FOOTNOTES:[19]E.K. Chambers inModern Language Review, Oct. 1906.
[19]E.K. Chambers inModern Language Review, Oct. 1906.
[19]E.K. Chambers inModern Language Review, Oct. 1906.
SHAKESPEARE AND THE SCHOLARS
1588-1594
In considering the conditions of Shakespeare's life at the beginning of his career in London, and his application to the College of Heralds for a grant of arms in 1596, it must be borne in mind that social distinctions and class gradations at that time still retained much of their feudal significance. At that period an actor, unless protected by the licence of a nobleman or gentleman, was virtually a vagrant before the law, while felonies committed by scholars were still clergyable. When Ben Jonson was indicted for killing Gabriel Spencer in 1598, he pleaded and received benefit of clergy, his only legal punishment consisting in having the inside of his thumb branded with the Tyburn "T," and it is unlikely that even this was inflicted.
While a university degree thus enhanced both the social and legal status of sons of yeomen and tradesmen, the sons of equally reputable people who became actors were correspondingly debased both socially and legally.
Though the established status which the actors' profession attained during Shakespeare's connection with the stage—and largely through his elevating influence—made these legal disabilities of an actor a dead letter, it still continued to militate against the social standing of its members. JohnDavies leaves record that at the accession of James I. it was gossiped that Shakespeare, had he not formerly been an actor, instead of being appointed Groom of the Privy Chamber, might have received the higher appointment of Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. This idea owed its birth to Shakespeare's friendship with the Earl of Southampton, whose influence in the early days of the new Court—when he himself stood high in favour—secured the office for his other protégé, John Florio, one of the gentlemen by the grace of a university degree who joined issue with the "university pens" against Shakespeare, and who in consequence—as I shall later demonstrate—shall be pilloried to far-distant ages in the character of Sir John Falstaff. Though Shakespeare had acquired a legal badge of gentility with his coat of arms in 1599, the histrionic taint—according to Davies—proved a bar to his official promotion.
"Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing,Hadst thou not played some kingly parts in sport,Thou hadst been a companion to a KingAnd been a King among the meaner sort."
Arrogance towards social inferiors, as well as servility to superiors, is always manifested most offensively in the manners of those who are themselves conscious of equivocal social standing. I shall adduce evidence to prove that from the time we first begin dimly to apprehend Shakespeare in his London environment, in 1588-89, until his final return to Stratford in about 1610, he was continuously and spitefully attacked and vilified by a coterie of jealous scholars who, while lifted above him socially by the arbitrary value attaching to a university degree, were in no other sense his superiors either in birth or breeding. It was evidently, then, the contemptuous attitude of his jealous scholastic rivals, aswell as the accruing material advantages involved, that impelled Shakespeare in 1596 to apply, through his father, to the College of Heralds for official confirmation of a grant of arms alleged to have been made to his forebears.
Shakespeare's earliest scholastic detractor was Robert Greene, who evidently set much store by his acquired gentility, as he usually signed his publications as "By Robert Greene, Master of Arts in Cambridge," and who, withal, was a most licentious and unprincipled libertine, going, through his ill-regulated course of life, dishonoured and unwept to a pauper's grave at the age of thirty-two. After the death of Greene, when his memory was assailed by Gabriel Harvey and others whom he had offended, his friend Nashe, who attempted to defend him, finding it difficult to do so, makes up for the lameness of his defence by the bitterness of his attack on Harvey. Nashe, in fact, resents being regarded as an intimate of Greene's, yet his, and Greene's, spiteful and ill-bred reflections upon Shakespeare's social quality, education, and personal appearance, between 1589 and 1592, were received sympathetically by the remainder of the "gentlemen poets,"—as they styled themselves in contradistinction to the stage poets,—and used thereafter for years as a keynote to their own jealous abuse of him.
John Florio, in hisFirst Fruites, published in 1591, and after he had entered the service of the Earl of Southampton, though not yet assailing Shakespeare personally, as did these other scholars, appears as a critic of his historical dramatic work.
In 1593 George Peele, in hisHonour of the Garter, re-echoes the slurs against Shakespeare voiced by Greene in the previous year. In the same year George Chapman,who thereafterwards proved to be Shakespeare's arch-enemy among the "gentlemen scholars," caricatures him and his affairs in a new play, which he revised, in conjunction with John Marston, six years later, under the title ofHistriomastix, or The Player Whipt. Neither the authorship, date of production, nor satirical intention of the early form of the play has previously been known.
In 1594 Chapman again attacks Shakespeare inThe Hymns to the Shadow of Night, as well as in the prose dedication written to his colleague, Matthew Roydon. In the same year Roydon enters the lists against Shakespeare by publishing a satirical and scandalous poem reflecting upon, and distorting, his private affairs, entitledWillobie his Avisa. From this time onward until the year 1609-10, Chapman, Roydon, and John Florio—who in the meantime had joined issue with them—continue to attack and vilify Shakespeare. Every reissue, or attempted reissue, ofWillobie his Avisawas intended as an attack upon Shakespeare. Such reissues were made or attempted in 1596-1599-1605 and 1609, though some of them were prevented by the action of the public censor who, we have record, condemned the issue of 1596 and prevented the issue of 1599. As no copies of the 1605 or 1609 issues are now extant, it is probable that they also were estopped by the authorities. In 1598-99 these partisans (Chapman, Roydon, and Florio) are joined by John Marston, and a year later, also by Ben Jonson, when, for three or four years, Chapman, Jonson, and Marston collaborate in scurrilous plays against Shakespeare and friends who had now rallied to his side. In about 1598 Thomas Dekker and Henry Chettle joined sides with Shakespeare and answered his opponents' attacks by satirising them in plays. John Florio, while not participating in the dramatic warfare, attacks Shakespeare viciously in the dedication to hisWorlde of Wordes, in 1598, and comes in for his share of the satirical chastisement which Shakespeare, Dekker, and Chettle administer to them in acted, as well as in published, plays.
As Ben Jonson's dramatic reputation became assured the heat of his rivalry against Shakespeare died down; his vision cleared and broadened and he, more plainly than any writer of his time, or possibly since his time, realised Shakespeare in his true proportions. Jonson, in time, tires of Chapman's everlasting envy and misanthropy, and quarrels with him and in turn becomes the object of Chapman's invectives. After Shakespeare's death Jonson made amends for his past ill-usage by defending his memory against Chapman, who, even then, continued to belittle his reputation.
While various critics have from time to time apprehended a critical attitude upon the part of certain contemporary writers towards Shakespeare, they have usually regarded such indications as they may have noticed, merely as passing and temporary ebullitions, but no conception of the bitterness and continuity of the hostility which actually existed has previously been realised. Much of the evidence of the early antagonism of Greene and Nashe to Shakespeare has been entirely misunderstood, while their reflections against other dramatists and actors are supposed to have been directed against him. Past critics have been utterly oblivious of the fact that Florio, Roydon, and Chapman and others colluded for many years in active hostility to Shakespeare.
