LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 Of the Original Edition 
 this is No.
 
 THE 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE
 
 THE 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 A FRAGMENT 
 
 " the touch of a vanished hand, 
 
 the sound of a "Poice that is still" 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 LOUIS C. ! ALEXANDER 
 
 ORIGINAL EDITION 
 Limited to One Thousand Numbered Copies 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HEADLEY BROTHERS, BISHOPSGATE 
 SIMPK.IN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & Co., LTD.
 
 NOTE. 
 
 All the footnotes are by the Editor.
 
 *' we hope, to your divers capacities, you 
 
 will find enough both to draw, and hold you : for 
 his wit could no more lie hid, than it could be 
 lost. Read him, therefore ; arid again, and again : 
 and then if you do not like him, surely you are in 
 some manifest danger, not to understand him. And 
 so we leave you to other of his friends whom, if 
 you need, can be your guides : if you need them 
 not, you can lead yourselves, and others. And 
 such readers we wish him." 
 
 From the Addreu, by John Heminge And Henrie Condell, 
 prefixed to the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare's 
 Works, 1623.
 
 ... Look how the father's .face 
 
 Lives 'in his. issue, even so, the race 
 
 Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines " 
 
 Ben Jonson, 1623.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 FIVE years ago I laid these following papers 
 aside. I was then much broken in health 
 and spirit. And I was overwhelmed by 
 the solemn importance of the work, and bewildered 
 and almost discouraged by the many inconsis- 
 tencies with known or, rather, assumed facts or 
 beliefs, and even, very often, with itself. 
 
 Furthermore, doubts of various kinds perhaps 
 I should rather say subtle cross-questionings 
 and wonderings at times assailed me : but I 
 had only to read some pages, almost at random, 
 when doubt would vanish like mist before the sun. 
 
 About six months ago I was strongly impelled 
 to complete my obvious duty. At my age of 
 seventy-two I cannot afford further delays or 
 daring triflings with time. 
 
 Yet I would fain have waited for further 
 corroborations personal, literary, topographical. 
 I earnestly beg all who can help particularly as 
 regards the sermons, plays and books which
 
 io AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Shakespeare brought to London to communi- 
 cate with me. 
 
 I have for some months past occupied myself 
 very perseveringly to verify and confirm, so far 
 as possible, the statements of this momentous 
 though broken and unrevised autobiography. 
 
 I have been ably assisted, and I have had a 
 certain success not very much, but strangely 
 remarkable. 
 
 Not a word, however, have I added to my 
 texts of 1905. 
 
 In the course of those readings, searches, 
 correspondence, etc., I, some months ago, for the 
 first time encountered a legend or speculation that 
 in the year 1910 some greater light would be 
 thrown on this deathless subject. In so far as I 
 am consciously concerned it is a simple coincidence 
 or accident, as it is termed quaintly interesting, 
 but, in my view, not otherwise noteworthy. 
 
 I now give this work to the world integrally, 
 without a word of my own. 
 
 Here and there, I had to supply an obviously 
 dropped letter. I have omitted some draft play- 
 bills, and I have dealt discreetly with some words, 
 and with some lines of confused repetition without
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE, n 
 
 any importance, and which would have necessi- 
 tated inordinate notes to make clear. 
 
 I have also fitted in, so to speak, two detached 
 portions at what I thought was a suitable place, 
 relating to the arrival and earlier life in London. 
 
 Beyond these trifling and merely clerical points, 
 and some punctuation, I have not altered, nor 
 shaped, nor endeavoured to harmonise or reconcile 
 with accepted versions, or to attenuate patent 
 variances. Indeed, so anxious am I to be an 
 impartial and faithful editor that I will here set 
 out briefly some of the more striking personal 
 matters which are generally received thus em- 
 phasising the differences. 
 
 For the sake of clearness I will, for the moment, 
 designate the poet as Shakespeare, and another 
 William Shakespeare whom I have to mention as . 
 simply William using the modern spelling. 
 
 All acknowledged biographers and writers 
 assume that Shakespeare was the son of John of 
 Stratford-on-Avon, who was " probably a son of 
 Richard of Snettisfield." 
 
 There is a baptismal registration of William, the 
 son of John, and there is the record of the adminis- 
 tration of the affairs of Richard by John.
 
 12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Here the cleavage begins. 
 
 The son of John was not William Shakespeare 
 the Poet, but William who became the wastrel 
 and poacher and stroller and soldier. 
 
 He it was who was the " oft whipt and some- 
 times imprisoned " as Archdeacon Davies wrote, 
 late in the seventeenth century, and who " was 
 given to much unluckiness in stealing venison 
 and rabbits." 
 
 He did worse. 
 
 For he was the reckless or besotted youth who, 
 in his cups, or for money, or vanity, or desperation, 
 or because he intended to go and fight in the Low 
 Countries, was enticed into the matrimonial 
 contract with Anne or Agnes Hathaway. 
 
 It was desirable to save appearances and to 
 avert further scandalous disclosure : and so the 
 young scape-grace was made to serve the purpose. 
 
 Consider this episode for an instant. 
 
 The matrimonial contract was entered into in 
 November, 1582 a few months after her father's 
 death ; her child was baptised in April, 1583, 
 between four and five months later. 
 
 At the date of that contract she, being then 
 about twenty-five, was some four or five months
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 13 
 
 advanced in pregnancy : and he, even then, was 
 only about seventeen-and-a-half years old. She 
 had two more children, twins, in 1585. 
 
 Moreover, there has not been found any proof, 
 or even assertion, that the contemplated marriage 
 of William and Anne was ever solemnised. 
 
 But this complaisant, or else most precocious 
 profligate, this " oft whipt and sometimes im- 
 prisoned," was not the Poet, but his cousin. 
 
 4 The suggestion that he joined, at the end of 
 1585, a band of youths of the district for serving 
 in the Low Countries under the Earl of Leicester, 
 whose Castle of Kenilworth was within easy reach 
 of Stratford-on-Avon, was based on the obvious 
 confusion between him and others of his name."* 
 
 I agree. 
 
 It was not Shakespeare, but William the son of 
 John, his cousin, who became the soldier. 
 
 The poet was the son of Richard of Warwick, 
 who was the son of Thomas of that town. This 
 Thomas Little, or Thomas the Little, who later 
 took the name of Shakespeare, was the son-in-law 
 of John of Warwick, and the brother-in-law of 
 Richard of Snettisfield. 
 
 * Sidney Lee.
 
 14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 There were then not a few other Richards 
 Shakespeare. In Rowington alone, twelve miles 
 north of Stratford, in the same Hundred, there 
 were three, each having a son named William ; 
 and another at Wroxhall. 
 
 There was a William who was drowned in the 
 Avon in 1579. 
 
 On the day preceding the registration of the 
 matrimonial contract of William and Anne viz., 
 on the 27th of November, 1582, there is recorded 
 in the registry of the Bishop of Worcester the 
 matrimonial contract of a William Shakespeare 
 and Anne Whatley : two Williams on two 
 successive days. 
 
 William, the son of John, is said to have died 
 of a fever about 1589 being then a soldier. 
 
 Shakespeare, who is stated by biographers to 
 have probably been a "schoolmaster in his early 
 years " became an under-usher in a country 
 school ; and, some four years later, he went to an 
 uncle in London, who died soon after. It was 
 some years further that he married his "pretty 
 cousine Anne Hathaway," who was evidently a very 
 winsome woman though, it must be regretfully 
 confessed, frail and false as fair, not the wife he
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 15 
 
 ought to have married or that she ought to have 
 been. She was then contractually free; actually, 
 that is ecclesiastically, married she had not been. 
 
 He dealt liberally with her surviving children, 
 the daughters, in his Will his own child having 
 presumably died although he had, too late, 
 discovered much regarding his wife, to whom he 
 bequeathed in an interlined and, maybe, ironic 
 afterthought his " second-best bedstead," and 
 its belongings. 
 
 It is certainjthat he intended to revise, but it 
 never came to this. That intention may, perhaps, 
 account for the apparent carelessness with which 
 names were set down, as it were, provisionally 
 especially those of leading actors and theatrical 
 proprietors ; and probably also as to dates, 
 places and other things. 
 
 It is most strange that he should veil the names 
 of those .distinguished actors the Burbages, 
 Heminge, Condell, and employ such as Sholton, 
 Prentiss, Sellieres, (a name^given in his list of 
 books) Albertus* and others; whilst the names of 
 
 * There was the Oxford Regius Professor of Civil Law, the friend of Sir 
 Philip Sydney, Albericus Gentilis, who published that great and ponder- 
 ous work De Jure Belli (1588-1598). Whether the name Albericus sug- 
 gested Albertus, I do not know. The satire is as blunt as the playfulness 
 now . Albertus Magnus and Albertinus Rubeus were of 100 years earlier .
 
 16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 some minor actors particularly of some who 
 impersonated female parts, as he himself did 
 until he became an author are correctly given, 
 as I have been able to verify. 
 
 Somewhat perhaps, much may be fairly 
 attributed to transcribers, officious prompters, 
 interrupters ; and errors are very apt to arise 
 from haste, confusion, misunderstanding, moods, 
 mockings, imperfections of memory, sly humours 
 and the like. 
 
 I ask myself Was this so the outcome of a 
 wit or of a whimsicality now painfully flat, an 
 allusiveness to which I have no sure key, the 
 careless rough-hewing in view of later shaping ? 
 Or is the awful overhanging thought correct 
 that there was some partial unbalancing of his 
 majestic mind by his poignant domestic griefs 
 and dishonours working on such a nature as 
 his? 
 
 I can only surmise I cannot explain ; more 
 light may come. My business here simply is to 
 edit, and not to speculate or discuss. 
 
 That revision, had it been made, would have 
 done so much. for it would doubtless also have 
 carried the work further.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Readers may see some facts and dates which 
 conflict with those which are, or which are con- 
 sidered to be, established ; and they may even 
 prove the correctness of the latter over against 
 the former. 
 
 They are, however, requested to remember that 
 they have here presented to them only unrevised 
 drafts ; also that I am quite aware, by my recent 
 readings and searchings, of what has been other- 
 wise said and believed. It had been very easy to 
 avoid or avert comparisons, or to propitiate criti- 
 cism of a certain kind, if mere harmony or 
 symmetry were desired at the price of truth. 
 Nor do I ignore what, at times, seems so like 
 eccentricity or heedlessness. 
 
 Readers may be incredulous at first that is but 
 natural ; but let them not be impatient or scorn- 
 ful or hasty, or flippant that most vulgar form 
 of affected smartness ; the cheap mark of ignor- 
 ance, indolence and impertinence. 
 
 Let them the rather read the rest even apart 
 from the historical framework, so to speak if 
 only as literature, pure and simple ; for this is no 
 ordinary book. And to those who may write 
 thereon I would say If you respect truth and
 
 i8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 your vocation, and yourself read it through 
 first, slowly and conscientiously. 
 
 Can anyone mistake the inimitable voice of 
 Shakespeare ? 
 
 I intend to prepare a small book bearing upon 
 this, in which I may also give some pages of 
 extraordinary related interest : and I cherish the 
 hope that I may be permitted to have the entire 
 vouchsafed fragment for so I must call it, con- 
 siderable though it be reproduced in facsimile, 
 as well as the other pieces which I indicate. 
 
 I trust, by the co-operation of readers, to secure 
 yet further verifications not for my own satis- 
 faction, of course, but for that of others and 
 to work out some clues of a somewhat mixed but 
 very significant nature. 
 
 But, whilst much in the matter of names, 
 dates and circumstances remains to be dis- 
 entangled and cleared up, so far as may now be 
 possible the glorious text speaks for itself. 
 
 L. C. ALEXANDER. 
 
 Holly Lodge, 
 
 Putney, S.W. 
 12th December, 1910.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 I WAS born in the City of Warwicke, and my 
 father's name was Richard. His father's 
 name was Thomas Little, and he changed 
 the name of Little to Shakspere on the entreaty 
 of my grandmother's father, John Shakspere of 
 Warwicke. 
 
 He was a Hollander, born at Utrecht, and was 
 a small man of many parts a ripe scholar, and 
 philosopher, and lover of books. 
 
 I remember my father, Richard Shakspere of 
 Warwicke. He was a small dark man, and had a 
 large head and very little hands and feet, being 
 as to that like my grandfather, Thomas of 
 Utrecht, as I was often told.
 
 20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 He was a very indolent man not learned, nor 
 given to books, but, at the same time, not liking 
 any business or work or cares of any kind, but the 
 rather being disposed and given to argument and 
 laughter and novelties and curiosities of all kinds. 
 Had it not been for my Uncle John, of Stratford- 
 on-Avon, my father's business had long since gone 
 to waste and ruin ; and even as it was he did 
 mightily neglect it, and made light of losses, and 
 was fooled and chicaned and deceived on every 
 side the which he took, as he said, like a philo- 
 sopher, and as every one else said like a ninny. 
 
 My mother had a sharp tongue, but she could 
 never mend him. 
 
 He loved us my younger brother John and 
 me but he often seemed as if we were not living, 
 or loving him ; though at times he would' play 
 with us, and tell us stories, and sing to us, and buy 
 us sweetmeats and toyes. 
 
 I was but a very little boy but I mind me well 
 of him, and of his fantastic way of curling his 
 moustachios and beard which were dark and 
 shining, as were his fine large eyes very unlike the 
 hue and complexion of the Shaksperes of War- 
 wicke and Stratford-on-Avon and of other parts
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 21 
 
 whom I did in after years meet, which were light 
 and somewhat inclined to auburn or red. 
 
 My father had a very fine voice and could sing 
 most ravishingly, and often his neighbours would 
 come in and press him to sing, and faith ! not much 
 pressing did he need, for he greatly delighted 
 therein and was very proud thereof. Also, he 
 accompanied himself, when he listed, on the 
 harpsichord, of which he had bought not less than 
 two, though they cost him a matter of over 
 fifteen pounds each, at the which extravagance 
 all the town did laugh, and my mother was 
 distraught with fury ; but not a damn cared he. 
 
 I remember some songs he was wont to sing : 
 
 The love of Sir Lewis Landes 
 The Cross of St. Salvador. 
 The Knight of Ayre. 
 My love she went a-maying. 
 I will not brook a knave. 
 Here's to the Lady of my Heart. 
 When I was young and gay. 
 Madame, I am Sir Lollilop. 
 The Stolen Kisses of Sir Bernard. 
 The ... 
 
 and others that I do now forget. 
 
 He also did make some ballades and set the tunes
 
 22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 to some of them, and he was often bidden to 
 feastes and weddings and other joyous gather- 
 ings ; and he was, altogether, a bright and shift- 
 less soul, always ready to neglect his own affaires 
 and to help anybody else's, in the which he took 
 more concernes and pains than ever he did show 
 in his own. 
 
 My mother was not of a happy disposition, and 
 never was she pleased with my father whom she 
 for ever rated and called him English names by 
 the which limean to say such words as Lazybones, 
 and Wastrel, and Vagabond, and Ballademonger, 
 and the like which made him laugh at times, 
 andlvery furious"and bad-tempered at other times ; 
 and then I would weep or creep away, and think 
 that I would like to die and be out of this terrible 
 hurly-burly and sore, troublous, and perplexed 
 home. 
 
 When my father died of a pleurisy my Uncle 
 John of Stratford-on-Avon he did take our affaires 
 in hand, and took me and my brother John to 
 live with him for that my mother could not keep 
 us by reason of her being soon to be married to 
 one Master Stockley, a brutal man and a butcher 
 of Warwicke the which haste and marriage was
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 23 
 
 monstrously displeasing to my Uncle, and, as I 
 learned after, to all other of my relations. My 
 Uncle carried on the business for a time, and I 
 know not to a certainty what did happen, for there 
 were many quarrels and disputes with my mother 
 over the said Stockley even before their hated 
 marriage, and I know not what other clamours 
 and differences. 
 
 We never did see our mother after Uncle John 
 did take us with him to his home until she died, 
 when the man Stockley did relent and allow my 
 mother for to see us as she was a-dying. But he 
 got drunk, and did insult my Uncle John, and they 
 fought together, and my Uncle John did bestow 
 upon him a mighty and most God-blessed beat- 
 inge for the which he was like to die also but he 
 recovered in about two or three weekes' time, 
 and his wife, my mother, was buried and the man 
 Stockley could not by reason of his hurts follow 
 the coffin to the grave, nor appear to any of the 
 company ; and not a man nor a woman in War- 
 wicke was there who did not rejoice in his drubbing. 
 
 I mind me with most fervent remembrance and 
 unfeigned joy of a great old chest, which three 
 men could not but with great labour lift into a cart,
 
 24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 which my Uncle John took from my father's 
 house when he did remove my brother and me 
 thereto. That chest ah, how often did I in after 
 time revere and bless and love it ! for it held a lot 
 of bookes that had been my grandfather's, and 
 sheaves and stacks, so to speak, of papers written 
 by him and which, later, I did most eagerly 
 devour, and bask in, and glory in, and bathe in, 
 and swim, and fly as it were on angels' wings to 
 lands and realms of peace and philosophy and 
 faerie and romance. 
 
 Beloved Ancestor Great though Little Thomas ! 
 Who didst fly on pinions of the mind to lands 
 ! Unknown to men of baser mode and lower nature ; 
 And didst perceive, as with a wizard's eye, the 
 Beauty and the strength that lay beyond 
 All human thought and reason ; and the 
 Wisdom and mysterious design that undershot 
 All the Creator's animate and inanimate Ellipse 
 While that thy great heart did all embrace in love, 
 And thy lofty soul in lowly worship bent 
 I cannot think thee gone far from me e'en now, 
 For I feel as if my weak hand lay still in thine, 
 Which in this mortal life it never touched, 
 And that thine eyes looke into my heart 
 And teach it more, much more, than there it learns. 
 Until, informed by thee, the blood thus sanctified
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 25 
 
 Mounts to my brain, and there enthrones thee 
 Inspirer, teacher, immortal Ancestor, 
 Whom, by God's Grace, I may some bright day see, 
 And so crown all my divine felicity. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 My father died in 1576, and I went to live with 
 my Uncle John Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon 
 I and my younger brother John, who died while 
 I was in London. 
 
 In 1576 or 1578 I forget what I did in the time 
 
 between my going to my Uncle and my going to 
 
 the school I was by him entered as a scholar at 
 
 St. Saviour's, Burslem,* where I remained about 
 
 four years. 
 
 I studied the humanities, and history, and I 
 read greedily, at all times of the day and night, 
 some of the books on all kinds of subjects that had 
 belonged to my grandfather Thomas, and had 
 been preserved by my father Richard. Those 
 books were in French and English, which I could 
 read easily, and some in Dutch and German 
 which I could not read at all, and some in Latin 
 which I could read only with some difficulty. 
 There were also many writings in his hand of 
 
 * I shall, at another time, discuss the point whether Birmingham 
 is here intended, or Alleyn's School at Stone.
 
 26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 comments and arguments, and some poetic 
 pieces of not much worth, and many unfinished 
 pieces of writing begun at odd times and in divers 
 places, and put aside and not further proceeded 
 with. 
 
 My grandfather was evidently a man of a fine 
 fancy and much learning, and with a great love 
 of solitude, and of nature, and of riddles about 
 the world to come, and the like. 
 
 When I left St. Saviour's school I went to be an 
 Under-Usher at Sittingbourne School, Hodding- 
 don*, orHoddingley Hoddingleigh,in the County 
 of Warwicke. 
 
 I must set down that while I was an Under- 
 Usher at Sittingbourne, Hoddinley, my Uncle 
 John of Stratford-on-Avon did, when opportunity 
 served by carrier or by any friend or neighbour 
 going that way, send me for my use and cheer 
 sundry matters such as a fat duck, or a capon, or 
 some clothing, and at times some money two 
 shillings belike or a holy letter to my master for 
 to ask his leave for me to come to him. 
 
 [A holy letter is a letter sent by a parent or guardian to a master 
 or a teacher wherein is expressed the desire to have the pupil, or pren- 
 tice, or whatever he might be, let out for a space on a holiday or a visit 
 or the like.] 
 
 * This, likewise, I hope to identity later.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 27 
 
 My wages as Under-Usher was twenty shillings 
 by the quarter in addition to my keep, but my 
 clothing and shoeing and mendings were at my 
 own charges. I did also earn me some small 
 sums by teaching private persons, and by trans- 
 lating from the French and Latin for divers people 
 who might at times require the same, but these 
 earnings were small as they were fitful. 
 
 I spent nearly every shilling I got in buying of 
 bookes of which, with what my Uncle saved that 
 were my father's come to him from my grand- 
 father Thomas, I gathered a fair number of an 
 infinite diversity and discursive variety, and all 
 the which I did most ravenously devour whether 
 classical, or modern, or mythical, or poetical, or 
 historical, or scientific, or travelling, or philoso- 
 phical, or disputatious. In short, I spared none 
 and browsed on all the pastures, high and low, 
 rich and poor, dry or wet, till there was scarcely 
 any subject but I knew some smattering thereof 
 and could bravely talk thereon, and yet scarcely 
 a one that I was in any way profound or well- 
 grounded in. My mind was like to a Venetian 
 mosaic, and none of any consequence by itself or 
 for its own worth, but yet the whole forming a
 
 28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 smooth and shapely entirety, giving all beholders 
 the spectacle of a pleasant and clever picture. 
 
 My life at Hoddingley was serene and studious. 
 I was a singer in the Church Choir, and often 
 I did sit with the Vicar, Sir John Stephen 
 Thompson, M.A., and we would spend long evenings 
 together at his house and discuss all sorts of authors 
 and books, and controversies, and speculations. 
 He read a many of my little poems and tales and 
 essays, and did give me many hints and corrections. 
 He kept many of my little writings for his pleasure 
 and for keepsakes, at the which I was the proudest 
 and most elated youth in the County. 
 
 I was a good fencer and loved that pastime most 
 inordinately : also, I used to go a-fishing, and 
 often forgot my rod and line and fish and all when 
 the thought did take me, and I sat me down to 
 write upon it, and would as like as not ramble 
 away and perhaps I would not perceive my loss 
 until I was four or five miles away. 
 
 I became a very passable tailor in the mending 
 of my clothes, and I did often patch my shoon, 
 and I bought me an awl and bristles and lapstone 
 and bar the cutting out I think I could become 
 a very commendable cobbler.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 29 
 
 I had other distractions, such as Cudgel-playing 
 and Wrestling, for although I was small I was very 
 strong and active ; and also Archery, and Bowls, 
 and Chess and Chequers ; and I danced with the 
 maids, and had my sweethearts by the score, and 
 kissed a-many, and I thank my God I deluded not 
 one to her downfall or ruin. 
 
 My dear Uncle John Heaven rest his honest 
 
 loving soul! was ever very fond of me; I 
 
 sometimes thought more even than any of his 
 own children. He would often take me aside and 
 then, when we two were alone together, would he 
 ask me to read him my stories and translations and 
 poems the which I most willingly and proudly 
 did. He would sit and listen with moving face 
 and eye and lip like a child, and for the most time 
 with his great arm around my shoulders. 
 
