Foreword to the Catalogue of the Shakespeare Library By William Carew Hazlitt Author ot "Shakespear: Himself and his Work." Foreword to the Catalogue of the Shakespeare Library By William Carew Hazlitt Author ot "Shakespear: Himself and his Work." > '^fy^~^ ^'^^-<^x~^-€-<_ THIS monumental Shakespearean Library is of un- exampled literary importance. It was formed many years ago purely from the Student's point of view, and is the patient work of a lifetime. In so far as we know, it is the sole Library in existence which has been brought together entirely on these lines. No attempt has been made to include early editions of Shakespeare's works (apart from the First Complete and First Illustrated Edition of 1709), this having been outside the design of its founder ; but no expense was spared to obtain original editions of Elizabethan and Jacobean litera- ture (both English and Foreign), many of them being of extreme rarity, which would assist the Student and add to his knowledge and appreciation of the national Poet. Roughly speaking, the Library can be divided into seven sections {see post). With but twenty or thirty exceptions, all the books in this Library were printed before the year 1700, and mere reprints have been invariably rejected. The entire Collection comprises no less than 990 books (1,100 volumes), every book being quite perfect and in excellent library condition. There is a complete Catalogue descriptive of every book in the Library — it forms two thick quarto volumes. Immense knowledge and research have been employed, not only in acquiring the books but also in describing them ; and the reasons for the inclusion of every book are fully stated in the Catalogue. The annexed " Foreword " to the Library Catalogue was written by the late Mr. W. C. Hazlitt. 3 A.% 337749 SECTIONS OF THE SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY. 1. Elizabethan, Jacobean and other extremely rare books which were consulted by Shakespeare whilst composing his Plays and Poems. 2. Elizabethan and Jacobean books of the greatest rarity which throw light on Shakespeare's England. 3. First Editions of famous Old English Plays. 4. Francis Bacon Collection (26 entries). 5. "The Bond Story" and other "Foundation" books used by Shakespeare. 6. Publications between 1599— 1700 which contain specific references either to Shakespeare himself or to his Poems and Plays. 7. Plagiarisms, alterations, and adaptations of Shakespeare's Plavs. Foreword A MONG the greater English writers of the sixteenth /"\ and seventeenth centuries Shakespeare stood alone. He was not a book-collector like Jonson and Harvey, or even Spenser ; but he relied to a large extent on con- versation, hearsay, and references to books, which have enriched his noble writings with innumerable passages, transformed by his genius into diction and thought un- attainable by the original narrator, and have, here and there, done him a disservice by leading him into error. In certain cases he has copied almost verbatim what he had read or what someone had mentioned to him. His mind was curi- ously receptive and eclectic, and his slips or misunderstandings are fractional in number and in character not very serious. Some instances indeed, where he was formerly supposed to have tripped in his geography or history, have been wholly or partially explained, and those for which he must perhaps be accounted answerable, are of this no doubt equivocal utility that they betray their secondhandness, the informant being possibly the real culprit. For it is doubtful whether Shakespeare made use of tables or tablets, although he puts them into the hands of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. A further point to be considered and weighed is, that the more imperfect the material with which Shakespeare had to deal, the more remarkable becomes the result before our eyes ; and we have to recollect that, had he been a scholar such as 5 Jonson and Chapman, he might have offended us in a grosser manner by displaying the faults incidental to scholarship. It will be found, as we advance in our Indirect mi •>.•>.• ^ u ,,. . Shakespearean mvesti^ations, to be more obligations. ^ ° and more palpable that, where we have spoken of such and such works as having been studied by the Poet, it is sometimes a truer way of putting the matter to say that certain books in our own and other literature exhibit statements and views curiously cognate to statements and views encountered in Shakespeare. Friends with more of the virtuoso or scholar in their moral constitution than him- self pointed out allusions and suggestions which they deemed witty, or wise, or new, or perhaps he agreed with them, perhaps not ; and at any rate the loan, if it was contracted, underwent in all likelihood a partial metamorphosis. When we have named Tarlton and the IS persona Burbages in London and a few Stratford Circle. ^ neighbours we have exhausted the stock of his intimate friends ; but of acquaintances, literary or other- wise, the Poet enjoyed the advantage of knowing a very large number in various ranks of society ; and it has been amply shown that among them were men capable of imparting to him particulars of foreign localities, customs, and languages. The Rev. Joseph Hunter performed yeoman service in this direction nearly a century ago ; but more recent researches and criticism have much increased our material for appre- ciation, even if we discard or discount some of the proposals brought forward by students of the " Life " and " Works." 6 The most remarkable feature in these more recent modern dis- coveries is the proximity to the surface of some of them, and even some of the most important and most interesting ; and in this twentieth century we draw nearer to the means of realizing the truth about Shakespeare, and of forming a correct notion of his career and of the circumstance to which he and ourselves alike owed and owe his imperishable Dramatic compositions. What are recognized as Shakespeareana con- Shakespeareana . , . t • i i i r Classified stitute a volummous and varied body of literary records, of which the actual aggre- gate has been largely swollen during the last half century. The strenuous labours of the late Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, Mr. Dyce, Mr. Collier, and other gentlemen, have developed this movement, which long retained insignificant proportions, into one which reduces the "Works" themselves to a secondary rank in point of bulk, and makes not only a Library, but an extensive one. But the range and subject-matter of the steadily accumulating stores, while their main bearing is identical in contributing to elucidate Shakespeare, are in themselves infinitely diversified. For whereas some aim in submitting to consideration and acceptance entire books of treatises held to have been employed by the national Poet, others deal with particular Dramas or particular passages in a Drama, or even the sense of a word in a passage. Down to relatively modern days all these auxiliary publications might have been accommodated in a small compass. At present no one can be sure, however well he may have kept his eye on the market, that his is complete — that some 7 morceaux, of which only a handful of copies were issued or preserved, have not escaped him. An appreciable majority of such opuscula fall within the category of violent criticism and textual controversy ; and the residue consists of the philosophical and aesthetic writings on the genius and wisdom of the Poet by such men as Lamb, Coleridge, and the elder Hazlitt in England, and Schlegel and Tieck in Germany. Apart from both these courses or lines of inquiry much has been done, over and above the publication entitled Shake- speare s Library^ towards throwing light on the books to which Shakespeare lay under obligation directly or indi- rectly, and on others which lay under obligations to him. In regard to the former division we have already intimated a qualifying decision ; but immediately or otherwise the Poet owed much to his predecessors and even contemporaries at home and on the Continent, while that his own countrymen, coming after him, and too often disparaging him, were heavy debtors to his initiative there is no sort of doubt. The present The Annotated Catalogue of the Library undertaking. ^q^^ before US may be said to comprise a truly remarkable collection of books and pamphlets — (i) Those which the Poet read and used ; (2) Those of which the purport or subject matter orally reached him ; (3) Those in which the references to Shakespeare and resemblances to his Works are the fruit of homage or plagiarism by succeeding ages. It is