In publications issued between 1585 and 1592 Robert Greene vents his displeasure against various dramaticwriters whose plays had proved more popular than his, as well as against the companies of actors, their managers, and the theatre that favoured his rivals. The writers and actor-managers whom he attacks have been variously identified by past writers. Mr. Richard Simpson, one of the most acute, ingenious, and painstaking pioneers in Shakespearean research, whoseSchool of Shakespearewas issued after his death in 1878, supposed that all of Greene's attacks in these years, including those in which his friend, Thomas Nashe, collaborated with him, were directed against Shakespeare and Marlowe. Since Mr. Simpson wrote, however, now over forty years ago, some new light has been thrown upon the theatrical companies, and their connection with the writers of the period with which he dealt, which negatives many of his conclusions. While it is evident that Greene was jealous of, and casts reflections upon, Marlowe, to whom he refers as "Merlin" and "the athiest Tamburlaine," Mr. Fleay has since proved that several of Greene's veiled reflections were directed against others. Mr. Fleay's suggestion that Robert Wilson was the Roscius so frequently referred to by Greene and Nashe is, however, based upon incorrect inference, though he proves by several characteristic parallels, which he adduces between lines inThe Three Ladies of London,The Three Lords and Three Ladies, andFair Em,—the last of which is satirically alluded to by Greene in hisFarewell to Folly, in 1591,—that they were all three either written, or revised, by the same hand. While his ascription of the composition of the first two of these plays to Wilson is probably also correct, his assumption that Wilson was a writer and an actor for Lord Strange's company in 1591 was due to lack of collected and compiled records concerning the Elizabethan companies ofplayers at the time he wrote, which have since been made available.[20]
There is nothing whatever known of Robert Wilson after 1583, when he is mentioned, along with Tarleton, as being selected by Tilney, the Master of the Revels, for the Queen's company. In an appended note I analyse the literary evidence upon which Mr. Fleay associates Robert Wilson with Strange's companyin 1589-91.[21]
Robert Wilson must have been passé as an actor in 1589, if indeed he was then living, while Strange's company was composed of younger and rising men, all recently selected for their histrionic abilities from several companies, amongstwhich, it appears evident, the Queen's company was not then included, though it is likely that in 1591 some Queen's men joined Strange's company. That Robert Wilson was not the Roscius referred to by Greene and Nashe in 1589 and 1590 a further examination of the evidence will fully verify.
The person indicated as Roscius by Nashe in his Address to Greene'sMenaphonin 1589, and in Greene'sNever Too Latein 1590, was the leading actor of a new company that was then gaining great reputation, which, however, was largely due—according to Nashe—to the pre-eminent excellence of this Roscius' acting. The pride and conceit of this actor had risen to such a pitch, Nashe informs us in hisAnatomy of Absurdity(1589), that he had the "temerity to encounter with those on whose shoulders all arts do lean." This last is a plain reference to George Peele, whom he had recently described in hisMenaphon"Address" as "The Atlas of Poetry." In the following year Greene refers to the same encounter in the first part of hisNever Too Late. Pretending to describe theatrical conditions in Rome, he again attacks the London players and brings in Roscius—who without doubt was Edward Alleyn—as contending with Tully, who is Peele. "Among whom," he writes, "in the days of Tully, one Roscius grew to be of such exquisite perfection in his faculty thathe offered to contend with the orators of that time in gesture as they did in eloquence, boasting that he would express a passion in as many sundry actions as Tully could discourse it in a variety of phrases. Yet so proud he grew by the daily applause of the people that he looked for honour or reverence to be done him in the streets, which conceit when Tully entered into with a piercing insight, he quipped it in this manner:
"It chanced that Roscius and he met at dinner both guests unto Archias, the poet, when the proud comedian dared to make comparison with Tully. Why Roscius art thou proud with Æsop's crow, being prankt with the glory of others' feathers? Of thyself thou canst say nothing and if the cobbler hath taught thee to sayAve Cæsardisdain not thy tutor because thou pratest in a King's chamber. What sentence thou utterest on the stage flows from the censure of our wits, and what sentence or conceit the people applaud for excellence, that comes from the secrets of our knowledge. I grant your acting, though it be a kind of mechanical labour, yet well done, 'tis worthy of praise, but you worthless if for so small a toy you wax proud."
Here again Tully is Peele, and Greene is merely describing more fully the alleged encounter between Alleyn and Peele, mentioned by Nashe the year before inThe Anatomy of Absurdity.
Though it has never been noticed before, in this connection, we possess in Edward Alleyn's own papers preserved at Dulwich College a remarkable confirmation of this emulation, which, however, Greene and Nashe distort to the prejudice of Alleyn, who, as shall be shown, was innocent in the affair. The whole thing arose from admirers of Alleyn's among the theatre-frequenting gentry offering wagers to friends who championed Peele in order to provide after-dinner entertainment for themselves, by putting the poet and the player on their mettle in "expressing a passion"—the one in action and the other in phrases. Alleyn refused the contest "for fear of hurting Peele's credit," but gossip of the proposed wager got abroad and was distorted by the scholars, who affected to be insulted by the idea of one of their ilk contending with a player. Failing to bring about this match, Alleyn's backers, not to be beaten, and in order, willy-nilly, to make a wager on their champion, evidently tried to get Alleyn to display his powers before friends who professed to admire Bentley and Knell[22]—actors of a slightly earlier date, who were now either retired from the stage or dead. The following letter and poem were evidently written in 1589, as Nashe's reference to the "encounter," which is the first notice of it, was published in this year:
"Your answer the other nighte, so well pleased the Gentlemen, as I was satisfied therewith, though to the hazarde of ye wager; and yet my meaninge was not to prejudice Peele's credit; neither wolde it, though it pleased you so to excuse it, but beinge now growen farther into question, the partie affected to Bentley (scornynge to wynne the wager by your deniall), hath now given you libertie to make choice of any one playe, that either Bentley or Knell plaide, and least this advantage, agree not with your minde, he is contented, both the plaie, and the time, shall be referred to the gentlemen here present. I see not, how you canne any waie hurte your credit by this action; for if you excell them, you will then be famous, if equall them; you wynne both the wager and credit, if short of them; we must and will saie Ned Allen still.—Your frend to his power,W.P.
"Your answer the other nighte, so well pleased the Gentlemen, as I was satisfied therewith, though to the hazarde of ye wager; and yet my meaninge was not to prejudice Peele's credit; neither wolde it, though it pleased you so to excuse it, but beinge now growen farther into question, the partie affected to Bentley (scornynge to wynne the wager by your deniall), hath now given you libertie to make choice of any one playe, that either Bentley or Knell plaide, and least this advantage, agree not with your minde, he is contented, both the plaie, and the time, shall be referred to the gentlemen here present. I see not, how you canne any waie hurte your credit by this action; for if you excell them, you will then be famous, if equall them; you wynne both the wager and credit, if short of them; we must and will saie Ned Allen still.—Your frend to his power,
W.P.
