On 30th January 1603-4, the new company of the Revels children replaced the Chapel boys at Blackfriars. They were, however, in the main composed of the same actors, and were not unfrequently mentioned under their old name. On March 15, we find that among the King's train, at his entry into London, were nine of the King's company, dressed in the scarlet cloth allowed for the occasion. As these nine are identical with those in the license of 19th May 1603, which is statedly incomplete, they must have been in some way distinguished from the rest of their fellows. They were, no doubt, shareholders in the Globe. Cooke and Lowin, who acted inSejanusandVolpone, do not appear among them; nor do Tooley, Gough, and Sinkler, who were at thistime members of the company. The nine were Shakespeare, Phillips, Fletcher, Hemings, Burbadge, Sly, Lowin, Condell, and Cowley. In July, Shakespeare was in Stratford, recovering in the local court some £2 odd for malt, &c., sold to one Rogers. In August he was summoned to London, the King's men having to attend at Somerset House to play at the reception of the Spanish ambassador. During this year he producedOthelloandMeasure for Measure, which were acted at Court in the winter festivities, along with five old plays of his, and two of Jonson's.Hamletdoes not occur in this list, as it undoubtedly would have done if produced in 1604. It was, in fact, published this year as it had been acted at Court in the previous winter. Another play acted by the King's men was Marston'sMalcontent, with an Induction by Webster, in which the reason of its appearance is explained. The Blackfriars children had actedJeronymoin 1600, an old play of Kyd's, which had passed to the King's men from Lord Strange's, by whom it had been purchased of the Queen's. It had probably been taken from the Chamberlain's men to the Chapel children by Jonson, who in 1601, September 25, transferred it to the Admiral's, and wrote additions to it for Henslowe. This appropriation of their propertyirritated the Globe players, and when they got the chance, at the reconstitution of the Blackfriars children in 1604, they procuredThe Malcontent, which had been acted by these pigmies, and produced it on their own stage as "one for another." They also in December acted "the tragedy of Gowry with all action and actors," so Chamberlain writes to Winwood, December 18, "with exceeding concourse of all sorts of people," but he adds, "some great councillors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall be forbidden." It probably was forbidden, as the play has disappeared. Another mysterious play isThe Spanish Maz, said to have been one of the eleven performed in the winter at Court. Nothing is known of such a play; but much is known of forgery connected with such statements.
In 1605, the tragedy ofKing Learwas acted about 7th May, when the oldLeir, on which it was founded, but which was acomedy, was entered S. R. as a "TragicalHistory" of Leir, &c., "as it was lately acted." Another play of very dubious authorship was acted by the King's men before 3d July, when the ballad on the same events was entered S. R.; this wasThe Yorkshire Tragedy. It was a continuation of the story ofThe Miseries of Enforced Marriage, but treated more realisticallyand more powerfully. It was published 2d May 1608 as by Shakespeare, as in 1605The London Prodigalhad already been, but in the latter instance the publication was unlicensed and surreptitious, while theYorkshire Tragedywas entered S. R. as "written by William Shakespeare." The entry, however, was made for T. Pavier, an unscrupulous piratic printer, who on other occasions tried to establish rights in "Shakespeare's plays" which were not Shakespeare's; and no weight can be assigned to his assertions. Another play acted by the King's men, in March 1605, was Jonson'sVolpone, orThe Fox. This was anterior in production to the plays already mentioned. Immediately afterwards we find Jonson in connection with the Blackfriars children again, and in prison for writingEastward Ho. Shakespeare did not act inThe Fox; perhaps Jonson was offended at this; he at any rate did not return to the King's men till 1610. On 4th May, Phillips, Shakespeare's fellow-actor, made his will, and died shortly after. We learn from this document, which gives us many other valuable particulars respecting the members of the company, that Shakespeare and Condell were the two of "his fellows" whom, next to Hemings, Burbadge, and Sly, his executors, Phillips most highly appreciated; he left them each a 30s.-piecein gold, but to Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cooke, and Tooley a 20s.-piece. He also left legacies to Gilburne and Sands his apprentices, and to Beeston his servant. "His fellows" here means the shareholders in the Globe, as contrasted with the "hired servants," to whom he left "£5 amongst them." There were then in 1605 eleven shareholders, Cooke and Tooley having been added since 15th March 1604. On 24th July Shakespeare invested £40 in a lease of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, as had been suggested to him in 1598. In August King James was at Oxford, and among the entertainments presented to him were speeches by three young men of St. John's, who personated the three Sibyls who had prophesied to Banquo. This interlude would necessarily recall to the King's mind the old Macbeth play, which had been probably presented to him in Scotland by the Globe players, and if, as there is little reason to doubt, he did write an autograph letter to Shakespeare, it was most likely on this occasion, commanding a fuller version ofMacbeth. This play was certainly produced at Court, probably at Shrovetide in March 1605-6, but it has been altered since, condensed and interpolated by dances and songs and a new scene with Hecate in it, no doubt by Middletonin 1622, from whoseWitchthe songs are taken. On 9th October the Globe company acted before the Mayor and Corporation at Oxford, and then, if not from the King, Shakespeare would be sure to hear of the Sybils interlude. In all, ten plays were acted at Court this winter by the Globe company. Among them was a version ofMucedorus, with additions. This version has only come down to us in imprints of 1610 and later; but there was an edition in 1606 mentioned in Beauclerc's Catalogue, 1781, from which the later title-pages were copied. From the title it appears that it had been revived before the King on Shrove-Sunday night at Whitehall. The original play had been acted about the city, and therefore not later than 1594, before the Chamberlain's men settled at the Theater. The additions are directed against Jonson, whose strictures on monopolies, and sneer at "the miraculous effects of the Oglio del Scoto" inVolpone, ii. 1, must have grievously offended James, who had revived the touching for the king's evil. Jonson had subsequently joined Chapman and Marston in writingEastward Hofor the Chapel boys, in which the Scots were still more severely satirised, and was evidently, as may be seen from the address prefixed toVolpone, at daggers drawn with the Globe men. Hence, in theMucedorusadditions, the allusions to the "meagre cannibal," the "scrambling raven with his meagre beard" (certainly Jonson, the "thin-bearded Hermaphrodite" inSatiromastix), who had, stirred up by Envy, written a comedy for the Globe filled with "dark sentences pleasing to factious brains;" which would have led to their restraint, asEastward Hodid for the Chapel boys, had not the King's players been staid and discreet, and begged pardon of His Majesty on bended knee "for their unwilling error." The threatened information must have been in the autumn of 1605.
