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in the town-hall, if that could be granted to them, or else- | Burbage, the father of the celebrated Richard Burbage, where. It so happens that the earliest record of the re- (the representative of many of the heroes in the works of presentation of any plays in Stratford-upon-Avon, is dated our great dramatist) and one of the original builders of the in the year when John Shakespeare was bailiff: the precise Blackfriars theatre, migrated to London from that part of season is not stated, but it was in 1569, when "the Queen's the kingdom, and the name of Thomas Greene, who was Players" (meaning probably, at this date, one company of indisputably from Stratford, will be familiar to all who are her" Interlude Players," retained under that name by her acquainted with the detailed history of our stage at that father and grandfather) received 9s. out of the corporate period. Malone supposed that Thomas Greene might have funds, while the Earl of Worcester's servants in the same introduced Shakespeare to the theatre, and at an early date year obtained only 12d. In 1573, just before the grant of he was certainly a member of the company called the Lord the royal license to them, the Earl of Leicester's Play- Chamberlain's servants: how long he continued we are ers, of whom James Burbage was the leader, received 6s. without information, although we know that he became, and 8d.; and in the next year the companies acting under the perhaps not long after 1589, an actor in the rival associanames of the Earls of Warwick and Worcester obtained 17s. tion under Alleyn, and that he was one of Queen Anne's and 5s. 7d. respectively. It is unnecessary to state precisely Players when, on the accession of James I., she took a comthe sums disbursed at various times by the bailiff, alder-pany under her patronage. If any introduction to the Lord men, and burgesses, but we may notice, that in 1577 the Chamberlain's servants had been necessary for Shakespeare players of the Earls of Leicester and Worcester again ex- at an early date, he could easily have procured it from hibited; and in 1579 we hear of a company in Stratford several other quarters. patronized by one of the female nobility, (a very unusual The frequent performances of various associations of accircumstance) the Countess of Essex2. "Lord Strange's tors in Stratford and elsewhere, and the taste for theatricals men" (at this date not players, but tumblers) also exhibited thereby produced, may have had the effect of drawing not in the same year, and in 1580 the Earl of Derby's players a few young men in Warwickshire from their homes, to were duly rewarded. The same encouragement was given follow the attractive and profitable profession; and such to the companies of the Earls of Worcester and Berkeley in may have been the case with Shakespeare, without sup1581; but in 1582 we only hear of the Earl of Worcester's posing that domestic differences, arising out of disparity of actors having been in the town. In 1583 the earl of Berke-age or any other cause, influenced his determination, or that ley's players, and those of Lord Chandois, performed in he was driven away by the terrors of Sir Thomas Lucy. Stratford, while, in the next year, three companies appear It has been matter of speculation, and of mere speculato have visited the borough. In 1586 "the players" (without mentioning what company) exhibited; and in 1587 no fewer than five associations were rewarded: viz. the Queen's Players, and those of the Earls of Essex, Leicester, and Stafford, with "another company," the nobleman countenancing them not being named.

It is to be remarked that several of the players, with whom Shakespeare was afterwards connected, appear to have come originally frem Stratford or its neighbourhood. A family of the name of Burbage was resident in Stratford, and one member of it attained to the highest dignity in the corporation®: in the Muster-book of the county of Warwick, in 1569, preserved in the State-paper office, we meet in various places with the name of Burbage, Slye, and Heminge, although not with the same Christian names as those of the actors in Shakespeare's plays: the usual combination of Nicholas Tooley is, however, found there; and he was a well-known member of the company to which Shakespeare was attached'. It is very distinctly ascertained that James

1 We may conclude that the Earl of Worcester's players did not perform, but that 12d. was given them as some compensation, and to aid them on their road to another place.

2 The widow of Walter Devereux, whom Leicester very soon afterwards married. It is to be observed, that as early as 1482 the Earl of Essex had a company of players travelling under the protection of his name, and that on the 9th January Lord Howard, through one of his stewards, gave them a reward. This Earl of Essex was, however, of a different family, viz. Henry Bourchier, who was created in 1461, and who died in 1483. See the Household Book of John Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, printed in 1844 for the Roxburghe Club, p. 149.

3 In the account of the cost of the Revels for the year 1581-2, we are told that "sundrey feates of tumbling and activitie were shewed before her Majestie on newe yeares night by the Lord Straunge his servauntes." See Mr. P. Cunningham's Extracts from the Revels accounts, p. 177. Malone, who gleaned these particulars from the accounts of the Chamberlains of Stratford, mis-stated this date 1510, but we have ascertained it to be 1580, as indeed seems evident.

5 This was most likely one of the companies which the Queen had directed to be formed, consisting of a selection of the best actors from the associations of several of the nobility, and not either of the distinct bodies of "interlude players" who had visited Stratford while John Shakespeare was bailiff.