Deny me not sweete Nedd, the wager's downe,and twice as muche, commande of me and myne:And if you wynne I sweare the half is thyne;and for an overplus, an English Crowne.Appoint the tyme, and stint it as you pleas,Your labor's gaine; and that will prove it ease."
(addressed) "To Edward Allen."
This letter to Edward Alleyn from his friend "W.P." is finely written in an English, and the verses in an Italian, hand. The words, "Ned Allen," "sweete Nedd," and "English Crowne" are in gilt letters.[23]The occasion and its instigation must have been of interest to Alleyn for him to have preserved the letter for so many years; his reason for doing so evidently being to enable him to refute Greene's published and widely circulated misconstruction of it. It is evident that both the letter and poem were written while Alleyn was still young, when he already had ardent admirers, and his reputation was growing but not generally admitted, and at about the time that Peele had commenced to write for his company. Alleyn was twenty-four years old in 1589, and already regarded by many as the best actor in London. George Peele, who had written for the Queen's company in the past, at about, or shortly after, this date, began to write for Strange's company. HisEdward I., which was published in 1593, was undoubtedly written between 1589-91, when Shakespeare was still connected with Strange's men.
The "cobbler" who taught Roscius to say "Ave Cæsar" was Christopher Marlowe, whose father was a shoemaker. Marlowe was the principal writer for Burbage at this period, and continued so until his death in 1593. "Ave Cæsar" and "a King's chamber" are references to the play ofEdward III., which I shall demonstrate later was written by Marlowe, though revised by Shakespeare after Marlowe's death. It is the only known play of this period in which the expression "Ave Cæsar" occurs.
In many of Greene's romances the central figure has been recognised as a more or less fanciful autobiographicalsketch. In his last work,A Groatsworth of Wit, in the introduction to which he makes his well-known attack upon Shakespeare, the adventures of Roberto, the protagonist of the story, tally approximately with known circumstances of Greene's life. In the opening of the story, Roberto's marriage, his desertion of his wife, his attachment to another woman who deserts him when he falls into poverty, all coincide with the facts in his own career. From this we may infer that what follows has also a substratum of truth regarding a temporary connection of Greene with Alleyn's company as playwright, though it is evident that he describes Alleyn's theatrical conditions as they were between 1589 and 1592 and after Alleyn had acquired the theatrical properties of the old Admiral's company from Richard Jones, Robert Browne, and his brother, John Alleyn, in 1589. Greene's account of Roscius' own attempts at dramatic composition need not be taken very seriously, though it is not at all improbable that Alleyn, who was very ambitious, at some time tentatively essayed dramatic composition or revision. It was certainly a very inexperienced playwright, yet one who had some idea of the style of phrase that caught the ear of the masses, who interpolated the tame and prosy lines of the oldTaming of a Shrewso freely with selections from Marlowe's most inflated grandiloquence, and one, also, who had access to Marlowe's manuscripts. The plays from which these selections were taken were all Burbage properties in 1588-89, as was alsoThe Taming of a Shrew. It was this kind of dramatic stage-carpenter work that left an opening for Nashe's strictures in 1589 in hisMenaphon"Address." Several of the later covert references to Alleyn as Roscius, by Greene and Nashe, indicate that he had tried his hand upon the composition and revision of dramaticwork, in which he had the assistance of a "theological poet." While they undoubtedly refer to Shakespeare as one of the "idiot art-masters" they use the plural and include others in authority in Burbage's company.
Greene, representing himself as Roberto after his mistress had deserted him, describes himself as sitting under a hedge as an outcast and bemoaning his fate.
"On the other side of the hedge sat one that heard his sorrow, who, getting over, came ... and saluted Roberto.... 'If you vouchsafe such simple comfort as my ability will yield, assure yourself that I will endeavour to do the best that ... may procure your profit ... the rather, for that I suppose you are a scholar; and pity it is men of learning should live in lack.' Roberto ... uttered his present grief, beseeching his advice how he might be employed. 'Why, easily,' quoth he, 'and greatly to your benefit; for men of my profession get by scholars their whole living.' 'What is your profession?' said Roberto. 'Truly, sir,' said he, 'I am a player.' 'A player!' quoth Roberto; 'I took you rather for a gentleman of great living; for if by outward habit men should be censured, I tell you you would be taken for a substantial man.' 'So am I, where I dwell,' quoth the player, 'reputed able at my proper cost to build a windmill. What though the world once went hard with me, when I was fain to carry my fardel a foot-back?Tempora mutantur—I know you know the meaning of it better than I, but I thus construe it—It is otherwise now; for my very share in playing apparel will not be sold for two hundred pounds.' 'Truly,' said Roberto, 'it is strange that you should so prosper in that vain practice, for that it seems to me your voice is nothing gracious.' 'Nay, then,' said the player, 'I mislike your judgement; why, I am as famous forDelphrygusandThe King of Fairiesas ever was any of my time;The Twelve Labours of Herculeshave I thundered on the stage,and played three scenes of the Devil inThe Highway to Heaven.' 'Have ye so?' said Roberto; 'then I pray you pardon me.' 'Nay, more,' quoth the player, 'I can serve to make a pretty speech, for I was a country author, passing at a moral; for it was I that pennedThe Moral of Man's Wit,The Dialogue of Dives, and for seven years' space was absolute interpreter of the puppets. But now my almanac is out of date:'"The people make no estimationOf morals, teaching education——"Was this not pretty for a rhyme extempore? If ye will ye shall have more.' 'Nay, it is enough,' said Roberto; 'but how mean ye to use me?' 'Why, sir, in making plays,' said the other, 'for which you shall be well paid, if you will take the pains.' Roberto, perceiving no remedy, thought it best to respect his present necessity, (and,) to try his wit, went with him willingly; who lodged him at the town's end in a house of retail ... there by conversing with bad company, he grewa malo in pegus, falling from one vice to another.... But Roberto, now famoused for an arch-playmaking poet, his purse, like the sea, sometime swelled, anon, like the same sea, fell to a low ebb; yet seldom he wanted, his labours were so well esteemed. Marry this rule he kept, whatever he fingered beforehand, was the certain means to unbind a bargain; and being asked why he so slightly dealt with them that did him good, 'It becomes me,' saith he, 'to be contrary to the world. For commonly when vulgar men receive earnest, they do perform. When I am paid anything aforehand, I break my promise.'"
