seductive roguery has become proverbial, and he invented the reconciliation of Leontes, the irration- ally 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 1 See p. 255 note 1. Camillo's reflections on the ruin that attends those who ' struck anointed kings ' have been regarded, not quite con- clusively, as specially designed to gratify James I (1. ii. 358 seq.). 2 Conversations with Drummond, p. 16. 3 In Winter's Tale (iv. iv. 760 seq.) Autolycus threatens that the clown's son 'shall be flayed alive; then 'nointed over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest,' etc. In Boccaccio's story the villain Ambrogiuolo (Shakespeare's Iachimo), 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 incident surpasses that of all Shakespeare's presenta- tions of country life. ' 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 'Tempest.' ° 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 16 10, and the news of their adventures and of their safety was carried to England by some of the seamen in Sep- tember 16 10. 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 ' (1. i. 229), incorporated THE LATEST PLAYS 253 in ' The Tempest ' many hints from Jourdain, Gates, and the other pamphleteers. The references to the gentle climate of the island on which Prospero is cast away, and to the spirits and devils that infested it, seem to render 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 ' Historie of Travel!,' 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 (11. 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 ' 1 Printed in Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany. 254 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (vii. 197-206). 1 Golding's rendering of Ovid had been one of Shakespeare's best-loved books in youth. 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, 161 2-1 3, and ' The Tempest ' formed one of a series of nineteen plays which were performed at the nuptial festivities in May 161 3. 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 or language bore obviously specific relation to the joyous occasion. But 161 3 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 M alone, the play had 'a being and a name' in the autumn of 161 1, and was no doubt written some months before. 2 1 Golding's translation of Ovid's Meta?norphoses, edit. 1 612, p. 82^. The passage begins : Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, ye brookes and woods alone. 2 Variorum Shakespeare, 1 82 1, xv. 423. In the early weeks of 1 61 1 Shakespeare's company presented no less than fifteen plays at Court. Payment of 150/. was made to the actors for their services on February 12, 1610-11. 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 THE LATEST PLAYS 255 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 account-book of the Master of the Court-Revels for the years 161 1 and 1 61 2 at the Public Record Office, and was printed as genuine in Peter Cunningham's Extracts from the Revels' Accounts, p. 210, supplies among other entries two to the effect that ' The Tempest ' was performed at Whitehall at Hallowmas (i.e. November 1) 161 1, 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 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 (see p. 235, note 1). The forger of the 1 61 2 entries probably worked either on the published statement of Malone, or on fuller memoranda left by him among his voluminous manuscripts. 1 Cf. Universal Review, April 1889, article by Dr. Richard Garnett. 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 and Ballads set for Three Voices,' 1660, 256 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE theatre, and the vogue of the two pieces drew a pass- ing sneer from Ben Jonson. In the Induction to his ' Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in 16 14, 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 ob- vious 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 interpreta- x ° tions of Dream,' magical or supernatural agencies pest: 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 THE LATEST PLAYS 257 Tale,' and these two characters were directly devel- oped 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 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 1 Cf. Browning, Caliban tipon Setebos ; Daniel Wilson, Caliban, or the Missing Link (1873) ; and Renan, Caliban (1878), a drama 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 (111. iii. 264), 'He's grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster.' 258 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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 Unfinished little doubt that he left with the manager of plays. h} s company unfinished drafts of more than one play which others were summoned at a later date to 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 t ^ ie ^ ost pl a y> ' Cardenno,' or 'Cardenna,' play of which was twice acted at Court by Shake- ar emo. S p eare 's company in 161 3 — 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 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. 2 The Merry Devill of Edmonton, a comedy which was first published in 1 608, 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 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- 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 , Two printed in 1634, and was written, accord- Noble ing to the title-page, 'by the memorable Kinsmen.' worthies of their time> Mr j ohn Fl etc her 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 Authorship of 'Two Noble Kinsmen,'' 1833, reprinted by New Shakspere Society, 1876; Spalding in Edinburgh Review, 1847; Transactions, New Shakspere Society, 1874. 260 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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 1., act 11. sc. L, and act in. sc. i. and ii. In addition to 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 1 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.' 1 Cf. Mr. Robert Bo.yle in Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1882. THE LATEST PLAYS 26 1 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, 16 13, when the firing of some cannon incidental to the performance set fire to the playhouse, which was burned down. The theatre •Henry was rebuilt next year, but the new fabric VIIL ' 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 1 ReliquicE Wottoniance, 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' (Winwood's Memorials, iii. p. 469). A similar account was sent by the Rev. Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, Bart., from Lon- ii »r, T_; ie 30, 1613. 'The fire broke out,' Lorkin writes, 'no longer 262 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE play of 'Henry VIII' that is commonly allotted to Shakespeare is loosely constructed, and the last act ill 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 1. sc. i., act 11. sc. iii. and iv. (Katharine's trial), act in. 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 161 1. 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 (act in. sc. ii. 11. 204-460) is the only passage the authorship of which excites really grave embarrass- ment. It recalls at every point the style of Fletcher, and nowhere 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 since than yesterday, while Burbage's company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VHP (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 manu- script volume of poems' in the Gentleman 's Magazine for 1816, was again printed by Halliwell-Phillipps (i. pp. 310-11) from an authentic manuscript in the library of Sir Matthew Wilson, Bart., of Eshton Hall, Yorkshire. THE LATEST PLAYS 263 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 took place on February 14, 16 12-13, seems fanciful. During May 161 3, 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 (161 1- 16) 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 161 3, pia s at during the Princess Elizabeth's marriage Court in festivities, Heming, Shakespeare's former colleague, produced at Whitehall no less than seven of his plays, viz. ' Much Ado,' 'Tempest,' 'Winter's Tale,' 'Sir John Falstaff ' (i.e. 'Merry Wives'), 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar,' and 'Hotspur' (doubtless ' 1 Henry IV ')?■ Of his actor-friends, one Actor- of the chief, 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.' 1 Such gossip possibly deserves little more accept- ance 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 Finaisettie- °^ g°°d sense will wish theirs may be, in ment at ease, 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 Will- iam, son of Henry Walker, a mercer and alderman. On September 11, 161 1, when he had finally settled in New Place, his name appeared in the margin of a folio page of donors (including all the principal in- habitants of Stratford) to a fund that was raised ' towards the charge of prosecuting the bill in Parlia- ment 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, Susannah, had married, on June 5, 1607, John Hall ( 1 575-1635), a rising physi- cian of puritan leanings, and in the following Feb- ruary 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, 161 3, his third brother Richard. On July 15, 161 3, Mrs. Hall preferred, j Hit v.. SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURE APPENDED TO THE PURCHASE-DEED OF A HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS ON MARCH 10, 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 ecclesiasical court at Worces- ter ; 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 (161 3), when on a short visit to London, he invested a small sum of money in a new Purchase property. This was his last investment in in Biack- Se rea * estate - He then purchased a house, the friars. ground-floor of which was a haberdasher's shop, with a yard attached. It was situated within six hundred feet of the Blackf riars Theatre — on the west side of St. Andrew's Hill, formerly termed Pud- dle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in the near neighbour- hood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The former owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought the property for 100/. in 1604. Shakespeare in 161 3 agreed to pay him 140/. The deeds of conveyance bear the date of March 10 in that year. 1 Next day, on March 11, Shakespeare executed another deed (now in the British Museum) which stipulated that 60/. of the purchase-money was to remain on mort- gage until the following Michaelmas. The money was unpaid at Shakespeare's death. In both pur- chase-deed and mortgage-deed Shakespeare's signa- ture was witnessed by, among others, Henry Law- rence, ' servant ' or clerk to Robert Andrewes, the 1 The indenture prepared for the purchaser is in the Halliwell- Phillipps collection, which was sold to Mr. Marsden J. Perry of Provi- dence, Rhode Island, U. S. A., in January 1897. That held by the vendor is in the Guildhall Library. 268 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE scrivener who drew the deeds, and Lawrence's seal, bearing his initials ' H. L.,' was stamped in each case on the parchment tag across the head of which Shakespeare wrote his name. In all three docu- ments — the two indentures and the mortgage-deed — Shakespeare is described as ' of Stratf ord-on-Avon, in the Countie of Warwick, Gentleman.' There is no reason to suppose that he acquired the house for his own residence. He at once leased the property to John Robinson, already a resident in the neigh- bourhood. 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 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 (11. iii. 153 seq.) runs: Maria. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan. Sir Andrew. O! 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 Winter's 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 allusion's to ' grace ' and ' election ' in Cymbeline, p. 250, note I. *i*C4-i> *1 . I < SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURE APPENDED TO A DEED MORTGAGING HIS HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS ON MARCH ii, 1612-13. Reproduced from the original document now preserved in the British Museum. THE CLOSE OF LIFE 269 Hall, who avowed sympathy with puritanism, was prob- ably 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, 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, 161 2, 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 xli. henceforward.' Ten years later the King's players were bribed by the council to leave the city without playing (see the present writer's Stratford-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 Remains, 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. 270 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Arthur Mannering, steward of Lord-Chancellor Elles- mere (who was ex-officio lord of the manor), attempted Attempt to to enclose the common fields, which belonged enclose the to tne Corporation of Stratford, about his Stratford *" , common estate at Welcombe. The Corporation re- fieids. solved to offer the scheme a stout resistance. Shakespeare 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 inter- est in his freeholds could not have been prejudicially affected, but his interest in the tithes might be depreci- ated 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 (Sep- tember 161 5) in the few extant pages of Greene's THE CLOSE OF LIFE 2*]\ ungrammatical diary has been unjustifiably tortured into an expression of disgust on Shakespeare's part 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 appar- ently 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, 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 Welco??ibe, 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 the vicar, Shakespeare entertained at New Place his two friends, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson, in this same spring of 1616, and ' had a merry meet- ing,' but 'itt seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted.' A popular local legend, which was not recorded till 1762, 1 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. 1 British Magazine, June 1762. 2 Cf. Malone, Shakespeare, 1821, ii. 500-2; Ireland, Confessions, 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, 1 61 6, in the new. - ,.'1 i' ls| 1 <■ !■ J ^* i; i AJ ">>.. ^ t^F J . ;• 1 1' l , 1 '•'( 3 J l 5 X THE CLOSE OF LIFE 273 According to one William Hall, who described a visit to Stratford in 1694, 1 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, 161 6, 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 1 Hall's letter was published as a quarto pamphlet at London in 1884, from the original, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. T 274 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE in the final draft she received his second best bed 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 ac- counts 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 161 3 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 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, accord- ing to such information as is accessible, some of his own shrewdness, and had a capable adviser in her husband. This elder daughter, Susannah Hall, was, accord- ing to the will, to become the mistress of New Place, and practically of all the poet's estate. She His heiress. . received (with remainder to her issue in strict entail) New Place, all the land, barns, and gar- dens 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- 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 upon Littleton, ed. Hargrave, p. 379^, note I. 276 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ings. To their only child and the testator's grand- daughter, or 'niece,' Elizabeth Hall, was bequeathed 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), 150/. in money, of which 100/., her marriage portion, was to be paid within a year, and another 150/. to be paid to her if alive three years after the date of the will. 1 To the poet's sister, Joan Hart, whose husband, William Hart, predeceased the testator by only six days, he left, besides a contin- gent reversionary interest in Judith's pecuniary leg- acy, his wearing apparel, 20/. 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 10/., and to Mr. Thomas Legacies Combe (apparently a brother of William, to Mends. f ^he 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 xxvj.s\ xiijd., with which to buy memorial rings. His godson, William Walker, received ' xx ' shillings in gold. Before 1623 2 an elaborate monument, by a London 1 A hundred and fifty pounds is described as a substantial jointure in Merry Wives, in. iii. 1. 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 monument. THE CLOSE OF LIFE 277 sculptor of Dutch birth, Gerard Johnson, was erected to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of the parish church. 1 It includes a half-length bust, depicting 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 appar- ently by a London friend, runs : Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, Terra tegit, populus mseret, 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 161 6 .Etatis 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, honesty.' 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 1 Cf. Dugdale, Diary, 1827, p. 99 ; see under article on Bernard Janssen in the Dictionary of National Biography. 278 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE honour his memory, on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest and of an open and free nature.' 2 No other contemporary left on record any definite impression of Shakespeare's personal char- acter, 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 1 'Timber,' in Works, 1641. THE CLOSE OF LIFE 279 continuous industry, 1 and with his literary power and 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. 1 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. Heywood.' 28o 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. survivors. 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 1616 till 1652. There he \.. _ carried on the trade of a vintner, and took part Mistress ' \ Judith in municipal affairs, acting as a councillor Qumey. f rom y6\j and as chamberlain in 162 1-2 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 Christi 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, 161 7-1 8), 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, 166 1-2, in her seventy-seventh year. The poet's elder daughter, Mrs. Susannah Hall, re- sided at New Place till her death. Her sister Judith alienated to her the Chapel Place tenement before Mistress x 633> 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 11 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 11, 1649, an d a rhyming inscription, describing her as 1 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 ateare, 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 The last 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 seems 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. 1880-5, 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 (y.1768), who demolished the new building in 1759. 1 Of Shakespeare's three brothers, only one, Gilbert, seems to have survived him. Edmund, the youngest Shake- brother, ' a player,' was buried at St. speare's Saviour's Church, Southwark, ' with a fore- go ers. n00 ne knell of the great bell,' on December 31, 1607; he was in his twenty-eighth year. Richard, John Shakespeare's third son, died at Stratford in February 161 3, 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 Hallivvell-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 c n . e 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 1 84 1 in the Guildhall Library); his signature to the mortgage-deed relating to the same purchase, dated March n, 1612-13 (since 1858 in the British Museum), and the three signatures on the three sheets of his will, dated March 25, 161 5-16 (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 deeds the name is 1 Wise, Autograph of 'William Shakespeare . . . together with 4,000 ways of spelling the name, Philadelphia, 1869. AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 285 spelt ' Shakespeare.' The signature to the second 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 Florio, John, 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 shake- ^e sa ^ w ith aDsoru te certainty to have been 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. wa rk. 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 1 744. A good engraving by William Ward appeared in 18 16. A phototype and a chromo-phototype, issued by the New Shakspere Society, are the best reproductions for the purposes The • strat °^ stu dy. The pretentious painting known ford ' 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, Droe- was ky Martin Droeshout. On the oppo- shout's en- site page lines by Ben Jonson congratulate ' 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 16 16, 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 The'Droe there * s a likelihood that the original picture shout • from which the youthful engraver worked has painting. i ate iy come to light. As recently as 1892 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 'Will 111 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 iollows : ' 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 \yere seven] years before his death, and consequently sixteen \_vere fourteen] years before it was published. . . . The picture was publicly exhibited in London seventy years ago, and many thousands went to see it.' 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 res- toration 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. Cust'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 ' m. 39 x. 1603.' x 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 pict- ure 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 ' Droeshout ' portrait and the ' Ely House ' portraits. portrait, both of which are at Stratford, bear any definable resemblance to the folio engraving or the bust in the church. 3 In spite of their admitted 1 Harper's Magazine, May 1897. 2 Cf. Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence, hi. 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 292 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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 genuine- ness 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 now in the National Portrait Gallery. Its ped- • Chandos' igree suggests that it was intended to repre- pm rai * sent the poet, but numerous and conspicuous 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 be- longed 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 prop- erty of D'Avenant, and that it subsequently belonged successively to the actor Betterton and to Mrs. Barry the actress. In 1693 Sir Godfrey Kneller made a copy 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 ' /Etatis suae 34' (cf. Law's Cat. of Ha?7ipton Court, p. 234). A portrait inscribed 'setatis suae 47, 161 1,' 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 as a gift for Dryden. After Mrs. Barry's death in 1 71 3 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 Buckingham, 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 cop- ies are attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Ozias Humphrey ( 1 783). It was engraved by George Vertue in 1 7 19 for Pope's edition (1725), and often later, one of the best engravings being by Yandergucht. 