and indignities of a theatrical career; and as soon as he discovered his power as a writer, he gladly left the stage for ever.

In his sonnets he tells us how he hated the life into which he was plunged so many years, how he felt himself stained by its contamination, and how scandal had been busy to charge him with its sins. These sonnets were evidently written to some dear friend.

O, never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.

As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie :
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe, though in my nature reign'd

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stain'd,

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.

Alas, 'tis true, I have gone here and there

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new;

Most true it is that I have look'd on truth

Askance and strangely: but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confined.

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide

Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,

Nor double penance, to correct correction.
Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

These confessions tell a sad story. The young man was plunged into the whirlpool of London life with all its temptations, he was surrounded by companions of doubtful character, was forced upon the stage when the profession was suspected and despised, and compelled to make himself a motley to the view;' no marvel that, amongst quiet and respectable friends, his name became branded with evil doings, that there was danger of his nature becoming like the dyer's hand,' subdued to what it worked in. Even if he was guilty of some excesses, we dare not harshly condemn him after the repeated cry for pity, the sorrowful confession, the gracious penitence, the longing to gain purity even by correction and suffering. At the same time, I believe there is ample proof that Shakspere's faults were not very heinous, that his nature could not 'so preposterously be stained' as to alienate the sympathy of good

men.

There was a contemporary dramatist named Greene, a merciless satirist and a man of very loose character, who on his death-bed wrote a pamphlet called A Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance. There was

more of scurrilous abuse in this composition than of genuine repentance; and, after Greene's death, when Henry Chettle printed it, its pages were found to contain such offensive references to Marlowe and Shakspere, that the publisher was forced to apologise; at least in the following public explanation he apologises to the latter, but does not seem to care whether Marlowe is offended or not; and the different tones in which he speaks of the two great dramatists is very significant. 'With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them (Marlowe) I care not if I never be the other (Shakspere), whom at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the heat of living writers, and might have used my own discretion (especially in such a case), the author (Greene) being dead, that I did not, I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his (Shakspere's) 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, that approves his art.' Now this testimony is of priceless worth; his conduct is extolled, his acting pronounced 'excellent,' he is regarded as a man of honour by worthy people, and his happy genius for writing is already acknowledged. I think we may conclude that Shakspere did not go so far astray as the confessions in the sonnets would seem to suggest; we are thankful to be able to honour him as a man as well as reverence him as a poet, and to believe that his character was upright and chivalrous. A far greater poet than the scurrilous Greene, Edmund Spenser, spoke of him in high terms. About 1591 Spenser wrote a poem called Colin Clout's Come Home Again, and in it are these lines, where there can be no doubt of the allusion to Shakspere :

And then though last not least is Aetion;
A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found;
Whose muse, full of high thought's invention,
Doth like himself heroically sound.

Aetion, the name under which Shakspere is spoken of, means an eagle, and of course the last line refers to the warlike name of Shake-spear.

We have other testimonies of the high estimation in which Shakspere was held by his contemporaries. There was a close friendship between him and Ben Jonson, who wrote a eulogy on his brother dramatist dedicated To the memory of my Beloved, the author, Mr. William Shakspere;' and in another place he says, 'I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any.' The following lines in Jonson's eulogy inform us that the fame of Shakspere attracted the notice of Queen Elizabeth and King James :

:

Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza and our James!

It is not surprising that Elizabeth thought well of the poet, who paid her such an elegant compliment in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Though she was the greatest queen the world ever saw, she was incorrigibly vain, and loved flattery; how, then, could she resist such honeyed words as these?—

That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;

But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

We are told that Elizabeth was so amused with the character of Falstaff in Henry IV. that she commanded the poet to describe the fat knight in love; and in obedience Shakspere wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Shakspere appears to have been a good companion, full of gentle fun and wholesome humour. Burbage tells us he was a worthy friend and fellow;' Jonson speaks of him as indeed honest, and of an open and free nature.' The leading club in London at that time had been founded by Raleigh at the Mermaid Tavern. Here the leading wits used to meet and spend glorious hours together, among them Shakspere and Jonson. If Shakspere had only been accompanied by a Boswell, what priceless records should we have possessed of those nights of social jollity and intellectual intercourse! Fuller gives us a glimpse of the scene, where he says: 'Many were the wit-combats betwixt him (Shakspere) and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances; Shakspere with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.' The intercourse of those great men has immortalised the Mermaid; in one of his poems Keats imagines that in the Elysian Fields those choice spirits of the past must still hold their meetings:

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,