novelty even to Shakspere's stock plays. At the Christmas and Shrovetide of 1604-5 there were thirteen performances by Shakspere's company; in 1605-6, ten plays by the same; in October, 1606, upon the occasion of the visit of the King of Denmark, three plays; in 1606-7, twenty-two plays; in 1607-8 there is no record of payments, but in 1608-9 there are twelve plays: in 1610-11 fifteen plays; and in 1611-12 (the holidays to which we are now more particularly referring) there were six performances by Shakspere's company before the King, and sixteen by the same company "before the Prince's Highness." But, however probable it may be that the players would be ready with novelties for the Court, especially when other companies performed constantly before the royal family, we have a distinct record that the plays of Shakspere held their ground, even though the Court was familiar with them. At the Easter of 1618, Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale were performed before the King. We are not, therefore, warranted in concluding that in 1611 The Tempest was a new play; although we have evidence that The Winter's Tale was then a new play. Dr. Forman saw The Winter's Tale at the Globe on the 15th of May, 1611; and he describes it with a minuteness which would make it appear that he had not seen it before. This is not conclusive; but in 1623 The Winter's Tale is entered in the Office-Book of the Master of the Revels as an old play, " formerly allowed of by Sir George Bucke." Sir George's term of office commenced in 1610. This fixes the date with tolerable accuracy, and shows that it was not an old play when performed at Court on the 5th of November, 1611. There is a passage in the play which might be implied to refer to the great event of which that day was the anniversary:

"If I could find example

Of thousands that had struck anointed kings
And flourish'd after, I'd not do 't: but since

Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
Let villainy itself forswear 't."

But there was a more recent example of the fate of one who had struck an anointed king. Henry the Fourth of France was stabbed by Ravaillac on the 14th of May, 1610; and certainly the terrible end of the assassin was a warning for "villainy itself" to forswear such a crime. If The Tempest and The Winter's Tale, and probably Cymbeline also, belong to this epoch-and we believe that they were separated by a very short interval-we have the most delightful evidence of the perfect healthfulness of Shakspere's mind at this period of his life. To the legendary tales upon which the essentially romantic drama is built, he brought all the graces of his poetry and all the calm reflectiveness of his mature understanding. Beauty and wisdom walked together as twin sisters.

The Book of the Revels, 1611-12, which thus shows us that the graces of Perdita and the charms of Prospero had shed their influence over the courtly throngs of Whitehall, also informs us that on Twelfth Night the Prince's Masque' was performed. In the margin there is this entry: "This day the King and Prince with divers of his noblemen did run at the ring for a prize."

There was a magnificence about the Court of James at this period which probably had some influence even upon the productions which Shakspere presented to the Court and the people. The romantic incidents of The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, the opportunities afforded by the construction of their plots for gorgeous scenery, the masque so beautifully interwoven with the loves of Ferdinand and Miranda, all was in harmony with the poetical character of the royal revels. Prince Henry in his premature manhood was distinguished for his skill in all noble exercises. The tournaments of this period were attempts on the part of the Prince to revive the spirit of chivalry. The young man was himself of a high and generous nature; and if he was surrounded by some favourites whose embroidered suits and glittering armour were the coverings of heartless profligacy and low ambition, there were others amongst the courtiers who honestly shared the enthusiasm of Henry, and invoked the genius of chivalry, "Possess'd with sleep, dead as a lethargy,"

to awake at the name Meliadus.* The Prince's Masque' was one of those elegant productions of Ben Jonson which have given an immortality to the fleeting pleasures of the nights of Whitehall. Jonson's own descriptions of the scenery of these masques show how much that was beautiful as well as surprising was attempted with imperfect materials. The effects were perhaps very inferior to the scenic displays of the modern stage, though Inigo Jones was the machinist. But the descriptions of these wonders-rocks, and moons, and transparent palaces, and moving chariots-are as vivid as if the genius of Stanfield had realized the poet's conceptions. It was probably on some one of these occasions that Jonson became known to Drummond, who had succeeded to his

inheritance, and was seeking in the excitement of travel some relief to that melancholy which was produced by the sudden bereavement of his betrothed mistress-a loss which embittered his life, but gave to his genius much of its delicacy and tenderness. The mind of Drummond was too refined for the rough work which belongs to a court, even amongst its glittering:

"O how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan,

Or the hoarse sobbings of the widow'd dove,

Than those smooth whisp'rings near a prince's throne,
Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve."

