Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armin, and Richard Cowley. This company, varying a little from time to time as to its constituency, yet remaining substantially the same, was at first under the protection of the Lord Chamberlain, and its members were known as his men or his servants. But on the accession of James, 1603, he took them under his own special protection, and they were known thenceforth as the King's Players. All of Shakespeare's plays were brought out by this company. The Burbages, father and son, were in particular intimately associated with Shakespeare all through his theatrical career, and the younger of them is one of those affectionately remembered by Shakespeare in his will. Another man for a time of this company, though he appears afterward to have gone over to a rival company, was Thomas Greene, of great celebrity as a comic actor. He is generally believed to have been a Stratford man, and to have been directly instrumental in introducing Shakespeare to the company. Still another member of this company, John Heminge, is said to have been from Shottery, the residence of Anne Hathaway, near Stratford. He remained with the company to the last, and was one of the editors of the first Folio. Richard Burbage. To understand the theatrical history of this period, it must be borne in mind that while both Elizabeth and James, and the court generally, looked with favor upon actors and acting, the city of London, under the influence of the Puritan element in the church, discountenanced stage playing, and did everything in their power to suppress it. Hence nearly all the early play-houses were built in places contiguous to the population, but outside the limits of the corporation and beyond its jurisdiction. There were three such play-houses on the north side of the city, in what was then open country, in the neighborhood of Shoreditch. These three were: 1. The Theatre (Burbage's already named), 2. The Curtain, 3. The Fortune. Two others, already mentioned, and belonging to the Burbages, were The Blackfriars, on the north bank of the Thames, and within the corporation limits, and The Globe, on the south side of the Thames, in the suburb known as Southwark, and sometimes as THE evidence is conclusive that Shakespeare his theatrical career as an actor, and that he took parts both in his own plays and in others. Some of the parts taken by him, as that of the Ghost in his own Hamlet, and that of the old man Adam in As You Like It, are pretty well ascertained. It is also known that he played in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humor. The earliest authentic mention of Shakespeare as a player is in March, 1594, four years earlier than any authentic mention of him in this capacity heretofore supposed to exist. In the document just unearthed by Halliwell, and published in 1874, of the authenticity of which there has been thus far no question, Shakespeare is named as one of the Lord Chamberlain's servants who had acted two comedies before her majesty Queen Elizabeth during the preceding Christmas season, that is, in December, 1593. This document, then, shows Shakespeare, at the end of seven years from the time of his supposed advent in London, to have already risen to such consideration in the theatrical world as to be one of the three most eminent actors of the day, specially invited to play before her majesty on that occasion, Kempe and Burbage, the two others associated with him, being the acknowledged sovereigns of the stage. The document is interesting also as showing the exact amount paid for their services, viz., £20 equal to £100, or $500 now. The whole entry is worth quoting. It is in these words: "To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage, servants to the Lord Chamberlain, upon the Council's warrant, dated at Whitehall, 15 March, 1594, for two severall comedies or interludes showed by them before her Majesty in Christmas time last past, namely, upon St. Stephen's day and Innocent's day, £13 68. 8d., and by way of her majesty's reward £6 138. 4d., in all £20." In regard to his ability as an actor, Chettle, writing while Shakespeare was still on the boards, 1592, testifies that "he is excellent in the quality which he professeth," and Aubrey, writing half a century after Shakespeare's death (1670), says "he did act exceedingly well." If in this respect he did not come up to the consummate ability of his friend, the younger Burbage, who was indeed the Garrick of his day, he yet evidently was an actor of no mean ability, and his practical experience on the stage contributed largely, without doubt, to that masterly knowledge of stageeffect which is so conspicuous in his plays. There is a well-authenticated tradition that Taylor, one of the Blackfriars' company, who acted Hamlet, was instructed in the part by Shakespeare himself; also, that Lowine, who acted Henry VIII., was likewise instructed in it by Shakespeare; and, finally, that Betterton, who, half a century later, became famous as a personator of these two parts, was aided therein by the stage traditions in regard to the manner of presenting them introduced by Shakespeare himself. The evidence, furthermore, is conclusive that for many years Shakespeare was engaged both as a writer for the stage and as an actor. All his predecessors and most of his contemporaries were at once players and writers. Such was the case with Marlowe, Greene, Lodge, Peele, Nash, Munday, Wilson, Field, Heywood, Webster, and Ben Jonson. It was not until some time later in the history of the drama that the business of author and actor became distinct. All the early dramatists were actors, and took part