To 1606 no other play thanMacbethcan with certainty be traced: and the marked change of metrical style at this epoch points to a period of rest. In all his subsequent plays, many lines end with unemphatic words, such asand,if,which,butand the like, and this change was not introduced gradually but suddenly and decisively. Hence its value as indisputably separating the Fourth Period plays from the preceding. On this ground it is pretty certain thatTimonwas Shakespeare's next production; he only wrote the chief scenes in it, however, and it was finished for the stage by another hand. At this time also, in my opinion, Shakespeare began to writeCymbeline, which he afterwards completed himself. This arrangement of his workseems natural;Lear,Macbeth,Cymbelineclosing the series founded on Holinshed, andTimon,Antony,Coriolanus—the series from Plutarch—succeeding them. A minuter examination of the question will be found in a later part of this work. Of other play-writers' contributions to the Globe in 1606 there is only one—Pericles, as originally produced by Wilkins, which was ridiculed inThe Puritanby Middleton—acted by the Paul's children of this year. Wilkins left writing for the King's men, and (1607) joined the Queen's men at the Curtain. This was probably rumoured to have been caused by some quarrel with Shakespeare, for on 6th August 1607, S. R.,The Puritan Widowwas published as by W. S., evidently meaning William Shakespeare. Of all the instances in which Shakespeare's name or initials were fraudulently inserted on title-pages, this play andSir John Oldcastlewere the only two in which they were prefixed to plays not even acted by his company. At the Court in the 1606-7 season three Globe plays were presented to the King of Denmark on the occasion of his visit to England, and nine others in the usual course.Antony and Cleopatramay be confidently assigned to 1607. It was entered for publication S. R. on 20th May 1608 withPericles(no doubt as originally written by Wilkins), but both plays were stayed;the former as having been on the stage only one year, the latter to be superseded by the issue in 1609 of the version as altered by Shakespeare. On 22d OctoberThe Merry Devil of Edmontonwas entered S. R. for A. Johnson. The entry for Hunt and Archer on 5th April 1608 is that of the prose story by Thomas Brewer. The initials T. B. in this latter entry have misled Mr. Halliwell and others to assign the authorship of the play to Tony Brewer. On 26th November Shakespeare'sKing Learwas entered S. R. as it was played before the King on 26th December 1606, "Saint Stephen's Night at Christmas last." This settles two important questions; first, the relation of the Quarto text to the Folio—the Quarto being the version played at Court, the Folio that retained by the players for the public stage; secondly, the existence of a custom in the Globe company of allowing, in cases of altered or revised plays, the version not required for future stage purposes to be issued to the public in print. Many instances of this custom are brought to light in the present treatise. On October 7, Cyril Tourneur's (?)Revenger's Tragedywas entered S. R. The date of production on the stage is uncertain. It had "been sundry times acted by the King's players." Nor am I aware of the grounds on which the authorship isassigned to Tourneur. It was published anonymously. On 25th June, Susanna, Shakespeare's daughter, married John Hall, M.A., physician at Stratford. There were thirteen performances this winter at Court by the King's men. In 1608 Shakespeare probably producedCoriolanus. On 21st February Elizabeth Hall was baptized, within eight months from her parents' marriage. The prospect of a continuation of his family, though not of his family name, was some alleviation for Shakespeare of the loss of his youngest brother Edmund, "a player," buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, 31st December 1607, "with a forenoon knell of the great bell,"ætatis27. Of Edmund's career in London weknownothing; but surely he must have belonged to the Globe company. His absence from the actors' lists offers no obstacle to this supposition; they are, after that ofThe Seven Deadly Sinsin 1594, confined to names of shareholders and principal actors. And if player for the Globe, why not author? May he not, for instance, have writtenThe Yorkshire Tragedyunder his brother's superintendence, and may not this account for its being published as William Shakespeare's? All attempts to assign it to any known author have egregiously failed. However this may be, and however poignantly William felt the loss of theBenjamin of the family, a severer bereavement awaited him in the death of his mother, buried at Stratford 9th September 1608. It has always been a favourite hypothesis with me that Volumnia was drawn from her as a model of matronly virtue, and it is certain that at this date a final change took place in Shakespeare's manner of writing. His plays since the accession of James had been, with scarcely an exception, tragedies; from this time they are really, under whatever head they may have hitherto been classed, tragi-comedies, and all turn, as I pointed out many years ago, on the reuniting of separated members of families. The first of this final group isMarina, the part ofPericleswhich replaced Wilkins' work, and which was written in this winter and hurriedly printed in 1609 as a practical answer to Wilkins' prose version, published in 1608, in which he claimed the story as an "infant of his brain." Shakespeare's version must, I think, be placed after his return to London from Stratford, where he remained after his mother's funeral till 16th October, when he stood godfather for William Walker. The Court performances this winter were twelve. On 28th January 1609,Troylus and Cressidawas entered S. R., not for Roberts, whose intended publication in 1603 had been stayed, but for Bonian and Whalley,who issued it with a preface stating that it had never been "staled with the stage." This false statement was withdrawn in their subsequent re-issue during the same year, but it proves that the period during which the play had been performed in 1602 must have been a very short one; such a statement could not have otherwise been put forward with any plausibility. On 20th May theSonnetswere published, with a dedication to their "only begetter," Mr. W. H. I think that these initials designate Sir William Hervey, to whom Lord Southampton's mother left at her death in November 1607 the greatest part "of her stuff." He was her third husband, and may have been the original suggester to Shakespeare, as a friend to Lord Southampton, that he should write a series of Sonnets to him recommending marriage in 1594, when Southampton had not yet become devoted to "the fair Mrs. Vernon," and was entangled in the affair of the frail Avisa. In 1609 he was busily occupied with the Virginian company, and promoting voyages for American discovery, an allusion to which underlies the Dedication "wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth,"adventurerbeing the current phrase for explorer of unknown regions. On 7th June Shakespeare's cousin, Thomas Green, then residing at New Place, Stratford,issued a final precept in his behalf against one Hornby, who had become bail for John Addenbroke, in a matter of debt for £6. This litigation had begun in August 1608: juries had been summoned on 21st December and 15th February, and then Addenbroke absconded, leaving Hornby to be answerable. The plague being prevalent this year, there were no Christmas performances at Court, and not many on the public stage.Cymbelinewas Shakespeare's only production. In its present state it has evidently been subjected to revision and to alteration for some revival after Shakespeare's death, when the doggerel in the vision in iv. 4 was inserted; originally, no doubt, the ghosts appeared in dumb show to music. The Globe players received £30 as a compensation for being restrained from playing in London during six weeks,i.e., during August and September, when the bills of mortality show the plague to have been at its height.
