SECTION III.
ANNALS ON WHICH THE PRECEDING SECTIONS ARE FOUNDED.
Until April 1564.
On 26th April 1564 was baptized William, son of John Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon and Mary Arden, at that time an only child, two girls born previously having died in their infancy. John Shakespeare was son of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, where his brother Henry also resided: he was a glover, who speculated in wool, corn, &c. He lived in Henley Street, Stratford, as early as 29th April 1552, having left his father about 1550, and in October 1556 purchased two small estates in that town—one that is now shown as the birthplace, the other in Greenhill Street. In 1557 he married Mary Arden, whose father, Robert, a yeoman, had contracted a second marriage with Agnes Hill, widow, and in the settlement then made had reserved to Mary the reversion to estates at Wilmecote and Snitterfield. Some part of this land was occupied by Richard Shakespeare's grandfather. Mary Arden also received under her father's will, dated 24th November 1556, a considerable sum in money, and the fee-simple of Asbies at Wilmecote, a house with sixty acres of land. In 1557 John was a burgess, a member of the corporation, and by choice of the Court Leet ale-taster to the borough, sworn to look to the assize and goodness of bread, ale, or beer. In September 1558 he was one of the four constables under the rules of the Court Leet. On 6th October 1559 he was again chosen constable and one of the four affeerors for determining fines under the borough bye-laws. In 1561 he was again chosen affeeror, and one of the borough chamberlains, which office he held till the end of 1563.
1564.
In July the plague broke out in Stratford, and continued to December. There died 238 in that half-year, no Shakespeares among them. John Shakespeare had had an early lesson in sanitation by way of a fine of 12d. in April 1552 for having a muck heap in front of his door in Henley Street, within a stone's-throw of one of the public stores of filth. He now contributed fairly to relieve the poor and plague-stricken; about 12d. per month.
1565.
In March John Shakespeare with his former colleague made up the chamberlain's accounts from September 1563 to 1564. Neither of them could sign their names.
1566.
In February he again made up these accounts, and was paid £3, 2s. 7d. "for a rest of old debt" by the corporation. On 13th October his son Gilbert was baptized.
1567.
In September, Ralph Perrot, brewer, John Shakespeare, and Ralph Cawdrey, butcher, were nominated for the office of High Bailiff or Mayor. Cawdrey was elected. For the first time the name appears as "Mr." John Shakespeare.
1568.
On 4th September "Mr. John Shakysper" was chosen High Bailiff. He was succeeded the next year by Robert Salisbury.
On 15th April John Shakespeare's third daughter (named Joan after her deceased elder sister) was baptized.
1571.
On 28th September John Shakespeare's fourth daughter Anne was baptized. William was now seven, then the usual age for the commencement of grammar-school education, the use of the Absey book and horn-book having been acquired at home. Lily's Accidence and the Sententiæ Pueriles were the usual text-books for beginners in Latin. Shakespeare had some knowledge of Latin, and a little French; all beyond this is very problematical.
1573.
On 11th March, Richard, John Shakespeare's third son, was baptized.
1575.
John Shakespeare bought two houses in Stratford.
1578.
In January John Shakespeare paid only the amount of borough taxes paid by other aldermen. William was then fourteen, the usual age for commencing apprenticeship. There is a tradition given by Aubrey that he was apprenticed to a butcher. I believe this to be a myth, originating in the epithet "kill-cow," often applied to tragic actors. Some writers still think that the tradition may be relied on. Another story traced to the parish clerk of 1693 is that he followed his father's profession. May be so; may not be.
1579.
In Easter Term Asbies was mortgaged to Edmund Lambert for £40, to revert if repayment be made before Michaelmas 1580.
On 4th July Anne Shakespeare was buried; in the chamberlain's accounts occurs this item: "For the bell and pall for Mr. Shaxper's daughter, 8d.," the highest fee in the list.
On 15th October John Shakespeare and his wife convey their interest in Snitterfield to Robert Webbe. Agnes Arden's will is dated in this year.
1580.
On 3d May, Edmund, son of John Shakespeare, was baptized.
On or before 29th September, the money in discharge of the Asbies mortgage was tendered and refused unless other moneys due were also paid.
1581.
On 19th January the goods of Agnes Arden, deceased, were appraised.
On 1st September Richard Hathaway of Shottery made his will.
1582.
On 28th November the marriage bond between William Shagspere and Anne Hathway was given, under condition that neither party had been precontracted to another person, and that the said William Shagspere should not proceed to solemnization with the said Anne Hathway without consent of her friends. They were to be married with one asking of the banns. The bondsmen were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson,—the seal is R.H., which may be Richard Hathaway's.
1583.
On May 26th Susanna their daughter was baptized. It is assumed that a precontract existed between the parents which, according to the custom of the time, "was not legally recognised, but it invalidated a subsequent union of either of the parties with any one else" (Halliwell, Outlines, p. 45). The reader must form his own opinion. Taking into consideration the low morality of the time in such matters, the fact that Anne Hathaway was twenty-six, and Shakespeare eighteen in 1582, the practice still not unknown in rural districts of cohabitation under conditional promise of marriage, should the probable birth of a child make it necessary or prudent, the fact that from 1587 to 1597 we have no evidence that Shakespeare even saw his wife, and the palpable indications in the Sonnets that during this interval he was intriguing with another woman—for my own part I cannot help adopting De Quincey's view that he was entrapped into some such conditional promise by this lady and kept his promise honourably. Compare on the precontract question the plays of The Miseries of Enforced Marriage by Wilkins, which is founded on the contemporary history of the same Calverley who is the murderer in The Yorkshire Tragedy, with Shakespeare's own views in 1604 in Measure for Measure; his opinions in Twelfth Night, ii. 4 (early part, c. 1592), and Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1, on wives that are older than their husbands: and, by way of showing that his plays do discover sometimes his personal feelings, Valentine's resignation of Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, with the story involved in the Sonnets of Shakespeare's own transfer of his illicit love.
1585.
February 2. Hamnet and Judith, Shakspeare's twin children, were baptized at Stratford-on-Avon. By April 26th he had certainly attained his majority, and his apprenticeship had probably expired.
1585-7.
Three or four years after his union with Anne Hathaway, he had, says Rowe, "by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and, amongst them, some, that made a frequent practice of deer stealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park, that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford; for this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to revenge that ill usage made a ballad upon him, and though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in London." Whether this tradition be well founded or no, we are compelled by subsequent events to place the date of Shakespeare's leaving Stratford in or about 1587; and whether there be any truth in the story traced to Davenant or not, that he held horses at the play-house door, while their owners were witnessing performances inside, it is certain that he was very soon connected with the stage, first as actor, then as dramatic writer. It becomes therefore of importance to ascertain if possible the specific company with which he originally joined.
In the latter part of 1585 there were two regular theatres existing in London, the Theater and the Curtain. It clearly appears from a report by Recorder Fleetwood preserved in the Lansdown MSS. that at Whitsuntide 1584 these were occupied by the Queen's players and those of Lord Arundel. It is not clear that a third company, that of Lord Hunsdon, acted at the Theater: although Mr. J. O. H. Phillipps (whom I most usually refer to under his former and better known name of Halliwell) assures us that it is so. It is true that the "owner of the Theater," whom he takes to be a temporary occupier of that building, but whom I regard as the ground landlord, Giles Alleyn, is called a servant of Lord Hunsdon's, and that a company of actors, called Lord Hunsdon's men, acted at Court 27th December 1582; but it does not follow that these men were occupiers of the Theater. In fact the only companies anyhow known to us as in London in 1585 are the two already mentioned. It is by no means likely à priori, nor would it agree with the passages hereafter to be referred to in the writings of Greene and Nash, that Shakespeare should immediately on his appearance in London obtain employment in either. But there was a third company not noticed in Collier's Annals of the Stage, into which he may easily have obtained admittance. When the Queen's company was formed in 8th March 1582-3, by the selection of twelve players from the companies of the two Dudleys, Earls of Leicester and Warwick, there must have been sufficient men left unemployed to form another company. These were probably still retained by the Earl of Leicester: for in a letter from Sir Philip Sidney, dated Utrecht, 24th March 1575-6, mention is made of "Will, the Earl of Leicester's jesting player," who had gone with the Earl to the Netherlands in December 1575. Thomas Heywood, in his Apology for Actors, 1612, tells us that "The King of Denmark, father to him that now reigneth, entertained into his service a company of English comedians, commended unto him by the honourable Earl of Leicester." This King of Denmark, Frederick II., died in 1588, and the exact date of the transaction is fixed by documents dated October 1586, in which we find that five of these actors had been transferred from the service of Frederick II. of Denmark to that of Christian I., Duke of Saxony. I am far from wishing to adopt the conjecture of Mr. Bruce that "jesting Will" was Shakespeare; but when among the names of these five actors—Thomas King, Thomas Stephen, George Bryan, Thomas Pope, Robert Persie—we find two, Pope and Bryan, that are identical with those of two actors in the very first list extant of the first company with which we can positively connect Shakespeare as an actor; when we find this same company acting at Stratford in 1587, at the very time that Shakespeare's disappearance from all known connection with that town for nine years commences; when we find among a list of plays that had been acted by the English in Germany Hester and Ahasuerus, Titus Andronicus [and Vespasian], both of which we shall trace to Shakespeare's company; when we also find a version of the Corambis Hamlet existing early in the same country—then I think we are justified in saying that there is great likelihood of this company having been the one in which Shakespeare found his first employment. If so, he accompanied it in all its fortunes, and never (as we shall see) forsook it for another.