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 ' Lumley ' painting was finely chromo-lithographed in 1863 by Vincent Brooks. The so-called 'Jansen' or 'Janssens' portrait, which 294 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE belongs to Lady Guendolen Ramsden, daughter of the The Duke of Somerset, and is now at her resi- portrait. dence at Bulstrode, was first doubtfully iden- tified about 1770, when in the possession 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 associated with the dramatist. An admirable mezzotint by Richard Earlom was issued in 181 1. The ' Felton ' portrait, a small head on a panel, with The ( a high and very bald forehead (belonging portrait. since 1 873 to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts), was purchased 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 Boydell for George Steevens in 1797, and by James Neagle for Isaac Reed's edition in 1803. Fuseli declared it to be the work of a Dutch artist, but the painters Romney and Lawrence re- garded it as of English workmanship of the sixteenth century. Steevens held that it was the original pict- ure whence both Droeshout and Marshall made their engravings, but there are practically no points of re- semblance between it and the prints. The 'Soest' or 'Zoust' portrait — in the possession T he , of Sir John Lister-Kaye of the Grange, portrait. Wakefield — was in the collection of Thomas Wright, painter, of Covent Garden in 1725, when John Simon engraved it. Soest was born twenty-one years after Shakespeare's death, and the portrait is WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. From a plaster-cast of the terra-cotta bust now in the possession of the Gar- rick Club. AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 295 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 Miniatures, time in the possession of William Somerville the poet, and now the property of Sir Stafford North- cote, bart., was engraved by Agar for vol. ii. of the 'Variorum Shakespeare' of 1821, and in Wivell's 'Inquiry,' 1827. It has little claim to attention as a portrait of the dramatist. Another miniature (called the 'Auriol' portrait), of doubtful authenticity, for- merly 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. Gamck The 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 Cliffs son-in-law, Richard (afterwards Sir Richard) Owen the natural- ist. The latter sold it to the Duke of Devonshire, who presented it in 185 1 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. 296 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The Kesselstadt death-mask was discovered by Dr. Ludwig Becker, librarian at the ducal palace at Aiie ed Darmstadt, in a rag-shop at Mayence in death- 1 849. 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, an d 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 A monument, the expenses of which were defrayed 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 fol- lowing works : James Boaden, Inquiry into various Pictures and Prints of Shakespeare, 1824; Abraham Wivell, Inquiry into Shakespeare 's Portraits, 1 827, 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, 18 76; 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 Stratford, 1896. In 1 885 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. AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 297 by public subscription, was set up in the Poets' Memorials Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1 74 1. Pope in sculpt- and the Earl 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. Q. A. 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, 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 by the public in 1846 and converted into a museum, is, with Anne Hathaway's cottage (which was acquired by the Birthplace Trustees in 1892), a place of pil- grimage for visitors from all parts of the globe. The 1 Cf. Gentleman 's Magazine, 1741, p. 105. 298 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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 188 1. 1 A memorial Shakespeare library was opened at Birmingham on April 23, 1868, to commemorate the tercentenary of 1864, an d, 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. BIBLIOGRAPHY 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 ' (i 593, 1594, 1596, 1599, 1600, inth P e p e o^?s and two in l6 ° 2 )' and five editions of lifetime: his ' Lucrece ' (1594, 1598, 1600, 1607, 161 6). There was only one lifetime edition of the ' Sonnets,' Thorpe's surreptitious venture of 1609; 1 but three editions were issued of the piratical ' Passionate Pilgrim,' which was fraudulently assigned to Shake- speare by the publisher William Jaggard, although it only contained a few occasional poems by him (1599, 1600 no copy known, and 1612). Of posthumous editions in quarto of the two 1 This was facsimiled in 1862, and again by Mr. Griggs in 1880. 300 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE narrative poems in the seventeenth century, there Posthu- were two of ' Lucrece ' — viz. in 1624 ('the Ssof?hT sixth edition') and in 1655 (with John poems. Quarles's 'Banishment of Tarquin ') — and there were as many as six editions of 'Venus ' (1617, 1620, 1627, two in 1630 and 1636), making thirteen editions in all in forty-three years. No later editions of these two poems were issued in the seventeenth century. They were next reprinted together with 1 The Passionate Pilgrim ' in 1 707, and thenceforth 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) The was mainly a reissue of the ' Sonnets,' •Poems' but it omitted six (Nos. xviii., xix., xliii., o 1640. Yy{ ^ ixxv., and lxxvi.) 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 in- terest in the volume of 'Poems' of 1640 is the fact that the ' Sonnets ' were printed then in a different order to that which was followed in the volume of BIBLIOGRAPHY 301 1609. Thus the poem numbered lxvii. 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 was 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 con- tinuously without spacing. The poems drawn from ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' are intermingled with the 1 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 16 1 6 only sixteen (all in quarto), or eighteen if we Quartos of include the ' Contention,' the first draft of the plays < 2 Henry VI ' (1594 and 1600), and 'The poet's life- True Tragedy,' the first draft of '3 Henry time. yj ' (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, 161 5). Three reached four editions, viz. ' Richard II ' (1597, 1598, 1608 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, 161 1 ). 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.' "uartos of * Othello ' was first printed posthumously in the plays. 1622 (4to), and in the same year sixth edi- tions of 'Richard III ' and ' 1 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 only survives in four, five, or six copies — are in the libraries of the Duke of Devon- shire, the British Museum, and Trinity College, Cam- bridge, 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 Foho. 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 161 7 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 16 13 he had extended his business by purchasing the stock and rights of a rival pirate, The pub- J ames Roberts, who had printed the quarto lishing editions of the ' Merchant of Venice ' and '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 'the players' bills,' or programmes, and he made over 1 Perfect copies range in price, according to their rarity, from 200/. to 300/. 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 346/. 10s. On May 14, 1897, a c °py °f the quarto of 'The Merchant of Venice' (printed by James Roberts in 1600) was sold at Sotheby's for 315/. 304 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE that privilege to Jaggard with his other literary prop- erty. It was to the close personal relations with the playhouse managers into which the acquisition of the right of printing ' the players' bills ' brought Jaggard after 1613 that the inception of the scheme of the ' First Folio ' may safely be attributed. Jaggard asso- ciated 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. Asp- ley 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 Shake- speare's ' Sonnets.' Smethwick, whose shop was in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, Fleet Street, near Jag- gard's, had published in 161 1 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 ad- mirer of Christopher Marlowe, and had actively en- gaged 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.' 1 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 imprinted plays that it was intended to include. The pieces, whose approaching publication for the first time was thus announced, were of supreme literary interest. The titles ran : 1 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 imprinted dramas for which no license was sought figured in the volume, viz. ' King John,' ' 1 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 part either of the Stationers' Company's officers or of the editors of the volume as to the true relations subsist- ing between the old pieces and the new. The only play by Shakespeare that had been previously 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 Blount. 1 On the title- page was engraved the Droeshout portrait. Com- mendatory verses were supplied by Ben Jonson, Hugh Thepref- Holland, Leonard Digges, and I. M., per- atory haps Jasper Maine. The dedication was 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. Bibliograpkica, 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 pre-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,' l 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 comparison, and of these twenty plays, ' Coriolanus,' 1 All's Well,' and ' Macbeth ' present a text abounding in corrupt passages. The plays are arranged under three headings — The order ' Comedies,' ' Histories,' and ( Tragedies ' — of the and each division is separately paged. The arrangement of the plays in each division follows no principle. The comedy section begins 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 collected editions. As a specimen of typography the First Folio is not to be commended. There are a great many con- Thetypog- temporary folios of larger bulk far more raphy. 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 list 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 in 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 The P a g e °f ' Troilus and Cressida,' of which the Sheldon recto or front is occupied by the prologue copy ' 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 leaf 3 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 163/. 16s. 1 I cannot trace the present whereabouts of this copy, but it is described in the Variorw?i Shakespeare of 1 82 1, 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/. i$s., 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 1 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 ex- tensive 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 to trace them. BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 1 1 of English literature. It seems that about 140 copies Estimated have been traced within the past century. extent" ^ ° f theSe feWer than twent y are in a P er " copies. feet state, that is, with the portrait printed {not iitlaid) 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 716/. 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 1 807-8. a The . t f best reprint was issued in three parts by the First 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 1623. 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 II'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 1 632.2 The Third Folio — for the most part a faithful reprint of the The Third Second — was first published in 1 663 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 Athemzum, 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 simu- lated seventeenth-centurv hand. BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 1 3 claim to admission among Shakespeare's works. ' Unto this impression,' runs the title-page of 1664, ' 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 The Fourth in the 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 Eigh- in Great Britain and Ireland, and many century thousand editions of separate plays. The editors. 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-ordi- nation of the results of the efforts of the eighteenth- century editors by their successors in the present century that Shakespeare's work has become intelli- 314 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE gible 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. Nicholas ^ new ecn tion in eight volumes followed in Rowe, 1 714, and another hand added a ninth 1 74-171 • vomme 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 only met with 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 pers once to 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 A T ational Biography supply useful information. I have made liberal use of these sources in the sketch given in the following pages. BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 1 5 entrances and exits of the characters. Spelling, punct- uation, 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 prog- 1688-1744. resg Q £ t j ie sta g e> anc [ 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 rec- ognised 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 3 16 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE prose proved himself the most inspired of all thetext- Lewis ual critics of Shakespeare. Pope savagely Theobald, avenged himself on his censor by holding him ~ 1744 ' 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 ap- pears Theobald's great emendation in Shakespeare's account of Falstaffs death (Henry V, 11. hi. 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 published 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 text- ual 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 Porson of Shakespearean criticism. 1 The following are favour- able specimens of his insight. In ' Macbeth ' (1. 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 ' (11. 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' (11. ii. 529). 2 1 Mr. Churton Collins's admirable essay on Theobald's textual criticism of Shakespeare entitled ' The Porson of Shakespearean Critics,' is reprinted from the Quarterly Review in his Essays and Studies, 1895, PP- 26 3 se q- 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? — {Coriolanus, in. i. 131-2.) 3l8 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 s P ea ker 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 typo- graphical 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 1 770-1. 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 40^1608- tnan Pope, and such improvements as he 1779- 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 svnonvm 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 ' 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 Dr Tohn three years later. Although he made some son, 1709- independent collation of the quartos, his 3 ' 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 Edward writer, and Johnson declared, with some Capeii, justice, that he 'gabbled monstrously,' but 1713-81. hj s C ollation of the quartos and the First and Second Folios was conducted on more thorough and scholarly methods than 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, 1 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 George r Steevens, contributions to Shakespearean study. In 173 - 1 °°- !^55 ne 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 improve- ments, 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 32 1 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 bv 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 archae- Edmund ologist, without much ear for poetry or deli- 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 Y 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,af ter 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 18 13. The 'Third Variorum ' was prepared for the press by James Boswell the younger, the son of Dr. Johnson's biographer. It was based on Malone's edition of 1790, but included massive accumulations of notes left in manuscript by Malone at his death. Malone had been long engaged on a revision of his edition, but died in 181 2, before it was completed. Boswell's ' Malone,' as the new work is often called, appeared in twenty-one volumes in 182 1, It is the most valu- BIBLIOGRAPHY 323 able of all collected 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 century pursued the great traditions of the eigh- editors. teenth century are Alexander Dyce, Howard Staunton, Nikolaus Delius, and the Cambridge editors William George Clark (1821-78) and Dr. Aldis Wright. Alexander Dyce was almost as well read as Steevens in Elizabethan literature, and especially in Alexander ^ e drama of the period, and his edition of Dyce, Shakespeare in nine volumes, which was 9 " 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 324 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE edition first appeared in three volumes between 1868 Howard and l &7°- He also was well read in con- staunton, temporary literature and was an acute text- ual critic. His introductions bring together much interesting stage history. Nikolaus Delius's Nikoiaus edition was issued at Elberfeld in seven vol- Deiius, umes between 1854 and 1 86 1. Delius's text I3 ~ 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 and 1866, 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 char- acteristics are: William Harness (1825, 8 vols.); Samuel Weller Singer (1826, 10 vols., printed at the other Chiswick Press for William Pickering, illus- centoy" 111 " trated h Y Stothard and others; reissued in editions. 1 856 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 (184 1-4, 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 (1853-61, 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. 1 888-90) — 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 XX POS 1 'HUMO US REPUTA TION 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. Bat 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 to the work 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.' 1 Ben Jonson, the staunch- est champion of classical canons, noted that Shake- D T speare 'wanted art,' but he allowed him, Ben Jon- r ' ' 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 Briton, thou hast one to show, To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time. In 1630 Milton penned in like strains an epitaph on 1 the great heir of fame ' : What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones The labour of an age in piled stones? Or that his hollowed reliques should be hid Under a star-y-pointing 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 un- der 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. 2 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 do- mesticity 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.' 1 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, l 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.' 1 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, 1 66 1 : ' 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.' 330 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.' 1 But in almost the same breath Dryden declared that Shake- speare was held in as much veneration among English- men as yEschylus 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. 2 Essay on Dramatic Poesze, 1668. Some interesting, if more qualified, criticism by Dryden also appears in his preface to an adapta- tion of 'Troilus and Cressida ' in 1679. In the 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 33 I 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 Restora- 'Macbeth' (1674). Dryden dealt similarly tionadap- with ' Troilus ' (1679); Thomas Duffett with 'The Tempest' (1675); Shad well with 'Timon ' (1678); Nahum Tate with 'Richard II' ( 1 68 1 ), ' Lear' (1681), and 'Coriolanus' (1682); John 332 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Crowne with 'Henry VI' (1681); 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 171 1 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 biog- 1 Cf. Shakspere's Century of Praise, 1591-1693, New Shakspere Society, ed. Ingleby and Toulmin Smith, 1879; and Fresh Allusions, ed. Furnivall, 1886. 2 Cf. W. Sidney Walker, Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare, 1859. POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 333 raphy 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 (1820-89), 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 Lect- ures ' 1 and Hazlitt in his ' Characters of Shake- speare's Plays' (18 1 7) are the best representatives of the aesthetic school in this or any other country. Although Professor Dowden, in his 'Shakespeare, his Mind and Art' (1874), 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, now first collected by T. Ashe, 1883. Coleridge hotly resented the remark, which he attributed to Wordsworth, that a German critic first taught us to think correctly concerning Shakespeare. (Coleridge to Mudford, 1818; cf. Dyke Campbell's memoir of Coleridge, p. cv.). But there is much to be said for Wordsworth's general view (seep. 344, note 1). 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 Stratford, 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 English with Shakespearean parts. Steele, writing stage * 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 actresses was inaugurated by Killigrew, of women for in shake- \ )0 y S m f ema i e parts. The first role that was spearean J r parts. professionally rendered by a woman in a public theatre was that of Desdemona in ' Othello,' 1 R. E. Hunter, Shakespeare and the Tercentena7-y Celebration, 1864. POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 335 apparently on December 8, 1660. 1 The actress on this occasion is said to have been Mrs. Margaret Hughes, Prince Rupert's mistress; but Betterton'swife, 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 Cibber (1 671-175 7) 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 1700, 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 David plays of Shakespeare in versions that he or Garrick, his friends had recklessly garbled. He sup- 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 tri- umphant 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 1, 1779, at the foot of Shakespeare's statue. Garrick was ably seconded by Mrs. Clive (171 1- 85), Mrs. Cibber (1714-66), and Mrs. Pritchard (171 1-68). 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 ?-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 Iago. John Henderson, the Bath Roscius (1747-85), 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 (1742?-! 798) 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 Kemble 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 Mrs Sarah ^ e most exacting canons of contemporary Siddons, theatrical criticism. Kemble's sister, Mrs. 1755-1 3I * Siddons, was the greatest actress that Shake- speare's countrymen have known. Her noble and 33§ 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 Edmund Deen won by Edmund Kean, whose tri- Kean, umphant rendering of Shyiock on his first ap- 17 7_I 33 ' pearance at Drury Lane Theatre on January 26, 1 8 14, 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 Shyiock, 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 (1 756-1 81 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,' 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 (1762-18 16) in Ophelia, Helena, and Viola in 'Twelfth Night,' are 1 Essays of Elia, ed. Canon Ainger, pp. 180 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, and 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 (18 10-51), as- Macreadv sume< ^ every great part in Shakespearean 1793-1873. 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 (afterward Lady Martin), whose refined imper- sonations 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 (1804-78), 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 1874 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 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 each performed by Sir Henry Irving for 200 nights in uninterrupted succession; these are the longest continuous runs that any of Shakespeare's plays are known to have enjoyed. ' 2 See p. 346. POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 34 1 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 1804, 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 eminent artists of later date, from Daniel Maclise to Sir John Millais, have lacked the ambition to interpret some scene or char- acter of Shakespearean drama. In America no less enthusiasm for Shakespeare has been manifested than in England. Editors and in Amer- critics are hardly less numerous there, and ica - 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 Shakspere . . . set to Music, 1884, New Shakspere Society. 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- of 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- in the Zurich Library, were brought thither man y- by J. R. Hess from England in 1614. Asearly 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. Morhoff, Unterricht von der teutschen Sprache und 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 1 741 . A worse rendering of ' Romeo and Juliet' followed in 1758. Meanwhile J. C. Gott- sched (1700-66), 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 devel- oped 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 (1733-18 1 3) in 1762 began a prose translation which Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1 743-1 820) completed (Zurich, 13 vols., 1775-84). Between 1797 and 1833 there appeared at intervals the classical German ren- dering by August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Lud- German w ^> Tieck, leaders of the romantic school of 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 under- taking 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 and M. Rapp (Stuttgart, 1843-6). The best of more recent German translations is that by a band of poets and eminent men of letters, including Friedrich von Bodenstedt, Ferdi- nand Freiligrath, 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 1808, and were translated into English in 18 1 5, are worthy of comparison with those of Cole- ridge, who owed much to their influence. Wordsworth in 181 5 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 1 Romeo and Juliet ' for the Weimar Theatre, while Schiller prepared ' Macbeth ' (Stuttgart, 1801). 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- Modern speare's work has made to the German German intellect. The vain effort to stem the current shake- of Shakespearean worship made by the speare. dramatist, J. R. Benedix, in ' Die Shakespearo- manie ' (Stuttgart, 1873, 8vo), stands practically alone. In studies of the text and metre Nikolaus Delius (1813-88) should, among recent German writers, be accorded the first place ; in studies of the biography and stage history Friedrich Karl Elze (1821-89); in aesthetic studies Friedrich Alexander Theodor Kreyssig (1818-79), author of 'Vorlesungen iiber Shakespeare ' (Berlin, 1858 and 1874), and 'Shake- speare-Fragen ' (Leipzig, 1871). Ulrici's 'Shake- speare's Dramatic Art ' (first published at Halle in 1 Cf. Wilhelm Meister. 346 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1839) an d 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-four 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 nation- alised on the German stage. The three great actors — OntheGer- Frederick Ulrich Ludwig Schroeder (1744- man stage. l8l 5) f Hamburg, Ludwig Devrient(i784~ 1832), and his nephew Gustav Emil Devrient (1803- J2) — largely derived their fame from their suc- cessful assumptions of Shakespearean characters. Another of Ludwig Devrient's nephews, Eduard (1801-77), 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 Shakespeare's plays were given in German theatres. 2 In 1896 no fewer than 9 10 performances were given of twenty-three plays. In 1897 performances of twenty- four plays reached a total of 930 — an average of 1 Cf. Jahrbuch der Deutsche Shakespeare- Geselhchaft for 1894. 2 lb. for 1896, p. 438. POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 347 nearly three Shakespearean representations a day in the German-speaking districts of Europe. : 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 Shakespear- ean 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 (1619-55) plagiarised ' Cymbeline,' ■ Hamlet,' and ' The Merchant of Venice ' in his 'Agrippina.' About 1680 Nicolas Clement, Louis XIV's librarian, allowed Shakespeare imagina- i.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 Half a century elapsed before public attention in France was again directed to Shake- speare. 2 The Abbe Prevost, in his periodical 'Le Pour et Contre ' (1733 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 1 7 '26 and 1 729, and his influence is visible in his own dramas. In his 'Lettres Philosophiques' ( 1 73 1 ), 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's want of taste and art. He described him as strictures. < \ Q c orne ille de Londres, grand f ou d'ailleurs, mais il a des morceaux admirables.' Writing to the Abbe des Fontaines in November 1735, Voltaire ad- mitted 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 ' Encyclopedic,' 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, Voltaire's Verdienst von der Einfiihrung Shakespeares in Frankreich, Konigsberg, 1864. POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 349 (1745-8). Jean-Francois Ducis (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 esti- mate in a new remonstrance consisting of two letters, of which the first was read before the French Acad- emy on August 25, 1776. Here Shakespeare was described as a barbarian, whose works — ' a huge dunghill ' — 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,' 1801, inclined French to Voltaire's view ; but Madame de Stael Taduai wrote effectively on the other side in her emancipa- ' De la Litterature,' 1804 (i. caps. 13, 14, ii. voftairel 5> 'At this day,' wrote Wordsworth in influence. 1 8 1 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 Litteraires sur Shakespeare ' (Paris, 1828, 2 vols.), was the last French critic of repute to repeat Voltaire's censure unreservedly. Guizot, in his ' Sur la Vie et les CEuvres de Shake- speare ' (reprinted separately from the translation of 182 [), as well as in his ' Shakespeare et son Temps ' (1852); Villemain in a general essay, 2 and Barante in a study of ' Hamlet,' 3 acknowledged the mightiness of Shakespeare's genius with comparatively few qualifi- cations. Other complete translations followed — by Francisque Michel (1839), by Benjamin Laroche (185 1), 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 CEuvres et ses Critiques' (Paris, i860), is a saner appreciation. Meanwhile ' Hamlet' and 'Macbeth,' ' Othello ' and a few other Shakespearean plays, became stock On the pieces on the French stage. A powerful im- French petus to theatrical representation of Shake- sta§e ' speare in France was given by the perform- 1 Frederic Melchior, Baron Grimm (i 723-1807), 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 Philosophique et Critique, extend- ing over the period 1753-70, 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 35 I ance in Paris of the chief plays by a strong company of English actors in the autumn of 1827. ( Hamlet ' and ' Othello ' were acted successively by Charles Kemble and Macready ; Edmund Kean 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-Francais in 1829 with eminent success. An adaptation of ' Hamlet ' by Alexandre Dumas was first performed in 1847, an d 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 Francaise 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- Francais. 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 La Globe. They were by Charles Magnin, who reprinted them in his Causeries et Meditations Historiques et Litteraires (Paris, 1843, "• 62 seq.). 2 Cf. Lacroix, Histoire de P Influence de Shakespeare sur le Theatre Francais, 1867; Edinburgh Review, 1849, PP- 39~775 Elze, Essays, pp. 193 seq.; M. Jusserand, Shakespeare en France sous V Ancien 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, 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) betray a close and appreciative study of Shakespeare. Two complete translations have been published in Dutch : one in prose by A. S. Kok (Amsterdam, 1873- 80), the other in verse bv Dr. L. A. T. Bur- in Holland. ' ,.., /T X , V gersdijk (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 1 786. Sumarakow translated Ducis's version In Russia. e t TX . , . of 'Hamlet m 1784 for stage purposes, 1 Cf. Giovanni Andres, DeW Origine Progressi e Stato attuale 'd ogni Letteratura, 1 782. POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 353 while the Empress Catherine II adapted the ' Merry 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 Hun- appreciated by students and by playgoers, gary. ^ complete translation into Hungarian appeared at Kaschau in 1824. At the National Theatre at Budapest no less 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) January 1 881, pp. 8l-2; and August Greguss's Shakspere . , . elso k'otet : Shakspere pdlydja, Budapest, 1880 (an account in Hungarian of Shakespeare's Life and Works). 2A 354 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Other complete translations have been published in Bohemian (Prague, 1874), in Swedish (Lund, 1847- in other 51), in Danish (1845-50), and Finnish countries. (Helsing'f ors, 1 892-5). In Spanish a com- plete translation is in course of publication (Madrid, 1885 seq.), and the eminent Spanish critic Menendez y Pelayo has set Shakespeare above Calderon. In Armenian, although only three plays (' Hamlet,' 1 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. Mac miliar? s Magazine, May 1880. GENERAL ESTIMATE 355 XXI GENERAL ESTIMATE No estimate of Shakespeare's genius can be ad- equate. 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 imagina- 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 heroines triumphs over halting or 356 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 Character m the intelligent playgoer and reader the of shake- illusion that they are overhearing men and speare's J . achieve- women speak unpremeditatmgly 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 univer- gl° De to which civilised life has penetrated sal recogni- Shakespeare's power is recognised. All the 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 APPENDIX THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE The scantiness of contemporary records of Shakespeare's career has been much exaggerated. An investigation extending over Contempo- two centuries has brought together a mass of detail rary records which far exceeds that accessible in the case of any abundant, 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 1 (1662), attempted the first biographical notice of Shakespeare, with poor results. Aubrey, First in his gossiping i Lives of Eminent Men, 11 based his efforts in ampler information on reports communicated to him biography. Dy William Beeston (d. 1682), an aged actor, whom Dryden called ' the chronicle of the stage, 1 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 (1629-168 1 ), vicar of Stratford-on-Avon from 1662 to 1668, in a diary and memorandum-book written between 1661 1 Compiled between 1669 and 1696; first printed in Letters from the Bodleian, 1813, and admirably re-edited for the Clarendon Press during the present year by the Rev. Andrew Clark (2 vols.). 361 362 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE and 1663 (ed. C. A. Severn, 1839) 5 by tne ^ ev - William 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 1 (1691), confined themselves to elementary criticism. In 1709 Nicholas Rowe prefixed a more ambitious memoir than had yet been attempted to his edition of the plays, 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 YeowelPs ' Memoir of Oldys, 1 1862. Pope, Johnson, and Steevens, in the biographical prefaces to their editions, mainly repeated the narratives of their predecessor, Rowe. In the Prolegomena to the Variorum editions of 1803, 18 13, and especially in that of 1821 there was embodied a mass of Biograph- fresh information derived by Edmund Malone from ers of the systematic researches among the parochial records nineteenth of Stratford, the manuscripts accumulated by the century. 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 1 (183 1), in his "New Facts 1 about Shakespeare (1835), his 'New Particulars 1 (1836), and his ' Further Particulars ? (1839), an d in his editions of Henslowe's ' Diary 1 and the ' Alleyn Papers ' for the Shakespeare Society, while occasionally throwing some further light on obscure places, foisted on Shakespeare 1 s biography a series of ingeniously forged documents which have greatly perplexed succeeding biographers. 1 Joseph Hunter in ' New Illustrations of Shake- 1 See p. 367-8. SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE 363 speare ' (1845) and George Russell French's l Shakespeareana 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 Gard Fleay, in his 'Shakespeare Manual 1 (1876), in 'his 'Life of Shakespeare 1 (1886), in his ' History of the Stage 1 (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 1 (1806), John R. Wise's Stratford ' Shakespere, his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood ' topo- (1861), the present writer's ' Stratford-on-Avon to graphy. the Death of Shakespeare' (1890), and Mrs. C. C. Stopes's ' Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries 1 (1897) may be consulted. Wise appends to his volume 2 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 Farmer's ' Essay on the Learning of Specialised Shakespeare 1 (1767), reprinted in the Variorum studies in editions ; Octavius Gilchrist's ' Examination of the biography. Charges ... of Ben Jonson's Enmity towards Shakespeare 1 (1808); W. J. Thoms's 'Was Shakespeare ever a Soldier ?' (1849), a study based on an erroneous identification 364 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE of the poet with another William Shakespeare ; Lord Campbell's ' Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered ' (1859); John Charles BucknilFs k Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare ' (i860) • 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 Useful epi- translat i on ^ l888 ) ? 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 'Shakespeare Primer' (1877) and his 'Intro- duction to Shakespeare' (1893), and Dr. Furnivall's 'Intro- duction to the Leopold Shakespeare, 1 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. Aids to Hazlitt, 1875), 'Shakespeare's Plutarch' (ed. Skeat. study of 1875), and 'Shakespeare's Holinshed ' (ed. W. G. plots and Boswell-Stone, 1896) are of service in tracing the text. sources of Shakespeare's plots. Alexander Schmidt's 'Shakespeare Lexicon' (1874) and Dr. E. A. Abbott's 'Shake- spearean Grammar' (1869, new edit. 1893) are valuable aids to a study of the text. Useful concordances to the Concor- pi avs have been prepared by Mrs. Cowden-Clarke (1845), t0 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, 1895). 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 1 The earliest attempts at a concordance were A Complete Verbal Index to the Plays, by F. Twiss (1805), and An [?idex to the Remarkable Passages and Words, by Samuel Ayscough (1827), but these are now superseded. SHAKESPEAREAN FORGERIES 365 between 1750 and 1770 is at the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 10472-542). Extensive bibliographies are given in 1 ] °r Lowndes's ' Library Manual ' (ed. Bohn) ; in Franz Thimnvs ' Shakespeariana ' (1864 and 1871) ; in the i Encyclopaedia Britannica,' 9th edit, (skilfully classified by Mr. H. R. Tedder); and in the 'British Museum Catalogue 1 (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 "V. ca aesthetic, textual, historical, and biographical study of 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, 1 18 17, Professor Dowden's 'Shakespeare: his Mind and Art,' 1875, and Mr. A. C. Swinburne. '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 in English (London, 1898, 2 vols. 8vo). The intense interest which Shakespeare's life and work have long universally excited has tempted unprincipled or sportively Shake- mischievous writers from time to time to deceive the spearean public by the forgery of documents purporting to forgeries. supply new information. The forgers were espe- cially active at the end of the 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 (i 746-1 809), a resident at Stratford-on-Avon, whose most impor- Tohn Tor- tant achievement was the forgery of the will of dan, Shakespeare's father; but many other papers in 1746-1809. 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 The Ire- clerk, who, with the aid of his father, Samuel Ireland land forger- (i740?-i8oo), an author and engraver of some repute, ies, 1796. produced in 1 796 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 some time 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 1612-13, 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 in 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, were printed privately by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps in 1864. - See p. 5267. SHAKESPEAREAN EORGERIES 367 But IrelancTs 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 promulga- history of the Elizabethan stage produced by John e y o- p a y ne Collier, or under his supervision, between 1835 others, an d 1 849 are honeycombed with forged references 1835-1849. to Shakespeare, and many of the forgeries have been admitted unsuspectingly into literary history. The chief of these forged papers I arrange below in the order of 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 of Ellesmere. First printed in Collier's 'New Facts regarding the Life of Shakespeare,' 1835. 1596 (July). List of inhabitants of the Liberty of South- wark, Shakespeare's name appearing in the sixth place. First printed in Collier's 'Life of Shakespeare,' 1858, p. 126. 1596. Petition of the owners and players of the Blackfriars Theatre to the Privy Council in reply to an alleged petition of the inhabitants requesting the closing of the playhouse. Shakespeare's name is fifth on the list of 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, n. 2, supra. The chief authorities on the subject of the Collier for- geries are : A n Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr. y. Payne Collier's Annotated Shakspcre Folio, 1632, and 0/ certain Shaksperian Documents likewise published by Mr. Collier, by N. E. S. A. Hamilton, London, i860; A Complete View oj 'the Shakespeare Controversy concerning the Authen- ticity and Genuineness of Manuscript Matter affecting the Works and Biography of Shakspere, published by y. 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 Alleyns College of God's Gift at Dulwich, by George F. Warner, M.A., 1881 ; Notes on the Life of yames 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. Londin, 1884. 2 See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1595-7, p. 310. 368 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1596 {circa). A letter signed H. S. (i.e. Henry, Earl of South- ampton), addressed to Sir Thomas Egerton, praying protection for the players of the Blackfriars Theatre, and mentioning Burbage and Shakespeare by name. First printed in 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. Sd. 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, 1 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, 1 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. 2 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 play- ers of the ' Moor of Venice ' — i.e. ' Othello ' — on Nov- ember 1, 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 Dulwich 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 Bodleian Library) of researches among genuine papers formerly at the Audit Office at Somerset House. 1 1607. Notes of performances of ' Hamlet 1 and ' Richard IP 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- 2 3 r > from what purported to be an exact transcript 'in the India Office' of the 'Journal of William Keeling, 1 captain of one of the vessels in the expedition. Keeling'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, 1 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 Alley n,' 1841, p. 91. The forged paper is at Dulwich. 2 1611 (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 1, and of the 'Winter's Tale 1 on November 5. Printed in Peter Cunningham's 'Extracts from the Revels Accounts, 1 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, n i, supra. 2 Cf. Warner's Duhvich MSS. pp. 30-1. 3 See p. 255, n. 1, supra. 2B 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 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 (i 561-1626), 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 Nicomachean Ethics, i. 8, that young men were unfitted for the study of political philosophy. Bacon, in the Advancement of Learning (1605), wrote: ' Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded wherein he saith that young men are not fit auditors of moral phi- losophy?' (bk. ii. p. 255, ed. Kitchin). Shakespeare, about 1603, in Troilus and Cressida, II. 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 cen:ury writers. In a French translation of the Ethics by the Comte de Plessis, pub- THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY 37 1 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. Tobv 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.' * 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 i 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 i Romance of Yachting' (1848), first raised doubts of Shake- speare's authorship. There followed in a like temper c le ex- 'Who wrote Shakespeare? ' in 'Chambers's Tournal,' ponents. 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 Cornelio Tacito, has the remark, ' E non e discordante da questa mia opinione Aristotele, il qual dice, che i giovani non sono buoni ascultatori delle moraW (cf. Spedding, Works of Bacon, i. 739, iii. 440). 1 Cf. Birch, Letters of Bacon, 1763, p. 392. 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. 372 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1859. 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 1 (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, 1 a monument of misapplied ingenuity (4th ed. 1886, 2 vols.). Bacon's ' Promus of Formu- laries and Elegancies, 1 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 its vogue 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 the litera- quarterly periodical also called ' Baconiana,' and ture - 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 Bacons 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 1 (1593) and 'Lucrece' ton and 0594V f rom tne account given by Sir William Shake- D'Avenant, and recorded by Nicholas Rowe, of the speare. 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 protege of any man of rank other than Southampton ; and the student of Shakespeare's biography has reason to ask for some information respecting him who enjoyed the exclusive distinction of serving Shakespeare as his patron. Southampton was a patron worth cultivating. Both his parents came of the New Nobility, and enjoyed vast wealth. His father's 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 Parentage 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. k 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. 2 See p. 126. THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 375 best gentlemen of those countries 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.' 1 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 borne at her father's residence, Cowdray House, near Midhurst, on Oct6°iq7^ 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. 2 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,' 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. 1 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 re- mained at the University for some two years, graduating M.A. at sixteen, in 1589. Throughout his after life he cherished for his college ' great love and affection. 1 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 i teaching or learning 1 could make him. • When he was young, 1 wrote a later admirer, ; no ornament of youth was wanting in him ; 1 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 or 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 evi- dence, 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 Recogni- into their literary and artistic pursuits. At tennis, in tion of jousts and tournaments, he achieved distinction ; ton's vouth- n o r was he a stranger to the delights of gambling at ful beauty, 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, l was more beautiful than this prince of Hampshire {quo non formosior alter affuit), nor more distinguished in the arts of learning, although as yet tender down scarce bloomed on his cheek.' The last words testify to Southampton's boyish appearance. 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, 1593, 'but there were four nominated.' 2 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, 1595, he appeared in the lists set up in the Queen's presence in honour of the x Cf. Apollinis et Mzisarum Eu/criKa Ei5uA.Aia, Oxford, 1592, reprinted in Elizabethan Oxford (Oxford Historical Society), edited by Charles Plummer, xxix. 294: Post hunc {i.e. Earl of Essex) insequitur clara. de stirpe Dynasta, omes lure suo diues quem South-Hamptonia magnum * ' Vendicat heroem; quo non formosior alter . Affuit, aut docta iuuenis prsestantior arte: tonice. _ ' . . j , Ora licet tenera vix dum lanugme vernent. 2 Historical MSS. Commission, 7th Report (Appendix), p. 521^. 378 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 i 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 S C marry Ce of his rich nerita g e - 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 Ferice. THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 379 befall her mother, who was 'her only stay, 1 she 'doubted their carriage of themselves. 1 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 Intrigue fair mistress Vernon (first cousin of the Earl of beth Ver^" Essex), a passionate beauty of the Court, cast her non. spell on him. Her virtue 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 expedition to Cadiz in 1596, and in that to the Azores in 1597. He devel- oped 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 hf «o8 Se 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 of 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 Parthenophe and Parthenophil (cf. Arber's Garner, v. 486). Barnes apostrophises 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 prop- erty. 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- ment, demned to die, but the Queen's Secretary pleaded 1601-3. 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 Later congratulated Southampton on his liberty in his career. Sonnet cvii., there is no trace of further relations between them, although there is no reason to doubt that they remained friends to the end. Southampton on his release from prison was immediately installed a Knight of the Garter, and was appointed Governor of the Isle of Wight, while an Act of Parliament relieved him of all the 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, n. 2. THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON. 38 1 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 Death on to Bergen-op-Zoom, but there, on November 10, he Nov. io, himself died of a lethargy. Father and son were 1624. 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 PATRON Southampton's close relations with men of letters of his time give powerful corroboration of the theory that he was the patron whom Shakespeare commemorated in the sonnets. 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 Southamp- there during the closing years of his life, Southamp- ton scollec- ton collected books to the value of 160/. wherewith tion of '..-.'., . books. to furnish it. 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 great References birth of English drama. It was with plays that in his let- he joined other noblemen in 1598 in entertaining his poems and chief, Sir Robert Cecil, on the eve of the departure plays. 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,' 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 Falstaff's adventures in Shakespeare's ' Henry IV,' where the fat knight apostrophised Mrs. Quickly as 'good pint pot' (pt. 1. ii. 4, 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, two 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 be- stowed on Shakespeare : 'As that excellent author Sir John Fal- stafF sayes, " what for your businesse, news, device, foolerie, and libertie, I never dealt better since I was a man." ' 2 When, after leaving Ireland, Southampton spent the autumn of 1599 in London, it was recorded that he and his friend Lord Rutland ' come not to Court ' but ' pass away the time merely in going to plays every day.' 3 It seems that the fascina- the S theatre t * on tnat *^ e 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. 2 The quotation is a confused reminiscence of Falstaff's remarks in 1 Henry IV. II. iv. The last nine words are an exact quotation of lines 190-1. 3 Sidney Papers, ii. 132. 4 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, 1 whose ' wit and mirth ' were calculated ' to please her Majesty exceedingly. 1 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 HkJrT " a PP rec i at i° n 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 1593, of Shakespeare's 'Venus and Adonis, 1 with its salutation of Southampton, a more youth- Barnabe ful apprentice to the poet's craft, Barnabe Barnes, Barnes s confided to a published sonnet of unrestrained sonnet, . r . . I 593- 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 band. 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 T essay in romance, 'The Life of Jack Wilton. 1 He Nash's describes Southampton, who was then scarcely of addresses. a g e? as » a dear i 0V er and cherisher as well of the lovers of poets as of the poets themselves. 1 'A new brain, 1 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. 11 Although 'Jack Wilton 1 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. 1 In a sonnet addressed to ' this renowed lord, 1 who ' draws all hearts to his love, 1 Nash expresses regret that the great poet, Edmund Spenser, had omitted to celebrate ' so special a pillar of nobility ' in the series of adula- tory sonnets prefixed to the ' Faerie Queen ' ; and in the last lines of his sonnet Nash suggests that Spenser suppressed the noble- man's name Because few words might not comprise thy fame. 2 1 See Nash'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 selfe) : 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 fatall to my enemies. A new brain, a new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get mee to canonize your name to posteritie, if in this my first attempt I am not taxed of presumption. Of your gracious fauor I despaire not, for I am not altogether Fames out-cast. . . . Your Lordship is the large spreading branch of renown, from whence these my idle leaues seeke to deriue their whole nourishing.' 2 The complimentary title of ' Amyntas,' which was naturalised in English literature by Abraham Fraunce's two renderings of Tasso's A minta — 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 again (1595); and some critics assume that Nash referred in Pierce Pennilesse to that nobleman rather than to Southampton. But Nash's comparison of his paragon to Ganymede suggests extreme youth, and Southampton was nineteen in 1592, 2 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. 1 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. This was not only 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. 11 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 other 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 honourable the Lord Southamp- 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 1 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 fiowe — 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 purifide 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 M , Richard GrenvihVs glorious fight off the Azores, ham's son- Markham was not content to acknowledge with Barnes n et . I 595- 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 ' World of Words 1 — Florio's more soberly defined the Earl's place in the republic address, of letters when he wrote : 'As to me and many more I 59 8 - the glorious and gracious sunshine of your honour hath infused light and life. 1 The most notable contribution to this chorus of praise is to be found, as I have already shown, in Shakespeare^ 'Sonnets. 1 ' The same note of eulogy was sounded by men of letters until Southampton's death. When he was released The con- from prison on James Ps accession in April 1603, gratula- hjg praises in poets 1 mouths were especially abun- poets in dant. Not only was that grateful incident cele- 1603. 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 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 constant'st parts. 1 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. 2 Many like praises, some of later date, by Henry Locke (or Lok), George Chapman, Joshua Sylvester, Richard Braithwaite, 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 literary patron that Beaumont insists that he chiefly deserves remem- brance : 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 Certazne Epistles, 1603; see Daniel's Works, ed. Grosart, i. 216 seq. 2 See Preface to Davies's Microcosvios, 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 (ib. 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- „, . titled ' Teares of the Isle of Wight, shed on the Tombe Elegies on . . Southamp- of their most noble valorous and loving Captaine and ton - Governour, the right honorable Henrie, Earl of South- ampton.' The keynote is struck in the opening stanza of the first poem by one Francis Beale : Ye famous poets of the southern isle, Strain forth the raptures of your tragic muse, And with your Laureate pens come and compile The praises due to this great Lord : peruse His globe of worth, and eke his virtues brave, Like learned Maroes at Mecaenas's grave. 390 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE TRUE HISTORY OF THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H y In 1598 Francis Meres enumerated among Shakespeare's best known works his 'sugar'd sonnets among his private friends. 1 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 cation of tne opening pages of the first edition of ' The the sonnets Passionate Pilgrim. 1 On January 3, 1 599-1 600. 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. 1 No book answering this description is extant. In any case it is doubtful if Edgars venture concerned Shake- speared i Sonnets. 1 It is more probable that his 'W. S. 1 was William Smith, who had published a collection of sonnets entitled 'Chloris 1 in 1596. 1 On May 20, 1609, a license for the publication of Shakespeare^ l Sonnets ' was granted by the Stationers 1 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.* 39 1 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 [nomas] T[horpe] wisheth Mr. W. H., the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, all happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet. 1 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 Shake- speare's ' Sonnets,' are extant in which the publisher (and not the author) fills the role 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 pub- lication, 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 reigns of Elizabeth or James I was published independently of the author, the publisher exercised 1 See note to p. 88, supra. 392 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE unchallenged all the owner's rights, not the least valued of Publishers' wn ^ cn was tnat °f choosing the patron of the enter- dedica- prise, and of penning the dedicatory compliment tions. 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 dedication without exposing him to any charge of sharp practice. But as a rule one of only two inferences is possible when a pub- lisher's name figured at the foot of a dedicatory epistle : either the author was ignorant of the publisher's design, or he had re- fused to countenance it, and was openly defied. In the case of Shakespeare's f 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 1 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. 1 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 1 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.- Nearly ten years later he took up the freedom of the Stationers 1 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 im- printed manuscript — a recognised role for novices to fill in the book trade of the period — that Thorpe made his first distinguishable appearance 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. 1 Thorpe confided his good fortune to Edward manuscript Bi ount t h en a stationer's assistant like himself, but of Mar- . ' . lowe's with better prospects. Blount had already achieved ' Lucan.' a m odest 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,' and found among better-equipped friends in the trade both 1 The details of his career are drawn from Mr. Arber's Transcript of the Registers of the Stationers' Company. 2 Arber, ii. 124. 3 lb. ii. 713. * 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. Bibliographic a, i. 474-98, where I have given an account of Blount's pro- fessional career in a paper called ' An Elizabethan Bookseller.' 394 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE a printer and a publisher for his treasure-trove. Blount good-naturedly interested himself in Thorpe's 'find, 1 and it was through Blount's good offices that Peter Short undertook to print Thorpe's manuscript of Marlowe's l 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 ad- his friend Blount, and he made the dedication the Fd GSS ^d vehicle of his gratitude for the assistance he had just Blount in received. The style of the dedication was somewhat 1600. 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 good will had already stood him in good stead, and was capable of benefiting him hereafter. This venture laid the foundation of Thorpe's fortunes. Three years later he was able to place his own name on the title-page of two humbler literary prizes — each an insignificant pamphlet on current events.' 2 Thenceforth for a dozen years his name reappeared annually on one, two, or three volumes. After 161 4 his operations were few and far between, and they ceased altogether in 1624. He seems to have ended his days in poverty, and he has been identified with the Thomas Thorpe who was granted an almsroom in the hospital of Ewelme, Oxfordshire, December 3, 1635. 3 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 in our patrons of these days I have promised myself you shall fit excellently, which is to give nothing.' Finally Thorpe, changing his tone, challenges his patron's love ' both in this and, I hope, many more succeeding offices.' 2 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. a Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1635, p. 527. THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 395 Thorpe was associated with the publication of twenty-nine volumes in all. 1 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 Character l l & l 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.- 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 pro- cured direct from the authors. It is true that between 1605 and 161 1 there were issued under his auspices some eight volumes of genuine literary value, including, besides Shakespeare's ' Sonnets," three plays by Chapman, 3 four works of Ben Jonson. " 3 Two bore his name on the title-page in 1603; one in 1604; two in 1605; two in i6o5: two in 1607; three in 1608; one in 1609 {i.e. the Sonnets); three in 1610 (i.e. H istrio-mastrix , or the Playwright, as well as Healey's translations) ; two in t6n; 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. 2 They were Wits A. B.C. or a ce7iturie 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. 3 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 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 Fools have a dedication by the author, but it is absent from most of them. No 396 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE and Coryat's ' Odcombian Banquet. 1 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, TVs' 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 on iy two had as yet been printed, and those were at publish- issued by the pirate publisher, William Jaggard, in ers' hands, the fraudulently christened volume ' The Passionate Pilgrim, by William Shakespeare,' in 1599. 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 1594. In fitting accord with the circumstance that the publication of the 'Sonnets' was a tradesman's venture which ignored the author's feelings and rights, Thorpe in both the entry of the book in the ' Stationers' Registers ' and on its title-page brusquely designated it 'Shakespeares Sonnets,' instead of following the more urbane collocation of words invariably adopted by living authors, viz. ' Sonnets by William Shake- speare.' known copy of Thorpe's edition of Chapman's Gentleman Usher has any dedica- tion. THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 397 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- dedications tributors of prefatory commendations, were all in the of Eliza- habit of masking themselves behind such symbols. bethan and p a t rons figured under initials in dedications some- Jacob an ° 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 4 deare affected friend Maister H. W., gentleman. 1 An edition of Robert Southwell's "Short Rule of Life 1 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 ' friend Maister R. L. 1 In 161 7 Dunstan Gale dedicated a poem, ' Pyramus and Thisbe, 1 to the ' worshipfull his verie friend D. [i.e. Dr.] B. H.' 1 There was nothing exceptional in the words of greeting which Thorpe addressed to his patron 'Mr. W. H. 1 They 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 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 Heraclitus (Oxford, 1609) was inscribed 'to his much honoured father S. F. S.' An Apologie for Women, or an Opposition to Mr. D. G. his assertion . . . by IV. 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- liminary pages of books of the day. 398 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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- for^happi- s P eare1 s sonnets. In that preliminary sentence the ness ' and dedicator habitually ' wisheth ' his patron one or dedicator- 111 more °^ sucn blessings as health, long life, happiness, greetings. and eternity. 'Al perseverance with soules happi- ness ' Thomas Powell ' wisheth ' the Countess of Kildare on the first page of his * Passionate Poet 1 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 l 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 Queen ' 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 in both his ' Idea, The Shepheard's Garland' (1593), and in his k Poemes Lyrick and Pastorall ' (1609), confined his address to his patron to a single sentence of salutation. 1 Richard Braithwaite in 161 1 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 ' in the same year with l 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- 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 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 of Marlowe's ' Lucan ' in 1600 to Blount, his friend in the trade. Three F" d di dedications by Thorpe survive of a date subsequent cations by to the issue of the ' Sonnets.' One of these is Thorpe. dedicated to John Florio, and the other two to the Earl of Pembroke. 3 But these three dedications all prefaced 1 In 1610, in dedicating St. Augustine, Of the Citie of God to the Earl of Pembroke, Thorpe awkwardly describes the subject-matter as ' a desired citie sure in heaven,' and assigns to ' St. Augustine and his commentator Vives ' a ' savour of the secular.' In the same year, in dedicating Epictetus's 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 Was in a nutshell ; in lesse compasse more cunning.' For other examples of Thorpe's pretentious, half- educated, and ungrammatical style, see p. 403, n. 2. 2 The suggestion is often made that the only parallel to Thorpe's salutation of happiness is met with in George Wither's Abuses Whipt 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 concerned in 1606 in the publication of ' W. H.V Southwell manuscript — there is a bare chance that Wither had in mind ' W. H.V greeting of Mathew Saunders, but fifty recently published volumes would have supplied him with similar hints. 3 Thorpe dedicated to Florio Epictetus his Manuall, and Cebes his Table, out 400 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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, 1 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 'W H' prominent part. In 1606 one who concealed him- signs dedi- self under the same letters performed for ' A Foure- cation of f ou id Meditation' (a collection of pious poems which Southwell s , ^ , r • • poems in the Jesuit Robert Southwell left in manuscript at his 1606. 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., 1 and he published it through the agency of the printer, George Eld, and of an insignificant bookseller, Francis Burton. 1 ' 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 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 of Greek originall by Io. Healey, 1610. He dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke St. Augustine, Of the Citie of God. . . . Englished by I. H., 1610, and a second edition of Healey's Epictetus, 1616. 1 Southwell's Fourefould 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 reprinted in 1895, chiefly from an early copy in manuscript, by Mr. Charles Edmonds, the accomplished bibliographer, who in a letter to the Athenceum on November 1, 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.' 401 consideration thereof may bring unto them. 1 ' 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. wifheth, with long life, a profperous achieuement of his good defires. 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 i these meditations ' and deprecates the coldness and sterility of his own 'conceits.' The dedicator signs himself at the bottom of the page i Your Worships unfained affectionate, W. H.' 1 The two books — Southwell's ' Foure-fould Meditations ' 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 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 X 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 the participation of Heavenlie happiness dewringe all worldes for ever.' 402 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 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 ' W. H.' manuscript for publication, was an humble auxiliary wflliam * n the Polishing army. Hall flits rapidly across the Hall. 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, 1 a folio issued in 1610. In 161 2 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 Archer in St. Paul's Churchyard. Hall was a careful printer with a healthy dread of misprints, but his business dwindled after 161 3, and, soon disposing of it to one John Beale, he dis- appeared into private life. THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 403 '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 • 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.' Xo 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. Xo condition of the problem of the identity of Thorpe's friend 'Mr. W. H.' seems ignored by the adoption of the inter- ' The onlie pretation that he was the future master-printer begetter' William Hall. The objection that ' Mr. W. H." could niG3.rs « on ly pro- not have been Thorpe's friend in trade, because curer.' while wishing him all happiness and eternity Thorpe dubs him -the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets." is not formidable. Thorpe rarely used words with much exactness. - 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. 2 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 Epictetus his Mafuiall ' to a true fauover of forward spirits, Maister John Florio,' Thorpe writes of Epictetus's work: 'In all languages, ages, by all persons high prized, imbraced, yea inbosomed. It filles not the hand with leaues, but fills ye head with lessons: nor would bee held in hand but had by harte to boote. He is more senceless than a stocke that hath no good sence of this stoick.' In the same year, when dedicating Healey's translation of St. Augustine's Citie of God to the Earl of Pembroke, Thorpe clumsily refers to 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.' 404 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It is obvious that he did not employ * begetter 1 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. 1 as the author of the 'Sonnets. 1 'Begetter 1 has been used in the figurative sense of inspirer, and it is often assumed that by 'only begetter 1 Thorpe meant 'sole inspirer, 1 and that by the use of those words he intended to hint at the close relations subsisting between ' W. H. 1 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 Shakespeare's associates as would give him any knowledge of Shakespeare's early career that was not public property. All that Thorpe — the struggling pirate-publisher, ' the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth 1 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 unprinted manuscript by ' our ever-living poet, 1 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. Element- ary 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 1 of the ' Sonnets 1 in his mind when he addressed himself to 'Mr. W. H. 1 is finally proved by the circumstance that the only identifiable male 'inspirer 1 of the poems was the Earl of Southampton, to whom the initials 'W. H. 1 do not apply. Of the figurative meanings set in Elizabethan English on the word ' begetter, 1 that of ' inspirer : is by no means the only one or the most common. ' Beget 7 was not infrequently employed in the attenuated sense of ' get, 1 ' procure, 1 or ' obtain, 1 a sense which is easily deducible from the original one of ' bring into being. 1 Hamlet, when addressing the players, bids them THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 405 '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 only begetter of these ensuing 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 'vender' 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 archaeologists. 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 Origin of young Earl of Pembroke. This theory owes its thVM* 011 °rigi n t° a speciously lucky guess which was first dis- W. H. ' closed to the public in 1832, and won for a time almost stands for universal acceptance. 1 Thorpe's form of address was liam' Her- ne ^ to justify the mistaken inference that, whoever bert.' < 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 1 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 Hey wood Bright wrote to the magazine claiming to have reached the same conclusion as early as 1819, 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 Autobiographical Poems. The Rev. Joseph Hunter, who accepted the theory without qualification, significantly pointed out in his New Illustrations of Shakespeare in 1845 ("• 34^) that it had not occurred to any of the writers in the great Variorum editions of Shakespeare, nor to critics so acute in matters of literary history as Malone or George Chalmers. The 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 the Fitton theories, by merely repeating his original arguments, in a pamphlet which appeared in April of this year under the title of The Herbert-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. 1 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 (N- S.), when he was twenty years and nine months Pembroke old, and from that date it is unquestioned that he was known only always known by his lawful title. But it has been as Lord Herbert in overlooked that the designation 'Mr. William Her- youth. bert,' for which the initials ' Mr. W T . 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, 1 'the Lord Herbert,' or 'Lord Herbert. 11 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. CV or 'Mr. James Cecil.' It is just as legitimate to assert that it would have occurred to an Eliza- bethan — least of all to a personal acquaintance or to a publisher !Cf. Sydney Papers, ed. Collins, i. 353. ' My Lord (of Pembroke) himself with my Lord Harbert (are) 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 1, 1599, ' young 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 modeofad- meaningless misnomer of i Mr. W. H.' Insignificant the Earl of publisher though he was, and sceptical as he was of Pembroke, the merits 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 social influence of the third Earl of Pembroke. In 1610 — a year after he published the ' Sonnets ' — there came into his hands the manuscripts by 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 (a man of influence in both fashionable and literary circles), the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke for a translation of Bishop Hall's fanciful satire, 'Mundus alter et idem.' Calling 1 Thomas Sackville, the author of the 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, Engla?id'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 * right gracious and gracefule Lord ' how the author left the work at death to be a ' testimonie of gratitude, observance, and heart's honor to your honour.*' ' Wherefore, 1 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 extenso : • To the Right Honourable, William Earle of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlaine to His Majestie, one of his most honorable Privie Counsell, and Knight of the most noble order of the Garter, &c. • Right Honorable. — It may worthily seeme strange unto your Lordship, out of what frenzy one of my meanenesse hath presumed to commit this Sacriledge, in the straightnesse of your Lordship's 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. 4IO 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 accept- ance I will ever rest, ' Your lordship's humble devoted, , Martha Foote Crow, 1896. 2F 434 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If I lament his pride, he doth increase my pain; If tears my cheeks attaint, his cheeks are moist with moan; If I disclose the wounds the which my heart hath slain, He takes his fascia off, and wipes them dry anon. If so I walk the woods, the woods are his delight, If I myself torment, he bathes him in my blood ; He will my soldier be if once I wend to fight, If seas delight, he steers my bark amidst the hood. 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, 1 book n. son- net iii. : Si ie me sies a l'ombre, aussi soudainement Amour, laissant son arc, s'assiet et se repose : Si ie pense a des vers, ie le voy qu'il compose : Si ie plains mes douleurs, il se plaint hautement. Si ie me plais au mal, il accroist mon tourment : Si ie respan des pleurs, son visage il arrose : Si ie monstre la playe en ma poitrine enclose, II defait son bandeau l'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 a la guerre, il deuient mon soldart: Si ie passe la mer, il conduit ma vacelle : Bref, iamais l'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 1 (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, 1 containing Dravton's fifty-one ' Amours 1 and a sonnet addressed to ' his •Idea," 1594. ever kind Mecaenas, Anthony Cooke. 1 Drayton acknowledged his devotion to 'divine Sir Philip, 1 but by his choice of title, style, and phraseology the English sonnetteer once more betrayed his indebtedness to Desportes and his compeers. 'L'ldee' 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 161 9, when there appeared the last edition that was prepared in Drayton's lifetime. A comparison of the various editions (1594, 1599? 1605, and 16 19) VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 435 shows that Drayton published a hundred sonnets, but the major- ity were apparently circulated by him in early life. 1 William Percy, the ' dearest friend 1 of Barnabe Barnes, pub- lished in 1594, in emulation of Barnes, a collection of twenty p , ' Sonnets to the fairest Ccelia. 1 2 He explains, in an 'Coelia,' address to the reader, that out of courtesy he had x 594- lent the sonnets to friends, who had secretly com- mitted 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. 1 A collection of forty sonnets or ' canzons, 1 as the anonymous author calls them, also .appeared in 1594 with the title 'Zeph- ' Zepheria,' eria. 1 3 In some prefatory verses addressed 'Alii 1 594- veri figlioli delle Muse. 1 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 Zeph- eria bright. 1 Four interesting ventures belong to 1595- In January appended to Richard Barnfield's poem of ' Cynthia 1 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 Coridon addressed Barnfield's the shepherd-boy Alexis. 4 In Sonnet xx. the author GanTnede ex P ressed regret that the task of celebrating his *595- ' y° un g 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 1 ). Barnfield at times imitated Shakespeare. Almost at the same date as Barnfield's ' Cynthia 1 made its appearance, there was published the more notable collection by Spenser's Edmund Spenser of eighty-eight sonnets, which in 'Amoretti,' reference to their Italian origin he entitled 'Amo- 1 595- retti. 1 5 Spenser had already translated many son- 1 See p. no, note. 2 Arber's Garner, vi. 135-49. 3 Id. v. 61-86. 4 Reprinted in Arber's English Scholars' Library, 1882. s 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 i Amoretti 1 were doubtless addressed by Spenser in 1 593 to the lady who became his wife a year later. But the sentiment was largely ideal, and, as he says in Sonnet lxxxvii., he wrote, like Drayton, with his eyes fixed on ' Idaea. 1 An unidentified T 574) ; Claude de Billet, • Amalthee,' 1605. 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) ; Scdvole de Sainte-Marthe, 'CEuvres Francaises ' (1569, 1579); Estienne de la Boetie, 'CEuvres' (1572), and twenty- nine sonnets published with Montaigne's ' Essais ' (1580); Jean et Jacques de la Taille, 'CEuvres 1 (1573); Jacques de Billy, 'Sonnets Spirituels 1 (first series 1573, second series 1578); Estienne Jodelle, ' CEuvres Poetiques 1 (1574); Claude de Pon- THE SONNET IN FRANCE 445 toux, ; Sonnets de L'Ide'e ' (1579); Les Dames des Roches, •(Em-res' (1579, 1584); Pierre de Brach, 'Amours d'Aymee ' {circa 1580); Gilles Durant, ; Poesies' — sonnets to Charlotte and Camille (1587, 1594) ; Jean Passerat, ' Vers . . . d' Amours ' (1597); and Anne de Marquet, who died in 1588, 'Sonnets Spirituels ' (1605). 1 1 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 Elzevirieii7ie, 8 vols. 1867; the Etude sur la Vie de Ronsard, in the eighth vol- ume, is useful. The works of Remy Belleau are issued in the same series. The writings of the seven original members of ' La Pleiade ' are reprinted in La Pleiade Franqaise, edited by Marty-Laveaux, 16 vols., 1866-93. Maurice Seve's Delie was reissued at Lyon in 1862. Pierre de Brach's poems were carefully edited by Rein- hold 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 Franqais (1877 et annis seq.). See Ste.-Beuve's Tableau Historique et Critique de la Poesie Franqais du XVI e Siecle (Paris, 1893) ; Henry Francis Cary's Early French Poets (London, 1846) ; Becq de Fouquieres's CEuvres choisies des Poetes Franqais du XVI e Siecle contemporains avec Ronsard (1880), and the same editor's selections from De Baif, Du Bellay, and Ronsard; Darmesteter et Hatzfeld's Le Seizieme Siecle 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 Litterature Franqaise (1897, iii. 136-260). INDEX ABBEY Abbey, Mr. E. A., 342 Abbott, Dr. E. A., 364 Actor, Shakespeare as an, 43-45. See also Roles, Shakespeare's Actors : at Stratford-on-Avon, 10, 33 ; the players' licensing Act of Queen Elizabeth, 34 ; boy-actors, 34, 35, 38, 213 ; companies of adult actors, in 1587, 35; patronage of, 35, 36; 230 seq.; women's parts played by men or boys, 38 and n 2, 334, 335 ; tours in the provinces, 39-42 ; foreign tours, 42; Shakespeare's alleged scorn of their calling, 44, 45 ; ' advice ' to, in Hamlet, 45 ; their incomes, 198, 199 and n 2, 201 ; strife between adult and boy actors, 213-17, 221 ; the first sub- stitution of women for boys in female parts, 334, 335 Adam, in As You Like It, played by Shakespeare, 44 Adaptations of plays by Shakespeare, 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 troubles ' paralleled in the Persas of, 13 n ; resemblance between Lady Mac- beth and Clytemnestra in the Aga- memnon of, 13 n ^Esthetic school of Shakespearean criticism, 333 Alexander, Sir William, sonnets by, 438 Alleyn, Edward, manages for a time the amalgamated companies of the Admiral and Lord Strange, 37 ; pays fivepence for the pirated Son- nets, 90 n ; his large savings, 204, 362 Allot, Robert, 312 All's Well that Ends Well ; sonnet, 84; probable date of produc- tion, 162; source of plot, 163; probably identical with Loves Labour's Won, 162; characters of, 163. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 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 n 5. 436 ' Amours ' by ' J. D.,' 390 and n Amphitruo of Plautus, probably sug- gested a scene in The Comedy of Errors, 54 'Amyntas,' complimentary title of, 385^2 Angelo, Michael, 'dedicatory' son- nets of, 138 n 2 ' Annals of Great Brittaine,' 184 n 'Anthia and Abrocomas,' by Xeno- phon Ephesius, the supposed orig- inal of the story of Romeo and Juliet, 55 11 1 Antony and Cleopatra : 38 n 2, 143 n 2 ; the longest of the poet's plays, 224 ; date of entry in the ' Stationers' Registers,' 244; date of publica- tion, 245 ; the story derived from 447 44 8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE APOLLONIUS Plutarch, 245 ; dramatic power of Acts IV. and v., 245; the style, 245. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Apollonius and Silla, Historie of, 210 ' Apologie for Poetrie,' Sidney's, allusion to the conceit of the im- mortalising power of verse, 114; allusion to the adulation of patrons, 138, 440. 'Apology for Actors,' Heywood's, 182 Apsley, William, one of the book- sellers who distributed the pirated Sonnets, 90, 304, 312 'Arcadia,' Sidney's, 88 n, 241 and 71 2, 429 Arden family, position in Warwick- shire of, 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 (1), sheriff of War- wickshire and Leicestershire in 1438, 6 Arden, Robert (2), landlord at Snit- terfield of Richard Shakespeare, who was probably the poet's grand- father, 3, 6; marriage of his daugh- ter Mary to John Shakespeare, 6, 7 ; his family and second marriage, 6 ; his property and his will, 7 Arden, Thomas, grandfather of Shakespeare's mother, 6 Arden of Fever sham, sometimes as- signed to Shakespeare, 71 Ariel, character of, 257 Ariodante and Ginevra, Historie of, 208 Ariosto, Gli Suppositi of, 164; Or- lando Furioso of, tells story of 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 AVISA Arms, coat of, Shakespeare's, 189, 190, 191, 193 Arms, College of, applications of the poet's father for a grant of arms to, 2, 10 n, 188-92 Arne, Dr., 334 Arnold, Matthew, 327 n 1 Art in England, its indebtedness to Shakespeare, 340, 341 As You Like Lt : allusion to the part of Rosalind being played by a boy, 38 n 2; ridicule of foreign travel, 42 n 2; acknowledgments to Mar- lowe (III. v. 8), 64; Marlowe's ' Hero and Leander ' quoted, 64 ; adapted from Lodge's ' Rosalynde,' 209 ; addition of new characters, 209; its pastoral character, 209; said to have been performed be- fore King James at Wilton, 232 n 1, 411 n. For editions see Sec- tion xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Asbies, the chief property of Robert Arden at Wilmcote, 7; mortgaged to Edmund Lambert, 12, 26; Shakespeare's endeavour to re- cover, 195 Ashbee, Mr. E. W., 302 n Aston Cantlowe, 6 ; place of the mar- riage of Shakespeare's parents, 7 ' Astrophel,' apostrophe to Sidney in Spenser's, 143 n 2 'Astrophel and Stella,' 83; the metre of, 95 ;/ 2; address to Cupid, 97 n\ the praise of ' blackness ' in Sonnet vii. of, 119 and n 1, 153 n 1; sub- ject and editions of, 428, 429 Aubrey, John, the poet's first biog- rapher, on John Shakespeare's trade, 4, 18; on the poet's know- ledge of Latin, 16; lines quoted by, on John Combe, 269 n; on Shakespeare's genial disposition, 278 ; value of his biography of the poet, 362, 414 'Aurora,' title of Sir W. Alexander's collection of sonnets, 438 Autobiographical features of Shake- speare's plays, 164-7, 168 Autobiographical features of Shake- speare's sonnets, the question of, ioo, 109, 125, 152, 160 Autographs of the poet, 284-6 ' Avisa,' Willobie's story of, 155 INDEX 449 Ayrer, Jacob, similarity of the story of The Tempest to the story in Die schone Sidea by, 253 and n 1 Ayscough, Samuel, 364 n Bacon, Miss Delia, 371 Bacon Society, 372 Bacon-Shakespeare controversy (Ap- pendix II.), 370-3 Baddesley Clinton, the Shakespeares of, 3 Baif, De, plagiarised indirectly by Shakespeare, 11 1 and n ; indebted- ness of Daniel and others to, 431, 432 ; one of ' La Pleiade,' 443, 444 Bandello, the story of Romeo and Juliet in, 55 n 1 ; the story of Hero and Claudio in, 208 ; the story of Twelfth Night in, 210 Barante on Shakespeare, 350 Barnard, Sir John, second husband of the poet's granddaughter Eliza- beth, 282 Barnes, Barnabe, legal terminology in his Sonnets, 32 n 2, 109, 112; and (Appendix IX. ) 432; his sonnets of vituperation, 121 ; the probable rival of Shakespeare for Southampton's favour, 131, 132, I 33- z 35 n \ his sonnets, 132, 133, 432 ; expressions in his sonnet (xlix.) adopted by Shakespeare, 152 n; sonnet to Lady Bridget Manners, 379 n ; sonnet to South- ampton, 384; Sonnet lxvi. ('Ah, sweet Content') quoted, 432; his six sonnets to patrons, 440; his religious sonnets, 441 Barnfield, Richard, feigning old age in his 'Affectionate Shepherd,' 86 n ; his adulation of Queen Eliz- abeth 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, 397 Bartholomew Fair, 256 Bartlett, Mr. John, 364 Barton collection of Shakespeareana at Boston, Mass., 341 Barton-on-the-Heath, 12 ; identical with the ' Burton " in the Taming of The Shrew, 164 BIDFORD Bathurst, Charles, an authority on Shakespeare's versification, 49 n Baynes, Thomas Spencer, 365 Beale, Francis, 389 'Bear Garden in Southwark, The,' one of the poet's lodgings said to have been near, 38 Bearley, 6 Beaumont, Francis, on the Mermaid tavern, 177 Beaumont, Sir John, 388 Bedford, Edward Russell, third Earl of, his marriage to Lucy Haring- ton perhaps celebrated in Mid- summer Night's Dream, 161 Beeston, William (a seventeenth- century actor) , on Shakespeare as a schoolmaster, 29 ; on the poet's acting, 43, 361 Bellay, Joachim du, Spenser's trans- lations of his sonnets, 101, 105 n, 432, 43 6 - 443- 444 Belieau, Remy, 441 ?i 1, 443, 444, 445 « Belleforest, Shakespeare's indebted- ness to the ' Histoires Tragiques ' of, 14, 208, 222 ; translates the story of Romeo and Juliet, 55 n 1 Benda, J. W. O., German translation of Shakespeare by, 344 Benedick and his ' halting sonnet,' 108, 208 Benedix, J. R., opposition to Shake- spearean worship by, 345 Bensley, Robert, actor, 338 Bentley, R., 313 Berlioz, Hector, 351 Bermudas, the, wreck of Sir George Somers's fleet on, the groundwork of The Tempest, 252 Berners, Lord, translation of ' Huon of Bordeaux' by, 162 Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 351 Bertaut, Jean, 443 Bettertori, 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's acquaint- ance with, 16, 17 and n 1 Bibliography of Shakespeare, 299-325 Bidford, near Stratford, local legend 450 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE BIOGRAPHY respecting a drinking bout at, 271 Biography of the poet, sources of (Appendix I.), 361-5 Birmingham, memorial, Shakespeare library at, 298 Biron, in Love's Labours Lost, 51 and n Birth of Merlin, 181 Birthplace, Shakespeare's, the ques- tion of, 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; not occu- pied by Shakespeare's company until 1609, 38 ; litigation of Bur- bage's heirs, 200; Shakespeare's interest in, 201, 202 ; Shakespeare's disposal of his shares in, 264 ' Blackness,' Shakespeare's praise of, 118-20; cf. 155. See also Fitton, Mary Blades, William, 364 Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Chap- man's, 51 71 Blount, Edward, publisher, 92, 135 n, 183, 244, 304, 305, 312, 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 71 2 Bodenstedt, Friedrich von, German translation of Shakespeare by, 344 Bohemia, allotted a seashore in Wi7iter's Tale, 251 Bohemia, translations of Shake- speare 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, translation of Julius CcBsar into German by, 343 Boswell, James, 334 Boswell, James (the younger), 322, 405 n Boswell-Stone, Mr. W. G., 364 Bottger, A., German translation of Shakespeare by, 344 Boy-actors, 34, 35, 38 ; the strife be- tween adult actors and, 213-7 Boy dell, John, his scheme for illus- trating the work of the poet, 341 Bracebridge, C. H., 364 Brach, Pierre de, his sonnet on Sleep echoed in Daniel's Sonnet xlix., 101 and n 1, 431, 445 n Brandes, Mr. Georg, 365 Brathwaite, Richard, 388, 398 Breton, Nicholas, homage paid to the Countess of Pembroke in two of his poems, 138 n 2, 417 Brewster, E., 313 Bridgeman, Mr. C. O., 415 n Bright, James Heywood, 406 n Broke7i Heart, Ford's, similarity of theme of Shakespeare's Sonnet exxvi. with that of a song in, 97 n Brooke or Broke, Arthur, his trans- lation from Bandello of the story of Romeo and Juliet, 55; Romeus and Juliet of, 322 Brooke, Ralph, complains about Shakespeare's coat-of-arms, 192, 193 Brown, C. Armitage, 406 71 Brown, John, obtains a writ of dis- traint against Shakespeare's father, 12 Browne, William, love-sonnets by, 439 and n 2 Buc, Sir George, 245 Buckingham, John Sheffield, first Duke of, 231, 381 Bucknill, 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 as- sumed to have been a native of Stratford, 31 n ; a lifelong friend of Shakespeare's, 36; demolishes INDEX 45 BURGERSDIJK The Theatre and builds the Globe Theatre, 37, 200; performs, with Shakespeare and Kemp, before Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich Palace, 43; his impersonation of the King in Richard III, 63 ; litigation of his heirs respecting the Globe and the Blackfriars theatres, 200; his income, 203, 219 ; creates the title-part in Ham- let, 222, 231 ; his reputation made in leading parts of the poet's trage- dies, 264, 265 ; anecdote of the poet and, 265 ; the poet's bequest to, 276 Burgersdijk, Dr. L. A. J., translation in Dutch by, 352 Burghley, Lord, 375, 376, 378 Burton, Francis, bookseller, 399 n 2, 400 Butter, Nathaniel, 180, 241 'C., E.,' sonnet by, resemblance in Shakespeare's treatment of the ravages of lust with this subject in, 153 n 1 ; his collection of sonnets, ' Emaricdulfe,' 436 Caliban, the character of, 253, 257, 258, 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, on 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, 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 1 Castille, Constable of, entertainments in his honour at Whitehall, 233, 2 34 Castle, William, parish clerk of Stratford, 34 CHETTLE Catherine II (of Russia), adaptation of the Merry Wives and King John by, 352, 353 Cawood, Gabriel, publisher of ' Mary Magdalene's Funeral Tears,' 88 n Cecil, Sir Robert, an allusion to the Earl of Southampton by, 143 ; his relations with Southampton, 379, 381, 382 ' Centurie of Spiritual Sonnets, A,' Barnes's, 132 Cervantes, his ' Don Quixote ' the foundation of lost play of Car- denio, 258 ; death of, 272 n 1 Chamberlain, the Lord, his company 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 1 ; his An Humorous Days Mirth, 51 n; his Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 51 n ; his censure of sonnetteering, 106; the question of his rivalry with Shakespeare for Southamp- ton'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, the poet's plays the 'closet companions' of his ' soli- tudes,' 329; his copy of the Second Folio, 312 Charles II, his copy of the Second Folio, 312 Chateaubriand, 349 Chaucer, the story of ' Lucrece ' in his ' Legend of Good Women,' 76 ; hints in his ' Knight's Tale,' for Midsummer Night's Dream, 162 ; the plot of Troilus and Cressida taken from his ' Troilus and Cres- seid,' 227; plot of The Two Noble Kinsmen drawn from his ' Knight's Tale ' of Palamon and Arcite, 260 Chenier, Marie Joseph, sides with Voltaire in the Shakespearean con- troversy, 349 Chester, Robert, his ' Love's Mar- tyr,' 183, 184 n Chettle, Henry, the publisher, his 452 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE CHETWYNDE description of Shakespeare as an actor, 43, 48 n; his apology for Greene's attack on Shakespeare, 58, 225, 277 ; appeals to Shake- 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 n 4 Chronology of Shakespeare's plays : 48-57, 59, 63-72, 161 seq., 207 seq., 235 seq., 248 seq. Churchyard, Thomas, his Fantas- ticall Monarches Epitaph, 51 n; calls Barnes ' Petrarch's scholar,' 133 Cibber, Colley, 335 Cibber, Mrs., 336 Cibber, Theophilus, the reputed com- piler of ' Lives of the Poets,' 32 and *3. 33 Cinthio, the ' Hecatommithi ' of, Shakespeare's indebtedness to, 14, 53, 236; his 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 moral worthiessness, 245 Give, Mrs., 336 Clopton, Sir Hugh, the former owner of New Place, 193 Clopton, Sir John, 283 Clytemnestra, resemblance between Lady Macbeth and, 13 n Cobham, Henry Brooke, eighth Lord, 169 'Ccelia,' love-sonnets by William Browne entitled, 439 and n 2 ' Ccelia,' title of Percy's collection of sonnets, 435 ' Ccelica,' title of Fulke Greville's col- lection 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 ; The Two Noble Kinsmen, 259; repre- sentative of the aesthetic school, 333 ; on Edmund Kean, 338, 365 CONTENTION Collier, John Payne, includes Mu- cedorus in his edition of Shake- speare, 72 ; his reprint of Drayton's sonnets, no n; his forgeries in the ' Perkins Folio,' 312 and n 2, 317 n 2, 324, 333; his other forg- eries (Appendix I.), 362, 367-9 Collins, Mr. Churton, 317 n 1 Collins, Francis, Shakespeare's solic- itor, 271, 273 Collins, Rev. John, 321 Colte, Sir Henry, 410 n Combe, John, bequest left to the poet by, 269 ; lines written upon his system of money-lending, 269 n Combe, Thomas, legacy of the poet to, 276 Combe, William, his attempt to en- close common land at Stratford, 269 Comedy of Errors : the plot drawn from Plautus, 16, 54 ; date of pub- lication, 53; allusion to the civil war in France, 53 ; possibly founded on The Historie of Error y 54; performed in the hall of Gray's Inn 1594, 70; a second perform- ance in the hall of Gray's Inn in 1895, 70 n. For editions see Sec- tion xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 ' Complainte of Rosamond,' Daniel's, parallelisms in Romeo and Juliet with, 56; its topic and metre re- flected in ' Lucrece,' 76, 77 and n 1, 43i Concordances to Shakespeare, 364 and n Condell, Henry, actor and a life- long friend of Shakespeare's, 36, 202, 203, 264; the poet's bequest to him, 276; signs dedication of First Folio, 303, 306 Confess io Amantis, Gower's, 244 Conspiracie of Duke Btron, The, 51 n Constable, Henry, piratical publi- cation of the sonnets of, 88 n ; fol- lowed Desportes in naming his collection of sonnets ' Diana,' 104, 431 ; inclusion of sonnets by other authors in ' Diana,' 431, 432 ; dedi- catory sonnets, 440 ; religious son- nets, 440 Contention betwixt the two famotis INDEX 453 houses of Yorke and Lancaster, first part of the, 59 ' Contr' Amours,' jodelle's, parody of the vituperative sonnet in, 122 and ?i 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 71 ; 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 Philosophy, 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, 255 n, 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 Shake- speare, 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 « 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 performances, 37 ; closed at the period of the Civil War, 37, 233 n 1 Cushman, Charlotte, 342 Cymbeline : adapted from Holinshed and the 'Decameron,' 249; the D'AVENANT story told in ' Westward for Smelts,' 249; introduction of Calvinistic terms, 250 and n ; Imogen, 250; resemblance to As You Like It, 250; Dr. Forman's note on its per- formance, 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 Black- friars 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, yj and n 1 ; feigning old age, 86 n ; his sonnet (xlix.) on Sleep, 101 ; admits plagiarism of Petrarch in his ' Delia,' 101 n 4 ; followed Maurice Seve in naming his collection of sonnets, 104, 430 ; claims immortality for his son- nets, 115 ; his prefatory sonnet in ' Delia,' 130, 429 ; celebrates in verse Southampton's release from prison, 149, 388 ; his indebtedness to Desportes, 430 ; to De Baif and Pierre de Brach, 431 ; popularity of his sonnets, 431 Danish, translations of Shakespeare in, 354 Danter, John, prints surreptitiously Romeo and Juliet, 56 ; Titus An- dronicus entered at Stationers' Hall by, 66 Daurat-Dinemandy, Jean, one of ' La Pleiade,' 443 D'Avenant, John, keeps the Crown Inn, Oxford, 265 D'Avenant, Sir William, relates the story of Shakespeare holding horses outside playhouses, 33 ; hands down the story of South- 454 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DAVIES ampton's gift to Shakespeare, 126, 374; the story of Shakespere's paternity of, 265, 328. Davies, Archdeacon, vicar of Saper- ton, his testimony to Shakespeare's ' unluckiness ' in poaching, 27 ; his | allusion to the caricature of Sir Thomas Lucy in ' Justice Clodpate' (Justice Shallow), 29, 362 Davies, John, of Hereford, 44, 149, 388, 439; sonnets to patrons, 440 n Davies, Sir John : his ' gulling son- nets,' 106, 107 and n 1, 128 n, 435, 436; his apostrophe to Queen Elizabeth, 137 n, 273 Davison, Francis, his translation of Petrarch's sonnet, 101 n 4 ; dedica- tion of his ' Poetical Rhapsody ' to the Earl of Pembroke, 413 De Chatelain, Chevalier, rendering of Hamlet by, 351 Death-mask, the Kesselstadt, 296 and and n 1 ' Decameron,' the, indebtedness of Shakespeare to, 163, 249, 251 and n 2 ' Declaration of Popish Impostures,' Harsnet's, hints for King Lear taken from, 241 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 ; his account of King James's entry into London, 232; his song ' Oh, sweet content,' an echo of Barnes's ' Ah, sweet Content,' 433 n 1 ' Delia,' title of Daniel's collection of sonnets, 104, 118 n 2, 130, 430, 434. See also under Daniel, Samuel ' Delie,' sonnets by Seve entitled, 442 Delius, Nikolaus, edition of Shake- speare by, 324; studies of the \ text and metre of the poet by, 345 Dennis, John, his account of the Merry Wives of Windsor, 171, 172; his tribute to the poet, 332 Derby, Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of, the Earl of Leicester's company of actors passes to his patronage, 35 ; on his death his place as patron is filled successively by the two Lord Hunsdons, 35 ; performances by the company, 56, 59, 66, 73 ; Spen- ser's bestowal of the title of ' Amyn- tas ' on, 385 n 2 Derbv, William Stanley, Earl of, 161 Desmond, Earl of, Ben Jonson's apostrophe to the, 140 Desportes, Philippe, his sonnet on Sleep, 101 and Appendix IX. ; plagiarised by Drayton and others, 103 and n 3, 430 seq. ; plagiarised indirectly by Shakespeare, no, in; his claim for the immortality of verse, 114 and n 1 ; Daniel's in- debtedness to, 430, 431, 443, 444, 445 « Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 365 Devrient family, the stage represen- tation of Shakespeare by, 346 Diana, George de Montemayor's the source of the story of Two Gentle- men of Verona, 53 ; translations of. 53 ' ' Diana ' the title of Constable's col- lection of sonnets, 88 n, 96 n, 104 Diderot, opposition to Voltaire's strictures by, 348 ' Diella,' sonnets by ' R. L.' [Richard Linche], 437 Digges, Leonard, on the superior popularity of Julius Ccesar to Jonson's Catiline, 220 n; com- mendatory verses on the poet, 276 n 1 ; on the poet's popularity, 300, 306, 329 ' Don Quixote,' the lost play Car- denio probably drawn from, 258 Doncaster, occurrence of the name of Shakespeare at, 1 Donne, Dr. John, his poetic ad- 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 pref- ace to the story of ' Avisa,' 157 INDEX 455 DOUBLE Double Falsehood, or the Distrcst Lovers, 259 and n 1 Douce, Francis, 364 Dowdall, John, 362 Dowden, Professor, 333, 364, 365, 416 n Drake, Nathan, 363 Drayton, Michael, 61; feigning old age in" Ms sonnets, 86 ?i; his in- vocations to Cupid, 97 ?i ; pla- giarisms in his sonnets, 103 and n 2, 434; follows Claude de Pon- toux in naming his heroine ' Idea,' 104, 105 n 1 ; his admission of insincerity in his sonnets, 105 ; Shakespeare's indebtedness to his sonnets, iio?z; claims immortality 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 ; the adulation in his sonnets, 138 n 2; Shakespeare's Sonnet cxliv. adapted from, 153 n 2; entertained by Shakespeare at New Place, Stratford, 271, 427 n 2 ; greetings to his patrons 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 translation of Petrarch's sonnets, 104 « 4, in n; Italian ori- gin of his love-sonnets, 104 and n ; translation of Petrarch's Sonnet xlii., in n; translation of a vitu- perative sonnet from Marino, | 122 n 1 ; translation of a sonnet j by Tasso, 152 ?i ; self-reproach- ful sonnets by, 152 n. See also (Appendix) 439 and 71 1 Dryden, on Shakespeare, 330; pre- sented with a copy of the Chandos | portrait, 330, 361 Ducis, Jean-Francois, adaptations of the poet for the French stage by, 349. 352 Dugdale, Gilbert, 231 n Dulwich, manor of, purchased by Edward Alleyn, 204, 233 n 1 ELIZABETH Dumain, Lord, in Love's Labour's Lost, 51 ?i Dumas, Alexandre, adaptation of Hamlet ; by, 351 Duport, Paul, repeats Voltaire's censure, 350 Dyce, Alexander, 239 n 1 ; on The Two Noble Kinsmen, 259; his edition of Shakespeare, 323 ECCLESIASTES, Book of, poetical versions of, 441 and n 1 Eden, translation of Magellan's ' Voyage to the South Pole ' bv, 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 ; variorum, 322, 323 Education of Shakespeare: the poet's masters at Stratford Gram- mar School, 13; his instruction mainly confined to the Latin lan- guage and literature, 13 ; evidences of the poet's knowledge of Latin and French, 15, 16; probable date of Shakespeare's removal from school, 18 Edward II, Marlowe's, Richard II suggested by, 64 Edward III, a play of uncertain authorship, sometimes assigned to Shakespeare, 71 ; quotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets, 72, 89, and n 2 Edwardes, Richard, author of the lost play Palcemo?i and Arcyte, 260 Edwards, Thomas, ' Canons of Criti- cism ' of, 319 Eld, George, printer of the pirated sonnets, 90, 180, 399 n 2, 401, 402 Elizabeth, Princess, marriage of, performance of The Tempest, &c, at, 254, 258, 263 Elizabeth, Queen : her visit to Kenil- worth, 17 ; Shakespeare and other actors play before her at Green- wich Palace, 43, 70, 81 ; her enthusiasm for Falstaff, 82; ex- travagant compliments to, 137; 456 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ELIZABETHAN called ' Cynthia ' by the poets, 148 ; elegies on, 147, 148 ; compliment to, in Midsummer Night's Dream, 161 ; her objections to Richard II, 175; death, 230; her imprison- ment of Southampton, 380 Elizabethan Stage Society, 70 n, 210 n 2 Elton, Q.C., Mr. Charles, 274 n Elze, Eriedrich Karl, 4 Life of Shake- speare ' by, 364 ; studies of Shake- speare by, 345 ' Emaricdulfe,' sonnets by ' E. C.,' 153 * 1, 436 Endymion, Lyly's, influence in Love's Labour's Lost of, 62 Error, Historie of. See Comedy of E?-rors Eschenburg, Johann Joachim, 343 Essex, Robert Devereux, second Earl of, company of actors under the patronage of, 33 ; noticed in Henry V, 174 ; trial and execution, 175, 176; his relations with the Earl of Southampton, 376, 377, 380, 383 Eton, debate about Shakespeare at, 382 ?i Euphues, Lyly's, Polonius's advice to Laertes borrowed from, 62 n Euripides, Andro?nache of, 13 n Evans, Sir Hugh, Latin phrases quoted by, 15; Marlowe's 'Come live with me and be my love,' quoted by, 65 Evelyn, John, 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 FA IRE EM, sometimes assigned to Shakespeare, 72 Falstaff, Queen Elizabeth's enthusi- asm for, 82, 171 ; named originally in Henry IV ' Sir John Oldcastle,' 169; the attraction of, 170; his last moments, 173 ; letter from the Countess of Southampton on, 383 and n 1 Farmer, Dr. Richard, on Shake- speare's education, 14, 15, 363 Farmer, Mr. John S., 386 n 1 FOLIO ' Farmer MS., the Dr.,' 107 n \ 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, native of Stratford and a friend of Shakespeare, 32; apprenticed to the London printer, Thomas Vautrollier, 32; publishes 'Venus and Adonis,' 74, 396, and ' Lucrece,' 76, 396 Finnish, translations of Shakespeare .in, 354 Fiorentino, Ser Giovanni, Shake- speare's indebtedness to his ' II Pecorone,' 14, 66, 172 Fisher, Mr. Clement, 166 Fitton, Mary, and the ' dark lady,' 123 n, 406 n, 415 ?i Fleay, Mr. F. G., 49 n, no n, 363 Fletcher, Giles, on the ravages of Time, 77 « 2; his 'imitation' of other poets, 103 ; his ' Licia,' 433 Fletcher, John, 181, 184, 258, 259 ; col- laborates with Shakespeare in The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII, 259, 262, 263 Fletcher, Lawrence, actor, 41 and n If 23 1 Florio, John, and Holofernes, 51 n, 84 n ; the sonnet prefixed to his ' Second Frutes,' 84 and n ; known to Shakespeare as Southampton's protege, 84 n ; his translation of Montaigne's 'Essays,' 84 71, 253; his ' Worlde of Wordes,' 84 n, 387 ; his praise of Southampton, 131 (and Appendix IV.) ; Southamp- ton's Italian tutor, 376, 384 Folio, the First, 1623 : the syndicate for its production, 303, 304; its contents, 305, 306 ; prefatory mat- ter, 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; estimated number of ex- tant copies, 311 ; reprints, 311 ; the 'Daniel' copy, 311 Folio, the Second, 312 Folio, the Third, 312, 313 INDEX 457 Folio, the Fourth, 313 Ford, John, 97 n Forgeries, Shakespearean (Appendix I.), 3 I2 « 2 - 3 6 5-9 Forman, Dr. Simon, 239, 250 Forrest, Edwin, American actor, 342 Fortune Theatre, 212, 233 n 1 France, Shakespeare in, 347-50; stage representation of the poet in, 350, 351 ; the sonnet in (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. IS- French, George Russell, 363 'Freyndon' (or Frittenden), 1 Friendship, sonnets of, Shakespeare's, 136, 138-47 Frittenden, Kent. See Freyndon Fulbroke Park, 28 Fuller, Thomas, allusion in his 'Worthies' to Sir John Fastolf, 170 ; to the ' wit combats ' between Shakespeare and Jonson, 178; biographical notice of the poet, 361 Fulman, Rev. W., 362 Furness, Mr. H. H., his ' New Vario- rum ' edition of Shakespeare, 323, 34i Furness, Mrs. H. H., 364 Furnivall, Dr. F. J., 49 n, 302 n, 325, 334- 3 6 4 Gale, Dunstan, 397 Ganymede, Barnfield's sonnets to, 435 and n 4 Garnett, Henry, the Jesuit, 239 Garrick, David, 315, 334, 335-7 _ Gascoigne, George, his definition of a sonnet, 95 n 2 ; his 'Supposes,' 164 Gastrell, Rev. Francis, buys New Place in 1752, 283 Gates, Sir Thomas, 252 Germany, Shakespearean representa- tions 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,' 67 Ghost in Hamlet, the, played by Shakespeare, 44 Gilchrist, Octavius, 363 Gildon, Charles, on the Merry Wives of Windsor, 172 ; on the supremacy of Shakespeare as a poet, 328 n ' Globe ' edition of Shakespeare, 325 Globe Theatre : built in 1599, 37, 196 ; described by Shakespeare, 37, cf. 173 ; profits shared by Shakespeare, 37, 196; revival of Richard II at, I 75 1 litigation of Burbage's heirs, 200; prices of admission, 201 ; an- nual 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, on Shakespeare, 345 Golding, Arthur, his English version of the ' Metamorphoses,' 15, 16, 116 n, 162, 253 Gollancz, Mr. Israel, 222 n, 325 Googe, Barnabe, 427 n 2 Gosson, Stephen, 67 Gottsched, J. C, denunciation of Shakespeare by, 343 Gounod, opera of Romeo and Juliet by, 351 Gower, John, in Pericles, 244; his 'Confessio Amantis,' 244 Gower, Lord Ronald, 297 Grammaticus, Saxo, 222 Grave, Shakespeare's, and the in- scription upon it, 272 Gray's Inn Hall, performance of The Comedy 0/ Errors in, 70 and n Greek, Shakespeare's knowledge of, 13 and ;/, 16 Green, C. F., 364 Greene, Robert, 47 n ; his attack on Shakespeare, 57 ; and the original draft of Henry VI, 60 ; his influence on Shakespeare, 61, 73; describes a meeting with a player, 198 ; A Winter's Tale founded on his Pandosto, 251 ; dedicatory greet- ings in his works, 398 Greene, Thomas, actor at the Red Bull Theatre, 31 n Greene, Thomas (' alias Shake- speare'), a tenant of New Place, 458 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE GREENWICH and Shakespeare's legal adviser, 195, 206, 269, 270 and n Greenwich Palace, 43, 44 n 1, 70, 81, 82 Greet, hamlet in Gloucestershire, identical with ' Greece ' in the Taming of The Shrew, 167 Grendon, near Oxford, 31 Greville, Sir Fulke, 88 //, 97 n; his ' Sonnets,' &c, 438, 439 Griffin, Bartholomew, 182 n ; pla- giarises Daniel, 431, 437 Griggs, Mr. W., 302 n Grimm, Baron, 349, 350// 1 'Groats-worth of Wit,' Greene's pamphlet, 57 Guizot, Francois, 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, 406 seq.; his publication of Southwell's ' A Foure-fold Medi- tation,' 92; erroneously assumed to indicate the Earl of Pembroke, 93, 94, and William Hughes, 93 n; his true relations with Thomas Thorpe (Appendix v.), 390-405 Hacket, Marian and Cicely, in the Taming of The Shrew, 164-6 Hair, women's, described as ' wires,' 118 and n 2 Hal, Prince, 169, 173 Hales, John (of Eton), on the supe- riority of Shakespeare, 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. Susannah, the poet's elder daughter, 192, 205, 266, 267 ; in- herits the chief part of the poet's estate, 275, 281 ; her death and tomb, 281 Hall, William, (1) on the poet's grave, 272 and n 2, 362 Hall, William, (2). See ' H., Mr. W.' Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard, the collection of, 267 n ; his edition of Shakespeare, 312, 325 ; his la- bours on Shakespeare's biography, 333, 363, 364 Hamlet, 13 n, 62 n ; allusion to boy- actors, 213 11 2, 214 and 71 1, 216; date of production, 221 ; previous popularity of the story, 221 and n ; sources drawn upon by the poet, 221-2; Burbage in the title-part, 222 ; the problem of its publica- tion, 222-4 ; the three versions, 222-4; Theobald's emendations, 224; its world-wide popularity, 224. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 224; his edi- tion 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 Im- postures ' by, 241 Hart family, the, and the poet's reputed birthplace, 8 Hart, Joan, Shakespeare's sister, 8 ; her three sons, 276, 283 Hart, John, 283 Hart, Joseph C., 371 Harvey, Gabriel, 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 Sonnets,' 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 will, 19 Haughton, William, 48 n, 418 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 371 Hazlitt, William, and his Shake- spearean criticism, 333, 364, 365 INDEX 459 HEALEY 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 of, 345 Helena in All's Well that Ends Well, 163 Heming, John (actor-friend of Shake- speare's), 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, at Strat- ford, 281 Henry IV (parts i. and ii.), 62 n; sources of, 167; Justice Shallow, 29, 168 ; references to persons and districts familiar to the poet, 167, 168 ; the characters, 168-70. For edition see Section xix. (Bibliogra- phy), 301-25 Henry V, The Famous Victories of, part of the groundwork of Henry IV and of Henry V, 167, 174 Henry V: French dialogues in, 15, 37 ; disdainful allusion to sonnet- teering, 108 ; date of production, 173 ; issue of imperfect drafts of the play, 173; the poet's final experi- ment in the dramatisation of Eng- lish history, 174 ; allusions to the Earl of Essex, 175. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 3 OI - 2 5 Henry VI (pt. i.) : performed at the Rose Theatre in 1592, 56 ; Nash's remarks on, 56, 57 ; first publica- tion, 58 ; contains only a slight impress of the poet's style, 59 Henry VI (pt. ii.), 13 n; publication of a first draft, 59; revision of the play, 60 ; the poet's coadjutors in the revision, 60 Henry VI (pt. iii.) : one of the only two plays of the poet's performed by a company other than his own, 36 ; performed in the autumn of I 59 2 - 57 ; publication of a first draft, 59; performed by Lord Pembroke's men, 36, 59 ; partly remodelled, 60; the poet's coad- jutors in the revision, 60. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliog- raphy), 301-25 Henry VIII: 174; attributed to Shakespeare and Fletcher, 259; noticed by Sir Henry Wotton, 261 ; date of first publication, 261 ; the portions that can confidently be assigned to Shakespeare, 262; un- certain authorship of Wolsey's farewell to Cromwell, 262; the theory of James Spedding as to, 263. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Henryson, Robert, 227 Henslowe, Philip, erects the Rose Theatre, 36, 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-IO 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 Heyse, Paul, German translation of Shakespeare by, 344 Heywood, Thomas, 48 n ; two of his poems pirated in the ' Passionate Pilgrim,' 182, 301, 328 Hill, John, marriage of his widow, Agnes or Anne, to Robert Arden, 6 Holinshed, ' Chronicles ' of, mate- rials taken by Shakespeare from, 17, 47, 63, 64, 167, 239, 241, 249, 364 Holland, translations of Shakespeare in, 352 Holland, Hugh, 306 Holmes, Nathaniel, 372 Holmes, William, bookseller, 403 ;z 1 Holofernes, 15 ; groundless assump- tion that he is a caricature of Florio, 51 n, 84 n Horace, his claim for the immortality of verse, 114 and n 1, 116 n Hotspur, 168, 169 Howard of Effingham, the Lord Admiral, Charles, Lord, his com- 460 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE pany of actors, 35, 37 ; Spenser's sonnet to, 140 Hudson, Rev. H. N., 325 Hughes, Mrs. Margaret, the first woman to play female parts in place of boys, 335 Hughes, William, and 'Mr. W. H.,' 93 « Hugo, Francois Victor, translation of Shakespeare by, 350 Hugo, Victor, 350 Humorous Day's Mirth, An, 51 n Hungary, translations and perform- ances 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, 35 Hunsdon (Lord Chamberlain), Henry Carey, first Lord, his com- pany of players, 35 ; and Shake- speare, 36 Hunt, Thomas, one of the masters 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 n '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 Imogen, the character of, 249, 250 Income, Shakespeare's, 196-204 India, translations and representa- tions of Shakespeare in, 354 Jngannati (GT), its resemblance to Twelfth Night, 210 Ingram, Dr., on the 'weak endings' in Shakespeare, 49 n Ireland forgeries, the (Appendix I.), 366 Ireland, Samuel, 28 Irishman, the only one in Shake- speare's dramatis per sonce, 173 Irving, Sir Henry, 339 Italian, the poet's acquaintance with, 14-16, cf. 66 n 3 JONSON Italy, Shakespeare's alleged know- ledge of, 43; translations and per- formances of Shakespeare in, 352 ; sonnetteeis of sixteenth century in, 442 n 2 Itinerary of Shakespeare's company between 1593 and 1614, 40 and n 1 JAGGARD, Isaac, 305 Jaggard, William, and ' Passionate Pilgrim,' 89, 182, 299, 390, 396; and the First Folio, 303, 304 James VI of Scotland and I of Eng- land, his favour to actors, 41 n 1 ; his appreciation of Shakespeare, 82; his accession to the English throne, 147-9; grants a license to the poet and his company, 230; patronage of Shakespeare, 232-4 ; performances of Shakespeare's plays before, 235, 236, 239, 251 and n, 254, 255, 256 n ; sonnets tu, 440 James, Sir Henry, 311 Jameson, Mrs., 365 Jamyn, Amadis, 432, 443, 444, 455 n Jansen or Janssen, Gerard, 276 Jansen, Cornelius, the painter, 294 Jeronimo and Hamlet, 221 n Jew of Malta, Marlowe's, 68 Jew . . . showne at the Bull, a lobt play, 67 Jodelle, Estienne, resemblances in 'Venus and Adonis' to a poem by, 75 n 2; his parody of the vituperative sonnet, 121, 122 and n (auot.) ; one of ' La Pleiade,' 443 John, King, old play on, attributed to the poet, 181 John, King : Shakespeare's play of, 69, 70. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Johnson, Dr., 33; his edition of Shakespeare, 319-21 ; his reply to Voltaire, 348 Johnson, Gerard, his monument to the poet in Stratford Church, 276 Johnson, Robert, lyrics set to music by, 255 and n 2 Jones, Inigo, 38 n 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 INDEX 461 JORDAN and in Sejanus, 44; on Titus An- dronicus, 65; on the appreciation of Shakespeare shown by Eliza- beth and James I, 82; on metrical artifice in sonnets, 106 n 1 ; use of the word 'lover,' 127 n; identified by some as the 'rival poet,' 136; his ' dedicatory ' sonnets, 138 n 2, 140; relations with Shakespeare, 176, 177 ; share in the appendix to ' Love's Martyr,' 183; quarrel with Marston and Dekker, 214-20; his ' Poetaster,' 217, 218 and n ; allu- sions to him in the Return from Parnassus, 219 ; his criticism of Julius Ccesar, 220 n ; satiric allu- sion to A Winter 's Tale, 251, and The Tempest, 256 ; entertained by Shakespeare, 271 ; testimony to Shakespeare's character, 277 ; his tribute to Shakespeare, 306, 311, 327 ; Thorpe's publication of works by, 395 n 3, 401 ; his Hue and Cry after Cupid, 432 n 2 Jordan, John, forgeries of (Appen- dix I.), 365, 366 Jordan, Mrs., 338, 339 Jordan, Thomas, 335 n Jourdain, Sylvester, 252 'Jubilee,' Shakespeare's, 334 Julius Ccesar ; 127 n ; plot drawn from Plutarch, 211; date of pro- duction, 211; a play of the same title acted in 1594, 211; general features of the play, 21 1, 212 ; Jon- son's hostile criticism, 220 n. 'For editions see Section xix. (Bibli- ography), 301-25 Kean, Edmund, 338, 351 Keller, A., German translation of Shakespeare by, 344 Kemble, Charles, 351 Kemble, John Philip, 337 Kemp, William, comedian, 43, 208, 219 Kenilworth, 17; cf. 162 Ketzcher, N., translation into Russian by. 353 Killigrew, Thomas, 334 King's players, the company of, 35 ; Shakespeare one of its members, 36; the poet's plays performed LAW almost exclusively by, 36, 40 and n 1 ; King James's license to, 230, 231 Kirkland, occurrence of the name ol Shakespeare at, 1 Kirkman, Francis, publisher, 181 Knight, Charies, 324 Knollys, Sir William, 415 n Kok, A. S., translation in Dutch by, 352 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 on Shake- speare, 61 ; alleged author of Titus Andronicus, 65 ; his Spanish Trag- edy, 65, 221 ; dramatises story of Hamlet, 221 and n ; Shakespeare's acquaintance with his work, 222 n L., H., initials on seal attesting Shakespeare's autograph. See Lawrence, Henry La Giuletta, Luigi da Porto's, 55 n 1 La Harpe, sides with Voltaire in the Shakespearean controversy in France, 349 Labe, Louise, 445 n Lamb, Charles, 260, 338 Lambarde, William, 175 Lambert, Edmund, mortgagee of the Asbies property, 12, 26, 164 Lambert, John, and the Asbies prop- erty, 26; John Shakespeare's law- suit with, 195 Lane, Nicholas, a creditor of John Shakespeare, 186 Langbaine, Gerard, 66, 362 Laroche, Benjamin, translation by, 35o Latin, the poet's acquaintance with, 13. 15. I0 ' 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 cf. n 2, and 107 462 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE LAWRENCE Lawrence, Henry, his seal beneath Shakespeare's autograph, 267 Lear, King: date of composition, 241; produced at Whitehall, 241; Butter's imperfect editions, 241 ; mainly founded on Hoiinshed's 'Chronicle,' 241, and Sidney's 'Arcadia,' 241 ; the character of the King, 242. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography) 301- 25 Legal terminology in plays and poems of the Shakespearean period, 32 n 2, and Appendix IX. ; cf. 107 Legge, Dr. Thomas, a Latin piece on Richard III by, 63 Leicester, Earl of, entertains Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth, 17, 162; in the Low Countries, 30; his company of plavers, 33, 35 Leo, F. A., 346 Leoni, Michele, Italian translation of the poet issued by, 352 ' Leopold ' Shakespeare, the, 325 Lessing, defence of Shakespeare by, 343 L' Estrange, Sir Nicholas, 176 Le Tourneur, Pierre, French prose translation of Shakespeare by, 349 ' Licia,' Fletcher's collection of son- nets called, 77 n 2, 103, 105, 1 13 n 5, 433 Linche, Richard, his sonnets entitled ' Diella,' 437 Lintot, Bernard, 231 Litigation, Shakespeare's liking for, 206 Locke (or Lok), Henry, sonnets by, 33 8 .44i 1 Locrine, Tragedie of,' 179 Lodge, Thomas, 57, 61 ; his ' Scillas Metamorphosis' and 'Venus and Adonis,' 75 and n 2; his plagia- risms, 103 and n 3, 433 ; his ' Rosa- lynde,' 209; his ' Phillis,' 417, 433 London Prodigall, 180, 313 Lope de Vega dramatises the story of Romeo and Juliet, 55 n 1 Lopez, Roderigo,*68 and n Lorkin, Rev. Thomas, on the burning of the Globe Theatre, 261 ?z Love, treatment of, in Shakespeare's sonnets, 97 and n, 98, 112, 113 and MACBETH n 2; in the sonnets of other writers, 104-6, 113 11 2 ' Lover ' and ' love ' synonyms with 'friend' and 'friendship' in Eliza- bethan English, 127 n 'Lover's Complaint, A,' possibly 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 and n, 52 ; its re- vision in 1397, 52 ; date of publica- tion, 52 ; influence ot Lyly, 62 ; performed at Whitehall, 81; son- nets in, 84, 107; the praise of 'blackness,' 118, 119 and « 2; per- formed at Southampton's house in the Strand, 384. For editions see Section xix. ( Bibliography), 301-25 j Love's Labour's Won, attributed by Meres to Shakespeare, 162. See All's Well ' Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's Com- plaint,' 183, 184 n, 304 I Lowell, James Russell, 13 n, 341 i Lucian, the Timon of, 243 j ' Lucrece ' : published in 1594, 76, 77 n 1, n 2; dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, 77,78, 126, 127; enthusiastic reception of, 78, 79; quarto editions, 299, 300 Lucy, Sir Thomas, 27, 28 ; carica- tured in Justice Shallow, 29, 173 j Luddington, 20 Lydgate, ' Troy Book ' of, 227 I Lyly, John, 61 ; influence on Shake- speare's comedies, 61, 62 ; his addresses to Cupid, 97 n ; and Midsummer Night's Dream, 162 Lyrics in Shakespeare's plays, 207, 250, 255 and n 2 ; 'M., I. ,'306. See also ' S., I. M.' \ Macbeth: the references to the climate of Inverness, 41 (and quotation in »3),42; date of composition, 239 ; the story drawn from Holinshed, 239; not printed until 1623, 239; the shortest of the poet's plays, 239 ; points of difference from other plays of the same class, 240; Middleton's plagiarisms of, 240. For editions see Section xix. (Bib- liography), 301-25 INDEX 463 MACBETH Macbeth, Lady, resemblance between Clytemnestra of ^Eschylus and, 13 n Mackay, Mr. Herbert, on the dower of the poet's widow, 274 n Macklin, Charles, 336, 337 Macready, William Charles, 339, 351 Madden, Rt. Hon. D. H., 27 n, 168, 364 Magellan, 'Voyage to the South Pole ' by, 253 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, 332, 333 ; his writings, 321, 322, 362 Malvolio, popularity of, 211 Manners, Lady Bridget, 378, 379 and n Manmngham, John (diarist), 210 Manuscript, circulation of sonnets in, 88 and n, 391, 396 Marino, vituperative sonnet by, 122 n 1, 443 Markham, Gervase, his adulation of Southampton, 131, 134, 387 Marlowe, Christopher, 57; his share in the revision of Henry VI, 60; his influence on Shakespeare, 61, 63, 64 ; Shakespeare's notices of, in As You Like It, 64; his 'First Book of Lucan," 90, 393, 399 Marmontel sides with Voltaire in 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, an English actor in Scotland, 41 and n 1 Martin, Lady, 339, 365 ' Mary Magdalene's Funeral Tears,' 88 n Masks worn by men playing women's parts, 38 n 2 Massinger, Philip, 258 ; portions of The Two Noble Kinsmen as- signed to, 259; the conjecture that he collaborated with Fletcher in Henry VIII, 263 and n 2 ' Mastic,' use of the word, 228 n Masuccio, the story of Romeo and Juliet in his Novellino, 55 Matthew, Sir Toby, 371, 383 Mayne, Jasper, 306, 328 n Measure for Measure : the offence of Claudio, 23 n\ date of composi- tion, 235; produced at Whitehall, 235 ; source of plot, 236 ; devia- tions from the old story, 237, 238 ; the argument, 238 ; references to a ruler's dislike of mobs, 238. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliog- raphy), 301-25 Melin de Saint-Gelais, 442 Memorials in sculpture to the poet, 297 Mencechmi of Plautus, 54 Mendelssohn, setting of Shakespea- rean 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), 301-25 Meres, Francis, on Shakespeare's ' sugred ' sonnets, 89 ; his quota- tions from Horace and Ovid, 116 n\ attributes Loves Labour's Won to Shakespeare, 162 ; on the poet's literary reputation, 178, 179, 390 Mermaid Tavern, 177, 178 Merry Devill of Edmonton, 181, 258 n 2 Merry Wives of Windsor, 15 ; Sir Thomas Lucy caricatured in Jus- tice Shallow, 29 ; lines from Mar- lowe sung by Sir Hugh Evans, 64, 65 ; period of production, 171 ; publication of the play, 172; the plot, 172; chief characteristics, 173. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Metre of Shakespeare's plays, 48- 50 Metre of Shakespeare's poems, 75- 77 Metre of Shakespeare's sonnets, 95 and n 2 Mezieres, Alfred, 350 464 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE MICHEL Michel, Francisque, translation by, 350 Middle Temple Hall, performance of Twelfth Night at, 210 Middleton, Thomas, his allusion to Le Motte in Blurt, Master Con- stable, 51 n; his plagiarisms of Macbeth in The Witch, 240 Midsummer Night's Dreatn : refer- ences to the pageants at Kenilworth Park, 17, 162; references to Spen- ser's ' Teares of the Muses,' 80 ; date of production, 161 ; sources of the story, 162; the scheme of the play, 162. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301- 25 Milton, 179 n ; his epitaph on Shake- speare, 327 Minto, Professor, on Chapman as Shakespeare's ' rival ' poet, 135 n 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 n 3, 197 n Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 348 Montaigne, ' Essays' of, 84 n, 253 Montegut, 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, 140 n Mortgage-deed signed by the poet, 267 Moseley, Humphrey, publisher, 181, 258, 259 Mothe, in Loves Labour s Lost, 51 n Moulton, Dr. Richard G., 365 Mucedorus, wrongly assigned to Shakespeare, 72 Much Ado about Nothing : a jesting allusion to sonnetteenng, 108 ; its publication, 207, 208 ; date of, 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 edi- tions see Section xix. (Bibliogra- phy), 301-25 OECHELHAEUSER Mulberry-tree at New Place, the, 194 and n Music : at stage performances in Shakespeare's day, 38 n 2; its indebtedness to the poet, 340 Nash, Anthony, the poet's legacy to, 276 Nash, John, the poet's legacy to, 276 Nash, Thomas, (1) marries Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's granddaugh- ter, 282 Nash, Thomas, (2) on the perform- ance of Henry VI, 56, 57 ; his 'Terrors of the Night,' 88 n; on the immortalising power of verse, 114 ; use of the word ' lover,' 127 n ; his appeals to Southampton, 131, 134, 135 n, 385, 386; on Kyd's 'Hamlets,' 221 n, 427 n 2; his preface to ' Astrophel and Stella,' 429 11 1 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 to Sir Edward Walker, 283; dem- olition of, 283 Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of, criticism of the poet by, 331 Newdegate, Lady, 406 n, 415 Newington Butts Theatre, 37 Newman, Thomas, piratical publica- tion of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets by, 88 n, 429 and n 1 Nicolson, George, English agent in Scotland, 41 n 1 Nottingham, Earl of, his company of players, 225 ; taken into the patron- age 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 INDEX 465 OLDCASTLE Oldcastle, Sir John, versions of his history, 170, 313 ' Oldcastle, Sir John,' the original name of Falstaff in Hefiry IV, 169 Oldys, William, 231, 362 Olney, Henry, publisher, 437 Orlando Fur 10 so, 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 char- acters and features, 236. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliog- raphy), 301-25 Ovid, influence on Shakespeare of his ' Metamorphoses,' 15, 75 and n 1, 76, 162, 253; claims immor- tality for his verse, 114 and n i, 116 n ; the poet's signature said to be on the title-page of a copy of the ' Metamorphoses ' in the Bod- leian Library, 15 Oxford, the poet's visits to, 31, 265, 266 ; Hamlet acted at, 224 Oxford, Earl of, his company of actors, 35 ' 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 Athens, 243 ; and Coriolanus, 246 Palcemon and Arcyte, a lost play, 260 Palamon and Arsett, a lost play, 260 Palladis Tatnia, eulogy on the poet in, 178 Palmer, John, actor, 337 ' Pandora,' Soothern's collection of love-sonnets, 138 n 23 Pandosto (afterwards called Dorastus and Fawnia), Shakespeare's in- debtedness to, 251 Parodies on sonnetteering, 106-8, 122 and n Parthenophil and Parthenophe, the, of Barnes, 132 Pasquier, Estienne, 443 Passerat, Jean, 443 PERKES Passionate Centurie of Love, Wat. son's, 77; plagiarism in, 101 n 4, 102, 427 n 2, 428 ' Passionate Pilgrim,' piratical inser- tion of two sonnets in, 98, 182, 437; the remaining contents of, 182 n, 299; printed with Shakespeare's poems, 300 Patrons and 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, 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, 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 1, 411; the First Folio, 306; his alleged relations with Shakespeare, 23 n, 411-15; dedi- cations by Thorpe to, 399 and n 1, 403 n 2 Pembroke, Henry, second Earl of, his company of players perform Henry VI (pt. iii.), 36, 59: and Titus Andronicus, 66 Penrith, Shakespeares at, 1 Pepys, his criticisms of The Tempest and Midsummer Night's Dream 329 Percy, William, his sonnets, entitled ' Ccelia,' 435 Perez, Antonio, and Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, 68 n Pericles : date of composition, 242 ; a work of collaboration, 242 ; lack of homogeneity, 244 ; dates of the various editions, 244 ; not included in the First Folio, 305; included in Third Folio, 313. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Perkes (Clement), in Henry IV, the name of a family at Stinch- combe Hill, 168 466 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ' Perkins Folio,' forgeries in the, 312, 317 n 2 (Appendix), 367 and n Personalities on the stage, 215 n 1 Peruse, 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 admitted by sonnetteers, 101 n 4; Wyatt's translations of, 101 tz 4, 427 ; plagi- arised indirectly by Shakespeare, no, in and n, 113 n 1 ; the melan- choly of his sonnets, 152 n ; imi- tated 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), 362, 439 n 1 ' Phillis,' Lodge's 118 n 2, 433 and "3 Philosophy, Chapman's sonnets in praise of, 441 ' Phoenix and the Turtle, The,' 183, 184, 304 Pichot, A., 350 ' Pierces Supererogation,' by Gabriel Harvey, 101 n 4, 105 Pindar, his claim for the immortality of verse, 114 and n 1 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 ' Pleiade, 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 n, 246 and n Poaching episode, the, 27, 28 QUEEN'S Poetaster, Jonson's, 217, 218 and n Poland, translations and perform- ances 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 1 Portraits of the poet, 286-93, 2 9& n 2 ; the ' Stratford ' portrait, 287 ; Droeshout's engraving, 287, 288, 300, 306; the 'Droeshout' paint- ing, 288-91 ; portrait in the Clar- endon gallery, 291 ; ' Ely House ' portrait, 290, 291 ; ' Chandos ' por- trait, 292, 293 ; ' Jansen ' portrait, 293, 294 ; ' Felton ' and ' Soest ' portraits, 294 ; miniatures, 295 Pott, Mrs. Henry, 372 Prevost, Abbe, 348 Pritchard, Mrs., 336 Procter, Bryan Waller (Barry Corn- wall), 324 Promos a?id Cassandra, 237 Prospero, character of, 257 Publication of dramas : deprecated by playhouse authorities, 48 11 ; only a small proportion of the dramas of the period printed, 48 n ; only sixteen of Shakespeare's plays published in his lifetime, 48 Punning, 418, 419 n Puritalne, 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 repre- sentations, 10 n, 212, 213 n 1 ; the poet's references to, 268 n 1 ' Pyramus and Thisbe,' 397 QUARLES, John, ' Banishment of Tarquin ' of, 300 Quarto editions of the plays, in the poet's lifetime, 30,1, 302; posthu- mous, 302, 303 of the poems in the poet's lifetime, 299; posthumous, 300 ' Quatorzain,' term applied to the Sonnet, 427 ?i 2 ; cf. 429 n 1 ' Queen's Children of the Chapel,' the - 34. 35. 3 8 - 213-17 INDEX 467 QUEEN'S Queen's Company of Actors, at Stratford-on-Avon, 10; its return to London, 33, 35, 231 n Quiney, Thomas, marries Judith Shakespeare, 271; his residence in Stratford, 280; his children, 281 Quinton, 165 RALEGH, Sir Walter, extravagant apostrophe to Queen Elizabeth by, 137 n 1, 182 n Rapp, M., German translation of Shakespeare by, 344 ' Ratseis Ghost,' and Ratsey's ad- dress to the players, 185, 199 Ravenscroft, Edward, on Titus An- dronicus, 65, 332 Reed, Isaac, 321, 322 Reformation, the, at Stratford-on- Avon, 10 n Rehan, Miss Ada, 342 Religion and Philosophy, sonnets on (Appendix IX.), 440, 441 Return from Parnassus, The, 198, 199 n 1, 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 II; the influence of Mar- lowe, 63, 64 ; published anony- mously, 63; the deposition scene, 64 ; probably composed in 1593, 64; the facts drawn from Holin- shed, 64; its revival, 175, 383. For editions see Section xix. (Bibli- ography), 301-25 Richard III : 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 Cibber's adaptation, 335. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301- 25 Richardson, John, 20, 22 Richmond Palace, performances at, 82, 230 Ristori, Madame, 352 ROWE Roberts, James, printer, 225, 226, 3°3. 43 1 Robinson, Clement, use of the word ' sonnet ' by, 427 ;/ 2 Roche, Walter, master of Stratford Grammar School, 13 Roles, Shakespeare's : at Greenwich Palace, 43, 44 n 1 ; in Every Man in his Humour, 44 ; in Sejanus, 44 ; the Ghost in Hamlet, 44; '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 com- position, 56; publication of, 56; two choruses in the sonnet form, 84; allusion to sonnetteering, 108. For editions see Section xix. (Bib- liography), 301-35 Rotneus and Juliet, Arthur Brooke's, 322 Ronsard, plagiarised by English son- netteers, 102, 103 n 3, 432 sea.; by Shakespeare, in, 112 and n 1 ; his claim for the immortality of verse, 114 and n 1, 116 n ; his sonnets of vituperation, 121 ; gave the sonnet a literary vogue in France, 442 ; and ' La Pleiade,' 442; modern re- print of his works, 445 n Rosalind, played by a boy, 38 n 2 Rosaline, praised for her ' blackness,' 118, 119 ' Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Lega- cie,' 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 successes, 37; performance of Henry VI, 56; production of the Venesyon Comedy, 69 Rossi, representation of Shakespeare by, 352 Roussillon, Countess of, 163 Rowe, Nicholas, on the parentage of Shakespeare's wife, 18 ; on Shake- speare's poaching escapade, 27 ; on Shakespeare's performance as the Ghost in Hamlet, 44; on the story of Southampton's gift to Shakespeare, 126 ; on Queen Eliza- beth's enthusiasm for the character 468 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ROWINGTON of Falstaff, 171; on the poet's last years at Stratford, 266; on John Combe's epitaph, 269 n\ his edition of the poet's plays, 314, 362 Rowington, Shakespeares of, 2 Rowlands, Samuel, 397 Rowley, William, 181, 243 Roydon, Matthew, on Sir Philip Sid- ney, 140, 184 n Rusconi, Carlo, Italian prose version of Shakespeare by, 352 Russia, Shakespeare in, 352, 353 Rymer, Thomas, his censure of the poet, 329 ' S., M. I.,' tribute to the poet in the Second Folio thus headed, 327 and n, 328 ' S., W.,' initials in Willobie's book, I 56. 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 St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, a William Shakespeare in 1598 living in, 38 and n 1 Saint-Saens, M., opera of Henry VIII t>y. 351 Sainte-Marthe, Scevole de, 443 Salvini, representation of Othello by, 352 Sand, George, translation of As You Like It by, 351 Sandells, Fufk, and Shakespeare's marriage, 20, 22 ; supervisor of Richard Hathaway's will, 22 Saperton, 27, 29 ' Sapho and Phao,' address to Cupid in, 97 n Satiro-Mastix, a retort to Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, 215 Savage, Mr. Richard, 363 ' Saviolo's Practise,' 209 Scenery unknown in Shakespeare's - day, 38 and n 2 ; designed by Inigo Jones for masks in the palaces of James I, 38 n 2; Sir Philip Sid- ney and difficulties arising from its absence, 38 n 2 Schiller, adaptation of Macbeth for the stage by, 345 SHAKESPEARE Schlegel, 180; German translation of Shakespeare by, 343 ; lectures on Shakespeare by, 344 Schmidt, Alexander, 364 ' Schoole of Abuse,' 67 Schrceder, F. U. L., German actor of Shakespeare, 346 Schubert, Franz, setting of Shake- spearean songs by, 347 Schumann, setting of Shakespearean songs by, 347 ' Scillas Metamorphosis,' Lodge's, 75 and n 2 Scoloker, Anthony, his ' Daiphantus,' 277 Scotland : Shakespeare's alleged travels in, 40-42 ; visits of actors to, 41 n 1 Scot, Reginald, allusion to Monarcho 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 1 Seve, Maurice, 104 and n, 430, 442, 445 * 1 Sewell, Dr. George, 315 'Shadow of the Night, The,' Chap- man's, 135 n Shakespeare, the surname of, 1, 2, cf. 24 n Shakespeare, Adam, 1 Shakespeare, Ann, a sister of the poet, n Shakespeare, Anne (or Agnes) : her parentage, 18, 19; her marriage to the poet, 18, 19-22; the assumed identification of her with Anne Whateley untenable, 23, 24 and // ; her debt, 187; her husband's be- quest 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 husband to the care of the elder daughter, 275; her death, and the inscription above her grave, 280 and n INDEX 469 SHAKESPEARE Shakespeare, Edmund, a brother of the poet, 11 ; becomes ' a player,' 283; death, 283 Shakespeare, Gilbert, a brother of the poet, 11; sees him play the part of Adam in As You Like It, 44; survived the poet and ap- parently had a son named Gilbert, 283 Shakespeare, Hamnet, son of the poet, 26, 187 Shakespeare, Henry, one of the poet's uncles, 3, 4, 186 Shakespeare, Joan (1), 7 [Joan Shakespeare, Joan (2). See Hart, Shakespeare, John (1), the first re- corded holder of this surname (thirteenth century), 1. 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 and sets up in business at Stratford-on-Avon, 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, 11; appointed alderman and bailiff, 10; welcomes actors at Stratford, 10; his alleged sympa- thies with puritanism, 10 n\ his application for a grant of arms, 2, 10 n, 188-92 ; his financial diffi- culties, 11, 12; his younger chil- dren, 11 ; writ of distraint issued against him, 12; deprived of his alderman's gown, 12 ; increase of pecuniary difficulties, 186 ; re- lieved 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 sec- ond daughter, 26, 205 ; her mar- riage 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 parentage, 6, 7 ; her property, 7 ; SHAKESPEARE her title to bear the arms of the Arden family, 191 ; her death, 266 Shakespeare, Richard, a brother of the poet, 11, 266; his death, 283 Shakespeare, Richard, of Rowing- ton, 2 Shakespeare, Richard, of Snitterfield, probably the poet's grandfather, 3 ; his family, 3, 4 ; letters of adminis- tration of his estate, 3 and n 3 Shakespeare, Richard, of Wroxhall, 3 Shakespeare, Susannah, a daughter of the poet, 22. See also Hall, Mrs. Susannah 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 also Education of Shake- speare ; Shakespeare, Anne or Agnes) ; departure from Stratford, 27-31; theatrical employment, 32- 4; joins the Lord Chamberlain's company, 36 ; his roles, 43 ; his first plays, 50-73 ; publication of ' Venus and Adonis ' and ' Lucrece,' 74, 76 seq.; his Sonnets, 83-124, 151-6; patronage of the Earl of Southampton, 125-50; plays com- posed between 1595 and 1598, 161- 73 ; his popularity and influence, 176-9; returns to Stratford in 1596, 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; the latest plays, 248 seq. ; per- formance of his plays at Court, 264 {see also Court ; Whitehall; Eliza- beth, Queen; James I) ; final set- tlement in Stratford (1611), 266 seq. ; death (1616), 272; his will, 273 seq.; monument at Stratford, 276; personal character, 277-9; his survivors and descendants, 280 seq.; autographs, portraits, and memorials, 284-98 ; bibliography, 299-325 ; his posthumous reputa- tion in England and abroad, 326- 54 ; general e-stimate of his work, 47o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SHAKESPEARE 355-7 ; biographical sources, 361- 5 ; alleged relations with the Earl of Pembroke, 411-15 Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, 34i ' 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, 67, 68 and n Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 337, 338 Sidney, Sir Philip : on the absence of scenery in a theatre, 38 n 2 ; translation of verses from ' Diana,' 53; Shakespeare's indebtedness to, 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 ; circulation of manuscript copies of his 'Ar- cadia,' 88 n ; his addresses to Cupid in his 'Astrophel,' 97 n; warns the public against the in- sincerity of sonnetteers, 104; his allusion to the conceit of the im- mortalising power of verse, 114; his praise of 'blackness,' 119 and n 1 ; sonnet on ' Desire,' 153 ; use of the word ' will,' 417 ; 'Astrophel and Stella,' 428, 429; popularity of his works, 429 Sidney, Sir Robert, 382 Singer, Samuel Weller, 324 Sly, Christopher, 164-7, 221 n Smethwick, John, bookseller, 304 Smith, Richard, publisher, 431 Smith, Wentworth, 157 ?i ; plays pro- duced by, 180 n; the question of his initials on six plays attributed to Shakespeare, 180 n Smith, William, sonnets of, 138 n 2, 157 n, 390, 437 Smith, Mr. W. H., and the Baconian hypothesis, 372 SONNETS Smithson, Miss, actress, 351 Snitterfield : Richard Shakespeare rents land of Robert Arden there, 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 1, 186 Snodham, Thomas, printer, 180 Somers, Sir George, wrecked off the Bermudas, 252 Somerset House, Shakespeare and his company summoned to, 233 and ;/ 2 Sonnet in France (1550-1600), the bibliographical note on, 442-5 Sonnets, Shakespeare's : the poet's first attempts, 84 ; the majority probably composed in 1594, 85 ; a few written between 1594 and 1603 [e.g. cvii.) ; their literary value, 87, 88 ; circulation in manuscript, 88, 396; his ' sugred ' sonnets com- mended by Meres, 89; their piratical publication in 1609, 89- 94, 390; their form, 95, 96; want of continuity, 96, 100; usually divided into two 'groups,' 96, 97; main topics of the first ' group,' 98, 99; main topics of second 'group,' 99, 100 ; rearrangement in the edi- tion of 1640, 100 ; autobiographical only in a limited sense, 100, 109, 125, 152, 160; censure of them by Sir John Davies, 107; the bor- rowed conceits of, 109-24; in- debtedness to Drayton, Petrarch, Ronsard, De Baif, Desportes, and others, 1 10-12; the poet's claim of immortality for his sonnets, 1 13-16, cf. 114 n 1; the 'Will Sonnets,' 117, 420-4; praise of ' blackness,' 118 ; vituperation, 120-4 ; ' dedicatory ' sonnets, 125 seq. ; the ' rival poet ' of, 130-6 ; sonnets of friendship, 136, 138-47; the supposed story of intrigue in, 153-8 ; summary of conclusions respecting, 158-60; edition of 1640, 300 Sonnets quoted with explanatory comments: xx.,93«; xxvi., 128 n\ xxxii., 128, 129 n; xxxvii., 130; xxxviii., 129; xxxix., 130; xlvi.- INDEX 471 xlvii., 112, 113 n 1; lv., 115, 116; \ lxxiv., 130; lxxviii., 125; lxxx., 134; lxxxv., 133; lxxxvi., 132; lxxxviii., 133 ; lxxxix., 133 ; xciv. 1. 14, 72, 89; c, I26;cvii., 13 n, 87, 147, 149,380; cviii., 130; ex., 44, 130; cxi., 45 ; cxix., 152 and n ; exxiv., 425 ; exxvi., 97 and n ; exxvii., 118; exxix., 152, 153 and n 1; exxxii., 118; exxxv.-exxxvi., 420- 4; exxxviii., 89; cxliii., 93 71, 425, 426 and 71 ; cxliv., 89, 153, 301 ; cliii.-cliv., 113 and n 2 — the vogue of the Elizabethan : English sonnetteering inaugurated by Wyatt and Surrey, 83, 427, 428 ; followed by Thomas Wat- son, 83, 428 ; Sidney's ' Astrophel and Stella,' 83, 428, 429 and n ; poets celebrate patrons' virtues in sonnets, 84; conventional de- vice of sonnetteers of feigning old a S e > 8 5 ( an d examples in 86 n) ; lack of genuine sentiment, roo; French and Italian models, 101 and n 1, 102-5 ! translations from Du Bellay, Desportes, and Pe- trarch, 101 and n 4, 102, 103 ; admissions of insincerity, 105 ; censure of false sentiment in son- nets, 106; Shakespeare's scornful allusion to sonnets in his plays, 107, 108 ; vituperative sonnets, 120-4 ; 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 ; III. Sonnets on philosophy and religion, 440, 441 ; number of sonnets published be- tween 1591 and 1597, 439-41 ; poems in other stanzas belonging to the sonnet category, 438 n 2 Soothern, John, sonnets to the Earl of Oxford, 138 71 2 Sophocles, parallelisms with the works of Shakespeare, 13 ?^ Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of, 53; the dedications to him of ' Venus and Adonis ' and ' Lucrece,' 74, 77 ; his pat- ronage of Florio, 84 n ; his pat- ronage of Shakespeare, 126-50 ; his gift to the poet, 126, 200; his STAGE youthful appearance, 143 ; his identity with the youth of Shake- speare's sonnets of 'friendship' evidence of his portraits, 144 and n, 145, 146; imprisonment, 146, 147, 380; his long hair, 146 n 2; his beauty, 377 ; his youthful ca- reer, 374-81 ; as a literary patron, 382-9 Southwell, Robert, circulation of incorrect copies of ' Mary Mag- dalene's Tears ' by, 88 71 ; publi- cation of ' A Foure-fold Medita- tion ' by, 92, 397, 400 and 71, 401 n Southwell, Father Thomas, 371 Spanish, translation of Shakespeare's plays into, 354 Sfa7iish Tragedy, Kyd's popularity of, 65, 221 ; quoted in the Ta77iing of The Shrew, 221 71 Spedding, James, 263 Spelling of the poet's name, 284-6 Spenser : his description of Shake- speare in ' Colin Clouts come home againe,' 79 ; Shakespeare's reference to Spenser's work in Midsii77i77ier Night's Drea.771, 80 ; Spenser's allusion to ' our pleasant Willy ' not a reference to the poet, 80 (and quotatio7i n) ; his descrip- tion of the 'gentle spirit' not a de- scription of Shakespeare, 81 and 71 2 ; translation of sonnets from Du Bellay and Petrarch, 101 ; called by Gabriel Harvey ' an English Petrarch,' 101 and 71 4; on the immortalising power of verse, 115; his apostrophe to Admiral Lord Charles Howard, 140; his 'Amoretti,' 115, 435 and n 5, 436 ; dedication of his ' Faerie Queen,' 398 ' Spirituall Sonnettes to the honour of God and Hys Saynts ' by Con- stable, 440 Sport, Shakespeare's knowledge of, 26, 27 and 7i, 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 71 2; the performance of female parts 472 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE STANHOPE by men or boys, 38 and n 2 ; the curtain and balcony of the stage, 38 n 2 Stanhope of Harrington, Lord, 234 » ' Staple of News, The,' Jonson's quo- tation from "Julius Ccesar in, 220 n Staunton, Howard, 311 ; his edition of the poet, 323, 324 Steele, Richard, on Betterton's ren- dering of Othello, 334 Steevens, George: his edition of Shakespeare, 320; his revision of Johnson's edition, 320, 321 ; his criticisms, 320, 321 Stinchcombe Hill referred to as ' The Hill" in Henry IV, 168 Stopes, Mrs. C. C, 363 Strange, Lord. See Derby, Earl of 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; ques- tion of the poet's birthplace at, 8, 9 ; the Shakespeare Museum at, 8, 297 ; prevalence of the plague in 1564 at, 10 ; actors entertained for the first time at, 10; defacement of images, 10 n ; the Shoemaker's Company and its Master, 12 n 3 ; the grammar school, 13; Shake- speare's departure from, 27, 29, 31 ; allusions in the Taming of The Shrew to, 164 ; the poet's return in 1596 to, 187 ; appeals from townsmen to the poet for aid, 195, 196; the poet's purchase of land at, 203, 204-6 ; the poet's last years at, 264, 266; attempt to enclose common lands at, 269, 270; the poet's death and burial at, 272; Shakespeare memorial building at, 298; the 'Jubilee' and the ter- centenary, 334; topographical ac- counts of, 363 Suckling, Sir John, 328 'Sugred,' an epithet applied to the poet's work, 179 and n, 390 Sully, M. Mounet-, 351 and n 1 Sumarakow, translation into Russian b y. 352 ' Supposes,' the, of George Gascoigne, 164 TEMPEST Surrey, Earl of, sonnet of, 83, 95, 101 n 4, 427, 428 Sussex, Earl of, his company of actors, 35 ; Titus Andronicus per- formed by, 36, 66 Swedish, translations of Shakespeare in, 354 Swinburne, Mr. A. C., 63, 71, 72 n, 333. 36S Sylvester, Joshua, sonnets to patrons 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 ; identi- cal with Love's Labour's Won, 163 ; the sources, 163, 164 ; biographical bearing of the Induction, 164; quotation from the Spanish Trag- edy, 221 n. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 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 Fancie,' Watson's, 428, 433 ' Teares of the Isle of Wight,' volume of poems eulogising Southampton, 389 ' Teares of the Muses,' Spenser's, re- ferred to in Midsummer Night's Dream, 80 Tempest, The : traces of the influence of Ovid, 15; allusion to Prospero embarking on a ship at the gates of Milan, 43; the shipwreck akin to a similar scene in Pericles, 244 ; probably the latest drama com- pleted by the poet, 251 ; books of travel drawn upon, 253 ; the source for the complete plot not discov- ered, 253 ; suggestion of Tieck that it was written as a mask for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, 254; performed at the Princess's nuptial festivities, 254 ; the date of composition, 254 and n; its per- formance at Whitehall in 1611, INDEX 473 TEMPLE 254 n ; its lyrics, 255 and n 2 ; Ben Jonson's scornful allusion to, 256; reflects the poet's highest imagina- tive powers, 256 ; speculative theo- ries about, 256, 257. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Temple Grafton, 23, 24 and n ' Temple Shakespeare, The,' 325 Tercentenary festival, the Shake- speare, 334 ' Terrors ot the Night,' piracy of, 88 n ; nocturnal habits of ' famil- iars ' described in, 135 n Terry, Miss Ellen, 339 Theatre, The, in Shoreditch, one of the only two theatres existing in London at the period of Shake- speare's arrival, 32; owned by James Burbage, 33, 36; the scene of some of Shakespeare's per- formances between 1595 and 1599, 37; demolished by Richard Bur- bage and his brother Cuthbert, and the Globe Theatre built with the materials, 37 Theatres in London : Blackfriars {q.v.) ; Curtain {q.v.); Duke's, 295 ; Fortune, 212, 233 n 1 : Globe {q.v.) ; Newington Butts, 37 ; Red Bull, 31 n 2; Rose {q.v.) ; Swan, 38 n 2; The Theatre, in Shore- ditch {q.v.) Theobald, Lewis : his version of Ham- let in ' Shakespeare Restored,' 224 ; allusion to an unfinished draft of a play by Shakespeare, 259 ; his criticism of Pope in ' Shakespeare Restored,' 316; his edition of the poet's works, 316, 317 Thomas, Ambroise, opera of Hamlet by, 351 Thorns, W. J., 363 Thornbury, G. W., 363 Thorpe, Thomas, the piratical pub- lisher of Shakespeare's Sonnets, 89-95; Marlowe's translation of the ' First Book of Lucan ' his first piratical work, 90, 135 n ; adds ' A Lover's Complaint' to the collec- tion of Sonnets, 91 ; his bombastic dedication and his mention of ' Mr. W. H.,' 92-5 ; the true history of 'Mr. W. H,' and (Appendix v.), 390-405 I Three Ladies of London, The, some of the scenes in the Merchant of Ve7iice anticipated in, 67 Thyard, Ponthus de, a member of ' La Pleiade,' 443, 444 Tieck, Ludwig, theory respecting The Tempest of, 254, 333, 344 Tilney, Edmund, master of the revels, 233 ?i 2 'Timber,' Jonson's notice of Shake- speare in, 220 n Tlmon of Athens : date of composi- tion, 242; written in collaboration, 242; existence of a previous play on the subject, 242; its sources, 243 ; the poet's coadjutor possibly George Wilkins, 243. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 , Timon, Lucian's, 243 i Titus Andronicus : one of the only two plays of the poet's performed by a company other than his own, 36 ; doubts of its authenticity, 65 ; internal evidence of Kyd's author- ship, 65 : suggested by Titus and Vespasian, 65 ; played by various companies, 66 ; entered on the ' Stationers' Register ' in 1594, 66. For editions see Section xix. (Bib- liography), 301 25 Titus and Vespasian, Titus Andro?ii- cus suggested by, 65 : Tofte, Robert, sonnets by, 438 and n 2 Topics of the day, Shakespeare's treatment of, 51 n, 52 Tottel's poetical miscellany, Surrey's and Wyatt's sonnets in, 427, 428 ; Tours of English actors : in foreign countries between 1580 and 1630, 42, and see n 1 ; in provincial towns, 39, 40-42, 65, 214 ; itinerary from 1593 to 16 14, 40 n 1, 231 Translations of the poet's works, 342 seq. j Travel, foreign, Shakespeare's ridi- cule of, 42 and ;/. ' Troilus and Cresseid," 227 Troilus and Cressida : allusion to the strife between adult and boy actors, 217; date of production, 217, 225 ; probably suggested by a , previous play on the subject, 225 ; 474 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE TROY the quarto and folio editions, 226, 227; treatment of the theme, 227, 228 ; the endeavour to treat the play as the poet's contribution to controversy between Jonson and Marston and Dekker, 228 n ; plot drawn from Chaucer's ' Troilus and Cresseid,' and Lydgate's ' Trov Book,' 227. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 ' Troy Book,' Lydgate's, 227 True Tragedie of Richard III, The, an anonymous play, 63, 301 Trtie 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 Pem- broke his servants, The, 59 Turbervile, George, use of the word ' sonnet ' by, 427 n 2 Twelfth Night : description of a be- trothal, 2372; indebtedness to the story of ' Apollonius and Silla,' 53 ; date of production, 209; allusion to the ' new map,' 209, 210 n 1 ; produced at Middle Temple Hall, 210; Manningham's description of, 210; probable source of the story, 210; its romantic pathos, 210. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Twiss, F., 364 n Two Gentlemen of Verona: allusion to Valentine travelling from Verona to Milan by sea, 43 ; date of pro- duction, 52; probably an adapta- tion, 53 ; source of the story, 53; farcical drollery, 53; first publica- tion, 53; influence of Lyly, 62; satirical allusion to sonnetteering, 107, 108 ; resemblance of it to All's Well that Ends Well, 163. For editions see Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25 Two Noble Kinsmen, The : attributed to Fletcher and Shakespeare, 259 and n ; reasons for assigning part- authorship to Shakespeare, 260; Massinger reputed to have shared in its .production, 260: Shake- spearean passages, 260; plot drawn from Chaucer's ' Knight's Tale ' of Palamon and Arcite, 260 WALKER Twyne, Lawrence, the story of Peri- cles in the ■ Patterne of Painfull Adventures ' by, 244 Tyler, Mr. Thomas, on the sonnets, 129 n, 406 n, 415 n Ulrici, ' Shakespeare's Dramatic Art ' by, 345 Variorum editions of Shakespeare, 3 22 - 3 2 3. 3 62 Vautrollier, Thomas, the London printer, 32 Venesyon Comedy, The, produced by Henslowe at the Rose, 69 ' Venus and Adonis ' : published in 1593 by Richard Field, 74; dedi- cated to the Earl of Southampton, 74, 126; its imagery and general tone, 75 ; the influence of Ovid, 75 ; and of Lodge's ' Scillas Metamor- phosis,' 75 and n 2; the motto, 75 and 11 1 ; eulogies bestowed upon it. 78, 79; early editions, 79, 299, 300 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, the name 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 godson, 276 Walker, W. Sidney, his work on Shakespeare's versification, 49 n INDEX 475 Walley, Henry, printer, 226 Warburton, Bishop, revised version of Pope's edition of Shakespeare bv, 318, 319 Ward, Dr. A. W„ 365 Ward, Rev. John, on the poet's an- nual expenditure, 203 ; on the poet's entertainment of Drayton and Jonson at New Place, and on the poet's death, 271 ; his account of the poet, 361 Warner, Richard, 364 Warner, William, the probable trans- lator of the Mencechmi, 54 Warren, John, 300 Warwickshire : prevalence of the surname Shakespeare, 1, 2; posi- tion of the Arden family, 6 ; Queen Elizabeth's progress on the way to Kenilworth, 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, 103721,112; his 'Teares of Fancie,' 113 n 1, 398, 433 ' Weak endings ' in Shakespeare, 49 * Webbe, Alexander, makes John Shakespeare overseer of his will, 11 Webbe, Robert, buys the Snitter- field property from Shakespeare's mother, 12 and « 1 Webster, John, alludes in the White Divel to Shakespeare's industry, 278 n Weelkes, Thomas, 182 n Weever, application of the epithets ' sugred ' and ' sweet ' to the poet by, 179 11 ; 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 play of Promos and Cassandra taken from Cinthio's Epitia, 237 White, Mr. Richard Grant, 325 Whitehall, performances at, 81, 82, 234, 235 and n, 241, 254 n, 264 Wieland, Christopher Martin, begins a prose translation in German of Shakespeare, 343 Wilkins, George, his collaboration with Shakespeare in Timon of Athens and Pericles, 242, 243 ; his novel founded on the story of Pericles, 244 Wilks, Robert, actor, 335 Will, Shakespeare's, 203, 271, 273- 6 'Will' sonnets, the, 117; Eliza- bethan meanings of 'will,' 416; Shakespeare's uses of the word, 417 ; Roger Ascham's use of the word, 417, 418 ; the poet's puns on the word, 418 ; play upon ' wish ' and 'will,' 419; interpretation of the word in Sonnets cxxiv.-vi. and cxliii., 420-6 ' Willobie his Avisa,' the question of its relation to Shakespeare, 155- 8 Wilmcote, house of Shakespeare's mother, 6, 7 ; bequest to Mary Arden of the Asbies property at, 7 ; mortgage of the Asbies property at, 12, 26; alleged identity of this place with the ' 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, performance of Shakespeare and his company at, 231, 232, 411 and n ' Wilton, Life of Jack,' by Nash, dedicated to Southampton, 385 and n 1 Wincot (in The Taming of The Shrew), its identification with the Wincot near Stratford, and with Wilnecote near Tamworth, 165, 166 476- WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WINTERS Winter's Tale, A : seen by Dr. For- man at the Globe in 1611, 251 ; acted at Court, 251 and n; based on Greene's Pandosto, afterwards called Dorastus and Favonia, 251 ; a few lines taken from the ' De- cameron,' 251 and n ; originality of the characters of Paulina and Autolycus, 251; pathos of the story, 251 ; 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 2 Wise, J. R., 363 Wither, George, 388, 399 n 2 ' Witte's Pilgrimage,' Davies's, 441 « 2 Women, excluded from Elizabethan stage, 38 and n 2.; on French and Italian stages, 38 n 2 ; in masks 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, his description of 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 ZEPHERIA Wordsworth, Bishop Charles, on Shakespeare and the Bible, 17 n 1 Wordsworth, William, the poet, on German and French aesthetic criticism, 344, 349 Wotton, Sir Henry, on the burning of the Globe Theatre, 261 and n Wright, Dr. Aldis, 314 n, 325 Wright, John, one of the booksellers who distributed the pirated Son- nets, 90 Wriothesley, Lord, 381 Wroxhall, the Shakespeares of, 3 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, sonnetteering of, 83,95, 101 n 4, 427; his trans- lations of two of Petrarch's son- nets, 104 n 4 Wyman, W. H., 372 Wyndham, Mr. George, on the sonnets, no ;/. ; on Aniony and Cleopatra, 245 n ; on Jacobean typography, 419 n 1 Yonge, Bartholomew, translation of 'Diana' by, 53 Yorkshire Tragedy, The, 180, 243, 313 Zepheria, a collection of sonnets called, 435; legal terminology in, 32 n 2, 435; lips compared with coral in, 118 n 2; the praise of Daniel's ' Delia' in, 431, 435, 436 A NEW AND COMPLETE CONCORDANCE OR Verbal Index to Words, Phrases, and Passages in the Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, with a Supplementary Concordance to the Poems BY JOHN BARTLETT, A.n. Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Author of '■'Familiar Quotations" etc. i volume. Medium Quarto. 1900 pp. $7,50 net. " This monumental concordance of Shakespeare's plays and poems has not far from two thousand pages in the clearest of typography. . . . No words of praise are too high for the zeal and discrimination which have produced this superb book of reference." — The Literary World. " A work without which no lover of Shakespeare can be content." — The New York Times. " Mr. Bartlett, whose ' Familiar Quotations ' is by so much the best compila- tion of its kind ever made that it is not likely to be superseded, except by future expansion on its own lines, has here completed another monumental work, which is done once and for all. There have been concordances of Shakespeare before; there will never be any need for another." — The Philadelphia Times. " Like the other works which Professor Bartlett has produced, the new con- cordance is the best of its kind, the compiler having adopted a plan which makes it more comprehensive than any other similar treatment of Shakespeare." — The Cleve- land Leader. " Mr. Bartlett's great volume supplies absolute completeness and furnishes a Concordance to Shakespeare's Works that is invaluable, and that may perhaps never be improved upon. ... Its accuracy is indisputable. . . . The finish of such a stupendous work as this is an event in the world of literature. That it should be so well done is a tribute to the painstaking patience and the skill and knowledge of Mr. Bartlett, to whom all literature is known, and to whom the world is indebted for its best indexes. . . . The Concordance from a mechanical standpoint is perfect. The publishers have produced a really great piece of book-making. The Concor- dance should find room on the shelves of every private library in the country, and no student or reader of Shakespeare, casual or constant, will fail to flank his vol- umes of the master's work with this concordance." — The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. "The work merits large praise. Although the type is fine it is clear. . . . The simplicity of its arrangement greatly facilitates the use of the work, and it certainly meets every need of which a reasonable student of Shakespeare can be conscious, and it must practically monopolize the ground. No less complete concordance of course can compete with it; and, as it covers the whole ground satisfactorily, and as no additions or alterations are likely to be made in Shakespeare's text, it is one of the few works which seem likely to remain unrivalled in the very nature of the case. It is something for which to be grateful that it is the work of a competent scholar like Mr. Bartlett."— The Congregationalist. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK * *v v ^ v e*. O.V - LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ,118 Hi