6 Malone attributes the following order, made by the corporation of Stratford many years after the date to which we are now adverting, to the growth of puritanism; but possibly it originated in other motives, and may even have been connected with the attraction of young men from their homes:

"17. Dec. 46 Eliz: 1602. At this Hall yt is ordered, that there shall be no plays or interludes played in the Chamber, the Guildhall, nor in any parte of the howse or courte, from hensforward, upon payne, that whoever of the Baylif, Aldermen, or Burgesses of the boroughe shall give leave or license thereunto, shall forfeyt for everie offence-xs."

tion, for nobody has pretended to bring forward a particle of proof upon the question, whether Shakespeare visited Kenilworth Castle, when Queen Elizabeth was entertained there by the Earl of Leicester in 1575, and whether the pomp and pageantry he then witnessed did not give a colour to his mind, and a direction to his pursuits. Considering that he was then only in his eleventh year, we own, that we cannot believe he found his way into that gorgeous and august assembly. Kenilworth was fourteen miles distant: John Shakespeare, although he had been bailiff, and was still head-alderman of Stratford, was not a man of sufficient rank and importance to be there in any official capacity; and he probably had not means to equip himself and his son for such an exhibition. It may be very well as a matter of fancy to indulge such a notion, but, as it seems to us, every reasonable probability is against it. That Shakespeare heard of the extensive preparations, and of the magnificent entertainment, there can be no doubt: it was an event calculated to create a strong sensation in

7 Nicholas Tooley, was of Burmington, and he is said to be possessed of 20., goods. We are indebted to Mr. Lemon for directing our attention to this document, which he only recently discovered in the public archives.

8 It has been conjectured, but, we believe, upon no evidence beyond the following entry in the register of deaths at Stratford, that Greene was in some way related to Shakespeare :

"1589. March 6. Thomas Green, alias Shakspere." This was perhaps the father of Thomas Greene, the actor, who was a comedian of great reputation and popularity, and became so famous in a character called Bubble, that the play of the "City Gallant," (acted by the Queen's Players) in which it occurs, with the constanly repeated phrase, Tu quoque, was named after him. In the account of the Revels of 1611-12, it is called first "the City Gallant," and afterwards Tu quoque: it was printed in 1614, under the double title of "Greene's Tu Quoque, or the City Gallant," preceded by an epistle from T. Heywood, by which it appears that Greene was then dead. A piece of verse, called "A Poet's Vision and a Prince's Glory," 1603, was written by a Thomas Greene, but it may be doubted, whether this were the comedian. The Greenes were a very respectable family at Stratford, and one of them was a solicitor settled in London.

9 Upon this point we differ from the Rev. Mr. Halpin in his ingenious and agreeable "Essay upon Oberon's Vision," printed by the Shakespeare Society. Bishop Percy, in his "Reliques," was the first to start the idea that Shakespeare had been present at the entertainment at Kenilworth, and the Rev. Mr. Halpin calls it a "pleasant conceit," which had been countenanced by Malone and adopted by Dr. Drake: nevertheless, he afterwards seriously argues the matter, and arrives at the conclusion that Shakespeare was present in right of his gentry on both sides of the family. This appears to us even a more "pleasant conceit" than that of Percy, Malone, and Drake, who supposed Shakespeare to have gone to Kenilworth "under the wing" of Thomas Greene.

the whole of that part of the country; and if the cele- were "warned" or summoned, from the year 1579 downbrated passage in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (act. ii. wards. This date of 1579 is the more important, although sc. 1), had any reference to it, it did not require that Shake- Malone was not aware of the fact, because it was the same speare should have been present in order to have written year in which John Shakespeare was so distressed for it, especially when, if necessary, he had Gascoyne's "Princely money, that he disposed of his wife's small property in SnitPleasures of Kenilworth" and Laneham's "Letter" to as- terfield for 4l. sist his memory1.

CHAPTER VI.

John Shakespeare removed from his situation as alderman of Stratford, and its possible connexion with William Shakespeare's departure for London in the latter end of 1586. William Shakespeare a sharer in the Blackfriars Theatre in 1589. Complaints against actors: two companies silenced for bringing Martin Mar-prelate on the stage. Certificate of the sharers in the Blackfriars. Shakespeare, in all probability, a good actor: our older dramatists often players. Shakespeare's earliest compositions for the stage. His "Venus and Adonis " and "Lucrece" probably written

before he came to London.

We have thus additional reasons for thinking, that the unprosperous state of John Shakespeare's pecuniary circumstances had induced him to abstain from attending the ordinary meetings of the corporation, and finally led to his removal from the office of alderman. What connexion this last event may have had with William Shakespeare's determination to quit Stratford cannot be known from any circumstances that have since come to light, but it will not fail to be remarked, that in point of date the events seem to have been coincident.

Malone "supposed" that our great poet left Stratford "about the year 1586 or 15875," but it seems to us more likely that the event happened in the former, than in the latter year. His twins, Hamnet and Judith, were baptized, as we have shown, early in February, 1585, and his father did not cease to be an alderman until about a year and seven months afterwards. The fact, that his son had become a IN reference to the period when our great dramatist aban-player, may have had something to do with the lower rank doned his native town for London, we think that sufficient his brethren of the bench thought he ought to hold in the attention has not been paid to an important incident in the corporation; or the resolution of the son to abandon his life of his father. John Shakespeare was deprived of his home may have arisen out of the degradation of the father gown as alderman of Stratford in the autumn of 1586: we say in his native town; but we cannot help thinking that the that he was deprived of his gown, not because any resolu- two circumstances were in some way connected, and that tion precisely warranting those terms was come to by the the period of the departure of William Shakespeare, to seek rest of the corporation, but because it is quite evident that his fortune in a company of players in the metropolis, may such was the fact, from the tenor of the entry in the records be fixed in the latter end of 1586. of the borough. On the 6th Sept. 1586, the following memorandum was made in the register by the town clerk2:. "At this hall William Smythe and Richard Courte are chosen to be aldermen, in the place of John Wheler, and John Shaxspere; for that Mr. Wheler doth desyer to be put out of the companye, and Mr. Shaxspere doth not come to the halles, when they be warned, nor bath not done of a long tyme."

.

Nevertheless, we do not hear of him in London until three years afterwards, when we find him a sharer in the Blackfriars theatre. It had been constructed (or, possibly, if not an entirely new building, some large edifice had been adapted to the purpose) upon part of the site of the dissolved monastery, because it was beyond the jurisdiction of the lord mayor and corporation of London, who had always evinced decided hostility to dramatic representations. The According to this note, it was Wheler's wish to be re-undertaking seems to have been prosperous from the commoved from his situation of alderman, and had such also mencement; and in 1589 no fewer than sixteen performers been the desire of John Shakespeare, we should, no doubt, were sharers in it, including, besides Shakespeare and Burhave been told so therefore, we must presume that he bage, Thomas Greene of Stratford-upon-Avon, and Nicholas was not a consenting, or at all events not a willing, party Tooley, also a Warwickshire man: the association was probto this proceeding; but there is no doubt, as Malone ascer- ably thus numerous on account of the flourishing state of tained from an inspection of the ancient books of the bo- the concern, many being desirous to obtain an interest in its rough, that he had ceased to attend the halls, when they receipts. In 1589 some general complaints seem to have 1 Gascoyne's "Princely Pleasures," &c. was printed in 1576, and quotation from "a Jig," or humorous theatrical ballad, called "The Laneham's "Letter" from Kenilworth in the preceding year. Gas- Horse-load of Fools," which, in the manuscript in which it has been coyne was himself a performer in the shows, and, according to Lane-handed down to us, is stated to have been written by Richard Tarlham, represented "a Savage Man," who made a speech to the Queen ton, and in all probability was delivervd by him before applauding as she came from hunting. Robert Laneham, the affected but clever audiences at the Theatre in Shoreditch. Tarlton introduces to the writer of the "Letter," was most likely (as is suggested in the spectator a number of puppets, accompanying the exhibition by saBridgewater Catalogue, 4to, 1837, p. 162) related to John Laneham, tirical stanzas upon each, and he thus speaks of one of them :the player, who was one of the Earl of Leicester's players, and is named in the royal license of 1574. "Robert Laneham," observes "This foole comes from the citizens; the compiler of that Catalogue, seems to have been quite as much a comedian upon paper, as John Laneham was upon the stage." 2 William Tyler was the bailiff of the year. See Malone's Shakspeare by Boswell, vol. ii.

P. 164.

3 This use of the word "warned" occurs several times in Shakespeare in "Antony and Cleopatra," (p. ) Octavius tells Antony, "They mean to warn us at Philippi here :"

and in "King John," (p. ) after King Philip has said, (6 Some trumpet summon hither to the walls These men of Angiers,"

a citizen exclaims from the battlements,

"Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?"

4 We do not imagine that one event, or the other, was influenced in any way by the execution of Edward Arden, a maternal relative of the family, at the close of 1583. According to Dugdale, it was more than suspected that he came to his end through the power of Leicester, who was exasperated against him, "for galling him by certain harsh expressions, touching his private accesses to the Countess of Essex," while she was still the wife of Walter Devereux. It does not appear that there had been any intercourse between Edward Arden, then the head of his family, and Mary Shakespeare, the youngest daughter of the junior branch.

5 Shakspeare by Boswell, vol. ii. p. 1.57.

6 The excess to which the enmity between the corporation of London and the players was carried may be judged by the following

Nay, prithee doe not frowne;

I knowe him as well as you

By his liverie gowne:

Of a rare horne-mad familie.

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been made, that improper matters were introduced into plays; and it is quite certain that "the children of Paul's," as the acting choir-boys of that cathedral were called, and the association of regular professional performers occupying the Theatre in Shoreditch at this date, had introduced Martin Mar-prelate upon their stages, in a manner that had given great offence to the Puritans. Tylney, the master of the revels, had interposed, and having brought the matter to the knowledge of Lord Burghley, two bodies of players, those of the Lord Admiral and Lord Strange, (the latter by this time having advanced from tumblers to actors) had been summoned before the lord mayor, and ordered to desist from all performances'. The silencing of other associations would probably have been beneficial to that exhibiting at Blackfriars, and if no proceeding of any kind had been instituted against James Burbage and his partners, we may presume that they would have continued quietly to reap their augmented harvest. We are led to infer, however, that they also apprehended, and experienced, some measure of restraint, and feeling conscious that they had given no just ground of offence, they transmitted to the privy council a sort of certificate of their good conduct, asserting that they had never introduced into their representations matters of state and religion, and that no complaint of that kind had ever been preferred against them. This certificate passed into the hands of Lord Ellesmere, then attorneygeneral, and it has been preserved among his papers. We subjoin a copy of it in a note2.

It seems rather strange that this testimonial should have come from the players themselves: we should rather have expected that they would have procured a certificate from some disinterested parties; and we are to take it merely as a statement on their own authority, and possibly as a sort of challenge for inquiry. When they say that no complaint of the kind had ever been preferred against them, we are of course to understand that the assertion applies to a time previous to some general representation against theatres, which had been made in 1589, and in which the sharers at the Blackfriars thought themselves unjustly included. In this document we see the important fact, as regards the biography of Shakespeare, that in 1589 he was, not only an actor, but a sharer in the undertaking at Blackfriars; and whatever inference may be drawn from it, we find that his name, following eleven others, precedes those of Kempe, Johnson, Goodale, and Armyn. Kempe, we know, was the successor of Tarlton (who died in 1588) in comic parts3, and must have been an actor of great value

1 All the known details of these transactions may be seen in "The Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage," vol. i. p. 271, &c. 2 It is on a long slip of paper, very neatly written, but without any names appended.

and eminence in the company: Johnson, as appears by the royal license, had been one of the theatrical servants of the Earl of Leicester in 1574: of Goodale we have no account, but he bore a Stratford name; and Armyn, though he had been instructed by Tarlton', was perhaps at this date quite young, and of low rank in the association. The situation in the list which the name of Shakespeare occupies may seem to show that, even in 1589, he was a person of considerable importance in relation to the success of the sharers in Blackfriars theatre. In November, 1589, he was in the middle of his twenty-sixth year, and in the full strength, if not in the highest maturity, of his mental and bodily powers. We can have no hesitation in believing that he originally came to London, in order to obtain his livelihood by the stage, and with no other view. Aubrey tells us that he was "inclined naturally to poetry and acting" and the poverty of his father, and the difficulty of obtaining profitable employment in the country for the maintenance of his family, without other motives, may have induced him readily to give way to that inclination. Aubrey, who had probably taken due means to inform himself, adds, that "he did act exceedingly well;" and we are convinced that the opinion, founded chiefly upon a statement by Rowe, that Shakespeare was a very moderate performer, is erroneous. It seems likely that for two or three years he employed himself chiefly in the more active duties of the profession he had chosen; and Peele', who was a very practised and popular play-wright, considerably older than Shakespeare, was a member of the company, without saying anything of Wadeson, regarding whom we know nothing but that at a subsequent date he was one of Henslowe's dramatists; or of Armyn, then only just coming forward as a comic performer. There is reason to think that Peele did not continue one of the Lord Chamberlain's servants after 1590, and his extant dramas were acted by the Queen's players, or by those of the Lord Admiral: to the latter association Peele seems subsequently to have been attached, and his "Battle of Alcazar," printed in 1594, purports on the title-page to have been played by them. While Peele remained a member of the company of the Lord Chamberlain's players, Shakespeare's services as a dramatist may not materially have interfered with his exertions as an actor; but afterwards, when Peele had joined a rival establishment, he may have been much more frequently called upon to employ his pen, and then his value in that department becoming clearly understood, he was less frequently a performer.

Out of the sixteen sharers of which the company he be

manuscript play of "Sir Thomas More," (Harl. Coll., No. 7368) which, we may conjecture, was licensed for the stage before 1592.

6 This fact is stated in a publication entitled "Tarlton's Jests,' of which the earliest extant impression is in 1611, but they were no doubt collected and published very soon after the death of Tarlton in 1588.

These are to certifie your right Honble Lordships, that her Majesty's poore Playeres, James Burbadge, Richard Burbadge, John Lancham, Thomas Greene, Robert Wilson, John Taylor, Anth. Wadeson, Thomas Pope, George Peele, Augustine Phillipps, Nicholas Towley, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William John-Tale of Troy," in 1604, as well as in 1589, containing such variason, Baptiste Goodale, and Robert Armyn, being all of them sharers in the blacke Fryers playehouse, have never given cause of displeasure, in that they have brought into their playes maters of state and Religion, unfitt to be handled by them, or to be presented before lewde spectators: neither hath anie complaynte in that kinde ever bene preferrde against them, or anie of them. Wherefore, they trust most humblie in your Lordships consideration of their former good behaviour, being at all tymes readie, and willing, to yeelde obedience to any command whatsoever your Lordships in your wisdome may thinke in such case meete, &c.

"Nov. 1589."

Here we see that Shakespeare's name stands twelfth in the enumeration of the members of the company; but we do not rest much on the succession in which they are inserted, because among the four names which follow that of our great dramatist are certainly two performers, one of them of the highest reputation, and the other of long standing in the profession.

3 In the dedication of his "Almond for a Parrot," printed without date, but not later than 1589, (the year of which we are now speaking) Thomas Nash calls Kempe "Jestmonger and Vice-gerent general to the ghost of Dick Tarlton." Heywood, in his "Apology for Actors," 1612, (Shakespeare Society's reprint, p. 43) tells us that Kempe succeeded Tarlton as well in the favour of her Majesty, as in the opinion and good thoughts of the general audience."

He was also one of the executors under Tarlton's will, and was also trustee for his son Philip.. See p. xiii. What became of Johnson after 1589, we have no information.

5 He was one of the actors, with Laneham, in the anonymous

7 When the Rev. Mr. Dyce published his edition of Peele's Works, he was not aware that there was any impression of that author's tions as show that it must have been corrected and augmented by Peele after its first appearance. The impression of 1604 is the most diminutive volume, perhaps, ever printed, not exceeding an inch and a half high by an inch wide, with the following title: The Tale of Troy. By G. Peele, M. of Artes in Oxford. Printed by A. H. 1604." We will add only two passages out of many, to prove the nature of the changes and additions made by Peele after the original publication. In the edition of 1604 the poem thus opens:

"In that world's wounded part, whose waves yet swell
With everlasting showers of tears that fell,
And bosom bleeds with great effuze of blood
That long war shed, Troy, Neptune's city, stood,
Gorgeously built, like to the house of Fame,
Or court of Jove, as some describe the same,
'" &c.

The four lines which commence the second page of Mr. Dyce's edition are thus extended in the copy of 1604 :

"His court presenting to our human eyes
An earthly heaven, or shining Paradise,
Where ladies troop'd in rich disguis'd attire,
Glistring like stars of pure immortal fire.
Thus happy, Priam, didst thou live of yore,
That to thy fortune heavens could add no more."

Peele was dead in 1598, and it is likely that there were one or more intervening impressions of "The Tale of Troy," between 1589 and 1604.

longed to consisted in 1589, (besides the usual proportion of | trodden the stage. We have no hint that Dekker, Chap"hired men," who only took inferior characters) there would man, or Marston, though contemporary with Ben Jonson, be more than a sufficient number for the representation of were actors; and Massinger, Beaumont, Fletcher, Middleton, most plays, without the assistance of Shakespeare. He was, Daborne, and Shirley, who may be said to have followed doubtless, soon busily and profitably engaged as a dra- them, as far as we now know, never had anything to do with matist; and this remark on the rareness of his appearance the performance of their own dramas, or of those of other on the stage will of course apply more strongly in his after-poets. In their day the two departments of author and life, when he produced one or more dramas every year. actor seem to have been generally distinct, while the conHis instructions to the players in "Hamlet" have often trary was certainly the case some years anterior to the debeen noticed as establishing that he was admirably ac-mise of Elizabeth.

"The

quainted with the theory of the art, and if, as Rowe as- It is impossible to determine, almost impossible to guess, serts, he only took the short part of the Ghost' in this what Shakespeare had or had not written in 1589. That tragedy, we are to recollect that even if he had considered he had chiefly employed his pen in the revival, alteration, himself competent to it, the study of such a character as and improvement of existing dramas we are strongly disHamlet, (the longest on the stage as it is now acted, and posed to believe, but that he had not ventured upon origistill longer as it was originally written) must have con-nal composition it would be much too bold to assert. sumed more time than he could well afford to bestow upon it, especially when we call to mind that there was a member of the company who had hitherto represented most of the heroes, and whose excellence was as undoubted, as his popularity was extraordinary. To Richard Burbage was therefore assigned the arduous character of the Prince, while the author took the brief, but important part of the Ghost, which required person, deportment, judgment, and voice, with a delivery distinct, solemn, and impressive. All the elements of a great actor were needed for the due performance of "the buried majesty of Denmark3”

Comedy of Errors" we take to be one of the pieces, which, having been first written by an inferior dramatist, was heightened and amended by Shakespeare, perhaps about the date of which we are now speaking, and "Love's Labour's Lost," or "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," may have been original compositions brought upon the stage prior to 1590. We also consider it more than probable that "Titus Andronicus" belongs even to an earlier period; but we feel satisfied, that although Shakespeare had by this time given clear indications of powers superior to those of any of his rivals, he could not have written any of his greater works It may be observed, in passing, that at the period of our until some years afterwards. With regard to productions drama, such as it existed in the hands of Shakespeare's unconnected with the stage, there are several pieces among immediate predecessors, authors were most commonly ac- his scattered poems, and some of his sonnets, that indisputors also. Such was the case with Greene, Marlowe, tably belong to an earlier part of his life. A young man, Lodge, Peele, probably Nash, Munday, Wilson, and others: so gifted, would not, and could not, wait until he was five the same practice prevailed with some of their successors, or six and twenty before he made considerable and most Ben Jonson, Heywood, Webster, Field, &c.; but at a some- succesful attempts at poetical composition; and we feel what later date dramatists do not usually appear to have morally certain that "Venus and Adonis" was in being

1 "His name is printed, as the custom was in those times, amongst those of the other players, before some old plays, but without any particular account of what sort of parts he used to play; and though I have inquired, I never could meet with any further account of him this way, than that the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own 'Hamlet.'"-Rowe's Life. Shakespeare's name stands first among the players of "Every Man in his Humour," and fifth among those of "Sejanus."

For in a deadly mortal strife,
Striving to stop the breath

"Of one who was his rival foe,
With his owne dagger slaine,
He groan'd and word spoke never moe,
Pierc't through the eye and braine.

2 From a MS. Epitaph upon Burbage, (who died in 1619,) sold Which pretty exactly accords with the tradition of the mode in among the books of the late Mr. Heber, we find that he was the orig- which he came to his end, in a scuffle with a person of the name of inal Hamlet, Romeo, Prince Henry, Henry V., Richard III., Mac-Archer: the register of his death at St. Nicholas, Deptford, ascertains beth, Brutus, Coriolanus, Shylock, Lear, Pericles, and Othello, in the name :-"Ist June, 1593. Christopher Marlowe slain by Francis Shakespeare's Plays: in those of other dramatists he was Jeronimo, Archer." He was just dead when Peele wrote his "Honour of the in Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy;" Antonio, in Marston's "Antonio and Garter," in 1593, and there spoke of him as "unhappy in his end," Mellida;" Frankford, in T. Heywood's" Woman killed with Kind- and as having been "the Muses' darling for his verse.' ness; Philaster, in Beaumont and Fletcher's play of that name; Amintor, in their "Maid's Tragedy." See "The Alleyn Papers," printed by the Shakespeare Society, p. xxx. On a subsequent page | we have inserted the whole passage relating to his characters from the Epitaph on Burbage..

3 Mr. Thomas Campbell, in his Life of Shakespeare, prefixed to the edition, in one volume, 1838, was, we believe, the first to remark upon the almost absolute necessity of having a good, if not a great actor, for the part of the Ghost in "Hamlet."

4 It seems, from an obscure ballad upon Marlowe's death, (handed down to us in MS., and quoted in "New Particulars regarding the Works of Shakespeare," 8vo. 1836,) that he had broken his leg while acting at the Curtain Theatre, which was considered a judgment 1pon him for his irreligious and lawless life.

"Both day and night would he blaspheme,
And day and night would sweare;

As if his life was but a dreame,

Not ending in despaire.

(( A poet was he of repute,

And wrote full many a playe;

Now strutting in a silken sute,
Now begging by the way.

"He had alsoe a player beene

Upon the Curtaine stage,

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But brake his leg in one lewd scene,
When in his early age.

"He was a fellow to all those

That did God's lawes reject;

Consorting with the Christian's foes,

And men of ill aspect," &c.

5 See pp. ix. and xiii., where it is shown that there was an old drama, acted at Court in 1573 and 1582, called "The History of Error" in one case, and "The History of Ferrar" in the other. See also the Introduction to "The Comedy of Errors."

6 Upon this point we cannot agree with Mr. F. G. Tomlins, who has written a very sensible and clever work called "A brief view of the English Drama," 12mo, 1840, where he argues that Shakespeare probably began with original composition, and not with the adaptation and alteration of works he found in possession of the stage when he joined the Lord Chamberlain's players. We know that the earliest charge against him by a fellow dramatist was, that he had availed himself of the productions of others, and we have every reason to believe that some of the plays upon which he was first employed were not by any means entirely his own: we allude among others to the three parts of "Henry VI." It seems to us much more likely that Shakespeare in the first instance confined himself to alterations and improvements of the plays of predecessors, than that he at once found himself capable of inventing and constructing a great original drama. However, it is but fair to quote the words of Mr. Tomlins. "We are thus driven to the conclusion that his writing must have procured him this distinction. What had he written? is the next question that presents itself. Probably original plays, for the adaptation of the plays of others could scarcely be entrusted to the inexperienced hands of a young genius, who had not manifested his knowledge of stage matters by any productions of his own. This kind of work would be jealously watched by the managers, and must ever have required great skill and experience. Shakespeare, mighty as he was, was human, and it is scarcely possible that a genius, so, ripe, so rich, so overflowing as his, should not have its enthusiasm kindled into an original production, and not by the mechanical botching of the inferior productions of others," 31.

p.

Upon this passage we have only to remark that according to our view, it would have required much more "skill and experience" to

The ballad consists of twenty-four similar stanzas; of Marlowe's write a new play, than merely to make additions to the speeches or

death the author thus writes:

"His lust was lawlesse as his life,

And brought about his death,

scenes of an old one.

"

7 "His sugar'd sonnets" were handed about among his private friends" many years before they were printed Francis Meres mentions them in the words we have quoted, in 1598.

anterior to Shakespeare's quitting Stratford'. It bears all exhibited the wantonness of lawless passion in "Venus and the marks of youthful vigour, of strong passion, of luxuriant imagination, together with a force and originality of expression which betoken the first efforts of a great mind, not always well regulated in its taste: it seems 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; and we will go so far as to say, that we do not think even Shakespeare himself could have produced it, in the form it bears, after he had reached the age of forty. It was quite new in its class, being founded upon no model, either ancient or modern: nothing like it had been attempted before, and nothing comparable to it was produced afterwards2. Thus in 1593 he might call it, in the dedication to Lord Southampton, "the first heir of his invention" in a double sense, not merely because it was the first printed, but because it was the first written of his productions.

The information we now possess enables us at once to reject the story, against the truth of which Malone elaborately argued, that Shakespeare's earliest employment at a theatre was holding the horses of noblemen and gentlemen who visited it, and that he had under him a number of lads who were known as "Shakespeare's boys." Shiels in his "Lives of the Poets," (published in 1753 in the name of Cibber) was the first to give currency to this idle invention: it was repeated by Dr. Johnson, and has often been reiterated since; and we should hardly have thought it worth notice now, if it had not found a place in many modern accounts of our great dramatist3. The company to which he attached himself had not unfrequently performed in Stratford, and at that date the Queen's Players and the Lord Chamberlain's servants seem sometimes to have been confounded in the provinces, although the difference was well understood in London; some of the chief members of it had come from his own part of the country, and even from the very town in which he was born; and he was not in a station of life, nor so destitute of means and friends, as to have been reduced to such an extremity.

Besides having written "Venus and Adonis" before he came to London, Shakespeare may also have composed its counterpart, "Lucrece," which, as our readers are aware, first appeared in print in 1594. It is in a different stanza, and in some respects in a different style; and after he joined the Blackfriars company, the author may possibly have added parts, (such, for instance, as the long and minute description of the siege of Troy in the tapestry) which indicate a closer acquaintance with the modes and habits of society; but even here no knowledge is displayed that might not have been acquired in Warwickshire. As he had

1 Malone was of opinion that "Venus and Adonis" was not written until after Shakespeare came to London, because in one stanza it contains an allusion to the stage,

"And all this dumb play had his acts made plain

Adonis," he followed it by the exaltation of matron-like chastity in "Lucrece ;" and there is, we think, nothing in the latter poem which a young man of one or two and twenty, so endowed, might not have written. Neither is it at all impossible that he had done something in connexion with the stage while he was yet resident in his native town, and before he had made up his mind to quit it. If his "inclination for poetry and acting," to repeat Aubrey's words, were so strong, it may have led him to have both written and acted. He may have contributed temporary prologues or epilogues, and without supposing him yet to have possessed any extraordinary art as a dramatist-only to be acquired by practice, he may have inserted speeches and occasional passages in older plays: he may even have assisted some of the companies in getting up, and performing the dramas they represented in or near Stratford. We own that this conjecture appears to us at least plausible, and the Lord Chamberlain's servants (known as the Earl of Leicester's players until 1587) may have experienced his utility in both departments, and may have held out strong inducements to so promising a novice to continue his assistance by accompanying them to London.

What we have here said seems a natural and easy way of accounting for Shakespeare's station as a sharer at the Blackfriars theatre in 1589, about three years after we suppose him to have finally adopted the profession of an actor, and to have come to London for the purpose of pursuing it.

CHAPTER VII.

The earliest allusion to Shakespeare in Spenser's "Tears of the Muses," 1591. Proofs of its applicability--What Shakespeare had probably by this date written-Edmund Spenser of Kingsbury, Warwickshire. No other dramatist of the time merited the character given by Spenser. Greene, Kyd, Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, and Lyly, and their several claims that of Lyly supported by Malone. Temporary cessation of dramatic performances in London. Prevalence of the Plague in 1592. Probability or improbability that Shakespeare went to Italy.

WE come now to the earliest known allusion to Shakespeare as a dramatist; and although his surname is not given, we apprehend that there can be no hesitation in applying what is said to him: it is contained in Spenser's "Tears of the Muses," a poem printed in 15915. The application of the passage to Shakespeare has been much contested, but the

fraudulent reprint, which also contains various pieces to which, it is known, Beaumont had no pretensions. To afford the better means of comparison, and as we know of only one copy of the edition of 1602, we subjoin the title-page prefixed to it: Salmasis and Hermaphroditus. Salmacida spolia sine sanguine et sudore. Imprinted at London for John Hodgets, &c. 1602." 4to.

With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did drain.” Surely, such a passage might have been written by a person who had never seen a play in London, or even seen a play at all. The stage-information did not support it by reference to Shakespeare's obvious Knowledge it displays is merely that of a schoolboy.

:

2 The work that comes nearest to it, in some respects, is Marlowe's "Hero and Leander;" but it was not printed until 1598, and although its author was killed in 1593, he may have seen Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis" in manuscript: it is quite as probable, as that Shakespeare had seen "Hero and Leander" before it was printed. Marston's "Pygmalion's Image," published five years after after Venus and Adonis," is a gross exaggeration of its style; and Barkstead's "Myrrha the Mother of Adonis" is a poor and coarse imitation: the same poet's "Hiren, or the Fair Greek," is of a similar character. Shirley's "Narcissus," which must have been written many years afterwards, is a production of the same class as Marston's "Pygmalion," but in better taste. The poem called "Salmasis and Hermaphroditus," first printed in 1602, and assigned to Francis Beaumont in 1640, when it was republished by Blaicklock the bookseller, we do not believe to have been the authorship of Beaumont, and it is rather an imitation of "Hero and Leander " than of "Venus and Adonis." At the date when it originally came out (1602) Beaumont was only sixteen, and the first edition has no name nor initials to the address "To Calliope," to which Blaicklock in 1640, for his own book-selling purposes, thought fit to add the letters F. B. In the same way, and with the same object, he changed the initials to a commendatory poem from A. F. to I. F., in order to make it appear as if John Fletcher had applauded his friend's early verses. These are facts that hitherto have escaped observation, perhaps, on account of the extreme rarity of copies of the original impression of "Salmasis and Hermaphroditus," preventing a comparison of it with Blaicklock's

3 It is almost to be wondered that the getters up of this piece of of his works. The description of the horse in "Venus and Adonis " knowledge of horses and horsemanship, displayed in so many parts will at once occur to every body; and how much it was admired at the time is evident from the fact, that it was plagiarised so soon after it was published. (See the Introduction.) For his judgment of skill in riding, among other passages, see his account of Lamord's the horse-holding anecdote ought to have added, that Shakespeare horsemanship in "Hamlet." The propagators and supporters of probably derived his minute and accurate acquaintance with the subject from his early observation of the skill of the English nobility and gentry, after they had remounted at the play-house door :---"But chiefly skill to ride seems a science

Proper to gentle blood."-Spenser's F. Q. b. ii. c. 4.

4 We have already stated that although in 1586 only one unnamed company performed in Stratford, in the very next year (that in which we have supposed Shakespeare to have become a regular actor) five companies were entertained in the borough one of these consisted of the players of the Earl of Leicester, to whom the Blackfriars theatre belonged; and it is very possible that Shakespeare at that date exhibited before his fellow-townsmen in his new professional capacity. Before this time his performances at Stratford may have been merely of an amateur description. It is, at all events, a striking circumstance, that in 1586 only one company performed, and that in 1587 such extraordinary encouragement was given to theatricals in Stratford.

5 Malone (Shakspeare by Boswell, vol. ii. p. 163) says that Spen

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