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A LIFE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SIDNEY LEE

WITH PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY^\S^

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1906

J I

Set up and electrotyped November, 1898. Reprinted January,
November, 1899 ; July, 1901 ; February, 1903; April, 1904; July,
1906.

NoriuooS IPrtBS

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

PREFACE

This work is based on the article on Shakespeare
which I contributed last year to the lifty-first volume
of the ' Dictionary of National Biography.' But the
changes and additions which the article has under-
gone during my revision of it for separate publication
are so numerous as to give the book a title to be
regarded as an independent venture. In its general
aims, however, the present life of Shakespeare en-
deavours loyally to adhere to the principles that are
inherent in the scheme of the ' Dictionary of National
Biography.' I have endeavoured to set before my
readers a plain and practical narrative of the great
dramatist's personal history as concisely as the needs
of clearness and completeness would permit. I have
sought to provide students of Shakespeare with a full
record of the duly attested facts and dates of their
master's career. I have avoided merely aesthetic criti-
cism. My estimates of the value of Shakespeare's
plays and poems are intended solely to fulfil the
obligation that lies on the biographer of indicating

373J94

VI WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

succinctly the character of the successive labours,
which were woven into the texture of his hero's life.
Esthetic studies of Shakespeare abound, and to in-
crease their number is a work of supererogation. But
Shakespearean literature, as far as it is known to me,
still lacks a book that shall supply within a brief
compass an exhaustive and well-arranged statement
of the facts of Shakespeare's career, achievement, and
reputation, that shall reduce conjecture to the smallest
dimensions consistent with coherence, and shall give
verifiable references to all the original sources of
information. After studying Elizabethan literature,
history, and bibliography for more than eighteen
years, I believed that I might, without exposing my-
self to a charge of presumption, attempt something in
the way of filling this gap, and that I might be able
to supply, at least tentatively, a guide-book to Shake-
speare's life and work that should be, within its limits,
complete and trustworthy. How far my belief was
justified the readers of this volume will decide.

I cannot promise my readers any startling revela-
tions. But my researches have enabled me to remove
some ambiguities which puzzled my predecessors,
and to throw light on one or two topics that have
hitherto obscured the course of Shakespeare's career.
Particulars that have not been before incorporated
in Shakespeare's biography will be found in my
treatment of the following subjects : the conditions
under which ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and the ' Mer-

PREFACE vii

chant of Venice ' were written ; the references in
Shakespeare's plays to his native town and county ;
his father's applications to the Heralds' College for
coat-armour; his relations with Ben Jonson and the
boy actors in 1601 ; the favour extended to his work
by James I and 'his Court ; the circumstances which
led to the publication of the First Folio, and the his-
tory of the dramatist's portraits. I have somewhat
expanded the notices of Shakespeare's financial affairs
which have already appeared in the article in the
' Dictionary of National Biography,' and a few new
facts will be found in my revised estimate of the
poet's pecuniary position.

In my treatment of the sonnets I have pursued
what I believe to be an original line of investigation.
The strictly autobiographical interpretation that crit-
ics have of late placed on these poems compelled
me, as Shakespeare's biographer, to submit them to
a very narrow scrutiny. My conclusion is adverse to
the claim of the sonnets to rank as autobiographical
documents, but I have felt bound, out of respect to
waiters from whose views I dissent, to give in detail
the evidence on which I base my judgment. Mat-
thew Arnold sagaciously laid down the maxim that
' the criticism which alone can much help us for the
future is a criticism which regards Europe as being
for intellectual and artistic ^ purposes one great con-

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

Vlll WILLIAM SIIAKESrEARE

federation, bound to a joint action and working to a
common result.' It is criticism inspired by this lib-
eralising principle that is especially applicable to the
vast sonnet-literature which was produced by Shake-
speare and his contemporaries. It is criticism of the
type that Arnold recommended that can alone lead
to any accurate and profitable conclusion respect-
ing the intention of the vast sonnet-literature of the
Elizabethan era. In accordance with Arnold's sug-
gestion, I have studied Shakespeare's sonnets com-
paratively with those in vogue in England, France,
and Italy at the time he wrote. I have endeavoured
to learn the view that was taken of such literary
endeavours by contemporary critics and readers
throughout Europe. My researches have covered a
very small portion of the wide field. But I have gone
far enough, I think, to justify the conviction that
Shakespeare's collection of sonnets has no reasonable
title to be regarded as a personal or autobiographical
narrative.

In the Appendix (Sections iii. and iv.) I have
supplied a memoir of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl
of Southampton, and an account of the Earl's rela-
tions with the contemporary world of letters. Apart
from Southampton's association with the sonnets, he
promoted Shakespeare's welfare at an early stage of
the dramatist's career, and I can quote the authority
of Malone, who appended a sketch of Southamp-
ton's history to his biography of Shakespeare (in the

PREFACE ix

'Variorum' edition of 1821); for treating a know-
ledge of Southampton's life as essential to a full
knowledge of Shakespeare's. I have also printed in
the Appendix a detailed statement of the precise cir-
cumstances under which Shakespeare's sonnets were
published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609 (Section v.),
and a review of the facts that seem to me to confute
the popular theory that Shakespeare was g friend and
protege of William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke,
who has been put forward quite unwarrantably as the
hero of the sonnets (Sections vr., vii., viii.y I have
also included in the Appendix (Sections ix. and x.)
a survey of the voluminous sonnet-literature of the
Elizabethan poets between 1591 and 1597, with which
Shakespeare's sonnetteering efforts were very closely
allied, as well as a bibliographical note on a corre-
sponding feature of French and Italian literature
between 1550 and i6(X).

Since the publication of the article on Shake-
speare in the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' I
have received from correspondents many criticisms
and suggestions which have enabled me to correct
some errors. But a few of my correspondents have
exhibited so insrenuous a faith in those forged docu-

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

X WILLIAM SIL\KESrLARE

ments relating to Shakespeare and forged references
to his works, which were promulgated chiefly by-
John Payne Collier more than half a century ago,
that I have attached a list of the misleading records
to my chapter on 'The Sources of Biographical
Information' in the Appendix (Section i.). I be-
lieve the list to be fuller than any to be met with
elsewhere.

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

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

PREFACE xi

engraving I have used is from a photograph of a
white plaster cast of the original bust, now in the
Memorial Gallery at Stratford. The five autographs
of Shakespeare's signature — all that exist of un-
questioned authenticity — appear in the three remain-
ing plates. The three signatures on the will have
been photographed from the original document at
Somerset House, by permission of Sir Francis Jeune,
President of the Probate Court ; the autograph on
the deed of purchase by Shakespeare in 1613 of
the house in Blackfriars has been photographed
from the original document in the Guildhall Library,
by permission of the Library Committee of the City
of London; and the autograph on the deed of
mortgage relating to the same property, also dated
in 16 1 3, has been photographed from the original
document in the British Museum, by permission of
the Trustees. Shakespeare's coat-of-arms and motto,
which are stamped on the cover of this volume, are
copied from the trickings in the margin of the draft-
grants of arms now in the Heralds' College.

The Baroness Burdett-Coutts has kindly given me
ample opportunities of examining the two peculiarly
interesting and valuable copies of the First Folio ^ in
her possession. Mr. Richard Savage, of Stratford-on-
Avon, the Secretary of the Birthplace Trustees, and
Mr. W. Salt Brassington, the Librarian of the Shake-
speare Memorial at Stratford, have courteously re-

1 See pp. 309, 311.

xii WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

plied to the many inquiries that I have addressed to
them verbally or by letter. Mr. Lionel Cust, the
Director of the National Portrait Gallery, has helped
me to estimate the authenticity of Shakespeare's
portraits. I have also benefited, while the work has
been passing through the press, by the valuable sug-
gestions of my friends the Rev. H. C. Beeching and
Mr. W. J. Craig, and I have to thank Mr. Thomas
Seccombe for the zealous aid he has rendered me
while correcting the final proofs.

October 12, 1S98.

CONTENTS

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH

Distribution of the name
of Shakespeare

The poet's ancestry .

The poet's father

His settlement at Strat-
ford ....

The poet's mother
1564, April. The poet's
and baptism .
Alleged birthplace

PAGE

. 6

birth

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE

The father in municipa

office
Brothers and sisters .
The father's financial dif
ficulties .
1571-7 Shakespeare's education
His classical equipment
Shakespeare's knowledge
of the Bible .
1575 Queen Elizabeth at Ken

ilworth .
1577 Withdrawal from school

1582, De<. The poet's marriage

Richard Hathaway of
Shottery

Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway's cot-
tage ....

The bond against imped-
iments ....
15S3, May. Birth of the poet's
daughter Susanna

Formal betrothal proba-
bly dispensed with

XIV

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

III

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD

Early married life
Poaching in Charlecote .
Unwarranted doubts of
the tradition .

1585

Justice Shallow

The flight from Stratford .

ON THE LONDON STAGE

1586 The Journey to London .
Richard Field, Shake-
speare's townsman
Theatrical employment .
A playhouse servitor
The acting companies
The Lord Chamberlain's

company
Shakespeare a member of
the Lord Chamberlain's
company

The London theatres
Place of residence in Lon-

don ....

Actors' provincial tours .

Shakespeare's alleged

travels ....

In Scotland

In Italy ....

Shakespeare's roles .

His alleged scorn of an

actor's calling

EARLY DRAMATIC WORK

The period of Shake-
speare's dramatic work,
1591-1611

His borrowed plots .

The revision of plays

Chronology of the plays

Metrical tests .
1591 Love's Labour's Lost

1591 Two Ge?itlemen of Verona

1592 Comedy 0/ Errors
1592 Romeo and yitliet
1592, March. Henry VI .
1592, Sept Greene's attack on

Shakespeare .
Chettle's apology
Divided authorship of

Henry VI .
Shakespeare's coadjutors
Shakespeare's assimilative

power . . . .
Lyly's influence in comedy

Marlowe's influence in

tragedy . . . -63
Richard III ... 63
Richard II . . .64
Shakespeare's acknow-
ledgments to Marlowe . 64
Titus Andronicus . . 65
1594, August. The Merchant of

Venice . . . .66
Shylock and Roderigo

Lopez . . . .68
A'in^ John . . .69
Dec. 28. Comedy of Er-
rors in Gray's Inn Hall 70
Early plays doubtfully as-
signed to Shakespeare . 71
Arden of Feversham

(1592) .... 71
Edivard III . . .72
Alucedorus . . .72
Faire Em (1592) . . 73

1593
1593

1593

1594
15941

CONTENTS

THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC

1593, April. Publication of Ve-

nus and Adonis . . 74

1594, May. Publication of Lu-

crece . . . •76

Enthusiastic reception of

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

VII

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY

The vogue of the Eliza-
bethan sonnet . . 83
Shakespeare's first experi-
ments . . . .84
1594 Majority of Shakespeare's

sonnets composed . 85

Their literary value . . 87
Circulation in manuscript 88
■'I'heir piratical publication

in 1609 . . . .89
A Lover's Complaint 91

Thomas Thorpe and ' Mr.

W. H; . . . . 91
The form of Shakespeare's

sonnets . . . -95

1 heir want of continuity . 96

The two ' groups ' . -96

Main topics of the first

■group' ... 98

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

The order of the sonnets
in the edition of 1640 . 100

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

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

Sonnetteers' admissions of
insincerity . . . 105

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

Shakespeare's scornful al-
lusions to sonnets in his
plays .... 108

VIII

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS

Slender autobiographi-
cal element in Shake-
speare's sonnets .
The imitative element
Shakespeare's claims of
immortality for his son-
nets a borrowed con-
ceit . . . .

109
109

113

Conceits in sonnets ad-
dressed to a woman . 117

The praise of ' blackness ' 118

The sonnets of vitupera-
tion .... 120

Gabriel Harvey's ' Amo-
rous Odious sonnet , 121

Jodclle's Cotttr' Amours . 122

XVI

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON

Biographic fact in the
' dedicatory ' sonnets .

The Earl of Southampton
the poet's sole patron .

Rivals in Southampton's
favour ....

Shakespeare's fear of an-
other poet

Barnabe Barnes probably
the chief rival

Other theories as to the
chief rival's identity

Sonnets of friendship

Extravagances of literary
compliment .

126

PAGE

Patrons habitually ad-
dressed in affectionate
terms

Direct references to
Southampton in the
sonnets of friendship

His youthfulness

The evidence of portraits 144

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

Allusions to Queen Eliza-
beth's death . . . 147

Allusion to Southamp-
ton's release from
prison .... 149

139

142
143

THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS

Sonnets of melancholy
and self-reproach . . 151

The youth's relations with
the poet's mistress . 153

Avisa

Willobie

(1594) • • • -155
Summary of conclusions
respecting the sonnets . 158

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER

1594-
1595

159s

1597
1597
1598

5 Midsummer Night's

Essex and the rebellion of

Dream. .... 161

1601 . . . .

174

All's Well that Ends

Shakespeare's popularity

Well . . . .162

and influence

176

The Taming of the Shrcio 163

Shakespeare's friendship

Stratford allusions in the

with Ben Jonson .,

176

Induction . . . 164

The Mermaid meetings .

177

Wincot . . . .165

1598

Meres's eulogy .

178

Henry IV . . . .167

Value of his name to pub-

Falstaff . . . .169

lishers . . . .

179

T/ie A ferry Wives of

1599

T/ie Passionate Pilgritn .

182

Windsor . . . 171

1601

The Phxnix and the

Henry I' . . . . 173

Turtle . . . .

183

CONTENTS

XVll

XII

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE

Shakespeare's practical

temperament. . . 185

His father's difficulties . 186

His wife's debt . . . 187

1596-9 The coat of arms . . 188

1597, May 4. The purchase of

New Place . . . 193
1598 Fellow-townsmen appeal

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

Shakespeare's financial

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

200
202
203

204

205

206

XIII

MATURITY OF GENIUS

1599
1599
1000
1601

1601

Literary work in 1599 . 207

Muck Ado about Nothing 208
. 209
. 209
. 211

As You Like It .

'Rvelfth Night .

Julius Caesar .

The strife between adult
actors and boy actors .

Shakespeare's references
to the struggle

Ben Jonson's Poetaster .

Shakespeare's alleged par-
tisanship in the theatri-
cal warfare .

213

216
217

219

1602 Hamlet .... 221
The problem of its publi-
cation .... 222

The First Quarto, 1603 . 222
The Second Quarto, 1604 223
The Folio version, 1623 . 223
Popularity of Hamlet . 224

1603 Troilus a>id Cressida . 225
Treatment of the theme . 227

1603, March 26. Queen Eliza-
beth's death . . . 229
James I's patronage . 230

XIV
THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY

1604, Nov. Othello . . . 235
1604, Dec. Measure for Meas-
ure .... 237

1606 Macbeth .... 239

1607 King Lear . . . 241

1608 Timon of Athens , . 242

1608 Pericles .... 243

1608 Antony and Cleopatra . 245

1609 Coriolanus . . . 247

XVUl

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE LATEST PLAYS

The placid temper of the
latest plays . . . 248

1610 Cymbeline .... 249

161 1 A Winter's Tale . . 251
16 1 1 Tke Tempest . . . 252

Fanciful interpretations of

The Tempest. . . 256
Unfinished plays . . 258

The lost play of Car-
denio .... 258

The Two Noble Kins-
meft .... 259

Henry VIII . . .261

The burning of the Globe
Theatre .... 262

XVI

THE CLOSE OF LIFE

Plays at Court in 16 13 . 264
Actor-friends . . . 264
161 1 Final settlement at Strat-
ford .... 266
Domestic affairs . . 266

1613, March. Purchase of a

house in Blackfriars . 267

1614, Oct. Attempt to enclose

the Stratford common
fields .... 269
1616, April 23. Shakespeare's

death .... 272

1616, April 25. Shakespeare's

burial .... 272
The will .... 273
Shakespeare's bequest to

his wife .... 273
Shakespeare's heiress . 275
Legacies to friends . . 276
The tomb in Stratford

Church .... 276
Shakespeare's personal

character . . . 277

XVII

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS

Mrs. Judith Quiney (1585-
1662) .... 280

Mrs. Susannah Hall
(1583-1649) . . .281

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

XVIII
AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS

Spelling of the poet's
name . . . .

Autograph signatures

Shakespeare's portraits .

The Stratford bust .

The ' Stratford portrait ' .

Droeshout's engraving

The ' Droeshout ' paint-
ing

Later portraits .

284
284
286
286
287
287

291

The Chandos portrait . 292

The ' Jansen ' portrait . 294

The ' Felton ' portrait . 294

The ' Soest ' portrait. . 294

Miniatures . . . 295

The Garrick Club bust . 295

Alleged death-mask . . 296

Memorials in sculpture . 297

Memorials at Stratford . 297

CONTENTS

XIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PAGE

Quartos of the poems in

the poet's lifetime . . 299
Posthumous quartos of

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

poet's lifetime
Posthumous quartos of the

plays
1623 The First Folio

The publishing syndi

cate
The prefatory matter
The value of the text
The order of the plays
The typography
Unique copies .
The Sheldon copy .
Estimated number of ex

tant copies
Reprints of the First

Folio
1632 The Second Folio .
1663-4 The Third Folio
1685 The Fourth Folio .

Eighteenth-century edi

tors
Nicholas Rowe (1674-

1718) . . .

300
300

300

300
303

303
306

307
307
308
308
309

310

3"
312
312
313

313

314

PAGE

Alexander Pope (1688-

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

1744) • . . -317
Sir Thomas Hanmer

(1677-1746) . . .317
Bishop Warburton (1698-

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

1781) . . . . 319

George Steevens (1736-

1800) .... 320
Edmund Malone (1741-

1812) .... 322
Variorum editions . . 322
Nineteenth-century edi-
tors 323

Alexander Dyce (1798-

1C69) . . . .323
Howard Staunton (1810-

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

1888) . . . .324
The Cambridge edition

(1863-1866) . . .324
Other nineteenth-century

editions .... 324

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION

Views of Shakespeare's

The first appearance of

contemporaries

326

actresses in Shake-

Ben Jonson's tribute

327

spearean parts

English opinion between

David Garrick (1717-

1660 and 1702

329

1779) ....

Dryden's view .

330

John Philip Kemble

Restoration adaptations .

331

(1757-1823) .

English opinion from 1702

Mrs. Sarah Siddons

onwards

332

(1755-1831) .

Stratford festivals

334

Edmund Kean (1787-

Shakespeare on the Eng-

1833) . . . .

lish stage

334

334
336

337

337
338

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

William Charles Mac-

Shakespeare in France

347

ready (1793-1873)

339

Voltaire's strictures .

348

Recent revivals.

339

P'rench critics' gradua

Shakespeare in English

emancipation from Vol

music and art

340

tairean influence .

349

Boydell's Shakespeare

Shakespeare on the

gallery ....

341

French stage .

350

Shakespeare in America .

341

Shakespeare in Italy

352

Translations

342

In Holland

352

Shakespeare in Germany.

342

In Russia .

353

German translations.

343

In Poland.

353

Modern German critics .

345

In Hungary

353

Shakespeare on the Ger-

In other countries .

354

man stage

345

XXI

GENERAL ESTIMATE

General estimate

355

Character of Shake

Shakespeare's defects

355

speare's achievement
Its universal recognition

356
357

APPENDIX

THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

Contemporary records

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

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

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

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

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY

Its source .... 370
Toby Matthew's letter of

1621 .... 371
Chief exponents of the

theory .... 371

Its vogue in America
Extent of the literature
Absurdity of the theory

372
372
373

APPENDIX^

CONTENTS

XXI

III

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON

Shakespeare and South-
ampton .... 374

Southampton's parentage 374
1573, Oct. 6. Southampton's

birth . . . .375

His education . . . 375

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

His reluctance to marry . 378
Intrigue with Elizabeth
Vernon .... 379
1598 Southampton's marriage . 379
1601-3 Southampton's impris-
onment .... 380
Later career . . . 380
1624, Nov. 10. His death . . 381

THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON

Southampton's collection
of books . . . 382

References in his letters
to poems and plays . 382

His love of the theatre . 383

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

Tom Nash's addresses . 385
1595 Gervase Markham's son-
net 387

1598 Florio's address . . 387
The congratulations of the

poets in 1603 . . . 387
Elegies on Southampton . 389

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

The publication of the

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

at publishers' hands . 396
The use of initials in

dedications of Eliza-
bethan and Jacobean
books .... 397

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

Five dedications by
Thorpe .... 399

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

'W. H.' and Mr. William
Hall .... 402

The ' onlie begetter '
means ' only procurer' . 403

XXll

WILLIAM SHAKESrEARE

{APPENDIX

•MR. WILLIAM HERBERT'

PAGE

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

The Earl of Pembroke

known only as Lord
Herbert in youth . . 407
Thorpe's mode of address-
ing the Earl of Pem-
broke .... 408

VII

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE

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

The dedication of the
First Folio in 1623

No suggestion in the
sonnets of the youth's

411
412

identity with Pem-
broke .... 413
Aubrey's ignorance of
any relation between
Shakespeare and Pem-
broke . . . „ 414

VIII

THE 'will' sonnets

Elizabethan meanings of

' will ' . . . .
Shakespeare's uses of the

word ....
Shakespeare's puns on the

word ....
Arbitrary and irregular

use of itaUcs by Eliza-

416

417
418

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

cxxxv.-vi. interpreted . 420
Sonnet cxxxv. . . . 421
Sonnet cxxxvi. . . . 422
Sonnet cxxxiv. . . . 425
Sonnet cxliii. . . . 426

the vogue of THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET, I59I-I597

1557 Wyatt's and Surrey's Son-

1582

1591

1592

nets published
Watson's Centurie

Love
Sidney's Astrophel

Stella .
Collected sonnets

feigned love .
Daniel's Delia .

of
and

427
428
428

429
430

1592
1593
1593

1593
1593
1594
1594

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

Fa?tcie .
Giles Fletcher's Licia
Lodge's Phillis .
Drayton's Idea .
Percy's Ccelia .

433
433
433
434
435

APPENDIX] C

ONT

ENTJ

> XXUl

PAGE

1594

Zepkeria .

435

1597

Robert Tofte's Laura . 438

1595

Barnfiold's sonnets to

Sir William Alexander's

Ganymede

435

Aurora .... 438

IS9S

Spenser's Amoretti .

435

Sir Fulke Greville's

1595

Emaricdulfe

436

CcElica .... 438

1595

Sir John Davies's Gul-

Estimate of number of

li?ige Sonnets .

436

love-sonnets issued be-

1596

Linche's Diella

437

tween 1591 and 1597 . 439

1596

Griffin's Fidessa

437

II.

Sonnets to patrons, 1591-

1596

Thomas Campion's son-

1597 . . . .440

nets . . . .

437

III.

Sonnets on philosophy

1596

William Smith's Ckloris .

437

and religion . . . 440

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN FRANCE,
I 550-1600

Ronsard ( 1524-1585) and
' La Pleiade' . . . 442

The Italian sonnetteers of
the sixteenth century 442 n.

Philippe Desportes (1546-
1606) . . . .443

Chief collections of

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

Index

447

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE .... Frontispiece

From the 'Droeskoitt' painting, now in the Shake-
speare Memorial Gallery, Strat/ord-on-Avon.

HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, Third Earl of

Southampton, as a young man . . To face p. 145

From the painting at Welbeck Abbey.

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE

TO THE PURCHASE-DEED OF A HOUSE IN BlACK-

FRIARS, DATED MARCH lO, 1612-3 . . . To face p. 267

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

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE

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

March ii, 1612-3 To face p. 269

From the original document now preserved in the
British Muse tun.

THREE AU rOGRAPH-SIGNATURES severally

WRITTEN BY SHAKESPEARE ON THE THREE

SHEETS OF HIS WILL To face p. 273

From the original document at Somerset House,
London.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE . . . .To face p. 295

Froin a plaster-cast of the terra-cotta bust 7iow at
the Garrick Club.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH

Shakespeare came of a family whose surname was
borne through the middle ages by residents in very
Distribu- ^^lauy parts of England — at Penrith in
tionofthe Cumberland, at Kirkland and Doncaster in
name. Yorkshire, as well as in nearly all the

midland counties. The surname had originally a
martial significance, implying capacity in the wield-
ing of the spear.^ Its first recorded holder is John
Shakespeare, who in 1279 was living at ' Freyndon,'
perhaps Frittenden, Kent.^ The great mediaeval
guild of St. Anne at Knowle, whose members in-
cluded the leading inhabitants of Warwickshire, was
joined by many Shakespeares in the fifteenth century.^

^ Camden, Remains, ed. 1605, p. ill; Verstegan, Restitution, 1605.

2 Plac. Cor. 7 Edw. I, Kane; cf. Notes and Queries, 1st ser. xi. 122.

3 Cf. the Register of the Guild of St. Anne at Knowle, ed. Bickley,

2 WTLLTAM SH\KESrEARE

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the sur-
name is found far more frequently in Warwickshire
than elsewhere. The archives of no less than twenty-
four towns and villages there contain notices of
Shakespeare families in the sixteenth century, and
as many as thirty-four Warwickshire towns or^illages
were inhabited by Shakespeare families in the seven-
teenth century. Among them all William was a
common Christian name. At Rowington, twelve
miles to the north of Stratford, and in the same
hundred of Barlichway, one of th# most prolific
Shakespeare families of Warwickshire resided in the
sixteenth century, and no less than three Richard
Shakespeares of Rowington, whose extant wills were
proved respectively in 1560, 1591, and 1614, were
fathers of sons called William. At least one other
William Shakespeare was during the period a resi-
dent in Rowington. As a consequence, the poet has
been more than once credited with achievements
which rightly belong to one or other of his numerous
contemporaries who were identically named.

The poet's ancestry cannot be defined with abso-
lute certainty. The poet's father, when applying for
The poet's 3. grant of arms in 1 596, claimed that his
ancestry. grandfather (the poet's great-grandfather)
received for services rendered in war a grant of land
in Warwickshire from Henry VII. ^ No precise con-
firmation of this pretension has been discovered, and
it may be, after the manner of heraldic genealogy,
fictitious. But there is a probability that the poet
1 See p. 189.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 3

came of good yeoman stock, and that his ancestors to
the fourth or fifth generation were fairly substantial
landowners.^ Adam Shakespeare, a tenant by military
service of land at Baddesley Clinton in 1389, seems
to have been great-grandfather of one Richard Shake-
speareAho held land at Wroxhall in Warwickshire
during the first thirty-four years (at least) of the
sixteenth ceijj;ftiry. Another Richard Shakespeare
who is conjectured to have been nearly akin to the
Wroxhall family was settled as a farmer at Snitter-
field, a villagjh^four miles to the north of Stratford-
on-Avon, m 1^28. ^ It is probable that he was the
poet's grandfather. In 1550 he was renting a mes-
suage and land at Snitterfield of Robert Arden ;
he died at the close of 1560, and on February 10
of the next year letters of administration of his
goods, chattels, and debts were issued to his son John
by the Probate Court at Worcester. His goods were
valued at 35/. lys.^ Besides the son John, Richard
of Snitterfield certainly had a son Henry ; while a
Thomas Shakespeare, a considerable landholder at

^ Cf. Times, October 14, 1895; ^^o^^^ ^nd Queries, 8th ser. viii.
501 ; articles by Mrs. Stopes in Genealogical Magazine, 1897.

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

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

4 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Snitterfield between 1563 and 1583, whose parentage
is undetermined, may have been a third son. The son
Henry remained all his life at Snitterfield, where he
engaged in farming with gradually diminishing suc-
cess ; he died in embarrassed circumstances in Decem-
ber 1596. John, the son who administered Richard's
estate, was in all likelihood the poet's father.

About 1 55 1 John Shakespeare left Snitterfield,
which was his birthplace, to seek a career in the
The poet's neighbouring borough of Stratford-on-Avon.
father. There he soon set up as a trader in aK
manner of agricultural produce. Corn, wool, malt,
meat, skins, and leather were among the commodities
in which he dealt. Documents of a somewhat later
date often describe him as a glover. Aubrey, Shake-
speare's first biographer, reported the tradition that he
was a butcher. But though both designations doubt-
less indicated important branches of his business,
neither can be regarded as disclosing its full extent.
The land which his family farmed at Snitterfield
supplied him with his varied stock-in-trade. As long
as his father lived he seems to have been a frequent
visitor to Snitterfield, and, like his father and brothers,
he was until the date of his father's death occasionally
designated a farmer or ' husbandman ' of that place.
But it was with Stratford-on-Avon that his life was
mainly identified.

In April 1 5 52 he was living there in Henley Street,
a thoroughfare leading to the market town of Henley-
in-Ardcn, and he is first mentioned in the borough
records as paying in that month a fine of twelve-

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 5

pence for having a dirt-heap in front of his house.
His frequent appearances in the years that follow as
His settle either plaintiff or defendant in suits heard
ment at in the local court of record for the recovery
trat or . ^^ small dcbts suggest that he was a keen man
of business. In early life he prospered in trade, and
in October 1556 purchased two freehold tenements at
Stratford — one, with a garden, in Henley Street (it
adjoins that now known as the poet's birthplace), and
the other in Greenhill Street with a garden and croft.
Thenceforth he played a prominent part in municipal
affairs. In 1557 he was elected an ale-taster, whose
duty it w^as to test the quality of malt liquors and
bread. About the same time he was elected a burgess
or town councillor, and in September 1558, and again
on October 6, 1559, he was appointed one of the
four petty constables by a vote of the jury of the
court-leet. Twice — ini559and 1561 — hewaschosen
one of the affeerors — officers appointed to determine
the fines for those offences which were punishable
arbitrarily, and for which no express penalties were
prescribed by statute. In 1561 he was elected one of
the two chamberlains of the borough, an office of
responsibility which he held for two years. He
delivered his second statement of account to the cor-
poration in January 1564. When attesting docu-
ments he occasionally made his mark, but there is
evidence in the Stratford archives that he could write
with facility ; and he was credited with financial apti-
tude. The municipal accounts, which were checked
bv tallies and counters, were audited bv him after he

6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

With characteristic shrewdness he chose a wife of
assured fortune — Mary, youngest daughter of Robert
Arden, a wealthy farmer of Wilmcote in the parish of
Aston Cantlowe, near Stratford. The Arden family
The poet's in its chicf branch, which was settled at Park-
mother. \iq}\, Warwickshire, ranked with the most
influential of the county. Robert Arden, a progenitor
of that branch, was sheriff of Warwickshire and
Leicestershire in 1438 (16 Hen. VI), and this sheriff's
direct descendant, Edward Arden, who was himself
high sheriff of Warwickshire in 1575, was executed
in 1583 for alleged complicity in a Roman Catholic
plot against the life of Queen Elizabeth.^ John
Shakespeare's wife belonged to a humbler branch of
the family, and there is no trustworthy evidence to
determine the exact degree of kinship between the
two branches. Her grandfather, Thomas Arden, pur-
chased in 1 501 an estate at Snitterfield, which passed,
with other property, to her father Robert ; John
Shakespeare's father, Richard, was one of this Robert
Arden's Snitterfield tenants. By his first wife, whose
name is not known, Robert Arden had seven daughters,
of whom all but two married; John Shakespeare's wife
seems to have been the youngest. Robert Arden's
second wife, Agnes or Anne, widow of John Hill
{d. 1545), a substantial farmer of Bearley, survived
him ; but by her he had no issue. When he died at
the end of 1556, he owned a farmhouse at Wilmcote

^ French, Geiicalogica Shakespeareana, pp. 458 seq. ; cf. p. 191 infra.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 7

and many acres, besides some hundred acres at
Snitterfield, with two farmhouses which he let out
to tenants. The post-mortem inventory of his goods,
which was made on December 9, 1556, shows that
he had lived in comfort ; his house was adorned
by as many as eleven 'painted cloths,' which then
did duty for tapestries among the middle class.
The exordium of his will, which was drawn up on
November 24, 1556, and proved on December 16
following, indicates that he was an observant Catholic.
For his two youngest daughters, Alice and Mary, he
showed especial affection by nominating them his
executors. Mary received not only 6/. 13^'. 4d. in
money, but the fee-simple of Asbies, his chief pro-
perty at Wilmcote, consisting of a house with some
fifty acres of land. She also acquired, under an
earlier settlement, an interest in two messuages at
Snitterfield.^ But, although she was well provided
with worldly goods, she was apparently without educa-
tion ; several extant documents bear her mark, and
there is no proof that she could sign her name.

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

1 Hallivvell-Phillipps, ii. 179.

8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

born on April 22 or 23, 1564. The latter date is
generally accepted as his birthday, mainly (it would
The oefs ^PP^ar) on the ground that it was the day
birth and of his death. There is no positive evidence
apism. ^^ ^j^^ subject, but the Stratford parish
registers attest that he was baptised on April 26.

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

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

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH 9

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

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

10 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE

In July 1564, when William was three months old,
the plague raged with unwonted vehemence at Strat-
The father ^^rd, and his father liberally contributed to
in munici- the relief of its poverty-stricken victims,
pa o ce. Portune still favoured him. On July 4, 1565,
he reached the dignity of an alderman. From 1567
onwards he was accorded in the corporation archives
the honourable prefix of 'Mr.' At Michaelmas 1568
he attained the highest office in the corporation gift,
that of bailiff, and during his year of office the corpo-
ration for the first time entertained actors at Stratford.
The Queen's Company and the Earl of Worcester's
Company each received from John Shakespeare an
official welcome.^ On September 5, 1571, he was chief

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

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE II

alderman, a post which he retained till September 30
the following year. In 1573 Alexander Webbe, the
husband of his wife's sister Agnes, made him overseer
of his will ; in 1 575 he bought two houses in Stratford,
one of them doubtless the alleged birthplace in Henley
Street; in 1576 he contributed twelvepence to the
beadle's salary. But after Michaelmas 1572 he took
a less active part in municipal affairs ; he grew
irregular in his attendance at the council meetings,
and signs were soon apparent that his luck had
turned. In 1578 he was unable to pay, with his
colleagues, either the sum of fourpence for the relief
of the poor or his contribution ' towards the furniture
of three pikemen, two bellmen, and one archer ' who
were sent by the corporation to attend a muster of the
trained bands of the county.

Meanwhile his family was increasing. Four chil-
dren besides the poet — three sons, Gilbert (baptised
Brothers October 13, 1566), Richard (baptised March
and sisters, j j^ IS74), and Edmund (baptised May 3,
1580), with a daughter Joan (baptised April 15, 1569)
— reached maturity. A daughter Ann was baptised
September 28, 1571, and was buried on April 4, 1579.
To meet his growing liabilities, the father borrowed
money from his wife's kinsfolk, and he and his wife

visit Stratford is, on the other hand, conclusive proof that his religion
was not that of the contemporary puritan, whose hostility to all forms of
dramatic representations was one of his most persistent characteristics.
The Elizaljethan puritans, too, according to Guillim's Display of
Heraldrie (1610), regarded coat-armour with abhorrence, yet John
Shakespeare with his son made persistent application for a grant of
arms to the College of Arms. (Cf. infra, pp. 186 seq.)

12 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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

financial Asbies, and in the autumn of 1580 he offered
difficulties, to pay off the mortgage ; but his brother-in-
law, Lambert, retorted that other sums were owing,
and he would accept all or none. The negotiation,
which was the beginning of much litigation, thus
proved abortive. Through 1585 and 1586 a creditor,
John Brown, was embarrassingly importunate, and,
after obtaining a writ of distraint. Brown informed
the local court that the debtor had no goods on which
distraint could be levied.^ On September 6, 1586,
John was deprived of his alderman's gown, on the
ground of his long absence from the council meetings.^

1 The sum is stated to be 4/. in one document (Halliwell-Phillipps,
ii. 176) and 40/. in another (^ib. p. 179); the latter is more likely to be
correct. ^ I/>. ii. 238.

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

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 1 3

Happily John Shakespeare was at no expense for

the education of his four sons. They were entitled

to free tuition at the grammar school of Stratford,

which was reconstituted on a mediceval foundation

by Edward VI. The eldest son, William,

Education. 111 1 i •

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

of the Shoemakers' Company in 1592 — a certain sign of pecuniary
stability. He left Stratford in 1594 (of. Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 137-40).
1 James Russell Lowell, who noticed some close parallels between
expressions of Shakespeare and those of the Greek tragedians, hazarded
the suggestion that Shakespeare may have studied the ancient drama in
a Grace el Latine edition. I believe Lowell's parallelisms to be
no more than curious accidents — proofs of consanguinity of spirit,
not of any indebtedness on Shakespeare's part. In the Electra of
Sophocles, which is akin in its leading motive to Hamlet, the Chorus
consoles Electra for the supposed death of Orestes with the same com-

14 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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

Qvr\Tov Tri<t)VKas TrarpSs, HXeVrpa, (ppdvei'
QvTjTos 5 OpiffTTjs ■ ci)&T€ fiT] \lav crreve.
Ilacnv yap ijfuv tovt d<p€iX€Tat TraOeiv

(».<•. ' Remember, Electra, your father whence you sprang is dead.
Dead, too, is Orestes. Wherefore grieve not overmuch, for by all of us
has this debt of suffering to be paid ' ) . In Hamlet ( I . ii. 72 seq.) are the
familiar sentences :

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

Cf. Sophocles's CEdipus Coloneiis, 880: Tois rot 8iKaioi.s x<^' i^paxt/s viKq.
piiyav (' In a just cause the weak vanquishes the strong,' Jebb), and
2 Henry VI, iii. 233, ' Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.'
Shakespeare's ' prophetic soul ' in Hamlet (l. v. 40) and the Sonnets (cvii.
i) maybe matched by the ■Kpb\xa.vTL'f Qvp.h% of Euripides's Andromache,
1075; and Hamlet's ' sea of troubles ' (ill. i. 59) by the Ka.Kb}v veXayos
of .-Eschylus's Perscc, 443. Among all the creations of Shakespearean
and Greek drama, Lady Macbeth and ^'Eschylus's Clytemnestra, who
' in man's counsels tore no woman's heart ' {yvva.iKo% dvdpd^ovXov
i\irli;^ov K^ap, Agamemnoti, ii), most closely resemble each other. But
a study of the points of resemblance attests no knowledge of /Eschylus
on Shakespeare's part, but merely the close community of tragic genius
that subsisted between the two poets.

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 1 5

— were not accessible to him in English translations;
and on more general grounds the theory of his igno-
rance is adequately confuted. A boy with Shake-
speare's exceptional alertness of intellect, during
whose schooldays a training in Latin classics lay
within reach, could hardly lack in future years all
means of access to the literature of France and Italy.
With the Latin and French languages, indeed,
and with many Latin poets of the school curriculum,
Shakespeare in his writings openly acknowledged his
acquaintance. In ' Henry V ' the dialogue in many
scenes is carried on in French, which is grammatically
accurate if not idiomatic. In the mouth of his school-
masters, Holofernes in 'Love's Labour's Lost' and
™ ., Sir Hugh Evans in ' Merrv Wives of

The poet s ° ^ _

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

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

1 6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

Of the few English books accessible to him in his
schooldays, the chief was the English Bible, either
in the popular Genevan version, first issued in a com-
plete form in 1560, or in the bishops' revision of 1568,
which the Authorised Version of 16 11 closely followed.
References to scriptural characters and incidents are
not conspicuous in Shakespeare's plays, but such as
Shake they are, they are drawn from all parts of
speare and the Bible, and indicate that general ac-
^' quaintance with the narrative of both Old
and New Testaments which a clever boy would be
certain to acquire either in the schoolroom or at
church on Sundays. Shakespeare quotes or adapts

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

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 1 7

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

Shakespeare was a schoolboy in July 1575, when
Queen Elizabeth made a progress through Warwick-
shire on a visit to her favourite, the Earl of Leicester,
at his castle of Kenilworth. References have been
detected in Oberon's vision in Shakespeare's ' Mid-
summer Night's Dream ' (11. ii. 148-68) to the fantastic
pageants and masques with which the Queen during
her stay was entertained in Kenilworth Park. Lei-
cester's residence was only fifteen miles from Stratford,
and it is possible that Shakespeare went thither with
his father to witness some of the open-air festivities ;
but two full descriptions which were published in
1576, in pamphlet form, gave Shakespeare knowledge
of all that took place.^ Shakespeare's opportunities of
recreation outside Stratford were in any case restricted
during his schooldays. His father's financial difficul-

^ Bishop Charles Wordsworth, in his Shakespeare' s Knowledge and
Use of the Bible (4th ed. 1892), gives a long list of passages for which
Shakespeare may have been indebted to the Bible. But the Bishop's
deductions as to the strength of Shakespeare's piety are strained.

- See p. 160 infra.
C

1 8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ties grew steadily, and they caused his removal from
school at an unusually early age. Probably in 1577,
With- when he was thirteen, he was enlisted by his

from^ father in an effort to restore his decaying for-

schooi, tunes. ' I have been told heretofore,' wrote
Aubrey, ' by some of the neighbours that when he was a
boy he exercised his father's trade,' which, according to
the writer, was that of a butcher. It is possible that
John's ill-luck at the period compelled him to confine
himself to this occupation, which in happier days
formed only one branch of his business. His son may
have been formally apprenticed to him. An early Strat-
ford tradition describes him as ' a butcher's apprentice.' ^
' When he kill'd a calf,' Aubrey proceeds less convin-
cingly, ' he would doe it in a high style and make a
speech. There was at that time another butcher's
son in this towne, that was held not at all inferior to
him for a naturall witt, his acquaintance, and coeta-
nean, but dyed young.'

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

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

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

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 1 9

Stratford, made his will, which was proved on July 9,
1582, and is now preserved at Somerset House.
D- . . His house and land, 'two and a half

Richard '

Hathaway virgatcs,' had been long held in copyhold
^^^' by his family, and he died in fairly pro-
sperous circumstances. His wife Joan, the chief
legatee, was directed to carry on the farm with the aid
of her eldest son, Bartholomew, to whom a share in
its proceeds was assigned. Six other children — three
sons and three daughters — received sums of money;
Agnes, the eldest daughter, and Catherine, the second
daughter, were each allotted 6/. i3j-. 4d., 'to be paid
at the day of her marriage,' a phrase common in wills
Anne of the pcriod. Anne and Agnes were in the

Hathaway, sixteenth ccutury alternative spellings of the
same Christian name ; and there is little doubt that
the daughter 'Agnes' of Richard Hathaway's will be-
came, within a few months of Richard Hathaway's
death, Shakespeare's wife.

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

wav's^cot- ^°^^ alterations and renovations, still pre-
tage. serves many features of a thatched farmhouse

of the Elizabethan period. The house remained in
the Hathaway family till 1838, although the male line
became extinct in 1746. It was purchased in behalf
of the public by the Birthplace trustees in 1892.

No record of the solemnisation of Shakespeare's
marriage survives. Although the parish of Stratford

20 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

included Shottcry, and thus both bride and bride-
groom were parishioners, the Stratford parish register
is silent on the subject. A local tradition, which
seems to have come into being during the present
century, assigns the ceremony to the neighbouring
hamlet or chapelry of Luddington, of which neither
the chapel nor parish registers now exist. But one
important piece of documentary evidence directly
bearing on the poet's matrimonial venture is accessible.
In the registry of the bishop of the diocese (Worcester)
a deed is extant wherein Fulk Sandells and John
Richardson, ' husbandmen of Stratford,' bound them-
selves in the bishop's consistory court, on November
28, 1582, in a surety of 40/., to free the bishop of all
liability should a lawful impediment — ' by. reason of
The bond any precontract ' [_t.e. with a third party] or
tmpedl- consanguinity — be subsequently disclosed to
ments. imperil the validity of the marriage, then in
contemplation, of William Shakespeare with Anne
Hathaway. On the assumption that no such impedi-
ment was known to exist, and provided that Anne
obtained the consent of her 'friends,' the marriage
might proceed ' with once asking of the bannes of
matrimony betwene them.'

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

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 21

common, and it was rare for persons in the compara-
tively humble position in life of Anne Hathaway and
young Shakespeare to adopt such cumbrous formalities
when there was always available the simpler, less ex-
pensive, and more leisurely method of marriage by
'thrice asking of the banns.' Moreover, the wording
of the bond which was drawn before Shakespeare's
marriage differs in important respects from that
adopted in all other known examples.^ In the latter
it is invariably provided that the marriage shall not
take place without the consent of the parents or
governors of both bride and bridegroom. In the case
of the marriage of an * infant ' bridegroom the formal
consent of his parents was absolutely essential to
strictly regular procedure, although clergymen might
be found who were ready to shut their eyes to the
facts of the situation and to run the risk of solemnis-
ing the marriage of an ' infant ' without inquiry as to
the parents' consent. The clergyman who united
Shakespeare in wedlock to Anne Hathaway was
obviously of this easy temper. Despite the circum-
stance that Shakespeare's bride was of full age and he
himself was by nearly three years a minor, the Shake-
speare bond stipulated merely for the consent of the
bride's 'friends,' and ignored the bridegroom's pa-
rents altogether. Nor was this the only irregularity
in the document. In other pre-matrimonial covenants

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

22 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

The prominence of the Shottery husbandmen in
the negotiations preceding Shakespeare's marriage
suggests the true position of affairs. Sandells and
Richardson, representing the lady's family, doubtless
secured the deed on their own initiative, so that
Shakespeare might have small opportunity of evad-
ing a step which his intimacy with their friend's
daughter had rendered essential to her reputation.
The wedding probably took place, without the con-
sent of the bridegroom's parents, — it may be without
their knowledge, — soon after the signing of the
deed. Within six months — in May 1583 — a daugh-
Birthofa tcr was bom to the poet, and was baptised
daughter, jj^ ^-j^g name of Susanna at Stratford parish
church on the 26th.

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

CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE 23

betrothal ^ nor of the solemn verbal contract that

ordinarily preceded marriage lends the contention

Formal much Support. Moreover, the whole circum-

betrothai stances of the case render it highly im-
probably . ■' .
dispensed probable that Shakespeare and his bride

^"^- submitted to the formal preliminaries of a

betrothal. In that ceremony the parents of both con-
tracting parties invariably played foremost parts,
but the wording of the bond precludes the assumption
that the bridegroom's parents were actors in any
scene of the hurriedly planned drama of his marriage.
A difficulty has been imported into the narration
of the poet's matrimonial affairs by the assumption
of his identity with one 'William Shakespeare,' to
whom, according to an entry in the Bishop of Wor-
cester's register, a license was issued on November 27,
1582 (the day before the signing of the Hathaway
bond), authorising his marriage with Anne Whateley
of Temple Grafton. The theory that the maiden
name of Shakespeare's wife was Whateley is quite
untenable, and it is unsafe to assume that the bishop's
clerk, when making a note of the grant of the license
in his register, erred so extensively as to write ' Anne

'^Twelfth Night, act v. sc. i. 11. 1 60-4 :

A contract of eternal bond of love,

Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,

Attested by the holy close of lips,

Strengthen'd by interchangement of your rings ;

And all the ceremony of this compact

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

In Measure for Measure Claudio's offence is intimacy with the Lady
Julia after the contract of betrothal and before the formality of marriage
(cf. act i. sc.ii. 1. 155, act iv. sc. i. 1. 73).

24 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Whatelcy of Temple Grafton ' for ' Anne Hathaway
of Shottery.' The husband of Anne Whateley cannot
reasonably be identified with the poet. He was doubt-
less another of the numerous William Shakespeares
who abounded in the diocese of Worcester. Had a
license for the poet's marriage been secured on Novem-
ber 27,1 it is unlikely that the Shottery husbandmen
would have entered next day into a bond ' against
impediments,' the execution of which might well
have been demanded as a preliminary to the grant
of a license but was wholly supererogatory after the
grant was made.

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

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD 25

III

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD

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

1 Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. iv. 1. 29 :

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

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

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

26 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

years that immediately followed implies that he bore
his domestic ties with impatience. Early in 1585
twins were born to him, a son (Hamnet) and a
daughter (Judith) ; both were baptised on February 2.
All the evidence points to the conclusion, which
the fact that he had no more children confirms,
that in the later months of the year (1585) he left
Stratford, and that, although he was never wholly
estranged from his family, he saw little of wife or
children for eleven years. Between the winter of
1585 and the autumn of 1596 — an interval which
synchronises with his first literary triumphs — there is
only one shadowy mention of his name in Stratford
records. In April 1587 there died Edmund Lambert,
who held Asbies under the mortgage of 1578, and a
few months later Shakespeare's name, as owner of a
contingent interest, was joined to that of his father
and mother in a formal assent given to an abortive
proposal to confer on Edmund's son and heir, John
Lambert, an absolute title to the estate on condition
of his cancelling the mortgage and paying 20/. But
the deed does not indicate that Shakespeare per-
sonally assisted at the transaction.^

Shakespeare's early literary work proves that
while in the country he eagerly studied birds, flowers,
and trees, and gained a detailed knowledge of horses
and dogs. All his kinsfolk were farmers, and with
them he doubtless as a youth practised many field
sports. Sympathetic references to hawking, hunting,
coursing, and angling abound in his early plays and

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 11-13.

THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD 2/

poems.^ And his sporting experiences passed at times
beyond orthodox Hmits. A poaching adventure, ac-
cording to a credible tradition, was the immediate
cause of his long severance from his native place. ' He
had,' wrote Rowe in 1709, 'by a misfortune common
enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and,
among them, some, that made a frequent practice of
deer-stealing, engaged him with them more than
Poachin<^ oncc in robbing a park that belonged to Sir
at Charie- Thomas Lucy of Charlecote near Stratford.
For this he was prosecuted by that gentle-
man, as he thought, somewhat too severely ; and, in
order to revenge that ill-usage, he made a ballad upon
him, and though this, probably the first essay of his
poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very
bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him
to that degree that he was obliged to leave his
business and family in Warwickshire and shelter
himself in London.' The independent testimony of
Archdeacon Davies, who was vicar of Saperton,
Gloucestershire, late in the seventeenth century, is to
the effect that Shakespeare 'was much given to all
unluckiness in stealing venison and rabbits, par-
ticularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him oft
whipt, and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made
him fly his native county to his great advancement.'
The law of Shakespeare's day (5 Eliz. cap. 21)

^ Cf. Ellacombe, Shakespeare as an Angler, 1883; J. E. Harting,
Ornithology of Shakespeare, 1872. The best account of Shakespeare's
knc5wledge of sport is given by the Right Hon. D. H. Madden in his
entertaining and at the same time scholarly Diary of Master William
Silence : a Study of Shakespeare and Elizabethan Sport, 1897.

28 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

The tradition has been challenged on the ground
that the Charlecote deer-park was of later date than
Unwar- the sixteenth century. But Sir Thomas
ranted Lucv was an extcnsivc game-preserver,

doubts of -^ & 1 »

the tradi- and owned at Charlecote a warren in which
*'°"' a few harts or does doubtless found an

occasional home. Samuel Ireland was informed
in 1794 that Shakespeare stole tlje deer, not from
Charlecote, but from Fulbroke Park, a few miles
off, and Ireland supplied in his 'Views on the
Warwickshire Avon,' 1795, an engraving of an old
farmhouse in the hamlet of Fulbroke, where he as-
serted that Shakespeare was temporarily imprisoned
after his arrest. An adjoining hovel was locally
known for some years as Shakespeare's ' deer-barn,'
but no portion of Fulbroke Park, which included the
site of these buildings (now removed), was Lucy's
property in Elizabeth's reign, and the amended
legend, which was solemnly confided to Sir Walter
Scott in 1828 by the owner of Charlecote, seems pure
invention.^

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

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

THE FAREWELL TO STR.\TFORD 29

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

The poaching episode is best assigned to 1585,
but it may be questioned whether Shakespeare, on
The flitrht fleeing from Lucy's persecution, at once
from strat- sought an asylum in London. William Bees-
ton, a seventeenth-century actor, remem-
bered hearing that he had been for a time a country
schoolmaster ' in his younger years,' and it seems
possible that on first leaving Stratford he found some
such employment in a neighbouring village. The

30 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

suggestion that he joined, at the end of 1585, a band of
youths of the district in serving in the Low Countries
under the Earl of Leicester, whose castle of Kenil-
worth was within easy reach of Stratford, is based on
an obvious confusion between him and others of his
name.^ The knowledge of a soldier's life which
Shakespeare exhibited in his plays is no greater and
no less than that which he displayed of almost all
other spheres of human activity, and to assume that
he wrote of all or of any from practical experience,
unless the evidence be conclusive, is to underrate his
intuitive power of realising life under almost every
aspect by force of his imagination.

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

ON THE LONDON STAGE 3 1

ON THE LONDON STAGE

To London Shakespeare naturally drifted, doubt-
less trudging thither on foot during 1586, by way
The jour- ^'^ Oxford and High Wycombe. ^ Tradition
ney to points to that as Shakespeare's favoured

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

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

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

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

32 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Field, a native of Stratford, and son of a friend of
Shakespeare's father, had left Stratford in 1579
Richard ^^ serve an apprenticeship with Thomas
Field, his Vautrollier, the London printer. Shake-
townsman, gpgj^j-g ^^^ pigi^j^ ^hQ ^as made free of the

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

Tradition and common-sense alike point to one
of the only two theatres (The Theatre or The Curtain)
^, . . , that existed in London at the date of his

Theatrical

employ- arrival as an early scene of his regular
"^'^"'" occupation. The compiler of * Lives of the

Poets' (1753)^ was the first to relate the story that

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

1 Blades, Shakspere and Typography, 1872.

2 Cf. Lord Campbell, Sha/;espeare's Legal Acqtiireiiients, 1859.
Legal terminology abounded in all plays and poems of the period, e.g.
Barnabe Barnes's Sonnets, 1593, and Zepheria, 1594 (see Appendix ix).

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

ON THE LONDON STAGE 33

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

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

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

34 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

^Shakespeare's earliest reputation was made as an
actor,^and,( although his work as a dramatist soon
The acting eclipscd his histrionic fame, he remained a
companies, prominent member of the actor's profession
till near the end of his life.) By an Act of Parlia-
ment of 1 571 (14 Eliz. cap. 2), which was re-enacted
in 1596 (39 Eliz. cap. 4), players were under the
necessity of procuring a license to pursue their
calling from a peer of the realm or ' personage of
higher degree ' ; otherwise they were adjudged to be
of the status of rogues and vagabonds. The Queen
herself and many Elizabethan peers were liberal in
the exercise of their licensing powers, and few actors
failed to secure a statutory license, which gave them a
rank of respectability, and relieved them of all risk
of identification with vagrants or ' sturdy beggars.'
From an early period in Elizabeth's reign licensed
actors were organised into permanent companies. In
1587 and following years, besides three companies
of duly licensed boy-actors that were formed from
the choristers of St. Paul's Cathedral and the Chapel

ON THE LONDON STAGE 35

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

The patron's functions in relation to the companies
seem to have been mainly confined to the grant
or renewal of the actors' licenses. Constant altera-
tions of name, owing to the death or change from
other causes of the patrons, render it difficult to
trace with certainty each company's history. But
there seems no doubt that the most influential of
the companies named — that under the nominal
patronage of the Earl of Leicester — passed on his
death in September 1588 to the patronage of
Ferdinando Stanley, lord Strange, who became Earl
of Derby on September 25, 1592. When the Earl of
Derby died on April 16, 1594, his place as patron and
licenser was successively filled by Henry Carey, first
The Lord lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain {d. July 23,
Iain's" ^^' ^596)' 3-rid by his son and heir, George
company. Carey, second lord Hunsdon, who himself
became Lord Chamberlain in March 1 597. After
King James's succession in May 1603 the company
was promoted to be the King's players, and, thus ad-
vanced in dignity, it fully maintained the supremacy

36 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

V It is fair to infer that this was the company
that Shakespeare originally joined and adhered to
through life. Documentary evidence proves that he
was a member of it in December 1594; in May
A member 1603 he was oue of its leaders) Four
Chambe°- ^^ ^^^ chicf mcmbcrs — Richard Burbage,
Iain's. the greatest tragic actor of the day, John

Heming, Henry Condell, and Augustine Phillips
— were among Shakespeare's lifelong friends. Under
this company's auspices, moreover, Shakespeare's
plays first saw the light. Only two of the plays
claimed for him — 'Titus Andronicus' and '3 Henry
VI ' — ■ seem to have been performed by other com-
panies (the Earl of Sussex's men in the one case, and
the Earl of Pembroke's in the other).

When Shakespeare became a member of the com-
pany it was doubtless performing at The Theatre, the
playhouse in Shoreditch which James Burbage, the
father of the great actor, Richard Burbage, had con-
structed in 1 576 ; it abutted on the Finsbury Fields, and
stood outside the City's boundaries. The only other
London playhouse then in existence — the Curtain
in Moorfields — was near at hand ; its name survives
in Curtain Road, Shoreditch. But at an early date
The Lon- ^^ ^^^ acting career Shakespeare's company
don sought and found new quarters. While

known as Lord Strange's men, they opened
on February 19, 1592, a third London theatre, called
the Rose, which Philip Henslowe, the speculative

ON THE LONDON STAGE 37

theatrical manager, had erected on the Bankside,
Southwark. At the date of the inauguration of the
Rose Theatre Shakespeare's company was temporarily
allied with another company, the Admiral's men, who
numbered the great actor Edward AUeyn among them.
Alleyn for a few months undertook the direction of
the amalgamated companies, but they quickly parted,
and no further opportunity was offered Shakespeare of
enjoying professional relations with Alleyn. The Rose_
Theatre was doubtless the earliest scene of Shake-
speare's pronounced successes alike as actor and
dramatist. Subsequently for a short time in 1 594 he
frequented the stage of another new theatre at New-
ington Butts, and between 1595 and 1599 the older
stages of the Curtain and of The Theatre in Shore-
ditch. The Curtain remained open till the Civil
Wars, although its vogue after 1600 was eclipsed
by that of younger rivals. (^In 1599 Richard Burbage
and his brother Cuthbert demolished the old build-
ing of The Theatre and built, mainly out of the
materials of the dismantled fabric, the famous theatre
called the Globe on the Bankside.^ It was octagonal
in shape, and built of wood, and doubtless Shake-
speare described it (rather than the Curtain) as ' this
wooden O ' in the opening chorus of ' Henry V '
(1. 13). After 1599 the Globe was mainly occupied
by Shakespeare's company, and in its profits he
acquired an important shar^ From the date of its
inauguration until the poet's retirement, the Globe —
which quickly won the first place among London
theatres — seems to have been the sole playhouse with

38 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

which Shakespeare was professionally associated. The
equally familiar Blackfriars Theatre, which was created
out of a dwelling-house by James Burbage, the actor's
father, at the end of 1596, was for many years after-
wards leased out to the company of boy-actors known
as ' the Queen's Children of the Chapel ' ; it was not
occupied by Shakespeare's company until December
1609 or January 16 10, when his acting days were
nearing their end.^

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

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

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

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

3 Shakespeare alludes to the appearance of men or boys in women's
parts when he makes Rosalind say laughingly to the men of the audience
in the epilogue to As You Like Lt, 'If I were a "woman, I would kiss

ON THE LONDON STAGE 39

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

as many,' &c. Similarly, Cleopatra on her downfall in Antony and

Cleopatra, v. ii. 220 seq., laments :

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

Men taking women's parts seem to have worn masks. Flute is bidden
by Quince play Thisbe ' in a mask ' in Midsummer Alight' s Dream
(i. ii. 53). In French and Italian theatres of the time women seem to
have acted publicly, but until the Restoration public opinion in England
deemed the appearance of a woman on a public stage to be an act of
shamelessness on which the most disreputable of her sex would hardly
venture. With a curious inconsistency ladies of rank were encouraged at
Queen Elizabeth's Court, and still more frequently at the Courts of James
I and Charles I, to take part in private and amateur representations of
masques and short dramatic pageants. During the reign of James I
scenic decoration, usually designed by Inigo Jones, accompanied the
production of masques in the royal palaces, but until the Restoration
the public stages were bare of any scenic contrivance except a front
curtain opening in the middle and a balcony or upper platform resting
on pillars at the back of the stage, from which portions of the dialogue
were sometimes spoken, although occasionally the balcony seems to
have been occupied by spectators (cf. a sketch made by a Dutch visitor
to London in 1596 of the stage of the Swan Theatre in Zur Kenntniss
der altenglischen Buhne von Karl Theodor Gaedertz. Mil der ersten
authentischen innern Ansicht der Schiuans Theatre in London, Bremen
1888). Sir Philip Sidney humorously described the spectator's diffi-
culties in an^Elizabethan playhouse, where, owing to the absence of
stage scenery, he had to imagine the bare boards to present in rapid
succession a garden, a rocky coast, a cave, and a battlefield {^Apologie
for Poetrie, p. 52). Three flourishes on a trumpet announced the
beginning of the performance, but a band of fiddlers played music
between the acts. The scenes of each act were played without inter-
ruption.

40 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

remained in London during the summer or early
autumn, and every country town with two thousand
or more inhabitants could reckon on at least one visit
from travelling actors between May and October. ^A
rapid examination of the extant archives of some
seventy municipalities selected at random shows that
Shakespeare's company between 1594 and 16 14 fre-
quently performed in such towns as Barnstaple, Bathj
Bristol, Coventry, Dover, Faversham, Folkestone,
Hythe, Leicester, Maidstone, Marlborough, New
Romney, Oxford, Rye in Sussex, Saffron Walden,
Shake- and Shrewsbury.^ Shakespeare may be
aSr? credited with faithfully fulfilling all his pro-
travels, f essional functions, and some of the references
to travel in his sonnets were doubtless reminiscences
of early acting tours. It has been repeatedly urged,
moreover, that Shakespeare's company visited Scot-
land, and that he went with it.^ In November 1599

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

1593. Bristol and Shrewsbury. 1607. Oxford.

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

Dover, and Marlborough. Shrewsbury.

603. Richmond (Surrey), Bath, 1610. Dover, Oxford, and Shrews-
Coventry, Shrewsbury, Mort- bury,

lake, Wilton House. 1612. New Romney.

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

1605. Barnstaple and Oxford. bury.

1606. Leicester, Saffron Walden, 1614. Coventry.

Marlborough, Oxford, Dover,
and Maidstone.

2 Cf. Knight's Life of Shakespeare (1843), P- 4i; Fleay, Stage, pp.
135-6-

ON THE LONDON STAGE 4 1

English actors arrived in Scotland under the leader-
in Scot- ship of Lawrence Fletcher and one Martin,
land. ^j-,^ were welcomed with enthusiasm by

the king.^ Fletcher was a colleague of Shake-
speare in 1603, but is not known to have been one
earlier. Shakespeare's company never included an
actor named Martin. Fletcher repeated the visit in
October 1601.^ There is nothing to indicate that any
of his companions belonged to Shakespeare's company.
In like manner, Shakespeare's accurate reference in
' Macbeth ' to the ' nimble ' but ' sweet ' climate of
Inverness,^ and the vivid impression he conveys of

1 The favour bestowed by James VI on these EngHsh actors was
so marked as to excite the resentment of the leaders of the Kirk. The
English agent, George Nicolson, in a (hitherto unpublished) despatch
dated from Edinburgh on November 12, 1599, wrote : 'The four Ses-
sions of this Town (without touch by name of our English players,
Fletcher and Mertyn [i.e. Martyn], with their company), and not
knowing the King's ordinances for them to play and be heard, enacted
[that] their flocks [were] to forbear and not to come to or haunt profane
games, sports, or plays.' Thereupon the King summoned the Sessions
before him in Council and threatened them with the full rigour of the
law. Obdurate at first, the ministers subsequently agreed to moderate
their hostile references to the actors. Finally, Nicolson adds, ' the
King this day by proclamation with sound of trumpet hath commanded
the players liberty to play, and forbidden their hinder or impeach-
ment therein.' j1/S. Slale Papers, Dom. Scotland, P. R. O. vol. Ixv.
No. 64.

2 Fleay, Stage, pp. 126-44.

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

This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

Ranqno. This guest of summer,

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

42 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

A few English actors in Shakespeare's day occa-
sionally combined to make professional tours through
foreign lands, where Court society invariably gave
them an hospitable reception. In Denmark, Germany,
Austria, Holland, and in France, many dramatic
performances were given before royal audiences by
English actors between 1 580 and 1630.^ That Shake-
speare joined any of these expeditions is highly im-
probable. Actors of small account at home mainly
took part in them, and Shakespeare's name appears in
no extant list of those who paid professional visits
abroad. It is, in fact, unli kely t hat Shakespeare ever
set foot on the continent of Europe in either a private
or professional capacity. He repeatedly ridicules
the craze for foreign travel.^ To Italy, it
is true, and especially to cities of Northern
Italy, like Venice, Padua, Verona, Mantua, and
Milan, he makes frequent and familiar reference, and

1 Cf. Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany, 1S65; Meissner, Die englis-
chen Comodianten zur Zeit Shakespeare in Oestereieh, Vienna, 1884;
Jon Stefansson on ' Shakespeare at Elsinore ' in Contemporary Review,
January 1896; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. ix. 43, and xi. 520; and M.
Jusserand's article in the Nineteenth Century, April 1898, on English
actors in France.

2 Cf. As You Like It, iv. i. 22-40.

ON THE LONDON STAGE 43

he supplied many a realistic portrayal of Italian life
and sentiment. But the fact that he represents
Valentine in the 'Two Gentlemen of Verona' (i. i.
71) as travelling from Verona to Milan by sea,
and Prospero in ' The Tempest ' as embarking on a
ship at the gates of Milan (i. ii. 129-44), renders it
almost impossible that he could have gathered his
knowledge of Northern Italy from personal ob-
servation.^ He doubtless owed all to the verbal
reports of travelled friends or to books, the contents
of which he had a rare power of assimilating and
vitalising.

vThe publisher Chettle wrote in 1 592 that Shake-
speare was ' exelent in the qualitie ^ he professes,' and
the old actor William Beeston asserted in the next
century that Shakespeare ' did act exceedingly well.' ^
g, , But the roles in which he distinguished

speare's himsclf are imperfectly recorded. Few sur-
^°^"' viving documents refer directly to perfor-

mances by him. At Christmas 1594 he joined the
popular actors William Kemp, the chief comedian of
the day, and Richard Burbage, the greatest tragic
actor, in ' two several comedies or interludes ' which
were acted on St. Stephen's Day and on Innocents'
Day (December 27 and 28) at Greenwich Palace
before the Queen. The players received 'xiii//. vji".
\\\\d. and by waye of her Majesties rewarde vi/z.

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

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

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

44 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

xiiijT. iiij^T^., in all xx//.'^ Neither plays nor parts are
named. Shakespeare's name stands first on the list
of those who took part in the original performances
of Ben Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour' (1598).
In the original edition of Jonson's ' Sejanus' (1603)
the actors' names are arranged in two columns, and
Shakespeare's name heads the second column, stand-
ing parallel with Burbage's, which heads the first.
But here again the character allotted to each actor is
not stated. \Rowe identified only one of Shakespeare's
parts, 'the Ghost in his own " Hamlet," ' and Rowe
asserted his assumption of that character to be 'the
top of his performance.' John Davies of Hereford
noted that he 'played some kingly parts in sport.' ^
One of Shakespeare's younger brothers, presumably
Gilbert, often came, wrote Oldys, to London in his
younger days to see his brother act in his own plays ;
and in his old age, when his memory was failing,
he recalled his brother's performance of Adam in
'As You Like It.'; In the 1623 folio edition of Shake-
speare's ' Works ' his name heads the prefatory list
'of the principall actors in all these playes.'

( That Shakespeare chafed under some of the
conditions of the actor's calling is commonly inferred
Alleged from the ' Sonnets.' There he reproaches
scorn of an j^^j^gg^f ^^^^-^ bccomiug ' a motlcy to the view '

actors call- o j

ing. (ex. 2), and chides fortune for having pro-

vided for his livelihood nothing better than ' public

^ Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 121 ; Mrs. Slopes m Jahrbuch der deutschen
Shakespeare- Gesellschaft, 1896, xxxii. 182 seq.
2 Scourge of Folly, 1 610, epigr. 159.

ON THE LONDON STAGE 45

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

46 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS

The whole of Shakespeare's dramatic work was pro-
bably begun and ended within two decades (1591-
Dramatic i6i i), between his twenty-seventh and forty-
work, seventh year. If the works traditionally
assigned to him include some contributions from
other pens, he was perhaps responsible, on the other
hand, for portions of a few plays that are traditionally
claimed for others. When the account is balanced,
Shakespeare must be credited with the production
during these twenty years, of a yearly average of
two plays, nearly all of which belong to the supreme
rank of literature. Three volumes of poems must be
added to the total. Ben Jonson was often told by the
players that ' whatsoever he penned he never blotted
out {i.e. erased) a line.' The editors of the First Folio
attested that ' what he thought he uttered with that
easinesse that we have scarce received from him a
blot in his papers.' Signs of hasty workmanship are
not lacking, but they are few when it is considered
how rapidly his numerous compositions came from
his pen, and they are in the aggregate unimportant.

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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 47

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

rowed levied loans on popular current literature like
^^°^^' Holinshed's 'Chronicles,' North's translation

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

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

The revi- t^

sion of- manuscript had passed into the hands of the
^^^^' theatrical manager.^ It was not unusual for

the manager to invite extensive revision of a play at
the hands of others than its author before it was pro-
duced on the stage, and again whenever it was revived.
Shakespeare gained his earliest experience as a dra-
matist by revising or rewriting behind the scenes plays
that had become the property of his manager. It is
possible that some of his labours in this direction

1 One of the many crimes laid to the charge of the dramatist
Robert Greene was that of fraudulently disposing of the same play to
two companies. 'Ask the Queen's players,' his accuser bade him in
Cuthbert Cony-Catcher's Defence of Cony- Catching, 1592, 'if you
sold them not Orlattdo Furioso for twenty nobles [^i.e. about 7/.],
and when they were in the country sold the same play to the Lord
Admiral's men for as many more.'

4cS WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

remain unidentified. In a few cases his alterations
were slight, but as a rule his fund of originality was
too abundant to restrict him, when working as an
adapter, to mere recension, and the results of most
of his labours in that capacity are entitled to rank
among original compositions.

The determination of the exact order in which
Shakespeare's plays were written depends largely on
^, conjecture. External evidence is accessible

Chrono- ."

logy of the in Only a few cases, and, although always
^^^^' worthy of the utmost consideration, is not

invariably conclusive. The date of publication rarely
indicates the date of composition. Only sixteen of
the thirty-seven plays commonly assigned to Shake-
speare were published in his lifetime, and it is question-
able whether any were published under his super-
vision.^ But subject-matter and metre both afford
rough clues to the period in his career to which each

1 The playhouse authorities deprecated the publishing of plays in
the belief that their dissemination in print was injurious to the
receipts of the theatre. A very small proportion of plays acted in
Elizabeth's and James I's reign consequently reached the printing press,
and most of them are now lost. But in the absence of any law of copy-
right publishers often defied the wishes of the owner of manuscripts.
Many copies of a popular play were made for the actors, and if one
of these copies chanced to fall into a publisher's hands, it was
haljitually issued without any endeavour to obtain either author's or
manager's sanction. In March 1599 the theatrical manager Philip
Henslowe endeavoured to induce a publisher who had secured a play-
house copy of the comedy of Patient Grissell by Dekker, Chettle, and
Haughton to abandon the publication of it by offering him a bribe of 2/.
The publication was suspended till 1603 (cf. Henslowe's Diary, p. 167).
As late as 1633 Thomas Heywood wrote of ' some actors who think it
against their peculiar profit to have them S^i.e. plays] come into print.'
{^English Traveller, pref.)

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 49

play may be referred. In his early plays the spirit
of comedy or tragedy appears in its simplicity ; as
his powers gradually matured he depicted life in
its most complex involutions, and portrayed with
masterly insight the subtle gradations of human
sentiment and the mysterious workings of human
passion. Comedy and tragedy are gradually blended ;
and his work finally developed a pathos such as
could only come of ripe experience. Similarly the
metre undergoes emancipation from the hampering
restraints of fixed rule and becomes flexible enough
to respond to every phase of human feeling. In
Metrical the blank verse of the early plays a pause
tests. jg strictly observed at the close of each

line, and rhyming couplets are frequent. Gradually
the poet overrides such artificial restrictions ; r hyme^ .
largel y disapp ears ; recourse is more frequently made
to prose ; the pause is varied indefinitely ; extra syl-
lables are, contrary to strict metrical law, introduced
at the end of lines, and at times in the middle; the last
word of the line is often a weak and unemphatic con-
junction or preposition. 1 To the latest plays fantastic
and punning conceits which abound in early work are
rarely accorded admission. But, while Shakespeare's

^ W. S. Walker in his Shakespeare's Versification, 1854, and Charles
Bathurst in his Difference in Shakespeare' s Versificatio7i at Different
Periods of his Life, 1857, were the first to point out the general
facts. Dr. Ingram's paper on ' The Weak Endings ' in New Shakspere
Society^s Transactions (1874), vol. i., is of great value. Mr. Fleay's
metrical tables, which first appeared in the same society's Transac-
tions (1874), and have been reissued by Dr. Furnivall in a somewhat -
revised form in his introduction to Gervinus's Commentaries and in his
Leopold Shakspere, give all the information possible.
E

50 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

achievement from the beginning to the end of his
career offers clearer evidence than that of any other
writer of genius of the steady and orderly growth
of his poetic faculty, some allowance must be made
for ebb and flow in the current of his artistic progress.
Early work occasionally anticipates features that be-
come habitual to late work, and late work at times
embodies traits that are mainly identified with early
work. No exclusive reliance in determining the pre-
cise chronology can be placed on the merely mechani-
cal tests afforded by tables of metrical statistics. The
chronological order can only be deduced with any
confidence from a consideration of all the internal
characteristics as weU as the known external history
of each play. The premisses are often vague and
conflicting, and no chronology hitherto suggested re-
ceives at all points universal assent.

There is no external evidence to prove that any
piece in which Shakespeare had a hand was produced
before the spring of 1 592. No play by him was pub-
lished before 1 597, and none bore his name on the title-
page till 1 598. But his first essays have been with con-
fidence allotted to 1591. To 'Love's Labour's Lost'
'Love's may reasonably be assigned priority in point
Labour's of time of all Shakespeare's dramatic produc-
°^'' tions. Internal evidence alone indicates the

date of composition, and proves that it was an early
effort ; but the subject-matter suggests that its author
had already enjoyed extended opportunities of survey-
ing London life and manners, such as were hardly open
to him in the very first years of his settlement in the

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 51

metropolis. ' Love's Labour's Lost ' embodies keen
observation of contemporary life in many ranks of
society, both in town and country, while the speeches
of the hero Biron clothe much sound philosophy in
masterly rhetoric. Its slender plot stands almost alone
among Shakespeare's plots in that it is not known to
have been borrowed, and stands quite alone in openly
travestying known traits and incidents of current so-
cial and political life. The names of the chief char-
acters are drawn from the leaders in the civil war
in France, which was in progress between 1589 and
1594, and was anxiously watched by the English
public.^ Contemporary projects of academies for dis-

1 The hero is the King of Navarre, in whose dominions the scene
is laid. The two chief lords in attendance on him in the play, Biron
and Longaville, bear the actual names of the two most strenuous sup-
porters of the real King of Navarre (Biron's later career subsequently
formed the subject of two plays by Chapman, The Conspiracie of Duke
Biroti and The Tragedy of Biroi, which were both produced in 1605).
The name of the Lord Dumain in Love's Labour's L^ost is a common
Anglicised version of that Due de Maine or Mayenne whose name was so
frequently mentioned in popular accounts of French affairs in connection
with Navarre's movements that Shakespeare was led to number him also
among his supporters. Mothe or La Mothe, the name of the pretty,
ingenious page, was that of a French ambassador who was long pop-
ular in London; and, though he left England in 1583, he lived in the
memory of playgoers and playwrights long after Love''s Labour'' s Lost was
written. In Chapman's An Humourous Day's Mirth, 1599, M. Le Mot,
a sprightly courtier in attendance on the King of France, is drawn
from the same original, and his name, as in Shakespeare's play, sug-
gests much punning on the word 'mote.' As late as 1602 Middleton,
in his Blurt, Master Constable, act ii. sc. ii. 1. 215, wrote :

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

Armado, 'the fantastical Spaniard' who haunts Navarre's Court, and
is dubbed by another courtier ' a phantasm, a Monarcho,' is a caricature

52 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ciplining young men ; fashions of speech and dress
current in fashionable circles ; recent attempts on the
part of Elizabeth's government to negotiate with the
Tsar of Russia; the inefficiency of rural constables
and the pedantry of village schoolmasters and curates
are all satirised with good humour. The play was
revised in 1597, probably for a performance at Court.
It was first published next year, and on the title-page,
which described the piece as ' newly corrected and
augmented,' Shakespeare's name first appeared in
print as that of author of a play.

Less gaiety characterised another comedy of the
same date, 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' which
,^^^^ dramatises a romantic story of love and

Gentlemen friendship. There is every likelihood that

of Verona." ., t ^ i.- i* 4.

it was an adaptation — amounting to a re-

of a half-crazed Spaniard known as ' fantastical Monarcho ' who for
many years hung about Elizabeth's Court, and was under the delusion
that he owned the ships arriving in the port of London. On his death
Thomas Churchyard wrote a poem called Fantasticall Monarcho' s Epi-
taph, and mention is made of him in Reginald Scott's Discoverie of
Witchcraft, 1584, p. 54. The name Armado was doubtless suggested
by the expedition of 1588. Braggardino in Chapman's Blind Beggar
of Alexandria, 1598, is drawn on the same lines. The scene (^Love's
Labour'' s Lost, v. ii. 158 seq.) in which the princess's lovers press their
suit in the disguise of Russians follows a description of the reception liy
ladies of Elizabeth's Court in 1584 of Russian ambassadors who came
to London to seek a wife among the ladies of the English nobility for
the Tsar (cf. Horsey's Travels, ed. E. A. Bond, Hakluyt Soc). For
further- indications of topics of the day treated in the play, see 'A
New Study of " Love's Labour's Lost," ' by the present writer in Gent.
Afag., Oct. 1880; and Transactions of the Neiu Shakspere Society, ^t.
iii. p. 80*. The attempt to detect in the schoolmaster Holofernes a
caricature of the Italian teacher and lexicographer, John Florio, seems
unjustified (see p. 85 «.).

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 53

formation — of a lost 'History of Felix and Philo-
mena,' which had been acted at Coiwt in 1584. The
story is the same as that of ' The Shepardess Felis-
mena ' in the Spanish pastoral romance of ' Diana ' by
George de Montemayor, which long enjoyed popular-
ity in England. No complete English translation of
' Diana ' was published before that of Bartholomew
Yonge in 1598, but a manuscript version by Thomas
Wilson, which was dedicated to the Earl of Southamp-
ton in 1596, was possibly circulated far earlier. Some
verses from ' Diana ' were translated by Sir Philip Sid-
ney and were printed with his poems as early as 1591.
Barnabe Rich's story of ' Apollonius and Silla ' (from
Cinthio's ' Hecatommithi '), which Shakespeare em-
ployed again in 'Twelfth Night,' also gave him some
hints. Trifling and irritating conceits abound in the
' Two Gentlemen,' but passages of high poetic spirit
are not wanting, and the speeches of the clowns,
Launce and Speed, — the precursors of a long line of
whimsical serving-men, — overflow with farcical drol-
lery. The ' Two Gentlemen ' was not published in
Shakespeare's lifetime ; it first appeared in the folio
of 1623, after having, in all probability, undergone
some revision.^

Shakespeare next tried his hand, in the ' Comedy
of Errors ' (commonly known at the time as ' Errors '),
'Comedy at boistcrous farce. It also was first pub-
of Errors.' Hghcd in 1623. Again, as in ' Love's Labour's
Lost,' allusion was made to the civil war in France.
France was described as making war against her heir

1 Cf. Fleay, Life, pp. 1S8 seq,

54 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(act V. sc. ii. 1. 125). Shakespeare's farcical comedy
may have been founded on a play, no longer extant,
called ' The Historic of Error,' which was acted in
1576 at Hampton Court. In subject-matter it resem-
bles the * Menaechmi ' of Plautus, and treats of mis-
takes of identity arising from the likeness of twin-born
children. The scene (act iii. sc. i.) in which Anti-
pholus of Ephcsus is shut out from his own house,
while his brother and wife are at dinner within,
recalls one in the ' Amphitruo ' of Plautus. Shake-
speare doubtless had direct recourse to Plautus as
well as to the old play, and he may have read
Plautus in English. The earliest translation of the
' Menaechmi ' was not licensed for publication before
June 10, 1594, and was not published until the fol-
lowing year. No translation of any other play of
Plautus appeared before. But it was stated in the
preface to this first published translation of the
* Menaechmi ' that the translator, W.W., doubtless
William Warner, a veteran of the Elizabethan world
of letters, had some time previously ' Englished ' that
and ' divers ' others of Plautus's comedies, and had
circulated them in manuscript ' for the use of and
delight of his private friends, who, in Plautus's own
words, are not able to understand them.'

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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 55

unprecedented quality. In 'Romeo and Juliet' he
turned to account a tragic romance of Italian origin/
'Romeo which was already popular in English ver-
and Juliet." gjons. Arthur Broke rendered it into
English verse from the Italian of Bandello in 1562,
and William Painter had published it in prose in
his 'Palace of Pleasure' in 1567. Shakespeare made
little change in the plot as drawn from Bandello by
Broke, but he impregnated it with poetic fervour,
and relieved the tragic intensity by developing the
humour of Mercutio, and by grafting on the story
the new comic character of the Nurse.^ The ecstasy
of youthful passion is portrayed by Shakespeare in
language of the highest lyric beauty, and although a
predilection for quibbles and conceits occasionally
passes beyond the author's control, ' Romeo and Juliet,'
as a tragic poem on the theme of love, has no rival in
any literature. If the Nurse's remark, ' 'Tis since the
earthquake now eleven years ' (i. iii. 23), be taken
literally, the composition of the play must be referred

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

2 Cf. Originals and Attalogues, pt. i. ed. P. A. Daniel, New Shak-
spere Society.

56 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

to 1 591, for no earthquake in the sixteenth century-
was experienced in England after 1580. There are
a few parallelisms with Daniel's ' Complainte of Rosa-
mond,' published in 1592, and it is probable that
Shakespeare completed the piece in that year. It was
first printed anonymously and surreptitiously by John
Danter in 1597 from an imperfect acting copy. A
second quarto of 1599 (by T. Creede for Cuthbert
Burbie) was printed from an authentic version, but
the piece had probably undergone revision since its
first production.^

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

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

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

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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 57

]yne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should
triumpheagaine on the Stage, and have his bones newe
embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators
at least (at severall times) who, in the Tragedian that
represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh
bleeding ! ' There is no categorical record of the
production of a second piece in continuation of the
theme, but such a play quickly followed ; for a third
piece, treating of the concluding incidents of Henry
VI's reign, attracted much attention on the stage
early in the following autumn.

The applause attending the completion of this his-
torical trilogy caused bewilderment in the theatrical
profession. The older dramatists awoke to the fact that
their popularity was endangered by the young stranger
who had set up his tent in their midst, and one veteran
uttered without delay a rancorous protest. Robert
Greene, who died on September 3, 1592, wrote on his
deathbed an ill-natured farewell to life, entitled ' A
Greene's Groats-worth of Wit bought with a Million
attack. Qf Repentance.' Addressing three brother
dramatists — Marlowe, Nash, and Peele or Lodge — he
bade them beware of puppets ' that speak from our
mouths,' and of 'antics garnished in our colours.'
' There is,' he continued, ' an upstart Crow, beautified
with our feathers, that with his Tygcrs heart zvrapt in
a players hide supposes he is as well able to bumbast
out a blanke verse as the best of you ; and being an
absolute JoJiajines factotum is, in his owne conceit, the
only Shake-scene in a countrie. . . . Never more
acquaint [those apes] with your admired inventions,

58 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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

But Shakespeare's amiability of character and versatile
ability had already won him admirers, and his suc-
cesses excited the sympathetic regard of colleagues
more kindly than Greene. In December 1 592 Greene's
publisher, Henry Chettle, prefixed an apology for
Chettie's Greene's attack on the young actor to his
apology. ( Kind Hartes Dreame,' a tract reflecting on
phases of contemporary social life. * I am as sory,'
Chettle wrote, ' as if the originall fault had beene my
fault, because myselfe have scene his [z.c. Shake-
speare's] demeanour no lesse civill than he [is] exe-
lent in the qualitie he professes, besides divers of
worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing,
which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in
writing that aprooves his art.'

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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 59

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

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

6o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

Who Shakespeare's coadjutors were in the two
successive revisions of ' Henry VI,' is matter for con-
Shake- jecture. The theory that Greene and Peele
speare's produccd the original draft of the three
coa jutors. p^j.^g ^f < pjej-^j-y yj^' which Shakespeare

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

' Cf. Fleay, Life, pp. 235 seq. ; Trails. N'ew Shnkspere Soc, 1876,
pt. ii. by Miss Jane Lee; Swinburne, Study, pp. 51 seq.

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 6 1

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

Lyly is best known as the author of the affected
romance of ' Euphues,' but between 1580 and 1592
T , , ■ he produced eight trivial and insubstantial

Lyly s in- i »

fluence in comcdics, of which six were written in prose,
come y. ^^^ ^^^^ .^ blank verse, and one was in rhyme.
Much of the dialogue in Shakespeare's comedies, from
' Love's Labour's Lost ' to ' Much Ado about Nothing,'

62 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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

1 In later life Shakespeare, in Hamlet, borrows from Lyly's
Euphiics Polonius's advice to Laertes; but, however he may have
regarded the moral sentiment of that didactic romance, he had no
respect for the affectations of its prose style, which he ridiculed in
a familiar passage in i Henry IV, ii. iv. 445: 'For though the
camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth the
more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.'

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 63

in tragedy a really substantial influence, was in
,, , . ii;q2 and 1503 at the zenith of his fame.

Marlowe s -'-' ■'■^^

influencein Two of Shakespcare's earliest historical
tragedy. tragedies, 'Richard III' and 'Richard II,'
with the story of Shylock in his somewhat later
comedy of the ' Merchant of Venice,' plainly disclose
a conscious resolve to follow in Marlowe's footsteps.
In * Richard III ' Shakespeare, working singlehanded,
takes up the history of England near the point at
which Marlowe and he, apparently working in partner-
ship, left it in the third part of ' Henry VI.' The
subject was already familiar to dramatists, but
Shakespeare sought his materials in the ' Chronicle '
of Holinshed. A Latin piece, by Dr. Thomas Legge,
had been in favour with academic audiences since 1 579,
Richard and in 1594 the 'True Tragedie of Richard
^^^•' III ' from some other pen was published ano-

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

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

64 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'been publikely acted by the right Honorable the
Lorde Chamberlaine his servants ' ; but the de-
position scene in ' Richard II,' which dealt with a
topic distasteful to the Queen, was omitted from the
•Richard early impressions. Prose is avoided through-
'!•' out the play, a certain sign of early work.

The piece was probably composed very early in
1 593. Marlowe's tempestuous vein is less apparent in
' Richard II ' than in ' Richard III.' But if ' Richard II '
be in style and treatment less deeply indebted
to Marlowe than its predecessor, it was clearly
suggested by Marlowe's ' Edward II.' Throughout
its exposition of the leading theme — the development
and collapse of the weak king's character — Shake-
speare's historical tragedy closely imitates Marlowe's.
Shakespeare drew the facts from Holinshed, but his
embellishments are numerous, and include the mag-
nificently eloquent eulogy of England which is set in
the mouth of John of Gaunt.

In ' As You Like It ' (iii. v. 80) Shakespeare
parenthetically commemorated his acquaintance with,
Acknow- and his general indebtedness to, the elder
Io^'mT-"*^ dramatist by apostrophising him in the
lowe. lines :

Dead Shepherd 1 now I find thy saw of might :
' Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'

The second line is a quotation from Marlowe's poem
' Hero and Leander' (line ^6). In the ' Merry Wives
of Windsor' (in. i. 17-21) Shakespeare places in the
mouth of Sir Hugh Evans snatches of verse from

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 6$

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

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

' Titus Andronicus ' was in his own lifetime
claimed for Shakespeare, but Edward Ravenscroft,
•Titus An- who prepared a new version in 1678, wrote
dronicus." of it : 'I have been told by some anciently
conversant with the stage that it was not originally
his, but brought by a private author to be acted, and
he only gave some master-touches to one or two
of the principal parts or characters.' Ravenscroft's
assertion deserves acceptance. The tragedy, a san-
guinary picture of the decadence of Imperial Rome,
contains powerful lines and situations, but is far too
repulsive in plot and treatment, and too ostentatious
in classical allusions, to take rank with Shakespeare's
acknowledged work. Ben Jonson credits ' Titus
Andronicus ' with a popularity equalling Kyd's
* Spanish Tragedy,' and internal evidence shows that
Kyd was capable of writing much of 'Titus.' It
was suggested by a piece called ' Titus and Vespasian,'
which Lord Strange' s men played on April 11, 1592 ;^
this is only extant in a German version acted by
English players in Germany, and published in

F ^ Henslowe, p. 24.

66 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1620.^ ' Titus Andronicus' was obviously taken in hand
soon after the production of ' Titus and Vespasian,'
in order to exploit popular interest in the topic. It
was acted by the Earl of Sussex's men on January
23, 1593-4, when it was described as a new piece;
but that it was also acted subsequently by Shake-
speare's company is shown by the title-page of the
first extant edition of 1600, which describes it as
having been performed by the Earl of Derby's and
the Lord Chamberlain's servants (successive titles of
Shakespeare's company), as well as by those of the
Earls of Pembroke and Sussex. It was entered on
the ' Stationers' Register ' to John Danter on February
6, 1594.'^ Langbaine claims to have seen an edition
of this date, but none earlier than that of 1600 is now
known.

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

1 Cf. Cohn, Shakespeare in Germany, pp. I {5 seq.

2 Arber, ii. 644.

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

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 6/

Italian novel is closely followed by Shakespeare.
A similar story is slenderly outlined in the popu-
lar mediaeval collection of anecdotes called ' Gesta
Romanorum,' while the tale of the caskets, which
Shakespeare combined with it in the ' Merchant,' is told
independently in another portion of the same work.
But Shakespeare's ' Merchant ' owes much to other
sources, including more than one old play. Stephen
Gosson describes in his ' Schoole of Abuse' (1579)
a lost play called ' the Jew . . . showne at the Bull
[inn] . . . representing the greedinesse of worldly
chusers and bloody mindes of usurers.' This descrip-
tion suggests that the two stories of the pound of
flesh and the caskets had been combined before
for purposes of dramatic representation. The scenes
in Shakespeare's play in which Antonio negotiates
with Shylock are roughly anticipated, too, by
dialogues between a Jewish creditor Gerontus and
a Christian debtor in the extant play of ' The Three
Ladies of London,' by R[obert] W[ilson], 1584.
There the Jew opens the attack on his Christian
debtor with the lines :

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

68 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Above all is it of interest to note that Shakespeare
in ' The Merchant of Venice ' betrays the last defina-
ble traces of his discipleship to Marlowe. Although
the delicate comedy which lightens the serious interest
sh lock ^^ Shakespeare's play sets it in a wholly dif-
and Rode- fercut Category from that of Marlowe's 'Jew
ngo opez. ^^ Malta,' the humanised portrait of the Jew
Shylock embodies distinct reminiscences of Marlowe's
caricature of the Jew Barabbas. But Shakespeare
soon outpaced his master, and the inspiration that
he drew from Marlowe in the * Merchant ' touches
only the general conception of the central figure.
Doubtless the popular interest aroused by the trial
in February 1594 and the execution in June of the
Queen's Jewish physician, Roderigo Lopez, incited
Shakespeare to a new and subtler study of Jewish
character.^ For Shylock (not the merchant Antonio)

^ Lopez was the Earl of Leicester's physician before 1586, and the
Queen's chief physician from that date. An accomplished linguist, with
friends in all parts of Europe, he acted in 1590 at the request of the Earl
of Essex as interpreter to Antonio Perez, a victim of Philip IPs perse-
cution, whom Essex and his associates brought to England in order to
stimulate the hostility of the English public to Spain. Don Antonio (as
the refugee was popularly called) proved querulous and exacting. A
quarrel between Lopez and Essex followed. Spanish agents in London
offered Lopez a bribe to poison Antonio and the Queen. The evidence
that he assented to the murderous proposal is incomplete, but he was
convicted of treason, and, although the Queen long delayed signing his
death-warrant, he was hanged at Tyburn on June 7, 1594. His trial
and execution evoked a marked display of anti-Semitism on the part
of the London populace. Very few Jews were domiciled in England
at the time. That a Christian named Antonio should be the cause of
the ruin alike of the greatest Jew in Elizabethan England and of the
greatest Jew of the Elizabethan drama is a curious confirmation of the
theory that Lopez was the begetter of Shylock. Cf. the article on

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 69

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

To 1594 must also be assigned 'King John,'
which, like the ' Comedy of Errors ' and ' Richard II,'
altogether eschews prose. The piece, which was not
printed till 1623, was directly adapted from a worthless
'King play called 'The Troublesome Raigne of

John." King John ' (1591), which was fraudulently

reissued in 161 1 as * written by W. Sh.,' and in 1622 as
by ' W. Shakespeare.' There is very small ground for
associating Marlowe's name with the old play. Into
the adaptation Shakespeare flung all his energy, and
the theme grew under his hand into genuine tragedy.
The three chief characters — the mean and cruel king,

Roderigo Lopez in the Dictionary of A^ational Biography ; 'The
Original of Shylock,' by the present writer, in Gent. Mag., February
1880 ; Dr. H. Graetz, Shylock in den Sagen, in den Dramen und in
der Geschichte, Krotoschin, 1880 ; New Shakspere Sac. Trans., 1887-92,
pt. ii. 158-92; 'The Conspiracy of Dr. Lopez,' by the Rev. Arthur
Diinock, in English Historical Review (1894), ix. 440 seq.

70 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the noblehearted and desperately wronged Constance,
and the soldierly humourist, Faulconbridge — are in all
essentials of his own invention, and are portrayed
with the same sureness of touch that marked in
Shylock his rapidly maturing strength. The scene, in
which the gentle boy Arthur learns from Hubert that
the king has ordered his eyes to be put out, is as
affecting as any passage in tragic literature.

At the close of 1594 a performance of Shake-
speare's early farce, 'The Comedy of Errors,' gave
him a passing notoriety that he could well have
spared. The piece was played on the evening of
Innocents' Day (December 28), 1594, in the hall
'Comedy of Gray's Inn, before a crowded audience
ofEiiois ^£ benchers, students, and their friends.

in Gray s ' '

Inn Hall. There was some disturbance during the
evening on the part of guests from the Inner Temple,
who, dissatisfied with the accommodation afforded
them, retired in dudgeon. ' So that night,' the con-
temporary chronicler states, 'was begun and con-
tinued to the end in nothing but confusion and errors,
whereupon it was ever afterwards called the " Night
of Errors."'^ Shakespeare was acting on the same
day before the Queen at Greenwich, and it is doubtful
if he were present. On the morrow a commission
of oyer and terminer inquired into the causes of the
tumult, which was attributed to a sorcerer having
'foisted a company of base and common fellows to

1 Gesta Grayoriim, printed in 1 688 from a contemporary manu-
script. A second performance of the Co?nedy of Errors was given at
Gray's Inn Hall by the Elizabethan Stage Society on Dec. 6, 1895.