"On the other side of the hedge sat one that heard his sorrow, who, getting over, came ... and saluted Roberto.... 'If you vouchsafe such simple comfort as my ability will yield, assure yourself that I will endeavour to do the best that ... may procure your profit ... the rather, for that I suppose you are a scholar; and pity it is men of learning should live in lack.' Roberto ... uttered his present grief, beseeching his advice how he might be employed. 'Why, easily,' quoth he, 'and greatly to your benefit; for men of my profession get by scholars their whole living.' 'What is your profession?' said Roberto. 'Truly, sir,' said he, 'I am a player.' 'A player!' quoth Roberto; 'I took you rather for a gentleman of great living; for if by outward habit men should be censured, I tell you you would be taken for a substantial man.' 'So am I, where I dwell,' quoth the player, 'reputed able at my proper cost to build a windmill. What though the world once went hard with me, when I was fain to carry my fardel a foot-back?Tempora mutantur—I know you know the meaning of it better than I, but I thus construe it—It is otherwise now; for my very share in playing apparel will not be sold for two hundred pounds.' 'Truly,' said Roberto, 'it is strange that you should so prosper in that vain practice, for that it seems to me your voice is nothing gracious.' 'Nay, then,' said the player, 'I mislike your judgement; why, I am as famous forDelphrygusandThe King of Fairiesas ever was any of my time;The Twelve Labours of Herculeshave I thundered on the stage,and played three scenes of the Devil inThe Highway to Heaven.' 'Have ye so?' said Roberto; 'then I pray you pardon me.' 'Nay, more,' quoth the player, 'I can serve to make a pretty speech, for I was a country author, passing at a moral; for it was I that pennedThe Moral of Man's Wit,The Dialogue of Dives, and for seven years' space was absolute interpreter of the puppets. But now my almanac is out of date:
'"The people make no estimationOf morals, teaching education——"
Was this not pretty for a rhyme extempore? If ye will ye shall have more.' 'Nay, it is enough,' said Roberto; 'but how mean ye to use me?' 'Why, sir, in making plays,' said the other, 'for which you shall be well paid, if you will take the pains.' Roberto, perceiving no remedy, thought it best to respect his present necessity, (and,) to try his wit, went with him willingly; who lodged him at the town's end in a house of retail ... there by conversing with bad company, he grewa malo in pegus, falling from one vice to another.... But Roberto, now famoused for an arch-playmaking poet, his purse, like the sea, sometime swelled, anon, like the same sea, fell to a low ebb; yet seldom he wanted, his labours were so well esteemed. Marry this rule he kept, whatever he fingered beforehand, was the certain means to unbind a bargain; and being asked why he so slightly dealt with them that did him good, 'It becomes me,' saith he, 'to be contrary to the world. For commonly when vulgar men receive earnest, they do perform. When I am paid anything aforehand, I break my promise.'"
The player described here is the same person indicated by Nashe three years before in hisMenaphon"Address." Both are represented as being famous for their performance ofDelphrygusandThe King of the Fairies, but the events narrated connecting Greene with Alleyn, and the opulentcondition of the latter, refer to a more recent stage of Greene's and Alleyn's affairs than Nashe's reference. Both Nashe's and Greene's descriptions point to a company of players that between 1589-91 had won a leading place in London theatrical affairs; that performed at the Theatre; that playedHamlet,The Taming of a Shrew,Edward III., andFair Em: the leader of which personally owned theatrical properties valued at two hundred pounds, and who was regarded by them as an actor of unusual ability. Seven years before 1592 this company performed mostly in the provinces, carrying their "fardels on their backs." It is very apparent then that it is Alleyn's old and new companies, the Worcester-Admiral-Strange development, to which the allusions refer.
While the "idiot art-masters" indicated by Nashe and Greene as those who chose, purchased, and reconstructed the plays used by Strange's company, included others beside Shakespeare in their satirical intention, this phase of their attacks upon the Theatre and its leading figures became centred upon Shakespeare as his importance in the conduct of its business increased, and his dramatic ability developed.
It is now generally agreed by critics that Shakespeare cannot have left Stratford for London before 1585, and probably not before 1586-87, and the likelihood has been shown that he then entered the service of James Burbage as a hired servant, or servitor, for a term of years. When Henslowe, in 1598, bound Richard Alleyn as a hired servant, he did so for a period of two years, which, we may judge, was then the customary term of such service. Assuming that Shakespeare bound himself to Burbage in 1586-87, his term of service would have expired in 1588-89. Though we possess no evidence that Shakespeare had produced any original plays at this time, the strictures of Nashe and Greene make it apparent that he had by then attained to the position of what might be called dramatic critic for the Burbage interests. In this capacity he helped to choose the plays purchased by his employers for the use of the companies in which they were interested.
Greene had come at odds with theatrical managers several years before Shakespeare could have attained to the position of reader for the Burbages. Even some of Greene's earlier reflections, however, seem to be directed against the management of the Shoreditch Theatre. In attacking theatrical managers he writes in, what he calls, "mystical speeches," and transfigures the persons he attacks under fictitious characters and names. In hisPlanetomachia, published in 1585, he caricatures one actor-manager under the name of Valdracko, who is an actor inVenus' Tragedy, one of the tales of the book. Valdracko is described as an old and experienced actor, "stricken in age, melancholick, ruling after the crabbed forwardness of his doting will, impartial, for he loved none but himself, politic because experienced, familiar with none except for his profit, skillful in dissembling, trusting no one, silent, covetous, counting all things honest that were profitable." This characterisation cannot possibly have referred to Shakespeare in the year 1585. When it is noticed, however, that nearly all of Greene's later attacks are directed against the Theatre and its fellows, it is probable that the stubborn, wilful, and aged James Burbage is also here scurrilously indicated. In writing of London and the actors in his "dark speeches," Greene refers to London as Rome and to the Shoreditch Theatre as the "theatre in Rome." In hisPenelope's Webhe writes: "They which smiled at the theatre in Romemight as soon scoff at the rudeness of the scene as give a plaudite at the perfection of the acting." While it is Burbage's Theatre that is here referred to, it is evident that his quarrel was not now with the actors—whom both he and Nashe praise in their quality—but with the plays, their authors, and the theatrical managers who patronised them.
It is evident that Shakespeare had something to do with the acceptance by the Burbages of plays by Marlowe and Kyd, and that Greene believed his own lack of patronage by the companies playing at the Theatre was due to Shakespeare's adverse influence. Knowing Shakespeare to bethe son of a Stratford butcher, educated at a grammar school and recently a bonded servitor to Burbage, this "Master of Arts in Cambridge" questions the literary and dramatic judgment of the grammar school youth, and late serving-man, and employs his fellow university scholar, Thomas Nashe, to ridicule him and his critical pretensions.