a series arranged by the Editor in alphabetical order, and it may be most convenient to survey it as it stands. The formation of such an extensive corpus of literary specialities bespeaks without further insistence a very considerable expense and an almost unlimited amount of knowledge, time, and trouble. The majority of the volumes comprised have a con- stantly growing tendency to become far less easily attainable. Editions of the Poet lie outside the scope of the plan of the Library, which, however, is already wide and representative enough in its embrace of the literature where Shakespeare presents himself on the one hand as a borrower and on the other as a lender, those two roles which he specially deprecates in one of his Plays. Functions of the ^^ quite a number of Sermons preached and Sermon as an published during the reigns of Elizabeth illustrative agent. ^^^ James I we encounter references and expressions which bear on Shakespeare's text, and which in some instances show that the plays were familiar to churchmen. Thomas Adams, a popular preacher in London during the Poet's life, but when nearly all his works ^ ,; , D J had been completed, in his Gallants Burden^ Lrallants Burden. f ' I 6 1 2, as was pointed out by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, has adopted from Richard III the striking expression " Despair and die," making the volume enter into our Shakespeareana. The Clergy at that time, no doubt, while they decried the theatre, the playgoer, and the performer, either attended such exhibitions themselves or studied the play-book ; especially when it was of a historical cast. We 9 B may refer further to other entries in the Catalogue, such as Babbington, ChilHngworth, etc. The former popularity of Hisofs Fables is almost incredible. It was a book trans- lated into all languages, and was read by all classes and all ages. Shakespeare may have had access to the copy which was acquired for the use of the school at Stratford, and in his Dramas he has not failed to introduce three famous apologues, even where he connects their ownership with persons not likely to have possessed them. This was the habitual disregard of the minutice. None the less, however, a copy of the book clearly belongs to the present series. ^ . , With the exception of the external view of The theatrical exteriors. the " Globe," SO frequently reproduced, we have no graphic illustration of the aspect of n ^ our early theatres anterior to that afforded Koxana, •' by the frontispiece attached to Alabaster's Roxana, 1632, which Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps thought suffi- ciently important to insert in his folio edition of Shakespeare. Alabaster's publisher enables us to inspect the interior, whereas of the " Globe " we have only the outside, and it is remarkable that we are better acquainted with the arrangements of the Greeks and Romans in this direction than those of our own ancestors. Shakespeare ^"^ °^" literature is very deficient in works and the of the class which Mr. Green so exhaustively Emblem writers, illustrated ; but the Continent has yielded from the first half of the sixteenth century a rich succession 10 of them, and presuming that Shakespeare had the opportunity of inspecting some of these, he may well have been struck by their utility as vehicles for his dramatic purposes. Allot This volume has recently greatly risen in England's estimation among collectors by reason of the Parnassus. numerous (70) extracts which it contains from Shakespeare's Works, and the copy in the present Library is additionally interesting from the early, if not co- eval, manuscript notes which a former possessor has inscribed on the margins. It seems to have been a "trade" book, and curiously enough the three partners in the enterprise conceal themselves under initials. In one of the two copies, however, which formerly belonged to Oldys, and has since passed through the hands of Warton, Colonel Stanley, and Miss Richardson Currer, the T.H. of the imprint is expanded into Th. Hayes, a name associated with two or three of the rarest Shakespeare quartos. This romance, of which a French version is Amadls of Gaul. -^U' CU 1 here berore us, was withm bhakespeare s reach when he began to write for the Stage. As in other cases, the Poet may be seriously believed to have employed the book which happened to come to his hands or his ears ; but Amadis is certainly a work without which Shakespeare's Library would not be complete. He was a hero ot fiction almost as widely diffused as Arthur, and is extravagant in the majority of these inventions. Our own Poet had no difficulty in meeting with prototypes or parallels for his own fanciful disguises of noble folks as shepherds and shepherdesses, for II such devices occur in our own vernacular literature at a very remote date. Apuleius. '^° ^ French translation of Apuleius, 1648, Banks' Horse we are sent for a knowledge of this historical orouo. animal beyond the record in any English work. Douce was the first to point out the curious circum- stance. The book is well deserving of a place among Shakespeareana and here it is. There are other books in the Library before us which testify to the extraordinary celebrity of ''Morocco.'' Ariosto • ^^^ former of these Dramas has been ad- Suppositi. mitted on account of its resemblance to Negromante. portions of the Tamwg of the Shrew, and the latter for The Tempest. But there was an English production by Skelton on the same subject, of which no copy is now known, published in 1504. The more Orlando Furioso. ■ r ^ famous book, the Orlando Furioso, finds a place by virtue of the description of a tempest, and Shakespeare may have had the passage under his eyes. The title originally given to this very cele- „ , , ' brated volume was the Schoolmaster of Windsor. bchoolmaster, ^ It was formerly thought that the Poet intended to personate Ascham under the character of Holo- fernes. It forms, with Ashmole's Order of the Garter, 1672, an association with that place, as in the latter volume we have an account of the investiture of the Duke of Wurtemberg, immortalized in the Merry Wives of Windsor, with the Garter. We may have more to 12 learn about the circumstances which prompted the Dramatist to lay the scene of his play at Windsor ; there was the auxiliary incident of Heme the Hunter. _ . . „ A sequence or group of works by Bacon in Irancis Bacon. ... o i- -' original issues forms part of the Library in deference to the question of the real authorship of the Plays, and it, of course, includes the Declaration of the Practices and Treasons^ 1601, which excited on its first appearance a great sensation. The XVI Propositions^ 1647, is singularly rare. The same may be said of his father's Arguments Exhibited in Parliament^ 1641. This was originally published in 1643. Baker's C/.r.«;V/., ^j^-^ Chronicle and several other books 1660. are comprised owing to their references to Shakespeare or the Stage in his day. Apart from other considerations the impression of 1660 is infinitely the rarest. Baker is also represented by his Theatrum Triumphans^ 1 670, not a panegyric on the Restoration period, but a vindication of Theatres from the attacks of the Puritans. This, with a large number of other volumes Barclay's 5/;/> ./ -^ ^^^ Library, forms a group far more Fools, ISJO. . ■^' ... important than that comprising publications of a later date, where phrases or sentiments analogous to those found in Shakespeare occur, or where we meet with references to the Poet, although all such reminiscences and homage may well be thought to have a degree of historical interest, and to shed on the literature, which enshrines it, a special atmosphere. Several volumes in the present Library partake of this character. 13 Beaumont and T'^'^^, the First Illustrated Edition, has long Fletcher, 171 1, been held to possess considerable value, in Stage Costumes. ^\^q absence of more contemporary evidence, as showing the costumes in which the characters were attired in plays originally presented on the stage in Shakespeare's day. Blundeville '^^^ work by Blundeville, of Newton- Horses and Flotman, in Norfolk (T^e Foure Chief est Horsemanship. Offices belonging to Ho?