in acting their own plays. It is further probable that Shakespeare began the business of dramatist in the same manner as his predecessors, namely, as a "playwright." That is, he began, not by composing original plays, but by tinkering up and improving plays already extant. The drama, about the time that he began authorship, seems hardly to have been considered a part of literature. The person who prepared a play for the stage was not looked upon as an author. It was all one to the audience whether that which pleased them was original or borrowed. The actor sometimes came in for a share of personal regard, but no one ever thought of the writer. It can hardly be doubted that Shakespeare, while enjoying his theatrical success, felt keenly the humiliating social position to which his profession at this time subjected him. It is absurd to suppose that such a genius as Shakespeare's, did not know its own value. Read the fifty-fifth sonnet: Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; And broils root out the work of masonry, Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room That wear this world out to the ending doom. Bearing in mind this his sublime consciousness of his own greatness and of the assured eternity of his lines, how infinitely touching is the pathos with which, in another sonnet (111th), he refers to the social humiliations to which his profession subjected him. O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, Than public means which public manners breeds. The feeling thus experienced, as he looked upon the great and noble who came to his play-house merely to be amused, is not at all in conflict with the fact that he enjoyed heartily his life, such as it was, though it did not give him social intercourse with the titled ones about him. We can well believe the traditions of the merry-makings at the Falcon and the Mermaid, and of the wit-combats of which Fuller speaks, 1662, between Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Many," says 66 Fuller, "were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which two I beheld like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war." Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the early dramatists, prepared a piece for the stage purely as a matter of business. They took, or they made, whatever was likely to gain the end-to draw an audience. Shakespeare doubtless soon found that the less he took and the more he made, the more acceptable the preparation became to the public. Hence he passed by a natural transition from what has been technically called a "playwright," to a writer of original plays. Another thing also is probable, and indeed is evident from recorded facts, that his plays became gradually so important to the company to which he belonged, that he dropped entirely the office of actor, and confined his attention exclusively to writing. At what time precisely this change took place has not been ascertained. All that we know certainly is that during the early part of his theatrical career he was an actor, afterwards he was both actor and writer, while for many years before his death he was connected with the stage only as a writer. The story of his having began by holding the horses of those attending the theatre is now generally discredited. If the thing did occur, it must have been at the theatre, in Shoreditch, to which Shakespeare was first attached. As this theatre was out in the open fields, many of the play-goers coming from the city would reach the place on horse-back, and so the holding of the horses would become a considerable business. The date of the composition of the several plays is involved in great obscurity. A discussion of the subject would involve many dry details quite unsuited to a sketch like this. One general remark, however, may be made, bearing upon this point. It is doubtful whether any one of the plays was published under the author's own inspection and authority. It was to the interest of Shakespeare and his company to keep the plays in manuscript in the theatre, as the main part of their stock in trade. The printing of them for persons to read lessened their value as a means of attracting people to the play-house. The fact, therefore, of the plays not coming out during the author's life, and under his own direction, is proof rather of his thrift, than of the neglect and reckless indifference to which it has been generally ascribed. In 1623, seven years after his death, two of his friends and fellowactors published his plays in a large folio volume, from the original copies then in the theatre. This publication is regarded as the true Editio Princeps, and as the chief authority in determining the text. A considerable number of the plays were published separately during his life. These were printed in small 4to pamphlets, and are known as the Early Quartos. Their publication, however, is generally believed to have. been surreptitious, without the supervision or consent of the author. The fact that the plays were kept in the theatre as a part of the theatrical property has had the additional effect of making it next to impossible to fix a definite time for the composition of each. We know from a comparison of styles, as well as from contemporary records, that certain of the plays were written earlier, and others were written later. But even when a play had been once produced in the theatre, there is no proof that Shakespeare did not continue to alter and amend it from year to year. The proof indeed is just the other way, and the general conclusion now is, that all the plays were touched up from time to time, and that many of them, particularly those first written, were rewritten again and again. THE poet. These facts are expressly affirmed by Anthony HE first works of Shakespeare published, and the only ones certainly known to have been published under his own supervision and authority, were the Venus and Adonis, 1593, and the Lucrece, 1594, Shakespeare at this latter date being thirty years old. Both poems are dedicated to a youthful admirer of Shakespeare's, the young earl of Southampton, then in his twenty-first year. The earl is described by his contemporaries as a man of brilliant parts, possessed of great learning and accomplishments, and a munificent patron of letters. Testimonies to this effect in the shape of dedicatory odes and epistles are found scattered all through the literature of the period. The poets of the day looked up to him as the English Maecenas. Brathwayt, in the dedication of the Scholar's Medley, calls him "learning's best favorite." Florio, in his World of Words, speaks of him as one "in whose pay and patronage I have lived some years; "To me and many more, the glorious and gracious sunshine of your honor hath infused light and life." SHAKESPEARE'S GENIUS FULLY RECOGNIZED BY HIS CONThe form of literature to which he was especially devoted was the drama. This we know from a contemporary record by Rowland Whyte, who says of Southampton and his companion Lord Rutland, "They pass away the time in London merely in going to plays every day." In connection with this, we may observe that his mother by a second marriage became the wife of Sir Thomas Henrage, Treasurer of the Chamber. This office brought Sir Thomas, and through him his step-son, the young earl, into intimate association with actors and dramatists. Some brief reference to the affection of this brilliant nobleman for men of to the seems necessary to explain the intimate relations which grew up between him and Shakespeare. In the dedication of the Venus and Adonis, the language is that of distant but respectful compliment. The dedication of the Lucrece, only a year later, speaks unbounded admiration and affection. This change in the tone of the two documents is remarkable, and is supposed to have been caused by an extraordinary act of generosity on the part of the young nobleman. The tradition is that the earl at one time made the poet a gift of £1,000 (equivalent to £5,000 now) to enable him to complete a "purchase which he had a mind to." There is no inherent impossibility, and no very great improbability, in such a piece of generosity, and the tradition is clear and precise. If this thing ever did take place, its occurrence in the interval between the publication of these two documents gives special meaning and emphasis to both—the first dedication being that which prompted the mind of the generous young nobleman to make the gift, the second being the natural outpouring of affection for so great an act of kind ness. All this, probable as it is, we must still remember is pure conjecture. The tradition is given by Rowe, and Rowe gives it on the authority of Sir William Davenant, 1670, about half a century after Shakespeare's death. Shakespeare was intimate with the Davenants, and was godfather to their son, William, the celebrated Sir William Davenant of the next generation. Shakespeare used to stop at their house, the Crown Inn, in Oxford, in his annual journeys between Stratford and London, the older Davenant, who was an innkeeper and vintner, being a great admirer and friend of the CHAPTER XII. TEMPORARIES EVIDENCES ON THIS POINT: (a) EX PUBLISHED DURING HIS LIFE-TIME; (b) NUMBER OF NARY CHARACTER OF NOTICES OF HIM BY CONTEM- T has been a common opinion that Shakespeare's And, first, let us see what was done in the actual publication of his works while he was still living. From 1593, when the Venus and Adonis first appeared, to 1616, the time of his death, scarcely a year passed without the appearance in print of one or more of his works, some of them reaching as high as six editions within twenty-one years. The whole number of editions of separate works, copies or records of which have come down to us, was at the time of his death no less than sixty-five. Now even in this day of cheap publications and of universal rushing into print, an author who, at fifty-two, notwithstanding studious and interested endeavors on his part to keep his chief works out of the hands of the printers, should yet find on the bookseller's catalogues more than sixty editions of one or another of them, might surely seem to be not altogether a stranger to the public. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that Tennyson and Longfellow are not better known to the book-trade than was Shakespeare, mutatis mutandis, at the time of his death. Secondly, in the books of elegant extracts published at that time, and containing selections from standard poets, Shakespeare is even thus early quoted. Thus, England's Parnassus, or, The Choysest Flowers of our Modern Poets, 1600, has no less than ninety extracts from Shakespeare. Bel-Vedere, or Garden of the Muses, also in 1600, has several extracts from Shakespeare. Love's Martyr, in a new edition, 1601, has an appendix of new poems, "done by the best and chiefest of our modern writers,"-the same being chiefly Chapman, Marston, Ben Jonson, and Shakespeare. England's Helicon, a Collection of Pastoral Poems (1614) contains three extracts from Shakespeare. This kind of incidental testimony it is impossible to gainsay. It is hard to conceive of a contemporary popularity more unmistakable. Thirdly, although it was not the custom then, as it is now, for everybody to gossip on paper about authors, yet let us see whether Shakespeare and his works