Nashe returned to England in 1589, after a two years' absence upon the Continent, and cannot have acquired at first hand the knowledge he shows of dramatic affairs in London during the preceding year. It is evident that this knowledge was gained from Greene for that purpose. Mr. Fleay has demonstrated that Nashe, in his preface to Greene'sMenaphon, alludes satirically to Thomas Kyd as the author ofThe Taming of a Shrew, and of the oldHamlet. Both of these plays were owned by Lord Strange's (now the Lord Chamberlain's) company in 1594, when, as I have suggested, they had recently taken them over from Pembroke's company, which was undoubtedly a Burbage company—using some of the Burbage properties and plays while under Shakespeare's management in 1591-94. Being Burbage properties, these plays were acted by Lord Strange's companybetween 1589 and 1591. Besides satirically indicating these plays and their author, Nashe goes on to criticise the "idiot art-masters" who make choice of such plays for the actors. "This affectation of actors and audience," writes Nashe—meaning this suiting of plays to the crude taste of the actors and the cruder taste of the public—"is all traceable to their idiot art-masters that intrude themselves as the alchemists of eloquence, who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to outbrave better pens with the swelling bombast of bragging blank verse, indeed it may be the ingrafted overflow of some killcow conceit, etc. Among this kind of men that repose eternity in the mouth of a player I can but engross somedeep read school men or grammarians, who have no more learning in their skull than will serve to take up a commodity, nor art in their brains than was nourished in a serving man's idleness, will take upon them to be ironical censurers of all when God and poetry doth know they are the simplest of all."
This attack of Nashe's upon Shakespeare was recognised by all of the scholastic clique, and certain of its phrases are re-echoed in later attacks upon him by other scholars for several years afterwards; in fact, Nashe's diatribe proved to be a cue for Shakespeare's future detractors. In the expression "killcow," Nashe alludes to Shakespeare's father's trade. A few years later—1594—Chapman refers to Shakespeare as "judgements butcher," and later still, in 1598, Florio in his dedication of theWorlde of Wordes, and, in 1600, Ben Jonson inEvery Man out of his Humour, also refer satirically to the supposed fact that Shakespeare's father was a butcher. In 1593 Chapman, in attacking Shakespeare in the earlyHistriomastix, re-echoes the term "idiot art-master." The phrase "ingrafted overflow of a killcow conceit" refers toShakespeare's additions to, or revisions of, plays owned by his company that were originally written by such scholars as Greene. "Deep read school men or grammarians" is a reference to Shakespeare's grammar school education. "No more learning than will serve to take up a commodity" refers to Shakespeare's business management of Burbage's affairs, and "a serving man's idleness" to his recently ended term of service with Burbage in that capacity.
It shall be shown that in later years when Chapman, Roydon, Florio, Marston, and Jonson attacked Shakespeare in published or acted plays that he invariably answers them in kind. We have only inferential evidence that he answered Greene's and Nashe's reflections at this time by writing a ballad against them. Ralph Sidley, in verses prefixed to Greene'sNever Too Late, published in the following year (1590), defends Greene from the attack of a ballad or jig maker, whom he calls a clown.
"The more it works, the quicker is the wit;The more it writes, the better to be 'steemed.By labour ought men's wills and wits be deem'd,Though dreaming dunces do inveigh against it.But write thou on, though Momus sit and frown;A Carter's jig is fittest for a clown.Bonum quo communius eo melius."
At the end of Greene'sNever Too Latein the host's tale a ballad maker and player is attacked under the name of Mullidor; he is described as follows: "He is said to be a fellow that was of honest parents, but very poor: and his person was as if he had been cast in Æsop's mould; his back like a lute, and his face like Thersites', his eyes broad and tawny, his hair harsh and curled like a horse-mane, his lips were of the largest size in folio.... The only good part that he had to grace his visage was his nose, and that wasconqueror-like, as beaked as an eagle.... Into his great head (Nature) put little wit, that he knew rather his sheep by the number, for he was never no good arithmetician, and yet he was a proper scholar, and well seen in ditties."
When we discount the caricature and spiteful animus of this description it closely matches the presentments of Shakespeare given by the most authoritative portraits which have come down to us. His parents, as we know, were undoubtedly poor, otherwise he would not have been in London as a servitor to Burbage. His eyes are invariably shown as hazel in colour and widely set apart; his hair heavy, curled, and falling to his shoulders; his lips very full, his nose large and "beaked," and his brow, or "great head," of unusual height and breadth. It is apparent, then, that this is a spiteful and distorted, but recognisable, description of Shakespeare, who, I infer from many indications in his opponents' plays, wore his hair in a peculiar manner, was not very tall, and was also somewhat thin-legged. The Chandos portrait which shows his shoulders, suggests that they were slightly sloping and somewhat round rather than square. On the whole, a physical type not calculated to inspire fear in a bully. Greene, on the other hand, is described by Chettle as a handsome-faced and well-proportioned man, and we may judge of a rather swash-buckling deportment.
Robert Greene died in September 1592. Shortly afterwards Henry Chettle published Greene'sGroatsworth of Wit, which was his last literary effort, and appended a farewell letter of Greene's addressed "To those gentlemen, his quandam acquaintances, that spend their time in making plays, R.G. wisheth a better exercise and wisdom to preventhis extremities." In this epistle, addressing Marlowe, Nashe, and Peele, as well as two others at whose identity we can only guess, he says:
"If wofull experience may move you, gentlemen, to beware, or unheard-of wretchedness intreat you to take heed, I doubt not but you will look backe with sorrow on your time past, and endevour with repentance to spend that which is to come. Wonder not (for with thee will I first beginne), thou famous gracer of tragedians, that Greene, who hath said with thee, like the foole in his heart, 'There is no God,' should now give glorie unto his greatnesse; for penetrating is his power, his hand lyes heavy upon me, he hath spoken unto me with a voyce of thunder, and I have felt he is a God that can punish enemies. Why should thy excellent wit, his gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest give no glory to the giver? Is it pestilent Machivilian policie that thou hast studied? O peevish follie! what are his rules but meere confused mockeries, able to extirpate in small time the generation of mankinde? for ifsic volo, sic iubeo, holde in those that are able to command, and if it be lawfullfas et nefas, to doo any thing that is beneficiall, onely tyrants should possesse the earth, and they, striving to exceed in tiranny, should each to other be a slaughterman, till, the mightyest outliving all, one stroke were left for Death, that in one age mans life should end.... With thee I joyne young Juvenall, that byting satyrist, that lastly with mee together writ a comedie. Sweet boy, might I advise thee, be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words; inveigh against vaine men, for thou canst doo it, no man better, no man so well; thou hast a libertie to reproove all and name none; for one being spoken to, all are offended—none being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow water still running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turne; then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove thy too much liberty of reproofe."And thou no lesse deserving then the other two, in some things rarer, in nothing inferiour, driven, as myselfe, to extreame shifts, a little have I to say to thee; and, were it not an idolatrous oath, I would sweare by sweet S. George, thou art unworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so mean a stay. Base-minded men all three of you, if by my misery yee bee not warned; for unto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleave; those puppits, I meane, that speake from our mouths, those anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I to whom they have been beholding, is it not like that you to whom they all have been beholding, shall, were yee in that case that I am now, be both of them at once forsaken? Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with hisTygres heart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse as the best of you; and, beeing an absolute Johannes-fac-totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. Oh, that I might intreat your rare wittes to bee imployed in more profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaynte them with your admyred inventions! I knowe the best husband of you all will never proove an usurer, and the kindest of them all will never proove a kinde nurse; yet, whilst you may, seeke you better maisters; for it is pitty men of such rare wits should bee subject to the pleasures of such rude groomes."In this I might insert two more[24]that both have writteagainst these buckram gentlemen; but let their owne worke serve to witnesse against their owne wickednesse, if they persever to maintaine any more such peasants. For other new comers, I leave them to the mercie of those painted monsters, who, I doubt not, will drive the best-minded to despise them; for the rest, it skills not though they make a jeast at them...."
