A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare
by Frederick Gard Fleay · English · Gutenberg #46756 · 557,976 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare
Author: Frederick Gard Fleay
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRONICLE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ***
Transcriber's Note.
A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.
Formatting and special characters are indicated as follows:
_italic_
_{subscript}
^{superscript}
[=i] i with macron
[)i] i with inverted breve
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
_PLAYER, POET, AND PLAYMAKER_
[Illustration]
[Illustration: W. Heydemann, Sc.
EDWARD ALLEYN.]
A CHRONICLE HISTORY
OF THE
LIFE AND WORK
OF
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
_PLAYER, POET, AND PLAYMAKER_
BY
FREDERICK GARD FLEAY
With Two Etched Illustrations.
LONDON
JOHN C. NIMMO
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1886
[_All rights reserved_]
Dedication.
TO
THE SHAKESPEARE OF OUR DAYS,
_ROBERT BROWNING_,
A PERMITTED TRIBUTE
FROM
HIS EVER-DEVOTED LIEGEMAN,
FREDERICK GARD FLEAY.
To him, whose craft, so subtly terse,
(While lesser minds, for music's sake,
From single thoughts whole cantos make),
Includes a poem in a verse;--
To him, whose penetrative art,
With spheric knowledge only his,
Dissects by keen analysis
The wiliest secrets of the heart;--
To him, who rounds us perfect wholes,
Where wisdom, wit, and love combine;
Chief praise be this:--he wrote no line
That could cause pain in childlike souls.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
SECTION I.
THE PUBLIC CAREER OF SHAKESPEARE 7
SECTION II.
THE PERSONAL CONNECTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE WITH OTHER POETS 73
SECTION III.
ANNALS ON WHICH THE PRECEDING SECTIONS ARE FOUNDED 83
SECTION IV.
THE CHRONOLOGICAL SUCCESSION OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 175
SECTION V.
ON THE MARLOWE GROUP OF PLAYS 255
SECTION VI.
ON THE PLAYS BY OTHER AUTHORS ACTED BY SHAKESPEARE'S COMPANY 284
SECTION VII.
EARLY ENGLISH PLAYS IN GERMANY 307
APPENDIX 319
TABLES 324
I. QUARTO EDITIONS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS 324
II. QUARTO EDITIONS OF OTHER PLAYS PERFORMED BY SHAKESPEARE'S COMPANY
326
III. NUMBER OF PERFORMANCES AT COURT, 1584-1616 327
IV. ENTRIES OF PLAYS IN THE STATIONERS' REGISTERS, 1584-1640 328
V. TRANSFERS OF COPYRIGHT IN PLAYS, 1584-1640 350
SUPPLEMENTARY TABLE OF MOSELEY'S ENTRIES IN 1653 AND 1660, AND
WARBURTON'S LIST 358
INDEX 361
NOTE ON ETCHINGS 364
[Illustration: W. Heydemann, Sc.
SHAKESPEARE'S FONT.]
INTRODUCTION.
IT is due to the reader of a new work on a subject already so often
handled as the Life of Shakespeare to tell him at the outset what he
may expect to find therein, and to state the reasons for which I have
thought it worth while to devote nearly ten years to its production.
Previous investigators have with industrious minuteness already
ascertained for us every detail that can reasonably be expected of
Shakespeare's private life. With laborious research they have raked
together the records of petty debts, of parish assessments, of
scandalous traditions, of idle gossip; and they have shown beyond
doubt that Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, was married, had
three children, left his home, made money as an actor and play-maker
in London, returned to his native town, invested his savings there,
and died. I do not think that when stript of verbiage, and what the
slang of the day calls padding, much more than this can be claimed
as the result of the voluminous writings on this side of his career.
For one I am thankful that things are so; I have little sympathy with
the modern inquisitiveness that peeps over the garden wall to see in
what array the great man smokes his pipe, and chronicles the shape and
colour of his head-covering. But on the public side of Shakespeare's
career little has been adequately ascertained; and with this we are
deeply concerned. Not for a mere personal interest, but in its bearings
on the history of English literature, we ought to ascertain so far as
is possible what companies of actors Shakespeare belonged to, at what
theatres they acted, in what plays besides his own he was a performer,
what authors this brought him into personal contact with, what
influence he exerted on or received from them, what relations, friendly
or unfriendly, they had with rival companies, and finally, in what
order his own works were produced, and what if any share other hands
had in their production. All these matters have been treated carelessly
and inaccurately by biographers of the peeping school; and in the last
of these we are gravely referred for the chronology of Shakespeare's
plays to a schoolboy compilation the author of which is so ignorant
as to speak of _Lust's Dominion_ as a play of _Jonson's_, the _News
from Hell_ as a _play_ of Dekker's, and Achilles as Laertes' son. This
marvel of inefficiency we are told is the best work on the subject;
and this while Malone and Drake are accessible to any student. In the
present treatise this hitherto neglected side of Shakespeare's career
has been chiefly dwelt on. The facts of his private life are also
given; but not the documents on which they are founded, these having
been excellently well collected and arranged in the recent _Outlines
of the Life of Shakespeare_, by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, F.R.S.,
F.S.A., Hon. M.R.S.L., Hon. M.R.I.A. This book is a treasure-house
of documents, and it is greatly to be regretted that they are not
published by themselves, apart from hypotheses founded on idle rumour
or fallacious mis-reasoning. I do not know any work so full of fanciful
theories and "_ignes fatui_" likely to entice "a deluded traveller
out of the beaten path into strange quagmires."[1] There is much else
besides documents not given in the present treatise; discussions as
to who might have been Shakespeare's schoolmaster, whether he was
apprenticed to a butcher, whether he stole a deer out of a non-existent
park, whether he held horses at the theatre door or "was employed in
any other equine capacity," whether he went to Denmark or to Venice,
and whether Lord Bacon wrote his plays for him. On all these points I
must refer to earlier and less sceptical treatises. What the reader
will find here is--(1.) A continuous narrative in which the statements
are mostly taken for granted in accordance with my own view of the
evidence accessible to us; (2.) Annals or chronological arrangement of
the same facts, with discussion of their mutual interrelations; (3.)
Discussion of the evidence on which the chronological succession of
Shakespeare's plays is based; (4.) Similar discussions for plays in
which he was not main author but only "coadjutor, novice, journeyman,
tutor," or even merely one of the possible actors; (5.) A few remarks
on the German versions of his plays acted on the Continent; and (6.)
Tables of quarto editions of his plays, &c., with a list of all plays
entered on the Stationers' Registers from the first opening of theatres
to their closing in 1640-42. This last item may seem to be somewhat
beyond the scope of this book, but it is greatly needed, and it is
better that so difficult a task should be performed by one acquainted
with dramatic literature than by some scissors-and-paste compiler who
cannot distinguish a play from a prose tract. As to the preparation
for the whole work it has been to me a labour of love, not, I trust,
altogether lost. I have read and re-read for it every play accessible
to me that dates earlier than 1640, have compiled annals for every
known writer of that period and discussions of the dates of his plays,
and have compared the results and corrected and re-corrected until
a consistent whole has been obtained. Of this whole only the part
relating to Shakespeare is here issued. I have to thank the editors
of _Anglia Englische Studien_ and _Shakespeariana_ for enabling me to
print some portions relating to other authors, which will, however,
require some minor corrections. I have also to thank Dr. Furnivall and
Mr. Swinburne for some wholesome criticism upon my earlier work; Dr.
Ingleby, Miss Lee, Mr. Boyle, Mr. A. H. Bullen, and especially Dr. H.
H. Furness, for kindly sympathy and copies of their own writings, some
of which might otherwise have escaped my notice; and above all Mr.
P. A. Daniel, for ever-ready help when asked for, and for judicious
strictures on received hypotheses or points debatable. The main
regret for the earnest student is that so many of these still exist;
as any attempt to give a biography of Shakespeare the form which is
æsthetically its due must fail so long as the true order of the facts
on which it rests is still esteemed matter of argument. If the reader
would wish to judge before proceeding further of the quality of such
argument in the present work I would refer him to the discussion on
_Mucedorus_ or that on _Henry VI._ in subsequent Sections.
One other point requires notice, if not apology. The plan followed
in this volume requires much repetition in order that the separate
arguments as to the chronological succession of the plays, and as to
the order of events in Shakespeare's life, should be presented in
intelligible sequence. This is an evil only to be avoided either by
mixing up the two, as is usually done, or by numerous cross-references.
Either of these methods leads to greater evils, both by interrupting
the logical connection of each series (for unfortunately the evidences
are mostly independent of each other), and, which is still more
important, by obliterating the mutual support given to the arguments
in the twofold lines of evidence by their leading in each division
to compatible results. The inconvenience of these repetitions has
therefore been submitted to.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]
"These phrases to their owner I resign,
For God's sake, reader, take them not for mine."
LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE.
SECTION I.
THE PUBLIC CAREER OF SHAKESPEARE.
ON or about Saturday 22d April 1564, William Shakespeare, son of John
Shakespeare, glover and dealer in wool, and his wife Mary, _née_ Arden,
was born in Henley Street, Stratford-on-Avon, and was baptized on the
26th. Nothing whatever is known of his early life, and the few meagre
details ascertained as to the condition of his family will be found
in a subsequent division of this work. Tradition and imagination have
supplied untrustworthy materials, with which his biographers have
endeavoured to fill up the gap in our information; but it is not until
28th November 1582 that we find any further reliable fact established
concerning him. On that day his marriage bond is dated, he being in his
nineteenth year, and his bride, Anne Hathaway, in her twenty-sixth.
Their first child, Susanna, was baptized 26th May 1583. To account
for this young lady's premature arrival a pre-contract is assumed,
but not proved, by recent writers. On 2d February 1585 their twin
children, Hamnet and Judith, were baptized; and in 1587, in the spring,
Shakespeare gave his assent to a proposed settlement of a mortgage on
his mother's Asbies estate. For ten years after there is no vestige of
any communication with his family. It is at this point that his public
life begins.
In 1587 Leicester's players visited Stratford for the first time. The
company, under the same name, that had performed there in 1576 had as
well as Warwick's been dissolved in 1583, in order that the Queen's
men might be selected from them. In 1586, during the prevalence of
the plague in London, this more recent company had been travelling on
the Continent, and on their return to England made a provincial tour.
Shakespeare probably joined them during or immediately after their
visit to Stratford, and during their travels received his earliest
instruction in comic acting from Kempe and Pope, who soon after became
noted performers; Bryan also belonged to the company at this date.
They probably acted mere interludes, not regular five-act plays. On
4th September 1588 the Earl of Leicester died; and his players soon
after found a new patron in Lord Strange. They then settled in London,
and acted at the Cross Keys in Bishopsgate Street. The head of the
company, in its altered constitution, was "Famous Ned Allen," who on 3d
January 1588-9 bought up for £37, 10s. Richard Jones' share of "playing
apparels, play-books, instruments, &c.," in order to set up his new
company. These properties had belonged to Worcester's men under Robert
Brown, and were no longer needed by him, as he and his players were
about to visit the Continent.
It was in this way that Shakespeare came to London as a poor strolling
player, but nevertheless his position was not without its advantages;
he was associated already with the most noted comedians of the time,
Kempe and Pope; and in Alleyn he had the advantage of studying the
method of the greatest tragic actor that had yet trod the English
stage. But he did not remain content with merely acting; he now
commenced as author. In order to ascertain under what conditions,
it will be necessary to briefly state what was the position of the
companies and authors in London in 1589.
At that date there were two theatres in London: the better of the
two, the Theater, was occupied by the Queen's men, for whom Greene
was the principal play-writer. Marlowe, Kyd, and R. Wilson had
also contributed plays to their _repertoire_, but just at this time
left them and joined Pembroke's, which, like Leicester's, had been
a strolling company, but were now settling in London. On the other
hand, Peele and Lodge, who had previously written for the Admiral's
company, acting at the other theatre, the Curtain, had also joined,
and still remained with, the Queen's. Nearly all these writers, if
not quite all, were actors as well as authors. Greene, the Johannes
Factotum of the Queen's men, had evidently expected to establish a
monopoly of play-acting in their favour, and was indignant at the
arrival of vagrant troops of Thespians from the country, just when he
had practically succeeded in crippling the rival company in London, by
enlisting some of their best authors in the service of his own. Hence
on 23d August 1589 his publication of _Menaphon_, with Nash's address,
containing a virulent attack on Kyd and Marlowe, then writing for
Pembroke's men, together with a glorification of Peele, then writing
in conjunction with Greene. The absence of any allusion in this tract
to Shakespeare or Lord Strange's company conclusively proves that
they were not as yet dangerous rivals to the Queen's. Pembroke's men
were, and there is indirect evidence that they had from their first
settlement in London obtained possession of the second theatre, the
Curtain. This evidence is connected with the first direct mention which
is extant of Shakespeare's company. For in this same year, 1589, the
Martinist controversy had been raging in London; Lyly, Nash, Greene,
Monday, and Cooper were the anti-Martinist champions; the Martinists
had been ridiculed on the stage in April, probably by Greene at the
Theater, possibly by the Paul's children in some play of Lyly's, or
by the Earl of Oxford's boys in one of Monday's. The authorities did
not interfere. But in November certain players "within the city,"
to wit, Lord Strange's and the Admiral's, were silenced for "abuses
or indecent reflexions" (Strype). A comparison of the _worthies_ in
_Love's Labour's Lost_ with the anti-Martinist writers, of the Euphuist
Armado with Lyly, the boy-satirist Mote with Nash, the curate with the
Reverend Robert Greene, the schoolmaster-pedant with the pedagogue
Cooper, and Antony Dull with Antony Monday, will I think confirm the
theory developed by me in a separate essay, that this was the play
suppressed on this occasion. It is characteristic of the independence
of action shown by Shakespeare's company throughout the reign of
Elizabeth that they refused to obey the injunction, and went and
played at the Cross-Keys that same afternoon, while the subservient
Admiral's company dutifully submitted. I do not suppose, however,
that the play as then performed was in all parts from the hand of
Shakespeare. It is extremely unlikely that he should have commenced his
career by independent writing, and there is not a play of his that can
be referred even on the rashest conjecture to a date anterior to 1594,
which does not bear the plainest internal evidence to its having been
refashioned at a later time. In all probability he began to compose
plays, as we know so many of his contemporaries did, as an assistant
to some experienced dramatist. It may seem idle, in the absence of any
positive evidence, to guess who was his original tutor in composition,
and yet, as the careers of Peele, Greene, and Marlowe conclusively show
that none of them were in 1589 connected with Lord Strange's company,
I venture to suggest that it was Robert Wilson. That dramatist is not
heard of in connection with Pembroke's or any other company after
August 1589, and he certainly continued to write for the stage. That
Shakespeare was greatly influenced by him and Peele is evident from
the metrical character of Shakespeare's earliest work, which abounds
in heroic rhyme like Peele's in tragedy, and in doggerel and stanza
like Wilson's in comedy. It is not till the Historic plays that the
influence of Marlowe's blank verse is fully perceptible, and in the
earliest of these, _Richard II._, rhyme is still dominant. Wilson was
in this view a better teacher for the inexperienced Shakespeare than
a greater man. Marlowe, for instance, might have biassed him on the
tragic side, and deferred or prevented his comedy from its earlier
pastoral development. _Love's Labour's Won_ must have been written at
about the same time as _Love's Labour's Lost_, and before the end of
1590 _The Comedy of Errors_ probably appeared in its original form. In
this same year was produced a play in which, although I cannot detect
Shakespeare's hand as coadjutor with its probable author, R. Wilson,
he most likely appeared as an actor--_Fair Em_; and that this comedy
contained a satirical attack on Greene is evident from the offence he
took at it, as shown in his virulent address prefixed to his _Farewell
to Folly_. Up to this date Greene's chief attacks had been directed
against Kyd in _Menaphon_ and in _Never too late_, but as yet there has
been found no allusion to Shakespeare in his writings anterior to 1592.
Yet Shakespeare must have been known to him as at least part author of
the plays acted by Lord Strange's men in 1589 and 1590. Of _Romeo and
Juliet_, originally acted in 1591, we also possess a version anterior
to Shakespeare's final remodelling, which palpably contains scenes not
written by him. These scenes, however, seem due to a finer artist than
Kyd, and there is independent evidence that George Peele had by 1591
also become a playwright for Lord Strange's men. One of the plays acted
by them in this year was probably Peele's _Edward I._, here mentioned
on account of a curious allusion which would seem to fix the character
performed by Shakespeare. In scene 3 Elinor says to Baliol--
"_Shake_ [thou] thy _spear_ in honour of _his name_
Under whose royalty thou wear'st the same."
Shakespeare is known to have acted "kingly parts," and this of Edward
I. was probably one of them. To this same year may probably be assigned
the original production of _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.
The Court festivities of Christmas 1591-2 mark an important epoch
in the fortunes of Lord Strange's company, and consequently of
Shakespeare, now rapidly coming to the front as their chief writer.
During the period we have been considering, 1587-1591, the Queen's and
the Admiral's were the only men's companies who performed at Court, but
at Christmas 1591-2 the Admiral's did not act at all, and the Queen's,
after one performance, gave place to Lord Strange's, and until the
death of that nobleman in 1594, his players enjoyed almost a monopoly
of Court performances. One presentation by the Earl of Hertford's men,
of whom nothing else is recorded, one by the Earl of Sussex', and two
by the Earl of Pembroke's, are all that can be balanced with six by
Lord Strange's in 1591-2, and three in 1592-3. This pre-eminence at
Court was retained by the company under all its changes of constitution
far beyond Shakespeare's time, until the closing of the theatres in
1642. Possibly the influence of Lord Southampton, who had come to
town and entered at Gray's Inn in 1590, and was stepson to Sir Thomas
Heneage, the treasurer, may have had something to do with this. He does
not yet, however, appear to have come into direct communication with
Shakespeare.
Immediately after this first appearance at Court, Alleyn arranged with
Henslow, his father-in-law, to give his company a local habitation in
a permanent theatre. This was of no small importance to them; they had
hitherto had to play in the inn-yard at the Cross-Keys. Henslow's new
theatre was the Rose on the Bankside, which opened in February 1591-2.
The singular fact that every old play (_i.e._, every play that had been
previously performed) there acted in this season had been with one
possible exception derived from the Queen's players, shows that the
hitherto most successful company were reduced to sell their copies, and
were probably on the verge of bankruptcy. Among these we find Greene's
_Orlando_ and _Friar Bacon_, Greene and Lodge's _Looking-glass for
London_, Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_, and Kyd's two plays of _Jeronymo_.
The only play traceable to another company is Peele's _Battle of
Alcazar_, called by Henslow _Mulomorco_. In fact, the Queen's company
were now practically without a play-writer. Of their formerly numerous
staff Marlowe was writing for Pembroke's men, Kyd and Peele for Lord
Strange's, Lodge was abroad, Wilson had left them, and Greene had
also quitted them for the Earl of Sussex'. Besides the plays above
enumerated, Lord Strange's players acted a dozen others of which only
the titles are known, and produced as new plays the following:--On
March 3, _Henry VI._ (a re-fashioning by Shakespeare of an old Queen's
play, into which he introduced the Talbot scenes, celebrated by Nash,
which drew such crowded audiences); on April 11, _Titus and Vespasian_
(a version of the Andronicus story extant in a German translation, and
probably written by Kyd); on April 28, the second part of _Tamburlane_
(not extant); on June 10, _A Merry Knack to Know a Knave_ (probably
by Peele and Wilson); and after an interval, during which the theatres
were closed on account of the plague, on 5th January 1592-3, _The
Jealous Comedy_ (probably _The Merry Wives of Windsor_); and finally,
January 30, _The Guise_ (Marlowe's _Massacre of Paris_).
I have brought together this enumeration of the new plays of Strange's
men that the reader may better appreciate the often quoted but sadly
misunderstood address by Greene to his fellow-dramatists in his
_Groatsworth of Wit_, not published till September after its author's
death, but manifestly written and probably circulated in manuscript
in the early months of 1592. Its aim is directed against a company
of players, "burs, puppets, antics, apes, grooms, painted monsters,
peasants," among whom is "an upstart crow, a Johannes Factotum, a
Shakescene," who supposes he can bombast out a blank verse. This is
palpably directed against Shakespeare and Lord Strange's players, for
whom he was then writing and with whom he was then acting. But Greene
also says that they had all been beholding to him and to his fellow
writers whom he addresses; that is, to Marlowe, Peele, "young Juvenal"
(Lodge), and two more (Kyd and Wilson) "that both have writ," whom he
might "insert against these buckram gentlemen." This can only apply
to the Queen's players, for which company alone Greene had written up
to 1591, having supplied them with a play every quarter and purveyed
more plays for them than the other four (Marlowe, Peele, Kyd, and
Lodge), as Nash tells us in his _Piers Penniless_. There must then
have been an amalgamation of the better portions of the two companies,
the Queen's and Lord Strange's, just before the opening of the Rose
Theatre, a conclusion confirmed by the fact that the Queen's plays had
passed into the hands of the other company, and, as will be seen when
I treat of the Henry VI. plays, deduced by me on other and independent
grounds. This attack of Greene's was, I think, answered by Shakespeare
in his _Midsummer Night's Dream_, produced in its first form c. June
1592. Bottom and his scratch company have long been recognised as a
personal satire, and the following marks would seem to indicate that
Greene and the Sussex' company were the butts at which it was aimed.