are not in point of fact mentioned in every variety of way by those who lived at the same time with him, who were conversant with his writings, and who knew the man himself personally. I will mention only a few of the very earliest, from 1591 to 1598. The earliest of all is a passage in Spenser, not indeed naming Shakespeare, yet so evidently referring to him as to deserve citation. It is, I am aware, a matter of dispute whether the passage referred to was meant for Shakespeare, and many Shakespearians, those too of the very highest authority, reject the passage altogether. Yet, after considering carefully the arguments, for and against, I cannot resist the conviction that in penning these lines Spenser did have Shakespeare in his mind. The passage occurs in Spenser's poem, The Tears of the Muses, 1591, Shakespeare having then been five years in London. Spenser, who during that same period had been living at Kilcolman Castle, Ireland, came in 1590 to London to attend to the printing of the first three books of the Faerie Queene, and while there was likely to learn something of the new poet, and perhaps to make his acquaintance. Nothing certainly could be more probable than that Spenser, during this temporary sojourn in the metropolis, should embrace the opportunity of frequenting the play-house, where all the wits of the day and all his friends among the nobility made daily resort. On his return to Ireland, this poem, the Tears of the Muses, was published, suggested apparently by what he had seen in London during his late visit, and bewailing what he considered the low estate of literature and the arts. In the poem, each of the Nine Muses in turn makes lament over the low condition of that particular art over which she presides. Among the rest, Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, bewails the degenerate state of her branch. In this lament occur the lines referred to: And he, the man whom Nature selfe had made After a few more lines, expressing her scorn for the baser sort of dramatists who were flooding the stage with their vile productions, she goes on to say: But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen Here Thalia speaks of some dramatic writer who had raised high the expectations of the public, but who is "dead of late," that is, who is so vexed at the scurrility and ribaldry prevailing that he ceases writing for the stage, resolving to sit idle for the time, rather than be mixed up with such base-born men. As there was no other dramatic writer in 1591 to whom these lines could possibly apply, and as the phrase "our pleasant Willy" points so clearly to William Shakespeare, it is hard to resist the conclusion that Shakespeare was meant, that he had thus, as early even as his twenty-seventh year, won emphatic recognition from the author of this Faerie Queene. Among the plays known to have been written prior to 1591, are Love's Labour's Lost, Comedy of Errors, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, all in the comic vein, and all therefore suited to bring their author under the notice of Thalia, the Muse of Comedy. Three years later, that is, in 1594, Spenser again visited London, and on returning to Ireland wrote another poem, Colin Clout's Come Home Again, celebrating in pastoral verse, and, as was his wont, under assumed names, the various persons he had met in and near the court. Astrophel is Sir Philip Sidney, the Shepherd of the Ocean is Sir Walter Raleigh, and so on. Among these descriptions is one generally supposed to refer to Shakespeare, though the reference is by no means so clear as in the former passage. The lines are the following: Poets have in all ages been regarded as genus irritabile,-a waspish race. All the accounts, however, which we have of Shakespeare, concur in representing him as, on the contrary, a man of amiable disposition and conciliatory manners. It is not a little remarkable that all his contemporaries and those of the age immediately following (except one little outpouring of spleen which I shall notice presently), speak of him, when they refer to him at all, in terms not merely of admiration, but of tender affection,- a man not only to be reverenced, but to be loved. Milton, whose epithets are never given at random, speaks of "sweetest Shakespeare" and "my Shakespeare." Leonard Digges speaks of our Shakespeare." His fellow-actors, Heminge and Condell, in bringing out the first Folio, speak of "our Shakespeare." Ben Jonson says "Sweet 66 Swan of Avon," ", 'my Shakespeare,” “my gentle Shakespeare." Spenser, in the passage first quoted, speaks of " our pleasant Willy," and "that same gentle spirit." So here, when in speaking of Aetion he says, a "gentler shepheard may no where be found," it seems but natural to infer that he means the same genial, love-inspiring spirit. Another expression deserves notice. The Muse of Aetion, it is said, does "like himself heroically sound." This seems to carry a plain reference to Shakespeare's name, which in that day was often printed as two words joined by a hyphen, Shake-speare, and as such considered significant, and played upon according to the fancy of his friends. Thus Ben Jonson translates the name into "Shake-a-Lance" and "Shake-a-Stage; Greene calls him a "Shake-scene;" Fuller refers to the warlike sound of his surname, whence some may conjecture him of a military extraction,-Hasti-vibrans, or Shake-speare;" and finally the coat-of-arms devised for him by the Herald's office bears the crest of a falcon brandishing a spear. These things look certainly as if Spenser was aiming at the same mark when he speaks of a poet whose Muse does like himself heroically sound. Notice further