"If wofull experience may move you, gentlemen, to beware, or unheard-of wretchedness intreat you to take heed, I doubt not but you will look backe with sorrow on your time past, and endevour with repentance to spend that which is to come. Wonder not (for with thee will I first beginne), thou famous gracer of tragedians, that Greene, who hath said with thee, like the foole in his heart, 'There is no God,' should now give glorie unto his greatnesse; for penetrating is his power, his hand lyes heavy upon me, he hath spoken unto me with a voyce of thunder, and I have felt he is a God that can punish enemies. Why should thy excellent wit, his gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest give no glory to the giver? Is it pestilent Machivilian policie that thou hast studied? O peevish follie! what are his rules but meere confused mockeries, able to extirpate in small time the generation of mankinde? for ifsic volo, sic iubeo, holde in those that are able to command, and if it be lawfullfas et nefas, to doo any thing that is beneficiall, onely tyrants should possesse the earth, and they, striving to exceed in tiranny, should each to other be a slaughterman, till, the mightyest outliving all, one stroke were left for Death, that in one age mans life should end.... With thee I joyne young Juvenall, that byting satyrist, that lastly with mee together writ a comedie. Sweet boy, might I advise thee, be advised, and get not many enemies by bitter words; inveigh against vaine men, for thou canst doo it, no man better, no man so well; thou hast a libertie to reproove all and name none; for one being spoken to, all are offended—none being blamed, no man is injured. Stop shallow water still running, it will rage; tread on a worme, and it will turne; then blame not schollers who are vexed with sharpe and bitter lines, if they reproove thy too much liberty of reproofe.
"And thou no lesse deserving then the other two, in some things rarer, in nothing inferiour, driven, as myselfe, to extreame shifts, a little have I to say to thee; and, were it not an idolatrous oath, I would sweare by sweet S. George, thou art unworthy better hap, sith thou dependest on so mean a stay. Base-minded men all three of you, if by my misery yee bee not warned; for unto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleave; those puppits, I meane, that speake from our mouths, those anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I to whom they have been beholding, is it not like that you to whom they all have been beholding, shall, were yee in that case that I am now, be both of them at once forsaken? Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that, with hisTygres heart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse as the best of you; and, beeing an absolute Johannes-fac-totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. Oh, that I might intreat your rare wittes to bee imployed in more profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaynte them with your admyred inventions! I knowe the best husband of you all will never proove an usurer, and the kindest of them all will never proove a kinde nurse; yet, whilst you may, seeke you better maisters; for it is pitty men of such rare wits should bee subject to the pleasures of such rude groomes.
"In this I might insert two more[24]that both have writteagainst these buckram gentlemen; but let their owne worke serve to witnesse against their owne wickednesse, if they persever to maintaine any more such peasants. For other new comers, I leave them to the mercie of those painted monsters, who, I doubt not, will drive the best-minded to despise them; for the rest, it skills not though they make a jeast at them...."
It is now accepted by critics that these allusions of Greene's were directed against Shakespeare, and that the line "Tygres heart wrapt in a players hyde" refers to Shakespeare's revision ofThe True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, a play in the original composition of which Greene evidently had some hand. It has not before been suggested, however, that this play was performed by the Earl of Pembroke's company, under Shakespeare's management, in 1592. It was evidently the publicity given Marlowe's and Shakespeare's revision by the stage revival of the play by Pembroke's company at this time that called forth Greene's attack. This brings us to the end of the year 1592 in outlining chronologically the evidences of the antagonism of the scholars to Shakespeare.
In June 1593 George Peele shows animus against Shakespeare by echoing Greene's phrases in the introduction toThe Honour of the Garter. In these verses, in complimenting several noblemen and "gentlemen poets," such asSidney, Spenser, Harrington, Fraunce, Campion, and others, he refers also to
"ordinary grooms,With trivial humours to pastime the world,That favour Pan and Phœbus both alike."
This appears to be a reflection of Greene's "rude groomes" of the previous September and a reference to Shakespeare's theatrical work and hisVenus and Adonis, which, though only recently published, had no doubt been read in MS. form for some time before.
I shall now proceed to show that at the end of 1593, after Lord Pembroke's company had returned from their unprofitable provincial tour when they were compelled to "pawn their apparel for their charges," George Chapman wrote a play satirising Shakespeare and the disastrous fortunes of this company. This play was revised by Marston and Chapman in 1599, under the title ofHistriomastix, or The Player Whipt, as a counter-attack upon Shakespeare in order to revenge the satire which he, in conjunction with Dekker and Chettle, directed against Chapman and Marston inTroilus and Cressida, and in a play reconstructed fromTroilus and Cressidaby Dekker and Chettle, calledAgamemnon, in 1598-99. This latter phase of the matter shall be dealt with when I come to a consideration of the literary warfare of the later period.