^semanship)^ was a popular book when Shakespeare was a boy, and was one into which he was naturally led to look, if it fell in his way. That he had an eye for the points of a horse we judge from passages in his earliest work. The Scotch history of this writer, of which one of the old Editions belongs to the Library, was incorporated in substance with Holinshed, whence more probably than not Shakespeare obtained what he wanted for Macbeth, and, in fact, it may have been the case that, having Holinshed at his elbow for other plays, the story of the Thane struck him as suitable for the stage. It is one of his latest efforts. A similar caveat applies to Buchanan. Bolton's This volume supplies a valuable illustration Elements of of the estimation in which colours were Armories. j^^j^ -^^ Shakespeare's day, and of the sig- nificance of yellow in connexion with the Winter s Tale. Bolton shows us how the colours worn by men and women betokened their feelings and conditions. The passage where this occurs was first quoted by the Rev. Joseph Hunter. 14 „ . ^ . Shakespeare makes the bird a baker's Kraithwaite. ^ ^ ^ The Owl, a King's daughter; but Braithwaite, in his Natures Daughter. Rmbassie, 1621, of which a copy is before us, changes the story, on what authority is uncertain, but perhaps with improved dramatic effect. Burton describes Shakespeare as " our ele- Burton's Anatomy. ^^^^ ^^^^.. j^-^ ^^^^ ^f ;/-^„^^ ^jjj Adonis, 1602, cost him 2ci. It is one of those which drop certain words before the error at first was detected and set right. His Anatomy, which is a Shakespeare allusion book, is emphatically an original work ; he was a man who thought for himself, like Shakespeare and Montaigne. The account of fencing was probably intro- Capoferro. duced and naturalized in England from Fencine Terms. , , ^ r 1 A Italy, and under Capoferro we have accord- ingly a technical treatise of 1 610 in the language of that country on the art. Shakespeare is not unlikely to have gained a local knowledge of it and its terms from some such person as the Capoferro, of whom an account was printed in 16 1 2, and who was a professional Fencer. n ■ u.MiT A certain William Bell, in lines to the Cartwright, W. Verses upon memory of Cartwright, enumerates the Shakespeare. leading writers of that and the preceding time, and accords the /ast place to Shakespeare ; but Jasper Mayne, in his tribute, seems to regard the Oxford writer as a combination of Shakespeare and Jonson, an opinion in which he has not had many followers. Yet Cartwright's play of the Ordinary keeps up its place in modern esteem. 15 Under Caryll, in the Epilogue to Sir „. _^7 ' Salomon^ 1 671, Moliere becomes Bolbi^re, ciii' Salomon. and rhymes to cheer, and he is styled the Shakespeare of this age both as an author and actor. So far, so good ! Under the heading Catalogues occurs a a espearean unique and most remarkable sequence of Catalogues. ^ ^ Auction Sale records from 1658 to 1829 (and see also infra Bright, Farmer, Reed, Steevens), exhibiting the impressive changes in the value of the original dramatic works of Shakespeare, and of the four Folios, between those dates. A notable rise had, of course, taken place between the seven- teenth and nineteenth centuries ; but the most signal expan- sion has occurred within the last five and twenty or thirty years, where realizations have far exceeded the highest limit put upon these objects of competition by the most sanguine among experts. Some of the Poet's greatest writings have never been submitted for public competition — such as Venus and Adonis, 1593 ; the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, 161 2 ; Romeo and Juliet, 1597 ; Hamlet, 1603, 1604 , Troublesome Reign of King fohn, 1 59 1 (except in a very poor imperfect copy). No copy of the second edition of the Passionate Pilgrim has ever been beheld, nor is it quite clear that the Love's Labour s Lost of 1598 is really the editio princeps. We perceive that in 1680 the contemporary aaogueso impressions of the Poems and Plays are the early Booksellers. ^ ■' only copies offered, and that no hint is given of the anterior issues. Venus and Adonis is represented 16 by the poor ill-printed i2mo of 1675, which has grown almost as rare as that of 1593, so that it must have been extensively read or very badly used. In the Note to Cavendish's Life of Wolsey^ of which we have in this Library an Original Manuscript of the Tudor period, there is a reference to the habit of kissing or saluting, formerly usual between men as well as women, which is introduced into Henry VIII^ and into the song, " Come unto these yellow sands." Under the name of Davenant are several Davenant. entries, and it is one which will ever be associated with that of Shakespeare in a unique manner on account of the close friendship between John Davenant and his son. Parson Robert, and the Stratford Poet. The site of the " Crown " near Carfax at Oxford, therefore, remains holy ^. ^ , _ . ground. Just at hand there are works of Sir John Davies. , Sir John Davies — which remind us, as they perhaps struck Shakespeare, of the old ideas on the immor- tality of the soul, when the two poets were in opposite lobbies. Doddridge. In connexion with the personal history The Lawes Resolution r ^i, r> ^ ^t- • i • ^ j • / r rrr , 7^ ■ , ^^ ^^^ Po^t this volume prmted m 16^2 of Irornen s Kights. ^ ^ Shakespeare's Pre- ^^^ ^ ^^^7 essential and direct bearing on contract. Shakespeare's marriage. No assemblage of Shakespeareana can Downes' Roscius , , , , . , , . J r be reckoned complete without this un- Anghcanus. ^ commonly rare volume, which is a real piece of literature, and well deserved the honour of 17 c republication. Happily the Collection boasts an Original copy which is a prize. The Draytons, which follow, are entitled to Drayton. a place on more than one account. Dray- ton was a Warwicicshire man, the son of a butcher, and the author of several historical pieces cognate to those treated by Shakespeare, and he, with Jonson, was the last of the Poet's personal friends who saw the Dramatist before his death at Stratford. In a different wav Drummond, of Hawthornden, has earned a hearing at our hands, through the visit paid to him by Jonson in 1618, when the two Drummond. . ^ ^1 • i_ j ^ ^u -^i, ^t. writers put their heads together with the Jonson. ^ ^ result that Shakespeare made a bad third. The equivocal estimate of the latter unpleasantly contrasts with that perspicuous and noble one of Dryden in his F^ssay of Dramatic Poesy^ 1684, which, next to Thorpe's previous valuation of the Poet in 1609, remains the Dryden. . 11, -i r ^ • Wisest and the best tribute or any early writer to the genius of the great Author. Nor did Dryden restrict his well-measured praise tc that paper, for he appears to have had ever in his mind the great debt of the English stage to Shakespeare, even when he committed to paper the Preface to his yuvenal 2i'i> late as 1693. Altogether the group of volumes ranged together under Dryden's name is not surpassed in importance and attraction by any portion of the Catalogue. Whatever may be thought of the oblig-a- Du Bartas. . , , J r^ t. 1 , tion of the Poet to Du Bartas, the latter singularly enough enjoyed a much wider popularity during a succession of years than Shakespeare, and witnessed at home and abroad a steadier succession of editions of his poetical performances ; a success partly due to their Scriptural complexion. It is remarkable that Dugdale, a fellow- r,r "^.^;^,^ countryman of the Poet, and living^ at a yy arwickshire. •' ^ time when so much traditional information was within his reach, should have told us so compara- tively little. But it is almost invariably the case. The excellent Warwickshire historian saw with his own eyes, and not with ours ; and we cannot be angry with him, although we should be happy to barter the entire contents of Ingleby's Century of Praise for a Memoir of the Poet by Dugdale. Elizabeth, Daughter The German narrative of the marriage of of James I. Her the daughter of James I is important from Marriage, 1613. ^j^^ circumstance that Shakespeare was probably in London when the event was solemnized, and that in the opinion of Tieck The Tempest was written for performance upon that occasion. In the order of the alphabet we arrive at Farmer (Dr.), whose valuable and extensive library was sold in 1798, and which owed much of its interest to the acquisition, before their sale by auction, of the early English poetry inherited by Edward Wynne from Narcissus Luttrell. In the Merchant of Venice we hear a good deal of the money-lending practices of the Jews in the person of Shylock, and Fenton informs us that it was a device of these persons to lend their customers 19 light, clipped, or cracked money, which no one else would Fenton's Treatise of ^ake. Mention has already been made of Usury^ i6i2. Bolton's Elements of Armories^ of the con- Ferne's nexion between flowers and colours and Blazon of Gentrie. h^nian character or fortune, and Feme also enters into these secrets in his Blazon of Gentrie, which preceded Bolton in order of time. The notion was an early rural superstitious usage, with which Shakespeare might have easily become familiar before he left Stratford ; but the evidence of the two books tends to illustrate his descriptions, which report the distribution of flowers by Perdita to those who attend the sheep-shearing, although he has made the products of spring grow in the autumn — possibly from his preference for the daffodil and its contemporaries. Under Fletcher there are a few of the earlier Fletcher. . . • , t-,, impressions of that writers Plays. He occasionally came near to Shakespeare in his dramatic efforts, and was long his London neighbour in the Borough. His tragedy of Kollo contains that exquisite song, " Take, O take, those lips away," which is common to Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, first printed in 1623. There is slight doubt that it was from the pen of Shakespeare. The verses, ascribed to Shakespeare, before Florio's Second Frutes, 1 591, are highly p. . , ^ , important, and at a later date the Poet may Frutes have had the book in his hand, as there and translation of ^j-g some allusions and suspicious resem- Montaigne. 