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 7 1

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

Two plays of uncertain authorship attracted public
attention during the period under review (i 591-4) —

* Arden of Feversham ' (licensed for publication April 3,
1 592, and published in 1 592) and ' Edward III' (licensed
for publication December i, 1595, and published in
1596). Shakespeare's hand has been traced in both,
mainly on the ground that their dramatic energy is of
a quality not to be discerned in the work of any
contemporary whose writings are extant. There
is no external evidence in favour of Shakespeare's
authorship in either case. ' Arden of Feversham *
Early plays dramatiscs with intensity and insight a
doubtfully sordid murder of a husband by a wife which

assigned to

Shake- took placc at Faversham m 1551, and was
speare. fully reported by Holinshed. The subject
is of a different type from any which Shakespeare is
known to have treated, and although the play may be,
as Mr. Swinburne insists, * a young man's work,' it
bears no relation either in topic or style to the work
on which young Shakespeare was engaged at a period
so early as 1591 or 1592. ' Edward III ' is a play in
Marlowe's vein, and has been assigned to Shakespeare
on even more shadowy grounds. Capell reprinted it
in his 'Prolusions' in 1760, and described it as

* thought to be writ by Shakespeare.' Many speeches
scattered through the drama, and one whole scene — •
that in which the Countess of Salisbury repulses the
advances of Edward III — show the hand of a master
(act ii. sc. ii.). But there is even in the style of

72 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

these contributions much to dissociate them from
Shakespeare's acknowledged productions, and to
justify their ascription to some less gifted disciple of
Marlowe.^ A line in act ii. sc. i. (' Lilies that fester
smell far worse than weeds ' ) reappears in Shake-
speare's 'Sonnets' (xciv. 1. 14).^ It was contrary to
his practice to literally plagiarise himself. The line
in the play was doubtless borrowed from a manu-
script copy of the ' Sonnets.'

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

' Mucedorus,' an elementary effort in romantic
comedy, dates from the early years of Elizabeth's
reign ; it was first published, doubtless after under-
going revision, in 1595, and was reissued, 'amplified
with new additions,' in 1610. Mr. Payne Collier, who
included it in his privately printed edition of Shake-
speare in 1878, was confident that a scene interpolated
in the 16 10 version (in which the King of Valentia
laments the supposed loss of his son) displayed
genius which Shakespeare alone could compass.
However readily critics may admit the superiority in
literary value of the interpolated scene to anything
else in the piece, few will accept Mr. Collier's ex-
travagant estimate. The scene was probably from

^ Cf. Swinburne, Study of Shakspere, pp. 231-74. ^ gee p. 89.

EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 73

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

' Faire Em,' although not published till 163 1, was
acted by Shakespeare's company while Lord Strange
'Faire was its patron, and some lines from it are
^'"•' quoted for purposes of ridicule by Robert

Greene in his 'Farewell to Folly' in 1592. It is
another rudimentary endeavour in romantic comedy,
and has not even the pretension of ' Mucedorus ' to
one short scene of conspicuous literary merit.

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

74 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC

During the busy years (i 591-4) that witnessed
his first pronounced successes as a dramatist, Shake-
speare came before the public in yet another literary
capacity. On April 18, 1593, Richard Field, the
printer, who was his fellow-townsman, obtained a
license for the publication of ' Venus and Adonis,' a
Pubiica- m.etrical version of a classical tale of love.
'Venus and ^^ ^^^^ published a month or two later, with-
Adonis.' out an author's name on the title-page, but
Shakespeare appended his full name to the dedication,
which he addressed in conventional style to Henry
Wriothesley, third earl of Southampton. The Earl,
who was in his twentieth year, was reckoned the
handsomest man at Court, with a pronounced dispo-
sition to gallantry. He had vast possessions, was
well educated, loved literature, and through life
extended to men of letters a generous patronage.^
' I know not how I shall offend,' Shakespeare now
wrote to him, ' in dedicating my unpolished lines
to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me
for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak
a burden. . . . But if the first heir of my invention
prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble
a godfather.' * The first heir of my invention '

1 See Appendix, Sections III. and IV.

FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 75

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

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

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

^ See Ovid's Amores, liber i. elegy xv. 11. 35-6. Ovid's Amores,
or Elegies of Love, were translated by Marlowe about 1589, and were
first printed without a date on the title-page, probably about 1597.
Marlowe's version had probably been accessible in manuscript in the
eight years' interval. Marlowe rendered the lines quoted by Shake-
speare thus :

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

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

^6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

'Lucrece.' ,„,,.,

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

143-6. Cf. Lodge's description of Venus's discovery of the wounded

Adonis :

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

How on his senseless corpse she lay a-crying,
As if the boy were then but new a-dying.

In the minute description in Shakespeare's poem of the chase of
the hare (11. 673-708) there are curious resemblances to the Ode de la
Chasse (on a stag hunt) by the French dramatist, Estienne Jodelle, in
his (Euvres et Meslanges Poetiques, 1574.

FIRST APrEAI, TO THE READING PUBLIC J J

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

1 Rosamond, in Daniel's poem, muses thus when King Henry
challenges her honour :

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

And if I yeeld, 'tis honourable shame.

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

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

Col tempo passa gli anni, i mesi, e I'hore,
Col tempo le richeze, imperio. e regno,
Col tempo fama, honor, fortezza, e ingegno.
Col tempo giouentCi, con belta more, &c.'

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

78 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

he dedicated ' Venus and Adonis ' to him in colder
language a year before.- 'The love I dedicate to
your lordship,' Shakespeare wrote in the opening
pages of ' Lucrcce,' ' is without end, whereof this pam-
phlet without beginning is but a superfluous moiety.
. . . What I have done is yours ; what I have to do
is yours ; being part in all I have, devoted yours.'

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

FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 79

1595 William Gierke in his ' Polimanteia ' gave 'all
praise ' to * sweet Shakespeare ' for his ' Lucrecia.'
John Weever, in a sonnet addressed to ' honey-tongued
Shakespeare' in his ' Epigramms ' (1595), eulogised
the two poems as an unmatchable achievement, al-
though he mentioned the plays ' Romeo ' and ' Richard '
and 'more whose names I know not' Richard Carew
at the same time classed him with Marlowe as deserv-
ing the praises of an English Catullus.^ Printers and
publishers of the poems strained their resources to
satisfy the demands of eager purchasers. No fewer
than seven editions of ' Venus ' appeared between
1 594 and 1 602 ; an eighth followed in 1 6 1 7. ' Lucrece '
achieved a fifth edition in the year of Shakespeare's
death.

There is a likelihood, too, that Spenser, the greatest
of Shakespeare'spoeticcontemporaries, was first drawn
Shake- ^^ ^^^ poems into the ranks of Shakespeare's
speare and admirers. It is hardly doubtful that Spenser
penser. described Shakespeare in * Colin Clouts
come home againe ' (completed in 1594), under the
name of 'Action,' — a familiar Greek proper name
derived from 'Aero'?, an eagle :

And there, though last not least is Action ;

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

Doth, like himselfe, heroically sound.

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

1 ' Excellencie of the English Tongue ' in Camden's Eemaines,
P- 4.V

8o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

mutual. At any rate Shakespeare acknowledged
acquaintance with Spenser's work in a plain reference
to his 'Teares of the Muses' (1591) in 'Midsummer
Night's Dream ' (v. i. 52-3).

The thrice three Muses, mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceased in beggary,

is stated to be the theme of one of the dramatic
entertainments wherewith it is proposed to celebrate
Theseus's marriage. In Spenser's ' Teares of the
Muses ' each of the Nine laments in turn her declin-
ing influence on the literary and dramatic effort of
the age. Theseus dismisses the suggestion with the
not inappropriate comment :

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

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

1 All these and all that els the Comick Stage,
With seasoned wit and goodly pleasance graced.
By which man's life in his likest image
Was limned forth, are wholly now defaced . . .
And he, the man whom Nature selfe had made
To mock her selfe and Truth to imitate.
With kindly counter under mimick shade
Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late;
With whom all joy and jolly merriment
Is also deaded or in dolour drent. — (11. 198-210.)

FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC 8 1

dressed as ' Willy ' by some of his elegists. A comic
actor, ' dead of late ' in a literal sense, was clearly
intended by Spenser, and there is no reason to dispute
the view of an early seventeenth-century commentator
that Spenser was paying a tribute to the loss English
comedy had lately sustained by the death of the
comedian, Richard Tarleton.^ Similarly the 'gentle
spirit ' who is described by Spenser in a later stanza
as sitting ' in idle cell ' rather than turn his pen to
base uses cannot be reasonably identified with Shake-
speare.^

Meanwhile Shakespeare was gaining personal
esteem outside the circles of actors and men of
letters. His genius and ' civil demeanour ' of which
Chettle wrote arrested the notice not only of South-
ampton's but of other noble patrons of literature
and the drama. His summons to act at Court with
the most famous actors of the day at the Christmas
Patrons at of 1594 was possibly due in part to personal
court. interest in himself. Elizabeth quickly

showed him special favour. Until the end of her
reign his plays were repeatedly acted in her presence.
The revised version of ' Love's Labour's Lost ' was
given at Whitehall at Christmas 1597, and tradition

1 A note to this effect, in a genuine early seventeenth-century hand,
was discovered by HalHwell-Phillipps in a copy of the 161 1 edition of
Spenser's Works (cf. Outlines, ii. 394-5).

' But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen
Large streams of honnie and sweete nectar flowe.
Scorning the boldnes of such base-borne men
Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe.
Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell
Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell. — (11. 217-22.)
G

82 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

credits the Queen with unconcealed enthusiasm for
Falstaff, who came into being a little later. Under
Elizabeth's successor he greatly strengthened his
hold on royal favour, but Ben Jonson claimed that
the Queen's appreciation equalled that of James I.

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

of which Jonson wrote in his elegy on Shakespeare
— included many representations of Shakespeare's
plays by himself and his fellow-actors at the palaces
of Whitehall, Richmond, or Greenwich during the
last decade of Elizabeth's reign.

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 83

VII

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY

It was doubtless to Shakespeare's personal rela-
tions with men and women of the Court that his
sonnets owe their existence. In Italy and France the
practice of writing and circulating series of sonnets in-
The vogue scribcd to great men and women flourished
zabethan" Continuously throughout the sixteenth cen-
sonnet. tury. In England, until the last decade of
that century, the vogue was intermittent. Wya tt and
Surrey inaugurated sonnetteering in the English
language under Henry VIII, and Thomas Watson
devoted much energy to the pursuit when Shake-
speare was a boy. But it was not until 1591, when
Sir Philip Sidney's collection of sonnets entitled
' Astrophel and Stella ' was first published, that the
sonnet enjoyed in England any conspicuous or con-
tinuous favour. For the half-dozen years following
the appearance of Sir Philip Sidney's volume the
writing of sonnets, both singly and in connected se-
quences, engaged more literary activity in this country
than it engaged at any period here or elsewhere.^

1 Section ix. of the Appendix to this volume gives a sketch of each
of the numerous collections of sonnets which bore witness to the un-
exampled vogue of the Elizabethan sonnet between 1591 and 1597.

84 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Men and women of the cultivated Elizabethan nobility
encouraged poets to celebrate in single sonnets their
virtues and graces, and under the same patronage
there were produced multitudes of sonnet-sequences
which more or less fancifully narrated, after the
manner of Petrarch and his successors, the pleasures
and pains of love. Between 1591 and 1597 no
aspirant to poetic fame in the country failed to seek
a patron's ears by a trial of skill on the popular
poetic instrument, and Shakespeare, who habitually
kept abreast of the currents of contemporary literary
taste, applied himself to sonnetteering with all the
force of his poetic genius when the fashion was at its
height.

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

1 Minto, Characteristics of English Poetry, 1885, pp. 37 1, 382.
The sonnet, headed ' Phaeton to his friend Florio,' runs :

Sweet friend whose name agrees with thy increase,
How fit arrival art thou of the Spring !
For when each branch hath left his flourishing,
And green-locked Summer's shady pleasure cease :

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 85

But these were sporadic efforts. It was not till
the spring of 1593, after Shakespeare had secured
a nobleman's patronage for his earliest publication,
'Venus and Adonis,' that he became a sonnetteer
on an extended scale. Of the hundred and fifty-four
sonnets that survive outside his plays, the greater
Majority of number were in all likelihood composed
speare's between that date and the autumn of 1594,
sonnets during his thirtieth and thirty-first years.

composed .,^ ., ,.

in 1594. His occasional reierence m the sonnets to his
growing age was a conventional device — traceable to
Petrarch — of all sonnetteers of the day, and admits of

She makes the Winter's storms repose in peace,
And spends her franchise on each living thing:
The daisies sprout, the little birds do sing,
Herbs, gums, and plants do vaunt of their release.

So when that all our English Wits lay dead,
(Except the laurel that is ever green)
Thou with thy Fruit our barrenness o'erspread.
And set thy flowery pleasance to be seen.

Such fruits, such flow'rets of morality.
Were ne'er before brought out of Italy.

Cf. Shakespeare's Sonnet xcviii. beginning :

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

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

86 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

^ Shakespeare writes in his Sonnets :

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

But when my glass shows me myself indeed,

Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity (Ixii. g-io).

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

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

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

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

My years draw on my everlasting night,

. . . My days are done.

Richard Barnfield, at the age of twenty, bade the boy Ganymede, to
whom he addressed his Affectionate Shepherd and a sequence of sonnets
in 1594 (ed. Arber, p. 23) :

Behold my gray head, full of silver hairs.
My wrinkled skin, deep furrows in my face.

Similarly Drayton in a sonnet {Idea, xiv.) published in 1594, when he
was barely thirty-one, wrote :

Looking into the glass of my youth's miseries,

I see the ugly face of my deformed cares

With withered brows all wrinkled with despairs;

and a little later (No. xliii. of the 1599 edition) he repeated how

Age rules my lines with wrinkles in my face.

All these lines are echoes of Petrarch, and Shakespeare and Drayton
followed the Italian master's words more closely than their contempora-
ries. Cf. Petrarch's Sonnet cxliii. (to Laura alive), or Sonnet Ixxxi. (to
Laura after death) ; the latter begins :

Dicemi spesso il mio fidato speglio,
L" animo stanco e la cangiata scorza
E la scemata mia destrezza e forza:
Non ti nasconder piii ; tu se' pur veglio.

{i.e. ' My faithful glass often shows me my weary spirit and my
wrinkled skin, and my decaying wit and strength : it cannot longer be
hidden from you, you are old.')

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY S;^

and at irregular intervals during the nine years which
elapsed between 1594 and the accession of James I
in 1603. But to very few of the extant examples can
a date later than 1594 be allotted with confidence.
Sonnet cvii., in which plain reference is made to
Queen Elizabeth's death, may be fairly regarded as a
belated and a final act of homage on Shakespeare's
part to the importunate vogue of the Elizabethan
sonnet. All the evidence, whether internal or ex-
ternal, points to the conclusion that the sonnet ex-
hausted such fascination as it exerted on Shakespeare
before his dramatic genius attained its full height.

In literary value Shakespeare's sonnets are notably
unequal. Many reach levels of lyric melody and medi-
Their tativc energy that are hardly to be matched

literary elscwhcre in poetry. The best examples
^^"^" are charged with the mellowed sweetness

of rhythm and metre, the depth of thought and feel-
ing, the vividness of imagery and the stimulating fer-
vour of expression which are the finest proofs of poetic
power. On the other hand, many sinK^TmoSrtnto
inanity beneath the burden of quibbles and conceits.
In both their excellences and their defects Shake-
speare's sonnets betray near kinship to his early
dramatic work, in which passages of the highest
poetic temper at times alternate with unimpressive
displays of verbal jugglery. In phraseology the
sonnets often closely resemble such early dramatic
efforts as ' Love's Labour's Lost ' and ' Romeo and
Juliet.' There is far more concentration in the sonnets
than in ' Venus and Adonis ' or in ' Lucrece,' although

88 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

In accordance with a custom that was not un-
Circuiation common, Shakespeare did not publish his
in manu- souncts ; he circulated them in manuscript.^
scrip . g^^^ their reputation grew, and public in-

terest was aroused in them in spite of his unreadi-

^The Sonnets of Sidney', Watson, Daniel, and Constable long cir-
culated in manuscript, and suffered much the same fate as Shakespeare's
at the hands of piratical publishers. After circulating many years in
manuscript, Sidney's Sonnets were published in 1591 by an irresponsible
trader, Thomas Newman, who in his self-advertising dedication wrote of
the collection that it had been widely ' spread abroad in written copies,'
and had 'gathered much corruption by ill writers' [z.f. copyists].
Constable produced in 1592 a collection of twenty sonnets in a volume
which he entitled ' Diana.' This was an authorised publication. But
in 1594 a printer and a publisher, without Constable's knowledge or
sanction, reprinted these sonnets and scattered them through a volume
of nearly eighty miscellaneous sonnets by Sidney and many other hands;
the adventurous publishers bestowed on their medley the title of 'Diana,'
which Constable had distinctively attached to his own collection. Daniel
suffered in much the same way. See Appendix ix. for further notes on
the subject. Proofs of the commonness of the habit of circulating litera-
ture in manuscript abound. Fulke Greville, writing to Sidney's father-in-
law. Sir Francis Walsingham, in 1587, expressed regret that uncorrected
manuscript copies of the then unprinted Arcadia were ' so common.'
In 1591 Gabriel Cawood, the publisher of Robert Southwell's Mary
Magdalen^ s Funeral Tears, wrote that manuscript copies of the work
had long flown about ' fast and false.' Nash, in the preface to his

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 89

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

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

was quoted in the play of 'Edward III,' which was
probably written before 1595. Meres, writing in 1598,
enthusiastically commends Shakespeare's ' sugred ^
sonnets among his private friends,' and mentions
them in close conjunction with his two narrative
poems. William Jaggard piratically inserted in 1599
two of the most mature of the series (Nos. cxxxviii.
and cxliv.) in his 'Passionate Pilgrim.'

At length, in 1609, the sonnets were surreptitiously
sent to press. Thomas Thorpe, the moving spirit in
Their the design of their publication, was a camp-

pubUcation follower of the regular publishing army,
in 1609. He was professionally engaged in procur-
ing for publication literary works which had been
widely disseminated in written copies and had thus
passed beyond their authors' control; for the law then
recognised no natural right in an author to the crea-
tions of his brain, and the full owner of a manuscript
copy of any literary composition was entitled to
reproduce it, or to treat it as he pleased, without

Terrors of the Alight, 1594, described how a copy of that essay, which
a friend had ' wrested ' from him, had ' progressed [without his author-
ity] from one scrivener's shop to another, and at length grew so com-
mon that it was ready to be hung out for one of their figures \i.e. shop-
signs], like a pair of indentures.'

1 Cf. Sonnet Ixix. 12:

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds.

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

90 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

reference to the author's wishes. Thorpe's career as
a procurer of neglected ' copy ' had begun well. He
made, in 1600, his earliest hit by bringing to light
Marlowe's translation of the ' First Book of Lucan.'
On May 20, 1609, he obtained a licence for the publi-
cation of 'Shakespeare's Sonnets,' and this tradesman-
like form of title figured not only on the ' Stationers'
Company's Registers,' but on the title-page. Thorpe
employed George Eld to print the manuscript, and
two booksellers, William Aspley and John Wright, to
distribute it to the public. On half the edition
Aspley's name figured as that of the seller, and on the
other half that of Wright. The book was issued in
June,^ and the owner of the 'copy' left the public
under no misapprehension as to his share in the pro-
duction by printing above his initials a dedicatory
preface from his own pen. The appearance in a
book of a dedication from the publisher's (instead of
from the author's) pen was, unless the substitution
was specifically accounted for on other grounds, an
accepted sign that the author had no hand in the
publication. Except in the case of his two narrative
poems, which were published in 1593 and 1594 respec-
tively, Shakespeare made no effort to publish any of
his works, and uncomplainingly submitted to the
wholesale piracies of his plays and the ascription to
him of books by other hands. Such practices were
'encouraged by his passive indifference and the con-
temporary condition of the law of copyright. He

1 The actor Alleyii paid fivepence for a copy in tliat month (cf.
Warner's Dulwich A/SS., p. 92).

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 9 1

cannot be credited with any responsibility for the
publication of Thorpe's collection of his sonnets in
1609. With characteristic insolence Thorpe took the
added liberty of appending a previously unprinted
poem of forty-nine seven-line stanzas (the metre of
'A Lover's ' Lucrccc ' ) entitled 'A Lover's Complaint,'
Complaint; jj^ ^hJch a girl laments her betrayal by a
deceitful youth. The poem, in a gentle Spenserian
vein, has no connection with the 'Sonnets.' If, as
is possible, it be by Shakespeare, it must have been
written in very early days.

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

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

92 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

a partner in the speculation, ' Mr. W. H.' In the
conventional dedicatory formula of the day he wished
'Mr. W. H.' 'all happiness' and 'eternity,' such
eternity as Shakespeare in the text of the sonnets
conventionally foretold for his own verse. When
Thorpe was organising the issue of Marlowe's ' First
Book of Lucan ' in 1600, he sought the patronage of
Edward Blount, a friend in the trade. 'W. H.' was
doubtless in a like position. He is best identified with
a stationer's assistant, William Hall, who was profes-
sionally engaged, like Thorpe, in procuring 'copy.' In
1606 ' W. H.' won a conspicuous success in that direc-
tion, and conducted his operations under cover of the
familiar initials. In that year ' W. H.' announced that
he had procured a neglected manuscript poem — ' A
Foure-fold Meditation ' — by the Jesuit Robert South-
well who had been executed in 1595, and he published
it with a dedication (signed ' W. H.') vaunting his good
fortune in meeting with such treasure-trove. When
Thorpe dubbed ' Mr. W. H.,' with characteristic mag-
niloquence, 'the onlie begetter [i.e. obtainer or pro-
curer] of these ensuing sonnets,' he merely indicated
that that personage was the first of the pirate-publisher
fraternity to procure a manuscript of Shakespeare's
sonnets and recommend its surreptitious issue. In
accordance with custom, Thorpe gave Hall's initials
only, because he was an intimate associate who
was known by those initials to their common circle
of friends. Hall was not a man of sufficiently
wide public reputation to render it probable that the

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 93

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

The common assumption that Thorpe in this boast-
ful preface was covertly addressing, under the initials
'Mr. W. H.,' a young nobleman, to whom the sonnets
were originally addressed by Shakespeare, ignores the
elementary principles of publishing transactions of
the day, and especially of those of the type to which
Thorpe's efforts were confined.^ There was nothing
mysterious or fantastic, although from a modern point
of view there was much that lacked principle, in
Thorpe's methods of business. His choice of patron
for this, like all his volumes, was dictated solely by his
mercantile interests. He was under no inducement
and in no position to take into consideration the
affairs of Shakespeare's private life. Shakespeare,
through all but the earliest stages of his career,
belonged socially to a world that was cut off by im-

^ It has been wrongly inferred that Shakespeare asserts in Sonnets
cxxxv.-vi. and cxliii. that the young friend to whom he addressed some
of the sonnets bore his own christian name of Will (see for a full examina-
tion of these sonnets Appendix viii.). Further, it has been fantastically
suggested that the line (xx. 7) describing the youth as 'A man in hue,
all hues in his controlling' {i.e. a man in colour or complexion whose
charms are so varied as to appear to give his countenance control of, or
enable it to assume, all manner of fascinating hues or complexions), and
other applications to the youth of the ordinary word ' hue,' imply that
his surname was Hughes. There is no other pretence of argument for
the conclusion, which a few critics have hazarded in all seriousness, that
the friend's name was William Hughes. There was a contemporary
musician called William Hughes, but no known contemporary of the
name, either in age or position in life, bears any resemblance to the
young man who is addressed by Shakespeare in his sonnets.

94 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

No peer of the day, moreover, bore a name which
could be represented by the initials ' Mr. W. H.'
Shakespeare was never on terms of intimacy (although
the contrary has often been recklessly assumed) with
William, third Earl of Pembroke, when a youth.^
But were complete proofs of the acquaintanceship
forthcoming, they would throw no light on Thorpe's
' Mr. W. H.' The Earl of Pembroke was, from his birth
to the date of his succession to the earldom in 1601,
known by the courtesy title of Lord Herbert and by no
other name, and he could not have been designated at
any period of his life by the symbols ' Mr. W. H.' In
1609 Pembroke was a high officer of state, and
numerous books were dedicated to him in all the
splendour of his many titles. Star-Chamber penalties
would have been exacted of any publisher or author
who denied him in print his titular distinctions.
Thorpe had occasion to dedicate two books to the
earl in later years, and he there showed not merely
that he was fully acquainted with the compulsory
etiquette, but that his sycophantic temperament ren-
dered him only eager to improve on the conventional
formulas of servility. Any further considerations of
Thorpe's address to 'Mr. W. H.' belongs to the

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

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 95

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

Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' ignore the somewhat
complex scheme of rhyme adopted by Petrarch,
The form whom the Elizabethan sonnetteers, like the
of Shake- pj-gnch sonnettccrs of the sixteenth century,

speare s -^ '

Sonnets. rccogniscd to be in most respects their master.
Following the example originally set by Surrey and
Wyatt, and generally pursued by Shakespeare's con-
temporaries, his sonnets aim at far greater metrical
simplicity than the Italian or the French. They
consist of three decasyllabic quatrains with a con-
cluding couplet, and the quatrains rhyme alternately .^

1 The full results of my researches into Thorpe's history, his methods
of business, and the significance of his dedicatory addresses, of which
four are extant besides that prefixed to the volume of Shakespeare's
Sonnets in 1609, are given in Appendix v., 'The True History of
Thomas Thorpe and " Mr. W. H." '

- The form of fourteen-line stanza adopted by Shakespeare is in no
way peculiar to himself. It is the type recognised by Elizabethan writers
on metre as correct and customary in England long before he wrote.
George Gascoigne, in his Certayne Azotes of Inst)-uction concerniug the
making of Verse or Ryine in English (published in Gascoigne's Posies,
1575), defined sonnets thus : ' Fouretene lynes, every lyne conteyning
tenne syllables. The first twelve to ryme in staves of foure lynes by
.cross metre and the last two ryming togither, do conclude the whole.'
In twenty-one of the 108 sonnets of which Sidney's collection entitled
Astrophel and Stella consists, the rhymes are on the foreign model and
the final couplet is avoided. But these are exceptional. As is not
uncommon in Elizabethan sonnet-collections, one of Shakespeare's
sonnets (xcix.) has fifteen lines; another (c.x.wi.) has only twelve lines,
and those in rhymed couplets (cf. Lodge's Phillis, Nos. viii. and xxvi.) ;
and a third (cxlv.) is in octosyllabics. But it is very doubtful whether
the second and third of these sonnets rightly belong to Shakespeare's
collection. They were probably written as independent lyrics ; see
p. 97, note I.

96 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A single sonnet does not always form an indepen-
dent poem. As in the French and Italian sonnets
of the period, and in those of Spenser, Sidney, Daniel,
and Drayton, the same train of thought is at times
pursued continuously through two or more. The
collection of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets thus presents
the appearance of an extended series of independent
poems, many in a varying number of fourteen-line
stanzas. The longest sequence (i.-xvii.) numbers
seventeen sonnets, and in Thorpe's edition opens the
volume.

It is unlikely that the order in which the poems
were printed follows the order in which they were
Want of written. Fantastic endeavours have been
continuity, ^lade to dctcct in the original arrangement
of the poems a closely connected narrative, but the
thread is on any showing constantly interrupted.'
The two It is usual to divide the sonnets into two
'groups.' groups, and to represent that all those
numbered i.-cxxvi. by Thorpe were addressed to a
young man, and all those numbered cxxvii.-cliv. were
addressed to a woman. This division cannot be

^ If the critical ingenuity which has detected a continuous thread of
narrative in the order that Thorpe printed Shakespeare's sonnets were
appHed to the booksellers' miscellany of sonnets called Diana (1594),
that volume, which rakes together sonnets on all kinds of amorous
subjects from all quarters and numbers them consecutively, could be
made to reveal the sequence of an individual lover's moods quite as
readily, and, if no external evidence were admitted, quite as convin-
cingly as Thorpe's collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. Almost all
Elizabethan sonnets are not merely in the like metre, but are pitched
in what sounds superficially to be the same key of pleading or yearning.
Thus almost every collection gives at a first perusal a specious and
delusive impression of homogeneity.

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 97

literally justified. In the first group some eighty of
the sonnets can be proved to be addressed to k man
by the use of the masculine pronoun or some other
unequivocal sign ; but among the remaining forty
there is no clear indication of the kind. Many of
these forty are meditative soliloquies which address no
person at all (cf. cv. cxvi. cxix. cxxi.). A few in-
voke abstractions like Death (Ixvi.) or Time (cxxiii.),
or 'benefit of ill' (cxix.). The twelve-lined poem
(cxxvi.), the last of the first 'group,' does little more
than sound a variation on the conventional poetic in-
vocations of Cupid or Love personified as a boy.^ And
there is no valid objection to the assumption that the
poet inscribed the rest of these forty sonnets to a
woman (cf. xxi. xlvi. xlvii.). Similarly, the sonnets in
the second 'group' (cxxvii.-cliv.) have no uniform
superscription. Six invoke no person at all. No.
cxxviii. is an overstrained compliment on a lady play-
ing on the virginals. No. cxxix. is a metaphysical
disquisition on lust. No. cxlv. is a playful lyric in

1 Shakespeare merely warns his ' lovely boy ' that, though he be
now the ' minion ' of Nature's ' pleasure,' he will not succeed in defying
Time's inexorable law. Sidney addresses in a lighter vein Cupid —
' blind-hitting boy,' he calls him — in his Astrophel (No. xlvi.). Cupid
is similarly invoked in three of Drayton's sonnets (No. xxvi. in the
edition of 1594, and Nos. xxxiii. and xxxiv. in that of 1605), and
in six in Fulke Greville's collection entitled Calica (cf. l.xxxiv., begin-
ning 'Farewell, sweet boy, complain not of my truth' ). Lyly in his
Sapho andPhao, 1584, and in his Mother Bomhie, 1598, has songs of like
temper addressed in the one case to ' O Cruel love ! ' and in the other
to ' O Cupid ! monarch over kings.' A similar theme to that of Shake-
speare's Sonnet cxxvi. is treated by John Ford in the song, ' Love is
ever dying,' in his tragedy of the Broken Heart, 1633.
H

98 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

octosyllabics, like Ly ly 's song of ' Cupid and Campaspe,
and its tone has close affinity to that and other of
Lyly's songs. No. cxlvi. invokes the soul of man.
Nos. cliii. and cliv. soliloquise on an ancient Greek
apologue on the force of Cupid's fire.^

The choice and succession of topics in each
' group ' give to neither genuine cohesion. In the
first ' group ' the long opening sequence (i.-xvii.)
forms the poet's appeal to a young man to marry
so that his youth and beauty may survive in children.
There is almost a contradiction in terms between
the poet's handling of that topic and his emphatic
boast in the two following sonnets (xviii.-xix.) that
his verse alone is fully equal to the task of immor-
Main talising his friend's youth and accomplish-

the fim ments. The same asseveration is repeated
'group.' in many later sonnets (cf. Iv. Ix. Ixiii.
Ixxiv. Ixxxi. ci. cvii.). These alternate with conven-
tional adulation of the beauty of the object of the
poet's affections (cf. xxi. liii. Ixviii.) and descriptions
of the effects of absence in intensifying devotion (cf.
xlviii. 1. cxiii.). There are many reflections on the
nocturnal torments of a lover (cf. xxvii. xxviii.'
xliii. 1. Ixi.) and on his blindness to the beauty of
spring or summer when he is separated from his love
(cf. xcvii. xcviii.). At times a youth is rebuked for
sensual indulgences ; he has sought and won the
favour of the poet's mistress in the poet's absence,
but the poet is forgiving (xxxii.-xxxv. xl.-xlii. Ixix.
xcv.-xcvi.). In Sonnet Ixx. the young man whom

^ See p. 113, note 2.

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISToRV 99

the poet addresses is credited with a different disposi-
tion and experience :

And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days,
Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd !

At times melancholy overwhelms the writer : he
despairs of the corruptions of the age (Ixvi.), re-
proaches himself with carnal sin(cxix.), declares him-
self weary of his profession of acting (cxi. cxii.), and
foretells his approaching death (Ixxi.-lxxiv.). Through-
out are dispersed obsequious addresses to the youth in
his capacity of sole patron of the poet's verse (cf. xxiii.
xxxvii. c. ci. ciii. civ.). But in one sequence the friend
is sorrowfully reproved for bestowing his patronage
on rival poets (Ixxviii.-lxxxvi.). In three sonnets
near the close of the first group in the original edition
the writer gives varied assurances of his constancy in
love or friendship which apply indifferently to man or
woman (cf. cxxii. cxxiv. cxxv.).

In two sonnets of the second ' group ' (cxxvi.-
clii.) the poet compliments his mistress on her black
complexion and raven-black hair and eyes. In twelve
sonnets he hotly denounces his ' dark ' mistress for
her proud disdain of his affection, and for her mani-
fold infidelities with other men. Apparently con-
Main tinning a theme of the first 'group,' the poet
thrsecond ^ebukes the woman, whom he addresses, for
•group.' having beguiled his friend to yield himself to
her seductions (cxxxiii.-cxxxvi.). Elsewhere he makes
satiric reflections on the extravagant compliments
paid to the fair sex by other sonnetteers (No. cxxx.),

lOO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

or lightly quibbles on his name of 'Will' (cxxx.-vi.).
In tone and subject-matter numerous sonnets in the
second as in the first ' group ' lack visible sign of
coherence with those they immediately precede or
follow.

It is not merely a close study of the text that
confutes the theory, for which recent writers have-
fought hard, of a logical continuity in Thorpe's
arrangement of the poems in 1609. There remains
the historic fact that readers and publishers of the
seventeenth century acknowledged no sort of signifi-
cance in the order in which the poems first saw the
light. When the sonnets were printed for a second
time in 1640 — thirty-one years after their first
appearance — they were presented in a completely
different order. The short descriptive titles which
were then supplied to single sonnets or to short
sequences proved that the collection was regarded as
a disconnected series of occasional poems in more
or less amorous vein.

In whatever order Shakespeare's sonnets be
studied, the claim that has been advanced in their
Lack of behalf to rank as autobiographical docu-
flndment nicuts cau Only be accepted with many
in Ehza- qualifications. Elizabethan sonnets were
sonnets. commouly the artificial products of the poet's
fancy. A strain of personal emotion is occasionally
discernible in a detached effort, and is vaguely trace-
able in a few sequences ; but autobiographical con-
fessions were very rarely the stuff of which the
Elizabethan sonnet was made. The typical collection

THE SONNETS AND THfilR ITTERARY HISTORY' lOI

of Elizabethan sonnets was a mosaic of plagiarisms,
a medley of imitative studies. Echoes of the French
or of the Italian sonnetteers, with their Platonic
idealism, are usually the dominant notes. The echoes
often have a musical quality peculiar to themselves.
Daniel's fine sonnet (xlix.) on 'Care-charmer, sleep,'
although directly inspired by the French, breathes a
finer melody than the sonnet of Pierre de Brach ^
Their de- apostrophisiug * Ic sommeil chasse-soin '
pendence n^ t^g Collection entitled ' Les Amours

on French , , x i r t.i -t -r^

and Italian d Aymec ), or the sonnet of Philippe Des-
modcis. portes invoking ' Sommeil, paisible rils
de la nuit solitaire ' (in the collection entitled
'Amours d'Hippolyte ' ).^ But, throughout Eliza-
bethan sonnet literature, the heavy debt to Italian and
French effort is unmistakable.'^ Spenser, in 1569, at
the outset of his literary career, avowedly translated
numerous sonnets from Du Bellay and from Petrarch,
and his friend Gabriel Harvey bestowed on him the
title of ' an English Petrarch ' — the highest praise that
the critic conceived it possible to bestow on an English
sonnetteer.^ Thomas Watson in 1582, in his collec-

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

2 See Appendix ix.

3 Section x. of the Appendix to this volume supplies a bibliographi-
cal note on the sonnet in France between 1550 and 1600, with a list of
the sixteenth-century sonnetteers of Italy.

* Gabriel Harvey, in his Pierces Supererogation (1593, p- 61), after
enthusiastic commendation of Petrarch's sonnets (' Petrarch's invention
is pure love itself ; Petrarch's elocution pure beauty itself), justifies the
common English practice of imitating them on the ground that ' all the
noblest Italian, French, and Spanish poets have in their several veins

102 \yii.L!AM SHAKESPEARE

tion of metrically irregular sonnets which he entitled
•'EKATOMIl A@I A, or a Passionate Century of Love,'
prefaced each poem, which he termed a ' passion,' with
a prose note of its origin and intention. Watson frankly
informed his readers that one * passion ' was ' wholly
translated out of Petrarch ; ' that in another passion
' he did very busily imitate and augment a certain ode
of Ronsard ; ' while ' the sense or matter of " a third "
was taken out of Serafino in his " Strambotti." ' In
every case Watson gave the exact reference to his

Petrarchised ; and it is no dishonour for the daintiest or divinest IMuse
to be his scholar, whom the amiablest invention and beautifullest elo-
cution acknowledge their master.' Both French and English sonnet-
teers habitually admit that they are open to the charge of plagiarising
Petrarch's sonnets to Laura (cf. Du Bellay's Les Amours, ed. Becq
de Fouquieres, 1876, p. 186, and Daniel's Delia, Sonnet xxxviii.).
The dependent relations in which both English and French sonnetteers
stood to Petrarch may be best realised by comparing such a popular
sonnet of the Italian master as No. ciii. (or in some editions Ixxxviii.) in
Sonetti in Vita di M. Laura, beginning ' S' amor non e, che dunque
e quel ch' i' sento ? ' with a rendering of it into French like that of
De Baif in his Amours de Fraticine (ed. Becq de Fouquieres, p. 121),
beginning, 'Si ce n'est pas Amour, que sent donques mon coeur; ' or
with a rendering of the same sonnet into English like that by Watson
in his Passionate Century, No. v., beginning, ' If 't bee not love I feele,
what is it then ? ' Imitation of Petrarch is a constant characteristic
of the English sonnet throughout the sixteenth century from the date of
the earliest efforts of Surrey and Wyatt. It is interesting to compare
the skill in rendering the Italian master of the early and late sonnetteers.
Petrarch's sonnet In Vita di M. Laura (No. Ixxx. or Ixxxi., beginning
' Cesare, poi che '1 traditor d' Egitto ') was independently translated
both by Sir Thomas Wyatt, about 1530 (ed. Bell, p. 60), and by Francis
Davison in his Poetical Khapsody (1602, ed. BuUen, i. 90). Petrarch's
sonnet (No. xcv. or cxiii.) was also rendered independently both by
Wyatt (cf. Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, ed. Arber, p, 23) and
by Drummond of Hawthornden (ed. Ward, i. 100, 221).

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 103

foreign original, and frequently appended a quotation.^
Drayton in 1594, in the dedicatory sonnet of his collec-
tion of sonnets entitled ' Idea,' declared that it was ' a
fault too common in this latter time ' * to filch from
Desportes or from Petrarch's pen.' ^ Lodge did not
acknowledge his borrowings more specifically than his
colleagues, but he made a plain profession of indebted-
ness to Desportes when he wrote : ' Few men are able
to second the sweet conceits of Philippe Desportes,
whose poetical writings are ordinarily in everybody's
hand.' ^ Giles Fletcher, who in his collection of

^ Eight of Watson's sonnets are, according to his own account, ren-
derings from Petrarch; twelve are from Serafino dell' Aquila (1466-
1500) ; four each come from Strozza, an Italian poet, and from Ronsard;
three from the Italian poet Agnolo Fiorenzuola (1493-1548); two each
from the French poet, Etienne Forcadel, known as Forcatulus (1514?-
I573)> the Italian Girolamo Parabosco (y?. 1548), and /Eneas Sylvius;
while many are based on passages from such authors as (among the
Greeks) Sophocles, Theocritus, Apollonius of Rhodes (author of the epic
' Argonautica ') ; or (among the Latins) Virgil, Tibullus, Ovid, Horace,
Propertius, Seneca, Pliny, Lucan, Martial, and Valerius Flaccus; or
(among other modern Italians) Politian (1454-94) and Baptista
Mantuanus (1448-1516); or (among other modern Frenchmen) Ger-
vasius Sepinus of Saumur, writer of eclogues after the manner of
Virgil and Mantuanus.

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

3 Lodge's Margarite, p. 79. See Appendix IX. for the text of
Desportes's sonnet {Diane, livre ii. No. iii.) and Lodge's translation
in Phillis. Lodge gave two other translations of the same sonnet of
Desportes — in his romance of Rosalind (^\xx\K.tx\zXi Society's reprint,
p. 74), and in his volume of poems called Scillccs Metamorphosis (p. 44).
Sonnet xxxiii. of Lodge's rhillis is rendered with equal literalness from
Ronsard. But Desportes was Lodge's special master.

I04 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

sonnets called ' Licia ' (1593) simulated the varying
moods of a lover under the sway of a great passion
as successfully as most of his rivals, stated on his
title-page that his poems were all written in ' imitation
of the best Latin poets and others.' Very many of
the love-sonnets in the series of sixty-eight penned
ten years later by William Drummond of Hawthorn-
den have been traced to their sources in the Italian
sonnets not merely of Petrarch, but of the sixteenth-
century poets Guarini, Bembo, Giovanni Battista
Marino, Tasso, and Sannazzaro.^ The Elizabethans
usually gave the fictitious mistresses after whom their
volumes of sonnets were called the names that had
recently served the like purpose in France. Daniel
followed Maurice Seve^ in christening his collection
' Delia ' ; Constable followed Desportes in christen-
ing his collection ' Diana ' ; while Drayton not only
applied to his sonnets on his title-page in 1594 the
French term ' amours,' but bestowed on his imagi-
nary heroine the title of Idea, which seems to have
been the invention of Claude de Pontoux,^ although
it was employed by other French contemporaries.

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

[Men] that do dictionary's method bring
Into their rhymes running in rattling rows ;
[Men] that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes
With newborn sighs and denizened wit do sing.

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

2 Seve's Delie was first published at Lyons in 1544. ^ I530~79'

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 105

Sidney unconvincingly claimed greater sincerity for
his own experiments. But ' even amorous sonnets in
Sonnet- the gallantcst and sweetest civil vein,' wrote
missions of Gabriel Harvey in ' Pierces Supererogation '
insincerity, in 1593, 'are but dainties of a pleasurable
wit.' Drayton's sonnets more nearly approached
Shakespeare's in quality than those of any contem-
porary. Yet Drayton told the readers of his collec-
tion entitled ' Idea ' ^ (after the French) that if any
sought genuine passion in them, they had better go
elsewhere. ' In all humours sportively he ranged,' he
declared. Giles Fletcher, in 1593, introduced his
collection of imitative sonnets entitled ' Licia, or
Poems of Love,' with the warning, ' now in that I
have written love sonnets, if any man measure
my affection by my style, let him say I am in love.
. . . Here, take this by the way, ... a man may
write of love and not be in love, as well as of

^ In two of his century of sonnets (Nos. xiii. and xxiv. in 1594
edition, renumbered xxxii. and liii. in 1619 edition) Drayton hints
that his 'fair Idea' embodied traits of an identifiable lady of his ac-
quaintance, and he repeats the hint in two other short poems; but
the fundamental principles of his sonnetteering exploits are defined
explicitly in Sonnet xviii. in 1594 edition.

Some, when in rhyme, they of their loves do tell, . . .
Only I call \i.e. I call only] on my divine Idea.

Joachim du Bellay, one of the French poets who anticipated Drayton
in addressing sonnets to ' L'Idee,' left the reader in no doubt of his intent
by concluding one poem thus :

La, o mon 5me. au plus hault ciel guidee,
Tu y pourras recognoistre I'ldee
De la beaiite qu'en ce monde j'adore.

(Du Bellay's Olive, No. c.\iii. published in 1568.)

I06 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

The dissemination of false sentiment by the
sonnetteers, and their monotonous and mechanical
Contempo- treatment of ' the pangs of despised love '
sureo^" or the joys of requited affection, did not
teel-s'^faise cscape the ccusure of contemporary criti-
sentiment. cism. The air soon rang with sarcastic
protests from the most respected writers of the day.
In early life Gabriel Harvey wittily parodied the
mingling of adulation and vituperation in the con-
ventional sonnet-sequence in his ' Amorous Odious
Sonnet intituled The Student's Loove or Hatrid.'^
Chapman in 1595, in a series of sonnets entitled 'A
Coronet for his mistress Philosophy,' appealed to his
literary comrades to abandon ' the painted cabinet '
of the love-sonnet for a coffer of genuine worth. But
the most resolute of the censors of the sonnetteering
vogue was the poet and lawyer. Sir John Davies. In
a sonnet addressed about 1596 to his friend, Sir
Anthony Cooke (the patron of Drayton's ' Idea '), he
inveighed against the ' bastard sonnets ' which ' base
rhymers' ' daily ' begot ' to their own shames and
'Gulling poetry's disgrace.' In his anxiety to stamp
Sonnets.' q^^- |-j^g folly he wrotc and circulated in
manuscript a specimen series of nine ' gulling sonnets '

1 Ben Jonson pointedly noticed the artifice inherent in the metrical
principles of the sonnet when he told Drummond of Havvthornden that
' he cursed Petrarch for redacting verses to sonnets which he said were
like that tyrant's bed, where some who were too short were racked,
others too long cut short' (Jonson's Conversation, p. 4).

2 See p. 121 infra.

THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY 107

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

To love, my lord, I do knight's servace owe,

must have parodied Shakespeare's Sonnet xxvi., begin-
ning :

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage, &c.°

Echoes of the critical hostility are heard, it is curi-
ous to note, in nearly all the references that Shake-
shake- speare himself makes to sonnetteering in his
scornful plays. ' Tush, none but minstrels like of son-
sonne°rin' netting,' exclaims Biron in ' Love's Labour's
his plays. Lost ' (iv. ill. 1 58). In the 'Two Gentlemen
of Verona' (in. ii. 68 seq.) there is a satiric touch in
the recipe for the conventional love-sonnet which
Proteus offers the amorous Duke :

You must lay lime to tangle her desires
By wailful sonnets whose composed rime

1 They were first printed by Dr. Grosart for the Chetham Society
in 1873 in his edition of ' the Dr. Farmer MS.,' a sixteenth and seven-
teenth century commonplace book preserved in the Chetham Library
at Manchester, pt. i. pp. 76-81. Dr. Grosart also included the poems
in his edition of Sir John Davies's Works, 1876, ii. 53-62.

2 Davies's Sonnet viii. is printed in Appendix ix.
* See p. 127 infra.

I08 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Should be full fraught with serviceable vows . . .

Say that upon the altar of her beauty

You sacrifice your sighs, your tears, your heart.

Mercutio treats Elizabethan sonnetteers even less
respectfully when alluding to them in his flouts at
Romeo : ' Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch
flowed in : Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen-
wench. Marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme
her.' 1 In later plays Shakespeare's disdain of the
sonnet is still more pronounced. In ' Henry V ' (iii. vii.
33 seq.) the Dauphin, after bestowing ridiculously mag-
niloquent commendation on his charger, remarks, * I
once writ a sonnet in his praise, and begun thus :
" Wonder of nature ! " ' The Duke of Orleans retorts :
' I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.'
The Dauphin replies : ' Then did they imitate that
which I composed to my courser ; for my horse is my
mistress.' In ' Much Ado About Nothing ' (v. ii. 4-7',
Margaret, Hero's waiting-woman, mockingly asks
Benedick to * write her a sonnet in praise of her
beauty.' Benedick jestingly promises one so 'in high
a style that no man living shall come over it.' Sub-
sequently (v. iv. 8y) Benedick is convicted, to the
amusement of his friends, of penning ' a halting
sonnet of his own pure brain ' in praise of Beatrice.

1 Romeo and Juliet, il. iv. 41-4.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS IO9

VIII

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS

At a first glance a far larger proportion of Shake-
speare's sonnets give the reader the illusion of per-
sonal confessions than those of any contemporary,
but when allowance has been made for the current
conventions of Elizabethan sonnetteering, as well as
for Shakespeare's unapproached affluence in dramatic
Slender au- instiuct and invention — an affluence which
tobiograph- gj^^bied him to identify himself with every

ical ele- J f

ment in phasc of human emotion — the autobiographic
Shake- element in his sonnets, although it may not

speare s ' '^ -^

sonnets. bc dismissed altogether, is seen to shrink to
slender proportions. As soon as the collection is stud-
ied comparatively with the many thousand sonnets that
the printing presses of England, France, and Italy
poured forth during the last years of the sixteenth
century, a vast number of Shakespeare's performances
prove to be little more than professional trials of
^^ . . skill, often of superlative merit, to which

The imi- ' ^

tative ele- he deemed himself challenged by the efforts
™^"^' of contemporary practitioners. The thoughts

and words of the sonnets of Daniel, Drayton, Watson,
Barnabe Barnes, Constable, and Sidney were assimi-
lated by Shakespeare in his poems as consciously and
with as little compunction as the plays and novels of

no WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

^ Mr. Fleay in his Biographical Chronicle of the English Stage,
ii. 226 seq., gives a striking list of parallels between Shakespeare's and
Drayton's sonnets which any reader of the two collections in conjunc-
tion could easily increase. Mr. Wyndham in his valuable edition of
Shakespeare's Sonnets, p. 255, argues that Drayton was the plagiarist
of Shakespeare, chiefly on bibliographical grounds, which he does not
state quite accurately. One hundred sonnets belonging to Drayton's
Idea series are extant, but they were not all published by him at one
time. Fifty-three were alone included in his first and only separate
edition of 1594; six more appeared in a reprint of Idea appended to
the Heroical Epistles in 1599; twenty-four of these were gradually
dropped and thirty-four new ones substituted in reissues appended
to volumes of his writings issued • respectively in 1600, 1602, 1603,
and 1605. To the collection thus re-formed a further addition of
twelve sonnets and a withdrawal of some twelve old sonnets were made
in the final edition of Drayton's works in 161 9. There the sonnets
number sixty-three. Mr. Wyndham insists that Drayton's latest pub-
lished sonnets have alone an obvious resemblance to Shakespeare's
sonnets, and that they all more or less reflect Shakespeare's sonnets as
printed by Thorpe in 1 609. But the whole of Drayton's century of sonnets
except twelve were in print long before 1 609, and it could easily be shown
that the earliest fifty-three pubhshed in 1594 supply as close parallels
with Shakespeare's sonnets as any of the forty-seven published sub-
sequently. Internal evidence suggests that all but one or two of
Drayton's sonnets were written by him in 1594, in the full tide of
the sonnetteering craze. Almost all were doubtless in circulation in
manuscript then, although only fifty-three were published in 1594.
Shakespeare would have had ready means of access to Drayton's manu-
script collection. j\Ir. Collier reprinted all the sonnets that Drayton
published between 1594 and 1619 in his edition of Drayton's poems
for the Roxburghe Club, 1856. Other editions of Drayton's sonnets
of this and the last century reprint exclusively the collection of sixty-
three appended to the edition of his works in 161 9.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS III

sard's nine hundred sonnets and many of his numer-
ous odes were accessible to Shakespeare in EngHsh
adaptations, but there are a few signs that Shakespeare
had recourse to Ronsard direct.

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

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

Zefiro torna e '1 bel tempo rimena,
E i fiori e I'erbe, sua dolce famiglia,
E garrir Progne e pianger Filomena,
E primavera Candida e vermiglia.

Ridono i prati, e '1 ciel si rasserena;
Giove s' allegra di mirar sua figlia,
L' aria e 1' acqua e la terra e d' amor piena;
Ogni animal d' amar si riconsiglia.

Ma per me, lasso, tornano i piii gravi
Sospiri, che del cor profondo tragge, &c.

See a translation by William Drummond of Hawthornden in Sonnets,
pt. ii. No. ix. Similar sonnets and odes on April, spring, and summer
abound in French and English (cf. Becq de Fouquiere's CEuvres choisies
de J.-A. De Baif, passim, and CEuvres choisies des Contemporains de
Ronsard, p. io8 (by Remy Belleau) ; p. 129 (by Amadis Jamyn) et
passim). For descriptions of night and sleep see especially Ronsard's

112 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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

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

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

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

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS I I 3

lovers.^ In the concluding sonnets, cliii. and cliv., he
gives alternative versions of an apologue illustrating
the potency of love which first figured in the Greek
anthology, had been translated into Latin, and sub-
sequently won the notice of English, French, and
Italian sonn^tteers.^

In the numerous sonnets in which Shakespeare
Shake- boastcd that his verse was so certain of im-
ckTimsof mortality that it was capable of immortal-
taiity°for ising the person to whom it was addressed,
his sonnets hg gavc voicc to uo couviction that was

a borrowed " _

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

^ A similar conceit is the topic of Shakespeare's Sonnet xxiv.
Ronsard's Ode (livre iv. No. xx.) consists of a like dialogue between
the heart and the eye. The conceit is traceable to Petrarch, whose
Sonnet Iv. or Ixiii. (' Occhi, piangete, accompagnate il core ') is a dia-
logue between the poet and h'is eyes, while his Sonnet xcix. or cxvii. is
a companion dialogue between the poet and his heart. Cf. Watson's
Tears of Fancie, xix. xx. (a pair of sonnets on the theme which closely
resemble Shakespeare's pair) ; Drayton's Idea, xxxiii. ; Barnes's Par-
ihenophe and Parthenophil, xx., and Constable's Diana, vi. 7.

^ The Greek epigram is in Palatine Anthology, ix. 627, and is
translated into Latin in Selecta Epigratmnata, Basel, 1529. The
Greek lines relate, as in Shakespeare's sonnets, how a nymph who
sought to quench love's torch in a fountain only succeeded in heating
the water. An added detail Shakespeare borrowed from a very recent
adaptation of the epigram in Giles Fletcher's Licia^ 1593 (Sonnet
xxvii.), where the poet's Love bathes in the fountain, with the result
not only that ' she touched the water and it burnt with Love,' but also

Now by her means it purchased hath that bliss
Which all diseases quickly can remove.

Similarly Shakespeare in Sonnet cliv. not merely states that the * cool
well ' into which Cupid's torch had fallen ' from Love's fire took heat
perpetual,' but also that it grew ' a bath and healthful remedy for men
diseased.'

114 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

1 In Greek poetry the topic is treated in Pindar's Olympic Odes, xi,
and in a fragment by Sappho, No. i6 in Bergk's Poetm Lyrici Grceci.
In Latin poetry the topic is treated in Ennius as quoted in Cicero,
De Senectute c. 207; in Horace's Odes iii. 30; in Virgil's Georgics
iii. 9; in Propertius iii. i; in Ovid's Metamorphoses xv. 871 seq. and
in Martial x. 27 seq. Among French sonnetteers Ronsard attacked the
theme most boldly. His odes and sonnets promise immortality to the
persons to whom they are addressed with an extravagant and a
monotonous liberality. The following lines from Ronsard's Ode (livre
i. No. vii.), ' Au Seigneur Carnavalet,' illustrate his habitual treatment
of the theme :

C'est un travail de bon-heur
Chanter les hommes louables,
Et leur bastir un honneur
Seul vainqueur des ans muables.
Le marbre ou I'airain vestu
D'un labeur vif par I'enclume
N'animent tant la vertu
Que les Muses par la plume. . .

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

{QLtivres de Rottsard, ed. Blanchemain, ii. 58, 62.)
I quote two other instances from Ronsard on p. 116, note i.
Desportes was also prone to indulge in the same conceit; cf. his
Cleonice, sonnet 62, which Daniel appropriated bodily in his Delia
(Sonnet xxvi.). Desportes warns his mistress that she will live in his
verse like the phoenix in fire.

2 Ed. Shuckburgh, p. 62. ^ Shakespeare Soc. p. 93.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS II5

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

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

Drayton and Daniel developed the conceit with
unblushing iteration, Drayton, who spoke of his
efforts as 'my immortal song ' {Idea, vi. 14) and 'my
world-out-wearing rhymes ' (xliv. 7), embodied the
vaunt in such lines as:

While thus my pen strives to eternise thee (^Idea xliv. i).
Ensuing ages yet my rhymes shall cherish {ib. xliv. 11).
My name shall mount unto eternity {ib. xliv. 14).
All that I seek is to eternise thee {ib. xlvii. 14),

Daniel was no less explicit :

This [sc. verse] may remain thy lasting monument (Z)t'/2« xxxvii. 9).

Thou mayst in after ages live esteemed,

Unburied in these lines {ib. xxxix. 9-10).

These [sc. my verses] are the arks, the trophies I erect

That fortify thy name against old age;

And these [sc. verses] thy sacred virtues must protect

Against the dark and time's consuming rage {ib. L. 9-12).

Shakespeare, in his references to his ' eternal
lines' (xviii. 12) and in the assurances that he gives
the subject of his addresses that the sonnets are,
in Daniel's exact phrase, his 'monument' (Ixxxi. 9,
cvii. 13), was merely accommodating himself to the
prevailing taste. Characteristically in Sonnet Iv.
he invested the topic with a splendour that was not
approached by any other poet : ^

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

Il6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Not marlale, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; ^

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry.

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

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

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

which opens:

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

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

Victorieux des peuples et des rois

S'en voleroit sus I'aile de ma ryme.

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

30)= ^ .

Exegi monumentum aere perennius

Regalique situ pyramidum altius,
Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
Possit diruere, ant innumerabilis
Annorum series, et fuga temporum.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS I17

to a woman. In two of the latter (cxxxv.-vi.), where
he quibbles over the fact of the identity of his own
name of Will with a lady's ' will ' (the synonym in
E^lizabethan English of both 'lust' and 'obstinacy'),
he derisively challenges comparison with wire-drawn
Conceits in conccits of rival sonnetteers, especially of Bar-
sonnets a - ^^Q Barnes, who had enlarged on his disdain-
dressed to ' o

a woman, ful mistress's ' wills,' and had turned the word
* grace ' to the same punning account as Shakespeare

Nor can there be any doubt that Shakespeare wrote with a direct
reference to the concluding ten lines of Ovid's Aletamorphoses (xv,

871-9): , . . .

Jamque opus exegi, quod nee Jovis ira nee ignes,

Nee poterit ferrum, nee edax abolere vetustas.

Cum volet, ilia dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus

Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi;

Parte tamen meliore mei super aha perennis

Astra ferar nomenque erit indelebile nostrum.

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

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

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

Il8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

turned the word ' will.' ^ Similarly in Sonnet cxxx.
beginning

My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red . . .
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.'^

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

In two sonnets (cxxvii. and cxxxii.) Shakespeare
amiably notices the black complexion, hair, and
„ . eyes of his mistress, and expresses a pref-
of black- erence for features of that hue over those of
""^' the fair hue which was, he tells us, more

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

1 See Appendix viil., ' The Will Sonnets,' for the interpretation
of Shakespeare's conceit and like efforts of Barnes.

2 Wires in the sense of hair was peculiarly distinctive of the
sonnetteers' affected vocabulary. Cf. Daniel's Delia, 1591, No. xxvi.,
'And golden hair may change to silver ivire ;^ Lodge's Phillis, 1595,
' Made blush the beauties of her curled 7vire ; ' Barnes's Parthenophil,
sonnet xlviii., ' Her hairs no grace of golden wires want.' The com-
parison of lips with coral is not uncommon outside the Elizabethan
sonnet, but it was universal there. Cf. ' Coral-coloured lips ' {Zep/ieria,
1594, No. xxiii.) ; ' No coral is her lip ' (Lodge's Phillis, 1595, No. viii,).
'Ce beau coral' are the opening words of Ronsard's Amours, livre i.
No. xxiii., where a list is given of stones and metals comparable with
women's features.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS II9

her fashionable sisters' indulgence in the disguising
arts of the toilet. ' No face is fair that is not full so
black,' exclaims Rosaline's lover. But neither in the
sonnets nor in the play can Shakespeare's praise of
' blackness ' claim the merit of being his own invention.
Sir Philip Sidney, in sonnet vii. of his ' Astrophel
and Stella,' had anticipated it. The ' beams ' of the
eyes of Sidney's mistress were ' wrapt in colour
black ' and wore ' this mourning weed ' so

That whereas black seems beauty's contrary,
She even in black doth make all beauties flow.^

To his praise of ' blackness ' in ' Love's Labour's
Lost ' Shakespeare appends a playful but caustic
comment on the paradox that he detects in the con-
ceit.^ Similarly, the sonnets, in which a dark com-
plexion is pronounced to be a mark of beauty, are
followed by others in which the poet argues in self-
confutation that blackness of feature is hideous in a
woman, and invariably indicates moral turpitude or
blackness of heart. Twice, in much the same language
as had already served a like purpose in the play, does

^ Shakespeare adopted this phraseology of Sidney literally in both
the play and the sonnet; while Sidney's further conceit that the lady's
eyes are in ' this mourning weed ' in order ' to honour all their deaths
who for her bleed' is reproduced in Shakespeare's Sonnet cxxxii. — one
of the two under consideration — where he tells his mistress that her eyes
'have put on black' to become 'loving mourners' of him who is denied
her love.

2 O paradox ! Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons and the scowl of night {Love's Labour s Lost, iv. iii. 254-5)
To look like her are chimney-sweepers black,
And since her time are colliers counted bright.
And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.
Dark needs no candle now, for dark is light (_ib. 266-5)»

I20 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

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

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

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

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS 121

Every sonnetteer of the sixteenth century, at some
point in his career, devoted his energies to vituperation
of a cruel siren. Ronsard in his sonnets celebrated in
language quite as furious as Shakespeare's a ' fierce
tigress,' a 'murderess,' a 'Medusa.' Barnabe Barnes
affected to contend in his sonnets with a female 'tyrant,'
a 'Medusa,' a'rock.' 'Wornen' (Barnes laments) 'are by
nature proud as devils.' The monotonous and artificial
regularity with which the sonnetteers sounded the vitu-
perative stop, whenever they had exhausted their notes
of adulation, excited ridicule in both England and
France. In Shakespeare's early life the convention was
wittily parodied by Gabriel Harvey in 'An Amorous
Odious sonnet intituled The Student's Loove or
Hatrid, or both or neither, or what shall please the
Gabriel looviug or hating reader, either in sport or
Harvey's earnest, to make of such contrary passions
Odious as are here discoursed.' ^ After extolling the
Sonnet.' bcauty and virtue of his mistress above that
of Aretino's Angelica, Petrarch's Laura, Catullus's
Lesbia, and eight other far-famed objects of poetic
adoration, Harvey suddenly denounces her in bur-
lesque rhyme as ' a serpent in brood,' ' a poisonous
toad,' 'a heart of marble,' and 'a stony mind as
passionless as a block.' Finally he tells her,

If ever there were she-devils incarnate,
They are altogether in thee incorporate.

In France Etienne Jodelle, a professional sonnet-

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

122 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

leer although he is best known as a dramatist, made
, , ,, , late in the second half of the sixteenth cen-

Jodelle s

•Contr' tury an independent endeavour of like kind to
I mours. ^i{^Q by means of parody the vogue of the
vituperative sonnet. Jodelle designed a collection of
three hundred sonnets which he inscribed to ' hate of a
woman,' and he appropriately entitled them * Contr'
Amours ' in distinction to 'Amours,' the term applied
to sonnets in the honeyed vein. Only seven of Jodelle's
' Contr' Amours ' are extant, but there is sufficient
identity of tone between them and Shakespeare's vitu-
perative efforts almost to discover in Shakespeare's in-
vectives a spark of Jodelle's satiric fire.^ The dark lady

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

Combien de fois mes vers ont-ils dord

Ces cheueux noirs dignes d'vne Meduse?

Combien de fois ce teint noir qui m'amuse,

Ay-ie de lis et roses colore?
Combien ce front de rides laboure

Ay-ie applani? et quel a fait ma Muse

Le gros sourcil, ou folle elle s'abuse,

Ayant sur luy Tare d' Amour figure?
Quel ay-ie fait son oeil se renfon^ant?

Quel ay-ie fait son grand nez rougissant?

Quelle sa bouche et ses noires dents quelles?
Quel ay-ie fait le reste de ce corps?

Qui, me sentant endurer mille morts,

Viuoit heureux de mes peines mortelles.

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

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

Ja si long temps faisant d'un Diable vn Ange
Vans m'ouurez I'oeil en I'iniuste louange,
Et ni'aueuglez en I'iniuste tourment.

THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS 123

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

With this should be compared Shakespeare's Sonnet cxHv. lines 9-10:

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

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

1 The theories that all the sonnets addressed to a woman were
addressed to the ' dark lady,' and that the ' dark lady ' is identifiable
with Mary Fitton, a mistress of the Earl of Pembroke, are baseless
conjectures. The extant portraits of Mary Fitton prove her to be fair.
The introduction of her name into the discussion is solely due to the
mistaken notion that Shakespeare was the protege of Pembroke, that
most of the sonnets were addressed to him, and that the poet was prob-
ably acquainted with his patron's mistress. See Appendix vii. The
expressions in two of the vituperative sonnets to the effect that the dis-
dainful mistress had' robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents' (cxlii. 8)
and ' in act her bed-vow broke ' (clii. 37) have been held to imply that
the woman denounced by Shakespeare was married. The first quotation
can only mean that she was unfaithful with married men, but both
quotations seem to be general phrases of abuse, the meaning of which
should not be pressed closely. '

124 WILLIAM SIL'VKESPEARE

' Antony and Cleopatra.' From one point of view the
same criticism may be passed on both. There is no
greater and no less ground for seeking in Shakespeare's
personal environment the original of ' the dark lady '
of his sonnets than for seeking there the original of his
Queen of Egypt.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 25

THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF
SOUTHAMPTON

Amid the borrowed conceits and poetic figures of
Shakespeare's sonnets there kirk suggestive references
to the circumstances in his external life that attended
their composition. If few can be safely regarded as
autobiographic revelations of sentiment, many of them
offer evidence of the relations in which he stood to a
patron, and to the position that he sought to fill in
the circle of that patron's literary retainers. Twenty
Biographic sonnets, which may for purposes of exposition
fact in the \^q entitled ' dedicatory ' sonnets, are addressed

'dedica- 1 • i 1 i • , . ,

tory' to one who is declared without periphrasis

sonnets. g^j^^j without disguisc to be a patron of the
poet's verse (Nos. xxiii., xxvi., xxxii., xxxvii., xxxviii.,
Ixix., Ixxvii.-lxxxvi., c, ci., ciii., cvi.). In one of these
— Sonnet Ixxviii. — Shakespeare asserted :

So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And under thee their poesy disperse.

Subsequently he regretfully pointed out how his
patron's readiness to accept the homage of other

126 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

poets seemed to be thrusting him from the enviable
place of pre-eminence in his patron's esteem.

Shakespeare's biographer is under an obligation
The Earl to attempt an identification of the persons
of South- whose relations with the poet are defined so
the poets explicitly. The problem presented by the
soiepatron. patron is simple. Shakespeare states un-
equivocally that he has no patron but one.

Sing [sc. O Muse !] to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument (c. 7-8).
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell (ciii. 11-12).

The Earl of Southampton, the patron of his narrative
poems, is the only patron of Shakespeare that is known
to biographical research. No contemporary document
or tradition gives the faintest suggestion that Shake-
speare was the friend or dependent of any other man
of rank. A trustworthy tradition corroborates the
testimony respecting Shakespeare's close intimacy
with the Earl that is given in the dedicatory epistles
of his ' Venus and Adonis ' and ' Lucrece,' penned
respectively in 1593 and 1594. According to Nicho-
las Rowe, Shakespeare's first adequate biographer,
' there is one instance so singular in its magnificence
of this patron of Shakespeare's that if I had not
been assured that the story was handed down by
Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well
acquainted with his affairs, I should not venture to
have inserted ; that my Lord Southampton at one
time gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to
go through with a purchase which he heard he had a

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 12/

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

There is no difficulty in detecting the lineaments
of the Earl of Southampton in those of the man
who is distinctively greeted in the sonnets as the
poet's patron. Three of the twenty ' dedicatory '
sonnets merely translate into the language of poetry
the expressions of devotion which had already done
duty in the dedicatory epistle in prose that prefaces
' Lucrece.' That epistle to Southampton runs:

The love ^ I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this
pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant
I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored
Jines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours;
what I have to do is yours; being part of all I have devoted yours.
Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meanwhile, as
it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still
lengthened with all happiness.

Your lordship's in all duty,

William Shakespeare.

Sonnet xxvi. is a gorgeous rendering of these
sentences :

1 ' Lover ' and ' love ' in Elizabethan English were ordinary
synonyms for ' friend ' and 'friendship.' Brutus opens his address to
the citizens of Rome with the words, ' Romans, countrymen, and lovers,^
and subsequently describes Julius Caesar as ' my best lover ' {^Julius
Casar, iii. ii. 13-49). Portia, when referring to Antonio, the bosom
friend of her husband Bassanio, calls him ' the bosom lover of my lord '
(^Merchant of Venice, III. iv. 17). Ben Jonson in his letters to Donne
commonly described himself as his correspondent's 'ever true lover ';
and Drayton, writing to William Drummond of Hawthornden, in-
formed him that an admirer of his literary work was in love with him.
The word ' love ' was habitually applied to the sentiment subsisting
between an author and his patron. Nash, whefi dedicating Jack
Wilton in 1594 to Southampton, calls him ' a dear lover ... of the
lovers of poets as of the poets themselves.'

128 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written ambassage,

To witness duty, not to show my wit :

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect;

Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

Till then not show my head where thou may'st prove me.^

The ' Lucrece ' epistle's intimation that the
patron's love alone gives value to the poet's 'un-
tutored lines ' is repeated in Sonnet xxxii., which
doubtless reflected a moment of depression :

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,
Compare them with the bettering of the time.
And though they be outstripp'd by every pen.
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme.
Exceeded by the height of happier men.

^ There is little doubt that this sonnet was parodied by Sir John
Davies in the ninth and last of his ' gulling ' sonnets, in which he
ridicules the notion that a man of wit should put his wit in vassalage
to any one.

To love my lord I do knight's service owe,

And therefore now he hath my wit in ward ;

But while it [/>. the poet's wit] is in his tuition so

Methinks he doth intreat [i.e. treat] it passing hard . . .

But why should love after minority

(When 1 have passed the one and twentieth year)

Preclude my wit of his sweet liberty,

And make "it still the yoke of wardship bear ?

I fear he [i.e. my lord] hath another title [i.e. right to my wit] got

And holds my wit now for an idiot.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 29

O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought :
' Had my friend's jMuse grown with this growing age
A dearer birth than this his love had brought,
To march in ranks of better equipage; ^
But since he died and poets better prove,
Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'

A like vein is pursued in greater exaltation of spirit
in Sonnet xxxviii. :

How can my Muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O give thyself the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight Muse do please these curious days.
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

The central conceit here so finely developed — that
the patron may claim as his own handiwork the
protege's verse because he inspires it — belongs to the
most conventional schemes of dedicatory adulation.
When Daniel, in 1592, inscribed his volume of sonnets

1 Mr. Tyler assigns this sonnet to the year 1598 or later, on the
fallacious ground that this line was probably imitated from an ex-
pression in Marston's Pigmalioit' s Image, published in 1598, where
' stanzas ' are said to ' march rich bedight in warlike equipage.' The
suggestion of plagiarism is quite gratuitous. The phrase was common
in Elizabethan literature long before Marston employed it. Nash, in
his preface to Green's Menaphon, which was published in 1589, wrote
that the works of the poet Watson ' march in equipage of honour with
any of your ancient poets.'

130 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

entitled ' Delia ' to the Countess of Pembroke, he
played in the prefatory sonnet on the same note, and
used in the concluding couplet almost the same words
as Shakespeare. Daniel wrote :

Great patroness of these my humble rhymes,

Which thou from out thy greatness dost inspire ....

O leave {_i.e. cease] not still to grace thy work in me ....

Whereof the travail I may challenge mine,

But yet the glory, madam, must be thine.

Elsewhere in the Sonnets we hear fainter echoes
of the ' Lucrece ' epistle. Repeatedly does the son-
netteer renew the assurance given there that his patron
is ' part of all ' he has or is. Frequently do we meet
in the Sonnets with such expressions as these :

[I] by a pari of all your glory live (xxxvii. 12) ;
Thou art all the better part of vie (xxxix. 2);

My spirit is thine, the better part of me (Ixxiv. 8);

while ' the love without end ' which Shakespeare had
vowed to Southampton in the light of day reappears
in sonnets addressed to the youth as ' eternal love '
(cviii. 9), and a devotion ' what shall have no end '
(ex. 9).

The identification of the rival poets whose 'richly
compiled ' ' comments ' of his patron's ' praise ' ex-
cited Shakespeare's jealousy is a more difficult
inquiry than the identification of the patron. The
rival poets with 'their precious phrase of all the
Muses filed ' (Ixxxv. 4) must be sought among
Rivals in the Writers who eulogised Southampton and
Southamp- ^^^ knowu to have shared his patronage,
favour. The field of choice is not small. Southampton
from boyhood cultivated literature and the society of

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 131

literary men. In 1594 no nobleman received so
abundant a measure of adulation from the con-
temporary world of letters.^ Thomas Nash justly
described the Earl, when dedicating to him his
' Life of Jack Wilton ' in 1594, as 'a dear lover and
cherisher as well of the lovers of poets as of the
poets themselves.' Nash addressed to him many
affectionately phrased sonnets. The prolific sonnet-
teer Barnabe Barnes and the miscellaneous literary
practitioner Gervase Markham confessed, respectively
in 1593 and 1595, yearnings for Southampton's counte-
nance in sonnets which glow hardly less ardently
than Shakespeare's with admiration for his personal
charm. Similarly John Florio, the Earl's Italian tutor,
who is traditionally reckoned among Shakespeare's
literary acquaintances,^ wrote to Southampton in
1598, in his dedicatory epistle before his 'World of
Words ' (an Italian-English dictionary), ' as to me
and many more, the glorious and gracious sunshine
of your honour hath infused light and life.'

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

^ See Appendix iv. for a full account of Southampton's relations
with Nash and other men of letters.
2 See p. 85, note.

132 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

fear of .

a rival on his patron by ' the proud full sail of his

poet. [rival's] great verse ' sealed for a time, he

declared, the springs of his own invention (Ixxxvi.).

There is no need to insist too curiously on the
justice of Shakespeare's laudation of 'the other
poet's ' powers. He was presumably a new-comer in
the literary field who surprised older men of benevo-
lent tendency into admiration by his promise rather
than by his achievement. ' Eloquence and courtesy,'
wrote Gabriel Harvey at the time, ' are ever bountiful in
the amplifying vein ; ' and writers of amiability, Harvey
adds, habitually blazoned the perfections that they
hoped to see their young friends achieve, in language
implying that they had already achieved them. All
the conditions of the problem are satisfied by the
rival's identification with the young poet and scholar
Barnabe Barnes, a poetic panegyrist of Southampton
and a prolific sonnetteer, who was deemed by con-
temporary critics certain to prove a great poet. His
first collection of sonnets, ' Parthenophil and Parthe-
nophe,' with many odes and madrigals interspersed,
was printed in 1593 ; and his second, 'A Centurie of
Spiritual Sonnets,' in 1595. Loud applause greeted
the first book, which included numerous adaptations
from the classical, Italian, and French poets, and dis-
closed, among many crudities, some fascinating lyrics
and at least one almost perfect sonnet (No. l.xvi.,
' Ah, sweet content, where is thy sweet abode ? ')

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 33

Thomas Churchyard called Barnes ' Petrarch's scholar ' ;
the learned Gabriel Harvey bade him 'go forward in
maturity as he had begun in pregnancy,' and 'be the
gallant poet, like Spenser; ' Campion judged his verse
Barnabe to be 'heady and strong.' In a sonnet that
probably Bamcs addrcsscd in this earliest volume
the rival, to the ' virtuous ' Earl of Southampton he
declared that his patron's eyes were 'the heavenly
lamps that give the Muses light,' and that his sole
ambition was ' by flight to rise ' to a height worthy
of his patron's 'virtues.' Shakespeare sorrowfully
pointed out in Sonnet Ixxviii. that his lord's eyes

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

while in the following sonnet he asserted that the
' worthier pen ' of his dreaded rival when lending his
patron 'virtue' was guilty of plagiarism, for he 'stole
that word' from his patron's 'behaviour.' The em-
phasis laid by Barnes on the inspiration that he sought
from Southampton's ' gracious eyes ' on the one hand,
and his reiterated references to his patron's 'virtue' on
the other, suggest that Shakespeare in these sonnets
directly alluded to Barnes as his chief competitor in
the hotly contested race for Southampton's favours.
In Sonnet Ixxxv. Shakespeare delares that ' he cries
Amen to every hymn that able spirit \_Lc\ his rival]
affords.' Very few poets of the day in England fol-
lowed Ronsard's practice of bestowing the title of hymn
on miscellaneous poems, but Barnes twice applies

134 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the word to his poems of love.^ When, too, Shake-
speare in Sonnet Ixxx. employs nautical metaphors to
indicate the relations of himself and his rival with
his patron — -

My saucy bark inferior far to his . . .

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat, —

he seems to write with an eye on Barnes's identical
choice of metaphor :

My fancy's ship tossed here and there by these [sc. sorrow's floods]

Still floats in danger ranging to and fro.

How fears my thoughts' swift pinnace thine hard rock ! 2

Gervase Markham is equally emphatic in his
sonnet to Southampton on the potent influence of
Other his patron's ' eyes,' which, he says, crown

theories as ' j-^g niost victorious pen ' — a possible refer-
to the f^i 1 -NT 1 >

rival's cucc to Shakespeare. JNash s poetic praises

identity. Qf ^]^g 'Ea.rl are no less enthusiastic, and are
of a finer literary temper than Markham's. But
Shakespeare's description of his rival's literary work
fits far less closely the verse of Markham and Nash
than the verse of their fellow-aspirant Barnes.

Many critics argue that the numbing fear of his
rival's genius and of its influence on his patron to
which Shakespeare confessed in the sonnets was
more likely to be evoked by the work of George
Chapman than by that of any other contemporary
poet. But Chapman had produced no conspicuously
'great verse ' till he began his translation of Homer in
1 598 ; and although he appended in 16 10 to a complete

^Cf. Parthenophil, Madrigal i. line 12; Sonnet xvii. line 9.
"^ Parihenophil, Sonnet xci.

PAIROXAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 135

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

1 Much irrelevance has been introduced into the discussion of
Chapman's claim to be the rival poet. Professor Minto in his Charac-
teristics of English Poets, p. 291, argued that Chapman was the man
mainly because Shakespeare declared his competitor to be taught to
write by ' spirits ' — 'his compeers by night ' — as well as by ' an affable
familiar ghost ' which gulled him with intelligence at night (Ixxxvi. 5
seq. ). Professor Minto saw in these phrases allusions to some remarks by
Chapman in his Shadoius of Night (1594), a poem on Night. There
Chapman warned authors in one passage that the spirit of literature
will often withhold itself from them unless it have ' drops of their
blood like a heavenly familiar,' and in another place sportively invited
' nimble and aspiring wits' to join him in consecrating their endeavours
to 'sacred night.' There is really no connection between Shakespeare's
theory of the supernatural and nocturnal sources of his rival's influence
with Chapman's trite allusion to the current faith in the power of
' nightly familiars ' over men's minds and lives, or in Chapman's invita-
tion to his literary comrades to honour Night with him. It is superero-
gatory to assume that Shakespeare had Chapman's phrases in his mind
when alluding to superstitions which were universally acknowledged.
It could be as easily argued on like grounds that Shakespeare was
drawing on other authors. Nash in his prose tract called independently
The Terrors of the Alight, which was also printed in 1594, described
the nocturnal habits of ' famihars ' more explicitly than Chapman.
The publisher Thomas Thorpe, in dedicating in 1600 Marlowe's trans-
lation of Lucan (bk. i.) to his friend Edward Blount, humorously
referred to the same topic when he reminded Blount that ' this spirit
[^i.e. Marlowe], whose ghost or genius is to be seen walk the Churchyard
[of St. Paul's] in at the least three or four sheets . . . was sometime
■s familiar of your own.' On the strength of these quotations, and
accepting Professor Minto's line of argument, Nash, Thorpe, or Blount,
whose ' familiar ' is declared to have been no less a personage than
Marlowe, has as good a claim as Chapman to be the rival poet of
Shakespeare's sonnets. A second and equally impotent argument in
Chapman's favour has been suggested. Chapman in his preface to hig

136 WILLIAM SHAKESrEARE

Ben Jonson, and Marston have also been identified
by various critics with ' the rival poet,' but none of
these shared Southampton's bounty, nor are the
terms which Shakespeare applies to his rival's verr^e
specially applicable to the productions of any of them.
Many besides the ' dedicatory ' sonnets are ad-
dressed to a handsome youth of wealth and rank, for
whom the poet avows ' love,' in the Elizabethan sense
of friendship.^ Although no specific reference is made
outside the twenty ' dedicatory ' sonnets to the youth
Sonnets of 3-8 a literary patron, and the clues to his
friendship, identity are elsewhere vaguer, there is good
ground for the conclusion that the sonnets of dis-
interested love or friendship also have Southampton
for their subject. The sincerity of the poet's senti-
ment is often open to doubt in these poems, but they
seem to illustrate a real intimacy subsisting between
Shakespeare and a young Maecenas.

translation of the Iliads ( 161 1) denounces without mentioning any name
'a certain envious windsucker that hovers up and down, laboriously
engrossing all the air with his luxurious ambition, and buzzing into
every ear my detraction' It is suggested that Chapman here retaliated
on Shakespeare for his references to him as his rival in the sonnets; but it
is out of the question that Chapman, were he the rival, should have
termed those high compliments 'detraction.' There is no ground for
identifying Chapman's ' windsucker ' with Shakespeare (cf. Wyndham,
p. 255). The strongest point in favour of the theory of Chapman's
identity with the rival poet lies in the fact that each of the two sections
of his poem The Shadow of the Night (1594) is styled a 'hymn,' and
Shakespeare in Sonnet Ixxxv. 6-7 credits his rival with writing
'hymns.' But Drayton, in his Harnionie of Ike Church, 1 591, and
Barnes, as we have just seen, both wrote ' hymns,' and the word was
often loosely used in Elizabethan English, as in sixteenth-century French,
in the general sense of ' poem.'
1 See p. 127, note i.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 37

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

1 Sir Walter Ralegh was wont to apostrophise his aged sovereign

thus:

Oh, hopeful love, my object and invention.

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

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

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

The seat of joy and love's abundance!

(Cf. Cynthia, a fragment in Poems of Raleigh, ed. Hannah, p. 33.)
When Ralegh leaves Elizabeth's presence he tells us his ' forsaken
heart ' and his ' withered mind ' were * widowed of all the joys ' they
' once possessed.' Only some 500 lines (the twenty-first book and a
fragment of another book) survive of Ralegh's poem Cynthia, the whole
of which was designed to prove his loyalty to the Queen, and all the
extant lines are in the same vein as those I quote. The complete
poem extended to twenty-two books, and the lines exceeded 10,000, or
five times as many as in Shakespeare's sonnets. Richard Barnheld
in his like-named poem of Cynthia, 1595, and Fulke Greville in sonnets
addressed to Cynthia, also extravagantly described the Queen's beauty
and graces. In 1599 Sir John Davies, poet and lawyer, apostrophised
Elizabeth, who was then sixty-six years old, thus :

Fair soul, since to the fairest body knit

You give such lively life, such quickening power.

Such sweet celestial influences to it

As keeps it still in youth's immortal flower . . .

O many, many years may you remain

A happy angel to this happy land {^'osce Teipstim, dedication).

Davies published in the same year twenty-six ' Hymnes of Astrea ' on

138 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

literary , . .

compii- can be matched at nearly all pomts in the
ment. adulatiou that patrons were in the habit of

receiving from literary dependents in the style that
Sidney described.^

Elizabeth's beauty and graces ; each poem forms an acrostic on the
words ' EHzabetha Regina,' and the language of love is simulated on
almost every page.

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

^ Adulatory sonnets to patrons are met with in the preliminary or
concluding pages of numerous sixteenth and seventeenth century books
{e.g. the collection of sonnets addressed to James VI of Scotland in his
Essay es of a Preiitise, 1591, and the sonnets to noblemen before Spenser's
Faerie Queen, at the end of Chapman's Iliad, and at the end of John
Davies's Alicrocosmos, 1603). Other sonnets to patrons are scattered
through collections of occasional poems such as Ben Jonson's Forest
and Underwoods and Donne's Poems. Sonnets addressed to men are
not only found in the preliminary pages but are occasionally interpolated
in sonnet-sequences of fictitious love. Sonnet xi. in Drayton's sonnet-
fiction called 'Idea' (in 1599 edition) seems addressed to a man, in much
the same manner as Shakespeare often addressed his hero ; and a few
others of Drayton's sonnets are ambiguous as to the sex of their subject.
John Soothern's eccentric collection of love-sonnets, Pandora (1584),
has sonnets dedicatory to the Earl of Oxford ; and William Smith in
his Chloris (1596) (a sonnet-fiction of the conventional kind) in two
prefatory sonnets and in No. xlix. of the substantive collection invokes

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 1 39

Shakespeare assured his friend that he should
never grow old (civ.), that the finest types of beauty
Patrons ^nd chivalry in mediaeval romance lived

habitiiallv ..,.,.., , j. , .

addressed agam m him (cvi.), that absence from hnn
in affec- ^yg^g misery, and that his affection for him was

tionate

terms. Unalterable. Hundreds of poets openly gave

the affectionate notice of Edmund Spenser. Throughout Europe
' dedicatory ' sonnets or poems to women betray identical charac-
teristics to those that were addressed to men. The poetic addresses
to the Countess of Bedford and other noble patronesses of Donne,
Ben Jonson, and their colleagues are always affectionate, often
amorous, in their phraseology, and akin in temper to Shakespeare's
sonnets of friendship. Nicholas Breton, in his poem The Pilgrimage
to Paradise coyned with the Countess of Pe/nbroke' s Love, 1592, and
another work of his, The Countess of Pembroke's Passion (first printed
from manuscript in 1867), pays the Countess, who was merely his
literary patroness, an homage which is indistinguishable from the
ecstatic utterances of a genuine and overmastering passion. The differ-
ence in the sex of the persons addressed by Breton and by Shakespeare
seems to place their poems in different categories, Ijut they both really
belonged to the same class. They both merely display a protegees
loyalty to his patron, couched, according to current convention, in the
strongest possible terms of personal affection. In Italy and France
exactly the same vocabulary of adoration was applied by authors indif-
ferently to patrons and patronesses. It is known that one series of
Michael Angelo's impassioned sonnets was addressed to a young noble-
man Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and another series to a noble patroness
Vittoria Colonna, but the tone is the same in both, and internal evidence
fails to enable the critic to distinguish between the two series. Only
one English contemporary of Shakespeare published a long series of
sonnets addressed to a man who does not prove on investigation to have
been a professional patron. In 1595 Richard Barnfield appended to
his poem Cynthia a set of twenty sonnets, in which he fcignedly
avowed affection for a youth called Ganymede. These poems do not
belong to the same category as Shakespeare's, but to the category
of sonnet-sequences of love in which it was customary to invoke a
fictitious mistress. Barnfield explained that in his sonnets he attempted
a variation on the conventional practice by fancifully adapting to the
sonnet-form the second of Virgil's Eclogues, in which the shepherd
Coridon apostrophises the shephcril-boy Alexis.

I40 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

Illustrations of the practice abound. Matthew
Roydon wrote of his patron. Sir Philip Sidney :

His personage seemed most divine,
A thousand graces one might count
Upon his lovely cheerful eyne.
To heare him speak and sweetly smile
You were in Paradise the while.

Edmund Spenser in a fine sonnet told his patron.
Admiral Lord Charles Howard, that ' his good per-
sonage and noble deeds ' made him the pattern to
the present age of the old heroes of whom ' the antique
poets ' were ' wont so much to sing.' This compli-
ment, which Shakespeare turns to splendid account in
Sonnet cvi., recurs constantly in contemporary sonnets
of adulation.^ Ben Jonson apostrophised the Earl of
Desmond as 'my best-best lov'd.' Campion told Lord
Walden, the Earl of Suffolk's undistinguished heir,
that although his muse sought to express his love,
* the admired virtues ' of the patron's youth

Bred such despairing to his daunted Muse
That it could scarcely utter naked truth.^

1 Cf. Sonnet lix :

Show me your image in some antique book . . .

O sure I am the wits of former days

To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

2 Campion's Poems, ed. BuUen, pp. 148 seq. Cf. Shakespeare's
sonnets :

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

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON I41

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

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

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

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

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

142 WILLIAM SliAKKSPEARE

vaguely or definitely phrased, applies to Southampton
without the least straining of the words. In real life
Direct bcauty, birth, wealth, and wit sat * crowned
toSout^-^ in the Earl, whom poets acclaimed the
ampton in haudsomcst of Elizabethan courtiers, as

the sonnets i • i • , i i r , i . >

of friend- plamly as in the hero of the poets verse,
ship. Southampton has left in his correspon-

dence ample proofs of his literary learning and taste,
and, like the hero of the sonnets, was * as fair in
knowledge as in hue.' The opening sequence of
seventeen sonnets, in which a youth of rank and
wealth is admonished to marry and beget a son so
that ' his fair house ' may not fall into decay, can only
have been addressed to a young peer like Southamp-
ton, who was as yet unmarried, had vast possessions,
and was the sole male representative of his family.
The sonnetteer's exclamation, ' You had a father, let
your son say so,' had pertinence to Southampton at
any period between his father's death in his boyhood
and the close of his bachelorhood in 1598. To
no other peer of the day are the words exactly
applicable. The 'lascivious comment ' on his ' wanton
sport ' which pursues the young friend through the
sonnets, and is so adroitly contrived as to add point
to the picture of his fascinating youth and beauty,
obviously associates itself with the reputation for sen-
sual indulgence that Southampton acquired both at
Court, and, according to Nash, among men of letters.^
There is no force in the objection that the
young man of the sonnets of ' friendship ' must have
been another than Southampton because the terms

1 See p. 3S6, note.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 143

in which he is often addressed imply extreme youth.
In 1594, a date to which I refer most of the sonnets,
His youth- Southampton was barely twenty-one, and
fulness. i\]Q young man had obviously reached
manhood. In Sonnet civ. Shakespeare notes
that the first meeting between him and his friend
took place three years before that poem was written,
so that, if the words are to be taken literally, the
poet may have at times embodied reminiscences of
Southampton when he was only seventeen or eighteen. ^
But Shakespeare, already worn in worldly experience,
passed his thirtieth birthday in 1594, and he proba-
bly tended, when on the threshold of middle life, to
exaggerate the youthfulness of the nobleman almost
ten years his junior, who even later impressed his
acquaintances by his boyish appearance and disposi-
tion.^ * Young ' was the epithet invariably applied
to Southampton by all who knew anything of him
even when he was twenty-eight. In 1601 Sir
Robert Cecil referred to him as the ' poor young
Earl.'

But the most striking evidence of the identity of the

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

- Octavius Cresar at thirty-two is described by Mark Antony after
the battle of Actium as the ' boy Qesar ' who ' wears the rose of youth '
(^Antony and Cleopatra, ni. ii. 17 seq.). Spenser in his Astrophel
apostrophises Sir Philip Sidney on his death near the close of his
thirty-second year as 'oh wretched boy' (1. 133) and 'luckless boy'
(1. 142). Conversely it was a recognised convention among son-
netteers to exaggerate their own age. See p. 86, note.

144 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

youth of the sonnets of ' friendship ' with Southamp-
rr. ton is found in the likeness of feature and

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

1 Two portraits, representing the Earl in early manhood, are at Wel-
beck Abbey, and are described above. Of the remaining seven paint-
ings, two are assigned to Van Somer, and represent the Earl in early
middle age ; one, a half-length, a very charming picture, now belongs to
James Knowles, Esq., of Queen Anne's Lodge; the other, a full-
length in drab doublet and hose, is in the Shakespeare Memorial Gal-
lery at Stratford-on-Avon. Mireveldt twice painted the Earl at a later
period of his career; one of the pictures is now at Woburn Abbey, the
property of the Duke of Bedford, the other is at the National Por-
trait Gallery. A fifth picture, assigned to Mytens, belongs to Viscount
Powerscourt; a sixth, by an unknown artist, belongs to Mr. Wingfield
Digby, and the seventh (in armour) is in the Master's Lodge at St. John's
College, Cambridge, where Southampton was educated. The miniature
by Isaac Oliver, which also represents Southampton in late life, was
formerly in Dr. Lumsden Propert's collection. It now belongs to a
collector at Hamburg. The two miniatures assigned to Peter Oliver
belong respectively to Mr. Jeffery Whitehead and Sir Francis Cook,
Bart. (Cf. Catalogue of Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures at the Bur-
lington Fine Arts Club, London, 1889, pp. 32, 71, 100.) In all the best
preserved of these portraits the eyes are blue and the hair a dark shade
of auburn. Among the middle-life portraits Southampton appears to
best advantage in the one by Van Somer belonging to Mr. James Knowles.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 145

portray their subject in middle age, when the roses
of youth had faded, and they contribute nothing to the
present argument. But the two portraits that are
now at Welbeck, the property of the Duke of Port-
land, give all the information that can be desired of
Southampton's aspect 'in his youthful morn.' ^ One
of these pictures represents the Earl at twenty-one, and
the other at twenty-five or twenty-six. The earlier
portrait, which is reproduced on the opposite page,
shows a young man resplendently attired. His doublet
is of white satin ; a broad collar, edged with lace, half
covers a pointed gorget of red leather, embroidered
with silver thread ; the white trunks and knee-breeches
are laced with gold ; the sword-belt, embroidered in
red and gold, is decorated at intervals with white silk
bows ; the hilt of the rapier is overlaid with gold ;
purple garters, embroidered in silver thread, fasten the
white stockings below the knee. Light body armour,
richly damascened, lies on the ground to the right of
the figure ; and a white-plumed helmet stands to the
left on a table covered with a cloth of purple velvet
embroidered in gold. Such gorgeous raiment suggests
that its wearer bestowed much attention on his per-
sonal equipment. But the head is more interesting
than the body. The eyes are blue, the cheeks pink,
the complexion clear, and the expression sedate ;
rings are in the ears ; beard and moustache are at an
incipient stage, and are of the same bright auburn
hue as the hair in a picture of Southampton's mother

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

146 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

that is also at Welbeck.^ But, however scanty is the
down on the youth's cheek, the hair on his head is
luxuriant. It is worn very long, and falls over and
below the shoulder. The colour is now of walnut,
but was originally of lighter tint.

The portrait depicting Southampton five or six
years later shows him in prison, to which he was
committed after his secret marriage in 1598. A cat
and a book in a jewelled binding are on a desk at
his right hand. Here the hair falls over both his
shoulders in even greater profusion, and is distinctly
blonde. The beard and thin upturned moustache
are of brighter auburn and fuller than before,
although still slight. The blue eyes and colouring
of the cheeks show signs of ill-health, but differ little
from those features in the earlier portrait.