Bottom is a Johannes Factotum who expects a pension for his playing;
his comrades are unlettered rustics who once obtain an audience at
Theseus' court. The Earl of Sussex' men were so inferior a company
that they acted at Court but once, viz., in January 1591-2, and the
only new play which can be traced to them at this date is _George a
Greene_, in which Greene acted the part of the Pinner himself. This
only shows that the circumstances of the fictitious and real events
are not discrepant; but when we find Bottom saying that he will get
a ballad written on his adventure, and "it shall be called Bottom's
Dream, because it hath no bottom" (iv. i. 212) and that peradventure
he shall "sing it at her (?) death," we surely may infer an allusion
to Greene's _Maiden's Dream_ (S. R. 6th December 1591), apparently so
called because it hath no maiden in it, and sung at the death of Sir
Christopher Hatton. This play of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ was produced
after the closing of the theatres, c. 12th June 1592, on account of
the plague; it and the _Jealous Comedy_, produced 5th January 1592-3,
when the theatres reopened for that month only, were almost the last
in which Shakespeare worked as a journeyman or with a coadjutor. When
he revived these earlier plays for the Chamberlain's men he carefully
replaced in almost every instance the work of his quondam companions
by other and certainly not weaker lines of his own. Some of his own
work of this date, apparently left unfinished on account of the sudden
closure of the playhouses, he appears to have taken up and completed
in his 1601-2 plays. But no doubt the greater part of this autumn was
occupied in writing _Venus and Adonis_, dedicated to Lord Southampton
(S. R. 18th April 1593) as "the first heir of his invention," a product
of "idle hours:" idle because during the plague no new plays were
required of him, nor even rehearsals; the players travelled and acted
old plays only. In these circuits a whole company did not usually
journey together; it was more profitable to separate into parties of
half-a-dozen, and of course to cut down their plays so as to be capable
of representation by this small body of actors. One part of Lord
Strange's men, consisting of Alleyn, Pope, Bryan, Hemings, Phillips,
and Kempe, so travelled in 1593; but no document has been preserved
respecting the remainder of the company, which included probably
Burbadge, Sly, Condell, Holland, Cowley, and Shakespeare. It appears
from Alleyn's correspondence that Cowley was the bearer of a letter
to him from London to Bristol; that his section of the company had
been at Chelmsford in May, were at Bristol in August, and afterwards
visited Shrewsbury, Chester, and York. Meanwhile, on June 1, Marlowe
had been killed in a brawl, and his version of the Andronicus story
was acted by Sussex' men at the Rose, 23d January 1594. From their
hands this play passed to Pembroke's men c. 8th February, when Sussex'
company broke up and went into the country, and from them to the Earl
of Derby's before 16th April. But this company of Derby's was no other
than Lord Strange's. After Henry Earl of Derby died, 25th September
1593, Ferdinand, his son, who succeeded him, and who had previously
borne the title of Lord Strange, was called either Strange or Derby
indifferently, he having no son to whom the title of Lord Strange could
be, in accordance with custom, assigned in courtesy, although by strict
right this title appertained to the Earls of Derby and not to their
sons. Along with this Andronicus play the following can be traced as
passing from Pembroke's company to Lord Strange's at this date: _The
Taming of a Shrew_, _Edward III._, _Hamlet_, _3 Henry VI._; and besides
this transfer of playbooks there was also a partial transfer of the
company itself. Beeston, Cooke, Sinkler, Holland, and others were among
these new members. The cause of this arrangement was no doubt poverty;
already on 28th September 1593 they could not "save their charges to
travel, and were fain to pawn their apparel." So writes Henslowe to
Alleyn.
I must now recur to 1593. Immediately after Christmas the theatres
reopened; but at the Rose the Earl of Sussex' men acted instead of
Lord Strange's, who played about the city, at the Cross-Keys for
example. When Sussex' men broke up, on the 8th April, the Rose remained
empty except for three days, 14-16th May, when the Admiral's company
acted there, no doubt under Alleyn, who was servant to the Admiral
as well as to Lord Strange. The Admiral, however, had himself laid a
restraint on the Rose theatre (probably c. 8th April), and ordered
that Lord Strange's players should play "three days" (_i.e._, three
days a week) at Newington Butts. This was petitioned against by the
watermen, whose calling was greatly in request when the Rose was
open, and by Lord Strange's players themselves. No redress appears to
have been granted during the life of Lord Strange, who died on 16th
April, but when the company had found a new patron in Lord Hunsdon the
Chamberlain, and had submitted to the order by playing on alternate
days with the Admiral's at Newington Butts, then the restraint on the
Rose was removed. The Chamberlain's players, however, did not act
there, but under Shakespeare and Burbadge reopened the old Theater,
while Alleyn left them and acted with the Admiral's at the Rose.
Before passing to notice the poems written by Shakespeare during this
period of "travelling," I may note that these plays acquired from
Pembroke's men appear to have been written by Marlowe or Kyd. _Edward
III._, by Marlowe, was, with alterations by Shakespeare, acted about
the city in 1594. _Titus Andronicus_ and _3 Henry VI._ were also acted
by the Chamberlain's company; but they show no evidence of extensive
alterations at Shakespeare's hand; he probably merely corrected them.
Another play of this date, _Richard III._, bears strong internal
evidence of Marlowe's craftmanship, but was no doubt completed and
partly rewritten by Shakespeare. The Kyd plays, on the other hand,
were not utilised in this way. New plays on the same plots as the old
_Hamlet_ and _The Taming of a Shrew_ were afterwards produced by the
Chamberlain's men--_Hamlet_ by Shakespeare, _The Taming of the Shrew_
by Lodge (most likely), but greatly altered by Shakespeare some years
after. Another play performed by Derby's men contemporaneously with
these was _The Seven Deadly Sins_. This play had not been derived from
Pembroke's men, but from the Queen's, for whom Tarleton had originally
plotted it. The plot as acted in 1594 still exists, and is especially
valuable as showing the composition of Lord Strange's company at that
date. Shakespeare, however, took no part in it. The large number
of performers singularly agrees with the statement in the players'
petition above alluded to that "our company is great." There was also
a play _Locrine_, published S. R. 20th July 1594, as revised by W. S.,
which has been interpreted William Shakespeare. I do not think he could
in any way have been concerned in this revival of Peele and Tilney's
stilted performance, and suspect that W. S. means William Sly; nor
do I think that any other play of Shakespeare's, save those already
mentioned, can be assigned to a date anterior to the formation of the
Chamberlain's company except _Troylus and Cressida_ in its original
form, which was probably acted c. 1593. In fact, Shakespeare was from
the breaking out of the plague in 1592 until the settlement of his
reconstituted company in 1594 chiefly occupied, not with plays, but
with poems. His _Venus and Adonis_ has already been noticed, and on
9th May 1594 his _Rape of Lucrece_ was published. In the Dedication to
Lord Southampton, Shakespeare speaks of "the warrant I have of your
honourable disposition:" in what especial way Southampton had shown
his favour to Shakespeare has been the subject of many conjectures.
My own opinion is that he had introduced him as representative of his
fellow-actors to Lord Hunsdon, and procured them their new patron;
but in a scandalous book called _Willobie his Avisa_, published 3d
September 1594, the version of the connection between the nobleman
and the "old player" is that W. S. had parted with a mistress to H. W.
and been rewarded accordingly; and it would be useless to deny that
the _Sonnets_ written between 1594 and 1598 distinctly allude to some
circumstance of this kind. The _Avisa_ book was, however, suppressed or
"called in" on 4th June 1599, as a libellous production.
This year may be regarded as the turning-point in Shakespeare's
public career. Until the establishment of the Chamberlain's company,
he had been an actor gradually rising in the esteem of his fellows,
but often obliged to travel and to act about town in inn-yards, and
his play-writing had been confined to vamping old plays by other men,
or at best to assisting such writers as Wilson or Peele in producing
new ones. He had served, as it were, a seven years' apprenticeship.
But henceforward he takes his place as one of the chief actors in the
principal company in London, acting in a licensed theatre; he is also,
with occasional assistance, the sole purveyor of plays to this company,
and he is the acknowledged writer of the most popular love poems of
his time. For it is to the author of _Lucrece_ and _Adonis_ that his
contemporaries assign their praises far more than to the writer of
_Lear_ or _Hamlet_. Poems were in their opinion fit work for a prince;
but plays were only congruous with strolling vagabondism. It is just
at this turning-point that the first nominal mention of Shakespeare is
found as acting before the Court at Greenwich on December 26 and 28,
along with Kempe and Burbadge.
The performance on 26th December was on the same day that Shakespeare
and his company had acted _The Comedy of Errors_ at Gray's Inn--the
earliest of his plays in their present form, but founded on a previous
version, in which another pen was concerned.
On 26th January 1594-5, _Midsummer Night's Dream_ was, I conjecture,
acted at Greenwich at the marriage of W. Stanley, Earl of Derby,
and afterwards on the public stage; it was evidently written for a
marriage, but, like the preceding play, had been altered for this
special occasion. Its original production was probably in 1592, at
the marriage of Robert Carey, afterwards Earl of Monmouth. In both
instances the bridegrooms were close connections of the patrons of the
actors; W. Stanley being brother to Ferdinand, Lord Strange, and Robert
Carey son to Henry, Lord Hunsdon, the Chamberlain. Another 1595 play
was _Richard II._, evidently an imitation of Marlowe's _Edward II._
Marlowe was Shakespeare's first model in Historical Plays, as Kyd was
in Tragedy and Lyly in Comedy, but he followed Marlowe much more
closely than either of the other two. If any other author contributed
plays to the Chamberlain's company this year it must have been
Lodge, to whom _Mucedorus_ and _A Larum for London_ may probably be
attributed. At Christmas they acted five plays at Court.
In 1596, there is little doubt that Shakespeare produced his _King
John_, founded on two old plays on the same subject which were written
for the Queen's men in 1589 by Peele, Marlowe, and Lodge. Their plot
has been very closely followed by Shakespeare and a few lines borrowed.
At some time between 23d July 1596 and 5th March 1597 he also revived
_Romeo and Juliet_, at the Theater; this new version was founded on
the old play of 1591, in which Shakespeare was only part writer. Of
plays by other authors only one can be traced to his company in this
year, namely, _Sir Thomas More_ (? by Drayton and Lodge). This play
was severely handled by the Master of the Revels for its allusions
to contemporary events, and the alterations made by him afford
instructive study to dramatic critics. On August 5, immediately after
the appearance of _Romeo and Juliet_, a ballad on the story was entered
S. R., and on August 27, T. Millington was fined for printing ballads
on _The Taming of a Shrew_ and _Macbeth_. This indicates the existence
of a Macbeth play at this time, but probably, like the older _Hamlet_
and _Lear_, one in whose production Shakespeare had no share. Kempe
mentions the Macbeth ballad as the first production of its author in
his _Nine Days' Wonder_. In February this same year James Burbadge
bought the property in Blackfriars, on which he began in November to
build the Blackfriars Theatre, wherein in 1597, after some opposition,
he succeeded in establishing the Chapel children under Evans. The
Chamberlain's company did not act at this theatre in Shakespeare's
time. There were six Court performances at Christmas 1596-7.
It is necessary now to recur to Shakespeare's private life. On 5th
August 1596 his son Hamnet died, and he unquestionably visited
Stratford and renewed relations with his family at this time. John
Shakespeare having applied to the Heralds' College for a grant of
arms, obtained this concession in October, and in the Easter term
1597 William Shakespeare purchased the property called New Place in
Stratford. In November 1597 the Asbies business was revived in a
Chancery suit brought by Shakespeare's parents against John Lambert,
son of Edmond. In the bill of complaint the Shakespeares describe
themselves as "of small wealth, and very few friends;" but it is clear
that their wealth must have had a recent accession, or they would not
now have renewed a dispute which, on their own statement, had lain in
abeyance since 1580. All these proceedings alike, the acquisition of a
residence in Stratford, the obtaining a grant of arms, the endeavour to
establish old claims to family property, point to Shakespeare's desire,
now that he had succeeded in London and made money, to settle in
Stratford as a country gentleman, and found a family. He may have hoped
for the birth of another son, his wife being in 1596 still under forty
years of age. But the inferences usually drawn from the incidents of
this time, that Shakespeare had constantly held communication with his
family, whom he had supported during his theatrical career in London,
and that he was, on this occasion, largely indebted to the bounty of
Lord Southampton, are mere fancies. The natural interpretation of such
records as have reached us is that it was not till touched by the hand
of the great reconciler Death, in the person of the expected heir to
his new-founded fortunes, that he ever visited his family at all during
the nine years since he left them to carve his own way as a strolling
player. If conjecture is to be allowed at all, I would rather suggest
that his family were offended at his choice of an occupation, and that
it was not till he had made a marked success that they were reconciled
to him.
Returning to Shakespeare's public career--on 5th March 1597 George
Carey, Lord Hunsdon, was created Chamberlain, and his players resumed
the title of "The Lord Chamberlain's." Early in this year was almost
certainly produced _The Merchant of Venice_, founded on an old play of
Dekker's called _Joseph the Jew of Venice_, written c. 1592, and acted
in 1594 by the Admiral's men, but not now extant. In the same year
was performed _1 Henry IV._ The comic powers of Shakespeare appear in
these plays in their highest development in Shylock and Falstaff, and
endeavours have been made by several (myself included) to mark this as
the beginning of a new period in his manner of work. In such attempts,
however, it is necessary to assign specific single dates to each play,
and consequently to neglect the proved fact of frequent alterations of
considerable extent having been made at revivals. I think it better to
regard as Shakespeare's first period the time anterior to the formation
of the Chamberlain's company, 1587-93, during which he was employed
only as "journeyman or coadjutor," and not to separate the series of
Comedies and Histories which were produced in their perfected forms
from 1594 to 1602. It may, however, be noted that at this time, 1597,
he had entirely discarded the doggerel couplets and the excessive
use of rhyme that mark his early work, and that this fact is useful
in analysing plays which, though produced later in the form in which
they have reached us, were founded on earlier versions in which he
was probably only a part writer. Another play acted by Shakespeare's
company this year was Drayton's _Merry Devil of Edmonton_. In this,
as well as in _Henry IV._, Sir John Oldcastle was originally one
of the characters. This name was adopted from the old Queen's play
of _The Famous Victories of Henry V._, from which the main plot of
Shakespeare's Henry V. series was taken, and certainly was not intended
to give offence to the Cobhams, his descendants. They took offence,
however, and the name was altered to that of Sir John Falstaff, taken
from another Queen's play, _1 Henry VI._, which I have already noticed,
and which, with the addition of the scene of the Temple Garden, was
acted by the Chamberlain's company.
Between August and October, the Theater having become ruinous, and
litigation between James Burbadge, its lessee, and Giles Alleyn, the
ground landlord, being imminent, the Chamberlain's company removed to
the Curtain. The Earl of Pembroke's company, who have for controversial
purposes been unjustifiably confused with the Chamberlain's, in August
acted as strollers at Rye, in September at Dover, and on their return
to London amalgamated with the Admiral's, and acted at the Rose. Among
the plays acted by Shakespeare's company at the Curtain was _Romeo and
Juliet_, as appears from a singular allusion in Marston's _Satires_,
which also serves to show that this play then, as now, was one of the
most popular of his productions. But his popularity is shown in another
way this year. Coincidently with the removal to the Curtain, we find
the first appearance of authorised publication of his plays, _Richard
II._ having been entered S. R. on 29th August, and _Richard III._ on
20th October. The _Romeo and Juliet_ printed this year was neither
entered nor authorised. On 26th December _Love's Labour's Lost_ was
acted at Court, being one of four plays provided for the Christmas
festivities by this company. It was probably specially commanded, and
the alterations from the 1589 version, which were very hurriedly done,
were almost certainly made on this occasion.
On 25th February 1598, the first part of _Henry IV._ was printed, and
the second part was acted soon after. The popularity of these plays
caused a re-issue in this year of the old Queen's play of _The Famous
Victories of Henry V._, brought out in order that the purchaser might
imagine he was procuring a copy of Shakespeare's plays. The genuine
_Henry IV._, for this and reasons alluded to above connected with
the elimination of Oldcastle's name, was published earlier after its
production on the stage than usual. For the same reason this alteration
was expressly alluded to in the Epilogue to _2 Henry IV._, "Oldcastle
is not the man." In this same year _Much Ado about Nothing_ (probably
a recast of _Love's Labour's Won_) was performed. On 7th September was
entered S. R., Meres' _Wit's Treasury_, which contains, among many
encomiums of Shakespeare, a list of twelve of his plays. This tract
was demonstrably not written till June, and the plays are manifestly
those that had been produced by Shakespeare during the existence of
the Chamberlain's company. These are: _Gentlemen of Verona_ (1595),
_Errors_ (1594), _Love's Labour's Lost_ (1597), _Love's Labour's Won_
(1598), _Midsummer Night's Dream_ (1595), and _Merchant of Venice_
(1597); _Richard II._ (1595), _Richard III._ (1594), _Henry IV._
(1597), _King John_ (1596), _Titus Andronicus_ (1594), and _Romeo
and Juliet_ (1596). Plays produced before or in 1594 that had not
been recast after that year are not mentioned; for instance, _1
Henry VI._ (1592), _Troylus and Cressida_ (1593), _The Merry Wives
of Windsor_ (1592), and _Edward III._ (1594). This list is of the
highest value, when rightly understood, in determining the order of
production of the plays. Another event, important to the welfare of
the Chamberlain's company, was the introduction of Ben Jonson as a
play-writer for their stage. This took place in September, and there
is no reason for doubting the tradition that he was introduced to them
by Shakespeare, who acted in _Every Man in his Humour_, as it was
published in the Quarto, before the end of the year. The fact that
the Chamberlain's men acted three plays at Court during the Christmas
festivities, closes the theatrical record for 1598, but one or two
other details remain to be noticed. The establishment of peace on May
2 by the treaty of Vervins, compared with _Sonnet 107_, "olives of
endless age," fixes the conclusion of these effusions as about this
time, and Southampton's marriage at the end of the year precluded the
need of their continuance. They probably were finished before Meres'
mention of them in _Wit's Treasury_ (written c. July) as Shakespeare's
"sugared sonnets among his private friends." Little details of evidence
are also extant, showing that since his purchase of New Place,
Shakespeare's residence was partly in the country. On 4th February
he appears as third largest owner of corn in his ward at Stratford,
and in October we find him procuring a loan of £30 in London, for his
friend and countryman Richard Quiney. His London residence at this
time was in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate; but still earlier than this, on
24th January, he was in negotiation about the purchase of some thirty
acres of land at Shottery, and Abraham Sturley wrote from Stratford
to his brother-in-law, the same Richard Quiney, urging him to suggest
to Shakespeare the purchase of the corporation tithe-lease; it "would
advance him indeed, and would do us much good," says Sturley.
In January 1598-9 James Burbadge brought his dispute with Giles Alleyn
about the Theater to a practical conclusion by removing the materials
of that structure from Shoreditch to the Bankside, and erecting the
Globe with them. This "round" was opened in the spring, and in it all
the plays of Shakespeare not hitherto noticed were originally produced.
Before quitting the Curtain, however, _A Warning for Fair Women_ was
there acted by the Chamberlain's men. This was in my opinion Lodge's
last play. Another play of the same date was Shakespeare's _Henry
V._, reproduced, with additions and alterations, at the Globe in the
autumn of the same year. Other Globe plays of this year were _As You
Like It_, and Jonson's _Every Man out of his Humour_. This latter
was the first of his comical satires, in which he introduces on the
stage Marston, Dekker, Monday, the Globe players, &c. Only this one
was acted by Shakespeare's company, and it is specially remarkable
that Shakespeare did not take a part in it, although he had acted in
_Every Man in his Humour_ in 1598. It is pretty clear that he disliked
Jonson's personalities, and it is certain that Jonson had to remove
them from the Globe Theatre to the Blackfriars, where the Children of
the Revels acted under Evans _The Case is Altered_ (1599), _Cynthia's
Revels_ (1600), and _The Poetaster_ (1601). Chapman supported Johnson
with _Sir Giles Goosecap_ (1601). The Paul's Children retaliated with
Marston's _Jack Drum's Entertainment_ (1600), and _Antonio and Mellida_
(1600); the Admiral's at the Rose with Marston's _Histriomastix_, and
_Patient Grissel_ by Dekker, Haughton, and Chettle (December 1599); and
the Chamberlain's with Dekker's _Satiromastix_ (1601). All these plays,
and the list is not exhaustive, are filled with personal allusions.
The quarrel was known as the "War of the theatres." The prevalent
dislike to regard Shakespeare as less than angelic has prevented due
attention being given to the direct statement in _The Return from
Parnassus_ (acted 1602-3) that he had put down all the playwrights
of the University press and administered a purge to Jonson in return
for the emetic which he administers to Marston in _The Poetaster_.
