did not, I am as sorry as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because myselfe haue seene his demeanor no lesse ciuill than he exclent in the qualitie he professes; besides, diuers of worship haue reported his vprightnes of dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting that approoues his art. For the first, whose learning I reuerence, and, at the perusing of Greenes booke, stroke out what then in conscience I thought he in some displeasure writ, or, had it beene true, yet to publish it was intollerable; him I would wish to vse me no worse than I deserue. I had onely in the copy this share; it was il written, as sometime Greenes hand was none of the best; licensd it must be, ere it could bee printed, which could neuer be if it might not be read: to be briefe, I writ it ouer, and, as neare as I could, followed the copy, onely in that letter I put something out, but in the whole booke not a worde in; for I protest it was all Greenes, not mine, nor Master Nashes, as some vniustly haue affirmed."44 A striking testimony indeed, not only to Shakespeare's ability as an actor and as an author, but to his worth as a man. In 1593 Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, and in "Mr. Collier observes (Life of Shakespeare, p. 102, sec. ed.): “We have some doubts of the authenticity of the 'Groatsworth of Wit' as a work by Greene. Chettle was a needy dramatist, and possibly wrote it in order to avail himself of the high popularity of Greene, then just dead." On which remark I must here repeat what I have said elsewhere (Account of Marlowe, &c. p. xxx. prefixed to his Works, ed. Dyce, 1858): "I cannot think these doubts well founded. The only important part of the tract, the Address to the play-wrights, has an earnestness which is scarcely consistent with forgery; and Chettle, though an indigent, appears to have been a respectable man. Besides, the Groatsworth of Wit, from beginning to end, closely resembles in style the other prose works of Greene." 1594 his Lucrece, issued from the press, both dedicated to Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton, who was Shakespeare's junior by more than nine years.45-That the Venus and Adonis (which the author styles "the first heir of my invention") was not a recent composition in 1593, is probable enough. Mr. Collier "feels morally certain that it was in being anterior to Shakespeare's quitting Stratford;"46 and it may have been: but I cannot agree with him in thinking that the scenery of the poem is any evidence that such was the case:"it seems," he says, " to have been written in the open air of a fine country like Warwickshire, with all the freshness of the recent impression of natural objects.' Mr. Collier might as well argue that, because As you like it has so much of pastoral life, it was written at a distance from the metropolis: and I have yet to learn that the fancy of Shakespeare could not luxuriate in rural images even amid the fogs of Southwark and the Blackfriars.47-Such was the popularity of Venus and Adonis that it had reached a fifth edition in 1602: the editions of the Lucrece appear to have followed each other less rapidly; yet both are mentioned together with equal praise by several contemporary writers,18 45 He was born Oct. 6th, 1573. 46 Life of Shakespeare, p. 88, sec. ed.: he thinks that Lucrece too might have been written at Stratford, p. 90: to which place Mr. Armitage Brown also refers the composition of both, Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems, &c. p. 18. 47 66 'Milton wrote his Paradise Lost in London, as did Thomson his three last Seasons and his charming Castle of Indolence." Note by J. Warton in his ed. of Pope's Works, vol. iv. p. 222. 45 A passage of Meres's Palladis Tamia, &c., 1598, which contains -for instance, by Barnfield in a copy of verses entitled A Remembrance of some English Poets,49 "And Shakespeare, thou, whose hony-flowing vaine Liue euer you, at least in fame liue euer: Well may the bodye dye, but fame dies neuer." Whether the dedication of the Venus and Adonis first introduced Shakespeare to the amiable and accomplished Southampton, or whether their acquaintance originated in the fondness of the latter for theatrical exhibitions,50-it appears that before long they were on terms as friendly and familiar as the usages of society would allow at a period when the profession of a player was reckoned far from reputable. "There is," says Rowe,1 " one instance so singular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakespear's, that if I had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William Davenant, who was probably very well ac a notice of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, will be subsequently cited. 49 Among Poems in diuers humors,-appended to his Encomion of Lady Pecunia, &c., 1598. 50 Throughout life Southampton retained his love for the drama. Rowland Whyte tells Sir Robert Sidney, in a letter dated Oct. 11th, 1599: "My Lord Southampton and Lord Rutland came [come] not to the court the one doth but very seldom : they pass away the tyme in London merely in going to plaies every day." Sidney Papers, ii. 132. At that date Southampton 66 came not to court," in consequence of the disgrace of his friend Essex, who was then in confinement at the Lord Keeper's house for having returned from Ireland without the permission of the queen. 1 Life of Shakespeare. quainted with his affairs, I should not have ventured to have inserted; that my Lord Southampton, at one time, gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." The general truth of this need hardly be questioned: Southampton was the liberal encourager of poets; and in the case of one whom he so esteemed and admired, we can easily believe that his generosity would exceed its wonted limits: but since the sum above mentioned was equivalent to nearly five thousand pounds in our own day, there is no rashness in affirming that tradition has magnified the gift.2 However uncertain we may be about any allusion to Shakespeare in the passage of Spenser's Teares of the Muses already considered, we can scarcely doubt that he is alluded to in the following lines of the same poet's Colin Clout's come home again, composed during 1594;4 4 "And there, though last not least, is Ætion; A gentler shepheard may no where be found; Malone observes, "It may be conjectured that before this poem was written, Shakespeare had produced on 2 During 1594 the building of the Globe Theatre on the Bankside was in progress (Richard Burbadge, as chief of the Lord Chamberlain's Players, having signed a bond for its construction, Dec. 22d, 1593, to a carpenter named Peter Street); and Mr. Collier conjectures that Lord Southampton "presented Shakespeare with 10007., to enable him to make good the money he was to produce, as his proportion, for the completion of the Globe theatre." Life of Shakespeare, p. 116, sec. ed. 3 P. 49. * See Malone's Life of Shakespeare, p. 226. the stage one or more of his historical plays, probably King Richard the Second and [King Richard the] Third,' "5—which tragedies might, with propriety, be said to "sound heroically" like the surname of their author, Shake-spear. The Lord Chamberlain's Servants, of whom Shakespeare was one, were in the habit of performing at the Globe on the Bankside (first opened either late in 1594 or early in 1595) and at the Blackfriars (built in 1576) during summer they acted at the Globe; and during winter at the Blackfriars, which, though smaller than the Globe, was more effectually sheltered from the weather.7 6 Though his occupation obliged him to reside almost constantly in London,-and in 1596, at least, he appears to have been living in Southwark, near the Beargarden,—it is evident that Shakespeare never ceased 5 Malone's Life of Shakespeare, p. 274. 6 Here, in the former edition of this Memoir, I inserted, from different publications of Mr. Collier,-first, A Petition to the Privy Council from the Lord Chamberlain's Servants, praying that they might be permitted to carry on the repairs of, and to continue their performances in, the Blackfriars; secondly, a portion of a Letter to Henslowe concerning that Petition. But the Petition, after an official inquiry into its genuineness, has been pronounced to be spurious; and the original of the Letter, I am told, is now not to be found. See both these documents in Appendix, No. III. and No. IV. It appears that, before the erection of the Globe, they did not perform at the Blackfriars throughout the whole year, that they occasionally played at the Curtain in Shoreditch, and at the Newington Butts Theatre. 8 "From a paper now before me, which formerly belonged to Edward Alleyn the player, our poet appears to have lived in Southwark, near the Bear-garden, in 1596." Malone's Inquiry into the Authenticity of certain Papers, &c. p. 215. This paper is supposed by Mr. Collier to have |