From either of the two Welbeck portraits of
Southampton might Shakespeare have drawn his
picture of the youth in the Sonnets. Many times
does he tell us that the youth is fair in complexion,
and that his eyes are fair. In Sonnet Ixviii., when
he points to the youth's face as a map of what beauty
was ' without all ornament, itself and true ' — before
fashion sanctioned the use of artificial ' golden
tresses' — there can be little doubt that he had in mind
the wealth of locks that fell about Southampton's neck.^

^ Cf. Shakespeare's Sonnet iii. :

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

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

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON I47

A few only of the sonnets that Shakespeare
addressed to the youth can be allotted to a date sub-
sequent to 1594; only two bear on the surface signs
of a later composition. In Sonnet Ixx. the poet no
longer credits his hero with juvenile wantonness,
but with a ' pure, unstained prime,' which has ' passed
Sonnet by the ambush of young days.' Sonnet
last oftiie cvii., apparently the last of the series, was
series. penned almost a decade after the mass of

its companions, for it makes references that cannot
be mistaken to three events that took place in 1603 — to
Queen Elizabeth's death, to the accession of James I,
and to the release of the Earl of Southampton, who
had been in prison since he was convicted in 1601
of complicity in the rebellion of the Earl of Essex,
The first two events are thus described :

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

It is in almost identical phrase that every pen in
the spring of 1603 was felicitating the nation on
Allusion to ^^^ unexpected turn of events, by which
Elizabeth's Elizabeth's crown had passed, without
civil war, to the Scottish King, and thus
the revolution that had been foretold as the inevitable

owing to the lateness of the hour, a game of primero that he was
playing in the royal chamber at Whitehall, the esquire Willoughby
is stated to have retaliated by 'pulling off some of the Earl's
locks.' On the incident being reported to the Queen, she ' gave
Willoughbv, in the presence, thanks for what he did ' {^Sydney Papers,
ii. 83).

148 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

consequence of l^^lizabeth's demise was happily averted.
Cynthia {i.e. the moon) was the Queen's recognised
poetic appellation. It is thus that she figures in the
verse of Barnfield, Spenser, Fulke Greville, and
Ralegh, and her elegists involuntarily followed the
same fashion. ' Fair Cynthia's dead ' sang one.

Luna's extinct ; and now beholde the sunne
Whose beames soake up the moysture of all teares,

wrote Henry Petowe, in his ' A Fewe Aprill Drops
Showered on the Hearse of Dead Eliza,' 1603.
There was hardly a verse-writer who mourned her loss
that did not typify it, moreover, as the eclipse of a
heavenly body. One poet asserted that death ' veiled
her glory in a cloud of night.' Another argued:
' Naught can eclipse her light, but that her star will
shine in, darkest night.' A third varied the formula
thus :

WTien winter had cast off her weed
Our sun eclipsed did set. Oh ! light most fair.^

At the same time James was constantly said to have
entered on his inheritance ' not with an olive branch
in his hand, but with a whole forest of olives round
about him, for he brought not peace to this kingdom
alone ' but to all Europe.^

'The drops of this most balmy time,' in this same
sonnet, cvii., is an echo of another current strain of
fancy. James came to England in a springtide of
rarely rivalled clemency, which was reckoned of the

1 These quotations are from Sorrowes Joy, a collection of elegies on
Queen Elizabeth by Cambridge writers (Cambridge, 1603), and from
Chettle's England'' s Mourning Garment (London, 1603).

- Gervase Markham's Honour in her Perfection, 1624.

PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON 149

happiest augury. 'All things look fresh,' one poet
sang, ' to greet his excellence.' ' The air, the seasons,
Allusions and the earth ' were represented as in sym-
Lmp°on'l' pathy with the general joy in 'this sweetest
release gf ^\\ swcet Springs.' One source of grief

from 1 & t>

prison. alouc was acknowledged : Southampton was
still a prisoner in the Tower, ' supposed as forfeit
to a confined doom.' All men, wrote Manningham,
the diarist, on the day following the Queen's death,
wished him at liberty.^ The wish was fulfilled quickly.
On April 10, 1603, his prison gates were opened by
' a warrant from the king.' So bountiful a beginning
of the new era, wrote John Chamberlain to Dudley
Carleton two days later, ' raised all men's spirits,
. . . and the very poets with their idle pamphlets
promised themselves ' great things.^ Samuel Daniel
and John Davies celebrated Southampton's release
in buoyant verse.^ It is improbable that Shake-
speare remained silent. ' My love looks fresh,' he
wrote, in the concluding lines of Sonnet cvii., and
he repeated the conventional promise that he had
so often made before, that his friend should live in
his ' poor rhyme,' ' when tyrants' crests and tombs
of brass are spent.' It is impossible to resist the
inference that Shakespeare thus saluted his patron
on the close of his days of tribulation. Shakespeare's
genius had then won for him a public reputation that
rendered him independent of any private patron's

^ Manningham's Diary, Camden See, p. 148.
2 Court and Times of James I, I. i. 7.
* See Appendix iv.

150 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 151

THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE
SONNETS

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

152 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

^ The fine exordium of Sonnet cxix. :

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,

adopts expressions in Barnes's vituperative sonnet (No. xlix.), where,

after denouncing his mistress as a ' siren,' the poet incoherently

ejaculates :

From my love's limbeck [so. have I] still [di]stilled tears!

Almost every note in the scale of sadness or self-reproach is sounded
from time to time in Petrarch's sonnets. Tasso in Scelta delle Rime,
15S2, part ii. p. 26, has a sonnet (beginning ' Vinca fortuna homai, se
sotto il peso ') which adumbrates Shakespeare's Sonnets xxix. (' When
in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes') and Ixvi. (' Tired with all
these, for restful death I cry'). Drummond of Hawthornden trans-
lated Tasso's sonnet in his sonnet (part i. No. xxxiii.) ; while Drum-
mond's Sonnets xxv. (' What cruel star into this world was brought ')
and xxxii. (' If crost with all mishaps be my poor life ') are pitched in
the identical key.

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 1 53

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

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

Two loves I have of comfort and despair

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

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.^

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

youth's , - , . . /IT 1

relations three addrcsscd to the man (xl., xli., and
with the x\\i.) the poet mildly reproaches his youthful
mistress. friend for having sought and w^on the favours
of a woman whom he himself loved ' dearly,' but the
trespass is forgiven on account of the friend's youth and

1 Sidney's Certaifi Sonnets (No. xiii.) appended to Astrophel and
Stella in the edition of 1 598. In Emaricdulfe : Sonnets written by
E. C, 1595, Sonnet xxxvii. beginning 'O lust, of sacred love the foul
corrupter,' even more closely resembles Shakespeare's sonnet in both
ohraseology and sentiment. E. C.'s rare volume is reprinted in the
Lamport Garland (Roxburghe Club), 1881.

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

1599 edition :

An evil spirit your beauty haunts me still . . .

Thus am I still provoked to every evil

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

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

154 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 1 55

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

The emotions roused in Shakespeare by the episode,
even if potent at the moment, were not likely to be
deep-seated or enduring. And it is possible that a half-
jesting reference, which would deprive Shakespeare's
amorous adventure of serious import, was made to it
by a literary comrade in a poem that was licensed for
publication on September 3, 1594, and was published
'Wiiiobie immediately under the title of ' Willobie his
hisAvisa.' Avisa, or the True Picture of a Modest
Maid and of a Chaste and Constant Wife.' ^ In this
volume, which mainly consists of seventy-two cantos
in varying numbers of six-line stanzas, the chaste
heroine, Avisa, holds converse — in the opening sec-
tion as a maid, and in the later section as a wife —
with a series of passionate adorers. In every case
she firmly repulses their advances. Midway through
the book its alleged author — Henry Willobie — is
introduced in his own person as an ardent admirer,
and the last twenty-nine of the cantos rehearse his
woes and Avisa's obduracy. To this section there is

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

156 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

prefixed an argument in prose (canto xliv.). It is there
stated that Willobie, ' being suddenly affected with the
contagion of a fantastical wit at the first sight of Avisa,
pineth a while in secret grief. At length, not able any-
longer to endure the burning heat of so fervent a
humour, [he] bewrayeth the secrecy of his disease unto
his familiar friend W. S., ivho not long before Jiad tried
the courtesy of the like passion and ivas Jiow newly re-
covered of the like infeetion. Yet [W. S.], finding his
friend let blood in the same vein, took pleasure for a
time to see him bleed, and instead of stopping the issue,
he enlargeth the wound with the sharp razor of willing
conceit,' encouraging Willobie to believe that Avisa
would ultimately yield 'with pains, diligence, and some
cost in time.' ' The miserable comforter ' [W. S.], the
passage continues, was moved to comfort his friend
' with an impossibility,' for one of two reasons. Either
he 'now would secretly laugh at his friend's folly'
because he ' had given occasion not long before unto
others to laugh at his own.' Or ' he would see whether
another could play his part better than himself, and,
in viewing after the course of this loving comedy,'
would ' see whether it would sort to a happier end
for this new actor than it did for the old actor. But
at length this comedy was like to have grown to
a tragedy by the weak and feeble estate that H. W.
was brought unto,' owing to Avisa's unflinching
rectitude. Happily, ' time and necessity ' effected a
cure. In two succeeding cantos in verse W. S. is in-
troduced in dialogue with Willobie, and he gives him,
in oratio recta, light-hearted and mocking counsel

STORY OF INTRIGUE IX THE SONNETS 1 57

which Willobie accepts with results disastrous to his
mental health.

Identity of initials, on which the theory of Shake-
speare's identity with H. W.'s unfeeling adviser mainly
rests, is not a strong foundation,^ and doubt is justi-
fiable as to whether the story of ' Avisa ' and her lovers
is not fictitious. In a preface signed Hadrian Dorell,
the writer, after mentioning that the alleged author
(WUlobie) was abroad, discusses somewhat enigmati-
cally whether or no the work is ' a poetical fiction.' In
a new edition of 1 596 the same editor decides the ques-
tion in the affirmative. But Dorell, while making this
admission, leaves untouched the curious episode of
* W. S.' The mention of ' W. S.' as ' the old actor,' and
the employment of theatrical imagery in discussing
his relations with Willobie, must be coupled with the
fact that Shakespeare, at a date when mentions of
him in print were rare, was eulogised by name as the
author of ' Lucrece ' in some prefatory verses to the
volume. From such considerations the theory of
'W. S.'s ' identity with Willobie's acquaintance ac-
quires substance. If we assume that it was Shake-
speare who took a roguish delight in watching his
friend Willobie suffer the disdain of ' chaste Avisa '
because he had ' newly recovered ' from the effects of

^ W. S. are common initials, and at least two authors bearing them
made some reputation in Shakespeare's day. There was a dramatist
named Wentworth Smith (see p. 180, infra), and there was a William
Smith who published a volume of love-lorn sonnets called Chloris in
1595. A specious argument might possibly be devised in favour of the
latter's identity with Willobie's counsellor. But Shakespeare, of the
two, has the better claim.

158 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

The processes of construction which are discernible
in Shakespeare's sonnets are thus seen to be identical
Summary with thosc that are discernible in the rest of
ofconciu- i^is literary work. They present one more

sions re- . . i r ^ ^

spectingthe proot ot his punctilious regard tor the de-
sonnets, mands of public taste, and of his marvellous
genius and skill in adapting and transmuting for his
own purposes the labours of other workers in the field
that for the moment engaged his attention. Most of
Shakespeare's sonnets were produced in 1594 under
the incitement of that freakish rage for sonnetteering
which, taking its rise in Italy and sweeping over France
on its way to England, absorbed for some half-dozen
years in this country a greater volume of literary
energy than has been applied to sonnetteering within
the same space of time here or elsewhere before or since.
The thousands of sonnets that were circulated in Eng-
land between 1591 and 1597 were of every literary
quality, from sublimity to inanity, and they illustrated
in form and topic every known phase of sonnetteering
activity. Shakespeare's collection, which was put to-
gether at haphazard and published surreptitiously many
years after the poems were written, was a medley, at
times reaching heights of literary excellence that none

STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS 1 59

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

l6o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

internal evidence in identifying the belauded patron
with the Earl of Southampton, and the real value to a
biographer of Shakespeare's sonnets is the corrobora-
tion they offer of the ancient tradition that the Earl of
Southampton, to whom his two narrative poems were
openly dedicated, gave Shakespeare at an early period
of his literary career help and encouragement, which
entitles the Earl to a place in the poet's biography
resembling that filled by the Duke Alfonso D'Este in
the biography of Ariosto, or like that fifled by Margaret,
duchess of Savoy, in the biography of Ronsard.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER l6l

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER

But, all the while that Shakespeare was fancifully
assuring his patron

[How] to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell,

his dramatic work was steadily advancing. To the
'Mid- winter season of 1595 probably belongs

Ni^hX ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' 1 The comedy
Dream.' may wcll havc been written to celebrate
a marriage — perhaps the marriage of the universal
patroness of poets, Lucy Harington, to Edward
Russell, third Earl of Bedford, on December 12,
1 594 ; or that of William Stanley, Earl of Derby,
at Greenwich on January 24, 1594-5. The elaborate
compliment to the Queen, ' a fair vestal throned by
the west' (11. i. 157 seq.), was at once an acknowledg-
ment of past marks of royal favour and an invitation
for their extension to the future. Oberon's fanciful
description (11. ii. 148-68) of the spot where he saw
the little western flower called ' Love-in-idleness ' that
he bids Puck fetch for him, has been interpreted as
a reminiscence of one of the scenic pageants with

1 No edition appeared before l6oo, and then two were published.
M

i02 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

which the Earl of Leicester entertained Queen
Elizabeth on her visit to Kenilworth in 1575.^ The
whole play is in the airiest and most graceful vein
of comedy. Hints for the story can be traced to a
variety of sources — to Chaucer's 'Knight's Tale,' to
Plutarch's ' Life of Theseus,' to Ovid's ' Metamor-
phoses ' (bk. iv.), and to the story of Oberon, the
fairy-king, in the French mediaeval romance of ' Huon
of Bordeaux,' of which an English translation by
Lord Berners was first printed in 1534. The influ-
ence of John Lyly is perceptible in the raillery in
which both mortals and immortals indulge. In the
humorous presentation of the play of ' Pyramus and
Thisbe ' by the ' rude mechanicals ' of Athens, Shake-
speare improved upon a theme which he had already
employed in ' Love's Labour's Lost.' But the final
scheme of the ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' is of the
author's freshest invention, and by endowing — prac-
tically for the first time in literature — the phantoms
of the fairy world with a genuine and a sustained
dramatic interest, Shakespeare may be said to have
conquered a new realm^ for art.

More sombre topics engaged him in the comedy
of 'All's Well that Ends Well,' which may be ten-
■ All's tatively assigned to 1595. Meres, writing

Well.* three years later, attributed to Shakespeare

a piece called ' Love's Labour's Won.' This title,
which is not otherwise known, may well be applied

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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 63

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

' The Taming of The Shrew ' — which, like ' All's
Well,' was first printed in the folio — was probably
composed soon after the completion of that solemn
comedy. It is a revision of an old play on lines
somewhat differing from those which Shakespeare
, -paminT ^^^ followed previously. From ' The
of The Taming of A Shrew,' a comedy first pub-
lished in 1594,-^ Shakespeare drew the In-
duction and the scenes in which the hero Petruchio

1 Reprinted by the Shakespeare Society in 1844.

164 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

conquers Catherine the Shrew. He first infused into
them the genuine spirit of comedy. But while follow-
ing the old play in its general outlines, Shakespeare's
revised version added an entirely new underplot —
the story of Bianca and her lovers, which owes
something to the ' Supposes ' of George Gascoigne,
an adaptation of Ariosto's comedy called ' Gli Sup-
positi.' Evidence of style — the liberal introduction
of tags of Latin and the exceptional beat of the dog-
gerel — makes it difficult to allot the Bianca scenes
to Shakespeare ; those scenes were probably due to a
coadjutor.

The Induction to * The Taming of The Shrew ' has
a direct bearing on Shakespeare's biography, for the
poet admits into it a number of literal references to
Stratford and his native county. Such personalities are
rare in Shakespeare's plays, and can only be paralleled
in two of slightly later date — the ' Second Part
of Henry IV ' and the ' Merry Wives of Windsor.'
All these local allusions may well be attributed to
such a renewal of Shakespeare's personal relations
Stratford with the town as is indicated by external
fn't'he'in- f^cts in his history of the same period,
duction. In the Induction the tinker, Christopher
Sly, describes himself as ' Old Sly's son of Burton
Heath.' Burton Heath is Barton-on-the-Heath,
the home of Shakespeare's aunt, Edmund Lambert's
wife, and of her sons. The tinker in like vein
confesses that he has run up a score with Marian
Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot.^ The references

1 All these details are of Shakespeare's invention, and do not figure

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 165

to Wincot and the Rackets are singularly precise.
The name of the maid of the inn is given as Cicely
Racket, and the alehouse is described in the stage
direction as ' on a heath.'

Wincot was the familiar designation of three

small Warwickshire villages, and a good claim has

been set up on behalf of each to be the scene of

Sly's drunken exploits. There is a very small hamlet

named Wincot within four miles of Stratford,

Wincot. . . r . , ^ , , . ,

now consistmg of a smgle farmhouse which
was once an Elizabethan mansion ; it is situated
on what was doubtless in Shakespeare's day, before
the land there was enclosed, an open heath. This
Wincot forms part of the parish of Quinton, where,
according to the parochial registers, a Racket family
resided in Shakespeare's day. On November 21,
1 591, 'Sara Racket, the daughter of Robert Racket,'
was baptised in Quinton church.^ Yet by Warwick-
shire contemporaries the Wincot of 'The Taming of
The Shrew ' was unhesitatingly identified with Wilne-
cote, near Tamworth, on the Staffordshire border of
Warwickshire, at some distance from Stratford. That

in the old play. But in the crude induction in the old play the non-
descript drunkard is named without prefix ' Slie.' That surname,
although it was very common at Stratford and in the neighbourhood,
was borne by residents in many other parts of the country, and its ap-
pearance in the old play is not in itself, as has been suggested, suffi-
cient to prove that the old play was written by a Warwickshire man.
There are no other names or references in the old play that can be
associated with Warwickshire.

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

1 66 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

village, whose name was pronounced * Wincot,' was
celebrated for its ale in the seventeenth century, a
distinction which is not shown by contemporary
evidence to have belonged to any place of like name.
The Warwickshire poet, Sir Aston Cokain, within
half a century of the production of Shakespeare's
'Taming of The Shrew,' addressed to 'Mr. Clement
Fisher of Wincott ' (a well-known resident at Wilne-
cote) verses which begin

Shakspeare your Wincot ale hath much renowned,
That fox'd a Beggar so (by chance was found
Sleeping) that there needed not many a word
To make him to believe he was a Lord.

In the succeeding lines the writer promises to visit
' Wincot ' {i.e. Wilnecote) to drink

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

It is therefore probable that Shakespeare con-
sciously invested the home of Kit Sly and of Kit's
hostess with characteristics of Wilnecote as well as
of the hamlet near Stratford.

Wilmcote, the native place of Shakespeare's
mother, is also said to have been popularly pronounced
'Wincot.' A tradition which was first recorded by
Capell as late as 1780 in his notes to 'The Taming
of The Shrew ' (p. 26) is to the effect that Shakespeare
often visited an inn at 'Wincot' to enjoy the society
of a 'fool who belonged to a neighbouring mill,' and
the Wincot of this story is, we are told, locally asso-
ciated with the village of Wilmcote. But the links

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 67

that connect Shakespeare's tinker with Wilmcote are
far slighter than those which connect him with Win-
cot and Wilnecote.

The mention of Kit Sly's tavern comrades —

Stephen Sly and old John Naps of Greece,
And Peter Turf and Henry Pimpernell —

was in all likelihood a reminiscence of contemporary-
Warwickshire life as literal as the name of the
hamlet where the drunkard dwelt. There was a
genuine Stephen Sly who was in the dramatist's day
a self-assertive citizen of Stratford ; and ' Greece,'
whence ' old John Naps ' derived his cognomen, is an
obvious misreading of Greet, a hamlet by Winchmere
in Gloucestershire, not far removed from Shake-
speare's native town.

In 1597 Shakespeare turned once more to English
history. From Holinshed's ' Chronicle,' and from a
valueless but very popular piece, ' The
Famous Victories of Henry V,' which was
repeatedly acted between 1588 and 1595,^ he worked
up with splendid energy two plays on the reign of
Henry IV. They form one continuous whole, but
are known respectively as parts i. and ii. of ' Henry
IV.' The ' Second Part of Henry IV ' is almost
as rich as the Induction to * The Taming of The
Shrew ' in direct references to persons and districts
famihar to Shakespeare. Two amusing scenes pass
at the house of Justice Shallow in Gloucestershire,
a county which touched the boundaries of Strat-

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

1 68 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ford (hi. ii. and v. i.). When, in the second of these
scenes, the justice's factotum, Davy, asked his master
'to countenance William Visor of Woncot^ against
Clement Perkes of the Hill,' the local references are
unmistakable. Woodmancote, where the family of
Visor or Vizard has flourished since the sixteenth
century, is still pronounced Woncot. The adjoining
Stinchcombe Hill (still familiarly known to natives as
' The Hill ') was in the sixteenth century the home of
the family of Perkes. Very precise too are the allu-
sions to the region of the Cotswold Hills, which were
easily accessible from Stratford. ' Will Squele, a
Cotswold man,' is noticed as one of Shallow's friends
in youth (hi. ii. 23); and when Shallow's servant Davy
receives his master's instructions to sow ' the head-
land ' 'with red wheat,' in the early autumn, there is
an obvious reference to the custom almost peculiar
to the Cotswolds of sowing 'red lammas' wheat at an
unusually early season of the agricultural year.^

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

1 The quarto of i6oo reads Woncote : all the folios read Woncot.
Yet Malone in the Variorum of i§03 introduced the new and un-
warranted reading of Wincot, which has been unwisely adopted by
succeeding editors.

2 These references are convincingly explained by Mr. Justice Mad-
den in his Diary of Master Silence, pp. 87 seq., 372-4. Cf. Blunt's
Dtirsley and its N^eighbourhood ; fluntley's Glossary of the Cotswold
Dialect, and Marshall's Rural Economy of Cotswold ( 1 796) .

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 69

both parts) his son and heir Prince Hal, whose
boisterous disposition drives him from Court to seek
adventures among the haunters of taverns. Hotspur
is a vivid and fascinating portrait of a hot-headed
soldier, courageous to the point of rashness, and
sacrificing his lire to his impetuous sense of honour.
Prince Hal, despite his vagaries, is endowed by the
dramatist with far more self-control and common
sense.

On the first, as on every subsequent, production of
' Henry IV ' the main public interest was concentrated
neither on the King nor on his son, nor on Hotspur,
but on the chief of Prince Hal's riotous companions.
At the outset the propriety of that great creation
was questioned on a political or historical ground of
doubtful relevance. Shakespeare in both parts of
'Henry IV' originally named the chief of the prince's
associates after Sir John Oldcastle, a character in the
old play. But Henry Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham,
who succeeded to the title early in 1 597, and claimed
descent from the historical Sir John Oldcastle, the
Lollard leader, raised objection; and when the first
part of the play was printed by the acting-company's
authority in 1 598 ( / newly corrected ' in 1 599), Shake-
speare bestowed on Prince Hal's tun-bellied

Falstaff. 1111 r

follower the new and deathless name of
Falstaff. A trustworthy edition of the second part
of ' Henry IV ' also appeared with Falstaff's name
substituted for that of Oldcastle in 1600. There the
epilogue expressly denied that Falstaff had any char-
acteristic in common with the martyr Oldcastle,

170 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Oldcastlc died a martyr, and this is not the man.'
But the substitution of the name ' Falstaff' did not pass
without protest. It hazily recalled Sir John Fastolf,
an historical warrior who had already figured in

* Henry VI ' and was owner at one time of the Boar's
Head Tavern in Southwark ; according to traditional
stage directions/ the prince and his companions in

* Henry IV,' frequent the Boar's Head, Eastcheap.
Fuller in his ' Worthies,' first published in 1662, while
expressing satisfaction that Shakespeare had * put
out ' of the play Sir John Oldcastle, was eloquent
in his avowal of regret that ' Sir John Fastolf ' was
' put in,' on the ground that it was making over
bold with a great warrior's memory to make him a
' Thrasonical puff and emblem of mock-valour.'

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

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

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

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 171

power clothed him. The knight's unfettered indul-
gence in sensual pleasures, his exuberant mendacity,
and his love of his own ease are purged of offence by
his colossal wit and jollity, while the contrast between
his old age and his unreverend way of life supplies
that tinge of melancholy which is inseparable from
the highest manifestations of humour. The Eliza-
bethan public recognised the triumphant success of
the effort, and many of Falstaff's telling phrases, with
the names of his foils. Justices Shallow and Silence,
at once took root in popular speech. Shakespeare's
purely comic power culminated in Falstaff ; he may
be claimed as the most humorous figure in literature.
In all probability ' The Merry Wives of Windsor,'
a comedy inclining to farce, and unqualified by
,^/^^j.j. any pathetic interest, followed close upon
Wives of ' Henry IV.' In the epilogue to the * Second
Windsor.' p^j.^. ^^ Hgnry IV ' Shakespeare had written :
' If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our
humble author will continue the story with Sir John
in it . . . where for anything I know Falstaff shall
die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard
opinions.' Rowe asserts that ' Queen Elizabeth was
so well pleased with that admirable character of Fal-
staff in the two parts of "Henry IV" that she com-
manded him to continue it for one play more, and to
show him in love. Dennis, in the dedication of ' The
Comical Gallant' (1702), noted that the 'Merry Wives'
was written at the Queen's 'command and by her
direction ; and she was so eager to see it acted that
she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days, and

173 WILLIAM SIIAKKSPEARE

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

1 Remarks, p. 291.

2 Cf. Shakespeare Society's reprint, 1842, ed. Halliwell.

^ This collection of stories is said by both Malone and Steevens
to have been published in 1603, although no edition earlier than 1620
is now known. The 1 620 edition of IVeslxvard for Smells, written by
Kinde Kit of Kingston, was reprinted by the Percy Society in 1848.
Cf. Shakespeare'' s Library, ed. Ilazlilt, I. ii. 1-80.

TME DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 73

bourhood of Stratford. Justice Shallow, whose coat-
of-arms is described as consisting of ' luces,' is thereby
openly identified with Shakespeare's early foe, Sir
Thomas Lucy of Charlecote. When Shakespeare
makes Master Slender repeat the report that Master
Page's fallow greyhound was * outrun on Cotsall '
(i. i. 93), he testifies to his interest in the coursing
matches for which the Cotswold district was famed.

The spirited character of Prince Hal was pecu-
liarly congenial to its creator, and in ' Henry V '
Shakespeare, during 1598, brought his
career to its close. The play was performed
early in 1599, probably in the newly built Globe
Theatre. Again Thomas Creede printed, in 1600,
an imperfect draft, which was thrice reissued before
a complete version was supplied in the First Folio
of 1623. The dramatic interest of 'Henry V" is
slender. There is abundance of comic element, but
death has removed Falstaff, whose last moments are
described with the simple pathos that comes of a
matchless art, and, though Falstaff's companions sur-
vive, they are thin shadows of his substantial figure.
New comic characters are introduced in the person of
three soldiers respectively of Welsh, Scottish, and Irish
nationality, whose racial traits are contrasted with
telling effect. The irascible Irishman, Captain Mac-
Morris, is the only representative of his nation who
figures in the long list of Shakespeare's dramatis
personcs. The scene in which the pedantic but
patriotic Welshman, Fluellen, avenges the sneers of
the braggart Pistol at his nation's emblem, by

174 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

forcing him to cat the leek, overflows in vivacious
humour. The piece in its main current presents a
series of loosely connected episodes in which the hero's
manliness is displayed as soldier, ruler, and lover. The
topic reached its climax in the victory of the English
at Agincourt, which powerfully appealed to patriotic
sentiment. Besides the ' Famous Victories,' ^ there
was another lost piece on the subject, which Henslowe
produced for the first time on November 28, 1595.
* Henry V ' may be regarded as Shakespeare's final
experiment in the dramatisation of English history,
and it artistically rounds off the series of his 'histories'
which form collectively a kind of national epic. For
'Henry VHI,' which was produced very late in his
career, he was only in part responsible, and that
'history' consequently belongs to a different category.
A glimpse of autobiography may be discerned in
the direct mention by Shakespeare in ' Henry V of an
exciting episode in current history. In the prologue
to act V. Shakespeare foretold for Robert Devereux,
Essex and sccoud Earl of Esscx, the close friend of his
lioYof^' patron Southampton, an enthusiastic re-
1601. ception by the people of London when he

should come home after ' broaching ' rebellion in
Ireland.

Were now the general of our gracious empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming.
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword.
How many would the peaceful city quit
To welcome him ! — (Act V. Chorus, 11. 30-4.)

Essex had set out on his disastrous mission as

1 Diary, p. 61 ; see p. 167.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 75

the would-be pacificator of Ireland on March 27, 1599.
The fact that Southampton went with him probably
accounts for Shakespeare's avowal of sympathy.
But Essex's effort failed. He was charged, soon
after ' Henry V ' was produced, with treasonable
neglect of duty, and he sought in 1601, again with the
support of Southampton, to recover his position by
stirring up rebellion in London. Then Shakespeare's
reference to Essex's popularity with Londoners bore
perilous fruit. The friends of the rebel leaders sought
the dramatist's countenance. They paid 40s. to
Augustine Phillips, a leading member of Shake-
speare's company, to induce him to revive at the
Globe Theatre ' Richard H ' (beyond doubt Shake-
speare's play), in the hope that its scene of the kill-
ing of a king might encourage a popular outbreak.
Phillips subsequently deposed that he prudently told
the conspirators who bespoke the piece that ' that
play of Kyng Richard ' was ' so old and so long out
of use as that they should have small or no company
at it.' None the less the performance took place on
Saturday (February 7, 1601), the day preceding that
fixed by Essex for the rising. The Queen, in a later
conversation with William Lambarde (on August 4,
1 601), complained that 'this tragedie' of 'Richard II,'
which she had always viewed with suspicion, was
played at the period with seditious intent ' forty times
in open streets and houses.' ^ At the trial of Essex
and his friends, Phillips gave evidence of the circum-
stances under which the tragedy was revived at the

^ Nichols, Progresses of FJizabcth, iii. 552.

1/6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

Such incidents served to accentuate Shakespeare's
growing reputation. For several years his genius as
dramatist and poet had been acknowledged by critics
Shake- ^^cl playgocrs alike, and his social and pro-
speare's fessional position had become considerable.

popularitv ^ . , , , , . . „

and influ- Insidc the theatre his mnuence was supreme,
ence. When, in 1598, the manager of the company

rejected Ben Jonson's first comedy — his ' Every Man
in his Humour' — Shakespeare intervened, accord-
ing to a credible tradition (reported by Rowe but
denounced by Gifford), and procured a reversal of the
decision in the interest of the unknown dramatist,
who was his junior by nine years. He took a part
when the piece was performed. Jonson was of a
difficult and jealous temper, and subsequently he gave
vent to an occasional expression of scorn at Shake-
speare's expense ; but, despite passing manifestations
of his unconquerable surliness, there can be no doubt
that Jonson cherished genuine esteem and affection
for Shakespeare till death.^ Within a very few years
of Shakespeare's death Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, an

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

^ CLGWchwrX, Examination of the charges . . . 0/ Jonson's Enmity
ttwards Shakespeare, 1808,

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 77

industrious collector of anecdotes, put into writing an
anecdote for which he made Dr. Donne responsible,
attesting the amicable relations that habitually sub-
sisted between Shakespeare and Jonson. ' Shake-
speare,' ran the story, 'was godfather to one of Ben
Jonson's children, and after the christening, being in
a deep study, Jonson came to oheer him up and
asked him why he was so melancholy. " No, faith,
Ben," says he, " not I, but I have been considering
a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to
bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolv'd at
last." "I prythee, what .^ " says he. "T faith, Ben,
I'll e'en give him a dozen good Lattin spoons, and
thou shalt translate them." ' ^

The creator of Falstaff could have been no
stranger to tavern life, and he doubtless took part with
zest in the convivialities of men of letters. Tradition
The Mer- ^eports that Shakespeare joined, at the
maid meet- Mermaid Tavern in Bread Street, those
'"^^' meetings of Jonson and his associates which

Beaumont described in his poetical ' Letter ' to Jonson :

What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid ? heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.

^ Latten is a mixed metal resembling brass. Pistol in Merry
Wives of Windsor (act i. scene i. 1. 165) likens Slender to a 'Latten
Bilbo,' that is, a sword made of the mixed metal. Cf. Anecdotes and
Traditions, edited from L'Estrange's MSS. by W. J. Thoms for the
Camden Society, p. 2.

178 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Many were the wit-combats,' wrote Fuller of
Shakespeare in his 'Worthies' (1662), 'betwixt him
and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish
great galleon and an English man of war ; Master
Jonson (like the former) was built far higher
in learning, solid but slow in his performances.
Shakespear, with .the Englishman of war, lesser in
bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides,
tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the
quickness of his wit and invention.'

Of the many testimonies paid to Shakespeare's
literary reputation at this period of his career, the
Meres'seu- ruost Striking was that of Francis Meres,
logy, 1598. Meres was a learned graduate of Cambridge
University, a divine and schoolmaster, who brought out
in 1 598 a collection of apophthegms on morals, religion,
and literature which he entitled ' Palladis Tamia.' In
the book he interpolated 'A comparative discourse ot
our English poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian
poets,' and there exhaustively surveyed contemporary
literary effort in England. Shakespeare figured in
Meres's pages as the greatest man of letters of the day.
'The Muses would speak Shakespeare's fine filed
phrase,' Meres asserted, 'if they could speak English.'
'Among the English,' he declared, 'he was the most
excellent in both kinds for the stage' {i.e. tragedy and
comedy). The titles of six comedies ('Two Gentle-
men of Verona,' ' Errors,' ' Love's Labour's Lost,'
* Love's Labour's Won,' ' Midsummer Night's Dream,'
and 'Merchant of Venice') and of six tragedies
('Richard II,' 'Richard III,' 'Henry IV,' 'King

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 79

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

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

Shakespeare's name was thenceforth of value to
unprincipled publishers, and they sought to palm off
on their customers as his work the productions of
inferior pens. Already, in 1595, Thomas Creede,
Value of ^^ surreptitious printer of 'Henry V and
his name to the 'Merry Wives,' had issued the crude
pu isieis. < fj-aggfjjg Qf Locrine,' as 'newly set foorth
overseene and corrected by W. S.' It appropriated
many passages from an older piece called ' Selimus,'
which was possibly by Greene and certainly came

1 This, or some synonym, is the conventional epithet applied at the
date to Shakespeare and his work. Weever credited such characters
of Shakespeare as Tarquin, Romeo, and Richard III with ' sugred
tongues' in his Epigrams of 1595. In the Return froju Partiasstis
(1601?) Shakespeare is apostrophised as 'sweet Master Shakespeare.'
Milton did homage to the tradition by writing of ' sweetest Shakespeare '
in L^ Allegro.

l8o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

into being long before Shakespeare had written a line
of blank verse. The same initials — ' W. S.' ^ — figured
on the title-pages of ' The Puritaine, or the Widdow of
Watling-streete ' (printed by G. Eld in 1607), and of
'The True Chronicle Historie of Thomas, Lord
Cromwell' (licensed August 11, 1602, and printed by-
Thomas Snodham in 16 13). Shakespeare's full name
appeared on the title-pages of ' The Life of Oldcastle '
in 1600 (printed by T[homas] P[avier]), of ' The
London Prodigall ' in 1605 (printed by T. C. for
Nathaniel Butter), and of ' The Yorkshire Tragedy '
in 1608 (by R. B. for Thomas Pavicr). None of these
six plays have any internal claim to Shakespeare's
authorship ; nevertheless all were uncritically included
in the third folio of his collected works (1664). Schlegel
and a few other critics of repute have, on no grounds
that merit acceptance, detected signs of Shakespeare's
genuine work in one of the six, ' The Yorkshire
Tragedy '; it is * a coarse, crude, and vigorous im-
promptu,' which is clearly by a far less experienced
hand.

1 A hack-writer, Wentworth Smith, took a hand in producing
thirteen plays, none of which are extant, for the theatrical manager,
Philip Henslowe, between 1601 and 1603. The Hector of Germanie,
an extant play ' made by W. Smith ' and published ' with new additions '
in 1615, was doubtless by Wentworth Smith, and is the only dramatic
work by him that has survived. Neither internal nor external evidence
confirms the theory that the six above-mentioned plays, which have
been wrongly claimed for Shakespeare, were really by Wentworth
Smith. The use of the initials 'W. S.' was not due to the pub-
lishers' belief that Wentworth Smith was the author, but to their
endeavour to hoodwink their customers into a belief that the plays
were by Shakespeare.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER l8l

The fraudulent practice of crediting Shakespeare
with valueless plays from the pens of comparatively
dull-witted contemporaries was in vogue among enter-
prising traders in literature both early and late in the
seventeenth century. The worthless old play on the
subject of King John was attributed to Shakespeare
in the reissues of i6i i and 1622. Humphrey Moseley,
a reckless publisher of a later period, fraudulently
entered on the ' Stationers' Register ' on September 9,
1653, two pieces which he represented to be in whole
or in part by Shakespeare, viz. ' The Merry Devill of
Edmonton ' and the ' History of Cardenio,' a share in
which was assigned to Fletcher. 'The Merry Devill
of Edmonton,' which was produced on the stage be-
fore the close of the sixteenth century, was entered on
the ' Stationers' Register,' October 22, 1607, and was
first published anonymously in 1608 ; it is a delight-
ful comedy, abounding in both humour and romantic
sentiment ; at times it recalls scenes of the ' Merry
Wives of Windsor,' but no sign of Shakespeare's
workmanship is apparent. The ' History of Cardenio'
is not extant.^ Francis Kirkman, another active
London publisher, who first printed William Rowley's
^ Birth of Merlin' in 1662, described it on the title-
page as ' written by William Shakespeare and William
Rowley ; ' it was unwisely reprinted at Halle in a so-
called ' Collection of pseudo-Shakespearean plays ' in
1887.

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

.1 Cf. p. 258, infra.

l82 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

credit as soon as his fame was established. In 1 599
William Jaggard, a well-known pirate publisher,
issued a poetic anthology which he entitled ' The
'The Pis- Passionate Pilgrim, by W. Shakespeare.'
sionate The volume opened with two sonnets by
ignm. Shakespeare which were not previously in
print, and there followed three poems drawn from
the already published ' Love's Labour's Lost ' ; but
the bulk of the volume was by Richard Barnfield
and others.^ A third edition of the ' Passionate Pil-
grim ' was printed in 16 12 with unaltered title-page,
although the incorrigible Jaggard had added two new
poems which he silently filched from Thomas Hey-
wood's ' Troia Britannica.' Hey wood called attention
to his own grievance in the dedicatory epistle before
his 'Apology for Actors' (1612), and he added that
Shakespeare resented the more substantial injury
which the publisher had done him. ' I know,' wrote
Heywood of Shakespeare, ' [he was] much offended
with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknown to him) pre-
sumed to make so bold with his name.' In the result

1 There were twenty pieces in all. The five by Shakespeare are
placed in the order i. ii. iii. v. xvi. Of the remainder, two — ' If music
a^id sweet poetry agree ' (No. viii.) and ' As it fell upon a day ' (No. xx.)
— were borrowed from Barnfield's Poems in Divers Humours (1598).
' Venus with Adonis sitting by her ' (No. xi.) is from Bartholomew
Griffin's Fidessa (1596); 'My flocks feed not' (No. xvii.) is adapted
from Thomas Weelkes's Madrigals (1597) ; ' Live with me and be my
love ' is by Marlowe; and the appended stanza, entitled ' Love's Answer,'
by Sir Walter Ralegh (No. xix.) ; 'Crabbed age and youth cannot live
together' (No. xii.), is a popular song often quoted by the Elizabethan
dramatists. Nothing has been ascertained of the origin and history of
the remaining nine poems (iv. vi. vii. ix. x. xiii. xiv. xviii.).

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER 1 83

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

In 1 60 1 Shakespeare's full name was appended to
' a poetical essaie on the Phoenix and the Turtle,'
'The which was published by Edward Blount in an

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

1 84 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

1 A unique copy of Chester's Love's Martyr is in Mr. Christie-
Miller's library at Britwell. Of a reissue of the original edition in i6il
with a new title, The Annals of Great Brittaine, a copy (also unique) is
in the British Museum. A reprint of the original edition was prepared
for private circulation by Dr. Grosart in 1878, in his series of 'Occa-
sional Issues.' It was also printed in the same year as one of the pub-
lications of the New Shakspere Society. Matthew Roydon in his elegy
on Sir Philip Sidney, appended to Spenser's Colin Clouts Come Home
Again, 1595, describes the part figuratively played in Sidney's obsequies
by the turtle-dove, swan, phoenix, and eagle, in verses that very closely
resemble Shakespeare's account of the funereal functions fulfilled by the
same four birds in his contribution to Chester's volume. This resemblance
suggests that Shakespeare's poem may be a fanciful adaptation of Roy-
don's elegiac conceits without ulterior significance. Shakespeare's con-
cluding 'Threnos' is imitated in metre and phraseology by Fletcher in
his Alad Lover in the song ' The Lover's Legacy to his Cruel Mistress.'

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 185

XII

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE

Shakespeare, in middle life, brought to practical
affairs a singularly sane and sober temperament.
Shake- 1^1 ' Ratseis Ghost' (1605), an anecdotal
speare's biographv of Gamaliel Ratsey, a notorious

practical ,.^^-^ , ,-^' ^,

tempera- highwayman, who was hanged at Bed-
ment. ioxdi on March 26, 1605, the highwayman is

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

1 86 WILLIAM SHAKESrEARL

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

His father's pecuniary embarrassments had steadily
increased since his son's departure. Creditors harassed
j^jg him unceasingly. In 1587 one Nicholas Lane

father's pursucd him for a debt for which he had be-
en ties. ^Qj-|^g liable as surety for his brother Henry,
who was still farming their father's lands at Snitterfield.
Through 1588 and 1589 John Shakespeare retaliated
with pertinacity on a debtor named John Tompson. But
in 1 59 1 a creditor, Adrian Quiney, obtained a writ of
distraint against him, and although in 1592 he attested
inventories taken on the death of two neighbours, Ralph
Shaw and Henry Field, father of the London printer,
he was on December 25 of the same year 'presented'
as a recusant for absenting himself from Church.
The commissioners reported that his absence was
probably due to ' fear of process for debt.' He figures
for the last time in the proceedings of the local court,
in his customary role of defendant, on March 9, 1595.
He was then joined with two fellow-traders — Philip
Green, a chandler, and Henry Rogers, a butcher — as
defendant in a suit brought by Adrian Quiney and
Thomas Barker for the recovery of the sum of five
pounds. Unlike his partners in the litigation, his name
is not followed in the record by a mention of his
calling, and when the suit reac^ied a later stage his
name was omitted altogether. These may be viewed
as indications that in the course of the proceedings
he finally retired from trade, which had been of late
prolific in disasters for him. In January 1596-7 he

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 187

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

There is a likelihood that the poet's wife fared,
in the poet's absence, no better than his father. The
only contemporary mention made of her between her
His wife's marriage in 1582 and her husband's death in
debt. 16 16 is as the borrower at an unascertained

date (evidently before 1595) of forty shillings from
Thomas Whittington, who had formerly been her
father's shepherd. The money was unpaid when Whit-
tington died in 1601, and he directed his executor to
recover the sum from the poet and distribute it among
the poor of Stratford.^

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

At the same date the poet's father, despite his
pecuniary embarrassments, took a step, by way of
regaining his prestige, which must be assigned to the

1 Halliu'ell-rhillipps, ii. 186.

l88 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

poet's intervention.^ He made applicatioi. to the
College of Heralds for .^ cuat-of-arms.^ Then, as
now, the heralds when bestowing new coa'uS-of-arms
commonly credited the applicant's family with an
imaginary antiquity, and little reliance need be placed
on the biographical or genealogical statements alleged
in grants of arms. The poet's father or the poet
himself when first applying to the College stated that
The coat- John Shakespeare, in 1 568, while he was bailiff
of-arms. yf Stratford, and while he was by virtue of
that office a justice of the peace, had obtained from
Robert Cook, then Clarenceux herald, a ' pattern ' or
sketch of an armorial coat. This allegation is not
noticed in the records of the College, and may be a
formal fiction designed by John Shakespeare and his
son to recommend their claim to the notice of the
heralds. The negotiations of 1568, if they were not
apocryphal, were certainly abortive ; otherwise there
would have been no necessity for the further action
of 1596. In any case, on October 20, 1596, a draft,
which remains in the College of Arms, was pre-

1 There is an admirable discussion of the question involved in the
poet's heraldry in Herald and Genealogist, i. 510. Facsimiles of all
the documents preserved in the College of Arms are given in Miscellanea
Genealogica et Ileraldica, 2nd ser. 1886, i. 109. Halliwell-Phillipps
prints imperfectly one of the 1596 draft-grants, and that of 1599 (^Out-
lines, ii. 56, 60), but does not distinguish between the character of the
negotiations of the two years.

2 It is still customary at the College of Arms to inform an applicant
for a coat-of-arms who has a father alive that the application should be
made in the father's name, and the transaction conducted as if the
father were the principal. It was doubtless on advice of this kind that
Shakespeare was acting in the negotiations that are described below.

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 189

pared under the direction of William Dethick,
Garter King-of-Arms, granting John's request for
a coat-of-arms. Garter stated, with characteristic
vagueness, that he had been ' by credible report '
informed that the applicant's ' parentes and late an-
tecessors were for theire valeant and f aithf ull service
advanced and rewarded by the most prudent prince
King Henry the Seventh of famous memorie, sythence
whiche tyme they have continewed at those partes \_i.c\
Warwickshire] in goodreputacion and credit ; ' and that
' the said John [had] maryed Mary, daughter and heiress
of Robert Arden, of Wilmcote, gent.' In considera-
tion of these titles to honour, Garter declared that he
assigned to Shakespeare this shield, viz. : ' Gold, on a
bend sable, a spear of the first, and for his crest or cog-
nizance a falcon, his wings displayed argent, standing on
a wreath of his colours, supporting a spear gold steeled
as aforesaid.' In the margin of this draft-grant there
is a pen sketch of the arms and crest, and above them
is written the motto, ' Non Sans Droict.' ^ A second
copy of the draft, also dated in 1596, is extant at the
College. The only alterations are the substitution of
the word 'grandfather' for 'antecessors' in the account
of John Shakespeare's ancestry, and the substitution
of the word * esquire ' for ' gent ' in the description of
his wife's father, Robert Arden. At the foot of this
draft, however, appeared some disconnected and
unverifiable memoranda which John Shakespeare or

1 In a manuscript in the British Museum (J/ar/. Jl/S. 6140, f. 45)
is a copy of the tricking of the arms of William ' Shakspere,' which is
described ' as a pattent per Will'm Dethike Garter, principale King of
Amies'; this is figured in French's Sliakespeareaiui Genealo^ica, p. 524.

190 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

his son had supplied to the heralds, to the effect that
John had been bailiff of Stratford, had received a
' pattern ' of a shield from Clarenceux Cook, was a
man of substance, and had married into a worshipful
family.^

Neither of these drafts was fully executed. It
may have been that the unduly favourable representa-
tions made to the College respecting John Shake-
speare's social and pecuniary position excited sus-
picion even in the habitually credulous minds of the
heralds, or those officers may have deemed the
profession of the son, who was conducting the nego-
tiation, a bar to completing the transaction. At any
rate, Shakespeare and his father allowed three years
to elapse before (as far as extant documents show)
they made a further endeavour to secure the coveted
distinction. In 1599 their efforts were crowned
with success. Changes in the interval among the
officials at the College may have facilitated the
proceedings. In 1597 the Earl of Essex had become
Earl Marshal and chief of the Heralds' College (the
office had been in commission in 1596); while the

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

' [This John shoeth] A patierne therof under Clarent Cookes hand
in paper, xx. years past. [The Q. officer and cheffe of the towne]

[A Justice of peace] And was a Baylife of Stratford uppo Avon
XV. or xvj. years past.

That he hathe lands and tenements of good wealth and substance
[500 li.]

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

THE PR.\CTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 191

great scholar and antiquary, William Camden, had
joined the College, also in 1597, as Clarenceux King-
of-Arms. The poet was favourably known to both
Camden and the Earl of Essex, the close friend of
the Earl of Southampton. His father's application
now took a new form. No grant of arms was asked
for. It was asserted without qualification that the
coat, as set out in the draft-grants of 1596 had been
assigned to John Shakespeare while he was bailiff, and
the heralds were merely invited to give him a ' recogni-
tion ' or ' exemplification ' of it.^ At the same time he
asked permission for himself to impale, and his eldest
son and other children to quarter, on ' his ancient coat-
of-arms ' that of the Ardens of Wilmcote, his wife's
family. The College officers were characteristically
complacent. A draft was prepared under,the hands of
Dethick, the Garter king, and of Camden, the Claren-
ceux King, granting the required 'exemplification ' and
authorising the required impalement and quartering.
On one point only did Dethick and Camden betray con-
scientious scruples. Shakespeare and his father ob-
viously desired the heralds to recognise the title of Mary
Shakespeare (the poet's mother) to bear the arms
of the great Warwickshire family of Arden, then
seated at Park Hall. But the relationship, if it existed,
was undetermined ; the Warwickshire Ardens were
gentry of influence in the county, and were certain to

1 An ' exemplification ' was invariably secured more easily than a
new grant of arms. The heralds might, if they chose, tacitly accept,
without examination, the applicant's statement that his family had borne
arms long ago, and they thereby regarded themselves as relieved of the
obligation of close inquiry into his present status.

192 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

protest against any hasty assumption of identity be-
tween their line and that of the humble farmer of Wilm-
cote. After tricking the Warwickshire Arden coat in
the margin of the draft-grant for the purpose of indicat-
ing the manner of its impalement, the heralds on second
thoughts erased it. They substituted in their sketch
the arms of an Arden family living at Alvanley in
the distant county of Cheshire. With that stock there
was no pretence that Robert Arden of Wilmcote was
lineally connected; but the bearers of the Alvanley coat
were unlikely to learn of its suggested impalement
with the Shakespeare shield, and the heralds were less
liable to the risk of litigation. But the Shakespeares
wisely relieved the College of all anxiety by omitting
to assume the Arden coat. The Shakespeare arms
alone are displayed with full heraldic elaboration on the
monument above the poet's grave in Stratford Church ;
they alone appear on the seal and on the tombstone of
his elder daughter, Mrs. Susanna Hall, impaled with the
arms of her husband ; ^ and they alone were quartered
by Thomas Nash, the first husband of the poet's
granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall.'-^

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

1 On the gravestone of John Hall, Shakespeare's elder son-in-law,
the Shakespeare arms are similarly impaled with those of Hall.
^ French ShakespcaJ'c'ana Genealogica, p. 413.

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 193

officers at the College, complained that the arms
'exemplified' to Shakespeare usurped the coat of Lord
Mauley, on whose shield ' a bend sable ' also figured.
Dethick and Camden, who were responsible for any
breach of heraldic etiquette in the matter, answered
that the Shakespeare shield bore as much resemblance
to the Mauley coat as to that of the Harley and the
Ferrers families, which also bore ' a bend sable,' but
that in point of fact it differed conspicuously from all
three by the presence of a spear on the ' bend.' Dethick
and Camden added, with customary want of precision,
that the person to whom the grant was made had
'borne magistracy and was justice of peace at Strat-
ford-on-Avon ; he maried the daughter and heire of
Arderne, and was able to maintain that Estate.' ^

Meanwhile, in 1597, the poet had taken openly
in his own person a more effective step in the way of
rehabilitating himself and his family in the eyes of
Purchaseof his fcllow-townsmen. On May 4 he pur-
New Place, chased the largest house in the town,
known as New Place. It had been built by Sir
Hugh Clopton more than a century before, and
seems to have fallen into a ruinous condition. But
Shakespeare paid for it, with two barns and two
gardens, the then substantial sum of 60/. Owing
to the sudden death of the vendor, William Under-

^ The details of Brooke's accusation are not extant, and are only
to be deduced from the answer of Garter and Clarenceux to Brooke's
complaint, two copies of which are accessible : one is in the vol. W-Z
at the Heralds' College, f. 276; and the other, slightly differing, is in
Ashmole MS. 846, ix. f. 50. Both are printed in the Herald and
Genealogist, i. 514.

194 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

hill, on July 7, 1597, the original transfer of the prop-
erty was left at the time incomplete. Underhill's
son Fulk died a felon, and he was succeeded in the
family estates by his brother Hercules, who on
coming of age. May 1602, completed in a new deed
the transfer of New Place to Shakespeare.^ On
February 4, 1 597-8, Shakespeare was described as a
householder in Chapel Street ward, in which New
Place was situated, and as the owner of ten quarters
of corn. The inventory was made owing to the
presence of famine in the town, and only two inhab-
itants were credited with a larger holding. In the
same year (1598) he procured stone for the repair of
the house, and before 1602 had planted a fruit
orchard. He is traditionally said to have interested
himself in the garden, and to have planted with
his own hands a mulberry tree, which was long a
prominent feature of it. When this was cut down,
in 1758, numerous relics were made from it, and
were treated with an almost superstitious venera-
tion.^ Shakespeare does not appear to have per-
manently settled at New Place till 1611. In 1609

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

■^ The tradition that Shakespeare planted the mulberry tree was not
put on record till it was cut down in 1758. In 1760 mention is made of
it in a letter of thanks in the corporation's archives from the Steward of
the Court of Record to the corporation of Stratford for presenting him
with a standish made from the wood. But, according to the testimony
of old inhabitants confided to Malone (cf. his Life of Shakespeare, 1790,
p. 118), the legend had been orally current in Stratford since Shake-
speare's lifetime. The tree was perhaps planted in 1609, when a French-
man named Veron distributed a number of young mulberry trees through
the midland counties by order of James I, who desired to encourage
the culture of silk-worms (cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, i, 134, 411-16).

THE . PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 195

the house, or part of it, was occupied by the town
clerk, Thomas Greene, * alias Shakespeare,' who
claimed to be the poet's cousin. His grandmother
seems to have been a Shakespeare. He often acted
as the poet's legal adviser.

It was doubtless under their son's guidance that
Shakespeare's father and mother set on foot in
November 1597 — six months after his acquisition of
New Place — a lawsuit against John Lambert for the
recovery of the mortgaged estate of Asbies in Wilm-
cote. The litigation dragged on for some years
without result.

Three letters written during 1598 by leading men
at Stratford are still extant among the Corporation's
archives, and leave no doubt of the reputation for
wealth and influence with which the purchase of New
Place invested the poet in his fellow-townsmen's
Appeals eyes. Abraham Sturley, who was once
for aid bailiff, writing early in 1598, apparently
fellow- to a brother in London, says : ' This is
townsmen, q^q special remembrance from our father's
motion. It seemeth by him that our countryman, Mr.
Shakspere, is willing to disburse some money upon
some odd yardland or other at Shottery, or near
about us : he thinketh it a very fit pattern to move
him to deal in the matter of our tithes. By the in-
structions you can give him thereof, and by the
friends he can make therefor, we think it a fair mark
for him to shoot at, and would do us much good.'
Richard Quiney, another townsman, father of Thomas
(afterwards one of Shakespeare's two sons-in-law),

196 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

The financial prosperity to which this corre-
spondence and the transactions immediately pre-
Financiai Ceding it poiut has been treated as one of
position the chief mysteries of Shakespeare's career,
eorei599. -^^^ ^^^ difftcultics are gratuitous. There is
practically nothing in Shakespeare's financial position
that a study of the contemporary conditions of
theatrical life does not fully explain. It was not
until 1599, when the Globe Theatre was built, that
he acquired any share in the profits of a playhouse.
But his revenues as a successful dramatist and actor
were by no means contemptible at an earlier date.
His gains in the capacity of dramatist formed the
smaller source of income. The highest price known
to have been paid before 1599 to an author for a
play by the manager of an acting company was 11/.;

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE I97

61. was the lowest ratc.^ A small additional gratuity —
rarely apparently exceeding ten shillings — was be-
stowed on a dramatist whose piece on its first produc-
tion was especially well received ; and the author was
by custom allotted, by way of ' benefit,' a certain pro-
portion of the receipts of the theatre on the production
of a play for the second time.^ Other sums, amount-
ing at times to as much as 4/., were bestowed on the
author for revising and altering an old play for a revival.
The nineteen plays which may be set to Shakespeare's
credit between 1591 and 1599, combined with such
revising work as fell to his lot during those eight
years, cannot consequently have brought him less
than 200/., or some 20/. a year. Eight or nine of
these plays were published during the period, but the

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

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

198 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

publishers operated independently of the author,
taking all the risks and, at the same time, all the re-
ceipts. The publication of Shakespeare's plays in
no way affected his monetary resources, although his
friendly relations with the printer Field doubtless
secured him, despite the absence of any copyright
law, some part of the profits in the large and con-
tinuous sale of his poems.

But it was as an actor that at an early date he
acquired a genuinely substantial and secure income.
There is abundance of contemporary evidence to show
that the stage was for an efficient actor an assured
avenue to comparative wealth. In 1590 Robert Greene
describes in his tract entitled ' Never too Late ' a meet-
ing with a player whom he took by his ' outward habit '
to be * a gentleman of great living ' and a ' substan-
tial man.' The player informed Greene that he had
at the beginning of his career travelled on foot,
bearing his theatrical properties on his back, but he
prospered so rapidly that at the time of speak-
ing ' his very share in playing apparel would not be
sold for 200/.' Among his neighbours 'where he
dwelt' he was reputed able 'at his proper cost to build
a windmill.' In the university play, ' The Return from
Parnassus' (1600.?), a poor student enviously com-
plains of the wealth and position which a successful
actor derived from his calling :

England affords those glorious vagabonds,
That carried erst their fardles on their backs,
Coursers to ride on through the gazing streets.
Sweeping it in their glaring satin suits.
And pages to attend their masterships;

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 1 99

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

The travelling actors, from whom the highway-
man Gamaliel Ratsey extorted a free performance in
1604, were represented as men with the certainty
of a rich competency in prospect.^ An efficient
actor received in 1635 as large a regular salary
as 180/. The lowest known valuation set an actor's
wages at 3^. a day, or about 45/. a year. Shake-
speare's emoluments as an actor before 1599 are
not likely to have fallen below 100/. ; while the re-
muneration due to performances at Court or in noble-
men's houses, if the accounts of 1594 be accepted
as the basis of reckoning, added some 15/.

Thus over 130/. (equal to 1,040/. of to-day) would
be Shakespeare's average annual revenue before 1599.
Such a sum would be regarded as a very large income
in a country town. According to the author of
' Ratseis Ghost,' the actor, who may well have been
meant for Shakespeare, practised in London a strict
frugality, and there seems no reason why Shakespeare
should not have been able in 1597 to draw from his

1 Return from Parnassus, act v. scene i. 11. 10-16.

2 Cf. H[enry] VldiXXotys Laquei Kidiculosi or Springes for Wood-
cocks, 1613. Epigram No. 131, headed 'Theatrum Licencia';

Cotta's become a player most men know,

And will no long take such toyling paines
For here's the spring (saith he) whence pleasures flow

And brings them damnable excessive gaines:
That now are cedars growne from shrubs and sprigs,

Since Greene's Tu Quoque and those Garlicke Jigs.

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

200 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

savings 60/. wherewith to buy New Place. His
resources might well justify his fellow-townsmen's
opinion of his wealth in 1598, and suffice be-
tween 1597 and 1599 to meet his expenses, in re-
building the house, stocking the barns with grain, and
conducting various legal proceedings. But, according
to tradition, he had in the Earl of Southampton a
wealthy and generous friend who on one occasion
gave him a large gift of money to enable ' him to go
through with ' a purchase to which he had a mind.
A munificent gift, added to professional gains, leaves
nothing unaccounted for in Shakespeare's financial
position before 1599.

After 1 599 his sources of income from the theatre
greatly increased. In 1635 the heirs of the actor
Financial Richard Burbagc were engaged in litigation
position respecting their proprietary rights in the two
ateri599. pi^yhouses, the Globc and the Blackfriars
theatres. The documents relating to this litigation
supply authentic, although not very detailed, informa-
tion of Shakespeare's interest in theatrical property.^
Richard Burbage, with his brother Cuthbert, erected
at their sole cost the Globe Theatre in the winter of
1 598-9, and the Blackfriars Theatre, which their father
was building at the time of his death in 1597, was also
their property. After completing the Globe they
leased out, for twenty-one years, shares in the receipts
of the theatre to ' those deserving men Shakespeare,

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

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 201

Hemings, Condell, Philips, and others.' All the share-
holders named were, like Ikn-bage, active members of
Shakespeare's company of players. The shares, which
numbered sixteen in all, carried with them the obli-
gation of providing for the expenses of the playhouse,
and were doubtless in the first instance freely bestowed.
Hamlet claims, in the play scene (iii. ii. 293), that
the success of his improvised tragedy deserved to ' get
him a fellowship in a cry of players ' — a proof that
a successful dramatist might reasonably expect such
a reward for a conspicuous effort. In * Hamlet,'
moreover, both a share and a half-share of ' a fellow-
ship in a cry of players ' are described as assets of
enviable value (in. ii, 294-6). How many shares
originally fell to Shakespeare there is no means of
determining. Records of later subdivisions suggest
that they did not exceed two. The Globe was an
exceptionally large and popular playhouse. It would
accommodate some two thousand spectators, whose
places cost them sums varying between twopence and
half a crown. The receipts were therefore considera-
ble, hardly less than 25/. daily, or some 8,000/. a year.
According to the documents of 1635, an actor-sharer
at the Globe received above 200/. a year on each share,
besides his actor's salary of 180/. Thus Shakespeare
drew from the Globe Theatre, at the lowest estimate,
more than 500/. a year in all.

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

202 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

playhouse have long been proved to be forgeries. The
pleas in the lawsuit of 1635 show that the Burbages,
the owners, leased the Blackfriars Theatre after its
establishment in 1597 for a long term of years to the
master of the Children of the Chapel, but bought out
the lessee at the end of 1609, and then 'placed' in
it 'men-players which were Hemings, Condell, Shake-
speare, &c.' To these and other actors they allotted
shares in the receipts, the shares numbering eight in
all. The profits were far smaller than at the Globe,
and if Shakespeare held one share (certainty on the
point is impossible), it added not more than 100/. a
year to his income, and that not until 16 10.

His remuneration as dramatist between 1599 and
161 1 was also by no means contemptible. Prices
paid to dramatists for plays rose rapidly in the early
years of the seventeenth century,^ while the value
of the author's ' benefits ' grew with the growing
Later voguc of the theatre. The exceptional

income. popularity of Shakespeare's plays after 1599
gave him the full advantage of higher rates of pecu-
niary reward in all directions, and the seventeen plays
which were produced by him between that year and
the close of his professional career in 161 1 probably
brought him an average return of 20/. each or 340/. in
all — nearly 30/. a year. At the same time the increase
in the number of Court performances under James I,
and the additional favour bestowed on Shakespeare's

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

THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE 203

company, may well have given that source of income
the enhanced value of 20/. a year.^

Thus Shakespeare in the later period of his life
was earning above 600/. a year in money of the period.
With so large a professional income he could easily,
with good management, have completed those pur-
chases of houses and land at Stratford on which he
laid out, between 1599 and 161 3, a total sum of 970/.,
or an annual average of 70/. These properties, it
must be remembered, represented investments, and
he drew rent from most of them. He traded, too, in
agricultural produce. There is nothing inherently im-
probable in the statement of John Ward, the seven-
teenth-century vicar of Stratford, that in his last years
' he spent at the rate of a thousand a year, as I have
heard,' although we may reasonably make allowance
for exaggeration in the round figures.

Shakespeare realised his theatrical shares several
years before his death in 1616, when he left, ac-
cording to his will, 350/. in money in addition to an
extensive real estate and numerous personal belong-
incomes of ^^S^' There was nothing exceptional in this
fellow- comparative affluence. His friends and fellow-
actors, Heming and Condell, amassed equally
large, if not larger, fortunes. Burbage died in 1619
worth 300/. in land, besides personal property ; while a
contemporary actor and theatrical proprietor, Edward

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

204 WILLIAM SIIAKESrEARE

Alleyn, purchased the manor of Dulvvich for 10,000/.
(in money of his own day), and devoted it, with much
other property, to pubh'c uses, at the same time as he
made ample provision for his family out of the residue
of his estate. Gifts from patrons may have continued
occasionally to augment Shakespeare's resources, but
his wealth can be satisfactorily assigned to better at-
tested agencies. There is no ground for treating it
as of mysterious origin.^

Between 1599 and 1611, while London remained
Shakespeare's chief home, he built up at Stratford a
large landed estate. which his purchase of New Place
had inaugurated. In 1601 his father died, being buried
on September 8. He apparently left no will, and the
poet, as the eldest son, inherited the houses in Henley
Street, the only portion of the property of the elder
Shakespeare or of his wife which had not been alien-
ated to creditors. Shakespeare permitted his mother
to reside in one of the Henley Street houses till her
death (she was buried September 9, 1608), and he
Formation derived a modest rent from the other. On
ofthe May i^ 1602, he purchased for 320/. of the

Stratford, rich landowners William and John Combe
1601-10. Qf Stratford 107 acres of arable land near
the town. The conveyance was delivered, in the
poet's absence, to his brother Gilbert, ' to the use of
the within named William Shakespere.' ^ A third
purchase quickly followed. On September 28, 1602,
at a Court Baron of the manor of Rowington, one

1 Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 312-19; Fleay, Stage, pp. 324-8.
^ Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 17-19.

THE PRACTICAL AFP^AIRS OF LIFE 205

Walter Getley transferred to the poet a cottage and
garden which were situated at Chapel Lane, opposite
the lower grounds of New Place. They were held
practically in fee-simple at the annual rental of 2s. 6d.
It appears from the roll that Shakespeare did not
attend the manorial court held on the day fixed for
the transfer of the property at Rowington, and it was
consequently stipulated then that the estate should
remain in the hands of the lady of the manor until he
completed the purchase in person. At a later period he
was admitted to the copyhold, and he settled the re-
mainder on his two daughters in fee. In April 16 10
he purchased from the Combes 20 acres of pasture
land, to add to the 107 of arable land that he had
acquired of the same owners in 1602.

As early as 1 598 Abraham Sturley had suggested
that Shakespeare should purchase the tithes' of Strat-
^i^g ford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605, he

Stratford bought for 440/. of Ralph Huband an
unexpired term of thirty-one years of a
ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of
Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe.
The moiety was subject to a rent of 17/. to the
Corporation, who were the reversionary owners on
the lease's expiration, and of 5/. to John Barker, the
heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought
Shakespeare, under the most favourable circum-
stances, no more than an annuity of 38/. ; and the
refusal of persons who claimed an interest in the
other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their
liability to the Corporation led that body to demand

206 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from the poet payments justly due from others.
After 1609 he joined with two interested persons,
Richard Lane of Awston and Thomas Greene, the
town clerk of Stratford, in a suit in Chancery to deter-
mine the exact responsibilities of all the tithe-owners,
and in 161 2 they presented a bill of complaint to
Lord-chancellor Ellesmere, with what result is un-
known. His acquisition of a part-ownership in the
tithes was fruitful in legal embarrassments.

Shakespeare inherited his father's love of litigation,

and stood rigorously by his rights in all his business

relations. In March 1600 he recovered

Recovery

of small in London a debt of 7/. from one John
debts. Clayton. In July 1604, in the local court

at Stratford, he sued one Philip Rogers, to whom
he had supplied since the preceding March malt
to the value of il. i()s. lod., and had on June
25 lent 2s. in cash. Rogers paid back 6s., and
Shakespeare sought the balance of the account,
i/. i^s. lod. During 1608 and 1609 he was at law
with another fellow-townsman, John Addenbroke.
On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare, who was ap-
parently represented by his solicitor and kinsman,
Thomas Greene,^ obtained judgment from a jury
against Addenbroke for the payment of 61., and
1 1. 5^. costs, but Addenbroke left the town, and the
triumph proved barren. Shakespeare avenged him-
self by proceeding against one Thomas Horneby,
who had acted as the absconding debtor's bail.^

'^See p. 195. 2 Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 77-80.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 20/

XIII

MATURITY OF GENIUS

With an inconsistency that is more apparent than
real, the astute business transactions of these years
Literary (i597-i6ii) Synchronise with the produc-
work in tion of Shakcspcarc's noblest literary work
^^^^' — of his most sustained and serious efforts in

comedy, tragedy, and romance. In 1599, after aban-
doning English history with ' Henry V,' he addressed
himself to the composition of his three most perfect
essays in comedy — ' Much Ado about Nothing,' ' As
You Like It,' and 'Twelfth Night' Their good-
humoured tone seems to reveal their author in his
happiest frame of mind ; in each the gaiety and
tenderness of youthful womanhood are exhibited in
fascinating union ; while Shakespeare's lyric gift
bred no sweeter melodies than the songs with which
the three plays are interspersed. At the same time
each comedy enshrines such penetrating reflections on
mysterious problems of life as mark the stage of
maturity in the growth of the author's intellect. The
first two of the three plays were entered on the
'Stationers' Registers' before August 4, 1600, on
which day a prohibition was set on their publication,
as well as on the publication of ' Henry V ' and of Ben

208 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

In ' Much Ado,' which appears to have been
written in 1 599, the brilliant and spirited comedy of
Benedick and Beatrice, and of the blundering watch-
men Dogberry and Verges, is wholly original ; but the
' Much sombre story of Hero and Claudio, about which
Ado.' ^j^g comic incident revolves, is drawn from
an Italian source, either from Bandello (novel, xxii.)
through Belleforest's ' Histoires Tragiques,' or from
Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso' through Sir John Haring-
ton's translation (canto v.). Ariosto's version, in which
the injured heroine is called Ginevra, and her lover
Ariodante, had been dramatised before. According
to the accounts of- the Court revels, ' A Historic of
Ariodante and Ginevra was showed before her
Majestic on Shrovetuesdaie at night' in 1583.^
Throughout Shakespeare's play the ludicrous and
serious aspects of humanity are blended with a con-
vincing naturalness. The popular comic actor
William Kemp filled the role of Dogberry, and
Cowley appeared as Verges. In both the Quarto jf
1600 and the Folio of 1623 these actors' names ai3

^Accounts of the Revels^ ed. Peter Cunnins^ham (Shakespear;
Society), p. 177; Variorum Shakespeare, 1821, iii. 406.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 209

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

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

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

2IO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hakluyt's 'Voyages' in 1599 or 1600, and first dis-
closed the full extent of recent explorations of the
'Indies' in the New World and the Old.^ Like
the 'Comedy of Errors,' 'Twelfth Night' achieved
the distinction early in its career of a presentation at
an Inn of Court. It was produced at Middle Temple
Hall on February 2, 1601-2, and Manningham, a bar-
rister who was present, described the performance.^
Manningham wrote that the piece was ' much like the
"Comedy of Errors " or " Menechmi" in Plautus, but
most like and neere to that in Italian called " Inganni." '
Two sixteenth-century Italian plays entitled ' Gl' In-
ganni ' (' The Cheats '), and a third called ' Gl' Ingan-
nati,' bear resemblance to 'Twelfth Night.' It is
just possible that Shakespeare had recourse to the
last, which was based on Bandello's novel of Nicuola,^
and was first published at Siena in 1538. But in all
probability he dr^w the story solely from the ' His-
toric of Apolonius and Silla,' which was related in
' Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession ' (158 1).
The author of that volume, Barnabe Riche, translated
the tale either direct from Bandello's Italian novel
or from the French rendering of Bandello's work in
Belleforest's ' Histoires Tragiques.' Romantic pathos,

1 It was reproduced by the Hakluyt Society to accompany The
Voyages and Workes of John Davis the Navigator, ed. Captain A. H.
Markham, l88o. Cf. Mr. Coote's note on tiie New Map, Ixxxv.-
xcv. A paper on the subject by Mr. Coote also appears in New Shak-
spere Society's Tansaciions, 1877-9, pt. i. pp. 88-100.

'■^ Diary, Camden Soc. p. 18; the Elizabethan Stage Society
repeated the play on the same stage on February lO, II, and 12,
1897. ^ Bandello's Novelle, ii. 36.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 211

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

In 1 60 1 Shakespeare made a new departure by
drawing a plot from North's noble translation of
'Plutarch's Lives.' ^ Plutarch is the king of biogra-
phers, and the deference which Shakespeare paid his
work by adhering to the phraseology wherever it was
practicable illustrates his literary discrimination. On
Plutarch's lives of Julius Caesar, Brutus, and Antony,
Shakespeare based his historical tragedy of 'Julius
Caesar.' Weever, in 1601, in his ' Mirror of Martyrs,'
' Tuiius plainly refers to the masterly speech in the
CEesar,' Forum at Caesar's funeral which Shakespeare
^ °^' put into Antony's mouth. There is no sugges-

tion of the speech in Plutarch; hence the composition
of 'Julius Caesar' may be held to have preceded the
issue of Weever's book in 1601. The general topic
was already familiar on the stage. Polonius told
Hamlet how, when he was at the university, he ' did
enact Julius Caesar; he was kill'd in the Capitol:
Brutus kill'd him.' ^ A play of the same title was
known as early as 1589, and was acted in 1594 by
Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare's piece is a
penetrating study of political life, and, although the

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

2 Hamlet, act iii. sc. ii. 11. 109-10.

212 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

nuirdcr and funeral of Cxsar form the central episode
and not the climax, the tragedy is thoroughly well
planned and balanced. Cnesar is ironically depicted
in his dotage. The characters of Brutus, Antony, and
Cassius, the real heroes of the action, are exhibited
with faultless art. The fifth act, which presents the
battle of Philippi in progress, proves ineffective on
the stage, but the reader never relaxes his interest in
the fortunes of the vanquished Brutus, whose death
is the catastrophe.

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

MATURITY OF GENIUS 213

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

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

1 On December 31, 1601, the Lords of the Council sent letters to the
Lord Mayor of London and to the Magistrates of Surrey and Middlesex
expressing their surprise that no steps had yet been taken to limit the
number of playhouses in accordance with ' our order set down and
prescribed about a year and a half since.' But nothing followed, and
no more was heard officially of the Council's order until 1619, when the
Corporation of London remarked on its practical abrogation at the
same time as they directed the suppression (which was not carried out)
of the Blackfriars Theatre. All the documents on this subject are printed
from the Privy Council Register by Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 307-9.

- The passage, act ii. sc. ii. 348-94, which deals in ample detail
with the subject, only appears in the folio version of 1623. In the
first quarto a very curt reference is made to the misfortunes of the
' tragedians of the city ' :

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

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

214 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

actor.s, Shakespeare asserted, were prevented from
performing in London through no falHng off in their
efficiency, but by the 'late innovation ' of the children's
vogue. ^ They were compelled to go on tour in the
provinces, at the expense of their revenues and repu-
tation, because 'an aery \_i.c. nest] of children, little
eyases [i.e. young hawks] ' dominated the theatrical
world, and monopolised public applause. ' These
are now the fashion,' the dramatist lamented,^ and he
made the topic the text of a reflection on the fickle-
ness of public taste :

Hamlet. Do the boys carry it away ?

RosENCRANTZ. Ay that they do, my lord, Hercules and his load too.

Hamlet. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark,
and those that would make mows at him while my father lived, give
twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little.

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

^ All recent commentators follow Steevens in interpreting the ' late
innovation' as the Order of the Privy Council of June l6oo, restricting
the number of the London playhouses to two; but that order, which
was never put in force, in no way affected the actors' fortunes. The
First Quarto's reference to the perils attaching to the ' noveltie ' of the
hoys' performances indicates the true meaning.

2 Hamlet, act ii. sc. ii. 349-64.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 21$

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

1 At the moment offensive personalities seemed to have infected all
the London theatres. On ]\Iay 10, 1601, the Privy Council called the
attention of the Middlesex magistrates to the abuse covertly levelled by
the actors of the ' Curtain ' at gentlemen ' of good desert and quality,'
and directed the magistrates to examine all plays before they were
produced (^Privy Coiuicit Register'). Jonson subsequently issued an
' apologetical dialogue ' (appended to printed copies of the Poetaster),
in which he somewhat truculently qualified his hostility to the
players :

Now for the players 'tis true I tax'd them

And yet but some, and those so sparingly

As all the rest might have sat still unquestioned.

Had they but had the wit or conscience

2l6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

references

to the common stages ' or public theatres which

struggle. were put]into the children's mouths. Rosen-
crantz declared that the children ' so berattle [i.e. assail]
the common stages — so they call them — that many-
wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare
scarce come thither \_i.e. to the public theatres].'
Hamlet in pursuit of the theme pointed out that the
writers who encouraged the vogue of the ' child-
actors ' did them a poor service, because when the
boys should reach men's estate they would run the
risk, if they continued on the stage, of the same insults
and neglect which now threatened their seniors.

Hamlet. What are they children? Who maintains 'em? how are
they escoted \_i.e. paid]? Will they pursue the quality [i.e. the actor's
profession] no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards,
if they should grow themselves to common players — as it is most like,
if their means are no better — their writers do them wrong to make
them exclaim against their own succession?

ROSENCRANTZ. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides,
and the nation holds it no sin to tarre [z'.f. incite] them to controversy;
there was for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and
the player went to cuffs in the question.

Hamlet. Is it possible?

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

To think well of themselves. But impotent they

Thought each man's vice belonged to their vk-hole tribe;

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

I am not moved with, if it gave them meat

Or got them clothes, 'tis well; that was their end,

Only amongst them I am sorry for

Some better natures by the rest so drawn

To run in that vile line.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 21/

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

Jonson figures personally in the ' Poetaster ' under
the name of Horace. Episodically Horace and his
Jonson's fricnds, Tibullus and Gallus, eulogise the
'Poetaster.' vvork and genius of another character, Virgil,
in terms so closely resembling those which Jonson
is known to have applied to Shakespeare that they
may be regarded as intended to apply to him (act
V. sc. i.). Jonson points out that Virgil, by his pene-
trating intuition, achieved the great effects which
others laboriously sought to reach through rules of
art.

His learning labours not the school-like gloss
That most consists of echoing words and terms . . .
Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance —
Wrapt in the curious generalities of arts —

1 See p. 229, note i, ad. fin.

2l8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

But a direct and analytic sum
Of all the worth and first effects of arts.
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life
That it shall gather strength of life with being,
And live hereaftef, more admired than now.

Tibullus gives Virgil equal credit for having in his
writings touched with telling truth upon every vicis-
situde of human existence.

That which he hath writ
Is with such judgment laboured and distilled
Through all the needful uses of our lives
That, could a man remember but his lines,
He should not touch at any serious point
But he might breathe his spirit out of him.

Finally, Virgil in the play is nominated by Caesar
to act as judge between Horace and his libellers, and
he advises the administration of purging pills to the
offenders. That course of treatment is adopted with
satisfactory results.^

As against this interpretation, one contemporary
witness has been held to testify that Shakespeare
stemmed the tide of Jonson's embittered activity by
no peace-making interposition, but by joining his
foes, and by administering, with their aid, the identical
course of medicine which in the ' Poetaster ' is meted
out to his enemies. In the sameyear(i6oi)as the 'Poet-
aster ' was produced, ' The Return from Parnassus '
— a third piece in a trilogy of plays — was ' acted by

1 The proposed identification of Virgil in the 'Poetaster' with
Chapman has little to recommend it. Chapman's literary work did
not justify the commendations which were bestowed on Virgil in the
play.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 219

the students in St. John's College, Cambridge.' In
this piece, as in its two predecessors, Shakespeare
received, both as a playwright and a poet, high com-
mendation, although his poems were judged to reflect
somewhat too largely ' love's lazy foolish languish-
ment.' The actor Burbage was introduced in his
own name instructing an aspirant to the actor's
profession in the part of Richard the Third, and the
familiar lines from Shakespeare's play —

Now is the winter of our discon'tent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York —

are recited by the pupil as part of his lesson. Subse-
quently in a prose dialogue between Shakespeare's
fellow-actors Burbage and Kempe, Kempe remarks
of University dramatists, ' Why, here's our fellow
Shakespeare puts them all down ; aye, and Ben Jon-
son, too. O ! that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow.
He brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill ; but
our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that
made him bewray his credit.' Burbage adds : ' He is
a shrewd fellow, indeed.' This perplexing passage
has been held to mean that Shakespeare took a
decisive part against Jonson in the controversy with
Dekker and Dekker's actor-friends. But such a con-
shake- clusiou is nowhcre corroborated, and seems
speares |-q j^g confuted by the eulogies of Virgil

alleged . J & to

partisan- m the ' Poetastcr ' and by the general hand-
ship. ijjjg Qf |-jjg theme in ' Hamlet.' The words

quoted from ' The Return from Parnassus ' hardly
admit of a literal interpretation. Probably the
' purge ' that Shakespeare was alleged by the author

220 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

of ' The Return from Parnassus ' to have given Jonson
meant no more than that Shakespeare had signally
outstripped Jonson in popular esteem. As the author
of 'Julius Cxsar,' he had just proved his command
of topics that were peculiarly suited to Jonson's vein,^
and had in fact outrun his churlish comrade on his
own ground.

1 The most scornful criticism that Jonson is known to have passed
on any composition by Shakespeare was aimed at a passage in Julius

Civsai-, and as Jonson's attack is barely justifiable on literary grounds,
it is fair to assume that the play was distasteful to him from other con-
siderations. ' Many times,' Jonson wrote of Shakespeare in his

Timber, ' hee fell into those things [which] could not escape laughter :
As when hee said in the person of CcEsar, one speaking to him {^i.e.
Cjesar] ; Ccesar, thou dost me wrong. Hee \i.e. Gesar] replyed : Ccesar
did never wrong, butt with just cause : and such like, which were
ridiculous.' Jonson derisively quoted the same passage in the induc-
tion to 7'he Staple of Netus (1625) : ' Cry you mercy, you did not wrong
but with just cause.' Possibly the words that were ascribed by Jonson
to Shakespeare's character of Casar appeared in the original version of
the play, but owing perhaps to Jonson's captious criticism they do not
figure in the Folio version, the sole version that has reached us. The only
words there that correspond with Jonson's quotation are Ciesar's remark :

Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied

(act iii. sc. i. 11. 47-8). The rhythm and sense seem to require the re-
insertion after the word ' wrong ' of the phrase ' but with just cause,'
which Jonson needlessly reprobated. Leonard Digges (i 588-1635),
one of Shakespeare's admiring critics, emphasises the superior popu-
larity of Shakespeare's Julius Ctrsar in the theatre to Ben Jonson's
Roman play of Catiline, in his eulogistic lines on Shakespeare
(published after Digges's death in the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's
J'oems) :

So have I seen when Csesar would appear,

And on the stage at half-sword parley were

Brutus and Cassius — oh, how the audience

Were ravish'd, with what wonder they went thence;

When some new day they would not brook a line

Of tedious, though well-laboured, Catiline.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 221

At any rate, in the tragedy that Shakespeare
brought out in the year following the production of
'Julius Caesar,' he finally left Jonson and all friends
and foes lagging far behind both in achievement and
reputation. This new exhibition of the force of his
genius re-established, too, the ascendency of the adult
actors who interpreted his work, and the boys' su-
premacy was quickly brought to an end. In 1602
Shakespeare produced 'Hamlet,' 'that piece of his
which most kindled English hearts.' The story of the
• Hamlet; Prince of Denmark had been popular on the
1602. stage as early as 1589 in a lost dramatic ver-

sion by another writer — doubtless Thomas Kyd, whose
tragedies of blood, ' The Spanish Tragedy ' and ' Jero-
nimo,' long held the Elizabethan stage. To that lost
version of ' Hamlet ' Shakespeare's tragedy certainly
owed much.^ The story was also accessible in the

1 I wrote on this point in the article on Thomas Kyd in the
Dictionary of National Biography (vol. xxxi.): 'The argument in
favour of Kyd's authorship of a pre-Shakespearean play (now lost) on
the subject of Hamlet deserves attention. Nash in 1589, when
describing [in his preface to I\Ienaphon'\ the typical literary hack,
who at almost every point suggests Kyd, notices that in addition to
his other accomplishments " he will afford you whole Hamlets, I
should say handfuls of tragical speeches." Other references in popular
tracts and plays of like date prove that in an early tragedy concern-
ing Hamlet there was a ghost who cried repeatedly, " Hamlet,
revenge ! " and that this expression took rank in Elizabethan slang
beside the vernacular quotations from [Kyd's sanguinary tragedy of]
Jeronimo, such as " What outcry calls me from my naked bed," and
"Beware, Hieronimo, go by, go by." The resemblance between the
stories of Hamlet and Jeronimo suggests that the former would have
supplied' Kyd with a congenial plot. In Jeronimo a father seeks to
avenge his son's murder; in Hamlet the theme is the same with the

222 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Histoires Tragiqucs,' of Belleforest, who adapted it
from the ' Historia Danica' of Saxo Grammaticus.^
No English translation of Belleforest's ' Hystorie of
Hamblet' appeared before 1608; Shakespeare doubt-
less read it in the French. But his authorities give
little hint of what was to emerge from his study of
them.

Burbage created the title-part in Shakespeare's
tragedy, and its success on the stage led to the play's
publication immediately afterwards. The bibliography
of ' Hamlet ' offers a puzzling problem. On July 26,
1602, 'A Book called the Revenge of Hamlet, Prince
The prob- of Denmark, as it was lately acted by the
em o Its Lqj-(J Chamberlain his Servants,' was entered

publica- '

tion. on the Stationers' Company's Registers, and

it was published in quarto next year by N[icholas]

position of father and son reversed. In Jeronimo the avenging fathet
resolves to reach his end by arranging for the performance of a play in
the presence of those whom he suspects of the murder of his son, and
there is good ground for crediting the lost tragedy of Hamlet with a
similar play-scene. Shakespeare's debt to the lost tragedy is a matter
of conjecture, but the stilted speeches of the play-scene in his Hamlet
read like intentional parodies of Kyd's bombastic efforts in The Spanish
Tragedy, and it is quite possible that they were directly suggested by
an almost identical episode in a lost Hamlet by the same author.*
Shakespeare elsewhere shows acquaintance with Kyd's work. He
places in the mouth of Kit Sly in The Taming of The Shrew the current
phrase ' Go by, Jeronimy,' from The Spanish Tragedy. Shakespeare
quotes verbatim a line from the same piece in Aluch Ado About iVothing
(l. i. 271) : 'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke;' but Kyd prac-
tically borrowed that line from Watson's Passionate Centtirie (No. xlvii.),
where Shakespeare may have met it.

1 Cf. Gericke und Max Moltke, Hamlet-Qiiellen, Leipzig, 1 88 1.
The story was absorbed into Scandinavian mythology : cf. Ambales-
Saga, edited by Mr. Israel Gollancz, 1S98.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 223

L[ing] and John Trundell. The title-page stated that
the piece had been ' acted divers times in the city of
„, ,-. , London, as also in the two Universities of

Ine rirst '

Quarto, Cambridge and Oxford and elsewhere.' The
^ °^' text here appeared in a rough and im-

perfect state. In all probability it was a piratical
and carelessly transcribed copy of Shakespeare's first
draft of the play, in which he drew largely on the
older piece.

A revised version, printed from a more complete
and accurate manuscript, was published in 1604 as
'The Tragical History of Hamlet Prince of Denmark,
by William Shakespeare, newly imprinted and en-
The larged to almost as much again as it was,

QuTno according to the true and perfect copy.' This
1604. was printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for the

publisher N[icholas] L[ing]. The concluding words
— ' according to the true and perfect copy ' — of the
title-page of the second quarto were intended to
stamp its predecessor as surreptitious and unauthentic.
But it is clear that the second quarto was not a perfect
version of the play. It was itself printed from a copy
which had been curtailed for acting purposes.

A third version (long the tcxtns receptus) figured
in the folio of 1623. Here many passages, not to be
found in the quartos, appear for the first time, but a
The Folio fcw otlicrs that appear in the quartos are
Version. omitted. The folio text probably came
nearest to the original manuscript; but it, too, followed
an acting copy which had been abbreviated some-
what less drastically than the second quarto and in a

224 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

different fashion.^ Theobald in his ' Shakespeare
Restored' (1726) made the first scholarly attempt to
form a text from a collation of the First Folio with
the second quarto, and Theobald's text with further
embellishments by Sir Thomas Hanmer, Edward
Capell, and the Cambridge editors of 1866, is now
generally adopted.

' Hamlet ' was the only drama by Shakespeare
that was acted in his lifetime at the two Universities.
It has since attracted more attention from actors,
playgoers, and readers of all capacities than any other
of Shakespeare's plays. Its world-wide popularity
„ , ., from its author's day to our own, when it is

Popularity ■> '

of • Ham- as Warmly welcomed in the theatres of France
and Germany as in those of England and
America, is the most striking of the many testimonies
to the eminence of Shakespeare's dramatic instinct.
At a first glance there seems little in the play to
attract the uneducated or the unreflecting. ' Hamlet '
is mainly a psychological effort, a study of the reflec-
tive temperament in excess. The action develops
slowly; at times there is no movement at all. Except
' Antony and Cleopatra,' which exceeds it by sixty
lines, the piece is the longest of Shakespeare's plays,
while the total length of Hamlet's speeches far exceeds
that of those allotted by Shakespeare to any other
of his characters. Humorous relief is, it is true,

1 Cf. Hamlet — parallel texts of the first and second quarto, and
first folio — ed. Wilhelm Victor, Marburg, 1 891; The Devottshire
Hamlets, i860, parallel texts of the two quartos edited by Mr. Sam
Timmins; Hamlet, ed. George Macdonald, 1885, a study with the text
of the folio.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 225

effectively supplied to the tragic theme by Polonius
and the grave-diggers, and if the topical references to
contemporary theatrical history (11. ii. 350-89) could
only count on an appreciative reception from an
Elizabethan audience, the pungent censure of actors'
perennial defects is calculated to catch the ear of the
average playgoer of all ages. But it is not to these
subsidiary features that the universality of the play's
vogue can be attributed. It is the intensity of
interest which Shakespeare contrives to excite in
the character of the hero that explains the position
of the play in popular esteem. The play's un-
rivalled power of attraction lies in the pathetic
fascination exerted on minds of almost every calibre
by the central figure — a high-born youth of chivalric
instincts and finely developed intellect, who, when
stirred to avenge in action a desperate private wrong,
is foiled by introspective workings of the brain that
paralyse the will.

Although the difficulties of determining the date
of ' Troilus and Cressida ' are very great, there are
'Troiius many grounds for assigning its composition
and to the early days of 1603. In 1599 Dekker

and Chettle were engaged by Henslowe to
prepare for the Earl of Nottingham's company — a
rival of Shakespeare's company — a play of 'Troilus
and Cressida,' of which no trace survives. It doubtless
suggested the topic to Shakespeare. On February 7,
1602-3, James Roberts obtained a license for 'the
booke of Troilus and Cresseda as yt is acted by my

226 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Lord Chamberlens men,' i.e. Shakespeare's company.-
Roberts printed the second quarto of ' Hamlet' and
others of Shakespeare's plays ; but his effort to pub-
lish ' Troilus ' proved abortive, owing to the interpo-
sition of the players. Roberts's ' book ' was probably
Shakespeare-'s play. The metrical characteristics
of Shakespeare's ' Troilus and Cressida ' — the reg-
ularity of the blank verse — powerfully confirm the
date of composition which Roberts's license suggests.
Six years later, however, on January 28, 1608-9, a
new license for the issue of ' a booke called the his-
tory of Troylus and Cressida ' was granted to other
publishers, Richard Bonian and Henry Walley,^ and
these publishers, more fortunate than Roberts, soon
printed a quarto with Shakespeare's full name as
author. The text seems fairly authentic, but excep-
tional obscurity attaches to ttie circumstances of
the publication. Some copies of the book bear an
ordinary type of title-page stating that the piece was
printed ' as it was acted by the King's majesties
servants at the Globe.' But in other copies, which
differ in no way in regard to the text of the play,
there was substituted for this title-page a more pre-
tentious announcement running : ' The famous His-
toric of Troylus and Cresseid, excellently expressing
the beginning of their loues with the conceited wooing
of Pandarus, prince of Lacia.' After this pompous
title-page there was inserted, for the first and only
time in the case of a play by Shakespeare that was

1 Arber's Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, iii. 226.

2 lb. iii. 400.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 22/

published in his lifetime, an advertisement or preface.
In this interpolated page an anonymous scribe, writ-
ing in the name of the publishers, paid bombastic
and high-flown compliments to Shakespeare as a
writer of ' comedies,' and defiantly boasted that the
'grand possessers ' — i.e. the owners — of the manu-
script deprecated its publication. By way of enhancing
the value of what were obviously stolen wares, it was
falsely added that the piece was new and unacted.
This address was possibly the brazen reply of the
publishers to a more than usually emphatic protest
on the part of players or dramatist against the print-
ing of the piece. The editors of the Folio evinced
distrust of the quarto edition by printing their text
from a different copy showing many deviations,
which were not always for the better.

The work, which in point of construction shows
signs of haste, and in style is exceptionally unequal,
is the least attractive of the efforts of Shakespeare's
middle life. The story is based on a romantic legend
Treatment *^^ ^^"^^ Trojan War, which is of mediaeval
of the origin. Shakespeare had possibly read Chap-

man's translation of Homer's ' Iliad,' but he
owed his plot to Chaucer's ' Troilus and Cresseid ' and
Lydgate's 'Troy Book.' In defiance of his authori-
ties he presented Cressida as a heartless coquette ;
the poets who had previously treated her story —
Boccaccio, Chaucer, Lydgate, and Robert Henryson
— had imagined her as a tender-hearted, if frail,
beauty, with claims on their pity rather than on their
scorn. But Shakespeare's innovation is dramatically

228 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

effective, and accords with strictly moral canons.
The charge frequently brought against the dramatist
that in ' Troilus and Cressida ' he cynically invested
the Greek heroes of classical antiquity with con-
temptible characteristics is ill supported by the text
of the play. Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon figure
in Shakespeare's play as brave generals and sagacious
statesmen, and in their speeches Shakespeare con-
centrated a marvellous wealth of pithily expressed
philosophy, much of which has fortunately obtained
proverbial currency. Shakespeare's conception of
the Greeks followed traditional lines except in the
case of Achilles, whom he transforms into a brutal
coward. And that portrait quite legitimately inter-
preted the selfish, unreasoning, and exorbitant pride
with which the warrior was credited by Homer and
his imitators.