Shakespeare certainly did take part in this controversy, and it is in
the plays dating 1599-1602 that we must look for his contributions to
it. One thing, however, is certain, that he did not act as a violent
partisan. If he purged Jonson he did not spare Dekker, who had written
for his own company in this quarrel; "when rank Thersites opes his
Mastick jaws" (_Troylus_, i. 3) identifies him clearly enough. In
fact, when the Globe company wanted a thorough party advocate in this
matter it was not to Shakespeare that they applied. They took the
very unusual course of hiring a poet from a rival company, and hence
Dekker's _Satiromastix_ was written for them. I venture to add that
this would not have been allowed by Shakespeare had he been in London
at the time, and that it had to be transferred to the sole use of the
Paul's children, probably at his instance. Recurring to _Every Man
out of his Humour_, the beginning of all this strife, a comparison of
the actor list with that of Jonson's preceding play shows that Kempe,
Beeston, and others had left the Chamberlain's company on the opening
of the Globe. They no doubt remained at the Curtain, where a company
called Lord Derby's soon began to act. This secession did not injure
the Globe men, who became very popular. In October, for instance, we
hear of Lord Southampton going to plays every day, of course at his
old player _protégé's_ house. But that some serious quarrel had taken
place is, I think, evident from the exclusion of so important a name
as Beeston's from the list of chief actors in the first Folio edition
of Shakespeare. Duke, Pallant, &c., who seceded at the same time with
Beeston, are equally excluded, so that the omission is not accidental.
In this year a perfect edition of _Romeo and Juliet_ was published,
probably on leaving the Curtain; and _The Passionate Pilgrim_ was
impudently issued by W. Jaggard as by William Shakespeare. Beyond two
sonnets and a few lines from _Love's Labour's Lost_, published in 1598,
there is nothing in this book that can be shown to be Shakespeare's,
but much that cannot. Somewhere about this date an unsuccessful
application was made to impale the arms of Shakespeare with those of
Arden. The Chamberlain's men performed three plays at Court during
the Christmas festivities, viz.: on 26th December, probably _As You
Like It_; 5th January, probably _Henry V._; and another play on 4th
February. I think this was the occasion for which _The Merry Wives
of Windsor_ was written, or rather rewritten on the foundation of
_The Jealous Comedy_ of 1592. The Queen, whose admiration for the
character of Falstaff is well known, was sorely disappointed that
Shakespeare had not fulfilled his promise made in the Epilogue to _2
Henry IV._, that he would again introduce him on the stage; and there
is no reason to doubt the tradition that, wishing to see him under new
conditions, she ordered Shakespeare to represent him in love, which
order he obeyed by writing _The Merry Wives_ within a fortnight. The
dates all suit this hypothesis, and in any case there can be no doubt
that this comedy stands apart from the Henry V. histories, and was
last in point of time. Another play of this year was _Julius Cæsar_.
There is no evidence of any other writer than Shakespeare for the
company this year, in which the _2_ and _3 Henry VI._ (alluded to as
recast in Jonson's Prologue to his revised version of _Every Man in
his Humour_, acted by the Chapel children early in 1601) were revised
and partly rewritten by him. As usual in such cases, the old abridged
acting copies of the plays in their earlier shape were reprinted.
But there is more interesting matter connected with the publishers
in the 1600 entries. On August 4, _As You Like It, enry V._, _Much
Ado about Nothing_, and _Every Man in his Humour_, all Chamberlain's
plays, were ordered to be "stayed;" they were probably suspected of
being libellous, and reserved for further examination. Since the "war
of the theatres" was at its height, they may have been restrained as
not having obtained the consent of the Chamberlain, on behalf of his
company, to their publication. Subsequently, _Every Man in his Humour_
was licensed on 14th August, but not printed till 1601. _Much Ado_ was
also licensed 23d August, and printed; _As You Like It_ was not allowed
to appear, the company probably objecting that it had only been on the
stage for one year, but _Henry V._ was printed surreptitiously by T.
Millington and T. Busby before 14th August, on which date it appears
in S. R. as the property of T. Pavier, who reprinted it in 1602. The
peculiarity of this Quarto issue is, that it contains no matter which
does not also appear in the complete Folio version, whereas, in the
somewhat similar cases of _Romeo and Juliet_, _The Merry Wives_, and
_Hamlet_, there is in every instance some portion of the Quarto which
is palpably by another hand. This agrees with my view that these
three plays, as in the Folio, were founded on earlier plays, in which
Shakespeare was at most a coadjutor, while the Folio _Henry V._ is
a revision of his own play, produced not long before. Another entry
in S. R. is interesting. On October 28, _The Merchant of Venice_ was
entered to T. Hayes, with Pavier's consent; Roberts had already entered
it 22d July 1598, but it had not been allowed to appear, probably
because, like those mentioned above, it had then been only one year on
the stage. On October 8, _Midsummer Night's Dream_ was also entered.
Of the editions of these two plays published in this year information
will be found in another part of this book. On 11th August the two
plays on _Sir John Oldcastle_, of which only one has reached us, were
entered. They had been acted in 1599 at the Rose by the Admiral's men,
and were directed against the presumed scandal thrown on the "martyr"
in Shakespeare's Henry V. series. It should be especially noted that
the principal author of these plays was Drayton, formerly fellow-worker
with Shakespeare for the Chamberlain's men, and introducer of _Sir John
Oldcastle_ as a profligate parson in _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_. Of
Shakespeare's personal movements during this year we merely know that
he was in London in April recovering a debt of £7 of one Clayton, and
no doubt acting in the three plays performed at Court in the winter.
In March 1601 the Chamberlain's company were in disgrace for having
publicly acted "the outdated play of _Richard II._," no doubt inclusive
of the deposition scene (which had been omitted in the published
copies, under the censorship of the Master of the Revels), for the
entertainment of the Essex conspirators. They consequently "travelled,"
having previously produced Shakespeare's _All's Well that Ends Well_,
a considerable portion of which is of much earlier date (c. 1592), but
which, in the Parolles scenes, has distinct allusion to Marston's _Jack
Drum's Entertainment_ of the preceding year, and to the "war of the
theatres," not yet concluded. They also acted the play of _Cromwell_,
Earl of Essex, by W. S., in which the parallel between the careers
of Cromwell and the lately executed Earl is strongly brought out. I
believe W. S. to have been William Sly, the well-known actor of the
Chamberlain's company. In their travels this year the company visited
the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where they performed _Julius
Cæsar_ and _Hamlet_. The version of this last play so acted was not
the old play by Kyd, but one hurriedly remodelled by Shakespeare,
which we possess in an imperfect form in the first Quarto. Among the
Shakespearian additions occur passages alluding to the theatrical war
and the popularity of the Chapel Children, to which the travelling
of the company is attributed. This proves that Shakespeare was one
of the strolling detachment. Jonson seized on this defence in his
_Poetaster_, and represented that the travelling was due to the
inefficiency of their play-writers, and makes Tucca tell Histrio,
the Globe player, that if they will employ Marston, who "pens high
lofty in a new stalking strain," they "shall not need to travel with
thy pumps full of gravel after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk
upon boards and barrel-heads to an old cracked trumpet." The travels,
however, were not confined to England. In October they had reached
Aberdeen, where they received the title of "the King's Servants," and
Laurence Fletcher, their manager, was admitted burgess of guild of
the borough. In all probability a version of the old _Macbeth_ play
was produced before King James--such a version as that of _Hamlet_
acted at the Universities. Its plot would fit more aptly with the
circumstances of the Gowry conspiracy of 1600 than that of _Richard
II._ would with Essex, and anything more pleasing to the King and
people of Scotland could not have been selected. During the absence of
this strolling detachment Jonson's _Poetaster_ was produced, containing
a vigorous attack on the Globe company; and they, in Shakespeare's
absence, hired Dekker to reply in his _Satiromastix_, which, with the
aid of the Paul's children, they represented in the public theatre
of the Globe, and in the private convocation-room of Paul's. During
this same absence, on 8th September Shakespeare's father was buried
at Stratford. He apparently died intestate. After the return from
Scotland, the appearance of Shakespeare's name, as fellow-contributor
to Chester's _Love's Martyr_ with Jonson, Marston, and Chapman, marks
the conclusion of the theatrical quarrel, and the reconciliation of
all the principal combatants, except Dekker. But although this book
bears the date 1601, it could not, I think, have been issued earlier
than March 1601-2, after the production of _Twelfth Night_ on February
2 at the Middle Temple. Such presentations as this at Inns of Court
were usually of new plays; and there is in this play fairly conclusive
internal evidence that the theatrical quarrel was not over when it was
acted. With regard to Shakespeare's other play of this year, _Troylus
and Cressida_, it was as clearly produced after the reconciliation. The
entry in S. R., "as it _is_ acted by the Lord Chamberlain's men," is
absolutely conclusive that it was still on the stage on 1st February
1602-3, and was therefore produced, in all probability, in the later
half of 1602. In this play the Prologue, the love story of Troylus, and
all the scenes after v. 4, are taken from the old play of c. 1593,
in which Shakespeare only wrote as a coadjutor. The Prologue and the
later scenes--v. 5-10--are manifestly by the second pen in the main,
and printed by mistake, the end of the revised version being shown
by the repetition of the lines "Why, but hear you," &c., at the end
of v. 3. That the 1602 version of the play was intended to refer to
the theatrical quarrel of 1599-1602 is clear from the line "_Rank_
Thersites with his _mastick_ tooth," who is evidently Dekker, of whom
Jonson says in the _Poetaster_ (iii. 1), "He has one of the most
overflowing _rank_ wits in Rome; he will slander any man that breathes
if he disgust him." Dekker had produced the _Satiro_MASTIX shortly
before _Troylus_ was acted; and it has been noted that he was not one
of the contributors to Chester's _Martyr_. I believe the Troylus play
to have been the one in which Shakespeare put down all the University
men, and purged Ben Jonson's pride, as we learn that he did from the
University play of _The Return from Parnassus_, acted in January
1602-3; the character of Ajax, "_Slow_ as the elephant, into whom
nature hath so crowded _humours_," &c. (i. 2), hits off Jonson exactly,
and is a good-humoured reply to Jonson's self-estimate as Crites in
_Cynthia's Revels_ (ii. 1), "A creature of a most divine temper, one
in whom the elements and _humours_ are peaceably met," &c.
In May 1602 Gilbert Shakespeare (his brother being probably in London)
concluded the purchase on his behalf of 107 acres of land in Old
Stratford, bought of the Coombes for £320, and on 28th September
Walter Getley transferred to him (not in person), at a Court Baron
of the Manor of Rowington, a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane. The
lady of the manor retained possession until personal completion of
the purchase. The Chamberlain's company were re-admitted to act at
Court in the winter, not having performed there in 1601-2, probably
on account of the _Richard II._ affair. They acted, however, only two
plays. In the following March, 1603, Shakespeare remodelled _The Taming
of the Shrew_ by the rewriting of the Katherine and Petruchio scene.
The play before he altered it was one written, I think, by Lodge about
1596, and founded on the old Kyd play of 1589 acted by Pembroke's
men. On March 29 Queen Elizabeth died, and whether it be due to the
different requirements of the new Court, or to a natural development
of Shakespeare's mind, there can be no doubt that a marked change of
style and method took place at this epoch in his work. It should not be
forgotten that the primary object for which theatres were established
was that stage-players "might be the better enabled and prepared to
show such plays to her [or his] Majesty as they shall be required," and
that the "honest recreation" of the citizens was a secondary matter.
For proof of this see the Privy Council documents quoted by Collier in
his _Annals_, _passim_, and specially in i. 309. Hence the succession
of a new sovereign had greater influence on the tone of the drama than
we can well realise. In Shakespeare's case it inaugurated a period in
which Tragedy was predominant in place of Comedy and History. All his
greatest tragedies were produced during the next four years 1603-6.
Before quitting the reign of Elizabeth, I call attention to the
significant fact that the Chamberlain's company performed at Court
before the accession of James exactly twenty-eight plays, and that the
number of Shakespeare's plays known to have been produced during the
same period by that company is twenty, and of other men's eight. I do
not press this exact agreement as showing absolute identity between the
two lists; one or two of the Court plays may have been merely revivals,
one or two of the stage plays may not have been brought before her
Majesty at all, but I think the following inferences justifiable. The
Queen, evidently as a general rule, only allowed new plays, or plays
so largely reconstructed as to be reckoned as new, to be presented
to her. So far as the Chamberlain's company were concerned, these
plays consisted on an average of two of Shakespeare's and one of
another author's--these numbers, however, being rather exceeded in the
earlier years, and diminished in the later. Shakespeare consequently
was to this company in the same position as Greene to the Queen's
men before his time, purveying to their use "more than four other,"
which explains his rapid advance in popularity and accumulation of
property. And finally, the number of plays supposed to have been lost
has been grossly exaggerated by modern critics, who have based their
calculations on the Diary of Henslowe, whose policy was quantity rather
than quality, and who was continually deceived by his hack-writers
presenting to his illiterate ignorance old plays new vamped as if they
were completely new.
In 1603 the plague raged in London. In March before the Queen's death,
the theatres were closed, and in the license of May 19, which adopted
the Chamberlain's men as the King's Servants (a title already conferred
on them in Scotland in 1601), a special clause was inserted allowing
them to act "when the infection of the plague shall decrease." The
infection did not decrease, yet the theatres were reopened, but
probably only for a few days. Doubtless the authorities closed them
on account of the continuance of the sickness. The plays acted at
this reopening were probably _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, by
George Wilkins, a new author, which was founded on contemporaneous
events in Yorkshire, and certainly the perfected _Hamlet_ as we now
have it in the Folio. The older version, which had been entered S. R.
on 26th July 1602, was now published, having probably been "stayed,"
as was frequently the case with plays printed by J. Roberts (for
example _The Merchant of Venice_, _Troylus and Cressida_), but not
till the copyright had been transferred to N. Ling and J. Trundell. In
1604 Ling issued the second Quarto, which in some instances supplies
passages omitted in the Folio for stage purposes, and in others
presents alternative versions and additions evidently made for the
Court performance (one of nine) in the winter 1603-4. It was a common
practice to utilise the altered copies of plays acted at Court by
allowing their publication. Yet another play acted by the King's men
this year was Jonson's _Sejanus_, for which he was accused of Popery
and treason by Northampton. When he published it (2d November 1604, S.
R.), he stated that "this book in all numbers is not the same with
that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had
good share: in place of which I have rather chosen to put weaker, and
no doubt less pleasing of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius
of his right by my loathed usurpation." The only known writers for the
King's men at this date were Wilkins, W. S. (? Sly), Shakespeare, and
possibly Tourneur. Of these there can be no doubt that Shakespeare
is the only one that could have been the second pen alluded to. Not
that necessarily he was a coadjutor to Jonson in this play. It is more
likely that as he acted one of the principal parts in it he inserted
or altered scenes in which he himself appeared. It is clear that "the
second pen," whoever he was, objected to his share in the play being
published, and no wonder, seeing how its main author had been accused
on account of it. This probably explains why the book was kept in the
press six months, from November 1604 to April 1605. When it was issued
Jonson's _Volpone_ was just coming on the stage, and it is noticeable
that Shakespeare did not act in that play, and that immediately after
Jonson quitted the King's men and joined Chapman and Marston in writing
_Eastward Ho_ for the Revels children, in which _Hamlet_ is ridiculed.
All this seems to point to a quarrel between Jonson and Shakespeare,
and certainly Jonson's behaviour in the Sejanus matter is not, as
Gifford calls it, manly. To drag in unnecessarily an allusion to a
friend whose personality must have been known to the public of that
time, into an address prefixed to a work accused of Popery and sedition
was unmanly; and, as his friend had objected to it, was discreditable.
No intercourse can be shown between Shakespeare and Jonson after 1603.
On 30th January 1603-4, the new company of the Revels children replaced
the Chapel boys at Blackfriars. They were, however, in the main
composed of the same actors, and were not unfrequently mentioned under
their old name. On March 15, we find that among the King's train,
at his entry into London, were nine of the King's company, dressed
in the scarlet cloth allowed for the occasion. As these nine are
identical with those in the license of 19th May 1603, which is statedly
incomplete, they must have been in some way distinguished from the rest
of their fellows. They were, no doubt, shareholders in the Globe. Cooke
and Lowin, who acted in _Sejanus_ and _Volpone_, do not appear among
them; nor do Tooley, Gough, and Sinkler, who were at this time members
of the company. The nine were Shakespeare, Phillips, Fletcher, Hemings,
Burbadge, Sly, Lowin, Condell, and Cowley. In July, Shakespeare was in
Stratford, recovering in the local court some £2 odd for malt, &c.,
sold to one Rogers. In August he was summoned to London, the King's
men having to attend at Somerset House to play at the reception of the
Spanish ambassador. During this year he produced _Othello_ and _Measure
for Measure_, which were acted at Court in the winter festivities,
along with five old plays of his, and two of Jonson's. _Hamlet_ does
not occur in this list, as it undoubtedly would have done if produced
in 1604. It was, in fact, published this year as it had been acted at
Court in the previous winter. Another play acted by the King's men was
Marston's _Malcontent_, with an Induction by Webster, in which the
reason of its appearance is explained. The Blackfriars children had
acted _Jeronymo_ in 1600, an old play of Kyd's, which had passed to
the King's men from Lord Strange's, by whom it had been purchased of
the Queen's. It had probably been taken from the Chamberlain's men to
the Chapel children by Jonson, who in 1601, September 25, transferred
it to the Admiral's, and wrote additions to it for Henslowe. This
appropriation of their property irritated the Globe players, and when
they got the chance, at the reconstitution of the Blackfriars children
in 1604, they procured _The Malcontent_, which had been acted by these
pigmies, and produced it on their own stage as "one for another."
They also in December acted "the tragedy of Gowry with all action
and actors," so Chamberlain writes to Winwood, December 18, "with
exceeding concourse of all sorts of people," but he adds, "some great
councillors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall
be forbidden." It probably was forbidden, as the play has disappeared.
Another mysterious play is _The Spanish Maz_, said to have been one of
the eleven performed in the winter at Court. Nothing is known of such a
play; but much is known of forgery connected with such statements.
In 1605, the tragedy of _King Lear_ was acted about 7th May, when
the old _Leir_, on which it was founded, but which was a _comedy_,
was entered S. R. as a "_Tragical_ History" of Leir, &c., "as it was
lately acted." Another play of very dubious authorship was acted by
the King's men before 3d July, when the ballad on the same events was
entered S. R.; this was _The Yorkshire Tragedy_. It was a continuation
of the story of _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, but treated more
realistically and more powerfully. It was published 2d May 1608 as by
Shakespeare, as in 1605 _The London Prodigal_ had already been, but in
the latter instance the publication was unlicensed and surreptitious,
while the _Yorkshire Tragedy_ was entered S. R. as "written by
William Shakespeare." The entry, however, was made for T. Pavier, an
unscrupulous piratic printer, who on other occasions tried to establish
rights in "Shakespeare's plays" which were not Shakespeare's; and no
weight can be assigned to his assertions. Another play acted by the
King's men, in March 1605, was Jonson's _Volpone_, or _The Fox_. This
was anterior in production to the plays already mentioned. Immediately
afterwards we find Jonson in connection with the Blackfriars children
again, and in prison for writing _Eastward Ho_. Shakespeare did not
act in _The Fox_; perhaps Jonson was offended at this; he at any rate
did not return to the King's men till 1610. On 4th May, Phillips,
Shakespeare's fellow-actor, made his will, and died shortly after.
We learn from this document, which gives us many other valuable
particulars respecting the members of the company, that Shakespeare and
Condell were the two of "his fellows" whom, next to Hemings, Burbadge,
and Sly, his executors, Phillips most highly appreciated; he left them
each a 30s.-piece in gold, but to Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cooke, and
Tooley a 20s.-piece. He also left legacies to Gilburne and Sands his
apprentices, and to Beeston his servant. "His fellows" here means the
shareholders in the Globe, as contrasted with the "hired servants,"
to whom he left "£5 amongst them." There were then in 1605 eleven
shareholders, Cooke and Tooley having been added since 15th March
1604. On 24th July Shakespeare invested £40 in a lease of the tithes
of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, as had been
suggested to him in 1598. In August King James was at Oxford, and among
the entertainments presented to him were speeches by three young men
of St. John's, who personated the three Sibyls who had prophesied to
Banquo. This interlude would necessarily recall to the King's mind the
old Macbeth play, which had been probably presented to him in Scotland
by the Globe players, and if, as there is little reason to doubt, he
did write an autograph letter to Shakespeare, it was most likely on
this occasion, commanding a fuller version of _Macbeth_. This play was
certainly produced at Court, probably at Shrovetide in March 1605-6,
but it has been altered since, condensed and interpolated by dances
and songs and a new scene with Hecate in it, no doubt by Middleton in
1622, from whose _Witch_ the songs are taken. On 9th October the Globe
company acted before the Mayor and Corporation at Oxford, and then,
if not from the King, Shakespeare would be sure to hear of the Sybils
interlude. In all, ten plays were acted at Court this winter by the
Globe company. Among them was a version of _Mucedorus_, with additions.
This version has only come down to us in imprints of 1610 and later;
but there was an edition in 1606 mentioned in Beauclerc's Catalogue,
1781, from which the later title-pages were copied. From the title
it appears that it had been revived before the King on Shrove-Sunday
night at Whitehall. The original play had been acted about the city,
and therefore not later than 1594, before the Chamberlain's men
settled at the Theater. The additions are directed against Jonson,
whose strictures on monopolies, and sneer at "the miraculous effects
of the Oglio del Scoto" in _Volpone_, ii. 1, must have grievously
offended James, who had revived the touching for the king's evil.
Jonson had subsequently joined Chapman and Marston in writing _Eastward
Ho_ for the Chapel boys, in which the Scots were still more severely
satirised, and was evidently, as may be seen from the address prefixed
to _Volpone_, at daggers drawn with the Globe men. Hence, in the
_Mucedorus_ additions, the allusions to the "meagre cannibal," the
"scrambling raven with his meagre beard" (certainly Jonson, the
"thin-bearded Hermaphrodite" in _Satiromastix_), who had, stirred up
by Envy, written a comedy for the Globe filled with "dark sentences
pleasing to factious brains;" which would have led to their restraint,
as _Eastward Ho_ did for the Chapel boys, had not the King's players
been staid and discreet, and begged pardon of His Majesty on bended
knee "for their unwilling error." The threatened information must have
been in the autumn of 1605.
To 1606 no other play than _Macbeth_ can with certainty be traced: and
the marked change of metrical style at this epoch points to a period
of rest. In all his subsequent plays, many lines end with unemphatic
words, such as _and_, _if_, _which_, _but_ and the like, and this
change was not introduced gradually but suddenly and decisively. Hence
its value as indisputably separating the Fourth Period plays from
the preceding. On this ground it is pretty certain that _Timon_ was
Shakespeare's next production; he only wrote the chief scenes in it,
however, and it was finished for the stage by another hand. At this
time also, in my opinion, Shakespeare began to write _Cymbeline_,
which he afterwards completed himself. This arrangement of his work
seems natural; _Lear_, _Macbeth_, _Cymbeline_ closing the series
founded on Holinshed, and _Timon_, _Antony_, _Coriolanus_--the series
from Plutarch--succeeding them. A minuter examination of the question
will be found in a later part of this work. Of other play-writers'
contributions to the Globe in 1606 there is only one--_Pericles_, as
originally produced by Wilkins, which was ridiculed in _The Puritan_
by Middleton--acted by the Paul's children of this year. Wilkins
left writing for the King's men, and (1607) joined the Queen's men
at the Curtain. This was probably rumoured to have been caused by
some quarrel with Shakespeare, for on 6th August 1607, S. R., _The
Puritan Widow_ was published as by W. S., evidently meaning William
Shakespeare. Of all the instances in which Shakespeare's name or
initials were fraudulently inserted on title-pages, this play and _Sir
John Oldcastle_ were the only two in which they were prefixed to plays
not even acted by his company. At the Court in the 1606-7 season three
Globe plays were presented to the King of Denmark on the occasion of
his visit to England, and nine others in the usual course. _Antony
and Cleopatra_ may be confidently assigned to 1607. It was entered
for publication S. R. on 20th May 1608 with _Pericles_(no doubt as
originally written by Wilkins), but both plays were stayed; the former
as having been on the stage only one year, the latter to be superseded
by the issue in 1609 of the version as altered by Shakespeare. On
22d October _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_ was entered S. R. for A.
Johnson. The entry for Hunt and Archer on 5th April 1608 is that of the
prose story by Thomas Brewer. The initials T. B. in this latter entry
have misled Mr. Halliwell and others to assign the authorship of the
play to Tony Brewer. On 26th November Shakespeare's _King Lear_ was
entered S. R. as it was played before the King on 26th December 1606,
"Saint Stephen's Night at Christmas last." This settles two important
questions; first, the relation of the Quarto text to the Folio--the
Quarto being the version played at Court, the Folio that retained by
the players for the public stage; secondly, the existence of a custom
in the Globe company of allowing, in cases of altered or revised
plays, the version not required for future stage purposes to be issued
to the public in print. Many instances of this custom are brought to
light in the present treatise. On October 7, Cyril Tourneur's (?)
_Revenger's Tragedy_ was entered S. R. The date of production on the
stage is uncertain. It had "been sundry times acted by the King's
players." Nor am I aware of the grounds on which the authorship is
assigned to Tourneur. It was published anonymously. On 25th June,
Susanna, Shakespeare's daughter, married John Hall, M.A., physician at
Stratford. There were thirteen performances this winter at Court by
the King's men. In 1608 Shakespeare probably produced _Coriolanus_. On
21st February Elizabeth Hall was baptized, within eight months from
her parents' marriage. The prospect of a continuation of his family,
though not of his family name, was some alleviation for Shakespeare
of the loss of his youngest brother Edmund, "a player," buried at St.
Saviour's, Southwark, 31st December 1607, "with a forenoon knell of
the great bell," _ætatis_ 27. Of Edmund's career in London we _know_
nothing; but surely he must have belonged to the Globe company. His
absence from the actors' lists offers no obstacle to this supposition;
they are, after that of _The Seven Deadly Sins_ in 1594, confined to
names of shareholders and principal actors. And if player for the
Globe, why not author? May he not, for instance, have written _The
Yorkshire Tragedy_ under his brother's superintendence, and may not
this account for its being published as William Shakespeare's? All
attempts to assign it to any known author have egregiously failed.
However this may be, and however poignantly William felt the loss of
the Benjamin of the family, a severer bereavement awaited him in the
death of his mother, buried at Stratford 9th September 1608. It has
always been a favourite hypothesis with me that Volumnia was drawn
from her as a model of matronly virtue, and it is certain that at this
date a final change took place in Shakespeare's manner of writing.
His plays since the accession of James had been, with scarcely an
exception, tragedies; from this time they are really, under whatever
head they may have hitherto been classed, tragi-comedies, and all turn,
as I pointed out many years ago, on the reuniting of separated members
of families. The first of this final group is _Marina_, the part of
_Pericles_ which replaced Wilkins' work, and which was written in this
winter and hurriedly printed in 1609 as a practical answer to Wilkins'
prose version, published in 1608, in which he claimed the story as an
"infant of his brain." Shakespeare's version must, I think, be placed
after his return to London from Stratford, where he remained after
his mother's funeral till 16th October, when he stood godfather for
William Walker. The Court performances this winter were twelve. On
28th January 1609, _Troylus and Cressida_ was entered S. R., not for
Roberts, whose intended publication in 1603 had been stayed, but for
Bonian and Whalley, who issued it with a preface stating that it had
never been "staled with the stage." This false statement was withdrawn
in their subsequent re-issue during the same year, but it proves that
the period during which the play had been performed in 1602 must have
been a very short one; such a statement could not have otherwise been
put forward with any plausibility. On 20th May the _Sonnets_ were
published, with a dedication to their "only begetter," Mr. W. H. I
think that these initials designate Sir William Hervey, to whom Lord
Southampton's mother left at her death in November 1607 the greatest
part "of her stuff." He was her third husband, and may have been the
original suggester to Shakespeare, as a friend to Lord Southampton,
that he should write a series of Sonnets to him recommending marriage
in 1594, when Southampton had not yet become devoted to "the fair Mrs.
Vernon," and was entangled in the affair of the frail Avisa. In 1609 he
was busily occupied with the Virginian company, and promoting voyages
for American discovery, an allusion to which underlies the Dedication
"wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth," _adventurer_
being the current phrase for explorer of unknown regions. On 7th
June Shakespeare's cousin, Thomas Green, then residing at New Place,
Stratford, issued a final precept in his behalf against one Hornby,
who had become bail for John Addenbroke, in a matter of debt for £6.
This litigation had begun in August 1608: juries had been summoned on
21st December and 15th February, and then Addenbroke absconded, leaving
Hornby to be answerable. The plague being prevalent this year, there
were no Christmas performances at Court, and not many on the public
stage. _Cymbeline_ was Shakespeare's only production. In its present
state it has evidently been subjected to revision and to alteration for
some revival after Shakespeare's death, when the doggerel in the vision
in iv. 4 was inserted; originally, no doubt, the ghosts appeared in
dumb show to music. The Globe players received £30 as a compensation
for being restrained from playing in London during six weeks, _i.e._,
during August and September, when the bills of mortality show the
plague to have been at its height.
In January 1610 the Revels children left the Blackfriars Theatre, and
set up with a new organisation under Rossiter at Whitefriars the new
private stage. It appears from the statement of C. Burbadge, in the
1635 documents discovered by Mr. Halliwell, that that family then
bought up the remainder of the lease from Evans, and took some of the
Revels boys, now grown up, to strengthen the Globe company. Among these
were Underwood and Ostler; but as C. Burbadge also names Field, who did
not join the King's men till 1615 or 1616, his subsequent statement
that they set up men-players, Shakespeare, Hemings, Condell, &c., in
Blackfriars _at that date_, is not to be taken as necessarily exact.
The King's men undoubtedly took possession of Blackfriars for their
own performances in 1614 or 1615, after the Globe had been burned and
rebuilt; but there is not a trace of them until then in connection with
this private house except this _ex parte_ statement of C. Burbadge,
made for a special purpose, in a plea which is studiously ambiguous.
But there is evidence that other companies acted there. Field's _Amends
for Ladies_ was performed there by the Lady Elizabeth's company and the
Duke of York's (afterwards Prince Charles'). This performance must have
taken place during a temporary union between the Prince's men and the
Lady Elizabeth's, to which latter the play and its author were properly
attached; but that the Duke of York's acted continuously at Blackfriars
from 1610 to 1615, is very probable. It is not likely that a company
under such patronage, and admitted to Court performances every
Christmas, should have been merely a strolling company, and there was
no other theatre for them to perform in. The King's men held the Globe,
Prince Henry's (afterwards the Palgrave's) the Fortune, the Queen's the
Bull and the Curtain, the Queen's Revels' boys Whitefriars, and Lady
Elizabeth's at first the Swan till 1612, and after its abandonment the
newly renovated Hope in 1614, and then the rebuilt Cockpit or Phoenix.
There is no proof that Shakespeare ever acted at Blackfriars; there is
strong presumption to the contrary as to his supposed shares in that
theatre: it was the "private inheritance" of the Burbadges, and that
the King's men had shares in it at this time rests on the evidence of
forged documents and mischievously fertile imaginations, to which the
purchase of twenty acres of land at Stratford by Shakespeare from the
Combes in June seems to require access of capital to make this new
acquisition feasible. _Winter's Tale_ was certainly produced early this
year, before Jonson's _Alchemist_, which was acted and entered S. R.,
October 3, but was, however, "stayed" for the usual reasons, and did
not get published till 1612. The Address to the Reader (no doubt dating
1610) contains one of Jonson's numerous allusions to the "dance of
antics" in _Winters Tale_. Jonson, who had produced _Epicene_ for the
Chapel children in 1609, had returned to the King's men when the boys
left Blackfriars. Shakespeare's last play this year, and final finished
contribution to the stage, was _The Tempest_, produced about November,
after the news that the ships of Sir T. Gates at the Bermudas had not
been destroyed. This play as we have it has unfortunately been abridged
for Court performances, probably by Beaumont in 1612 or 1613, to whom
the insertion of the Masque may confidently be attributed. There were
fifteen winter performances at Court in 1610-11.
The loss of Shakespeare was repaired as well as circumstances would
permit by the accession of Beaumont and Fletcher to the King's company
in 1611. In that year they produced their masterpieces _Philaster, a
King and no King_ and _The Maid's Tragedy_: in 1612 _The Woman's Prize_
(by Fletcher alone), the play of _Cardenas_ (probably the original
form of _Love's Pilgrimage_), and _The Captain_. Jonson contributed
_Catiline_ in 1611, and Webster _The Duchess of Malfi_ in 1612. _The
Second Maiden's Tragedy_ (by the author of _The Revenger's Tragedy_,
I think) was also produced in 1611. At Court the unusual number of
twenty-two plays was acted in the 1611 winter and twenty-eight in
1612. These must have included nearly every play they possessed; and
the fact that the whole, or nearly so, of Shakespeare's plays were
revived at Court in these two years makes his retirement in 1610 to
my mind nearly a certainty, and accounts for the not very felicitous
praise of his "copious industry" by Webster in the Dedication of his
_White Devil_ in 1612. Webster couples the retired Shakespeare with
Dekker and Heywood: but Jonson's works he speaks of as "laboured
and understanding," Beaumont's and Fletcher's as "no less worthy
composures." This higher praise is given to the writers who like
himself were then contributing to the Globe repertory. He mentions
no one else but Chapman of "full and heightened style." Are we to
attribute to this mention of him the tradition that Chapman wrote _The
Second Maiden's Tragedy_? On 11th September 1611 Shakespeare's name
occurs "in the margin, as if a later insertion" (says Mr. Halliwell) of
a list of Stratford donors "towards the charge of prosecuting the bill
in Parliament for the better repair of the highways." In 1612 Lane,
Greene, and Shakespeare filed a bill before Lord Ellesmere complaining
that some of the lessees of the Stratford tithes refused to contribute
their proper shares of a reserved rent. It appears from this document
that Shakespeare's income from this source was £60. In the same year
Heywood, in his _Apology for Actors_, complained of W. Jaggard's having
printed in _The Passionate Pilgrim_, 3d edition, two love epistles
taken from his _Troia Britannica_, as by W. Shakespeare, "which might
put the world in opinion I might steal them from him;" he adds that
he knows the author was much offended for Jaggard's presuming to make
bold with his name. The name was in consequence withdrawn _altogether_
from the title-page. Notwithstanding this, many modern editors print
_The Passionate Pilgrim_ as Shakespeare's. On 4th February 1613 Richard
Shakespeare was buried at Stratford; whether the Gilbert Shakespeare,
"adolescens," who was buried 3d February 1612, was also a brother of
William's, is doubtful, but likely. On l0th March 1613 Shakespeare
bought of Henry Walker a house and yard near Blackfriars Theatre for
£140, of which £60 remained on mortgage (one of the trustees being in
1618 John Heming, Shakespeare's fellow-actor): he leased the house
to John Robinson for ten years. On 29th June the Globe was burned
down. It caught fire during the performance of _All is True_ (_Henry
VIII._) This was not the play as we have it--which is a later version
by Massinger and Fletcher, written for the Blackfriars Theatre, and
containing only three scenes that can be attributed to Shakespeare--but
a play in which there was a fool's part. Wotton describes it as "the
play of _Henry VIII._," but Lorkin says it was a new play called _All
is True_, representing some principal pieces of _Henry VIII._ Whether
new play or not it was probably by Shakespeare, written c. 1609, and
portions of it remain imbedded in that now extant by Fletcher and
Massinger c. 1617, the original MS. having perished in the fire. Just
at the same time one Lane had been maligning Mrs. Hall, Shakespeare's
daughter, in connection with Ralph Smith. Lane was summoned before the
Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester on 15th July and excommunicated on
the 27th. There were only seven plays performed at Court by the King's
men in the winter 1613-14, all their principal writers--Fletcher,
Beaumont, Jonson, Webster--having left them after the Globe fire.
Surely this is not consistent with the statement of C. Burbadge that
they had taken the Blackfriars building to their own use. No new play
can be traced to them till 1615, when the Globe had been[2] rebuilt,
and the Prince Charles' men had gone to the Curtain. Then they
certainly did take the Blackfriars to themselves, and with an excellent
staff of writers--Jonson, Fletcher, Massinger, and Field--they occupied
it as well as the new Globe. A letter of John Chamberlain's to Sir
Dudley Carleton, 5th January 1615, says of the stage in general: "Of
five new plays there is not one that pleases, and therefore they are
driven to furbish over their old." Yet Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair_ was
one of these 1614 plays acted at Court. I suspect that Lady Elizabeth's
players were not so well liked as the King's, and that Shakespeare and
Beaumont were greatly missed. Fletcher and Massinger were not yet able
to replace them even at Court.
In July 1614 John Combe left a legacy of £5 to Shakespeare; this
fact disposes of the silly story of Shakespeare having satirised
him in infantile doggerel. In the autumn William Combe, the squire
of Wilcombe, originated a proposal to enclose common fields in the
neighbourhood; he was supported by Shakespeare, who had been guaranteed
against prospective loss by Replingham, Combe's agent. The corporation,
through his cousin Greene, the town-clerk, remonstrated with him in
November when he was in London, and again in December wrote to him
representing the inconveniences and loss that would be caused. The
matter dragged on to September 1615, and then fell through. This is
the last notice of Shakespeare's action in any public matter. On
l0th February 1616 his daughter Judith was married to Thomas Quiney,
vintner, four years her junior, without licence, whence a fine and
threat of excommunication at the Worcester Ecclesiastical Court: and
on 25th April Shakespeare was buried. His will had been executed on
25th March. It was not regularly engrossed, but a corrected draft,
originally prepared for copying and completion on 25th January, but
evidently neglected until the sudden emergency of Shakespeare's
illness. It appears from this document that Judith's marriage portion
was to have been £100, on condition of her husband's settling on her
£150 in land; if this condition was fulfilled within three years he
was left £150 to his own use, if not it was strictly settled on her
and her children. This £150 is independent of £100 in discharge of her
marriage portion, and £50 conditional on her surrendering her interest
in the Rowington manor to Susanna Hall. To Joan Hart, his sister, whose
husband had been buried on 17th April, was left wearing apparel, £20,
a life-interest in Henley Street, and £5 each to her sons. To Susanna
Hall he left all his real estate settled in tail male, with the usual
remainders over. To Elizabeth Hall all his plate except the broad
silver-gilt bowl, which went to Judith Quiney. To his fellows, Hemings,
Burbadge, and Condell, £1, 6s. 8d. each for rings; the usual legacies
to the executors, poor, &c.; and to his wife his second best bed.
Of course she was fully provided for by freebench in the Rowington
copyhold, and dower on the rest of the property; nevertheless, it
is strange that she does not appear as executrix, that she had no
life-interest left her in house or furniture, and that in the draft of
the will, as made in January, her name does not appear to have been
mentioned at all. It is only in the subsequent interlineations that her
bequest appears.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] It had been reopened in June 1614.
SECTION II.
THE PERSONAL CONNECTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE WITH OTHER POETS.
ONE of the objects of the present treatise is to bring into clearer
light the relations of Shakespeare with contemporary dramatists.
Strangely enough this has scarcely been attempted in earlier
biographies. His dealings in malt have been carefully chronicled: his
connections with poets have been slurred over. It will be useful,
therefore, to gather up the scattered notices of personal contact
between him and his fellows in dramatic production. Mere allusions to
his works, whether complimentary or otherwise, will not come under
this category. Such will be found collected, and well collected, in
Dr. Ingleby's _Century of Praise_; but they consist almost entirely
of slight references to his published works, and have no bearing of
importance on his career. Nor, indeed, have we any extended material of
any kind to aid us in this investigation; one source of information,
which is abundant for most of his contemporaries, being in his case
entirely absent. Neither as addressed to him by others, nor by him to
others, do any commendatory verses exist in connection with any of
his or other men's works published in his lifetime--a notable fact,
in whatever way it may be explained. Nor can he be traced in any
personal contact beyond a very limited circle, although the fanciful
might-have-beens so largely indulged in by his biographers might at
first lead us to an opposite conclusion.
With John Lyly, the founder of English Comedy, he seems to have had
no personal intercourse, although the reproduction by him of many of
Lyly's puns and conceits, and some few of his dramatic situations,
distinctly prove that he had carefully examined his published
plays. Nor does the solitary reference to Shakespeare in Greene's
_Groatsworth of Wit_, however it may display strong personal feeling,
lead us to suppose that there had been any personal relations between
these dramatists; in fact, the very wording of the passage properly
understood distinctly disproves the existence of such relations. Of
all the dramatists who had preceded him on the London stage the only
two with whom he can be even conjecturally brought in personal contact
before the opening of the Rose Theatre in 1592 are Robert Wilson and
George Peele. It is unlikely that he should have begun his career
as a novice and journeyman independent of tutor or coadjutor, and a
minute examination of the careers of these two dramatists leads me to
infer that they were connected with the same company as Shakespeare
in 1590-1. In any case, they were his immediate models in his early
work in several respects. It is from Wilson that his liking for
doggerel rhymes and alternately rhyming stanzas was derived: it is
from Peele that his love tragedy of _Romeo and Juliet_--his only early
tragedy--derived, in its earliest form, as acted in 1591, whatever
in it was not Shakespeare's own. Wilson was probably his tutor or
coadjutor in Comedy and Peele in Tragedy. But this is after all
conjecture; on the other hand, it is certain that in 1592-3 a greater
than Peele or Wilson was writing for the same company as Shakespeare,
and necessarily in close connection with him. For Marlowe he certainly
had a sincere regard: from his poem of _Hero and Leander_ Shakespeare
makes the only direct quotation to be found in his plays; on his
historical plays Shakespeare, after his friend's decease, bestowed in
addition, revision, and completion, a greater amount of minute work
than on his own; and the earlier of his own histories were distinctly
built on lines similar to those of _Edward II._ and _Edward III._
The relation of Shakespeare's Histories to Marlowe's is far more
intimate than that of his Comedies or of _Romeo_ to any predecessor's
productions. I cannot find a trace of direct connection between
Shakespeare and any other poet than these mentioned, during the life
of Lord Strange. His connection with Lord Southampton seems to have
been more intimate than any with his fellow-poets. In the _Sonnets_
addressed to him there is mention of other pens who have dedicated
poems to his lordship, and whom Shakespeare for poetical purposes
professes to regard as dangerous rivals. The only persons known to have
_dedicated_ anything to Southampton are Nash and Markham, although
George Peele had written a high eulogy of him in his _Honour of the
Garter_ in 1593. Markham's dedication is one of four prefixed to his
poem on _The Tragedy of Sir Richard Grenvile_ (S. R. 9th September
1595); (1.) to Charles Lord Montjoy (in prose); (2.) to Robert Earl
of Sussex (Sonnet); (3.) to the Earl of Southampton (Sonnet); (4.) to
Sir Edward Wingfield (Sonnet). I am not aware of any previous attempt
to identify Markham with the rival alluded to in the _Sonnets_ of
Shakespeare, and yet there are many coincidences of language which
would lead to this conclusion. Take Sonnet 78, for instance. "_Thine
eyes_ ... have added feathers to the learned's _wing_ and given _grace_
a double majesty." In Markham we find in 1, "hath given _wings_ to my
youngling Muse;" and in 3, "whose _eyes_ doth crown the most victorious
pen" (_cf._ in 1, "that thine _eyes_ may lighten," &c.); and in 4,
the _double_ majesty of the grace, "vouchsafe to _grace_ my work and
me, _Gracing_ the soul beloved of heaven and thee." I do not find in
Markham the "affable familiar ghost" of Sonnet 86, but this and other
allusions may have referred to his _Thyrsis and Daphne_ (S. R. 23d
April 1593, five days after the entry of _Venus and Adonis_) which
is now unfortunately lost; and there is something like it in the
Grenvile Tragedy, in which Markham calls on Grenvile's soul to "sit
on his hand" while he writes, which the ghost apparently does until
it is dismissed to its "rest" at the end of the poem. Markham was an
exceedingly _learned_ man and the "proud full sail of his great verse"
would well apply to his stilted and conceited effusion. He does not
in it allude to Southampton's beauty, though he may have done so in
his _Thyrsis_, but he calls him "Bright lamp of _virtue_" with which
compare Sonnet 79: "He lends thee _virtue_, and he stole that word from
thy behaviour." On the whole I incline to regard Markham as the rival
poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets. As to Nash, his supposed satirical
allusions to Shakespeare, as set forth by the fertile fancy of Mr.
Simpson, have no more real existence than the allusions discovered by
other like imaginations in the writings of Spenser. His only notice of
Shakespeare's writings is the well-known mention of the representation
of Talbot on the stage, and that is highly complimentary. He may be
included under the "every alien pen" of Sonnet 78, but he is not (as I
once thought he was) the rival poet alluded to. It may be of interest
in connection with this matter to note that in _The Dumb Knight_, in
which Markham certainly wrote i. 2, ii. 1, iii. 4, and iv. 2, _Venus
and Adonis_ is satirised as a lascivious poem.
Of intercourse with other dramatists while a member of the
Chamberlain's company, the first instance is that with Lodge
and Drayton. That the connection with Drayton terminated in a
misunderstanding is clear from the excision of the favourable notice of
Shakespeare's _Lucrece_ from his _Matilda_, and from Drayton's taking
the chief part in writing _Sir John Oldcastle_, the object of which was
to keep alive the ill-feeling produced by the unfortunate adoption of
that name from the old play of _Henry V._ for the character afterwards
called Sir John Falstaff. This connection with Drayton ended in 1597,
that with Lodge in 1599. If I am right in my attribution of part
authorship to Lodge in _Henry VI._ and _The Taming of the Shrew_ in
its original form, Shakespeare revised and altered his plays, but not
till after Lodge's retirement from connection with the Chamberlain's
company. Soon after this, in 1601, he founded his _Hamlet_ on Kyd's,
but with Kyd himself I have not been able to find that he was at any
time personally connected. Nevertheless, as regards mere outward form,
Kyd was the chief model for the great tragedies of _Hamlet_, _Lear_,
&c. Of course, as regards all poetic essentials, his influence on
Shakespeare cannot for a moment be compared to Marlowe's.
With Marston, Chapman, and Dekker, Shakespeare's relations were
ephemeral, in connection with the great stage quarrel of 1599-1601,
and in no respect personal, unless we suppose that he had a hand in
hiring Dekker to oppose Jonson. My own belief is that he was away
in Scotland when _Satiromastix_ was produced, and that the division
of the company left in London did this without his knowledge. With
Jonson his relations were evidently personal and of very varied
nature. He probably introduced him to the Chamberlain's company in
1598; he certainly acted in his play of _Every Man in his Humour_: he
did not act in _Every Man out of his Humour_--and then Jonson joined
the Chapel children, and entered on his three years' struggle with
Marston, Dekker, &c. In 1601 Shakespeare satirised these children
in _Hamlet_, and about the same time administered the "purge" to
Jonson mentioned in _The Return from Parnassus_: at the end of the
same year, he, Jonson, Chapman, and Marston were contributors to
Chester's _Love's Martyr_. In 1603 Jonson, who had again joined the
Chamberlain's men, wrote _Sejanus_ in conjunction with some one (with
Shakespeare in my opinion), and got into trouble for it. Shakespeare
certainly acted in this play, and must at that time have been on good
terms with Jonson. All the allusions to Shakespeare's _Henry V._, &c.,
in the Prologue at the revival of _Every Man in his Humour_ in 1601
by the Chapel children, and the purge administered to Jonson, had
been forgiven and forgotten on both sides. But in 1605 Jonson wrote
_Volpone_, in which Shakespeare did not act, and which gave offence at
Court: and this caused a new disagreement between him and the King's
men (formerly the Chamberlain's). He left them, and with Chapman and
Marston wrote _Eastward Ho_, in which _Hamlet_ is ridiculed, and for
allusions to Scotland in which, similar to those in _Volpone_, the
authors were imprisoned. The King's men retaliated with the additions
to _Mucedorus_, of which more elsewhere, and Jonson did not join
them again for years. He wrote for the Chapel children in 1609, and
not till 1610, at the end of the year, when Shakespeare's dramatic
career was just expiring, did he produce _The Alchemist_ for them at
the Globe. It is to be hoped that these two great dramatists were not
at open enmity during the later part of Shakespeare's life; but all
record of any real friendship between them ends in 1603, and little
value is to be attributed either to the vague traditions of Jonson's
visiting him at Stratford, or to the abundant praise lavished on him by
Jonson in commendatory verses after his death. Much more important for
ascertaining the real relations existing between them are the allusions
to _The Tempest_ and _Winter's Tale_ so abundantly scattered through
all Jonson's plays from 1609 to 1616, while Shakespeare was yet alive.
Of other dramatists who were connected with Shakespeare in King
James's time I know only of Tourneur and Wilkins--the former simply
as an author writing for Shakespeare's company, the latter as the
playwright who wrote _Pericles_ in its original form: the history of
the production of this play has already been given.
As to Beaumont, Fletcher, Webster, &c., who after 1610 wrote for
the King's men, and the numerous contemporaries who wrote for other
companies, no trace of any intercourse with Shakespeare, personal
or otherwise, remains to us, though abundant guesses and hypotheses
utterly foundationless[3] will be found in the voluminous Shakespearian
literature already existing. The truth appears to be that Shakespeare
at no time sought for a large circle of acquaintance, and that his
position as almost sole provider of plays for his company relieved
him of that miscellaneous comradeship which was the bane of Dekker,
Heywood, and many other gifted writers of the time. Of any one of these
a far larger personal connection can be proved than I believe ever
existed in the case of Shakespeare: and to this we no doubt are greatly
indebted for the depth and roundness of those great plays, which could
never have been conceived without much solitude, much suffering, and
much concentration.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The reader should especially beware of a most absurd identification
of Shakespeare with the Crispinus of Jonson's _Poetaster_, recently put
forth by Mr. J. Feis in his _Shakspere and Montaigne_. It is a pity
that an essay, of which the first four chapters are so valuable, should
be disfigured by the palpable chronological and other blunders in the
latter portions of the volume.
SECTION III.
ANNALS ON WHICH THE PRECEDING SECTIONS ARE FOUNDED.
Until April 1564.
On 26th April 1564 was baptized William, son of John Shakespeare of
Stratford-on-Avon and Mary Arden, at that time an only child, two girls
born previously having died in their infancy. John Shakespeare was son
of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, where his brother Henry also
resided: he was a glover, who speculated in wool, corn, &c. He lived
in Henley Street, Stratford, as early as 29th April 1552, having left
his father about 1550, and in October 1556 purchased two small estates
in that town--one that is now shown as the birthplace, the other in
Greenhill Street. In 1557 he married Mary Arden, whose father, Robert,
a yeoman, had contracted a second marriage with Agnes Hill, widow,
and in the settlement then made had reserved to Mary the reversion to
estates at Wilmecote and Snitterfield. Some part of this land was
occupied by Richard Shakespeare's grandfather. Mary Arden also received
under her father's will, dated 24th November 1556, a considerable sum
in money, and the fee-simple of Asbies at Wilmecote, a house with sixty
acres of land. In 1557 John was a burgess, a member of the corporation,
and by choice of the Court Leet ale-taster to the borough, sworn to
look to the assize and goodness of bread, ale, or beer. In September
1558 he was one of the four constables under the rules of the Court
Leet. On 6th October 1559 he was again chosen constable and one of the
four affeerors for determining fines under the borough bye-laws. In
1561 he was again chosen affeeror, and one of the borough chamberlains,
which office he held till the end of 1563.
1564.
In July the plague broke out in Stratford, and continued to December.
There died 238 in that half-year, no Shakespeares among them. John
Shakespeare had had an early lesson in sanitation by way of a fine
of 12d. in April 1552 for having a muck heap in front of his door
in Henley Street, within a stone's-throw of one of the public
stores of filth. He now contributed fairly to relieve the poor and
plague-stricken; about 12d. per month.
1565.
In March John Shakespeare with his former colleague made up the
chamberlain's accounts from September 1563 to 1564. Neither of them
could sign their names.
1566.
In February he again made up these accounts, and was paid £3, 2s. 7d.
"for a rest of old debt" by the corporation. On 13th October his son
Gilbert was baptized.
1567.
In September, Ralph Perrot, brewer, John Shakespeare, and Ralph
Cawdrey, butcher, were nominated for the office of High Bailiff or
Mayor. Cawdrey was elected. For the first time the name appears as
"Mr." John Shakespeare.
1568.
On 4th September "Mr. John Shakysper" was chosen High Bailiff. He was
succeeded the next year by Robert Salisbury.
1569.
On 15th April John Shakespeare's third daughter (named Joan after her
deceased elder sister) was baptized.
1571.
On 28th September John Shakespeare's fourth daughter Anne was baptized.
William was now seven, then the usual age for the commencement of
grammar-school education, the use of the Absey book and horn-book
having been acquired at home. Lily's _Accidence_ and the _Sententiæ
Pueriles_ were the usual text-books for beginners in Latin. Shakespeare
had some knowledge of Latin, and a little French; all beyond this is
very problematical.
1573.
On 11th March, Richard, John Shakespeare's third son, was baptized.
1575.
John Shakespeare bought two houses in Stratford.
1578.
In January John Shakespeare paid only the amount of borough taxes
paid by other aldermen. William was then fourteen, the usual age for
commencing apprenticeship. There is a tradition given by Aubrey that he
was apprenticed to a butcher. I believe this to be a myth, originating
in the epithet "kill-cow," often applied to tragic actors. Some
writers still think that the tradition may be relied on. Another story
traced to the parish clerk of 1693 is that he followed his father's
profession. May be so; may not be.
1579.
In Easter Term Asbies was mortgaged to Edmund Lambert for £40, to
revert if repayment be made before Michaelmas 1580.
On 4th July Anne Shakespeare was buried; in the chamberlain's accounts
occurs this item: "For the bell and pall for Mr. Shaxper's daughter,
8d.," the highest fee in the list.
On 15th October John Shakespeare and his wife convey their interest in
Snitterfield to Robert Webbe. Agnes Arden's will is dated in this year.
1580.
On 3d May, Edmund, son of John Shakespeare, was baptized.
On or before 29th September, the money in discharge of the Asbies
mortgage was tendered and refused unless other moneys due were also
paid.
1581.
On 19th January the goods of Agnes Arden, deceased, were appraised.
On 1st September Richard Hathaway of Shottery made his will.
1582.
On 28th November the marriage bond between William Shagspere and
Anne Hathway was given, under condition that neither party had been
precontracted to another person, and that the said William Shagspere
should not proceed to solemnization with the said Anne Hathway without
consent of her friends. They were to be married with one asking of the
banns. The bondsmen were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson,--the seal
is R.H., which may be Richard Hathaway's.
1583.
On May 26th Susanna their daughter was baptized. It is assumed that
a precontract existed between the parents which, according to the
custom of the time, "was not legally recognised, but it invalidated
a subsequent union of either of the parties with any one else"
(Halliwell, _Outlines_, p. 45). The reader must form his own opinion.
Taking into consideration the low morality of the time in such matters,
the fact that Anne Hathaway was twenty-six, and Shakespeare eighteen in
1582, the practice still not unknown in rural districts of cohabitation
under conditional promise of marriage, should the probable birth of
a child make it necessary or prudent, the fact that from 1587 to
1597 we have no evidence that Shakespeare even saw his wife, and the
palpable indications in the _Sonnets_ that during this interval he was
intriguing with another woman--for my own part I cannot help adopting
De Quincey's view that he was entrapped into some such conditional
promise by this lady and kept his promise honourably. Compare on the
precontract question the plays of _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_
by Wilkins, which is founded on the contemporary history of the
same Calverley who is the murderer in _The Yorkshire Tragedy_, with
Shakespeare's own views in 1604 in _Measure for Measure_; his opinions
in _Twelfth Night_, ii. 4 (early part, c. 1592), and _Midsummer Night's
Dream_, i. 1, on wives that are older than their husbands: and, by way
of showing that his plays do discover sometimes his personal feelings,
Valentine's resignation of Silvia in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_,
with the story involved in the _Sonnets_ of Shakespeare's own transfer
of his illicit love.
1585.
February 2. Hamnet and Judith, Shakspeare's twin children, were
baptized at Stratford-on-Avon. By April 26th he had certainly attained
his majority, and his apprenticeship had probably expired.
1585-7.
Three or four years after his union with Anne Hathaway, he had, says
Rowe, "by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill
company, and, amongst them, some, that made a frequent practice of deer
stealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park, that
belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford; for this he
was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely,
and in order to revenge that ill usage 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 for some time, and shelter himself in
London." Whether this tradition be well founded or no, we are compelled
by subsequent events to place the date of Shakespeare's leaving
Stratford in or about 1587; and whether there be any truth in the story
traced to Davenant or not, that he held horses at the play-house door,
while their owners were witnessing performances inside, it is certain
that he was very soon connected with the stage, first as actor, then
as dramatic writer. It becomes therefore of importance to ascertain if
possible the specific company with which he originally joined.
In the latter part of 1585 there were two regular theatres existing
in London, the Theater and the Curtain. It clearly appears from a
report by Recorder Fleetwood preserved in the Lansdown MSS. that at
Whitsuntide 1584 these were occupied by the Queen's players and those
of Lord Arundel. It is not clear that a third company, that of Lord
Hunsdon, acted at the Theater: although Mr. J. O. H. Phillipps (whom
I most usually refer to under his former and better known name of
Halliwell) assures us that it is so. It is true that the "owner of the
Theater," whom he takes to be a temporary occupier of that building,
but whom I regard as the ground landlord, Giles Alleyn, is called a
servant of Lord Hunsdon's, and that a company of actors, called Lord
Hunsdon's men, acted at Court 27th December 1582; but it does not
follow that these men were occupiers of the Theater. In fact the only
companies anyhow known to us as in London in 1585 are the two already
mentioned. It is by no means likely _à priori_, nor would it agree with
the passages hereafter to be referred to in the writings of Greene
and Nash, that Shakespeare should immediately on his appearance in
London obtain employment in either. But there was a third company not
noticed in Collier's _Annals of the Stage_, into which he may easily
have obtained admittance. When the Queen's company was formed in 8th
March 1582-3, by the selection of twelve players from the companies
of the two Dudleys, Earls of Leicester and Warwick, there must have
been sufficient men left unemployed to form another company. These
were probably still retained by the Earl of Leicester: for in a letter
from Sir Philip Sidney, dated Utrecht, 24th March 1575-6, mention is
made of "Will, the Earl of Leicester's jesting player," who had gone
with the Earl to the Netherlands in December 1575. Thomas Heywood, in
his _Apology for Actors_, 1612, tells us that "The King of Denmark,
father to him that now reigneth, entertained into his service a company
of English comedians, commended unto him by the honourable Earl of
Leicester." This King of Denmark, Frederick II., died in 1588, and
the exact date of the transaction is fixed by documents dated October
1586, in which we find that five of these actors had been transferred
from the service of Frederick II. of Denmark to that of Christian I.,
Duke of Saxony. I am far from wishing to adopt the conjecture of Mr.
Bruce that "jesting Will" was Shakespeare; but when among the names of
these five actors--Thomas King, Thomas Stephen, George Bryan, Thomas
Pope, Robert Persie--we find two, Pope and Bryan, that are identical
with those of two actors in the very first list extant of the first
company with which we can positively connect Shakespeare as an actor;
when we find this same company acting at Stratford in 1587, at the very
time that Shakespeare's disappearance from all known connection with
that town for nine years commences; when we find among a list of plays
that had been acted by the English in Germany _Hester and Ahasuerus_,
_Titus Andronicus_ [_and Vespasian_], both of which we shall trace to
Shakespeare's company; when we also find a version of the Corambis
_Hamlet_ existing early in the same country--then I think we are
justified in saying that there is great likelihood of this company
having been the one in which Shakespeare found his first employment. If
so, he accompanied it in all its fortunes, and never (as we shall see)
forsook it for another.
1586.
Meanwhile in London the plague had prevailed to such an extent that the
theatres were shut up during 1586. It was not then during this year
that Shakespeare held horses at stage-doors, or obtained employment in
London theatres. But at the end of the year Lord Leicester's players
returned to England, and in January 1586-87 are mentioned together with
the Queen's, the Admiral's, and the Earl of Oxford's, in a letter to
Walsingham from a spy of his, which is preserved in the Harleian MSS.
1587.
This same company, the Earl of Leicester's men, visited
Stratford-on-Avon in 1587. I have not been able to trace their
previous presence there since 1576, although other companies paid
frequent visits to this town. It is singular that in this year, the
only one in which this company visited Stratford during the twelve
years intervening between the birth and death of Hamnet Shakespeare,
we find also the only record of the poet's presence in the place
of his nativity. I give this in the words of Mr. Halliwell. "In
1578 his parents had borrowed the sum of £40 on the security of his
mother's estate of Asbies, from their connexion, Edmund Lambert of
Barton-on-the-Heath. The loan remaining unpaid, and the mortgage dying
in March 1587, his son and heir John was naturally desirous of having
the matter settled. John Shakespeare being at that time in prison
for debt, and obviously unable to furnish the money, it was arranged
shortly afterwards that Lambert should, on cancelling the mortgage and
paying also the sum of £20, receive from the Shakespeares an absolute
title to the estate. His offer would perhaps not have been made had
it not been ascertained that the eldest son William had a contingent
interest, derived no doubt from a settlement, and that his assent was
essential to the security of a conveyance. The proposed arrangement was
not completed, but" the poet's sanction to it is recorded. I believe
that immediately after this, in 1587, Shakespeare left Stratford either
with or in order to join Lord Leicester's company.
1588.
The Earl of Leicester died on 4th September 1588. Previously to
this date the company of players acting under his patronage had
played in London, probably at the Cross-Keys in Bishopsgate Street,
and more frequently had travelled in the country. At the death of
Dudley, they had of course to seek for a new patron, and no doubt
found one in Ferdinando, Lord Strange, whose company (containing as
we shall see some of the actors already known as Leicester's men)
are first traceable in 1589. An earlier company bearing the title of
Lord Strange's men, c. 1582, seem to have been merely acrobats or
posture-mongers. But before entering on the history of this company
under its new name, of which we _know_ Shakespeare to have been a
member, we must note some particulars regarding other dramatists,
especially Marlowe, Greene, and Nash, which indirectly concern
Shakespeare, and have hitherto been wrongly interpreted.
In 1587, when the Admiral's men re-opened after the plague, they
produced, in what succession we need not here determine, Greene's
_Orlando_ and _Alphonsus of Arragon_, Peele's _Battle of Alcazar_,
and Marlowe's _Tamberlaine_. Those plays are enumerated in Peele's
_Farewell_, 1589, as--
"Mahomet's pow, and mighty Tamberlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest."
