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 inven tion: 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 dramatist'. The company to which "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 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 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. 1 It is almost to be wondered that the getters up of this piece of information did not support it by reference to Shakespeare's obvious knowledge of horses and horsemanship, displayed in so many parts of his works. The description of the horse in "Venus and Adonis " 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 horsemanship in "Hamlet." The propagators and supporters of the horse-holding anecdote ought to have added, that Shakespeare probably derived his minute and accurate acquaintance with the 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 indieate 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 exhibited the wantonness of lawless passion in " Venus and 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 "inelination 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 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. 1 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 regu lar 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, 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 1591'. The application of the passage to Shakespeare has been much contested, but the difficulty in our mind is, how the lines are to be explained by reference to any other dramatist of the time, even supposing, as we have supposed and believe, that our great poet was at this period only rising into notice as a writer for the stage. We will first quote the lines, literatim as they stand in the edition of 1591, and afterwards say something of the claims of others to the distinction they confer. a striking circumstance, that in 1586 only one company performed, and that in 1587 such extraordinary encouragement was given to theatricals in Stratford. 1 Malone (Shakspeare by Boswell, vol. ii. p. 168) says that Spenser's "Tears of the Muses" was published in 1590, but the volume in which it first appeared bears date in 1591. It was printed with some other pieces under the title of "Complaints. Containing sundrie small Poems of the Worlds Vanitie. Whereof the next Page maketh mention. By Ed. Sp. London. Imprinted for William Ponsonbie, &c. 1591." It will be evident from what follows in our text, that a year is of considerable importance to the question. "And he the man, whom Nature selfe had made And scornfull Follie with contempt is crept, Large streames of honnie and sweete Nectar flowe, Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe, Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell." The most striking of these lines, with reference to our present inquiry, is, "Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late ;" and hence, if it stood alone, we might infer that Willy, whoever he might be, was actually dead; but the latter part of the third stanza we have quoted shows us in what sense the word "dead" is to be understood: Willy was "dead" as far as regarded the admirable dramatic talents he had already displayed, which had enabled him, even before 1591, to outstrip all living rivalry, and to afford the most certain indications of the still greater things Spenser saw he would accomplish: he was "dead," because he "Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell, Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell." It is to be borne in mind that these stanzas, and six others, are put into the mouth of Thalia, whose lamentation on the degeneracy of the stage, especially in comedy, follows those of Calliope and Melpomene. Rowe, under the impression that the whole passage referred to Shakespeare, introduced it into his "Life," in his first edition of 1709, but silently withdrew it in his second edition of 1714: his reason, perhaps, was that he did not see how, before 1591, Shakespeare could have shown that he merited the character given of him and his productions— "And he the man, whom Nature selfe had made Spenser knew what the object of his eulogy was capable of doing, as well, perhaps, as what he had done; and we have established that more than a year before the publication of these lines, Shakespeare had risen to be a distinguished member of the Lord Chamberlain's company, and a sharer in the undertaking at the Blackfriars. Although we feel assured that he had not composed any of his greatest works before 1591, he may have done much, besides what has come down to us, amply to warrant Spenser in applauding him beyond all his theatrical contemporaries. His earliest printed plays, " Romeo and Juliet," "Richard II.," and "Richard III.," bear date in 1597; but it is indisputable that he had at that time written considerably more, and part of what he had so written is contained in the folio of 1623, never having made its appearance in any earlier form. When Ben Jonson published the large volume of his "Works" in 1616', he excluded several comedies in which he had been aided by other poets2, and re-wrote part of "Sejanus," because, as is supposed, Shakespeare, (who performed in it, and whom Jonson terms a "happy genius,") had assisted him in the composition of the tragedy as it was originally acted. The player-editors of the folio of Shakespeare's "Comedies, Tragedies, and Histories," in 1623, may have thought it right to pursue the same course, excepting in the case of the three parts of "Henry VI. :” the poet, or poets, who had contributed to these histories (perhaps Marlowe and Greene) had been then dead thirty years; but with respect to other pieces, persons still living, whether authors or booksellers, might have joint claims upon them, and hence their exclusion". We only put this as a possible circumstance; but we are persuaded that Perhaps it was printed off before his "Bartholemew Fair" was acted in 1614; or perhaps, the comedy being a new one, Ben Jonson did not think he had a right to publish it to the detriment of the company (the servants of the Princess Elizabeth) by whom it had been purchased, and produced. 2 Such as "The Widow," written soon after 1613, in which he was assisted by Fetcher and Middleton; "The Case is Altered," printed in 1609, in which his coadjutors are not known; and "Eastward Ho!" published in 1607, in which he was joined by Chapman and Marston this last play exposed the authors to great danger of pun ishment. 3 We are not to be understood as according in the ascription to Shakespeare of various plays imputed to him in the folio of 1664, and elsewhere. We believe that he was concerned in "The Yorkshire Tragedy," and that he may have contributed some parts of "Arden of Feversham;" but in spite of the ingenious letter, published at Edinburgh in 1833, we do not think that he aided Fletcher in writ ing "The Two Noble Kinsmen," and there is not a single passage in The Birth of Merlin" which is worthy of his most careless moments. Of "The first part of Sir John Oldcastle" we have elsewhere spoken; and several other supposititious dramas in the folio of 1664, which certainly would have done little credit to Shakespeare, have also been ascertained to be the work of other dramatists. |