the last we hear of him upon the stage, but that he continued a member of the company until April 9, 1604, we have the evidence of a document preserved at Dulwich College, where the names of the King's players are enumerated in the following order: Burbage, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Phillips, Condell, Heminge, Armyn, Sly, Cowley, Ostler, and Day. If Shakespeare had not then actually ceased to perform, we need not hesitate in deciding that he quitted that department of the profession very shortly afterwards. CHAPTER XVI Immediate consequences of Shakespeare's retirement. Offences given by the company to the court, and to private individuals. Gowry's Conspiracy:" "Biron's Conspiracy and "Tragedy." Suspension of theatrical perforinances. Purchase of a lease of the tithes of Stratford, &c., by Shakespeare. "Hamlet" printed in 1603 and 1604. "Henry VIII." "Macbeth." Supposed autograph letter of King James to Shakespeare. Susanna Shakespeare and John Hall married in 1607. Death of Edmund Shakespeare in the same year. Death of Mary Shakespeare in 1608. Shakespeare's great popularity: rated to the poor of Southwark. No sooner had our great dramatist ceased to take part in the public performances of the King's players, than the company appears to have thrown off the restraint by which it had been usually controlled ever since its formation, and to have produced plays which were objectionable to the court, as well as offensive to private persons. Shakespeare, from his abilities, station, and experience, must have possessed great influence with the body at large, and due deference, we may readily believe, was shown to his knowledge and judgment in the selection and acceptance of plays sent in for approbation by authors of the time. The contrast between the conduct of the association immediately before, and immediately after his retirement, would lead us to conclude, not only that he was a man of prudence and discretion, but that the exercise of these qualities had in many instances kept his fellows from incurring the displeasure of persons in power, and from exciting the animosity of particular individuals. We suppose Shakespeare to have ceased to act in the summer of 1604, and in the winter of that very year we find the King's players giving offence to some great counsellors" by performing a play upon the subject of Gowry's conspiracy. This fact we have upon the evidence of one of Sir R. Winwood's correspondents, John Chamberlaine, who, in a letter dated 18th December, 1604, uses these expressions:-"The tragedy of Gowry, with all action and actors, hath been twice represented by the King's players, with exceeding concourse of all sorts of people; but whether the matter or manner be not well handled, or that it be thought unfit that princes should be played on the stage in their lifetime, I hear that some great counsellors are much displeased with it, and so, it is thought, it shall be forbidden." Whether it was so forbidden we do not hear upon the same or any other authority, but no such drama has come down to us. In the next year (at what particular part of it is not stated) Sir Leonard Haliday, then Lord Mayor of London, backed no doubt by his brethren of the corporation, made a complaint against the same company, “ that Kempe, (who at this date had rejoined the association) Armyn, and others, players at the Blackfriars, have again not forborne to bring upon their stage one or more of the worshipful aldermen of the city of London, to their great scandal and the lessening of their authority;" and the interposition of the privy council to prevent the abuse was therefore solicited. What was done in consequence, if anything were done, does not appear in any extant document. In the spring of the next year a still graver charge was brought against the body of actors of whom Shakespeare, until very recently, had been one; and it originated in no less a person than the French ambassador. George Chapman' had written two plays upon the history and execution 1 We may here notice two productions by this great and various author, one of which is mentioned by Ant. Wood (Ath. Oxon. edit. Bliss. vol. ii. p. 575), and the other by Warton (Hist. Engl. Poetr. vol. iv. p. 276, edit. 8vo), on the authority merely of the stationers' registers; but none of our literary antiquaries seem to have been able to meet with them. They are both in existence. The first is a defence of his "Andromeda Liberata," 1614, which he wrote in celebration of the marriage of the Earl of Somerset and the Countess of Essex, which Chapman tells us had been "most maliciously misinterpreted: it is called "A free and offenceless Justification" of his poem, and it was printed in 1614. It is chiefly in prose, but at the end is a dialogue in rhyme, between Pheme and Theodines, the last being meant for Chapman: Wood only supposes that Chapman wrote it, but if he could have read it he would have entertained no doubt. It appears that Somerset himself had conceived that “Andromeda Liberata 23 was a covert attack upon him, and from this notion Chapman was anxious to relieve himself. The poetical dialogue is thus opened by Pheme, and sufficiently explains the object of the writer. "Ho, you! Theodines! you must not dreame of the Duke of Biron, containing, in the shape in which they were originally produced on the stage, such matter that M. Beaumont, the representative of the King of France in London, thought it necessary to remonstrate against the repetition, and the performance of it was prohibited: as soon, however, as the court had quitted London, the King's players persisted in acting it; in consequence of which three of the players were arrested, (their names are not given) but the author made his escape. These two dramas were printed in 1608, and again in 1625; and looking through them, we are at a loss to discover anything, beyond the historical incidents, which could have given offence; but the truth certainly is, that all the objectionable portions were omitted in the press: there can be no doubt, on the authority of the despatch from the French ambassador to his court, that one of the dramas originally contained a scene in which the Queen of France and Mademoiselle Verneuil were introduced, the former, after having abused her, giving the latter a box on the ear. This information was conveyed to Paris under the date of the 5th April, 1606; and the French ambassador, apparently in order to make his court acquainted with the lawless character of dramatic performances at that date in England, adds a very singular paragraph, proving that the King's players, only a few days before they had brought the Queen of France upon the stage, had not hesitated to introduce upon the same boards their own reigning sovereign in a most unseemly manner, making him swear violently, and beat a gentleman for interfering with his known propensity for the chase. This course indicates a most