"Mahomet's pow" is the head of Mahomet in _Alphonsus_; King Charlemagne
was probably a character in the complete play of _Orlando_, of which
only a mutilated copy has come down to us; Tom Stukeley is the hero of
_The Battle of Alcazar_; and "the rest" most likely indicate Lodge's
_Marius and Sylla_ and Marlowe's _Faustus_. Greene and Peele wrote no
more for this company, but in 1587 removed to the Queen's men, who had
been travelling in the country. On 29th March 1588 Greene's _Perimedes
the Blacksmith_ was entered on the Stationers' Registers. In the
introduction Greene attacks Marlowe and Lodge, who had remained with
the Admiral's men, in a passage worth quoting: "I keep my old course
still to palter up something in prose, using mine old posy still, _omne
tulit punctum_; although lately two gentlemen poets made two madmen
of Rome beat it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in derision,
for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical
buskins, every word filling the mouth like the fa-burden of Bow-bell,
daring God out of heaven with that atheist Tamberlaine or blaspheming
with the mad priest of the sun. But let me rather openly pocket up the
ass at Diogenes' hand than wantonly set out such impious instances
of intolerable poetry. Such mad and scoffing poets that have poetical
spirits as bred of Merlin's race, if there be any in England that set
the end of scholarism in an English blank verse, I think either it is
the humour of a novice that tickles them with self-love, or too much
frequenting the hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat out
all the greatest part of their wits." For the fuller understanding of
this satire it may be noted that no "priest of the sun" is known in
an early play except in _The Looking-glass for London and England_ by
Lodge and Greene, which is certainly of later date than _Perimedes_,
yet may indicate Lodge's liking for that character; that Diogenes is
the name assumed by Lodge in his _Catharos_, 1591, and that Marlowe's
name was written Merlin as often as Marlowe. There can be no doubt as
to the persons aimed at, nor of the effect of the satire, for both of
them left off writing for the Admiral's men; and Marlowe during the
next two years produced _The Jew of Malta_, which can be traced to the
Queen's company, and together with Greene, Lodge, and Peele produced
the plays of _The Troublesome Reign of King John_, and _The First Part
of York and Lancaster_ on which _2 Henry VI._ is founded. The internal
evidence for the authorship of these last-mentioned plays is very
strong: they were, however, published anonymously.
1589.
Before the entry of Greene's _Menaphon_ on the Stationers' Registers on
23d August 1589, _Hamlet_ and _The Taming of a Shrew_ must have been
represented by Pembroke's men, and Marlowe must have left the Queen's
company. As _Menaphon_ is accessible in Professor Arber's reprint
to the general reader, it will be sufficient to refer to it here
without quoting passages in full. That Greene refers so satirically
to Marlowe as to prevent our supposing that at this date they could
be writing jointly for the same theatre, is clear from a hitherto
unnoticed passage in p. 54: "Whosoever descanted of that love told you
a _Canterbury_ tale; some _prophetical_ fullmouth, that, as he were
a _Cobler's_ eldest son, would by the last tell where another's shoe
wrings." Marlowe or _Merlin_ was a shoemaker's son of Canterbury. That
Doron in the story is meant for the author of _The Taming of a Shrew_
was shown by Mr. R. Simpson by comparing Doron's speech in p. 74:
"White as the hairs that grow on Father Boreas' chin," and the passage
in Nash's introduction, p. 5, about mechanical mates, servile imitators
of vain-glorious tragedians, who think themselves "more than initiated
in poet's immortality if they but once get Boreas by the beard," with
the words of the play itself: "whiter than icy hair that grows on
Boreas' chin." Mr. Simpson was, however, entirely wrong in identifying
Doron with Shakespeare, and did not notice that Doron's entire speech
parodies one of Menaphon's in p. 31, just as _The Taming of a Shrew_
parodies Marlowe's plays, or "the mechanical mates" alluded to by Nash
imitate the "idiot art-masters" in the "swelling bombast of a bragging
blank verse," or the "spacious volubility of a drumming decasyllabon."
The name Menaphon is taken from Marlowe's _Tamberlaine_. In these
passages Greene and Nash satirise Kyd, then writing for Pembroke's
company. In another paragraph, p. 9, Nash speaks of "a sort of shifting
companions" that "leave the trade of _Noverint_ whereto they were
born," who get their aphorisms from translations of Seneca and can
"afford you whole _Hamlets_ of tragical speeches." This passage is
familiar to all students of Shakespeare; and yet no one has, I think,
pointed out that Nash identifies these "famished followers" of Seneca
with the "Kidde in Æsop, who, enamoured with the Fox's newfangles,
forsook all hopes of life to leap into a new occupation." This pun in
a tractate containing similar allusions to the names Greene, Lyly,
and Merlin is equivalent to a direct attribution of the authorship of
_Hamlet_ as produced in 1589 to Kyd, and is also a refutation of those
who have seen in the whole passage an allusion to Shakespeare.
Very shortly after Greene's _Menaphon_ Nash issued his _Anatomy of
Absurdities_, which had been entered on the Stationers' Registers 19th
September 1588, and which contains much of the same satirical matter as
his address in _Menaphon_.
We have now to pass from the private quarrel of Greene and Nash, as
representing the Queen's men at the Theater, with Marlowe and Kyd, the
writers for Pembroke's company, to a much more important controversy in
which many of the same dramatists were concerned. Between October 1588
and October 1589 the Martinists published their Puritan controversial
tracts; in opposition to them various writings had appeared, whose
authors were Cooper, formerly schoolmaster, afterwards Bishop; Lyly
the Euphuist; Nash the satirist; and Elderton "the bibbing fool"
ballad-maker. They had also been ridiculed on the stage, in April 1589,
at the Theater, most likely by Greene; at the Paul's school probably by
Lyly; and either in ballad or interlude by Antony Munday, even at that
early date a dramatic writer. As the anti-Martinist plays were on the
side of the clergy and of secular authority they were not interfered
with. But in November 1589, in consequence of certain players in
London handling "matters of Divinity and State without judgment or
decorum"--in other words, having the impertinence to suppose that there
could be two sides to a question, Mr. Tylney, the Master of the Revels,
suddenly becomes awake to the danger of allowing such discussions on
public stages, and writes to Lord Burleigh that he "utterly mislikes
all plays within the city." Lord Burleigh sends a letter to the Lord
Mayor to "stay" them. The Theater and Curtain, where the Queen's men
and Pembroke's were playing, were _without the city_, so that the
anti-Martinist plays were not interfered with; the Paul's boys were
for the nonce not regarded as a company of players: so that the Mayor
could only "hear of" the Admiral's men, who on admonishment dutifully
forbore playing, and Lord Strange's, who departed contemptuously, "went
to the Cross-Keys and played that afternoon to the great offence of the
better sort, that knew they were prohibited." The Mayor then "committed
two of the players to one of the compters." These players, however,
gained their end, for all plays on either side of the controversy were
forthwith suppressed, and commissioners were appointed to examine and
licence all plays thenceforth "in and about" the city played by any
players "whose servants soever they be."
It is pleasing to find Shakespeare's company acting in so spirited a
manner in defence of free thought and free speech: it would be more
pleasing to be able to identity him personally as the chief leader
in movement. And this I believe he was. The play of _Love's Labour's
Lost_, in spite of great alteration in 1597, is undoubtedly in the main
the earliest example left us of Shakespeare's work: and the characters
in the underplot agree so singularly even in the play as we have it
with the anti-Martinist writers in their personal peculiarities that
I have little doubt that this play was the one performed in November
1589. If the absence of matter of State be objected, I reply that it
would be easy for malice to represent the loss of Love's labour in
the main plot as a satire on the love's labour in vain of Alençon for
Elizabeth. We must also remember that it is most likely that for some
years at the beginning of his career Shakespeare wrote in conjunction
with other men, and that in those plays that were revived by him at
a later date their work was replaced by his own. In the case of the
present play, as the revision was for a Court performance, we may be
sure that great care would be taken to expunge all offensive matter:
the only ground for surprise is that enough indications remain to
enable us to identify the characters at all.
1590.
_Love's Labour's Lost_ would no doubt be closely followed by _Love's
Labour's Won_, which play I for other reasons attribute to this year.
We must now again refer to Greene. His _Farewell to Folly_ had been
entered on the Stationers' Registers, 11th June 1587, but was not
published till after his _Mourning Garment_, the entry of which dates
2d November 1590. In the introduction, which was certainly written
at the time of publication, although the body of the work had been
lying by for some three years and more, Greene distinctly alludes to
_Fair Em_ and accuses its author of "simple abusing of Scripture,"
because "two lovers on the stage arguing one another of unkindness,
his mistress runs over him with this canonical sentence 'a man's
conscience is a thousand witnesses'; and her knight again excuseth
himself with that saying of the Apostle, 'Love covereth the multitude
of sins.'" The exact words in the play are "Love that covers multitude
of sins" and "thy conscience is a thousand witnesses." Greene, says
Mr. R. Simpson, who first drew attention to this allusion to _Fair
Em_ in a paper unfortunately spoiled by an absurd attempt to identify
Mullidor,[4] of "great head and little wit," with Shakespeare, has
parallel plots to those of _Fair Em_ in his _Tully's Love_ (1589) and
_Never Too Late_ (before 2d November 1590). To me the connexion seems
closer between this satire, by Greene the profligate parson, based on
Scriptural grounds, of a play written for Lord Strange's company, and
the persecution they had just endured for venturing to present a play
in favour of the Martinists. And as if to emphasise his intention in
this direction, Greene says in his Dedication of his tract, "I cannot
_Martinize_." That _Fair Em_ was the production of R. Wilson will I
think be evident to those who will read it with careful remembrance.
The _Comedy of Errors_ was also probably acted this year in its
original form.
1591.
In this year were most likely produced two plays, not in the shape
in which they have come down to us, but as originally written by
Shakespeare and some coadjutor, viz., _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ and
_Romeo and Juliet_. The question of the dates of these and all other
plays of Shakespeare will be separately argued further on. It may be
just worth while to note that the "pleasant Willy" of Spenser, who has
been so carelessly identified with Shakespeare, with Kemp, and with
Tarleton (!) is certainly Lyly. The line "doth rather choose to sit
in idle cell" (_Tears of the Muses_) identifies him with "slumbering
Euphues in his cell at Silexedra" (_Menaphon_). Compare "Euphues'
golden legacy found after his death in his cell at Silexedra" (title of
Lodge's _Rosalynde_).
1591-2.
In the Christmas Records of this year, the Queen's company made
their final appearance at Court on December 26th. Lord Strange's
men performed at Whitehall on December 27th, 28th, January 1st,
9th, February 6th, 8th. The import of this fact has not been fully
appreciated. The exceptionally large number of performances of Lord
Strange's men show a singular amount of Court favour, and go far to
prove that Elizabeth did not sanction their persecution at the hands
of Burleigh two years before. They henceforth, under various changes
of name and constitution, until the closing of the theatres in 1642,
retain the chief position in the performances at Court. This date,
1592, is in the history of this company of players, and therefore in
that of Shakespeare, their chief poet and one of their best actors, of
the very greatest importance.
The old plays of _King John_, on which Shakespeare's was founded, were
published this year, as having been acted by the Queen's company--an
additional indication of an important change in their internal
constitution.
1592.
This year was scarcely less eventful than the preceding for the company
to which Shakespeare belonged. On 19th February Henslowe opened the
Rose theatre on Bankside for performances by Lord Strange's men under
the management of the celebrated actor, Edward Alleyn. Whether (and if
at all, for how long) Alleyn had been previously connected with the
company, we are not directly informed; but as he gave up playing for
Worcester's men, c. January 1588-9, the exact time when the players
of the late Earl of Leicester found a new patron in Lord Strange,
that is the probable date of his joining them. This possession of a
settled place for performance gave his company additional influence and
status. At first they played old plays, among which may be mentioned
Kyd's _Jeronymo_ and _Spanish Tragedy_, Greene's _Orlando_ and _Friar
Bacon_, Greene and Lodge's _Looking-glass_, Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_,
and Peele's _Battle of Alcazar_. This last-named play, may, like
Greene's _Orlando_, have been originally sold to the Queen's men, and
to the Admiral's afterwards; but whether this be so or not, we have
the singular fact to explain that four plays, three by Greene and one
by Marlowe, all belonging to the Queen's men, are now found in action
by Lord Strange's. Combining this with their sudden disappearance
from the Court Revels, it would seem that some grave displeasure had
been excited against them, and that they had become disorganised. In
fact, although they, or a part of them, lingered on in some vague
connection with Sussex' players, they now practically disappear from
theatrical history. Of new plays Lord Strange's men produced on March
3d, _Henry VI._, which is by the reference to it in Nash's _Piers
Penniless_ (entered 8th August 1592) identified with the play now
known as _The First Part of Henry VI._ It was acted fourteen times to
crowded houses (Nash says to 10,000 spectators), and was the success
of the season. I have no doubt that this play was written by Marlowe,
with the aid of Peele, Lodge, and Greene, before 1590, and that the
episode of Talbot's death added in 1592 is from the hand of Shakespeare
himself. In this last opinion it is especially pleasing to me to find
myself supported by the critical judgment of Mr. Swinburne. On 11th
April the play of _Titus and Vespasian_ was first acted. Had it not
been for the existence of a German version (given in full in Cohn's
_Shakespeare in Germany_) we should not have been aware that this play
was identical in story with that known as _Titus Andronicus_. It is
unfortunately lost--a loss the more to be regretted since it has led to
the supposition of the extant play having proceeded from the hand of
Shakespeare. On 10th June _A Knack to Know a Knave_ was performed for
the first time. Mr. R. Simpson without the slightest ground conjectured
that this was the play that Greene says he "lastly writ" with "young
Juvenal." The most successful new plays in this season were _Henry
VI._ and _Titus and Vespasian_ (performed seven times in two months);
of old plays _the Spanish Tragedy_ (performed thirteen times), _The
Battle of Alcazar_ (eleven performances), and _The Jew of Malta_ (ten
performances).
On June 22 the last performance took place before the closing of the
theatres on account of the plague.
On August 8 _Piers Penniless_ was entered S. R., which contains Nash's
reference to _I Henry VI._
On September 3 Greene died.
On September 20 his _Groatsworth of Wit_ was entered in the Stationers'
Registers. This pamphlet was edited by Chettle, and contains the often
quoted address to Marlowe, "young Juvenal," and Peele. In the portion
where Greene speaks to all three of them, he says: "Trust them not, for
there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, _with his
Tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide_, supposes he is as well able
to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and being an absolute
_Johannes Factotum_, is in his own conceit the only shake-scene in our
country." Mr. R. Simpson showed that "beautified with our feathers"
meant acting plays written by us, but "bombast out a blank verse"
undoubtedly refers to Shakespeare as a writer also. The line "O tiger's
heart wrapt in a woman's hide" occurs in _Richard Duke of York_
(commonly but injudiciously referred to as _The True Tragedy_), a play
written for Pembroke's men, probably in 1590, on which _3 Henry VI._
was founded. It is almost certainly by Marlowe, the best of the three
whom Greene addresses. In December Chettle issued his _Kindheart's
Dream_, in which he apologises for the offence given to Marlowe in the
_Groatsworth of Wit_, "because myself have seen his demeanour no less
civil than he excellent in the quality he professes; besides divers
of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his
honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, which approves his art."
To Peele he makes no apology, nor indeed was any required. Shakespeare
was not one of those who took offence; they are expressly stated to
have been two of the three authors addressed by Greene, the third
(Lodge) not being in England.
There were three plays performed at Hampton Court this Christmas, on
December 26, 31, January 1, by Lord Strange's men, in spite of the
plague.
I think the latter part of 1592 the most likely time for the writing
of some scenes in _All's Well that Ends Well_ and _Twelfth Night_ that
show marks of early date.
1593.
On January 5 Lord Strange's company, who had reopened at the Rose, 29th
December 1592, produced a new play called _The Jealous Comedy_; this I
take to have been _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ in its earliest form.
On January 30 they produced Marlowe's _Guise_ or _Massacre of Paris_,
which has reached us in an unusually mutilated condition.
On February 1 they performed for the last time this year in Southwark;
the Rose as well as other theatres being closed because of the plague.
On April 18 _Venus and Adonis_ was entered by Richard Field for
publication. Shakespeare's choice of a publisher was no doubt
influenced by private connection. R. Field was a son of Henry Field,
tanner, of Stratford-on-Avon, who died in 1592. The inventory of his
goods attached to his will had been taken by Shakespeare's father
on 21st August in that year. _Venus and Adonis_ was licensed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury (Whitgift) (at whose palace near Croydon
Nash's play, _Summer's Last Will_, was performed in the autumn of
1592), and was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.
Shakespeare calls it "The first heir of my invention," which may mean
his first published work; but more probably means the first production
in which he was sole author, his previous plays having been written
in conjunction with others; and he vows "to take advantage of all
idle hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour." He had
probably then planned if not begun his _Rape of Lucrece_.
On May 6 a precept was issued by the Lords of the Privy Council
authorising Lord Strange's players, "Edward Allen, William Kempe,
Thomas Pope, John Heminges, Augustine Philipes, and George Brian" to
play "where the infection is not, so it be not within seven miles
of London or of the Court, that they may be in the better readiness
hereafter for her Majesty's service." This list of names is by no means
a complete one of the company of players; but probably does consist
of all the _shareholders_ therein. Shakespeare was not a shareholder
yet. Alleyn is described as servant to the Admiral as well as to Lord
Strange. Accordingly they travelled and acted in the country--in July
at Bristol, afterwards at Shrewsbury. Meanwhile on June 1 Marlowe was
killed, leaving unpublished his poem, _Hero and Leander_, his play
_Dido_, and in my opinion other plays; of which more hereafter.
On 25th September Henry Earl of Derby died, and Ferdinand Lord Strange
succeeded to his honours. His company of players are consequently
sometimes called the Earl of Derby's for the next six months. There
were no performances at Court at Christmas on account of the plague.
1594.
On 23d January _Titus Andronicus_ was acted as a new play by Sussex'
men at the Rose. This company gave up playing there on 6th February. On
26th February the _Andronicus_ play was entered on S. R. Langbaine, who
professes to have seen this edition, says it was acted by the players
of "Pembroke, Derby, and Essex." Essex is clearly a mistake for Sussex,
for in the 1600 edition the companies are given as "Sussex, Pembroke,
and Derby." Halliwell's careless statement that Lord Strange's players
transferred their services to Lord Hunsdon in 1594, has led me and
others into grave difficulty on this matter. The fact is that Lord
Derby's players became servants to the Chamberlain between 16th April,
when Lord Derby died, and 3d June, when they played at Newington Butts
under the latter appellation. There was strictly no Lord Strange's
company after 25th September 1593, and no other Derby's company till
1599. The old name Strange, however, does sometimes occur instead of
Derby. Hence it seemed that the transfer to Derby's company must have
taken place in 1600. Indeed so little was the fact known even in 1600,
that Shakespeare's company enjoyed the title of Derby's men for six
months, that although that name is given on the first page, on the
title the same men reappear as the Lord Chamberlain's. Why Pembroke's
men should have acquired the play on 6th February, and possibly parted
with it by the 26th, does not appear, nor is there any parallel
instance known: there must have been some great changes in their
constitution at this time. But in any case Shakespeare did not write
the play; Mr. Halliwell's theory that he left Lord Strange's men, who
in 1593 enjoyed the highest position of any then existing, and after
having been a member successively of two of the obscurest companies,
returned to his former position within a few months, is utterly
untenable. There is no vestige of evidence that Shakespeare ever wrote
for any company but one.
On 12th March _York and Lancaster_ (_2 Henry VI._) was entered on S. R.
From 1st to 8th April Sussex' men and the Queen's acted at the Rose,
among other plays, the old _Leir_ (April 8), on which Shakespeare's
_Lear_ was founded. Both these companies henceforth vanish from stage
history.
On April 16 Lord Derby died.
On May 2 _The Taming of a Shrew_ was entered on S. R.
On May 9 _The Rape of Lucrece_ was entered. The difference in tone
between the dedication of this poem to Lord Southampton and that of
_Venus and Adonis_ distinctly points to a personal intercourse having
taken place in the interval. Hence the date of Shakespeare's first
interview with his patron may be assigned as between April 1593 and May
1594.
On May 14 _The Famous Victories of Henry V._ and _Leir_ were entered on
S. R.
On May 14 also the Admiral's company, of which nothing is heard since
1591, began to act at the Rose, having acted at Newington for three
days only. Alleyn, Henslow's son-in-law, had left the management of
Shakespeare's company on the death of Lord Derby, and now joined the
Admiral's men.
Between[5] June 3 and June 13 the Chamberlain's men played at Newington
Butts alternately with the Admiral's: among the Chamberlain's plays we
notice on June 3, 10, _Hester and Ahasuerus_, which exists in a German
version of which a translation ought to be published; June 5, 12,
_Andronicus_;
June 9, _Hamlet_; June 11, _The Taming of a Shrew_. The intermediate
days were occupied by the Admiral's men: who on the 15th [17th] went
to the Rose, and the Chamberlain's men no doubt to the Theater, the
Burbadges' own house. The Chamberlain's company at this date included
W. Shakespeare, R. Burbadge, J. Hemings, A. Phillips, W. Kempe, T.
Pope, G. Bryan, all of whom, with the possible exception of Burbadge,
had been members of Lord Strange's company; together with H. Condell,
W. Sly, R. Cowley, N. Tooley, J. Duke, R. Pallant, and T. Goodall, who
had previously been in all probability members of the Queen's company.