 Dear Uncle John ! Perchance, I did bring him 
 the comfort and satisfaction which counter- 
 availed the pains and shames which my Cousin 
 William, his own Son, did cause him ; or maybe, 
 it was that there were within his bosom and his 
 mind wells and springs of thoughts and feelings 
 unknown to all else except "^his Maker, and only 
 dimly perceived of by even himself.
 
 30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Wheresoever thou art, Uncle John, thy fond 
 and unforgetful nephew hopes that thy true and 
 strong and tender soul will expand and grow to 
 its perfect beauty, and rise to higher spheres of 
 life, and knowledge, and happiness. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 I was there until 1582 or thereabouts, when I 
 went to London, being thereunto invited by my 
 Uncle John Shakspere of Lincoln's Inn, a learned 
 man of the Law, but not a member of the Inn ; 
 and I lived with him in his chambers at No. 16, 
 St. George's Street, in the Borough of South- 
 wark. He was a bachelor, and very poor, but he 
 worked hard and earned enough to keep us living ; 
 but he died shortly after, and I was left in London 
 almost destitute. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I brought with me to London when I came up 
 from Hoddingley about thirty or more of my 
 books, the which I prized above all else in the 
 world. They were as I remember full well : 
 
 Plutarch's Lives of Eminent men. 
 Virgil's Enead and His Eclogues. 
 Stoneman's Episodes and Scenes of Italian Life in 
 1400 to 1500.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 31 
 
 Bellaires, His Travels in Italy. 
 
 Thomas Stephenson, his Sonnets. 
 
 Thomas Stephenson, his Sonnets. No. 2. 
 
 Ellis Paine, his Showman's Guide. 
 
 John Elias Ellis, his Romance of the Seven Kings. 
 
 The History of Greece by Simeon Levi of Paris in 
 French. 
 
 The History of Rome by the Brothers Silver (The 
 Goldsmiths of Cornhill). 
 
 The Poems of Anthony Stone of Sevenoaks in Kent. 
 
 The Life and Times of Alexander the Great. 
 
 The Mirror of Beauty and Fame, by several Authors 
 in a sort of Miscellany. 
 
 The History of Greece by Stephenson and abridged 
 by him for Scholars. 
 
 The Epics of Hypocrites, and Ovid's Odes, in one 
 binding. 
 
 The Tragedies of Euripedes and Sophocles in French 
 Translations by Monsieur Antoine Genelon (or Fenelon). 
 
 The Plays of The Good Woman, The Long Lane 
 that Hath no Turning, The Bridge of Sighs, The 
 Serpent on the Hearth, The Stony Heart, The Stone- 
 mason's Daughter, The Bluebell of Scotland, The Merry 
 Tale of Antony and the Pig, The Ghost, The Shadow 
 on the Wall, The Slain Boar of Arden, The Stain on 
 the Stair, The Thorn in the Heel, The Thorn in the 
 Flesh, The Jew of York, The Stone in the Sling, The 
 Lazy Man of Aldeborough, The Lost Pearl, The Lost 
 Will, The Lost Link, The Silent Sleepers of Ceylon,
 
 32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The Wreck of the St. George, The Stupid Boy, The 
 Sailor's Wife, The Sailor's Home on the Seas, The 
 Smuggler's Cave, The Smugglers of Colvey, The 
 Brothers, The Moor, The Welcome Guest, The Great 
 Lot of Gold, The Yelling of a Fool, The Poor Girl of 
 London Town, The Elixir of Life, The Miser of Maidstone 
 
 Town, The Collection of Simeon Levy's French , 
 
 The Lawand the Lady, The Lawyer's Fee, The Lawyer's 
 Soul, The Steel Sword of Achilles, The Way of the 
 World, The last of the Show, The Silver Bowl, The 
 Whore, The Fairy Dance, The Lovers of Aries, The 
 Standard, Bearer's Brand, The Bold Outlaw, The Slow 
 and Sure, The Longest Day, The Death of a Slowbody, 
 The Robbers of the Hills, The Seven Sleepers, The 
 Lady of Llewelyn's Tower, The Shrew of Shrewsbury, 
 The Shrew's Husband, The Terrace of Flowers, The 
 Tragedy of the Sea, The Marriage of a Beggar, The Rider 
 of Winchester, The Theatre of Shows and Comedies, 
 
 and a number of minor things of that sort the 
 whole made up and bound in six fair volumes in 
 stout calf ; the which had cost me many a loss of 
 supper, and work o' nights, and scraping and par- 
 ing, for to get the wherewithal to buy from one 
 Master John Wilkes of Hoddingley, who solde them 
 to me, after great bargaininges, for the sum of 
 Forty shillings, the which I did pay him piecemeal 
 as I was able.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 33 
 
 Seutonius. 
 
 The History of England, in Two Volumes, by Robert 
 A-Thomas, the Doctor of Hereford and Canon of St. 
 Paul's. 
 
 The Letters of a Son to his Father, by Stephen 
 Browne. 
 
 The Victories of the Soul, by Thomas Severn. 
 
 The Eel Fishers, by Master Elias Severn. 
 
 The Stories of the Ladies of Paris, by Monsieur A. 
 Sellieres, in French. 
 
 The Emperor of Germany, His History, by 
 Alexander* Goldinge. 
 
 The Emperor of Germany, His Wars and Con- 
 quests, by Alexander Goldinge. 
 
 The Sultan of Turkey, His Life and Wives and 
 Slaves, by Antoine Genelon (or Fenelon) in French. 
 
 The Marquis of Bath, a Poem by Samuel Robins. 
 
 The Elements of Latin and Greek, by Stephen 
 Browne. 
 
 The Book of Proverbs and the Holy Gospels and 
 my Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 The Old Testament in a black leather bindinge. 
 
 The Old Last Words of a Christian, by Alexander 
 Goldinge. 
 
 The Songs and Ballads of old England, by Master 
 Alfred Selby of Selby, Yorks. 
 
 The Glossary of Greek and Latin Phrases, by Stephen 
 Browne. 
 
 * This name should be " Arthur." The initial only was most 
 frequently used.
 
 34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The Silver Thread to Learning, by Samuel Robins. 
 
 Poems of Hesiod and Aristophanes, translated by 
 Stephen Browne. 
 
 (I call them Poems* rather than Dramatists because 
 I think that there is no real portraiture of human life 
 and action, as we do perceive and conceive of it, but 
 rather parable, and symbol, and presentations suited 
 to their times. What may fitly have been deemed 
 dramatic then is now more fitly denominated poetical 
 only.) 
 
 The Lessons in Latin and English, and Greek and 
 English, by Stephen Browne. 
 
 The Lights and Shades of a Woman's Life, by 
 Alexander Goldinge. 
 
 The Sorrows of a Man of Mark, by the same. 
 
 The Way of Sin and Sinners, by Master John Hope.f 
 
 The Thorney Path of Youth, by the same. 
 
 The Solitary, by the same. 
 
 The Selfish Man, by the same. 
 
 The Stolen Belt, by the same. 
 
 The Churchgoer's Aid to Devotion, by Master J. 
 Hope. 
 
 The Saintly Life of St. Francis, by the same. 
 
 The Soul and the Body, by the same. 
 
 The Soul's delight in God, by the same. 
 
 * " Poems rather than Dramatists " (sic) an obvious grammatical 
 slip. 
 
 f This, and the twelve succeeding sermons were probably in one or 
 two volumes. The author, John Hope, was most likely Bishop John 
 Hooper, whose name was also printed, at times, as John Hoper.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 35 
 
 The Wicked and his Fate, by the same. 
 The Old, Old, Story, by the same. 
 The Still, Still Voice, by the same. 
 The Sweet Lot, by the same. 
 
 The Elves of English Dales, by Master George 
 Hutchinges. 
 
 The Fairy Tales of England, by the same. 
 The Songs of England, by the same. 
 
 There were some more the names of which 
 abide no longer in my memory ; but there was 
 not one that was not a friend, and that had not 
 cost me much in thought, and in sacrifice in meals, 
 and better clothes, and games, and labour ; and 
 when I did survey my so great treasures I did 
 afterwards marvel that I could have gotten them 
 all by honest means with my so slender ones. 
 
 These brought I to London with me, and I took 
 up my abode, on my Uncle's commendation, in a 
 lodging at Mistress Hennessey or Hersey, a widow 
 woman, N? in Grays Inn Lane, hard by to 
 where stood an Inn called the Lamb Inn, at the 
 corner of Gray's Inn Lane and the Inn of Court 
 of Gray's Inn. 
 
 She gave me a chamber at the top of her house 
 with a great belly of a window with many tiny 
 squares of panes therein, the which looked out on
 
 36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 the gardens of the Inns of Court, which did 
 mightily please me, and I was to pay her by the 
 weeke two shillings. 
 
 I had brought with me also some apparel, and 
 sundry other belongings such as a cross-bow, and 
 single sticks, and quoits, and the like ; and while 
 that my Uncle lived I could make ado and shift 
 for to pay her and to live or, rather, to exist. 
 
 But when he died I did suffer most dire distresses 
 for I had no money, and I could finde no worke 
 whereby I might earne some. 
 
 I had to sell my things for to get bread to eat. 
 
 I sold my cross-bow and the sticks and quoits 
 and other the like objects whereby I got three 
 shillings and fourpence ; and when that was all 
 spent my real woes began in very truth and 
 bitterness. I had to sell my bookes . . . ! 
 
 My fond bookes every one a child a brother 
 bone of my bone, blood of my blood, heart of 
 my heart. 
 
 How shall I tell what I then did endure how 
 describe my tears, my anguish, my complaints 
 to the cruel bereaving niggardly Heavens my 
 desires for death my orphaned and despoiled 
 rebellions and desolations of soul.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 37 
 
 for I wanted help, and found none ; and I wished 
 for work, and could get none ; and all the world 
 seemed to care not for me, nor what would become 
 of me ; and I would fain have had it whelmed in 
 one vast destruction in which I, too, had been 
 extinguished, by clutching my dear bookes as 
 Samson held fast by the pillars. 
 
 But hunger in the end prevailed. 
 
 Oh, I was like a traitor who betrayed his 
 dearest friend. I was like a denatured father 
 who thrust out his tenderest children. I was 
 as an ingrate, and a barbarian, and a callous 
 monster. 
 
 I spoke to them, and did reason with them, 
 and excused my base acts, and begged their 
 forgiveness, and kissed them ere I parted from 
 them ; and as Hagar moved away that she might 
 not see her fond child die so I ran from the shops 
 where I had so ruthlessly, but alas ! so necessi- 
 tously, abandoned my dear bookes : and thereafter 
 avoid passing thereto, but the rather made longe 
 tours and windings so as not to pass the place 
 again, to avoid not the sore memory, for that I 
 ever carried with me, but the anguishes of their 
 reproachings in case I saw them, and the hot and
 
 38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 unavailing angers and jealousies in case I saw 
 them handled or bought by other men. 
 
 So, one by one or set by set I did sell my 
 bookes, and while I fed my frame and most 
 sparely, too I did bleed and drain as 'twere my 
 life's best blood ; and I wonder now less how I 
 lived but the rather why I did give my coward 
 consent to live at such untellable cost of wordless 
 torment. 
 
 It was Providence that did sustain me through 
 that bitter time. Perchance, too, it was a teaching 
 and a discipline for me though a most exquisite 
 and refined pain. The remembrance of those 
 days swells my bosom and fills mine eyes with pity 
 of the poor, tortured, unfriended, helpless youth 
 though I know that youth was I e'en I myself. 
 
 I have sometimes thought, when recalling some 
 of those galling recollections, that we men are 
 blind, and less sapient than the lower creatures in 
 many ways. We fail before our misfortunes and 
 we have scarcely the courage, much less the 
 sagacity, to look beyond them and see in the 
 scourgings of To-day the healings, and even the 
 greater beautifyings of the Morrow. We are apt 
 to consider each of them as a crisis or as a catas-
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 39 
 
 trophe when, in truth, it is but a surpassing tangle, 
 or an accidental knot, or ravelling of the silken 
 cord on which our lives the precious pearls of 
 God are strung. The pain is very real in the 
 enduring, and the consolations of religion are 
 oftimes absent, and the arguments of philosophy 
 are most unsatisfying, even if they come not too 
 late ; and 'tis only in the retrospection that the 
 true harmonies, and the sweet uses of the cruel- 
 seeming mercies, became apparent to us. 
 
 To me at that time hungry, friendless desper- 
 ate, in a town where I beheld so much of careless 
 wealth and pleasure, of fulness and fatness of 
 living, and contentment and jollity and cheer, and 
 of kinships and comradeships, and of lovemaking 
 and laughter, and all the fulsome clamour of life 
 and its movements and thousand-sided mani- 
 festations what could Religion have whispered, 
 or what could Philosophy have argued, to reconcile 
 me to my hard fate ? 
 
 For, look you, I was yet scarce a man a country 
 lad in London, without a penny and without a 
 friend, and unable to find that which should earn 
 him e'en a crust. 
 
 Yet was Providence most kind, for thus it
 
 40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 schooled me, in timely hour, for the still harder 
 ordeals which lay before me.* I was but poorly 
 tempered in those forges at the best but some- 
 what was I yet hardened. 
 
 And when, in after years, I tasted what it was 
 to be in comfort and renown, I began to see that the 
 sluices of the water-ways of our lives may run dry 
 at times, or be exceeding low, but 'tis only that 
 the lower locks be the better filled. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I tried to learn how to play the flute and gain 
 a little money, but I failed. Then I tried to teach, 
 but I likewise failed. I then tried to get employ- 
 ment as a player in a company, as I remembered 
 hearing that my Cousin William had done ; and 
 at length, after many weary efforts, and much 
 suffering and penury, even to the going hungry 
 and bedless at nights, I found employ with one 
 Johanne Sholton of Bridewell, Blackfriars, who 
 then had a theatre called the Palatine Theatre. 
 
 He hired me to play some women's parts, such 
 as Rebecca in Sholton's own piece of Rebecca 
 
 * " Still harder ordeals." He gained fame and wealth, troops of 
 friends, honours and the magnificent consciousness of genius. What 
 was that most bitter drop in the over-brimming cup ? I answer without 
 hesitation his infamous wife.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 41 
 
 and the . . . and of Stella in Sholton's own 
 piece of the Prince of Denmark, and of Emma in 
 his piece of Emma the forgotten child of ... 
 and others similar to these, for the which he paid 
 me one pound or one pound four shillings by the 
 week, whereat I was very contented. 
 
 I stayed with him about a year or a year and a 
 half, and then I went and hired myself to one 
 Edward Lockyer or Lockhard, or some such name, 
 at the Westminster Theatre in Slowe Street, near 
 to the old house where lived one Charles Stevens, 
 a man of great parts, who wrote plays and acted 
 in them. 
 
 I stayed with Lockhar, or Lockyer, for about a 
 year, and then I left him and hired myself to one 
 Master Samuel Phipps of the Theatre of St. 
 Martin's Lane called the Princes Theatre. 
 
 While I was with Lockyer I played such parts 
 as Emma in Sholton's piece, and Emily in the other 
 piece of his, and Mary of Sloven Hall, and Ellen of 
 the Mill, and Stephonia of the piece called the 
 Queen of Sheba, and others of the like. He paid 
 to me about one pound or one pound four shillings 
 by the week. We played every night except 
 Sunday, and, at times, before the Queen, and the
 
 42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Nobility, and the Quality in Town, for the which 
 I was paid extra about two shillings or two 
 shillings and fourpence each performance. 
 
 When I went to the Westminster Theatre I 
 was to have better payment about one pound 
 ten or twelve shillings by the week but it fell 
 out otherwise, for Master Sholton he brought suit 
 and action against Master Lockyer, and he won 
 the same, and Master Lockyer had to pay him 
 divers damages and charges, and there was inter- 
 diction of the playing of his plays or of imitating of 
 them; and so Master Phipps was fain to shut up 
 his Theatre, for he had a partnership with Master 
 Lockyer and I was left without employment 
 and without money, and was at my wit's end how 
 to live. 
 
 I had become acquainted with several persons, 
 notably one Stephen* England and one Edward 
 England, his brother, both honest men and good 
 fellows who took me into their house at No. 24 
 Elle Street Elbe Street, and I stayed with them, 
 while looking for employ, or service, or any way 
 whereby I might earn my livelihood. They were 
 booksellers and they knew of my love for books, 
 
 * John.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 43 
 
 and they made me free of their stores so far as I 
 had time for reading. I stayed with them for 
 about a month, when I got employ with Master 
 Samuel Phipps once more this time at his 
 Theatre at Islington called the Royal Islington 
 Theatre. 
 
 I played there in such parts as Susannah, in 
 Susannah and the Elders, and Emily as he had 
 made his peace with Sholton and Emma, for 
 the like reason, and others of the like sort. He 
 paid me about eighteen shillings by the week, 
 and I was well content after my privations for the 
 past few weeks. I remained with him there about 
 six months when I left to go to Master John Dane 
 of the Norwich Theatre Royal of Norwich. 
 
 I stayed at Norwich, and in travelling about the 
 Eastern Counties, about six months, and I was 
 paid about one pound ten or twelve shillings by 
 the week, and I saved about eight pounds and 
 felt that I was a rich man and likely to die of 
 wealth. 
 
 I then returned to London, and being no longer 
 in want, I set myself to think why I should not 
 write a piece like Sholton who was making much 
 money, and was run after for the liberty to per-
 
 44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 form his pieces, for the which he received goodly 
 payment without any labour or trouble. More- 
 over, I thought that his pieces were miserable and 
 poor, and often silly, and never bright or sound. 
 I thought much, and walked about a good deal in 
 the Park, and in the fields about Marylebone, 
 and the lanes of Hampstead. I was then lodging 
 with a Mistress Jane George of No. 20 No. 60. 
 I forget the number Alpine Lane in the Borough 
 of Southwark, near to St. George's Church. 
 
 After much thought, and the planning out of 
 my plots and designs, I remembered some of the 
 books of my grandfather, and some of the little 
 stories that I had myself written when I was a 
 scholar at St. Saviour's, Burslem ; and at length, 
 after much cogitation, and the forming of many 
 English plays, I decided myself to write a play on 
 the subject of Stephen, King of England, in three 
 acts and a number of scenes. 
 
 I began this play in September 1585* and worked 
 upon it for many days and nights, and at last it 
 was finished, and I took it to Master Sholton 
 who would not even look at it ; and I fared no 
 better with Master Phipps ; and Master Lockyer 
 
 * See note relating to the first production of " The Tempest."
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 45 
 
 laughed in my face and said Thou beardless 
 jackanapes. Go, and get thee a letter for Bedlam 
 and the like sweet encouragement did I receive. 
 
 So I went home, and took my piece which had 
 cost me so much pain and labour, and so many 
 headaches and tears for I did use to weep for 
 the creatures whom my fancy created and I 
 tore it into pieces, and I burnt it to the very last 
 shred of paper, and then I went out and resolved 
 to drown myself in the River Thames and have 
 done with it so tired and broken in heart and 
 spirit was I at these ill turns of fate. 
 
 I walked about that evening, waiting until the 
 people shall have gone home and the streets be 
 dark, and nobody to see or hinder me, for I was 
 sick, and despairing, and wounded in my pride. 
 
 And as I walked and disdained even to pray, 
 so bitter was my heart I became aware of some- 
 thing like a slow lightening of my mind, as if some- 
 one approaching a dark passage with a candle 
 yet still far off, albeit the light was heralding its 
 own coming, and I was feeling almost angry 
 because my mood was getting little by little 
 somewhat gayer, and more serene and tolerant of 
 misfortune, and hopeful for my life.
 
 46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I stopped to question myself and what all these 
 contradictions within the small compass of one 
 man's nature might mean, and as I thought, came 
 memories of things that I had read, especially in 
 my grandfather Thomas' writings, or scraps and 
 fragments of writings, which would to God he had 
 finished and left as precious gifts to the world ! 
 for he was a rare man and lofty spirit, though his 
 stature was small, and his origin outlandish, but 
 none the worse for that. 
 
 And with the memories came reflections, and 
 whisperings of life, as well as reminders of the wise 
 and high things that came back swiftly into my 
 memory, until, at the last, I stood still at Thames- 
 side, near where the Fleet reaches unto it, and I 
 cast my eyes to the starry heavens, and I cried to 
 God to forgive me my petulance and impatience, 
 and want of faith in Him, the Father of all His 
 creatures. 
 
 Ease of mind even cheerfulness even gaiety 
 even joy seemed to pour into my heart as wine is 
 poured into a bottle through a filler until it is full to 
 overflowing ; and I walked away from the darkly- 
 flowing river and up into Fleet Street, and I 
 fumbled in my fob for some forlorn shillings that
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 47 
 
 still lay there, and I went into the Owl Tavern 
 that then stood close to St. Bride's Church near 
 Bridewell, and did there sup and drink like a 
 prince, and thereafter I walked home to my lodg- 
 ings and it seemed as if I walked on the air, for 
 my heart was light although my pocket was well- 
 nigh empty. 
 
 I did not mourn the loss of Stephen the King, 
 for I was filled, not with bare hope alone, though 
 sweet and vital and divine it be, but also with 
 courage and confidence. 
 
 I thanked God on my knees that night that He 
 had vouchsafed to intervene to hold me back 
 from destruction, and I felt the more convinced 
 that I had to live, and that my life would be of 
 use perchance of value to others as to myself. 
 
 I slept well, and on the next morning I, as if I 
 were become a different and older, and an experi- 
 enced and critical person, considered and, in the 
 main, condemned my play of Stephen the King, 
 and wondered how I could ever think it even a 
 passable piece in many parts thereof. I almost 
 wondered how, with my knowledge of stagecraft, 
 I could have written it, and I almost felt my face 
 grow red, though I was all alone, when I thought
 
 48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 of its being played before people. I was thankful 
 that it was no more. Then I laughed as I con- 
 sidered that it was barely fifteen hours since I 
 thought that I was doing murder when I burnt it, 
 and yet I was weighing and judging it as if I was 
 fifteen years older since I had written it. 
 
 I took a paper and wrote on the top of a 
 page 
 
 THE TEMPEST 
 A COMEDY BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I had had the idea long before in various forms 
 of treatment. 
 
 I at once began to work, and I laboured inces- 
 santly for about four months, supporting myself 
 the while by playing occasionally at Greenwich and 
 other places ; and my landlady, Mrs. George, was 
 a kindly soul, and never pressed me for money, 
 but, on the contrary, she would often come to my 
 room and set food and drink before me, and almost 
 compel me to eat, for I was so intent upon my 
 work that often would I forget to do so. 
 
 When my play was finished I went and conferred 
 with my good friends John and Edward England, 
 and they advised me to sell it to Sholton or some
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 49 
 
 other Proprietor of a Playhouse. So I went to him 
 and he would have none of it or of me. 
 