111 blances between expressions, or sentiments, in the volume and in his plays. A considerable amount of 20 new light has recently been shed on these matters, and especially on Shakespeare's obligations to Florio's Montaigne. Even Mr. Hunter was greatly at fault here. As regards the copy of the English Montaigne, 1603, with Shakespeare's auto- graph, it has been at last pointed out that a key to the authenticity of the existing Shakespeare signatures, this in- clusive, exists. Abraham Fraunce '^^^ acquaintance of the Poet with Fraunce's 1588. Lawyers Logic is rendered in a certain Fuller's Worthies, measure more likely by the chance that Greene may have had it on his bookshelf in his office at Stratford as a sort of quasi-legal treatise, interspersed with a few semi-humorous paradoxes likely to strike the Poet in case he had met with an opportunity of hitching them in anywhere. Fuller, the historian, in his Worthies of England^ 1662, stumbled on a veritable fact about Shakespeare, now generally accepted, namely, his proneness to Fairs and his subsequent development of the Tragic art. The account in the book is otherwise of slight value ; but Fuller's view was, after all, common to many others who regarded the Poet, like him, primarily as a Comic writer. As Shakespeare's cousin Greene possessed, in all reasonable probability, most of the legal treatises used by the Poet, Dr. Hall may have also possessed many medical works, especially Galen, to whom Shakespeare explicitly alludes in the Second Part of Henry IV ; yet in a way to suggest that he had heard of the man as a celebrity rather than that he had handled any of his books. 21 Garrick and the ^^ ^^^^ ^^ prepared to pass, as congenial Shakespeare advermria, a few volumes relative to Garrick Jubilee. ^^^ j^-g ^-^g ^^^ ^j^g Jubilee of 1769, of which Mrs. Garrick characteristically and ingenuously says, " Garrick was the whole heart of the affair." One of these items is Mrs. Garrick's Manuscript Diary, and it particu- larizes the route taken, the distances, and the time occupied. They left on the i8th of June at 7.15 p.m., and did not reach Stratford till 5 p.m. on the following day. The Poet himself could scarcely have been much longer on the road. In another way, and appertaining to an earlier period, there is the folio of Gayton's Pleasant Notes on Don Quixote, 1654. He brings in Shakespeare and Gayton's Notes. 111 1 11 pretty well everybody else, yet who would be without the merry rollicking old book ? A book in which even persons not specially versed in things Shake- spearean would imagine it likely to find illustrative matter is the Gesta Romanorum, an immensely popular volume, which was translated into most European lan- Gesta Komanorum. ... ... guages, and exists m many editions of an English translation. It is here in a Latin one, published in 1 52 1 at Paris, and in an English one of 1698. In Goulart's Admirable and Memorable Histories, Goulart's Admirable ^1 • . ^ there is an instance, one among: manv. Histories. ' ti J -> where the Hamlet story, or idea, is intro- duced by numerous writers with slight variations. He cites the familiar Shylock incident, and that which forms the central point" in Measure for Measure. We come across 22 it again in the Hero of Lorenzo, and in several other books. It was evidently a taking melodramatic feature. One of the Shakespeare Reference books which has quite lately risen into prominence is the translation from Guazzo, by Pettie r^ , n- -1 and Youne:, of the Civil Conversation, first (juazzo s Ltvtl o' Conversation, published in 1 58 1. It is a book which, 1 58 1-6. despite its recent growth into notice, passed through a series of editions in Itahan, and was translated into many other languages. Sir Edward Sullivan was instru- mental in introducing the work to pubHc attention, and under such influential auspices the Civil Conversation at present holds an important rank among Shakespeareana. It seems to go back in the original language to 1574, a copy of which edition is also in the Library. The book of Heraldry, usually ascribed to ?/'";f' GuilHm, and first published in 161 1, is Heraldry. to be treated as a feature in a Shakespeare Library by virtue of the movement (which was during some years on foot) in the lifetime of John Shakespeare, for supplying the family with an authoritative coat-of-arms under the auspices of Heralds' College. There is some reason to suppose that a sketch or draft was prepared or submitted for certain officers of the College who were just then — about 1597 — not very squeamish in the promotion of these grants, but nothing ultimately came of it, and the father died in 1601. It seems questionable whether the Poet himself felt much interest in the scheme ; it was perhaps rather an ambitious idea on the part of his mother, which 23 he did not wish to oppose, but which was suffered to drop. Three or four volumes represent the arduous ^^, -n- '^^ ' and disinterested Shakespearean labours of Phillipps. ^ Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, a gentleman of independent fortune, who devoted the best years of his life to an elucidation of that of the national Poet, and to whose Outlines all subsequent Biographers have been heavily indebted. It is not unfit in such a Library as this that we should have some of the work of Sir John Harington, a man of great parts, and a favourite of Sir John Harington. >-. i^i- u ^i u u • -j ^ •' ^ Queen Jblizabeth, whom he is said to ArlostO. 1 rr 1 1 Ti TT • have afterwards offended. But Harington accomplished many other and higher things, particularly the present English version of Ariosto^ which, with its remarkable illustrations, the earliest of the kind in our language, must have awakened interest in the mind of Shakespeare, and there is the greater probability that he had a copy in his hands because it was published by his own countryman. Field. The Poet, in the course of his varied London career, had abundant opportunities of falling in with books published before his time capable of yielding a hint. As the Poet carried in his mind an old Roman coin which he had seen, and made a reference to it in one of his Dramas, we can hardly guess the extent of his observations. We owe a certain accession to the store of Shakespeareana to the circumstance that parallel with the production and performance of the historical plays was a series of narratives 24 by Hayward and others, covering the same subject and period, and no doubt fairly successful in the ^^ •'^ " closet from the desire of Playgoers to com- pare notes and set the Quartos on their return home side by side with the more elaborate and authentic thesis. We find ourselves dealing here, turn by turn, with books which Shakespeare saw or used, and others which shed light on contemporary history r . and manners. To the latter section belongs Itinerary. o Hentzner, the German traveller, who was in London in 1598, and refers curiously to the Theatres there ; but he has more to say about the Bull and Bear baiting on the Bankside, of which Shakespeare may have put his own idea into the mouth of Master Slender^ and about the already considerable popularity of tobacco, which was smoked out of clay pipes. Hey wood, in his Hierarchy of the Blessed Hey wood's ^ / 1 • /■ i* rj. , Angels, has a series or Imes concernrng; Hierarchy. ° o Shakespeare and the Poets of the day with their familiar by-names. He must almost certainly have been in a position to tell us much about his great friend. Among his incessant employments was the production and Heywood's preparation of a series of plays or interludes, Dialogues and adapted and abridged to suit particular ramas^ 1 37. occasions, and one was Richard III, where the part of Richard was taken by a " young witty lad " for whom Heywood wrote a special prologue and epilogue. In his English Traveller, 1633, he tells us that he had then had 25 D an entire or partial hand in 220 plays ; and the majority of these have perished or his share thereof remains unidentified. But in his Troja Brittannica, 1609, Hey- Heywood and i 1 i, 1 • r 1 Shakespeare. ^°°^ handled a topic apart from the subject of the volume, and of yet greater interest in our eyes to-day, and it vv^as the misappropriation of some of his v^ork by the publisher Jaggard, and its erroneous and dishonest ascription to Shakespeare in the third impression of the Passionate Pilgrim, 161 2, of which Hey wood bitterly complained, adding that Shakespeare was also " much offended with Jaggard for presuming to make so bold with his name." There have been some allusions to the Emblem writers, and one of our volumes, Holbein's Dance of Death, of which there were such numerous editions, strikingly illustrates the personal feelings of the Poet put into the mouth of Richard II — Shakespeare's most secure method of con- Holbein's . , . , . . . 1 • 1 D fD th veymg his own democratic opinions, which were not yet accepted by the authorities. The description of Death, as he is represented by Holbein, is vivid enough, and the book was in many hands. It is difficult in most cases to decide whence the Poet directly borrowed his learning ; all that we can say is, that it was agreeably desultory and casual. The Elizabethan Pliny shares with Batman's new version of Bartholomew, the distinction of having served the Poet for points in Holland's Fl'iny etc. i , • natural history, and someone has written the name of Shakespeare in a copy of the former, on the apparent ground that it was a volume which he should have 26 possessed. An independent reason for crediting the Poet with it, however, is the fact that Holland was of Warwick- shire blood, like himself, and through him it may have been that our Dramatist had the advantage of looking into the series of versions of the classics rendered by Holland into the vernacular. We have among the Allusion books James Howell. here brought together, some by James Howell, and he is entitled to a hearing in what he writes about Venice, although he followed Shakespeare at some dis- tance. Howell not only visited the City, but remained there a considerable time in an official capacity. The Poet himself laboured under the difficulty of meeting with any book which threw a true light on the institutions of the Republic, and he has consequently made strange work of his Venetian scenes. It is clear that he had not taken the precaution of consulting some one out of the many who had been there when he wrote them. Florio could have helped him. A copy of the Opera of this early Ger- Hrosvita. i • i i • , , man playwright, 1501, takes its place here to demonstrate how similar conditions, in all ages and coun- tries, are apt to produce similar sentiments. If it cannot be conclusively proved that Shakespeare ever used the Opera^ at any rate it is at the present day an extremely rare book. In the alphabetical sequence we arrive at a Huloet*s Dictionary. , r im 1 1 » •^' volume tar more likely to have been use- 1572. J ful, the ABC dartum of Huloet, more especially as it supplied Latin and French equivalents. 27 There is quite a small library of early- Italian Plays which are classed as Shake- pearean, but none of them can be more explicitly shown to have been known to Londoners as, perhaps, GF Inganni^ to which Manningham, the Diarist, particularly alludes by name in his account of the performance of Twelfth Night at the Middle Temple in 1 60 1-2. Unfortunately, we yet grope in the dark for the exact relationship of our Dramatist to these foreign aids. The prescribed order of assignment brings us to the Ireland Forgeries, a remarkable series of fifteen tracts relative to that notorious business, and to the Ireland Forgeries. _. 1 1-. 1 • 1 • 1 Jaggard-Brooke controversy, one in which jaggar - roo e. ^j^^ Shakespeares were to a certain extent involved, in connexion with the proposed grant of arms to the Poet's father. We next come to James I, of whose Declaration concerning Lawful Sports there is the issue of 1633. This was the result of the progress of James through Lancashire, and his displeasure at the bigoted intolerance of people in regard to amusements. Under the same head we have Gilbert Dugdale's extremely rare Time Triumphant^ 1604, which lets us know that the King, Queen, and Prince Henry had respectively taken over to be their servants the Lord Chamberlain's, the Earl of Worcester's, and the Earl of Nottingham's companies of Tansson Players. Under Jansson, we unexpectedly Stephanus, the encounter an interesting anecdote of the Printer. great Low Country printer, Stephanus, who, on a visit to the Tower of London in Elizabeth's 28 time, saw a lion quit its food and go through a series of strange gestures at the sound of a musical instrument played by a youth, illustrating the well-known sway of harmony over animals, to which Shakespeare more than once alludes. Jonson is found among the Shake- Ben Tonson. . , „. , ,. ,. . , speareana m the First folio edition, where Shakespeare appears as the performer in several of the plays, and next to it we have Johnson's Seven Champions^ in an early impression, followed by a yet rarer Johnsons volume, a series of engravings representing Seven Champiom. ' b & r o the Champions^ dated 1623, and doubtless due to the great popularity of Johnson's book. We are throughout in Theatrical society, directly or otherwise ; but the alphabetical law obliged us to disregard chronology, and to note a splendid collection of Play-bills, in which the elder Kean occurs as the leading Tragedian, and ex- tending from 1 8 14, when he entered on his mun ean. ^^^^^^^ career, to 1833, when he died. The series includes performances in the provinces, Scotland, and Ireland. We are next transported to Kenilworth, so Kenil worth Castle. . . , . , -r ^ -^r ct_ 1 interestingly identified with bhakespeare, Leicester, and Queen Elizabeth, by an Original Account for repairs carried out there in 1 6 1 9 by Gilbert Howe, proving that at that date the Castle was suffering from neglect, and beginning to fall into ruin. To King's Lectures on Jonas ^ Kinff's Lectures. , ,. 1 xr 1 • ^ C delivered at York in 1594, we are sent for an evidence that A Midsummer Night's Dream was composed 29 in 1593-4, a year of terrible storms succeeding a visitation of the plague, and there has always been a notion that the Play was actually printed in 1595 — a truly important fact, if it were one, as it would be the earliest of the quartos to have appeared in type. To Dr. King succeeds Francis Kirkman, because there is a copy in our hands of his valuable Catalogue of 1 67 1, where in an Address to the Reader he gives an ac- count of his extraordinary assemblage of Old Francis Kirkman. T-Tir>i -u^i, jj- u English Flays, over eight hundred in number. He had been a collector of such things for fifty years, and fully believed that he had exhausted the field. He possessed forty-eight editions of Shakespeare. Kyd's Spanish Tragedy^ of which the rare edition of 161 5 enjoys the equivocal distinction of having been ridiculed by the greater Foet, yet there is a disposition to regard Kyd as a dramatist of some ability. Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent claims a place on Lambarde. . , . _ , - - account 01 its particulars or the forms or admission to the Elizabethan theatres and, yet more, for the writer's part in the Essex conspiracy of 1601, during which he had a personal interview with Queen Elizabeth. There was formerly a good library at the old house at Sevenoaks. The account of the English Dramatic Foets by Gerard Langbaine, 1691, is one of those honourable attempts to break new ground, or take the initiative in treating a fresh subject, of which the short- comings are a matter of course, and at a distance of more than two centuries from the appearance of the First edition 30 we are constantly making discoveries and correcting errors. His estimate of Shakespeare himself is almost beyond the feeling of the time ; but he was perhaps inspired a little by Dryden. It is quite essential to have in our possession a standard book on Falconry ; and here we are fortunate enough to have not only Latham, but nearer the Poet's own period, Turberville, the latter a writer who, like Lathzm's Falconry. ^, , , , ^ . ,. , Churchyard and Gascoigne, was a Imk TurherviWcs Falconry. i ^ r n i txt ^ between the school or Surrey and Wyatt and the Elizabethan one. Our Poet more probably owed his acquaintance with the topic and science to Turberville ; but Latham is of service in illustrating his allusions, and was not much posterior in date. One of those early Divines, whose sermons are real literature, was Latimer, who had a peculiar fondness for introducing into his discourses popular allusions, and these have tended to keep them sweet. " Nat " Lee was a follower and pupil of Shakespeare, of Nath Lee. Course at a distance ; but he evinces in more Leigh's than one of his Prefaces his respect and ^'''^'"'''/^^■'"'^''- appreciation for the Poet. There is not much in the Troy-books to help us, unless it be for Trot/us and Cressida. Leigh's Accedence of Armorie may be bracketed with Bolton's Elements, and a little further on there is a rare Italian analogue, an Italian poem , , on the subject by Ang^elo Leonico, and Lotnmonwealth. ^ _ jo similar works among those before us. Leicester's Commonwealth belongs to the series by reason of 31 its attempt to discredit Elizabeth's favourites and to repre- sent her as a puppet in their hands. The work cites the parallel cases of Edward II, Richard II, and Henry VI. Ligon's Barbadoes. There are some curious and amusing par- Lodge's ticulars of an incidental character in Ligon's Devil Conjured and Barbadoes, Lodge is represented by his Wits Miserie. jj^^^y Conjured and Wits Miserie, both printed in 1596 ; the latter an excessively rare tract, upon which Shakespeare has been supposed to have had an eye in A Midsummer Nighfs Dream. A quarto MS. of the seven- teenth century contains the arms of the Lucy of Charlecote. iii-n jj- -i Lucys alphabetically arranged and in trick. It is believed to be inedited, and was formerly in the Tixall Library. Both in his plays and in his prose " Euphues " Lyly is justly believed to have exercised a notable influence on his contemporaries, Shakespeare included. The great Poet owed much to his conceptions in his fairy mythology to Lyly who, fantastic as his prose style may be, had many imitators. Lyte's translation of the Herbal of Dodoens was Lyte and Dodoens. r 1 1 1 • one or a group 01 works belonging to the Elizabethan era open to Shakespeare. All these treatises and compilations are daily becoming more difficult to procure in good preservation. The Dumb Knight^ by Lewis Machin, Machin's . . . ^ • • ^r ^ D b K ' ht IS an interesting performance in itselr, and was reprinted in Hazlitt's Dodsley ; but it is also classable as a piece of Shakespeare, since the author 32 thought fit to honour the older Poet by borrowing notions from his Venus and Adonis, When we reach Malone, there are entries relative to The Tempest and Malone. , t i i r i • • i • i to the Ireland fabrications which we must estimate at the value placed on them by contem- poraries ; they entered into the critical literature of that day (1796-1808). No library of Shakespeareana could be antuans complete without a copy of Mantuan, who Eclogues. ^ ^ ^ ■' is explicitly noticed by the Poet, and which Manzolli s j^g might have seen in his school days. Zodiac of Life, . ^ .^ The Zodiac oj Ljfe^ ^S^S-> ^^^ ^^^ °^ those works which began to acquire a reputation a little before Shakespeare's time, but which continued in vogue nearly down to the end of the century. It was a mode of treatment quite Shakespearean. Mark- rr ,■ ham's Cavalarice ; or, the EfJs:lish Horseman^ Horsemamhip, "^ not only deals with the technical par- ticulars, but gives us an account of the famous performing horse mentioned in Love's Labour s Lost, We have had already occasion to refer to this animal in Markham's ,. , t^ , ,.. ^- ,. TT L J speakino: or a rrench edition or Apuleius. timbandman. r o r Markham's Husbandman might also have been of use. The author was a gentleman by birth, whose voluminous writings commenced pari passu with those of Shakespeare, and enjoyed a protracted popu- larity. Massinger, in his Maid of Honour^ 1632, seems to have recollected the passage in Hamlet^ 33 E where the Prince dreads the notion of death. There are several other dramas by Massinger here, including his earliest, the Virgin-Martyr. The commonplace book of Mathews for Charles Mathews, ^g^^ comprises extracts from Julius Ccesar, the Elder. , , ,• i • , r and other matter establishmg the famous actor's interest in the Poet, of whose First folio he possessed a copy. The presence in the Collection of such books as BuUein's Bulwark of Defence, 1579, in a perfect state with the portrait, Medicine. greatly enhances its interest and complete- BuUein. ness ; and then there is Mexia's Forest, Mexia's ^S7^^ which might have tempted Shake- Foreit of Histories, gpeare by its short cut to material of an usable kind, including a story closely resembling Timon of Athens. Several of Middleton's powerful dramas succeed, and among the rest that much controverted one, The Witch, not printed in the author's lifetime, and only known from a manuscript, and A Mad World, my Masters, where the loans from Shakespeare may be seen, leading to a suspicion that in the case of The Witch Middleton was the plagiarist. The old Commentators class such matters under the Shakespeare " Allusions " ; they strike us as something far more important. The author of Paradise host is generally allowed to Milton. , . , , , have a title to a place among those who formed an early appreciation of the Poet, who had passed away while he was yet a child, and he was only a young man of four-and-twenty when he penned the 34 famous eulogistic lines first included in the Second folio of Shakespeare. ,,. , This Library is very rich in those philo- Minsheu. ■' -' ^ Percival's English- logical publications which began about Spanish Dictionary. Shakespeare's day to grow abundant, and which enabled the Poet, or anyone not personally versed in the language, to gain as much as he wanted in the way of terms suitable for Dramatic dialogue. Percival was only one out of many persons who lent themselves to this sort of service; but he also executed translations, including portions of the Mirror of Knighthood. His Dictionary was edited by John Minsheu. A publication of a wholly different class and rank was the Mirror for Magistrates^ which has been made widely known by Mirror for reprints of portions and of the whole, and Magistrates. ^ ^ of which Weston has given an elaborate analysis. It was a volume likely from its form to attract the notice of Shakespeare, and we have no doubt that he dipped into it at odd times while he was engaged on his historical Plays. It is superfluous to say any- thing more about Shakespeare's relation to Montaigne's Essays^ since a recent Monograph casts an entirely new light on the matter, and enters very fully Montaigne. .^^^ ^^j ^^^ particulars. The second edition, which we have here, enshrines what were probably the last printed characters traced by the Poet, who, although he may not have read the Florio edition of 1603, became the possessor of a copy. The book must have exceptionally 35 impressed him. More*s Utopia has been cited as serviceable for Macbeth, As You Like It, and The Sir Thomas More. _, _ _ , ^ . Tempest. Moryson s Ittnerary was not ^ ^ printed till after the Poet's death, but Thomas Otway. ... . , . , r It IS important as it depicts the state or Scotland in 1598. Some of Otway 's dramas are introduced on the same principle and plea as those of Dryden and Lee, viz., as taking up the same or similar subjects for dramatic treatment. But Golding's Ovid is an indispensable feature, as there is little doubt that the Poet used that version, even if he possessed an original Latin copy. One '"gs VI . ^£ ^j^^ volumes which was calculated to give information about foreign countries, useful to those who did not wish to visit them, was Sir Thomas Palmer's (of Wing- ham, in Kent) Essay on the subject, 1606, Sir Thomas Palmer. 1 1 • 1 -n ^ ^' 1 r who has cited a passage illustrative also 01 a doubtful word in Henry IV, Part II. The Romances of Chivalry, like the music-books and ballads, were, in the Poet's day, in everybody's hands and mouths. Shakespeaie, of course, in his various Plays ^ /^^^^j" ^ had numerous details to consider, and Qrarden of Eloquence. points of diction and phraseology ; and the style becoming the different characters, where they were of a certain social standing, could not be neglected without prejudice. It has been remarked that it is very difficult in the case of this writer to substitute with advantage an expression or sentence for the one in the text, provided it be what he really wrote. Nothing disturbed the equanimity of Shakespeare 36 or his usual reticence more than the rise of Puritanism ; but n, he did not live to witness the consummation, riays. ' Parliamentary which arrived soon after the outbreak of Closure of the the Civil War, in the total suspension of Theatres, 1647. Theatrical exhibitions. The Hobby-horse game celebrated by the Poet, and no doubt often witnessed by him, is described by Plot as still surviving in Stafford- shire within living persons' recollections. Plot's Oxfordshire . . . • 1 r and Staffordshire. C>ne of the Capital sources of material for Shakespeare's dramatic purposes was the English Plutarch, and employed, more probably than not, in some edition, which left the press about the time when he commenced the series of Roman plays. If the copy owned by him should ever occur, it will probably be the present of 1603, or that of 161 2. In a slighter and less direct measure is the Gesta Romanorum, a most popular miscellany originally published by Wynkyn de Worde in the vernacular. It contains all the current stories going back to the Roman time, and there is the Shylock incident of " the pound of flesh." The favourite story of Romeo and 'Juliet uigi a or o. seems to have owed its first introduction to general notice to Luigi da Porto. The tragedy belonged to an epoch in the annals of Verona centuries prior to Da Porto's day, yet an atmosphere still surrounds the spot, and they even now show the grave of the Lovers. Shake- speare, in studying the matter, may have had other and 37 readier means of obtaining the main thread of the tradition ; but Da Porto's work must always commend itself to our attention alike in the original language and in the English version, which is easily accessible in Shakespeare s Library. The appearance of Prynne's Histriomastix^ Frynnes g^ disastrous for him, has a critical and Histriomasttx. literary interest for the Shakespearean student, forasmuch as it shows, according to him, the preference accorded by printers to Play-books over Bibles in the imposing folio form then given to them. Jonson has been so published in 1616, and Shakespeare in 1623, " in the best Crown paper," complains Prynne, " grow- ing from Quarto into Folio." The Second folio of Shake- speare had just left the press, and had perhaps met the writer's eyes. Those who admire Raleigh will like to Raleigh. . r 7 rrr 1 l 1 • -1 have his History of the World at their side or on their shelves from the character and position of the author and the feeling that Shakespeare and he must have met, and have been mutually interesting. The familiarity of Rashgeb ^^ Stratford Poet with foreign countries Duke of and their peculiarities was improved by vVurtemberg. ^^ successive visits of distinguished travellers to London, of which the most famous was that of the Duke of Wurtemberg and Teck, who appears to have passed under his other title derived from his French fief of Montbeliard, of which the English folks failed to get at the correct form, till it became " Garmombles," i.e. Graf 38 Montbeliard, Facilities of this class multiplied while the Poet was at work, and we have occasion to notice several publications apt to awaken his attention. During his life- time there was very little literature relevant to the Robin Hood tradition to be procured beyond the impressions of the Little Guest ; but it was one of those national topics, which there could be no difficulty in gleaning from oral communi- cation. Here, however, are several of R h' H fi Ritson's pieces, one of them the Quip Modesty and an edition of Kobin Hood's Garland. The celebrated Outlaw is inseparably associated with our drama and folklore. Close to him in our Catalogue, yet wholly unconnected in period, is St. St. Evremond. Evremond, who in a letter to Madame de Mazarin, written before 1705, was the first Frenchman, it is said, to refer to Shakespeare. It was the Poet's He?jry VIII which he saw. Scot's extremely enlightened book on Scot's Witchcraft^ \tt ^ t • ii -i- ^o Witcncratt is recommended as an aid in 1554. understanding Macbeth^ and the Poet is said to have had recourse to it. Scot also wrote a treatise against Astrology in the same advanced and courageous spirit ; it was never printed, but the precious original Manuscript is here, a quarto of 106 leaves, to which internal evidence assigns the approximate date of 1599. It was pointed out many years since that Scot, in his Discovery^ prints one of the Hundred Merry Tales^ only known in a very mutilated state till the Gottlngen copy occurred. The 39 references to heraldic questions in As You Like It, licensed ^cgzrh Booke of ^" 1600, reminds us that a few years before Honor and Armes, this the Shakespeares were discussing at '^^°* home the expediency of applying for a Grant of Arms, and books touching on that subject were consequently apt to come under notice. The notion did not apparently mature until 1597 or thereabout, and went no further than a preliminary negotiation. It was a juncture when considerable friction arose between the officers of Heralds' College in consequence of a too great readi- ness to favour applications, perhaps for the sake of the attendant fees. Portrait of '^^^ number of reputed likenesses of the Shakespeare, 161 1. Poet has of late years considerably in- Mezzotint of creased, but the majority of the new same, i 4 . claimants are regarded with sceptical eyes. There is one, however, which is apparently above suspicion, and it is known as the Ashbourne portrait. The Catalogue fully describes the large mezzotint of 1846 taken from it, and an impression of which is part of the present Library. More than one independent witness is of opinion that it was painted by Shakespeare's old friend, the actor-artist, Richard Burbage, shortly before the retirement of the Poet from London. It is doubtful if the canvas ever saw Stratford. Even the mezzotint is so rare that the leading London printsellers have never met with it. The frequent allusions to the weather in Shakespeare, and the rural superstitions, appeared to justify the entrance into 40 the Library of the old Shepherds' Calendar with its quaint and characteristic woodcuts. It is a volume Shepherds' Calendar. . . , , ,, , constantly reprinted, yet nearly all the Spenser, issues approach uniqueness. Of Spenser's own works, in a collected form, we have the editions of i6i I and 1679, the former superintended by Gabriel Harvey, Spenser's intimate friend, an eminent Elizabethan man of letters, and the means, by a quite recently found volume, of recording facts of the Poet's personal history previously quite unknown. The prohibition of Dramatic performances Sta^e-P layers' ^^i ri/^--iTT7- r> .1 ■ . c ^t the commencement or the Civil War was Lomplatnt^ 1 04 1. carrying out a step, which had been taken as early as 1600, when the licensed playhouses were limited by an order of the Privy Council to two, the "Fortune " and the " Globe." But we have here an excessively rare and important pamphlet, embodying the dissatisfaction and complaint at a temporary suspension of performances in London in conse- quence of the plague, which then at regular and even short intervals visited the Metropolis. It is in the form of a dialogue in the street between two famous actors of the day, Reed and Cane. It was reprinted in English Drama and Stage. _ „ Under a notice of George Steevens' Sale George Steevens. Catalogue, 1800, the most notable entry is the copy of the Second folio Shakespeare, 1632, which had formerly belonged to Charles I. It brought eighteen guineas, and was bought for George III. Charles I also possessed the 41 F First Folio. Stephen's WorU of Wonders, 1607, was a trans- lation from a French book, and much used ^^^rr^^j °^ hy English writers ; its aim was to show that all the marvels related by Herodotus were not eclipsed by others which had since occurred. It is a book of which the contemporary reputation was sufficient to induce a Scotch publisher to reprint it in 1608. Stow's Annals, of which there were many John Stow. f 1 1 editions, represents a class 01 books most likely to have suited the Poet, as it brought together in narrow compass all that he, as a rule, wanted to know. We have here three of four impressions of the volume. It necessarily happens that Stow places on record many incidents parallel to passages in the Plays ; and a similar remark applies to the same industrious compiler's Survey of London, which still Anthony Munday remains a Standard authority. The edition and Humphrey ^f j^^^ (^f ^^i^h an Original MS. is Dyson's Edition • i i i i i i oi Stow's Survey— ^ere) was superintended and enlarged by Contemporary Anthony Munday and the eminent book- Manuscript. collector Humphrey Dyson, whose library included some of the greatest treasures in early English literature. There are few publications of the Elizabethan era which have been more frequently quoted ^ ., "^ "'"-^ than the Anatomy of Abuses, by Phillip Stubbes, which enjoyed an extensive vogue, and of which in the Original impressions copies are very rarely attainable. Suubbes was a virulent enemy of all popular diversions, and employs in speaking of them no measured 42 terms of reprobation. Side by side with him, alphabet-wise, there is a very different man, Sir John Suckling, who was an enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare, a Sir John Suckling, (jj-^i^^tist himself of no inconsiderable mark, 1 ip y ney. ^^^ ^ witty verse-writer. Next stands Sydney's Arcadia^ where we find ourselves on contemporary ground and in a different atmosphere, and the editors of Shakespeare have shown that the Poet made Nahum Tate. /■ , , i -ivt i r-i-. c. use of the book. Nahum Tate was one or the numerous authors of plagiarisms of Shakespeare, who found it difficult, it seems, always to reconcile the original language and situations to suit and please the later Stuart audiences. Taylor, known as " the Water-Poet," was a Taylor, " the ^^^ ^£ ^^ ^.^^j genius as Shakespeare him- Water-Poet." ^ ^ , \ , self, but of a lower order, and he was evidently, from numerous allusions in his voluminous pro- ductions, a warm admirer of the national Poet. Bernard's collective English Terence^ printed in 1614, The English , r ,, • 1 -r* > j Tereyice "^^Y ^^^^ fallen m the Poet s way ; and there are passages in several of the Plays, indicating an acquaintance with the Roman dramatist in his early English dress. Thomas's Italian Grammar was only one of the early educational manuals Turberville's 1 , r 1 i l t,l v J, ; helpful to a worker where Italian was to takonry, 1 be introduced. Turberville we have already noticed as a not improbable source of inspiration for hawking terms. Frederic de Vinciolo, the author of the excessively rare work on Lace patterns, was one of the foreign specialists 43 whose technical information may have been important to the Poet either by a friend -who possessed Frederic de r i • • i i i • Vine' lo ^ copy 01 the origmal, or by an actual m- spection of the version in the vernacular with the same engravings. It is a work cited by the editors of Shakespeare for the expression " point-device." The old translation of the Mneid^ commenced by Phaer and Twyne's „, , , . . , i i i y. •] Phaer, the physician, and completed by Twyne, was exactly the sort of book to receive a passing perusal by the Poet in one of the numerous impressions which were made of it down to 1620. Shake- speare soon discovered, with the aid of his friends and his enemies, the necessity of not neglecting the leading classics as auxiliaries to his work. If he had " little Latin and less Greek," he made amends by reading Classical authors in approved English translations, and he obtained in that manner all that he substantially required. Walkington's '^^^ Optic Glass of Hu?7iors contains that Optic Glass of queer notion about the man who was ^^° ' affected in a peculiar way when he heard the bagpipe. Webster's fFl)ite Devil illustrates in an unsuspected manner the Italian plays of Shake- speare, since Webster is not less inaccurate than his contemporary in his notions and state- Whitehornes ^ ■' Ways for Ordering "lents about personages connected with that of Soldiers. country. Whitehorne's book on Mihtary * '^' tactics, 1588, has been proposed as a likely one to have afforded the Poet hints in this direction, as 44 he has exhibited his famiUarity with the details and vocabulary of warfare and gunnery in several of his plays. No assem- blage of Shakespeareana could be complete without a little volume written by one Willis in his 75th year, relating incidents which had happened within his personal know- ledge when he was a boy, and especially the performance at Gloucester of a piece no longer known, called the Cradle of Security. For various points connected with Logic and Rhetoric, incidentally introduced by the Poet in his very wide range of allusion, there may be slight risk in assuming that he used Wilson, from whose Rhetoric^ 1562, Wilson's Rhetoric. -^ ^^^ ^^^^ discovered that Gammer Gurton's „ -^. . Needle was not the earliest comedy in the Withal s Dictionary. ... English language. Of Withal's Dictionary^ it may be said that it is of all the books of the kind the most probable one to have been used at Stratford School. It was expressly designed for beginners, and Wotton's Remains (Reliquice Wottoniana:) furnish us with much IVottoniana valuable and indeed unique information about the later Shakespeare theatre and about the destruction of the "Globe" in 16 13, just as the Poet was about to leave London. That was one of his latest experiences. In Wright's Passions of the Mind there is a Wright^sP^W ^^^.^^ ^f Tarlton's theatrical costume, a of the Mind^ 1020. point of touch with the Poet's earliest insight into London and theatrical life. It has been amply shown how peculiarly Shakespeare was indebted to Tarlton, a man much his senior, in more than one sense. 45 In the preceding pages we have dwelt on a few of the leading features of this remarkable and extensive Library of books, autographs, and prints which so admirably illustrates the strenuous and fruitful labours of our national Poet. But it would be impossible within a reasonable compass to attempt to indicate all the valuable contents of these hundreds of volumes of Shakespeareana. More especially, it has not been practicable to specify even a portion of the Allusion Books, Books of Reference, and Analogues, in our own and other languages, which belong to Shakespeare's England. Shakespeare was so many years in Blackfriars within easy reach of the booksellers and publishers, and in so favourable a position that he was able to glance at volumes just placed on sale or fresh from the Press. We should bear in mind that a very large proportion of Shakespeareana owes its value, for us, in its demonstration of the sources which were available for use in the Poet's time, and which often came to him in sundry casual ways as well as by his personal or direct employment of the absolute volumes in their original former language. He was a very keen observer but a rather desultory student. The fortunate possessor of such a Shakespearean Library as the present has within his reach an unrivalled means of illustrating or solving the sense of the Poet, and of comparing estimates of him by successive ages and various Schools of Thought. There are Criticisms for him and against him ; for the Stage and against it. There are Works from which he derived an ideal or a phrase on a casual survey, and there are others whence he extracted outlines for his famous Plots. Of Shakespeare's 46 method this is predicable, that he never adopted any Story or any antecedent Drama as a whole ; he treated the material as a mere nucleus, which he filled up and finished in his own way. It will be apparent to anyone who examines the Library under notice with attention, that it is unusually diversified in its contents and range, and comprises books, tracts, broad- sides, autograph letters, signed documents, and prints all con- centrating on one single object, and many of the highest rarity and quite unobtainable in these days. The manifold nature of these stores demonstrates the wide variety of shape which an idea may assume, or to which it may be converted. The romancist, the emblem-writer and engraver, the satirist, the traveller, the compiler of Books of Characters, the fellow Playwright, are only some of the benefactors whom Shakespeare gathered round him, and who served him, some by supplying him with the opportunity of improving on them, others with the opportunity of estab- lishing how difficult it was to reach the height to which he had attained by the strenuous application of an unique genius. So it results that, from whatever point of view we permit or teach ourselves to regard these Collections, they cannot fail to tell favourably for the great Englishman to whose labours they bear a varied relationship. 47 ^^r^N THE I-AST DAM THIS BOOK IS 0^/ed below ^. „, SaAi>i subject to a tmand may be r ^,,iod^^^___======== nm Wy11157?i \6^^^ ^^tS^ -^ 1.0 r^^- 72 -1 PM f^ « 3« t^tCOlB Ji' itT? ^^« ^ 50iH-'- U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CD2MMD12ED UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY