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garbled and fraudulent edition of 1603: Shakespeare, in our opinion, had nothing to do with the one or with the other. He allowed most mangled and deformed copies of several of his greatest works to be circulated for many years, and did not think it worth his while to expose the fraud, which remained, in several cases, undetected, as far as the great body of the public was concerned, until the appearance of the folio of 1623. Our great dramatist's indifference upon this point seems to have been shared by many, if not by most, of his contemporaries; and if the quarto impression of any one of his plays be more accurate in typography than another, we feel satisfied that it arose out of the better state of the manuscript, or the greater pains and fidelity of the printer.

We may here point out a strong instance of the carelessness of dramatic authors of that period respecting the condition in which their productions came into the world: others might be adduced without much difficulty, but one will be sufficient. Before his "Rape of Lucrece," a drama first printed in 1608, Thomas Heywood inserted an address to the reader, informing him (for it was an exception to the general rule) that he had given his consent to the publication; but those who have examined that impression, and its repetition in 1609, will be aware that it is full of the very grossest blunders, which the commonest corrector of the press, much less the author, if he had seen the sheets, could not have allowed to pass. Nearly all plays of that time were most defectively printed, but Heywood's "Rape of Lucrece," as it originally came from the press with the author's imprimatur, is, we think, the worst specimen of typography that ever met our observation'.

Returning to the important list of twelve plays furnished by Meres, we may add, that although he does not mention them, there can be no doubt that the three parts of " Henry VI." had been repeatedly acted before 1598: we may possibly infer, that they were not inserted because they were then well known not to be the sole work of Shakespeare.

1 We cannot wonder at the errors in plays surreptitiously procured and hastily printed, which was the case with many impressions of that day. Upon this point Heywood is an unexceptionable witness, and he tells us of one of his dramas,

"that some by stenography drew

The plot, put it in print, scarce one word true.'

Other dramatists make the same complaint; and there can be no doubt that it was the practice so to defraud authors and actors, and to palm wretchedly disfigured pieces upon the public as genuine and authentic works. It was, we are satisfied, in this way that Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," "Henry V.," and "Hamlet," first got out into the world.

By "Henry IV" it is most probable that Meres intended both parts of that "history."

66

Love's Labour's Won" has been supposed, since the time of Dr. Farmer, to be " All's Well that ends Well," under a different title: our notion is (see Introduction) that the original name given to the play was" Love's Labour's Won ;" and that, when it was revived with additions and alterations, in 1605 or 1606, it received also a new appellation.

In connexion with the question regarding the interest taken by Shakespeare in the publication of his works, we may notice the impudent fraud practised in the year after the appearance of the list furnished by Meres. In 1599 came out a collection of short miscellaneous poems, under the title of "The Passionate Pilgrim :" they were all of them imputed, by W. Jaggard the printer, or by W. Leake the bookseller, to Shakespeare, although some of them were notoriously by other poets. In the Introduction to our reprint of this little work we have stated all the known particulars regarding it; but Shakespeare, as far as appears from any evidence that has descended to us, took no notice of the trick played upon him: possibly he never heard of it, or if he heard of it, left it to its own detection, not thinking it worth while to interfere1. It serves to establish, what certainly could not otherwise be doubted, the popularity of Shakespeare in 1599, and the manner in which a scheming printer and stationer endeavoured to take advantage of that popularity.

Yet it is singular, if we rely upon several coeval authorities, how little our great dramatist was about this period known and admired for his plays. Richard Barnfield published his "Encomion of Lady Pecunia," in 1598, (the year in which the list of twelve of Shakespeare's plays was printed by Meres) and from a copy of verses entitled "Remembrance of some English Poets," we quote the following notice of Shakespeare:

"And Shakespeare thou, whose honey-flowing vein,
Pleasing the world, thy praises doth contain,
Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece, sweet and chaste,
Thy name in Fame's immortal book hath plac'd;
Live ever you, at least in fame live ever:
Well may the body die, but fame die never."

Here Shakespeare's popularity, as "pleasing the world," is noticed; but the proofs of it are not derived from the

1 When "The Passionate Pilgrim" was reprinted in 1612, with some additional pieces by Thomas Heywood, that dramatist pointed out the imposition, and procured the cancelling of the title-page in which the authorship of the whole was assigned to Shakespeare.

stage, where his dramas were in daily performance before crowded audiences, but from the success of his "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," which had gone through various editions. Precisely to the same effect, but a still stronger instance, we may refer to a play in which both Burbage and Kempe are introduced as characters, the one of whom had obtained such celebrity in the tragic, and the other in the comic parts in Shakespeare's dramas: we allude to "The Return from Parnassus," which was indisputably acted before the death of Queen Elizabeth. In a scene where two young students are discussing the merits of particular poets, one of them speaks thus of Shakespeare:

"Who loves Adonis love or Lucrece rape,

His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life;
Could but a graver subject him content,
Without love's foolish, lazy languishment."

Not the most distant allusion is made to any of his dramatic productions, although the poet criticised by the young students immediately before Shakespeare was Ben Jonson, who was declared to be "the wittiest fellow, of a bricklayer, in England,” but “ a slow inventor." Hence we might be led to imagine that, even down to as late a period as the commencement of the seventeenth century, the reputation of Shakespeare depended rather upon his poems than upon his plays; almost as if productions for the stage were not looked upon, at that date, as part of the recognized literature of the country

CHAPTER XIII.

New Place, or, "the great house," in Stratford, bought by Shakespeare in 1597. Removal of the Lord Admiral's players from the Bankside to the Fortune theatre in Cripplegate. Rivalry of the Lord Chamberlain's and Lord Admiral's company. Order in 1600 confining the acting of plays to the Globe and Fortune; the influence of the two associations occupying those theatres. Disobedience of various companies to the order of 1600. Plays by Shakespeare published in 1600. The "First Part of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle," printed in 1600, falsely imputed to Shakespeare, and cancelling of the title-page.

Ir will have been observed, that, in the document we have produced, relating to the quantity of corn and malt in Stratford, it is stated that William Shakespeare's residence was in that division of the borough called Chapel-street ward.

This is an important circumstance, because we think it may be said to settle decisively the disputed question, whether our great dramatist purchased what was known as "the great house," or "New Place," before, in, or after 1597. It was situated in Chapel-street ward, close to the chapel of the Holy Trinity. We are now certain that he had a house in the ward in February, 1597-8, and that he had ten quarters of corn there; and we need not doubt that it was the dwelling which had been built by Sir Hugh Clopton in the reign of Henry VII: the Cloptons subsequently sold it to a person of the name of Botte', and he to Hercules Underhill, who disposed of it to Shakespeare. We therefore find him, in the beginning of 1598, occupying one of the best houses, in one of the best parts of Stratford. He who had quitted his native town about twelve years before, poor and comparatively friendless, was able, by the profits of his own exertions, and the exercise of his own talents, to return to it, and to establish his family in more comfort and opulence than, as far as is known, they had ever before enjoyed.2

1 Botte probably lived in it in 1564, when he contributed 4s. to the poor who were afflicted with the plague: this was the highest amount subscribed, the bailiff only giving 3s. 4d., and the head alderman 2s. 8d. 2 That Shakespeare was considered a man who was in a condition to lend a considerable sum, in the autumn of 1598, we have upon the evidence of Richard Quyney, (father to Thomas Quyney, who subsequently married Shakespeare's youngest daughter Judith) who then applied to him for a loan of 307., equal to about 150. of our present money, and in terms which do not indicate any doubt that our poet would be able to make the advance. This application is contained in a letter which must have been sent by hand, as it unluckily contains no direction it is the only letter yet discovered addressed to Shakespeare, and it was first printed by Boswell from Malone's papers, vol. ii. p. 585.

"Loving Contryman, I am bolde of yow, as of a frende, craveing yowr helpe wth xxxb, uppon Mr Bushell & my securytee, or Mr Myttens with me. Mr Rosswell is not come to London as yeate, & I have especiall cawse. Yow shall frende me muche in helpeing me out of all the debeits I owe in London, I thanck god, and muche quiet to my mynde wch wolde not be indebited. I am now towards the Cowrte, in hope yr answer for the dispatche of my Buysenes. Yow shall nether loose creddytt nor monney by me, the Lorde willinge; & nowe butt pswade your selfe soe as I hope & yow shall nott need to feare; but with all hartie thanckfullness I wyll holde my tyme & content

mr

your frend, & yf we Bargaine farther, yow shall be the paie your selfe. My tyme bidds me to hasten to an ende, & soe I comitt thys [to] your care & hope of yowr helpe. I feare I shall nott be backe this night from the Cowrte. haste. the Lorde be wth yow & wth us all. amen. From the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25 october 1598. "Yowrs in all kyndenes,

"To my Loveing good frend

& contryman Mr Wm

Shackespe thees."

"RYC. QUYNEY.

The deficiency as regards the direction of the letter, lamented by Malone, is not of so much importance, because we have proved that

We consider the point that Shakespeare had become owner of New Place in or before 1597 as completely made out, as, at such a distance of time, and with such imperfect information upon nearly all matters connected with his history could be at all expected'.

We apprehend likewise, as we have already remarked (p. lx), that the confirmation of arms in 1596, obtained as we believe by William Shakespeare, had reference to the permanent and substantial settlement of his family in Stratford, and to the purchase of a residence there consistent with the altered circumstances of that family-altered by its increased wealth and consequence, owing to the success of our great poet both as an actor and a dramatist.

The removal of the Lord Admiral's players, under Henslowe and Alleyn, from the Rose theatre on the Bankside, to the new house called the Fortune, in Golding-lane, Cripplegate, soon after the date to which we are now referring, may lead to the opinion that that company did not find itself equal to sustain the rivalship with the Lord Chamberlain's servants, under Shakespeare and Burbage, at the Globe. That theatre was opened, as we have adduced reasons to believe, in the spring of 1595: the Rose was a considerably older building, and the necessity for repairing it might enter into the calculation, when Henslowe and

Shakespeare was resident in Southwark in 1596; and he probably was so in 1593, because the reasons which, we have supposed, induced him to take up his abode there would still be in operation, in as much force as ever.

1 In the garden of this house it is believed that Shakespeare planted a mulberry tree, about the year 1609: such is the tradition, and we are disposed to think that it is founded in truth. In 1609, King James was anxious to introduce the mulberry (which had been imported about half a century earlier) into general cultivation, and the records in the State Paper Office show that in that year letters were written upon the subject to most of the justices of peace and deputy lieutenants in the kingdom: the plants were sold by the State at 6s. the hundred. On the 25th November, 1609, 9351. were paid out of the

public purse for the planting of mulberry trees "near the palace of Westminster." The mulberry tree, said to have been planted by Shakespeare, was in existence up to about the year 1755; and in the spring of 1742, Garrick, Macklin, and Delane the actor (not Dr. Delany, the friend of Swift, as Mr. Dyce, in his compendious Memoir. p. lix., states,) were entertained under it by Sir Hugh Clopton. New Place remained in possession of Shakespeare's successors until the Restoration; it was then repurchased by the Clopton family about 1752 it was sold by the executor of Sir Hugh Clopton to a clergyman of the name of Gastrell, who, on some offence taken at the authorities of the borough of Stratford on the subject of rating the house, pulled it down, and cut down the mulberry tree. According to a letter in the Annual Register of 1760, the wood was bought by a silversmith, who "made many odd things of it for the curious." In our time we have seen as many relics, said to have been formed from this one mulberry tree, as could hardly have been furnished by all the mulberry trees in the county of Warwick.

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