 Then I went to Master Phipps, who said the same 
 thing to me. 
 
 Then I went to Master Lockyer who likewise told 
 me to go and get myself hanged. 
 
 Then John England said to me 
 
 " William, thy luck is not with those men. 
 They are asses and mules and self-conceited 
 knaves. Come with me, and we shall see what 
 we can do in spite of them." 
 
 So we went, and conferred for several days, at 
 the end whereof we took a decision to take a house 
 ourselves and make a playhouse thereof, the which 
 we did forthwith ; and the two Englands, with 
 some friends of theirs and some friends of mine, 
 found some money and took a house in Black- 
 friars Road near to the street called a street 
 
 that runs off into another street called Silver 
 Street I think and on the 8th day of March 1588,* 
 we opened with my play of the Tempest. 
 
 It was a great success. 
 
 The parts were played so far as I remember 
 thus : 
 
 * I propose to deal elsewhere with the subject of dates, generally. 
 
 4
 
 50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Prospero . . . . Mr. Albertus. 
 
 Ferdinand . . . . Mr. Sinclaire. 
 
 The Duke . . . . Mr. Frein. 
 
 Trinculo . . . . Mr. Andrew 
 
 Sebastian . . . . Mr. John Edmund 
 
 Caliban . . . . Myself. 
 
 Ariel . . . . Master Edwin Stocks. 
 
 Miranda . . . . Mr. Elvaston. 
 
 We played the piece for nearly two months, and 
 all the Town came to see it, and we made a profit 
 of nearly two hundred pounds when and what- 
 soever the charges and expenses had been paid 
 and acquitted. 
 
 I received as my share, apart from my pay as 
 a player of the part of Caliban, the sum of over 
 one hundred pounds. 
 
 My fortune was made, and my name was in all 
 men's mouths, for all said and declared that it 
 was a famous play ; and the Queen herself did 
 send for me, and we performed in her Grace's 
 presence at Windsor on the i8th day of October 
 1588, for the which she gave us twenty pounds, 
 and she gave me leave to kiss her hand, the which 
 I dutifully did, and felt mightily honoured by the 
 doing. 
 
 After this piece we played other pieces, but we
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 51 
 
 did not make much gain by them, so that I was 
 easily persuaded to begin another play, which I 
 did at the end of 1588 being then lodged near the 
 Theatre at a house in Blackfriars Road No. 
 
 kept by a man named a man employed in 
 
 the Theatre. The house was hard by to an Inn 
 called the Plough Inn kept by one named Perkins, 
 a very fat man with a very slim wife, and we 
 used to call them Thick-and-thin. 
 My second play was called 
 
 THE MERRY STORY OF OLDCASTLE, 
 but I changed the title to the 
 
 MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, 
 
 because Oldcastle was the name of a very honour- 
 able family, and I did not wish to give them any 
 pain or annoyance. I used the name Falstaff 
 instead in the play. 
 
 No, it is not true that I had written some 
 historical plays at that time in which Falstaff 
 had appeared, and that the Queen had asked me 
 to write a play in which the merry Knight should 
 be made to fall in love. 
 
 That is all fancy and fable.
 
 52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I had not at that time written any plays except 
 the Tempest not counting Stephen, which was 
 dead and damned at least encinderated. 
 
 I finished the Merry Wives of Windsor in about 
 two months, and we performed it for the first time 
 in our theatre on the fourth day of March 1589. 
 The cast was as well as I can remember as 
 follows : 
 
 Falstaff .. Mr - Perkins. 
 
 Master Groom . . . . ,, Brown. 
 
 Sir ... v. 
 
 Mistress Groom . . . . Master Chase. 
 
 Mistress Page . . . . Master 
 
 Anne Page . . . . Master Elwood. 
 
 Mistress Blood . . Master Stewart. 
 
 Mistress Cloudley . . Master Stephens. 
 
 Mistress Sloven . . . . Master Hollies. 
 
 Fairies, Elves, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 Sir plague on't ! I can't bring his name to 
 mind ; 'tis the Welsh parson in love with Anne 
 Page: and there is also the part of the husband 
 of Mistress Page, and of Mistress Flood (not 
 Blood) and also that of another man he who 
 personates the Knight at the basket, and the 
 Knight's servant, one Bardolph.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 53 
 
 I have them somewhat confused in my memory, 
 but I doubt not I shall remember them all again 
 more truly anon. 
 
 I took the part of Master Slender that is a 
 name I sought so hard and could not reach unto 
 but I played only for a few nights because I did 
 not do it well, as I was not accustomed to male 
 impersonations, and this was my first effort in 
 that direction. The part was given to one 
 Jenkyns, a man from Wales as he said, but I 
 thought him an Irishman. 
 
 I played no more in that piece, but I altered it 
 many times and reduced its volume a good deal. 
 
 The piece took the populace and the Quality 
 mightily, and we did make much profit ; and the 
 Queen commanded' us to perform it before her 
 Grace two times once at Windsor on the 3rd day 
 of September 1589, and once at Greenwich on the 
 7th of day October 1589 for the which she gave 
 us twenty pounds on each occasion, and gave me 
 leave to kiss her Royal hand, the which I did most 
 dutifully and gratefully, being highly honoured 
 by her in the so permitting me. 
 
 At the end of four months we ceased to perform 
 this play, and we found that we had made a clear
 
 54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 gain of over three hundred and thirty pounds, 
 whereof there fell to me, as my share, the huge 
 sum of one hundred and sixty pounds. 
 
 There were proper instruments of contract 
 between the Englands and me and other parties, 
 the which were drawn by one Master Shollance 
 of No. 8, Mitre Court out of Fleet Street, an 
 attorney, and for the which we paid him jointly 
 divers sommes of about three pounds and some 
 shillings in all. The said instruments of contract 
 were kept by him for the use and benefit and 
 convenience of all the parties, and they were never 
 removed from his handes but lay there, for they 
 never were wanted as no differences ever arose 
 between the Englands and me but, on the contrary, 
 we were all well content with our adventures, 
 and with each other. 
 
 I had visited Stratford-on-Avon several times. 
 My brother John had died while I was yet trying 
 to do something for my living after my Uncle's 
 death, and as I did not hear of my brother's 
 death until after he was buried I made some 
 lines and sent them to my Uncle John, who always 
 loved me, and loved to hear me read and recite 
 things I had of myself composed, even when I
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 55 
 
 was yet a little boy and a scholar at St. Saviours 
 School atte Burslem. None others of my relatives, 
 and not one of my cousins, but laughed at me and 
 derided me : but not so my Uncle John who many 
 a time did take me aside, or did take me away for 
 a ride or a walk, and then asked me to read to him 
 be it the little stories or fables that I had written, 
 or the little poems or odes or songs that I had 
 composed in English for he knew no Latin or 
 any other tongue but only English. 
 
 Also my cousin William had likewise died. 
 He was a wastrel and a vagabond, and a shame and 
 a grief to his father, who oft had said to me 
 " Would to God that thou wert my son, instead 
 of that drunken, whoring, roystering knave thy 
 cousin, my worthless son." 
 
 I bought me a piece of land in Stratford-on- 
 Avon from one Master Edwarde Strattone, a 
 stonemason, for the which I paid him the somme 
 of twenty one pounds, and I built thereon a little 
 house which did cost me more than I had bar- 
 gained for, for when I settled all the accompts 
 it was more by fifty pounds than I had wished to 
 expend upon it : and I had to borrow the sum of 
 fifty pounds from one Master Edwarde Joyce,
 
 56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 haberdasher of Stratford-on-Avon, the which I 
 did pay him back in a year or thereabouts after, 
 with Interest thereon of seven pounds ten shillings, 
 and the costs and charges of his attorney, one 
 Master Miller of Warwicke. I lived in the said 
 house for about a year, for I was very busy with 
 writing a new play, which I finished about the 
 middle of 1590 and I called it 
 
 THE PLAY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS 
 A COMEDY BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I then took it up to London and sold it at once 
 without any difficulty or overmuch huckstering 
 to one Henry Sholton, cousin of the man who had 
 employed me before, and who had derided my 
 first two plays. 
 
 He paid me the price for this third play of mine 
 about one hundred and eighteen pounds. It 
 was to be one hundred and twenty pounds, but 
 there were divers deductions for a fresh fair copy, 
 and for his entertainment when he went down to 
 Stratford-on-Avon the when I was awriting it, 
 and hearing parts thereof read to him, and the 
 charges of such journeying that he persisted in 
 reckoning on to the price and deducting the same
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 57 
 
 from the one hundred and twenty pounds the 
 which I suffered, but not gladly, and forgave him 
 not for doing. 
 
 I had some good and dear and trusty friends in 
 London, and made merry with them for nigh to a 
 week together. There were Ben Johnson a witty 
 and scholarly and a merry rogue, who was very 
 close to my heart, for we two had, years before, 
 been brothers in misfortune, and even want 
 together, and shared our simple lives and loaves 
 as well as loves. 
 
 And John England, an honest man, and a rare 
 good drinker of ale and mead, and a fine fighter 
 with his fystes. 
 
 And Edward England, as honest as John but 
 shy and pale, with a good head for figures, and the 
 best memory in a man that ever I met. 
 
 And Edward* Sholton, he who bought my third 
 play, and stopped the money for his journeyings 
 out of the price thereof, but a good roystering 
 companion at others' charges. 
 
 And Will Shakspere, that was I a small dark 
 
 * The Sholtons seem intended for the Burbages, but why so de- 
 signated I do not know. The caprice, or design, or jest, is carried much 
 further with regard to the Christian names, as is apparent through- 
 out.
 
 58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 man with great eyes, whom the women loved not 
 a little but who loved them not too much ; and 
 who was not seldom . . . called the little 
 Jew boy, or the little Jew from the Midland 
 Counties, which made me to fume with anger: 
 for I knew not then, as I did afterwards, that my 
 grandfather, Thomas the Little of Utrecht in 
 Hollande, had been born a Jew. 
 
 I was not a fighter or a drinker of much account, 
 but I was braver than any of them all, and I never 
 knew the inner feeling of the meaning of fear ; and 
 I did holde my owne, and more beside, in any 
 quarrel. 
 
 So we five did enjoye ourselves greatly for three 
 days, and went to dance at Sadler's Wells, and to 
 learn to fence at Sheerness in Kent with one 
 Monsieur Darcy, a French Officer who had settled 
 there; and also we went about to Inns, and to 
 Theatres, and to other places not fytte to be here 
 set downe : and I wonder at myself that I do even 
 remember them, for I thought that I had for- 
 gotten them like the rains of years ago long, 
 long times ago. 
 
 Then when . . . . . . and bought me 
 
 some modish clothes and books and other matters,
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 59 
 
 I went back to Stratford-on-Avon, for already I 
 was bigge with a plan or plotte for a new play. 
 
 I begun it on the very morn after my coming 
 home. I had been courting Anne Hathaway, my 
 pretty cousine, and I married her in July 1590 at 
 a church called St. Magdalen and St. Mary in 
 Warwicke, because I was baptised in that saide 
 church, and I also desired my father's blessing, 
 for he was buried in that Churchyard. 
 
 I worked harde at my fourth play which I meant 
 to be a monument to my scholarship : for I had 
 been troubled by remarks on my ignorance of 
 the classics and of foreign tongues, forasmuch as 
 my characters had not spoken Latin or French in 
 their parts ; and I was considered an illiterate 
 person, with only a knack at construction of plays 
 because I had, myself, been a player. 
 
 I, therefore, designed a play wherein I could 
 show that I also was a person who had learned, 
 and even taught, the humanities ; and I broke a 
 fresh ploughshare on a new field, and wrote my 
 place on a page of English History, namely ;. the 
 History of Henry the Fourth. 
 
 I finished that play in July or August 1590 and 
 I called it simply :
 
 60 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 HENRY IV. 
 A TRAGEDY BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 It was in Three Actes and 14 Scenes. 
 
 When I had finished it I set to work to fair-copy 
 the same, but that was a weary, long, and tedious 
 labour, in which Anne, my wife, helped me most 
 bravely, for she would reade to me the while I 
 would write, so that, at the end, we were done with 
 it and done almost to death ourselves also. 
 
 I went up to London yet once more with this 
 my fourth play, and with great hopes of speedy 
 wealth and speedy fame. 
 
 But, alas ! naither came, for none would buy. 
 
 All said that I had made a mighty fine play, 
 but all said also that I had made a mighty fine 
 mistake. 
 
 It is too long, said one. It is too heavy, quoth 
 another. The subject is not enough entertaining, 
 said the third ; and so they went at it, and I was 
 much incensed and could have slain them all.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 61 
 
 I had put up at the Inn called the " Plough " 
 in Blackfriars Road, on the other side of the river, 
 and there I met one Master Selard or Stoller or 
 Stellar or some such name a man of about fifty 
 years of age, and of exceeding gravity, who spake 
 but little but looked wiser than Solon. He was 
 a man from York and had come to London with 
 a scheme for the furthering of legislation for 
 protecting the makers of several kinds of woollen 
 cloths and fabrics. We had much talk together, 
 for I had heard of wool all my life, in Warwicke and 
 in Stratford-on-Avon, and this man's talk did 
 interest me a great deal. 
 
 I spoke also to him about my affairs and of my 
 chagrins as to not finding a buyer of my play. 
 
 I took him up, one day, into my chamber, and 
 I read to him part of that play ; and he fell to, 
 and spoke to me as if he were the most learned 
 critic in all England, and I the veriest dunce in 
 all Europe. 
 
 He called me a waster of honest paper and good 
 quill pens, to say nought of God's gifts of time, and 
 the capacity to work ; and he rated me soundly, 
 and told me to tear the cursed thing to tatters, 
 and go back to my father's trade of wool-dealing,
 
 62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 and, maybe, he might help me to do some 
 dyeing, and, perchance, if I feared the Lord, and 
 eschewed ale and the low company of strollers, 
 players, vagabonds, and such like servants of the 
 Devil, I might grow into a grave and stable 
 servant of the Lord. 
 
 I did not argue with him, only I said that I 
 would search out the way to keep his worshipful 
 advice in mind and I did not burn my plays 
 but, contrariwise, I encountered another person 
 a Master William Shakspere, and that was I 
 myself and I had a long dialogue with him as 
 thus ; 
 
 /. Sir, you do me wrong ; you vex me with 
 your complaints and your persistence and your 
 conceit. I am credibly informed, Sir, that you 
 are a dunce, and a pedant, and a dullard, and a 
 stupid kind of servant of the Devil. 
 
 W.S. Sir, you do me wrong most scurvily, for 
 I meant you well. I took you to be a man of wit 
 and some little learning, and I find that you are 
 but a poor and feeble thing, and unworthy of my 
 attention to you, or of the opinion that I was 
 half-willing to entertain about your capacity and 
 judgment.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 63 
 
 /. But, Sir, if I be all this, how comes it then 
 that I am not able to sell your play. 
 
 W.S. Enough, Sir. The test of a thing is its 
 worth in the scale of sense, and not its weight in 
 the scale of a Grocer. 
 
 7. Yet, bethink you, fair Sir ; for if 't be not 
 worth the Grocer's scale how shall you pretend 
 that it has any worth beside ? 
 
 W.S. Go, dullard go to your friend from York, 
 and step out into the dark backyard with him, 
 and strip sheepskins. 
 
 /. Now you are angry, and abusive, and do 
 not measure your words as so honourable a man 
 should do. Plainly, Sir, what mean you to do 
 with your play ? 
 
 W.S. Sir, I mean to sell it, and to good 
 advantage, too, I warrant you. I shall walk 
 about until I do find a buyer, and if do not 
 
 7. Aye, marry, Sir : and if you do not what 
 then? 
 
 W.S. Why, then, Sir Why, then, Sir why, 
 then I will take a theatre and play it myself. 
 
 7. There spoke my good William Shakspere. 
 Do, Sir it will be the making of you. Hence- 
 forth, try no more to sell it, for I forsee that you
 
 64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 shall win much fame and many pounds if you put 
 your resolution to the proof and throw despair out 
 of window. 
 
 And thereupon we embraced, and called the 
 drawer to bring us a flagon and a pipe, and we 
 drank success to the play in its new theatre. 
 
 I sallied forth next morning and found a house 
 in New Bridge Street, hard by the Bridewell of 
 Blackfriars, and took it on a lease for five years at 
 a rental by the year of one hundred and eighty 
 pounds. It was a great house, and it cost me over 
 four hundred pounds to alter it and to make it 
 into a good and roomy theatre capable of holding 
 twelve hundred persons at one time . 
 
 To raise this huge sum of money I had to engage 
 all the income of the theatre for the first three 
 months, except the wherewithal for to pay the 
 players, and the servants, and the candles, and 
 other charges necessary to be borne for the working 
 of the theatre. 
 
 When all was ready this Theatre was opened 
 under the title and name of the 
 
 ROYAL BLACKFRIARS THEATRE 
 and the piece was my play of HENRY IV.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 65 
 
 From the very first night the piece took the 
 populace as well as the Quality, and we overflowed 
 nightly, and could not hold the half of the people 
 who flocked to us, whereat we were rejoiced but, 
 at the same time, we were mournful that so much 
 good money was turned aside and diverted from 
 our exchequer. 
 
 Nevertheless, we did mightily well for the space 
 of more than six months, when there was a halt 
 because of some new show that had newly come to 
 London from Italy, with singing men and real 
 women, and not youths as with us. 
 
 They performed in The Shire Hall . . . 
 near to the Theatre, and so the people, ever fickle 
 and easily diverted, flocked to The Shire Hall and 
 neglected us ; which seeing I shut up my Theatre, 
 and disbanded my company who were very grieved, 
 and some wept, for they had been well paid and 
 well treated, and the work was easy by reason of 
 the long time that they had played the same piece. 
 
 When I came to reckon up and settle all accompts 
 there remained to me the monstrous somme of 
 over one thousand and six hundred pounds : and 
 when I discharged the mortgage charge of Four 
 hundred pounds and the interest thereon I was
 
 66 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 left with over twelve hundred pounds clear money 
 and the play was still my own ! 
 
 I sold the lease, with all my fittings and fixtures 
 and utensils and scenes, and all the many things 
 of all kinds except the dresses and armour and 
 arms and ornaments and the like to one Master 
 Peter * Sholton, another brother of the man who 
 had once employed me, for the sum of four hundred 
 and forty pounds which he paid to me, in part in 
 money, namely, one hundred and forty pounds, 
 and in part in bills, namely three hundred pounds, 
 such bills to become due on equal quarter days 
 to the intent that each quarter day should see 
 me paid the sum of twenty five pounds and 
 interest thereon of ten percentum. 
 
 I hastened back to Stratford-on-Avon, where 
 was my dear wife whom I had not seen for so long, 
 and she was much rejoiced to see me, and I was 
 likewise greatly delighted to see her sweet face 
 again. 
 
 In the " first or original cast " were Mr. Prentiss, 
 Mr. Rentoul, Mr. Sinclaire, Mr. Swinehurst, 
 Mr. Senelle, Mr. Seeder, Mr. Slow, Mr. Leon, Mr. 
 Leon 2, Mr. Shakspere, Master Edwardes, Master 
 
 * Ante.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 67 
 
 Davis, Master Henriques, Master Stephens, 
 Master Davis 3, Master Davis 4, Master Perkins. 
 
 The rest were soldiers, ladies, lords, etc., etc. 
 
 I played both the parts of Hotspur and of 
 Falstaff albeit my voice was not robust enough 
 for the knight, yet did I monstrously please the 
 people and all who came to see the play. 
 
 We performed it twice before the Queen, once 
 at Windsor and once at Greenwich, and her Grace 
 gave us twenty pounds each time, and graciously 
 allowed me for to kiss her hand the which I did 
 gratefully and dutifully. 
 
 I stayed at home with my family v j--i - for 
 some months, and my neighbours made much ado 
 about me and ... I bought me some houses 
 in the neighbourhood of the Market-place, and a 
 share in the ferry for which I paid one Master 
 Reeves the sum of eighty pounds and four shillings, 
 and I became a man of some weight. 
 
 My wife bore me a son, who was born on the 
 sixteenth day of August, 1591, and I was very 
 proud and happy and thought nevermore to have 
 any more concern in plays or players or theatres. 
 
 I found that my mother who had married again, 
 and who had died some time before, and who
 
 68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 seemed to have lost all thought and affection and 
 care for her children by my father and we much 
 also for her had, out of despite, scattered much 
 of the books and papers which my father had 
 cherished, although he had understood but little 
 of them, which had belonged to my grandfather, 
 Thomas the greatly-gifted Jew of Utrecht. 
 
 Her second man was a brute and a churl and a 
 drunken hog who had not need to forbid us the 
 house which we, none of us, ever intended to 
 enter. 
 
 Now, whether it was really out of despite which, 
 now that I consider the matter I cannot well 
 think reasonable or probable, or, as is more likely 
 to protect them from her lout and swine of a 
 husband, sure it is that she did make away or 
 hide many of such books and papers, or so many 
 as her husband had left un destroyed. My grief 
 was great when I found that no trace of them 
 could now be found. Those that I had when I 
 was a scholar at St. Saviour's at Burslem were but 
 a handful out of his fine store. 
 
 I have said that I thought I should never more 
 have inclination or occasion even to think again 
 about plays or players and theatres.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 69 
 
 But I erred mightily. I soon discovered that 
 I had not known myself. 
 
 I could not rest quiet and content with 
 my affairs, and my family, and my duties 
 and pleasures, as other men are wont to do. 
 
 I could be idle enough, and had no surpassing 
 longing to be for ever hopping and jumping and 
 moving about, and being full of all manners of 
 energies. 
 
 On the contrary, I was never happier than I was 
 when doing nothing, or wandering slowly and 
 alone, or sitting tranquilly without noise or speech 
 or company ; for my own thoughts, and the 
 shapes that my fancy brought forward, were 
 company, and cheer, and food, and exalted happi- 
 ness to me. 
 
 It soon began to irk me that I did not write my 
 thoughts, for many plots and plans of plays had 
 run riot in my brain, and my head was all a-whirl, 
 and often hot and often heavy with no cause to 
 show or plea to make. 
 
 I did write many little pieces lines, songs, 
 sonnets, and the like the which, much as I 
 have heard my grandfather used for to do, 
 I would mayhap not finish, or leave lying
 
 70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 about, or gave away certes, gave no further 
 heed to. 
 
 So, to escape from the seething of my mind, 
 and, perhaps, from the upbraiding of my con- 
 science, I began another play that is to say, 
 I began to write a play that had for long made 
 a theatre of my mind, and had played to my 
 heart, for the greater part thereof existed already 
 fashioned in my head ; and as I walked, or lay 
 abed, and often even as I eat, or listened to my 
 neighbours talking, and seemed to be partaking 
 of their converse, the speeches and the dialogues 
 would go on in my mind, and my imagination 
 would picture forth all the scenes and movements 
 and actions of the piece until oft I knew not 
 whether it were all real, or I were waking, or else 
 dreaming ; or, if convinced by touch or other 
 sense that I was really awake, I would almost 
 start affrighted to ask myself, Was I, in truth, 
 quite sane ? 
 