Shakespeare's treatment of his theme cannot
therefore be fairly construed, as some critics construe
it, into a petty-minded protest against the honour
paid to the ancient Greeks and to the form and sen-
timent of their literature by more learned dramatists of
the day, like Ben Jonson and Chapman. Although
Shakespeare knew the Homeric version of the Trojan
war, he worked in 'Troilus and Cressida' upon a
mediaeval romance, which was practically unin-
fluenced either for good or evil by the classical
spirit.^

1 Less satisfactory is the endeavour that has been made by Mr. F. G.
Fleay and Mr. George Wyndham to treat Troilus and Cressida as Shake-
speare's contribution to the embittered controversy of 1 601-2, between

MATURITY OF GENIUS 229

Despite the association of Shakespeare's company
with the rebellion of 1601, and its difificulties with the
children of the Chapel Royal, he and his fellow-actors

Jonson and Marston and Dekker and their actor-friends, and to represent
it as a pronouncement against Jonson. According to this fanciful view,
Shakespeare held up Jonson to savage ridicule in Ajax, while in Thersites
he denounced Marston, despite Marston's intermittent antagonism
to Jonson, which entitled him to freedom from attack by Jonson's
foes. The appearance of the word ' mastic ' in the line (l. iii. 73)
' When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws ' is treated as proof
of Shakespeare's identification of Thersites with Marston, who
used the pseudonym 'Therio-mastix' in his Scourge of Villainy.
It would be as reasonable to identify him with Dekker, who
wrote the greater part of Satiro-niasiix, 'Mastic' is doubtless an
adjective formed without recondite significance from the substantive
' mastic,' i.e. the gum commonly used at the time for stopping decayed
teeth. No hypothesis of a polemical intention is needed to account for
Shakespeare's conception of Ajax or Thersites. There is no trait in
either character as depicted by Shakespeare which a reading of Chap-
man's Homer would fail to suggest. The controversial interpretation of
the play is in conflict with chronology (for Troilus cannot, on any show-
ing, be assigned to the period of the war between Jonson and Dekker,
in 1601-2), and it seems confuted by the facts and arguments already
adduced in the discussion of the theatrical conflict (see pp. 213-19).
If more direct disproof be needed, it may be found in Shakespeare's
prologue to Troilus, where there is a good-humoured and expressly
pacific allusion to the polemical aims of Jonson's Poetaster. Jonson
had introduced into his play ' an armed prologue ' on account, he
asserted, of his enemies' menaces. Shakespeare, after describing in
his prologue to Troilus the progress of the Trojan war before his story
opened, added that his ' prologue ' presented itself ' arw'i/,' not to
champion ' author's pen or actor's voice,' but simply to announce in a
guise befitting the warlike subject-matter that the play began in the
middle of the conflict between Greek and Trojan, and not at the begin-
ning. These words of Shakespeare put out of court any interpretation
of Shakespeare's play that would represent it as a contribution to the
theatrical controversy.

230 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

retained its hold on Court favour till the close of Eliza-
Queen beth's reign. As late as February 2, 1603,
Elizabeth's ^\^q company entertained the dying Queen
March 26, at Richmond. Her death on March 26,
1603. 1603, drew from Shakespeare's early eulo-

gist, Chettle, a vain appeal to him under the fanciful
name of Melicert, to

Drop from his honied muse one sable teare,
To mourne her death that graced his desert,
And to his laies opened her royal eare.^

But except on sentimental grounds, the Queen's death
justified no lamentation on the part of Shakespeare.
On the withdrawal of one royal patron he and his
friends at once found another, who proved far more
liberal and appreciative.

On May 19, 1603, James I, very soon after his
accession, extended to Shakespeare and other mem-
bers of the Lord Chamberlain's company a very
marked and valuable recognition. To them he
granted under royal letters patent a license 'freely
to use and exercise the arte and facultie of playing
comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, moralls,
pastoralles, stage-plaies, and such other like as they
have already studied, or hereafter shall use or studie
as well for the recreation of our loving subjectes
as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall thinke
good to see them during our pleasure.' The Globe
Theatre was noted as the customary scene of their
labours, but permission was granted to them to per-

^ EnglaniVs Alonrtting Garment, 1603, sign, D. 3.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 23 I

form in the town-hall or moot-hall of any country
James Is tovvn. Nine actors are named. Lawrence
patronage. Fletcher stands first on the list; he had
already performed before James in Scotland in 1599
and 1 60 1. Shakespeare comes second and Burbage
third. The company to which they belonged was
thenceforth styled the King's company ; its members
became 'the King's Servants,' and they took rank with
the Grooms of the Chamber.^ Shakespeare's plays
were thenceforth repeatedly porformed in James's
presence, and Oldys related that James wrote Shake-
speare a letter in his own hand, which was at one
time in the possession of Sir William D'Avenant,
and afterwards, according to Lintot, in that of John
Sheffield, first duke of Buckingham.

In the autumn and winter of 1603 the prevalence
of the plague led to the closing of the theatres in
London. The King's players were compelled to
make a prolonged tour in the provinces, which
entailed some loss of income. For two months from
the third week in October, the Court was tempo-
rarily installed at Wilton, the residence of William
Herbert, third earl of Pembroke, and late in Novem-
ber the company was summoned by the royal officers

1 At the same time the earl of Worcester's company was taken
into the Queen's patronage, and its members were known as ' the
Queen's servants,' while the earl of Nottingham's company was taken
into the patronage of the Prince of Wales, and its members were
known as the Prince's servants. This extended patronage of actors by
the royal family was noticed as especially honourable to the King by one
of his contemporary panegyrists, Gilbert Dugdale, in his Tiirie Trium-
pliant, 1604, sig. B.

232 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

to perform in the royal presence. The actors travelled
from Mortlake to Salisbury ' unto the Courte afore-
saide,' and their performance took place at Wilton
House on December 2. They received next day
* upon the Councells warrant ' the large sum of 30/.
' by way of his majesties reward.' ^ Many other
gracious marks of royal favour followed. On March
15, 1604, Shakespeare and eight other actors of the
company walked from the Tower of London to West-
minster in the procession which accompanied the
King on his formal entry into London. Each actor
received four-and-a-half yards of scarlet cloth to wear
as a cloak on the occasion, and in the document
authorising the grant Shakespeare's name stands first
on the list.^ The dramatist Dekker was author of a
somewhat bombastic account of the elaborate cere-
monial, which rapidly ran through three editions. On

^ The entry, which appears in the accounts of the Treasurer of the
Chamber, was first printed in 1842 in Cunningham's Extracts from the
Accounts of the Revels at Courts p. xxxiv. A comparison of Cunning-
ham's transcript with the original in the Pubhc Record Office (^Audit
Office-Declared Accounts, Treasurer of the Chamber, bundle 388, roll
41) shows that it is accurate. The earl of Pembroke was in no way re-
sponsible for the performance at Wilton House. At the time, the Court
was formally installed in his house (cf. Ceil. State Papers, Dom.
1603-10, pp. 47-59), and the Court officers commissioned the players
to perform there, and paid all their expenses. The alleged tradition,
recently promulgated for the first time by the owners of Wilton, that As
Vou Like It was performed on the occasion, is unsupported by con-
temporary evidence.

- The grant is transcribed in the New Shakspere Society's Trans-
actions, 1877-9, Appendix II., from the Lord Chamberlain's papers in
the Public Record Office, where it is now numbered 660. The number
allotted it in the Transactions is obsolete.

MATURITY OF GENIUS 233

April 9, 1604, the King gave further proof of his
friendly interest in the fortunes of his actors by-
causing an official letter to be sent to the Lord
Mayor of London and the Justices of the Peace for
Middlesex and Surrey, bidding them ' permit and
suffer ' the King's players to ' exercise their playes '
at their ' usual house,' the Globe. ^ Four months
later — in August — every member of the company
was summoned by the King's order to attend at
Somerset House during the fortnight's sojourn
there of the Spanish ambassador extraordinary,
Juan Fernandez de Velasco, duke de Frias, and
Constable of Castile, who came to London to ratify
the treaty of peace between England and Spain,
and was magnificently entertained by the English
Court.2 Between All Saints' Day [November i]

1 A contemporary copy of this letter, which declared the Queen's
players acting at the Fortune and the Prince's players at the Curtain
to be entitled to the same privileges as the King's players, is at Dulwich
College (cf. G. F. Warner's Catalogue of the Didwich Manuscripts,
pp. 26-7). Collier printed it in his Ne-M Facts with fraudulent addi-
tions, in which the names of Shakespeare and other actors figured.

- Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his Outlines^ i. 213, cites a royal order
to this effect, but gives no authority, and I have sought in vain for the
document at the Public Record Office, at the British Museum, and
elsewhere. But there is no reason to doubt the fact that Shakespeare
and his fellow-actors took part, as Grooms of the Chamber, in the
ceremonies attending the Constable's visit to London. In the un-
printed accounts of Edmund Tilney, master of the revels, for the
year October 1603 to October 1604, charge is made for his three
days' attendance with four men to direct the entertainments ' at the
receaving of the Constable of Spayne ' (Public Record Office, Declared
Accounts, Pipe Office Roll 2805). The magnificent festivities culmi-
nated in a splendid banquet given in the Constable's honour by James I
at Whitehall on Sunday, August W — the day on which the treaty

234 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and the ensuing Shrove Tuesday, which fell early
in February 1605, Shakespeare's company gave no
fewer than eleven performances at Whitehall in the
royal presence.^

was signed. In the morning all the members of the royal household
accompanied the Constable in formal procession from Somerset House.
After the banquet, at which the earls of Pembroke and Southampton
acted as stewards, there was a ball, and the King's guests subsequently
witnessed exhibitions of bear baiting, bull baiting, rope dancing, and
feats of horsemanship. (Cf. Stow's CJu-07iicle, 1631, pp. 845-6, and
a Spanish pamphlet, Kelacion de la Jornada del exc^^" Condestabilc
di Castilla, etc., Antwerp, 1604, 4to, which was summarised in
Ellis's Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. iii. pp. 207-15, and was partly
translated in Mr. W. B. Rye's England as seen by Foreigners, pp. 117-
24).

1 At the Bodleian Library (MS. Rawlinson, A 204) are the original
accounts of Lord Stanhope of Harrington, Treasurer of the Chamber
for various (detached) years in the early part of James I's reign. These
documents show that Shakespeare's company acted at Court on
November i and 4, December 26 and 28, 1604, and on January 7
and 8, February 2 and 3, and the evenings of the following Shrove
Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday, 1605.

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 235

XIV

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY

Under the incentive of such exalted patronage,
Shakespeare's activity redoubled, but his work shows
'Othello' none of the conventional marks of literature
sure for^^" ^^^^ ^^ produced in the blaze of Court favour.
Measure." The first six years of the new reign saw him
absorbed in the highest themes of tragedy, and an
unparalleled intensity and energy, which bore few
traces of the trammels of a Court, thenceforth illu-
mined every scene that he contrived. To 1604 the
composition of two plays can be confidently assigned,
one of which — 'Othello' — ranks with Shakespeare's
greatest achievements ; while the other — ' Measure for
Measure' — althoughas a whole far inferior to 'Othello,'
contains one of the finest scenes (between Angelo and
Isabella, ir. ii. 43 seq.)and one of the greatest speeches
(Claudio on the fear of death, in. i. 1 16-30) in the
range of Shakespearean drama. 'Othello' was doubt-
less the first new piece by Shakespeare that was acted
before James. It was produced at Whitehall on
November i. 'Measure for Measure' followed on
December 26.^ Neither was printed in Shakespeare's

^ These dates are drawn from a memorandum of plays performed at
Court in 1604 antl 1605 which is among Malone's manuscripts in the

236 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

lifetime. The plots of both ultimately come from the
same Italian collection of novels — Giraldi Cinthio's
' Hecatommithi,' which was first published in 1565.

Cinthio's painful story of ' Othello ' (decad. iii.
nov. 3) is not known to have been translated into
English before Shakespeare dramatised it. He fol-
lowed its main drift with fidelity, but he introduced
the new characters of Roderigo and Emilia, and he
invested the catastrophe with new and fearful intensity
by making lago's cruel treachery known to Othello at
the last, after lago's perfidy has impelled the noble-
hearted Moor in his groundless jealousy to murder
his gentle and innocent wife Desdemona. lago be-
came in Shakespeare's hands the subtlest of all studies
of intellectual villainy and hypocrisy. The whole
tragedy displays to magnificent advantage the dram-
atist's fully matured powers. An unfaltering equi-

Bodleian Library, and was obviously derived by Malone from authentic
documents that were in his day preserved at the Audit Office in Somerset
House. The document cannot now be traced at the Public Record
Office, whither the Audit Office papers have been removed since
Malone's death. Peter Cunningham professed to print the original
document in his accounts of the revels at Court (Shakespeare Society,
1842, pp. 203 seq.), but there is no doubt that he forged his so-called
transcript, and that the additions which he made to Malone's memo-
randum were the outcome of his fancy. Collier's assertion in his New
Particulars, p. 57, that Othello was first acted at Sir Thomas Egerton's
residence at Harefield on August 6, 1602, was based solely on a docu-
ment among the Earl of EUesmere's MSS. at Bridgwater House, which
purported to be a contemporary account by the clerk. Sir Arthur Mayn-
waring, of Sir Thomas Egerton's household expenses. This document,
which Collier reprinted in his Egerton Papers (Camden Soc), p. 343,
was authoritatively pronounced by experts in i860 to be *a shameful
forgery ' (cf. Ingleby's Complete View of the Shakspere Controversy^
1861, pp. 261-5).

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 237

librium is maintained in the treatment of plot and
characters alike.

Cinthio made the perilous story of * Measure for
Measure ' the subject not only of a romance, but of a
tragedy called ' Epitia.' Before Shakespeare wrote his
play, Cinthio's romance had been twice rendered into
English by George Whetstone. Whetstone had not
only given a somewhat altered version of the Italian
romance in his unwieldy play of ' Promos and Cassan-
dra' (in two parts of five acts each, 1578), but he had
also freely translated it in his collection of prose
tales, * Heptameron of Civil Discources' (1582). Yet
there is every likelihood that Shakespeare also knew
Cinthio's play, which, unlike his romance, was untrans-
lated ; the leading character, who is by Shakespeare
christened Angelo, was known by another name to
Cinthio in his story, but Cinthio in his play (and not in
his novel) gives the character a sister named Angela,
which doubtless suggested Shakespeare's designation.^
In the hands of Shakespeare's predecessors the tale
is a sordid record of lust and cruelty. But Shake-
speare prudently showed scant respect for their
handling of the narrative. By diverting the course
of the plot at a critical point he not merely proved
his artistic ingenuity, but gave dramatic dignity and
moral elevation to a degraded and repellent theme.
In the old versions Isabella yields her virtue as
the price of her brother's life. The central fact of
Shakespeare's play is Isabella's inflexible and un-
conditional chastity. Other of Shakespeare's altera-

1 Dr. Garnett's Italian Lileratme, 1898, p. 227.

238 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

tions, like the Duke's abrupt proposal to marry Isabella,
seem hastily conceived. But his creation of the pa-
thetic character of Mariana 'of the moated grange'
— the legally affianced bride of Angelo, Isabella's
would-be seducer — skilfully excludes the possibility of
a settlement (as in the old stories) between Isabella
and Angelo on terms of marriage. Shakespeare's
argument is throughout philosophically subtle. The
poetic eloquence in which Isabella and the Duke pay
homage to the virtue of chastity, and the many exposi-
tions of the corruption with which unchecked sexual
passion threatens society, alternate with coarsely comic
interludes which suggest the vanity of seeking to efface
natural instincts by the coercion of law. There is little
in the play that seems designed to recommend it to
the Court before which it was first performed. But
the two emphatic references to a ruler's dislike of mobs,
despite his love of his people, were perhaps penned in
deferential allusion to James I, whose horror of crowds
was notorious. In act i. sc. i. 67-72 the Duke
remarks :

I love the people
But do not like to stage me to their eyes.
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and aves vehement.
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it.

Of like tenor is the succeeding speech of Angelo (act
II. sc. iv. 27-30):

The general [i.e. the public], subject to a well-wish'd King, . . .
Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
Must needs appear offence.

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 239

In ' Macbeth,' his * great epic drama,' which he
began in 1605 and completed next year, Shakespeare
employed a setting wholly in harmony with
the accession of a Scottish king. The story
was drawn from Holinshed's ' Chronicle of Scottish
History,' with occasional reference, perhaps, to earlier
Scottish sources.^ The supernatural machinery of
the three witches accorded with the King's super-
stitious faith in demonology ; the dramatist lavished
his sympathy on Banquo, James's ancestor ; while
Macbeth's vision of kings who carry ' twofold balls and
treble sceptres ' (iv. i. 20) plainly adverted to the union
of Scotland with England and Ireland under James's
sway. The allusion by the porter (act 11. iii. 9) to
the * equivocator . . . who committed treason ' was
perhaps suggested by the notorious defence of the
doctrine of equivocation made by the Jesuit Henry
Garnett, who was executed early in 1606 for his share
in the ' Gunpowder Plot.' The piece was not printed
until 1623. It is in its existing shape the shortest of all
Shakespeare's plays, and it is possible that it survives
only in an abbreviated acting version. Much scenic
elaboration characterised the production. Dr. Simon
Forman witnessed a performance of the tragedy at
the Globe in April 161 1 and noted that Macbeth
and Banquo entered the stage on horseback, and
that Banquo's ghost was materially represented (iii.
iv. 40 seq.). Like ' Othello,' the play ranks with
the noblest tragedies either of the modern or the
ancient world. The characters of hero and heroine

^ Letter by Mrs. Slopes in Athenceum, July 25, 1896.

240 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

— Macbeth and his wife — are depicted with the
utmost subtlety and insight. In three points ' Mac-
beth ' differs somewhat from other of Shakespeare's
productions in the great class of literature to which
it belongs. The interweaving with the tragic story
of supernatural interludes in which Fate is weirdly
personified is not exactly matched in any other of
Shakespeare's tragedies. In the second place, the
action proceeds with a rapidity that is wholly without
parallel in the rest of Shakespeare's plays. Nowhere,
moreover, has Shakespeare introduced comic relief
into a tragedy with bolder effect than in the porter's
speech after the murder of Duncan (11. iii. i seq.).
The theory that this passage was from another hand
does not merit acceptance.^ It cannot, however, be
overlooked that the second scene of the first act —
Duncan's interview with the 'bleeding sergeant' —
falls so far below the style of the rest of the play as
to suggest that it was an interpolation by a hack of
the theatre. The resemblances between Thomas
Middleton's later play of 'The Witch' (1610) and
portions of ' Macbeth ' may safely be ascribed to plagia-
rism on Middleton's part. Of two songs which ac-
cording to the stage directions were to be sung during
the representation of ' Macbeth ' (iii. v. and iv. i.),
only the first line of each is noted there, but songs
beginning with the same lines are set out in full in
Middleton's play; they were probably by Middleton,
and were interpolated by actors in a stage version of
' Macbeth ' after its original production.

1 Cf. Macbeth, etl. Clark and Wright, Clarendon Press Series.

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 24I

' King Lear,' in which Shakespeare's tragic
genius moved without any faltering on Titanic
■ King heights, was written during 1606, and was

Lear/ produccd bcforc the Court at Whitehall on

the night of December 26 of that year.^ It was
entered on the ' Stationers' Registers ' on November
26, 1607, and two imperfect editions, published by
Nathaniel Butter, appeared in the following year ;
neither exactly corresponds with the other or with
the improved and fairly satisfactory text of the Folio.
The three versions present three different playhouse
transcripts. Like its immediate predecessor, ' Mac-
beth,' the tragedy was mainly founded on Holin-
shed's 'Chronicle.' The leading theme had been
dramatised as early as 1593, but Shakespeare's atten-
tion was no doubt directed to it by the publication of
a crude dramatic adaptation of Holinshed's version in
1605 under the title of 'The True Chronicle History
of King Leir and his three Daughters — Gonorill,
Ragan, and Cordelia.' Shakespeare did not adhere
closely to his original. He invested the tale of Lear
with a hopelessly tragic conclusion, and on it he grafted
the equally distressing tale of Gloucester and his two
sons, which he drew from Sidney's 'Arcadia.'^ Hints
for the speeches of Edgar when feigning madness
were drawn from Harsnet's ' Declaration of Popish

1 This fact is stated on the title-page of the Quartos.

2 Sidney tells the story in a chapter entitled 'The pitiful state and
story of the Paphlagonian unkind King and his blind son; first related
by the son, then by his blind father' (bk. ii. chap. 10, ed. 1590, 4to;
PP- 132-3. ed. 1674, fob).

242 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Impostures,' 1603. In every act of ' Lear ' the pity and
terror of which tragedy is capable reach their climax.
Only one who has something of the Shakespearean
gift of language could adequately characterise the
scenes of agony — ' the living martyrdom ' — to which
the fiendish ingratitude of his daughters condemns
the abdicated king — ' a very foolish, fond old man,
fourscore and upward.' The elemental passions burst
forth in his utterances with all the vehemence of the
volcanic tempest which beats about his defence-
less head in the scene on the heath. The brutal
blinding of Gloucester by Cornwall exceeds in horror
any other situation that Shakespeare created, if we
assume that he was not responsible for the like scenes
of mutilation in ' Titus Andronicus.' At no point in.
* Lear ' is there any loosening of the tragic tension.
The faithful half-witted lad who serves the king as
his fool plays the jesting chorus on his master's
fortune in penetrating earnest and deepens the deso-
lating pathos.

Although Shakespeare's powers showed no sign
of exhaustion, he reverted in the year following the
colossal effort of 'Lear' (1607) to his earlier habit
'Timon of of Collaboration, and with another's aid com-
Athens.' poscd two dramas — ' Timon of Athens ' and
' Pericles.' An extant play on the subject of ' Timon
of Athens' was composed in 1600^ but there is noth-
ing to show that Shakespeare and his coadjutor were
acquainted with it. They doubtless derived a part

^ It was edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1842 by Dyce, who
owned the manuscript.

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 243

of their story from Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure,'
and from a short digression in Plutarch's ' Life of
Marc Antony,' where Antony is described as emu-
lating the life and example of ' Timon Misanthropos
the Athenian.' The dramatists may, too, have
known a dialogue of Lucian entitled 'Timon,' which
Boiardo had previously converted into a comedy
under the name of ' II Timone.' Internal evidence
makes it clear that Shakespeare's colleague was
responsible for nearly the whole of acts in. and v.
But the character of Timon himself and all the scenes
which he dominates are from Shakespeare's pen.
Timon is cast in the mould of Lear.

There seems some ground for the belief that
Shakespeare's coadjutor in 'Timon' was George
Wilkins, a writer of ill-developed dramatic power,
who, in 'The Miseries of Enforced Marriage' (1607),
first treated the story that afterwards served for the
plot of * The Yorkshire Tragedy.' At any rate,
Wilkins may safely be credited with por-

' Pericles." . . . .

tions of ' Pericles,' a romantic play which
can be referred to the same year as ' Timon.' Shake-
speare contributed only acts in. and v. and parts of
IV., which together form a self-contained whole, and
do not combine satisfactorily with the remaining
scenes. The presence of a third hand, of inferior
merit to Wilkins, has been suspected, and to this col-
laborator (perhaps William Rowley, a professional re-
viser of plays who could show capacity on occasion)
arebestassignedthethree scenes of purposeless coarse-
ness which take place in or before a brothel (iv. ii., v.,

244 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and vi.). From so distributed a responsibility the
piece naturally suffers. It lacks homogeneity and
the story is helped out by dumb shows and pro-
logues. But a matured felicity of expression charac-
terises Shakespeare's own contributions, narrating
the romantic quest of Pericles for his daughter
Marina, who was born and abandoned in a shipwreck.
At many points he here anticipated his latest dra-
matic effects. The shipwreck is depicted (act iv. i.)
as impressively as in the ' Tempest,' and Marina
and her mother Thaisa enjoy many experiences in
common with Perdita and Hermione in the ' Winter's
Tale.' The prologues, which were not by Shake-
speare, were spoken by an actor representing the
mediaeval poet John Gower, who in the fourteenth
century had versified Pericles's story in his ' Confessio
Amantis ' under the title of 'Apollonius of Tyre.' It
is also found in a prose translation (from the French),
which was printed in Lawrence Twyne's ' Patterne of
Painfull Adventures' in 1576, and again in 1607.
After the play was produced George Wilkins, one of
the alleged coadjutors, based on it a novel called
'The Painful Adventures of Pericles, Prynce of
Tyre, being the True history of the Play of Pericles
as it was lately presented by the worthy and ancient
Poet, John Gower' (1608). The play was issued as
by William Shakespeare in a mangled form in 1608,
and again in 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635. It was
not included in Shakespeare's collected works till
1664.

In May 1608 Edward Blount entered in the

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 245

Stationers' Registers,' by the authority of Sil
Antonv Gcorgc Buc, the licenser of plays, a ' booke
and cieo- called " Anthony and Cleopatra." ' No copy
^^'^^' of this date is known, and once again the

company probably hindered the publication. The
play was first printed in the folio of 1623. The source
of the tragedy is the life of Antonius in North's
'Plutarch.' Shakespeare closely followedthe historical
narrative, and assimilated not merely its temper, but,
in the first three acts, much of its phraseology. A few
short scenes are original, but there is no detail in such
a passage, for example, as Enobarbus's gorgeous de-
scription of the pageant of Cleopatra's voyage up the
Cydnus to meet Antony (11. ii. 194 seq.), which is not
to be matched in Plutarch. In the fourth and fifth
acts Shakespeare's method changes and he expands
his material with magnificent freedom.^ The whole
theme is in his hands instinct with a dramatic gran-
deur which lifts into sublimity even Cleopatra's moral
worthlessness and Antony's criminal infatuation. The
terse and caustic comments which Antony's level-
headed friend P^nobarbus, in the jS/c of chorus, passes
on the action accentuates its significance. Into the
smallest as into the greatest personages Shakespeare
breathed all his vitalising fire. The 'happy valiancy '
of the style, too, — to use Coleridge's admirable phrase,
— sets the tragedy very near the zenith of Shake-
speare's achievement, and w^hile differentiating it

1 Mr. George Wyndham, in his introduction to his edition of North's
Pliitai-ch, i. pp. xciii.-c, gives an excellent criticism of the relations of
Shakespeare's play to Plutarch's life of Antonius.

246 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from 'Macbeth,' 'Othello,' and 'Lear' renders it a
very formidable rival.

' Coriol anus ' (first printed from a singularly bad
text in 1623) similarly owes its origin to the biography
'Corio- of the hero in North's 'Plutarch,' although
lanus." Shakespeare may have first met the story in
Painter's ' Palace of Pleasure ' (No. iv.). He again
adhered to the text of Plutarch with the utmost
literalness, and at times — even in the great crises of the
action — repeated North's translation word for word.^
But the humorous scenes are wholly of Shakespeare's
invention, and the course of the narrative was at times
slightly changed for purposes of dramatic effect. The
metrical characteristics prove the play to have been
written about the same period, as ' Antony and Cleo-

^ See the whole of Coriolanus's great speech on offering his services
to Aufidius, the Volscian general, iv. v. 71-107:

My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
To thee particularly and to all the Volsces,
Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
My surname, Coriolanus ... to do thee service.

North's translation of Plutarch gives in almost the same terms Corio-
lanus's speech on the occasion. It opens: 'I am Caius Martins, who
hath done to thyself particularly, and to all the Volsces generally,
great hurt and mischief, which I cannot deny for my surname of
Coriolanus that I bear.' Similarly Volumnia's stirring appeal to her son
and her son's proffer of submission, in act v. sc. iii. 94-193, reproduce
with equal literalness North's rendering of Plutarch. ' If we held our
peace, my son,' Volumnia begins in North, ' the state of our raiment
would easily betray to thee what life we have led at home since thy
exile and abode abroad; but think now with thyself,' and so on. The
first sentence of Shakespeare's speech runs :

Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment

And state of bodies would bewray what life

We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself . . .

THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY 247

patra,' probably in 1609. In its austere temper it
contrasts at all points with its predecessor. The
courageous self-reliance of Coriolanus's mother, Vo-
lumnia, is severely contrasted with the submissive
gentleness of Virgilia, Coriolanus's wife. The hero
falls a victim to no sensual flaw, but to unchecked
pride of caste, and there is a searching irony in the
emphasis laid on the ignoble temper of the rabble,
who procure his overthrow. By way of foil, the
speeches of Menenius give dignified expression to
the maturest political wisdom. The dramatic interest
throughout is as single and as unflaggingly sustained
as in ' Othello.'

248 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE LATEST PLAYS

In ' Cymbeline,' ' The Winter's Tale,' and ' The
Tempest,' the three latest plays that came from his
The latest Unaided pen, Shakespeare dealt with roman-
piays. ^Iq themes which all end happily, but he

instilled into them a pathos which sets them in a
category of their own apart alike from comedy and
tragedy. The placidity of tone conspicuous in these
three plays (none of which was published in his life-
time) has been often contrasted with the storm and
stress of the great tragedies that preceded them. But
the commonly accepted theory that traces in this
change of tone a corresponding development in the
author's own emotions ignores the objectivity of Shake-
speare's dramatic work. All phases of feeling lay
within the scope of his intuition, and the successive
order in which he approached them bore no expli-
cable relation to substantive incident in his private
life or experience. In middle life, his' temperament,
like that of other men, acquired a larger measure of
gravity and his thought took a profounder .cast than
characterised it in youth. The highest topics of
tragedy were naturally more congenial to him, and

THE LATEST PLAYS 249

were certain of a surer handling when he was near-
ing his fortieth birthday than at an earlier age. The
serenity of meditative romance was more in harmony
with the fifth decade of his years than with the
second or third. But no more direct or definite
connection can be discerned between the progres-
sive stages of his work and the progressive stages
of his life. To seek in his biography for a chain of
events which should be calculated to stir in his own
soul all or any of the tempestuous passions that ani-
mate his greatest plays is to under-estimate and to
misapprehend the resistless might of his creative
genius.

In 'Cymbeline ' Shakespeare freely adapted a frag-
ment of British history taken from Holinshed, inter-
'Cymbe- weaving with it a story from Boccaccio's
line." 'Decameron' (day 2, novel ix. ). Ginevra,

whose falsely suspected chastity is the theme of the
Italian novel, corresponds to Shakespeare's Imogen.
Her story is also told in the tract called ' Westward
for Smelts,' which had already been laid under con-
tribution by Shakespeare in the ' Merry Wives.' ^ The
by-plot of the banishment of the lord, Belarius,
who in revenge for his expatriation kidnapped the
king's young sons and brought them up with him
in the recesses of the mountains, is Shakespeare's
invention. Although most of the scenes are laid
in Britain in the first century before the Chris-
tian era, there is no pretence of historical vraisem-
blance. With an almost ludicrous inappropriateness

1 See p. 172 and note 2.

2 so WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the British king's courtiers make merry with technical
terms peculiar to Calvinistic theology, like ' grace '
and 'election.'^ The action, which, owing to the com-
bination of three threads of narrative, is exceptionally
varied and intricate, wholly belongs to the region
of romance. On Imogen, who is the central figure
of the play, Shakespeare lavished all the fascina-
tion of his genius. She is the crown and flower
of his conception of tender and artless womanhood.
Her husband Posthumus, her rejected lover Cloten,
her would-be seducer lachimo, are contrasted with
her and with each other with consummate ingenuity.
The mountainous retreat in which Belarius and his
fascinating boy-companions play their part has points
of resemblance to the Forest of Arden in * As You
Like It ' ; but life throughout ' Cymbeline ' is grimly
earnest, and the mountains nurture little of the con-
templative quiet which characterises existence in the
Forest of Arden. The play contains the splendid
lyric ' Fear no more the heat of the sun ' (iv. ii.
258 seq.). The 'pitiful mummery' of the vision of
Posthumus (v. iv. lines 30 seq.) must have been
supplied by another hand. Dr. Forman, the astrolo-
ger who kept notes of some of his experiences as
a playgoer, saw 'Cymbeline ' acted either in 16 10 or
1611.

' A Winter's Tale ' was seen by Dr. Forman at'
the Globe on May 15, 161 1, and it seems to have been

^ In I. i. 136-7 Imogen is described as ' past grace ' in the theologi-
cal sense. In i. ii. 30-1 the Second Lord remarks : ' If it be a sin
to make a true election, she is damned.'

THE LATEST PLAYS 25 1

acted at Court on November 5 following.^ It is based
•A Win- upon Greene's popular romance which was
ter',Taie.- called ' Pandosto ' in the first edition of 1588,
and in numerous later editions, but was ultimately in
1648 re-christened ' Dorastus and Fawnia.' Shake-
speare followed Greene, his early foe, in allotting a
seashore to Bohemia — an error over which Ben Jonson
and many later critics have made merry .^ A few lines
were obviously drawn from that story of Boccaccio
with which Shakespeare had dealt just before in
' Cymbeline.' ^ But Shakespeare created the high-
spirited Paulina and the thievish pedlar Autolycus,
whose seductive roguery has become proverbial, and
he invented the reconciliation of Leontes, the irration-
ally jealous husband, with Hermione, his wife, whose
dignified resignation and forbearance lend the story
its intense pathos. In the boy Mamilius, the poet
depicted childhood in its most attractive guise, while
the courtship of Florizel and Perdita is the perfection
of gentle romance. The freshness of the pastoral

^ See p. 255 note i. Camillo's reflections on the ruin that attends
those who ' struck anointed kings ' have been regarded, not quite con-
clusively, as specially designed to gratify James I (l. ii. 358 seq.).

2 Conversations with Drummond, p. 16.

3 In Winter^ Tale (iv. iv. 760 seq.) Autolycus threatens that
the clown's son 'shall be flayed alive; then 'nointed over with honey,
set on the head of a wasp's nest,' etc. In Boccaccio's story the villain
Ambrogiuolo (Shakespeare's lachimo), after 'being bounden to the
stake and anointed with honey,' was ' to his exceeding torment not
only slain but devoured of the flies and wasps and gadflies wherewith
that country abounded' (cf. Decameron, translated by John Payne,
1893, i. 164).

252 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

incident surpasses that of all Shakespeare's presenta-
tions of country life.

' The Tempest' was probably the latest drama that
Shakespeare completed. In the summer of 1609 a fleet
bound for Virginia, under the command of
Sir George Somers, was overtaken by a
storm off the West Indies, and the admiral's ship, the
' Sea-Venture,' was driven on the coast of the hitherto
unknown Bermuda Isles. There they remained ten
months, pleasurably impressed by the mild beauty of
the climate, but sorely tried by the hogs which over-
ran the island and by mysterious noises which led
them to imagine that spirits and devils had made the
island their home. Somers and his men were given
up for lost, but they escaped from Bermuda in two
boats of cedar to Virginia in May 16 10, and the
news of their adventures and of their safety was
carried to England by some of the seamen in Sep-
tember 16 10. The sailors' arrival created vast public
excitement in London. At least five accounts were
soon published of the shipwreck and of the mysterious
island, previously uninhabited by man, which had
proved the salvation of the expedition. ' A Discovery
of the Bermudas, otherwise called the He of Divels,'
written by Sylvester Jourdain or Jourdan, one of the
survivors, appeared as early as October. A second
pamphlet describing the disaster was issued by the
Council of the Virginia Company in December, and
a third by one of the leaders of the expedition. Sir
Thomas Gates. Shakespeare, who mentions the
'still vexed Bermoothes ' (i. i. 229), incorporated

THE LATEST PLAYS 253

in ' The Tempest ' many hints from Jourdain, Gates,
and the other pamphleteers. The references to the
gentle climate of the island on which Prospero is
cast away, and to the spirits and devils that infested
it, seem to render its identification with the newly
discovered Bermudas unquestionable. But Shake-
speare incorporated the result of study of other
books of travel. The name of the god Setebos
whom Caliban worships is drawn from Eden's trans-
lation of Magellan's 'Voyage to the South Pole'
(in the 'Historic of Travell,' 1577), where the giants
of Patagonia are described as worshipping a ' great
devil they call Setebos.' No source for the complete
plot has been discovered, but the German writer,
Jacob Ayrer, who died in 1605, dramatised a some-
what similar story in ' Die schone Sidea,' where
the adventures of Prospero, Ferdinand, Ariel, and
Miranda are roughly anticipated.^ English actors
were performing at Nuremberg, where Ayrer lived,
in 1604 and 1606, and may have brought reports
of the piece to Shakespeare. Or perhaps both
English and German plays had a common origin in
some novel that has not yet been traced. Gonzalo's
description of an ideal commonwealth (n. i. 147 seq.)
is derived from Florio's translation of Montaigne's
essays (1603), while into Prospero's great speech
renouncing his practice of magical art (v. i. 33-57)
Shakespeare wrought reminiscences of Golding's trans-
lation of Medea's invocation in Ovid's ' Metamorphoses'

1 Printed in Cohn's Shakespeare in Germa7iy.

354 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(vii. 197-206).^ Golding's rendering of Ovid had been
one of Shakespeare's best-loved books in youth.

A highly ingenious theory, first suggested by Tieck,
represents ' The Tempest ' (which, excepting ' Mac-
beth ' and the ' Two Gentlemen,' is the shortest of
Shakespeare's plays) as a masque written to celebrate
the marriage of Princess Elizabeth (like Miranda,
an island-princess) with the Elector Frederick. This
marriage took place on February 14, 16 12-13, and
' The Tempest ' formed one of a series of nineteen
plays which were performed at the nuptial festivities
in May 161 3. But none of the other plays produced
seem to have been new ; they were all apparently
chosen because they were established favourites at
Court and on the public stage, and neither in subject-
matter or language bore obviously specific relation to
the joyous occasion. But 161 3 is, in fact, on more
substantial ground far too late a date to which to assign
the composition of 'The Tempest.' According to in-
formation which was accessible to Malone, the play
had 'a being and a name' in the autumn of 161 1,
and was no doubt written some months before.^

^ Golding's translation of Ovid's Metaviorphoses, edit. 1612, p. 821^.
The passage begins :

Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, ye brookes and woods alone.

2 Variorum Shakespeare, 1821, XV. 423. In the early weeks of 161 1
Shakespeare's company presented no less than fifteen plays at Court.
Payment of 150/. was made to the actors for their services on February
12, 1610-II. The council's warrant is extant in the Bodleian Library
MS. Rawl. A 204 (f. 305). The plays performed were not specified by
name, but some by Shakespeare were beyond doubt amongst them, and
possibly ' The Tempest.' A forged page which was inserted in a detached

THE LATEST PLAYS 255

The plot, which revolves about the forcible expulsion
of a ruler from his dominions, and his daughter's
wooing by the son of the usurper's chief ally, is,
moreover, hardly one that a shrewd playwright would
deliberately choose as the setting of an official epitha-
lamium in honour of the daughter of a monarch so
sensitive about his title to the crown as James I.^

In the theatre and at court the early representa-
tions of ' The Tempest ' evoked unmeasured applause.
The success owed something to the beautiful lyrics
which were dispersed through the play and had been
set to music by Robert Johnson, a lutenist in high
repute.^

Like its predecessor, 'A Winter's Tale,' 'The
Tempest ' long maintained its first popularity in the

account-book of the Master of the Court-Revels for the years 161 1
and 1 61 2 at the PubUc Record Office, and was printed as genuine
in Peter Cunningham's Extracts from the Revels' Accounts, p. 210,
supplies among other entries two to the effect that ' The Tempest ' was
performed at Whitehall at Hallowmas (^i.e. November i) 161 1,
and that ' A Winter's Tale ' followed four days later, on November 5.
Though these entries are fictitious, the information they offer may be
true. Malone doubtless based his positive statement respecting the
date of the composition of 'The Tempest ' in 161 1 on memoranda made
from papers then accessible at the Audit Office, but now, since the
removal of those archives to the Public Record Office, mislaid. All
the forgeries introduced into the Revels' accounts are well considered
and show expert knowledge (see p. 235, note l). The forger of the
1 61 2 entries probably worked either on the published statement of
Malone, or on fuller memoranda left by him among his voluminous
manuscripts.

^ Cf. Universal Review, April 18S9, article by Dr. Richard Garnett.

2 Harmonised scores of Johnson's airs for the songs ' Full Fathom
Five ' and ' Where the Bee Sucks ' are preserved in Wilson's ' CheerfuJ
Ay res and Ballads set for Three Voices,' 1660.

256 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

theatre, and the vogue of the two pieces drew a pass-
ing sneer from Ben Jonson. In the Induction to his
'Bartholomew Fair,' first acted in 1614, he wrote:
' If there be never a servant-monster in the Fair, who
can help it he \_i.er. the author] says? nor a nest of
Antics. He is loth to make nature afraid in his
plays like those that beget Tales, Tempests, and such
like Drolleries.' The 'servant-monster ' was an ob-
vious allusion to Caliban, and 'the nest of Antics'
was a glance at the satyrs who figure in the sheep-
shearing feast in 'A Winter's Tale.'

Nowhere did Shakespeare give rein to his
imagination with more imposing effect than in ' The
Fanciful Tcmpest.' As in ' Midsummer Night's

interpreta- '■ . " .

tions of Dream,' magical or supernatural agencies
pest." are the mainsprings of the plot. But the

tone is marked at all points by a solemnity and pro-
fundity of thought and sentiment which are lacking
in the early comedy. The serious atmosphere has
led critics, without much reason, to detect in the
scheme of ' The Tempest ' something more than
the irresponsible play of poetic fancy. Many of the
characters have been represented as the outcome of
speculation respecting the least soluble problems of
human existence. Little reliance should be placed
on such interpretations. The creation of Miranda
is the apotheosis in literature of tender, ingenuous
girlhood unsophisticated by social intercourse, but
Shakespeare had already sketched the outlines of
the portrait in 'Marina' and ' Perdita,' the youthful
heroines respectively of ' Pericles ' and ' A Winter's

THE LATEST PLAYS 257

Tale,' and these two characters were directly devel-
oped from romantic stories of girl-princesses, cast by
misfortune on the mercies of nature, to which Shake-
speare had recourse for the plots of the two plays.
It is by accident, and not by design, that in Ariel
appear to be discernible the capabilities of human
intellect when detached from ■ physical attributes.
Ariel belongs to the same world as Puck, although
he is delineated in the severer colours that were
habitual to Shakespeare's fully developed art. Cali-
ban — Ariel's antithesis — did not owe his existence
to any conscious endeavour on Shakespeare's part to
typify human nature before the evolution of moral
sentiment.^ Caliban is an imaginary portrait, con-
ceived with matchless vigour and vividness of the
aboriginal savage of the New World, descriptions of
whom abounded in contemporary travellers' speech
and writings, and universally excited the liveliest
curiosity.^ In Prospero, the guiding providence of the
romance, who resigns his magic power in the closing
scene, traces have been sought of the lineaments of
the dramatist himself, who in this play probably bade
farewell to the enchanted work of his life. Prospero
is in the story a scholar-prince of rare intellectual
attainments, whose engrossing study of the mysteries

^ Cf. Browning, Caliban tipon Setebos ; Daniel Wilson, Caliban,
or the Missing Link (1873) ; and Renan, Caliban (1878), a drama con-
tinuing Shakespeare's play.

- When Shakespeare wrote Troiliis and Cressida he had formed
some conception of a character of the Caliban type. Thersites says of
Ajax (ill. iii. 264), ' He's grown a very land-fish, languageless, a
monster.'

258 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

of science has given him command of the forces of
nature. His magnanimous renunciation of his magical
faculty as soon as by its exercise he has restored his
shattered fortunes is in perfect accord with the general
conception of his just and philosophical temper. Any
other justification of his final act is superfluous.

While there is every indication that in 1611 Shake-
speare abandoned dramatic composition, there seems
Unfinished little doubt that he left with the manager of
plays. hjs company unfinished drafts of more than

one play which others were summoned at a later date
to complete. His place at the head of the active
dramatists was at once filled by John Fletcher,
and Fletcher, with some aid possibly from his
friend Philip Massinger, undertook the working
up of Shakespeare's unfinished sketches. On Sep-
tember 9, 1653, the publisher Humphrey Moseley
obtained a license for the publication of a play which
he described as ' History of Cardenio, by Fletcher
and Shakespeare.' This was probably identical with
The lost ^^^ ^*^^^ pl-^Y' ' Cardenno,' or ' Cardenna,'
play of which was twice acted at Court by Shake-

' Cardenio.' , • ^ ^ • T\/r j •

speare s company m 1013 — m May durmg
the Princess Elizabeth's marriage festivities, and on
June 8 before the duke of Savoy's ambassador.^
Moseley, whose description may have been fraudulent,^

1 Treasurer's accounts in Ravvl. MS., A 239, leaf 47 (in the
Bodleian), printed in New Shakspere Society's Iransactions, 1 895-6,
part ii. p. 419.

2 77^1? Merry Devill of Ediitontoii, a comedy which was first
published in 160S, was also re-entered by Moseley for publication on
September 9, 1653, as the work of Shakespeare (see p. 181, supra).

THE LATEST PLAYS 259

failed to publish the piece, and nothing is otherwise
known of it with certainty ; but it was no doubt a
dramatic version of the adventures of the lovelorn
Cardenio which are related in the first part of ' Don
Quixote' (ch. xxiii.-xxxvii.). Cervantes's amorous
story, which first appeared in English in Thomas
Shelton's translation in 161 2, offers much incident in
Fletcher's vein. When Lewis Theobald, the Shake-
spearean critic, brought out his ' Double Falshood,
or the Distrest Lovers,' in 1727, he mysteriously
represented that the play was based on an unfinished
and unpublished draft of a play by Shakespeare.
The story of Theobald's piece is the story of Car-
denio, although the characters are renamed. There
is nothing in the play as published by Theobald
to suggest Shakespeare's hand,^ but Theobald doubt-
less took advantage of a tradition that Shakespeare
and Fletcher had combined to dramatise the Cer-
vantic theme.

Two other pieces, ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' and
' Henry VIII,' which are attributed to a similar partner-
ship, survive.^ ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' was first
.^^^,^ printed in 1634, and was written, accord-

Nobie ing to the title-page, 'by the memorable
worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher

1 Dyce thought he detected traces of Shirley's workmanship, but it
was possibly Theobald's unaided invention.

- The 1634 quarto of the play was carefully edited for the New
Shakspere Society by Mr. Harold Littledale in 1876. See also
Spalding, Shakespeay-e's Authorship of '■Two Noble Kinsmen^ "^^liZi
reprinted by New Shakspere Society, 1876; Spalding in Edinburgh
J\'eview, 1847; Transactions, New Shakspere Society, 1874.

26o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and ]\Ir William Shakespeare, gentlemen.' It was
included in the folio of Beaumont and Fletcher of
1679. On grounds alike of aesthetic criticism and
metrical tests, a substantial portion of the play was
assigned to Shakespeare by Charles Lamb, Coleridge,
and Dyce. The last included it in his edition of Shake-
speare. Coleridge detected Shakespeare's hand in act
I., act n. sc. i., and act in. sc. i. and ii. In addition to
those scenes, act iv. sc. iii. and act v. (except sc. ii.)
were subsequently placed to his credit. Some recent
critics assign much of the alleged Shakespearean work
to Massinger, and they narrow Shakespeare's contri-
bution to the first scene (with the opening song, 'Roses
their sharp spines being gone') and act v. sc. i. and
iv.^ An exact partition is impossible, but frequent
signs of Shakespeare's workmanship are unmistak-
able. All the passages for which Shakespeare
can on any showing be held responsible develop the
main plot, which is drawn from Chaucer's ' Knight's
Tale ' of Palamon and Arcite, and seems to have
been twice dramatised previously. A lost play,
' Palcemon and Arcyte,' by Richard Edwardes, was
acted at Court in 1566, and a second piece, called
* Palamon and Arsett ' (also lost), was purchased by
Henslowe in 1594. The non-Shakespearean residue
of ' The Two Noble Kinsmen ' is disfigured by
indecency and triviality, and is of no literary
value.

A like problem is presented by ' Henry VIII.'

1 Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in Transactions of the New Shakspere
Society, 1882.

THE LATEST PLAYS 26 1

The play was nearly associated with the final scene
in the history of that theatre which was identified
with the triumphs of Shakespeare's career. ' Henry
yill ' was in course of performance at the Globe
Theatre on June 29, 161 3, when the firing of some
cannon incidental to the performance set fire to the
playhouse, which was burned down. The theatre
■ Henry ^^'as rebuilt next year, but the new fabric
^^^U-' never acquired the fame of the old. Sir

Henry Wotton, describing the disaster on July 2,
entitled the piece that was in process of representa-
tion at the time as ' All is True representing some
principal pieces in the Reign of Henry VHI.'^ The

^ Reliquitz IVottonianeE, 1675, pp. 425-6. Wotton adds 'that the
piece was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of Pomp and
Majesty, even to the matting of the Stage; the Knights of the Order,
with their Georges and Garters, the Guards with their embroidered Coats,
and the like : sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very
familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King Henry making a Masque at the
Cardinal Wolseys House, and certain Canons being shot off at his entry',
some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did
light on the Thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoak, and
their eyes more attentive to the shew, it kindled inwardly, and ran
round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole House
to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that vertuous fabrique;
wherein yet nothing did perish, but wood and straw and a few forsaken
cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps
have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out
with bottle[d] ale.' John Chamberlain writing to Sir Ralph Winwood
on July 8, 1613, briefly mentions that the theatre was burnt to the
ground in less than two hours, owing to the accidental ignition of the
thatch roof through the firing of cannon ' to be used in the play.' The
audience escaped unhurt though they had ' but two narrow doors to get
out' (Winvvood's Memorials, iii. p. 469). A similar account was sent
by the Rev. Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, Bart., from Lon-
don, June 30, 1613. 'The fire broke out,' Lorkin writes, 'no longer

262 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

play of 'Henry VIII' that is commonly allotted to
Shakespeare is loosely constructed, and the last act ill
coheres with its predecessors. The whole resembles an
' historical masque.' It was first printed in the folio of
Shakespeare's works in 1623, but shows traces of more
hands than one. The three chief characters — the king,
Queen Katharine of Arragon, and Cardinal Wolsey
— bear clear marks of Shakespeare's best workman-
ship ; but only act i. sc. i., act 11. sc. iii. and.iv.
(Katharine's trial), act iii. sc. ii. (except 11. 204 460),
act V. sc. i., can on either aesthetic or metrical grounds
be confidently assigned to him. These portions may,
according to their metrical characteristics, be dated,
like the ' Winter's Tale,' about 1611. There are good
grounds for assigning nearly all the remaining thirteen
scenes to the pen of Fletcher, with occasional aid from
Massinger. Wolsey's familiar farewell to Cromwell
(act III. sc. ii. 11. 204-460) is the only passage the
authorship of which excites really grave embarrass-
ment. It recalls at every point the style of Fletcher,
and nowhere thatof Shakespeare. But the Fletcherian
style, as it is here displayed, is invested with a great-
ness that is not matched elsewhere in Fletcher's work.
That Fletcher should have exhibited such faculty once

since than yesterday, while Burbage's company were acting at the Globe
the play. of Henry VHP {^C our t and Times of James I, 1848, vol. i.
p. 253). A contemporary sonnet on ' the pittifull burning of the Globe
playhouse in London,' first printed by Haslewood ' from an old manu-
script volume of poems' in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1816, was
again printed by Halliwell-Phillipps (i. pp. 310-11) from an authentic
manuscript in the Hbrary of Sir Matthew Wilson, Bart., of Eshton Hall,
Yorkshire.

THE LATEST PLAYS 263

and once only is barely credible, and we are driven to
the alternative conclusion that the noble valediction was
by Shakespeare, who in it gave proof of his versatility
by echoing in a glorified key the habitual strain of
Fletcher, his colleague and virtual successor. James
Spedding's theory that Fletcher hastily completed
Shakespeare's unfinished draft for the special purpose
of enabling the company to celebrate the marriage of
Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, which
took place on February 14, 161 2-1 3, seems fanciful.
During May 1613, according to an extant list, nineteen
plays were produced at Court in honour of the event,
but 'Henry VIII' is not among them.^ The con-
jecture that Massinger and Fletcher alone collaborated
in 'Henry VIII' (to the exclusion of Shakespeare
altogether) does not deserve serious consideration.^

1 Bodl. ATS. Rawl. A 239; cf. Spedding in Gentleman'' s Maga-
zine, 1850, reprinted in Xew Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1874.

- Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in New Shakspere Society's Transactions,
1884.

264 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

XVI

THE CLOSE OF LIFE

The concluding years of Shakespeare's life (1611-
16) were mainly passed at Stratford. It is probable
that in 16 ii he disposed of his shares in the Globe and
Blackfriars theatres. He owned none at the date of
his death. But until 1614 he paid frequent visits to
London, where friends in sympathy with his work
were alone to be found. His plays continued to form
the staple of Court performances. In May '1613,
D, , during the Princess Elizabeth's marriage

Plays at o t>

Court in festivities, Heming, Shakespeare's former
^^' colleague, produced at Whitehall no less

than seven of his plays, viz. ' Much Ado,' 'Tempest,'
'Winter's Tale,' 'Sir John Falstaff ' {i.e. 'Merry
Wives'), 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar,' and 'Hotspur'
(doubtless ' i Henry IV ')} Of his actor-friends, one
Actor- of the chief, Augustine Phillips, had died in
friends. 1605, leaving by will ' to my fellowe, William
Shakespeare, a thirty-shillings piece of gold.' With
Burbage, Heming, and Condell his relations remained
close to the end. Burbage, according to a poetic
elegy, made his reputation by creating the leading
parts in Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. Hamlet,

1 Ilalliwell-Phillipps, ii. 87.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 265

Othello, and Lear were roles in which he gained
especial renown. But Burbage and Shakespeare
were popularly credited with co-operation in less
solemn enterprises. They were reputed to be
companions in many sportive adventures. The sole
anecdote of Shakespeare that is positively known
to have been recorded in his lifetime relates that
Burbage, when playing Richard III, agreed with
a lady in the audience to visit her after the perform-
ance ; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation,
anticipated the actor's visit, and met Burbage on his
arrival with the quip that 'William the Conqueror
was before Richard the Third.' ^

Such gossip possibly deserves little more accept-
ance than the later story, in the same key, which
credits Shakespeare with the paternity of Sir William
D'Avenant. The latter was baptised at Oxford on
March 3, 1605, as the son of John D'Avenant, the
landlord of the Crown Inn, where Shakespeare lodged
in his journeys to and from Stratford. The story
of Shakespeare's parental relation to D'Avenant
was long current in Oxford, and was at times com-
placently accepted by the reputed son. Shakespeare
is known to have been a welcome guest at John
D'Avenant's house, and another son, Robert, boasted
of the kindly notice which the poet took of him
as a child. ^ It is safer to adopt the less compro-
mising version which makes Shakespeare the god-

1 Manningham, Diary, March 13, 1601, Camd. Soc. p. 39.

2 Cf. Aubrey, Lives; Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 43; and art. Sir
William D'Avenant, in the Dictionary of National Biography.

266 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

father of the boy William instead of his father. But
the antiquity and persistence of the scandal belie the
assumption that Shakespeare was known to his con-
temporaries as a man of scrupulous virtue. Ben
Jonson and Drayton — the latter a Warwickshire man
— seem to have been Shakespeare's closest literary
friends in his latest years.

At Stratford, in the words of Nicholas Rowe, ' the
latter part of Shakespeare's life was spent, as all men
Fi ai etti °^ good scnsc will wish theirs may be, in
ment at casc, retirement, and the conversation of his
friends.' As a resident in the town, he took
a full share of social and civic responsibilities. On
October i6, 1608, he stood chief godfather to Will-
iam, son of Henry Walker, a mercer and alderman.
On September 11, 161 1, when he had finally settled
in New Place, his name appeared in the margin of a
folio page of donors (including all the principal in-
habitants of Stratford) to a fund that was raised
' towards the charge of prosecuting the bill in Parlia-
ment for the better repair of the highways.'

Meanwhile his own domestic affairs engaged some
of his attention. Of his two surviving children —
both daughters — the eldest, Susannah, had married,
on June 5, 1607, John Hall (i 575-1635), a rising physi-
cian of puritan leanings, and in the following Feb-
ruary there was born the poet's only granddaughter,
Elizabeth Hall. On September 9, 1608, the poet's
Domestic mother was buried in the parish church, and
affau-s. Qj^ February 4, 16 13, his third brother
Richard. On July 15, 161 3, Mrs. Hall preferred,

^^P^/V i (^ *^Xi» V

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURE APPENDED TO
THE PURCHASE-DEP:D of A HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS
ON MARCH lo, 1612-13.

Reproduced from the original document now preserved in the Guildhall
Library, London.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 267

with her father's assistance, a charge of slander
against one Lane in the ecclesiasical court at Worces-
ter ; the defendant, who had apparently charged the
lady with illicit relations with one Ralph Smith, did
not appear, and was excommunicated.

In the same year (161 3), when on a short visit to
London, he invested a small sum of money in a new
Purchase property. This was his last investment in
of a house | estate. He then purchased a house, the

in Black- ^ '

friars. ground-floor of which was a haberdasher's

shop, with a yard attached. It was situated within
six hundred feet of the Blackfriars Theatre — on the
west side of St. Andrew's Hill, formerly termed Pud-
dle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in the near neighbour-
hood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The
former owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought
the property for 100/. in 1604. Shakespeare in 161 3
agreed to pay him 140/. The deeds of conveyance
bear the date of March 10 in that year.^ Next day,
on March 11, Shakespeare executed another deed
(now in the British Museum) which stipulated that
60/. of the purchase-money was to remain on mort-
gage until the following Michaelmas. The money
was unpaid at Shakespeare's death. In both pur-
chase-deed and mortgage-deed Shakespeare's signa-
ture was witnessed by, among others, Henry Law-
rence, ' servant ' or clerk to Robert Andrewes, the

1 The indenture prepared for the purchaser is in the Halliwell-
Fhillipps collection, which was sold to Mr. Marsden J. Perry of Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, U. S. A., in January 1897. That held by the
vendor is in the Guildhall Library.

268 \villia:\i Shakespeare

scrivener who drew the deeds, and Lawrence's seal,
bearing; his initials ' H. L.,' was stamped in each case
on the parchment tag across the head of which
Shakespeare wrote his name. In all three docu-
ments — the two indentures and the mortgage-deed
— Shakespeare is described as ' of Stratford-on-Avon,
in the Countie of Warwick, Gentleman.' There is
no reason to suppose that he acquired the house for
his own residence. He at once leased the property
to John Robinson, already a resident in the neigh-
bourhood.

With puritans and puritanism Shakespeare was
not in sympathy,^ and he could hardly have viewed
with unvarying composure the steady progress that
puritanism was making among his fellow-townsmen.
Nevertheless a preacher, doubtless of puritan pro-
clivities, was entertained at Shakespeare's residence,
New Place, after delivering a sermon in the spring of
1614. The incident might serve to illustrate Shake-
speare's characteristic placability, but his son-in-law

1 Shakespeare's references to puritans in the plays of his middle
and late life are so uniformly discourteous that they must be judged to
reflect his personal feeling. The discussion between Maria and Sir
Andrew Aguecheek regarding Malvolio's character in Twelfth Night
(11. iii. 153 seq.) runs:

Maria. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.

Sir Andrew. O! if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.

Sir Toby. What, for being a puritan ? thy exquisite reason, dear knight.

Sir Andrew. I have no exquisite reason for 't, but I have reason good enough.

In Winter''s Tale (iv. iii. 46) the Clown, after making contemptuous
references to the character of the shearers, remarks that there is ' but one
puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.' Cf. the
allusions to 'grace' and 'election' in Cyjnbeline, p. 250, note i.

SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURE APPENDED TO
A DEED MORTGAGING HIS HOUSE IN BLACKFRIARS
ON MARCH II, 1612-13.

Reproduced from the original document now preserved in the British
Museum.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 269

Hall, who avowed sympathy with puritanism, was prob-
ably in the main responsible for the civility.^ In July
John Combe, a rich inhabitant of Stratford, died and
left 5/. to Shakespeare. The legend that Shakespeare
alienated him by composing some doggerel on his
practice of lending money at ten or twelve per cent,
seems apocryphal, although it is quoted by Aubrey and
accepted by Rowe.^ Combe's death involved Shake-
speare more conspicuously than before in civic affairs.
Combe's heir William no sooner succeeded to his
father's lands than he, with a- neighbouring owner,

1 The town council of Stratford-on-Avon, whose meeting-chamber
ahnost overlooked Shakespeare's residence of New Place, gave curious
proof of their puritanic suspicion of the drama on February 7, 1612,
when they passed a resolution that plays were unlawful and ' the suffer-
ance of them against the orders heretofore made and against the
example of other well-governed cities and boroughs,' and the council
was therefore ' content,' the resolution ran, that ' the penalty of xs.
imposed [on players heretofore] be x/i. henceforward.' Ten years later
the King's players were bribed by the council to leave the city without
playing (see the present writer's Stratford-on-Avon, p. 270).

2 The lines as quoted by Aubrey (^Lives, ed. Clark, ii. 226) run :

Ten-in-the-hundred the Devil allows,

But Combe- will have twelve he sweares and he vowes;

If any man ask, who lies in this tomb?

Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

Rowe's version opens somewhat differently :

Ten-in-the-hundred lies here ingrav'd.
'Tis a hundred to ten, his soul is not sav'd.

The lines, in one form or another, seem to have been widely familiar in
Shakespeare's lifetime, but were not ascribed to him. The first two in
Rowe's version were printed in the epigrams by n[enry] P[arrot], 1608,
and again in Camden's Remains, 1 614. The whole first appeared in
Richard Brathwaite's Remains in 1618 under the heading: 'Upon one
John Combe of Stratford upon Aven, a notable Usurer, fastened upon
a Tombe that he had Caused to be built in his Life Time.

2/0 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Arthur Mannering, steward of Lord-Chancellor Elles-
mere (who was ex-officio lord of the manor), attempted
Attempt to to enclose the common fields, which belonged
enclose the ^q t^g Corporation of Stratford, about his
common cstate at Welcombe. The Corporation re-
fieids. solved to offer the scheme a stout resistance.

Shakespeare had a twofold interest in the matter by-
virtue of his owning the freehold of io6 acres at Wel-
combe and Old Stratford, and as joint owner — now
with Thomas Greene, the town clerk — of the tithes of
Old Stratford, Welcombe, and Bishopton. His inter-
est in his freeholds could not have been prejudicially
affected, but his interest in the tithes might be depreci-
ated by the proposed enclosure. Shakespeare conse-
quently joined with his fellow-owner Greene in obtain-
ing from Combe's agent Replingham in October 1614
a deed indemnifying both against any injury they
might suffer from the enclosure. But having thus
secured himself against all possible loss, Shakespeare
threw his influence into Combe's scale. In November
16 14 he was on a last visit to London, and Greene,
whose official position as town clerk compelled him
to support the Corporation in defiance of his private
interests, visited him there to discuss the position of
affairs. On December 23, 16 14, the Corporation in
formal meeting drew up a letter to Shakespeare im-
ploring him to aid them. Greene himself sent to the
dramatist ' a note of inconveniences [to the Corpora-
tion that] would happen by the enclosure.' But
although an ambiguous entry of a later date (Sep-
tember 161 5) in the few extant pages of Greene's

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 2/1

ungrammatical diary has been unjustifiably tortured
into an expression of disgust on Shakespeare's part
at Combe's conduct,^ it is plain that, in the spirit of
his agreement with Combe's agent, he continued to
lend Combe his countenance. Happily Combe's
efforts failed, and the common lands remain un-
enclosed.

At the beginning of 1616 Shakespeare's health
was failing. He directed Francis Collins, a solicitor of
Warwick, to draft his will, but, though it was prepared
for signature on January 25, it was for the time laid
aside. On February 10, 1616, Shakespeare's younger
daughter, Judith, married, at Stratford parish church,
Thomas Quiney, four years her junior, a son of an old
friend of the poet. The ceremony took place appar-
ently without public asking of the banns and before
a license was procured. The irregularity led to
the summons of the bride and bridegroom to the
ecclesiastical court at Worcester and the imposition
of a fine. According to the testimony of John Ward,

1 The clumsy entry runs : ' Sept. Mr. Shakespeare tellyng J,
Greene that I was not able to beare the encloseing of Welcombe.'
J. Greene is to be distinguished from Thomas Greene, the writer of the
diary. The entry therefore implies that Shakespeare told J. Greene
that the writer of the diary, Thomas Greene, was not able to bear the
enclosure. Those who represent Shakespeare as a champion of popular
rights have to read the ' I ' in 'I was not able ' as ' he.' Were that
the correct reading, Shakespeare would be rightly credited with telling
J. Greene that he disliked the enclosure; but palaeographers only
recognise the reading ' I.' Cf. Shakespeare a^ui the Enclosure of
Conunott Fields at Welcombe, a facsimile of Greene's diary, now at
the Birthplace, Stratford, with a transcript by Mr. E, J. L. Scott, edited
by Dr. C. M. Ingleby, 1885.

2/2 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

the vicar, Shakespeare entertained at New Place his

two friends, Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson, in this

same spring of 1616, and * had a merry meet-
Death. . ■'

mg, but 'itt seems drank too hard, for

Shakespeare died of a feavour there contracted.' A
popular local legend, which was not recorded till
1762,1 credited Shakespeare with engaging at an
earlier date in a prolonged and violent drinking bout
at Bidford, a neighbouring village,^ but his achieve-
ments as a hard drinker may be dismissed as
unproven. The cause of his death is undetermined,
but probably his illness seemed likely to take a fatal
turn in March, when he revised and signed the will
that had been drafted in the previous January. On
Tuesday, April 23, he died at the age of fifty-two.^
On Thursday, April 25 (O.S.) the poet was
buried inside Stratford Church, near the
northern wall of the chancel, in which, as part-owner
of the tithes, and consequently one of the lay-rectors,
he had a right of interment. Hard by was the charnel-
house, where bones dug up from the churchyard were
deposited. Over the poet's grave were inscribed the
lines :

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed heare;
Bleste be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.

1 British Magazine, June 1762.

2 Cf. Malone, Shakespeare, 1 82 1, ii. 500-2; Ireland, Confessions,
1805, p. 34; Green, Legend of the Crab Tree, 1857.

^ The date is in the old style, and is equivalent to May 3 in the
new; Cervantes, whose death is often described as simultaneous, died
at Madrid ten days earlier — on April 13, in the old style, or April 23,
1616, in the new.

THE CLOSE OF IJFE 2/3

According to one William Hall, who described a
visit to Stratford in 1694/ these verses were penned
by Shakespeare to suit ' the capacity of clerks and
sextons, for the most part a very ignorant set of
people.' Had this curse not threatened them, Hall
proceeds, the sexton would not have hesitated in
course of time to remove Shakespeare's dust to 'the
bone-house.' As it was, the grave was made seven-
teen feet deep, and was never opened, even to receive
his wife, although she expressed a desire to be buried
with her husband.

Shakespeare's will, the first draft of which was

drawn up before January 25, 1616, received many

interlineations and erasures before it was

The will.

Signed m the ensumg March. Francis
Collins, the solicitor of Warwick, and Thomas Russell,
'esquier,' of Stratford, were the overseers; it was
proved by John Hall, the poet's son-in-law and joint-
executor with Mrs. Hall, in London on June 22
following. The religious exordium is in conventional
phraseology, and gives no clue to Shakespeare's
personal religious opinions. What those opinions
were, we have neither the means nor the warrant for
discussing. But while it is possible to quote from the
plays many contemptuous references to the puritans
and their doctrines, we may dismiss as idle gossip
Davies's irresponsible report that ' he dyed a papist.'
The name of Shakespeare's wife was omitted from
the original draft of the will, but by an interlineation

1 Hall's letter was published as a quarto pamphlet at London in
1884, from the original, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
T

2/4 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

in the final draft she received his second best bed
with its furniture. No other bequest was made her.
Bequest to Several wills of the period have been dis-
his wife. covered in which a bedstead or other article
of household furniture formed part of a wife's inheri-
tance, but none except Shakespeare's is forthcoming
in which a bed forms the sole bequest. At the same
time the precision with which Shakespeare's will ac-
counts for and assigns to other legatees every known
item of his property refutes the conjecture that he
had set aside any portion of it under a previous
settlement or jointure with a view to making inde-
pendent provision for his wife. Her right to a widow's
dower — i.e. to a third share for life in freehold estate
— was not subject to testamentary disposition, but
Shakespeare had taken steps to prevent her from
benefiting — at any rate to the full extent — by
that legal arrangement. He had barred her dower
in the case of his latest purchase of freehold
estate, viz., the house at Blackfriars. ^ Such pro-

^ Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., has been kind enough to give me a legal
opinion on this point. He wrote to me on December 9, 1897: 'I
have looked to the authorities with my friend Mr. Herbert Mackay,
and there is no doubt that Shakespeare barred the dower.' Mr.
Mackay's opinion is couched in the following terms: 'The conveyance
of the Elackfriars estate to William Shakespeare in 161 3 shows that
the estate was conveyed to Shakespeare, Johnson, Jackson, and
Hemming as joint tenants, ami therefore the dower of Shakespeare's
wife would be barred unless he were the survivor of the four bar-
gainees.' That was a remote contingency, which did not arise, and
Shakespeare always retained the power of making ' another settlement
when the trustees were shrinking.' Thus the bar v\as for practical pur-
poses perpetual, and disposes of Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps's assertion that

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 275

cedure is pretty conclusive proof that he had the
intention of excluding her from the enjoyment of his
possessions after his death. But, however plausible
the theory that his relations with her were from
first to last wanting in sympathy, it is improbable
that either the slender mention of her in the will or
the barring of her dower was designed by Shake-
speare to make public his indifference or dislike.
Local tradition subsequently credited her with a wish
to be buried in his grive ; and her epitaph proves
that she inspired her daughters with genuine affec-
tion. Probably her ignorance of affairs and the
infirmities of age (she was past sixty) combined to
unfit her in the poet's eyes for the control of property,
and, as an act of ordinary prudence, he committed her
to the care of his elder daughter, who inherited, accord-
ing to such information as is accessible, some of his own
shrewdness, and had a capable adviser in her husband.
This elder daughter, Susannah Hall, was, accord-
ing to the will, to become the mistress of New Place,
and practically of all the poet's estate. She

His heiress. . . , .

received (with remainder to her issue m
strict entail) New Place, all the land, barns, and gar-
dens at and near Stratford (except the tenement in
Chapel Lane), and the house in Blackfriars, London,
while she and her husband were appointed executors
and residuary legatees, with full rights over nearly all
the poet's household furniture and personal belong-

Shakespeare's wife was entitled to dower in one form or another from
all his real estate. Cf. Davidson on Conveyancing ; Littleton, sect.
45; Coke upon LittJeton, ed. Hargrave, p. 379<5, note I.

2/6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ings. To their only child and the testator's grand-
daughter, or ' niece,' Elizabeth Hall, was bequeathed
the poet's plate, with the exception of his broad silver
and gilt bowl, which was reserved for his younger
daughter, Judith. To his younger daughter he also left,
with the tenement in Chapel Lane (in remainder to the
elder daughter), 150/. in money, of which 100/., her
marriage portion, was to be paid within a year, and
another 150/. to be paid to her if alive three years
after the date of the will.i To the poet's sister, Joan
Hart, whose husband, William Hart, predeceased the
testator by only six days, he left, besides a contin-
gent reversionary interest in Judith's pecuniary leg-
acy, his wearing apparel, 20/. in money, a life interest
in the Henley Street property, with 5/. for each of
her three sons, William, Thomas, and Michael. To
the poor of Stratford he gave 10/., and to Mr. Thomas
Legacies Combc (apparently a brother of William,
to friends. Qf ^\^q enclosure controversy) his sword.
To each of his Stratford friends, Hamlett Sadler,
William Reynoldes, Anthony Nash, and John
Nash, and to each of his ' fellows ' {i.e. theatrical
colleagues in London), John Heming, Richard Bur-
bage, and Henry Condell, he left xxvjj-. vn]d., with
which to buy memorial rings. His godson, William
Walker, received ' xx ' shillings in gold.

Before 1623^ an elaborate monument, by a London

1 A hundred and fifty pounds is described as a substantial jointure
in Merry IVives, ill. iii. 1. 49.

^ Leonard Digges, in commendatory verses before the First Folio of
1623, wrote that Shakespeare's works would be alive

[When] Time dissolves thy Stratford monument.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 2/7

sculptor of Dutch birth, Gerard Johnson, was erected
to Shakespeare's memory in the chancel of
the parish church.^ It includes a half-length
bust, depicting the dramatist on the point of writing.
The fingers of the right hand are disposed as if
holding a pen, and under the left hand lies a quarto
sheet of paper. The inscription, which was appar-
ently by a London friend, runs :

Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem,
Terra tegit, populus mreret, Olympus habet.

Stay passenger, why goest thou by so fast?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast
Within this monument; Shakespeare with whome
Quick nature dide; whose name doth deck ys tombe
Far more than cost; sith all yt he hath writt
Leaves living art but page to serve his witt.

Obiit ano. doi 1616 ^tatis 53 Die 23 Ap.

At the opening of Shakespeare's career Chettle
wrote of his ' civil demeanour ' and of the reports of
Personal ' his Uprightness of dealing which argues his
character, houcsty.' In 1601 — when near the zenith of
his fame — he was apostrophised as 'sweet Master
Shakespeare ' in the play of ' The Return from
Parnassus,' and that adjective was long after associ-
ated with his name. In 1604 one Anthony Scoloker
in a poem called ' Daiphantus ' bestowed on him the
epithet 'friendly.' After the close of his career
Jonson wrote of him: 'I loved the man and do

1 Cf. Dugdale, Diary, 1827, p. 99 ; see under article on Bernard
Janssen in the Dictionary of National Biography.

2/8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

honour his memory, on this side idolatry as much as
any. He was, indeed, honest and of an open and free
nature.' ^ No other contemporary left on record any
definite impression of Shakespeare's personal char-
' acter, and the ' Sonnets,' which alone of his literary
work can be held to throw any illumination on a
personal trait, mainly reveal him in the light of one
who was willing to conform to all the conventional
methods in vogue for strengthening the bonds between
a poet and a great patron. His literary practices
and aims were those of contemporary men of letters,
and the difference in the quality of his work and theirs
was due not to conscious endeavour on his part to act
otherwise than they, but to the magic and involuntary
working of his genius. He seemed unconscious of
his marvellous suj^eriority to his professional com-
rades. The references in his will to his fellow-actors,
and the spirit in which (as they announce in the First
Folio) they approached the task of collecting his works
after his death, corroborate the description of him
as a sympathetic friend of gentle, unassuming mien.
The later traditions brought together by Aubrey
depict him as ' very good company, and of a very
ready and pleasant smooth wit,' and there is much in
other early posthumous references to suggest a genial,
if not a convivial, temperament, linked to a quiet turn
for good-humoured satire. But Bohemian ideals and
modes of life had no genuine attraction for Shake-
speare. His extant work attests his ' copious ' and

1 'Timber,' in Works, 164I.

THE CLOSE OF LIFE 279

continuous industry,^ and with his literary power and
sociability there clearly went the shrewd capacity of
a man of business. Pope had just warrant for the
surmise that he

For gain not glory winged his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.

His literary attainments and successes were chiefly
valued as serving the prosaic end of providing per-
manently for himself and his daughters. His highest
ambition was to restore among his fellow-tow^nsmen
the family repute which his father's misfortunes had
imperilled. Ideals so homely are reckoned rare among
poets, but Chaucer and Sir Walter Scott, among
writers of exalted genius, vie with Shakespeare in the
sobriety of their personal aims and in the sanity of
their mental attitude towards life's ordinary incidents.

1 John Webster, the dramatist, made vague reference in the
address before his 'White Divel' in 1612 to 'the right happy and
copious industry of M. Shakespeare, M. Decker, and M. Heywood.'

28o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

XVII

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS

Shakespeare's widow died on August 6, 1623, at
the age of sixtyrseven, and was buried near her
The husband inside the chancel two days later.

survivors. Somc affectionately phrased Latin elegiacs
— doubtless from Dr. Hall's pen — were inscribed on
a brass plate fastened to the stone above her grave.^
The younger daughter, Judith, resided with her hus-
band, Thomas Quiney, at The Cage, a house which he
leased in Bridge Street from 1616 till 1652. There he
.... carried on the trade of a vintner, and took part

Mistress _ _ _ ' ^

Judith in municipal affairs, acting as a councillor
Quiney. fj-Qm 1617 and as chamberlain in 162 1-2
and 1622-3 ; but after 1630 his affairs grew embar-
rassed, and he left Stratford late in 1652 for London,
where he seems to have died a few months later. Of
his three sons by Judith, the eldest, Shakespeare
(baptised on November 23, 1616), was buried in Strat-
ford Churchyard on May 8, 1617; the second son,

1 The words run : ' Heere lyeth interred the bodye of Anne, wife of
Mr. William Shakespeare, who depted. this life the 6th day of August,
1623, being of the age of 67 yeares.

' Vbera, tii, mater, tu lac vitamq. dedisti,

Vae mihi: pro tanto munere saxa dabo!
Quam mallem, amoiieat lapidem bonus Angel[us] ore,

Exeat ut Christi Corpus, imago tua.
Sed nil vota valent; venias cito, Christe ; resurget,

Clausa licet tumulo, mater, et astra petet.'

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS 28 1

Richard (baptised on February g, 161 7-1 8), was
buried on January 28, 1638-9; and the third son,
Thomas (baptised on January 23, 1619-20), was
buried on February 26, 1638-9. Judith survived her
husband, sons, and sister, dying at Stratford on
February 9, 166 1-2, in her seventy-seventh year.

The poet's elder daughter, Mrs. Susannah Hall, re-
sided at New Place till her death. Her sister Judith
alienated to her the Chapel Place tenement before
Mistress ^^33> but that, with the interest in the
Susannah Stratford tithcs, she soon disposed of. Her
husband, Dr. John Hall, died on Novem-
ber 25, 1635. In 1642, James Cooke, a surgeon in
attendance on some Royalist troops stationed at
Stratford, visited Mrs. Hall and examined manu-
scripts in her possession, but they were apparently of
her husband's, not of her father's, composition.^ From
July 1 1 to 13, 1643, Queen Henrietta Maria, while jour-
neying from Newark to Oxford, was billeted on Mrs.
Hall at New Place for three days, and was visited
there by Prince Rupert. Mrs. Hall was buried beside
her husband in Stratford Churchyard on July 11,
1649, ^1"^^^ 3- rhyming inscription, describing her as
' witty above her sex,' was engraved on her tomb-
stone. The whole inscription ran : ' Heere lyeth ye.
body of Svsanna, wife to John Hall, Gent. ye. davghter
of William Shakespeare, Gent. She deceased ye.
nth of Jvly, a.d. 1649, aged 66.

' Witty above her sexe, but that's not all,
Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall,

1 Cf. Hall, Seleci Observations, ed. Cooke, 1657.

282 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Something of Shakespere \\as in that, but this
Wholy of him with whom she's now in blisse.
Then, passenger, ha'st ne're a teare,

To weepe with her that wept with all?
That wept, yet set herselfe to chere

Them up with comforts cordiall.
Her Love shall live, her mercy spread,
When thou hast ne're a teare to shed.'

Mrs. Hall's only child, Elizabeth, was the last
surviving descendant of the poet. In April 1626 she
„, , , married her first husband, Thomas Nash of

The last '

descen- Stratford {b. 1593), who Studied at Lincoln's
^^^' Inn, was a man of property, and, dying

childless at New Place on April 4, 1647, '^vas buried
in Stratford Church next day. At Billesley, a village
four miles from Stratford, on June 5, 1649, Mrs. Nash
married, as a second husband, a widower, John Bernard
or Barnard of Abington, Northamptonshire, who was
knighted by Charles II in 1661. About the same
date she seems to have abandoned New Place for her
husband's residence at Abington. Dying without
issue, she was buried there on February 17, 1669-70.
Her husband survived her four years, and was buried
beside her.^ On her mother's death in 1649 Lady
Barnard inherited under the poet's will the land near
Stratford, New Place, the house at Blackfriars, and (on
the death of the poet's sister, Joan Hart, in 1646) the
houses in Henley Street, while her father, Dr. Hall, left
her in 1635 a house at Acton with a meadow. She
sold the Blackfriars house, and apparently the Strat-
ford land, before 1667. By her will, dated January

1 Baker, N^orthamptonshire, i. lo; New Shaksp. Soc. Trans.
18S0-5, pt. ii. pp. I3t-i5t.

SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS 283

1669-70, and proved in the following March, she left
small bequests to the daughters of Thomas Hatha-
way, of the family of her grandmother, the poet's
wife. The houses in Henley Street passed to her
cousin, Thomas Hart, the grandson of the poet's
sister Joan, and they remained in the possession of
Thomas's direct descendants till 1806 (the male line
expired on the death of John Hart in 1800). By her
will Lady Barnard also ordered New Place to be sold,
and it was purchased on May 18, 1675, by Sir Edward
Walker, through whose daughter Barbara, wife of
Sir John Clopton, it reverted to the Clopton family.
Sir John rebuilt it in 1702. On the death of his son
Hugh in 1752, it was bought by the Rev. Francis
Gastrell (</. 1768), who demolished the new building
in 1759.^

Of Shakespeare's three brothers, only one, Gilbert,
seems to have survived him. Edmund, the youngest
Shake brother, 'a player,' was buried at St.
speare's Saviour's Church, Southwark, ' with a fore-
^°^ ^^^' noone knell of the great bell,' on December
31, 1607; he was in his twenty-eighth year. Richard,
John Shakespeare's third son, died at Stratford in
February 161 3, aged 29. 'Gilbert Shakespeare ado-
lescens,' who was buried at Stratford on February 3,
1611-12, was doubtless son of the poet's next
brother Gilbert; the latter, having nearly completed
his forty-sixth year, could scarcely be described as
' adolescens ' ; his death is not recorded, but according
to Oldys he survived to a patriarchal age.

1 Halliwell-Phillipps, //isi. of New Place, 1864, fol.

284 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

XVIII

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS

Much controversy has arisen over the spelling of
the poet's surname. It has been proved capable of
c, „• r four thousand variations.^ The name of the

Spelling 01

the poet's poct's father is entered sixty-six times in
surname, ^j^^ couucil books of Stratford, and is spelt
in sixteen ways. The commonest form is ' Shax-
peare.' Five autographs of the poet of undisputed
authenticity are extant ; his signature to the indenture
Autograph relating to the purchase of the property in
signatures. Blackfriars, dated March 10, 161 2- 13 (since
1841 in the Guildhall Library); his signature to the
mortgage-deed relating to the same purchase, dated
March 11, 161 2-1 3 (since 1858 in the British Museum),
and the three signatures on the three sheets of his
will, dated March 25, 161 5-16 (now at Somerset
House). In all the signatures some of the letters are
represented by recognised signs of abbreviation. The
signature to the first document is ' William Shakspere,'
though in all other portions of the deeds the name is

'^\^\%<i, Autograph of William Shakespeare . . . together with ^,ooo
ways of spelling the name, Philadelphia, 1869.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 285

spelt ' Shakespeare.' The signature to the second
document has been interpreted both as Shakspere and
Shakspeare. The ink of the first signature in the
will has now faded almost beyond decipherment, but
that it was ' Shakspere ' may be inferred from the
facsimile made by Steevens in 1776. The second and
third signatures to the will, which are also somewhat
difficult to decipher, have been read both as Shakspere
and Shakspeare ; but a close examination suggests
that whatever the second signature may be, the third
is * Shakespeare.' Shakspere is the spelling of the
alleged autograph in the British Museum copy of
Florio's ' Montaigne,' but the genuineness of that
signature is disputable.^ Shakespeare was the form
adopted in the full signature appended to the dedica-
tory epistles of the ' Venus and Adonis' of 1593 and
the ' Lucrece ' of 1594, volumes which were produced
under the poet's supervision. It is the spelling
adopted on the title-pages of the majority of contem-
porary editions of his works, whether or not produced
under his supervision. It is adopted in almost all
the published references to the poet during the seven-
teenth century. It appears in the grant of arms in
1596, in the license to the players of 1603, and in the
text of all the legal documents relating to the poet's
property. The poet, like most of his contemporaries,
acknowledged no finality on the subject. According
to the best authority, he spelt his surname in two
ways when signing his will. There is consequently

1 See the article on Florio, John, in the Dictionary of National
Biography, and Sir Frederick Madden's Observations on an Autograph
of Shakspere, 1 838.

285 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

no good ground for abandoning the form Shakespeare
which is sanctioned by legal and literary custom. ^

Aubrey reported that Shakespeare was ' a hand-
some well-shap't man,' but no portrait exists which can
Shake- ^^ ^^^^ ^^^'^ absolutc Certainty to have been
speare's cxccutcd during his lifetime, although one
por lai a. j^^g recently been discovered with a good
claim to that distinction. Only two of the extant
portraits are positively known to have been produced
within a short period after his death. These are the
bust in Stratford Church and the frontispiece to the
folio of 1623. Each is an inartistic attempt at a
posthumous likeness. There is considerable dis-
crepancy between the two ; their main points of re-
semblance are the baldness on the top of the head
and the fulness of the hair about the ears. The bust
was by Gerard Johnson or Janssen, who was a Dutch
The strat- stonemason or tombmaker settled in South-
ford bust. wark. It was set up in the church before
1623, and is a rudely carved specimen of mortuary
sculpture. There are marks about the forehead and
ears which suggest that the face was fashioned from
a death mask, but the workmanship is at all points
clumsy. The round face and eyes present a heavy,
unintellectual expression. The bust was originally
coloured, but in 1793 Malone caused it to be white-
washed. In 1 86 1 the whitewash was removed, and
the colours, as far as traceable, restored. The eyes
are light hazel, the hair and beard auburn. There

1 Cf. Ilalliwell-Phillipps New Lamps or Old, 1 880; Malone,
Inquiry, 1796.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 287

have been numberless reproductions, both engraved
and photographic. It was first engraved — very im-
perfectly — for Rowe's edition in 1709; then by
Vertue for Pope's edition of 1725; and by Gravelot
for Hanmer's edition in 1744. A good engraving by
William Ward appeared in 18 16. A phototype and
a chromo-phototype, issued by the New Shakspere
Society, are the best reproductions for the purposes
The ' strat °^ study. The pretentious painting known
ford • por- as the ' Stratford ' portrait, and presented in
"■'''*• 1 867 by W. O. Hunt, town clerk of Stratford,

to the Birthplace Museum, where it is very promi-
nently displayed, was probably painted from the bust
late in the eighteenth century ; it lacks either historic
or artistic interest.

The engraved portrait — nearly a half-length —
which was printed on the title-page of the folio of 1623,
j-j^ g was by Martin Droeshout. On the oppo-

shoufsen- site page lines by Ben Jonson congratulate
graving. < ^j^^ graver ' on having satisfactorily ' hit '
the poet's 'face.' Jonson's testimony does no credit
to his artistic discernment ; the expression of counte-
nance, which is very crudely rendered, is neither
distinctive nor lifelike. The face is long and the
forehead high ; the top of the head is bald, but the
hair falls in abundance over the ears. There is a scanty
moustache and a thin tuft under the lower lip. A stiff
and wide collar, projecting horizontally, conceals the
neck. The coat is closely buttoned and elaborately
bordered, especially at the shoulders. The dimensions
of the head and face are disproportionately large as

288 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

compared with those of the body. In the unique proof
copy which belonged to Halliwell-Phillipps (now with
his collection in America) the tone is clearer than in
the ordinary copies, and the shadows are less darkened
by cross-hatching and coarse dotting. The engraver,
Martin Droeshout, belonged to a Flemish family of
painters and engravers long settled in London, where
he was born in 1601. He was thus fifteen years old
at the time of Shakespeare's death in 16 16, and it is
consequently improbable that he had any personal
knowledge of the dramatist. The engraving was
doubtless produced by Droeshout very shortly before
the jiublication of the First Folio in 1623, when he
had completed his twenty-second year. It thus
belongs to the outset of the engraver's professional
career, in which he never achieved extended practice
or reputation. A copy of the Droeshout engraving,
by William Marshall, was prefixed to Shakespeare's
'Poems' in 1640, and William Faithorne made
another copy for the frontispiece of the edition of
'The Rape of Lucrece ' published in 1655.

There is little doubt that young Droeshout in
fashioning his engraving worked from a painting, and
The'Droe- ^^^^^ ^^ ^ likelihood that the original picture
shout ■ from which the youthful engraver worked has
painting. lately come to light. As recently as 1892
Mr. Edgar Flower, of Stratford-on-Avon, discovered
in the possession of Mr. H. C. Clements, a private
gentleman with artistic tastes residing at Peckham
Rye, a portrait alleged to represent Shakespeare.
The picture, which was faded and somewhat worm-

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 289

eaten, dated beyond all doubt from the early years of
the seventeenth century. It was painted on a panel
formed of two planks of old elm, and in the upper
left-hand corner was the inscription 'Will'" Shake-
speare, 1609.' Mr. Clements purchased the portrait
of an obscure dealer about 1840, and knew nothing
of its history, beyond what he set down on a slip of
paper when he acquired it. The note that he then
wrote and pasted on the box in which he preserved
the picture ran as follows : ' The original portrait of
Shakespeare, from which the now famous Droeshout
engraving was taken and inserted in the first collected
edition of his works, published in 1623, being seven
years after his death. The picture was painted nine
[z'cre seven] years before his death, and consequently
sixteen [irre fourteen] years before it was published.
. . . The picture was publicly exhibited in London
seventy years ago, and many thousands went to see it.'
In all its details and in its comparative dimensions,
especially in the disproportion between the size of
the head and that of the body, this picture is
identical with the Droeshout engraving. Though
coarsely and stiffly drawn, the face is far more
skilfully presented than in the engraving, and the
expression of countenance betrays some artistic
sentiment which is absent from the print. Connois-
seurs, including Sir Edward Poynter, Mr. Sidney
Colvin, and Mr. Lionel Cust, have almost unre-
servedly pronounced the picture to be anterior in
date to the engraving, and they have reached the
conclusion that in all probability Martin Droeshout

290 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

directly based his work upon the painting. Influences
of an early seventeenth-century Flemish school are
plainly discernible in the picture, and it is just possible
that it is the production of an uncle of the young en-
graver Martin Droeshout, who bore the same name
as his nephew, and was naturalised in this country on
January 25, 1608, when he was described as a ' painter
of Brabant.' Although the history of the portrait
rests on critical conjecture and on no external con-
temporary evidence, there seems good ground for re-
garding it as a portrait of Shakespeare painted in his
lifetime — in the forty-fifth year of his age. No other
pictorial representation of the poet has equally serious
claims to be treated as contemporary with himself, and
it therefore presents features of unique interest. On
the death of its owner, Mr. Clements, in 1895, the
painting was purchased by Mrs. Charles Flower, and
was presented to the Memorial Picture Gallery at
Stratford, where it now hangs. No attempt at res-
toration has been made. A photogravure forms the
frontispiece to the present volume.^

Of the same type as the Droeshout engraving,
although less closely resembling it than the picture
just described, is the ' Ely House ' portrait, (now the
property of the Birthplace Trustees at Stratford),

1 Mr. Lionel Cust, director of the National Portrait Gallery, who has
little doubt of the genuineness of the picture, gave an interesting account
of it at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries on December 12, 1895.
Mr. Gust's paper is printed in the Society's Proceedings, second series,
vol. xvi. p. 42. Mr. Salt Brassington, the librarian of the Shakespeare
Memorial Library, has given a careful description of it in the Illustrated
Catalogue of the Pictures in the Memorial Gallery, 1896, pp. 78-83.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 29 1

which formerly belonged to Thomas Turton, Bishop
of Ely, and it is inscribed ' m. 39 x. 1603.'^ This
painting is of high artistic value. The features are of
a far more attractive and intellectual cast than in either
the Droesh6ut painting or engraving, and the many
differences in detail raise doubts as to whether the
person represented can have been intended for
Shakespeare. Experts are of opinion that the pict-
ure was painted early in the seventeenth century.

Early in Charles II's reign Lord Chancellor
Clarendon added a portrait of Shakespeare to his
great gallery in his house in St. James's. Mention
is made of it in a letter from the diarist John Evelyn
to his friend Samuel Pepys in 1689, but Clarendon's
collection was dispersed at the end of the seventeenth
century and the picture has not been traced.^

Of the numerous extant paintings which have
been described as portraits of Shakespeare, only the
Later ' Drocshout ' portrait and the ' Ely House '

portraits, portrait, both of which are at Stratford,
bear any definable resemblance to the folio engraving
or the bust in the church.^ In spite of their admitted

1 Harper'' s Magazine, May 1897.

^ Cf. Evelyn'' s Diary and Correspondence, iii. 444.

3 Numberless portraits have been falsely identiiied with Shakespeare,
and it would be futile to attempt to make the record of the pretended
portraits complete. Upwards of sixty have been offered for sale to the
National Portrait Gallery since its foundation in 1856, and not one of
these has proved to possess the remotest claim to authenticity. The
following are some of the wholly unauthentic portraits that have at-
tracted public attention : Three portraits assigned to Zucchero, who
left England in 15S0, and cannot have had any relations with Shake-
speare — one in the Art Museum, Boston, US. A.; another, formerly

292 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

imperfections, those presentments can alone be held
indisputably to have been honestly designed to depict
the poet's features. They must be treated as the
standards of authenticity in judging of the genuine-
ness of other portraits claiming to be of an early date.
Of other alleged portraits which are extant, the
most famous and interesting is the ' Chandos ' portrait,
rj.^^ now in the National Portrait Gallery. Its ped-

' Chandos' igrec suggests that it was intended to repre-
portrait. ^^^^ ^j^^ poet, but numcrous and conspicuous
divergences from the authenticated likenesses show
that it was painted from fanciful descriptions of him
some years after his death. The face is bearded, and
rings adorn the ears. Oldys reported that it was from
the brush of Burbage, Shakespeare's fellow-actor, who
had some reputation as a limner,^ and that it had be-
longed to Joseph Taylor, an actor contemporary with
Shakespeare. These rumours are not corroborated ;
but there is no doubt that it was at one time the prop-
erty of D'Avenant, and that it subsequently belonged
successively to the actor Betterton and to Mrs. Barry
the actress. In 1693 Sir Godfrey Kneller made a copy

the property of Richard Cosway, R.A., and afterwards of Mr. J. A.
Langford of Birmingham (engraved in mezzotint by H. Green) ; and
a third belonging to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who purchased it in
1862. At Hampton Court is a wholly unauthentic portrait of the
Chandos type, which was at one time at Penshurst ; it bears the legend
S-Etatis suffi 34' (cf. Law's Ca^. of Hampton Court, p. 234). A
portrait inscribed 'retatis suae 47, 1611,' belonging to Clement Kingston
of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was engraved in mezzotint by G. F. Storm
in 1846.

1 In the picture-gallery at Duhvich is ' a woman's head on a boord
done by Mr. Burbidge, ye actor ' — a well-authenticated example of the
actor's art.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 293

as a gift for Dryden. After Mrs. Barry's death in
171 3 it was purchased for forty guineas by Robert
Keck, a barrister of the Inner Temple. At length
it reached the hands of one John Nichols, whose
daughter married James Brydges, third duke of
Chandos. In due time the Duke became the owner
of the picture, and it subsequently passed, through
Chandos's daughter, to her husband, the first Duke of
Buckingham, whose son, the second Duke of Bucking-
ham, sold it with the rest of his effects at Stowe in
1848, when it was purchased by the Earl of Ellesmere.
The latter presented it to the nation. Edward Capell
many years before presented a copy by Ranelagh
Barret to Trinity College, Cambridge, and other cop-
ies are attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Ozias
Humphrey ( 1 783). It was engraved by George Vertue
in 1719 for Pope's edition (1725), and often later, one
of the best engravings being by Vandergucht. A
good lithograph from a tracing by Sir George Scharf
was published by the trustees of the National Portrait
Gallery in 1864. The Baroness Burdett-Coutts pur-
chased in 1875 a portrait of similar type, which is
said, somewhat doubtfully, to have belonged to John
lord Lumley, who died in 1609, and to have formed
part of a collection of portraits of the great men of his
day at his house, Lumley Castle, Durham. Its early
history is not positively authenticated, and it may
well be an early copy of the 'Chandos' portrait. The
' Lumley ' painting was finely chromo-lithographed in
1863 by Vincent Brooks.

The so-called 'Jansen' or 'Janssens' portrait, which

294 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

belongs to Lady Guendolen Ramsden, daughter of the
The Duke of Somerset, and is now at her resi-

' Jansen ' t» i ■, r i i r n • i

portrait. deuce at Bulstrode, was first doubtfully iden'
tified about 1770, when in the possession of Charles
Jennens. Janssens did not come to England before
Shakespeare's death. It is a fine portrait, but is
unlike any other that has been associated with the
dramatist. An admirable mezzotint by Richard
Earlom was issued in 18 ri.

The ' Felton ' portrait, a small head on a panel, with
The a high and very bald forehead (belonging

portrait. sincc 1 873 to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts),
was purchased by S. Felton of Drayton, Shropshire,
in 1792, of J. Wilson, the owner of the Shakespeare
Museum in Pall Mall ; it bears a late inscription, 'Gul.
Shakespear 1597, R. B.' [i.e. Richard Burbage]. It
was engraved by Josiah Boydell for George Steevens
in 1797, and by James Neagle for Isaac Reed's edition
in 1803. Fuseli declared it to be the work of a Dutch
artist, but the painters Romney and Lawrence re-
garded it as of English workmanship of the sixteenth
century. Steevens held that it was the original pict-
ure whence both Droeshout and Marshall made their
engravings, but there are practically no points of re-
semblance between it and the prints.

The 'Soest' or 'Zoust' portrait — in the possession
The _ of Sir John Lister-Kaye of the Grange,
portrait. Wakefield — was in the collection of Thomas
Wright, painter, of Covent Garden in 1725, when
John Simon engraved it. Soest was born twenty-one
years after Shakespeare's death, and the portrait is

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

From a plaster-cast of the terra-cotta bust now in the possession of the Gar-
rick Club.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 295

only on fanciful grounds identified with the poet. A
chalk drawing by Joseph Michael Wright, obviously
inspired by the Soest portrait, is the property of Sir
Arthur Hodgson of Clopton House, and is on loan at
the Memorial Gallery, Stratford.

A well-executed miniature by Hilliard, at one
Miniatures, time in the possession of William Somerville
the poet, and now the property of Sir Stafford North-
cote, bart., was engraved by Agar for vol. ii. of the
'Variorum Shakespeare' of 1821, and in Wivell's
'Inquiry,' 1827. It has little claim to attention as a
portrait of the dramatist. Another miniature (called
the ' Auriol ' portrait), of doubtful authenticity, for-
merly belonged to Mr. Lumsden Propert, and a third
is at Warwick Castle.

A bust, said to be of Shakespeare, was discovered
in 1845 bricked up in a wall in Spode & Copeland's
^, china warehouse in Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Ine

Garrick The warchousc had been erected on the site
" ^^*' of the Duke's Theatre, which was built by
D'Avenant in 1660. The bust, which is of black
terra-cotta, and bears traces of Italian workmanship, is
believed to have adorned the proscenium of the Duke's
Theatre. It was acquired by the surgeon William
Clift, from whom it passed to Cliffs son-in-law,
Richard (afterwards Sir Richard) Owen the natural-
ist. The latter sold it to the Duke of Devonshire,
who presented it in 185 1 to the Garrick Club, after
having two copies made in plaster. One of these
copies is now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery
at Stratford, and from it an engraving has been made
for reproduction in this volume.

296 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The Kesselstadt death-mask was discovered by
Dr. Ludwig Becker, librarian at the ducal palace at
^jj Darmstadt, in a rag-shop at Mayence in

death- 1 849. The features resemble those of an

^^^^' alleged portrait of Shakespeare (dated 1637)

which Dr. Becker purchased in 1847. This picture
had long been in the possession of the family of Count
Francis von Kesselstadt of Mayence, who died in
1843. Dr. Becker brought the mask and the picture
to England in 1849, and Richard Owen supported
the theory that the mask was taken from Shake-
speare's face after death, and was the foundation of
the bust in Stratford Church. The mask was for a
long time in Dr. Becker's private apartments at the
ducal palace, Darmstadt.^ The features are singularly
attractive ; but the chain of evidence which would
identify them with Shakespeare is incomplete.^

A monument, the expenses of which were defrayed

1 It is now the property of Frau Oberst Becker, the discoverer's
daughter-in-law. Darmstadt, Heidelbergerstrasse iii.

2 Some account of Shakespeare's portraits will be found in the fol-
lowing works : James Boaden, Inquiry into various Pictures and Prints
of Shakespeare, 1824; Abraham Wivell, Inquiry into Shakespeare^ s
Portraits, 1827, with engravings by B. and W. HoU; George Scharf,
Principal Portraits of Shakespeare, 1864; J. Hain Friswell, Life-Por-
traits of Shakespeare, 1864 ; William Page, Study of Shakespeare'' s
J'ortraits, 1876; Ingleby, ^/rt« ««(/ /Aw/t, 1877, pp. 84 seq. ; J.Parker
Norris, Portraits of Shakespeare, Philadelphia, 1885, with numerous
plates; Illustrated Cat. of Portraits in Shakespeare'' s Memorial at
Stratford, 1896. In 1885 Mr. Walter Rogers Furness issued, at
Philadelphia, a volume of composite portraits, combining the Droeshout
engraving and the Stratford bust with the Chandos, Jansen, Felton, and
Stratford portraits.

AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS 297

by public subscription, was set up in the Poets'
Memorial Comcr in Wcstminstcr Abbey in 1 741. Pope
in sculpt- and the Earl of Burlington were among
the promoters. The design was by William
Kent, and the statue of Shakespeare was executed
by Peter Scheemakers.^ Another statue was executed
by Roubiliac for Garrick, who bequeathed it to the
British Museum in 1779. A third statue, freely
adapted from the works of Scheemakers and Roubi-
liac, was executed for Baron Albert Grant and was
set up by him as a gift to the metropolis in Leicester
Square, London, in 1879. A fourth statue (by Mr.
J. Q. A. Ward) was placed in 1882 in the Central
Park, New York. A fifth in bronze, by M. Paul Four-
nier, which was erected in Paris in 1888 at the expense
of an English resident, Mr. W. Knighton, stands at the
point where the Avenue de Messine meets the Boule-
vard Haussmann. A sixth memorial in sculpture, by
Lord Ronald Gower, the most elaborate and ambitious
of all, stands in the garden of the Shakespeare Memo-
rial buildings, and was unveiled in 1888 ; Shakespeare
is seated on a high pedestal ; below, at each side of
the pedestal, stand figures of four of Shakespeare's
principal characters : Lady Macbeth, Hamlet, Prince
Hal, and Sir John Falstaff.

At Stratford, the Birthplace, which was acquired
by the public in 1846 and converted into a museum, is,
with Anne Hathaway's cottage (which was acquired
by the Birthplace Trustees in 1892), a place of pil-
grimage for visitors from all parts of the globe. The

^ Cf. Gentle7nan^s Alagazine, 1741, p. 105.

298 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

27,038 persons who visited it in 1896 and the 26,510
persons who visited it in 1897 represented over forty
nationalities. The site of the demolished New Place,
with the gardens, was also purchased by public sub-
scription in 1 86 1, and now forms a public garden.
Of a new memorial building on the river-bank at
Stratford, consisting of a theatre, picture-gallery, and
library, the foundation-stone was laid on April 23,
1877. The theatre was opened exactly two years
later, when ' Much Ado about Nothing ' was per-
formed, with Helen Faucit (Lady Martin) as Beatrice
and Barry Sullivan as Benedick. Performances of
Shakespeare's plays have since been given annually
during April. The library and picture-gallery were
opened in 188 1.^ A memorial Shakespeare library
was opened at Birmingham on April 23, 1868, to
commemorate the tercentenary of 1864, and, although
destroyed by fire in 1879, was restored in 1882; it
now possesses nearly ten thousand volumes relating
to Shakespeare.

1 A History of the Shakespeare Memorial, Stratford-on-Avon, 1882;
Illustrated Catalogue of Pictures in the Shakespeare Memorial, 1896.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 299

XIX

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Only two of Shakespeare's works — his narrative
poems 'Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece' — were
published with his sanction and co-operation. These
poems were the first specimens of his work to appear
in print, and they passed in his Hfetime through a
greater number of editions than any of his plays.
At the time of his death in 1616 there had been
printed in quarto seven editions of his ' Venus and
Quartos of Adonis ' (i593, 1594, 1596, 1599, 1600,
the poems ^^^ ^^^ -^ i6o2), and five editions of

in the poets '

lifetime. his ' Lucrcce ' (1594, 1598, 1600, 1607, 16 16).
There was only one lifetime edition of the ' Sonnets,'
Thorpe's surreptitious venture of 1609;^ but three
editions were issued of the piratical ' Passionate
Pilgrim,' which was fraudulently assigned to Shake-
speare by the publisher William Jaggard, although
it only contained a few occasional poems by him
(1599, 1600 no copy known, and 1612).

Of posthumous editions in quarto of the two

1 This was facsimiled in 1862, and again by Mr. Griggs in 1880.

300 Wir.LIAM SHAKESPEARE

narrative poems in the seventeenth century, there
Posthu- were two of ' Lucrece ' — viz. in 1624 ('the
"osoHhr' sixth edition') and in 1655 (with John
poems. Quarles's 'Banishment of Tarquin ') — and
there were as many as six editions of 'Venus ' (16 17,
1620, 1627, two in 1630 and 1636), making thirteen
editions in all in forty-three years. No later editions
of these two poems were issued in the seventeenth
century. They were next reprinted together with
'The Passionate Pilgrim' in 1707, and thenceforth
they usually figured, with the addition of the ' Sonnets,'
in collected editions of Shakespeare's works.

A so-called first collected edition of Shakespeare's
' Poems ' in 1640 (London, by T. Cotes for I. Benson)
r^^^ was mainly a reissue of the ' Sonnets,'

'Poems' but it omitted six (Nos. xviii., xix., xliii.,
^ "^°' Ivi., Ixxv., and Ixxvi.) and it included the
twenty poems of ' The Passionate Pilgrim, with
some other pieces by other authors. Marshall's copy
of the Droeshout engraving of 1623 formed the
frontispiece. There were prefatory poems by Leonard
Digges and John Warren, as well as an address ' to the
reader' signed with the initials of the publisher. There
Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' were described as ' serene,
clear, and elegantly plain ; such gentle strains as shall
re-create and not perplex your brain. No intricate
or cloudy stuff to puzzle intellect. Such as will raise
your admiration to his praise.' A chief point of in-
terest in the volume of 'Poems' of 1640 is the fact
that the ' Sonnets ' were printed then in a different
order to that which was followed in the volume of

BIBLIOGRAPHY 3OI

1609. Thus the poem numbered Ixvii. in the original
edition opens the reissue, and what has been regarded
as the crucial poem beginning

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

which was in 1609 numbered cxliv., takes the thirty-
second place in 1640. In most cases a more or less
fanciful general title was placed in the second edition
at the head of each sonnet, but in a few instances a
single title serves for short sequences of two or three
sonnets which are printed as independent poems con-
tinuously without spacing. The poems drawn from
' The Passionate Pilgrim ' are intermingled with the
' Sonnets,' together with extracts from Thomas Hey-
wood's ' General History of Women,' although no
hint is given that they are not Shakespeare's work.
The edition concludes with three epitaphs on Shake-
speare and a short section entitled ' An addition of
some excellent poems to those precedent by other
Gentlemen.' The volume is of great rarity. An
exact reprint was published in 1885.

Of Shakespeare's plays there were in print in
1616 only sixteen (all in quarto), or eighteen if we
Quartos of include the ' Contention,' the first draft of
the plays <2 Henry \T ' (1594 and 1600), and 'The

in the i > 1 n

poet's life- True 1 ragedy, the first draft of ' 3 Henry
time. Yj ' (1595 and 1600). These sixteen quartos

were publishers' ventures, and were undertaken with-
out the co-operation of the author.

Two of the plays, published thus, reached five
editions before 1616, viz. 'Richard HI' (1597, 1598,

302 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1602, 1605, 1612) and 'I Henry IV' (1598, 1599,

1604, 1608, 161 5).

Three reached four editions, viz. 'Richard II'
(1597, 1598, 1608 supplying the deposition scene for
the first time, 1615), ' Hamlet ' (1603 imperfect, 1604,

1605, 161 1), and 'Romeo and Juliet' (1597 imperfect,
1599, two in 1609).

Two reached three editions, viz. ' Henry V ' (1600
imperfect, 1602, and 1608) and 'Pericles' (two in
1609, 161 1 ).

Four" reached two editions, viz. ' Midsummer
Night's Dream ' (both in 1600), ' Merchant of Venice,'
(both in 1600), 'Lear' (both in 1608), and ' Troilus
and Cressida' (both in 1609).

Five achieved only one edition, viz. ' Love's
Labour's Lost' (1598), '2 Henry IV' (1600), 'Much
Ado' (1600), 'Titus' (1600), 'Merry Wives' (1602
imperfect).

Three years after Shakespeare's death — in 1619
— there appeared a second edition of ' Merry Wives'
Posthu- (again imperfect) and a fourth of ' Pericles.'
Tartos of * Othello ' was first printed posthumously in
the plays. i622 (4to), and in the same year sixth edi-
tions of ' Richard III ' and ' i Henry IV' appeared.^
The largest collections of the original quartos — ■

^ Lithographed facsimiles of most of these volumes, with some of
the quarto editions of the poems (forty-eight volumes in all), were
prepared by Mr. E. W. Ashbee, and issued to subscribers by Halliwell-
Phillipps between 1862 and 1871. A cheaper set of quarto facsimiles,
undertaken by Mr. W. Griggs, and issued under the supervision of Dr.
F. J. P^urnivall, appeared in forty-three volumes between 1880 and
1889.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 303

each of which only survives in four, five, or six
copies — are in the libraries of the Duke of Devon-
shire, the British Museum, and Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, and in the Bodleian Library. ^ All the quartos
were issued in Shakespeare's day at sixpence each.

In 1623 the first attempt was made to give the
world a complete edition of Shakespeare's plays.
The First Two of the dramatist's intimate friends and
Folio. fellow-actors, John Heming and Henry

Condell, were nominally responsible for the venture,
but it seems to have been suggested by a small syndi-
cate of printers and publishers, who undertook all
pecuniary responsibility. Chief of the syndicate was
William Jaggard, printer since 161 1 to the City of
London, who was established in business in Fleet
Street at the east end of St. Dunstan'-s Church. As
the piratical pubhsher of ' The Passionate Pilgrim ' he
had long known the commercial value of Shake-
speare's work. In 161 3 he had extended his business
by purchasing the stock and rights of a rival pirate,
The ub James Roberts, who had printed the quarto
lishing editions of the ' Merchant of Venice ' and
syndicate. « Midsummer Night's Dream' in 1600 and
the complete quarto of ' Hamlet ' in 1604. Roberts
had enjoyed for nearly twenty years the right to print
'the players' bills,' or programmes, and he made over

1 Perfect copies range in price, according to their rarity, from
200/. to 300/. In 1864, at the sale of George Daniel's library, quarto
copies of ' Love's Labour's Lost' and of 'Merry Wives' (first edition)
each fetched 346/. 105. On May 14, 1897, a copy of the quarto of
'The Merchant of Venice' (printed by James Roberts in 1600) was
sold at Sotheby's for 315/.

304 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

that privilege to Jaggard with his other literary prop-
erty. It was to the close personal relations with the
playhouse managers into which the acquisition of the
right of printing ' the players' bills ' brought Jaggard
after 1613 that the inception of the scheme of the
' First Folio ' may safely be attributed. Jaggard asso-
ciated his son Isaac with the enterprise. They alone
of the members of the syndicate were printers. Their
three partners were publishers or booksellers only.
Two of these, William Aspley and John Smethwick,
had already speculated in plays of Shakespeare. Asp-
ley had published with another in 1600 the 'Second
Part of Henry IV ' and ' Much Ado about Nothing,'
and in 1609 half of Thorpe's impression of Shake-
speare's ' Sonnets.' Smethwick, whose shop was in
St. Dunstan's • Churchyard, Fleet Street, near Jag-
gard's, had published in 1611 two late editions of
'Romeo and Juliet' and one of 'Hamlet' Edward
Blount, the fifth partner, was an interesting figure in
the trade, and, unlike his companions, had a true
taste in literature. He had been a friend and ad-
mirer of Christopher Marlowe, and had actively en-
gaged in the posthumous publication of two of
Marlowe's poems. He had published that curious
collection of mystical verse entitled 'Love's Martyr,'
one poem in which, ' a poetical essay of the Phoenix
and the Turtle,' was signed 'William Shakespeare.'^
The First Folio was doubtless printed in Jaggard's
printing office near St. Dunstan's Church. Upon
Blount probably fell the chief labour of seeing the

1 See p. 183.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 305

work through the press. It was in progress through-
out 1623, and had so far advanced by November 8,
1623, that on that day Edward Blount and Isaac
(son of William) Jaggard obtained formal license
from the Stationers' Company to j^ublish sixteen
of the twenty hitherto unprinted plays that it was
intended to include. The pieces, whose approaching
publication for the first time was thus announced,
were of supreme literary interest. The titles ran :
'The Tempest,' 'The Two Gentlemen,' 'Measure
for Measure,' ' Comedy of Errors,' ' As You Like It,'
'All's Well,' 'Twelfth Night,' 'Winter's Tale,' '3
Henry VI,' 'Henry VIII,'' Coriolanus,' 'Timon,' 'Julius
CiEsar,' ' Macbeth,' ' Antony and Cleopatra,' and' Cym-
beline.' Four other hitherto unprinted dramas for
which no license was sought figured in the volume,
viz. ' King John,' ' i and 2 Henry VI,' and ' The Tam-
ing of The Shrew ' ; but each of these plays was based
by Shakespeare on a play of like title which had been
published at an earlier date, and the absence of a license
was doubtless due to an ignorant misconception on the
part either of the Stationers' Company's officers or of
the editors of the volume as to the true relations subsist-
ing between the old pieces and the new. The only play
by Shakespeare that had been previously published
and was not included in the First Folio was ' Pericles.'
Thirty-six pieces in all were thus brought together.
The volume consisted of nearly one thousand double-
column pages and was sold at a pound a copy. Steevens
estimated that the edition numbered 250 copies. The
book was described on the title-page as published by

306 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard, and in the colophon
as printed at the charges of 'W. Jaggard, I. Smithweeke,
and W. Aspley,' as well as of Blount.^ On the title-
page was engraved the Droeshout portrait. Com-
mendatory verses were supplied by Ben Jonson, Hugh
The ref- Holland, Leonard Digges, and I. M., per-
atory haps Jaspcr Maine. The dedication was

"'''"^'"- addressed to the brothers William Herbert,
earl of Pembroke, the lord chamberlain, and Philip
Herbert, earl of Montgomery, and was signed by
Shakespeare's friends and fellow-actors, Heming and
Condell. The same signatures were appended to a
succeeding address 'to the great variety of readers.'
In both addresses the two actors made pretension
to a larger responsibility for the enterprise than they
really incurred, but their motives in identifying them-
selves with the venture were doubtless irreproachable.
They disclaimed (they wrote) ' ambition either of selfe-
profit or fame in undertaking the design,' being solely
moved by anxiety to ' keepe the memory of so worthy
a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare.'
' It had bene a thing we confesse worthie to haue bene
wished,' they inform the reader, ' that the author him-
selfe had lined to haue set forth and ouerseen his
owne writings. ..." A list of contents follows the
address to the readers.

The title-page states that all the plays were printed
' according to the true originall copies.' The dedi-
cators wrote to the same effect. ' As where (before)
we were abus'd with diuerse stolne and surreptitious

1 Cf. Bibliographica, i. 4S9 seq.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 307

copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and
stealthes of incurious impostors that expos'd them ;
even those are now offer'd to your view cur'd and
perfect in their limbes, and all the rest absolute in
their numbers as he conceived them.' There is no
doubt that the whole volume was printed from the
acting versions in the possession of the manager of
the company with which Shakespeare had been asso-
ciated. But it is doubtful if any play were printed
exactly as it came from his pen. The First Folio
text is often markedly inferior to that of the six-
The value tccu prc-existcnt quartos, which, although
of the text, surrcptitiously and imperfectly printed, fol-
lowed playhouse copies of far earlier date. From
the text of the quartos the text of the First Folio differs
invariably, although in varying degrees. The quarto
texts of ' Love's Labour's Lost,' ' Midsummer Night's
Dream,' and 'Richard II,' for example, differ very
largely and always for the better from the folio texts.
On the other hand, the folio repairs the glaring de-
fects of the quarto versions of * The Merry Wives of
Windsor' and of ' Henry V.' In the case of twenty
of the plays in the First Folio no quartos exist for
comparison, and of these twenty plays, ' Coriolanus,'
' All's Well,' a.nd ' Macbeth ' present a text abounding
in corrupt passages.

The plays are arranged under three headings —
T,, , 'Comedies,' 'Histories,' and 'Tragedies' —

The order ' ' ^

of the and each division is separately paged. The

^^^^' arrangement of the plays in each division

follows no principle. The comedy section begins

30S WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

with the 'Tempest' and ends with the 'Winter's
Tale.' The histories more justifiably begin with
•'King John' and end with 'Henry VIII.' The
tragedies begin with ' Troilus and Cressida ' and end
with 'Cymbclinc' This order has been usually
followed in subsequent collected editions.

As a specimen of typography the First Folio is not
to be commended. There are a great many con-
Thetypog- temporary folios of larger bulk far more
raphy. neatly and correctly printed. It looks as
though Jaggard's printing office were undermanned.
The misprints are numerous and are especially
conspicuous in the pagination. The sheets seem to
have been worked off very slowly, and corrections
were made while the press was working, so that
the copies struck off later differ occasionally from
the earlier copies. One mark of carelessness on the
part of the compositor or corrector of the press, which
is common to all copies, is that ' Troilus and Cressida,'
though in the body of the book it opens the section
of tragedies, is not mentioned at all in the list of
contents, and the play is unpaged except on its second
and third pages, which bear the numbers 79 and 80.

Three copies are known which are distinguished
by more interesting irregularities, in each case unique.
Unique The copy in the Lenox Library in New York
copies. includes a cancel duplicate of a leaf of ' As
You Like It ' (sheet R of the comedies), and the title-
page bears the date 1622 instead of 1623 ; but it is
suspected that the figures were tampered with outside
the printing ofifice.^ Samuel Butler, successively head

^ This copy was described in the Variorum Shakespeare (jf 1821

BIBLIOGRAPHY 309

master of Shrewsbury and Bishop of Lichfield and
Coventry, possessed a copy of the First Folio in which
a proof leaf of ' Hamlet ' was bound up with the
corrected leaf.^

The most interesting irregularity yet noticed ap-
pears in one of the two copies of the book belonging
to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. This copy is known
as the Sheldon Folio, having formed in the seven-
teenth century part of the library of Ralph Sheldon
of Weston Manor in the parish of Long Compton,
Warwickshire.^ In the Sheldon Folio the opening
The P3-g6 of ' Troilus and Cressida,' of which the

Sheldon rccto or front is occupied by the prologue
'^°^^' and the verso or back by the opening lines

of the text of the play, is .followed by a superfluous
leaf. On the recto or front of the unnecessary leaf ^
are printed the concluding lines of ' Romeo and Juliet '
in place of the prologue to 'Troilus and Cressida.'
At the back or verso are the opening lines of ' Troi-
lus and Cressida ' repeated from the preceding page.

(xxi. 449) as in the possession of Messrs. J. and A. Arch, booksellers, of
Cornhill. It was subsequently sold at Sotheby's in 1855 ^^"^ 163/. 165.

1 I cannot trace the present whereabouts of this copy, but it is
described in the Variorum Shakespeare of 1821, xxi. 449-50.

2 The copy seems to have been purchased by a member of the
Sheldon family in 1628, five years after publication. There is a note
in a contemporary hand which says it was bought for 3/. 155., a
somewhat extravagant price. The entry further says that it cost three
score pounds of silver, words that I cannot explain. The Sheldon
family arms are on the sides of the volume, and there are many
manuscript notes in the margin, interpreting difficult words, correcting
misprints, or suggesting new readings.

^ It has been mutilated by a former owner, and the signature of the
leaf is missing, but it was presumably G g 3.

310 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The presence of a different ornamental headpiece on
each page proves that the two are not taken from the
same setting of the type. At a later page in the Shel-
don copy the concluding lines of ' Romeo and Juliet'
are duly reprinted at the close of the play, and on the
verso or back of the leaf, which supplies them in their
right place, is the opening passage, as in other copies,
of ' Timon of Athens.' These curious confusions
attest that while the work was in course of composi-
tion the printers or editors of the volume at one time
intended to place 'Troilus and Cressida,' with the
prologue omitted, after ' Romeo and Juliet.' The last
page of ' Romeo and Juliet ' is in all copies numbered
79, an obvious misprint for yj ; the first leaf of
' Troilus ' is paged 78 ; the second and third pages of
' Troilus ' are numbered 79 and 80. It was doubtless
suddenly determined while the volume was in the
press to transfer ' Troilus and Cressida ' to the head of
the tragedies from a place near the end, but the num-
bers on the opening pages which indicated its first
position were clumsily retained, and to avoid the ex-
tensive typographical corrections that were required
by the play's change of position, its remaining pages
were allowed to go forth unnumbered.^

It is difficult to estimate how many copies survive
of the First Folio, which is intrinsically and extrinsi-
cally the most valuable volume in the whole range

^ Correspondents inform me that two copies of the First Folio, one
formerly belonging to Leonard Hartley and the other to Bishop Virtue
of Portsmouth, showed a somewhat similar irregularity. Both copies
were bought by American booksellers, and I have not been able to
trace them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 1 1

of English literature. It seems that about 140 copies
Estimated have been traced within the past century.
eKtTm'°^ Of these fewer than twenty are in a per-
copies. feet state, that is, with the portrait printed
{not inlaid) ojt the title-page, and the flyleaf facing
it, with all the pages succeeding it, intact and
uninjured. (The flyleaf contains Ben Jonson's
verses, attesting the truthfulness of the portrait.)
Excellent copies in this enviable state are in the
Grenville Library at the British Museum, and in
the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of
Crawford, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and Mr. A. H.
Huth. Of these probably the finest and cleanest is
the ' Daniel ' copy belonging to the Baroness Burdett-
Coutts. It measures 13 inches by 8^, and was pur-
chased by its present owner for 716/. 2s. at the sale
of George Daniel's library in 1864. Some twenty
more copies are defective in the preliminary pages,
but are unimpaired in other respects. There remain
about a hundred copies which have sustained serious
damage at various points.

A reprint of the First Folio unwarrantably pur-
porting to be exact was published in 1807-8.1 The
best reprint was issued in three parts by
the First Lionel Booth in 1861, 1863, and 1864. The
^°''°' valuable photo-zincographic reproduction

undertaken by Sir Henry James, under the direction
of Howard Staunton, was issued in sixteen folio parts
between February 1864 and October 1865. A reduced

1 Cf. N'otes and Queries, 1st scr., vii. 47.

312 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

photographic facsimile, too small to be legible, appeared
in 1876, with a preface by Halliwell-Phillipps.

The Second Folio edition was printed in 1632 by-
Thomas Cotes for Robert Allot and William Aspley,
each of whose names figures as publisher on different
j.^^ copies. To Allot Blount had transferred, on

Second November 16, 1630, his rights in the sixteen
plays which were first licensed for publica-
tion in 1623.1 The Second Folio was reprinted from
the First ; a few corrections were made in the
text, but most of the changes were arbitrary and
needless. Charles I's copy is at Windsor, and
Charles IPs at the British Museum. The 'Perkins
Folio,' now in the Duke of Devonshire's possession,
in which John Payne Collier introduced forged emen-
dations, was a copy of that of 1632.^ The Third
Folio — for the most part a faithful reprint of the
The Third Sccond — was first published in 1663 by Peter
FoUo Chetwynde, who reissued it next year with

the addition of seven plays, six of which have no

1 Arber, Stationers^ Registers, iii. 242-3.

2 On January 31, 1852, Collier announced in the Athemrum, that
this copy, which had been purchased by him for thirty shillings, and
bore on the outer cover the words ' Tko. Perkins his Booked was anno-
tated throughout by a former owner in the middle of the seventeenth
century. Shortly afterwards Collier published all the ' essential ' manu-
script readings in a volume entitled Notes and Emendations to the Plays
of Shakespeare. Next year he presented the folio to the Duke of
Devonshire. A warm controversy as to the date and genuineness of
the corrections followed, but in 1859 all doubt as to their origin was set
at rest by Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton of the manuscript department of
the British Museum, who in letters to the Times of July 2 and 16 pro-
nounced all the manuscript notes to be recent fabrications in a simu-
lated seventeenth-century hand.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 313

claim to admission among Shakespeare's works.
' Unto this impression,' runs the title-page of 1664,
' is added seven Playes never before printed in folio,
viz. : Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The London Prodi-
gall. The History of Thomas Ld. Cromwell. Sir
John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. The Puritan Widow.
A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine.'
The six spurious pieces which open the volume were
attributed by unprincipled publishers to Shakespeare
in his lifetime. P"ewer copies of the Third Folio are
reputed to be extant than of the Second or Fourth
owing to the destruction of many unsold impressions
TheFourth in the Fire of London in 1666. The Fourth
Folio. Folio, printed in 1685 'for H. Herringman,

E. Brewster, R. Chiswell, and R. Bentley,' reprints the
folio of 1664 without change except in the way of
modernising the spelling ; it repeats the spurious
pieces.

Since 1685 some two hundred independent
editions of the collected works have been published
Eigh- in Great Britain and Ireland, and many

century thousand cditious of separate plays. The
editors. eighteenth-ccntury editors of the collected
works endeavoured with varying degrees of success
to purge the text of the numerous incoherences
of the folios, and to restore, where good taste or
good sense required it, the lost text of the contem-
porary quartos. It is largely owing to a due co-ordi-
nation of the results of the efforts of the eighteenth-
century editors by their successors in the present
century that Shakespeare's work has become intelli-

314 "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

gible to general readers unversed in textual criticism,
and has won from them the veneration that it merits.^
Nicholas Rowe, a popular dramatist of Queen
Anne's reign, and poet laureate to George I, was the
first critical editor of Shakespeare. He produced an
edition of his plays in six octavo volumes in 1709.
^,. , , A new edition in eight volumes followed in

Nicholas °

Rowe, 1 7 14, and another hand added a ninth

1674-1718. Yolume which included the poems. Rowe
prefixed a valuable life of the poet embodying
traditions which were in danger of perishing without
a record. His text followed that of the Fourth Folio.
The plays were printed in the same order except
that he transferred the spurious pieces from the
beginning to the end. Rowe did not compare his
text with that of the First Folio or of the quartos,
but in the case of ' Romeo and Juliet ' he met with an
early quarto while his edition was passing through
the press, and inserted at the end of the play the pro-
logue which is only met with in the quartos. He
made a few happy emendations, some of which
coincide accidentally with the readings of the First
Folio ; but his text is deformed by many palpable
errors. His practical experience as a playwright
induced him, however, to prefix for the first time a list
of dramatis pers ones \.o each play, to divide and number
acts and scenes on rational principles, and to mark the

^ The best account of eighteenth-century criticism of .Shakespeare
is to be found in the preface to the Cambridge edition by Mr. Aldis
Wright. The memoirs of the various editors in the Dictionary of
National Biography supply useful information. I have made liberal
u^e of these sources in the sketch given in the following pages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 1 5

entrances and exits of the characters. Spelling, punct-
uation, and grammar he corrected and modernised.

The poet Pope was Shakespeare's second editor.
His edition in six quarto volumes was completed in
Alexander ^7-5- "^^^ poems, edited by Dr. George
Pope, Sewell, with an essay on the rise and prog-

I -1744- j-ggg q£ ^^q stage, and a glossary, appeared
in a seventh volume. Pope had few qualifications
for the task, and the venture was a commercial
failure. In his preface Pope, while he fully rec-
ognised Shakespeare's native genius, deemed his
achievement deficient in artistic quality. Pope
claimed to have collated the text of the Fourth Folio
with that of all preceding editions, and although his
work indicates that he had access to the First Folio
and some of the quartos, it is clear that his text
was based on that of Rowe. His innovations are
numerous, and are derived from ' his private sense
and conjecture,' but they are often plausible and
ingenious. He was the first to indicate the place of
each new scene, and he improved on Rowe's subdivi-
sion of the scenes. A second edition of Pope's version
in ten duodecimo volumes appeared in 1728 with
Sewell's name on the title-page as well as Pope's.
There were few alterations in the text, though a pre-
liminary table supplied a list of twenty-eight quartos.
Other editions followed in 1735 and 1768. The last
was printed at Garrick's suggestion at Birmingham
from Baskerville's types.

Pope found a rigorous critic in Lewis Theobald, who
although contemptible as a writer of original verse and

3l6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

prose proved himself the most inspired of all the text
Lewis ^^"^^ critics of Shakespeare. Pope savagely

Theobald, avcnged himself on his censor by holding him
-1744- j^jp |-Q j-iclicule as the hero of the ' Dunciad.'
Theobald first displayed his critical skill in 1726 in a
volume which deserves to rank as a classic in English
literature. The title runs ' Shakespeare Restored, or
a specimen of the many errors as well committed as
unamended by Mr. Pope in his late edition of this
poet, designed not only to correct the said edition but
to restore the true reading of Shakespeare in all the
editions ever yet publish'd.' There at page 137 ap-
pears Theobald's great emendation in Shakespeare's
account of Falstaff's death (Henry V, 11. iii. 17):
' His nose was as sharp as a pen and a' babbled of
green fields,' in place of the reading in the old copies,
' His nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of
green fields.' In 1733 Theobald brought out his
edition of Shakespeare in seven volumes. In 1740 it
reached a second issue. A third edition was published
in 1752. Others are dated 1772 and 1773. It is
stated that 12,860 copies in all were sold. Theobald
made the First Folio the basis of his text, although he
failed to adopt all the correct readings of that version,
but over 300 corrections or emendations which he
made in his edition have become part and parcel of
the authorised canon. Theobald's principles of text-
ual criticism were as enlightened as his practice was
triumphant. ' I ever labour,' he wrote to Warburton,
' to make the smallest deviation that I possibly can
from the text ; never to alter at all where I can by

BIBLIOGRAPHY 317

any means explain a passage with sense ; nor ever
by any emendation to make the author better when it
is probable the text came from his own hands.'
Theobald has every right to the title of the Porson of
Shakespearean criticism.^ The following are favour-
able specimens of his insight. In ' Macbeth ' (i. vii. 6)
for ' this bank and school of time,' he substituted
the familiar 'bank and shoal of time.' In 'Antony
and Cleopatra ' the old copies (v. ii. 8y) made
Cleopatra say of Antony :

For his bounty,
There was no winter in 't; an Anthony it was
That grew the more by reaping.

For the gibberish ' an Anthony it was,' Theobald read
' an autumn 'twas,' and thus gave the lines true point
and poetry. A third notable instance, somewhat
more recondite, is found in ' Coriolanus ' (11. i. 59-60)
where Menenius asks the tribunes in the First Folio
version ' What harm can your besom conspectuities
[i.e. vision or eyes] glean out of this character .'' '
Theobald replaced the meaningless epithet 'besom'
by ' bisson ' (i.e. purblind), a recognised Elizabethan
word which Shakespeare had already employed in
' Hamlet' (11. ii. 529).^

^ Mr. Churton Collins's admirable essay on Theobald's textual
criticism of Shakespeare entitled ' The Porson of Shakespearean Critics,'
is reprinted from the Quarterly Revieui in his Essays and Studies,

1895, PP- -63 ^^1*

- Collier doubtless followed Theobald's hint when he pretended to

have found in his ' Perkins Folio ' the extremely happy emendation (now

generally adopted) of 'bisson multitude' for 'bosom multiplied' in

Coriolanus's speech :

How shall this bisson multitude digest

The senate's courtesy? — {Coriolanus, in. i. 131-2.)

3l8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The fourth editor was Sir Thomas Hanmer, a
country gentleman without much Hterary culture, but
Sir possessing a large measure of mother wit.

Hanmer ^^ ^^^^ Speaker in the House of Commons
1677-1746. for a few months in 1714, and retiring soon
afterwards from public life devoted his leisure to a
thoroughgoing scrutiny of Shakespeare's plays. His
edition, which was the earliest to pretend to typo-
graphical beauty, was printed at the Oxford University
Press in 1744 in six quarto volumes. It contained a
number of good engravings by Gravelot after designs by
Francis Hayman, and was long highly valued by book
collectors. No editor's name was given. In forming
his text, Hanmer depended exclusively on his own
ingenuity. He made no recourse to the old copies.
The result was a mass of common sense emendations,
some of which have been permanently accepted.^
Hanmer's edition was reprinted in 1 770-1.

In 1747 Bishop Warburton produced a revised
version of Pope's edition in eight volumes. Warbur-
Bishop ton was hardly better qualified for the task
toif'^ie'^s- ^^^^'^ Pope, and such improvements as he
1779- introduced are mainly borrowed from

Theobald and Hanmer. On both these critics he
arrogantly and unjustly heaped abuse in his preface.
The Bishop was consequently criticised with appro-

1 A happy example of his shrewdness may be quoted from King
Lear, ill. vi. 72, where in all previous editions Edgar's enumeration of
various kinds of dogs included the line ' Hound or spaniel brach or
hym [or him].' For the last word Hanmer substituted 'lym,' which
was the Elizabethan synonym for bloodhound.

BIBLIOGR.\PHY 319

priate severity for his pretentious incompetence by
many writers ; among them, by Thomas Edwards,
whose ' Supplement to Warburton's Edition of Shake-
speare' first appeared in 1747, and, having been re-
named ' The Canons of Criticism ' next year in the
third edition, passed through as many as seven
editions by 1765.

Dr. Johnson, the sixth editor, completed his edition
in eight volumes in 1765, and a second issue followed
three years later. Although he made some
son, 1709- independent collation of the quartos, his
^' textual labours were slight, and his verbal

notes show little close knowledge of sixteenth and
seventeenth century literature. But in his preface
and elsewhere he displays a genuine, if occasionally
sluggish, sense of Shakespeare's greatness, and his
massive sagacity enabled him to indicate convincingly
Shakespeare's triumphs of characterisation.

The seventh editor, Edward Capell, advanced on

his predecessors in many respects. He was a clumsy

writer, and Johnson declared, with some

Edward ' •'

Capell, justice, that he 'gabbled monstrously,' but
1713-81- ^jg collation of the quartos and the First and
Second Folios was conducted on more thorough and
scholarly methods than any of his predecessors, not
excepting Theobald. His industry was untiring, and
he is said to have transcribed the whole of Shake-
speare ten times. Capell's edition appeared in ten
small octavo volumes in 1768. He showed himself
well versed in Elizabethan literature in a volume of
notes which appeared in 1774, and in three further

320 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

volumes, entitled ' Notes, Various Readings, and the
School of Shakespeare,' which were not published till
1783, two years after his death. The last volume,
'The School of Shakespeare,' consisted of 'authentic
extracts from divers English books that were in print
in that author's time,' to which was appended 'Notitia
Dramatica ; or. Tables of Ancient Plays (from their
beginning to the Restoration of Charles II).'

George Steevens, whose saturnine humour involved

him in a lifelong series of literary quarrels with rival

students of Shakespeare, made invaluable

George ^ '

Steevens, Contributions to Shakespearean study. In
173 -I oo- jy55 he reprinted twenty of the plays from
the quartos. Soon afterwards he revised Johnson's
edition without much assistance from the Doctor,
and his revision, which embodied numerous improve-
ments, appeared in ten volumes in 1773. It was long
regarded as the standard version. Steevens's anti-
quarian knowledge alike of Elizabethan history and
literature was greater than that of any previous
editor ; his citations of parallel passages from the
writings of Shakespeare's contemporaries, in elucida-
tion of obscure words and phrases, have not been ex-
ceeded in number or excelled in aptness by any of his
successors. All commentators of recent times are more
deeply indebted in this department of their labours
to Steevens than to any other critic. But he lacked
taste as well as temper, and excluded from his edition
Shakespeare's sonnets and poems, because, he wrote,
'the strongest Act of Parliament that could be framed
would fail to compel readers into their service.' ^

' Edition of 1793, vol. i. p. 7.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 321

The second edition of Johnson and Steevens's ver-
sion appeared in ten volumes in 1778. The third
edition, pubHshed in ten volumes in 1785, was re-
vised by Steevens's friend, Isaac Reed (i 742-1 807), a
scholar of his own type. The fourth and last edition
published in Steevens's lifetime was prepared by
himself in fifteen volumes in 1793. As he grew
older, he made some reckless changes in the text,
chiefly with the unhallowed object of mystifying
those engaged in the same field. With a malignity
that was not without humour, he supplied, too, many
obscene notes to coarse expressions, and he pretended
that he owed his indecencies to one or other of two
highly respectable clergymen, Richard Amner and
John Collins, whose surnames were in each instance
appended. He had known and quarrelled with both.
Such proofs of his perversity justified the title which
Gifford applied to him of ' the Puck of Commen-
tators.'

Edmund Malone, who lacked Steevens's quick wit
and incisive style, was a laborious and amiable archce-
Edmund ologist, without much ear for poetry or deli-
Maione, catc literary taste. He threw abundance of
1741-1 12. ^^^^^^ light on Shakespeare's biography, and
on the chronology and sources of his works, while
his researches into the beginnings of the English
stage added a new chapter of first-rate importance to
English literary history. To Malone is due the first
rational ' attempt to ascertain the order in which the
plays attributed to Shakespeare were written.' His
earliest results on the topic were contributed to

322 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Steevens's edition of 1778. Two years later he
published, as a supplement to Steevens's work, two
volumes containing a history of the Elizabethan stage,
with reprints of Arthur Brooke's 'Romeus and Juliet,'
Shakespeare's Poems, and the plays falsely ascribed
to him in the Third and Fourth Folios. A quarrel
with Steevens followed, and was never closed. In
1787 Malone issued 'A Dissertation on the Three
Parts of King Henry VI,' tending to show that those
plays were not originally written by Shakespeare.
In 1790 appeared his edition of Shakespeare in ten
volumes, the first in two parts.

What is known among booksellers as the ' First
Variorum ' edition of Shakespeare was prepared by
Variorum Stecvcns's friend, Isaac Reed,after Steevens's
editions. death. It was based on a copy of Steevens's
work of 1793, which had been enriched with numerous
manuscript additions, and it embodied the published
notes and prefaces of preceding editors. It was pub-
lished in twenty-one volumes in 1803. The 'Second
Variorum ' edition, which was mainly a reprint of the
first, was published in twenty-one volumes in 18 13.
The ' Third Variorum ' was prepared for the press by
James Boswell the younger, the son of Dr. Johnson's
biographer. It was based on Malone's edition of 1790,
but included massive accumulations of notes left in
manuscript by Malone at his death. Malone had
been long engaged on a revision of his edition, but
died in 18 12, before it was completed. Boswell's
* Malone,' as the new work is often called, appeared
in twenty-one volumes in 182 1. It is the most valu-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 323

able of all collected editions of Shakespeare's works,
but the three volumes of preliminary essays on Shake-
speare's biography and writings, and the illustrative
notes brought together in the final volume, are con-
fusedly arranged and are unindexed ; many of the
essays and notes break off abruptly at the point at
which they were left at Malone's death. A new
'Variorum' edition, on an exhaustive scale, was under-
taken by Mr. H. Howard Furness of Philadelphia, and
eleven volumes have appeared since 1871 (' Romeo
and Juliet,' 'Macbeth,' 'Hamlet,' 2 vols., 'King Lear,'
'Othello,' 'Merchant of Venice,' 'As You Like It,'
'Tempest,' 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and 'Win-
ter's Tale ').

Of nineteenth-century editors who have prepared
collective editions of Shakespeare's work with original
Nine- annotations those who have most successfully

cTntur" pursued the great traditions of the eigh-
editors. tccnth ccntury are Alexander Dyce, Howard
Staunton, Nikolaus Delius, and the Cambridge editors
William George Clark (1821-78) and Dr. Aldis
Wright.

Alexander Dyce was almost as well read as
Steevens in Elizabethan literature, and especially in
Alexander ^^^ drama of the period, and his edition of
Dyce, Shakespeare in nine volumes, which was

179 -I 9- i^j-j,^ published in 1857, has many new and
valuable illustrative notes and a few good textual
emendations, as well as a useful glossary ; but Dyce's
annotations are not always adequate, and often tan-
talise the reader by their brevity. Howard Staunton's

324 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

edition first appeared in three volumes between 1868

„ , and 1870. He also was well read in con-
Howard '

Staunton, temporary literature and was an acute text-
1810-74. ^^1 critic. His introductions bring together
much interesting stage history. Nikolaus Delius's
„., , edition was issued at Elberfeld in seven vol-

Nikolaus

Deiius, umes between 1854 and 1861. Delius's text
1813-88. .g formed on sound critical principles and is to
be trusted thoroughly. A fifth edition in two volumes
appeared in 1882. The Cambridge edition, which
The Cam- first appeared in nine volumes between 1863
edifiin ^^^ 1866, exhaustively notes the textual
1863-6. variations of all preceding editions, and
supplies the best and fullest apparatus criticiis. (Of
new editions, one dated 1887 is also in nine volumes,
and another, dated 1893, in forty volumes.)

Other editors of the complete works of Shake-
speare of the nineteenth century, whose labours,
although of some value, present fewer distinctive char-
acteristics are: William Harness (1825, 8 vols.);
Samuel Weller Singer (1826, 10 vols., printed at the
Other Chiswick Press for William Pickering, illus-

nineteenth- ^^^^^^ ^^ Stothard and others; reissued in

century J ■

editions. 1 8 56 with cssays by William Watkiss
Lloyd); Charles Knight, with discursive notes and
pictorial illustrations by F. W. Fairholt and others
(' Pictorial edition,' 8 vols., including biography
and the doubtful plays, 1838-43, often reissued
under different designations); Bryan Waller Procter,
i.e. Barry Cornwall (1839-43, 3 vols.); John
Payne Collier (184 1-4, 8 vols.; another edition,

BIBLTOGRAPHY 325

8 vols., privately printed, 1878, 4to); Samuel
Phelps, the actor (1852-4, 2 vols.; another edition,
1882-4); J. O. Halliwell (1853-61, 15 vols, folio, with
an encyclopaedic collection of annotations of earlier
editors and pictorial illustrations); Richard Grant
White (Boston, U.S.A., 1857-65, 12 vols.); W. J.
Rolfe (New York, 1871-96, 40 vols.); the Rev.
H. N. Hudson (the Harvard edition, Boston, 1881,
20 vols.). The latest complete annotated editions
published in this country are, ' The Henry Irving
Shakespeare,' edited by F. A. Marshall and others —
especially useful for notes on stage history (8 vols.
1888-90) — and 'The Temple Shakespeare,' concisely
edited by Mr. Israel Gollancz (38 vols. i2mo, 1894-6).
Of one-volume editions of the unannotated text,
the best are the Globe, edited by W. G. Clark and
Dr. Aldis Wright (1864, and constantly reprinted —
since 1891 with a new and useful glossary); the
Leopold (1876, from the text of Delius, with preface
by Dr. Furnivall); and the Oxford, edited by Mr.
W. J. Craig (1894).

326 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

POS THUMO US REPUTA TION

Shakespeare defied at every stage in his career the
laws of the classical drama. He rode roughshod
over the unities of time, place, and action. There
were critics in his day who zealously championed the
ancient rules, and viewed with distrust any infringe-
ment of them. But the force of Shakespeare's
genius — its revelation of new methods of dramatic
art — was not lost on the lovers of the ancient ways ;
and even those who, to assuage their consciences,
entered a formal protest against his innovations,
soon swelled the chorus of praise with which his
work was welcomed by contemporary playgoers,
cultured and uncultured alike. The unauthorised
publishers of ' Troilus and Cressida ' in 1608 faith-
fully echoed public opinion when they prefaced to
the work the note : ' This author's comedies are so
framed to the life that they serve for the most com-
mon commentaries of all actions of our lives, showing
such a dexterity and power of wit that the most dis-
pleased with plays are pleased with his comedies. . . .
So much and such savoured salt of wit is in his
comedies that they seem for their height of pleasure
to be born in the sea that broutrht forth Venus.'

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 327

Anticipating the final verdict, the editors of the
First Folio wrote, seven years after Shakespeare's
death : ' These plays have had their trial already and
stood out all appeals.'^ Ben Jonson, the staunch-
est champion of classical canons, noted that Shake-
speare 'wanted art,' but he allowed him,
son's tri- in vcrscs prefixed to the First Folio, the
^"*^' first place among all dramatists, includ-

ing those of Greece and Rome, and claimed that all
Europe owed him homage :

Triumph, my Britun, thou hast one to show,
To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
He was not of an age, but for all time.

In 1630 Milton penned in like strains an epitaph on
' the great heir of fame ' :

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones

The labour of an age in piled stones?

Or that his hollowed reliques should be hid

Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a lifelong monument.

A writer of fine insight who veiled himself un-
der the initials I. M. S.'-^ contributed to the Second

^ Cf. the opening line of Matthew Arnold's Sonnet on Shake-
speare :

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

2 These letters have been interpreted as standing for the inscription
' In Memoriam Scriptoris ' as well as for the name of the writer. In the
latter connection, they have been variously and inconclusively read as
Jasper Mayne (Student), a young 0,\ford writer; as John Marston
(Student or Satirist); and as John Milton (Senior or Student).

328 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Folio of 1632 a splendid eulogy. The opening lines
declare ' Shakespeare's freehold ' to have been :

A mind reflecting ages past, whiose clear
And equal surface can make things appear
Distant a thousand years, and represent
Them in their lively colours' just extent.

It was his faculty

To outrun hasty time, retrieve the fates,
Roll back the heavens, blow ope the iron gates
Of death and Lethe, where (confused) lie
Great heaps of ruinous mortality.

Milton and I. M. S. were followed within ten years
by critics of tastes so varied as the dramatist of do-
mesticity Thomas Heywood, the gallant lyrist Sir
John Suckling, the philosophic and 'ever-memorable'
John Hales of Eton, and the untiring versifier of the
stage and court, Sir William D'Avenant. Before 1640
Hales is said to have triumphantly established, in a
public dispute held with men of learning in his rooms
at Eton, the proposition that 'there was no subject
of which any poet ever writ but he could produce it
much better done in Shakespeare.' ^ Leonard Digges

1 Charles Gildon, in 1694, in 'Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer's
Short View of Tragedy,' which he addressed to Dryden, gives the
classical version of this incident. 'To give the world,' Gildon informs
Dryden, ' some satisfaction that Shakespear has had as great a Venera-
tion paid his Excellence by men of unquestion'd parts as this I now
express of him, I shall give some account of what I have heard from
your Mouth, Sir, about the noble Triumph he gain'd over all the
Ancients by the Judgment of the ablest Critics of that time. The
Matter of Fact (if my Memory fail me not) was this. Mr. Hales of Eaton
affirm'd that he wou'd shew all the Poets of Antiquity outdone by
vShakespear, in all the Topics, and common places made use of in Poetry.
The Enemies of Shakespear wou'd by no means yield him so much
Excellence : so that it came to a Resolution of a trial of skill upon that

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 329

(in the 1640 edition of the 'Poems') asserted that

every revival of Shakespeare's plays drew crowds

to pit, boxes, and galleries alike. At a little later date,

Shakespeare's plays were the ' closet companions ' of

Charles I's 'solitudes.'^

After the Restoration public taste in England

veered towards the French and classical dramatic

models.^ Shakespeare's work was subjected to some

unfavourable criticism as the product of
1660-1702. .

nature to the exclusion 01 art, but the eclipse

proved more partial and temporary than is commonly

admitted. The pedantic censure of Thomas Rymer

on the score of Shakespeare's indifference to the

classical canons attracted attention, but awoke in

England no substantial echo. In his 'Short View of

Tragedy' (1692) Rymer mainly concentrated his

attention on 'Othello,' and reached the eccentric

conclusion that it was ' a bloody farce without salt or

savour.' In Pepys's eyes 'The Tempest' had 'no

great wit,' and ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' was

' the most insipid and ridiculous play ; yet this

Subject; the place agreed on for the Dispute was Mr. Hales's Chamber
at Eaton; a great many Books were sent down by the Enemies of
this Poet, and on the appointed day my Lord Falkland, Sir John
Suckling, and all the Persons of Quality that had Wit and Learning,
and interested themselves in the Quarrel, met there, and upon a thorough
Disquisition of the point, the Judges chose by agreement out of this
Learned and Ingenious Assembly unanimously gave the Preference to
Shakespear. And the Greek and Roman Poets were adjudg'd to
Vail at least their Glory in that of the English Hero.'

^ Milton, Iconoclastes, 1690, pp. 9-10.

- Cf. Evelyn'' s Diary ^ November 26, 1661 : 'I saw Hamlet, Prince
of Denmark, plaved, but now the old plays began to disgust the refined
age, since His Majesty's being so long abroad.'

330 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

exacting critic witnessed thirty-six performances of
twelve of Shakespeare's plays between October ii,
1660, and February 6, 1668-9, seeing 'Hamlet'
four times, and ' Macbeth,' which he admitted to be
' a most excellent play for variety,' nine times.
Dryden's Dryden, the literary dictator of the day,
view. repeatedly complained of Shakespeare's in-

equalities — 'he is the very Janus of poets. '^ But in
almost the same breath Dryden declared that Shake-
speare was held in as much veneration among English-
men as yEschylus among the Athenians, and that ' he
was the man who of all modern and perhaps ancient
poets had the largest and most comprehensive soul. . . .
When he describes anything, you more than see it —
you feel it too.'^ In 1693, when Sir Godfrey Kneller
presented Dryden with a copy of the Chandos portrait
of Shakespeare, the poet acknowledged the gift thus:

TO SIR GODFREV KNELLER

Shakespear, thy Gift, I place before my sight;
With awe, I ask his Blessing 'ere I write;
With Reverence look on his Majestick Face;
Proud to be less, but of his Godlike Race.
His Soul Inspires me, while thy Praise I write.
And I, like Tencer, under Ajax tight.

Writers of Charles II's reign of such opposite
temperaments as Margaret Cavendish, duchess of

1 Conquest of Granada, 1672.

2 Essay on Dramadc Poesie, 1668. Some interesting, if more
qualified, criticism by Dryden also appears in his preface to an adapta-
tion of 'Troilus and Cressida'in 1679. In the prologue to his and
D'Avenant's adaptation of 'The Tempest' in 1676, he wrote:

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 33 1

Newcastle, and Sir Charles Sedley vigorously argued
for Shakespeare's supremacy. As a girl the sober
duchess declares she fell in love with Shakespeare. In
her 'Sociable Letters,' which were published in 1664,
she enthusiastically, if diffusely, described how Shake-
speare creates the illusion that he had been ' trans-
formed into every one of those persons he hath
described,' and suffered all their emotions. When
she witnessed one of his tragedies she felt persuaded
that she was witnessing an episode in real life.
' Indeed,' she concludes, ' Shakespeare had a clear
judgment, a quick wit, a subtle observation, a deep
apprehension, and a most eloquent elocution.' The
profligate Sedley, in a prologue to the 'Wary Widdow,'
a comedy by one Higden, produced in 1693, apostro-
phised Shakespeare thus :

Shackspear whose fruitful! Genius, happy wit
Was fram'd and finisht at a lucky hit
The pride of Nature, and the shame of Schools,
Born to Create, and not to Learn from Rules.

Many adaptations of Shakespeare's plays were
contrived to meet current sentiment of a less admirable
type. But they failed efficiently to supersede the
originals. Dryden and D' Avenant converted ' The
Tempest' into an opera (1670). D'Avenant single-
handed adapted 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' (1668) and
Restori- ' Macbcth ' (1674). Dryden dealt similarly
tionadap- with ' Troilus ' (1679); Thomas Duffett with
'The Tempest' (1675); Shadwell with
'Timon' (1678); Nahum Tate with 'Richard II'
(1681), ' Lear' (1681), and 'Coriolanus' (1682); John

332 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Crowne with 'Henry VI' (1681 ); D'Urfey with 'Cym-
belinc ' (1682); Ravenscoft with 'Titus Andronicus '
(1687); Otway with ' Romeo and JuHet ' (1692), and
John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, with ' Julius
Csesar ' (1692). But during the same period the chief
actor of the day, Thomas Betterton, won his spurs as
the interpreter of Shakespeare's leading parts, often
in unrevised versions. Hamlet was accounted that
actor's masterpiece.^ ' No succeeding tragedy tor
several years,' wrote Downes, the prompter at Better-
ton's theatre, ' got more reputation or money to the
company than this.'

From the accession of Queen Anne to the present
day the tide of Shakespeare's reputation, both on the
From 1702 stage and among critics, has flowed onward
onwards. almost Uninterruptedly. The censorious
critic, John Dennis, in his 'Letters' on Shakespeare's
'genius,' gave his work in 171 1 whole-hearted com-
mendation ; and two of the greatest men of letters of
the eighteenth century. Pope and Johnson, although
they did not withhold all censure, paid him, as we have
seen, the homage of becoming his editor. The school
of textual criticism which Theobald and Capell founded
in the middle years of the century has never ceased
its activity since their day.^ Edmund Malone's devo-
tion at the end of the eighteenth century to the biog-

1 Cf. Shdkspere^s Century of Praise, 1591-1693, New Shakspere
Society, eci. Ingleby and Toulmin Smith, 1879; and Fresh Allusions,
ed. Furnivall, 1886.

^ Cf. W. Sidney Walker, Critical Examination of the Text of
Shakespeare^ 1859.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 333

raphy of the poet and the contemporary history of
the stage secured for him a vast band of disciples, of
whom Joseph Hunter and John Payne Collier well
deserve mention. But of all Malone's successors, James
Orchard Halliwell, afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps
(1820-89), has made the most important additions
to our knowledge of Shakespeare's biography.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, there arose a third school to expound exclu-
sively the aesthetic excellence of the plays. In its in-
ception the aesthetic school owed much to the methods
of Schlegel and other admiring critics of Shakespeare
in Germany. But Coleridge in his ' Notes and Lect-
ures ' ^ and Hazlitt in his ' Characters of Shake-
speare's Plays' (18 1 7) are the best representatives
of the aesthetic school in this or any other country.
Although Professor Dowden, in his ' Shakespeare, his
Mind and Art '(1874), and Mr. Swinburne in his ' Study
of Shakespeare '( 1880), are worthy followers, Coleridge
and Hazlitt remain as aesthetic critics unsurpassed. In
the effort to supply a fuller interpretation of Shake-
speare's works — textual, historical, and aesthetic — two
publishing societies have done much valuable work.
'The Shakespeare Society' was founded in 1841 by
Collier, Halliwell, and their friends, and published
some forty-eight volumes before its dissolution in 1853.

^ See N^oles and Lectures on Shakespeare and other Poets by S. T.
Coleridge, now Jirst collected by T.Ashe, 1883. Coleridge hotly resented
the remark, which he attributed to Wordsworth, that a German critic
first taught us to think correctly concerning Shakespeare. (Coleridge
to Mudford, 1818; cf. Dyke Campbell's memoir of Coleridge, p. cv.). But
there is much to be said for Wordsworth's general view (see p. 344, note l).

334 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The New Shakspere Society, which was founded by
Dr. Furnivall in 1874, issued during the ensuing
twenty years twenty-seven publications, illustrative
mainly of the text and of contemporary life and
literature.

In 1769 Shakespeare's 'jubilee' was celebrated
for three days (September 6-S) at Stratford, under
Stratford the direction of Garrick, Dr. Arne, and
festivals. Boswell. The festivities were repeated
on a small scale in April 1827 and April 1830.
' The Shakespeare tercentenary festival,' which was
held at Stratford from April 23 to May 4, 1864,
claimed to be a national celebration.^

On the English stage the name of every eminent
actor since Betterton, the great actor of the period
,. .. of the Restoration, has been identified

On the '

English with Shakespearean parts. Steele, writing
'*^^^- in the 'Tatler' (No. 167) in reference to

Betterton's funeral in the cloisters of Westminster
Abbey on May 2, 1710, instanced his rendering of
Othello as proof of an unsurpassable talent in
realising Shakespeare's subtlest conceptions on the
stage. One great and welcome innovation in Shake-
spearean acting is closely associated with Betterton's
The first name. He encouraged the substitution, that
of acmTsses "^^^^ inaugurated by Killigrew, of women for
m Shake- bovs in female parts. The first ro/c that was

spearean -' '■

parts. professionally rendered by a woman in a

public theatre was that of Desdemona in ' Othello,'

1 R. E. Hunter, Shakespeare and the Tercentenary Celebration^
1864.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 335

apparently on December 8, 1660.^ The actress on
this occasion is said to have been Mrs. Margaret
Hughes, Prince Rupert's mistress ; but Betterton's wife,
who was at first known on the stage as Mrs. Saunder-
son, was the first actress to present a series of Shake-
speare's great female characters. Mrs. Betterton gave
her husband powerful support, from 1663 onwards, in
such I'oles as Ophelia, Juliet, Queen Catherine, and Lady
Macbeth. Betterton formed a school of actors who
carried on his traditions for many years after his death.
Robert Wilks (1670-1732) as Hamlet, and Barton
Booth (1681-1733) as Henry VHI and Hotspur, were
popularly accounted no unworthy successors. Colley
Gibber (1671-1757) as actor, theatrical manager, and
dramatic critic w-as both a loyal disciple of Betterton
and a lover of Shakespeare, though his vanity and his
faith in the ideals of the Restoration incited him to
perpetrate many outrages on Shakespeare's text when
preparing it for theatrical representation. His noto-
rious adaptation of 'Richard HI,' which was first pro-
duced in 1700, long held the stage to the exclusion of
the original version. But towards the middle of the
eighteenth century all earlier efforts to interpret
Shakespeare in the playhouse were eclipsed in public
esteem by the concentrated energy and intelligence
of David Garrick. Garrick's enthusiasm for the poet

1 Thomas Jordan, a very humble poet, wrote a prologue to notify
the new procedure, and referred to the absurdity of the old custom :

For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen.
With bone so large and nerve so uncompliant,
When you call Desdemona, enter Giant.

336 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and his histrionic genius riveted Shakespeare's hold
on pubHc taste. His claim to have restpred to the
stage the text of Shakespeare — purified of Restora-
tion defilements — cannot be allowed without serious
qualifications. Garrick had no scruple in presenting
j^^^.^j plays of Shakespeare in versions that he or

Garrick, his frieuds had recklessly garbled. He sup-
1717-79- plied ' Romeo and Juliet ' with a happy
ending ; he converted ' The Taming of The Shrew ' into
the farce of ' Katherine and Petruchio,' 1754; he
introduced radical changes in 'Antony and Cleopatra,'
'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' ' Cymbeline,' and ' Mid-
summer Night's Dream.' Nevertheless, no actor has
won an equally exalted reputation in so vast and
varied a repertory of Shakespearean roles. His tri-
umphant debut as Richard HI in 1741 was followed by
equally successful performances of Hamlet, Lear,
Macbeth, King John, Romeo, Falconbridge, Othello,
Leontes, Benedick, and Antony in ' Antony and
Cleopatra.' Garrick was not quite undeservedly
buried in Westminster Abbey on February i, 1779,
at the foot of Shakespeare's statue.

Garrick was ably seconded by Mrs. Clive (171 1-
85), Mrs. Gibber (1714-66), and Mrs. Pritchard
(171 1-68). Mrs. Gibber as Constance in 'King John,'
and Mrs. Pritchard in Lady Macbeth, excited some-
thing of the same enthusiasm as Garrick in Richard HI
and Lear. There were, too, contemporary.critics who
judged rival actors to show in certain parts powers
equal, if not superior, to those of Garrick. Charles
Macklin (1697 .'*-i797) for nearly half a century, from

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 337

1735 to 1785, gave many hundred performances of a
masterly rendering of Shylock. The character had,
for many years previous to MackHn's assumption of it,
been allotted to comic actors, but Macklin effectively
concentrated his energy on the tragic significance of
the part with an effect that Garrick could not surpass.
Macklin was also reckoned successful in Polonius and
lago. John Henderson, the Bath Roscius (1747-85),
who, like Garrick, was buried in Westminster Abbey,
derived immense popularity from his representation
of Falstaff ; while in subordinate characters like
Mercutio, Slender, Jaques, Touchstone, and Sir Toby
Belch, John Palmer (1742?-! 798) was held to ap-
proach perfection. But Garrick was the accredited
chief of the theatrical profession until his death. He
was then succeeded in his place of predominance by
John Philip Kemble, who derived invaluable support
from his association with one abler than himself,
his sister, Mrs. Siddons.

Somewhat stilted and declamatory in speech,
Kemble enacted a wide range of characters of
John Shakespearean tragedy with a dignitv that

^^'''P won the admiration of Pitt, Sir Walter

Kemble, '

1757-1823. Scott, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt.
Coriolanus was regarded as his masterpiece, but his
renderings of Hamlet, King John, Wolsey, the Duke in
' Measure for Measure,' Leontes, and Brutus satisfied
Mrs Sarah ^^^ Hiost exacting canons of contemporary
Siddons, theatrical criticism. Kemble's sister, Mrs.
1755-1 31- Siddons, was the greatest actress that Shake-
speare's countrymen have known. Her noble and

338 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

awe-inspiring presentation of Lady Macbeth, her
Constance, her Queen Katharine, have, according to
the best testimony, not been equalled even by the
achievements of the eminent actresses of France.

During the present century the most conspicuous
histrionic successes in Shakespearean drama have
„, , been won by Edmund Kean, whose tri-

Edmund -' '

Kean, umphant rendering of Shylock on his first ap-

17 7-1 33- pearance at Drury Lane Theatre on January
26, 1 8 14, is one of the most stirring incidents in the
history of the English stage. Kean defied the rigid
convention of the 'Kemble School,' and gave free rein
to his impetuous passions. Besides Shylock, he ex-
celled in Richard III, Othello, Hamlet, and Lear. No
less a critic than Coleridge declared that to see him
act was like ' reading Shakespeare by flashes of
lightning.' Among other Shakespearean actors of
Kean's period a high place was allotted by public
esteem to George Frederick Cooke (1756-18 11), whose
Richard III, first given in London at Covent Garden
Theatre, October 31, 1801, was accounted his master-
piece. Charles Lamb, writing in 1822, declared that
of all the actors who flourished in his time, Robert
Bensley ' had most of the swell of soul,' and Lamb
gave with a fine enthusiasm in his ' Essays of Elia '
an analysis (which has become classical) of Bensley's
performance of Malvolio. But Bensley's powers were
rated more moderately by more experienced play-
goers.^ Lamb's praises of Mrs. Jordan (1762-18 16)
in Ophelia, Helena, and Viola in 'Twelfth Night,' are

^ Essays of Elia, ed. Canon Ainger, pp. i8o seq.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 339

corroborated by the eulogies of Hazlitt and Leigh
Hunt. In the part of Rosalind Mrs. Jordan is re-
ported on all sides to have beaten Mrs. Siddons out
of the field.

The torch thus lit by Garrick, by the Kembles, and
by Kean and his contemporaries was worthily kept
alive by William Charles Macready, a cultivated and
conscientious actor, who, during a professional career
William of morc than forty years (1810-51), as-
Macreadv sumed every great part in Shakespearean
1793-1873. tragedy. Although Macready lacked the
classical bearing of Kemble or the intense passion of
Kean, he won as the interpreter of Shakespeare the
whole-hearted suffrages of the educated public. Mac-
ready's chief associate in women characters was Helen
Faucit (afterward Lady Martin), whose refined imper-
sonations of Imogen, Beatrice, Juliet, and Rosalind
form an attractive chapter in the history of the stage.

The most notable tribute paid to Shakespeare
by any actor-manager of recent times was paid by
Samuel Phelps (1804-78), who gave during his
Recent tenure of Sadler's Wells Theatre between
revivals. 1844 and 1 862 competent representations of
all the plays save ' Troilus and Cressida,' and 'Titus
Andronicus.' Sir Henry Irving, who since 1878 has
been ably seconded by Miss Ellen Terry, has revived
at the Lyceum Theatre between 1874 and the present
time eleven plays (' Hamlet,' ' Macbeth,' ' Othello,'
' Richard III,' ' The Merchant of Venice,' ' Much Ado
about Nothing,' 'Twelfth Night,' ' Romeo and Juliet,'
'King Lear,' 'Henry VIII,' and ' Cymbeline '), and

340 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

has given each of them all the advantage they can
derive from thoughtful acting as well as from lavish
scenic elaboration.^ But theatrical revivals of plays
of Shakespeare are in England intermittent, and no
theatrical manager since Phelps's retirement has
sought systematically to illustrate on the stage the
full range of Shakespearean drama. Far more in
this direction has been attempted in Germany.'-^
In one respect the history of recent Shakespearean
representations can be viewed by the literary student
with unqualified satisfaction. Although some changes
of text or some rearrangement of the scenes are found
imperative in all theatrical representations of Shake-
speare, a growing public sentiment in England and
elsewhere has for many years favoured as loyal an
adherence to the authorised version of the plays as
is practicable on the part of theatrical managers ; and
the evil traditions of the stage which sanctioned the
perversions of the eighteenth century are happily
well-nigh extinct.

Music and art in England owe much to Shake-
speare's influence. From Thomas Morley, Purcell,
In music Matthew Locke, and Arne to William
and art. Liulcy, Sir Henry Bishop, and Sir Arthur
Sullivan, every distinguished musician has sought to
improve on his predecessor's setting of one or more
of Shakespeare's songs, or has composed concerted

1 Hamlet in 1 874-5 and Macbeth in 18S8-9 were each performed by
Sir Henry Irving for 200 nights in uninterrupted succession; these are
the longest continuous runs that any of Shakespeare's plays are known
to have enjoyed. - See p. 346.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 34 1

music in illustration of some of his dramatic themes.^
In art, the publisher John Boydell organised in 1787
a scheme for illustrating scenes in Shakespeare's
work by the greatest living English artists. Some
fine pictures were the result. A hundred and sixty-
eight were painted in all, and the artists whom
Boydell employed included Sir Joseph Reynolds,
George Romney, Thomas Stothard, John Opie,
Benjamin West, James Barry, and Henry Fuseli.
All the pictures were exhibited from time to time,
between 1789 and 1804, at a gallery specially built
for the purpose in Pall Mall, and in 1802 Boydell
published a collection of engravings of the chief
pictures. The great series of paintings was dispersed
by auction in 1805. Few eminent artists of later
date, from Daniel Maclise to Sir John Millais, have
lacked the ambition to interpret some scene or char-
acter of Shakespearean drama.

In America no less enthusiasm for Shakespeare
has been manifested than in England. Editors and
In Amer- critics are hardly less numerous there, and
"=^- some criticism from American pens, like that

of James Russell Lowell, has reached the highest
literary level. Nowhere, perhaps, has more labour
been devoted to the study of his works than that
given by Mr. H. H. Furness of Philadelphia to the
preparation of his ' New Variorum ' edition. The
Barton collection of Shakespeareana in the Boston
Public Library is one of the most valuable extant,
and the elaborate catalogue (1878-80) contains some

^ Cf. Alfred Roffe, Shakspere Music, 1878; Songs in Shakspere
, . . set to Altisic, 1884, New Shakspere Society.

342 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

2,500 entries. First of Shakespeare's plays to be
represented in America, ' Richard III ' was performed
in New York in March 1750. More recently Edwin
Forrest, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Booth, Charlotte
Cushman, and Miss Ada Rehan have maintained on
the American stage the great traditions of Shake-
spearean acting ; while Mr. E. A. Abbey has devoted
high artistic gifts to pictorial representation of scenes
from the plays.

The Bible, alone of literary compositions, has been
translated more frequently or into a greater number
Transia- of languages than the works of Shakespeare,
tions. ^Yhe progress of his reputation in Germany,

France, Italy, and Russia was somewhat slow at the
outset. But in Germany the poet has received for
nearly a century and a half a recognition scarcely less
pronounced than that accorded him in America and in
his own country. Three of Shakespeare's plays, now
In Ger- in the Zurich Library, were brought thither
many. by J. R. Hcss from England in 1614. Asearly

as 1626 'Hamlet,' 'King Lear,' and 'Romeo and Juliet'
were acted at Dresden, and a version of ' The Taming
of The Shrew ' was played there and elsewhere at the
end of the seventeenth century. But such mention
of Shakespeare as is found in German literature
between 1640 and 1740 only indicates a knowledge
on the part of German readers either of Dryden's
criticisms or of the accounts of him printed in English
encyclopaedias.^ The earliest sign of a direct acquaint-

^ Cf. D. G. Morhoff, Unte7-richt von der teutschen Sprache und
Poesie, Kiel, 1682, p. 250.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 343

ance with the plays is a poor translation of 'Julius
Caesar ' into German by Baron C. VV. von Borck,
formerly Prussian minister in London, which was pub-
lished at Berlin in 174 1. A worse rendering of ' Romeo
and Juliet' followed in 1758. Meanwhile J. C. Gott-
sched (1700-66), an influential man of letters, warmly
denounced Shakespeare in a review of Von Borck's
effort in ' Beitrage zur deutschen Sprache ' and else-
where. Lessing came without delay to Shakespeare's
rescue, and set his reputation, in the estimation of the
German public, on that exalted pedestal which it has
not ceased to occupy. It was in 1759, in a journal
entitled ' Litteraturbriefe,' that Lessing first claimed
for Shakespeare superiority, not only to the French
dramatists Racine and Corneille, who hitherto had
dominated European taste, but to all ancient or
modern poets. Lessing's doctrine, which he devel-
oped in his ' Hamburgische Dramaturgie ' (Hamburg,
1767, 2 vols. 8vo), was at once accepted by the poet
Johann Gottfried Herder in the '.Blatter von deutschen
Art und Kunst,' 1771. Christopher Martin Wieland
(1733-18 1 3) in 1762 began a prose translation which
Johann Joachim Eschenburg (i 743-1820) completed
(Zurich, 13 vols., 1775-84). Between 1797 and 1833
there appeared at intervals the classical German ren-
dering by August Wilhelm von Schlegel and Lud-
^ wig Tieck, leaders of the romantic school of

transia- German literature, whose creed embodied, as
one of its first articles, an unwavering venera-
tion for Shakespeare. Schlegel translated only seven-
teen plays, and his workmanship excels that of the

344 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

rest of the translation. Tieck's part in the under-
taking was mainly confined to editing translations by
various hands. Many other German translations in
verse were undertaken during the same period, — by
J. H. Voss and his sons (Leipzig, 1818-29), by J. W.
O. Benda (Leipzig, 1825-6), by J. Korner (Vienna,
1836), by A. Bottger (Leipzig, 1836-7), by E. Ortlepp
(Stuttgart, 1838-9), and by A. Keller and M. Rapp
(Stuttgart, 1843-6). The best of more recent German
translations is that by a band of poets and eminent men
of letters, including Friedrich von Bodenstedt, Ferdi-
nand Freiligrath, and Paul Heyse( Leipzig, 1867-71, 38
vols.). Most of these versions have been many times
reissued, but, despite the high merits of Von Bodenstedt
and his companions' performance, Schlegel and Tieck's
achievement still holds the field. Schlegel's lectures on
'Shakespeare and the Drama,' which were delivered
at Vienna in 1808, and were translated into English
in 18 1 5, are worthy of comparison with those of Cole-
ridge, who owed much to their influence. Wordsworth
in 181 5 declared that Schlegel and his disciples first
marked out the right road in aesthetic criticism, and
enjoyed at the moment superiority over all English
aesthetic critics of Shakespeare.^ Subsequently Goethe

1 In his ' Essay Supplementary to the Preface ' in the edition of his
Poe»is of 1815,' Wordsworth wrote: 'The Germans only, of foreign
nations, are approaching towards a knowledge of what he [/.«•. Shake-
speare] is. In some respects they have acquired a superiority over the
fello\\ -countrymen of the poet ; for among us, it is a common — 1 might
say an established — opinion that Shakespeare is justly praised when he is
pronounced to be " a wild irregular genius in whom great faults are com-
pensated by great beauties." How long may it be before this misconcep-
tion passes away and it becomes universally acknowledged that the judg-
ment of Shakespeare . . . is not less admirable than his imagination? . ^.'

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 345

poured forth, in his vohiminous writings, a mass of
criticism even more ilknninating and appreciative
than Schlegel's.^ Although Goethe deemed Shake-
speare's works unsuited to the stage,- he adapted
' Romeo and JuHet ' for the Weimar Theatre, while
Schiller prepared ' Macbeth ' (Stuttgart, 1801 ). Heine
published in 1838 charming studies of Shakespeare's
heroines(English translation 1895), and acknowledged
only one defect in Shakespeare — that he was an
Englishman.

During the last half-century textual, aesthetic, and
biographical criticism has been pursued in Germany
with unflagging industry and energy ; and although
laboured and supersubtle theorising characterises
much German aesthetic criticism, its mass and variety
testify to the impressiveness of the appeal that Shake-
Modern speare's work has made to the German
German intellect. The vain effort to stem the current

writers on

Shake- of Shakespearean worship made by the
speare. dramatist,]. R. Benedix, in ' Die Shakespearo-
manie ' (Stuttgart, 1873, 8vo), stands practically alone.
In studies of the text and metre Nikolaus Delius
(1813-88) should, among recent German writers, be
accorded the first place ; in studies of the biography
and stage history Friedrich Karl Elze (1821-89);
in aesthetic studies Friedrich Alexander Theodor
Kreyssig (1818-79), author of ' Vorlesungen Uber
Shakespeare ' (Berlin, 1858 and 1874), and ' Shake-
speare-Fragen ' (Leipzig, 1871). Ulrici's 'Shake-
speare's Dramatic Art ' (first published at Halle in

1 Cf. Wilhelm Meisier.

346 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1839) and Gervinus's Commentaries (first published
at Leipzig in 1848-9), both of which are famiUar in
English translations, are suggestive but unconvincing
aesthetic interpretations. The German Shakespeare
Society, which was founded at Weimar in 1865, has
published thirty-four year-books (edited successively
by Von Bodenstedt, Delius, Elze, and F. A. Leo);
each contains useful contributions to Shakespearean
study.

Shakespeare has been no less effectually nation-
alised on the German stage. The three great actors —
OntheGer- Frederick Ulrich Ludwig Schroeder (1744-
man stage. 1 8 1 6) of Hamburg, Ludwig Devrient ( 1 784-
1832), and his nephew Gustav Emil Devrient (1803-
72) — largely derived their fame from their suc-
cessful assumptions of Shakespearean characters.
Another of Ludwig Devrient' s nephews, Eduard
(1801-77), ^Iso an actor, prepared, with his son
Otto, an acting German edition (Leipzig, 1873 and
following years). An acting edition by Wilhelm
Oechelhaeuser appeared previously at Berlin in 1871.
Twenty-eight of the thirty-seven plays assigned to
Shakespeare are now on recognised lists of German
acting plays, including all the histories.^ In 1895
as many as 706 performances of twenty-five of
Shakespeare's plays were given in German theatres.^
In 1896 no fewer than 910 performances were given of
twenty-three plays. In 1897 performances of twenty-
four plays reached a total of 930 — an average of

1 a. Jahrhiich der Deutsche Shakespeare- Geselhchaft for 1894.

2 lb. for 1896, p. 438.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 347

nearly three Shakespearean representations a day in
the German-speaking districts of Europe. ^ It is
not only in capitals like Berlin and Vienna that the
representations are frequent and popular. In towns
like Altona, Breslau, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Ham-
burg, Magdeburg, and Rostock, Shakespeare is acted
constantly and the greater number of his dramas is
regularly kept in rehearsal. 'Othello,' 'Hamlet,'
' Romeo and Juliet,' and ' The Taming of The Shrew '
usually prove most attractive. Of the many German
musical composers who have worked on Shakespear-
ean themes, Mendelssohn (in ' Midsummer Night's
Dream '), Schumann, and Franz Schubert (in setting
separate songs) have achieved the greatest success.

In France Shakespeare won recognition after a

longer struggle than in Germany. Cyrano de Ber-

gerac (1619-55) plagiarised ' Cymbeline,'

' Hamlet,' and ' The Merchant of Venice '

in his 'Agrippina.' About 1680 Nicolas Clement,

Louis XIV's librarian, allowed Shakespeare imagina-

1 The exact statistics for 1896 and 1897 were: 'Othello,' acted
135 and 121 times for the respective years; 'Hamlet,' 102 and 91;
'Romeo and Juliet,' 95 and 118; 'Taming of The Shrew,' 91 and 92;
'The Merchant of Venice,' 84 and 62; 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,'
68 and 92; 'A Winter's Tale,' 49 and 65; ' Much Ado about Nothing,'
47 and 32; 'Lear,' 41 and 34; 'As You Like It,' 37 and 29;
'Comedy of Errors,' 29 and 43; 'Julius Caesar,' 27 and 29; 'Mac-
beth,' 10 and 12; 'Timon of Athens,' 7 and o; 'The Tempest,' 5
and I; 'Antony and Cleopatra,' 2 and 4; ' Coriolanus,' o and 20;
'Cymbeline,' o and 4; 'Richard II,' 15 and 5; 'Henry IV,' Part I,
26 and 23, Part II, 6 and 13; ' Henry V,' 4 and 7; 'Henry VI,' Part
I, 3 and 5, Part II, 2 and 2; ' Richard III,' 25 and 26 (^Jahrhuch der
Deutsche Skakespeare-Gesdlschaft for 1897, pp. 306 seq., and fcir 1898,
pp. 440 seq.).

348 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

tion, natural thoughts, and ingenious expression, but
deplored his obscenity.^ Half a century elapsed before
public attention in France was again directed to Shake-
speare.^ The Abbe Prevost, in his periodical 'Le
Pour et Contre ' (1733 seq.), acknowledged his power.
But it is to Voltaire that his countrymen owe, as he him-
self boasted, their first effective introduction to Shake-
speare. Voltaire studied Shakespeare thoroughly on
his visit to England between 1 726 and 1 729, and his
influence is visible in his own dramas. In his 'Lettres
Philosophiqucs' ( 1 73 1 ), afterwards reissued as * Lettres
sur les Anglais,' 1734 (Nos. xviii. and xix.), and in
his ' Lettre sur la Tragedie ' (1731), he expressed
admiration for Shakespeare's genius, but attacked his
Voltaire's Want of tastc and art. He described him as
strictures. < |g Comeille de Londres, grand fou d'ailleurs,
mais il a des morceaux admirables.' Writing to the
Abbe des Fontaines in November 1735, Voltaire ad-
mitted many merits in 'Julius Caesar,' on which he
published ' Observations' in 1764. Johnson replied to
Voltaire's general criticism in the preface to his edition
(1765), and Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu in 1769 in a sepa-
rate volume, which was translated into French in
1777. Diderot made, in his 'Encyclopedic,' the first
stand in France against the Voltairean position, and
increased opportunities of studying Shakespeare's
works increased the poet's vogue. Twelve plays
were translated in De La Place's 'Theatre Anglais'

^ Jusserand, A French Ambassador, p. 56.

^ Cf. Al. Schmidt, Voltaire's Verdienst von der Einfiihrung
Shakespeares in Frankreich, Konigsberg, 1864.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 349

(1745-8). Jean-Frangois Ducis ( 1733-18 16) adapted
without much insight six plays for the French stage,
beginning in 1769 with ' Hamlet,' his version of which
was acted with applause. In 1776 Pierre Le Tourneur
began a bad prose translation (completed in 1782) of all
Shakespeare's plays, and declared him to be 'the god
of the theatre.' Voltaire protested against this esti-
mate in a new remonstrance consisting of two letters,
of which the first was read before the French Acad-
emy on August 25, 1776. Here Shakespeare was
described as a barbarian, whose works — ' a huge
dunghill ' — concealed some pearls.

Although Voltaire's censure was rejected by the
majority of later French critics, it expressed a senti-
ment born of the genius of the nation, and made an
impression that was only gradually effaced. Mar-
montel, La Harpe, Marie Joseph Chenier, and Chateau-
briand, in his ' Essai sur Shakespeare,' 1801, inclined
French to Voltaire's view ; but Madame de Stael
'^'raduai wrote effectively on the other side in her
emancipa- ' Dc la Litterature,' 1804 (i. caps. 13, 14, ii.
VoUa'irean 5)' ' ^^ ^^'^^ d^y,' wrotc Wordsworth in
influence. 1 8 1 5, ' the French critics have abated nothing
of their aversion to "this darling of our nation." "The
English with their bouffon de Shakespeare " is as
familiar an expression among them as in the time of
Voltaire. Baron Grimm is the only French writer
who seems to have perceived his infinite superiority
to the first names of the French theatre, — an advan-
tage which the Parisian critic owed to his German

350 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

blood and German education.' ^ The revision of Le
Tourneur's translation by Francois Guizot and A.
Pichot in 1821 gave Shakespeare a fresh advantage.
Paul Duport, in ' Essais Litteraires sur Shakespeare '
(Paris, 1828, 2 vols.), was the last French critic of
repute to repeat Voltaire's censure unreservedly.
Guizot, in his ' Sur la Vie et les CEuvres de Shake-
speare ' (reprinted separately from the translation of
1821), as well as in his ' Shakespeare et son Temps '
(1852); Villemain in a general essay,^ and Barante in
a study of ' Hamlet,' ^ acknowledged the mightiness of
Shakespeare's genius with comparatively few qualifi-
cations. Other complete translations followed — by
Francisque Michel (1839), by Benjamin Laroche
(185 1 ), and by Emil Montegut (1867); but the best
is that in prose by Francois Victor Hugo (1859-66),
whose father, Victor Hugo the poet, published a
rhapsodical eulogy in 1 864. Alfred Mezieres's ' Shake-
speare, ses CEuvres et ses Critiques' (Paris, i860),
is a saner appreciation.

Meanwhile 'Hamlet' and 'Macbeth,' 'Othello'
and a few other Shakespearean plays, became stock
On th pieces on the French stage. A powerful im-

French petus to theatrical representation of Shake-
^ ^^^' speare in France was given by the perf orm-

1 Frederic Melchior, Baron Grimm (i 723-1 807), for some years a
friend of Rousseau and the correspondent of Diderot and the encyclo-
pedistes, scattered many appreciative references to Shakespeare in his
voluminous Correspondance Litteraire Philosophique et Critique, extend-
ing over the period 1753-70, the greater part of which was pubhshed
in 16 vols. 1812-13.

^ Melanges Historiques, 1S27, iii. 141-87.

3 Ibid. 1824, iii. 217-34.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 35 I

ance in Paris of the chief plays by a strong company
of English actors in the autumn of 1827. ' Hamlet'
and ' Othello ' were acted successively by Charles
Kemble and Macready ; Edmund Kean appeared
as Richard III, Othello, and Shylock ; Miss Smith-
son, who became the wife of Hector Berlioz the musi-
cian, filled the roles of Ophelia, Juliet, Desdemona,
Cordelia, and Portia. French critics were divided as
to the merits of the performers, but most of them
were enthusiastic in their commendations of the plays. ^
Alfred de Vigny prepared a version of ' Othello ' for
the Theatre-Fran^ais in 1829 with eminent success.
An adaptation of ' Hamlet ' by Alexandre Dumas
was first performed in 1847, and a rendering by the
Chevalier de Chatelain (1864) was often repeated.
George Sand translated 'As You Like It '(Paris, 1856)
for representation by the Comedie Frangaise on
April 12, 1856. 'Lady Macbeth' has been repre-
sented in recent years by Madame Sarah Bernhardt,
and ' Hamlet ' by M. Mounet-Sully of the Theatre-
Fran^ais.^ Four French musicians — Berlioz in his
symphony of ' Romeo and Juliet,' Gounod in his
opera of ' Romeo and Juliet,' Ambroise Thomas
in his opera of ' Hamlet,' and Saint-Saens in his
opera of 'Henry VIII' — have sought with public

1 Very interesting comments on these performances appeared day
by day in the Paris newspaper La Globe. They were by Charles Magnin,
who reprinted them in his Causeries et Meditations Historiques et
Litteraires (Paris, 1843, ii- 62 seq.).

- Cf. Lacroix, Hisloire de P lufiuence de Shakespeare sur le Theatre
Franfais, 1867; Edinburgh Review, 1849, PP- 39~77; Elze, Essays,
pp. 193 seq.; M. Jusserand, Shakespeare en France sous I'Aucien
Regime, Paris, 1898.

352 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

approval to interpret musically portions of Shake-
speare's work.

In Italy Shakespeare was little known before the
present century. Such references as eighteenth-cen-
tury Italian writers made to him were based

In Italy. "'

on remarks by Voltaire.^ The French adap-
tation of ' Hamlet ' by Ducis was issued in Italian
blank verse (Venice, 1774, 8vo). Complete trans-
lations of all the plays made direct from the English
were issued by Michele Leoni in verse at Verona,
1819-22, and by Carlo Rusconi in prose at Padua
in 1831 (new edit. Turin, 1858-9). 'Othello' and
' Romeo and Juliet ' have been very often translated
into Italian separately. The Italian actors, Madame
Ristori (as Lady Macbeth), Salvini (as Othello), and
Rossi rank among Shakespeare's most effective inter-
preters. Verdi's operas on Macbeth, Othello, and
Falstaff (the last two with libretti by Boito) betray
a close and appreciative study of Shakespeare.

Two complete translations have been published in
Dutch : one in prose by A. S. Kok (Amsterdam, 1873-

80), the other in verse by Dr. L. A. T. Bur-
in Holland. ' ,.., .-,. , «« / , X

gersdijk (Leyden, 1884-8, 12 vols.)

In Eastern Europe, Shakespeare first became

known through French and German translations.

Into Russian ' Romeo and Juliet ' was translated in

1772, 'Richard III' in 1783, and 'Julius Caesar' in

1786. Sumarakow translated Ducis's version

In Russia. , t t i . • r^ r

of Hamlet in 1784 tor stage purposes,

^ Cf. Giovanni Andres, DelP Origine Progressi e Stato attuale
W ogni Letter atur a, 1 782.

POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION 353

while the Empress Catherine II adapted the ' Merry
Wives ' and ' King John.' Numerous versions of all
the chief plays followed ; and in 1865 there appeared
at St. Petersburg the best translation in verse (direct
from the English), by Nekrasow and Gerbel. A prose
translation, by N. Ketzcher, begun in 1862, was com-
pleted in 1879. Gerbel issued a Russian translation
of the 'Sonnets' in 1880, and many critical essays in
the language, original or translated, have been pub-
lished. Almost every play has been represented in
Russian on the Russian stage. ^

A Polish version of ' Hamlet ' was acted at Lem-

berg in 1797; and as many as sixteen plays now

hold a recognised place among Polish acting

In Poland. , _, * , 1 -r, ,. , -, .

plays. The standard Polish translation of
Shakespeare's collected works appeared at Warsaw
in 1875 (edited by the Polish poet Kraszewski), and
is reckoned among the most successful renderings in
a foreign tongue.

In Hungary, Shakespeare's greatest w^orks have
since the beginning of the century been highly
In Hun- appreciated by students and by playgoers,
gary. j^ Complete translation into Hungarian

appeared at Kaschau in 1824. At the National
Theatre at Budapest no less than twenty-two plays
have been of late years included in the actors'
repertory.^

1 Cf. A'if7£' Shaksp. Soc. Trans. 1S80-5, pt. ii. 431 seq.

- Cf. Ungarische Revue (Budapest) January 1881, pp. 81-2; and
August Greguss's Shakspere . . . els'o k'otet : Shakspere pdlydja,
Budapest, 1880 (an account in Hungarian of Shakespeare's Life and
Works).

354 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Other complete translations have been published
in Bohemian (Prague, 1874), in Swedish (Lund, 1847-
in other 5 1 ), in Danish (1845-50), and Finnish
countries. (Helsing'fors, 1892-5). In Spanish a com-
plete translation is in course of publication (Madrid,
1885 seq.), and the eminent Spanish critic Menendez
y Pelayo has set Shakespeare above Calderon. In
Armenian, although only three plays (' Hamlet,'
'Romeo and Juliet,' and 'As You Like It') have
been issued, the translation of the whole is ready for
the press. Separate plays have appeared in Welsh,
Portuguese, Friesic, Flemish, Servian Roumanian,
Maltese, Ukrainian, Wallachian, Croatian, modern
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Japanese; while a few have
been rendered into Bengali, Hindustani, Marathi,^
Gujarati, Urdu, Kanarese, and other languages of
India, and have been acted in native theatres.

1 Cf. Macmillan^ s Magazine, May 1880.

GENERAL ESTIMATE 355

XXI

GENERAL ESTIMATE

No estimate of Shakespeare's genius can be ad-
equate. In knowledge of human character, in
General wealth of humour, in depth of passion, in
estimate. fertility of fancy, and in soundness of judg-
ment he has no rival. It is true of him, as of no
other writer, that his language and versification adapt
themselves to every phase of sentiment, and sound
every note in the scale of felicity. Some defects
are to be acknowledged, but they sink into insignifi-
cance when measured by the magnitude of his
achievement. Sudden transitions, elliptical expres-
sions, mixed metaphors, indefensible verbal quibbles,
and fantastic conceits at times create an atmosphere
of obscurity. The student is perplexed, too, by obso-
lete words and by some hopelessly corrupt readings.
But when the whole of Shakespeare's vast work is
scrutinised with due attention, the glow of his imagina-
tion is seen to leave few passages wholly unillumined.
Some of his plots are hastily constructed and incon-
sistently developed, but the intensity of the interest
with which he contrives to invest the personality of
his heroes and heroines triumphs over halting or

356 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

digressive treatment of the story in which they have
their being. Although he was versed in the techni-
calities of stagecraft, he occasionally disregarded its
elementary conditions. But the success of his pre-
sentments of human life and character depended
little on his manipulation of theatrical machinery.
His unassailable supremacy springs from the versatile
working of his insight and intellect, by virtue of
which his pen limned with unerring precision almost
every gradation of thought and emotion that animates
the living stage of the world.

Shakespeare's mind, as Hazlitt suggested, con-
tained within itself the germs of all faculty and feeling.
He knew intuitively how every faculty and feeling
would develop in any conceivable change of fortune.
Men and women — good or bad, old or young, wise
or foolish, merry or sad, rich or poor — yielded their
secrets to him, and his genius enabled him to give
being in his pages to all the shapes of humanity that
present themselves on the highway of life. Each
of his characters gives voice to thought or passion
with an individuality and a naturalness that rouse
Character ill the intelligent playgoer and reader the
of Shake- illusion that they are overhearing men and

speare's ....

achieve- womcu spcak unprcmeditatmgly among
ment. themsclvcs, rather than that they are read-

ing written speeches or hearing written speeches
recited. The more closely the words are studied,
the completer the illusion grows. Creatures of the
imagination — fairies, ghosts, witches — are delineated
with a like potency, and the reader or spectator

GENERAL ESTIMATE 357

feels instinctively that these supernatural entities
could not speak, feel, or act otherwise than Shake-
speare represents them. The creative power of
poetry was never manifested to such effect as in the
corporeal semblances in which Shakespeare clad the
spirits of the air.

So mighty a faculty sets at naught the common
limitations of nationality, and in every quarter of the
Its univer- S^o^'^ ^^ which civiliscd life has penetrated
sal recogni- Shakcspcarc's power is recognised. All the
world over, language is applied to his crea-
tions that ordinarily applies to beings of flesh and
blood. Hamlet and Othello, Lear and Macbeth,
Falstaff and Shylock, Brutus and Romeo, Ariel and
Caliban, are studied in almost every civilised tongue
as if they were historic personalities, and the chief
of the impressive phrases that fall from their lips are
rooted in the speech of civilised humanity. To
Shakespeare the intellect of the world, speaking in
divers accents, applies with one accord his own words :
' How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in
apprehension how like a god ! '

APPENDIX

THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

The scantiness of contemporary records of Shakespeare's career
has been much exaggerated. An investigation extending over
Contempo- two centuries has brought together a mass of detail
rary records which far exceeds that accessible in the case of any
abundant, other contemporary professional writer. Nevertheless,
some important links are missing, and at some critical points
appeal to conjecture is inevitable. But the fully ascertained
facts are numerous enough to define sharply the general direc-
tion that Shakespeare's career followed. Although the clues
are in some places faint, the trail never altogether eludes the
patient investigator.

Fuller, in his 'Worthies' (1662), attempted the first
biographical notice of Shakespeare, with poor results. Aubrey,
Pirst in his gossiping 'Lives of Eminent Men,'^ based his

efforts in ampler information on reports communicated to him
biography, by William Beeston (d. 1682), an aged actor, whom
Dryden called ' the chronicle of the stage,' and who was doubt-
less in the main a trustworthy witness. A few additional details
were recorded in the seventeenth century by the Rev. John
Ward (1629-1681), vicar of Stratford-on-Avon from 1662 to
1668, in a diary and memorandum-book written between 1661

^ Compiled between 1669 and 1696; first printed in Letters /rent the Bodleian,
1813, and admirably re-edited for the Clarendon Press during the present year by
the Rev. Andrew Clark (2 vols.).

361

362 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and 1663 (ed. C. A. Severn, 1839) ; by the Rev. William
Fulman, whose manuscripts are at Corpus Christ! College,
Oxford (with valuable interpolations made before 1708 by the
Rev. Richard Davies, vicar of Saperton, Gloucestershire) ; by
John Dowdall, who recorded his experiences of travel through
Warwickshire in 1693 (London, 1838) ; and by William Hall,
who described a visit to Stratford in 1694 (London, 1884, from
Hall's letter among the Bodleian MSS.). Phillips in his
* Theatrum Poetarum ' (1675), and Langbaine in his 'English
Dramatick Poets' (1691), confined themselves to elementary
criticism. In 1709 Nicholas Rowe prefixed a more ambitious
memoir than had yet been attempted to his edition of the plays,
and embodied some hitherto unrecorded Stratford and London
traditions with which the actor Thomas Betterton supplied
him. A little fresh gossip was collected by William Oldys,
a^id was printed from his manuscript 'Adversaria' (now in
the British Museum) as an appendix to Yeowell's ' Memoir of
Oldys,' 1862. Pope. Johnson, and Steevens, in the biographical
prefaces to their editions, mainly repeated the narratives of
their predecessor, Rowe.

In the Prolegomena to the Variorum editions of 1803. 1813,
and especially in that of 1821 there was embodied a mass of
Biograph- fresh information derived by Edmund Malone from
ers of the systematic researches among the parochial records
nineteenth of Stratford, the manuscripts accumulated by the
century. actor Alleyn at Duhvich, and ofiicial papers of state
preserved in the public offices in London (now collected in the
Public Record Office). The available knowledge of Elizabethan
stage histoiy as well as of Shakespeare's biography, was thus
greatly extended. John Payne Collier, in his 'History of
English Dramatic Poetry' (1831), in his 'New Facts' about
Shakespeare (1835), '""is 'New Particulars' (1836), and his
' Further Particulars ' (1839), and in his editions of Henslowe's
'Diary' and the 'Alleyn Papers' for the Shakespeare Society,
while occasionally throwing some further light on obscure
places, foisted on Shakespeare's biography a series of ingeniously
forged documents which have greatly perplexed succeeding
biographers.^ Joseph Hunter in ' New Illustrations of Shake-
1 See p. 367-8.

SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE 363

speare' (1845) and George Russell French's 'Shakespeareana
Genealogica ' (1869) occasionally supplemented IMalone's re-
searches. James Orchard Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-
Phillipps) printed separately, between 1850 and 1884, in various
privately issued publications, all the Stratford archives and
extant legal documents bearing on Shakespeare's career, many
of them for the first time. In 1881 Halliwell-Phillipps began the
collective publication of materials for a full biography in his
• Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare ' ; this work was generously
enlarged in successive editions until it acquired massive propor-
tions ; in the fourth and last edition of 1887 it numbered near
1,000 pages. Mr. Frederick Gard Fleay, in his 'Shakespeare
Manual' (1876), in his 'Life of Shakespeare' (1886), in his
' History of the Stage' (1890), and his 'Biographical Chronicle
of the English Drama' (1891), adds much useful information
respecting stage history and Shakespeare's relations with his
fellow-dramatists, mainly derived from a study of the original
editions of the plays of Shakespeare and of his contemporaries ;
but unfortunately many of Mr. Fleay's statements and conjec-
tures are unauthenticated. For notices of Stratford, R. B.
Wheler's 'History and Antiquities' (1806), John R. Wise's
Stratford * Shakespere, his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood '
topo- (1S61), the present writer's • Stratford-on-Avon to

graphy. the Death of Shakespeare' (1890), and Mrs. C. C.
Stopes's 'Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries' (1897)
may be consulted. Wise appends to his volume a tentative
'glossary of words still used in Warwickshire to be found in
Shakspere.' The parish registers of Stratford have been edited
by Mr. Richard Savage for the Parish Registers Society, 1898-9.
Nathan Drake's ' Shakespeare and his Times' (1817) and G. W.
Thornbury's 'Shakespeare's England' (1856) collect much
material respecting Shakespeare's social environment.

The chief monographs on special points in Shakespeare's
biography are Dr. Richard Farmer's ' Essay on the Learning of
Specialised Shakespeare' (1767), reprinted in the Variorum
studies in editions ; Octavius Gilchrist's ' Examination of the
biography. Charges ... of Ben Jonson's Enmity towards
Shakespeare' (1808); W. J. Thoms's 'Was Shakespeare ever
a Soldier ?' (1849), a study based on an erroneous identification

364 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

of the poet with another William Shakespeare ; Lord Campbell's
'Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered' (1859); John
Charles Bucknill's ' Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare ' (i860) ;
C. F. Green's ' Shakespeare's Crab-Tree, with its Legend' (1862) ;

C. H. Bracebridge's 'Shakespeare no Deer-stealer ' (1862);
William Blades's ' Shakspere and Typography' (1872); and

D. H. Madden's ' Diary of Master William Silence (Shakespeare
and Sport),' 1897. A full epitome of the biographical informa-
tion accessible at the date of publication is supplied in Karl

Elze's ' Life of Shakespeare' (Halle, 1876; English
Useful epi- translation. 1888), with which Elze's 'Essays' from

the publications of the German Shakespeare Society
(English translation, 1874) are worth studying. A less ambitious
effort of the same kind by Samuel Neil (1861) is seriously
injured by the writer's acceptance of Collier's forgeries. Pro-
fessor Dowden's 'Shakespeare Primer' (1877) and his 'Intro-
duction to Shakespeare' (1893), and Dr. Furnivall's 'Intro-
duction to the Leopold Shakespeare,' are all useful summaries
of leading facts.

Francis Douce's 'Illustrations of Shakespeare' (1807, new
edit. 1839), 'Shakespeare's Library' (ed. J. P. Collier and W. C.
Aids to Hazlitt, 1875), 'Shakespeare's Plutarch' (ed. Skeat,

study of 1875), and 'Shakespeare's Holinshed ' (ed. W. G.
plots and Boswell-Stone, 1896) are of service in tracing the
text. sources of Shakespeare's plots. Alexander Schmidts

'Shakespeare Lexicon' (1874) and Dr. E. A. Abbott's 'Shake-
spearean Grammar' (1869, new edit. 1893) are valuable aids to

a study of the text. Useful concordances to the
Concor- plays have been prepared by Mrs. Cowden-Clarke

dS-TlCGS 11-'

(1845), to the Poems by Mrs. H. H. Furness
(Philadelphia, 1875), ^"d to Plays and Poems, in one volume,
with references to numbered lines, by John Bartlett (London
and New York, 1895).^ A 'Handbook |ndex' by J. O. Halliwell
(privately printed 1866) gives lists of obsolete words and phrases,
songs, proverbs, and plants mentioned in the works of Shake-
speare. An unprinted glossary prepared by Richard Warner

1 The earliest attempts at a concordance were A Complete I'erbal hidex to the
Plays, by F. Twiss (1805), and An Index to the Remarkable Passages and Words,
by Samuel Ayscough (1827), but these are now superseded.

SHAKESPEAREAN FORGERIES 365

between 1750 and 1770 is at the British Museum (Addit. MSS.

10472-542). Extensive bibliographies are given in

Lowndes's • Library Manual ' (ed. Bohn) ; in Franz
Efrapnics. ' ,

Thimm's ' Shakespeariana ' (1864 and 1871) ; in the

* Encyclopeedia Britannica,' 9th edit, (skilfully classified by

Mr. H. R. Tedder); and in the 'British Museum Catalogue'

(the Shakespearean entries in which, comprising 3,680 titles,

were separately published in 1897).

The valuable publications of the Shakespeare Society, the

New Shakspere Society, and of the Deutsche Shakespeare-

Gesellschaft, comprising contributions alike to the

" '.'^^ ^Esthetic, textual, historical, and biographical study of

studies. ^, , ' . , ' , \^

Shakespeare, are noticed above (see pp. 333-4, 346).

To the critical studies, on which comment has already been made

(see p. 333). — viz. Coleridge's 'Notes and Lectures,' 1883,

HazHtt's 'Characters of Shakespeare's Plays,' 1817, Professor

Dowden's 'Shakespeare: his Mind and Art,' 1875, and Mr.

A. C. Swinburne. 'A Study of Shakespeare,' 1879, — there

may be added the essays on Shakespeare's heroines respectively

by Mrs. Jameson in 1833 and Lady Martin in 1885 ; Dr. Ward's

•English Dramatic Literature' (1875, new edit. 1898); Richard

G. Moulton's 'Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist' (1885);

'Shakespeare Studies' by Thomas Spencer Baynes (1893);

F. S. Boas's 'Shakspere and his Predecessors' (1895), and

Georg Brandes's ' William Shakespeare ' — an elaborately critical

but somewhat fanciful study — in Danish (Copenhagen, 1895,

8vo), in German (Leipzig, 1895), and in English (London, 1898,

2 vols. 8vo).

The intense interest which Shakespeare's life and work have
long universally excited has tempted unprincipled or sportively
Shake- mischievous writers from time to time to deceive the

spearean public by the forgery of documents purporting to
forgeries. supply new information. The forgers were espe-
cially active at the end of the last century and during the middle
years of the present century, and their frauds have caused
students so much perplexity that it may be useful to warn them
against those Shakespearean forgeries which have obtained the
widest currency.

The earliest forger to obtain notoriety was John Jordan

366 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

( 1 746-1 809), a resident at Stratford-on-Avon, whose most impor-
[ohn Tor- ^'"^"^ achievement was the forgery of the will of
dan, Shakespeare's father; but many other papers in

1746-1809. Jordan's ' Original Collections on Shakespeare and
Stratford-on-Avon' (1780), and 'Original Memoirs and Histori-
cal Accounts of the Families of Shakespeare and Hart,' are open
to the gravest suspicion. ^

The best-known Shakespearean forger of the eighteenth
century was William Henry Ireland (1777-1835), a barrister's
The Ire- clerk, who, with the aid of his father, Samuel Ireland
landforger- (i740?-i8oo), an author and engraver of some repute,
ies, 1796. produced in 1796 a volume of forged papers claiming
to relate to Shakespeare's career. The title ran : ' Miscellaneous
Papers and Legal Instruments under the Hand and Seal of
William Shakespeare, including the tragedy of " King Lear " and
a small fragment of "Hamlet" from the original MSS. in the
possession of Samuel Ireland.' On April 2, 1796, Sheridan and
Kemble produced at Drury Lane Theatre a bombastic tragedy
in blank verse entitled ' Vortigern ' under the pretence that it
was by Shakespeare, and had been recently found among the
manuscripts of the dramatist that had fallen into the hands of the
Irelands. The piece, which was published, was the invention of
young Ireland. The fraud of the Irelands, which for some time
deceived a section of the literary public, was finally exposed by
Malone in his valuable 'Inquiry into the Authenticity of the
Ireland MSS.' (1796). Young Ireland afterwards published his
'Confessions' (1805). He had acquired much skill in copying
Shakespeare's genuine signature from the facsimile in Steevens's
edition of Shakespeare's works of the mortgage-deed of the
Blackfriars house of 1612-13,'^ and, besides conforming to that
style of handwriting in his forged deeds and literary com-
positions, he inserted copies of the signature on the title-pages
of many sixteenth-century books, and often added notes in
the same feigned hand on their margins. Numerous sixteenth-
century volumes embellished by Ireland in this manner are
extant, and his forged signatures and marginalia have been
frequently mistaken for genuine autographs of Shakespeare.

1 Jordan's Collections, including this fraudulent will of Shakespeare's father,
were printed privately by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps in 1864. 2 gee p. 267.

SHAKESPEAREAN FORGERIES 367

But Ireland's and Jordan's frauds are clumsy compared with
those that belong to the present century. . Most of the works
Forgeries relating to the biography of Shakespeare or the
promulga- history of the Elizabethan stage produced by John
e y °" Payne Collier, or under his supervision, between 1835
others, 'I'^d 1 849 are honeycombed with forged references

1835-1849. to Shakespeare, and many of the forgeries have been
admitted unsuspectingly into literary history. The chief of these
forged papers I arrange below in the order of dates that have
been allotted to them by their manufacturers. ^

1589 (November). Appeal from the Blackfriars players
(16 in number) to the Privy Council for favour. Shake-
speare's name stands twelfth. From the manuscripts
at Bridgewater House, belonging to the Earl of
Ellesmere. First printed in Collier's 'New Facts
regarding the Life of Shakespeare,' 1835.
1596 (July). List of inhabitants of the Liberty of South-
wark, Shakespeare's name appearing in the sixth place.
First printed in Collier's 'Life of Shakespeare,' 1858,
p. 126.
1596. Petition of the owners and players of the Blackfriars
Theatre to the Privy Council in reply to an alleged
petition of the inhabitants requesting the closing of the
playhouse. Shakespeare's name is fifth on the list of
petitioners. This forged paper is in the Public Record
Office, and was first printed in Collier's ' History of
English Dramatic Poetry' (1831), vol. i. p. 297, and
has been constantly reprinted as if it were genuine.^

^ Reference has already been made to the character of the manuscript correc-
tions made by Collier in a copy of the Second Folio of 1632, known as the Perkins
folio See p. 312, n. 2, supra. The chief authorities on the subject of the Collier for-
geries are : A n Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Matinscript Corrections in Mr.
y. Payne Collier's Annotated Shakspere Folio, 1633, and 0/ certain Shaksperian
Documents likewise published by Mr. Collier, by N. E. S. A. Hamilton, London,
i860: A Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy conccrtiing tlie Authen-
ticity and Genuineness of Manuscript Matter affecting the Works and Biography
of Shakspere, published by y. Payne Collier as the Fruits of his Researches, by
C. M. Ingleby, LL.D. of Trinity College, Cambridge, London, 1861; Catalogue of
the Manuscripts and Muniments of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich, by
George F. Warner, M.A., 1881; Notes on the Life of James Payne Collier, with a
Complete List of his Works and an Account of such Shakespeare Documents as
are beliezied to be spurious, by Henry B. Wheatley. London, 1884.

^ See Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1595-71 p. 310.

368 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1596 (c/fca). A letter signed H. S. (i.e. Henry. Earl of South-
ampton), addressed to Sir Thomas Egerton, praying
protection for the players of the Blackfriars Theatre,
and mentioning Burbage and Shalcespeare by name.
First printed in Collier's • New Facts.'

1596 (area). A list of sharers in the Blackfriars Theatre,
with the valuation of their property, in which Shake-
speare is credited with four shares, worth 933/. 6s. Sci.
This was first printed in Colliers 'New Facts,' 1835,
p. 6, from the Egerton MSS. at Bridgewater House.

1602 (August 6). Notice of the performance of ' Othello ' by
Burbage's ' players ' before Queen Elizabeth when on
a visit to Sir Thomas Egerton, the lord-keeper, at
Harefield, in a forged account of disbursements by
Egerton's steward, Arthur Mainwaringe, from the
manuscripts at Bridgewater House, belonging to the
Earl of EUesmere. Printed in Collier's 'New Par-
ticulars regarding the Works of Shakespeare,' 1836,
and again in Collier's edition of the 'Egerton Papers/
1840 (Camden Society), pp. 342-3.

1603 (October 3). Mention of 'Mr. Shakespeare of the
Globe ' in a letter at Dulwich from Mrs. Alleyn to her
husband; part of the letter is genuine. First published
in Collier's ' Memoirs of Edward Alleyn,' 1841, p. 63. ^

1604 (April 9). List of the names of eleven players of the
King's Company fraudulently appended to a genuine
letter at Dulwich College from the Privy Council
bidding the Lord Mayor permit performances by the
King's players. Printed in Collier's 'Memoirs of
Edward Alleyn,' 1841, p. 68.-

1605 (November-December). Forged entries in Master of
the Revels' account-books ( now at the Public Record
Office) of performances at Whitehall by the King's play-
ers of the ' Moor of Venice ' — z.e. ' Othello ' — on Nov-
ember I, and of 'Measure for Measure' on December
26. Printed in Peter Cunningham's 'Extracts from
the Accounts of the Revels at Court' (pp. 203-4), pub-

1 See Warner's Cniaio^ue of Dulwich MSS. pp. 34-6.
* Cf. iii'd. pp. 26-7.

SHAKESPEAREAN FORGERIES 369

lished by the Shakespeare Society in 1842. Doubt-
less based on Malone's trustworthy memoranda (now
in Bodleian Library) of researches among genuine
papers formerly at the Audit Office at Somerset
House. ^

1607. Notes of performances of ' Hamlet ' and ' Richard II '
by the crews of the vessels of the East India Com-
pany's fleet off Sierra Leone. First printed in 'Narra-
tives of Voyages towards the North -West, 1 496-1 631,'
edited by Thomas Rundall for the Hakluyt Society,
1849, p. 231, from what purported to be an exact
transcript 'in the India Office' of the 'Journal of
William Keeling,' captain of one of the vessels in
the expedition. Keeling's manuscript journal is still
at the India Office, but the leaves that should contain
these entries are now, and have long been, missing
from it.

1609 (January 4). A warrant appointing Robert Daborne,
William Shakespeare, and others instructors of the
Children of the Revels. From the Bridgewater
House MSS. first printed in Collier's 'New Facts,'

1835-

^609 (April 6). List of persons assessed for poor rate in
Southwark, April 6, 1609, in w^hich Shakespeare's
name appears. First printed in Collier's 'Memoirs of
Edward Alleyn,' 1841, p. 91. The forged paper is at
Dulwich.-

1611 (November). Forged entries in Master of the Revels'
account-books (now at the Public Record Office) of
performances at Whitehall by the King's Players of
the 'Tempest' on November i, and of the 'Winter's
Tale' on November 5. Printed in Peter Cunningham's
' Extracts from the Revels Accounts,' p. 210. Doubt-
less based on Malone's trustworthy memoranda of
researches among genuine papers formerly at the
Audit Office at Somerset House. ^

■ See p. 235, n. i, supra.

' Cf. Warner's Dulwich MSS. pp. 30-1.

3 See p. 255, n. i, supra.

2 B

370 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY

The apparent contrast between the homeliness of Shakespeare's

Stratford career and the breadth of observation and knowledge

displayed in his literary work has evoked the fantastic
Its source

theory that Shakespeare was not the author of the

literature that passes under his name, and perverse attempts
have been made to assign his works to his great contemporary,
Francis Bacon (i 561-1626), the great contemporary prose-writer,
philosopher, and lawyer. It is argued that Shakespeare's plays
embody a general omniscience (especially a knowledge of law)
which was possessed by no contemporary except Bacon ; that
there are many close parallelisms between passages in Shake-
speare's and passages in Bacon's works,^ and that Bacon makes

1 Most of those that are commonly quoted are phrases in ordinary use by all
writers of the day. The only point of any interest raised in the argument from
parallelisms of expression centres about a quotation from Aristotle which Bacon and
Shakespeare not merely both make, but make in what looks at a first glance to be
the same erroneous form. Aristotle wrote in his Nicoinachcafi Ethics, i. 8, that
young men were unfitted for the study of political philosophy. Bacon, in the
Advancement of Learning {160$), wrote: ' Is not the opinion of Aristotle worthy to
be regarded wherein he saith that young men are not fit auditors of moral phi-
losophy?' (bk. ii. p. 255, ed. Kitchin). Shakespeare, about 1603, in Troilus and
Cressida, 11. ii. 166, wrote of ' young men whom Aristotle thought unfit to hear moral
philosophy. But the alleged error of substituting moral for /£?////ca/ philosophy in
Aristotle's text is more apparent than real. By ' political ' philosophy Aristotle, as
his context amply shows, meant the ethics of civil society, which are hardly distin-
guishable from what is commonly called 'morals.' In the summary paraphrase of
Aristotle's Ethics which was translated into English from the Italian, and published
in 1547, the passage to which both Shakespeare and Bacon refer is not rendered
literally, but its general drift is given as a warning that moral philosophy is not a fit
subject for study by youths who are naturally passionate and headstrong. Such
an interpretation of Aristotle's language is common among sixteenth and seventeenth
century writers. In a French translation of the Ethics by the Comte de Plessis, pub-

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY 37 1

enigmatic references in his correspondence to secret ' recrea-
tions ' and 'alphabets' and concealed poems for which his
alleged employment as a concealed dramatist can alone account.
Tobv Toby Matthew wrote to Bacon (as Viscount St.

Matthew's Albans) at an uncertain date after January 1621 :
letter. ' Yhe most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my

nation and of this side of the sea is of your Lordship's name,
though he be known by another.' ^ This unpretending sentence
is distorted into conclusive evidence that Bacon wrote works
of commanding excellence under another's name, and among
them probably Shakespeare's plays. According to the only
sane interpretation of Matthew's words, his 'most prodigious
wit ' was some Englishman named Bacon whom he met abroad
— probably a pseudonymous Jesuit like most of ^latthew's
friends. (The real surname of Father Thomas Southwell, who
was a learned Jesuit domiciled chiefly in the Low Countries,
was Bacon. He was born in 1592 at Sculthorpe, near Wal-
singham, Norfolk, being son of Thomas Bacon of that place, and
he died at Watten in 1637.)

Joseph C. Hart (U. S. Consul at Santa Cruz, rf. 1855), in his
' Romance of Yachting' (1848), first raised doubts of Shake-
speare's authorship. There followed in a like temper

lie ex- ' Who wrote Shakespeare? ■ in 'Chambers's Journal,'
ponents. .

August 7, 1852, and an article by Miss Delia Bacon

in ' Putnams' Monthly,' January 1856. On the latter was based

' The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare unfolded by

Delia Bacon,' with a neutral preface by Nathaniel Hawthorne,

London and Boston, 1857. Miss Delia Bacon, who was the first

to spread abroad a spirit of scepticism respecting the established

facts of Shakespeare's career, died insane on September 2,

lished at Paris in 1553, the passage is rendered ' parquoy le ieune enfant n'est suffisant
auditeur de la science civile; ' and an English commentator (in a manuscript note
written about 1605 in a copy of the book in the British Museum) turned the sentence
into English thus: 'Whether a young man may be a fitte schoUer of .v/ora// philo-
sophie.' In 1622 an Italian essayist, Virgilio Malvezzi, in his preface to his Discorsi
sopra Cornelio Tacito, has the remark, ' E non e discordante da questa mia
opinione .'\ristotele, il qual dice, che i giovani non sono buoni ascultatori delle
tnorali" (cf. Spedding, Works of Bacon, \. 739, iii. 440).

' Cf V>\xz\\, Letters of Bacon, 1763, p. 392. A foolish suggestion has been made
that Matthew was referring to Francis Bacon's brother Anthony, who died in 1601;
Matthew was writing of a man who was alive more than twenty years later.

372 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

1859.^ Mr. William Henry Smith, a resident in London, seems
first to have suggested the Baconian hypothesis in 'Was Lord
Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays? — a letter to Lord
EUesmere' (1856), which was republished as 'Bacon and
Shakespeare' (1857). The most learned exponent of this
strange theory was Nathaniel Holmes, an American lawyer,
who published at New York in 1866 'The Authorship of the
Plays attributed to Shakespeare,' a monument of misapplied
ingenuity (4th ed. 1886, 2 vols.). Bacon's ' Promus of Formu-
laries and Elegancies,' a commonplace book in Bacon's hand-
writing in the British Museum (London, 1883), was first edited
by Mrs. Henry Pott, a voluminous advocate of the Baconian
theory ; it contained many words and phrases common to the
w^orks of Bacon and Shakespeare, and Mrs. Pott pressed the
argument from parallelisms of expression to its extremest
limits. The Baconian theory has found its widest acceptance
in America. There it achieved its wildest manifestation in the
book called ' The Great Cryptogram : Francis Bacon's
Its vogue Cypher in the so-called Shakespeare Plays ' (Chicago
and London, 1887, 2 vols.), which was the work of
Mr. Ignatius Donnelly of Hastings, Minnesota. The author
pretended to have discovered among Bacon's papers a numerical
cypher which enabled him to pick out letters appearing at certain
intervals in the pages of Shakespeare's First Folio, and the
selected letters formed words and sentences categorically stating
that Bacon was author of the plays. Many refutations have
been published of Mr. Donnelly's arbitrary and baseless con-
tention.

A Bacon Society was founded in London in 1885 to develop
and promulgate the unintelligible theory, and it inaugurated a
Extent of magazine (named since May 1893 ' Baconiana'). A
the litera- quarterly periodical also called ' Baconiana,' and
ture. issued in the same interest, was established at

Chicago in 1892. 'The Bibliography of the Shakespeare-Bacon
Controversy' by W. H. Wyman, Cincinnati, 1884, gives the
titles of two hundred and fifty-five books or pamphlets on both
sides of the subject, published since 1848 ; the list was continued
during 1886 in ' Shakespeariana,' a monthly journal published

1 Cf. Life by Theodore Bacon, London, 1888.

THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY 373

at Philadelphia, and might now be extended to fully twice its
original number.

The abundance of the contemporary evidence attesting
Shakespeare's responsibility for the works published under his
name gives the Baconian theory no rational right to a hearing ;
while such authentic examples of Bacon's efTort to write verse
as survive prove beyond all possibility of contradiction that,
great as he was as a prose-writer and a philosopher, he was
incapable of penning any of the poetry assigned to Shake-
speare. Defective knowledge and illogical or casuistical argu-
ment alone render any other conclusion possible.

374 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

III

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF THE EARL OF
SOUTHAMPTON

From the dedicatory epistles addressed by Sliakespeare to the
Earl of Southampton in the opening pages of his two narrative

poems, 'Venus and Adonis' (1593) and 'Lucrece'
ton\nd"^ (1594),^ from the account given by Sir William
Shake- D'Avenant, and recorded by Nicholas Rov^e, of the

speaie. earPs liberal bounty to the poet,- and, from the

language of the sonnets, it is abundantly clear that Shakespeare
enjoyed very friendly relations with Southampton from the time
when his genius was nearing its maturity. No contemporary
document or tradition gives the faintest suggestion that Shake-
speare was the friend or protege of any man of rank other than
Southampton ; and the student of Shakespeare's biography has
reason to ask for some information respecting him who enjoyed
the exclusive distinction of serving Shakespeare as his patron.

Southampton was a patron worth cultivating. Both his
parents came of the New Nobility, and enjoyed vast wealth.
His father's father was Lord Chancellor under Henry VIH,
and when the monasteries were dissolved, although he was
faithful to the old rehgion, he was granted rich estates in

Hampshire, including the Abbeys of Titchfield and
Parentage, gg^yjjg^, jjj ^j^g jv^g^ Forest. He was created Earl

of Southampton early in Edward VFs reign, and, dying shortly
afterwards, was succeeded by his only son, the father of Shake-
speare's friend. The second Earl loved magnificence in his
household. ' He was highly reverenced and favoured of all that
were of his own rank, and bravely attended and served by the

1 See pp. 4, 77, 127. 2 See p. 126.

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 375

best gentlemen of those countries wherein he lived. His muster-
roll never consisted of four lacqueys and a coachman, but of a
whole troop of at least a hundred well-mounted gentlemen
and yeomen.' ^ The second Earl remained a Catholic, like his
father, and a chivalrous avowal of sympathy with Mary Queen
of Scots procured him a term of imprisonment in the year
preceding his distinguished son's birth. At a youthful age
he married a lady of fortune, Mary Browne, daughter of the
first Viscount Montague, also a Catholic. Her portrait, now
at Welbeck, was painted in her early married days, and
shows regularly formed features beneath bright auburn hair.
Two sons and a daughter were the issue of the union. Shake-
speare's friend, the second son, was borne at her father's

residence, Cowdray House, near Midhurst, on
q'j,j^°" October 6, 1573. He was thus Shakespeare's junior

by nine years and a half. 'A goodly boy, God bless
him!' exclaimed the gratified father, writing of his birth to a
friend. 2 But the father barely survived the boy's infancy. He
died at the early age of thirty-five — two days before the child's
eighth birthday. The elder son was already dead. Thus, on
October 4, 1581. the second and only surviving son became
third Earl of Southampton, and entered on his great inheri-
tance.^

As was customary in the case of an infant peer, the little
Earl became a royal ward — ' a child of state ' — and Lord
Burghley, the Prime Minister, acted as tlie boy's guardian in
the Queen's behalf. Burghley had good reason to be satisfied

with his ward's intellectual promise. ' He spent,'

wrote a contemporary, ' his childhood and other
younger terms in the study of good letters.' At the age of
twelve, in the autumn of 1585, he was admitted to St. John's
College, Cambridge. ' the sweetest nurse of knowledge in all
the University.' Southampton breathed easily the cultured

'Gervase Markham, Honour in his Perfection, 1624.

- Loseley MSS. ed. A. J. Kempe, p. 240.

'His mother, after thirteen years of widowhood, married in 1594 Sir Thomas
Heneage, Vice-Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth's household; but he died within a
year, and in 1596 she took a third husband, Sir William Hervey, who distinguished
himself in military service in Ireland and was created a peer as Lord Hervey by
James I.

3/6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

atmosphere. Next summer he sent his guardian, Burghley, an
essay in Ciceronian Latin on the somewhat cynical text that
' All men are moved to the pursuit of virtue by the hope of
reward.' The argument, if unconvincing, is precocious. ' Everj'
man,' the boy tells us, ' no matter how well or how ill endowed
with the graces of humanity, whether in the enjoyment of great
honour or condemned to obscurity, experiences that yearning
for glory which alone begets virtuous endeavour.' The paper,
still preserved at Hatfield, is a model of caligraphy ; every
letter is shaped with delicate regularity, and betrays a refine-
ment most uncommon in boys of thirteen. ^ Southampton re-
mained at the University for some two years, graduating M.A.
at sixteen, in 1589. Throughout his after life he cherished for
his college ' great love and affection.'

Before leaving Cambridge, Southampton entered his name
at Gray's Inn. Some knowledge of law was deemed needful in
one who was to control a landed property that was not only
large already but likely to grow.^ Meanwhile he was sedu-
lously cultivating his literary tastes. He took into his
' pay and patronage ' John Florio, the well-known author and
Italian tutor, and was soon, according to Florio's testimony, as
thoroughly versed in Italian as 'teaching or learning' could
make him.

•When he was young,' wrote a later admirer, ' no ornament
of youth was wanting in him ; ' and it was naturally to the
Court that his friends sent him at an early age to display his
varied graces. He can hardly have been more than seventeen
when he was presented to his Sovereign. She showed him
kindly notice, and the Earl of Essex, her brilliant favourite,
acknowledged his fascination. Thenceforth Essex displayed in

' By kind permission of theJMarquis of Salisbury I lately copied out this essay
at Hatfield.

2 In 1583 his brother-in-law, Thomas Arundel, afterwards first Lord Arundel or
Wardour (husband of his only sister, Mary), petitioned Lord Burghley to grant him
an additional tract of the New Forest about his house at Beaulieu. Although in his
' nonage,' Arundel wrote, the Earl was by no means ' of the smallest hope.' Arundel,
with almost prophetic insight, added that the Earl of Pembroke was Southampton's
' most feared rival ' in the competition for the land in question. Arundel was refer-
ring to the father of that third Earl of Pembroke who, despite the absence of evi-
dence, has been described as Shakespeare's friend of the sonnets (of. Calendar of
Hatfield MSS. iii. 365).

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 377

bis welfare a brotherly interest which proved in course of time

a very doubtful blessing.

While still a boy, Southampton entered with as much

zest into the sports and dissipations of his fellow-courtiers as

Recogni- into their literary and artistic pursuits. At tennis, in

tion of jousts and tournaments, he achieved distinction ;

Southamp- , 1 1 ,. 1 r 1 ,•

ton's youth- ^or was he a stranger to the delights of gambling at

ful beauty, primero. In 1592, when he was in his eighteenth
year, he was recognised as the most handsome and accom-
plished of all the young lords who frequented the royal presence.
In the autumn of that year Elizabeth paid Oxford a visit in
state. Southampton was in the throng of noblemen who bore
her company. In a Latin poem describing the brilliant cere-
monial, which was published at the time at the University Press,
eulogy was lavished without stint on all the Queen's attendants ;
but the academic poet declared that Southampton's personal
attractions exceeded those of any other in the royal train. 'No
other youth who was present,' he wrote, ' was more beautiful
than this prince of Hampshire (gno no7i formosior alter affuit),
nor more distinguished in the arts of learning, although as yet
tender down scarce bloomed on his cheek.' The last words
testify to Southampton's boyish appearance. ^ Next year it was
rumoured that his ' external grace ' was to receive signal recog-
nition by his admission, despite his juvenility, to the Order of
the Garter. ' There be no Knights of the Garter new chosen as
yet,' wrote a well-informed courtier on May 3, 1 593, '■ but there
were four nominated.'- Three were eminent public servants,
but first on the list stood the name of young Southampton. The
purpose did not take effect, but the compliment of nomination
was, at his age, without precedent outside the circle of the
Sovereign's kinsmen. On November 17, 1595. he appeared in
the lists set up in the Queen's presence in honour of the

' Cf. Apollinis et Musaruni EuKTixa EiiuAAia, Oxford, 1592, reprinted in
Elizabethan Oxford (Oxford Historical Society), edited by Charles Plummer, xxix.

294:

Post hunc {i.e. Earl of Essex) insequitur clara de stirpe Dynasta,
Lomes lure suo diues quern South-Hamptonia magnum

" '" Vendicat heroem : quo non formosior alter

.'^ Affuit, aut docta iuuenis praestantior arte;

tonicE. ^ ,• - • J 7

Ora licet tenera vix dum lanugine vement.

- Historical MSS. Commission, 7th Report (Appendix), p. 5213.

3/8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

thirty-seventh anniversary of her accession. The poet George
Peele pictured in blank verse the gorgeous scene, and likened
the Earl of Southampton to that ancient type of chivalry, Bevis
of Southampton, so ' valiant in arms,' so ' gentle and debonair,'
did he appear to all beholders.^

But clouds were rising on this sunlit horizon. Southampton,
a wealthy peer without brothers or uncles, was the only male
representative of his house. A lawful heir was essential to the
entail of his great possessions. Early marriages — child-mar-
riages — were in vogue in all ranks of society, and South-
ampton's mother and guardian regarded matrimony at a

tender age as especially incumbent on him in view
t^^marry.*^^ of his rich heritage. When he was seventeen

Burghley accordingly offered him a wife in the
person of his granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth Vere, eldest
daughter of his daughter Anne and of the Earl of Oxford. The
Countess of Southampton approved the match, and told
Burghley that her son was not averse from it. Her wish was
father to the thought. Southampton declined to marry to
order, and, to the confusion of his friends, was still a bachelor
when he came of age in 1594. Nor even then did there seem
much prospect of his changing his condition. He was in
some ways as young for his years in inward disposition as in
outward appearance. Although gentle and amiable in most
relations of life, he could be childishly self-willed and impulsive,
and outbursts of anger involved him, at Court and elsewhere, in
many petty quarrels which were with difficulty settled without
bloodshed. Despite his rank and wealth, he was consequently
accounted by many ladies of far too uncertain a temper
to sustain marital responsibilities with credit. Lady Bridget
Manners, sister of his friend the Earl of Rutland, was in
1594 looking to matrimony for means of release from the
servitude of a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Her guardian
suggested that Southampton or the Earl of Bedford, who was
intimate with Southampton and exactly of his age, would be an
eligible suitor. Lady Bridget dissented. Southampton and
his friend were, she objected, ' so young,'' ' fantastical.' and
volatile ('so easily carried away') that should ill fortune

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON 379

befall her mother, who was ' her only stay,' she ' doubted
their carriage of themselves.' She spoke, she said, from
observ^ation.^

In 1595, at two-and-twenty, Southampton justified Lady
Bridget's censure by a public proof of his fallibility. The
Intrigue fair mistress Vernon (first cousin of the Earl of
beth Ver^' Essex), a passionate beauty of the Court, cast her
non. spell on him. Her virtue was none too stable, and

in September the scandal spread that Southampton was court-
ing her "with too much familiarity.'

The entanglement with ' his fair mistress ' opened a new
chapter in Southampton's career, and life's tempests began in
earnest. Either to free himself from his mistress's toils, or to
divert attention from his intrigue, he in 1596 withdrew from
Court and sought sterner occupation. Despite his mistress's
amentations, which the Court gossips duly chronicled, he played
part with his friend Essex, in the military and naval expedition
to Cadiz in 1596. and in that to the Azores in 1597. He devel-
oped a martial ardour which brought him renown, and Mars
(his admirers said) vied with Mercury for his allegiance. He
travelled on the Continent, and finally, in 1598. he accepted a
subordinate place in the suite of the Queen's Secretary, Sir

Robert Cecil, who was going on an embassy to
kf 1598^^ Paris. But Mistress Vernon was still fated to be his

evil genius, and Southampton learnt while in Paris
that her condition rendered marriage essential to her decaying
reputation. He hurried to London and, yielding his own
scruples to her entreaties, secretly made her his wife during the
few days he stayed in this country. The step was full of peril.
To marry a lady of the Court without the Queen's consent
infringed a prerogative of the Crown by which Elizabeth set
exaggerated store.

1 Cal. of the Duke of Rutland's MSS. i. 321. Barnabe Barnes, who was one of
Southampton's poetic admirers, addressed a crude sonnet to ' the Beautiful Lady, The
Lady Bridget Manners,' in 1593, at the same time as he addressed one to South-
ampton. Both are appended to Barnes's collection of sonnets and other poems
entitled Parthenophe and Parthenophil (cf. Arber's Garner, v. 486). Barnes
apostrophises Lady Bridget as ' fairest and sweetest'
Of all those sweet and fair flowers,
The pride of chaste Cynthia's \i.e. Queen Elizabeth's] rich crown.

38o WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The story ^f Southampton's marriage was soon public prop
erty. His wife quickly became a mother, and when he crossea
the Channel a few weeks later to revisit her he was received by
pursuivants, who had the Queen's orders to carry him to the Fleet
prison. For the time his career was ruined. Although he was
soon released from gaol, all avenues to the Queen's favour were
closed to him. He sought employment in the wars in Ireland,
but high command was denied him. Helpless and hopeless, he
late in 1600 joined Essex, another fallen favourite, in fomenting
a rebellion in London, in order to regain by force the positions
each had forfeited. The attempt at insurrection failed, and
the conspirators stood their trial on a capital charge of treason
Im is '^^ February 19, 1600-1. Southampton was con-

ment, demned to die, but the Queen's Secretary pleaded

1601-3. ^jt]-, ]^g,- (^j-ig^t- . jj^g poor young Earl, merely for the

love of Esse.v, had been drawn into this action,' and his punish-
ment was commuted to imprisonment for life. Further mitiga-
tion was not to be looked for while the Queen lived. But Essex,
Southampton's friend, had been James's sworn ally. The first
act of James I as monarch of England was to set Southampton
free (April 10. 1603). After a confinement of more than two
years, SouthamjDton resumed, under happier auspices, his place
at Court.

Southampton's later career does not directly concern the
student of Shakespeare's biography. After Shakespeare had
Later congratulated Southampton on his liberty in his

career. Sonnet cvii., there is no trace of further relations

between them, although there is no reason to doubt that they
remained friends to the end. Southampton on his release from
prison was immediately installed a Knight of the Garter, and
was appointed Governor of the Isle of Wight, while an Act of
Parliament relieved him of all the disabilities incident to his
conviction of treason. He was thenceforth a prominent figure
in Court festivities. He twice danced a correnta with the
Queen at the magnificent entertainment given at Whitehall on
August 19, 1604, in honour of the Constable of Castile, the
special ambassador of Spain, wlio had come to sign a treaty of
peace between his Sovereign and James I.^ But home politics

1 See p. 233, n. 2.

THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF SOUTHAMPTON. 38 1

proved no congenial field for the exercise of Southampton's
energies. Quarrels with fellow-courtiers continued to jeopardise
his fortunes. With Sir Robert Cecil, with Philip Herbert, Earl of
Montgomery, and with the Duke of Buckingham he had violent
disputes. It was in the schemes for colonising the New World ■
that Southampton found an outlet for his impulsive activity.
He helped to equip expeditions to Virginia, and acted as
treasurer of the Virginia Company. The map of the country
commemorates his labours as a colonial pioneer. In his
honour were named Southampton Hundred, Hampton River,
and Hampton Roads in Virginia. Finally, in the summer of
1624, at the age of fifty-one, Southampton, with characteristic
spirit, took command of a troop of English volunteers which
was raised to aid the Elector Palatine, husband of James I's
daughter Elizabeth, in his struggle with the Emperor and the
Catholics of Central Europe. With him went his eldest son,
Lord Wriothesley. Both on landing in the Low Countries were
attacked by fever. The younger man succumbed at once. The
Earl regained sufficient strength to accompany his son's body
D ath ^° Bergen-op-Zoom, but there, on November 10, he

Nov. 10, liimself died of a lethargy. Father and son were
1624. both buried in the chancel of the church of Titch-

field, Hampshire, on December 28. Southampton thus outlived
Shakespeare by more than eight years.

382 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY
PATRON

Southampton's close relations with men of letters of his
time give powerful corroboration of the theory that he was the
patron whom Shakespeare commemorated in the sonnets. From
earliest to latest manhood — throughout the dissipations of
Court life, amid the torments that his intrigue cost him, in the
distractions of war and travel — the Earl never ceased to cherish
the passion for literature which was implanted in him in boy-
hood. His devotion to his old college, St. John's, is charac-
teristic. When a new library was in course of construction
Southamp- there during the closing years of his life, Southamp-
ton scollec- ton collected books to the value of ^60/. wherewith
tion 01 . . , . ■

books. to furnish it. This '■ monument of love,' as the

College authorities described the benefaction, may still be seen
on the shelves of the College library. The gift largely consisted
of illuminated manuscripts — books of hours, legends of the
saints, and mediaeval chronicles. Southampton caused his son
to be educated at St. John's, and his wife expressed to the
tutors the hope that the boy would ' imitate ' his father ' in his
love to learning and to them.'

Even the State papers and business correspondence in
which Southampton's career is traced are enlivened by refer-
ences to his literary interests. Especially refreshing are the
active signs vouchsafed there of his sympathy with the great
References birth of English drama. It was with plays that

in his let- Jig joined other noblemen in i cqS in entertainins: his

ters to . . .

poems and chief, Sir Robert Cecil, on the eve of the departure

plays. for Paris of that embassy in which Southampton

served Cecil as a secretary. In July following Southampton

contrived to enclose in an official despatcli from Paris ' certain

songs' which he was anxious that Sir Robert Sidney, a friend

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 383

of literary tastes, should share his delight in reading. Twelve
months later, while Southampton was in Ireland, a letter to him
from the Countess attested that current literature was an every-
day topic of their private talk. 'AH the news I can send you,'
she wrote to her husband, ' that I think will make you merry, is
that I read in a letter from London that Sir John Falstaff is, by
his mistress Dame Pintpot, made father of a goodly miller's thumb
— a boy that's all head and very little body ; but this is a secret.' ^
This cryptic sentence proves on the part of both Earl and
Countess familiarity with FalstafF's adventures in Shakespeare's
' Henry IV,' where the fat knight apostrophised Mrs. Quickly
as 'good pint pot' (pt. i. ii. 4, 443). Who the acquaintances
were about whom the Countess jested thus lightly does not
appear, but that Sir John, the father of 'the boy that was all
head and very little body," was a playful allusion to Sir John's
creator is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility. In
the letters of Sir Toby Matthew, two of which were written very
early in the seventeenth century (although first published in
1660), the sobriquet of Sir John Falstaff seems to have been be-
stowed on Shakespeare: 'As that excellent author Sir John Fal-
staff sayes, •• what for your businesse, news, device, foolerie, and
libertie, I never dealt better since I was a man." '^

When, after leaving Ireland, Southampton spent the autumn
of 1599 in London, it was recorded that he and his friend Lord
Rutland ' come not to Court ' but ' pass away the time merely in

going to plays every day.' ^ It seems that the fascina-
te^ t'heatre^ ^^°^ ^'^^'- ^^^^ drama had for Southampton and his

friends led them to exaggerate the influence that it
was capable of exerting on the emotions of the multitude. South-
ampton and Essex in February 1601 requisitioned and paid for
the revival of Shakespeare's 'Richard II' at the Globe Theatre
on the day preceding that fixed for their insurrection, in the hope
that the play-scene of the deposition of a king might excite
the citizens of London to countenance their rebellious design.*
Imprisonment sharpened Southampton's zest for the theatre.

' The original letter is at Hatfield. The whole is printed in Historical Manu-
scripts Commission, 3rd Rep. p. 145.

- The quotation is a confused reminiscence of Falstaff's remarks in i Henry IV.
II. iv. The last nine words are an exact quotation of lines igo-i.

2 Sidney Papers, ii. 132. ■* See p. 175.

384 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Within a year of liis release from the Tower in 1603 he enter-
tained Queen Anne of Denmark at his house in the Strand,
and Burbage and his fellow-players, one of whom was Shake-
speare, were bidden to present the * old ' play of ' Love's Labour's
Lost,' whose ' wit and mirth ' were calculated * to please her
Majesty exceedingly.'

But these are merely accidental testimonies to Southampton's
literary predilections. It is in literature itself, not in the prosaic
records of his political or domestic life, that the amplest proofs
survive of his devotion to letters. From the hour that, as a
handsome and accomplished lad, he joined the Court and made

London his chief home, authors acknowledged his
Poetic adu- jjppreciation of literary eiTort of almost every quality

and form. He had in his Italian tutor Florio, whose
circle of acquaintance included all men of literary reputation, a
mentor who allowed no work of promise to escape his observa-
tion. Every note in the scale of adulation was sounded in
Southampton's honour in contemporary prose and verse. Soon
after the publication, in April 1593, of Shakespeare's 'Venus
and Adonis,' with its salutation of Southampton, a more youth-
Barnabe ful apprentice to the poet's craft, Barnabe Barnes,

Barnes s confided to a published sonnet of unrestrained

sonnet, ^. . r- ,

1593- fervour his conviction that Southampton's eyes —

'those heavenly lamps' — were the only sources of true poetic

inspiration. The sonnet, which is superscribed ' to the Right

Noble and Virtuous Lord, Henry, Earl of Southampton,' runs:

Receive, sweet Lord, with thy thrice sacred hand
(Which sacred Muses make their instrument)
These worthless leaves, which I to thee present,

(Sprung from a rude and unmanurfed land)

That with your countenance graced, they may withstand
Hundred-eyed Envy's rough encounterment.
Whose patronage can give encouragement

To scorn back-wounding Zoilus his band.

Vouchsafe, right virtuous Lord, with gracious eyes —

Those heavenly lamps which give the Muses light,

Which give and take in course that holy fire —

To view my Muse with your judicial sight :

Whom, when time shall have tauglit, by flight, to rise

Shairto thy virtues, of much worth, aspire.

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 385

Next year a writer of greater power, Tom Nash, betrayed
little less enthusiasm when dedicating to the Earl his masterly
„ essay in romance, 'The Life of Jack Wilton.' He

Nash's describes Southampton, who was then scarcely of

addresses, ^g^^ ^5 . ^ dear lover and cherisher as well of the
lovers of poets as of the poets themselves.' 'A new brain,' he
exclaims, ' a new wit, a new style, a new souj, will I get me, to
canonise your name to posterity, if in this my first attempt I am
not taxed of presumption.'^ Although 'Jack Wilton' was the
first book Nash formally dedicated to Southampton, it is probable
that Nash had made an earlier bid for the earl's patronage. In
a digression at the close of his 'Pierce Pennilesse' he grows
eloquent in praise of one whom he entitles ' the matchless image
of honour and magnificent rewarder of vertue, Jove's eagle-
borne Ganimede. thrice noble Amintas.' In a sonnet addressed
to ' this renowed lord,' who ' draws all hearts to his love.' Nash
expresses regret that the great poet, Edmund Spenser, had omitted
to celebrate 'so special a pillar of nobility' in the series of adula-
tory sonnets prefixed to the ' Faerie Queen ' ; and in the last lines
of his sonnet Nash suggests that Spenser suppressed the noble-
man's name

Because few words might not comprise thy fame.2

' See Nash's IVorks, ed. Grosart, v. 6. The whole passage runs: ' How wel or
ill I haue done in it I am ignorant : (the eye that sees round about it selfe sees not
into it selfe) : only your Honours applauding encouragement hath power to make me
arrogant. Incomprehensible is the height of your spirit both in hcroical resolution
and matters of conceit. Vnrepriuebly perisheth that booke whatsoeuer to wast
paper, which on the diamond rocke of yoor judgement disasterly chanceth to be
shipwrackt. A dere louer and cherisher you are, as well of the louers of Poets, as
of Poets them selues. Amongst their sacred number I dare not ascribe my selfe,
though now and then I speak English: that smal braine I haue, to no further vse I
conuert sane to be kinde to my frends, and fatall to my enemies. A new brain, a
new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get mee to canonize your name to posteritie,
if in this my first attempt I am not ta.xed of presumption. Of your gracious fauor
I despairs not, for I am not altogether Fames out-cast. . . . Your Lordship is the
large spreading branch of renown, from whence these my idle leaues seeke to deriue
their whole nourishing.'

- The complimentary title of ' Amyntas,' which was naturalised in English
literature by Abraham Fraunce's two renderings of Tasso's A minta — one direct from
the Italian and the other from the Latin version of Thomas Watson — was apparently
bestowed by Spenser on the Earl of Derby in his Colin Clouts come Home again
(1595); and some critics assume that Nash referred in Pierce Peiinilesse to that
nobleman rather than to Southampton. But Nash's comparison of his paragon
to Ganymede suggests extreme youth, and Southampton was nineteen in 1592,
2 C

386

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Southampton was beyond doubt the nobleman in question.
It is certain, too, that the Earl of Soutliampton was among
the young men for whom Nash, in hope of gain, as he admitted,
penned 'amorous villanellos and qui passas.' One of the least
reputable of these efforts of Nash survives in an obscene love-
poem entitled ' The Choosing of Valentines,' which may be
dated in 1595- This was not only dedicated to Southampton
in a prefatory sonnet, but in an epilogue, again in the form of a
sonnet, Nash addressed his young patron as his 'friend.' ^

while Derby was thirty-three. ' Amyntas,' as a complimentary designation, was
widely used by the poets, and was not applied exclusively to any one patron of
letters. It was bestowed on the poet Watson hy Richard Barnfield and by other
of Watson's panegyrists.

1 Two manuscript copies of the poem, which has not been printed, are extant
— one among the Rawlinson poetical manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and the
other among the manuscripts in the Inner Temple Library (No. 538). Mr. John S.
Farmer has kindly sent me transcripts of the opening and concluding dedicatory
sonnets. The first, which is inscribed ' to the right honourable the Lord S[outhamp-
ton],' runs:

Pardon, sweete flower of matchles poetrye,

And fairest bud the red rose euer bare,
Although my muse, devorst from deeper care,

Presents thee with a wanton Elegie.
Ne blame my verse of loose unchastitye

For painting forth the things that hidden are.
Since all men act what I in speeche declare,

Onlie induced with varietie.
Complaints and praises, every one can write,

And passion out their pangs in statlie rimes;
But of loues pleasures none did euer write,
That have succeeded in theis latter times.
Accept of it, deare Lord, in gentle parte.
And better lines ere long shall honor thee.
The poem follows in about three hundred lines, and the manuscript ends with a
second sonnet addressed by Nash to his patron :

Thus hath my penne presum'd to please my friend.

Oh mightst thou lykewise please Apollo's eye.
No, Honor brookes no such impietie,

Yet Ovid's wanton muse did not offend.
He is the fountaine whence my streames do flowe —

Forgive me if I speak as I was taught;
Alike to women, utter all I knowe,

As longing to unlade so bad a fraught.
My mynde once purg'd of such lascivious witt,

With purifide words and hallowed verse,
Thy praises in large volumes shall rehearse.

That better male thy grauer view befitt.
Meanwhile ytt rests, you smile at what I write
Or for attempting banish me your sight.

Tho. Nash.

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 387

Meanwhile, in 1595, the versatile Gervase Markham in-
scribed to Southampton in a sonnet, his patriotic poem on Sir
j^ , Richard Grenville's glorious fight ot^" the Azores,

ham's son- Markham was not content to acknowledge with Barnes
net, 1595. |-}^g inspiriting force of his patron's eyes, but with
blasphemous temerity asserted that the sweetness of his lips,
which stilled the music of the spheres, delighted the ear of
Almighty God. Markham's sonnet runs somewhat haltingly
thus :

Thou glorious laurel of the Muses' hill,

Whose e^es doth crown the most victorious pen,
Bright lamp of virtue, in whose sacred skill,

Lives all the bliss of ear-enchanting men,
From graver subjects of thy grave assays,

Bend thy courageous thoughts unto these lines —
The grave from whence my humble Muse doth raise
True honour's spirit in her rough designs —
And when the stubborn stroke of my harsh song
Shall seasonless glide through Almighty ears
Vouchsafe to sweet it with thy blessed tongue
■Whose well-tuned sound stills music in the spheres;

So shall my tragic lays be blest by thee

And from thy lips suck their eternity.

Subsequently Florio, in associating the Earl's name with his
great Italian-English dictionary — the 'World of Words' —
p. • , more soberly defined the Earl's place in the republic

address, of letters when he wrote : 'As to me and many more
1598. the glorious and gracious sunshine of your honour

hath infused light and life.'

The most notable contribution to this chorus of praise
is to be found, as I have already shown, in Shakespeare's
' Sonnets.' The same note of eulogy was sounded by men of
letters until Southampton's death. When he was released
The con- from prison on James I's accession in April 1603,
gratula- his praises in poets' mouths were especially abun-
poet-i in dant. Not only was that grateful incident cele-
1603. brated by Shakespeare in what is probably the

latest of his sonnets (No. cvii.), but Samuel Daniel and John
Davies of Hereford offered the Earl congratulation in more

388 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

prolonged strains. Daniel addressed to Southampton many
lines like these :

The world had never taken so full note

Of what thou art, hadst thou not been undone :

And only thy affliction hath begot

More fame than thy best fortunes could have won ;

For ever by adversity are wrought
The greatest works of admiration ;

And all the fair examples of renown

Out of distress and misery are grown . . .

Only the best-compos'd and worthiest hearts

God sets to act the hard'st and constant'st parts.l

Davies was more jubilant :

Now wisest men with mirth do seem stark mad,
And cannot choose — their hearts are all so glad.
Then let's be merry in our God and King,
That made us merry, being ill bestead.
Southampton, up thy cap to Heaven fling.
And on the viol there sweet praises sing,
For he is come that grace to all doth bring.^

Many like praises, sorne of later date, by Henry Locke (or
Lok), George Chapman, Josluia Sylvester, Richard Braithwaite,
George Wither, Sir John Beaumont, and others could be
quoted. Beaumont, on Southampton's death, wrote an elegy
which panegyrises him in the varied capacities of warrior,
councillor, courtier, father, and husband. But it is as a literary
patron that Beaumont insists that he chiefly deserves remem-
brance :

I keep that glory last which is the best.
The love of learning which he oft expressed
In conversation, and respect to those
Who had a name in arts, in verse or prose.

' Daniel's Certaine Epistles, 1603; see Daniel's ]Vorks,cdL. Grosart, i. 216 seq.

2 See Preface to Davies's Microcosmos, 1603 (Davies's Works, ed. Grosart, i 14) .
At the end of Davies's Microcosmos there is also a congratulatory sonnet addressed
to Southampton on his liberation {ib. p. 96), beginning:

Welcome to shore, unhappy-happy Lord,
From the deep seas of danger and distress.
There like thou wast to be thrown overboard
In every storm of disconlentedness.

SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON 389

To the same effect are some twenty poems whicli were piib-

jished in 1624, just after Southampton's death, in a volume en-

„, . titled ' Teares of the Isle of Wiijht, shed on the Tombe

Elegies on . '^

Southamp- of their most noble valorous and loving Captaine and
ton. Governour, the right honorable Henrie, Earl of South-

ampton.' The keynote is struck in the opening stanza of the
first poem by one Francis Beale :

Ye famous poets of the southern isle,
Strain forth the raptures of your tragic muse,
And with your Laureate pens come and compile
The praises due to this great Lord : peruse
His globe of worth, and eke his virtues brave,
Like learned Maroes at Mecasnas's grave.

390 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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

In 1598 Francis Aleres enumerated among Shakespeare^s best
known works his 'sugar'd sonnets among his private friends.'
None of Shakespeare's sonnets are known to have been in
print when i\Ieres wrote, but they were doubtless in circulation
in manuscript. In 1599 two of them were printed for the first
time by the piratical publisher, William Jaggard, in
catfon^of^' the opening pages of the first edition of 'The
the sonnets Passionate Pilgrim.' On January 3, 1 599-1 600,
m 1609. Eleazar Edgar, a publisher of small account, obtained
a license for the publication of a work bearing the title, 'A
Booke called Amours by J. D., with certein other Sonnetes by
W. S.' No book answering this description is extant. In
any case it is doubtful if Edgar's venture concerned Shake-
speare's 'Sonnets.' It is more probable that his -W. S.' was
William Smith, who had published a collection of sonnets
entitled 'Chloris' in 1596.1 On May 20, 1609, a license for the
publication of Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' was granted by the
Stationers' Company to a publisher named Thomas Thorpe,
and shortly afterwards the complete collection as they have
reached us was published by Thorpe for the first time. To

1 ' Amours of J. D.' were doubtless sonnets by Sir John Davies, of which only a
few have reached us. There is no ground for J. P. Collier's suggestion that J. D.
was a misprint for M. D., i.e. Michael Drayton, who gave the first edition of his
sonnets in 1594 the title of Amairs. That word was in France the common
designation of collections of sonnets (cf. Drayton's Poems, ed. Collier, Roxburghe
Club, p. xxv).

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 391

the volume Thorpe prefixed a dedication in the following
terms :

TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF

THESE INSUING SONNETS

MR. W. H., ALL HAPPINESSE

AND THAT ETERNITIE

PROMISED

OUR EVER-LIVING POET

WISHETH

THE WELL-WISHING

ADVENTURER IN

SETTING

FORTH

T. T,

The words are fantastically arranged. In ordinary gram-
matical order they would run : ' The well-wishing adventurer
in setting forth [i.e. the publisher] T[homas] T[horpe] wisheth
Mr. VV. H., the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, all
happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet.'

Few books of the sixteenth or seventeenth century were
ushered into the world without a dedication. In most cases it was
the work of the author, but numerous volumes, besides Shake-
speare's ' Sonnets,' are extant in which the publisher (and
not the author) fills the rd/e of dedicator. The cause of the
substitution is not far to seek. The signing of the dedication
was an assertion of full and responsible ownership in the pub-
lication, and the publisher in Shakespeare's lifetime was the
full and responsible owner of a publication quite as often as the
author. The modern conception of copyright had not yet been
evolved. Whoever in the sixteenth or early seventeenth century
was in actual possession of a manuscript was for practical
purposes its full and responsible owner. Literary work largely
circulated in manuscript.^ Scriveners made a precarious liveli-
hood by multiplying written copies, and an enterprising pub-
lisher had many opportunities of becoming the owner of a
popular book without the author's sanction or knowledge.
When a volume in the reigns of Elizabeth or James I was
published independently of the author, the publisher exercised

1 See note to p. 88, supra.

392 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

unchallenged all the owner's rights, not the least valued of
Publishers' '^^"^^•^^ was that of choosing the patron of the enter-
dedica- prise, and of penning the dedicatory compliment

tions. above his signature. Occasionally circumstances

might speciously justify the publisher's appearance in the guise
of a dedicator. In the case of a posthumous book it sometimes
happened that the author's friends renounced ownership or
neglected to assert it. In other instances, the absence of an
author from London while his work was passing through the
press might throw on the publisher the task of supplying the
dedication without exposing him to any charge of sharp practice.
But as a rule one of only two inferences is possible when a pub-
lisher's name figured at the foot of a dedicatory epistle : either
the author was ignorant of the publisher's design, or he had re-
fused to countenance it, and was openly defied. In the case of
Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' it may safely be assumed that Shake-
speare received no notice of Thorpe's intention of publishing
the work, and that it was owing to the author's ignorance of
the design that the dedication was composed and signed by the
' well-wishing adventurer in setting forth.'

But whether author or publisher chose the patron of his
wares, the choice was determined by much the same considera-
tions. Self-interest was the principle underlying transactions
between literary patron and protege. Publisher, like author,
commonly chose as patron a man or woman of wealth and
social influence who might be expected to acknowledge the
compliment either by pecuniary reward or by friendly advertise-
ment of the volume in their own social circle. At times the
publisher, slightly extending the field of choice, selected a
personal friend or mercantile acquaintance who had rendered
him some service in trade or private life, and was likely to
appreciate such general expressions of good will as were
the accepted topic of dedications. Nothing that was fantastic
or mysterious entered into the Elizabethan or the Jacobean
publishers' shrewd schemes of business, and it may be asserted
with confidence that it was under the everyday prosaic conditions
of current literary traffic that the publisher Thorpe selected
' Mr. W. H.' as the patron of the original edition of Shake-
speare's 'Sonnets.'

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 393

A study of Thorpe's character and career clears the point
of doubt. Thorpe has been described as a native of Warwick-
Thorpe's shire, Shakespeare's county, and a man eminent in his
early life. profession. He was neither of these things. He
was a native of Barnet in Middlesex, where his father kept an
inn, and he himself through thirty years' experience of the book
trade held his own with difficulty in its humblest ranks. He
enjoyed the customary preliminary training.^ At midsummer
1584 he was apprenticed for nine years to a reputable printer
and stationer, Richard Watkins.'- Nearly ten years later he
took up the freedom of the Stationers' Company, and was
thereby qualified to set up as a publisher on his own account. ^
He was not destitute of a taste for literature ; he knew scraps
of Latin, and recognised a good manuscript when he saw one.
But the ranks of London publishers were overcrowded, and
such accomplishments as Thorpe possessed were poor com-
pensation for a lack of capital or of family connections among
those already established in the trade.* For many years he
contented himself with an obscure situation as assistant or clerk
to a stationer more favourably placed.

It was as the self-appointed procurer and owner of an un-

printed manuscript — a recognised role for novices to fill in the book

trade of the period — that Thorpe made his first distinguishable

appearance on the stage of literary history. In 1600 there

fell into his hands in an unexplained manner a written copy of

His owner- Marlowe's unprinted translation of the first book of

ship of the ' Lucan.' Thorpe confided his good fortune to Edward

manuscript BJount, then a stationer's assistant like himself, but
of Mar- . ' '

lowe's with better prospects. Blount had already achieved

' Lucan. -^ modest success in the same capacity of procurer

or picker-up of neglected ' copy.' ^ In 1598 he became proprietor

of Marlowe's unfinished and unpublished • Hero and Leander,'

and found among better-equipped friends in the trade both

' The details of his career are drawn from Mr. Arber's Tyanscript of the
Registers of the Stationers' Company.

2 Arber, ii. 124. 2 lb. ii. 713.

* A younger brother, Richard, was apprenticed to a stationer, Martin Ensor, for
seven years from August 24, 1596, but he disappeared before gaining the freedom of
the Company, either dying young or seeking another occupation (cf. Arber's
Transcript, ii. 213).

^ Cf Bibliographica, i. 474-98, where I have given an account of Blount's pro-
fessional career in a paper called ' An Elizabethan Bookseller.'

394 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

a printer and a publisher for his treasure-trove. Blount

good-naturedly interested himself in Thorpe's 'find,' and it

was through Blount's good offices that Peter Short undertook

to print Thorpe's manuscript of Marlowe's * Lucan,' and

Walter Burre agreed to sell it at his shop in St. Paul's

Churchyard. As owner of the manuscript Thorpe exerted the

right of choosing a patron for the venture and of supplying the

Hisdedica- dedicatory epistle. The patron of his choice was

tory ad- his friend Blount, and he made the dedication the

dress to vehicle of his gratitude for the assistance he had just
Edward . ^ ^ . . -^

Hlount in received. The style of the dedication was somewhat

1600. bombastic, but Thorpe showed a literary sense when

he designated Marlowe 'that pure elemental wit,' and a good
deal of dry humour in offering to ' his kind and true friend '
Blount 'some few instructions' whereby he might accom-
modate himself to the unaccustomed ro/e of patron. ^ For the
conventional type of patron Thorpe disavowed respect. He
preferred to place himself under the protection of a friend in
the trade whose good will had already stood him in good stead,
and was capable of benefiting him hereafter.

This venture laid the foundation of Thorpe's fortunes. Three
years later he was able to place his own name on the title-page
of two humbler literary prizes — each an insignificant pamphlet
on current events.'^ Thenceforth for a dozen years his name
reappeared annually on one, two, or three volumes. After 1614
his operations were few and far between, and they ceased
altogether in 1624. He seems to have ended his days in poverty,
and he has been identified with the Thomas Thorpe who was
granted an almsroom in the hospital of Ewelme, Oxfordshire,
December 3, 1635.^

^ Thorpe gives a sarcastic description of a typical patron, and amply attests the
purely commercial relations ordinarily subsisting between dedicator and dedicatee.
' When I bring you the book,' he advises Blount, ' take physic and keep state. As-
sign me a time by your man to come again. . . . Censure scornfully enough and
somewhat like a traveller. Commend nothing lest you discredit your (that which
you would seem to have) judgment. . . . One special virtue in our patrons of these
days I have promised myself you shall fit excellently, which is to give nothing.'
Finally Thorpe, changing his tone, challenges his patron's love ' both in this and, I
hope, many more succeeding offices.'

- One gave an account of the East India Company's fleet ; the other reported
a speech delivered by Richard Martin, M.P., to James I at Stamford Hill during
the royal progress to London.

3 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1635, p. 527.

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. \V. H.' 395

Thorpe was associated with the publication of twenty-nine
volumes in all/ including Marlowe's ' Lucan ' ; but in almost all
his operations his personal energies were confined, as in his
Character i^iitial enterprise, to procuring the manuscript. For
of his a short period in 1608 he occupied a shop. The

business. Tiger's Head, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and the fact
was duly announced on the title-pages of three publications
which he issued in that year.- But his other undertakings were
described on their title-pages as printed for him by one stationer
and sold for him by another ; and when any address found
mention at all, it was the shopkeeper's address, and not his
own. He never enjoyed in permanence the profits or dignity
of printing his ' copy ' at a press of his own, or selling books on
premises of his own, and he can claim the distinction of having
pursued in this homeless fashion the well-defined profession of
procurer of manuscripts for a longer period than any other
known member of the Stationers' Company. Though many
others began their career in that capacity, all except Thorpe,
as far as they can be traced, either developed into printers or
booksellers, or, failing in that, betook themselves to other trades.
Very few of his wares does Thorpe appear to have pro-
cured direct from the authors. It is true that between 1605
and 161 1 there were issued under his auspices some eight
volumes of genuine literary value, including, besides Shakespeare's
* Sonnets,' three plays by Chapman,^ four works of Ben Jonson,

' Two bore his name on the title-page in 1603; one in 1604; two in 1605; two
in 1606; two in 1607; three in 1608; one in 1609 {i.e. the Sonnets); three in
1610 (i.e. H istrio-ntasirix , or the Playwright, as well as Healey's translations) ;
two in 1611; one in 1612; three in 1613; two in 1614; two in 1616; one in 1618;
and finally one in 1624. The last was a new edition of George Chapman's
Cotispiracie and Tragedie of Charles Ditke of Byron, which Thorpe first published
in 1608.

2 They were IVits A. B.C. or a centurie of Epigrams (anon.), by R. West of
Magdalen College, Oxford (a copy is in the Bodleian Library); Chapman's Byron,
and Jonson's lifasgues of Blackness and Beauty.

■"Chapman and Jonson were ver>' voluminous authors, and their works were
sought after by almost all the publishers of London, many of whom were successful
in launching one or two with or without the author's sanction. Thorpe seems to
have taken particular care with Jonson's books, but none of Jonson's works fell into
Thorpe's hands before 1605 or after 1608, a minute fmction of Jonson's literary
life. It is significant that the author's dedication - the one certain mark of publica-
tion with the author's sanction — appears in only one of the three plays by Chapman
that Thorpe issued, viz. in Byron. One or two copies of Thorpe's impression of
All Fools have a dedication by the author, but it is absent from most of them. No

396 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

and Coiyat's ' Odcombian Banquet.' But the taint of mysterious
origin attached to most of his literary properties. He doubtless
owed them to the exchange of a few pence or shillings with a
scrivener's hireling ; and the transaction was not one of which
the author had cognisance.

It is quite plain that no negotiation with the author preceded
the formation of Thorpe's resolve to publish for the first time
Shakespeare's ' Sonnets ' in i6og. Had Shakespeare associated
himself with the enterprise, the world would fortunately have
been spared Thorpe's dedication to 'Mr. W. H.' 'T. T.'s'
place would have been filled by ' W. S.' The whole transaction
was in Thorpe's vein. Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' had been
Shake- already circulating in manuscript for eleven years ;

speare's only two had as yet been printed, and those were
at publish- issued by the pirate publisher, William Jaggard, in
ers' hands, the fraudulently christened volume ' The Passionate
Pilgrim, by William Shakespeare,' in 1599. Shakespeare, ex-
cept in the case of his two narrative poems, showed utter in-
difference to all questions touching the publication of his
works. Of the sixteen plays of his that were published in his
lifetime, not one was printed with his sanction. He made no
audible protest when seven contemptible dramas in which he
had no hand were published with his name or initials on the
title-page while his fame was at its height. With only one
publisher of his time, Richard Field, his fellow-townsman, who
was responsible for the issue of ' Venus ' and ' Lucrece,' is it
likely that he came into personal relations, and there is nothing
to show that he maintained relations with Field after the pub-
lication of 'Lucrece' in 1594.

In fitting accord with the circumstance that the publication
of the ' Sonnets ' was a tradesman's venture which ignored the
author's feelings and rights, Thorpe in both the entry of the
book in the ' Stationers' Registers ' and on its title-page
brusquely designated it ' Shakespeares Sonnets,' instead of
following the more urbane collocation of words invariably
adopted by living authors, viz. ' Sonnets by William Shake-
speare.'

known copy of Thorpe's edition of Chapman's Gentleman Usher has any dedica-
tion.

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 397

In framing the dedication Thorpe followed established
precedent. Initials run riot over Elizabethan and Jacobean
The use of books. Printers and publishers, authors and con-
dedications tributors of prefatory commendations, were all in the
of Eliza- habit of masking themselves behind such symbols.

betlian and patrons figured under initials in dedications some-

Jacobt an • °

booi<s. what less frequently than other sharers in the book's

production. But the conditions determining the employment of

initials in that relation were well defined. The employment of

initials in a dedication was a recognised mark of a close friendship

or intimacy between patron and dedicator. It was a sign that

the patron's fame was limited to a small circle, and that the

revelation of his full name was not a matter of interest to a wide

public. Such are the dominant notes of almost all the extant

dedications in which the patron is addressed by his initials.

In 1598 Samuel Rowlands addressed the dedication of his

' Betraying of Christ ' to his ' deare affected friend Maister

H. W., gentleman.' An edition of Robert Southwell's 'Short

Rule of Life ' which appeared in the same year bore a dedication

addressed -to my deare affected friend AI. \i.e. Mr.] D. S.,

gentleman.' The poet Richard Barnfield also in the same year

dedicated the opening sonnet in his 'Poems in Divers Humours'

to his ^friend Maister R. L.' In 161 7 Dunstan Gale dedicated

a poem, ' Pyramus and Thisbe,' to the * worshipfuU his verie

friend V). (i.e. Dr.] B. H.' 1

There was nothing exceptional in the words of greeting

which Thorpe addressed to his patron 'Mr. W. H.' They

followed a widely adopted formula. Dedications of the time

usually consisted of two distinct parts. There was a dedicatory

epistle, which might touch at any length, in either verse or

prose, on the subject of the book and the writer's relations with

1 Many other instances of initials figuring in dedications under slightly different
circumstances will occur to bibliographers, but all, on examination, point to the
existence of a close intimacy between dedicator and dedicatee. R. S.'s \_i.e. possibly
Richard Stafford's] ' Epistle dedicatorie ' before his Heraclitus (Oxford, 1609) was
inscribed ' to his much honoured father S. F. S.' An Apologie for Women, or an
Opposition^toMr. D. G. his assertion . . . by W. H. of Ex. in Ox. (Oxford, 1609),
was dedicated to ' the honourable and right vertuous ladie, the Ladie M. H.' This
volume, published in the same year as Shakespeare's Sonnets, offers a pertinent
example of the generous freedom with which initials were scattered over the pre-
liminary pages of books of the day.

398 WILLIAM SIIAKESrEARE

his patron. But there was usually, in addition, a preliminary
salutation confined to such a single sentence as Thorpe dis-
Frequency played on the first page of his edition of Shake-
for^happi- speare's sonnets. In that preliminary sentence the
ness ' and dedicator habitually ' wisheth ' his patron one or

'eternity in ,.j^Qj.g ^f guch blessings as health, long li/e, happiness,
dedicatory . * .^ ' ^'■

greetings. and eternity. ' Al perseverance with soules happi-
ness ' Thomas Powell ' wisheth ' the Countess of Kildare on
the first page of his 'Passionate Poet' in 1601. 'All happi-
nes ' is the greeting of Thomas Watson, the sonnetteer, to his
patron, the Earl of Oxford, on the threshold of Watson's ' Pas-
sionate Century of Love.' There is hardly a book published by
Robert Greene between 1580 and 1592 that does not open with
an adjuration before the dedicatory epistle in the form : ' To

Robert Greene wisheth increase of honour with the

full fruition of perfect felicity.'

Thorpe in Shakespeare's sonnets left the salutation to stand
alone, and omitted the supplement of a dedicatory epistle ;
but this, too, was not unusual. There exists an abundance
of contemporary examples of the dedicatory salutation without
the sequel of the dedicatory epistle. Edmund Spenser's
dedication of the ' Faerie Queen ' to Elizabeth consists
solely of the salutation in the form of an assurance that the
writer 'consecrates these his labours to live with the eter-
nitie of her fame.' Michael Drayton in both his ' Idea,
The Shepheard's Garland' (1593), and in his ' Poemes Lyrick
and Pastorall ' (1609), confined his address to his patron to a
single sentence of salutation.^ Richard Braithwaite in 161 1
exclusively saluted the patron of his ' Golden Fleece ' with ' the
continuance of God's temporall blessings in this life, with the
crowne of immortalitie in the world to come ; ' while in like
manner he greeted the patron of his ' Sonnets and Madrigals '
in the same year with ' the prosperitie of times successe in this
life, with the reward of eternitie in the world to come.' It is
'happiness' and 'eternity,' or an equivalent parajDhrase, that had
the widest vogue among the good wishes with which the dedi-

* In the volume of 1593 the words run: ' To the noble and valorous gentleman
Master Robert Dudley, enriched with all vertues of the minde and worthy of all
honorable desert. Your most atfettionate and devoted Michael Drayton.'

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 399

cator in the early years of the seventeenth century besought
his patron's favour on the first page of his book. But
Thorpe was too self-assertive to be a slavish imitator.
His addiction to bombast and his elementary appreciation of
literature recommended to him the practice of incorporating in
his dedicatory salutation some high-sounding embellishments
of the accepted formula suggested by his author's writing. 1 In
his dedication of the 'Sonnets' to 'Mr. W. H.' he grafted on
the common formula a reference to the immortality which
Shakespeare, after the habit of contemporary sonnetteers,
promised the hero of his sonnets in the pages that succeeded.
With characteristic magniloquence, Thorpe added the decora-
tive and supererogatory phrase, ' promised by our ever-living
poet,' to the conventional dedicatory wish for his patron's ' all
happiness' and 'eternitie.'-

Thorpe, as far as is known, penned only one dedication
before that to Shakespeare's 'Sonnets.' His dedicatory
experience was previously limited to the inscription of Marlowe's
' Lucan ' in 1600 to Blount, his friend in the trade. Three
Five dedi- dedications by Thorpe survive of a date subsequent
cations by to the issue of the ' Sonnets.' One of these is
Thorpe. dedicated to John Florio, and the other two to the
Earl of Pembroke.^ But these three dedications all prefaced

1 In 1610, in dedicating Si. Augustine, Of the Citie of God to the Earl of
Pembroke, Thorpe awkvv.irdly describes the subject-matter as ' a desired citie sure
in heaven,' and assigns to ' St. Augustine and his commentator Vives ' a 'savour of
the secular.' In the same year, in dedicating Epictetus^ s Matiuall to Florio, he
bombastically pronounces the book to be ' the hand to philosophy ; the instrument of
instruments ; as Nature greatest in the least ; as Homer's Ilias in a nutshell ; in
lesse compasse more cunning.' For other examples of Thorpe's pretentious, half-
educated, and ungrammatical style, see p. 403, «. 2.

" The suggestion is often made that the only parallel to Thorpe's salutation of
happiness is met with in George Wither's Abuses Whipt atid Stript (London, 1613).
There the dedicatorj- epistle is prefaced by the ironical salutation ' To himselfe
G. W. wisheth all happinesse.' It is further asserted that Wither had probably
Thoipe's dedication to 'Mr. W. H.' in view when he wrote that satirical sentence.
It will now be recognised that Wither aimed very gently at no identifiable book,
but at a feature common to scores of books. Since his Abuses was printed by
George Eld and sold by Francis Burton — the printer and publisher concerned
in 1606 in the publication of ' W. H.'s' Southwell manuscript — there is a
bare chance that Wither had in mind ' W. H.'s' greeting of Mathew Saunders,
but fifty recently published volumes would have supplied him with similar hints.

' Thorpe dedicated to Florio Epicietus his Manual!, and Cebes his Table, out

400 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

volumes of translations by one John Healey, whose manuscripts

had become Thorpe's prey after the author had emigrated to

Virginia, where he died shortly after landing. Thorpe chose, he

tells us, Florio and the Earl of Pembroke as patrons of Healey's

unprinted manuscripts because they had been patrons of

Healey before his expatriation and death. There is evidence to

prove that in choosing a patron for the ' Sonnets,' and penning

a dedication for the second time, he pursued the exact procedure

that lie had followed — deliberately and for reasons that he fully

stated — in his first and only preceding dedicatory venture. He

chose his patron from the circle of his trade associates, and

it must have been because his patron was a personal friend

that he addressed him by his initials, ' W. H.'

Shakespeare's ' Sonnets' is not the only volume of the period

in the introductory pages of which the initials 'W. H.' play a

' W H ' prominent part. In i6o6 one who concealed him-

sisjns dedi- self under the same letters performed for ' A Foure-

cation of fould Meditation ' (a collection of pious poems which

bouthwell s ,,,ir-

poems in the Jesuit Robert Southwell left in manuscript at his

1606. death) the identical service that Thorpe performed

for Marlowe's ' Lucan' in 1600, and for Shakespeare's 'Sonnets'
in 1609. In 1606 Southwell's manuscript fell into the hands
of this • W. H.,' and he published it through the agency of the
printer, George Eld, and of an insignificant bookseller, Francis
Burton. 1 ' W. H.,' in his capacity of owner, supplied the dedi-
cation with his own pen under his initials. Of the Jesuit's newly
recovered poems 'W. H.' wrote, 'Long have they lien hidden
in obscuritie, and haply had never seene the light, had not a
meere accident conveyed them to my hands. But, having
seriously perused them, loath I was that any who are religiously
affected, should be deprived of so great a comfort, as the due

of Greek originall by lo. Healey, 1610. He dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke
St. Aiegustzite, Of the Citie of God. . . . Englished by I. //., 16 10, and a second
edition of Healey's Epictetus, i6i5.

1 SouihweW^ Eourefoiild Meditation of 1606 is a book of excessive rarity, only
one complete printed copy having been met with in our time. A fragment of the
only other printed copy known is now in the British MuseTjm. The work was
reprinted in 1895, chiefly from an early copy in manuscript, by Mr. Charles
Edmonds, the accomplished bibliographer, who in a letter to the Athenieum on
November i, 1873, suggested for the first time the identity of ' W. H.,' the dedicator
of Southwell's poem, with Thorpe's ' Mr. W. H.'

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 4OI

consideration thereof may bring unto them/ '\V. H/ chose as
patron of his venture one Mathew Saunders. Esq., and to the
dedicatory epistle prefixed a conventional salutation wishing
Saunders long life and prosperity. The greeting was printed in
large and bold type thus :

To the Right Worfhipfull and

Vertuous Ge?itlema?i^ Mathew

Saunders, Efquire

W. H. wifheth, with long life, a profperous

achieuement of his good defires.

There follows in small type, regularly printed across the page,
a dedicatory letter — the frequent sequel of the dedicatory salu-
tation — in which the writer, 'W. H.,' commends the religious
temper of ' these meditations ' and deprecates the coldness and
sterility of his own 'conceits.' The dedicator signs himself at
the bottom of the page • Your Worships unfained atfectionate,
W. H."i

The two books — Southwell's ' Foure-fould Meditations ' of
1606, and Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' of 1609 — have more in
common than the appearance on the preliminary pages of the
initials • W. H.' in a prominent place, and of the common form
of dedicatory salutation. Both volumes, it was announced on
the title-pages, came from the same press — the press of George
Eld. Eld for many years co-operated with Thorpe in business.
In 1605 he printed for Thorpe Ben Jonson's ' Sejanus.' and in
each of the years 1607, 1608, 1609. and 161Q at least one of his
ventures was publicly declared to be a specimen' of Eld's

'A manuscript volume at Oscott College contains a contemporary copy of
those poems by Southwell which ' unfained affectionate W. H.' first gave to the
printing press. The owner of the Oscott volume, Peter Mowle or Moulde (as he
indifferently spells his name), entered on the first page of the manuscript in his own
handwriting an ' epistel dedicatorie ' which he confined to the conventional greeting
of happiness here and hereafter. The words ran: 'To the right worshipful! Mr.
Thomas Knevett Esquire, Peter Mowle wisheth the perpetuytie of true felysitie, the
health of bodie and soule with continwance of worshipp in this worlde, And after
Death the participation of Heavenlie happiness dewringe all worldes for ever.'

402 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

typography. Many of Thorpe's books came forth without any
mention of the printer ; but Eld's name figures more frequently
upon them than that of any other printer. Between 1605
and 1609 it is likely that Eld printed all Thorpe's * copy ' as matter
of course and that he was in constant relations with him.

There is little doubt that the ' W. H.' of the Southwell
volume was Mr. William Hall, who, when he procured that
' W. H.' manuscript for publication, was an humble auxiliary
?J^ ,,?^ • in the publishing army. Hall flits rapidly across the
Hall. stage of literary history. He served an apprentice-

ship to the printer and stationer John Allde from 1577 to 1584,
and was admitted to the freedom of the Stationers' Company in
the latter year. For the long period of twenty-two years after
his release from his indentures he was connected with the trade
in a dependent capacity, doubtless as assistant to a master-
stationer. When in 1606 the manuscript of Southwell's poems
was conveyed to his hands and he adopted the recognised role
of procurer of their publication, he had not set up in business
for himself. It was only later in the same year (1606) that he
obtained the license of the Stationers' Company to inaugurate
a press in his own name, and two years passed before he began
business. In 1608 he obtained for publication a theological
manuscript which appeared next year with his name on the
title-page for the first time. This volume constituted the earliest
credential of his independence. It entitled him to the prefix
' Mr.' in all social relations. Between 1609 and 1614 he printed
some twenty volumes, most of them sermons and almost all
devotional in tone. The most important of his secular under-
taking was Guillim"s far-famed ' Display of Heraldrie,' a folio
issued in 1610. In 1612 Hall printed an account of the con-
viction and execution of a noted pickpocket, John Selman, who •
had been arrested while professionally engaged in the Royal
Chapel at Whitehall. On the title-page Hall gave his own name
by his initials only. The book was described in bold type as
'printed by W. H.' and as on sale at the shop of Thomas
Archer in St. Paul's Churchyard. Hall was a careful printer
with a healthy dread of misprints, but his business dwindled
after 161 3, and, soon disposing of it to one John Beale, he dis-
appeared into private life.

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 403

'W. H." are no uncommon initials, and there is more interest
attaching to the discovery of 'Mr. W. H.'s' position in life and
his function in relation to the scheme of the publication of
the 'Sonnets' than in establishing his full name. But there
is every probability that William Hall, the ' W. H.' of the
Southwell dedication, was one and the same person with the
♦Mr. W. H.' of Thorpe's dedication of the 'Sonnets.' No other
inhabitant of London was habitually known to mask himself
under those letters. William Hall was the only man bearing
those initials who there is reason to suppose was on familiar
terms with Thorpe. ^ Both were engaged at much the same
period in London in the same occupation of procuring manu-
scripts for publication ; both inscribed their literary treasure-
trove in the common formula to patrons for whom they claimed
no high rank or distinction, and both engaged the same printer
to print their most valuable prize.

No condition of the problem of the identity of Thorpe's
friend 'Mr. W. H.' seems ignored by the adoption of the inter-
'Theonlie pretation that he was the future master-printer
begetter ' William Hall. The objection that ' Mr. W. H.' could
* only pro- '^ot have been Thorpe's friend in trade, because
curer.' while wishing him all happiness and eternity Thorpe

dubs him ' the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets,' is not
formidable. Thorpe rarely used words with much exactness.*

1 A bookseller (not a printer), William Holmes, who was in business for himself
between 1590 and 1615, was the only other member of the Stationers' Company bear-
ing at the required dates the initials of ' W. H.' But he was ordinarily known by
his full name, and there is no indication that he had either professional or private
relations with Thorpe.

- Most of his dedications are penned in a loose diction of pretentious bombast
which it is difficult to interpret exactly. When dedicating in 1610 — the year after
the issue of the Sofincts — Healey's Epictetus his Maniiall ' to a true fauover of
forward spirits, Maister John Florio,' Thorpe writes of Epictetus's work: 'In all
languages, ages, by all persons high prized, imbraced, yea inbosomed. It filles not
the hand with leaues, but fills ye head with lessons: nor would bee held in hand but
had by harte to boote. He is more senceless than a stocke that hath no good sence
of this stoick.' In the same year, when dedicating Healey's translation of St.
Augustine's Ci'tz'e of God to the Earl of Pembroke, Thorpe clumsily refers to
Pembroke's patronage of Healey's earlier efforts in translation thus : ' He that
against detraction beyond expectation, then found your sweete patronage in a
matter of small moment without distrust or disturbance, in this work of more weight,
as he approoued his more abilitie, so would not but expect your Honours more
acceptance.'

404 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

It is obvious that lie did not employ ' begetter' in the ordinary
sense. ' Begetter,' when literally interpreted as applied to a
literary work, means father, author, producer, and it cannot
be seriously urged that Thorpe intended to describe ' Mr. W. H.'
as the author of the 'Sonnets.' 'Begetter' has been used in
the figurative sense of inspirer, and it is often assumed that by
'only begetter' Thorpe meant 'sole inspirer,' and that by the
use of those words he intended to hint at the close relations
subsisting between ' W. H.' and Shakespeare in the dramatist's
early life ; but that interpretation presents numberless difficulties.
It was contrary to Thorpe's aims in business to invest a dedica-
tion with any cryptic significance and thus mystify his customers.
Moreover, his career and the circumstances under which he
became the publisher of the sonnets confute the assumption that
he was in such relations with Shakespeare or with Shakespeare's
associates as would give him any knowledge of Shakespeare's
early career that was not public property. All that Thorpe —
the struggling pirate-publisher, ' the well-wishing adventurer in
setting forth' wares mysteriously come by — knew or probably
cared to know of Shakespeare was that he was the most popular
and honoured of the literary producers of the day. When
Thorpe had the luck to acquire surreptitiously an unprinted
manuscript by ' our ever-living poet,' it was not in the great
man's circle of friends or patrons, to which hitherto he had had
no access, that he was likely to seek his own patron. Element-
ary considerations of prudence impelled him to publish his
treasure-trove with all expedition, and not disclose his design
prematurely to one who might possibly take steps to hinder its
fulfilment. But that Thorpe had no ' inspirer ' of the ' Sonnets '
in his mind when he addressed himself to 'Mr. W. H.' is
finally proved by the circumstance that the only identifiable
male 'inspirer' of the poems was the Earl of Southampton, to
whom the initials 'W. H.' do not apply.

Of the figurative meanings set in Elizabethan English on the
word • begetter,' that of ' inspirer ' is by no means the only one
or the most common. 'Beget' was not infrequently employed
in the attenuated sense of ' get,' ' procure,' or ' obtain,' a sense
which is easily deducible from the original one 6i ' bring
into being.' Hamlet, when addressing the players, bids them

THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.' 405

•in the very whirlwind of passion acquire and beget a tem-
perance that may give it smoothness.' 'I have some cousins
german at Court,' wrote Dei^lcer in 1602, in his ' Satiro-Mastix,'
' [that] shall beget you the reversion of the Master of the King's
Revels.' 'Mr. W. H.,' whom Thorpe described as 'the only
begetter of these ensuing sonnets,' was in all probability the
acquirer or procurer of the manuscript, who, figuratively speak-
ing, brought the book into being either by first placing the
manuscript in Thorpe's hands or by pointing out the means
by which a copy might be acquired. To assign such signifi-
cance to the word 'begetter' was entirely in Thorpe's vein.i
Thorpe described his role in the piratical enterprise of the
' Sonnets ' as that of ' the well-wishing adventurer in setting
forth,' i.e. the hopeful speculator in the scheme. 'Mr. W. H.'
doubtless played the almost equally important part — one as
well known then as now in commercial operations — of the
'vender' of the property to be exploited.

1 This is the sense allotted to the word in the great Variorum edition of 1821 by
Malone's disciple, James Boswell the younger, who, like his master, was a biblio-
graphical expert of the highest authority. The fact that the eighteenth-century
commentators — men like Malone and Steevens — who were thoroughly well versed in
the literary history of the sixteenth century, should have failed to recognise any con-
nection between ' Mr. W. H.' and Shakespeare's personal history is in itself a very
strong argument against the interpretation foisted on the dedication during the
present century by writers who have no pretensions to be reckoned the equals of
Malone and Steevens as literary archaeologists.

4o6

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'MR. WILLIAM HERBERT'

For fully sixty years it has been very generally assumed
that Shakespeare addressed the bulk of his sonnets to the
Origin of young Earl of Pembroke. This theory owes its
^v!*^ "m""" origin to a speciously lucky guess which was first dis-
W. H. ' closed to the public in 1832, and won for a time almost
stands for universal acceptance.^ Thorpe's form of address was
liamHer- ^^^^ to justify the mistaken inference that, whoever
bert.' ' Mr. W. H.' may have been, he and no other was

the hero of the alleged story of the poems ; and the corner-
stone of the Pembroke theory was the assumption that the
letters ' Mr. W. H.' in the dedication did duty for the words
' Mr. William Herbert,' by which name the (third) Earl of Pem-
broke was represented as having been known in y(juth. The

1 James Boaden, a journalist and the biograplier of Kemble and Mrs. Siddons,
was the first to snggest the Pembroke theory in a letter to the Gentleman's
Magazine in 1832. A few months later Mr. James Hey wood Bright wrote to the
magazine claiming to have reached the same conclusion as early as i8ig, although
he had not published it. Boaden re-stated the Pembroke theory in a volume on
Shakespeare's Sonnets which he published in :837 C Armitage Brown adopted
it in 1838 in his Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems. The Rev. Joseph Hunter,
who accepted the theory without qualification, significantly pointed out in his N'e%u
Illustrations 0/ Shakespeare in 1845 (ii, 346) that it had not occurred to any of the
writers in the great Variorum editions of Shakespeare, nor to critics so acute in
matters of literary history as Malone or George Chalmers. The theory is treated
as proved fact in many recent literary manuals. Of its supporters at the date of
writing the most ardent is Mr. Thomas Tyler, who published an edition of the
sonnets in 1890, and there further advanced a claim to identify the 'dark lady' of
the sonnets with Mary Fitton, a lady of the Court and the Earl of Pembroke's
mistress. Mr. Tyler has endeavoured to substantiate both the Pembroke and the
Fitton theories, by merely repeating his original arguments, in a pamphlet which
appeared in April of this year under the title of The Herbert-Fitton Theory : a
Reply [i.e. to criticisms of the theories by Lady Newdegate and by myself] The
Pembroke theory, whose adherents have dwindled of late, will henceforth be
relegated, 1 trust, to the category of popular delusions.

'MR. WILLIAM HERBERT' 407

originators of the theory claimed to discover in the Earl of
Pembroke the only young man of rank and wealth to whom the
initials "VV. H.' applied at the needful dates. In thus inter-
preting the initials, the Pembroke theorists made a blunder
that proves on examination to be fatal to their whole con-
tention.

The nobleman under consideration succeeded to the earl-
dom of Pembroke on his father's death on January 19, 1601
The Earl of (^ ■ ^•)' '^^'hen he was twenty years and nine months
Pembroke old, and from that date it is unquestioned that he was
as Lord"'^ always known by his lawful title. But it has been
Herbert in overlooked that the designation ' Mr. William Her-
youth. j^gj-t,' for which the initials • Mr. W. H.' have been long

held to stand, could never in the mind of Thomas Thorpe or
any other contemporary have denominated the Earl at any
moment of his career. When he came into the world on
April 9, 1580, his father had been (the second) Earl of Pem-
broke for ten years, and he, as the eldest son, was from the
hour of his birth known in all relations of life — even in the
baptismal entry in the parish register — by the title of Lord
Herbert, and by no other. During the lifetime of his father
and his own minority several references were made to him in
the extant correspondence of friends of varying degrees of
intimacy. He is called by them, without exception, ' my Lord
Herbert,' *the Lord Herbert,' or 'Lord Herbert.' ^ It is true
that as the eldest son of an earl he held the title by courtesy,
but for all practical purposes it was as well recognised in com-
mon speech as if he had been a peer in his own right. No one
nowadays w-ould address in current parlance, or even entertain
the conception of. Viscount Cranborne, the heir of the present
Prime Minister, as 'Mr. J. C or 'Mr. James Cecil.' It is just
as legitimate to assert that it would have occurred to an Eliza-
bethan — least of all to a personal acquaintance or to a publisher

' Cf. Sydney Papers, ed. Collins, i. 353. ' My Lord (of Pembroke) himself with
my Lord Harbert (are) come up to see the Queen ' ( Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert
.Sydney, October 8,1591), and again p. 361 (November 16, 1595); and p. 373
(December 5, 1595). John Chamberlain wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton on August i,
ijgg, ^ young Lord Harbert, Sir Henrie Carie, and Sir William Woodhouse, are all
in election at Court, who shall set the best legge foremost.' Chamberlain's Letters
(Camden Soc), p. 57.

408 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

who stood toward his patron in the relation of a personal
dependent — to describe 'young Lord Herbert,' of Elizabeth's
reign, as ' Mr. William Herbert.' A lawyer, who in the way of
business might have to mention the young lord's name in a
legal document, would have entered it as 'William Herbert,
commonly called Lord Herbert.' The appellation "Mr.' was
not used loosely then as now, but indicated a precise social
grade. Thorpe's employment of the prefix ' Mr.' without quali-
fication is in itself fatal to the pretension that any lord, whether
by right or courtesy, was intended.^

Proof is at hand to estabhsh that Thorpe was under no
misapprehension as to the proper appellation of the Earl of
Thorpe's Pembroke, and was incapable of venturing on the
modeofad- meaningless misnomer of 'Mr. W. H.' Insignificant
the Earl of publisher though he was, and sceptical as he was of
Pembroke, the merits of noble patrons, he was not proof against
the temptation, when an opportunity was directly offered him. of
adorning the prefatory pages of a publication with the name
of a nobleman who enjoyed the high official station, the literary
culture, and social influence of the third Earl of Pembroke.
In 1610 — a year after he published the ' Sonnets ' — there came
into his hands the manuscripts by John Healey, that humble
literary aspirant who had a few months before emigrated to
Virginia, and had, it would seem, died there. Healey, before
leaving England, had secured through the good offices of John
Florio (a man of influence in both fashionable and literary circles),
the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke for a translation of
Bishop Hall's fanciful satire, • Mundus alter et idem.' Calling

1 Thomas Sackville, the author of the Induction to T!ie Mirror for Magistrates,
and other poetical pieces, and part author of Gorboduc, was born plain ' Thomas
Sackville,' and was ordinarily addressed in youth as ' Mr. Sackville.' He wrote all
his literary work while he bore that and no other designation. He subsequently
abandoned literature for politics, and was knighted and created Lord Buckhurst.
Ver^' late in life, in 1604, — at the age of sixty-eight, — he became Earl of Dorset. A
few of his youthful effusions, which bore his early signature, ' M. [/.f. Mr. ] Sackville,'
were reprinted with that signature unaltered in an encyclopaedic anthology,
England's Parnassus, which was published, wholly independently of him, in 1600,
after he had become Baron Buckhurst. About the same date he was similarly
designated Thomas or Mr. Sackville in a reprint, unauthorised by him, of his
Induction to The Mirror /or Magistrates, which was in the original text ascribed,
with perfect correctness, to Thomas or Mr. Sackville. There is clearly no sort of
parallel (as has been urged) between such an explicable, and not unwarrantable,
metachronism and the misnaming of the Earl of Pembroke ' Mr. W. H.' .A.s might
be anticipated, persistent research affords no parallel for the latter irregularity.

«MR. WILLIAM HERBERT' 409

his book ' The Discovetie of a New World,' Healey had prefixed
to it. in i6og, an epistle inscribed in garish terms of flattery to
the * Truest mirrour of truest honor, William Earl of Pembroke.' ^
When Thorpe subsequently made up his mind to publish, on
his own account, other translations by the same hand, he found
it desirable to seek the same patron. Accordingly, in 1610. he
prefixed in his own name, to an edition of Healey's translation
of St. Augustine's ' Citie of God,' a dedicatory address ' to the
honorablest patron of the Muses and good mindes. Lord William,
Earle of Pembroke. Knight of the Honourable Order (of the
Garter), &c.' In involved sentences Thorpe tells the • right
gracious and gracefule Lord ' how the author left the work at
death to be a ' testimonie of gratitude, observance, and heart's
honor to your honour.' ' Wherefore,' he explains, ' his legacie,
laide at your Honour's feete, is rather here delivered to your
Honour's humbly thrise-kissed hands by his poore delegate.
Your Lordship's true devoted, Th. Th.'

Again, in 1616, when Thorpe procured the issue of a second
edition of another of Healey's translations. ' Epictetus Manuall.
Cebes Table. Theoprastus Characters,' he supplied more con-
spicuous evidence of the servility with which he deemed it
incumbent on him to approach a potent patron. As this address
by Thorpe to Pembroke is difficult of access. I give it in
extenso :
'To the Right Honourable, William Earle of Pembroke, Lord

Chamberlaine to His Majestie, one of his most honorable

Privie Counsell, and Knight of the most noble order of the

Garter, &c.

' Right Honorable. — It may worthily seeme strange unto
your Lordship, out of what frenzy one of my meanenesse hath
presumed to commit this Sacriledge. in the straightnes.se of
your Lordship's leisure, to present a peece. for matter and
model so unworthy, and in this scribbling age, wherein great
persons are so pestered dayly with Dedications. All I can
alledge in extenuation of so many incongruities, is the bequest
of a deceased Man ; who (in his lifetime) having offered some

' An examination of a copy of the book in the Bodleian — none is in the British
Museum — shows that the dedication is signed J. H., and not, as Mr. Fleay infers,
by Thorpe. Thorpe had no concern in this volume.

4IO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

translations of his unto your Lordsliip, ever wislit if these
ensiling wei'e published they might onely bee addressed unto
your Lordship, as the last Testimony of his dutiful! affection (to
use his own termes) The trice and reall upholder of Lear tied
endeavors. This, therefore, beeing left unto mee, as a Legacie
unto your Lordship (pardon my presumption, great Lord, from
so meane a man to so great a person) I could not without some
impiety present it to any other ; such a sad priviledge have the
bequests of the dead, and so obligatory they are, more than the
requests of the living. In the hope of this honourable accept-
ance I will ever rest,

'Your lordship's humble devoted,

'T. Th.'

With such obeisances did publishers then habitually creep
into the presence of the nobility. In fact, the law which
rigorously maintained the privileges of peers left them no
option. The alleged erroneous form of address in the dedica-
tion of Shakespeare's 'Sonnets' — 'Mr. W. H.' for Lord Herbert
or the Earl of Pembroke — would have amounted to the offence
of defamation. And for that misdemeanour the Star Chamber,
always acting in protecting the dignity of peers, would have
promptly called Thorpe to account. ^

Of the Earl of Pembroke, and of his brother the Earl of
Montgomery, it was stated a few years later, ' from just obser-
vation,' on very pertinent authority, that ' no men came near
their lordships [in their capacity of literary patrons], but with a
kind of religious address.' These words figure in the prefatory
epistle which two actor-friends of Shakespeare addressed to the
two Earls in the posthumously issued First Folio of the
dramatist's works. Thorpe's 'kind of religious address' on
seeking Lord Pembroke's patronage for Healey's books was
somewhat more unctuous than was customary or needful. But
of erring conspicuously in an opposite direction he may, without
misgiving, be pronounced innocent.

^ On January 27, 1607-8, one Sir Henry Colte was indicted for slander in the Star
Chamber for addressing a peer, Lord Morley, as ' goodman Morley.' A technical
defect — the omission of the precise date of the commission of the alleged offence - in
the bill of indictment led to a dismissal of the cause. See Les Refiortcs del Cases
iti Caviera Steilnta, 1593 to 1609, edited from the manuscript of Henry Hawardeby
W. p. Baildon, F.S.A. (privately printed for Alfred Morrison), p. 348.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE 41I

VII

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF
PEMBROKE

With the disposal of the allegation that 'Mr. W. H.' repre-
sented the Earl of Pembroke's youthful name, the whole theory
of that Earl's identity with Shakespeare's friend collapses.
Outside Thorpe's dedicatory w^ords, only two scraps of evidence
with any title to consideration have been adduced to show that
Shakespeare was at any time or in any way associated with
Pembroke.

In the late autumn of 1603 James I and his Court were
installed at the Earl of Pembroke's house at Wilton for a period
Shake- °^ '•^^^ months, owing to the prevalence of the plague

speare with in London. By order of the officers of the royal

the ac ing household, the King's company of plavers. of which
company at ' => 1 / j^ - '

Wilton in Shakespeare was a member, gave a performance
1603. before the King at Wilton House on December 2.

The actors travelled from Mortlake for the purpose, and were
paid in the ordinary manner by the treasurer of the royal house-
hold out of the public funds. There is no positive evidence that
Shakespeare attended at Wilton with the company, but assum-
ing, as is probable, that he did, the Earl of Pembroke can be
held no more responsible for his presence than for his repeated
presence under the same conditions at Whitehall. The visit of
the King's players to Wilton in 1603 has no bearing on the Earl
of Pembroke's alleged relations with Shakespeare.^

1 See pp. 231-2, supra. A tradition has lately sprung up in W'ilton to the effect
that a letter once existed there in which the Countess of Pembroke bade her son the
Earl while he was in attendance on James I at Salisbury to bring the King to W^ilton
to witness a performance oi As You Like It. The Countess is said to have added,
' We have the man Shakespeare with us.' No tangible evidence of the existence of
the letter is forthcoming and its tenor stamps it, if it exists, as an ignorant in-
vention. The circumstances under which both King and players visited Wilton in
1603 are completely misrepresented. The Court temporarily occupied Wilton

412 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The second instance of Llie association in the seventeenth
century uf Shakespeare's name with Pembroke's tells wholly
The dedi- against the conjectured intimacy. Seven years
'^h'' v" °^ ^^^^^ ^'^*^ dramatist's death, two of his friends and
Folio. fellow-actors prepared the collective edition of

his plays known as the First Folio, and they dedicated the
volume, in the conventional language of eulogy, ' To the most
noble and incomparable paire of brethren, William Earl of
Pembroke, &c.. Lord Chamberlaine to the King's most excel-
lent Majesty, and Philip, Earl of Montgomery, &c., Gentleman
of His Majesties Bedchamber. Both Knights of the most
Noble Order of the Garter and our singular good Lords.'

The choice of such patrons, whom, as the dedication inti-
mated, 'no one came near but with a kind of religious address,'
proves no private sort of friendship between them and the dead
author. To the two Earls in partnership nearly every work of
any literary pretension was dedicated at the period. Moreover,
the third Earl of Pembroke was Lord Chamberlain in 1623, and
exercised supreme authority in theatrical aflfairs. That his
patronage should be sought for a collective edition of the works
of the acknowledged master of the contemporary stage was a
matter of course. It is only surprising that the editors should
have yielded to the passing vogue of soliciting the patronage of
the Lord Chamberlain's brother in conjunction with the Lord
Chamberlain.

The sole sentence in the editor's dedication that can be held

House, and Shakespeare and his comrades were ordered by the officers of the royal
household to give a performance there in the same way as they would have been
summoned to play before the King had he been at Whitehall. It is hardly necessary
to add that the Countess of Pembroke's mode of referring to literary men is well
known; she treated them on terms of equality, and could not in any aberration of
mind or temper have referred to Shakespeare as ' the man Shakespeare.' Similarly,
the present Earl of Pembroke purchased of a London picture-dealer last year what
purported to be a portrait of the third Earl of Pembroke, and on the back was pasted
a paper, that was represented to date from the seventeenth century, containing some
lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet Ixxxi. (9-14), subscribed with the words 'Shake-
speare unto the Earl of Pembroke, 1603.' The ink and handwriting are quite modern,
and hardly make pretence to be of old date in the eyes of any one accustomed to
study manuscripts. On May 5 of this year some persons interested in the matter, in-
cluding myself, examined the portrait and the inscription, on the kind invitation of
the present Earl, and the inscription was unanimously declared by palaeographical
experts to be a clumsy forgery unworthy of serious notice.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE 413

to bear on the question of Shakespeare's alleged intimacy with
Pembroke is their remark that both Earls had ' prosequuted,'
i.e. favoured, the plays 'and their authour living.' But this
assertion only justifies the inference that the brothers shared
the enthusiastic esteem which James I and all the noblemen
of his Court extended to Shakespeare and his plays in the
dramatist's lifetime. Apart from his work as a dramatist,
Shakespeare, in his capacity of one of ' the King's servants ' or
company of players, was personally known to all the othcers of
the royal household who collectively controlled theatrical
representations at Court. Throughout James I's reign his plays
were repeatedly performed in the royal presence, and when the
dedicators of the First Folio, at the conclusion of their address
to Lords Pembroke and Montgomery, describe the dramatist's
works as ' these remaines of your Servant Shakespeare,' they
make it quite plain that it was in the capacity of ' King's
ser\'ant ' or player that they knew him to have been the object
of their noble patrons' favour.

The sonnets offer no internal indication that the Earl of
Pembroke and Shakespeare ever saw one another. Nothing at
all is deducible from the vague parallelisms that have been
adduced between the Earl's character and position in life and
those with which the poet credited the youth of the sonnets.
It may be granted that both had a mother (Sonnet iii.), that
both enjoyed wealth and rank, that both were regarded by
admirers as cultivated, that both were self-indulgent in their
relations with women, and that both in early manhood were
No sugces- indisposed to marry, owing to habits of gallantry,
s'onnets of ^^ ^'^^ alleged point of resemblance there is no
the youth's evidence. The loveliness assigned to Shakespeare's
■tl"*?'^ youth was not, as far as we can learn, definitely set
broke. to Pembroke's account. Francis Davison, when

dedicating his -Poetical Rhapsody' to the Earl in 1602 in a
very eulogistic sonnet, makes a cautiously qualified reference
to the attractiveness of his person in the lines :

[His] outward shape, though it most lovely be,
Doth in fair robes a fairer soul attire.

The only portraits of him that survive represent him in middle

414 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

age/ and seem to confute the suggestion that he was
reckoned handsome at any time of Hfe ; at most they confirm
Anthony Wood's description of him as in person 'rather
majestic than elegant.' But the point is not one of moment,
and the argument neither gains nor loses, if we allow that
Pembroke may, at any rate in the siglit of a poetical panegyrist,
have at one period reflected, like Shakespeare's youth, ' the
lovely April of his mother's prime.'

But when we have reckoned up the traits that can, on
any showing, be admitted to be common to both Pembroke and
Shakespeare's alleged friend, they all proved to be equally
indistinctive All could be matched without difficulty in a score
of youthful noblemen and gentlemen of Elizabeth's Court.
Direct external evidence of Shakespeare's friendly intercourse
with one or other of Elizabeth's young courtiers must be produced
before the sonnets' general references to the youth's beauty
and grace can render the remotest assistance in establishing his
identity.

Although it may be reckoned superfluous to adduce more

arguments, negative or positive, against the theory that the

Earl of Pembroke was a youthful friend of Sliakespeare, it is

worth noting that John Aubrey, the Wiltshire antiquary, and the

biographer of most Englishmen of distinction of the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries, was zealously researching, from 1650

onwards, into the careers alike of Shakespeare and of various

members of the Earl of Pembroke's family — one of the chief

Aubrey's in Wiltshire. Aubrey rescued from oblivion many

ignorance anecdotes — scandalous and otherwise — about both

relation the third Earl of Pembroke and about Shakespeare.

between Of the former he wrote in his ' Natural History of Wilt-
Shake-
speare and shire ' (ed. Britton, 1847), recalling the Earl's rela-

Pembroke. tions with Massinger and many other men of letters.

Of Shakespeare, Aubrey narrated much lively gossip in his 'Lives

of Eminent Persons.' But neither in his account of Pembroke

nor in his account of Shakespeare does he give any hint that

they were at any time or in any manner acquainted or associated

with one another. Had close relations existed between them,

1 Cf. the engravings of Simon Pass, Stent, and Vandervoerst, after the portrait
by Mytens.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE 415

it is impossible that all trace of it would have faded from the
traditions that were current in Aubrey's time and were embodied
in his writings.^

' It is unnecessary, after what has been said above (p. 123), to consider seriously
the suggestion that the ' dark lady ' of the sonnets was Mary Fitton, maid of honour
to Queen Elizabeth. This frolicsome lady, who was at one time Pembroke's
mistress and bore him a child, has been only introduced into a discussion of the
sonnets on the assumption that her lover, Pembroke, was the youth to whom the
sonnets were addressed. Lady Newdegate's recently published Goss{/> from a
Muniment Room, which furnishes for the first time a connected biography of
Pembroke's mistress, adequately disposes of any lingering hope that Shakespeare
may have commemorated her in his black-complexioned heroine. Lady Newdegate
states that two well-preserved portraits of Mary Fitton remain at Arbury, and that
they reveal a lady of fair complexion with brown hair and grey eyes. Family history
places the authenticity of the portraits beyond doubt, and the endeavour lately made
by Mr. Tyler, the chief champion of the hopeless Fitton theory, to dispute their
authenticity is satisfactorily met by Mr. C. O. Bridgeman in an appendix to the
second edition of Lady Newdegate's book. We also learn from Lady Newdegate's
volume that Miss Fitton, during her girlhood, was pestered by the attentions of a
middle-aged admirer, a married friend of the family, Sir William Knollys. It has
been lamely suggested by some of the supporters of the Pembroke theory that Sir
William Knollys was one of the persons named Will who are alleged to be noticed
as competitors with Shakespeare and the supposititious ' Will Herbert ' for ' the
dark lady's' favours in the sonnets (cxxxv., cxxxvi., and perhaps clxiii.). But that
is a shot wholly out of range. The wording of those sonnets, when it is thoroughly
tested, proves beyond reasonable doubt that the poet was the only lover named Will
who is represented as courting the disdainful lady of the sonnets, and that no refer-
ence whatever is made there to any other person of that Christian name.

4l6 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

VIII

THE ' WILL' SONNETS

No one has had the hardihood to assert that the text of the
sonnets gives internally any indication that the youth's name
took the hapless form of 'William Herbert'; but many com-
mentators argue that in three or four sonnets Shakespeare
admits in so many words that the youth bore his own Christian
name of Will, and even that the disdainful lady had among her
admirers other gentlemen entitled in familiar intercourse to
similar designation. These are fantastic assumptions which
rest on a misconception of Shakespeare's phraseology and of
the character of the conceits of the sonnets, and are solely
attributable to the fanatical anxiety of the supporters of the
Pembroke theory to extort, at all hazards, some sort of evi-
dence in their favour from Shakespeare's text.^

In two sonnets (cxxxv.-vi.) — the most artificial and 'con-
ceited ' in the collection — the poet plays somewhat enig-
matically on his Christian name of ' Will,' and a similar
pun has been doubtfully detected in Sonnets cxxxiv. and
cxlvii. The groundwork of the pleasantry is the identity
in form of the proper name with the common noun ' will.'
Elizabeth- This word connoted in Elizabethan English a
?" "^^j^"^" generous variety of conceptions, of most of which
' will.' it has long since been deprived. Then, as now, it

was emj^loyed in the general psychological sense of volition ;
but it was more often specifically applied to two limited
manifestations of the volition. It was the commonest of syno-
nyms alike for ' self-will ' or ' stubbornness ' — in which sense it

■Professor Dowden {Sonnets, p. xxxv.) writes: ' It appears from the punning
sonnets (cxxxv. and cxliii.) that the Christian name of Shakespeare's friend was the
same as his own, Will,^ and thence is deduced the argument that the friend could
only be identical with one who, like William, E:iil of Pembroke, bore that Christian
name.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 417

still survives in 'wilful' — and for Must' or 'sensual passion.'
It also did occasional duty for its own diminutive ' wish,' for
'caprice,' for 'good-will,' and for 'free consent ' (as nowadays in
' willing ' or ' willingly ') .

Shakespeare constantly used ' will ' in all these significa-
tions, lago recognised its general psychological value when
Shake- he said, • Our bodies are our gardens, to the which

usesof^the our wills are gardeners.' The conduct of the -will'
word. is discussed after the manner of philosophy in

'Troilus and Cressida ' (11. ii. 51-68). In another of lago's
sentences, ' Love is merely a lust of the blood and a permission
of the will,' light is shed on the process by which the word came
to be specifically applied to sensual desire. The last is a
favourite sense with Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
Angelo and Isabella, in ' iVIeasure for Measure,' are at one in
attributing their conflict to the formers • will.' The self-indul-
gent Bertram, in ' All's Well.' ' fleshes his " will " in the spoil of
a gentlewoman's honour.' In *Lear' (iv. vi. 279) Regan's
heartless plot to seduce her brother-in-law is assigned to 'the
undistinguished space' — the boundless range — 'of woman's
will.' Similarly, Sir Philip Sidney apostrophised lust as ' thou
web of will.' Thomas Lodge, in 'Phillis' (Sonnet xi.) warns
lovers of the ruin that menaces all who ' guide their course by
will.' Nicholas Breton's fantastic romance of 1599, entitled
'The Will of Wit, Wit's Will or Will's Wit, Chuse you
Whether,' is especially rich in like illustrations. Breton brings
into marked prominence the antithesis which was familiar in
his day between ' will ' in its sensual meaning, and ' wit,' the
Elizabethan synonym for reason or cognition. 'A song between
Wit and Will ' opens thus :

Wii : What art thou, Will ? H7//; A babe of nature's brood.
Wii : WHio was thy sire ? Will : Sweet Lust, as lovers say.
Wit: Thy mother who ? Will : Wild lusty wanton blood.
Wit : When wast thou born ? Will : In merry month of May.
Wit: And where brought up? Will : In school of little skill.
Wit: What learn'dst thou there? Will: Love is my lesson still.

Of the use of the word in the sense of stubbornness or self-will
Roger Ascham gives a good instance in his ' Schoolmaster,'

41 8 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(1570), where he recommends that such a vice in children as
' will,' which he places in the category of lying, sloth, and
disobedience, should be • with sharp chastisement daily cut
away.' ^ ' A woman will have her will ' was, among Elizabethan
wags, an exceptionally popular proverbial phrase, the point of
which revolved about the equivocal meaning of the last word.
The phrase supplied the title of ' a pleasant comedy,' by Will-
iam Haughton, which — from 1597 onwards — held the stage
for the unusually prolonged period of forty years. ' Women,
because they cannot have their wills when they dye, they will
have their wills while they live,' was a current witticism which
the barrister Manningham deemed worthy of record in his ' Diary '
in i6o2.'-^

It was not only in the sonnets that Shakespeare — almost
invariably with a glance at its sensual significance — rang the
changes on this many-faced verbal token. In his earliest play,
'Love's Labour's Lost' (11. i. 97-101), after the princess has
tauntingly assured the King of Navarre that he will break his
vow to avoid women's society, the king replies, ' Not
speare's ^o^ the world, fair madam, hy my will ' (/.^. wilHngly).
puns on The princess retorts ' Why will {i.e. sensual desire)
^^""^ ■ shall break it {i.e. the vow), will and nothing else.'
In ' Much Ado,' when Benedick, anxious to marry Beatrice, is
asked by the lady's father ' What's your will ? ' he playfully
lingers on the word in his answer. As for his ' will,' his ' will '
is that the father's ' good-will may stand with his ' and Beatrice's
' will ' — in other words that the father may consent to their
union. Slender and Anne Page vary the tame sport when the
former misinterprets the young lady's 'What is your will?' into
an inquiry into the testamentary disposition of his property.
To what depth of vapidity Shakespeare and contemporary
punsters could sink is nowhere better illustrated than in the
favour they bestowed on efforts to extract amusement from the
parities and disparities of form and meaning subsisting between
the words ' will ' and ' wish,' the latter being in vernacular use

1 Ed. Mayor, p. 35.

2 Manningham's Diary, p. 92; cf. Barnabe Barnes's Odes Pastoral, sestine 2:

But women will have their own wills,
Alas, why then should I complain.'

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 419

as a diminutive of the former. Twice in the 'Two Gentlemen
of Verona' (i. iii. 63 and iv. ii. 96) Shakespeare ahnost strives
to invest with the tlavour of epigram the unpretending announce-
ment tliat one interlocutor's • wish ' is in harmony with another
interlocutor's 'will.'

It is in this vein of pleasantry — 'will' and 'wish' are
identically contrasted in Sonnet cxxxv. — that Shakespeare, to
the confusion of modern readers, makes play with the word
' will ' in tlie sonnets, and especially in the two sonnets
(cxxxv .-vi.) which alone speciously justify the delusion that the
lady is courted by two, or more than two, lovers of the name of
Will.

One of the chief arguments advanced in favour of this
interpretation is that the word 'will' in these sonnets is
frequently italicised in the original edition. But this has
little or no bearing on the argument. The corrector of the
Arbitrary press recognised that Sonnets cxxxv. and cxxxvi.
and irregu- largely turned upon a simple pun between the
italics by writer's name of ' Will ' and the lady's ' will.' That
Elizabethan fact, and no other, he indicated very roughly by
bean print- occasionally italicising the crucial word. Typography
ers. at the time followed no firmly fixed rules, and, although

' will ' figures in a more or less punning sense nineteen times in
these sonnets, the printer only bestow^ed on the word the
distinction of italics in ten instances, and those were selected
arbitrarily. The italics indicate the obvious equivoque, and
indicate it imperfectly. That is the utmost that can be laid to
their credit. They give no hint of the far more complicated
punning that is alleged by those who believe that ' Will ' is used
now as the name of the writer, and now as that of one or more
'of the rival suitors. In each of the two remaining sonnets that
have been forced into the service of the theory, Nos. cxxxiv. and
cxliii., ' will ' occurs once only ; it alone is italicised in the second
sonnet in the original edition, and there in my opinion arbitrarily
and without just cause. ^

' I'esides punning words, printers of poetry in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries made an effort to italicise proper names, unfamiliar words, and words deemed
worthy of s])ecial emphasis. But they did not strictly adhere to these rules, and,
while they often failed to italicise the words that deserved italicisation. they freely

420 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The general intention of the complex conceits of Sonnets
cxxxv. and cxxxvi. becomes obvious when we bear in mind
Ihe con- that in them Shakespeare exploits to the uttermost
ceits of Son- ^i.,g verbal coincidences which are inherent in the
vi. inter- ' Elizabethan word ' will.' ' Will ' is the Christian
preted. name of the enslaved writer ; ' will ' is the sentiment

with which the lady inspires her worshippers ; and ' will '
designates stubbornness as well as sensual desire. These two
characteristics, according to the poet's reiterated testimony, are
the distinguishing marks of the lady's disposition. He often
dwells elsewhere on her 'proud heart' or 'foul pride,' and her
sensuality or 'foul faults.' These are her 'wills,' and they
make up her being. In crediting the lady with such a
constitution Shakespeare was not recording any definite ob-
servation or experience of his own, but he followed, as was
his custom, the conventional descriptions of the disdainful
mistress common to all contemporary collections of sonnets.
Barnabe asks the lady celebrated in his sonnets, from whose
'proud disdainfulness' he suffered.

Why dost thou my delights delay,

And with thy cross unkindness kills (sic)

Mine heart, bound martyr to thy wills ?

Barnes answers his question in the next lines :

But women will have their own wills.
Since what she lists her heart fulfils.i

Similar passages abound in Elizabethan sonnets, but
certain verbal similarities give good ground for regarding
Shakespeare's ' will ' sonnets as deliberate adaptations — doubt-
less with satiric purpose — of Barnes's stereotyped reflections
on women's obduracy. The form and the constant repetition of
the word ' will ' in these two sonnets of Shakespeare also seem
to imitate derisively the same rival's Sonnets Ixxii. and Ixxiii.
in which Barnes puts the words ' grace ' and ' graces ' through

italicised others that did not merit it. Capital initial letters were employed with like
irregularity. Mr. Wyndham in his careful note on the typography of the quarto of
1609 (pp. 259 seq.) suggests that Elizabethan printers were not erratic in their
uses of italics or capital letters, but an examination of a very large number of
Elizabethan and Jacobean books has brought me to an exactly opposite conclusion.
1 Barnes's PartheitopJiilKn Arber's Garner, v. 440.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 421

much the same evokitions as Shakespeare puts the words 'will'
and • wills ' in the Sonnets cxxxv. and cxxxvi.^
Shakespeare's ' Sonnet ' cxxxv. runs :

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And will to boot, and will in over-plus ;
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,^
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious.
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all wafer, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will,
One will of mine, to make thy large will more.

Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill;

Think all but one, and me in that one — Will.

In the opening words, 'Whoever hath her wish,' the poet
prepares the reader for the punning encounter by a slight

variation on the current catch-phrase ' A woman will
cxxxv^ have her will.' At the next moment we are in the

thick of the wordy fray. The lady has not only her
lover named Will, but untold stores of ' will ' — in the sense alike
of stubbornness and of lust — to which it seems supererogatory
to make addition. ^ To the lady's 'over-plus' of 'will' is
punningly attributed her defiance of the ' will ' of her suitor
Will to enjoy her favours. At the same time * will ' in others

^ After quibbling in Sonnet Ixxii on the resemblance between the g'races of
his cruel mistress's face and the Graces of classical mythology, Barnes develops the
topic in the next sonnet after this manner (the italics are my own) :

Why did rich Nature graces grant to thee,

Since thou art such a niggard of thy grace!

O how Q.3Xi graces in thy body be?

Where neither they nor pity find a place! . . .

Grant me some grace! For thou with grace art weaUhy

And kindly may'st afford sovne gracious thing.

2 Cf. Lear, iv. vi. 279, ' O undistinguish'd space of woman's will ' ; i.e. ' O boimd-
less range of woman's lust.'

••Professor Dowden says 'will to boot' is a reference to the Christian name of
Shakespeare's friend, ' WiUiam [? Mr. W. H.] ' {Sc»ineis,p. 2-^6) : but in my view the
poet, in the second line of the sonnet, only seeks emphasis by repetition in accord-

422 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

proves to her ' right gracious," ^ although in him it is unaccept-
able. All this, the poet hazily argues, should be otherwise ; for
as the sea, although rich in water, does not refuse the falling
rain, but freely adds it to its abundant store, so she, ' rich in
will,' should accept her lover Will's ' will ' and ' make her large
will more.' The poet sums up his ambition in the final couplet :

Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill ;
Think all but one, and me in that one — Will.

This is as much as to say, ' Let not my mistress in her unkind-
ness kill any of her fair-spoken adorers. Rather let her think
all who beseech her favours incorporate in one alone of her
lovers — and that one the writer whose name of "Will" is a
synonym for the passions that dominate her.' The thought is
wiredrawn to inanity, but the words make it perfectly clear that
the poet was the only one of the lady's lovers — to the definite
exclusion of all others — whose name justified the quibbing
pretence of identity with the ' will ' which controls her being.

The same equivocating conceit of the poet Will's title to
identity with the lady's ' will ' in all senses is pursued in Sonnet
cxxxvi. The sonnet opens :

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy will, 2
And will thy soul knows is admitted there.

Here Shakespeare adapts to his punning purpose the familiar
Sonnet philosophic commonplace respecting the soul's domi-

cxxxvi. nation by 'will' or volition, which was more clearly

ance with no uncommon practice of his. The line ' And will to boot, and will in
over-plus,' is paralleled in its general form and intention in such lines of other
sonnets as

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind (cv. 5) .

Beyond all date, even to eternity (cxxii. 4).

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night (cxlvii. 14).

In all these instances the second half of the line merely repeats the first half with a
slight intensification.

' Cf. Barnes's Sonnet Ixxiii. :

All her looks grncioiis, yet no grace do bring
To me, poor wretch! Yet be the Graces there.

2 Shakespeare refers to the blindness, the ' sightless view ' of the soul, in Sonnet
xxvii., and apostrophises the soul as the ' centre of his sinful earth ' in Sonnet cxivi.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 423

expressed by his contemporary, Sir John Davies, in the philo-
sophic poem, "Nosce Teipsum':

Will holds the royal sceptre in the soul,
And on the passions of the heart doth reign.

Whether Shakespeare's lines be considered with their context
or without it, the tenor of their thought and language positively
refutes the commentators' notion that the ' will ' admitted to the
lady's soul is a rival lover named Will. The succeeding lines
run :

Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.l
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love ;
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.
' In things of great receipt with ease we prove
Among a number one is reckon'd none :
Then in the number let me pass untold.
Though in thy stores' account, I one must be;
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.

Here the poet Will continues to claim, in punning right of
his Christian name, a place, however small and inconspicuous,
among the ' wills,' the varied forms of will (/.<?. lust, stubborn-
ness, and willingness to accept others' attentions), which are the
constituent elements of the lady's being. The plural 'wills 'is
twice used in identical sense by Barnabe Barnes in the lines
already quoted :

Mine heart, bound martyr to thy -wills.
But women will have their own luills.

Impulsively Shakespeare brings his fantastic pretension to
a somewhat more practical issue in the concluding apostrophe :

Make but my name thy love, and love that still.
And then thou lovest me — for my name is Will.2

' The use of the word ' fulfil ' in this and the next line should be compared with
Barnes's introduction of the word in a like context in the passage given above :
Since what she lists her heart y>/^/j.

= Mr. Tyler paraphrases these lines thus: ' You love your other admirer named
" Will." Love the name alone, and then you love me, for my name is Will,' p. 297.
Professor Dowden, hardly more illuminating, says the lines mean: ' Love only my
name (something less than loving myself), and then thou lovest me, for my name is
Will, and I myself am all will, i.e. all desire.'

424 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

That is equivalent to saying ' Make " will ■' ' (/.<?. that which is
yourself) 'your love, and then you love me, because Will is my
name.' The couplet proves even more convincingly than the
one which clinches the preceding sonnet that none of the rivals
whom the poet sought to displace in the lady's affections could
by any chance have been, like himself, called Will. The writer
could not appeal to a mistress to concentrate her love on his
name of Will, because it was the emphatic sign of identity
between her being and him, if that name were common to him
and one or more rivals, and lacked e.xclusive reference to him-
self.

Loosely as Shakespeare's sonnets were constructed, the
couplet at the conclusion of each poem invariably summarises
the general intention of the preceding twelve lines. The con-
cluding couplets of these two sonnets cxxxv.-vi., in which
Shakespeare has been alleged to acknowledge a rival of his
own name in his suit for a lady's favour, are consequently the
touchstone by which the theory of ' more Wills than one ' must
be tested. As we have just seen, the situation is summarily
embodied in the first couplet thus :

Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill ;
Think all but one, and me in that one — Will.

It is re-embodied in the second couplet thus :

Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lovest me — for my name is Will.

The whole significance of both couplets resides in the
twice-repeated fact that one, and only one, of the lady's lovers
is named Will, and that that one is the writer. To assume that
the poet had a rival of his own name is to denude both couplets
of all point. 'Will,' we have learned from the earlier lines of
both sonnets, is the lady's ruling passion. Punning mock-logic
brings the poet in either sonnet to the ultimate conclusion that
one of her lovers may, above all others, reasonably claim her
love on the ground that his name of Will is the name of her
ruling passion. Thus his pretension to her affections rest, he
punningly assures her, on a strictly logical basis.

THE 'WILL' SONNETS 425

Unreasonable as any other interpretation of these sonnets

(cxxxv.-vi.) seems to be, I believe it far more

Sonnet fatuous to seek in the single and isolated use of the

word 'will' in each of the sonnets cxxxiv. and

cxliii. any confirmation of the theory of a rival suitor named

Will.

Sonnet cxxxiv. runs :

So now I have confess'd that he is thine,
And I myself am mortgaged to thy will.l
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still.
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous and he is kind.
He learn'd but surety-like to write for me.
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take.
Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use.
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.

Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me;

He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

Here the poet describes himself as ' mortgaged to the lady's
will ' {i.e. to her personality, in which ' will,' in the double sense
of stubbornness and sensual passion, is the strongest element).
He deplores that the lady has captivated not merely himself,
but also his friend, wlio made vicarious advances to her.

Sonnet cxliii. runs :

Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch
One of her feathered creatures broke away.
Sets down her babe, and makes all swift despatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay ;
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent
To follow that which flies before her face,
Not prizing her poor infant's discontent:

1 The word ' Will ' is not here italicised in the original edition of Shakespeare's
sonnets, and there is no ground whatever for detecting in it any sort of pun. The
line resembles Barnes's line quoted above:

Mine heart bound martyr to thy wills.

426 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,

Whilst I, thy babe, chase thee afar behind;

But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me.

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind:
So will I pray that thou niayst have thy will.l
If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

In this sonnet — which presents a very clear-cut picture,

although its moral is somewhat equivocal — the poet represents

,, r the lady as a country housewife and himself as her

Meanmg of -'

Sonnet " babe ; while an acquaintance, who attracts the
cxliii. la^fiy j-jyt is not attracted by her, is figured as a

'feathered creature ' in the housewife's poultry-yard. The fowl
takes to flight ; the housewife sets down her infant and pursues
' the thing.' The poet, believing apparently that he has little
to fear from the harmless creature, lightly makes play with the
current catch-phrase ('a woman will have her will'), and
amiably wishes his mistress success in her chase, on condition
that, having recaptured the truant bird, she turn back and treat
him, her babe, with kindness. In praying that the lady 'may
have her will' the poet is clearly appropriating the current catch-
phrase, and no pun on a man's name of ' Will ' can be fairly
wrested from the context.

' Because ' will ' by what is almost certainly a typographical accident is here
printed IVili in the first edition of the sonnets, Professor Dowden is inclined to accept
a reference to the supposititious friend Will, and to believe the poet to pray that the
lady may have her Will, i.e. the friend ' Will [ ? W. H.].' This interpretation seems
to introduce a needless complication.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 427

THE VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN
SONNET, 1591-1597

The sonnetteering vogue, as I have already pointed out,^
reached its full height between 1591 and 1597, and when at its
briskest in 1594 it drew Shakespeare into its current. An
enumeration of volumes containing sonnet-sequences or de-
tached sonnets that were in circulation during the period best
illustrates the overwhelming force of the sonnetteering rage of
those years, and, with that end in view, I give here a biblio-
graphical account, with a few critical notes of the chief efforts
of Shakespeare's rival sonnetteers.^

The earliest collections of sonnets to be published in
England were those by the Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas
Wvatt's Wyatt, which first appeared in the publisher TottePs
and Sur- poetical miscellany called ' Songes and Sonnetes ' in
reysSon- 1557. This volume included sixteen sonnets by Sur-
lished in rey and twenty by Wyatt. Many of them w^re trans-
^557- lated directly from Petrarch, and most of them treated

conventionally of the torments of an unrequited love. Surrey
included, however, three sonnets on the death of his friend

1 See p 83, supra.

^ The word ' sonnet ' was often irregularly used for ' song ' or ' poem.' ' A proper
sonnet ' in Clement Robinson's poetical anthology, A Haiidefiill of Pleasattt Delites,
1584, is a lyric in ten four-line alternatively rhymed stanzas. Neither Barnabe
Googe's Eglogs, Epyttaphes, and Sonnettes, 1563, nor George Turbervile's Epi-
taphes. Epigrams, Songs and Sonets, 1567, contains a single fourteen-lined poem.
The French .vord 'quatorzain' was the term almost as frequently applied as ■ sonnet*
to the fourteen-line stanza in regular sonnet form, which alone falls within my sur-
vey. Watson is congratulated on ' scaling the skies in lofty quatorzains ' in verses
before his Passionate Centurie, 1582; cf. ' crazed quatorzains ' in Thoniah X.ish's
preface to his edition of Sidney's Astrophcl and Stella, 1591 ; and A tnours in Qua-
torzains on the title-page of the first edition of Drayton's Sonnets, 1594.

428 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Wvatt, and a fourth on tlie death of one Clere, a faithful
follower. TotteFs volume was seven times reprinted by 1587.
But no sustained endeavour was made to emulate the example
of Surrey and Wyatt till Thomas Watson about 1580 circulated
in manuscript his ' Booke of Passionate Sonnetes,' which he
wrote for his patron, the Earl of Oxford. The volume was
printed in 1582, and under the title of ''EKATOMIIAOIA
Watson's or Passionate Centurie of Loue. Divided into two
' Centurie parts: whereof the first expresseth the Authours
1582. ' sufferance on Loue : the latter his long farewell to
Loue and all his tyrannie. Composed by Thomas Watson, and
published at the request of certaine Gentlemen his very frendes.'
Watson's work, which he called 'a toy,' is a curious literary
mosaic. He supplied to each poem a prose commentary, in
which he not only admitted that every conceit was borrowed,
but quoted chapter and verse for its origin from classical
literature or from the work of French or Italian sonnetteers.^
Two regular quatorzains are prefixed, but to each of the
* passions ' there is appended a four-line stanza which gives
each poem eighteen instead of the regular fourteen lines
Watson's efforts were so well received, however, that he applie("
himself to the composition of a second series of sonnets in strict
metre. This collection, entitled ' The Teares of Fancie,' only
circulated in manuscript in his lifetime."^

Meanwhile a greater poet. Sir Philip Sidney, who died in
1586, had written and circulated among his friends a more
ambitious collection of a hundred and eight sonnets.
' Astrophel Most of Sidney's sonnets were addressed by him under
and Stella,' the name of Astrophel to a beautiful woman poetically
^^^^' designated Stella. Sidney had in real life courted

assiduously the favour of a married lady, Penelope. Lady Rich,
and a few of the sonnets are commonly held to reflect the heat
of passion which the genuine intrigue developed. But Petrarch,
Ronsard, and Desportes inspired the majority of Sidney's
efforts, and his addresses to abstractions like sleep, the moon, his
muse, grief, or lust are almost verbatim translations from the
French. Sidney's sonnets were first published surreptitiously,

' See p. 103, supra.

2 All Watson's sonnets are reprinted by Mr. .Arber in Watson's Poems, 1895.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 429

under the title of ' Astrophel and Stella,'' by a publishing advent-
urer named Thomas Newman, and in his first issue Newman
added an appendix of ' sundry other rare sonnets by divers
noblemen and gentlemen.' Twenty-eight sonnets by Daniel
were printed in the appendix anonymously and without the
author's knowledge. Two other editions of Sidney's 'Astrophel
and Stella ' without the appendix were issued in the same year.
Eight other of Sidney's sonnets, which stili circulated only in
manuscript, were first printed anonymously in 1594 with the
sonnets of Henry Constable, and these were appended with
some additions to the authentic edition of Sidney's ' Arcadia'
and other works that appeared in 1598. Sidney enjoyed in the
decade that followed his death the reputation of a demi-god,
and the wide dissemination in print of his numerous sonnets in
1 591 spurred nearly every living poet in England to emulate
his achievement.^

In order to facilitate a comparison of Shakespeare's sonnets
with those of his contemporaries it will be best to classify the
sonnetteering efforts that immediately succeeded Sidney's under
the three headings of (i) sonnets of more or less feigned love,
addressed to a more or less fictitious mistress ; (2) sonnets of
adulation, addressed to patrons ; and (3) sonnets invoking meta-
physical abstractions or treating impersonally of religion or
philosophy.^

In February 1592 Samuel Daniel published a collection of
fifty-five sonnets, with a dedicatory sonnet addressed to his
I. Collected patroness, Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pem-
sonnets of broke. As in many French volumes, the collection
jglj'g concluded with an 'ode.'^ At every point Daniel

1 In a preface to Newman's first edition oi Astrophel and Stella the editor, Thomas
Nash, in a burst of exultation over what he deemed the surpassing merits of Sidney's
sonnets, exclaimed: ' Put out your rushlights, you poets and rhymers! and bequeath
your crazed quatorzains to the chandlers! for lo, here he cometh that hath broken
your legs.' But the effect of Sidney's work was just the opposite to that which
Nash anticipated. It gave the sonnet in England a vogue that it never enjoyed
before or since.

2 With collections of sonnets of the first kind are occasionally interspersed
sonnets of the second or third class, but I classify each sonnet-collection according
to its predominant characteristic.

3 Daniel reprinted all but nine of the sonnets that had been unwarrantably
appended to Sidney's Astrophel. These nine he permanently dropped.

430 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

betrayed his indebtedness to French sonnetteers, even when
apologising for his inferiority to Petrarch (No. xxxviii.) . His title
Daniel's '^^ borrowed from the collection of Maurice Seve, whose
' Delia," assemblage of dixains called * Delie, objet de plus haute
1592. vertu' (Lyon, 1544), was the pattern of all sonnet-

sequences on love, and was a constant theme of commendation
among the later French sonnetteers. But it is to Desportes
that Daniel owes most, and his methods of handling his mate-
rial may be judged by a comparison of his Sonnet xxvi. with
Sonnet Ixiii. in Desportes's collection, 'Cleonice: Dernieres
Amours,' which was issued at Paris in 1575.
Desportes's sonnet runs :

Je verray par les ans vengeurs de mon martyre
Que I'or de vos cheveux argente deviendra,
Que de vos deux soleils la splendeur s'esteindra,

Et qu'il faudra qu'Amour tout confus s'en retire.

La beaute qui si douce 4 present vous inspire,
Cedant aux lois du Temps ses faveurs reprendra,
L'hiver, de vostre teint les fleurettes perdra,

Et ne laissera rien des thresors que i'admire.

Cest orgueil desdaigneux qui vous fait ne m'aimer,

En regret et chagrin se verra transformer,

Avec le changement d'une image si belle:
Et peut estre qu'alors vous n'aurez desplaisir
De revivre en mes vers chauds d'amoureux desir,

Ainsi que le Phenix au feu se renouvelle.

This is Daniel's version, which he sent forth as an original
production :

I once may see, when years may wreck my wrong,

And golden hairs may change to silver wire ;

And those bright rays (that kindle all this fire)
Shall fail in force, their power not so strong.
Her beauty, now the burden of my song.

Whose glorious blaze the world's eye doth admire;

Must yield her praise to tyrant Time's desire;
Then fades the flower, which fed her pride so long.
When if she grieve to gaze her in her glass,

Which then presents her winter-withered hue:
Go you my verse ! go tell her what she was !

For what she was, she best may find in you.
Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,

But Phcenix-like to make her live anew.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 43 1

In DaniePs beautiful sonnet (xlix.) beginning,

Care-charmer sleep, son of the sable night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,

he has borrowed much from De Baif and Pierre de Brach, sonnet-
teers with whom it was a convention to invocate ' O Sommeil
chasse-soin.' But again he chiefly relies on Desportes, whose
words he adapts with very slight variations. Sonnet Ixxiii. of
Desportes's ' Amours d'Hippolyte ' opens thus :

Sommeil, paisible fils de la Xuict solitaire . . .

frSre de la Mort que tu m'es ennemi !

Daniel's sonnets were enthusiastically received. With some
additions they were republished in 1594 with his narrative poem,
Fame of 'The Complaint of Rosamund." The volume was
Daniel's called ' Delia and Rosamund Augmented.' Spenser,
sonnets. j^ }-,jg ^ Colin Clout's come Home again,' lauded the
' well-tuned song ' of Daniel's sonnets, and Shakespeare has some
claim to be classed among Daniel's many sonnetteering disciples.
The anonymous author of ' Zepheria ' (1594) declared that the
' sweet tuned accents ' of ' Delian sonnetry ' rang throughout
England; while Bartholomew GriflSn, in his 'Fidessa' (1596),
openly plagiarised Daniel, invoking in his Sonnet xv. ' Care-
charmer sleep, brother of quiet death.'

In September of the same year (1592) that saw the first
complete version of Daniel's * Delia,' Henry Constable published
Constable's ' ^^^^^ '• ^'""^ Praises of his Alistres in certaine sweete
' Diana," Sonnets.' Like the title, the general tone was drawn
^592. from Desportes's ' Amours de Diane.' Twenty-one

poems were included, all in the French vein. The collection
was reissued, with very numerous additions, in 1594 under the
title 'Diana; or, The excellent conceitful Sonnets of H. C.
Augmented with divers Quatorzains of honourable and learned
personages.' This volume is a typical venture of the book-
sellers.^ The printer, James Roberts, and the publisher, Richard
Smith, supplied dedications respectively to the reader and to
Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting. They had swept together

1 It is reprinted in Arbcr's Garner, ii. 225-64

432 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

sonnets in manuscript from all quarters, and presented their cus-
tomers with a disordered miscellany of what they called ' orphan
poems.' Besides the twenty sonnets by Constable, eight were
claimed for Sir Philip Sidney, and the remaining forty-seven
are by various hands which have not as yet been identified.

In 1593 the legion of sonnetteers received notable reinforce-
ments. In May came out Barnabe Barnes's interesting volume,
Barnes's ' P''vrthenophil and Parthenope : Sonnets, Madrigals,
sonnets, Elegies, and Odes. To the right noble and virtuous
1593- gentleman, M. William Percy, Esq., his dearest

friend.' ^ The contents of the volume and their arrangement
closely resemble the sonnet-collections of Petrarch or the
'Amours' of Ronsard. There are a hundred and five sonnets
altogether, interspersed with twenty-six madrigals, five sestines,
twenty-one elegies, three ' canzons,' and twenty ' odes,' one in
sonnet form. There is, moreover, included what purports to be
a translation of * Moschus' first eidillion describing love,' but
what is clearly a rendering of a French poem by Amadis
Jamin, entitled 'Amour Fuitif, du grec de Moschus,' in his
' Oiuvres Poetiques,' Paris, 1579.- At the end of Barnes's
volume there also figure si.x dedicatory sonnets. In Sonnet xcv.
Barnes pays a compliment to Sir Philip Sidney, ' the Arcadian
shepherd, Astrophel,' but he did not draw so largely on Sidney's
work as on that of Ronsard, Desportes, De Baif, and Du Bellay.
Legal metaphors abound in Barnes's poems, but amid many
crudities he reaches a high level of beauty in Sonnet Lxvi., which
runs :

Ah, sweet Content! where is thy mild abode ?
Is it with shepherds, and light-hearted swains,
Which sing upon tlie downs, and pipe abroad,
Tending their floclcs and cattle on the plains ?

Ah, sweet Content ! where dost thou safely rest ?
In Heaven, with Angels ? which the praises sing
Of Him that made, and rules at His behest,
The minds and hearts of every living thing.

^ Arber's Gamer, v. 333-486.

2 Ben Jonson developed the same conceit in his masque, T/ie Hue and Cry after
Cupid, 1608.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SOXXET 433

Ah, sweet Content! where doth thine harbour hold?
Is it in churches, with religious men.
Which please the gods with prayers manifold ;
And in their studies meditate it then?

Whether thou dost in Heaven or earth appear ;

Be where thou wilt ! Thou wilt not harbour here ! l

In August 1593 there appeared a posthumous collection of
sixty-one sonnets by Thomas Watson, entitled 'The Tears
, of Fancie, or Love Disdained.' They are throughout
' Tears of "^f the imitative type of his previously published ' Cen-
Fancie,' turie of Love.' Many of them sound the same note
^^93' as Shakespeare's sonnets to the 'dark lady.'

In September 1593 followed Giles Fletcher's ' Licia, or
Poems of Love in honour of the admirable and singular virtues
Fletcher's ^^ ^^^ Lady.' This collection of fifty-three sonnets
' Licia,' is dedicated to the wife of Sir Richard Mollineux.

1593- Fletcher makes no concealment that his sonnets are

literary exercises. ' For this kind of poetry.' he tells the reader,
' I did it to try my humour ; ' and on the title-page he notes that
the work was written ' to the imitation of the best Latin poets
and others.' -

The most notable contribution to the sonnet-literature
of 1593 was Thomas Lodge's 'Phillis Honoured with Pastoral
J , . Sonnets, Elegies, and Amorous Delights.' ^ Besides

' Phillis,' forty sonnets, some of which exceed fourteen lines
1593- in length and others are shorter, there are included

three elegies and an ode. Desportes is Lodge's chief master,
but he had recourse to Ronsard and other French contempo-
raries. How servile he could be may be learnt from a com-
parison of his Sonnet xxxvi. with Desportes's sonnet from • Les
Amours de Diane,' livre 11. sonnet iii.

Thomas Lodge's Sonnet xxxvi. nms thus:

If so I seek the shades, I presently do see
The god of love forsakes his bow and sit me by;
If that I think to write, his Muses pliant be
If so I plain my grief, the wanton boy will cry.

1 Dekker's well-known song, ' Oh, sweet content,' in his play of ' Patient
Grisselde' (1599), echoes this sonnet of Barnes. ^ Arber's Garner, viii 413-52

2 There is a convenient reprint of Lodge's Phillis in Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles
b Martha Foote Crow, 1896.

434 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If I lament his pride, he doth increase my pain;
If tears my cfieeks attaint, his cheeks are moist with moaji'
If I disclose the wounds the which my heart hath slain,
He takes his fascia off, and wipes them dry anon.

If so I walk the woods, the woods are his delight,
If I myself torment, he bathes him in my blood ;
He will my soldier be If once I wend to fight.
If seas delight, he steers my bark amidst the hood.

In brief, the cruel god doth never from me go,

But makes my lasting love eternal with my woe.

Desportes wrote in 'Les Amours de Diane,' book ll. son-
net iii. :

Si ie me sies & I'ombre, aussi soudainement
Amour, laissant son arc, s'assiet et se repose:
Si ie pense d. des vers, ie le voy qu'il compose :
Si ie plains mes douleurs, il se plaint hautement.

Si ie me plais au mal, il accroist mon tourment :
Si ie respan des pleurs, son visage il arrose :
Si ie monstre la playe en ma poitrine enclose,
II defait son bandeau I'essuyant doucement.

Si ie vay par les bois, aux bois il m'accompagne:
Si ie me suis cruel, dans mon sang il se bagne:
Si ie vais d. la guerre, il deuient mon soldart:

Si ie passe la mer, il conduit ma vacelle :
Bref, iamais I'inhumain de moy ne se depart,
Pour rendre mon amour et ma peine eternelle.

Three new volumes in 1594, together with the reissue of
Daniel's 'Delia' and of Constable's 'Diana' (in a piratical mis-
cellany of sonnets from many pens), prove the steady growth
of the sonnetteering vogue. Michael Drayton in June pro-
duced his ' Ideas Mirrour, Amours in Quatorzains,' containing
Drayton's fifty-one ' Amours ' and a sonnet addressed to ' his
'Idea,' 1594. ever kind Mecaenas, Anthony Cooke.' Drayton
acknowledged his devotion to 'divine Sir Philip,' but by his
choice of title, style, and phraseology the English sonnetteer
once more betrayed his indebtedness to Desportes and his
compeers. ' L'Idee ' was the name of a collection of sonnets
by Claude de Pontoux in 1579. Many additions were made
by Drayton to the sonnets that he published in 1594, and
many were subtracted before 1619, when there appeared
the last edition that was prepared in Drayton's lifetime. A
comparison of the various editions (1594, 1599, 1605, and 1619)

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 435

shows that Drayton published a hundred sonnets, bat the major-
ity were apparently circulated by him in early life.^

William Percy, the 'dearest friend' of Barnabe Barnes, pub-
lished in 1594, in emulation of Barnes, a collection of twenty
p ,, ' Sonnets to the fairest Coelia.' - He explains, in an

'Coelia,' address to the reader, that out of courtesy he had
1594- lent the sonnets to friends, who had secretly com-

mitted them to the press. Making a virtue of necessity, he had
accepted the situation, but begged the reader to treat them as
'toys and amorous devices.'

A collection of forty sonnets or 'canzons,' as the anonymous
author calls them, also appeared in 1594 with the title 'Zeph-
'Zepheria,' eria.' ^ In some prefatory verses addressed 'AUi

1594- veri figlioli delle Muse,' laudatory reference was made
to the sonnets of Petrarch, Daniel, and Sidney. Several of the
sonnets labour at conceits drawn from the technicalities of the
law, and Sir John Davies parodied these efforts in the eighth
of his 'gulling sonnets' beginning, 'My case is this, I love Zeph-
eria briglit.'

Four interesting ventures belong to 1595. In Januarv
appended to Richard Barnfield's poem of ' Cynthia" a pane-
gyric on Queen Elizabeth, was a series of twenty sonnets
extolling the personal charms of a young man, in emulation of
Virgil's Eclogue ii., in which the shepherd Coridon addressed
Barnfield's the shepherd-boy Alexis.^ In Sonnet xx. the author
Ganymede ^^pressed regret that the task of celebrating his

1595- young friend's praises had not fallen to the more
capable hand of Spenser ('great Colin, chief of shepherds all')
or Drayton ('gentle Rowland, my professed friend'). Barnfield
at times imitated Shakespeare.

Almost at the same date as Barnfield's ' Cynthia ' made its
appearance, there was published the more notable collection by
Soenser's Edmund Spenser of eighty-eight sonnets, which in
•Amoretti,' reference to their Italian origin he entitled ' Amo-
1595- retti.' 5 Spenser had already translated many son-

* See p. no, note. 2 Arber's Garner, vi. 135-49.
3 lb. V. 61-86.

* Reprinted in Arber's English Scholars' Library, 1882.

* It was licensed for the press on November 19, 1594.

436 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

nets on pliilosophic topics of Petrarch and Joachim Du Bellay.
Some of the ' Amoretti' were doubtless addressed by Spenser in
1593 to the lady who became his wife a year later. But the
sentiment was largely ideal, and, as he says in Sonnet Ixxxvii.,
he wrote, like Drayton, with his eyes fixed on ' Idaea.'

An unidentified 'E. C, Esq.,' produced also in 1595, under
the title of ' Emaricdulfe,' ^ a collection of forty sonnets, echoing
' Emaiic- English and French models. In the dedication to his
dulfe,' 1595. i two very good friends, John Zouch and Edward
Fitton Esquiers,' the author tells them that an ague confined
him to his chamber, 'and to abandon idleness he completed an
idle work that he had already begun at the command and service
of a fair dame.'

To 1595 may best be referred the series of nine ' Gullinge
sonnets,' or parodies, which Sir John Davies wrote and circu-
Sir John lated in manuscript, in order to put to shame what
Davies's hg regarded as 'the bastard sonnets' in vogue. He
Sonnets' addressed his collection to Sir Anthony Cooke,
I59S- whom Drayton had already celebrated as the

Mecaenas of his sonnetteering efforts.^ Davies seems to have
aimed at Shakespeare as well as at insignificant rhymers like
the author of 'Zepheria.'^ No. viii. of Davies's 'gullinge
sonnets,' which ridicules the legal metaphors of the sonnet-
teers, may be easily matched in the collections of Barnabe
Barnes or of the author of 'Zepheria,' but Davies's phraseology
suggests that he also was glancing at Shakespeare's legal son-
nets Ixxxvii. and cxxxiv. Davies's sonnet runs :

My case is this, I love Zeplieria bright,
Of her I hold my heart by fealty :
Which I discharge to her perpetually.
Yet she thereof will never me acquit[e].
For, now supposing I withhold her right,
She hath distrained my heart to satisfy
The duty which I never did deny,
And far away impounds it with despite.

1 Reprinted for the Roxburghe Club in A Lamfort Garland, 1881, edited by
Mr. Charles Edmonds.

2 Sir John Davies's Complete Poems, edited by Dr. Grosart, ii. 51-62.
' See p. 128, note.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAX SONNET 437

I labour therefore justly to repleave [i.e. recover]

My heart which she unjustly doth impound.

But quick conceit which now is Love's high shrieve

Returns it as esloyned [Lf. absconded], not to be found.

Then what the law affords I only crave,

Her heart for mine, in wit her name to have {sic).

'R. L., gentleman,' probably Richard Linche, published in
1596 thirty-nine sonnets under the title ' Diella.'^ The effort is
Linche's thoroughly conventional. In an obsequious address
'Dieila,' by the publisher, Henry Olney, to Anne, wife of Sir
1596. Henry Glenham, Linche's sonnets are described as

' passionate.' and as ' conceived in the brain of a gallant
gentleman.'

To the same year belongs Bartholomew Griffin's ' Fidessa,'
sixty-two sonnets inscribed to 'William Essex, Esq.' Griffin
Griffin's designates his sonnets as ' the first fruits of a young
' Fidessa," beginner.' He is a shameless plagiarist. Daniel is
1596. his chief model, but he also imitated Sidney, Watson,

Constable, and Drayton. Sonnet iii., beginning ' Venus and
young Adonis sitting by her,' is almost identical with the fourth
poem — a sonnet beginning 'Sweet Cytheraea, sitting by a brook'
— in Jaggard's piratical miscellany, 'The Passionate Pilgrim,'
which bore Shakespeare's name on the title-page."-^ Jaggard doubt-
less stole the poem from Griffin, although it may be in its essen-
.y, tials the property of some other poet. Three beautiful

Campion, love-sonnets by Thomas Campion, which are found
1596. in the Harleian MS. 6910. are there dated 1596. ^

William Smith was the author of ' Chloris,' a third collection
of sonnets appearing in 1596.* The volume contains forty-eight
William sonnets of love of the ordinary type, with three
' clil \1s ' adulating Spenser ; of these, two open the volume
1596. and one concludes it. Smith says that his sonnets

were 'the budding springs of his study.' In 1600 a license
was issued by the Stationers' Company for the issue of ' Amours '

1 Arber's Garner, vii. 185-208.

' /i. V. 587-622.

' Cf. Brj'dges's Excerpta Tudoriana, 1814, i. 35-7. One was printed with some
alterations in Rosseter's Book 0/ Ay res (1610), and another in the Third Book 0/
Ayres (1617?); see Campion's Works, ed. A. H Bullen, pp 15-16, 102.

■• Arber's Garner, viii. 171-99.

438 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

by W. S. This no doubt refers to a second collection of sonnets
by William Smith. The projected volume is not extant.^

In 1597 there came out a similar volume by Robert Tofte,
entitled ' Laura, the Joys of a Traveller, or the Feast of Fancy.'
The book is divided into three parts, each consisting of forty
' sonnets ' in irregular metres. There is a prose dedication to
Lucy, sister of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland. Tofte
tells his patroness that most of his 'toys' 'were
Tofte's conceived in Italy.' As its name implies, his work

' Laura,' is a pale reflection of Petrarch. A postscript by a
^^^' friend — 'R. B.' — complains that a publisher had

intermingled with Tofte's genuine efforts ' more than thirty son-
nets not his.' But the style is throughout so uniformly tame that
it is not possible to distinguish the work of a second hand.

To the same era belongs Sir William Alexander's ' Aurora,'
a collection of a hundred and six sonnets, with a few songs
SiiWilliam ^^^ elegies interspersed on French patterns. Sir
Alexander's William describes the work as ' the first fancies of
' Aurora. ]-,jg youth,' and formally inscribes it to Agnes, Coun-
tess of Argyle. It was not published till 1604. ^

Sir Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, the intimate
friend of Sir Philip Sidney, was author of a like collection of
Sir Fulke sonnets called ' Caelica.' The poems number a
Greville's hundred and nine, but few are in strict sonnet metre.
'Caslica.' Only a small proportion profess to be addressed to
the poet's fictitious mistress, Caelica. Many celebrate the

1 See p. 390 and note.

2 Practically to the same category as these collections of sonnets belong the
voluminous laments of lovers, in six, eight, or ten lined stanzas, which, though not
in strict sonnet form, closely resemble in temper the sonnet-sequences. Such are
lVi7loi>!c''s Azu'sa,i^g4; A'lcilia: PJiiloparthen's Loving Folly, hy']. C, 1595; Arbor
of Amorous Dettices, 1597 (containing two regular sonnets) by Nicholas Breton;
Alba, the Mouths Minde of a Melancholy Lover, by Robert Tofte, 1598; Dai-
phantus, or the Passions of Love, by Anthony Scoloker, 1604; Breton's The Pas-
sionate Shepheard, or The Shepheardcs Loue: set downe in passions to his Shep-
heardesse Aglaia: -with many excellent conceited poems and pleasant sonnets fit
for young heads to passe aivay idle houres, 1604 (none of the ' Sonets ' are in sonnet
metre; and John Reynolds's Dolarnys Priinerose . . . ivherein is expressed the
liuely passions of Zeale and Loue, 1606. Though George Wither's similar pro-
ductions — his exquisitely fanciful Fidelia (1617) and his Faire-Virtiie, the Mistresse
of Phil' Arete (1622) — were published at a later period, they were probably designed
in the opening years of the seventeenth century.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 439

charms of another beauty named Myra, and others invoke
Queen Elizabeth under her poetic name of Cynthia (cf. Sonnet
xvii.). There are also many addresses to Cupid and medita-
tions on more or less metaphysical themes, but the tone is never
very serious. Greville doubtless wrote the majority of his
' Sonnets ' during the period under survey, though they were not
published until their author's works appeared in folio for the first
time in 1633. five years after his death.

With Tofte's volume in 1597 the publication of collections
of love-sonnets practically ceased. Only two collections on

„ .. . r a voluminous scale seem to have been written in the
Estimate of

number of early years of the seventeenth century. About 1607

love-son- William Drummond of Hawthornden penned a series
nets issued . ... , • 1 , . ,

between ot Sixty-eight interspersed with songs, madrigals,

1591 and and sextains, nearly all of wliich were translated or
adapted from modern Italian sonnetteers.^ About
1610 John Davies of Hereford published his ' W^ittes Pilgrim-
age . . . through a world of Amorous Sonnets.' Of more than
two hundred separate poems in this volume, only the hundred
and four sonnets in the opening section make any claim to
answer the description on the title-page, and the majority of
those are metaphysical meditations on love which are not
addressed to any definite person. Some years later William
Browne penned a sequence of fourteen love-sonnets entitled
'Caelia' and a few detached sonnets of the same type.- The
date of the production of Drummond's. Davies's, and Browne's
sonnets excludes them from the present field of view. Omitting
them, we find that between 1591 and 1597 there had been
printed nearly twelve hundred sonnets of the amorous kind.
If to these we add Shakespeare's poems, and make allow-
ance for others which, only circulating in manuscript, have
not reached us, it is seen that more than two hundred love-
sonnets were produced in each of the six years under survey.
France and Italy directed their literary energies in like direc-
tion during nearly the whole of the century, but at no other

iThey were first printed in 1656, seven years after the author's death, in Poems
ty that famous ivit, IViUiam Drummond, London, fol. The volume was edited by
Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew. The best modern edition is that edited by Mr.
W. C. Ward in the ' Muses' Library ' (1S94).

-Cf W'illiam Browne's Poems in ' Muses' Library' (1894), ii. 217 seq.

440 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

period and in no otlier country did the love-sonnet dominate
literature to greater extent than in England between 1591 and

1597-

Of sonnets to patrons between 1591 and 1597, of which
detached specimens may be found in nearly every published
book of the period, the chief collections were :

A long series of sonnets prefixed to ' Poetical Exercises of a
Vacant Hour' by King James VI of Scotland, 1591 ; twenty-

TT c . three sonnets in Gabriel Harvey's ' Four Letters and

II. Sonnets -'

to patrons, certain Sonnets touching Robert Greene' (1592),
I59I-7' including Edmund Spenser's fine sonnet of com-

pliment addressed to Harvey ; a series of sonnets to noble
patronesses by Constable circulated in manuscript about 1592
(first printed in ' Harleian Miscellany,' 1813, ix. 491); six
adulatory sonnets appended by Barnabe Barnes to his ' Par-
thenophil' in May 1593; four sonnets to 'Sir Philip Sidney's
soul,' prefixed to the first edition of Sidney's ' Apologie for
Poetrie ' (1595); seventeen sonnets which were originally pre-
fixed to the first edition of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene,' bk. i.-iii.,
in 1 590, and were reprinted in the edition of 1 596 ; ^ sixty
sonnets to peers, peeresses, and officers of state, appended to
Henry Locke's (or Lok's) ' Ecclesiasticus ' (1597) ; forty sonnets
by Joshua Sylvester addressed to Henry IV of France ' upon
the late miraculous peace in Fraunce ' (1599) ; Sir John Davies's
series of twenty-six octosyllabic sonnets, which he entitled
' Hymnes of Astrasa,' all extravagantly eulogising Queen Eliza-
beth (1599).

The collected sonnets on religion and philosopliy that ap-
peared in the period 1 591-7 include sixteen ' Spirituall Sonnettes

III. Son- to the honour of God and Hys Saynts,' written by
nets on Constable about 1593, and circulated only in manu-
and^reH^ ^^ script ; these were first printed from a manuscript in
gion. the Harleian collection (5993) by Thomas Parke
in ' Helicona,' 1815, "^'ol. ii. In 1595 Barnabe Barnes published

1 Chapman imitated Spenser by appending fourteen like sonnets to his transla-
tion of Homer in 1610; they were increased in later issues to twenty-two. Very
numerous sonnets to patrons were appended by John Davies of Hereford to his
Microcosjtios (1603) and to his Scoitr-gc of Folly (1611). ' Divers sonnets, epistles,
&c.' addressed to patrons by Joshua Sylvester between 1590 and his death in 1618
were collected in the 1641 edition of his Du Bartas his divine weekes and workes.

VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET 44 1

a ' Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets/ and, in dedicating the
collection to Toby Matthew, bishop of Durham, mentions that
they were written a year before, while travelling in France.
They are closely modelled on the two series of ' Sonnets
Spirituels' which the Abbe Jacques de Billy published in Paris in
1573 and 1578 respectively. A long series of ' Sonnets Spirituels'
written by Anne de Marquets, a sister of the Dominican Order,
who died at Poissy in 1598, was first published in Paris in 1605.
In 1594 George Chapman published ten sonnets in praise of
philosophy, which he entitled 'A Coronet for his Mistress Philos-
ophy.' In the opening poem he states that his aim was to dis-
suade poets from singing in sonnets ' Love's Sensual Empery.'
In 1597 Henry Locke (or Lok) appended to his verse-rendering
of Ecclesiastes ^ a collection of • Sundrie Sonets of Christian
Passions, with other Affectionate Sonets of a Feeling Conscience.'
Lok had in 1593 obtained a license to publish "a hundred Son-
nets on Meditation, Humiliation, and Prayer,' but that work is
not extant. In the volume of 1597 his sonnets on religious or
philosophical themes number no fewer than three hundred and
twenty-eight. -

Thus in the total of sonnets published between 1591 and
1597 must be included at least five hundred sonnets addressed
to patrons, and as many on philosophy and religion. The
aggregate far exceeds two thousand.

^ Remy Belleau in 1566 brought out a similar poetical version of the Book of
Ecclesiastes entitled I'anite.

- There are forty-eight sonnets on the Trinity and similar topics appended to
Davies's Wiltes Pilgrimage (1610?).

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN
FRANCE, 1 550-1 600

In the earlier years of the sixteenth century Melin de Saint-
Gelais (1487-1558) and Clement Marot (1496-1544) made a few
scattered efforts at sonnetteering in France ; and Maurice Seve
laid down the lines of all sonnet-sequences on themes of love

in his dixains entitled 'Delie' (1544). But it was
(1524-85) Ronsard (1524-85), in the second half of the cen-
and ' La tury, who first gave the sonnet a pronounced vogue in

France. The sonnet was handled with the utmost
assiduity not only by Ronsard, but by all the literary comrades
whom he gathered round him, and on whom he bestowed the
title of ' La Pleiade.' The leading aim that united Ronsard
and his friends was the re-formation of the French language
and literature on classical models. But they assimilated and
naturalised in France not only much that was admirable in
Latin and Greek poetry, ^ but all that was best in the recent
Italian literature.^ A'though they were learned poets, Ronsard

' Graphic illustrations of th attitude of Ronsard and bis friends to a Greek poet like
Anacreon appear in A nacreon etles Poetnes anacreoiitiqucs Texte grec avec les Tra-
ductions et Imitatio7is des Poctes du XVI^ siecle, par A. Delboulle (Havre, i8gi).
A translation of Anacreon by Remy Belleau appeared in 1556. Cf. Ste.-Beuve's
essay, ' Anacreon au XVI*^ siecle,' in his Tableau de la Poisie fratiqaise an XVI^
siecle (1893^ pp. 432-47. In the same coxme.ci\ov\ Rccueil des plus beaux Epi-
grammes grecs, mis en vers franqois, par Pierre Tamisier tedit. 1617), is of interest.

^ Italy was the original home of the sonnet, and it was as popular a poetic form
with Italian writers of the sixteenth century as with those of the three preceding
centuries. The Italian poets whose sonnets, after those of Petrarch, were best known
in England and France in the later years of the si,\teenth century were Serafino
deir Aquila (i466-i5oo\ Jacopo Sannazzaro (1458-15301, Agnolo Firenzuola (1497-
I547>, Cardinal Bembo fi470-i547), Gaspara Stampa (1524-53), Pietro Aretino

THE SONNET IN FRANCE 443

and the majority of his associates had a natural lyric vein,
which gave their poetry the charms of freshness and spontaneity.
The true members of ' La Pleiade.' according to Ronsard's
own statement, were, besides himself, Joachim du Bellay (1524-
60); Estienne Jodelle (1532-73); Remy Belleau (1528-77);
Jean Daurat-Dinemandy, usually known as Daurat or Dorat
(1508-88), Ronsard's classical teacher in early life; Jean-
Antoine de Baif (1532-89); and Ponthus de Thyard (1521-
1605). Other of Ronsard's literary allies are often loosely
reckoned among the 'Pleiade.' These writers include Jean de
la Peiiise (1529-54). Olivier de Magny (1530-59), Amadis
Jamyn (i538?-85), Jean Passerat (1534-1602), Philippe Des-
portes (1546-1606), Estienne Pasquier (1529-1615), Scevole de
Sainte-Marthe(i536-i623), and Jean Bertaut(i552-i6ii). These
Q subordinate members of the ' Pleiade ' were no less

1 1546- devoted than the original members to sonnetteering.

1606). Qf those in this second rank, Desportes was most

popular in France as well as in England. Although many of
Desportes's sonnets are graceful in thought and melodious in
rhythm, most of them abound in overstrained conceits. Not
only was Desportes a more slavish imitator of Petrarch than the
members of the ' Pleiade,' but he encouraged numerous disciples
to practice 'Petrarchism,' as the imitation of Petrarch was
called, beyond healthful limits. Under the influence of Des-
portes the French sonnet became, during the latest years of
the sixteenth century, little more than an empty and fantastic
echo of the Italian.

The following statistics will enable the reader to realise how
closely the sonnetteering movement in France adumbrated that

(1492-1557), Bernardo Tasso (1493-1568), Luigi Tansillo (1510-68), Gabriello
Fiamma {d. 1585), Torquato Tasso (1544-95), Luigi Groto {fl. 1570), Giovanni
Battista Guarini (1537-1612), and Giovanni Battista Marino (1565-1625) (cf. Tira-
boschi's Storia della Leticratura Italiajta, 1770-82; Dr. Garnett's History 0/
Italian Literature, 1897; and Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, edit. 1898,
vols. iv. and vi.). The notes to Watson's Passionate Centnrie of Love, published
in 1582 (see p. 103, note i, supra) ; to Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, edited by Mr.
A. H. Bullen in 1891, and to the Poems of Drummo7id of Ha-juthornden, edited by
Mr. W. C. Ward in 1894, give many illustrations of English sonnetteers' indebted-
ness to Serafino, Groto, Marino, Guarini, Tasso, and other Italian sonnetteers of the
sixteenth century.

444 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

in England. The collective edition in 1584 of the works of Ron-
sard, the master of the ' Pleiade,' contains more than nine hundred
Chief col- separate sonnets arranged under such titles as ' Amours
lections of de Cassandre,' 'Amours de Marie,' 'Amours pour

Frenchson- Astr^e,' 'Amours pour Hdlene': besides 'Amours

nets pub- t~>. , , r^ t^.

lished be- Divers and ' Sonnets Divers, complimentary ad-

tvveen 1550 dresses to friends and patrons. Du Bellay's ' Olive,'
^ '^' a collection of love sonnets, first published in 1549,
reached a total of a hundred and fifty. ' Les Regrets,' Du Bellay's
sonnets on general topics, some of which Edmund Spenser first
translated into English, numbered in the edition of 1565 a
hundred and eighty-three. De Baif published two long series
of sonnets, entitled respectively 'Les Amours de Meline' (1552)
and 'Les Amours de Francine' (1555). Amadis Jamyn was
responsible for ' Les Amours d'Oriane,' ' Les Amours de
Calliree,' and 'Les Amours d'Artemis ' (iS7S)- Desportes's
'Premieres CEuvres ' (1575)^ a very popular book in England,
included more than three hundred sonnets — a hundred and fifty
being addressed to Diane, eighty-six to Hippolyte, and ninety-
one to Cleonice. Belleau brought out a volume of ' Amours '
in 1576; and Ponthus de Thyard produced in 1587 his ' Erreurs
Amoureuses,' sonnets addressed to Pasithee.

Among other collections of sonnets published by less known
writers of the period, and arranged here according to date of
Minor col- first publication, were those of Guilhuime des Autels,
lectioiis of 'Amoureux Repos' (1553); Olivier de Magny,
sonnets 'Amours. Soupirs,' &c. (1553, 1559); Louise Labe,

published ' O^uvres ' (1555); Jacques Tahureau, 'Odes, Son-
ISS3 a^nd ^^^^s,' &c. (1554, 1 574) : Claude de Billet, • Ainalthee.'
1605. a hundred and twenty-eight love sonnets (1561);

Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, ' Foresteries ' (1555 et annis seq.) ;
Jacques Grevin, 'Olympe' (1561); Nicolas Ellain, -Sonnets'
(1561); Sc^vole de Sainte-AIarthe. ' Qiuvres Frant^aises' (1569,
1579); Estienne de la Boetie, * CEuvres ' (1572), and twenty-
nine sonnets published with Montaigne's ' Essais ' (1580); Jean
et Jacques de la Taille, 'CEuvres' (1573); Jacques de Billy,
'Sonnets Spirituels' (first series 1573, second series 1578);
Estienne Jodelle, ' CEuvres Poetiques" (1574); Claude de Pon-

THE SONNET IN FRANCE 445

toux, 'Sonnets de L'Idde' (1579); Les Dames des Roches,
' CEuvres ' (1579, 1584); Pierre de Brach, "Amours d'Aymee '
{circa 1580); Gilles Durant, 'Poesies' — sonnets to Charlotte
and Caniille (1587, 1594) ; Jean Passerat, ' Vers . . . d'Amours '
(1597); and Anne de Marquet, who died in 1588, 'Sonnets
Spirituels ' (1605).!

1 There are modern reprints of most of these books, but not of all. There is a
good reprint of Ronsard's works, edited by M. P. Blanchemain, in La Bibliotheque
Elzez'irienne, 8 vols. 1867; the Etude sur la Vie de Ronsard, in the eighth vol-
ume, is useful. The works of Remy Belleau are issued in the same series. The
writings of the seven original members of ' La Pleiade ' are reprinted in La Pleiadi
Fratiqaise, edited by Marty-Laveaux, 16 vols., 1866-93. Maurice Seve's Delie was
reissued at Lyon in 1862. Pierre de Brach's poems were carefully edited by Rein-
hold Dezeimeris (2 vols. Paris, 1862). A complete edition of Desportes's works,
edited by Alfred Michiels, appeared in 1863. Prosper Blanchemain edited a reissue
of the works of Louise Labe in 1875. The works of Jean de la Taille, of Amadis
Jamyn, and of Guillaume des Autels are reprinted in Tresor des Vieux Poetes
Franqais (1877 et annis seq.). See Ste.-Beuve's Tableau Historique et Critique
de la Poesie Franqais du XVI" Siecle (Paris, 1893) ; Henry Francis Gary's Early
French Poets (London, 1846); Becq de Fouquieres's CEuvres choisies des Poetes
Franqais du XVI^ Siecle contemporains avec Konsard (1880), and the same
editor's selections from De Baif, Du Bellay, and Ronsard; Darmesteter et Hatzfeld's
Le Seizieme Siecle en France — Tableau de la Litterature et de la Langue (6th
edit., 1897) ; and Petit de Julleville's Histoire de la Langue et de la Litterature
Fratiqaise (1897, iii. 136-260).

INDEX

Abbey, Mr. E. A., 342

Abbott, Dr. E. A., 364

Actor, Shakespeare as an, 43-45.
See also Roles, Shakespeare's

Actors : at Stratford-on-Avon, 10, 33 ;
the players' licensing Act of Queen
Elizabeth, 34; boy-actors, 34, 35,
38, 213 ; companies of adult actors,
in 1587.35; patronage of, 35, 36;
230 seq. ; women's parts piayed
by men or boys, 38 and n 2, 334,
335 ; tours in the provinces, 39-42 ;
foreign tours, 42 ; Shakespeare's
alleged scorn of their calling, 44,
45 ; ' advice ' to, in Hamlet, 45 ;
their incomes, 198, 199 and n 2,
201 ; strife between adult and boy
actors, 213-17, 221 ; the first sub-
stitution of women for boys in
female parts, 334, 335

Adam, in As You Like It, played
by Shakespeare, 44

Adaptations of plays by Shakespeare,
56

Adaptations of Shakespeare's plays
at the Restoration, 331, 332

Adulation, extravagance of, in the
days of Queen Elizabeth, 137, 138,
and n 2

.^schylus, Hamlet's ' sea of troubles '
paralleled in the Persae of, 13 n\
resemblance between Lady Afac-
beth and Clytemnestra in the Aga-
■memnon of, 13 n

./Esthetic school of Shakespearean
criticism, 333

Alexander, Sir William, sonnets by,
438

I Alleyn, Edward, manages for a time
the amalgamated companies of the
Admiral and Lord Strange, 37;
pays fivepence for the pirated Son-
nets, 90 n ; his large savings, 204,
362

.•Xllot, Robert, 312

All's Well that Ends Well : sonnet,
84; probable date of produc-
tion, 162; source of plot, 163;
probably identical with Lotie's
Labour's Won, 162; characters of,
163. For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

America, enthusiasm for Shake-
speare in, 341, 342; copies of the
First Folio in, 308, 310 n

Amner, Rev. Richard, 321

' Amoretti," Spenser's, 115, 435 and

n 5. 436

' Amours ' by ' J. D.,' 390 and «

Amphitruo of Plautus, probably sug-
gested a scene in The Comedy of
Errors, 54

'Amyntas,' complimentary title of,
385 n 2

Angelo, Michael, 'dedicatory' son-
nets of, 138 n 2

'Annals of Great Brittaine,' 184 n

'Anthia and Abrocomas,' by Xeno-
phon Ephesius, the supposed orig-
inal of the story of Romeo and
Juliet, 55 7! I

Antony and Cleopatra : 38 n 2, 143
n 2 ; the longest of the poet's plays,
224 ; date of entry in the ' Stationers'
Registers,' 244; date of publica-
tion, 245 ; the story derived from

447

448

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

APOLLONIUS

Plutarch, 245 ; dramatic power of
Acts IV. and v., 245; the style,
245. For editions see Section xix.
(bibliography), 301-25

Apollotiiiis and Silla, Historie of,
210

' Apologie for Poetrie,' Sidney's,
allusion to the conceit of the im-
mortalising power of verse, 114;
allusion to the adulation of patrons,
138, 440.

'Apology for Actors,' Heyvvood's,
182

Apsley, William, one of the book-
sellers who distributed the pirated
Sonnets, 90, 304, 312

'Arcadia,' Sidney's, 88 ;?, 241 and
11 2, 429

Arden family, position in Warwick-
shire of, 6, 191

Arden family of Alvanley, 192

Arden, Alice, 7

Arden, Edward, executed for com-
plicity in a Popish plot, 6

Arden, Joan, 12

Arden, Mary. See Shakespeare,
Mary

Arden, Robert (i), sheriff of War-
wickshire and Leicestershire in
1438, 6

Arden, Robert (2), landlord at Snit-
terfield of Richard Shakespeare,
who was probably the poet's grand-
fiither, 3, 6; marriage of his daugh-
ter Mary to John Shakespeare, 6,
7 ; his family and second marriage,
6 ; his property and his will, 7

Arden, Thomas, grandfather of
Shakespeare's mother, 6

Ai-dcn of Feverskam, sometimes as-
signed to Shakespeare, 71

Ariel, character of, 257

AriodaiUe and Ginevra, Historie of,
208

Ariosto, Gli Suppositi of, 164; Or-
lando Furioso of, tells story of
Much Ado about Nothi^tg, 208

Aristotle, quotation from, made by
both Shakespeare and Bacon,
370 «

Armado, in Love's Labour s Lost,
51 n, 62

Armenian language, translation of
Shakespeare m the, 354

AVISA

Arms, coat of, Shakespeare's, 189,
190, 191, 193 ■

Arms, College of applications of
the poet's father for a grant of
arms to, 2, 10 n, 188-92

Arne, Dr., 334

Arnold, Klatthew, 327 n i

Art in England, its indebtedness to
Shakespeare, 340, 341

As You Like It : allusion to the part
of Rosalind being played by a boy,
38 ti 2 ; ridicule of foreign travel,
42 « 2 ; acknowledgments to Mar-
lowe (III. V. 8), 64; Marlowe's
'Hero and Leander' quoted, 64;
adapted from Lodge's ' Rosalynde,'
209 ; addition of new characters,
209 ; its pastoral character, 209 ;
said to have been performed be-
fore King James at Wilton, 232
71 I, 411 n. For editions see Sec-
tion xix. (Bibliography), 301-25

Asbies, the chief property of Robert
Arden at Wilmcote, 7 ; mortgaged
to Edmund Lambert, 12, 26;
Shakespeare's endeavour to re-
cover, 195

Ashbee, Mr. E. W., 302 ;/

Aston Cantloue, 6; place of the mar-
riage of Shakespeare's parents, 7

'Astrophel,' apostrophe to Sidney in
Spenser's, 143 n 2

'Astrophel and Stella,' 83; the metre
of, 95 // 2; address to Cupid, 97 «;
the praise of ' blackness ' in Sonnet
vii. of, 119 and 71 i, 153 n i; sub-
ject and editions of, 428, 429

Aubrey, John, the poet's first biog-
rapher, on John Shakespeare's
trade, 4, 18; on the poet's know-
ledge of Latin, 16; lines quoted
by, on John Combe, 269 «; on
Shakespeare's genial disposition,
278 ; value of his biography of the
poet, 362, 414

'Aurora,' title of Sir W. Alexander's

- collection of sonnets. 438

Autobiographical features of Shake-
speare's plays, 164-7, 168

Autobiographical features of Shake-
speare's sonnets, the question of,
100, 109, 125, 152, 160

Autographs of the poet, 284-6

' Avisa,' VVillobie's story of, 155

INDEX

449

Ayrer, Jacob, similarity of the story
of The Tempest to the story in Die
schone Sidea by, 253 and « i

Ayscough, Samuel, 364 «

Bacox, Miss Delia, 371

Bacon Society, 372

Bacon-Shakespeare controversy (Ap-
pendix II.), 370-3

Baddesley Clinton, the Shakespeares
of, 3

Baif, De, plagiarised indirectly by
Shakespeare, iii and « ; indebted-
ness of Daniel and others to, 431,
432; one of ' La Pleiade,' 443, 444

Bandello, the story of Romeo and
Juliet in, 55 « i ; the story of Hero
and Claudio in, 208 ; the story of
Twelfth Night in, 210

Barante on Shakespeare, 350

Barnard, Sir John, second husband
of the poet's granddaughter Eliza-
beth, 282

Barnes, Barnabe, legal terminology
in his Sonnets, 32 11 2, 109, 112;
and (Appendix IX.) 432; his
sonnets of vituperation, 121 ; the
probable rival of Shakesp^are for
Southampton's favour, 131, 132,
133, 135 n\ his sonnets, 132, 133,
432 ; expressions in his sonnet
(xlix.) adopted by Shakespeare,
152 n ; sonnet to Lady Bridget
Manners, 379 71 ; sonnet to South-
ampton, 384; Sonnet Ixvi. ('Ah,
sweet Content') quoted, 432; his
six sonnets to ])atrons, 440; his
religious sonnets, 441

Barnfield, Richard, feigning old age
in his 'Affectionate Shepherd,'
86 «; his adulation of Queen Eliz-
abeth in ' Cynthia," 137 11, 435 ;
sonnets addressed to ' Ganymede,'
138 « 2, 435; predicts immortality
for Shakespeare, 179 ; chief author
of the ' Passionate Pilgrim," 182
and n, 397

Bartholomew Fair, 256

Bartlett, Mr. John, 364

Barton collection of Shakespeareana
at Boston, Mass., 341

Barton-on-the-Heath, 12; identical
with the ' Burton " in the Taming'
of The Shrew, 164

Bathurst, Charles, an authority on
Shakespeare's versification, 49 n

Baynes, Thomas Spencer, 365

Beale, Francis, 389

' Bear Garden in Southvvark, The,'
one of the poet's lodgings said to
have been near, 38

Bearley, 6

Beaumont, Francis, on the Mermaid
tavern, 177

Beaumont, Sir John, 388

Bedford, Edward Russell, third Earl
of, his marriage to Lucy Haring-
ton perhaps celebrated in Mid-
summer Night's Dream, 161

Beeston, William (a seventeenth-
century actor), on Shakespeare as
a schoolmaster, 29; on the poet's
acting, 43, 361

Bellay, Joachim du, Spenser's trans-
lations of his sonnets, loi, 105 n,
432, 436, 443, 444

Belleau, Remy, 441 n i, 443, 444,

445 «

Belleforest, Shakespeare's indebted-
ness to the ' Histoires Tragiques '
of, 14, 208, 222 ; translates the story
of Romeo and Juliet, 55 11 i

Benda, J. W. O., German translation
of Shakespeare by, 344

Benedick and his ' halting sonnet,'
108, 208

Benedix, J. R., opposition to Shake-
spearean worship by, 345

Bensley, Robert, actor, 338

Bentley, R., 313

Berlioz, Hector, 351

Bermudas, the, wreck of Sir George
Somers's fleet on, the groundwork
of The Tempest, 252

Berners, Lord, translation of ' Huon
of Bordeaux ' by, 162

Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 351

Bertaut, Jean, 443

Betterton, Mrs., 335

Betterton, Thomas, 33, 332, 334, 335,
362

Bianca and her lovers, story of,
partly drawn fi-om the ' Supposes '
of George Gascoigne, 164

Bible, the, Shakespeare's acquaint-
ance with, 16, 17 and n i

Bibliography of Shakespeare, 299-325

Bidlord, near Stratford, local legend

450

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

BIOGRAPHY

respecting a drinking bout at,
271

Biography of the poet, sources of
(Appendix I.), 361-5

Birmingham, memorial, Shakespeare
library at, 298

Biron, in Love's Labour's Lost, 51
and n

Birth of Merl'm, 181

Birthplace, Shakespeare's, the ques-
tion of, 8, 9

'Bisson,' use of the word, 317

Blackfriars, Shakespeare's purchase
of property in, 267

Blackfriars Theatre, built by James
Burbage (1596), 38, 200; leased
to ' the Queen's Children of the
Chapel," 38, 202, 213; not occu-
pied by Sliakespeare's company
until 1609, 38 ; litigation of Bur-
bage's heirs, 200; Shakespeare's
interest in, 201, 202 ; Shakespeare's
disposal of his shares in, 264

' Blackness,' Shakespeare's praise of,
118-20; cf. 155. See also Fitton,
Mary

Blades, William, 364

Blind Beggar of Alexandria, Chap-
man's, 51 n

Blount, Edward, publisher, 92, 135 n,
183, 244, 304, 305, 312, 393, 394
and n

Blurt, Master Constable, 51 n

Boaden, James, 406 h

Boar's Head Tavern, 170

Boas, Mr. F. S., 365

Boccaccio, Shakespeare's indebted-
ness to, 163, 249, 251 and « 2

Bodenstedt, Friedrich von, German
translation of Shakespeare by, 344

Bohemia, allotted a seashore in
Winter's Tale, 251

Bohemia, translations of Shake-
speare in, 354

Boiardo, 243

Bond against impediments respect-
ing Shakespeare's marriage, 20,
21

Bonian, Richard, printer, 226

Booth, Barton, actor, 335

Booth, Edwin, 342

Booth, Junius Brutus, 342

Booth, Lionel, 311

Borck, Baron C. W. von, translation

of yulius CcEsar into German by

343

Boswell, James, 334

Boswell, James (the younger), 322,
405 M

Boswell-Stone, Mr. W. G., 364

Bottger, A., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

Boy-actors, 34, 35, 38 ; the strife be-
tween adult actors and, 213-7

Boydell, John, his scheme for illus-
trating the work of the poet, 341

Bracebridge, C. H., 364

Brach, Pierre de, his sonnet on Sleep
echoed in Daniel's Sonnet xlix.,
loi and n i, 431, 445 n

Brandes, Mr. Georg, 365

Brathwaite, Richard, 388, 398

Breton, Nicholas, homage paid to
the Countess of Pembroke in two
of his poems, 138 n 2, 417

Brewster, E., 313

Bridgeman, Mr. C. O., 415 n

Bright, James Heywood, 406 n

Broken Heart, Ford's, similarity of
theme of Shakespeare's Sonnet
cxxvi. with that of a song in, 97 «

Brooke or Broke, Arthur, his trans-
lation from Bandello of the story
of Romeo and Juliet, 55; Romeus
and Juliet of, 322

Brooke, Ralph, complains about
Shakespeare's coat-of-arms, 192,

193

Brown, C. Armitage, 406 «

Brown, John, obtains a writ of dis-
traint against .Sliakespeare's father,
12

Browne, William, love-sonnets by,
439 and n 2

Buc, Sir George, 245

Buckingham, John Sheffield, first
Duke of, 231, 381

Bucknill, John Charles, on the poet's
medical knowledge, 364

Burbage, Cuthbert, 37, 200

Burbage, James, owner of The
Theatre and keeper of a livery
stable, 33, 36; erects the Black-
friars The.itre, 38

Burbage, Richard, erroneously as-
sumed to have been a native of
Stratford, 31 « ; a lifelong friend
of Shakespeare's, 36; demolishes

INDEX

451

BURGERSDIJK

The Theatre and builds the Globe
Theatre, 37, 200; performs, with
Shakespeare and Kemp, before
Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich
Palace, 43 ; his impersonation of
the King in Richard III, 63 ;
litigation of his heirs respecting
the Globe and the Blackfriars
theatres, 200; his income, 203,
219 ; creates the title-part in Ham-
let, 222, 231 ; his reputation made
in leading parts of the poet's trage-
dies, 264, 265 ; anecdote of the
poet and, 265 ; the poet's bequest
to, 276

Burgersdijk, Dr. L. A. J., translation
in Dutch by, 352

Burghley, Lord, 375, 376, 378

Burton, Francis, bookseller, 399 n 2,
400

Butter, Nathaniel, 180, 241

'C., E.,' sonnet by, resemblance in
Shakespeare's treatment of the
ravages of lust with this subject in,
153 n I ; his collection of sonnets,
' Emaricdulfe,' 436

Ca'iban, the character of, 253, 257,
258, and tiotes

Cambridge, Hatnlct acted at, 224

Cambridge edition of Shakespeare,

324

Camden, William, 191

Campbell, Lord, on the poet's legal
acquirements, 364

Campion, Thomas, on Barnes's
verse, 133 ; his sonnet to Lord
Walden, 140; sonnets in Harleian
MS., 437 and w 3

Capell, Edward, reprint of Edward-
Ill in his 'Prolusions,' 71, 224;
his edition of Shakespeare, 319;
his works on the poet, 320

Cardenio, the lost play of, 258, 259

Carter, Rev. Thomas, on the alleged
Puritan sympathies of Shake-
speare's father, 10 «

Casfeliones y Montisis Lope de
Vega's, 55 « I

Castille, Constable of, entertainments
in his honour at Whitehall, 233,

234
Castle, William, parish clerk of
Stratford, 34

Catherine II (of Russia), adaptation
of the Merry Wives and King
Johti by, 352, 353

Cawood, Gabriel, publisher of ' Mary
Magdalene's Funeral Tears,' 88 n

Cecil, Sir Robert, an allusion to the
Earl of Southampton by, 143 ; his
relations with Southampton, 379,
381, 382

' Centurie of Spiritual Sonnets, A,'
Barnes's, 132

Cervantes, his 'Don Quixote' the
foundation of lost play of Car-
dc?iio, 258 ; death of, 272 « i

Chamberlain, the Lord, his company
of players. See Hunsdon, first
Lord and second Lord

Chamberlain, John, 149, 261 tt

Chapman, George, plays on Biron's
career by, 51 n, 395 n i ; his An
Humorous Day's Mirth, 51 « ;
his Blind Beggar of Alexandria,
51 n ; his censure of sonnetteering,
106 ; the question of his rivalry
with Shakespeare for Southamp-
ton's favour, 134, 135 n, 183 ; his
translation of the 'Iliad,' 227; his
sonnets to patrons, 388, 440 n ;
sonnets in praise of philosophy,
441

Cliarlecote Park, probably the scene
of the poaching episode, 27, 28

Charles I, the poet's plays the
'closet companions' of his 'soli-
tudes,' 329 ; his copy of the Second
Folio, 312

Charles II, his copy of the Second
Folio, 312

Chateaubriand, 349

Chaucer, the storv of ' Lucrece ' in
his ' Legend of Good Women,' 76 ;
hints in his ' Knight's Tale,' for
Midsummer Aighfs Dream, 162 ;
the plot of Troilus and Cressida
taken from his 'Troilus and Cres-
seid,' 227; plot of The Two Noble
Kinsmen drawn from his ' Knight's
Tale' of Palamon and Arcite, 260

Chenier, Marie Joseph, sides with
Voltaire in the Shakespearean con-
troversy, 349

Chester, Robert, his ' Love's Mar-
tyr,' 183, 184 n

Chettle, Henry, the publisher, his

452

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CHETWYNDE

description of Shakespeare as an
actor, 43, 48 n; his apology for
Greene's attack on Shakespeare,
58, 225, 277; appeals to Shake-
speare to write an elegy on Queen
Elizabeth, 230

Chetwynde, Peter, publisher, 312

Chisvvell, \<., 313

'Chloris,' title of William Smith's
collection of sonnets, 437 and n 4

Chronology of Shakespeare's plays :
48-57, 59, 63-72, 161 seq., 207 seq.,
235 ^eq., 248 seq.

Churchyard, Thomas, his Fatttas-
ticall Monarcho's Epitaph, 51 « ;
calls Barnes 'Petrarch's scholar,'

133

Cibber, Colley, 335

Cibber, Mrs., 330

Cibber, Theophilus, the reputed com-
piler of ' Lives of the Poets,' 32 and

n 3. 33

Cinthio, the ' Hecatommithi ' of,
Shakespeare's indebtedness to, 14,
53, 236; his tragedy, Epitia, 237

Clark, Mr. W. G.", 325

Clement, Nicolas, criticism of the
poet by, 347, 348

Cleopatra : the poet's allusion to her
part being played by a boy, 38 « 2 ;
compared with the ' dark lady ' of
the sonnets, 123, 124; her moral
worthiessness, 245

Clive, Mrs., 336

Clopton, Sir Hugh, the former owner
of New Place, 193

Clopton, Sir John, 283

Clytemnestra, resemblance between
Lady Macbeth and, 13 /;.

Cobham, Henry Brooke, eighth
Lord, 169

' Coelia," love-sonnets by William
Browne entitled, 439 and n 2

'Coelia,' title of Percy's collection of
sonnets, 435

' Coelica,' title of Fulke Greville's col-
lection of poems, 97 ?t

Cokain, Sir Aston, lines on Sliake-
speare and Wincot ale by, 166

Coleridge, S. T., on the style of
Antony and Cleopatra, 245 ; The
Two Noble Kinsinen, 259 ; repre-
sentative of the pesthetic school,
333 ; on Edmund Kean, 338, 365

CONTENTION

Collier, John Payne, includes Mu-
cedorus in his edition of Shake-
speare, 72 ; his reprint of Drayton's
sonnets, no n; his forgeries in
the ' Perkins Folio,' 312 and n 2,
317 « 2, 324, 333; his other forg-
eries (Appendix 1.), 362, 367-9

Collins, Mr. Churton, 317 n i

Collins, Francis, Shakespeare's solic-
itor, 271, 273

Collins, Rev. John, 321

Colte, Sir Henry, 410 7f

Combe, John, bequest left to the poet
by, 269 ; lines written upon liis
system of money-lending, 269 «

Combe, Thomas, legacy of the poet
to, 276

Combe, William, his attempt to en-
close common land at Stratford,
269

Cotnedy of Errors : the plot drawn
from Plautus, 16, 54 ; date of pub-
lication, 53; allusion to the civil
war in France, 53; possibly founded
on T/ie Historie of Error, 54 ;
performed in the hall of Gray's
Inn 1594, 70; a second perform-
ance in the hall of Gray's Inn in
1895, 70 ;/. For editions see Sec-
tion xix. (Bibliography), 301-25

' Complainte of Rosamond,' Daniel's,
parallelisms in Romeo and Juliet
with, 56; its topic and metre re-
flected in ' Lucrece,' 76, ']^ and n i,

431

Concordances to Shakespeare, 364
and n

Condell, Henry, actor and a life-
long friend of Shakespeare's, 36,
202, 203, 264 ; the poet's bequest
to him, 276; signs dedication of
First Folio, 303, 306

Confess io Amantis, Gower's, 244

Conspiracte of Duke Biron, The,
51 «

Constable, Henry, piratical publi-
cation of the sonnets of, 88 // ; fol-
low^ed Desportes in naming his
collection of sonnets ' Diana,' 104,
431 ; inclusion of sonnets by other
authors in ' Diana,' 431, 432 ; dedi-
catory sonnets, 440 ; religious son-
nets, 440

Contention betwixt the two famous

INDEX

453

CONTR'

houses of Yorke and Lancaster,
first part of the, 59

'Contr' Amours,' Jodelle's, parody
of the vituperative sonnet in, 122
and n

Cooke, Sir Anthony, 436

Cooke, George Frederick, actor, 338

Coral, comparison of lips with, 118
anii tt 2

Coriohinus : date of first publica-
tion, 246; derived from North's
'Plutarch,' 246; literal reproduc-
tion of the text of Plutarch, 246
and n ; originality of the humorous
scenes, 246 ; date of composition,

246, 247 ; general characteristics,

247. For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

' Coronet for his mistress Philosophy,

A,' by Chapman, 106
Coryat, ' Odcombian Banquet" by,

395

Cotes, Thomas, printer, 312

Cotswolds, the, Shakespeare's allu-
sion to, 168

Court, the, Shakespeare's relations
with, 81, 83, 230, 232-4, cf. 251 u,
254 «. 255 ". 264

Cowden-Clarke, Mrs., 364

Cowley, actor, 208

'Crabbed age and youth,' <S:c., 182 «

Craig, Mr. \V. J., 325

Creede, Thomas, draft of the Merry
Wives of Wbidsor printed by, 172 :
draft of Henry Sprinted by, 173;
fraudulently assigns plays to Shake-
speare, 179, 180

'Cromwell, History of Thomas,
Lord,' 313

'Cryptogram, The Great,' 372

Cupid, Shakespeare's addresses to,
compared with the invocations of
Sidney, Drayton, Lyly, and others,
97 «

Curtain Theatre, Moorfields, one of
the only two theatres existing in
London at the period of Shake-
speare's arrival, 32, 36; the scene
of some of the poet's performances,
37 ; closed at the period of the
Civil War, 37, 233 n i

Cushman, Charlotte, 342

Cymbelhie : adapted from Holinshed
and the 'Decameron,' 249; the

DAVENANT

Story told in ' Westward for Smelts,'
249; introduction of Calvinistic
terms, 250 and n ; Imogen, 250;
resemblance to As You Like It,
250 ; Dr. Forman's note on its per-
formance, 250. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-

' Cynthia,' Barnfield's, adulation of
Queen Elizabeth in, 137 «, 435

'Cynthia,' Ralegh's, extravagant
apostrophe to Queen Elizabeth
in, 137 ti

Cynthia's Revets, performed at Black-
friars Theatre, 215

Cyrano de Bergerac, plagiarisms of
Shakespeare by, 347

' Daiphantus,' allusion to the poet
in Scoloker's, 277

Daniel, Samuel, parallelisms in
Romeo and yiiliet with his ' Com-
plainte of Rosamond,' 56, 61 ;
the topic and metre of the ' Coni-
plainte of Rosamond ' reflected in
' Lucrece,' 76, jj and n 1 ; feigning
old age, 86 n ; his sonnet (xlix.)
on Sleep, loi ; admits plagiarism
of Petrarch in his ' Delia,' loi n 4 ;
followed Maurice Seve in naming
his collection of sonnets, 104, 430;
claims immortality for his son-
nets, 115; his prefatory sonnet in
'Delia,' 130, 429; celebrates in
verse Southampton's release from
prison, 149, 388 ; his indebtedness
to Desportes, 430 ; to De Baif and
Pierre de Brach, 431 ; popularity
of his sonnets, 431

Danish, translations of Shakespeare

in. 354
Danter, John, prints surreptitiously

Romeo and Juliet, 56 ; Titus An-

dronicus entered at Stationers' Hall

by, 66
Daurat-Dinemandy, Jean, one of ' La

Pleiade,' 443
D'Avenant, John, keeps the Crown

Inn, Oxford, 265
D'Avenant, Sir William, relates the

story of Shakespeare holding

horses outside playhouses, 33 ;

hands down the story of South-

454

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ampton's gift to Shakespeare, 126,
374; the story of Shakespere's
paternity of, 265, 328.

Davies, Archdeacon, vicar of Saper-
ton, his testimony to Shakespeare's
' unluckiness ' in poaching, 27 ; his
allusion to the caricature of Sir
Thomas Lucy in 'Justice Clodpate'
(Justice Shallow), 29, 362

Davies, John, of Hereford, 44, 149,
388, 439 ; sonnets to patrons, 440 n

Davies, Sir John : his ' gulling son-
nets,' 106, 107 and 11 I, 128 n,
435, 436; his apostrophe to Queen
Elizaoeth, 137 «, 273

Davison, Francis, his translation of
Petrarch's sonnet, loi n 4 ; dedica-
tion of his ' Poetical Rhapsody ' to
the Earl of Pembroke, 413

De Chatelain, Chevalier, rendering
of Hamlet by, 351

Death-mask, the Kesselstadt, 296 and
and n i

' Decameron,' the, indebtedness of
Shakespeare to, 163, 249, 251 and
n 2

' Declaration of Popish Impostures,'
Harsnet's, hints for • King Lear
taken from, 241

Dedications, 392-400

' Dedicatory ' sonnets, of Shake-
speare, 125 seq. ; of other Eliza-
bethan poets, 138 ;/ 2, 140, 141

Defence of Cony- Catching, 47 n

Dekker, Thomas, 48 «; the quar-
rel with Ben Jonson, 214-20, 228 n,
225 ; his account of King James's
entry into London, 232 ; his song
' Oh, sweet content,' an eclio of
Barnes's ' Ah, sweet Content,' 433
n I

' Delia,' title of Daniel's collection
of sonnets, 104, 118 « 2, 130,
430, 434. See also under Daniel,
Samuel

' Delie,' sonnets by Seve entitled, 442

Delius, Nikolaus, edition of Shake-
speare by, 324; studies of the
text and metre of the poet by,

3+5. .. , , . , ^

Dennis, John, his account of the

Merry Wives of Windsor, 171, 172;

his tribute to the poet, 332
Derby, Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of,

the Earl of Leicester's company of
actors passes to his patronage, 35 ;
on his death his place as patron is
filled successively by the two Lord
Hunsdons, 35 ; performances by
the company, 56, 59, 66, 73 ; Spen-
ser's bestowal of the title of ' Amyn-
tas ' on, 385 n 2

Derby, William Stanley, Earl of,
161

Desmond, Earl of, Ben Jonson's
apostrophe to the, 140

Desportes, Philippe, his sonnet on
Sleep, loi and Appendix IX.;
plagiarised by Drayton and others,
103 and n 3, 430 seq. ; plagiarised
indirectly by Shakespeare, no, in;
his claim for the immortality of
verse, 114 and 71 i; Daniel's in-
debtedness to, 430, 431, 443, 444,

445 «
Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft,

365

Devrient family, the stage represen-
tation of Shakespeare by, 346

Diana, George de Montemayor's the
source of the story of Tiuo Gentle-
men of Verona, 53; translations

of, 53 '

' Diana ' the title of Constable's col-
lection of sonnets, 88 ti, 96 n, 104

Diderot, opposition to Voltaire's
strictures by, 348

' Diella,' sonnets by ' R. L.' [Richard
Linche], 437

Digges, Leonard, on the superior
popularity of Julius Ccesar to
Jonson's Catiline, 220 n; com-
mendatory verses on the poet,
276 ti I ; on the poet's popularity,
300, 306, 329

' Don Quixote,' the lost play Car-
denio probably drawn from, 258

Doncaster, occurrence of the name
of Shakespeare at, i

Donne, Dr. John, his poetic ad-
dresses to the Countess of Bed-
ford, 138 71 2; expression of
' love ' in his ' Verse Letters,'
141 ; his anecdote about Shake-
speare and Jonson, 177

Donnelly, Mr. Ignatius, 372

Dorell, Hadrian, writer ot the pref-
ace to the story of ' Avisa,' 157

INDEX

455

DOUBLE

Double Falsehood, or the Distrest
Lovers, 259 and n i

Douce, Francis, 364

Dowdjil, John, 362

Dovvdeii, Professor, 333, 364, 365, 416 «

Drake, Nathan, 363

Drayton, Michael, 61 ; feigning old
age in his sonnets, 86 71 ; his in-
vocations to Cupid, 97 n ; pla-
giarisms in his sonnets, 103 and
« 2, 434; follows Claude de Fon-
toux in naming his heroine ' Idea,'
104, 105 n I ; his admission of
insincerity in his sonnets, 105 ;
Shakespeare's indebtedness to his
sonnets, won ; claims immortality
for his sonnets, 115; use of the
word ' love,' 127 « ; title of ' Hymn '
given to some of his poems, 135 11 ;
identified by some as the ' rival
poet,' 135; the adulation in his
sonnets, 138 n 2; Shakespeare's
Sonnet cxliv. adapted from, 153 n
2; entertained by Shakespeare at
New Place, Stratford, 271, 427 n 2;
greetings to his patrons in his
works, 398

Droeshout, Martin, engraver of the
portrait in the First Folio, 287-8;
his uncle of the same name, a
painter, 290

Droitwich, native place of John
Heming, one of Shakespeare's
actor friends, 31 «

Drummond, William of Hawthorn-
den, his translation of Petrarch's
sonnets, 104^4, in n\ Italian ori-
gin of his love-sonnets, 104 and u ;
translation of Petrarch's Sonnet
xlii., Ill n; translation of a vitu-
perative sonnet from Marino,
122 71 I ; translation of a sonnet
by Tasso, 152 ;/ ; self-reproach-
ful sonnets by, 152 w. See also
(Appendix) 439 and n i

Dryden, on Shakespeare, 330; pre-
sented with a copy of the Chandos
portrait, 330, 361

Ducis, Jean-Frangois, adaptations
of the poet for the French stage
by, 349. 352

Dugdale, Gilbert, 231 «

Dulwich, manor of, purchased by
Edward Alleyn, 204, 233 « i

ELIZABETH

Dumain, Lord, in Love's Labour's

Lost, ^1 71

Dumas, Alexandre, adaptation of

Ha/nlet by, 351
Duport, Paul, repeats Voltaire's

censure, 350
Dyce, Alexander, 259 « i ; on The

Two Noble Ki7is77ien, 259 ; his

edition of Shakespeare, 323

ECCLESIASTES, Book of, poetical

versions of, 441 and n i
Eden, translation of Magellan's

' Voyage to the South Pole ' by,

253

Edgar, Eleazar, publisher, 390

Editions of Shakespeare's works.
See under Quarto and Folio

Editors of Shakespeare, in the
eighteenth century, 313-22; in
the nineteenth century, 323-5;
variorum, 322, 323

Education of Shakespeare : the
poet's masters at Stratford Gram-
mar School, 13; his instruction
mainly confined to the Latin lan-
guage and literature, 13 ; evidences
of the poet's knowledge of Latin
and French, 15, 16; probable date
of Shakespeare's removal from
school, 18

Edward II, Marlowe's, Richard II
suggested by, 64

Edward III, a play of uncertain
authorship, sometimes assigned to
Shakespeare, 71 ; quotation from
one of Shakespeare's sonnets, 72,
89, and 71 2

Eiiwardes, Richard, author of the
lost play Fahcmo/! and Arcyte, 260

Edwards, Thomas, ' Canons of Criti-
cism ' of, 319

Eld, George, printer of the pirated
sonnets, 90, 180, 399 n 2, 401, 402

Elizabeth, Princess, marriage of,
performance of The Te/zipest, &c.,
at, 254, 238, 263

Elizabeth, Queen : her visit to Kenil-
worth, 17 ; Shakespeare and other
actors play before her at Green-
wich Palace, 43, 70, 81 ; her
enthusiasm for Falstaff, 82; ex-
travagant compliments to, 137;

456

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ELIZABETHAN

called ' Cynthia ' by the poets, 148 ;
elegies on, 147, 148; compliment
to, in Midsummer Night's Dream,
161 ; her objections to Richard II,
175; death, 230; her imprison-
ment of Southampton, 380

Elizabethan Stage Society, 70 n, 210
n 2

Elton, Q.C., Mr. Charles, 274 n

Elze, Friedrich Karl, ' Life of Shake-
speare ' by, 364; studies of Shake-
speare by, 345

' EmaricduUe,' sonnets by ' E. C.,'

153 « I. 436

Endymion, Lyly's, infiuence in Love's
Labour's Lost of, 62

Error, Historie of. See Comedy of
Errors

Eschenburg, Johann Joachim, 343

Essex, Robert Devereux, second
Earl of, company of actors under
the patronage of, 33 ; noticed in
Henry V, \jii, ; trial and execution,
175, 176; his relations with the
Earl of Southampton, 376, 377,
380, 383

Eton, debate about Shakespeare at,
382 n

Euphues, Lyly's, Polonius's advice to
Laertes borrowed from, 62 n

Euripides, Andromache of, 13 n

Evans, Sir Hugh, Latin phrases
quoted by, 15; Marlowe's 'Come
live with me and be my love,"
quoted by, 65

Evelyn, John, 329 n 2

Every Man in his Humour, Shake-
speare takes a part in the per-
formance of, 44, 176; prohibition
on its publication, 208

Fa IRE EM, sometimes assigned to
Shakespeare, 72

Falstaff, Queen Elizabeth's enthusi-
asm for, 82. 171 ; named originally
in Henry J I' 'Sir John Oldcastle,'
169; the attraction of, 170; his
last moments, 173 ; letter from the
Countess of Southampton on, 383
and n I

Farmer, Dr. Richard, on Shake-
speare's education, 14, 15, 363

Farmer, Mr. John S., 386 » i

' Farmer MS., the Dr.,' 107 n i

Fastolf, Sir John, 170

Faucit, Helen, 339. See also Martin,

Lady »

Felix and Ph'domena, history of, 53
' Fidessa,' Griffin's, 182 n, 431, 437
Field, Henry, father of the London

printer, 186
Field, Richard, native of Stratford

and a friend of Shakespeare, 32 ;

apprenticed to the London printer,

Thomas Vautrollier, 32 ; publishes

' Venus and Adonis,' 74, 396, and

' Lucrece,' 76, 396
Finnish, translations of Shakespeare

in. 354

Fiorentino, Ser Giovanni, Shake-
speare's indebtedness to his ' II
Pecorone,' 14, 66, 172

Fisher, Mr. Clement, 166

Fitton,. Mary, and the ' dark lady,"
123 71, 406 ;/, 415 n

Fleay, Mr. V. G., 49 n, no n, 363

Fletcher, Giles, on the ravages of
Time, jj n 2,; his 'imitation' of
other poets, 103 ; his ' Licia," 433

Fletcher, John, 181, 184, 258, 259 ; col-
laborates with Shakespeare in The
Tioo Noble Kinsmen and Henry
VIII, 259, 262, 263

Fletcher, Lawrence, actor, 41 and n
I, 231

Florio, John, and Holofernes, 51 n,
84 n ; the sonnet prefixed to his
' Second Frutes,' 84 and n ; known
to Shakespeare as Southampton's
protege, 84 n ; his translation of
Montaigne's 'Essays,' 84 n, 253;
his ' Worlde of Wordes,' 84 ;/, 387 ;
his praise of Southampton, 131
(and Appendix IV.) ; Southamp-
ton's Italian tutor, 376, 384

Folio, the First, 1623 : the syndicate
for its production, 303, 304; its
contents, 305, 306 ; prefatory mat-
ter, 306, 307; value of the text,
307 ; order of the plays, 307, 308 ;
the typography, 308 ; unique copies,
308-10 ; the Sheldon copy, 309 and
n, 310; estimated number of ex-
tant copies, 311 ; reprints, 311 ; the
' Daniel ' copy, 311

Folio, the Second, 312

Folio, the Third, 312, 313

INDEX

457

Folio, the Fourth, 313

Ford, John, 97 n

Forgeries, Shakespearean (Appendix

I.), 312 « 2, 365-9
Forman, Dr. Simon, 239, 250
Forrest, Edwin, American actor, 342
Fortune Theatre, 212, 233 n i
France, Shakespeare in, 347-50;
stage representation of the poet in,
350, 351 ; the sonnet in (Appendix

X.), 442-5
Fraunce, Abraham, 385 n 2
Freiligrath, Ferdinand von, German

translation of Shakespeare by, 344
French, the poet's acquaintance with,

14. IS- '
French, George Russell, 363
'Freyndon' (or Frittenden), i
Friendship, sonnets of, Shakespeare's,

136, 138-47

Frittenden, Kent. See Freyndon

Fulbroke Park, 28

Fuller, Thomas, allusion in his
'Worthies' to Sir John Fastolf,
170 ; to the ' wit combats ' between
Shakespeare and Jonson, 178;
biographical notice of the poet,
361

Fulman, Rev. W., 362

Furness, Mr. H. H., his ' New Vario-
rum ' edition of Shakespeare, 323,

341
Furness, Mrs. H. H., 364
Furnivall, Dr. F. J., 49 «, 302 n, 325,

334. 364

Gale, Dunstan, 397

Ganymede, Barnfield's sonnets to,
435 anrt n 4

Garnett, Henry, the Jesuit, 239

Garrick, David, 315, 334, 335-7

Gascoigne, George, his definition of
a sonnet, 95 n 2; his 'Supposes,'
164

Gastrell. Rev. Francis, buys New
Place in 1752, 283

Gates, Sir Thomas, 252

Germany, Shakespearean representa-
tions in, 340, 346; translations of
the poet's works and criticisms
in, 342-6; Shakespeare Society in,
346

Gervinus, 'Commentaries' by, 49 n,
346

' Gesta Romanorum,' 67

Ghost in Hamlet, the, played by
Shakespeare, 44

Gilchrist, Octavius, 363

Gildon, Charles, on the I[ferry Wives
of IVhiJsor, 172; on the supremacy
of Shakespeare as a poet, 328 n

' Globe ' edition of Shakespeare,

325

Globe Theatre : built in 1599, 37, 196 ;
described by Shakespeare, 37, cf.
173 ; profits shared by Shakespeare,
37, 196; revival of Richard II at,
175 ; litigation of Burbage's heirs,
200; prices of admission, 201 ; an-
nual receipts, 201 ; performance of
A Wi7iters Tale, 251 ; its destruc-
tion by fire, 260, 261 n\ the new
building, 260; Shakespeare's dis-
posal of liis shares, 264

Goethe, on Shakespeare, 345

Goldipg, Arthur, his English version
of the ' Metamorphoses,' 15, 16,
116 71, 162, 253

Gollancz, Mr. Israel, 222 n, 325

Googe, Barnabe, 427 n 2

Gosson, Stephen, 67

Gottsched, J. C, denunciation of
Shakespeare by, 343

Gounod, opera of Romeo and Juliet

by. 351

Gower, John, in Pericles, 244; his
'Confessio Amantis,' 244

Gower, Lord Ronald, 297

Grammaticus, Saxo, 222

Grave, Shakespeare's, and the in-
scription upon it, 272

Gray's Inn Hall, perforriiance of The
Comedy of Errors in, 70 and n

Greek, Siiakespeare's knowledge of,
13 and //, 16

Green, C. F., 364

Greene, Robert, 47 v\ his attack on
Shakes])(>are, 57 ; and the original
draft of ^t'«/-j VI, bo; his influence
on Shakespeare, 6r, 73 ; describes
a meeting with a player, 198 ; A
Winters Tale founded on his
Patidosto, 251 ; dedicatory greet-
ings in his works, 398

Greene, Thomas, actor at the Red
Bull Theatre, 31 n

Greene, Thomas {'alias Shake-
speare'), a tenant of New Place,

458

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

GREENWICH

and Shakespeare's legal adviser,
195, 206, 269, 270 a.Tid n

Greenwich Palace, 43, 44 n i, 70, 81,
82

Greet, hamlet in Gloucestershire,
identical with ' Greece ' in the
Tanting of The Slii-ew, 167

Grendon, near Oxford, 31

Greville, Sir Ftilke, 88 //, 97 n\ his
' Sonnets,' i&c, 438, 439

Griffin, Bartholomew, 182 «; pla-
giarises Daniel, 431, 437

Griggs, Mr. W., 302 n

Grimm, Baron, 349, 350 « i

' Groats-worth of Wit,' Greene's
pamphlet, 57

Guizot, Francois, 350

' Gulling sonnets,' Sir John Davies's,
106, 107, 435, 436; Shakespeare's
Sonnet xxvi. parodied in, 128 «

'H., Mr. W.,' 'patron* of Tliorpe's
pirated issue of the Sonnets, 92;
identified with William Hall, 92,
402, 403, 406 seq. : his publication
of Southwell's ' A Foure-fold Medi-
tation,' 92; erroneously assumed
to indicate the Earl of Pembroke,
93, 94, and W'illiam Hughes, 93 ?i\
his true relations with Thomas
Thorpe (Appendix v.), 390-405

Hacket, Marian and Cicely, in the
Taming of The Shrew, 164-6

Hair, women's, described as ' wires,"
118 and n 2

Hal, Prince, 169, 173

Hales, John (of Eton), on the supe-
riority of Shakespeare, 328 and n

Hall, Elizabeth, the poet's grand-
daughter, 192, 266, 275 ; her first
marriage to Thomas Nash, and
her second marriage to John
Barnard (or Bernard), 282; her
death and will, 282, 283

Hall, Dr. John, the poet's son-in-
law, 266, 268, 273, 281

Hall, Mrs. Susannah, the poet's elder
daughter, 192, 205, 266, 267 ; in-
herits the chief part of the poet's
estate, 275, 281 ; her death and
tomb, 281

Hall, William, (i) on the poet's
grave, 272 and n 2, 362

Hall, William, (2). See ' H., Mr. W.'
Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard,
the collection of, 267 n ; his edition
of Shakespeare, 312, 325; his la-
bours on Shakespeare's biography,

333. 363. 364

Hamlet, 13 n, 62 n ; allusion to boy-
actors, 213 n 2, 214 and n i, 216;
date of production, 221 ; previous
popularity of the story, 221 and n ;
sources drawn upon by the poet,
221-2; Burbage in the title-part,
222 ; the problem of its publica-
tion, 222-4 ; the three versions,
222-4 ; Theobald's emendations,
224 ; its world-wide popularity,
224. For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 224; his edi-
tion of Shakespeare, 318

Harington, Sir John, translates
Ariosto, 208

Harington, Lucy, her marriage to
the third Earl of Bedford, 161

Harness, William, 324

Harrison, John, publisher of ' Lu-
crece,' 76

Harsnet, ' Declaration of Popish Im-
postures ' by, 241

Hart family, the, and the poet's
reputed birthplace, 8

Hart, Joan, Shakespeare's sister, 8 ;
her three sons, 276, 283

Hart, John, 283

Hart, Joseph C., 371

Harvey, Gabriel, loi ; justifies the
imitation of Petrarch, loi « 4; his
parody of sonnetteering, 106, 121
and n ; his advice to Barnes, 133 ;
his ' Four Letters and certain
Sonnets,' 440

Hathaway, Anne. See Shakespeare,
Anne

Hathaway, Catherine, sister of Anne
Hathaway, 19

Hathaway, Joan, mother of Anne
Hatha\^ay, 19

Hathaway, Richard, marriage of his
daughter Anne (or Agnes) to the
poet, 18, 19-22; his will, 19

Haughton, William, 48 ;/, 418

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 371

Hazlitt, William, and his Sh.ike-
spearean criticism, 333, 364, 365

INDEX

459

Healey, John, 400, 403 n 2, 408, 409

' Hecatommithi,' Cinthio's, Shake-
speare's indebtedness to, 14, 53,
236

Heine, studies of Shakespeare's
heroines of, 345

Helena, in A/l's Well that Ends Well,
163

Heming, John (actor-friend of Shake-
speare's), 31 n, 36, 202, 203, 264;
the poet's bequest to, 276 ; signs
dedication of First Folio, 303,306

Henderson, John, actor, 337

Heneage, Sir Thomas, 375 n 3

Henley-in-Arden, 4

Henrietta Maria, Queen, at Strat-
ford, 281

Henry IV (parts i. and ii.), 62 n\
sources of, 167 ; Justice Shallow,
29, 168 ; references to persons and
districts familiar to the poet, 167,
168 ; the characters, 16S-70. For
edition see Section xix. (Bibliogra-
phy), 301-25

Henry V, The Famous Victories of,
part of the groundwork of Henry
IV unA oi Henry V, 167, 174

Henry V: French dialogues in, 15,
37; disdainful allusion to sonnet-
teering, 108 ; date of production,
173 ; issue of imperfect drafts of the
play, 173 ; the poet's final experi-
ment in the dramatisation of Eng-
lish history, 174 ; allusions to the
Earl of Essex, 175. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),
301-25

Henry VI (pt. i.) : performed at the
Rose Theatre in 1592, 56 ; Nash's
remarks on, 56, 57; first publica-
tion, 58 ; contains only a slight
impress of the poet's style, 59

Henry VI (pt. ii.), 13 n; publication
of a first draft, 59 ; revision of the
play, 60 ; the poet's coadjutors in
the revision, 60

Henry VI (pt. iii.) : one of the only
two plays of the poet's performed
by a company other than his own,
36 ; performed in the autumn of
1592, 57 ; publication of a first
draft, 59 ; performed by Lord
Pembroke's men, 36, 59 ; partly
remodelled, 60; the poet's coad-

jutors in the revision, 60. For
editions see Section xix. (Bibliog-
raphy), 301-25

Hen/y VIII : 174 ; attributed to
Shakespeare and Fletcher, 259 ;
noticed by Sir Henry Wotton, 261 ;
date of first publication, 261 ; the
portions that can confidently be
assigned to Shakespeare, 262; un-
certain authorship of Wolsey's
farewell to Cromwell, 262 ; the
theory of James Spedding as to,
263. For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

Henryson, Robert, 227

Henslowe, Philip, eiects the Rose
Theatie, 36, 48 n, 180 n, 225, 260

' Heptameron of Civil Discources,'
Whetstone's, 237

'Herbert, Mr. William,' his alleged
identity with ' Mr. W. H.' (Ap-
pendix VI.), 406-10

Herder, Johann Gottfried, 343

' Hero and Leander," Marlowe's,
quotation in As You Like It fi-om,
64

Herringman, H., 313

Hervey, Sir William, 375 n 3

Hess, J. R., 342

Heyse, Paul, German translation ot
Shakespeare by, 344

Heywood, Thomas, 48 n ; two of his
poems pirated in the ' Passionate
Pilgrim,' 182, 301, 328

Hill, John, marriage of his widow,
Agnes or Anne, to Robert Arden,
6

Holinshed, ' Chronicles ' of, mate-
rials taken by Shakespeare from,
17. 47. 63, 64, 167, 239, 241, 249,
364

Holland, translations of Shakespeare
in, 352

Holland, Hugh, 306

Holmes, Nathaniel, 372

Holmes, William, bookseller, 403 n i

Holofernes, 15 ; groundless assump-
tion that he is a caricature of
Florio, 51 «, 84 n

Horace, his claim for the immortality
of verse, 114 and n i, 116 «

Hotspur, 168, 169

Howard of Effingham, the Lord
Admiral, Charles, Lord, his com-

460

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

pany of actors, 35, 37 ; Spenser's

sonnet to, 140
Hudson, Rev. H. N., 325
Hughes, Mis. Margaret, the first

woman to play lemale parts in

place ol bovs, 335
Hughes. William, and 'Mr. W. H.,'

93 «

Hugo, Franfois Victor, translation
of Shakespeare by, 350

Hugo, Victor, 350

Humorous Day's Mirth, An, 51 n

Hungary, translations and perform-
ances of Shakespeare in, 353

Hunsdon (Lord Chamberlain),
George Carey, second Lord, his
company of players, 35 ; promo-
tion of the company to be the
King's players, 35

Hunsdon (Lord Chamberlain),
Henry Carey, first Lord, his com-
pany of players, 35 ; and Shake-
speare, 36

Hunt, Thomas, one of the masters
of Stratford Grammar School, 13

Hunter, Rev. Joseph, 333, 363, 406

' Huon of Bordeaux,' hints for the
story of Oberon from, 162

' Hymn,' use of the word as the title
of poems, 133, 134, 135 n

'Idea,' title of Drayton's collection
of sonnets, 104, 105, 434

' Ignoto," 183

Immortality of verse, claimed by
Shakespeare for his sonnets, 113,
114, 115 and n

Imogen, the character of, 249, 250

Income, Shakespeare's, 196-204

India, translations and representa-
tions of Shakespeare in, 354

Ingamiati {Gi'), its resemblance to
T'iiiclftk Night, 210

Ingram, Dr., on the "weak endings'
in Shakespeare, 49 n

Ireland forgeries, the (Appendix I.),
366

Ireland, Samuel, 28

Irishman, the only one in Shake-
speare's dramatis per soncE, 173

Irving, Sir Henry, 339

Italian, the poet's acquaintance with,
14-16, of. 66 /? 3

JONSON

Italy, Shakespeare's alleged know-
ledge of, 43; translations and per-
formances of Shakespeare in, 352 ;
sonnetteers of sixteenth century in,
442 n 2

Itinerary of Shakespeare's company
between 1593 and 1614, 40 and n x

Jaggard, Isaac, 305

Jaggard, Williain, and ' Passionate
Pilgrim,' 89, 182, 299, 390, 396;
and the First Folio, 303, 304

James VI of Scotland and I of Eng-
land, his favour to actors, 41 ?/ i;
his appreciation of Shakespeare,
82; his accession to the English
throne, 147-9 i grants a license to
the poet and his company, 230;
patronage of Shakespeare, 232-4;
performances of Shakespeare's
plays before, 235, 236, 239, 251 and
II, 254, 255, 256 // ; sonnets to, 440

James, Sir Henry, 311

Jameson, Mrs., 365

Jamyn, Amadis, 432, 443, 444, 455 n

Jansen or Janssen, Gerard, 276

Jansen, Cornelius, the painter, 294

yerornmo and Hamlet, 221 )i

Jew of Malta, Marlowe's, 68

Jem . . . showne at the Hull, a los'
play, 67

Jodelle, Estienne, resemblances it
' V' enus and Adonis' to a poem
by, 75 n 2; his parody of the
vituperative sonnet, 121, 122 and
n (quot.) ; one of ' La Pleiade,' 443

John, King, old play on, attributed
to the poet, 181

John, King : Shakespeare's play of,
69, 70. For editions see Section
xix. (Bibliography), 301-25

Johnson, Dr., 33; his edition of
Shakespeare, 319-21 ; his reply to
Voltaire, 348

Johnson, Gerard, his monument to
the poet in Stratford Church, 276

Johnson, Robert, lyrics set to music
by, 255 and u 2

Jones, Inigo, 38 n 2

Jonson, Ben, on Shakespeare's lack
of exact scholarship, 16; Shake-
speare takes part in the perform-
ance of Eve?y Alan in His Humour

INDEX

461

JORDA^f

and in Sejanus, 44 ; on Tiliis An-
dronicus, 65 ; on the appreciation
of Shakespeare shown by EHza-
beth and )anies I, 82; on metrical
artifice in sonnets, 106 ii i ; use of
the word ' lover,' 127 n ; identified
by some as the ' rival poet," 136 ;
his ' dedicatory ■ sonnets, 138 n 2,
140; relations with Shakespeare,
176, 177; share in the appendix to
'Love's Martyr,' 183; quarrel with
Marston and Dekker, 214-20; his
' Poetaster," 217, 218 and n ; allu-
sions to him in the Return from
Parnassus, 219; his criticism of
yuliiis C(£sar, 220 n \ satiric allu-
sion to A Winter's Tale, 251, and
The Tempest, 256 ; entertained by
Shakespeare, 271 ; testimony to
Shakespeare's character, 277 ; his
tribute to Shakespeare, 306, 311,
327; Thorpe's publication of works
by. 395 « 3, 401 ; his Hue and Cry
after Cupid, 432 n 2
Jordan, ]ohn, forgeries of (Appen-
dix I.)," 365. 366
Jordan, Mrs., 338, 339
Jordan, Thomas, 335 n
Jourdain, Sylvester, 252
'Jubilee,' Shakespeare's, 334
Julius CcEsar : 127 n ; plot drawn
from Plutarch, 211; date of pro-
duction, 211; a play of the same
title acted in 1594, 211; general
features of the play, 211, 212; Jon-
son's hostile criticism, 220 n. For
editions see Section xix. (Bibli-
ography), 301-25

Kean, Edmund, 338, 351

Keller, A., German translation of

Shakespeare by, 344
Kemble, Charles, 351
Kemble, John Philip, 337
Kemp, William, comedian, 43, 208,

219
Kenilworth, 17; cf. 162
Ketzcher, N., translation into Russian

by, 353

Killigrew, Thomas, 334

King's players, the company of, 35 ;
Shakespeare one of its members,
36; the poet's plays performed

almost exclusively by, 36, 40 and

n I ; King James's license to, 230,

231
Kirkland, occurrence of the name of

Shakespeare at, i
Kirkman, Francis, publisher, i8r
Knight, Charles, 324
Knollys, Sir William, 415 n
Kok, A. S., translation in Dutch by,

352
Korner, J., German translation of

Shakespeare by, 345
Kraszewski, Polish translation edited

by, 353

Kreyssig, Friedrich A. T., studies of
the poet by, 345

Kyd, Thomas, influence on Shake-
speare, 61; alleged author of Titus
A'ldronicus, 65 ; his Spanish Trag-
edy, 65, 221 ; dramatises story of
Hamlet, 221 and ti ; Shakespeare's
acquaintance with his work, 222 n

L., H., initials on seal attesting
Shakespeare's autograph. See
Lawrence, Henry

La Giuletta, Luigi da Porto's, 55 « i

La Harpe, sides with Voltaire in
the Shakespearean controversy in
France, 349

Labe, Louise, 445 n

Lamb, Charles, 260, 338

Lambarde, William, 175

Lambert, Edmund, mortgagee of the
Asbies property, 12, 26, 164

Lambert, John, and tlie Asbies prop-
erty, 26 ; John Shakespeare's law-
suit with, 195

Lane, Nicholas, a creditor of John
Shakespeare, 186

Langbaine, Gerard, 66, 362

Laroche, Benjamin, translation by,

350
Latin, the poet's acquaintance with,

13. 15. 16

' Latten,' use of the word in Shake-
speare, 177 n

' Laura,' Shakespeare's allusion to
her as Petrarch's heroine, 108 ; title
of Tofte's collection of sonnets,
438

Law, the poet's knowledge of, 32 and
cf. n 2, and 107

462

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

LAWRENCE

Lawrence, Henry, his seal beneath
Shukespeaie's autograph, 267

Lear, King: date of composition,
241; produced at Whitehall, 241;
Butter's imperfect editions, 241 ;
mainly founded on Holinshed's
'Chronicle,' 241, and Sidney's
'Arcadia,' 241; the character of
the King, 242. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography) 301-

25
Legal terminology in plays and

poems of the Shakespearean

period, 32 n 2, and Appendix IX. ;

cf. 107
Legge, Dr. Thomas, a I.,atin piece

on Richard 1 1 1 by, 63
Leicester, Earl of, entertains Queen

Elizabeth at Kenilworth, 17, 162;

in the Low Countries, 30; his

company of players, 33, 35
Leo. F. A., 346
Leoni, Michele, Italian translation

of the poet issued by, 352
' Leopold ' Shakespeare, the, 325
Lessing, defence of Shakespeare by,

343
L'Estrange, Sir Nicholas, 176
Le Tourneur, Pierre, French prose
translation of Shakespeare by, 349
' Licia," Fletcher's collection of son-
nets called, 77 n 2, 103, 105, 1 13 n 5,

433
Linche, Richard, his sonnets entitled

' Diella,' 437
Liiitot, Bernard, 231
Litigation, Shakespeare's liking for,

206
Locke (or Lok), Henry, sonnets by,

338, 441

' Locrine, Tragedie of,' 179

Lodge, Thomas, 57, 61 ; his ' Scillas
Metamorphosis ' and ' Venus and
Adonis," 75 and « 2; his plagia-
risms, 103 and n 3, 433 ; his ' Rosa-
lynde,' 209 ; his ' Phillis,' 417, 433

London Prodigall, 180, 313

Lope de Vega dramatises the story
of Romeo and Juliet, 55 n i

Lopez, Roderigo, 68 and n

Lorkin, Rev. Thomas, on the burning
of the Globe Theatre, 261 71

Love, treatment of, in Shakespeare's
sonnets, 97 and //, 98, 112, 113 and

MACBETH

» 2 ; in the sonnets of other writers,
104-6, 113 « 2

'Lover 'and 'love' synonyms with
' friend ' and ' friendship ' in Eliza-
bethan English, 127 n

' Lover's Complaint, A,' possibly by
Shakespeare, 91

Love's Labour's Lost : Latin phrases
in, 15; probably the poet's first
dramatic production, 50; its plot
not borrowed, 51 and n, 52 ; its re-
vision in 1597, 52 ; date of publica-
tion, 52; influence of Lyiy, 62;
performed at Whitehall, 81; son-
nets in, 84, 107; the praise of
' blackness,' 118, 119 and « 2 ; per-
formed at Southampton's house in
the Strand, 384. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25

Love's Labour's Won, attributed by
Meres to Shakespeare, 162. See
All's Well

' Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's Com-
plaint,' 183, 184 n, 304

Lowell, fames Russell, 13 ??, 341

Lucian, the Timon of, 243

' Lucrece ' : published in 1594, 76,
77 n I, n 2\ dedicated to the Earl
of Southampton, 77, 78, 126, 127 ;
enthusiastic reception of, 78, 79;
quarto editions, 299, -goo

Lucy, Sir Thomas, 277^x8; carica-
tured in lustice ShallowlSg, 173

Luddington, 20

Lydgate, ' Troy Book ' of, 227

LyIy, John, 61 ; influence on Shake-
speare's comedies, 61, 62 ; his
addresses to Cupid, 97 n\ and
Midsummer Night's Dream, 162

Lyrics in Shakespeare's plays, 207,
250, 25s and n 2

'M., L,'3o6. See also ' S., L M.'
Macbeth: the references to the climate
of Inverness, 41 (and quotation in
«3),42; date of composition, 239;
the story drawn from Holinshed,
239; not printed until 1623, 239;
the shortest of the poet's plays,
239; points of difference from
other plays of the same class, 240;
Middleton's plagiarisms of, 240.
For editions see Section xix. (Bib-
liography), 301-25

INDEX

463

Macbeth, Lady, resemblance between
Clytemnestra of ^schylus and,
13 ;/

Mackay, Mr. Herbert, on the dower
of the poet's widow, 274 n

Macklin, Charles, 336, 337

Macready, William Charles, 339,

351
Madden, Rt. Hon. D. H., 27 v, 168,

364
Magellan, ' Voyage to the South

Pole ' by, 253
Magny, Olivier de, 443
Malone, Edmund, on Shakespeare's

first employment in the theatre, 34;

on the poet's residence, 38 ; on the

date of The Tempest, 254, 332, 333 ;

his writings, 321, 322, 362
Malvolio, popularity of, 211
Manners, Lady Bridget, 378, 379

and n
Manningham, John (diarist), 210
Manuscript, circulation of sonnets

in, 88 and «, 391, 396
Marino, vituperative sonnet by, 122

« I. 443

Markham, Gervase, his adulation of
Southampton, 131, 134, 387

Marlowe, Christopher, 57 ; his share
in the revision of Henry VI, 60 ;
his influence on Shakespeare, 61,
63, 64 ; Shakespeare's notices of, in
As YoiL Like It, 64; his 'First
Book of Lucan,' 90, 393, 399

Marmontel sides with Voltaire in
the Shakespearean controversy in
France, 349

Marot, Clement, 442

Marriage, treatment of, in the Son-
nets, 98

Marshall, Mr. F. A., 325

Marston, John, identified by some
as the 'rival poet,' 136, 183; his
quarrel with jonson, 214-20

Martin, an English actor in Scotland,
41 and n i

Martin, Lady, 339, 365

'Mary Magdalene's Funeral Tears,'
88 «

Masks worn by men playing women's
parts, 38 « 2

Massinger, Philip, 258; portions of
The Tvjo Noble Kinsmen as-
signed to, 259 ; the conjecture that

MEZIERES

he collaborated with Fletcher in
Henry VI 1 1, 263 and « 2

' Mastic,' use of the word, 228 n

Masuccio, the story of Romeo and
Juliet in his Xonellino, 55

Matthew, Sir Toby, 371, 383

Mayne, Jasper, 306, 328 n

Measure /or Measure : the offence of
Claudio, 23 ;/; date of composi-
tion, 235; produced at Whitehall,
235 ; source of plot, 236 ; devia-
tions from the old story, 237, 238 ;
the argument, 238 ; references to
a ruler's dislike of mobs, 738. J-'or
editions see Section .xi.x. (Bibliog-
raphy), 301-25

Melin de Saint-Gelais, 442

Memorials in sculpture to the poet,
297

Menczchml of Plautus, 54

Mendelssohn, setting of Shakespea-
rean songs by, 347

Merchant of Venice: the influence
of Marlowe, 63, 68 ; sources of
the plot, 66, 67 ; the last act, 69 ;
date of, 69; use of the word ' lover,'
127 n. For editions see Section
xi.x. (Bibliography), 301-25

Meres, Francis, on Shakespeare's
' sugred ' sonnets, 89; his quota-
tions from Horace and Ovid,
116 n\ attributes Love's Labour's
Won to Shakespeare, 162 ; on the
poet's literary reputation, 178, 179,
390

Mermaid Tavern, 177, 178

Merry Devill of Edmonton, 181, 258
n 2

Merry Wives of Windsor, 15 ; Sir
Thomas Lucy caricatured in Jus-
tice Shallow, 29 ; lines from Mar-
lowe sung by Sir Hugh Evans, 64,
65 ; period of production, 171 ;
publication of the play, 172; the
plot, 172 ; chief characteristics,
173. For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

Metre of Shakespeare's plays, 48-

50
Metre of Shakespeare's poems, 75-

77
Metre of Shakespeare's sonnets, 95

and n 2
Mezi^res, Alfred, 350

464

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Michel, Francisque, translation by,
350

Middle Temple Hall, performance
of Twelfth Night at, 210

Middleton, Thomas, his allusion to
Le Motte in Blurt, Master Con-
stable, 51 71 ; his plagiarisms of
Macbeth in The Witch, 240

Midsummer Night's Dream : refer-
ences to the pageants at Kenilworth
Park, 17, 162; references to Spen-
ser's ' Teares of the Muses,' 80;
date of production, 161 ; sources
of the story, 162; the scheme of
the play, 162. T'or editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-

25
Milton, 179 >t ; his epitaph on Shake-
speare, 327
Minto, Professor, on Chapman as

Shakespeare's ' rival ' poet, 135 n
Miranda, character of, 256
' Mirror of Martyrs,' 211
Miseries of Enforced Marriage, 243
' Monarcho, Fantastioall,' 51 «
Money, its purchasing power in the

sixteenth century, 3 n 3, 197 n
Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 348
Montaigne, ,' Essays ' of, 84 n, 253
Montegiit, Emile, translation by, 350
Monteniayor, George de, 53
Montgomery, Philip Herbert, Earl

of, 306, 381, 410
Monument to Shakespeare in Strat-
ford Church, 276, 286
Morley, Lord, 140 n
Mortgage-deed signed by the poet,

267
Moseley, Humphrey, publisher, 181,

258, 259
Mothe, in Love's Labour's Lost, 51 n
Moulton, Dr. Richard G., 365
Miicedorus, wrongly assigned to

Shakespeare, 72
Much Ado about Nothing: a jesting
allusion to sonnetteering. 108 ; its
publication, 207, 208 ; date of, 208 ;
the comic characters, 208 ; Italian
origin of Hero and Claudio, 208 ;
parts taken by William Kemp and
Cowley, 208 ; quotation from the
Spanish Tragedy, 221 n. For edi-
tions see Section xix. (Bibliogra-
phy), 301-25

OECHELHAEUSER

Mulberry-tree at New Place, the,
194 and n

Music : at stage performances in
Shakespeare's day, 38 ti 2 ; its
indebtedness to the poet, 340

Nash, Anthony, the poet's legacy to,
276

Nash, John, the poet's legacy to, 276

Nash, Thomas, (i) marries Elizabeth
Hall, Shakespeare's granddaugh-
ter, 282

Nash, Thomas, (2) on the perform-
ance of Henry IT, 56, 57; his
'Terrors of the Night,' 88 n; on
the immortalising power of verse,
1 14 ; use of the word ' lover,' 127 « ;
his appeals to Southampton, 131,
134. 135 «. 385. 386; on Kyd's
'Hamlets,' 221 n, 427 n 2; his
preface to ' Astrophel and Stella,'
429 n I

Navarre, King of, in Love's Labour's
Lost, 51 w

Neil, Samuel, 364

Nekrasow and Gerbel, translation
into Russian by, 353

New Place, Stratford, Shakespeare's
purchase of, 193, 194 ; entertain-
ment of Jonson and Drayton at,
271 ; the poet's death at, 272 ; sold
to Sir Edward Walker, 283; dem-
olition of, 283

Newcastle, Margaret Cavendish,
Duchess of, criticism of the poet
by, 331

Newdegate, Lady, 406 /;, 415
Newington Butts Theatre, 37
Newman, Thomas, piratical publica-
tion of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets
by, 88 n, 429 and n i
Nicolson, George, English agent in

Scotland, 41 n i
Nottingham, Earl of, his company of
players, 225 ; taken into the patron-
age of Henry, Prince of Wales,
231 n

Oberon, vision of, 17, 161 ; in ' Huon

of Bordeaux,' 162
Oechelhaeuser, W., acting edition of

the poet by, 346

INDEX

46s

OLDCASTLE

Oldcastle, Sir John, versions of his
history, 170, 313

' Oldcastle, Sir John," the original
name of Falstaff in Henry IV,
169

Oldys, William, 231, 362

Olney, Henry, publisher, 437

Orlando Furioso, 47 n, 208

Ortlepp, E., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

Othello : date of composition, 235 ;
not printed in the poet's lifetime,
235 ; plot drawn from Cmthio's
' Hecatommithi,' 236; new char-
acters and features, 236. For
editions see Section xix. (Bibliog-
raphy), 301-25

Ovid, influence on Shakespeare of
his ' Metamorphoses,' 15, 75 and
// I, 76, 162, 253; claims immor-
tality for his verse, 114 and n i,
116 «; the poet's signature said to
be on the title-page of a copy of
the ' Metamorphoses ' in the Bod-
leian Library, 15

Oxford, the poet's visiis to, 31, 265,
266 ; Hamlet acted at, 224

Oxford, Earl of, his company of
actors, 35

' Oxford ' edition of Shakespeare,
the, 325

Painter, William, his 'Palace of
Pleasure ' and ' Romeo and Juliet,'
55; All's Well that Ends Well,
163 ; Timon of Athens, 243 ; and
Coriolanus, 246

Palcemon and Arcyte, a lost play, 260

Palamon and Arsett, a lost play, 260

Palladis Tamia, eulogy on the poet
in, 178

Palmer, John, actor, 337

' Pandora,' Soothern's collection of
love-sonnets, 138 n 23

Pandosfo (afterwards called Dorastus
and Fawnia), Shakespeare's in-
debtedness to, 251

Parodies on sonnefteering, 106-8,
122 and n

Parthenophil and Parthenophe, the,
of Barnes, 132

Pasquier, Estienne, 443

Passerat, Jean, 443

PERKES

Passionate Cenfurie of Love, WaU
son's, 77; plagiarism in, loi n 4,
102, 427 n 2, 428

'Passionate Pilgrim,' piraiical inser-
tion of two sonnets in, 98, 182, 437;
the remaining coiitt-nts ol, 182 n,
299 ; printed with Shakespeare's
poems, 300

Patrons and companies of players,
35 ; adulation offered to, 138 and
n 2, 140, 141, 440 and n

Pavier, "Thomas, printer, 180

' Pecorone, II,' by Ser Giovanni
Fiorentino, 14, 66 and ?i 3, 172;
W. G. Waters's translation of,
66 n 3

Peele, George, 57; his share in the
original draft of Henry 1 7, 60

Pembioke, Countess of, dedication
of Daniel's 'Delia' to, 130, 429;
homage paid to, by Nicholas
Breton, 138 n 2

Pembroke. William, third Earl of,
the question of the identification of
' Mr. \V. H.' with, 94, 406-15; ]jer-
formance at his Wilton residence,
231, 232 n I, 411; the First Folio,
306 ; his alleged relations with
Shakespeare, 23 n, 411-15; dedi-
cations by Thorpe to, 399 and n 1,
403 fi 2

Pembroke, Henry, second Earl of,
his company of players perform
Henry I'l (pt. iii.), 36, 59: and
Titus Andronicus, 66

Penrith, Shakespeares at, i

Pepys, his criticisms of J he Tempest
and Midsummer A'ight s Dream

329

Percy, William, his sonnets, entitled
'C'oelia,' 435

Perez, Antonio, and Antonio in The
Merchant of Venice, 68 71

Pericles: date of composition, 242;
a work of collaboration, 242; lack
of homogeneitv, 244 ; dates of the
various editions, 244 ; not included
in the First Folio, 305; included
in Third Folio, 313. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),
301-25

Perkes (Clement), in Henry IV,
the name of a family at Stinch-
combe Hill, 168

466

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

' Perkins Folio,' forgeries in the, 312,
317 n 2 (Appendix), 367 and ti

Personalities on the stage, 215 n I

Peruse, Jean de la, 443

Petowe, Henry, elegy on Queen
Elizabeth by, 148

Petrarch, emulated by Elizabethan
sonnetteers, 84, 85, 86 n ; feigns
old age in his sonnets, 86 n ; his
metre, 95 ; Spenser's translations
from, loi ; imitation of his son-
nets justified by Gabriel Harvey,
loi n 4; plagiarisms admitted by
sonnetteers, loi n 4; Wyatt's
translations of, loi n 4, 427 ; plagi-
arised indirectly by Shakespeare,
no, III and ;/, 113 « I ; the melan-
choly of his sonnets, 152 n ; imi-
tated in France, 443

Phelps, Samuel, 325, 339

Phillips, Augustine, actor, friend of
Shakespeare, 36; induced to re-
vive Richard II at the Globe in
i6or, 175 ; his death, 264

Phillips, Edward (Milton's nephew),
362, 439 n I

' Phillis,' Lodge's 118 n 2, 433 and

«3

Philosophy, Chapman's sonnets in
praise of, 441

' Phcsnix and the Turtle, The,' 183,
184, 304

Pichot, A., 350

' Pierces Supererogation," by Gabriel
Harvey, loi 11 4, 105

Pindar, his claim for the immortality
of verse, 114 and n i

Plague, the, in Stratford-on-Avon,
10; in London, 65, 231

Plautus, the plot of the Comedy of
Errors drawn from, 16; transla-
tion of, 54

Plays, sale of, 47 and n\ revision of,
47; their publication deprecated
by playhouse authorities, 48 fi ;
only a small proportion printed,
48 n ; prices paid for, 202 «

' Pleiade, La,' title of the literary
comrades of Ronsard, 442 ; list of,

443

'Plutarch,' North's translation of,
Shakespeare's indebtedness to, 47,
162, 211, 243, 245 and ;;, 246 and n

Poaching episode, the, 27, 28

QUEEN'S

Poetaster, Jonson's, 217, 218 and n

Poland, translations and perform-
ances of Shakespeare in, 353

Pontoux, Claude de, name of his
heroine copied by Drayton, 104

Pope, Alexander, 297 ; edition of
Shakespeare by, 315

Porto, Luigi da, adapts the story of
Romeo and Juliet, 55 // i

Portraits of the poet, 286-93, 296
7t 2 ; the ' Stratford ' portrait, 287 ;
Droeshout's engraving, 287, 288,
30G, 306; the 'Droeshout' paint-
ing, 288-91 ; portrait in the Clar-
endon gallery, 291; 'Ely House'
portrait, 290, 291 ; ' Chandos ' por-
trait, 292, 293 ; ' Jansen ' portrait,
293, 294 ; ' Felton ' and ' Soest '
portraits, 294 ; miniatures, 295

Pott, Mrs. Henry, 372

Prevost, Abbe, 348

Pritchard, Mrs., 336

Procter, Bryan Waller (Barry Corn-
wall), 324

Promos and Cassandra, 237

Prospero, character of, 257

Publication of dramas : deprecated
by playhouse authorities, 48 «;
only a small proportion of the
dramas of the period printed, 48 n ;
only sixteen of Shakespeare's plays
published in his lifetime, 48

Punning, 418, 419 n

Purita'me, or the Widdow of Wat-
lu7g-streete. The, 180, 313

Puritanism, alleged prevalence in
Stratford-on-Avon of, 10 n, 268
no.; its hostility to dramatic repre-
sentations, 10 ;;, 212, 213 n I ; the
poet's references to, 268 n i

' Pyramus and Thisbe,' 397

QUARLES, John, ' Banishment of
Tarquin ' of, 300

Quarto editions of the plays, in the
poet's lifetime, 301, 302; posthu-
mous, 302, 303

of the poems in the poet's

lifetime, 299; posthumous, 300

' Quatorzain,' term applied to the
Sonnet, 427 « 2 ; cf. 429 n I

' Queen's Children of the Chapel,"
the, 34, 35, 38, 213-17

INDEX

467

QUEEN'S

Queen's Company of Actors, at
Stratford-on-Avon, 10; its return
to London, 33, 35, 231 tt

Quiney, Thomas, marries Judith
Shakespeare, 271; his residence
in Stratford, 280; his children, 281

Quinton, 165

Ralegh, Sir Walter, extravagant
apostrophe to Queen Elizabeth by,
137 « I, 182 n

Rapp, M., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

' Ratseis Ghost,' and Ratsey's ad-
dress to the players, 185, 199

Ravenscroft, Edward, on Titus An-
di-oiiiciis, 65, 332

Reed, Isaac, 321, 322

Reformation, the, at Stratford-on-
Avon, 10 ?!

Rehan, Miss Ada, 342

Religion and Philosophy, sonnets on
(Appendix ix.), 440, 441

Return from Parnassus, The, 198,
199 n I, 218-20, 277

Revision of plays, the poet's, 47, 48

Reynoldes, William, the poet's legacy
to, 276

Rich, Barnabe, story of ' Apollonius
and Silla' by, 53, 210

Rich, Penelope, Lady, Sidney's pas-
sion for, 428

Richard II : the influence of Mar-
lowe, 63, 64 ; published anony-
mously, 63 ; the deposition scene,
64; probably composed in 1593,
64; the facts drawn from Holin-
shed, 64; its revival, 175, 383. For
editions sec Section xix. (Bibli-
ography), 301-25

Richard In : the influence of Mar-
lowe, 63 ; materials drawn from
Holinshed, 63 ; Mr. Swinburne's
criticism, 63; Burbage's imperso-
nation of the hero, 63 ; published
anonymously, 63 ; Colley Gibber's
adaptation, 335. For editions see
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-

25
Richardson, John, 20, 22
Richmond Palace, performances at,

82, 230
Ristori, Madame, 352

ROWE

Roberts, James, printer, 225, 226,

303. 431

Robinson, Clement, use of the word
' sonnet ' by, 427 n 2

Roche, Walter, master of Stratford
Grammar School, 13

Roles, Shakespeare's: at Greenwich
Palace, 43, 44 // 1 ; in Every Man
in his Humour, 44 ; in Sejanus, 44 ;
the Ghost in Hamlet, 44; 'some
kingly parts in sport,' 44; Adam
in As You Like It, 44

Rolfe, Mr. W. J., 325

Romeo and Juliet, 54 ; plot drawn
from the Italian, 55; date of com-
position, 56; pulilication of, 56;
two choruses in tlie sonnet form,
84; allusion to sonnetteering, 108.
For editions see Section xix. (Bib-
liography), 301-35

Romeus and Juliet, Arthur Brooke's,
322

Ronsard, plagiarised by English son-
netteers, 102, 103 n 3, 432 seq. ; by
Shakespeare, iii, 112 and n i ; his
claim for the immortality of verse,
114 and n i, 116 n; his sonnets of
vituperation, 121 ; gave the sonnet
a literary vogue in France, 442;
and ' La Pleiade,' 442 ; modern re-
print of his works, 445 n

Rosalind, played by a boy, 38 « 2

Rosaline, praised for her ' blackness,'
118, 119

' Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Lega-
cie,' Lodge's, 209

Rose Theatre, Bankside, erected by
Philip Henslowe, 36; opened by
Lord Strange's company, 36; the
scene of the poet's first successes,
37 ; performance of Henry VI, 56 ;
production of the Venesyon Comedy,
69

Rossi, representation of Shakespeare
by, 352

Roussillon, Countess of, 163

Rowe, Nicholas, on the parentage of
Shakespeare's wife, 18; on Shake-
speare's poaching escapade, 27 ;
on Shakespeare's performance as
the Ghost in Hamlet, 44; on the
story of Southampton's gift to
Shakespeare, 126; on Queen Eliza-
beth's enthusiasm for the character

468

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ROWINGTON

of Falstaff, 171 ; on the poet's last
years at Stratford, 266; on John
Combe's epitaph, 269 ti ; his
edition of the. poet's plays, 314, 362

Rowington, Shakespeares of, 2

Rowlands, Samuel, 397

Rowley, William, 181, 243

Roydon, Matthew, on Sir Philip Sid-
ney, 140, 184 n

Rusconi, Carlo, Italian prose version
of Shakespeare by, 352

Russia, Shakespeare in, 352, 353

Rymer, Thomas, his censure of the
poet, 329

' S., M. I.,' tribute to the poet in the
Second Folio thus headed, 327 and
n, 328

' S., W.,' initials in Willobie's book,
156, 157 ; commonness of the
initials, 157 n ; use of the initials
on works fraudulently attributed to
the poet, 179, 180

Sackville, Thomas, 408 n

Sadler, Hainlett, the poet's legacy to,
276

St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, a William
Shakespeare in 1598 living in, 38
and n 1

Saint-Saens, M., o-pe.ra.oi Henry VIII
by, 351

Sainte-Marthe, Sc^vole de, 443

Salvini, representation of Othello by,
352

Sand, George, translation of As You
Like It by, 351

Sandells, Fulk, and Shakespeare's
marriage, 20, 22 ; supervisor of
Richard Hathaway's will, 22

Saperton, 27, 29

' Sapho and Phao,' address to Cupid
in, 97 n

Satlro-Mastix, a retort to Jonson's
Cynthia's Revels, 215

Savage, Mr. Richard, 363

' Saviolo's Practise,' 209

Scenery unknown in Shakespeare's
day, 38 and n 2 ; designed by Inigo
Jones for masks in the palaces
of James I, 38 ;/ 2 ; Sir Philip Sid-
ney and difficulties arising from its
absence, 38 « 2

Schiller, adaptation of Macbeth for
the stage by, 345

SHAKESPEARE

Schlegel, 180; German translation oi
Shakespeare by, 343; lectures on
Shakespeare by, 344

Schmidt, Alexander, 364

' Schoole of Abuse,' 67

Schroeder, F. U. L., German actor of
Shakespeare, 346

Schubert, Franz, setting of Shake-
spearean songs by, 347

Schumann, setting of Shakespearean
songs by, 347

' Scillas Metamorphosis,' Lodge's, 75
and « 2

Scoloker, Anthony, his ' Daiphantus,'
277

Scotland : Shakespeare's alleged
travels in, 40-42; visits of actors
to, 41 n I

Scot, Reginald, allusion to Monarcho
in ' The Discoverie of Witchcraft '
of, 51 «

Scott, Sir Walter, at Charlecote, 28

Scourge of Folly, 44 n 2

Sedley, Sir Charles, apostrophe to
the poet, 331

Sejanus, Shakespeare takes part in
the performance of, 44, 401

Selimus, 179

Serafino dell' Aquila, Watson's in-
debtedness to, 77 n 2, 102, 103 n I

S6ve, Maurice, 104 and «, 430, 442,

445 « I

Sewell, Dr. George, 315

' Shadow of the Night, The,' Chap-
man's, 135 n

Shakespeare, the surname of, i, 2,
cf. 24 n

Shakespeare, Adam, i

Shakespeare, Ann, a sister of the
poet, II

Shakespeare, Anne (or Agnes) : her
parentage, 18, 19; her marriage to
the poet, 18, 19-22; the assumed
identification of her with Anne
Whateley untenable, 23, 24 and n\
her debt, 187; her husband's be-
quest to her, 273 ; her widow's
dower barred, 274 and u \ her
wish to be buried in her husband's
grave, 274; committed by her
husband to the care of the elder
daughter, 275 ; her death, and the
inscription above her grave, 280
and n

INDEX

469

SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare, Edmund, a brother of
the poet, 11; becomes 'a player,'
283; death, 283

Shakespeare, Gilbert, a brother of
the poet, 11; sees him play the
part of Adam in As You Like It,
44; survived the poet and ap-
parently had a son named Gilbert,
283

Shakespeare, Hamnet, son of the
poet, 26, 187

Shakespeare, Henry, one of the
poet's uncles, 3, 4, 186

Shakespeare, Joan (i), 7 [Joan

Shakespeare, Joan (2). See Hart,

Shakespeare, John (i), the first re-
corded holder of this surname
(thirteenth century), i.

Shakespeare, John (2), the poet's
father, administrator of Richard
Shakespeare's estate, 3, 4 ; claims
that his grandfather received a grant
of land from Henry VH, 2, 189;
leaves Snitterfield and sets up in
business at Stratford-on-Avon, 4;
his property in Stratford and his
municipal offices, 5 ; marries Mary
Arden, 6, 7; his children, 7; his
house in Henley Street, Stratford,
8, II; appointed alderman and
bailiff, 10; welcomes actors at
Stratford, 10; his alleged sympa-
thies with Puritanism, 10 n; his
application for a grant of arms, 2,
10 «, 188-92; his financial diffi-
culties, II, 12; his younger chil-
dren, II ; writ of distraint issued
against him, 12 ; deprived of his
alderman's gown, 12 ; increase of
pecuniary difficulties, 186 ; re-
lieved by the poet, 187 ; his death,
204

Shakespeare or Shakspere, John (a
shoemaker), another resident at
Stratford, 12 ?/ 3.

Shakespeare, Judith, the poet's sec-
ond daughter, 26, 205 ; her mar-
riage to Thomas Quiney, 271 ; her
father's bequest to her, 275 ; her
children, 280, 281 ; her death, 281

Shakespeare, Margaret, 7

Shakespeare, Mary, the poet's
mother: her marriage, 6, 7; her
parentage, 6, 7 ; her property, 7 ;

SHAKESPEARE

her title to bear the arms of the
Arden family, 191 ; her death, 266

Shakespeare, Richard, a brother of
the poet, II, 266; his death, 283

Shakespeare, Richard, of Rowing-
ton, 2

Shakespeare, Richard, of Snitterfield,
probably the poet's grandfather, 3 ;
his family, 3, 4; letters of adminis-
tration of his estate, 3 and n 3

Shakespeare, Richard, of Wroxhall,

Shakespeare, Susannah, a daughter
of the poet, 22. See also Hall, Mrs.
Susannah

Shakespeare, Thomas, probably one
of the poet's uncles, 3, 4

SHAKESPEARE, WlLLlAM : paren-
tage and birthplace, i-g ; child-
hood, education, and marriage,
10-24 (see also Education of Shake-
speare; Shakespeare, Anne or
Agnes) ; departure from Stratford,
27-31; theatrical employment, 32-
4; joins the Lord Chamberiam's
company, 36; his roles, 43; his
first plays, 50-73; publication of
' V^enus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece,'
74, 76 sec/.; his Sonnets, 83-124,
151-6; patronage of the Earl of
Southampton, 125-50; plays com-
posed brlween 1595 and 1598, 161-
73 ; his popularity and influence,
176-9; returns to Stratford in
1596, 187 ; buys New Place, 193 ;
financial position before 1599, 196
seq. ; financial position after 1599,
200 seq. ; formation of his estate at
Stratford, 204 seq. ; plays written
between 1599 and 1609, 207-47;
the latest plays, 248 set/. ; per-
formance of his plays at Court, 264
{see also CourX; Whitehall; Eliza-
beth, Queen; James I) ; final set-
tlement in Stratford (1611), 266
seq.; death (1616), 272; his will,
273 seq.; monument at Stratford,
276 ; personal character, 277-9 '•
his survivors and descendants, 280
seq.; autographs, portraits, and
memorials, 284-98 ; bibliography,
299-325; his posthumous reputa-
tion in England and abroad, 326-
54 ; general estimate of his work,

470

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SHAKESPEARE

355-7 ; biographical sources, 361-
5 ; alleged relations with the Earl
of Pembroke, 411-15
Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall,

341
' Shakespeare Society,' the, 333, 365
Shallow, Justice, Sir Thomas Lucy
caricatured as, 29 ; his house in
Gloucestershire, 167, 168, 173
Sheldon copy of the First Folio, the,

309, 310
Shelton, Thomas, translator of ' Don

Quixote,' 258
Shiels, Robert, compiler of ' Lives of

the Poets,' 32 11 3
Shottery, Anne Hathaway's Cottage

at, 19
Shylock, sources of the portrait, 67,

68 and n
Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 337, 338
Sidney, Sir Philip : on the absence
of scenery in a theatre, 38 « 2 ;
translation of verses from ' Diana,'
53 ; Shakespeare's indebtedness
to, 61 ; addressed as ' Willy ' by
some of his eulogists, 81; his
"Astrophel and Stella' brings the
sonnet into vogue, 83; piracy of
his sonnets, 88 n, 432; circulation
of manuscript copies of his 'Ar-
cadia,' 88 n ; his addresses to
Cupid in his 'Astrophel,' 97 71 \
warns the public against the in-
sincerity of sonnetteers, 104; his
allusion to the conceit of the im-
mortalising power of verse, 114;
his praise of 'blackness,' 119 and
n I ; sonnet on ' Desire,' 153 ; use
of the word ' will,' 417 ; ' Astrophel
and Stella,' 428, 429 ; popularity of
his works, 429
Sidney, Sir Robert, 382
Singer, Samuel Waller, 324
Sly, Christopher, 164-7, 221 7i
Smethwick, John, bookseller, 304
Smith, Richard, publisher, 431
Smith, Wentworth, 157 ;/ ; plays pro-
duced by, 180 71 ; the question of
his initials on six plays attributed
to Shakespeare, 180 71
Smith, William, sonnets of, 138 « 2,

157 ". 390, 437
Smith, Mr. W. H., and the Baconian

hypothesis, 372

Smithson, Miss, actress, 351

Snitterfield : Richard Shakespeare
rents land of Robert Arden there,
3, 6; departure of John Shake-
speare, the poet's father, from, 4;
the Arden property at, 7 ; sale of
Mary Shakespeare's property at,
12 and « I, 186

Snodham, Thomas, printer, 180

Somers, Sir George, wrecked off the
Bermudas, 252

Somerset House, Shakespeare and
his company summoned to, 233
and 71 2

Sonnet in France (1550-1600), the
bibliographical note on, 442-5

Sonnets, Shakespeare's : the poet's
first attempts, 84;. the majority
probably composed in 1594, 85 ; a
few written between 1594 and 1603
{e.g. cvii.) ; their literary value, 87,
88 ; circulation in manuscript, 88,
396; his ' sugred ' sonnets com-
mended by Meres, 89; their
piratical publication in 1609, 89-
94, 390; their, form, 95, 96; want
of continuity, 96, 160; usually
divided into two 'groups,' 96, 97;
main topics of the first ' group,' 98,
99 ; main topics of second ' group,"
99, 100 ; rearrangement in the edi-
tion of 1640, 100 ; autobiographical
only in a limited sense, 100, 109,
125, 152, 160; censure of them by
Sir John Davies, 107 ; the bor-
rowed conceits of, 109-24 ; in-
debtedness to Drayton, Petrarch,
Ronsard, De Baif, Desportes, and
others, 110-12; the poet's claim
of immortality for his sonnets,
113-16, cf. 114 71 i; the 'Will
Sonnets,' 117, 420-4; praise of
'blackness,' 118; vituperation,
120-4; 'dedicatory' sonnets, 125
seq.; the 'rival poet' of, 130-6;
sonnets of friendship, 136, 138-47;
the supposed story of intrigue in,
153-8 ; summary of conclusions
respecting, 158^0; edition of
1640, 300

Sonnets quoted with explanatory
comments: xx., 93 « ; xxvi., 128 « ;
xxxii., 128, 129 «; xxxvii., 130;
xxxviii., 129; xxxix., 130; xlvi.-

INDEX

471

SONNETS

xlvii., 112, 113 « i; Iv., 115, 116;
Ixxiv., 130; Ixxviii., 125; Ixxx., 134;
Ixxxv., 133; Ixxxvi., 132; Ixxxviii.,
133; Ixxxix., 133; xciv. I. 14, 72,
89; c, 126; cvii., 13 71, 87, 147,
149,380; cviii., 130; ex., 44, 130;
cxi., 45 ; cxix., 152 and n ; cxxiv.,
425 ; cxxvi., 97 and « ; cxxvii.,
iiS'; cxxix., 152, 153 and n i;
cxxxii., 118; cxxxv.-cxxxvi., 420-
4; cxxxviii., 89; exiiii., 93 7t, 425,
426 and n ; cxliv., 89, 153, 301 ;
cliii.-cliv., 113 and n 2

— the vogue of the Elizabethan :
English sonnetteering inaugurated
by Wyatt and Surrey, 83, 427,
428 ; followed by Thomas Wat-
son, 83, 428 ; Sidney's ' Astrophel
and Stella,' 83, 428, 429 and « ;
poets celebrate patrons' virtues
in sonnets, 84; conventional de-
vice of sonnetteers of feigning old
age, 85 (and examples in 86 ;/) ;
lack of genuine sentiment, 100;
French and Italian models, loi
and 71 I, 102-5 ; translations from
Du Bellay, Desportes, and Pe-
trarch, loi and « 4, 102, 103 ;
admissions of insincerity, 105 ;
censure of false sentiment in son-
nets, 106; Shakespeare's scornful
allusion to sonnets in his plays,
107, 108 ; vituperative sonnets,
120-4 ; the word ' sonnet ' often
used for ' song ' or ' poem,' 427 ti 2 ;
I. Collected sonnets of feigned
love, 1591-7, 429-40; II. Sonnets
to patrons, 440; III. Sonnets on
philosophy and religion, 440, 441 ;
number of sonnets published be-
tween 1591 and 1597, 439-41 ;
poems in other stanzas belonging
to the sonnet category, 438 71 2

Soothern, John, sonnets to the Earl
of Oxford, 138 >i 2

Sophocles, parallelisms with the
works of Shakespeare, 13 «

Southampton, Henry Wriothesley,
third Earl of, 53 ; the dedications
to him of ' Venus and Adonis
and ' Lucrece,' 74 77; his pat-
ronage of Florio, 84 71 ; his pat-
ronage of Shakespeare, 126-50 ;
his gift to the poet, 126, 200; his

youthful appearance, 143 ; his
identity with the youth of Shake-
speare's sonnets of 'friendship'
evidence of his portraits, 144 and
«, 145, 146; imprisonment, 146,
147, 380; his long hair, 146 71 2;
his beauty, 377 ; his youthful ca-
reer, 374-81 ; as a literary patron,
382-9

Southwell, Robert, circulation of
incorrect copies of ' Mary Mag-
dalene's Tears ' by, 88 7i ; publi-
cation of 'A Foure-fold Medita-
tion ' by, 92, 397, 400 and «, 401 71

Southwell, Father Thomas, 371

Spanish, translation of Shakespeare's
plays into, 354

Spanish Tragedy, Kyd's popularity
of, 65, 221 ; quoted in the Tattling
of The Shrew, 221 n

Spedding, James, 263

Spelling of the poet's name, 284-6

Spenser : his description of Shake-
speare in 'Colin Clouts come
home againe,' 79; Shakespeare's
reference to Spenser's work in
Midsummer Night's Dream, 80;
Spenser's allusion to ' our pleasant
Willy ' not a reference to the poet,
80 (and quotation tif; his descrip-
tion of the 'gentle spirit' not a de-
scription of Shakespeare, 81 and
« 2 ; translation of sonnets from
Du Bellay and Petrarch, loi ;
called by Gabriel Harvey ' an
English Petrarch,' loi and ?t 4;
on the immortalising power of
verse, 115; his apostrophe to
Admiral Lord Charles Howard,
140; his 'Amoretti,' 115, 435 add
71 5, 436 ; dedication of his ' Faerie
Queen,' 398

'Spirituall Sonnettes to the honour
of God and Hys Saynts ' by Con-
stable, 440

Sport, Sluikespeare's knowledge of,
26, 27 and It, IJ2

Stael, Madame de, 349

Stafford, Lord, his company of
actors, 33

Stage, conditions of, in Shake-
speare's day : absence of scenery
and scenic costume, 38 and 7t 2;
the performance of female parts

472

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

by men or boys, 38 and n 2; the
curtain and balcony of the stage,
38 « 2

Stanhope of Harrington, Lord, 234 «

' Staple of News, The,' Joiison's quo-
tation from yi/liiis Ccesar in, 220 ti

Staunton, Howard, 311; his edition
of the poet, 323, 324

Steele, Richard, on Betterton's ren-
dering of Othello, 334

Steevens, George : his edition of
Shakespeare, 320; his revision of
Johnson's edition, 320, 321 ; his
criticisms, 320, 321

Stinchcombe Hill referred to as ' The
Hill' in Henry IV, 168

Stopes, Mrs. C. C, 363

Strange, Lord. See Derby, Earl of

Straparola, 'Notti' of, and the
Merry Wives of Windsor, 172

Stratford-on-Avon, settlement of
John Shakespeare, the poet's
father, at, 4; property owned by
John Shakespeare in, 5, 8; ques-
tion of the poet's birthplace at, 8,
9; the Shakespeare Museum at, 8,
297; prevalence of the plague in
1564 at, 10 ; actors entertained for
the first time at, 10; defacement
of images, ton; the Shoemaker's
Company and its Master, 12 « 3;
the grammar school, 13; Shake-
speare's departure from, 27, 29,
31; allusions in the Taming of The
Shrew to, 164 ; the poet's return
in 1596 to, 187 ; appeals from
townsmen to the poet for aid, 195,
196; the poet's purchase of land
at, 203, 204-6 ; the poet's last years
at, 264, 266; attempt to enclose
common lands at, 269, 270; the
poet's death and burial at, 272;
Shakespeare memorial building at,
298; the 'Jubilee' and the ter-
centenary, 334; topographical ac-
counts of, 363

Suckling, Sir John, 328

' Sugred,' an epithet applied to the
poet's work, 179 and n, 390

Sully, M. Mounet-, 351 and n i

Sumarakow, translation into Russian

by. 352

' Supposes,' the, of Geoige Gascoigne,
164

Surrey, Earl of, sonnet of, 83, 95,
loi n 4, 427, 428

Sussex, Earl of, his company of
actors, 35 ; Titus Andronicus per-
formed by, 36, 66

Swedish, translations of Shakespeare

in. 354
Swinburne, Mr. A. C., 63, 71, 72 n,

333. 365
Sylvester, Joshua, sonnets to patrons
by, 38S, 440 and n

TaILLE, Jean de la, 445 n

'J'amburlaine, Marlowe's, 63

Taming of A Shrew, 163

Taming of The Shrew: probable
period of production, 163 ; identi-
cal with Love's Labour's Won, 163;
the sources, 163, 164; biographical
bearing of the Induction, 164;
quotation from the Spauish Trag-
edy, 221 ;/. For editions see Section
xix. (Bibliography), 301-25

Tarleton, Richard, 81 ; his ' Newes
out of Purgatorie ' and the Merry
Wives of Windsor, 172

Tasso, similarity of sentiment with
that of Shakespeare's sonnets,
152 n

'Teares of Fancie,' Watson's, 428,

433
' Teares of the Isle of Wight,' volume
of poems eulogising Southampton,

389

' Teares of the Muses,' Spenser's, re-
ferred to in Midsummer Xight's
Drea?n, 80

Tempest, The : traces of the influence
of Ovid, 15 ; allusion to Prospero
embarking on a ship at the gates
of Milan, 43; the shipwreck akin
to a similar scene in Pericles, 244;
probably the latest drama com-
pleted by the poet, 251 ; books of
travel drawn upon, 253 ; the source
for the complete plot not discov-
ered, 253 ; suggestion of Tieck that
it was written as a mask for the
marriage of Princess Elizabeth,
254 ; performed at the Princess's
nuptial festivities, 254; the date of
composition, 254 and n ; its per-
formance at Whitehall in 1611,

INDEX

473

254 n ; its lyrics, 255 and n 2 ; Ben
Jonson's scornful allusion to, 256;
reflects the poet's highest imagina-
tive powers, 256 ; speculative theo-
ries about, 256, 257. For editions J^f
Section xix. (Bibliography), 301-25

Temple Grafton, 23, 24 and n

' Temple Shakespeare, The," 325

Tercentenary festival, the Shake-
speare, 334

' Terrors of the Night,' piracy of,
88 n ; nocturnal habits of ' famil-
iars ' described in, 135 n

Terry, Miss Ellen, 339

Theatre, The, in Shoreditch, one of
the only two theatres existing in
London at the period of Shake-
speare's arrival, 32; owned by
James Burbage, 33, 36; the scene
of some of Shakespeare's per-
formances between 1595 and 1599,
37 ; demolished by Richard Bur-
bage and his brother Cuthbert,
and the Globe Theatre built with
the materials, 37

Theatres in London : Blackfriars
(^.v.) ; Curtain (^.^'.) ; Duke's,
295; Fortune, 212, 233 u 1 ; Globe
(</.v.) ; Newington Butts, 37 ; Red
Bull, 31 ft 2; Rose (i^.v.); Swan,
38 « 2; The Theatre, in Shore-
ditch {^.v.)

Theobald, Lewis : his version oi Ham-
let in ' Shakespeare Restored,' 224 ;
allusion to an unfinished draft of
a play by Shakespeare, 259 ; his
criticism of Pope in ' Shakespeare
Restored," 316; his edition of the
poet's works, 316, 317

Thomas, Ambroise, opera of Hamlet

by, 351

Thoms, W. J., 363

Thornbury, G. W., 363

Thorpe, Thomas, the piratical pub-
lisher of Shakespeare's Sonnets,
89-95 ; Marlowe's translation of
the ' First Book of Lucan ' his first
piratical work, 90, 135 n ; adds ' A
Lover's Complaint' to the collec-
tion of Sonnets, 91 ; his bombastic
dedication and his mention of ' Mr.
W. H.,' 92-5 ; the true history of
' Mr. W. H.' and (Appendix v.),
390-405

TROILUS

Three Ladies of London, The, some
of the scenes in the Merchant of
Venice anticipated in, 67

Thyard, Ponthus de, a member of
' La Pleiade,' 443, 444

Tieck, Ludwig, theory respecting
The Tempest of, 254, 333, 344

Tilney, Edmund, master of the revels,
233' « 2

'Timber,' Jonson's notice of Shake-
speare in, 220 n

Tinion of Athens : date of composi-
tion, 242; written in collaboration,
242; existence of a previous play
on the subject, 242; its sources,
243 ; the poet's coadjutor possibly
George W'ilkins, 243. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),
301-25

Tunon, Lucian's, 243

Titus Androniciis : one of the only
two plays of the poet's performed
by a company other than his own,
36 ; doubts of its authenticity, 65 ;
internal evidence of Kyd's author-
ship, 65 : suggested by Titus and
I 'cspasia?!, 65 ; played by various
companies, 66 ; entered on the
'Stationers' Register' in 1594, 66.
For editions see Section xix. (Bib-
liography), 301 25

Titus and Vespasian, Titus Androfii-
cus suggested by, 65

Tofte, Robert, sonnets by, 438 and
n 2

Topics of the day, Shakespeare's
treatment of, 51 n, 52

Tottel's poetical miscellany, Surrey's
and Wyatt's sonnets in, 427, 428

Tours of English actors : in foreign
countries between 1580 and 1630,
42, and see n 1; in provincial
towns, 39, 40-42, 65, 214; itinerary
from 1593 to 1614, 40 n i, 231

Translations of the poet's works,
342 seg.

Travel, foreign, Shakespeare's ridi-
cule of, 42 and 7!

' Troilus and Cresseid,' 227

Troilus and Cressida : allusion to
the strife between adult and boy
actors, 217; date of production,
217, 225 ; probably suggested by a
previous play on the subject, 225 ;

474

WILLIAM SHAKESrEARE

the quarto and folio editions, 226,
227; treatment of the theme, 227,
228 ; the endeavour to treat the
play as the poet's contribution to
controversy between Jonson and
Marston and Dekker, 228 n ; plot
drawn from Chaucer's ' Troilus
and Cresseid,' and Lydgate's
' Trov Book," 227. For editions
see Section xix. (Bibliography),
301-25

' Troy Book,' Lydgate's, 227

True Tragedie of Richard HI, The,
an anonymous play, 63, 301

Triie Tragedie of Richard, Ditke of
Yorke, and the death of good King
Henry the Sixt, as it was sundrie
times acted by the Earl of Pem-
broke his servants. The, 59

Turbervile, George, use of the word
' sonnet ' by, 427 n 2

Twelfth Night : description of a be-
trothal, 23 // ; indebtedness to the
story of ' Apollonius and Silla,' 53 ;
date of production, 209; allusion
to the 'new map," 209, 210 n i;
produced at Middle Temple Hall,
210; Manningham's description
of, 210; probable source of the
story, 210: its romantic pathos,
210. For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

Twiss, F., 364 M

Two Gentlemen of Verona : allusion
to Valentine travelling from Verona
to Milan by sea, 43; date of pro-
duction, 52; probably an adapta-
tion, 53 ; source of the story, 53 ;
farcical drollery, 53 ; first publica-
tion, 53; influence of Lyly, 62;
satirical allusion to sonnetteering,
107, 108 ; resemblance of it to
All's Well that Ends Well, 163.
For editions see Section xix.
(Bibliography), 301-25

Two Noble Kinsmen, The : attributed
to Fletcher and Shakespeare, 259
and n ; reasons for assigning part-
authorship to Shakespeare, 260;
Massinger reputed to have shared
in its production, 260: Shake-
spearean passages, 260; plot
drawn from Chaucer's ' Knight's
Tale ' of Palamon and Arcite, 260

Twyne, Lawrence, the story of Peri-
cles in the ' Patterne of Painfull
Adventures ' by, 244

Tyler, Mr. Thomas, on the sonnets,
129 n, 406 n, 415 «

Ulrici, ' Shakespeare's Dramatic
Art • by, 345

Variorum editions of Shakespeare,
322, 323, 362

Vautrollier, Thomas, the London
printer, 32

Venesyon Comedy, The, produced by
Henslowe at the Rose, 69

' Venus and Adonis ' : published in
1593 by Richard Field, 74; dedi-
cated to the Earl of Southampton,
74, 126; its imagery and general
tone, 75 ; the influence of Ovid, 75 ;
and of Lodge's ' Scillas Metamor-
phosis,' 75 and ;/ 2 ; the motto, 75
and n i ; eulogies bestowed upon
it. 78, 79; early editions, 79, 299,
300

Verdi, operas by, 352

Vere, Lady Elizabeth, 378

Vernon, Mistress Elizabeth, 379

Versification, Shakespeare's, 49 and
n, 50

Vigny, Alfred de, version of Othello

by, 351

Villemain, recognition of the poet's
greatness by, 350

Virginia Company, 381

Visor, William, in Henry IV, the
name of a family at Woodman-
cote, 168

Voltaire, strictures on the poet by,

348, 349
Voss, J. H., German translation of
Shakespeare by, 344

Walden, Lord, Campion's sonnet

to, 140
Wales, Henry, Prince of, the Earl of

Nottingham's company of players

taken into the patronage of, 231 «
Walker, William, the poet's godson;

276
Walker, W. Sidney, his work on

Shakespeare's versification, 49 n

INDEX

475

VValley, Henry, printer, 226

Warburton, Bishop, revised version
of Pope's edition of Shakespeare
by, 318, 319

Ward, Dr. A. W., 365

Ward, Rev. John, on the poet's an-
nual expenditure, 203 ; on the
poet's entertainment of Drayton
and Jonson at New Place, and on
the poet's death, 271 ; his account
of the poet, 361

Warner, Richard, 364

Warner, William, the probable trans-
lator of the AlencBckmi, 54

Warren, John, 300

Warwickshire : prevalence of the
surname Shakespeare, i, 2; posi-
tion of the Arden family, 6 ; Queen
Elizabeth's progress on the way to
Kenilworth, 17

Watchmen in the poet's plays, 31, 62

Watkins, Richard, printer, 393

Watson, Thomas, 61 ; the passage
on Time in his ' Passionate Cen-
turie of Love ' elaborated in
'Venus and Adonis,' 77 and n 2;
his sonnets, 83, 427 n 2, 428 ;
plagiarisation of Petrarch, loi n 4,
102 ; foreign origin of his sonnets,
103;; 1, 112; his 'Teares of Fancie,'
113 71 I, 398, 433

' Weak endings ' in Shakespeare,
49 «

Webbe, Alexander, makes John
Shakespeare overseer of his will,
II

Webbe, Robert, buys the Snitter-
field property from Shakespeare's
mother, 12 and n 1

Webster, John, alludes in the White
Divcl to Shakespeare's industry,
278 n

Weelkes, Thomas, 182 «

Weever, application of the epithets
' sugred ' and ' sweet ' to the poet
by, 179 n\ allusion in his ' Mirror
of Martyrs ' to Antony's speech at
Cesar's funeral, 211

Welcombe, enclosure of common
fields at, 269, 270 and n

' Westward for Smelts ' and the
Merry Wives of Windsor, 172 and
n 3 ; story of Ginevra in, 249

Whateley, Anne, the assumed iden-

WINCOT

tification of her with Anne Hatha-
way, 23, 24 and n

Wheler, R. B., 363

Whetstone, George, his play of
Promos and Cassandra taken from
Cinthio's Epitia, 237

White, Mr. Richard Grant, 325

Whitehall, performances at, 81, 82,
234, 235 and n, 241, 254 n, 264

Wieland, Christopher Martin, begins
a prose translation in German of
Shakespeare, 343

Wilkins, George, his collaboration
with Shakespeare in Timon of
Athetts and Pericles, 242, 243 ; his
novel founded on the story of
Pericles, 244

Wilks, Robert, actor, 335

Will, Shakespeare's, 203, 271, 273-
6

'Will' sonnets, the, 117; Eliza-
bethan meanings of 'will,' 416;
Shakespeare's uses of the word,
417 ; Roger Ascham's use of the
word, 417, 418 ; the poet's puns on
the word, 418; play upon 'wish'
and 'will,' 419; interpretation of
the word in Sonnets cxxiv.-vi. and
cxliii., 420-6

' Willobie his Avisa,' the question of
its relation to Shakespeare, 155-
8

VVilmcote, house of Shakespeare's
mother, 6, 7 ; bequest to Mary
Arden of the Asbies property at, 7 ;
mortgage of the Asbies property
at, 12, 26; alleged identity of this
place with the ' Wincot ' in The
Taming of The Shrew, 166, 167

Wilnecote. See under Wincot

Wilson, Robert, author of The Three
Ladies of London, 67

Wilson, "Tiiomas, his manuscript
version of Diana,' 53

Wilton, performance of Shakespeare
and his company at, 231, 232, 411
and n

' Wilton, Life of Jack,' by Nash,
dedicated to Southampton, 385
and n i

Wincot (in The Taming of The
Shrew), its identification with the
Wincot near Stratford, and with
Wilnecote near Tamworth, 165, 166

476

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

WINTERS

Winder's Tale, A : seen by Dr. For-
man at the Globe in 1611, 251 ;
acted at Court, 251 and n\ based
on Greene's Pandosto, afterwards
called Dorastus and Favonia, 251 ;
a few lines taken from the ' De-
cameron,' 251 and n\ originality
of the characters of Paulina and
Autolycus, 251; pathos of the
story, 251 ; the presentation of
country life, 251. For editions see
Section xix. ( Bibliography) , 301-25

' Wire," use of the word, for women's
hair, 118 and n 2

Wise, J. R., 363

Wither, George, 388, 399 n 2

' Witte's Pilgrimage,' Davies's, 441 7« 2

Women, excluded from Elizabethan
stage, 38 and ;/ 2 ; on French and
Italian stages, 38 « 2 ; in masks
at Court, 38 « 2 ; on the Restora-
tion stage, 334

Women, addresses to, in sonnets, 92,
117-20, 122 «, 123, 124, 154

Woncot in Henry /F identical with
Woodmancote, 168

Wood, Anthony fl, his description of
the Earl of Pembroke, 414

Woodmancote. See Woncot

Worcester, Earl of, his company of
actors at Stratford, 10, 35 ; under
the patronage of Queen Anne of
Denmark, 231 n

Worcester, registry of the diocese of,
3. 20

ZEPHERIA

Wordsworth, Bishop Charles, on
Shakespeare and the Bible, 17 n i

Wordsworth, William, the poet, on
German and French aesthetic
criticism, 344, 349

Wotton, Sir Henry, on the burning
of the Globe Theatre, 261 and n

Wright, Dr. Aldis, 314 n, 325

Wright, John, one of the booksellers
who distributed the pirated Son-
nets, 90

Wriothesley, Lord, 381

Wroxhall, the Shakespeares of, 3

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, sonnetteering
of, 83, 95, loi n 4, 427 ; his trans-
lations of two of Petrarch's son-
nets, 104 ti 4

Wyman, W. H., 372

Wyndham, Mr. George, on the
sonnets, no n\ on Antony and
Cleopatra, 245 ;/ ; on Jacobean
typography, 419 n i

YONGE, Bartholomew, translation of

' Diana' by, 53
Yorkshire Tragedy, The, 180, 243,

313

Zepheria, a collection of sonnets
called, 435; legal terminology in,
32 n 2, 435; lips compared with
coral in, iiS ;/ 2; the praise of
Daniel's ' Delia' in, 431, 435, 436

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