It has never before been suggested that George Chapman had any hand in the composition ofHistriomastix, though Mr. Richard Simpson shows clearly that it was an old play roughly revised in the form in which it was acted in 1599. Mr. Simpson suggests that it might have been written by Peele, in its original form, owing to certain verbal resemblances between portions of it and Peele's dedicationto hisHonour of the Garter. He dates its original composition in about 1590, but in doing so had evidently forgotten that he had already written: "The early Chrisoganus (of this play) seems to be of the time when the Earl of Northumberland, Raleigh, and Harriot strove to set up an Academy in London, and the spirit of the play, and even its expressions, were quite in unison with Peele's dedication of hisHonour of the Garter,1593." All literary and historical references to the academical efforts of the Earl of Northumberland, Harriot, and others point to the years 1591-93 as the time in which this attempt to establish an Academy was made. Chapman in his dedication ofThe Shadow of Nightto Roydon, in 1594, refers to the movement as then of comparatively recent date. "But I stay this spleen when I remember, my good Matthew, how joyfully oftentimes you reported unto me that most ingenious Derby, deep-searching Northumberland, and skill-embracing Earl of Hunsdon had most profitably entertained learning in themselves to the vital warmth of freezing Science," etc. Peele's allusions to the movement in his dedication to theHonour of the Garter, which is dated 26th June 1593, are as follows:
"Renowned Lord, Northumberland's fair flower,The Muses' love, patron and favourite,That artisans and scholars dost embrace.And clothest Mathesis in rich ornaments,That admirable mathematic skill,Familiar with the stars and Zodiac,To whom the heaven lies open as her book;By whose directions undeceivable,Leaving our Schoolmen's vulgar trodden paths,And following the ancient reverent stepsOf Trismegistus and Pythagoras,Through uncouth ways and unaccessible,Doth pass into the pleasant spacious fieldsOf divine science and philosophy," etc.
Shakespeare evidently reflects knowledge of this academical attempt and pokes fun at the scholars in his reference to "a little academie" inLove's Labour's Lost:
"Navarre shall be the wonder of the worldOur Court shall be a little academieStill and contemplative in living art."
This play was originally written late in 1591, but was drastically revised late in 1594, or early in 1595, after Shakespeare had read Chapman'sHymns to the Shadow of Night; and again, in 1598. The reference to the Academy was evidently introduced at the time of its first revision.
Mr. Simpson recognises the fact that most of the Chrisoganus passages, especially those in the earlier portions ofHistriomastix, pertain to the play in its original form. If the reader will take the trouble to read Chapman'sHymns to the Shadow of Night(1594), his poem to Thomas Harriot, and hisTears of Peace, and compare their mental attitude and verbal characteristics with the "Chrisoganus" and "Peace" passages ofHistriomastix, Chapman's authorship of the latter will become apparent. The following parallels from four of Chapman's poems are convincing, and they can be extended indefinitely:
Histriomastix—
"Have always borne themselves in Godlike StateWith lofty foreheade higher than the stars."
De Guiana, Carmen Epicum—
"Whose forehead knocks against the roof of stars."
Histriomastix—
"Consume whole groves and standing fields of cornIn thy wild rage and make the proud earth groan."
The Shadow of Night—
"Convert the violent courses of thy floods,Remove whole fields of corn and highest woods."
Histriomastix—
"Whose glory which thy solid virtues wonShall honour Europe while there shines a sun."
Poem to Harriot—
"When thy true wisdom by thy learning wonShall honour learning while there shines a sun."
Chapman in several instances in this play echoes Greene's slurs against Shakespeare and, in the same manner as Peele in theHonour of the Garter, repeats the actual phrases and epithets used by Greene and Nashe.
Histriomastix—
"I scorn a scoffing fool about my throne—An artless idiot (that like Æsop's dawPlumes fairer feathered birds)."
These lines evince Chapman's knowledge of Nashe's phrase "idiot art-master," and of Greene's "upstart crow beautified with our feathers," and clearly pertain to the play in its earlier form (1593) when Greene'sGroatsworth of Wit(published late in 1592) was still a new publication. In fact, it is not improbable that Nashe collaborated with Chapman in the early form of this play.
Again when Chapman writes the following lines:
Histriomastix—
"O age, when every Scriveners boy shall dippeProfaning quills into Thessalies spring;When every artist prentice that hath readThe pleasant pantry of conceipts shall dareTo write as confident as Hercules;When every ballad-monger boldly writes," etc.
It is apparent that he again echoes Nashe's and Greene's attacks upon Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd, all of which, however, he appears to have thought (as have later critics) were directed against Shakespeare.
The lines quoted above evidently reflect Chapman's knowledge of Nashe's preface to Greene'sMenaphonin the expressions "Scriveners boy," "artist prentice," and "ballad-monger," while the words
"shall dippeProfaning quills into Thessalies spring"
refer to Shakespeare'sVenus and Adonis, and the lines from Ovid with which he heads that poem.
In 1593 when, as I have indicated,Histriomastixin its early form was written, Shakespeare had publishedVenus and Adonisand dedicated it to the Earl of Southampton. In the composition of this poem Shakespeare undoubtedly worked from Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid'sMetamorphoses. He prefixed to the poem two lines from Ovid's fifteenth Elegy:
"Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus ApolloPocula Castalia plena ministret aqua";
which are rendered in Marlowe's translation:
"Let base conceited wits admire vile things,Fair Phœbus lead me to the Muses springs."
InThe Shadow of Night, published in the following year, Chapman again resents the fact that one of Shakespeare's "small Latin and less Greek" should invade the classical preserves of the scholars for his poetical and dramatic subjects:
"Then you that exercise the virgin courtOf peaceful Thespia, my muse consort,Making her drunken with Gorgonean dews,And therewith all your ecstasies infuse,That she may reach the topless starry browsOf steep Olympus, crown'd with freshest boughsOf Daphnean laurel, and the praises singOf mighty Cynthia: truly figuring(As she is Hecate) her sovereign kind,And in her force, the forces of the mind:An argument to ravish and refineAn earthly soul and make it more devine.Sing then with all, her palace brightness bright,The dazzle-sun perfection of her light;Circling her face with glories, sing the walks,Where in her heavenly magic mood she stalks,Her arbours, thickets, and her wondrous game,(A huntress being never match'd in fame,)Presume not then ye flesh-confounded souls,That cannot bear the full Castalian bowls,Which sever mounting spirits from the senses,To look into this deep fount for thy pretenses."
In these lines, besides indicating Shakespeare's recent Ovidian excursion inVenus and Adonisby his reference to "Castalian bowls," Chapman shows knowledge of Shakespeare's intention, in the composition ofLove's Labour's Lost, of exhibiting Queen Elizabeth as a huntress. Chapman's Cynthia ofThe Shadow of Nightis plainly a rhapsodised idealisation of the Queen. Later on I shall elaborate the fact thatLove's Labour's Lostwas written late in 1591, or early in 1592, as a reflection of the Queen's progress to Cowdray House, the home of the Earl of Southampton's maternal grandfather, Viscount Montague, and that the shooting of deer by the Princess and her ladies fancifully records phases of the entertainments arranged for the Queen during her visit.
Assuming, then, from the foregoing evidence and inferences that Chapman composed the earlyHistriomastixin 1593, let us examine the play further in order to trace its fuller application to Shakespeare and his affairs in that year.
ThoughHistriomastixwas revised as an attack upon Shakespeare in 1599 by Chapman and Marston, who had commenced to collaborate in dramatic work in the previous year, its original plot and action remain practically unaltered.In its revision its early anti-Shakespearean intention was merely amplified and brought up to date by a few topical allusions, fitting circumstances in the lives of the persons caricatured, pertaining to the later period. The substitution ofTroilus and CressidaforThe Prodigal Child, as the play within the play presented by Sir Oliver Owlet's company, is also due to the period of revision. All of the passages of the play which are suggestive of the period of revision are palpably in the style of John Marston.