extraordinary degree of boldness on the part of the players; but, nevertheless, they were not prohibited from acting, until M. Beaumont had directed the attention of the public authori Your Perseus is displeas'd, and sleighteth now The other production, of which our knowledge has also hitherto been derived from the stationers' registers, is called "Petrarch's Seven Penitential Psalms, paraphrastically translated," with other poems of a miscellaneous kind at the end: it was printed in small 8vo, in 1612, dedicated to Sir Edward Phillips, Master of the Rolls, where Chapman speaks of his yet unfinished translation of Homer, which, he adds, the Prince of Wales had commanded him to complete. The editor of the present work has a copy of Chapman's Memorable Masque on the marriage of the Palsgrave and Princess Elizabeth, corrected by Chapman in his owh hand; but the errors are few, and not very important. It shows the patient accuracy of the accomplished writer. ties to the insult offered to the Queen of France: then, an order was issued putting a stop to the acting of all plays in London; but, according to the same authority, the companies had clubbed their money, and, attacking James I. on his weak side, had offered a large sum to be allowed to continue their performances. The French ambassador himself apprehended that the appeal to the King's pecuniary wants would be effectual, and that permission, under certain restrictions, would not long be withheld'. Whatever emoluments Shakespeare had derived from the Blackfriars or the Globe theatres, as an actor merely, we may be tolerably certain he relinquished when he ceased to perform. He would thus be able to devote more of his time to dramatic composition, and, as he continued a sharer in the two undertakings, perhaps his income on the whole was not much lessened. Certain it is, that in 1605 he was in possession of a considerable sum, which he was anxious to invest advantageously in property in or near the place of his birth. Whatever may have been the circumstances under which he quitted Stratford, he always seems to have contemplated a permanent return thither, and kept his eyes constantly turned in the direction of his birth-place. As long before as January, 1598, he had been advised "to deal in the matter of tithes" of Stratford'; but perhaps at that 蛋 1 We derive these very curious and novel particulars from M. Von Raumer's "History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," translated by Lord Francis Egerton, vol. ii. p. 219. The terms are worth quoting. "April 5, 1606. I caused certain players to be forbid from acting the History of the Duke of Biron: when, however, they saw that the whole court had left town, they persisted in acting it; nay, they brought upon the stage the Queen of France and Mademoiselle Verneuil. The former, having first accosted the latter with very hard words, gave her a box on the ear. At my suit three of them were arrested; but the principal person, the author, escaped. "One or two days before, they had brought forward their own King and all his favorites in a very strange fashion: they made him curse and swear because he had been robbed of a bird, and beat a gentleman because he had called off the hounds from the scent. They represent him as drunk at least once a-day, &c. "He has upon this made order, that no play shall be henceforth acted in London; for the repeal of which order they have already offered 100,000 livres. Perhaps the permission will be again granted, but upon condition that they represent no recent history, nor speak of the present time." In a letter from a resident in Stratford of the name of Abraham Sturley. It was originally published by Boswell (vol. ii. p. 566) at length, but the only part which relates to Shakespeare runs thus: we have not thought it necessary to preserve the uncouth abbrevia tions of the original. "This is one special remembrance of your father's motion. seemeth by him that our countriman, Mr. Shakespeare, is willing date, having recently purchased New Place, he was not in sufficient funds for the purpose, or possibly the party in possession of the lease of the tithes, though not unwilling to dispose of it, required more than it was deemed worth. At all events, nothing was done on the subject for more than six years; but on the 24th July, 1605, we find William Shakespeare, who is described as "of Stratford-upon-Avon, gentleman," executing an indenture for the purchase of the unexpired term of a long lease of the great tithes of "corn, grain, blade, and hay," and of the small tithes of "wool, lamb, and other small and privy tithes, herbage, oblations," &c., in Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe,* in the county of Warwick. The vendor was Raphe Huband, of Ippesley, Esquire ; and from the draft of the deed, now before us, we learn that the original lease, dated as far back as 1539, was "for four score and twelve years;" so that in 1605 it had still twenty-six years to run, and for this our great dramatist agreed to pay 4401 : by the receipt, contained in the same deed, it appears that he paid the whole of the money before it was executed by the parties. He might very fitly be described as c Stratford-uponAvon, because he had there not only a substantial, settled residence for his family, but he was the owner of considerable property, both in land and houses, in the town and neighbourhood; and he had been before so described in 1602, when he bought the 107 acres of William and John Combe, which he annexed to his dwelling of New Place. A spurious edition of Hamlet" having been published in 16032, a more authentic copy came out in the next year, containing much that had been omitted, and more that had been grossly disfigured and misrepresented. We do not believe that Shakespeare, individually, had anything to do with this second and more correct impression, and we doubt much whether it was authorized by the company, which seems at all times to have done its utmost to prevent the disburse some money upon some od yardeland or other at Shottery, or near about us: he thinketh it a very fitt patterne to move him to deale in the matter of our tithes. By the instructions you can give him theareof, and by the frendes he can make therefore, we thinke it a faire marke for him to shoote at, and not unpossible to hitt. It obtained would advance him in deede, and would do us much good." The terms of this letter prove that Shakespeare's townsmen were of opinion that he was desirous of advancing himself among the inhabitants of Stratford. 1 It is about to be printed entire by the Shakespeare Society, to the council of which it has been handed over by the owner for the purpose. 2 The only copy of this impression is in the library of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, and we have employed it to a certain extent in settling and explaining the text of the tragedy. See the Introduction to "Hamlet." |