In January 1610 the Revels children left the Blackfriars Theatre, and set up with a new organisation under Rossiter at Whitefriars the new private stage. It appears from the statement of C. Burbadge, in the 1635 documents discovered by Mr. Halliwell, that that family then bought up the remainder of the lease from Evans, and took someof the Revels boys, now grown up, to strengthen the Globe company. Among these were Underwood and Ostler; but as C. Burbadge also names Field, who did not join the King's men till 1615 or 1616, his subsequent statement that they set up men-players, Shakespeare, Hemings, Condell, &c., in Blackfriarsat that date, is not to be taken as necessarily exact. The King's men undoubtedly took possession of Blackfriars for their own performances in 1614 or 1615, after the Globe had been burned and rebuilt; but there is not a trace of them until then in connection with this private house except thisex partestatement of C. Burbadge, made for a special purpose, in a plea which is studiously ambiguous. But there is evidence that other companies acted there. Field'sAmends for Ladieswas performed there by the Lady Elizabeth's company and the Duke of York's (afterwards Prince Charles'). This performance must have taken place during a temporary union between the Prince's men and the Lady Elizabeth's, to which latter the play and its author were properly attached; but that the Duke of York's acted continuously at Blackfriars from 1610 to 1615, is very probable. It is not likely that a company under such patronage, and admitted to Court performances every Christmas, should have been merely a strolling company, andthere was no other theatre for them to perform in. The King's men held the Globe, Prince Henry's (afterwards the Palgrave's) the Fortune, the Queen's the Bull and the Curtain, the Queen's Revels' boys Whitefriars, and Lady Elizabeth's at first the Swan till 1612, and after its abandonment the newly renovated Hope in 1614, and then the rebuilt Cockpit or Phœnix. There is no proof that Shakespeare ever acted at Blackfriars; there is strong presumption to the contrary as to his supposed shares in that theatre: it was the "private inheritance" of the Burbadges, and that the King's men had shares in it at this time rests on the evidence of forged documents and mischievously fertile imaginations, to which the purchase of twenty acres of land at Stratford by Shakespeare from the Combes in June seems to require access of capital to make this new acquisition feasible.Winter's Talewas certainly produced early this year, before Jonson'sAlchemist, which was acted and entered S. R., October 3, but was, however, "stayed" for the usual reasons, and did not get published till 1612. The Address to the Reader (no doubt dating 1610) contains one of Jonson's numerous allusions to the "dance of antics" inWinters Tale. Jonson, who had producedEpicenefor the Chapel children in 1609, had returned to the King's men when theboys left Blackfriars. Shakespeare's last play this year, and final finished contribution to the stage, wasThe Tempest, produced about November, after the news that the ships of Sir T. Gates at the Bermudas had not been destroyed. This play as we have it has unfortunately been abridged for Court performances, probably by Beaumont in 1612 or 1613, to whom the insertion of the Masque may confidently be attributed. There were fifteen winter performances at Court in 1610-11.
The loss of Shakespeare was repaired as well as circumstances would permit by the accession of Beaumont and Fletcher to the King's company in 1611. In that year they produced their masterpiecesPhilaster, a King and no KingandThe Maid's Tragedy: in 1612The Woman's Prize(by Fletcher alone), the play ofCardenas(probably the original form ofLove's Pilgrimage), andThe Captain. Jonson contributedCatilinein 1611, and WebsterThe Duchess of Malfiin 1612.The Second Maiden's Tragedy(by the author ofThe Revenger's Tragedy, I think) was also produced in 1611. At Court the unusual number of twenty-two plays was acted in the 1611 winter and twenty-eight in 1612. These must have included nearly every play they possessed; and the fact that the whole, or nearly so, of Shakespeare's plays were revived at Court inthese two years makes his retirement in 1610 to my mind nearly a certainty, and accounts for the not very felicitous praise of his "copious industry" by Webster in the Dedication of hisWhite Devilin 1612. Webster couples the retired Shakespeare with Dekker and Heywood: but Jonson's works he speaks of as "laboured and understanding," Beaumont's and Fletcher's as "no less worthy composures." This higher praise is given to the writers who like himself were then contributing to the Globe repertory. He mentions no one else but Chapman of "full and heightened style." Are we to attribute to this mention of him the tradition that Chapman wroteThe Second Maiden's Tragedy? On 11th September 1611 Shakespeare's name occurs "in the margin, as if a later insertion" (says Mr. Halliwell) of a list of Stratford donors "towards the charge of prosecuting the bill in Parliament for the better repair of the highways." In 1612 Lane, Greene, and Shakespeare filed a bill before Lord Ellesmere complaining that some of the lessees of the Stratford tithes refused to contribute their proper shares of a reserved rent. It appears from this document that Shakespeare's income from this source was £60. In the same year Heywood, in hisApology for Actors, complained of W. Jaggard's having printed inThe Passionate Pilgrim, 3dedition, two love epistles taken from hisTroia Britannica, as by W. Shakespeare, "which might put the world in opinion I might steal them from him;" he adds that he knows the author was much offended for Jaggard's presuming to make bold with his name. The name was in consequence withdrawnaltogetherfrom the title-page. Notwithstanding this, many modern editors printThe Passionate Pilgrimas Shakespeare's. On 4th February 1613 Richard Shakespeare was buried at Stratford; whether the Gilbert Shakespeare, "adolescens," who was buried 3d February 1612, was also a brother of William's, is doubtful, but likely. On l0th March 1613 Shakespeare bought of Henry Walker a house and yard near Blackfriars Theatre for £140, of which £60 remained on mortgage (one of the trustees being in 1618 John Heming, Shakespeare's fellow-actor): he leased the house to John Robinson for ten years. On 29th June the Globe was burned down. It caught fire during the performance ofAll is True(Henry VIII.) This was not the play as we have it—which is a later version by Massinger and Fletcher, written for the Blackfriars Theatre, and containing only three scenes that can be attributed to Shakespeare—but a play in which there was a fool's part. Wotton describes it as "the play ofHenry VIII.,"but Lorkin says it was a new play calledAll is True, representing some principal pieces ofHenry VIII.Whether new play or not it was probably by Shakespeare, written c. 1609, and portions of it remain imbedded in that now extant by Fletcher and Massinger c. 1617, the original MS. having perished in the fire. Just at the same time one Lane had been maligning Mrs. Hall, Shakespeare's daughter, in connection with Ralph Smith. Lane was summoned before the Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester on 15th July and excommunicated on the 27th. There were only seven plays performed at Court by the King's men in the winter 1613-14, all their principal writers—Fletcher, Beaumont, Jonson, Webster—having left them after the Globe fire. Surely this is not consistent with the statement of C. Burbadge that they had taken the Blackfriars building to their own use. No new play can be traced to them till 1615, when the Globe had been[2]rebuilt, and the Prince Charles' men had gone to the Curtain. Then they certainly did take the Blackfriars to themselves, and with an excellent staff of writers—Jonson, Fletcher, Massinger, and Field—they occupied it as well as the new Globe. A letter of John Chamberlain's to Sir Dudley Carleton, 5th January 1615, says of the stage in general: "Offive new plays there is not one that pleases, and therefore they are driven to furbish over their old." Yet Jonson'sBartholomew Fairwas one of these 1614 plays acted at Court. I suspect that Lady Elizabeth's players were not so well liked as the King's, and that Shakespeare and Beaumont were greatly missed. Fletcher and Massinger were not yet able to replace them even at Court.
In July 1614 John Combe left a legacy of £5 to Shakespeare; this fact disposes of the silly story of Shakespeare having satirised him in infantile doggerel. In the autumn William Combe, the squire of Wilcombe, originated a proposal to enclose common fields in the neighbourhood; he was supported by Shakespeare, who had been guaranteed against prospective loss by Replingham, Combe's agent. The corporation, through his cousin Greene, the town-clerk, remonstrated with him in November when he was in London, and again in December wrote to him representing the inconveniences and loss that would be caused. The matter dragged on to September 1615, and then fell through. This is the last notice of Shakespeare's action in any public matter. On l0th February 1616 his daughter Judith was married to Thomas Quiney, vintner, four years her junior, without licence, whence a fine and threat of excommunication at the WorcesterEcclesiastical Court: and on 25th April Shakespeare was buried. His will had been executed on 25th March. It was not regularly engrossed, but a corrected draft, originally prepared for copying and completion on 25th January, but evidently neglected until the sudden emergency of Shakespeare's illness. It appears from this document that Judith's marriage portion was to have been £100, on condition of her husband's settling on her £150 in land; if this condition was fulfilled within three years he was left £150 to his own use, if not it was strictly settled on her and her children. This £150 is independent of £100 in discharge of her marriage portion, and £50 conditional on her surrendering her interest in the Rowington manor to Susanna Hall. To Joan Hart, his sister, whose husband had been buried on 17th April, was left wearing apparel, £20, a life-interest in Henley Street, and £5 each to her sons. To Susanna Hall he left all his real estate settled in tail male, with the usual remainders over. To Elizabeth Hall all his plate except the broad silver-gilt bowl, which went to Judith Quiney. To his fellows, Hemings, Burbadge, and Condell, £1, 6s. 8d. each for rings; the usual legacies to the executors, poor, &c.; and to his wife his second best bed. Of course she was fully provided for by freebench in the Rowingtoncopyhold, and dower on the rest of the property; nevertheless, it is strange that she does not appear as executrix, that she had no life-interest left her in house or furniture, and that in the draft of the will, as made in January, her name does not appear to have been mentioned at all. It is only in the subsequent interlineations that her bequest appears.
FOOTNOTES:[2]It had been reopened in June 1614.
[2]It had been reopened in June 1614.
[2]It had been reopened in June 1614.
THE PERSONAL CONNECTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE WITH OTHER POETS.
Oneof the objects of the present treatise is to bring into clearer light the relations of Shakespeare with contemporary dramatists. Strangely enough this has scarcely been attempted in earlier biographies. His dealings in malt have been carefully chronicled: his connections with poets have been slurred over. It will be useful, therefore, to gather up the scattered notices of personal contact between him and his fellows in dramatic production. Mere allusions to his works, whether complimentary or otherwise, will not come under this category. Such will be found collected, and well collected, in Dr. Ingleby'sCentury of Praise; but they consist almost entirely of slight references to his published works, and have no bearing of importance on his career. Nor, indeed, have we any extended material of any kind to aid us in this investigation; one source of information,which is abundant for most of his contemporaries, being in his case entirely absent. Neither as addressed to him by others, nor by him to others, do any commendatory verses exist in connection with any of his or other men's works published in his lifetime—a notable fact, in whatever way it may be explained. Nor can he be traced in any personal contact beyond a very limited circle, although the fanciful might-have-beens so largely indulged in by his biographers might at first lead us to an opposite conclusion.
With John Lyly, the founder of English Comedy, he seems to have had no personal intercourse, although the reproduction by him of many of Lyly's puns and conceits, and some few of his dramatic situations, distinctly prove that he had carefully examined his published plays. Nor does the solitary reference to Shakespeare in Greene'sGroatsworth of Wit, however it may display strong personal feeling, lead us to suppose that there had been any personal relations between these dramatists; in fact, the very wording of the passage properly understood distinctly disproves the existence of such relations. Of all the dramatists who had preceded him on the London stage the only two with whom he can be even conjecturally brought in personal contact before the opening of the Rose Theatre in1592 are Robert Wilson and George Peele. It is unlikely that he should have begun his career as a novice and journeyman independent of tutor or coadjutor, and a minute examination of the careers of these two dramatists leads me to infer that they were connected with the same company as Shakespeare in 1590-1. In any case, they were his immediate models in his early work in several respects. It is from Wilson that his liking for doggerel rhymes and alternately rhyming stanzas was derived: it is from Peele that his love tragedy ofRomeo and Juliet—his only early tragedy—derived, in its earliest form, as acted in 1591, whatever in it was not Shakespeare's own. Wilson was probably his tutor or coadjutor in Comedy and Peele in Tragedy. But this is after all conjecture; on the other hand, it is certain that in 1592-3 a greater than Peele or Wilson was writing for the same company as Shakespeare, and necessarily in close connection with him. For Marlowe he certainly had a sincere regard: from his poem ofHero and LeanderShakespeare makes the only direct quotation to be found in his plays; on his historical plays Shakespeare, after his friend's decease, bestowed in addition, revision, and completion, a greater amount of minute work than on his own; and the earlier of his own histories were distinctly built onlines similar to those ofEdward II.andEdward III.The relation of Shakespeare's Histories to Marlowe's is far more intimate than that of his Comedies or ofRomeoto any predecessor's productions. I cannot find a trace of direct connection between Shakespeare and any other poet than these mentioned, during the life of Lord Strange. His connection with Lord Southampton seems to have been more intimate than any with his fellow-poets. In theSonnetsaddressed to him there is mention of other pens who have dedicated poems to his lordship, and whom Shakespeare for poetical purposes professes to regard as dangerous rivals. The only persons known to havededicatedanything to Southampton are Nash and Markham, although George Peele had written a high eulogy of him in hisHonour of the Garterin 1593. Markham's dedication is one of four prefixed to his poem onThe Tragedy of Sir Richard Grenvile(S. R. 9th September 1595); (1.) to Charles Lord Montjoy (in prose); (2.) to Robert Earl of Sussex (Sonnet); (3.) to the Earl of Southampton (Sonnet); (4.) to Sir Edward Wingfield (Sonnet). I am not aware of any previous attempt to identify Markham with the rival alluded to in theSonnetsof Shakespeare, and yet there are many coincidences of language which would lead to this conclusion. Take Sonnet 78, for instance."Thine eyes... have added feathers to the learned'swingand givengracea double majesty." In Markham we find in 1, "hath givenwingsto my youngling Muse;" and in 3, "whoseeyesdoth crown the most victorious pen" (cf.in 1, "that thineeyesmay lighten," &c.); and in 4, thedoublemajesty of the grace, "vouchsafe togracemy work and me,Gracingthe soul beloved of heaven and thee." I do not find in Markham the "affable familiar ghost" of Sonnet 86, but this and other allusions may have referred to hisThyrsis and Daphne(S. R. 23d April 1593, five days after the entry ofVenus and Adonis) which is now unfortunately lost; and there is something like it in the Grenvile Tragedy, in which Markham calls on Grenvile's soul to "sit on his hand" while he writes, which the ghost apparently does until it is dismissed to its "rest" at the end of the poem. Markham was an exceedinglylearnedman and the "proud full sail of his great verse" would well apply to his stilted and conceited effusion. He does not in it allude to Southampton's beauty, though he may have done so in hisThyrsis, but he calls him "Bright lamp ofvirtue" with which compare Sonnet 79: "He lends theevirtue, and he stole that word from thy behaviour." On the whole I incline to regard Markham as the rival poet of Shakespeare'sSonnets. As to Nash, his supposed satirical allusions to Shakespeare, as set forth by the fertile fancy of Mr. Simpson, have no more real existence than the allusions discovered by other like imaginations in the writings of Spenser. His only notice of Shakespeare's writings is the well-known mention of the representation of Talbot on the stage, and that is highly complimentary. He may be included under the "every alien pen" of Sonnet 78, but he is not (as I once thought he was) the rival poet alluded to. It may be of interest in connection with this matter to note that inThe Dumb Knight, in which Markham certainly wrote i. 2, ii. 1, iii. 4, and iv. 2,Venus and Adonisis satirised as a lascivious poem.