the difference between the kind of praise now bestowed and that given three years before. Then the qualities spoken of were the "honey" and the "nectar," the "joy" and the "jolly merriment." Now, his Muse is "full of high thoughts' invention." This too is supposed to be explained by a comparison of dates. In 1591, Shakespeare had written little, if any thing, but comedy, with possibly the Venus and Adonis, and some of "his sugred sonnets among his friends." But now, in 1594, three at least of his great tragedies had been put upon the stage, namely, Richard II., Richard III., and Romeo and Juliet. Well then might Spenser speak of the heroic sound of his name and of his high thoughts' invention. Shakespeare's own admiration for the poet-laureate, found expression in a remarkable sonnet, published in the Passionate Pilgrim, and addressed to a friend who was equally an admirer of Dowland, a famous English musician of that day: If music and sweet poetry agree, As they must needs, the sister and the brother, Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me, Because thou lovest the one, and I the other. Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such As, passing all conceit, needs no defence. One god is god of both, as poets feign; After Spenser, the next writer, chronologically, who refers to Shakespeare is Robert Greene. This occurs in a tract published in 1592. Greene was quite notorious in his day. He wrote chiefly for the stage, and was charged with various excesses in private life. In a fit of repentance, near the close of life, he wrote a tract called A Groat's Worth of Wit; Bought with a Million of Repentance. It was addressed to "those gentlemen his quondam acquaintance who spend their wits in writing plays, and more particularly to Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele." He urges these writers to cease writing for the stage; to take warning from his experience; and, if nothing else would move them, to be assured that the actors and the public were very unstable in their likes and their dislikes, and would soon abandon them for some new favorite. His words are: "Base-minded men, all three of you, if by my misery ye be not warned; for unto none of you, like [unto] me, sought those burrs to cleave; those puppets [the actors] I mean, that speak from_our mouths, those antics garnished in our colors. Is it not strange that I, to whom they all have been beholding; is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholding, shall (were ye in that case that I am now) be both at once of them forsaken? Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger's heart wrapt in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." Here Greene is in ill temper with some young upstart, who, at first only a player, has presumed to write also for the stage, and who is obviously supplanting Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele. From the date, 1592, and from what we know of the other dramatic writers then living, the new "upstart" could have been none other than Shakespeare, and this inference derives additional strength from the epithet which Greene gives him, "the only Shake-scene in a country." Thus the great dramatist, now only twenty-eight years old, and only six years in London, is already beginning to supersede his predecessors and contemporaries, and to excite in consequence their jealousy and hatred. One of the epithets applied to him is especially instructive - Johannes Factotum, literally, a John-do-everything, or, in good English idiom, a Jackat-all-trades. Now the whole tenor of Shakespeare's writings, as well as all the traditions concerning his life, go to establish the conclusion that he was remarkable for his common sense and his practical talents. His transcendent genius did not prevent his attending to ordinary business in an ordinary way-did not hinder him from being shrewd at a bargain and thrifty in the management of affairs. It is easy to see that these qualities, in connection with his genius as a writer, would naturally give him in a short time the chief control of the theatre to which he was attached. The disparaging epithets of Greene mark the precise time (a critical point in the history of any rising man) when, from superior business talents as well as from superior genius, the actual management of affairs had gone into his hands, but his superiority had not yet been fully recognized. He was still one who could be taunted by his declining rivals as an "upstart,"❞—one who imagined himself able to write as good blank verse as any of his contemporaries-one who was "in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country"-one who thought he could be writer, player, manager, and what not - in fact, a very and "absolute Johannes Factotum." Greene's Groat's Worth of Wit led incidentally this same year to a notice of Shakespeare by Henry Chettle, another dramatic writer of the period. Chettle had been instrumental in the publication of Greene's pamphlet, and finding that injustice had been done therein to some of the parties attacked, he published a tract of his own, called Kind-Hart's Dream, intended to make reparation. In it occurs the following passage, referring to Shakespeare: "Myself have seen his demeanor no less civil than he excellent in the quality [which] he professes; besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art." The character which Chettle here gives of Shakespeare is precisely that already suggested, namely, that he was a man of genius, possessed of good temper, thrift, and common sense. I have dwelt a little upon these four passages, Spenser 1591, Greene and Chettle 1592, and Spenser again |