There was another maker of verses-a Scot-in the Court of James, who, though not without talent, would in his inmost heart despise the "love of peace and lonely musing" which were characteristic of the poet of Hawthornden.

William Alexander had essentially a prosaic mind; though he did accomplish four monarchic tragedies, which some wise critics have put in the same class with the Roman plays of Shakspere. Whether he was engaged in the manufacture of plays or copper money, he had essentially an eye to his own advancement; and if James called him his philosophical poet, we may still believe that the King thought there was more true philosophy in Alexander's money-making scheme for a new order of baronets than in the many thousand lines of laborious writing and reading which by courtesy were called Recreations with the Muses.' We may without much want of charity suspect that Jonson's Prince's Masque'

and Shakspere's Winter's Tale might be regarded by the Earl of Stirling as Pepys regarded the Midsummer Night's Dream-"It is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life."

The refinements of the Court extended to the people. The Bear-Garden was adapted to theatrical performances; and rendered "convenient in all things both for players to play in, and for the game of bears and bulls to be baited in the same."* The gorgeousness of the scenic displays of Whitehall became at this period a subject of imitation at the public theatres. Sir Henry Wotton thus writes to his nephew on the 6th of July, 1613:-" Now to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Bankside. The King's players had a new play, called All is True," representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the order, with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats and the like; sufficient, in truth, within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous." This description, as we believe, applies to the original representation of Shakspere's play of Henry VIII. We believe also that Shakspere on this occasion introduced such a compliment to the government of the King as was consistent with the independence of his character and that genuine patriotism that was a part of his nature:

"Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,

His honour, and the greatness of his name,

Shall be, and make new nations."

This is somewhat different from Jonson's compliment to the man :— "His meditations, to his height, are even:

All, all their issue is akin to heaven

He is a god o'er kings."

And yet it has been said, either that Shakspere condescended to be a flatterer, or that he did not write the compliment to James implied in Cranmer's prophecy. We believe that he did write the lines; that they are not an interpolation; and that, although they may have been written in the spirit of gratitude for personal favours, it is gratitude of the loftiest kind, honourable alike to the giver and to the receiver, because wholly free from adulation.

There was a catastrophe at this representation of the new play of Henry VIII. which may possibly have had some influence upon the future life of Shakspere. Sir Henry Wotton thus describes the burning of the Globe Theatre:-"Now King Henry, making a mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes being more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming, within less than an hour, the whole house to the very ground." The Globe was re-built in the ensuing *Collier's Annals of the Stage,' vol. iii., See Introductory Notice to Henry VIII.

p.

285.

Masque of Oberon.

spring. The conflagration was so rapid that Prynne wished to show it was a judgment of Providence upon players-"The sudden fearful burning even to the ground." Jonson, in his Execration upon Vulcan,' says the Globe was

"Raz'd, ere thought could urge, this might have been."

It appears likely that this calamity terminated the direct and personal connexion of Shakspere with the London stage. We do not find him associated with the rebuilding of the Globe, nor with any of the schemes for new theatres with which Alleyn and Henslow were so busy. We have no record whatever of any new play of Shakspere's being produced after this performance of Henry VIII. at the Globe. Was he wholly idle as a writer? We apprehend not. Of the three Roman plays we have yet to speak. In the meanwhile let us take a rapid survey of the state of dramatic poetry, and of the later disciples of the school of Shakspere. We have already given a sketch of the more remarkable of the contemporaries with whom he would necessarily be associated in the last years of the previous century.

In the Address to the Reader prefixed to the first edition, published in 1612, of The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' of John Webster, is the following passage:-"Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance: for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of other men's worthy labours, especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman; the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light; protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgment, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martial :

'Non norunt hæc monumenta mori.'

Webster was formed upon Shakspere. He had no pretensions to the inexhaustible wit, the all-penetrating humour of his master; but he had the power of approaching the terrible energy of his passion, and the profoundness of his pathos, in characters which he took out of the great muster-roll of humanity, and placed in fearful situations, and sometimes with revolting imaginings almost beyond humanity. Those who talk of the carelessness of Shakspere may be surprised to find that his praise is that of a "right happy and copious industry." It is clear what dramatic writers were the objects of Webster's love. He did not aspire to the "full and heightened style of Master Chapman," nor would his genius be shackled by the examples of "the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson." He belonged to the school of the romantic dramatists. Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher are "worthily excellent;" but his aspiration was to imitate "the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light." There were critics, then, who