Of intercourse with other dramatists while a member of the Chamberlain's company, the first instance is that with Lodge and Drayton. That the connection with Drayton terminated in a misunderstanding is clear from the excision of the favourable notice of Shakespeare'sLucrecefrom hisMatilda, and from Drayton's taking the chief part in writingSir John Oldcastle, the object of which was to keep alive the ill-feeling produced by the unfortunate adoption of that name from the old play ofHenry V.for the character afterwards called Sir John Falstaff. This connection with Drayton ended in 1597, that with Lodge in 1599. If I am rightin my attribution of part authorship to Lodge inHenry VI.andThe Taming of the Shrewin its original form, Shakespeare revised and altered his plays, but not till after Lodge's retirement from connection with the Chamberlain's company. Soon after this, in 1601, he founded hisHamleton Kyd's, but with Kyd himself I have not been able to find that he was at any time personally connected. Nevertheless, as regards mere outward form, Kyd was the chief model for the great tragedies ofHamlet,Lear, &c. Of course, as regards all poetic essentials, his influence on Shakespeare cannot for a moment be compared to Marlowe's.
With Marston, Chapman, and Dekker, Shakespeare's relations were ephemeral, in connection with the great stage quarrel of 1599-1601, and in no respect personal, unless we suppose that he had a hand in hiring Dekker to oppose Jonson. My own belief is that he was away in Scotland whenSatiromastixwas produced, and that the division of the company left in London did this without his knowledge. With Jonson his relations were evidently personal and of very varied nature. He probably introduced him to the Chamberlain's company in 1598; he certainly acted in his play ofEvery Man in his Humour: he did not act inEvery Man out of his Humour—and then Jonson joined theChapel children, and entered on his three years' struggle with Marston, Dekker, &c. In 1601 Shakespeare satirised these children inHamlet, and about the same time administered the "purge" to Jonson mentioned inThe Return from Parnassus: at the end of the same year, he, Jonson, Chapman, and Marston were contributors to Chester'sLove's Martyr. In 1603 Jonson, who had again joined the Chamberlain's men, wroteSejanusin conjunction with some one (with Shakespeare in my opinion), and got into trouble for it. Shakespeare certainly acted in this play, and must at that time have been on good terms with Jonson. All the allusions to Shakespeare'sHenry V., &c., in the Prologue at the revival ofEvery Man in his Humourin 1601 by the Chapel children, and the purge administered to Jonson, had been forgiven and forgotten on both sides. But in 1605 Jonson wroteVolpone, in which Shakespeare did not act, and which gave offence at Court: and this caused a new disagreement between him and the King's men (formerly the Chamberlain's). He left them, and with Chapman and Marston wroteEastward Ho, in whichHamletis ridiculed, and for allusions to Scotland in which, similar to those inVolpone, the authors were imprisoned. The King's men retaliated with the additions toMucedorus, of which more elsewhere, and Jonson did not join themagain for years. He wrote for the Chapel children in 1609, and not till 1610, at the end of the year, when Shakespeare's dramatic career was just expiring, did he produceThe Alchemistfor them at the Globe. It is to be hoped that these two great dramatists were not at open enmity during the later part of Shakespeare's life; but all record of any real friendship between them ends in 1603, and little value is to be attributed either to the vague traditions of Jonson's visiting him at Stratford, or to the abundant praise lavished on him by Jonson in commendatory verses after his death. Much more important for ascertaining the real relations existing between them are the allusions toThe TempestandWinter's Taleso abundantly scattered through all Jonson's plays from 1609 to 1616, while Shakespeare was yet alive.
Of other dramatists who were connected with Shakespeare in King James's time I know only of Tourneur and Wilkins—the former simply as an author writing for Shakespeare's company, the latter as the playwright who wrotePericlesin its original form: the history of the production of this play has already been given.
As to Beaumont, Fletcher, Webster, &c., who after 1610 wrote for the King's men, and the numerous contemporaries who wrote for other companies, notrace of any intercourse with Shakespeare, personal or otherwise, remains to us, though abundant guesses and hypotheses utterly foundationless[3]will be found in the voluminous Shakespearian literature already existing. The truth appears to be that Shakespeare at no time sought for a large circle of acquaintance, and that his position as almost sole provider of plays for his company relieved him of that miscellaneous comradeship which was the bane of Dekker, Heywood, and many other gifted writers of the time. Of any one of these a far larger personal connection can be proved than I believe ever existed in the case of Shakespeare: and to this we no doubt are greatly indebted for the depth and roundness of those great plays, which could never have been conceived without much solitude, much suffering, and much concentration.
FOOTNOTES:[3]The reader should especially beware of a most absurd identification of Shakespeare with the Crispinus of Jonson'sPoetaster, recently put forth by Mr. J. Feis in hisShakspere and Montaigne. It is a pity that an essay, of which the first four chapters are so valuable, should be disfigured by the palpable chronological and other blunders in the latter portions of the volume.
[3]The reader should especially beware of a most absurd identification of Shakespeare with the Crispinus of Jonson'sPoetaster, recently put forth by Mr. J. Feis in hisShakspere and Montaigne. It is a pity that an essay, of which the first four chapters are so valuable, should be disfigured by the palpable chronological and other blunders in the latter portions of the volume.
[3]The reader should especially beware of a most absurd identification of Shakespeare with the Crispinus of Jonson'sPoetaster, recently put forth by Mr. J. Feis in hisShakspere and Montaigne. It is a pity that an essay, of which the first four chapters are so valuable, should be disfigured by the palpable chronological and other blunders in the latter portions of the volume.
ANNALS ON WHICH THE PRECEDING SECTIONS ARE FOUNDED.
Until April 1564.
On 26th April 1564 was baptized William, son of John Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon and Mary Arden, at that time an only child, two girls born previously having died in their infancy. John Shakespeare was son of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, where his brother Henry also resided: he was a glover, who speculated in wool, corn, &c. He lived in Henley Street, Stratford, as early as 29th April 1552, having left his father about 1550, and in October 1556 purchased two small estates in that town—one that is now shown as the birthplace, the other in Greenhill Street. In 1557 he married Mary Arden, whose father, Robert, a yeoman, had contracted a second marriage with Agnes Hill, widow, and in the settlement then made had reserved to Mary the reversion to estates at Wilmecoteand Snitterfield. Some part of this land was occupied by Richard Shakespeare's grandfather. Mary Arden also received under her father's will, dated 24th November 1556, a considerable sum in money, and the fee-simple of Asbies at Wilmecote, a house with sixty acres of land. In 1557 John was a burgess, a member of the corporation, and by choice of the Court Leet ale-taster to the borough, sworn to look to the assize and goodness of bread, ale, or beer. In September 1558 he was one of the four constables under the rules of the Court Leet. On 6th October 1559 he was again chosen constable and one of the four affeerors for determining fines under the borough bye-laws. In 1561 he was again chosen affeeror, and one of the borough chamberlains, which office he held till the end of 1563.
1564.
In July the plague broke out in Stratford, and continued to December. There died 238 in that half-year, no Shakespeares among them. John Shakespeare had had an early lesson in sanitation by way of a fine of 12d. in April 1552 for having a muck heap in front of his door in Henley Street, within a stone's-throw of one of the publicstores of filth. He now contributed fairly to relieve the poor and plague-stricken; about 12d. per month.
1565.
In March John Shakespeare with his former colleague made up the chamberlain's accounts from September 1563 to 1564. Neither of them could sign their names.
1566.
In February he again made up these accounts, and was paid £3, 2s. 7d. "for a rest of old debt" by the corporation. On 13th October his son Gilbert was baptized.
1567.
In September, Ralph Perrot, brewer, John Shakespeare, and Ralph Cawdrey, butcher, were nominated for the office of High Bailiff or Mayor. Cawdrey was elected. For the first time the name appears as "Mr." John Shakespeare.
1568.
On 4th September "Mr. John Shakysper" was chosen High Bailiff. He was succeeded the next year by Robert Salisbury.
1569.
On 15th April John Shakespeare's third daughter (named Joan after her deceased elder sister) was baptized.
1571.
On 28th September John Shakespeare's fourth daughter Anne was baptized. William was now seven, then the usual age for the commencement of grammar-school education, the use of the Absey book and horn-book having been acquired at home. Lily'sAccidenceand theSententiæ Puerileswere the usual text-books for beginners in Latin. Shakespeare had some knowledge of Latin, and a little French; all beyond this is very problematical.
1573.
On 11th March, Richard, John Shakespeare's third son, was baptized.
1575.
John Shakespeare bought two houses in Stratford.
1578.
In January John Shakespeare paid only the amount of borough taxes paid by other aldermen.William was then fourteen, the usual age for commencing apprenticeship. There is a tradition given by Aubrey that he was apprenticed to a butcher. I believe this to be a myth, originating in the epithet "kill-cow," often applied to tragic actors. Some writers still think that the tradition may be relied on. Another story traced to the parish clerk of 1693 is that he followed his father's profession. May be so; may not be.
1579.
In Easter Term Asbies was mortgaged to Edmund Lambert for £40, to revert if repayment be made before Michaelmas 1580.
On 4th July Anne Shakespeare was buried; in the chamberlain's accounts occurs this item: "For the bell and pall for Mr. Shaxper's daughter, 8d.," the highest fee in the list.
On 15th October John Shakespeare and his wife convey their interest in Snitterfield to Robert Webbe. Agnes Arden's will is dated in this year.
1580.
On 3d May, Edmund, son of John Shakespeare, was baptized.
On or before 29th September, the money in dischargeof the Asbies mortgage was tendered and refused unless other moneys due were also paid.
1581.
On 19th January the goods of Agnes Arden, deceased, were appraised.
On 1st September Richard Hathaway of Shottery made his will.
1582.
On 28th November the marriage bond between William Shagspere and Anne Hathway was given, under condition that neither party had been precontracted to another person, and that the said William Shagspere should not proceed to solemnization with the said Anne Hathway without consent of her friends. They were to be married with one asking of the banns. The bondsmen were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson,—the seal is R.H., which may be Richard Hathaway's.
1583.
On May 26th Susanna their daughter was baptized. It is assumed that a precontract existed between the parents which, according to the customof the time, "was not legally recognised, but it invalidated a subsequent union of either of the parties with any one else" (Halliwell,Outlines, p. 45). The reader must form his own opinion. Taking into consideration the low morality of the time in such matters, the fact that Anne Hathaway was twenty-six, and Shakespeare eighteen in 1582, the practice still not unknown in rural districts of cohabitation under conditional promise of marriage, should the probable birth of a child make it necessary or prudent, the fact that from 1587 to 1597 we have no evidence that Shakespeare even saw his wife, and the palpable indications in theSonnetsthat during this interval he was intriguing with another woman—for my own part I cannot help adopting De Quincey's view that he was entrapped into some such conditional promise by this lady and kept his promise honourably. Compare on the precontract question the plays ofThe Miseries of Enforced Marriageby Wilkins, which is founded on the contemporary history of the same Calverley who is the murderer inThe Yorkshire Tragedy, with Shakespeare's own views in 1604 inMeasure for Measure; his opinions inTwelfth Night, ii. 4 (early part, c. 1592), andMidsummer Night's Dream, i. 1, on wives that are older than their husbands: and, by way of showing that his plays dodiscover sometimes his personal feelings, Valentine's resignation of Silvia inThe Two Gentlemen of Verona, with the story involved in theSonnetsof Shakespeare's own transfer of his illicit love.
1585.
February 2. Hamnet and Judith, Shakspeare's twin children, were baptized at Stratford-on-Avon. By April 26th he had certainly attained his majority, and his apprenticeship had probably expired.
1585-7.
Three or four years after his union with Anne Hathaway, he had, says Rowe, "by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and, amongst them, some, that made a frequent practice of deer stealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park, that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford; for this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to revenge that ill usage made a ballad upon him, and though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that hewas obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in London." Whether this tradition be well founded or no, we are compelled by subsequent events to place the date of Shakespeare's leaving Stratford in or about 1587; and whether there be any truth in the story traced to Davenant or not, that he held horses at the play-house door, while their owners were witnessing performances inside, it is certain that he was very soon connected with the stage, first as actor, then as dramatic writer. It becomes therefore of importance to ascertain if possible the specific company with which he originally joined.
In the latter part of 1585 there were two regular theatres existing in London, the Theater and the Curtain. It clearly appears from a report by Recorder Fleetwood preserved in the Lansdown MSS. that at Whitsuntide 1584 these were occupied by the Queen's players and those of Lord Arundel. It is not clear that a third company, that of Lord Hunsdon, acted at the Theater: although Mr. J. O. H. Phillipps (whom I most usually refer to under his former and better known name of Halliwell) assures us that it is so. It is true that the "owner of the Theater," whom he takes to be a temporary occupier of thatbuilding, but whom I regard as the ground landlord, Giles Alleyn, is called a servant of Lord Hunsdon's, and that a company of actors, called Lord Hunsdon's men, acted at Court 27th December 1582; but it does not follow that these men were occupiers of the Theater. In fact the only companies anyhow known to us as in London in 1585 are the two already mentioned. It is by no means likelyà priori, nor would it agree with the passages hereafter to be referred to in the writings of Greene and Nash, that Shakespeare should immediately on his appearance in London obtain employment in either. But there was a third company not noticed in Collier'sAnnals of the Stage, into which he may easily have obtained admittance. When the Queen's company was formed in 8th March 1582-3, by the selection of twelve players from the companies of the two Dudleys, Earls of Leicester and Warwick, there must have been sufficient men left unemployed to form another company. These were probably still retained by the Earl of Leicester: for in a letter from Sir Philip Sidney, dated Utrecht, 24th March 1575-6, mention is made of "Will, the Earl of Leicester's jesting player," who had gone with the Earl to the Netherlands in December 1575. Thomas Heywood, in hisApology for Actors, 1612, tells us that "TheKing of Denmark, father to him that now reigneth, entertained into his service a company of English comedians, commended unto him by the honourable Earl of Leicester." This King of Denmark, Frederick II., died in 1588, and the exact date of the transaction is fixed by documents dated October 1586, in which we find that five of these actors had been transferred from the service of Frederick II. of Denmark to that of Christian I., Duke of Saxony. I am far from wishing to adopt the conjecture of Mr. Bruce that "jesting Will" was Shakespeare; but when among the names of these five actors—Thomas King, Thomas Stephen, George Bryan, Thomas Pope, Robert Persie—we find two, Pope and Bryan, that are identical with those of two actors in the very first list extant of the first company with which we can positively connect Shakespeare as an actor; when we find this same company acting at Stratford in 1587, at the very time that Shakespeare's disappearance from all known connection with that town for nine years commences; when we find among a list of plays that had been acted by the English in GermanyHester and Ahasuerus,Titus Andronicus[and Vespasian], both of which we shall trace to Shakespeare's company; when we also find a version of the CorambisHamletexisting early inthe same country—then I think we are justified in saying that there is great likelihood of this company having been the one in which Shakespeare found his first employment. If so, he accompanied it in all its fortunes, and never (as we shall see) forsook it for another.
1586.
Meanwhile in London the plague had prevailed to such an extent that the theatres were shut up during 1586. It was not then during this year that Shakespeare held horses at stage-doors, or obtained employment in London theatres. But at the end of the year Lord Leicester's players returned to England, and in January 1586-87 are mentioned together with the Queen's, the Admiral's, and the Earl of Oxford's, in a letter to Walsingham from a spy of his, which is preserved in the Harleian MSS.
1587.
This same company, the Earl of Leicester's men, visited Stratford-on-Avon in 1587. I have not been able to trace their previous presence there since 1576, although other companies paid frequent visits to this town. It is singular that in this year,the only one in which this company visited Stratford during the twelve years intervening between the birth and death of Hamnet Shakespeare, we find also the only record of the poet's presence in the place of his nativity. I give this in the words of Mr. Halliwell. "In 1578 his parents had borrowed the sum of £40 on the security of his mother's estate of Asbies, from their connexion, Edmund Lambert of Barton-on-the-Heath. The loan remaining unpaid, and the mortgage dying in March 1587, his son and heir John was naturally desirous of having the matter settled. John Shakespeare being at that time in prison for debt, and obviously unable to furnish the money, it was arranged shortly afterwards that Lambert should, on cancelling the mortgage and paying also the sum of £20, receive from the Shakespeares an absolute title to the estate. His offer would perhaps not have been made had it not been ascertained that the eldest son William had a contingent interest, derived no doubt from a settlement, and that his assent was essential to the security of a conveyance. The proposed arrangement was not completed, but" the poet's sanction to it is recorded. I believe that immediately after this, in 1587, Shakespeare left Stratford either with or in order to join Lord Leicester's company.
1588.
The Earl of Leicester died on 4th September 1588. Previously to this date the company of players acting under his patronage had played in London, probably at the Cross-Keys in Bishopsgate Street, and more frequently had travelled in the country. At the death of Dudley, they had of course to seek for a new patron, and no doubt found one in Ferdinando, Lord Strange, whose company (containing as we shall see some of the actors already known as Leicester's men) are first traceable in 1589. An earlier company bearing the title of Lord Strange's men, c. 1582, seem to have been merely acrobats or posture-mongers. But before entering on the history of this company under its new name, of which weknowShakespeare to have been a member, we must note some particulars regarding other dramatists, especially Marlowe, Greene, and Nash, which indirectly concern Shakespeare, and have hitherto been wrongly interpreted.
In 1587, when the Admiral's men re-opened after the plague, they produced, in what succession we need not here determine, Greene'sOrlandoandAlphonsus of Arragon, Peele'sBattle of Alcazar, and Marlowe'sTamberlaine. Those plays are enumerated in Peele'sFarewell, 1589, as—