Among the persons of the early play is Chrisoganus, a scholar and mathematician, who has set up an academy to expound the seven liberal Sciences: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy, all of which are introduced as persons in the first act. Chrisoganus was undoubtedly intended for Chapman's friend Thomas Harriot, the mathematician and astronomer, who was so prominent in the academical movement of 1592-93. The name Chrisoganus is evidently a reflection of Harriot'sEphemeris Chrisometra, a MS. copy of which is preserved in Zion College. Chapman's poem to Harriot, prefixed to hisAchilles Shield(1599), expresses many of the same ideas voiced inHistriomastixand in much the same language, and indicates Chapman's collaboration with Marston in the revision of the play in that year.
In the earlyHistriomastixChapman represents himself in the character of Peace. When the utterances of Peace are compared with certain of Chapman's poems, such as hisEuthymia Raptus, orThe Tears of Peace(1609), his poem to Harriot (1598),The Shadow of Night(1594), andOvid's Banquet of Sense(1595), in all of which he breaks away from his subject-matter at intervals to extol his own virtues and bewail his poverty and his neglect by patrons, it becomesevident that he transfigures himself inHistriomastixas Peace; which character acts as a chorus to, or running commentary on, the action of the play.
The whole spirit and purpose of this play is reproduced inThe Tears of Peace, which is a dialogue between Peace and an interlocutor, who discuss at great length exactly the same ideas and subjects, dramatically treated, inHistriomastix,i.e.the neglect of learning and the learned, and "the pursuit of wealth, glory, greatness, pleasure, and fashion" by "plebian and lord alike," as well as the unaccountable success of an ignorant playwright who writes plays on any subject that comes into his head:
"And how they trot out in their lines the ringWith idly iterating oft one thing,A new fought combat, an affair at sea,A marriage or progress or a plea.No news but fits them as if made for them,Though it be forged but of a woman's dream."
The plays of no other dramatist of that period match the description of the subjects of the plays given here. The "progress," mentioned by Chapman, is undoubtedly a reference toLove's Labour's Lost; "A marriage,"Midsummer Night's Dream; "a plea,"The Merchant of Venice; "A new fought combat,"Henry V.—as a reflection of the military services of Southampton and Essex in Ireland in 1599; "an affair at sea,"Twelfth Night,The Merchant of Venice, etc.
In the second scene ofHistriomastix, to Peace, the Arts, and Chrisoganus, come Mavortius and a group of his friends representing the nobility whom the academicians endeavour to win to their attendance and support. Mavortius and his followers refuse to cultivate Chrisoganus and the Arts, preferring a life of dalliance and pleasure, and to patroniseplays and players instead. Other characters are introduced representing the Law, the Army, and Merchandise, who also neglect the Arts and live for pastime and sport.
The company of players patronised by Mavortius performs under the licence of Sir Oliver Owlet, and under the leadership of Posthaste, an erstwhile ballad maker, who writes plays for the company and who threatens to return to ballad making when playing proves unprofitable.
One of Mavortius' followers, Landulpho, an Italian lord, criticises the play presented by Posthaste and his fellows, and lauds the Italian drama.
A period of peace and prosperity, during which Chrisoganus and the Arts are neglected by the extravagant and pleasure-seeking lords and populace, is followed by war with an aftermath of poverty when Sir Oliver Owlet's company of players is disrupted, and the actors are compelled to "pawn their apparel for their charges."
EnterConstable.
Host.Master Constable, ho! these players will not pay their shot.Post.Faith, sir, war hath so pinch'd us we must pawn.Const.Alas, poor players! Hostess, what comes it to?Host.The Sharers dinners sixpence a piece. The hirelings—pence.Post.What, sixpence an egg, and two and two an egg?Host.Faith, famine affords no more.Post.Fellows, bring out the hamper. Chose somewhat out o'th stock.
Enter the Players.
What will you have this cloak to pawn? What think you its worth?Host.Some fewer groats.Onin.The pox is in this age; here's a brave world fellows!Post.You may see what it is to laugh at the audience.Host.Well, it shall serve for a pawn.
The further development of this narrative will make it evident beyond any reasonable doubt that Posthaste, the poet-actor, is intended to caricature Shakespeare, and SirOliver Owlet's company and its misfortunes to reflect the Earl of Pembroke's company in similar circumstances in 1593; that Mavortius is the young Earl of Southampton, to whom Shakespeare dedicatedVenus and Adonisin 1593, andLucrecein the year following; that Landulpho, the Italian lord, represents John Florio, who, in 1591, in hisSecond Fruites, criticised English historical drama and praised Italian plays, and who, at about the same time as teacher of languages entered into the pay and patronage of the Earl of Southampton, a connection which his odd and interesting personality enabled him to hold thereafterwards for several years. The part which Landulpho takes in the play was somewhat developed by Marston in 1599, at which time it shall later on be shown that the relations between Florio and Shakespeare had reached a heated stage. The play ofThe Prodigal Child, which was the play within the play acted by Posthaste and his fellows in the earlier form ofHistriomastix, did not, in my opinion, represent the English original of the translated German play ofThe Prodigal Sonwhich Mr. Simpson presents as the possible original, but was meant to indicate Shakespeare'sLove's Labours Won, which was written late in the preceding year as a reflection of Southampton's intimacy with Florio, and the beginning of his affair with Mistress Davenant,[25]the Oxford tavern keeper's wife. The expressionThe Prodigal Childdiffers from that ofThe Prodigal Sonin meaning, in that the word "Child" at that period meant a young nobleman. There is nothing whateversuggestive of Shakespeare's work in the translated German play, and it was merely the similarity of title that led Mr. Simpson to propose it as the play indicated. The play satirised by Chapman under the title ofThe Prodigal Childwas undoubtedly written by Shakespeare, and it is no more likely that Chapman would use the actual name of the play at which he points than that he would use the actual names of the various persons or of the company of players whose actions and work he caricatures.
In 1594 George Chapman publishedHymns to the Shadow of Night, and in 1595 hisOvid's Banquet of SenseandA Coronet for his Mistress Philosophy, dedicating both publications to his friend Matthew Roydon. The dedication of these poems to Roydon was an afterthought; they were not primarily written with Roydon in mind.[26]It has been made evident that Chapman had first submitted these poems to the Earl of Southampton in an endeavour to win his patronage, and failing to do so dedicated them to Roydon and attacked Shakespeare in the dedications, where he refers to him in the capacity of reader to the Earl of Southampton, and imputes to his adverse influence his ill-success in his attempt. In the dedication toThe Shadow of Nighthe writes: