ii., and "Much Ado about Nothing." The last only was not mentioned by Meres in 1598; and as to the periods when we may suppose the others to have been written, we must refer the reader to our several Introductions, where we have given the existing information upon the subject. “The Chronicle History of Henry V." also came out in the same year, but without the name of Shakespeare upon the titlepage, and it is, if possible, a more imperfect and garbled representation of the play, as it proceeded from the author's pen, than the "Romeo and Juliet" of 1597. Whether any of the managers of theatres at this date might not sometimes be concerned in selling impressions of dramas, we have no sufficient means of deciding; but we do not believe it, and we are satisfied that dramatic authors in general were content with disposing of their plays to the several companies, and looked for no emolument to be derived from publication1. We are not without something like proof that actors now and then sold their parts in plays to booksellers, and thus, by the combination of them and other assistance, editions of popular plays were surreptitiously printed. We ought not to pass over without notice a circumstance which happened in 1600, and is connected with the question of the authorized or unauthorized publication of Shakespeare's plays. In that year a quarto impression of a play, called "The first part of the true and honourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham," came out, on the title-page of which the name of William Shakespeare appeared at length. We find by Henslowe's Diary that this drama was in fact the authorship of four poets, Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Robert Wilson and Richard Hathway; and to attribute it to Shakespeare was evidently a mere trick by the bookseller, Thomas] P[avier], in the hope that it would be bought as his work. The Nymph of Sicile: Noe, men may carous a Hesperian apples. And nowe, sir, a plague on This your poore towne, if to 't you bee not welcome! The eight lines in Nichols's " Progresses of James I." are from Drummond's Poem, and there can be little doubt that the whole speech was from his pen. It was a charge against Robert Greene, that, driven by the pressure of necessity, he had on one occasion raised money by making "a double sale "of his play called "Orlando Furioso," 1594, first to the players and afterwards to the press. Such may have been the fact, but it was unquestionably an exception to the ordinary rule. Malone remarked upon this fraud, but he was not aware, when he wrote, that it had been detected and corrected at the time, for since his day more than one copy of the "First Part, &c. of Sir John Oldcastle" has come to light, upon the title-page of which no name is to be found, the bookseller apparently having been compelled to cancel the leaf containing it. From the indifference Shakespeare seems uniformly to have displayed on matters of the kind, we may, possibly, conclude that the cancel was made at the instance of one of the four poets who were the real authors of the play; but we have no means of speaking decisively upon the point, and the step may have been in some way connected with the objection taken by living members of the Oldcastle family to the name, which had been assigned by Shakespeare in the first instance to Falstaff'. CHAPTER XIV. Death of John Shakespeare in 1601. Performance of" Twelfth Night" in February, 1602. Anecdote of Shakespeare and Burbage Manningham's Diary in the British Museum the authority for it. "Othello," acted by Burbage and others at the Lord Keeper's in August, 1602. Death of Elizabeth, and Arrival of James I. at Theobalds. English actors in Scotland in 1589, and again in 1599, 1600, and 1601: large rewards to them. The freedom of Aberdeen conferred in 1601 upon Laurence Fletcher, the leader of the English company in Scotland. Probability that Shakespeare never was in Scotland. THE father of our great poet died in the autumn of 1601, and he was buried at Stratford-upon-Avon. He seems to have left no will, and if he possessed any property, in land or houses, not made over to his family, we know not how it was divided. Of the eight children which his wife, Mary Arden, had brought him, the following were then alive, and might be present at the funeral:— -William, Gilbert, Joan, Richard, and Edmund. The latter years of John Shakespeare (who, if born in 1530 as Malone supposed, was in his seventy-first year) were doubtless easy and comfortable, and the prosperity of his eldest son must have placed him beyond the reach of pecuniary difficulties. Early in the spring of 1602, we meet with one of those 1 See the Introduction to "Henry IV." Part I. 2 On the 8th September, as we find by the subsequent entry in the parish register : "1601. Septembr. 8. Mr. Johanes Shakspearc." rare facts which distinctly show how uncertain all conjecture must be respecting the date when Shakespeare's dramas were originally written and produced. Malone and Tyrwhitt, in 1790, conjectured that "Twelfth Night" had been written in 1614: in his second edition Malone altered it to 1607, and Chalmers, weighing the evidence in favour of one date and of the other, thought neither correct, and fixed. upon 1613', an opinion in which Dr. Drake fully concurred2. The truth is, that we have irrefragable evidence, from an eye-witness, of its existence on 2nd February, 1602, when it was played at the Reader's Feast in the Middle Temple. This eye-witness was a barrister of the name of Manningham, who left a Diary behind him, which has been preserved in the British Museum; but as we have inserted his account of the plot in our introduction to the comedy, (Vol. iii. p. 317) no more is required here, than a mere mention of the circumstance. However, in another part of the same manuscript, he gives an anecdote of Shakespeare and Burbage, which we quote, without farther remark than that it has been supposed to depend upon the authority of Nicholas Tooley, but on looking at the original record again, we doubt whether it came from any such source. A "Mr. Towse" is repeatedly introduced as a person from whom Manningham derived information, and that name, though blotted, seems to be placed at the end of the paragraph, certainly without the addition of any Christian name. This circumstance may make some difference as regards the authenticity of the story, because we know not who Mr. Towse might be, while we are sure that Nicholas Tooley was a fellow-actor in the same company as both the individuals to whom the story relates. At the same time it was, very possibly, a mere invention of the "roguish players," originating, as was often the case, in some older joke, and applied to Shakespeare and Burbage, because their Christian names happened to be William and Richard3. 1 Supplemental Apology, &c. p. 467. 2 Shakspeare and his Times, vol. ii. p. 262. 3 MS. Harl No. 5353. 4 Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage, vol. i. p. 331. The Christian name is wanting in the Harl. MS. 5 See "Hist. Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage," vol. i. p. 331. The writer of that work thus introduces the anecdote :-"If in the course of my inquiries, I have been unlucky enough (I may perhaps say) to find anything which represents our great dramatist in a less favourable light, as a human being with human infirmities, I may lament it, but I do not therefore feel myself at liberty to conceal and suppress the fact " The anecdote is this. Upon a tyme when Burbage played Rich. 3, there was a citizen giew so larre in liking with him, that before shee went from the play, shee appointed him to come that night unto her, by the name of Rich. the 3. Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went be M* 66 Elizabeth, from the commencement of her reign, seems to have extended her personal patronage, as well as her public countenance, to the drama; and scarcely a Christmas or a Shrovetide can be pointed out during the forty-five years she occupied the throne, when there were not dramatic entertainments, either at Whitehall, Greenwich, Nonesuch, Richmond, or Windsor. The latest visit she paid to any of her nobility in the country was to the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, at Harefield, only nine or ten months before her death, and it was upon this occasion, in the very beginning of August, 1602, that Othello" (having been got up for her amusement, and the Lord Chamberlain's players brought down to the Lord Keeper's seat in Hertfordshire for the purpose) was represented before her. In this case, as in the preceding one respecting "Twelfth Night," all that we positively learn is that such drama was performed, and we are left to infer that it was a new play from other circumstances, as well as from the fact that it was customary on such festivities to exhibit some drama that, as a novelty, was then attracting public attention. Hence we are led to believe, that "Twelfth Night" (not printed until it formed part of the folio of 1623) was written at the end of 1600, or in the beginning of 1601; and that "Othello" (first published in 4to, 1622,) came from the author's pen about a year afterwards. In the memorandum ascertaining the performance of "Othello" at Harefield, the company by which it was represented is called "Burbages Players," that designation arising out of the fact, that he was looked upon as the leader of the association: he was certainly its most celebrated actor, and we find from other sources that he was the representative of "the Moor of Venice?" Whether fore, was entertained, and at his game ere Burbage came. Then, message being brought, that Rich. the 3. was at the dore, Shakespeare caused returne to be made, that William the Conqueror was before Rich. the 3. Shakespeare's name Willin." This story may be a piece of scandal, but there is no doubt that Burbage was the original Richard III. As to the custom of ladies inviting players home to supper, see Middleton's Mad World, my Masters," Act v. sc. 2. in " Dodsley's Old Plays." last edit. The players, in turn, sometimes invited the ladies, as we find by Field's Amends for Ladies," Act iii. sc. 4, in the supplementary volume to "Dodsley's Old Plays," published in 1829. 1 See the "Introduction" to "Othello." Also "The Egerton Papers," printed by the Camden Society, 1840, p. 343. 2 In a former note we have inserted the naines of some of the principal characters, in plays of the time sustained by Burbage, as they are given in the Epitaph upon his death, in 1619. Our readers may like to see the manner in which these characters are spoken of by the contemporaneous versifier. The production opens with this couplet:"Some skilful limner help me, if not so,, Some sad tragedian to express my woe;" Shakespeare had any and what part in the tragedy, either then or upon other occasions, is not known; but we do not think any argument, one way or the other, is to be drawn from the fact that the company, when at Harefield, does not seem to have been under his immediate government. Whether he was or was not one of the "players" in "Othello," in August 1602, there can be little doubt that as an actor, and moreover as one "excellent in his quality," he must have been often seen and applauded by Elizabeth. Chettle informs us after her death, in a passage already quoted, that she had "opened her royal ear to his lays;" but this was obviously in his capacity of dramatist, and we have no direct evidence to establish that Shakespeare had ever performed at Court'. which certainly does not promise much in the way of excellence; but the enumeration of parts is all that is valuable, and it is this :No more young Hamlet, though but scant of breath, Shall cry, Revenge! for his dear father's death: Poor Romeo never more shall tears beget For Juliet's love. and cruel Capulet: Harry shall not be seen as King or Prince, Which sought the bankrupt Merchant's pound of flesh, ** And his whole action he would change with ease But let me not forget one chiefest part Wherein.beyond the rest. he mov'd the heart; Then slew himself upon the bloody bed. All these, and many more, with him are dead," &c. The MS from which the above lines are copied seems, at least in one place. defective, but it might be cured by the addition of the words, "and not long since " 1 A ballad was published on the death of Elizabeth, in the commencement of which Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Greene," author of A Poet's Vision and a Prince's Glorie," 4to. 1603, were called upon to contribute some verses in honour of the late Queen: You poets all, brave Shakespeare, Johnson, Greene, Bestow your time to write for England's Queene," &c. |