C. Beeston must have joined them soon afterwards. The names of Richard
Hoope, William Ferney, William Blackway, and Ralph Raye occur in
Henslow's _Diary_ as Chamberlain's men c. January 1595. The Queen's men
came in on the reconstitution of that company in 1591-2. See on this
matter further on under the head of _The Seven Deadly Sins_.
On June 19 the old play of _Richard III._ (with Shore's wife in it)
was entered on S. R., a pretty sure indication, which tallies with
other external evidence, that the play attributed to Shakespeare was
produced about this time. No one can read the four plays composing
the Henry 6th series without feeling that, however various their
authorship, they form a connected whole in general plan. Margaret is
the central figure, who hovers like a Greek Chorus over the terrible
Destiny that involves King and people in its meshes. But Margaret
is not Shakespeare's creation; she is Marlowe's. Shakespeare had no
share in the plays on the contention of York and Lancaster, and but
a slight one in _1 Henry VI._ Marlowe had a chief hand in _1 Henry
VI._ and _York and Lancaster_; probably wrote the whole of _Richard
Duke of York_, and laid, in my opinion, the foundation and erected
part of the building of _Richard III._ At his death he seems to have
left unacted or unpublished his poem of _Hero and Leander_, finished
afterwards by Chapman; _Dido_, partly by Nash, and produced (when?)
by the Chapel children; _Andronicus_ acted (under Peele's auspices?)
by the Sussex men, and _Richard III._, completed by Shakespeare, and
acted by the Chamberlain's company as we have it in the Quarto. All
these plays were produced or published in 1594. About the same time an
earlier play of Marlowe's, originally acted c. 1589, was altered and
revised by Shakespeare. The date and authorship of the Shakespearian
part of _Edward III._, viz., from "Enter King Edward" in the last
scene of act i. to the end of act ii., are proved by the allusion to
the poem of _Lucrece_; the repetition of lines from the _Sonnets_:
"Their scarlet ornaments," "Lilies that foster smell far worse than
weeds," and many smaller coincidences with undoubted Shakespearian
plays: while the original date and authorship of the play as a whole
will appear from the following quotations. In the Address prefixed to
Greene's _Menaphon_, in a passage in which Nash has been satirising Kyd
and another as void of scholarship and unable to read Seneca in the
original, he suddenly attacks Marlowe, whom he has previously held up
as the object of their imitation, and asks what can they have of him?
in Nash's own words: "What can be hoped of those that thrust Elysium
into Hell, and have not learned, so long as they have lived in the
spheres, the just measure of the Horizon without an hexameter?" Marlowe
in _Faustus_[6] has "confound Hell in Elysium," and, in _Edward III_,
_horízon_ is pronounced _hórizon_. This, however, might occur in other
plays; but in Greene's _Never Too Late_ we find Tully addressing the
player Roscius, who certainly represents R. Wilson, in these words:
"Why, Roscius, are thou proud with Æsop's crow, being pranked with the
glory of others' feathers? Of thyself thou canst say nothing: and if
the Cobbler hath taught thee to say _Ave Cæsar_, disdain not thy tutor
because thou pratest in a King's chamber." Unless another play can be
produced with "Ave Cæsar" in it, this must be held to allude to _Edward
III._, in which play Wilson must have acted the Prince of Wales (act i.
1. 164). The "cobbler" alludes to Marlowe as a shoemaker's son.
On July 20, _Locrine_, an old play written, says Mr. Simpson, by G.
Tylney in 1586, but in which Peele had certainly a principal hand,
was entered on S. R. It was issued as "newly set forth, overseen
and corrected by W. S." I see no reason to believe that this was
Shakespeare. Of course he had no hand in writing the play; and in any
case Peele did not probably sanction the publication.
To this year we must assign the production of the earliest of
Shakespeare's _Sonnets_. That these (or rather that portion of them
which are continuous, 1-126) were addressed to Lord Southampton was
proved by Drake. The identity of language between the Dedication of
_Lucrece_ and Sonnet 26, the exact agreement of them with all we know
of the careers of Shakespeare and his patron during the next four
years, and the utter absence of evidence of his connection with
any other patron, are conclusive on that point. They begin (1-17)
with entreaties to marry, which date about 6th October 1594, when
Southampton attained his majority, and before he had met Elizabeth
Vernon, and end (117) in a time when "peace proclaiming olives of
endless age," after the treaty of Vervins, 2d May 1598: and before the
Earl's marriage at the end of that year. They involve a story of some
frail lady who had transferred her favours to the young lord from the
older player (40-42). Far too much has been written on this matter
from a moral point of view. The fact remains, and all we can say is:
Remember these Sonnets were written "among private friends," and not
for publication. The lady has not hitherto been identified, but is, I
think, identifiable. On September 3d was entered on S. R., _Wyllobie
his Avisa_. Dr. Ingleby has shown in his _Shakespeare Allusion-books_
that the W. S. in this poem is William Shakespeare, and that Hadrian
Dorrell, the reputed editor, is a fictitious character. He has,
however, missed the key to this anonymity; viz., that the book was
known to be a personal satirical libel. P[eter] C[olse], according to
the author of _Avisa_, "misconstrued" the poem; and so necessitated
the further figment in the 1605 edition that the supposed author, A.
Willobie, was dead; in this edition the mythical H. D. says: "If you
ask me for the persons, I am altogether ignorant of them, and have set
them down only as I find them named or disciphered in my author. For
the truth of this action, if you enquire, I will more fully deliver
my opinion hereafter." But independently of this evidence from the
book itself we find in S. R. (Arber, iii. 678) that when the works of
Marston, Davies, &c., were burnt in the Hall, 4th June 1599, other
books were "stayed;" viz., _Caltha Poetarum_, Hall's _Satires_, and
"_Willobie's Adviso_ to be called in." This marks the book as of
the same character as its companions; viz., libellous, calumnious,
personally abusive. The characters in the poems were evidently
representations of real living persons. The heroine of the poem is
Av[)i]sa, or Av[=i]sa (sometimes written A vis A), that is, Avice or
Avice A. This name was not uncommon (see Camden's _Remaines_, p. 93).
She lived in the west of England, "where Austin pitched his monkish
tent," in a house "where hangs the badge of England's saint." The place
is more fully described thus:--
"At east of this a castle stands
By ancient shepherds built of old,
And lately was in shepherds' hands,
Though now by brothers bought and sold:
At west side springs a crystal well:
There doth this chaste Avisa dwell."
And again:--
"In sea-bred soil on Tempe downs,
Whose silver spring from Neptune's well
With mirth salutes the neighbouring towns."
These descriptions suit the vale of Evesham, the castle being that of
Bengworth and the well that of Abberton. Austin's oak was traditionally
placed in this part by some, though others put it in Gloucestershire.
Avisa's parents are mentioned as "of meanest trade." They were, I
take it, inn-keepers, and the inn had the sign of St. George. The
other characters are D. B., a Frenchman, with motto _Dudum Beatus_;
Didymus H., an Anglo-German, with motto _Dum Habui_; H. W., _Italo
Hispalensis_, and W[illiam] S[hakespeare]. The story is that Avisa,
the chaste, who "makes up the mess" of four with Lucrece, Susanna,
and Penelope, has been married at twenty, tempted by a Nobleman, a
Cavaliero, a Frenchman, an Anglo-German, &c., without result, and
is consequently England's _rara avis_, who matches those of Greece,
Palestine, and Rome. The mottoes of the foreigners, however, point
to a different conclusion, and so does this passage: "If any one,
therefore, by this should take occasion to surmise that the author
meant to note any woman, _whose name sounds something like that name_,
it is too childish and too absurd, and not beseeming any deep judgment,
considering there are many things which _cannot be applied to any
woman_." In plain language, Mr. Dorrell believes no woman to be chaste.
H. W., at first sight of Avisa, is infected with a fantastical fit,
and bewrays his disease to his familiar friend, W. S., who, _not long
before_, had tried the courtesy of the like passion, and was now newly
recovered [in 1594]. Having been laughed at himself he determined to
see whether it would sort to a happier end for the _new actor_ than it
did for the _old player_. Doubtless W. S. is Shakespeare, and Avisa
is represented ironically as a _trader_ who had made a Frenchman
long happy (_dudum beatus_), been possessed by an Anglo-German (_dum
habui_), had then passed to Shakespeare, and finally to H. W. Such was
the slanderous story published in 1594; how far true, whether at all
true, I care not to inquire; but that it is the same story as that of
the Sonnets, that H. W. is Henry Wriothesley, and that the black woman
of the Sonnets is identical with Avisa, I regard as indubitable. Of
course the Thomas Willoby, _Frater Henrici Willoughby nuper defuncti_,
of the 1605 edition is a mere device to blind the licensers for the
press. Similar devices have often been used, but I know of none so
impudently charming as the "author's conclusion" as to the man who is
_nuper defunctus_. "H. W. was now again stricken so dead that he hath
not yet any further essayed, nor I think ever will, and whether he be
alive or dead I know not, and therefore I leave him."
On December 26th and 28th the Chamberlain's servants performed before
the Queen at Greenwich, apparently in the daytime. Kempe, Shakespeare,
and Burbadge were paid for these performances on the following March.
It is singular that the performance of "A comedy of _Errors_ like unto
Plautus his _Menoechmi_" should have also been performed apparently by
the same company at Gray's Inn, also on December 26th. This seems to
be the first mention of Shakespeare's play, the true title of which is
simply _Errors_: but whether it was written in 1590 or 1593-4, there
is no evidence that is absolutely decisive. The allusion to France
fighting against her heir, v. ii. 2. 125, would be equally applicable
at any date from July 1589, when Henri III. was killed, to February
1594, when Henri IV. was consecrated.
1595.
That the date of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ should be fixed in the
winter of 1594-5 was long since seen by Malone, the allusions to
the remarkable weather of 1594 being too marked to be put aside
contemptuously. It has also been attempted to assign other dates on
account of the play's being manifestly written for some marriage
solemnity. It is not needful to alter the date for that reason. Either
the marriage of W. Stanley, Earl of Derby, at Greenwich, on 24th
January, 1594-5, or that of Lord Russel, Earl of Bedford, to Lucy
Harrington (before 5th February, S. R.), would suit very well in point
of time. The former is the more probable; because it took place at
Greenwich, where we know the Chamberlain's men to have performed in the
previous month, and because these actors had mostly been servants to
the Earl of Derby's brother in the early part of the previous year.
There is little, if any doubt, that Shakespeare produced _Richard II._
and _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, as we now have it, in this year. _A
larum for London_, or _The Siege of Antwerp_, by (?) Lodge, was acted
about this time.
The play of _Richard Duke of York_ was printed in 1595 and on 1st
December _Edward III._ was entered on S. R.
The performances of the Chamberlain's men, 1594-5, at Court, were
on December 26, 27, 28; January 5; February 22. Payment was made to
Hemings and Bryan.
1596.
Early in this year the play of _Sir T. More_ was produced by the
Chamberlain's company. The name of T. Goodale, who was one of their
actors, occurs in the MS. It appears from the notes of E. Tylney, then
Master of the Revels, that much revision had to be made in its form
in consequence of its reproducing, under a thin disguise, a narrative
of the Apprentice Riots of June 1595. The imprisonment of the Earl of
Hertford in October of the same year was too closely paralleled by
that of Sir T. More in the play to be agreeable to the Government.
Another point objected to was satirical allusion to Frenchmen. The date
hitherto assigned to this play is "1590 or earlier" (Dyce), which is
palpably wrong.
Soon after Shakespeare's _King John_ was acted. It contains, in my
opinion, an allusion to the expedition to Cadiz in June (i. 2. 66-75).
On July 23d Henry Carey died, and the "Chamberlain's players" became
the men of his son, George Carey L. Hunsdon.
In the same month, or earlier, _Romeo and Juliet_ was revived in a
greatly altered and improved form. All work by the second hand was cut
out and replaced by Shakespeare's own writing. It was not, however,
acted at this date at the Curtain, but at the Theater. Lodge's allusion
in his _Wit's Miserv_, 1596, to _Hamlet_, as acted in that house,
is inconsistent with any other supposition. On August 5 a ballad on
_Romeo and Juliet_ was entered on S. R. This is taken by Mr. Halliwell
as evidence that the play was then on the stage. On August 27 ballads
are also mentioned on _Macdobeth_ and _The Taming of a Shrew_. That on
Macbeth could not have been on the play as we now have it, but that a
play on this subject, perhaps an earlier form of the extant one, was
then acted, is very probable.
On August 11 Hamnet Shakespeare was buried at Stratford: his father
undoubtedly was present. This is the first visit to Stratford on his
part since 1587 so far as any evidence exists.
Shakespeare returned to his lodgings "near the Bear Garden" in
Southwark (Alleyn MS. _teste_ Malone) before October 20, where a draft
of a grant of arms was made to John Shakespeare, no doubt at his son's
expense.
In November, a petition was presented by the inhabitants of Blackfriars
against the transformation into a theatre of a large house bought by J.
Burbadge on the preceding February 4. The petition was ineffectual.
Shakespeare's play _The Merchant of Venice_, sometimes called _The Jew
of Venice_, is generally assigned to this year. I prefer 1597.
On December 29, Henry Shakespeare, the poet's uncle, was buried at
Snitterfield; and his wife Margaret on 9th February 1596-7.
The Court performances of Lord Hunsdon's men at Whitehall were six in
number, two at Christmas, and others on 1st, 5th January; 6th, 8th
February 1596-7.
1597.
Before March 5 a surreptitious edition of _Romeo and Juliet_ was
published, but not entered on S. R. This consists of an imperfect and
abridged copy of the revised play, with lacunæ filled up by portions of
the original version of 1591. See hereafter in Section IV.
In Easter term, Shakespeare purchased New Place, a mansion and
grounds in Stratford, for £60. This was freehold, and henceforth his
designation is, William Shakespeare of New Place, Stratford, Gentleman.
From this time, male heirs failing, his ambition seems to be to found a
family in one of the female branches; and Stratford is to be regarded
as his residence.
Soon after 5th March, Lord Hunsdon was appointed Chamberlain _vice_ W.
Brooke, Lord Cobham, deceased, and Lord Hunsdon's men again became the
Lord Chamberlain's.
During this year and the next Shakespeare undoubtedly produced _1_ and
_2 Henry IV_. The name given to the "fat knight" was originally Sir
John Oldcastle. This offended the Cobham family, who were lineally
descended from the great Sir John Oldcastle, and through their
influence the Queen ordered the name to be altered. The new name
was that of Falstaff, unquestionably identical with the Fastolfe of
history. Shakespeare had unwittingly adopted the name Oldcastle from
the old play of _The Famous Victories of King Henry V._ Mr. Halliwell
has pointed out that there must have been another play in which a Sir
John Oldcastle was represented: he quotes _Hey for Honesty_, "The rich
rubies and incomparable carbuncles of Sir John Oldcastle's nose;" and
Howell's _Letters_, ii. 71, "Ale is thought to be much adulterated,
and nothing so good as Sir John Oldcastle and Smug the Smith was used
to drink." I venture to add that this last quotation fixes the other
play. It was Drayton's _Merry Devil of Edmonton_, in which Sir John
the priest of Enfield drinks ale with Smug the Smith, and "carries
fire in his face eternally." This play was probably produced between
_1 Henry IV._ and _2 Henry IV._ The words "tickle your catastrophe" in
the latter are more likely to be an allusion to the "gag" in the _Merry
Devil_ than conversely; similar ridicule of this phrase is introduced
in _Sir Giles Goosecap_, which is certainly of later date. It seems
strange that Sir John Oldcastle should have been used as the name of
a priest; but the play has been so greatly abridged (all the part of
the story in which Smug replaces St. George as the sign of the inn,
for instance, having been cut out) that it would be mere guess-work
to try to restore its original form, and without such restoration we
cannot judge of the reasons for so singular an impersonation. Of course
it was attempted to remove all trace of Oldcastle's name; but just as
the prefix _Old._ to one of the speeches in Shakespeare's play bears
evidence to Oldcastle having been his original fat knight, so it is
possible that in a hitherto unexplained passage there may be a trace
of Oldcastle as Drayton's original ale-drinking priest. In scene 9
the words italicised in "My _old Jenerts_ bank my horse, my _castle_"
look very like a corruption of a stage direction written in margin of a
proof thus--
Old- J. enters
castle
--he is on the scene directly after, and his entrance is nowhere marked.
T. Lodge, as well as Drayton, was writing about this date for the
Chamberlain's men.
On August 29 _Richard II._ was entered on S. R., and on October 20
_Richard III._ These were evidently printed from authentic copies, duly
authorised for publication.
About July 1597 the Theater, with regard to extension of the lease
of which James Burbadge had been negotiating up to his death in the
spring of that year, was finally closed as a place of performance. In
October the Chamberlain's men no doubt began to act at the Curtain,
which Pembroke's men left at that date to join the Admiral's company
at the Rose; some of them, however, probably Cooke, Belt, Sinkler, and
Holland, had already in 1594 joined the Chamberlain's, as we shall see.
About this date Mr. Halliwell says "Shakespeare's company" were at
Rye (in August), at Dover and Bristol (in September), &c. Pembroke's
company were at these places, but he has given no proof that the
Chamberlain's were. The "Curtain-plaudities" of Marston's _Scourge of
Villany_, entered S. R. 8th September 1598, would certainly seem to show
that they acted at the Curtain in 1598. This does not, however, involve
the inference that they acted there in 1596, at which time they no
doubt performed at the Theater.
About this same time the play of _Wily Beguiled_ was acted, which
contains distinct parodies of speeches by Shylock and old Capulet, as
well as of other scenes in the _Merchant of Venice_, which must have
preceded it. It has been alleged by Steevens and others that this play
existed in 1596, but no proof has been given of this assertion.
In November John Shakespeare filed a bill against Lambert for the
recovery of the Asbies estate. There is no trace of his having
proceeded further with this litigation.
At Christmas the Chamberlain's men performed four plays at Whitehall,
one of which was _Love's Labour's Lost_. The corrections and
augmentations of the play, as we have it, may be confidently ascribed
to the preparation for this performance.
1598.
On January 24 Abraham Sturley wrote to Richard Quiney urging him to
persuade Shakespeare to make a purchase at Shottery, on the ground that
he would thus obtain friends and advancement, and at the same time
benefit the Corporation.
On February 25 _1 Henry IV._ was entered on S. R., and on July 22 _The
Merchant of Venice_.
In this spring or in 1597 _Much Ado about Nothing_ was probably
produced. It was probably an alteration of _Love's Labour's Won_.
In September Jonson joined the Chamberlain's men, and produced his
_Every Man in his Humour_ at the Curtain. This was the Quarto version
with the Italian names. Aubrey has been subjected to much unfounded
abuse for asserting that Jonson acted at the Curtain. The actors in
this play were Shakespeare, Burbadge, Phillips, Hemings, Condell, Pope,
Sly, Beeston, Kemp, and Duke. Shakespeare, it will be noted, is first
on the list.
On September 7 Meres' _Palladis Tamia_ was entered on S. R. Among the
abundant and often-quoted praises of Shakespeare in this work the
most important for biographical purposes are the enumeration of his
plays, the lists of tragic and comic dramatists, and this passage,
which I shall have to refer to hereafter. "As the soul of Euphorbus
was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the great witty soul of Ovid
lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare. Witness his _Venus
and Adonis_, his _Lucrece_, his sugared _Sonnets_ among his private
friends," &c. A careful comparison of the list of dramatists with that
of known plays or titles of plays that have come down to us shows that
the _Palladis Tamia_ could not have been completed for the press till
June 1598, and an examination of the list of Shakespeare's plays shows
that it consists of those then in the _repertoire_ of the Chamberlain's
company, that is, of those either newly written or revived between June
1594 and June 1598. These plays are: _Gentlemen of Verona_; _Errors_;
_Love's Labour's Lost_; _Love's Labour's Won_; _Midsummer-Night's
Dream_; _Merchant of Venice_--comedies. _Richard II._; _Richard III._;
_Henry IV._; _John_; _Titus Andronicus_; _Romeo and Juliet_--tragedies.
It is clear that _Richard III._ and a play on Andronicus, which I
believe to be the one we have, were attributed to Shakespeare at that
time.
On 25th October Richard Quiney wrote from the Bell in Carter Lane to
his "loving good friend and countryman Mr. William Shakespeare," who
was, according to the subsidy roll discovered by Mr. J. Hunter, then
living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, asking for the loan
of £30. On the same day he wrote to his brother-in-law Mr. Sturley at
Stratford, that "our countryman Mr. W. Shakespeare would procure us
money." The former letter was sent evidently by hand, an affirmative
answer obtained, and soon after instructions given by Shakespeare for
the procuring the money. We could not otherwise account for the letter
being preserved among the documents of the Corporation.
_The Famous Victories of Henry V._ was reprinted in 1598; as we so
often find to be the case with old plays on which other plays have been
founded. The complaint about the name Oldcastle no doubt was a special
motive for reproducing the old play in this instance.
There were three plays performed at Court by Shakespeare's company in
the Christmas festivities.
1599.
In April a play of _Troylus and Cressida_, by Dekker and Chettle, was
written; no doubt an opposition play to some revival of Shakespeare's
older one on the same subject.
The Chamberlain's men acted _A Warning for Fair Women_ about this time.
This play appears to me to come from the hand of Lodge.
In this year _The Passionate Pilgrim_, "by W. Shakespeare," was
imprinted by Jaggard. It contains two of the _Sonnets_, two other
Sonnets from _Love's Labour's Lost_, and one other poem from the same
play by Shakespeare. The remaining poems, as far as they are known, are
by Barnefield and other inferior authors. There is not a vestige of
reason for reprinting this book as Shakespeare's.
In the spring Shakespeare's company left the Curtain and went to act
at the Globe. This was a newly erected building on Bankside, made
partly of the materials of the old Theater, which had been removed by
Burbadge at the beginning of the year. One of the first plays performed
in it was Jonson's _Every Man out of his Humour_, the chief actors in
which were Burbadge, Hemings, Phillips, Condell, Sly, and Pope. Kempe,
Beeston, Duke, and Pallant had left the company, and did not act at
the Globe. But Shakespeare's name is also absent in this list, and
this fact, coupled with that of the libellous nature of this "comical
satire," and Jonson's leaving the Chamberlain's men immediately after
it to continue his strictures on Dekker, &c., at Blackfriars with
the Children of the Chapel, makes it exceedingly probable that the
disagreement which eventuated in the "purge" given by Shakespeare to
Jonson mentioned in _The Return to Parnassus_ had already arisen.
It would lead to too long a digression to do more than touch on this
stage quarrel here. I can only say that it lasted till 1601; that
Jonson and Chapman on the one side at Blackfriars, and Shakespeare,
Marston, and Dekker on the other, at first at the Globe, Rose, and
Paul's, afterwards at the Fortune, kept up one continual warfare for
more than three years. Not one of their plays during this time is
free from personalities and satirical allusions; nor, indeed, are
most comedies of Elizabeth's time; it is only because the allusions
have grown obscure and uninteresting to us, that we fail to see that
the Elizabethan comedy is eminently Aristophanic. It is not till the
reign of James that we find the comedy of manners and intrigue at all
generally developed.
Another play produced after the opening of the Globe was _Henry V._,
and soon after in this year _As You Like It_.
Somewhere about this time an attempt was made to get a grant to "impale
the arms of Shakespeare with those of Arden," _ignotum cum ignotiore_.
The grant was not obtained.
At this Christmas the Chamberlain's men gave three performances at
Court, viz., on 26th December at Whitehall, on 5th January 1599-1600
and on 4th February at Richmond.
1600.
Shrovetide, February 4. The play performed at Court was probably _The
Merry Wives of Windsor_. This play is assigned by tradition to a
command of the Queen, who wished to see Falstaff represented in love,
and is said to have been written in a fortnight. It was probably an
adaptation of the old _Jealous Comedy_ of 1592, and is more likely
to have come after than before _Henry V._, in which Shakespeare had
failed, according to his implied promise in the Epilogue to _2 Henry
IV._, to continue the story with Falstaff in it. It stands apart
altogether from the historical series.
March 6. The Chamberlain's men acted "Oldcastle" before their patron,
Lord Hunsdon, and foreign ambassadors at Somerset House. This could not
have been Shakespeare's "Falstaff," for the obnoxious name of Oldcastle
would certainly not have been revived before such an audience; nor
could it have been the _Sir John Oldcastle_, which belonged to another
company; it may have been _The Merry Devil of Edmonton_.
About this time Shakespeare, always attentive to pecuniary matters,
brought an action against one John Clayton for £7, and obtained a
verdict.
The August entries on S. R. are specially interesting. On the 4th a
memorandum (not in the regular course of entry) appears to the effect
that _As You Like It_, _Henry V._, _Every Man in his Humour_, and _Much
Ado about Nothing_, were "to be stayed." On the 14th, _Every Man in
his Humour_ was licensed; on the 23d, _Much Ado about Nothing_, and
along with it _2 Henry IV._, "_with the humours of Sir John Falstaff_.
Written by Master Shakespeare." On the 11th the first and second parts
of the _History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, "with
his Martyrdom,"_ had been licensed. The "staying" is generally supposed
to have relation to surreptitious printing; I think it more likely to
have been caused by the supposed satirical nature of the plays. _As
You Like It_ was not printed; _Henry V._ was printed in an incomplete
form[7] without license; while the emphatic mention of Falstaff and
the insertion of the author's name to _2 Henry IV._, not customary at
that date, show that the Oldcastle scandal had not yet died out. This
is still further proved by the almost simultaneous entries of the two
plays written October to December 1599 for the Admiral's men by Monday,
Drayton, Wilson, and Hathaway, on Sir John Oldcastle. Only one has
reached us, which is plainly satirical of _Henry V._ It was, however,
in one of the editions printed in 1600 ascribed to William Shakespeare.
Drayton, who was the chief author concerned in its production, had left
the Chamberlain's men in 1597, and been writing for the Admiral's ever
since. It is noticeable that after 1597 we find the favourable notices
of Lodge and Shakespeare which had been inserted in previous editions
expunged from his writings, notably the lines on Lucrece in the legend
of _Matilda_. Drayton had probably quarrelled with both his coadjutors.
With the entry here on Oldcastle's "martyrdom" compare the Epilogue to
_2 Henry IV._ This was not the play acted before Hunsdon on March 6,
which was probably _The Merry Devil_.
On 8th October _Midsummer-Night's Dream_ was entered on S. R.; on 28th
October _The Merchant of Venice_. Curiously enough, two rival issues
of each of these plays was made this year, although only one publisher
made an entry in each case. On 22d July 1598, J. Roberts had entered
_The Merchant of Venice_, but was refused permission to print unless
he could get the Lord Chamberlain's license, who was the patron of the
actors of that play. He apparently did not get it; but in 1600, when
J. Heyes does get the license, he arranges with Heyes to print the
book for him, but previously prints a slightly differing copy on his
own account. He makes with Fisher, the publisher of the other play, a
somewhat similar transaction.
There were three Court performances this Christmas by the Chamberlain's
men, December 26, January 5, February 24. The payment for these to
Hemings and Cowley indicates that the latter was a shareholder in the
Globe.
_2_ and _3 Henry VI._ were probably revised and revived at the Globe
about this time.
1601.
In this year _All's Well that Ends Well_ and _Hamlet_ were produced.
The form in which the latter appeared is matter of dispute; but we may
safely assert that it lay between the version of the first Quarto and
that of the Folio; the variation of the Quarto from this original form
being caused by the surreptitious nature of that edition, and that of
the Folio by a subsequent revision in 1603. The company of "little
eyases" satirised in this play was not of the Paul's children, with
whom the Chamberlain's men were on the most friendly terms, but of
the Chapel children at the Blackfriars, who were then acting Jonson's
"comical satires" against Dekker, Marston, and Shakespeare. Singularly
enough, they were tenants of the Burbadges, who were also owners of the
Globe.
In the same year 1601, a poem by Shakespeare appeared along with others
by Jonson, Marston, and Chapman in R. Chester's _Love's Martyr, or
Rosalin's Complaint_. This publication, could we ascertain its exact
date, would show the time when the stage controversy ceased and these
four writers could amicably appear together. Dekker, however, does not
appear among them, and we cannot tell if his _Satiromastix_ was acted
with Shakespeare's approval or not. It was produced at the Globe by his
company as well as by the children of Paul's at some time between 22d
May, up till which day Dekker was writing for the Admiral's men, and
11th November, when it was entered on S. R. This bitter satire seems to
have been the last open word in the controversy, but by no means the
end of its history.
The next fact we have to notice may perhaps explain why, just at
this point of Shakespeare's career, we find in 1602 a cessation of
production, accompanied by a change of manner in outward form and
inward thought when writing was resumed in 1603. In March 1601, in the
Essex trials, Meyrick was indicted "for having procured the outdated
tragedy of _Richard II._ to be publicly acted at his own charge for
the entertainment of the conspirators" (Camden). From Bacon's speech
(_State Trials_) it appears that Phillips was the manager who arranged
this performance. This identifies the company as the Chamberlain's, and
therefore the play as Shakespeare's. It may seem strange that a play,
duly licensed and published in 1597, could give offence in 1601; but
the published play did not contain the deposition scene, iv. 1, the
acted play of 1601 certainly did. This point is again brought forward
in Southampton's trial: he calmly asked the Attorney-General, "What
he thought in his conscience they designed to do with the Queen?"
"The same," replied he, "that Henry of Lancaster did with Richard
II." The examples of Richard II. and Edward II. were again quoted by
the assistant judges against Southampton, while Essex in his defence
urged the example of the Duke of Guise in his favour. From all which
it is clear that the subjects chosen for historical plays by Marlowe
and Shakespeare were unpopular at Court, but approved of by the Essex
faction, and that at last the company incurred the serious displeasure
of the Queen. Accordingly, they did not perform at Court at Christmas
1601-2;[8] and we find them travelling in Scotland instead--L. Fletcher
with his company of players being traceable at Aberdeen in October.
Here the actors would hear of the Gowry conspiracy instead of Essex',
of which we shall find the result hereafter. Before leaving London,
however, or in the next year after their return, they acted _The
Life and Death of Lord Cromwell_, Earl of Essex, a play in which the
rise and fall of Robert Devereux, the late Earl, was pretty closely
paralleled. This was entered on S. R., 11th August 1602, "as lately
acted."
On September 8 John Shakespeare, the poet's father, was buried at
Stratford.
1602.
On 18th January _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ was entered on S. R.: a
surreptitious issue. On 2d February, _Twelfth Night_ was performed at
the Readers' Feast at the (?) Middle Temple, "much like _The Comedy of
Errors_ or the _Menechmi_ in Plautus, but most like and near to that in
Italian, called _Inganni_" (Manningham's Diary).
On 19th April _1_ and _2 Henry VI._ (evidently the Quarto plays on
which _2_ and _3 Henry VI._ were founded) were assigned by Millington
to Pavier, _salvo jure cujuscumque_, S. R. This entry is important. It
shows that the remodelling of the old Quarto plays under the new name
of _Henry VI._ instead of _The Contention of York and Lancaster_ had
taken place; it indicates a doubt or fear as to whether the copyright
might be disputed by some publisher, authorised by the Chamberlain's
men to produce the amended version.
In May, Shakespeare bought for £320, from the Combes, 107 acres of
arable land in Old Stratford. The indenture was sealed and delivered in
his absence to his brother Gilbert.
On July 26 the surreptitious _Hamlet_ was entered on S. R., and on
August 11 _The Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell_.
On 28th September, at a Court Baron of the Manor of Rowington, Walter
Getley transferred to Shakespeare a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane,
about a quarter of an acre with forty feet frontage, possession being
reserved for the lady of the manor till suit and service had been
personally done for the same.
Two plays were performed by the Chamberlain's men at Court this
Christmas, one at Whitehall 26th December, one at Richmond 2d February.
1603.
February 7. _Troylus and Cressida_, as performed probably in 1602 by
the Chamberlain's men, not the play by Dekker and Chettle, was entered
on S. R.
The _Taming of the Shrew_ as we have it was probably produced in March.
March 24. THE QUEEN DIED.
On 19th May a license was granted to L. Fletcher, W. Shakespeare, R.
Burbadge, A. Phillips, J. Hemings, H. Condell, W. Sly, R. Armin, R.
Cowley, to perform stage plays "within their now usual house called the
Globe," or in any part of the kingdom. They are henceforth nominated
the King's Players. The functions of Fletcher are not exactly known:
he did not act, and was probably a sort of general manager; the other
eight were probably shareholders, among whom it will be noted that
Shakespeare and Burbadge stand first. In the list of actors in Jonson's
_Sejanus_, Cowley and Armin are omitted, A. Cook and J. Lowin appearing
instead. This play got Jonson into trouble. He was accused before the
Council for "Popery and treason" in it. When he published it next year
he no doubt omitted the most objectionable passages, and put forth an
excuse that a second hand had good share in it. This was his usual way
of getting out of a difficulty of this kind. Even as the play stands
there is abundant room for malice to interpret the quarrel between
Sejanus and Drusus as that between Essex and Blount; and to see in
Sejanus' poisoning propensities allusions to the Earl of Leicester.
Whalley's curious notion that Jonson in his argument alluded to the
Powder plot, ignores the fact that the play was entered on 2d November
1604 in S. R. It is Raleigh's plot that is intended.
_The London Prodigal_, and Wilkins' _Miseries of Enforced Marriage_,
were written and perhaps acted (at the Globe?) this year.
The edition of _Hamlet_ entered in the preceding year was issued in the
autumn.
On December 2 the King's players performed at the Earl of Pembroke's at
Wilton, and at Hampton Court before the King on December 26, 27, 28,
January 1 [? December 29]; before the Prince, December 30, January 1;
before the King at Whitehall, February 2, 18; nine plays in all. A much
larger number of plays were acted at Christmas festivities at Court in
James's reign than in Elizabeth's. Perhaps the Queen only cared for new
plays. We know that James frequently ordered a second performance of
any one that specially pleased him, and often had old plays revived.
On 8th February 1604, there occurs an entry in the Revels accounts
which explains the small number of public theatrical performances, and
the cessation of work of the principal author for the King's men in
1603. To R. Burbadge was given £30, "for the maintenance and relief
of himself and the rest of his company, being prohibited to present
any plays publicly in or near London by reason of great peril that
might grow through the extraordinary concourse and assembly of people
to a new increase of the plague, till it shall please God to settle
the city in a more perfect health." From July 1603 till March 1604 the
theatres were probably closed. Hence my doubt as to whether _The London
Prodigal_ and _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ were performed in
London till 1604. The King's company were most likely travelling in the
provinces till the winter; but were disappointed at not being allowed
to reopen at Christmas when the plague had abated.
1604.
The King's men, like those of other companies, had an allowance for
cloaks, &c., to appear at the entry of King James on 15th March.
The second Quarto of _Hamlet_ was published in this year--"Newly
imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to
the new and perfect copy." This version was probably that performed at
Court in the Christmas festivities 1603-4. We cannot suppose that among
the nine plays then exhibited _Hamlet_ would not be included. Of course
on such occasions plays were always more or less rewritten. In this
instance the remodelling is twofold; the Quarto version for the Court,
1603-4, the Folio for the public, of the same date. That the Folio does
not merely reproduce the 1601 play, as it was acted in London, "in the
Universities of Cambridge and Oxford" (perhaps in going to or returning
from Scotland in 1601), "and elsewhere," is clear for many reasons,
one of which concerns us here. In the well-known passage in ii. 2
relating to the Children's company, an "inhibition" and "innovation"
are mentioned in the 1604 Quarto of which there is no note in that of
1603. The only time at which we know of any contemporary inhibition
and innovation was in January-February 1604. The inhibition on account
of the plague, which was going on till nearly 8th February, I have
already noticed; the innovation was either the political conspiracy
of Raleigh or the attempt at reformation in religion by the Puritans.
The Children of the Chapel, who under Evans, Burbadge's lessee, had
satirised Shakespeare and other players in their performances at
Blackfriars, were reappointed at this time to act in that same theatre
under E. Kirkham, A. Hawkins, T. Kendall, and R. Payne, with the new
appellation of Children of the Revels. The date of the warrant is
30th January 1604. The King's men acted at Court 2d February, and if
_Hamlet_ was then performed the passage in ii. 2 may have brought their
grievance under the King's notice, and resulted in the gift of £30 by
way of compensation. I do not insist on this, however, as it is omitted
in the Quarto. No doubt they had expected to get rid of the children
at Blackfriars at the end of seven years from the date of the original
lease, 4th February 1596. At the end of another seven years they did
so, but only by purchasing the remainder of the lease.
In this summer Marston's _Malcontent_ was obtained in some indirect
manner from these Blackfriars children, perhaps from one of the
children actors who "left playing" at the time of the new license,
and was played at the Globe, with an Induction by Webster introducing
Sinkler, Sly, Burbadge, Condell, and Lowin on the stage. This was
a retaliation for the children having in like fashion previously
appropriated _Jeronymo_ (_The Spanish Tragedy_), which belonged to the
Chamberlain's men. The curious thing about the transaction is that the
_Malcontent_ was originally produced in 1601, containing satirical
allusions to _Hamlet_; and that in 1604 both plays, revised, were acted
on the same stage, by the same actors.
On 2d November _Sejanus_ was entered on S. R.
On 18th December a letter from Chamberlain to Winwood contains the
following notice. "The tragedy of _Gowry_, with all action and actors,
hath been twice represented by the King's players, with exceeding
concourse of all sorts of people: but whether the matter or manner
be not well handled, or that it be thought unfit that princes should
be played on the stage in their lifetime, I hear that some great
councillors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall
be forbidden." Shakespeare's work during this year is shown by the
transcript of the Revels Accounts obtained by Malone. The King's men
acted at Whitehall on November 1 _The Moor of Venice_; November 4,
_The Merry Wives of Windsor_; December 28, _Measure for Measure_, and
_Errors_; ["Between January 1 and January 5" in the forged copy of this
entry still extant][9] _Love's Labour's Lost_; January 7, _Henry V._;
January 8, _Every One out of his Humour_; February 2, _Every One in
his Humour_; February 10, _The Merchant of Venice_; February 11, _The
Spanish Maz_; February 12, _The Merchant of Venice_ again. I have given
the full list as in the forged copy, but Malone is our safe guarantee
for all the Shakespeare plays. It appears then that in this year
Shakespeare must have written _Measure for Measure_ and _Othello_,
and, as we have already seen, produced a revision of _Hamlet_. How much
of this work was performed in 1603 we cannot tell; but it is not likely
that _Othello_ was written till 1604. The only definite dates in this
year relate to other matters.
In May Shakespeare entered an action at Stratford against one Philip
Rogers for £1 15s. 10d., balance of account for malt.
In August the King had a special order issued that every member of the
company should attend at Somerset House when the Spanish ambassador
came to England (Halliwell, _Outlines_, p. 136). The Christmas Court
performances have been noted above.
1605.
On 8th May, the old play on _Leir_ was entered on S. R.
On 4th May Phillips made his will, which was proved on the 13th. In
it he leaves 30s. each to Shakespeare and Condell, and 20s. each
to Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cook, and Tooley, all his fellows; to
Beeston, "his servant," 30s.; to Gilburne, his "late apprentice,"
40s. and clothes; to James Sandes, "his apprentice," 40s. and musical
instruments; to Hemings, Burbadge, and Sly, overseers and executors, a
bowl of silver of £5 apiece.
On 3d July a ballad on the _Yorkshire Tragedy_ was entered on S. R.; the
play which has been erroneously attributed to Shakespeare was no doubt
acted about the same time.
_The London Prodigal_ was published, but not entered on S. R., this same
year, with the name of William Shakespeare on the title-page.
Jonson's _Fox_ was acted by the King's men; the chief actors were the
same as those of _Sejanus_ in 1603, except Phillips, who died in May,
and Shakespeare, a most noteworthy exception.
On 24th July, William Shakespeare, _of_ Stratford-upon-Avon, bought
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 for £440, subject to a rent payable to the
corporation of £17, and £5 to John Barker. This, at the rate of
interest then prevalent, was a dear purchase. In 1598 his "purchasing
these tithes" had been mooted at Stratford.
As to Shakespeare's dramatic work during this year I have no doubt that
_Lear_ was on the stage in May, when the old play was published. I
cannot otherwise account for the description of the latter in S. R. as a
_tragical_ history. Until Shakespeare's play this story had always been
treated as a comedy.
_Macbeth_ was probably produced in the winter, or in the following
year. When James I. was at Oxford in August, he had been addressed in
Latin by the three witches in this story, at an entertainment given by
the University. No doubt James would be pleased by their prophecies,
and desirous that they should be promulgated in the vulgar tongue. No
more likely date can be found for the holograph letter which he is said
to have addressed to Shakespeare. It may possibly be that that letter
was a command to write this play. But, putting conjecture aside, Oldys
says that Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, told Lintot that he had a
letter from the King to the dramatist.
On October 9, Shakespeare's company performed before the Mayor
and Corporation of Oxford. It may have been on this occasion that
Shakespeare made the acquaintance of the Davenants, and stopped for
the first time at the Crown, the license for which inn had only been
taken out by Davenant in the preceding year. Enough has been written by
others as to the scandal about Mrs. Davenant, and the tradition that
William Davenant the poet, the godson of Shakespeare, was really his
son. No foundation beyond a Joe Miller joke has been discovered for
this report.
At Court, ten plays were acted in the Christmas season by the King's
men; among them the revived _Mucedorus_, which, as we have seen, was an
apology for Jonson's satire in _Volpone_.
1606.
In this year, Shakespeare's portion of _Timon of Athens_, and that part
of _Cymbeline_ which is founded on so-called British history, were
probably written.
A play called _The Puritan_ (_Widow_), evidently by Middleton, was
acted by the Paul's boys this year, in which we find direct allusion to
_Richard III._ and _Macbeth_, both of which were probably on the stage.
The same scene contains a palpable parody of the action of the scene in
_Pericles_ in which Thaisa is recovered to life. That play must the
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