 My mind was a cauldron. I felt that I had not 
 put its fuels beneath, yet that if they burnt not to 
 their proper use they would of a surety consume me. 
 
 I sat down to write and boldly traced the title 
 which was already so familiar to my mind that it
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 71 
 
 was as if it were like a living child thereof and 
 not a paper phantom. 
 
 KATHARINA & PETRUCHIO 
 
 OR 
 
 THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. 
 BY WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I had read the merry story in one of my grand- 
 father Thomas his books. It was in English, but 
 from the Spanish or Portugese I forget which. 
 
 I finished this play in two weeks, and I was not 
 loth to have a reason to go to London at once. 
 
 I had had many letters, and I went this time 
 with light heart and full of cheer and ease, and 
 almost indifference to Dame Fortune or her 
 smiles or frowns. 
 
 I have not told that the piece of Katharina and 
 Petruchio was but as the froth on the tankard and 
 as the first bloom of the flower of fancy which 
 was growing so luxuriously in my mind, for I was 
 filled with far higher matter and far deeper ; and 
 the writing of this piece was the letting out of the 
 humours of a full-blooded mind which had else 
 been almost fevered and freedom-lost.
 
 72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I had, in fact, already mapped me out my 
 greatest play of 
 
 HAMLET, THE PRINCE OF DENMARK, 
 
 almost from the beginning to its ending, with 
 its soliloquies, and dialogues, and all the rest of 
 it ; and I would go afield and declaim, and weep 
 over my declamations, and laugh over my 
 humourous scenes, until all the world besides did 
 seem to disappear and I only, William Shakspere, 
 was left alone in it, wth the creatures of my fancy 
 which had now become my companions and friends 
 and children, and left me and came back to me 
 not longer at my will and choosing but, the rather, 
 at their own. 
 
 So I hailed the going to London with my play 
 of Katharina and Petruchio because it gave me 
 the further diversion, and helped, for the moment, 
 to still the clamourous demands for embodiment 
 and birth of the greater play by giving me occu- 
 pation and movement, and the stirring about in the 
 active common world of ordinary men and women, 
 and homely doings, and honest getting drunk, 
 or getting sober, and making or losing of moneys, 
 and the like, and the like, and the like.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 73 
 
 In London I stayed for the space of a month 
 or so, although my business was done in two 
 days, for Master Sholton made no ado at all 
 about purchasing but at once gave me what I 
 asked therefor, namely : sixty eight pounds. 
 It was seventy pounds, but the Tavern bill when 
 we did sign the Contract brought it down to sixty- 
 eight pounds as I have set forth. 
 
 I spent much time with my friend Ben Johnson, 
 and the Englands, and some other choice spirits 
 of my heart, and we made very merry and had 
 trips to France in the brig owned by Master 
 Con way e. The brig was named " The Syren " 
 of Stephenshythe in Somerset near to the town of 
 Stephensh I forget the name. 
 
 We went to Boulogne where we stayed in a little 
 Inn near the Quay kept by an Englishman named 
 Yeoman or Yeoland, I forget which. He was an 
 old sailor with one leg, and he had the reddest and 
 plumpest nose that I ever beheld in a human face, 
 with a voice like a trumpet in the fog, or like a 
 bellows in the roaring smithy. 
 
 We had a merry time . . . and at length 
 we set sail for England in a brig called the " Saucy 
 Nell " whereof one Master Stovel was the Captain,
 
 74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 and we reached Rotherhithe once more on the 8th 
 day of July 1593. 
 
 Then, because we had all been very sick and ill 
 at ease in our stomachs, we did have a rousing 
 carouse at the King's Head in Eastcheap off 
 Fenchurch Street, and we were all drunk to- 
 gether, and all of us were turned out into the street 
 at twelve of the clock at night and laid by the heels 
 in the Bridewell, which was in the Tower Gate 
 at the end of Eastcheap, where we lay until ten 
 of the clock on the next morning, when I paid the 
 fines of us all to the somme of twelve shillings and 
 fourpence, and we were released and not haled 
 before the Aldermen, whereat I was pleased 
 because of my name and Ben he did not care one 
 single damn he said, and the Englands seemed as 
 if they were the rather deprived of some renown 
 by a perverse fate in that they were released 
 without any pother or more ceremony than the 
 Get ye gone, ye drunken knaves, from the crusty 
 old warden to whom I gave a shilling, and Ben a 
 kick in the rump. 
 
 Three or four days thereafter I returned me to 
 Stratf ord-on-A von . 
 
 I hastened almost greedily, because of the time
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 75 
 
 that I had lost, to see to my affairs and to put 
 what had gathered and tangled and staled into 
 good order ; and forthwith thereafter I put all the 
 world aside, and set me to work. 
 
 I remember that I got me to my room and shut 
 fast the door, and I felt as if I had come into some 
 holy chapel out of the outside hurly-burly ; and I 
 cut me six goodly quills, and I kissed them all, 
 one by one, and put them away in a box that I 
 had ; and I gat me paper, and sat me down to 
 write. 
 
 I wrote in a great round hand, like as I used to 
 set the lads at Sittingbourne School at Hoddingley 
 where I was once an Under-Usher 
 
 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 
 
 A TRAGEDY BY 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPERE. 
 
 But when I wanted to begin to write, after I 
 had written the Dramatis Personae, and the heading 
 of Scene I. Act i, not a word would there come to 
 my mind or to my liking. 
 
 But, instead, whole scenes would rise and act 
 themselves, and pass in pomp, or in horror, or in 
 laughter, or in awe ; and Laertes would stab
 
 76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Hamlet, and Hamlet would stab Polonius, and 
 Ophelia would come to the Queen, and the Grave- 
 digger would talk to Horatio, and the King and 
 the Ghost would have a talk together in the green- 
 room, and all the rest would be ranting, each 
 in his own way, and at times all of them together, 
 in my hot head and fantasy. 
 
 I could not calm my mind, for it was too full, 
 and the play had been, in nearly all its parts, too 
 well composed, for me to begin writing it down as 
 if it were all fresh and virgin, save only the idea 
 or plot and the bare outline. I was encumbered, 
 and well-nigh overwhelmed, with the weight 
 of my own too complete work of preparation. 
 
 At length, however, I settled myself down and 
 began. 
 
 How I laboured ! 
 
 I took no thought for rest, or food, or exercise ; 
 but sometimes I would steal away and go out into 
 the woods, speaking to none and answering no 
 man not even his kindly salutation, for I scarce 
 knew if he or I were real, or if my eye brought me 
 the true intelligence or my surroundings. And 
 there would I sit, and ramble, and look up, and 
 wring my hands, or, as the case might call for it,
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 77 
 
 laugh and speak in diverse voices, and fence, and 
 fall, and strut, and lay about, and set up my 
 travelling booth, and otherwise make of the trees 
 and shades theatres and castles and ramparts and 
 palaces, and I faith ! I was everybody by turns 
 even though I had to be like two or more at the 
 same time. 
 
 It was passing strange and it at times made 
 me to think that our souls were greater by far 
 than ever we imagined or could conceive that, 
 quick as were these changes in my fancied 
 impersonations, I yet felt afresh in every one 
 of them as if I had been the real, and not that 
 imagined one ; born and bred and living and 
 aching with him and her in the innermost springs 
 and founts of original being and separate mortal 
 form. 
 
 I said once, methinks, that my mind was a 
 cauldron. 
 
 But now it was as a furnace. 
 
 The rather was it as a potter's oven but a 
 potter's oven which in some mysterious or fantastic 
 manner had fellowship and keenest sympathy with 
 every pot and image and shard that was baking 
 within it.
 
 78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I loved best of all Hamlet's soliloquoy "To be 
 or not To be," and also his talk with the Ghost, and 
 his behaviour when he watched the King and 
 Queen, his mother, at the scene of the players. 
 
 I think that I had seen some writing of my 
 grandfather Thomas an Essay on Immortality, 
 if I remember rightly in which there were some of 
 the passages which I used in that soliloquoy. It 
 was an unfinished piece, and had slipped into a 
 book which I had with me when I was a scholar 
 at St. Saviour's School, Burslem. I am sorry that 
 I have mislaid that book. It was in French. It 
 was called La Chose essentielle aux Homines 
 . . . I may remember later, but 'tis no 
 matter. 
 
 Thus did I labour and not spare myself, nor 
 candles either, until all was done and I could ring 
 down the curtain on the very end and that was 
 on the 2nd day of December 1593. 
 
 I remember well that day for I went and tore 
 up all my foul sheets of paper, and burnt all my 
 broken but faithful quills, and I went and kissed 
 my wife and child, and every woman and girl 
 in the house, and I called for a full flagon of wine 
 which I drank to the very dregs, and then I danced
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 79 
 
 by myself in the middle of the kitchen, to the 
 amazement of my wife and the maids : and then 
 I went out and gathered several of my good friends 
 and neighbours, and we went and had a rousing 
 carouse at the Neptune Inn in Stratford-on-Avon, 
 which was then kept by one Master Selery or 
 Sillery, I mind not which. 
 
 A few days thereafter I set out for London yet 
 once again, and I put up at the Inn called the 
 Three Swans in Bishopsgate, and there came to 
 see me Ben Johnson, who had become fat and 
 rather careless and dirty, but a rare good fellow 
 and a ripe scholar ; and the Englands, and both 
 the Sholtons and others of my acquaintance to 
 the whom I had sent letters to inform them of 
 my coming. 
 
 It was not long before I found a buyer of this 
 my greatest play as yet, and which I never thought 
 that I could excel no, nor could any man now 
 living, as I used to say to my own conceit. Yet it 
 was true : for so I felt in my most secret mind, and 
 so was I ready almost to praise the writer thereof 
 as if it had been some other than myself. 
 
 Nay, and I often afterwards marvelled at parts 
 thereof when I did read them, and hard work to
 
 80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 persuade myself that I did indeed write them ; 
 and I had so persuaded myself of the verity I 
 then marvelled the more, for it seemed as if it 
 was some other writing by my mind and by 
 my hand leaving me to read or hear and wonder 
 as if I were one of the populace who had paid 
 his eightpence to see the piece from the rear of 
 the theatre. 
 
 I got the great somme of one thousand pounds 
 for that great play. 
 
 It was Master Sholton in company with Master 
 Bowen and likewise with Master Stevens who 
 bought it. 
 
 I agreed to stay in London for six months so 
 that I might help instruct the players and to 
 supervise the preparations for the coming out of the 
 play at the Royal Blackfriars Theatre, whereof 
 Master Sholton was the Owner. 
 
 I did faithfully my duty, and selected and 
 instructed all the players, and I agreed to play 
 therein myself at first, so that by my presence I 
 might help and keep all in mind of their 
 instructions. 
 
 The first performance was on the 2nd of July 
 1594. It was thus announced
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 81 
 
 ROYAL BLACKFRIARS THEATRE. 
 
 On the 2nd July, 1594, 
 
 HER GRACES SERVANTS 
 
 Will perform the 
 
 TRAGEDY 
 
 of 
 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK, 
 
 by 
 WILLIAM SHAKESPERE. 
 
 This Tragedy is founded on the Scandinavian story 
 of Hamlet, and has been composed and invented in 
 3 Actes and n Scenes by the Queen's most humble 
 servant William Shakespere. 
 
 The Doores will be opened by Six o'clock, and the 
 performance will begin at half past six of the clock. 
 
 There will be a rest of ten minutes between the 
 Actes 2 and 3, and those wishing to go out may do 
 so and enter again upon a cheque or pass to be granted 
 to them on going out. 
 
 The prices are as follows, namely : 
 The Boxes are of the price of One Guinea the Box. 
 The Pit is of the price of One shilling each person. 
 The Gallery is of the price of Sixpence each person. 
 Those at the rear of the Pit shall pay only Eightpence 
 but cannot have any seat to sit down in. 
 
 The Music will play at times. 
 
 GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.
 
 82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 This Bill was on a board outside the theatre, 
 and was written out fresh every day. There were 
 many poor scholars who did make copies thereof 
 and disposed of the same at their own risk and 
 for their own profits at the doors, or in the coffee 
 houses ; and some got a penny or two, and some 
 got sixpence or more for the same. 
 
 The manner of advertising was as follows : 
 
 The bellman would go round each in his 
 Parish and publish the coming out of the play, 
 and there would be advertisements in the Gazette 
 and in other Journals, and copies of the bills would 
 be put in the windows of coffee-houses and on 
 walls and elsewhere. These were printed and of 
 the size of a big man's hand. Also the players 
 would go round to the houses of the Quality, and 
 to the shops and offices of merchants, and to the 
 Temple and Inns of Court, and to the officers of 
 the Army and the Navy, and to the Inns where 
 Travellers did stay, and I know not what more or 
 what other places and persons, and solicit patronage 
 and dispose of tickets on which they were allowed 
 a poundage of so much, generally one shilling in 
 the pound, which they were very glad to earn. 
 
 It did often happen, however, that players
 
 ' AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 83 
 
 would be made so drunk while going about in the 
 daytime that they were sorely put to it to do their 
 parts at night. In such case they were fined, 
 but their comrades mostly stood bravely by them 
 and pulled them through and the pump in the 
 yard did ungrudgingly do its share in the succour. 
 The first Cast of Hamlet was as follows : 
 
 Hamlet by . . . . . . Mr. Prentiss. 
 
 Horatio . . . . . . Mr. Peake. 
 
 The King . . . . . . Mr. Stevens. 
 
 The Ghost . . . . . . Mr. Shakspere. 
 
 Polonius . . . . . . Mr. Sheptone. 
 
 Laertes . . . . . . Mr. Melton. 
 
 Gravedigger 
 
 Ditto 2 . . 'HV 
 Rosencrantz 
 Gildenberg 
 
 First Player *VM 
 Second ,, 
 
 The Queen . . " ''.'". Master Stevens 5. 
 
 Ophelia . . . . . . Master Stevens 6. 
 
 Amelia . . . . . . Master Stevens 7. 
 
 Soldiers, Courtiers, Ladies, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 (Those marked Stevens, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, were the 
 parts supplied by him. I forget the names, but 
 I do remember that he had to supply, the which he 
 did, so I indicate them by his name and a NO.)
 
 84 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The players were paid thus 
 
 Hamlet had for his pay the somme of 337- by the week. 
 
 Horatio ,, 21/6 
 
 The King 21/6 
 
 The Ghost 21/6 
 
 Polonius 30/6 
 
 Laertes ,, 20/6 ,, 
 
 Gravedigger 15/6 
 
 2 8/6 
 
 Rosencrantz ,, 8/6 ,, 
 
 Gilderstern 8/6 ,, 
 
 The Queen 8/6 
 
 Ophelia 8/6 
 
 Soldiers, Courtiers, Ladies, etc., each 4/6 by the 
 week or 9 pence for the night every night when 
 paid nightly, as was sometimes done for their 
 convenience, as they were chiefly very poor men 
 disbanded soldiers, and the like and could not 
 live until the week were ended without their 
 daily or nightly money. 
 The Music was thus : 
 
 One Hautboy 8/6 by the week. 
 
 One Flute 8/6 
 
 One Fife 8/6 
 
 One Cymbal 8/6 
 
 One Drum 8/6
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 85 
 
 And the Master of the Music he did likewise 
 play some instrument as suited the occasion 
 such as another flute, or a viol, or a trumpet 
 and he was paid : 
 
 The Master of the Music 8/6 by the day 
 which was by the week 5i/-. 
 
 He was one Signor Emilio Solenni or Sollone, I 
 mind me not the which, but it matters not. 
 
 We had also the money-takers, of whom there 
 were four two for the Pit and Boxes, and two 
 for the Gallery and we paid them : 
 
 Four Money-takers, each man of them 8/6 by 
 
 the week, 
 and also Four Ticket-takers each man of them 
 
 8/6 by the week, 
 
 and Eight Candlemen and Snuffers, each man of 
 them, 8/6 by the week, 
 
 and Six men for to keep the populace in order 
 with their staves, and to eject those who were 
 unruly or drunk, or who made too loud noises by 
 shouting or swearing or whistleing, or otherwise 
 misbehanved to the hindrance of the players or 
 to the discomfort or angering of the assembly 
 each man of them 8/6 by the week. 
 
 And there were the Sweepers and Cleaners a
 
 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 dozen or more of sturdy women each woman 
 sixpence by the day, and two pints of small-ale 
 and some bread and cheese. 
 
 I was the Manager of the Stage, and I did receive 
 for that work about six pounds at the settling up 
 of all the matters at the end. 
 
 There was likewise a Prompter who did receive 
 20/6 by the week. 
 
 The Scriveners who did copy out the several 
 parts were paid two pennies for every one hundred 
 and sixty words. 
 
 The candles consumed on every night were 
 about eighty pounds, and they did cost not less 
 than eight pounds that is, two shillings for each 
 pound, for that they were fat and big and burned 
 slow and bright. They were not of tallow, but 
 of pure Italian wax, and they were made by one 
 Master Gunning of the Mall, near to Charing Cross, 
 where he had a shoppe ; but his factory was at 
 London Fields because of the foul smells, for he 
 did make tallow candles also in great quantity. 
 
 We reckoned thus 
 
 OUR OUTGOINGS OF EVERY SORT by the week 
 
 85 10 o 
 
 OUR INCOMINGS 150 o o
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 87 
 
 We had also to add to the outgoings the Rent of 
 the Theatre ; and the Queen's share of the 
 incomings, which was one shilling in every one 
 pound ; and also the cost of repairs, and the 
 Impositions of the Ward, and others the like ; 
 and of the waste and 1 disrepair of the scenery and 
 of the dresses, and so forth ; the all which being 
 taken into accompt, and reckoned in, would swell 
 the Outgoings to wellnigh Ninety pounds by the 
 week.* 
 
 We paid for the painting and making of all the 
 scenes, and for all the stuff in them, to one Master 
 John Dibden or Dibben the sum of twelve pounds 
 
 And we paid to one Master Edwarde Shankes, 
 and to one Mistress Shanks but not in business 
 together with Edward altogether the sum of 
 over thirty two pounds for dresses and cloaks and 
 hose and robes and other apparel for all the 
 players, and eke the helpers in the play. 
 
 I did not ask or receive anything whatsoever 
 from the performing of the play except my wages, 
 and the allowance at the end for the general 
 superintendence of the stage, and the parts, and 
 
 * The sum total seems understated.
 
 88 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 the rest of it ; for I had sold it totem quotem 
 and had no further rights thereto. 
 
 Master Prentiss was a fine player ; and he did 
 play the part and spoke the soliloquies in such a 
 way that I, who listened to him and observed him 
 from the wings, had all my work to do to keep me 
 from running on the stage and clasping him in my 
 arms in the sight of all the people in the theatre. 
 
 My heart leaped within my bosom as I heard 
 him declaim, and stop, and recommence, and pause 
 again, and go vehemently on, or, as half -despairing, 
 sigh with the meaning and the burden of my words. 
 
 I needed to remind myself that they were mine, 
 and not another man's and yet it seemed to me 
 that they were so far above me, and of my daily 
 life and occupations, and companionships, and low 
 and worldly manner of going and speaking and 
 doing that it could not be it could not be as 
 I said passionately to myself : and all but accused 
 myself of a dishonest thing and act in that I had 
 put it all forward as my work, and had got money 
 therefor, and had seen it, an hour or less before, 
 on the playbill at the door, with my name written 
 thereon as the Author. 
 
 I thought I was an imposter. But no the
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 89 
 
 bitter reminder came, and I remembered all the 
 pains and joys of the childbirth, and I thanked 
 God that there was that Other of me that other 
 concealed William Shakspere who did, at times, 
 visit Me, his common and outward representative 
 and agent and alter ego : and, enforcing the service 
 of my organs my eyes and hands did indite 
 these glorious thoughts, and then withdraw him- 
 self again, I know not whither but leaving me 
 with some few rakings of his fires for to do such 
 minot things unworthy of that Other, as Katharine 
 and Petruchio, and the like. 
 
 And sometimes for at times I was much alone 
 as I loved to be, and would have none of company 
 or even of books it pleased me to think of that 
 Other, and to wonder whether it had fallen to me 
 alone to be thus Double ; but sometimes it would 
 take me to dream, with open eye and roaming 
 fancy, whether that nobler, higher, greater Other 
 was not a part of my real singular self ; and most 
 likely for nothing else in all the world so well 
 fitted into my thought, and even into all the facts 
 and circumstances my grandfather Thomas of 
 Utrecht visited me, and used me for his secretary 
 and glorified me in the using.
 
 90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I have never before spoken of this to any man, 
 or trusted it to any paper ; and I had almost the 
 remembrance of the angers and shames which I 
 felt when the ladies had called me the pretty Jew 
 boy, and when, as I grew older, others called me 
 in derision the little Jew ; and how I was hotly 
 furious at being thus miscalled. But after the 
 writing of this my play of Hamlet, and especially 
 after I had seen it played nightly, and the great- 
 ness thereof being more and more manifest and 
 the littleness and commonness of me likewise 
 more apparent, and, by the contrast, even more 
 frequently light and unworthy and earthly and 
 of low degree * 
 
 Ever after this time, whenever I did write any- 
 thing of a lofty nature, or anything of a lightsome 
 poetic strain, or was surprised into, or rather by, 
 a happy turn of thought, or phrase, or of com- 
 parison, or any broidery of imagination, or any 
 sublimity of diction, I always pictured to myself 
 that magnificent and self-and-world-neglected 
 little genius, Thomas the Jew of Utrecht ; who 
 had been borne by a thousand chances and mis- 
 chances to be the progenitor and Master and owner 
 
 * This sentence seems involved, but it is only incomplete.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 91 
 
 and honoured Guest and Visitor of one most un- 
 worthy of that supreme honour [yet not unworthy 
 inasmuch as he did perceive it was an honour, 
 and himself strove to be no idle or dull (at great 
 degree) disciple and fond imitator] William 
 Shakspere of Stratford-on-Avon, who had received 
 one thousand pounds for the play of Hamlet, and 
 who was acclaimed by all the town as the rarest 
 dramatical poet of the day. 
 
 And, in truth, so they did. 
 
 The Queen did order the play to be played before 
 her five times in all, twice at Windsor, once at 
 Greenwich, once at Stevenage and once at 
 plague on't ! at nay, but I will have it, you 
 jade of a Memory, and be damned to you for a 
 despicable b . . . of a stealthy Ale-wife's cat ! 
 and once at the George's Head in Eastcheap 
 no, the Glover's Hall in Eastcheap, when they did 
 one day feast her Grace, and all her Courtiers, 
 and Ladies, and High commanders, and Councillors. 
 
 She paid for each performance thirty one pounds 
 and ten shillings ; and the Worshipful Company 
 of Glovers did pay for that performance in their 
 Hall forty two pounds, and did besides right 
 royally entertain all the players, and, notably,
 
 92 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 myself, who was allowed by the Queen for to kiss 
 her hand, the which I gratefully and dutifully 
 did ; and the Worshipful Master of that worthy and 
 Ancient Guild did pledge a glass to me, William 
 Shakspere, for that I was the author of that great 
 play, as he called the same ; and all the company 
 cried Hurrah many times, and all the ladies did 
 clap their hands. 
 
 I spoke a piece in thankfullness of the big 
 honour which they had done a humble writer and 
 servant of the Queen, and when I sat down the 
 Worshipful master he sent me a gold cup and said 
 it was to be a gift from himself and the Guild to 
 me, and to be with me and my children from 
 henceforth and evermore. 
 
 And I was thankful when that her Grace rose 
 to go away, and the merry company broke up, and 
 we of the players' company did pack up and take 
 us to our carts and waggons to go back to Black- 
 friars ; for the burden of the praises and honours 
 was like to have [made] me shout like a mad 
 thing, or else swoon like a weak woman. 
 
 Yet, ever as men spoke, and cheered with right 
 good heart, and fair women smiled and cried 
 sweet vivats, and waved their kerchiefs or scarves,
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 93 
 
 or their white arms, and their eyes shining in their 
 rosy faces, and their gleaming teeth enhancing their 
 ruby lips, I seemed to see the shape as my fancy 
 presented him, for I never saw any presentment of 
 him of my grandfather, Thomas of Utrecht ; 
 and I almost took myself by the collar, and shook 
 myself like a malefactor is shaken when he is 
 caught in flagrante delicto, for that I was taking 
 all the honours, whereas I was but as the scribe, 
 and he, Thomas the Jew of Utrecht, the real and 
 rightful heir of all these plaudits and high compli- 
 ments and commendations. 
 
 Belike, I was a big foole ; and, belike, I was in an 
 overworked and overstrained mind and nerve ; 
 and, belike, it was that I was looking at my work 
 which I had done in one high temperature of mind 
 andi soul and fancy while I was in a very different 
 degree and character of the same ; and, belike, it was 
 a silly fancy or an overwrought phantasm, if I 
 may so express it. But I felt it no disparage- 
 ment to myself to make so much attribution to him : 
 nay, and the more I might be right in doing this the 
 greater indeed my glory and distinguished grace, 
 forasmuch as it would then be sooth that he 
 had stooped from his starry splendour wherein
 
 94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I never doubted that he dwelt, to work and inspire, 
 and make use of me, his humble scion, who, with 
 his blood, had likewise inherited some little of his 
 fervour, and tracery, and unfathomed depths of 
 soul, and unceasing questioning, and unspoken 
 longings, and peeps at times into the sounding 
 vestibules of the Eternal halls ; and as roll the 
 rivers from unknown sources and majestically 
 sweep by to their deep bournes the words seemed 
 to come unbidden in wave on wave and billow on 
 billow, till that the eye grew giddy and the hand 
 faint and stiff in that it could not as swiftly record 
 them. 
 
 I am lost in the light of his light, and I was but 
 as the shadow thrown by him. Nevertheless, I 
 was not forgetful of myself, inasmuch as I believed 
 myself to be the direct inheritor and mirror of his 
 genius, and honoured by his selecting of me out 
 of all the men upon this earth. 
 
 And yet it sometimes seemed to me as if my 
 soul was playing hide-and-seek with itself, and 
 that my adoration of my gifted ancestor was but 
 a secret sophistication of my own mind to conceal 
 the vast and inexpressible vanities and exaltations 
 which I felt because I had written Hamlet, and
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 95 
 
 because I admired it, myself, a thousand times 
 more than they all who did shout thereat, 
 and clap their hands and stamp with their feet 
 and cry out hurrahs when I came into a coffee- 
 house, or was recognised in the street for so great 
 had become my fame. 
 
 Thus shall a man play at games with himself, 
 as if he were playing a part to other men, and, as 
 jugglers do toss up balls into the air, and catch 
 them again, and hide some and extract others 
 from where they had not been supposed to be, and 
 pretend to place others where he doth put them not, 
 but all to deceive the eye and the mind of the 
 looker on so did I. Else my love and most high 
 opinion of my own work had been disrobed, and I 
 left abashed at the very effrontery of my vanity, 
 or made ridiculous as was Narcissus who became 
 enamoured of his own reflection, and died thereof 
 and a good riddance for a most egregious coxcomb 
 and fool. 
 
 When I got me back to my house at Stratford- 
 on-Avon the whole town rose up to welcome me, 
 and the Warden and Burgesses, and all the men 
 and women and children and dogs of the town 
 did come forth to greet me, as I was entering the
 
 96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 town by the London Road, in my own wagon, 
 which I had bought for mine own use to journey 
 to my home, of one Master Hewett of Bartholemy's 
 Lane for the somme of twenty two pounds and 
 eight shillings, for the which great somme I did 
 get imprimis : A very good and strong wagon 
 with iron rims on the wheels thereof. 
 
 Two strong but eke rough horses, aged the one 
 seven years, and the other about nine years, 
 strong but slow but that did not matter one 
 damn to me because that I was not in any hurry, 
 and because I was never comfortable in any coach 
 or chariot that went too quickly. 
 
 Very good harness of leather, and much brass 
 thereon, and little bells of which there were 
 many. 
 
 Very good covering for the wagon, and cloths 
 for the horses, and nosebags for the same, and two 
 whippes. 
 
 Sundrie smaller matters and implements, all very 
 useful but not necessary to set down in detail of 
 the same. 
 
 I had bought in London many things for my 
 wife, and for my child, and for a score or more 
 relations and dear friends, such as
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 97 
 
 Two gowns of silke from Master Simpkens of the 
 Cheapside shoppe. 
 
 One mantle of the same, but made in the French 
 mode, with many cuttings and slashings and 
 trimmings and the Ebony God knows what. 
 
 Great store of linen for her wear, and for her use 
 for bed and other services, and ribbons, and scissors, 
 and small-ware, and French trifles Oh, I would as 
 lief pay for them all again rather than have to 
 enumerate them. 
 
 Stores of sweetmeats and confections from 
 France, and long golden chains for her neck, and 
 baubles for the child, and trinkets and gauds, and 
 a very miscellany of rare and pretty things, and 
 strange spices, and some curiously wrought pipes 
 and pouches for the holding of tobacco, and the 
 like, and the like, and the like, beyond all remem- 
 bering or setting forth. 
 
 Also there were clothes for myself, and many 
 bookes, many bookes, every one of them a treasure 
 and a delight to me. 
 
 I took with me for my company, and likewise 
 for my protection, two sturdy knaves ; and also 
 my good friend Edmund* England who was a 
 
 * Obviously intended for Edward . 
 
 7
 
 98 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 brave and courageous man and could shoote well 
 with gun or with crossbow ; and there was also 
 the teamster and his boy the which boy was a 
 man of bigger build than himself who could 1 eat 
 what would surfeit two ploughmen and a dog 
 besides, and he could drink what would be nigh 
 to the drowning of the three of them. 
 
 For on a day when we were on the road, and were 
 laying at Enfield, I think or maybe it was at 
 Elmhurst, or perchance Elmanhurst I do forget 
 which, but I shall remember on the revising hereof 
 Master England he took it into his merry stupide 
 head to prove by mathematical measurement f 
 and the endroit and the mensuration tables, 
 how much ale that saide boy could drink before 
 he would become drunken, or fall asleep, or become 
 furious, or, what seemed much harder to con- 
 ceive of, gay and dancing mirthful. 
 
 He laid me a wager of four shillings that he 
 would drink about eight quarts, which is two 
 gallons, and I lay the wager, and we did put the 
 eight shillings, the one atop of the other, and placed 
 the silver column in a cup and put it on one side for 
 the winner of the wager. The " boy " methinks 
 his name was John some name like Luck or
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 99 
 
 Lack or Lank or the like was not at all loth to try, 
 and' although I knew full well that he could drink 
 a monstrous deal, yet it seemed to me that he 
 could not swill down two gallons ; for I knew 
 besides that he had been already drinking divers 
 quarts, and Edwarde he had not bargained that 
 John should begin on a fasting or ale-less stomach 
 and I did not remind him to bargain for it. 
 
 John made no ado, when the horses were put 
 up for the night at the Inn where we did lay, but 
 he called for his supper and he began his potations 
 as if it [were] his mother's milk. 
 
 Lord ! How the quarts melted down his fiery 
 satietyless throat ! It was not forbidden by the 
 laws of the wager that he should be limited by us, 
 or either of us, in his eatinge, for whereas Edmonde 
 was of the mind that more eating would help his 
 drinking I was of the mind that as human and 
 anatomical capacity was not unbounded it would 
 shorten his drinking. 
 
 John was a good man of his teeth also, and he 
 eat the further viands which the landlord brought 
 him at our bidding bread and cold meat and a 
 capon, or the greater part thereof, and a dish of 
 minced meats the which was hot, and cheese, and
 
 ioo AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 other items of one sort and another. John was 
 not a man of witte nor of many words, and if he 
 had any thoughts no one ever knew them, and 
 belike they were unknown to himself, and of fancy 
 he had as much high esteem as a cartwheel has of 
 melody. Yet his dull and' most fish-like eye did 
 for an instant sparkle, as doth a puddle at a passing 
 lanthorn, when the meats were placed within his 
 reach and at his mercy. 
 
 The emptied alepots stood in a stately row and 
 told the tale of his progress and the fortunes of the 
 wagerers, and my heart began to misgive me, 
 for he was becoming the more ravenous and sober 
 the more he eat and drank, and I feared me greatly 
 for my four shillings, and eke the charges of his 
 so great eatinge and drinkinge the which were to 
 be borne by the wagerer who lost the wager. 
 
 The other knaves did mightily envy John his 
 happy and unstinted lot, and they, and likewise 
 many others in the Inn, did also make their own 
 petty wagers on the event or outcome of the 
 pleasantry. 
 
 But my fortitude did forsake me altogether 
 when the insatiable and silent John, who had 
 diligently applied himself unto his gourmandise
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 101 
 
 without so much as a word or a grin to anybody, 
 did of a sudden open that dread mouth of his for a 
 purpose other than to thrust therein solid foods 
 or to pour therein liquid refreshmentings it 
 was when he had finished seven fearful quarts 
 and to break into speech for the first time during 
 the performance, for I warrant me the villain had 
 not said a grace not even in a whisper. 
 
 Quoth he, the while we all started to hear him 
 Good Masters, who will wager with me, on the 
 foot of four shillings for every shilling of mine, 
 that I shall not drink four quarts the more beyond 
 these eight at the charges of the loser of the 
 wager and then walk by myself to my straw in 
 the stable for my sleep ? 
 
 And while some were astonished, and some 
 thought him a braggart, and some winked and 
 smiled and thought that the ale had taken holde of 
 his brain, I quickly perceived me of his prowess in 
 the matter of the drinkinge of ale, and I keenly 
 observed that he was not without himself, but 
 valiant and capable, and blood-cold, and un- 
 scathed by the quantities that he had taken; and I 
 was minded to have my sport, and my laugh, and 
 my money back, or like to lose a little more
 
 102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 and what odds for that ! The sport was a right 
 merry one. 
 
 So I cried 
 
 Knave, I cannot wager with thee, nor take thy 
 money if thou shouldst lose thy wager. Yet will 
 I, for the good sport of it, wager with any one here 
 not being of my service, and I will wager it once 
 my shilling to every three, and not four, of any 
 others ; and I will wager it again, and yet a third 
 time, and still again with a fourth man, and a 
 fifth man ; and here be my five shillings, or as 
 many of them as shall back my challenge if any 
 here do answer it ; and I shall give thee, John, 
 if I shall win, one whole shilling out of every 
 separate wager that I do draw the wagered 
 money for. 
 
 I will wager, and I, and I, and I, and I, cried 
 one, and another, and many : but I was content 
 with five of the seemliest and gravest men who 
 were there ; and all the money twenty shillings 
 was counted and gathered into the custody and 
 keeping of the landlord to abide the end. Other 
 wagers were made amongst themselves by others, 
 but these concerned me not. 
 
 There was dispute and argument whether John
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 103 
 
 should be allowed to have his head under the pump 
 for a space, or to have a rest and a pipe of tobacco, 
 or anyway to take the air for a little while out- 
 side the door ; but John cut short all the talk and 
 clamour in a speech whereof the brevity was 
 most admirable and the pith thereof most pellucid 
 clear. 
 
 Saith John Not a damn care I. Bring in the 
 ale, and eke some bread and cheese. It were a 
 merry tale to tell, were it not for its length, and 
 'twas too rich and rare to be circumscribed or 
 curtailed, but the undaunted and unslaked John 
 did easily accomplish his dozen quarts, and drank 
 a brimming cup of mulled sack which I did give 
 him at the end, with the five shillings which I had 
 promised him, for to warm his drowned and 
 deluged stomach ; and he did but once wax 
 eloquent with a wink of his eye, and walked with- 
 out a stumble or a hiccup to his straw in the 
 stable. 
 
 Edmunde had given him two shillings also, and 
 I was not, or scarce, the loser, for the fine sport and 
 entertainment and marvellous experiment, when 
 all was settled with the landlord at the next 
 morning.
 
 104 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I had a troubled conscience in the night and 
 feared and fancied that the valorous John might 
 die of an apoplexy in his straw, for no man, I 
 thought, had minded him to undo a button of his 
 raiment, and he might die of an apoplexy or be 
 choked or strangled in some helpless way. 
 
 So I stole me down out of my bed with a 
 lanthorn to look at him, and he was sleeping like 
 a blessed child that had the trick of snorting 
 between its dimpled smilings. I turned him 
 gently on his side, and left him well contented. 
 
 I did not carry my Thousand pounds in my 
 wagon, nor had it hidden in my lodgings. On the 
 very day that I did receive it, and almost within 
 the hour, I paid it to my credit to the Bankers to 
 Her Grace, the Brothers Silver and Company of 
 Cornhill, who were Goldsmiths and silversmiths 
 and banking men, and who allowed me interest 
 thereon at 8 percentum, and I could retire my 
 money, or any part thereof, on notice to them of 
 one month wherever I might be residing in England 
 or in any part of Europe. 
 
 I was, therefore, easy upon that score, for I 
 ween that prudence in the keeping is often more 
 difficult than is skill in the getting.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 105 
 
 It must not be thought that because I did at 
 times sit, as it were, with ungartered hose, and had 
 my easy laugh and my lazy yawn, that therefore 
 I was forgetting that I was less than I was or more 
 than I seemed, or that I would not, when the silent 
 call for worthy work should come, be ready to 
 caparizon myself thereto in other guise and 
 company. 
 
 I hold it ill of any to suppose that I was a man 
 of low habit or life, for it is the contrary that is 
 true. I abhorred utterly all low, vulgar, and mean 
 things ; but I hold it also true that to be of a 
 frolicsome nature at times, after great strain and 
 stress, is of a most useful and wholesome blessing, 
 and debases not the mind that is undebased, but re- 
 laxes the too long tension of the bowstrings of life. 
 
 I might sing 
 
 Hand me up my trusty bow, 
 And hand me too my sword, 
 For I will go to war no more, 
 Nor wait upon my lord. 
 
 My lord is gone to woo and wed, 
 And my lord is gone from me, 
 And I see not why I should trouble me 
 For quarrels are not for me.
 
 io6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 For me, instead, the homely nook, 
 The good wife's smile and eye, 
 The ale-pot and the cheery pipe, 
 And let the world go by. 
 
 For quarrels are the devil's game, 
 And wars the play of fools, 
 And honest men were never made 
 To be the Nobles' tools. 
 
 And I am sick of wars and din, 
 And oaths and shouts and blare ; 
 A little cot and loving wife 
 My tranquil lot to share ! 
 
 So sing ho ! to love and ale and peace, 
 And down with battles all ! 
 And he's a knave who will not drink 
 This toast with heart and call. 
 
 Sing Ho ! Sing Hey ! Sing Ho ! and Ho ! 
 and Ho ! 
 
 This is an old song, but I have forgotten much, 
 and substituted words, etc., where I had forgotten. 
 
 After this I rested awhile, and looked after my 
 affairs, and bought me some parcels of land and 
 houses, and a share in the ferry, and also a share 
 in the Shop of one Thomas Glover, a maker of 
 ploughs and other smithwork, unto whom I paid 
 the sum of one Hundred and twenty pounds for
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 107 
 
 one fourth share or part of all his earnings for the 
 space of five years, the which proved an un- 
 profitable business, for he went and drank for a 
 full month, at the end whereof the bailiff seized 
 his smithy and all that was therein, and he was 
 made bankrupt and put into Stamford gaol where 
 he lay for wellnigh three years. 
 
 But I was soon tired of all this tranquil world of 
 petty life, and my great relief and joy was to escape 
 from it all to my beloved quills and quires of paper. 
 
 I had more than one plot or plan for plays all 
 prepared, and ere long I was at it ding-dong with 
 all my might. 
 
 I began as I always did with the title of my play 
 thus 
 
 HENRY THE VTH. 
 
 A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS. 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I laboured upon this historical play for over 
 eight months, working often more than sixteen 
 hours of the day. I refused to see visitors, and 
 would not write letters, or go to any of the numer- 
 ous meetings and merry-makings and markets and
 
 io8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 other assemblages ; or even to quit my house 
 except to go of an evening, and quite alone, for a 
 ramble in the woods for my health's sake, to take 
 the stiffness from my legs and the crookedness 
 from my back. 
 
 I used to go to a particular spot near where the 
 Avon bends and loops and turns and shows its 
 shallows and shinglings by the side of the big 
 tree that hangs over a steep bank near East 
 Redeham, close to the place where once stood a 
 post to mark the way to the village. 
 
 There would I roam, and sit, and walk, and 
 declaime my great speeches of Hotspur and Wolsey 
 and Prince Henry and my merry Knight Sir 
 John and his frisky knaves, Pistol and Bardolph, 
 and Shelford and Stamford and Katherine, and 
 Dame Quickly and Doll Tearsheet and the rest.* 
 
 Most chiefly did I love the parts where the 
 Knight did try to impose upon Prince Hal, and 
 also where the Cardinal fell and lamented his fall. 
 
 I remember one day, as I walked and declaimed 
 in loud tones thinking I was all alone, and 
 unheard and unseen the lines 
 
 * It will be seen that there is much confusion of memory in this 
 and in the following paragraph. These are but instances.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 109 
 
 Oh Cromwell, Cromwell, had I but served my God 
 With half the zeal I served my King He would not 
 Now have left me desolate. 
 
 A voice answered me from among the briar. 
 
 " Hey, Master, be not so downhearted ; there's 
 many a cheery day left for thee : be thou but 
 bold and put a good face on t' matter." 
 
 I turned me quickly with burning face, and 
 found a burly honest fellow, leg-weary, ragged, 
 but jovial, although he possessed not a penny, or a 
 button to his jerkin which was mended and held 
 together by bits of string. 
 
 Quoth I to him when I had surveyed him 
 enough, which took not long " Honest man," 
 quoth I, " who art thou and what is thy condition, 
 and wherefore art thou in this plight ? " 
 
 "I!" laughed he, merrily "I am well eno', 
 for I have eaten once today, and I can sleep 
 beneath a bush, and tomorrow if God will I 
 shall eat again, and if not, I shall go a-hungred ; 
 but I shall not be sad, no, nor over sorry, for why ? 
 I'm a man and this is the world, and yon's the 
 sun, and beyond is God ; and if he doesn't look 
 after his own works he is a carelesser master than 
 I take him for."
 
 no AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 And with that he gathered himself, and shook 
 with laughter, and trolled a song : 
 
 For he is but half a man who cries 
 When the billow goes too strong ; 
 Better he who bravely tries, 
 To swim and get along. 
 And he [who] falls away and sighs, 
 Is but a craven and a fool 
 For only once a man he dies, 
 And here's my sermon, and my school. 
 Tra la, la, la, la. 
 
 " Thou art a merry knave," I said to him, 
 admiring his care-free fashion of thinking and 
 living, " and prithee, how dost thou in the 
 winter ? " 
 
 " Why, Master," said he, " in the Winter I 
 just go and live in a hut in the woods, and I kill 
 rabbits and hares, and snare birds, and eke fish, 
 and cadge bread and salt, and mayhap sell some 
 skins and birds or poles or withes, and buy me 
 ale or shoes, or flints for my firings, and bow- 
 strings, and whatnot ; and 'tis a jolly life and a 
 happy one, and I do not envy the King Henry 
 thou wert shouting for, my master ; no, nor any 
 other son of a man in all merry England damned 
 if I do ! "
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE, in 
 
 I marvelled at his bold spirit, and methought 
 there was that below the skin and manner of the 
 man which might be worth the while to learn. 
 So I said to him 
 
 " My honest friend," I said, " I am not in any 
 distress or trouble. I was but repeating some- 
 thing that I had read which pleased me hugely ; 
 but thou, meseems, would be the better for a full 
 meal, and a suit of leather, and some shillings in 
 thy pouch for a rainy day and this shalt thou 
 have from me, and welcome ; but tell me first, 
 good fellow, whence thou earnest here for thy 
 speech is none of these parts and why thou hast 
 chosen to waste thy life in this manner, for thou 
 art strong of body, and as I do perceive myself, 
 not so rude and unlearned of mind as thy appear- 
 ance and seeming go to tell. Speak to me openly 
 as to a friend," I added this for I saw a shade as 
 of a sudden pain shoot atwhart his sunburnt face. 
 
 He paused a goodly while, and questioned my 
 face long with his eyes. Twice he seemed as if 
 about to speak and twice he did stop. At length, 
 said he, in a voice so strangely changed that I 
 started as I stood there before him : 
 
 " Sir," said he, and the very texture and in-
 
 U2 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 flexion of his tone fell like another man's on my 
 astonished ears " I am not what I seem, and I 
 seem what I am not. I am a gentleman, and I 
 take you also for a scholar and a gentle sir. There- 
 fore do I speak so plain and hold up my secret to 
 your gaze, for well know I that you are too noble 
 to betray it." 
 
 I said in answer : 
 
 " My good and gentle sir : I am too truly a 
 friend to all good men in any strait or distress for 
 to break their faith in me, or for me to break 
 my honour to them." 
 
 " Sir, I thank you with all my heart," said he. 
 " If you will sit down on this prostrate tree I will 
 lean against its standing cousin here opposite, and 
 in brief terms inform you wherefore I am thus, 
 and live an hermit's and a vagabond's life in 
 these woods. 
 
 " I am the Lord of ... and I was a happy 
 and contented squire till I did let my brother come 
 and dwell with me. 
 
 " He but 'twere tedious to tell you all the tale 
 he brought me to my ruin, for he swore I was 
 a complice in a league against our Queen and 
 when I fled, until that I could bring proof to right
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 113 
 
 myself, he seized my goods, and got my wife to bed 
 with him, and sent my children to a distant house 
 of mine, and stole my moneys and my name, and 
 my good title to all honest men's regard, by his 
 lies and damned villany. 
 
 " A faithful swain brought me word, in my 
 secret hiding-place, that I had been outlawed 
 and, sir, here I am. 
 
 " But not all that fate has wrought me shall 
 subdue my spirit. I am like Prometheus bound 
 to his rock, and his vitals pecked at by the hungry 
 beaks of birds of prey, and all the torments that 
 can torture soul and body let loose upon me. 
 
 " But I do feel within me a sustaining power, 
 and I do hear within my soul an upholding voice, 
 and I am like Job, who held fast his own integrity 
 and knew that the great God of all still lived, and 
 saw, and suffered to be done, all that had happened 
 and kept the just accompt thereof. 
 
 " Therefore I repined not, nor complained, but 
 resolved for to bear and to endure and this, 
 gentle sir, is all my tale. And so God save you, sir, 
 for I go on my way to see how fares my rabbit 
 
 snare. 
 
 
 Nay, nay, good Sir," I cried, " we part not so. 
 
 8
 
 ii4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Your hand, my unsoured Diogenes my noble, 
 patient, and Heaven-trusting friend. In turn, I 
 speak the word of cheer to you. An end will come 
 to all this monstrous wrong, and your light shall 
 shine again. As to your jade of a wife, let the 
 
 b go hang ! She is no more wife of thine, 
 
 and the devil, and any of his helots' helots, may 
 have her. Set thou never eyes on her again nor 
 think of her a score like her were not worth one 
 minute's thought of a man like thou. And as for 
 thy present state and needs, I will take thee at 
 my charge from this day forth." 
 
 " Sir, I do thank you most fervently," he 
 answered, with a bow and a trembling lip, " but I 
 cannot endanger you, for I am an outlaw. Yet 
 this will I accept at your gracious hand a crown, 
 a leathern suit, a pair of shoon, a knife and a 
 hatchet and entire oblivion of me as if we had 
 never met, or, meeting, had for ever forsworn our 
 acquaintance, and resolved to meet not again." 
 
 We had further talk, and after our farewell 
 he turned and in an instant, as if he had been an 
 apparition, he disappeared into the woods, without 
 the crackling of a twig or the disturbance of a 
 bush or bough.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 115 
 
 I brought all the things he had named and 
 some others besides that he had not stated in his 
 inventories on the next day, and having, as we 
 had agreed, made our signs the one to the other, 
 I walked away ; and when, within the half hour, I 
 passed that spot again all had gone, and not a 
 sign remained of them or of him. I never saw 
 him again. 
 
 It came to my knowledge some later time 
 that he had regained all his honours and posses- 
 sions except of his false and polluted wife, who 
 did most righteously execute herself by leaping 
 headlong from a high tower in the dwelling she had 
 so pestilently dishonoured. His traitorous brother 
 took to horse and fled when that the Queen's 
 officers came to take him, and he was found in a 
 forest, with a good broad strong arrow deep 
 between his shoulders, which some honest man, 
 inspired thereto, had dexterously shot at him 
 for he was not stripped nor robbed, albeit his 
 pockets were full and heavy with the gold and 
 silver coins and objects which the mean felonious 
 rascal had purloined from his trebly-injured 
 brother. 
 
 This strange event was but a sort of bobbin
 
 n6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 around which wound and gathered a thousand 
 threads and skeins of fancy until, ere long, the place 
 became populous with the airy inhabitants of my 
 own brain ; and they came and disported them- 
 selves at my bidding, and, as in the fabled tales 
 of old when nymphs and satyrs abounded in the 
 valleys, groves, and sylvan nooks, so now as 
 became our Christian times and northern climes 
 elves and fairies and sprights and gnomes and 
 witches and wizards and enchanters took their 
 place, and mingled with my mortals whom I did 
 invent- and many many a romantic story and hor- 
 rible catastrophe, and sweet idyl, and tales that 
 passed as dreams, and strange surprises, and noble 
 discourse, and sweet rencontres of love and 
 stratagem, and of poetry as of a better race of 
 women and men than lived in the common world. 
 I do but aver that what is most true when I say 
 that it had taken a dozen men, as swift and deft 
 writers as myself, to write down justly the half, 
 or the half of that half, of all the plays and tales 
 and poems and circumstances the processions, 
 the changing scenes, the witty sayings, the 
 eloquent soliloquies, the fine and rippling dialogues, 
 the laughter, the tears, the indignations, sorrows,
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 117 
 
 wrongs, revenges, errors, kissings, rightings, and 
 many other things full of life and heart and all 
 moving in a pure air and serene, as if everyone 
 therein had been alive, and had died out of the 
 mortal life into a spiritual condition which has 
 left corporeality not only far behind, but had 
 continued unbroken all the life below, but with 
 greater beauty, and freedom, and brightness. 
 
 And what then was I who was permitted to gaze 
 upon it all to listen, to view, to admire, and laugh 
 and cry, and to shout with the victor, or gnash 
 my teeth at the villain, and rejoice when the true 
 love ran smooth again, and long to tell of the trick 
 and conspiracies that were a-brewing so that they 
 might be discomfited, and, in a word, be the one 
 spectator but yet the all-sufficient audience ? 
 
 Who was I, William Shakspere, sitting there on 
 a gnarled tree-root, or lying on the sward, with 
 but the birds above which did furnish forth their 
 innocent and entrancing lays, and now and 
 again a soft splash as a fish leapt below, or a scurry 
 of some hare or rabbit that came on me sur- 
 prised because I lay so still, and the buzz and hum 
 of bees, and the lisping of the river, the surging of 
 the wind in the trees yea, and yea again, who
 
 n8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 was I, this man lying there, with the eyes and ears 
 that mortal had not borne before, to be allowed 
 to sit there and peep undisturbed, and overhear 
 without rebuke, and feel in every nerve and pulse 
 of me all that passed, or to others would but seem 
 to pass, but to me most assuredly did so, in this so 
 full and active and glorious existence? 
 
 And also, asked I of my soul, are these things 
 or the like universal, and is the world, in its fine 
 ethereal elements, a life crowded with spirits 
 and movements and emotions both sad and mirth- 
 ful, and heroic or mean, and low and homely, and 
 so much more than human in that they had 
 ceased to be encumbered with the frameworks 
 and shewings and trappings and instrumentalities 
 of ordinary humanity but that the common and 
 coarse sense doth not perceive them, save only 
 in a medley in their dreams, and save only when 
 they are little children and so dream awaking 
 as their fancies climb the slanting beams of holy 
 light, and fill all the atmosphere with phantasy ? 
 
 I could not answer to my liking. 
 
 Rather did I feel as if I had strayed where 
 men are not allowed to wander and set foot, and 
 that I had not been discovered.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 119 
 
 And yet 'twas passing strange ! and yet I 
 knew it was I who had invented them, and clothed 
 them, and given them their parts and their exits 
 and their entrances, their speeches, retorts, angers, 
 loves, hates, jealousies, tyrranies, business, and all 
 the trappings and the attributes, the work and the 
 character and the conduct of it all ; and that I 
 had but to wave my hand, or to will the thing, 
 and they would all vanish, or come back, or mingle 
 in many and other wise. 
 
 But this knowledge, of the which I did so often 
 remind myself, did in no way or degree lessen my 
 marvel and my ever fresh delight. 
 
 Sometimes came the thought, with a secret 
 whisper to my soul's most inner ear, that I had 
 strayed indeed in other and mysterious fashion, 
 and that within this my body dwelt more than one 
 spirit ; for I could not think that I, who would 
 sometimes get drunk, and dance, and kiss the 
 maids, and talk loose and lewd talk to the men, 
 was all one with that other William Shakspere 
 who writes of life and death and immortality, and 
 of heroic moods and deeds, and of fairies, and dear 
 lovers, and noble persons, and, in a word, of God 
 and all his glorious wonders and splendours
 
 120 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 above, and demi-gods and men above and below, 
 and of poesies and all the delicate fancies of the 
 most fanciful mind on earth. 
 
 For, stay and understand. Had not I that 
 thought, or that doubt, it were most insufferable 
 vanity for me to write thus of myself my whole 
 and conglomerate self as men regard me. I were 
 a coxcomb and a peacock and an ape, and like a 
 silly empty-headed ploughboy, to speak thus of 
 my personal self did I consider that I was but a 
 single self, though compacted of many diverse 
 elements of high and low quality and degree. 
 
 But I set down this my thought as the rather 
 praising my co-inhabitant the other William 
 Shakspere who doth use me as his secretary. 
 Or, if he be not a co-citizen with me in this 
 corporeal residence my mortal shape and frame 
 he is an honoured and a frequent guest. And if 
 so it be that this my honoured guest is the Thomas 
 of Utrecht whom I do so revere, my venerable and 
 much-loved grandfather, than am I twice, and twice 
 twice honoured above all men now or ever living. 
 
 I finished my historical play of HENRY THE 
 VTH in, or about the month of November 1589* 
 
 * An obvious error.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 121 
 
 and when the same was copied out fair and clean, 
 which was a terrible work and a weary one, I once 
 again journeyed to London, where, after some 
 ado, I sold it to one Master William Sholton the 
 brother of the man with whom I had once played 
 for the sum of one thousand and Eighty pounds 
 which was a great somme. 
 
 I paid my money at once to Silver Brothers 
 to be at interest, and I took up my abode at the 
 sign of the Pilgrims in Eastcheap an Inn of good 
 resort, near to the river and close to the Tower 
 and the Coffeehouses of Cornhill and Lombard 
 Street, and the theatre of Thomas* Sholton 
 which was at Yeoman's Court near Cannon Street, 
 close to the church f of St. Salvador the younger 
 in Sherborne Lane. 
 
 I had engaged for to superintend the appear- 
 ance of this play at its first ten performances, to 
 instruct the players, to devise the dresses and the 
 scenes, and to play the part of Pistol. 
 
 I had much difficulty in getting the proper 
 men and boys to take the parts. Some would have 
 none of this or of that, and others would only take 
 
 * See Ante. 
 
 f I reserve this interesting point for a later note.
 
 122 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 the parts that another had : but at last, by the 
 grace of God, and by the use of much patience 
 and bad language, and much drinking and cajolery 
 and railing, and, finally, of indifference and the 
 devil-may-care I-do-not airs, I completed the 
 company, and, we set about the learning of the parts 
 and the preparations for the opening performance. 
 
 The dresses gave much trouble inasmuch as they 
 were of so diverse, and eke possibly costly a kind, 
 because the characters were, so many of them, 
 nobles and knights, and high clerics, and mighty 
 captains, and lofty ladies, and men at arms, and 
 domestics of great houses, and had to be dressed 
 in conformity to their state. 
 
 Likewise, the scenes were many, and of consider- 
 able variety, and had to be made, painted, and 
 adjusted with much care. 
 
 Mr. Sellieres contracted for the Whole lot of the 
 players, and would allow no man's or boy's name 
 to appear except as a successive number of his 
 own, to the intent that they be dependent on him 
 alone, and also that they be not reached by 
 others so as to get them from him. 
 
 The price contracted for, including himself but 
 not me, was, by the week, 80 Eighty pounds the
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 123 
 
 which somme also comprised the Music, the money- 
 takers, the checktakers, the men to keep order, 
 the men to work the scenes, the men to light and 
 snuff the candles, the dressers, call-boy, prompter, 
 and all the men to appear as soldiers, servants, 
 and the like, and the like. In short, everything 
 except the cost of the candles and of the printing 
 and handing about and showing the playbills. 
 
 My own wage as Pistol was i. 6. o. (one pound 
 and six shillings) by the week, and I did receive 
 nothing further for my instructing of the players 
 and the general superintendence both before the 
 production of the play and after the same, but I 
 was at liberty to relinquish my part at any time 
 after the first ten days, and to instruct a sub- 
 stitute at Mr. Sholton's charge for his wage. 
 
 The play was most successful from the very first 
 night. There were many broken polls in the fights 
 to get entrance. 
 
 The prices of the places were 
 
 The boxes, of which there were 20, One pound the 
 box to hold four. 
 
 The Pit, which would hold 225, One shilling for every 
 person. 
 
 The back part of the Pit which would hold 100, 
 Eightpence for every person.
 
 124 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The Galleries, which would hold about 400, Sixpence 
 for every person. 
 
 There were also twenty seats upon the stage at Ten 
 shillings for every person. 
 
 Altogether, when quite full the Theatre would 
 hold in money 182. 10. o. (One hundred & eighty 
 two pounds 10 shillings.)* 
 
 The candles were esteemed to cost about eight 
 pounds every night. The candle ends were the 
 perquisite of the candle-men. 
 
 The Theatre was crowded suffocatingly every 
 night, and I yielded my part of Pistol to one Mr. 
 Sellieres N? 20 : and having no desire to tarry 
 longer in London, I journeyed back to Stratford- 
 on-Avon with the same wagon and horses, but 
 not the same servants, as I did before. 
 
 Before I left London I had some merry times 
 with my old friends Ben Johnson, and the 
 Englands, and Master George f Sholton, and 
 Master Edward Sholton, and the Brothers Silver 
 who invited me to dinner, where I met many 
 famous men, to wit : Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir 
 Sholto Cavendish, and Sir Alfred Dare, and Lord 
 North, and Sir Sydney Herbert, and Captain 
 
 * This seems incorrect, 
 t See Ante.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 125 
 
 Drake, and Captain Frobisher, and Captain 
 Stephen Stephenson, and Sir John Edwards, and 
 Sir Showell Browne, and Sir Edmond Clowes, and 
 Master Silver his Uncle, Sir Samuel Silver a 
 white-haired man of very reverend aspect, and of 
 great affluence and generosity and learning: a 
 man born in Germany, and a good and worthy 
 Jew, who, with much wealth, had made right 
 good scholars of his two sons at divers 
 Universities. 
 
 These renowned and most distinguished men 
 of so high degree had been gathered for that I 
 meet them, and to do me honour. 
 
 I had timely warning, and did suitably array 
 myself in a suit of black velvet, with point-lace for 
 my ruffles and wrists, and silken hose, and a chain 
 about my neck ; but other ornaments wore I none 
 except that the buckles of my shoes were of 
 ebony and bright steel. 
 
 I bore myself modestly amid all the gracious 
 things that were said, and likewise sung, of me, 
 and there were who recited many excerpts from my 
 plays, and I could scarce keep my eyes from flow- 
 ing when I found myself at so great fame, and love, 
 and pride of honest, and even noble, sort.
 
 126 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I tarried not in London for to go with the 
 players to Windsor on the Queen's commands, to 
 there perform the play, but I feigned me a fever, 
 and so, with many gifts and many fond adieux, 
 I, at length, departed convoyed, as I was before 
 by the Brothers England, my lusty as well as 
 trusty friends, and my stout servants, and a 
 cavalcade of good and gallant friends, full twenty 
 five or more, who did ride with us to Enfield, 
 where we held a grand carouse and then parted. 
 
 After a rest of some week's duration I resolved 
 to make the most of my popularity, and of the 
 popularity of the historical play, and so I without 
 loss of time devised me the plot or plan of another 
 on the like line of construction. 
 
 I accordingly, ere long, was once more at work 
 in my accustomed place and manner, secluding 
 myself as jealously as if I were a wizard in a cave, 
 or a priest in a temple, or a threatened princess 
 in a well-watched tower. 
 
 I began, as was my wont, by sketching out my 
 plot and plan, and my characters and their work, 
 and their chiefest speeches and discoursing and 
 dialogues, with, perchance, here and there a few 
 lines of verse, or a song, or a tournay of wits, or
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 127 
 
 merry-andrewing of clowns, so as to furnish change 
 and lighting of the great and more tragic or heroic 
 portions of the play; as a painter doth portray the 
 lights and shades with, at times, some touch of 
 play, or simplicity, or sweetness, to heighten 
 while it doth relieve the graver parts ol the 
 Picture. 
 
 As was my habit, or my humour, I made my 
 working start by writing large on a sheet of paper 
 with a brand new quill 
 
 HENRY THE VlTH. 
 
 A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS. 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I worked continuously at this play for the space 
 of Six months, and I finished it on a Saturday eve, 
 and I sent for a barber for to trim my hair and 
 beard and moustachios, and I bathed, and changed 
 every thread upon me, and then I made merry 
 with my family and my servants and my friends 
 and neighbours, as many as my house could hold, 
 and many who had to sit in the other rooms, for 
 the great room could not contain them all. I 
 gave them of my best in house or shops that were in
 
 128 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Stratford-on-Avon, and I spared not purse nor pains, 
 and the Curfew-bells did not abate our mirth, but we 
 kept it up with song and dance, and merry toast, 
 and much eating and drinkinge, until that the week 
 was done and the Sunday morning was in the 
 heavens, and about to descend to earth. 
 
 I copied out my play with my own hand, which 
 took me over one month's hard toil, and weariness 
 of head and hand and back : but I finished it at 
 length, and a few weeks later saw me yet again in 
 London, where I arrived on the i8th day of Sep- 
 tember 1592, I being then about twenty eight 
 yeares olde and went straight to the same Lamb 
 Inn in Eastcheap where the hoste, one Master 
 Goodwyn, did give me my former chamber, and 
 treated me with great and singular courtoisie and 
 honneur. 
 
 After a night of refreshment and rest I sallied 
 forth to see my friends before going to pursue my 
 business. 
 
 Poor Ben Johnson was in very bad case, for 
 he had grown fat, and very lazy, and very dirty, 
 and very poor, and very drunken. He was lodg- 
 ing with a woman, one Mistress Jane Eyneshaw 
 or Erneshaw, in Great Tower Street, and was in
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 129 
 
 debt to her in the matter of Six pounds or there- 
 about, and also owed divers sommes to other 
 people, the whole being of a total somme of over 
 twenty pounds ; and he was lost to the world, 
 and had parted with many of his bookes, the which, 
 when he told me thereof, went to my heart like 
 the stabs of a poignard : and had not fit clothes 
 wherein to go abroad, and seemed deserted by the 
 world, and forgotten of all his friends. 
 
 I comforted the dear poor Poet and friend of my 
 heart, and I paid all his debts, and clothed him 
 anew from poll to heel, and twice at that for 
 convenience and change ; and I gave him twenty 
 more pounds for to go to another lodging, and find 
 and buy back his bookes if he could contrive to do 
 it, and to put himself in courage and in harness 
 again, and be worthy of his fame and of himself. 
 We did both get very drunk when we had settled 
 his affairs, and we had to send to the Englands for 
 to get us free from the Bridewell on Blackfriars 
 the which they did, and laughed most mon- 
 strously at our plight, for Ben he could not walk 
 nor talk, but only grunted like a huge hog ; and I 
 was less overcome with sack and peppermint and 
 spruce, etc., than with fatigue in trying to hold
 
 130 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Ben up, and afterwards with sleep that seemed to 
 wrap me round in many folds of thicknesse and 
 voluptuous warmth and softness . . . 
 
 The Englands paid whatsoever charges and 
 penalties were exacted (the which I did duly repay 
 the next day) and took us away in chairs, and they 
 told me, for I did remember nothing of it, that I 
 did nothing but make rhymes and ballads and odes, 
 and what not, all the way to the Lamb Inn; and 
 belike I did, for they came easily to me at all such 
 times, but I have no memory of what did happen 
 then, or until I was awakened and helped to dress, 
 about Eleven of the clock on the next day. 
 
 I sold my play to the same James* Shorten 
 who had bought my play of Henry the Vth for 
 One thousand & Eighty pounds, for he would not 
 give me more, although, as I learned and for 
 myself estimated, he had made a huge profit on my 
 preceding play at least two thousand pounds, 
 after paying me so that he had made that money 
 and got my play besides. 
 
 I agreed to remain in London, as I did before, 
 to help in the gathering and instruction of the 
 players, and the scene painters, and the costume 
 
 * See Ante.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 131 
 
 makers, and armourers, and other matters neces- 
 sary for the production of the play ; and I 
 consented for a short time to play the part of 
 Bardolph at a wage by the week of i 8/-. 
 
 It took three good anxious toilsome months 
 to get all in complete readiness for the first per- 
 formance at the Royal Theatre of Shows and Plays, 
 Eastcheap, which was the new name of Sholton's 
 Old Royal Tower Theatre, on the 8th day of 
 January 1593. 
 
 Master Sholton agreed with Mr. Sellieres to 
 furnish the entire Company, and, all the servants 
 and attendants, as formerly set forth, except that 
 of the part of Bardolph, for the somme by the 
 week of Eighty-four pounds ten shillings. 
 
 The Theatre was designed to hold about 600 
 six hundred persons divided thus 
 
 In 20 boxes . . . . . . 80 persons. 
 
 In the Pit V;' : ' J .. .. 260 
 
 In the Back of the Pit ' '-.& 80 
 
 In the Galleries . . . . 250 ,, 
 
 And on the Stage . . 12 ,, 
 
 These various accomodations are of the money 
 value of 40 or thereabout*; which for six nights 
 
 * The computation is incorrect.
 
 132 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 is 240 ; so that if to the aforesaid 84 - 10 - o 
 be added the sum of Forty Eight pounds for 
 candles, and a matter of two pounds 10 ten 
 shillings for playbills, and the advertisements of 
 the same in the coffee-houses and elsewhere, and if 
 the receivings were only 200 by the week, there 
 would be a goodly profit to Master Sholton the 
 which I never grudged him in my heart but, the 
 rather, I rejoiced thereat. 
 
 The play was likewise exceedingly well received, 
 and became a strong success from the very first 
 night, and I was nigh surfeited with the honours 
 which were heaped upon me even when I simply 
 walked in the street, and men said There goes 
 Master Shakspere, and would smile, and doff 
 their caps ; and the women and most chiefly 
 they that were young and knew that they were 
 comely would smile, and glance, and send me 
 many roguish and luring looks the which, for the 
 most part, I would feign that I did not understand, 
 and I would note their pretty poutings and at 
 times, their disdaining angers. 
 
 I set not this down in coxcombry, but simply to 
 show how well I had become known and liked to 
 the people of London ; for were I indeed a vain
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 133 
 
 man, I would have repeated much that were indeed 
 the act of a despicable and dishonourable wretch. 
 
 I made me all the haste I could to leave London, 
 and to avoid as much meddling as possible with 
 Master Sholton and his management of the play : 
 and I feigned to be ill, and in need of rest, and such 
 care as only my own wife and home could yield 
 me ; and so I quietly came away and returned me 
 to Stratford-on-Avon, where I arrived all safe 
 and sound on the 28th day of March 1593. 
 
 I lived very quietly for some weekes so that my 
 tale in London might not be contradicted, and I 
 heard from time to time that my Play was still 
 the rage and the town's talk, and I was greatly 
 pleased and proud thereat, and sometimes did 
 regret my untimely flight from London, and some- 
 times did rejoice thereat, for I had no stomach 
 for more roystering. 
 
 But, as often doth arrive when a man is too wise 
 and over-discreet, I was trapped by my own 
 innocent and well-intentioned stratagems, for 
 divers of my friends, fearing for my health, did 
 make up a company and journeyed down to 
 Stratford-on-Avon for to visit me, and to cheer 
 me in the illness which they believed I was in.
 
 134 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 They came to my surprise and joy and conster- 
 nation Ben Johnson, and the Englands. and 
 Thomas* Sholton, Sir Sidney Slattery, and Master 
 Silver, and Sir Sholto Stoner, and Sir Edward 
 Shorter, and some other of my fond friends. 
 
 I had not room enough in my poor house for so 
 great and so noble a company, and all but Ben were 
 lodged at the Saracen's Head, which was the 
 chief test Inn in Stratford-on-Avon. 
 
 I did confess my plan and subterfuge to them, 
 and they laughed as if the very rafters were crack- 
 ing, and methought more from their joy in finding 
 me so hale and strong than from any wit in the 
 thing itself. They were right loyal and good 
 hearts, and I blessed God that he did give me 
 such true friends every man of them. 
 
 I made them welcome with all my heart, and 
 with one or two, or it may be half a dozen right 
 good men of my friends and neighbours of Stratford- 
 on-Avon, we made merry, and held long and fierce 
 carousal, and had games and sports and many 
 pastimes for nigh a week on end. 
 
 One night we sallied forth, and half the town 
 at our heels, and we heaved the Stocks into the 
 
 * See Ante.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 135 
 
 river, and the constable was drunk and helped 
 us ; and we scattered largesse, and some did ring 
 a horrid peal, and all the women screamingly 
 laughed and clapped their hands, and all the men 
 and boys did cheer, and all the little children 
 were made exceeding glad, for we did gut the shops 
 of their sweetmeats and cakes, for the which we 
 payed whatever was demanded, and not an infant 
 that had not its entrails assailed by many potent 
 an4 insiduous foes. 
 
 I look back on that mad time with composure, 
 and yet with astonishment. All damages were 
 quitted and made good, and nought but smiles 
 were seen in all the town. And, stranger still to 
 relate, not a man of all our Company, and not even 
 I, was one jot the worse in head, or stomach, or 
 in limb ; and when at length my beloved visitors 
 took to coach though they had come in their 
 own the town turned out and vociferously 
 cheered them on their way, and a score of us, 
 among whom was I, rode with them for nigh ten 
 miles to do them honour and to lengthen our 
 farewells. 
 
 I had, however, more need for rest after this 
 most happy and riotous embassade than even after
 
 136 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 my labours in bringing to its public birth my last 
 play now so wondrously successful in London. 
 
 Amid all this that I have recounted, missing 
 many episodes and glossing over many incidents, 
 my mind was a-working as works the waterwheel 
 while the Miller sleeps yet in his Sleep dimly 
 hears its movement as it mingles with the voices 
 of the trees and air and turns over and sleeps 
 again ; or, as the charioteers left behind by break- 
 downs on the road bear on their heads the harness 
 and horse furniture of their foundered modes of 
 travel while they walk to the nighest town or 
 village ; or, as the Stag which bounds along the 
 plain with its burden of antlers the while it thinks 
 of nothing but its fleetness of legs. 
 
 A plague upon the similes ! I am out of 
 tune. 
 
 By odd times, in fragments, and as a joiner doth 
 prepare for the house that is yet unbuilt, and store 
 away each separate part of door and casement and 
 lintel and carven baluster and other work, so did I, 
 bit by bit, but not in any sequent order, get me 
 ready for the writing of yet another play for the 
 which, when once I did in reality begin, I already 
 had a goodly store in notes, and even in completed
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 137 
 
 portions, which I might use, or perfect, or turn to 
 good account. 
 
 I once more equipped myself with a plenteous 
 supply of material, and one fair morning I kissed 
 my wife and told her that I was going on a journey 
 all alone, and I pointed to my room where I used 
 to work. 
 
 She knew my meaning, and sighed as she kissed 
 me again, for she knew that expostulation were in 
 vain ; for when I once was minded to write I 
 should the rather say, impelled by an irresistable 
 compulsion from within it was not money that 
 now drove me to it, no, nor money that could 
 now hold me from it. 
 
 I took me a sheet of paper, on which I wrote with 
 a new quill 
 
 *HENRY THE VTH, 2ND PART. 
 
 A 
 
 TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS. 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 In this Play I desired and designed to carry on 
 the history of the events during that stirring time 
 of domestic war and' dynastic struggle. 
 
 * It will be perceived that there is much confusion of mind and 
 memory in the following remarks.
 
 138 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The characters were mainly the same as in the 
 first part, but the localities were different, and 
 the chief points of interest were the Siege of 
 Calais, trial of Joan of Arc, the Seizure of the 
 throne of England by Henry the Vth, and the 
 fight for the Crown by the Houses of York and 
 Lancaster. 
 
 I also aimed to show that the condition of the 
 nation was getting worse in consequence of these 
 wars and unrests, and that there was a danger 
 of England's relapsing into a province of France 
 unless some peace were made of a definite nature, 
 and the country allowed to recover itself by quiet- 
 ness and industry. 
 
 To this end I made my characters speak of 
 peace, and of the fatal rivalries of the two Houses, 
 and of the way in which the nation was being 
 destroyed and impoverished. 
 
 I traced by the speeches of Rochester and 
 Rowley how the land was being desolated, and all 
 wealth eaten up, and all progress arrested ; and 
 I led up, bit by bit, to my climax that the good 
 of England required a strong ruler, and that 
 Elizabeth was the Heaven-sent Queen to weld 
 all the peoples, and to pacify all the factions, and
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 139 
 
 to give the blessings of peace and plenty and 
 liberty and progress to this England of our's. 
 
 I finished the play in January 1594, after six 
 months incessant toil, and, having devoted a 
 tedious month to fair copy the same, I hied me 
 yet again to London, and this time I took my dear 
 wife with me, for she never yet had been in London, 
 and often had I promised her to take her with 
 me on some fine occasion. 
 
 She was over-joyed, and I also was well-con- 
 tented for many reasons whereof I durst tell her 
 of only some. 
 
 We lodged us with one Mistress Chomondeley 
 at No. 27, Goldhawk Street in the Parish of 
 Clerkenwell, and my wife was delighted with all 
 the sights and wonders of the Town. 
 
 I sold this play to the same Thomas* Sholton 
 for the somme of 1,080 One thousand and 
 Eighty pounds and engaged for to teach and 
 learn the players, and to instruct the costume 
 makers, and the scene painters, and makers of 
 armour, and the like, and the like ; the all of which 
 took me a goodly time. 
 
 My wife went nigh to being distracted and 
 
 * Ante.
 
 140 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 insane with all the shops and shows, and all the 
 honour and hospitality of many friends, and men 
 of high estate, who did invite us, of whom I shall 
 cite but a very few 
 
 Master Silver. 
 
 Sir Francis Drake as he now became in his house 
 at Colman Street.* 
 
 Master England. 
 
 Master Edward England. 
 
 Sir Edward Sholto. 
 
 Sir Thomas Everard Sholto. 
 
 Master Stephen Stephenson, the Queen's 
 Secretary. 
 
 My lord Stamford, 
 and some more, at least a score. 
 
 She bought frocks and tuckers, and frills and 
 fringes, and all the many objects, beyond a man's 
 understanding and for a woman's fancied and 
 imagined wants : and she glowed and gleamed, 
 and was all over puckered and dimpled with her 
 smiles, and the varied expressions of delight that 
 a pretty woman can put on and off if so it takes 
 her whim : and she enjoyed her sojourn in London 
 beyond descant or description. 
 
 * He is said to have had a house in Dowgate Hill.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 141 
 
 The time at last arrived when all was ready, and 
 the play was in due order presented to the world 
 of London. 
 
 I took the part of Nym, but for ten nights only. 
 
 Master Sellieres as before contracted for all the 
 parts, except only that of Nym, and to furnish 
 the music, and all the service of every kind except 
 the advertising of the play, for the sum of Eighty- 
 six pounds by the weeke leaving Master Sholton 
 only the candles, and the printers, and the men 
 who did take round the playbills to pay for. 
 
 For my part of Nym I was to be paid One 
 pound 8 shillings by the weeke the four days of 
 my second weeke to be paid for at four shillings 
 and eightpence for each night. 
 
 The play did not go so thunderously well as 
 had gone its predecessors, but it went well enough. 
 
 All men said it was a great play and worthy of 
 the classic writers, but I fear me the populace did 
 find it somewhat heavy and dull, and above the 
 level of their understandings ; and I did not, I 
 think, sufficiently consider that men, and especi- 
 ally the ignorant, go to a theatre the rather to be 
 amused, or terrified, or excited, or moved, than 
 to be instructed.
 
 142 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Nevertheless, Sholton was doing a very profit- 
 able business, and was well contented, and I did 
 receive vast praise from high and low ; and the 
 Queen's Grace was pleased to send for me for me to 
 read to her and her ladies and courtiers the parts 
 
 where and discoursed, and also where 
 
 the King soliloquised about sleep, and where Sir 
 John Falstaffe had died and Dame Quickly 
 described his death, at which the Queen did wipe 
 her eyes and murmur, " poor Sir John ; and art 
 thou indeed dead ? I could have better spared 
 half a dozen of my real knights." 
 
 She gave me her royal hand to kiss, the which 
 I gratefully and dutifully did, and she did also 
 give me a guinea, and a gold and silver cup into 
 which I could pour two flagons of wine the which 
 I did above six times on that same evening, when 
 Ben Johnson and the Englands and some other 
 of my most particular friends did come to see how 
 I had fared at Court. 
 
 I had paid my money to the Brothers Silver 
 for security and at Interest, and I had to go to them 
 not once but several times for to get some for my 
 purposes and for my wife's purchases. 
 
 On the 2Oth day of April 1594 we packed up
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 143 
 
 and loaded all on our wagon, with provisions, and 
 cloaks and blankets, and arms, and we set out for 
 Stratford-on-Avon my wife now full of fond 
 ongings for home and we had two stout fellows 
 to be our guards, and the wagoner and his boy, 
 who was likewise a burly dare-the-devil knave. 
 I feared no man at close quarters, for I could 
 wield my rapier as well as any cavalier, and better 
 than most of them, having always kept up my 
 fencing when I could do so. 
 
 As on former the like occasions I had an honour- 
 able and noble escort of good and gallant friends 
 who, a goodly score or more, rode with us so far as 
 Enfield, where we did part company after a rousing 
 carouse and cheering the like whereof had scarce 
 been heard in that place ; and in due time we 
 reached to Stratford-on-Avon, where the town 
 turned out to meet us, and convoy us to our house : 
 for my repeated fame, and my being sent for by 
 the Queen herself, had preceded me, and my 
 townsmen were proud of themselves and of me. 
 
 I had cogitated much, beneath and behind and 
 concurrently with all the bustle and the noise and 
 the cheering and the money-making and the 
 glorifying and the encomiums and the rest of it,
 
 144 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 that I must now write some plays of another hue. 
 For I had written three great and solid historical 
 plays, and I feared not only for my fame but also 
 for my future gains, and, even more than for fame 
 or pelf, for my genius, lest it might take on too 
 engraftedly the style of thought, and purpose, 
 and forms of speech, and all other the character 
 and fixed phrases and channels of study and 
 delineation and self -sameness. 
 
 I, therefore, resolved at this time to go out into 
 another and entirely different direction that is 
 to say, Comedy and Poetry and Romance 
 altogether, and I devised a piece which should be 
 a new shoot-off from the tragic style of my recent 
 plays. 
 
 I thought out many plots and plans and, finally, 
 I did choose one which mightily pleased my fancy, 
 and the which I did compose and rehearse in parcels 
 and fragments to myself when alone, in the woods, 
 or in my chamber, and did often laugh so up- 
 roariously that my wife would come and ask me 
 if I was unwell, or out of my mind, and my maids 
 would be frightened for to come near the door. 
 
 At other times, I would walk abroad, and it 
 was said that I did speak aloud, and mouth, and
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 145 
 
 sigh, and smile, and fling about my arms, until 
 that the older sort of people said that I was like 
 to my Grandfather Thomas, and the others did 
 believe that I was mad, or belike that I was drunk 
 though divers of the staider sort did shake their 
 heads and say that William Shakspere was 
 inditing yet anothei new play, which would bring 
 him further renown and much profit. 
 
 I got fuller and fuller with this my new play 
 and could not longer contain me, but was con- 
 strained to have delivery by pen and ink and 
 paper. 
 
 I took me a clean sheet and with a brand new 
 quill I wrote 
 
 A WINTER'S TALE * 
 
 A 
 
 COMEDY IN THREE ACTS. 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I began this Comedy on the Eleventh day of 
 March 1595, and I worked upon it for nearly four 
 months, when I did re-copy it with my own hand, 
 and I went to London with one Master Seldon, 
 and one Master Shooter, both Citizens of Stratford- 
 
 * Twelfth Night is meant See further. 
 
 10
 
 146 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 on- A von, who had occasion to journey thither upon 
 a law-suit, and also for to buy some goods and 
 merchandise for their several shops. 
 
 We went to the Lamb Inn in Eastcheap whereof 
 the host was most hearty glad to see me again, as I 
 had not stayed with him on my last journey by 
 reason of my wife's company ; and it was not long 
 before that the news of my coming became bruited 
 abroad and the house became full and roaring 
 noisy with friends of mine, and with many who 
 came from curiosity alone to see or to shake me 
 by the hand, or to speak to me, but I never 
 would drink or trink with strangers. I was ever 
 courteous, but I eschewed all undue familiarity. 
 
 Many letters did also come to me from great men 
 who did invite me to their houses or to revels, from 
 traders and the like, and from Dames and love- 
 sick damsels of whom there were not a few, but 
 whom I treated better than they would treat 
 themselves for I forswore their tempting lures 
 and cunning entanglements to dalliance and 
 dishonourable pleasures : and I with most religious 
 particularness did burn every missive and billet- 
 doux, and oft got for my reward many a scowling 
 glance and many a vengeful look at the which I
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 147 
 
 feigned to be all innocence and ignorance, and, if 
 it pleased them better, all country-bred folly and 
 t hick-wittedness . 
 
 I sold my Comedy to Master Thomas Sholton 
 for Eight hundred pounds and a royalty or rent of 
 one pound for every night of its being performed 
 in London or elsewhere, for the space of three years ; 
 and I agreed to instruct the players, and the 
 costume makers, and the scene painters, and so on, 
 and at last all was in readiness for the first per- 
 formance though we had much ado to get the 
 players to learn their parts, because of the differ- 
 ence in the style of all the characters, and in the 
 nationalities and manners. 
 
 We did at last surmount all the obstacles, and 
 the playbills were put about in all the places of 
 resort, and many smaller copies of the same were 
 taken round and left at the houses of the Nobility 
 and the Quality and the Aldermen and principal 
 Merchants and lawyers and officers, and the like. 
 
 As with the Historical Tragedies so Master 
 Sellieres did contract with Master Sholton for to 
 man the entire play and to furnish all the attend- 
 ants whatsoever, and the Music, for the somme of 
 Eighty-six pounds by the weeke.
 
 148 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Master Sellieres, who had played the principal 
 parts in the tragedies, played the part of Malvolio 
 as if born in his very skin ; and 'twas a marvel that 
 he who had stormed, and looked terrific, and been 
 magnificent and stately as King Henry the Vth, 
 and as King Henry the IVth, and as Hamlet, 
 should now strut and mince and mow as Malvolio, 
 in such perfect guise that e'en my eyes ran with tears 
 as I did laugh to see him. 
 
 The theatre rose at him as one man, and the 
 shouts were so great that men ran from neighbour- 
 ing streets to see what riot had broken forth. 
 
 I was right. The Town had had surfeit of 
 ponderous plays and wanted relief in lighter tones 
 and themes. 
 
 The play was a most stupendous success, and 
 nightly they were forced to let no more people in 
 and to refuse to take their money the which was 
 an inconsolable sorrow to Master Sholton. 
 
 I did not take my part in this play, and I 
 hastened to leave London, after leaving my money 
 with the Brothers Silver, the which I did very 
 quietly on the I4th day of May 1595, and so 
 returned to my home without any fuss or state, 
 and resolved to rest apace.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 149 
 
 I was at this time often ill of a pleurisy, and 
 sent off to Warwicke fr a certain Mistress Jane 
 Wadeing, a wise widow, who did make many 
 wonderful cures. She very soon had me cured, 
 and hale and sound, and I went about on my 
 rambles in the woods, and the countrysides, as 
 strong as ever I had been. 
 
 In these walks and rambles, with here and there 
 a market, or a fair, or a wedding, or a wastrail of 
 some sort or another, I yet did, in almost my own 
 despite, fashion and hammer out on the anvil of 
 my mind the plot or plan of yet another comedy ; 
 and I soon gathered many a line, and many a 
 figure, and many a quip, in readiness to weave them 
 in my Cloth when once I did begin, the which I 
 did soon do, for the thoughts were bursting big 
 within me. 
 
 On the 2oth day of July 1595 I took to my room 
 and with a brand new quill I did write on a great 
 white sheet 
 
 AS YOU LIKE IT. 
 
 A 
 
 COMEDY IN THREE ACTS. 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.
 
 150 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 And I was, all the while I was a-writing it, like a 
 bird caroling in a cage, nay, rather in a grove. 
 My heart was as gay as was my fancy free, and my 
 brain easy, pliant, fertile, generous. 
 
 The lines, the pages, the piles of pages, seemed 
 to come as if summer winds had blown the rose- 
 leaves off o'er-heavy flowers, and the air itself 
 seemed redolent of all the scents of the wild woods, 
 and vocal with all their sounds. 
 
 I never wrote anything in my life with so much 
 joy, and with so little effort. Everything did 
 seem to spring as from wells where all had lain 
 ready and complete, and my hand did but seem 
 the material instrument to set it free and all too 
 slow and cumbrous in its motion. 
 
 I durst not stop to read a page or e'en a part 
 already written. I was ever thrust forward at a 
 furious rate, and lost many a goodly line and 
 phrase by my inability to overtake or keep up with 
 the flow, as from some mysterious sourse beyond 
 my influence or control. 
 
 When I could not go on writing for very weari- 
 ness, from want of food or sleep, I still felt as if 
 I were going on at my meals, which were but 
 hasty mouthf uls, snatched almost at random, or in
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 151 
 
 my fitful sleep, wherein I would start at every few 
 minutes and jump from my bed and note down, 
 as on some imperative command, the thoughts 
 that kept tumbling o'er each other in their haste 
 to burst forth as from burning crater or an up- 
 rushing spring. 
 
 I had bethought me of the squire, in the guise of 
 a hermit woodman, whom I did once meet in 
 Arden Forest, as I think I did herein set out, and 
 on him did I build my Touchstone, but I had to 
 make him merry as well as wise, and philosophic 
 withal. 
 
 I do remember me going one day to the Forest, 
 and speaking nearly my play in solitude to the 
 trees around me ; and it was as if all and every 
 character did move and breathe and live, and enter 
 and go out among the trees and copses as if it were 
 indeed a stage ; and though some men may call me 
 foolish, or in fancy lost, I declare that I seemed not 
 to read or recite alone but that I heard each line, 
 and word, and speech, and dialogue, and grief, 
 and laugh, and sigh, and kiss, around and about me, 
 as, not the players, but the real embodiments of my 
 mind did utter or express them ; and that I, the 
 solitary spectator, did behold it all as if it had
 
 152 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 sprung from some other source, or, the rather, 
 were the real life indeed, and that I was privileged 
 to be present and laugh and listen and applaud. 
 
 It was truly the dearest delight, and most subtle 
 pleasure, the fashioning of the play in the handi- 
 work in which I seemed to have had so little share 
 beyond the mere writing on the paper, and in the 
 enjoyment of which I had such glorious zest. 
 
 When it was done I could scarce resolve upon 
 myself to part with it, or scarce so much as to 
 share the knowledge thereof with another ; but 
 that were folly, as I told myself in somewhat of 
 this manner of argument : 
 
 /. Now, Sirrah, what meaneth this nonsense 
 of dallying with thy merchandise, to wit : thy 
 new Play ? Answer on the instant. 
 
 W.S. I prithee, Master, have patience. I do 
 but dandle it a little longer on my knees before I 
 do send it out upon the great world out-of- 
 doors. 
 
 /. Tis folly, staring folly, I tell thee, and 'tis 
 vanity, forebye. For if it be so good a Play as 
 thou dost fondly take it for, why, the world will 
 say so too, and give thee honour, and money in 
 store, and applause.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 153 
 
 W.S. Gently, good my Master. I know that 
 what thou sayest is most true, but I did find it as 
 an infant born of fairy mother in the Forest, and 
 I brought it with me to my home, and did dress and 
 fondle it, and am now grown so foolish fond 
 thereof that I cannot lightly part with it, still less 
 send it, in all its tender delicateness, among hard- 
 hearted or cold-blooded strangers. 
 
 /. I will have no more of such silly excusings. 
 Thy mind, it misgives me, has become somewhat 
 o'er wrought of late most like because thou hast 
 been too much alone, and wandering too solitary 
 in the Forest, and thou art become a maudlin and 
 most foolish man, and eke a conceited coxcomb. 
 
 W.S. Enough, Sir. I shall brook this insolence 
 of yours no longer. You are but a bare and 
 sordid-minded pedlar. Here, take the Play, and 
 be damned and ne'er ask me to write you 
 another. I will go and inveigh against you to the 
 trees, my good respectful friends, and so farewell. 
 
 Then I laughed, not displeased that I had thus 
 served and helped to make up my mind, and I had 
 a merry supper with my friends, and on the next 
 day I set out for London, together, for my better 
 safety, with one Master John Hargreaves of
 
 154 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 Warwicke, who had occasion for to go to London 
 on a matter of Account with a Company there. 
 
 I once more put up at the Lamb Inn, and on the 
 very same day I sold my play to Master Edward 
 Sholton and Master John Sholton in Co-partner- 
 ship for the sum of Eight hundred and twenty 
 six pounds, and a fee of One pound for every night 
 when it might be performed in London, during 
 five years. 
 
 They liked it so hugely that they did not lose 
 one hour in seeing Master Sellieres who, when he 
 had but read a few pages, became mightily 
 inflamed with praise and satisfaction, and did 
 march about the room with the pages in his hand 
 and declaim here a piece and there a piece in 
 his great voice, so that, ere long there was a crowd 
 in the passage ways, and outside under the 
 windows ; and someone passed the cry that it 
 was William Shakspere's new comedy, and that 
 Master Sellieres was a-sampling it, and there were 
 loud cheers from the people outside the house, and 
 eke inside the house, and Master Sellieres had to 
 show himself and make his bow, while I did hide 
 myself behind a casement. 
 
 But the people did so cry out for me that
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 155 
 
 Master John Sholton did make speech to them and 
 tell them that I was tired, being newly off a long 
 journey from Stratford-on-Avon ; and, being a 
 shrewd man, he did tell them also that he and 
 Master Edward had just bought the very finest 
 and most excellent Comedy that was ever written, 
 which would be shortly performed in public, and 
 he scattered largesse, the which was a clever, and 
 most stirring, and unforgettable advertisement. 
 
 And so I escaped, for I did not want to make 
 my bow from an Inn window to a crowd of idle 
 shouters, and the like. 
 
 It took but one month to prepare everything, 
 so much good heart did everybody put, each in 
 his degree or vocation, into his work ; and never 
 did players learn their parts, in action and, move- 
 ment and life-like similitude, as well as in mere 
 memory of words, with such celerity and hearti- 
 ness. The instructing of them was in itself a great 
 pleasure to them and to me, and when the costumes 
 were ready, and the scenery, we lost no time in 
 advertising the Town. 
 
 The scene was laid in my dear Forest of Arden. 
 
 As before, Master Sellieres had contracted for 
 all the players, music, and all the servants and
 
 156 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 attendants, for the slump sum of Eighty-six 
 pounds 10 shillings by the week, and as the 
 Theatre was filled and over-flowed on every night, 
 the Masters Sholton did most profitable business, 
 and made money by the bucketful, as they say 
 with us in the Midland County. 
 
 The Town was indeed most wondrously taken 
 with the play, and I had the greatest difficulties 
 to avoid being mobbed when I did appear in the 
 streets, or surfeited into fevers by the invitations 
 that I did daily receive. I left London for my 
 home some twelve days after the first appearance 
 of my play, well, and more than well contented. 
 
 I at that time made up my mind not to write 
 another play for a long time to come, and I per- 
 force needs write, then to confine my pen to 
 fugitive pieces such as poems or ballades, or 
 little stories, and the like and look after my 
 affaires, the which had gone into some neglect. 
 
 I had some houses and lands, and interests in a 
 ferry, and in divers other matters, being impor- 
 tuned into the same in my easy or over-occupied 
 moments, inasmuch as all men knew that I had 
 gotten large sums from my plays, and Rumour 
 with her glib and numerous tongues had vastly
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 157 
 
 enlarged the tally of the same. I also had lent 
 right and left out of sheer softness and good-nature, 
 without a dream of gain thereby, and I lost also 
 left and right, besides bad blood, and scoffs, and 
 ingratitudes without end. 
 
 I did my best to adjust much that was in dire 
 confusion, and I employed one or several attorneys 
 in cases where not alone my money but mine 
 honour was at stake, for some did repay me with 
 insolence and lies, or fictitous demands and counter 
 claims, and I thought it only just to punish them : 
 whereas I had bided the loss of the mere monies 
 with philosophy and, perhaps, a laugh at my 
 own credulities. 
 
 I did determine some degree of order, and was 
 well pleased to find that I was possessed at that 
 time, even if I did never earn another penny, of as 
 much as might yield me about One Hundred and 
 Ninety Pounds a year, besides the house that I 
 did live in, and my chattels, horses, kine, and 
 other items worth perhaps nigh to eight hundred 
 pounds or more. Also, I had many and costly 
 gifts in gold and silver, and many objects of great 
 worth and curiosity, and stores of bookes the 
 which I prized more than all the rest.
 
 158 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 I bought me more bookes in French and in 
 Italian, the which tongue I found it most easy to 
 learn, because I did well remember my Latin 
 into which I was steeped and drenched and 
 penetrated when I was the Under-Usher at 
 Hoddingley ; and I was entranced with the bright 
 and sunny and most passionate tales and romances 
 in the which, methought, there lurked the makings 
 of a play in almost every one of them, except them 
 that were gross and too indecently indecorous 
 to be so used. 
 
 Chiefly did I dwell upon, and read and read again 
 until I did almost know by heart, the Decameron 
 of one Boccacio, the Pencameron by the same 
 writer, the Rabelais by a French writer named 
 Montaigne,* the Stoics by one Stone, the Sybarite 
 by the same Writer, the Science of Dramati- 
 zation by one Peter Stowe of Salisbury, the Loves 
 of Diana by Thomas Stone of London, the Loves of 
 Venus by the same Writer, the Thesis of British 
 Art by Master John Salisbury of London, the 
 Loves of a Duchess by Stone, the Songs of a 
 Warbler by Stephen Stephenson, the Songs of a 
 Singer by the same poet, the Songs of The Seasons 
 
 * Obvious blunder.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 159 
 
 by one Master Gregory of London, the Themes and 
 Staves by Stone, the Poems of the Heart by the 
 same, and others too many for enumeration. 
 
 I spent some months in a disorderly sort of 
 fashion reading, noting, writing odd bits and 
 again, and completing none, and wandering about, 
 mostly all alone, with a booke and my owne 
 thoughts and fancies. 
 
 Yet all this seeming idleness and sans methode 
 were but cloaks designed to impose upon and 
 deceive even my own self, for now and then, as if 
 by stealth, I did get a peep into my own mind, 
 wherein, like a close-guarded smithy, portions of 
 what [might] hereafter be fitted into one whole play 
 were being deftly fashioned, and laid aside for 
 future use, when cooled sufficiently. 
 
 I was wont to smile when I, on tiptoe as it were, 
 silently crept away, and to vow that I would 
 come and smash the mouldings and the modelling 
 and the f orgings, and the hammered pieces : and yet 
 I knew full [well] that, even while I vowed, I was 
 thinking of some things that might complete, 
 or harmonise, or fit in, the entire projection. 
 
 I fenced and fought and frowned and trifled 
 for many months, the while I repeated, often most
 
 160 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 obstinately, that I would not commence another 
 play at least not yet for a lengthened while ; 
 and I began to fidget, and wax absent, and dis- 
 traught, and fail to savour and to prosper on my 
 meals, or to sleep soundly ; and I often stopped 
 and interrogated myself with great severity, and 
 did exort and chide my ill and peevish and 
 unaccountable humours. 
 
 But it was all in vain. I asked myself questions, 
 which I knew full well were beside the mark, for to 
 provoke the answers which I, in my secret mind, 
 did equally know to be irrelevant and ingeniously 
 hypocritical ; and I made pretence to deem the 
 conversation to be sincere. Then I would laugh 
 at all this jugglery, and call myself many names 
 of defamatory and wellnigh infamous quality, 
 and I would swear lustily upon all imposters and 
 crooked pretenders and feinants, and Hers in- 
 sly ambushes, and wearers of deluding masks ; and 
 perchance, go and seek out some good and willing 
 soul and get drunk insanely. 
 
 But this thing could not go ever thus There 
 must come an end. 
 
 That end did come on the i8th day of December 
 1595 when I lost all patience and dropped suddenly
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 161 
 
 all playing at hide-and-seek with my resolves and 
 inclinations which did pull in diverse ways. 
 
 For I pushed aside my porringer at breakfast, 
 and rushed into my own room as if I had been 
 waiting in long suspense at the door thereof, and I 
 violently seized upon a quill. I looked not to see 
 whether it were new or no, and I did, with like 
 impetuosity, pounce upon a large sheet of paper, 
 and with eager and almost trembling hands, and 
 hastening as if I feared to be frustrated in thus 
 defying my determinations, I wrote 
 
 THE MOOR OF VENICE. 
 
 A 
 
 TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTS. 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 I did later alter the title to 
 
 OTHELLO : THE MOOR OF VENICE. 
 I set to work as if I were in a fever, and as if 
 I had been forcibly debarred from writing and were 
 now but on sufferance, and for a very brief space 
 of time. 
 
 I laboured on this play almost incessantly by 
 night as well as by day. I gave myself neither 
 respite nor rest, except for the hurried meals 
 
 11
 
 162 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 whereof I scarce tarried to know the nature, 
 and often left untouched, or but half eaten ; and 
 the grudged hours of sleep often on my elbows 
 on my table, or on a couch in a corner of my room. 
 I did not shave or stay to trim my moustachios 
 and my beard, and I must have looked like a 
 tarnished gnome, or newly unburied image, had 
 anyone have forced or stolen access to me as I 
 worked at that time. 
 
 I did intromet on Christmas Eve and Christmas 
 day, but after that not at all, either for Lord's 
 day or Saints' day, or Wife's day, or any day, 
 until my work was done ; and I did write with a 
 flourish and devout thankfulness the words THE 
 END, which was on the 3rd day of July 1596, when 
 I curled myself upon my couch, and I did sleep until 
 Sunday morning when the bells were ringing for 
 the Morning Service. My wife had kept loving 
 watch and care, and had kept me supplied with 
 cushions and fresh air, and coverings, having first 
 removed my shoon from off my feet and washed 
 my hands and face most gently while I slept, and 
 slept, and slept over forty-three hours by the 
 clock ; and without a dream, and scarcely a single 
 movement of my body or limbs.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 163 
 
 I, in due time, was in London again with my 
 play, which I had no difficulty in selling to the same 
 Master Edward Sholton and Master John Sholton 
 in Co-partnership for the somme of One thousand 
 an eighty pounds, and a fee of One pound for 
 every night when the play was performed in 
 London, or in the Country towns, for the space 
 of five years. 
 
 The Play was very successful from its very 
 start. It came out in the same Royal Theatre of 
 Shows & Plays in Eastcheap the which had by 
 this time been enlarged so as to hold about a 
 hundred more persons, chiefly in the Pit and in the 
 Galleries. 
 
 The populace, and eke the Quality, were most 
 mightily pleased with the Play, and every night, 
 for about or above three months, the money that 
 was refused had been welcome as the total receipts 
 of more than one other house. I doubt not that I 
 might have obtained better terms from other 
 men, but I had dealt so long with the Sholtons, 
 one or another, or in con junction, that I had not the 
 wish to go a-huckstering, and it would have savoured 
 of dishonour, as I think, though others may be of a 
 contrary and more worldly opinion.
 
 164 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 It was I who named the price, and they did 
 agree without bargaining or demur. I fixed the 
 price on a calculation of the length of the play, 
 but chiefly on an estimation of the time that it 
 would probably be upon the stage, and the profits 
 after payments of all outgoings, and I allowed 
 amply for chances and uncertainties ; and of the 
 residue so left in the estimation I did allocate for 
 my price one third share, with an added sum for 
 my expenses in London, and the many incidental 
 outlays and spendings connected therewith. 
 
 I made no long stay in London, being fearful 
 of my health, and I made pretence for to require 
 to take the waters at Bath ; but in reality, I wished 
 to make my way to my home, the which I did 
 almost by stealing away from London, after bidding 
 farewell to but a handful of my intimates and 
 most loved friends. 
 
 This time I did most savagely resolve to write 
 no more, and to read the spritely and untiring 
 demon within me a lesson of the grimmest, and 
 show him which of us twain was the master 
 he or I. 
 
 I laughed merrily to myself as I pictured me 
 his discomfiture if I embarked in trading such
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 165 
 
 as in wools and hides and grain, and the like, as 
 did in a way my father Richard, and more 
 seriously, my grandfather Thomas, may God 
 grant him rest ! and, much more seriously still, 
 my dear Uncle John, to whose dear memory I 
 breathe a loving sigh ! and as do some of my 
 cousins of whom I have not made great allusion, 
 but whom I often met and entertained, and 
 counted in my every mention of my friends and 
 neighbours. 
 
 I also portrayed to myself the looks of surprise 
 and disbelief, or else belief in my sudden madness, 
 of the many men who did know me well if they saw 
 me in the Markets, or at a stall, chaffering and 
 chattering and shouting, and drinking and clink- 
 ing, and talking of nothing but shorthorns, and 
 winter lambs, and clips, and pelters, and corn and 
 barley, and so on, and so on, and so on. 
 
 I further made me a fancy sketch of William 
 Shakspere grown corpulent and coarse, and hail- 
 fellow with all men mostly men of great and 
 breezy hands and breaths, of mighty tread and 
 heavy footfall, and brains whereof the scope and 
 span were scant and not beyond a market or a 
 getting the better in a trumpery commerce ;
 
 166 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 and I did not laugh with as much mirth and 
 contentment as I did at first. 
 
 Nathless, I turned the heavy key in my lock, and 
 imprisoned all my bookes, and I swaggered forth 
 as a sort of man released from bonds and duly set 
 at liberty to go and do whatever he listed, or to do 
 nothing at all, if that better pleased him ; and I 
 was like a young stallion in a meadow, who kicks 
 up his heels, and runs races with himself, and rolls 
 in delight, and neighs for very joy and strength 
 of life. 
 
 It was very pleasant, and unrestricted, and 
 wild, and irresponsible, and altogether most 
 rollicking and gay for about a week ; and then, 
 because I would not give [in] to the beseeching 
 solicitation of my familiar for " just one book, 
 gentle sir, may it please you even a little and 
 unimportant one," I began to peake and peck 
 and pine at my meals, and in my bed, and at all 
 times during the long and never ending day. 
 
 I have often thought that it must be a torment 
 of the direst kind to take a refined and educated 
 man, and lock him up, without books or pens and 
 ink and paper, with people of a base and ignorant 
 nature, and make him an enforced listener of
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 167 
 
 their foolish, ribald, and most useless and offen- 
 sive talk, day after day and month after month ; 
 and that it were better to become mad outright. 
 
 I persisted for some days longer, and made 
 believe to busy myself with divers occupations and 
 pursuits, and some distractions, and gossips, and 
 the like. 
 
 But soon all this palled upon my palate 
 and, for that I would not yet give way, I was 
 nigh brought to my bed with sickness, and for 
 want of sleep, and diet, of which I had, thank 
 God ! plenty but could eat little, and enjoy 
 none. 
 
 I, at last, rebelled or, the rather, I capitulated 
 without a scrap of the honours of war, or any 
 saving of my pride ; and never did lover rush 
 more eagerly to his sweat heart's arms, or bird 
 fly more devotedly to its fledglings in her nest, 
 or captive run more passionately to his releasing 
 door, than did I to my locked room and my ill- 
 treated and imprisoned darlings which, gentle 
 souls ! did not reproach me, but opened their 
 fond bosoms to my hungry eyes. 
 
 I refreshed myself apace, and not to dwell too 
 long on this, it was not many weeks before I had
 
 168 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 once again taken a .grey goose-quill and written 
 boldly 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 
 
 A 
 
 TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTS 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I knew not well whether I should call it a 
 Tragedy or a Comedy, so compounded of the two 
 did it seem ; but I kept to the former designation, 
 although the latter in many senses might not have 
 been a-miss, or altogether inappropriate. 
 
 I was, at first, minded to make of Shylock a 
 picture of my Grandfather Thomas that is, to 
 show the Jew in his true higher nature, before that 
 oppression and wrong and derision and persecution 
 and prejudice had made of him a hunted beast, 
 and driven him to his wits for means to live, and 
 to his deep-seated and most righteous resentments 
 for means to get even when he could. I knew 
 that the blood that flowed within me, and the brain 
 that burned within, and the soul that felt and 
 aspired beyond me, were of a Jew, and that I was 
 a Jew maybe, of longer and prouder and far purer 
 descent of any vaunted peer or gentle in the land.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 169 
 
 Also knew I well, for often had I studied the 
 matter in Holy writ and in many writings of men, 
 that, by nature, the Jew was a gallant warrior, 
 a poet of the sublimest sort, a high-souled wor- 
 shipper of God, and a gifted man above all other 
 men in the whole categories of peoples in the 
 worJd ; and it was marvellous to me that all the 
 high-heaped degradations, and the cutting scorns 
 that had been poured upon him and the which 
 were almost worse to bear by a noble race than 
 heroic deaths, or barbaric exiles, or mean despoil- 
 ations had not broken his spirit or lessened his 
 magnificent and disdainful pride ; and that he 
 wore a magnanimous mind even when he had to 
 bear insolent and foul shafts of enmity and 
 opprobrium, shot at him by filthy hands, or cruel 
 mocking lips. 
 
 But, on the other hand, I reflected that such a 
 portraiture would not be understood or esteemed, 
 in that it was so novel, and so little to the know- 
 ledge, or the taste, of the common herd, and eke 
 their betters also. 
 
 I thought, too, that in my early years in London 
 I had been called the little Jew, or the Jew boy, 
 and hence that it would seem as if I wrote or
 
 170 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 preached upon a text whereof I was, myself, the 
 chief est part. 
 
 Nor was the further reflection absent from my 
 business sense and not perforce my Jewish 
 sense, for that did all pull away from all con- 
 siderations of gain, and was all for justice and 
 truth that I could never sell such a Play to any 
 great advantage, and, perhaps, not even sell at 
 all ; and that the populace would not endure it, 
 for it would be counter to their conceptions. 
 Nay, even that a great actor like Master Sellieres, 
 or some others that I thought of, would refuse to 
 act therein. 
 
 So, with many a sorrowful regret, and many a 
 sigh, I addressed me to my task to make my 
 Shy lock so much of a Jew as might jump in with 
 the general thought and conception of one, and 
 yet with so much of what I could, without exciting 
 question or opposition, say by or of him as 
 might show that underneath his gabardine lay 
 a noble heart but soured by injustice and insult 
 and glad to read the moral. For I had intended, 
 after all, and at the last, to make him magnani- 
 mous ; and when Bassano had bared his breast, 
 and all the Court stood breathless, to throw down
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 171 
 
 his knife with a bitter laugh, and to sweep grandly 
 out leaving them humbled and speechless with 
 surprise. 
 
 For the tale from which I had usurped the 
 scheme, or idea of the plot, and whether I did 
 conform thereto or not, cared I not one damn. 
 
 But Portia did tempt me from this my intention 
 for the which I am, and ever shall be, sorry. 
 For Shylock to triumph would appeal to noble 
 minds which, alack ! are few in number and not 
 often go to Eastcheap ; but for Portia to triumph 
 in a game of fence, and jar and combat of wits, and 
 redeem her lover the which she could not do 
 rattlingly, and in a gay canter, without a dis- 
 comfiture of Shylock in the like proportion light 
 and shadow in perfect balance and so I did 
 ruefully sacrifice him to her and the galleries. 
 
 I perfected the Play and, as was not my wont, 
 I re-wrote a many page, and some more than once 
 or twice ; and when all was done I could not but 
 acknowledge that it was a fine piece of work, and 
 would live for many a year after that I was in my 
 grave ; and yet I felt stricken in my heart and in 
 my conscience for the treason I had committed, 
 and for the chances I had foregone. It did seem
 
 172 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 to my uneasy soul that my Grandfather Thomas 
 looked at me with mutely reproachful eyes and 
 sad countenance ; and I vowed that if ever I should 
 live to fifty years I would live long enough to right 
 e'en these wrongs that I had done, and much more ; 
 and that I would then write my greatest play, and 
 champion the great cause of that noble and 
 mysterious Race the exiled darlings of a not 
 ever-wrathful God even if I should have to rent 
 a theatre, and let in the populace for nothing. 
 
 So did I salve my conscience and give myself 
 absolution ; and whispered to myself, behind my 
 mind, that I was an impostor and a cheat ; and in 
 due time was again in London with my play. 
 
 I had not delay or difficulty, but swiftly made 
 my bargain of One thousand and Eighty pounds, 
 and a fee as in the preceding matter, and gat me 
 home again without staying to do more than help 
 instruct the costume makers, and the scene painters, 
 and read the play for one full day with Master 
 Sellieres, who did then undertake to teach all the 
 other players for the which, and because of the 
 curtailment of my sojourn in London, I did give 
 him twenty guineas ; and I hastened away from 
 Town, with John England and Edward England
 
 AUTOBIGORAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 173 
 
 for to keep me company poor Ben Johnson being 
 then ill of another pleurisy. 
 
 I could not rest without seeing my play per- 
 formed ; so I came up to London secretly on the 
 3rd day of Dec re 1595, and I did put my cloak 
 across my face, and paid my shilling, and took 
 my place in the pit beside an honest citizen and 
 his comely wife ; and there, with tingling blood, 
 and thumping heart, and head aflame, did I wit- 
 ness it ; and no man of all who shouted and cried 
 and swore and uttered loud encouragement to 
 Bassano, and blessings upon Portia, -and revilings 
 upon Shylock, did suspect that the dark and silent 
 little man in the Pit whom the honest citizen 
 did rebuke for a clod or a lout because he 
 did not applaud when all the house did roar 
 was the author of that self-same play. 
 
 I came out at the end as if I had been glorified ; 
 and also, strange to say, as if I had been sorely 
 beaten. I felt elated, and most proud ; and yet 
 I likewise felt humbled, penitent, and inexpress- 
 ibly sorry, and more than half ashamed. 
 
 Then, as I walked along, and thought of my 
 over One thousand pounds clear, I struck my 
 forehead and said to myself with anger and
 
 174 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 contempt Why did I not cast it down and cry 
 Thy money perish with thee ? 
 
 But when I had supped and drunk a flacon of 
 rare Burgundy wine, I felt more comfortable in 
 my mind, and did console myself by calculating 
 that I yet had time to go to fifty years, and, in the 
 meanwhile, to write my greatest of all my plays, 
 so that, with the money I could earn from other 
 plays which I would write in the long months 
 and years between as if in the intervals and vari- 
 ations of my work on that greatest play I would 
 then be so rich that devil care whether I sold it 
 or not, or whether I admitted the populace at 
 smaller prices or none at all. 
 
 I told myself that I was satisfied, and that it 
 was a vow and a pledge, and I did drink to it 
 and methought I caught myself a-winking to my- 
 self, and cried " peste ! Out upon thee, fool ! " 
 and so to bed and sleep. 
 
 As secretly as I came so I did leave, and hie rne 
 back to my home, a proud and, at times, a guilty 
 man, and an undiscovered traitor until that re- 
 morse wore itself away in promises to myself, and 
 eke escuses, and lavish indignations and lamenta- 
 tions of the ignorance and prejudices of the mob.
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 175 
 
 I do not know for what price Master Sellieres 
 did contract, but belike it was the same, or some 
 trifling somme the less, as before. 
 
 I knew from what I saw, and heard from my 
 friends and others, and from Master Sellieres, 
 and Master John Sholton, that the play was 
 mightily successful, and there was no abatement 
 in the popular liking, or in the money -taking, after 
 many months. 
 
 After a short time for repose and distraction, 
 and the paying of some visits to friends in the 
 towns of Warwicke, Burslem and elsewhere, I, 
 without ado, plunged head foremost into a new 
 work, the which I had been for some time con- 
 sidering, and shaping loosely in my mind. 
 
 I wrote on a brave large sheet the title thus 
 
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 
 
 A 
 
 COMEDY IN THREE ACTS. 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. 
 
 I had conceived this fancy in the Forest a long 
 time ago and had played or rehearsed it there 
 a score or a hundred times, to myself alone, ere a
 
 176 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 * 
 
 line had been put on paper. But I had a goodly 
 store in my head, and could I have had secre- 
 taries swift enough of hand, and been myself less 
 shy in dictating to them what they should write, 
 I do aver that I could have given out. the whole 
 without a pause, except for breath or bread 
 
 BREAKS OFF. 
 
 HKADLKV BROTHERS, BISHOPSGATE, K.C. ; AND ASHFORD, KENT.
 
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