1586.
Meanwhile in London the plague had prevailed to such an extent that the theatres were shut up during 1586. It was not then during this year that Shakespeare held horses at stage-doors, or obtained employment in London theatres. But at the end of the year Lord Leicester's players returned to England, and in January 1586-87 are mentioned together with the Queen's, the Admiral's, and the Earl of Oxford's, in a letter to Walsingham from a spy of his, which is preserved in the Harleian MSS.
1587.
This same company, the Earl of Leicester's men, visited Stratford-on-Avon in 1587. I have not been able to trace their previous presence there since 1576, although other companies paid frequent visits to this town. It is singular that in this year, the only one in which this company visited Stratford during the twelve years intervening between the birth and death of Hamnet Shakespeare, we find also the only record of the poet's presence in the place of his nativity. I give this in the words of Mr. Halliwell. "In 1578 his parents had borrowed the sum of £40 on the security of his mother's estate of Asbies, from their connexion, Edmund Lambert of Barton-on-the-Heath. The loan remaining unpaid, and the mortgage dying in March 1587, his son and heir John was naturally desirous of having the matter settled. John Shakespeare being at that time in prison for debt, and obviously unable to furnish the money, it was arranged shortly afterwards that Lambert should, on cancelling the mortgage and paying also the sum of £20, receive from the Shakespeares an absolute title to the estate. His offer would perhaps not have been made had it not been ascertained that the eldest son William had a contingent interest, derived no doubt from a settlement, and that his assent was essential to the security of a conveyance. The proposed arrangement was not completed, but" the poet's sanction to it is recorded. I believe that immediately after this, in 1587, Shakespeare left Stratford either with or in order to join Lord Leicester's company.
The Earl of Leicester died on 4th September 1588. Previously to this date the company of players acting under his patronage had played in London, probably at the Cross-Keys in Bishopsgate Street, and more frequently had travelled in the country. At the death of Dudley, they had of course to seek for a new patron, and no doubt found one in Ferdinando, Lord Strange, whose company (containing as we shall see some of the actors already known as Leicester's men) are first traceable in 1589. An earlier company bearing the title of Lord Strange's men, c. 1582, seem to have been merely acrobats or posture-mongers. But before entering on the history of this company under its new name, of which we know Shakespeare to have been a member, we must note some particulars regarding other dramatists, especially Marlowe, Greene, and Nash, which indirectly concern Shakespeare, and have hitherto been wrongly interpreted.
In 1587, when the Admiral's men re-opened after the plague, they produced, in what succession we need not here determine, Greene's Orlando and Alphonsus of Arragon, Peele's Battle of Alcazar, and Marlowe's Tamberlaine. Those plays are enumerated in Peele's Farewell, 1589, as—
"Mahomet's pow, and mighty Tamberlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest."
"Mahomet's pow" is the head of Mahomet in Alphonsus; King Charlemagne was probably a character in the complete play of Orlando, of which only a mutilated copy has come down to us; Tom Stukeley is the hero of The Battle of Alcazar; and "the rest" most likely indicate Lodge's Marius and Sylla and Marlowe's Faustus. Greene and Peele wrote no more for this company, but in 1587 removed to the Queen's men, who had been travelling in the country. On 29th March 1588 Greene's Perimedes the Blacksmith was entered on the Stationers' Registers. In the introduction Greene attacks Marlowe and Lodge, who had remained with the Admiral's men, in a passage worth quoting: "I keep my old course still to palter up something in prose, using mine old posy still, omne tulit punctum; although lately two gentlemen poets made two madmen of Rome beat it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical buskins, every word filling the mouth like the fa-burden of Bow-bell, daring God out of heaven with that atheist Tamberlaine or blaspheming with the mad priest of the sun. But let me rather openly pocket up the ass at Diogenes' hand than wantonly set out such impious instances of intolerable poetry. Such mad and scoffing poets that have poetical spirits as bred of Merlin's race, if there be any in England that set the end of scholarism in an English blank verse, I think either it is the humour of a novice that tickles them with self-love, or too much frequenting the hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat out all the greatest part of their wits." For the fuller understanding of this satire it may be noted that no "priest of the sun" is known in an early play except in The Looking-glass for London and England by Lodge and Greene, which is certainly of later date than Perimedes, yet may indicate Lodge's liking for that character; that Diogenes is the name assumed by Lodge in his Catharos, 1591, and that Marlowe's name was written Merlin as often as Marlowe. There can be no doubt as to the persons aimed at, nor of the effect of the satire, for both of them left off writing for the Admiral's men; and Marlowe during the next two years produced The Jew of Malta, which can be traced to the Queen's company, and together with Greene, Lodge, and Peele produced the plays of The Troublesome Reign of King John, and The First Part of York and Lancaster on which 2 Henry VI. is founded. The internal evidence for the authorship of these last-mentioned plays is very strong: they were, however, published anonymously.
1589.
Before the entry of Greene's Menaphon on the Stationers' Registers on 23d August 1589, Hamlet and The Taming of a Shrew must have been represented by Pembroke's men, and Marlowe must have left the Queen's company. As Menaphon is accessible in Professor Arber's reprint to the general reader, it will be sufficient to refer to it here without quoting passages in full. That Greene refers so satirically to Marlowe as to prevent our supposing that at this date they could be writing jointly for the same theatre, is clear from a hitherto unnoticed passage in p. 54: "Whosoever descanted of that love told you a Canterbury tale; some prophetical fullmouth, that, as he were a Cobler's eldest son, would by the last tell where another's shoe wrings." Marlowe or Merlin was a shoemaker's son of Canterbury. That Doron in the story is meant for the author of The Taming of a Shrew was shown by Mr. R. Simpson by comparing Doron's speech in p. 74: "White as the hairs that grow on Father Boreas' chin," and the passage in Nash's introduction, p. 5, about mechanical mates, servile imitators of vain-glorious tragedians, who think themselves "more than initiated in poet's immortality if they but once get Boreas by the beard," with the words of the play itself: "whiter than icy hair that grows on Boreas' chin." Mr. Simpson was, however, entirely wrong in identifying Doron with Shakespeare, and did not notice that Doron's entire speech parodies one of Menaphon's in p. 31, just as The Taming of a Shrew parodies Marlowe's plays, or "the mechanical mates" alluded to by Nash imitate the "idiot art-masters" in the "swelling bombast of a bragging blank verse," or the "spacious volubility of a drumming decasyllabon." The name Menaphon is taken from Marlowe's Tamberlaine. In these passages Greene and Nash satirise Kyd, then writing for Pembroke's company. In another paragraph, p. 9, Nash speaks of "a sort of shifting companions" that "leave the trade of Noverint whereto they were born," who get their aphorisms from translations of Seneca and can "afford you whole Hamlets of tragical speeches." This passage is familiar to all students of Shakespeare; and yet no one has, I think, pointed out that Nash identifies these "famished followers" of Seneca with the "Kidde in Æsop, who, enamoured with the Fox's newfangles, forsook all hopes of life to leap into a new occupation." This pun in a tractate containing similar allusions to the names Greene, Lyly, and Merlin is equivalent to a direct attribution of the authorship of Hamlet as produced in 1589 to Kyd, and is also a refutation of those who have seen in the whole passage an allusion to Shakespeare.
Very shortly after Greene's Menaphon Nash issued his Anatomy of Absurdities, which had been entered on the Stationers' Registers 19th September 1588, and which contains much of the same satirical matter as his address in Menaphon.
We have now to pass from the private quarrel of Greene and Nash, as representing the Queen's men at the Theater, with Marlowe and Kyd, the writers for Pembroke's company, to a much more important controversy in which many of the same dramatists were concerned. Between October 1588 and October 1589 the Martinists published their Puritan controversial tracts; in opposition to them various writings had appeared, whose authors were Cooper, formerly schoolmaster, afterwards Bishop; Lyly the Euphuist; Nash the satirist; and Elderton "the bibbing fool" ballad-maker. They had also been ridiculed on the stage, in April 1589, at the Theater, most likely by Greene; at the Paul's school probably by Lyly; and either in ballad or interlude by Antony Munday, even at that early date a dramatic writer. As the anti-Martinist plays were on the side of the clergy and of secular authority they were not interfered with. But in November 1589, in consequence of certain players in London handling "matters of Divinity and State without judgment or decorum"—in other words, having the impertinence to suppose that there could be two sides to a question, Mr. Tylney, the Master of the Revels, suddenly becomes awake to the danger of allowing such discussions on public stages, and writes to Lord Burleigh that he "utterly mislikes all plays within the city." Lord Burleigh sends a letter to the Lord Mayor to "stay" them. The Theater and Curtain, where the Queen's men and Pembroke's were playing, were without the city, so that the anti-Martinist plays were not interfered with; the Paul's boys were for the nonce not regarded as a company of players: so that the Mayor could only "hear of" the Admiral's men, who on admonishment dutifully forbore playing, and Lord Strange's, who departed contemptuously, "went to the Cross-Keys and played that afternoon to the great offence of the better sort, that knew they were prohibited." The Mayor then "committed two of the players to one of the compters." These players, however, gained their end, for all plays on either side of the controversy were forthwith suppressed, and commissioners were appointed to examine and licence all plays thenceforth "in and about" the city played by any players "whose servants soever they be."
It is pleasing to find Shakespeare's company acting in so spirited a manner in defence of free thought and free speech: it would be more pleasing to be able to identity him personally as the chief leader in movement. And this I believe he was. The play of Love's Labour's Lost, in spite of great alteration in 1597, is undoubtedly in the main the earliest example left us of Shakespeare's work: and the characters in the underplot agree so singularly even in the play as we have it with the anti-Martinist writers in their personal peculiarities that I have little doubt that this play was the one performed in November 1589. If the absence of matter of State be objected, I reply that it would be easy for malice to represent the loss of Love's labour in the main plot as a satire on the love's labour in vain of Alençon for Elizabeth. We must also remember that it is most likely that for some years at the beginning of his career Shakespeare wrote in conjunction with other men, and that in those plays that were revived by him at a later date their work was replaced by his own. In the case of the present play, as the revision was for a Court performance, we may be sure that great care would be taken to expunge all offensive matter: the only ground for surprise is that enough indications remain to enable us to identify the characters at all.
1590.
Love's Labour's Lost would no doubt be closely followed by Love's Labour's Won, which play I for other reasons attribute to this year.
We must now again refer to Greene. His Farewell to Folly had been entered on the Stationers' Registers, 11th June 1587, but was not published till after his Mourning Garment, the entry of which dates 2d November 1590. In the introduction, which was certainly written at the time of publication, although the body of the work had been lying by for some three years and more, Greene distinctly alludes to Fair Em and accuses its author of "simple abusing of Scripture," because "two lovers on the stage arguing one another of unkindness, his mistress runs over him with this canonical sentence 'a man's conscience is a thousand witnesses'; and her knight again excuseth himself with that saying of the Apostle, 'Love covereth the multitude of sins.'" The exact words in the play are "Love that covers multitude of sins" and "thy conscience is a thousand witnesses." Greene, says Mr. R. Simpson, who first drew attention to this allusion to Fair Em in a paper unfortunately spoiled by an absurd attempt to identify Mullidor,[4] of "great head and little wit," with Shakespeare, has parallel plots to those of Fair Em in his Tully's Love (1589) and Never Too Late (before 2d November 1590). To me the connexion seems closer between this satire, by Greene the profligate parson, based on Scriptural grounds, of a play written for Lord Strange's company, and the persecution they had just endured for venturing to present a play in favour of the Martinists. And as if to emphasise his intention in this direction, Greene says in his Dedication of his tract, "I cannot Martinize." That Fair Em was the production of R. Wilson will I think be evident to those who will read it with careful remembrance.
The Comedy of Errors was also probably acted this year in its original form.
In this year were most likely produced two plays, not in the shape in which they have come down to us, but as originally written by Shakespeare and some coadjutor, viz., The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Romeo and Juliet. The question of the dates of these and all other plays of Shakespeare will be separately argued further on. It may be just worth while to note that the "pleasant Willy" of Spenser, who has been so carelessly identified with Shakespeare, with Kemp, and with Tarleton (!) is certainly Lyly. The line "doth rather choose to sit in idle cell" (Tears of the Muses) identifies him with "slumbering Euphues in his cell at Silexedra" (Menaphon). Compare "Euphues' golden legacy found after his death in his cell at Silexedra" (title of Lodge's Rosalynde).
1591-2.
In the Christmas Records of this year, the Queen's company made their final appearance at Court on December 26th. Lord Strange's men performed at Whitehall on December 27th, 28th, January 1st, 9th, February 6th, 8th. The import of this fact has not been fully appreciated. The exceptionally large number of performances of Lord Strange's men show a singular amount of Court favour, and go far to prove that Elizabeth did not sanction their persecution at the hands of Burleigh two years before. They henceforth, under various changes of name and constitution, until the closing of the theatres in 1642, retain the chief position in the performances at Court. This date, 1592, is in the history of this company of players, and therefore in that of Shakespeare, their chief poet and one of their best actors, of the very greatest importance.
The old plays of King John, on which Shakespeare's was founded, were published this year, as having been acted by the Queen's company—an additional indication of an important change in their internal constitution.
1592.
This year was scarcely less eventful than the preceding for the company to which Shakespeare belonged. On 19th February Henslowe opened the Rose theatre on Bankside for performances by Lord Strange's men under the management of the celebrated actor, Edward Alleyn. Whether (and if at all, for how long) Alleyn had been previously connected with the company, we are not directly informed; but as he gave up playing for Worcester's men, c. January 1588-9, the exact time when the players of the late Earl of Leicester found a new patron in Lord Strange, that is the probable date of his joining them. This possession of a settled place for performance gave his company additional influence and status. At first they played old plays, among which may be mentioned Kyd's Jeronymo and Spanish Tragedy, Greene's Orlando and Friar Bacon, Greene and Lodge's Looking-glass, Marlowe's Jew of Malta, and Peele's Battle of Alcazar. This last-named play, may, like Greene's Orlando, have been originally sold to the Queen's men, and to the Admiral's afterwards; but whether this be so or not, we have the singular fact to explain that four plays, three by Greene and one by Marlowe, all belonging to the Queen's men, are now found in action by Lord Strange's. Combining this with their sudden disappearance from the Court Revels, it would seem that some grave displeasure had been excited against them, and that they had become disorganised. In fact, although they, or a part of them, lingered on in some vague connection with Sussex' players, they now practically disappear from theatrical history. Of new plays Lord Strange's men produced on March 3d, Henry VI., which is by the reference to it in Nash's Piers Penniless (entered 8th August 1592) identified with the play now known as The First Part of Henry VI. It was acted fourteen times to crowded houses (Nash says to 10,000 spectators), and was the success of the season. I have no doubt that this play was written by Marlowe, with the aid of Peele, Lodge, and Greene, before 1590, and that the episode of Talbot's death added in 1592 is from the hand of Shakespeare himself. In this last opinion it is especially pleasing to me to find myself supported by the critical judgment of Mr. Swinburne. On 11th April the play of Titus and Vespasian was first acted. Had it not been for the existence of a German version (given in full in Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany) we should not have been aware that this play was identical in story with that known as Titus Andronicus. It is unfortunately lost—a loss the more to be regretted since it has led to the supposition of the extant play having proceeded from the hand of Shakespeare. On 10th June A Knack to Know a Knave was performed for the first time. Mr. R. Simpson without the slightest ground conjectured that this was the play that Greene says he "lastly writ" with "young Juvenal." The most successful new plays in this season were Henry VI. and Titus and Vespasian (performed seven times in two months); of old plays the Spanish Tragedy (performed thirteen times), The Battle of Alcazar (eleven performances), and The Jew of Malta (ten performances).
On June 22 the last performance took place before the closing of the theatres on account of the plague.
On August 8 Piers Penniless was entered S. R., which contains Nash's reference to I Henry VI.
On September 3 Greene died.
On September 20 his Groatsworth of Wit was entered in the Stationers' Registers. This pamphlet was edited by Chettle, and contains the often quoted address to Marlowe, "young Juvenal," and Peele. In the portion where Greene speaks to all three of them, he says: "Trust them not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his Tiger'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 our country." Mr. R. Simpson showed that "beautified with our feathers" meant acting plays written by us, but "bombast out a blank verse" undoubtedly refers to Shakespeare as a writer also. The line "O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide" occurs in Richard Duke of York (commonly but injudiciously referred to as The True Tragedy), a play written for Pembroke's men, probably in 1590, on which 3 Henry VI. was founded. It is almost certainly by Marlowe, the best of the three whom Greene addresses. In December Chettle issued his Kindheart's Dream, in which he apologises for the offence given to Marlowe in the Groatsworth of Wit, "because myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes; besides divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, which approves his art." To Peele he makes no apology, nor indeed was any required. Shakespeare was not one of those who took offence; they are expressly stated to have been two of the three authors addressed by Greene, the third (Lodge) not being in England.
There were three plays performed at Hampton Court this Christmas, on December 26, 31, January 1, by Lord Strange's men, in spite of the plague.
I think the latter part of 1592 the most likely time for the writing of some scenes in All's Well that Ends Well and Twelfth Night that show marks of early date.
On January 5 Lord Strange's company, who had reopened at the Rose, 29th December 1592, produced a new play called The Jealous Comedy; this I take to have been The Merry Wives of Windsor in its earliest form.
On January 30 they produced Marlowe's Guise or Massacre of Paris, which has reached us in an unusually mutilated condition.
On February 1 they performed for the last time this year in Southwark; the Rose as well as other theatres being closed because of the plague.
On April 18 Venus and Adonis was entered by Richard Field for publication. Shakespeare's choice of a publisher was no doubt influenced by private connection. R. Field was a son of Henry Field, tanner, of Stratford-on-Avon, who died in 1592. The inventory of his goods attached to his will had been taken by Shakespeare's father on 21st August in that year. Venus and Adonis was licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Whitgift) (at whose palace near Croydon Nash's play, Summer's Last Will, was performed in the autumn of 1592), and was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Shakespeare calls it "The first heir of my invention," which may mean his first published work; but more probably means the first production in which he was sole author, his previous plays having been written in conjunction with others; and he vows "to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour." He had probably then planned if not begun his Rape of Lucrece.
On May 6 a precept was issued by the Lords of the Privy Council authorising Lord Strange's players, "Edward Allen, William Kempe, Thomas Pope, John Heminges, Augustine Philipes, and George Brian" to play "where the infection is not, so it be not within seven miles of London or of the Court, that they may be in the better readiness hereafter for her Majesty's service." This list of names is by no means a complete one of the company of players; but probably does consist of all the shareholders therein. Shakespeare was not a shareholder yet. Alleyn is described as servant to the Admiral as well as to Lord Strange. Accordingly they travelled and acted in the country—in July at Bristol, afterwards at Shrewsbury. Meanwhile on June 1 Marlowe was killed, leaving unpublished his poem, Hero and Leander, his play Dido, and in my opinion other plays; of which more hereafter.
On 25th September Henry Earl of Derby died, and Ferdinand Lord Strange succeeded to his honours. His company of players are consequently sometimes called the Earl of Derby's for the next six months. There were no performances at Court at Christmas on account of the plague.
1594.
On 23d January Titus Andronicus was acted as a new play by Sussex' men at the Rose. This company gave up playing there on 6th February. On 26th February the Andronicus play was entered on S. R. Langbaine, who professes to have seen this edition, says it was acted by the players of "Pembroke, Derby, and Essex." Essex is clearly a mistake for Sussex, for in the 1600 edition the companies are given as "Sussex, Pembroke, and Derby." Halliwell's careless statement that Lord Strange's players transferred their services to Lord Hunsdon in 1594, has led me and others into grave difficulty on this matter. The fact is that Lord Derby's players became servants to the Chamberlain between 16th April, when Lord Derby died, and 3d June, when they played at Newington Butts under the latter appellation. There was strictly no Lord Strange's company after 25th September 1593, and no other Derby's company till 1599. The old name Strange, however, does sometimes occur instead of Derby. Hence it seemed that the transfer to Derby's company must have taken place in 1600. Indeed so little was the fact known even in 1600, that Shakespeare's company enjoyed the title of Derby's men for six months, that although that name is given on the first page, on the title the same men reappear as the Lord Chamberlain's. Why Pembroke's men should have acquired the play on 6th February, and possibly parted with it by the 26th, does not appear, nor is there any parallel instance known: there must have been some great changes in their constitution at this time. But in any case Shakespeare did not write the play; Mr. Halliwell's theory that he left Lord Strange's men, who in 1593 enjoyed the highest position of any then existing, and after having been a member successively of two of the obscurest companies, returned to his former position within a few months, is utterly untenable. There is no vestige of evidence that Shakespeare ever wrote for any company but one.
On 12th March York and Lancaster (2 Henry VI.) was entered on S. R.
From 1st to 8th April Sussex' men and the Queen's acted at the Rose, among other plays, the old Leir (April 8), on which Shakespeare's Lear was founded. Both these companies henceforth vanish from stage history.
On May 2 The Taming of a Shrew was entered on S. R.
On May 9 The Rape of Lucrece was entered. The difference in tone between the dedication of this poem to Lord Southampton and that of Venus and Adonis distinctly points to a personal intercourse having taken place in the interval. Hence the date of Shakespeare's first interview with his patron may be assigned as between April 1593 and May 1594.
On May 14 The Famous Victories of Henry V. and Leir were entered on S. R.
On May 14 also the Admiral's company, of which nothing is heard since 1591, began to act at the Rose, having acted at Newington for three days only. Alleyn, Henslow's son-in-law, had left the management of Shakespeare's company on the death of Lord Derby, and now joined the Admiral's men.
Between[5] June 3 and June 13 the Chamberlain's men played at Newington Butts alternately with the Admiral's: among the Chamberlain's plays we notice on June 3, 10, Hester and Ahasuerus, which exists in a German version of which a translation ought to be published; June 5, 12, Andronicus; June 9, Hamlet; June 11, The Taming of a Shrew. The intermediate days were occupied by the Admiral's men: who on the 15th [17th] went to the Rose, and the Chamberlain's men no doubt to the Theater, the Burbadges' own house. The Chamberlain's company at this date included W. Shakespeare, R. Burbadge, J. Hemings, A. Phillips, W. Kempe, T. Pope, G. Bryan, all of whom, with the possible exception of Burbadge, had been members of Lord Strange's company; together with H. Condell, W. Sly, R. Cowley, N. Tooley, J. Duke, R. Pallant, and T. Goodall, who had previously been in all probability members of the Queen's company. C. Beeston must have joined them soon afterwards. The names of Richard Hoope, William Ferney, William Blackway, and Ralph Raye occur in Henslow's Diary as Chamberlain's men c. January 1595. The Queen's men came in on the reconstitution of that company in 1591-2. See on this matter further on under the head of The Seven Deadly Sins.
On June 19 the old play of Richard III. (with Shore's wife in it) was entered on S. R., a pretty sure indication, which tallies with other external evidence, that the play attributed to Shakespeare was produced about this time. No one can read the four plays composing the Henry 6th series without feeling that, however various their authorship, they form a connected whole in general plan. Margaret is the central figure, who hovers like a Greek Chorus over the terrible Destiny that involves King and people in its meshes. But Margaret is not Shakespeare's creation; she is Marlowe's. Shakespeare had no share in the plays on the contention of York and Lancaster, and but a slight one in 1 Henry VI. Marlowe had a chief hand in 1 Henry VI. and York and Lancaster; probably wrote the whole of Richard Duke of York, and laid, in my opinion, the foundation and erected part of the building of Richard III. At his death he seems to have left unacted or unpublished his poem of Hero and Leander, finished afterwards by Chapman; Dido, partly by Nash, and produced (when?) by the Chapel children; Andronicus acted (under Peele's auspices?) by the Sussex men, and Richard III., completed by Shakespeare, and acted by the Chamberlain's company as we have it in the Quarto. All these plays were produced or published in 1594. About the same time an earlier play of Marlowe's, originally acted c. 1589, was altered and revised by Shakespeare. The date and authorship of the Shakespearian part of Edward III., viz., from "Enter King Edward" in the last scene of act i. to the end of act ii., are proved by the allusion to the poem of Lucrece; the repetition of lines from the Sonnets: "Their scarlet ornaments," "Lilies that foster smell far worse than weeds," and many smaller coincidences with undoubted Shakespearian plays: while the original date and authorship of the play as a whole will appear from the following quotations. In the Address prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, in a passage in which Nash has been satirising Kyd and another as void of scholarship and unable to read Seneca in the original, he suddenly attacks Marlowe, whom he has previously held up as the object of their imitation, and asks what can they have of him? in Nash's own words: "What can be hoped of those that thrust Elysium into Hell, and have not learned, so long as they have lived in the spheres, the just measure of the Horizon without an hexameter?" Marlowe in Faustus[6] has "confound Hell in Elysium," and, in Edward III, horízon is pronounced hórizon. This, however, might occur in other plays; but in Greene's Never Too Late we find Tully addressing the player Roscius, who certainly represents R. Wilson, in these words: "Why, Roscius, are thou proud with Æsop's crow, being pranked with the glory of others' feathers? Of thyself thou canst say nothing: and if the Cobbler hath taught thee to say Ave Cæsar, disdain not thy tutor because thou pratest in a King's chamber." Unless another play can be produced with "Ave Cæsar" in it, this must be held to allude to Edward III., in which play Wilson must have acted the Prince of Wales (act i. 1. 164). The "cobbler" alludes to Marlowe as a shoemaker's son.
On July 20, Locrine, an old play written, says Mr. Simpson, by G. Tylney in 1586, but in which Peele had certainly a principal hand, was entered on S. R. It was issued as "newly set forth, overseen and corrected by W. S." I see no reason to believe that this was Shakespeare. Of course he had no hand in writing the play; and in any case Peele did not probably sanction the publication.
To this year we must assign the production of the earliest of Shakespeare's Sonnets. That these (or rather that portion of them which are continuous, 1-126) were addressed to Lord Southampton was proved by Drake. The identity of language between the Dedication of Lucrece and Sonnet 26, the exact agreement of them with all we know of the careers of Shakespeare and his patron during the next four years, and the utter absence of evidence of his connection with any other patron, are conclusive on that point. They begin (1-17) with entreaties to marry, which date about 6th October 1594, when Southampton attained his majority, and before he had met Elizabeth Vernon, and end (117) in a time when "peace proclaiming olives of endless age," after the treaty of Vervins, 2d May 1598: and before the Earl's marriage at the end of that year. They involve a story of some frail lady who had transferred her favours to the young lord from the older player (40-42). Far too much has been written on this matter from a moral point of view. The fact remains, and all we can say is: Remember these Sonnets were written "among private friends," and not for publication. The lady has not hitherto been identified, but is, I think, identifiable. On September 3d was entered on S. R., Wyllobie his Avisa. Dr. Ingleby has shown in his Shakespeare Allusion-books that the W. S. in this poem is William Shakespeare, and that Hadrian Dorrell, the reputed editor, is a fictitious character. He has, however, missed the key to this anonymity; viz., that the book was known to be a personal satirical libel. P[eter] C[olse], according to the author of Avisa, "misconstrued" the poem; and so necessitated the further figment in the 1605 edition that the supposed author, A. Willobie, was dead; in this edition the mythical H. D. says: "If you ask me for the persons, I am altogether ignorant of them, and have set them down only as I find them named or disciphered in my author. For the truth of this action, if you enquire, I will more fully deliver my opinion hereafter." But independently of this evidence from the book itself we find in S. R. (Arber, iii. 678) that when the works of Marston, Davies, &c., were burnt in the Hall, 4th June 1599, other books were "stayed;" viz., Caltha Poetarum, Hall's Satires, and "Willobie's Adviso to be called in." This marks the book as of the same character as its companions; viz., libellous, calumnious, personally abusive. The characters in the poems were evidently representations of real living persons. The heroine of the poem is Avĭsa, or Avīsa (sometimes written A vis A), that is, Avice or Avice A. This name was not uncommon (see Camden's Remaines, p. 93). She lived in the west of England, "where Austin pitched his monkish tent," in a house "where hangs the badge of England's saint." The place is more fully described thus:—
"At east of this a castle stands
By ancient shepherds built of old,
And lately was in shepherds' hands,
Though now by brothers bought and sold:
At west side springs a crystal well:
There doth this chaste Avisa dwell."
And again:—
"In sea-bred soil on Tempe downs,
Whose silver spring from Neptune's well
With mirth salutes the neighbouring towns."
These descriptions suit the vale of Evesham, the castle being that of Bengworth and the well that of Abberton. Austin's oak was traditionally placed in this part by some, though others put it in Gloucestershire. Avisa's parents are mentioned as "of meanest trade." They were, I take it, inn-keepers, and the inn had the sign of St. George. The other characters are D. B., a Frenchman, with motto Dudum Beatus; Didymus H., an Anglo-German, with motto Dum Habui; H. W., Italo Hispalensis, and W[illiam] S[hakespeare]. The story is that Avisa, the chaste, who "makes up the mess" of four with Lucrece, Susanna, and Penelope, has been married at twenty, tempted by a Nobleman, a Cavaliero, a Frenchman, an Anglo-German, &c., without result, and is consequently England's rara avis, who matches those of Greece, Palestine, and Rome. The mottoes of the foreigners, however, point to a different conclusion, and so does this passage: "If any one, therefore, by this should take occasion to surmise that the author meant to note any woman, whose name sounds something like that name, it is too childish and too absurd, and not beseeming any deep judgment, considering there are many things which cannot be applied to any woman." In plain language, Mr. Dorrell believes no woman to be chaste. H. W., at first sight of Avisa, is infected with a fantastical fit, and bewrays his disease to his familiar friend, W. S., who, not long before, had tried the courtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recovered [in 1594]. Having been laughed at himself he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for the new actor than it did for the old player. Doubtless W. S. is Shakespeare, and Avisa is represented ironically as a trader who had made a Frenchman long happy (dudum beatus), been possessed by an Anglo-German (dum habui), had then passed to Shakespeare, and finally to H. W. Such was the slanderous story published in 1594; how far true, whether at all true, I care not to inquire; but that it is the same story as that of the Sonnets, that H. W. is Henry Wriothesley, and that the black woman of the Sonnets is identical with Avisa, I regard as indubitable. Of course the Thomas Willoby, Frater Henrici Willoughby nuper defuncti, of the 1605 edition is a mere device to blind the licensers for the press. Similar devices have often been used, but I know of none so impudently charming as the "author's conclusion" as to the man who is nuper defunctus. "H. W. was now again stricken so dead that he hath not yet any further essayed, nor I think ever will, and whether he be alive or dead I know not, and therefore I leave him."
On December 26th and 28th the Chamberlain's servants performed before the Queen at Greenwich, apparently in the daytime. Kempe, Shakespeare, and Burbadge were paid for these performances on the following March. It is singular that the performance of "A comedy of Errors like unto Plautus his Menœchmi" should have also been performed apparently by the same company at Gray's Inn, also on December 26th. This seems to be the first mention of Shakespeare's play, the true title of which is simply Errors: but whether it was written in 1590 or 1593-4, there is no evidence that is absolutely decisive. The allusion to France fighting against her heir, v. ii. 2. 125, would be equally applicable at any date from July 1589, when Henri III. was killed, to February 1594, when Henri IV. was consecrated.
That the date of Midsummer Night's Dream should be fixed in the winter of 1594-5 was long since seen by Malone, the allusions to the remarkable weather of 1594 being too marked to be put aside contemptuously. It has also been attempted to assign other dates on account of the play's being manifestly written for some marriage solemnity. It is not needful to alter the date for that reason. Either the marriage of W. Stanley, Earl of Derby, at Greenwich, on 24th January, 1594-5, or that of Lord Russel, Earl of Bedford, to Lucy Harrington (before 5th February, S. R.), would suit very well in point of time. The former is the more probable; because it took place at Greenwich, where we know the Chamberlain's men to have performed in the previous month, and because these actors had mostly been servants to the Earl of Derby's brother in the early part of the previous year.
There is little, if any doubt, that Shakespeare produced Richard II. and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, as we now have it, in this year. A larum for London, or The Siege of Antwerp, by (?) Lodge, was acted about this time.
The play of Richard Duke of York was printed in 1595 and on 1st December Edward III. was entered on S. R.
The performances of the Chamberlain's men, 1594-5, at Court, were on December 26, 27, 28; January 5; February 22. Payment was made to Hemings and Bryan.
1596.
Early in this year the play of Sir T. More was produced by the Chamberlain's company. The name of T. Goodale, who was one of their actors, occurs in the MS. It appears from the notes of E. Tylney, then Master of the Revels, that much revision had to be made in its form in consequence of its reproducing, under a thin disguise, a narrative of the Apprentice Riots of June 1595. The imprisonment of the Earl of Hertford in October of the same year was too closely paralleled by that of Sir T. More in the play to be agreeable to the Government. Another point objected to was satirical allusion to Frenchmen. The date hitherto assigned to this play is "1590 or earlier" (Dyce), which is palpably wrong.
Soon after Shakespeare's King John was acted. It contains, in my opinion, an allusion to the expedition to Cadiz in June (i. 2. 66-75).
On July 23d Henry Carey died, and the "Chamberlain's players" became the men of his son, George Carey L. Hunsdon.
In the same month, or earlier, Romeo and Juliet was revived in a greatly altered and improved form. All work by the second hand was cut out and replaced by Shakespeare's own writing. It was not, however, acted at this date at the Curtain, but at the Theater. Lodge's allusion in his Wit's Miserv, 1596, to Hamlet, as acted in that house, is inconsistent with any other supposition. On August 5 a ballad on Romeo and Juliet was entered on S. R. This is taken by Mr. Halliwell as evidence that the play was then on the stage. On August 27 ballads are also mentioned on Macdobeth and The Taming of a Shrew. That on Macbeth could not have been on the play as we now have it, but that a play on this subject, perhaps an earlier form of the extant one, was then acted, is very probable.
On August 11 Hamnet Shakespeare was buried at Stratford: his father undoubtedly was present. This is the first visit to Stratford on his part since 1587 so far as any evidence exists.
Shakespeare returned to his lodgings "near the Bear Garden" in Southwark (Alleyn MS. teste Malone) before October 20, where a draft of a grant of arms was made to John Shakespeare, no doubt at his son's expense.
In November, a petition was presented by the inhabitants of Blackfriars against the transformation into a theatre of a large house bought by J. Burbadge on the preceding February 4. The petition was ineffectual.
Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, sometimes called The Jew of Venice, is generally assigned to this year. I prefer 1597.
On December 29, Henry Shakespeare, the poet's uncle, was buried at Snitterfield; and his wife Margaret on 9th February 1596-7.
The Court performances of Lord Hunsdon's men at Whitehall were six in number, two at Christmas, and others on 1st, 5th January; 6th, 8th February 1596-7.
1597.
Before March 5 a surreptitious edition of Romeo and Juliet was published, but not entered on S. R. This consists of an imperfect and abridged copy of the revised play, with lacunæ filled up by portions of the original version of 1591. See hereafter in Section [IV].
In Easter term, Shakespeare purchased New Place, a mansion and grounds in Stratford, for £60. This was freehold, and henceforth his designation is, William Shakespeare of New Place, Stratford, Gentleman. From this time, male heirs failing, his ambition seems to be to found a family in one of the female branches; and Stratford is to be regarded as his residence.
Soon after 5th March, Lord Hunsdon was appointed Chamberlain vice W. Brooke, Lord Cobham, deceased, and Lord Hunsdon's men again became the Lord Chamberlain's.
During this year and the next Shakespeare undoubtedly produced 1 and 2 Henry IV. The name given to the "fat knight" was originally Sir John Oldcastle. This offended the Cobham family, who were lineally descended from the great Sir John Oldcastle, and through their influence the Queen ordered the name to be altered. The new name was that of Falstaff, unquestionably identical with the Fastolfe of history. Shakespeare had unwittingly adopted the name Oldcastle from the old play of The Famous Victories of King Henry V. Mr. Halliwell has pointed out that there must have been another play in which a Sir John Oldcastle was represented: he quotes Hey for Honesty, "The rich rubies and incomparable carbuncles of Sir John Oldcastle's nose;" and Howell's Letters, ii. 71, "Ale is thought to be much adulterated, and nothing so good as Sir John Oldcastle and Smug the Smith was used to drink." I venture to add that this last quotation fixes the other play. It was Drayton's Merry Devil of Edmonton, in which Sir John the priest of Enfield drinks ale with Smug the Smith, and "carries fire in his face eternally." This play was probably produced between 1 Henry IV. and 2 Henry IV. The words "tickle your catastrophe" in the latter are more likely to be an allusion to the "gag" in the Merry Devil than conversely; similar ridicule of this phrase is introduced in Sir Giles Goosecap, which is certainly of later date. It seems strange that Sir John Oldcastle should have been used as the name of a priest; but the play has been so greatly abridged (all the part of the story in which Smug replaces St. George as the sign of the inn, for instance, having been cut out) that it would be mere guess-work to try to restore its original form, and without such restoration we cannot judge of the reasons for so singular an impersonation. Of course it was attempted to remove all trace of Oldcastle's name; but just as the prefix Old. to one of the speeches in Shakespeare's play bears evidence to Oldcastle having been his original fat knight, so it is possible that in a hitherto unexplained passage there may be a trace of Oldcastle as Drayton's original ale-drinking priest. In scene 9 the words italicised in "My old Jenerts bank my horse, my castle" look very like a corruption of a stage direction written in margin of a proof thus—
Old- J. enters
castle
—he is on the scene directly after, and his entrance is nowhere marked.
T. Lodge, as well as Drayton, was writing about this date for the Chamberlain's men.
On August 29 Richard II. was entered on S. R., and on October 20 Richard III. These were evidently printed from authentic copies, duly authorised for publication.
About July 1597 the Theater, with regard to extension of the lease of which James Burbadge had been negotiating up to his death in the spring of that year, was finally closed as a place of performance. In October the Chamberlain's men no doubt began to act at the Curtain, which Pembroke's men left at that date to join the Admiral's company at the Rose; some of them, however, probably Cooke, Belt, Sinkler, and Holland, had already in 1594 joined the Chamberlain's, as we shall see. About this date Mr. Halliwell says "Shakespeare's company" were at Rye (in August), at Dover and Bristol (in September), &c. Pembroke's company were at these places, but he has given no proof that the Chamberlain's were. The "Curtain-plaudities" of Marston's Scourge of Villany, entered S. R. 8th September 1598, would certainly seem to show that they acted at the Curtain in 1598. This does not, however, involve the inference that they acted there in 1596, at which time they no doubt performed at the Theater.
About this same time the play of Wily Beguiled was acted, which contains distinct parodies of speeches by Shylock and old Capulet, as well as of other scenes in the Merchant of Venice, which must have preceded it. It has been alleged by Steevens and others that this play existed in 1596, but no proof has been given of this assertion.
In November John Shakespeare filed a bill against Lambert for the recovery of the Asbies estate. There is no trace of his having proceeded further with this litigation.
At Christmas the Chamberlain's men performed four plays at Whitehall, one of which was Love's Labour's Lost. The corrections and augmentations of the play, as we have it, may be confidently ascribed to the preparation for this performance.
On January 24 Abraham Sturley wrote to Richard Quiney urging him to persuade Shakespeare to make a purchase at Shottery, on the ground that he would thus obtain friends and advancement, and at the same time benefit the Corporation.
On February 25 1 Henry IV. was entered on S. R., and on July 22 The Merchant of Venice.
In this spring or in 1597 Much Ado about Nothing was probably produced. It was probably an alteration of Love's Labour's Won.
In September Jonson joined the Chamberlain's men, and produced his Every Man in his Humour at the Curtain. This was the Quarto version with the Italian names. Aubrey has been subjected to much unfounded abuse for asserting that Jonson acted at the Curtain. The actors in this play were Shakespeare, Burbadge, Phillips, Hemings, Condell, Pope, Sly, Beeston, Kemp, and Duke. Shakespeare, it will be noted, is first on the list.
On September 7 Meres' Palladis Tamia was entered on S. R. Among the abundant and often-quoted praises of Shakespeare in this work the most important for biographical purposes are the enumeration of his plays, the lists of tragic and comic dramatists, and this passage, which I shall have to refer to hereafter. "As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the great witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare. Witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared Sonnets among his private friends," &c. A careful comparison of the list of dramatists with that of known plays or titles of plays that have come down to us shows that the Palladis Tamia could not have been completed for the press till June 1598, and an examination of the list of Shakespeare's plays shows that it consists of those then in the repertoire of the Chamberlain's company, that is, of those either newly written or revived between June 1594 and June 1598. These plays are: Gentlemen of Verona; Errors; Love's Labour's Lost; Love's Labour's Won; Midsummer-Night's Dream; Merchant of Venice—comedies. Richard II.; Richard III.; Henry IV.; John; Titus Andronicus; Romeo and Juliet—tragedies. It is clear that Richard III. and a play on Andronicus, which I believe to be the one we have, were attributed to Shakespeare at that time.
On 25th October Richard Quiney wrote from the Bell in Carter Lane to his "loving good friend and countryman Mr. William Shakespeare," who was, according to the subsidy roll discovered by Mr. J. Hunter, then living in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, asking for the loan of £30. On the same day he wrote to his brother-in-law Mr. Sturley at Stratford, that "our countryman Mr. W. Shakespeare would procure us money." The former letter was sent evidently by hand, an affirmative answer obtained, and soon after instructions given by Shakespeare for the procuring the money. We could not otherwise account for the letter being preserved among the documents of the Corporation.
The Famous Victories of Henry V. was reprinted in 1598; as we so often find to be the case with old plays on which other plays have been founded. The complaint about the name Oldcastle no doubt was a special motive for reproducing the old play in this instance.
There were three plays performed at Court by Shakespeare's company in the Christmas festivities.
1599.
In April a play of Troylus and Cressida, by Dekker and Chettle, was written; no doubt an opposition play to some revival of Shakespeare's older one on the same subject.
The Chamberlain's men acted A Warning for Fair Women about this time. This play appears to me to come from the hand of Lodge.
In this year The Passionate Pilgrim, "by W. Shakespeare," was imprinted by Jaggard. It contains two of the Sonnets, two other Sonnets from Love's Labour's Lost, and one other poem from the same play by Shakespeare. The remaining poems, as far as they are known, are by Barnefield and other inferior authors. There is not a vestige of reason for reprinting this book as Shakespeare's.
In the spring Shakespeare's company left the Curtain and went to act at the Globe. This was a newly erected building on Bankside, made partly of the materials of the old Theater, which had been removed by Burbadge at the beginning of the year. One of the first plays performed in it was Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, the chief actors in which were Burbadge, Hemings, Phillips, Condell, Sly, and Pope. Kempe, Beeston, Duke, and Pallant had left the company, and did not act at the Globe. But Shakespeare's name is also absent in this list, and this fact, coupled with that of the libellous nature of this "comical satire," and Jonson's leaving the Chamberlain's men immediately after it to continue his strictures on Dekker, &c., at Blackfriars with the Children of the Chapel, makes it exceedingly probable that the disagreement which eventuated in the "purge" given by Shakespeare to Jonson mentioned in The Return to Parnassus had already arisen. It would lead to too long a digression to do more than touch on this stage quarrel here. I can only say that it lasted till 1601; that Jonson and Chapman on the one side at Blackfriars, and Shakespeare, Marston, and Dekker on the other, at first at the Globe, Rose, and Paul's, afterwards at the Fortune, kept up one continual warfare for more than three years. Not one of their plays during this time is free from personalities and satirical allusions; nor, indeed, are most comedies of Elizabeth's time; it is only because the allusions have grown obscure and uninteresting to us, that we fail to see that the Elizabethan comedy is eminently Aristophanic. It is not till the reign of James that we find the comedy of manners and intrigue at all generally developed.
Another play produced after the opening of the Globe was Henry V., and soon after in this year As You Like It.
Somewhere about this time an attempt was made to get a grant to "impale the arms of Shakespeare with those of Arden," ignotum cum ignotiore. The grant was not obtained.
At this Christmas the Chamberlain's men gave three performances at Court, viz., on 26th December at Whitehall, on 5th January 1599-1600 and on 4th February at Richmond.
Shrovetide, February 4. The play performed at Court was probably The Merry Wives of Windsor. This play is assigned by tradition to a command of the Queen, who wished to see Falstaff represented in love, and is said to have been written in a fortnight. It was probably an adaptation of the old Jealous Comedy of 1592, and is more likely to have come after than before Henry V., in which Shakespeare had failed, according to his implied promise in the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV., to continue the story with Falstaff in it. It stands apart altogether from the historical series.
March 6. The Chamberlain's men acted "Oldcastle" before their patron, Lord Hunsdon, and foreign ambassadors at Somerset House. This could not have been Shakespeare's "Falstaff," for the obnoxious name of Oldcastle would certainly not have been revived before such an audience; nor could it have been the Sir John Oldcastle, which belonged to another company; it may have been The Merry Devil of Edmonton.
About this time Shakespeare, always attentive to pecuniary matters, brought an action against one John Clayton for £7, and obtained a verdict.
The August entries on S. R. are specially interesting. On the 4th a memorandum (not in the regular course of entry) appears to the effect that As You Like It, Henry V., Every Man in his Humour, and Much Ado about Nothing, were "to be stayed." On the 14th, Every Man in his Humour was licensed; on the 23d, Much Ado about Nothing, and along with it 2 Henry IV., "with the humours of Sir John Falstaff. Written by Master Shakespeare." On the 11th the first and second parts of the History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, "with his Martyrdom," had been licensed. The "staying" is generally supposed to have relation to surreptitious printing; I think it more likely to have been caused by the supposed satirical nature of the plays. As You Like It was not printed; Henry V. was printed in an incomplete form[7] without license; while the emphatic mention of Falstaff and the insertion of the author's name to 2 Henry IV., not customary at that date, show that the Oldcastle scandal had not yet died out. This is still further proved by the almost simultaneous entries of the two plays written October to December 1599 for the Admiral's men by Monday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathaway, on Sir John Oldcastle. Only one has reached us, which is plainly satirical of Henry V. It was, however, in one of the editions printed in 1600 ascribed to William Shakespeare. Drayton, who was the chief author concerned in its production, had left the Chamberlain's men in 1597, and been writing for the Admiral's ever since. It is noticeable that after 1597 we find the favourable notices of Lodge and Shakespeare which had been inserted in previous editions expunged from his writings, notably the lines on Lucrece in the legend of Matilda. Drayton had probably quarrelled with both his coadjutors. With the entry here on Oldcastle's "martyrdom" compare the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV. This was not the play acted before Hunsdon on March 6, which was probably The Merry Devil.
On 8th October Midsummer-Night's Dream was entered on S. R.; on 28th October The Merchant of Venice. Curiously enough, two rival issues of each of these plays was made this year, although only one publisher made an entry in each case. On 22d July 1598, J. Roberts had entered The Merchant of Venice, but was refused permission to print unless he could get the Lord Chamberlain's license, who was the patron of the actors of that play. He apparently did not get it; but in 1600, when J. Heyes does get the license, he arranges with Heyes to print the book for him, but previously prints a slightly differing copy on his own account. He makes with Fisher, the publisher of the other play, a somewhat similar transaction.
There were three Court performances this Christmas by the Chamberlain's men, December 26, January 5, February 24. The payment for these to Hemings and Cowley indicates that the latter was a shareholder in the Globe.
2 and 3 Henry VI. were probably revised and revived at the Globe about this time.
1601.
In this year All's Well that Ends Well and Hamlet were produced. The form in which the latter appeared is matter of dispute; but we may safely assert that it lay between the version of the first Quarto and that of the Folio; the variation of the Quarto from this original form being caused by the surreptitious nature of that edition, and that of the Folio by a subsequent revision in 1603. The company of "little eyases" satirised in this play was not of the Paul's children, with whom the Chamberlain's men were on the most friendly terms, but of the Chapel children at the Blackfriars, who were then acting Jonson's "comical satires" against Dekker, Marston, and Shakespeare. Singularly enough, they were tenants of the Burbadges, who were also owners of the Globe.
In the same year 1601, a poem by Shakespeare appeared along with others by Jonson, Marston, and Chapman in R. Chester's Love's Martyr, or Rosalin's Complaint. This publication, could we ascertain its exact date, would show the time when the stage controversy ceased and these four writers could amicably appear together. Dekker, however, does not appear among them, and we cannot tell if his Satiromastix was acted with Shakespeare's approval or not. It was produced at the Globe by his company as well as by the children of Paul's at some time between 22d May, up till which day Dekker was writing for the Admiral's men, and 11th November, when it was entered on S. R. This bitter satire seems to have been the last open word in the controversy, but by no means the end of its history.
The next fact we have to notice may perhaps explain why, just at this point of Shakespeare's career, we find in 1602 a cessation of production, accompanied by a change of manner in outward form and inward thought when writing was resumed in 1603. In March 1601, in the Essex trials, Meyrick was indicted "for having procured the outdated tragedy of Richard II. to be publicly acted at his own charge for the entertainment of the conspirators" (Camden). From Bacon's speech (State Trials) it appears that Phillips was the manager who arranged this performance. This identifies the company as the Chamberlain's, and therefore the play as Shakespeare's. It may seem strange that a play, duly licensed and published in 1597, could give offence in 1601; but the published play did not contain the deposition scene, iv. 1, the acted play of 1601 certainly did. This point is again brought forward in Southampton's trial: he calmly asked the Attorney-General, "What he thought in his conscience they designed to do with the Queen?" "The same," replied he, "that Henry of Lancaster did with Richard II." The examples of Richard II. and Edward II. were again quoted by the assistant judges against Southampton, while Essex in his defence urged the example of the Duke of Guise in his favour. From all which it is clear that the subjects chosen for historical plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare were unpopular at Court, but approved of by the Essex faction, and that at last the company incurred the serious displeasure of the Queen. Accordingly, they did not perform at Court at Christmas 1601-2;[8] and we find them travelling in Scotland instead—L. Fletcher with his company of players being traceable at Aberdeen in October. Here the actors would hear of the Gowry conspiracy instead of Essex', of which we shall find the result hereafter. Before leaving London, however, or in the next year after their return, they acted The Life and Death of Lord Cromwell, Earl of Essex, a play in which the rise and fall of Robert Devereux, the late Earl, was pretty closely paralleled. This was entered on S. R., 11th August 1602, "as lately acted."
On September 8 John Shakespeare, the poet's father, was buried at Stratford.
1602.
On 18th January The Merry Wives of Windsor was entered on S. R.: a surreptitious issue. On 2d February, Twelfth Night was performed at the Readers' Feast at the (?) Middle Temple, "much like The Comedy of Errors or the Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and near to that in Italian, called Inganni" (Manningham's Diary).
On 19th April 1 and 2 Henry VI. (evidently the Quarto plays on which 2 and 3 Henry VI. were founded) were assigned by Millington to Pavier, salvo jure cujuscumque, S. R. This entry is important. It shows that the remodelling of the old Quarto plays under the new name of Henry VI. instead of The Contention of York and Lancaster had taken place; it indicates a doubt or fear as to whether the copyright might be disputed by some publisher, authorised by the Chamberlain's men to produce the amended version.
In May, Shakespeare bought for £320, from the Combes, 107 acres of arable land in Old Stratford. The indenture was sealed and delivered in his absence to his brother Gilbert.
On July 26 the surreptitious Hamlet was entered on S. R., and on August 11 The Life and Death of the Lord Cromwell.
On 28th September, at a Court Baron of the Manor of Rowington, Walter Getley transferred to Shakespeare a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane, about a quarter of an acre with forty feet frontage, possession being reserved for the lady of the manor till suit and service had been personally done for the same.
Two plays were performed by the Chamberlain's men at Court this Christmas, one at Whitehall 26th December, one at Richmond 2d February.
1603.
February 7. Troylus and Cressida, as performed probably in 1602 by the Chamberlain's men, not the play by Dekker and Chettle, was entered on S. R.
The Taming of the Shrew as we have it was probably produced in March.
On 19th May a license was granted to L. Fletcher, W. Shakespeare, R. Burbadge, A. Phillips, J. Hemings, H. Condell, W. Sly, R. Armin, R. Cowley, to perform stage plays "within their now usual house called the Globe," or in any part of the kingdom. They are henceforth nominated the King's Players. The functions of Fletcher are not exactly known: he did not act, and was probably a sort of general manager; the other eight were probably shareholders, among whom it will be noted that Shakespeare and Burbadge stand first. In the list of actors in Jonson's Sejanus, Cowley and Armin are omitted, A. Cook and J. Lowin appearing instead. This play got Jonson into trouble. He was accused before the Council for "Popery and treason" in it. When he published it next year he no doubt omitted the most objectionable passages, and put forth an excuse that a second hand had good share in it. This was his usual way of getting out of a difficulty of this kind. Even as the play stands there is abundant room for malice to interpret the quarrel between Sejanus and Drusus as that between Essex and Blount; and to see in Sejanus' poisoning propensities allusions to the Earl of Leicester. Whalley's curious notion that Jonson in his argument alluded to the Powder plot, ignores the fact that the play was entered on 2d November 1604 in S. R. It is Raleigh's plot that is intended.
The London Prodigal, and Wilkins' Miseries of Enforced Marriage, were written and perhaps acted (at the Globe?) this year.
The edition of Hamlet entered in the preceding year was issued in the autumn.
On December 2 the King's players performed at the Earl of Pembroke's at Wilton, and at Hampton Court before the King on December 26, 27, 28, January 1 [? December 29]; before the Prince, December 30, January 1; before the King at Whitehall, February 2, 18; nine plays in all. A much larger number of plays were acted at Christmas festivities at Court in James's reign than in Elizabeth's. Perhaps the Queen only cared for new plays. We know that James frequently ordered a second performance of any one that specially pleased him, and often had old plays revived.
On 8th February 1604, there occurs an entry in the Revels accounts which explains the small number of public theatrical performances, and the cessation of work of the principal author for the King's men in 1603. To R. Burbadge was given £30, "for the maintenance and relief of himself and the rest of his company, being prohibited to present any plays publicly in or near London by reason of great peril that might grow through the extraordinary concourse and assembly of people to a new increase of the plague, till it shall please God to settle the city in a more perfect health." From July 1603 till March 1604 the theatres were probably closed. Hence my doubt as to whether The London Prodigal and The Miseries of Enforced Marriage were performed in London till 1604. The King's company were most likely travelling in the provinces till the winter; but were disappointed at not being allowed to reopen at Christmas when the plague had abated.
1604.
The King's men, like those of other companies, had an allowance for cloaks, &c., to appear at the entry of King James on 15th March.
The second Quarto of Hamlet was published in this year—"Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the new and perfect copy." This version was probably that performed at Court in the Christmas festivities 1603-4. We cannot suppose that among the nine plays then exhibited Hamlet would not be included. Of course on such occasions plays were always more or less rewritten. In this instance the remodelling is twofold; the Quarto version for the Court, 1603-4, the Folio for the public, of the same date. That the Folio does not merely reproduce the 1601 play, as it was acted in London, "in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford" (perhaps in going to or returning from Scotland in 1601), "and elsewhere," is clear for many reasons, one of which concerns us here. In the well-known passage in ii. 2 relating to the Children's company, an "inhibition" and "innovation" are mentioned in the 1604 Quarto of which there is no note in that of 1603. The only time at which we know of any contemporary inhibition and innovation was in January-February 1604. The inhibition on account of the plague, which was going on till nearly 8th February, I have already noticed; the innovation was either the political conspiracy of Raleigh or the attempt at reformation in religion by the Puritans. The Children of the Chapel, who under Evans, Burbadge's lessee, had satirised Shakespeare and other players in their performances at Blackfriars, were reappointed at this time to act in that same theatre under E. Kirkham, A. Hawkins, T. Kendall, and R. Payne, with the new appellation of Children of the Revels. The date of the warrant is 30th January 1604. The King's men acted at Court 2d February, and if Hamlet was then performed the passage in ii. 2 may have brought their grievance under the King's notice, and resulted in the gift of £30 by way of compensation. I do not insist on this, however, as it is omitted in the Quarto. No doubt they had expected to get rid of the children at Blackfriars at the end of seven years from the date of the original lease, 4th February 1596. At the end of another seven years they did so, but only by purchasing the remainder of the lease.
In this summer Marston's Malcontent was obtained in some indirect manner from these Blackfriars children, perhaps from one of the children actors who "left playing" at the time of the new license, and was played at the Globe, with an Induction by Webster introducing Sinkler, Sly, Burbadge, Condell, and Lowin on the stage. This was a retaliation for the children having in like fashion previously appropriated Jeronymo (The Spanish Tragedy), which belonged to the Chamberlain's men. The curious thing about the transaction is that the Malcontent was originally produced in 1601, containing satirical allusions to Hamlet; and that in 1604 both plays, revised, were acted on the same stage, by the same actors.
On 2d November Sejanus was entered on S. R.
On 18th December a letter from Chamberlain to Winwood contains the following notice. "The tragedy of Gowry, with all action and actors, hath been twice represented by the King's players, with exceeding concourse of all sorts of people: but whether the matter or manner be not well handled, or that it be thought unfit that princes should be played on the stage in their lifetime, I hear that some great councillors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall be forbidden." Shakespeare's work during this year is shown by the transcript of the Revels Accounts obtained by Malone. The King's men acted at Whitehall on November 1 The Moor of Venice; November 4, The Merry Wives of Windsor; December 28, Measure for Measure, and Errors; ["Between January 1 and January 5" in the forged copy of this entry still extant][9] Love's Labour's Lost; January 7, Henry V.; January 8, Every One out of his Humour; February 2, Every One in his Humour; February 10, The Merchant of Venice; February 11, The Spanish Maz; February 12, The Merchant of Venice again. I have given the full list as in the forged copy, but Malone is our safe guarantee for all the Shakespeare plays. It appears then that in this year Shakespeare must have written Measure for Measure and Othello, and, as we have already seen, produced a revision of Hamlet. How much of this work was performed in 1603 we cannot tell; but it is not likely that Othello was written till 1604. The only definite dates in this year relate to other matters.
In May Shakespeare entered an action at Stratford against one Philip Rogers for £1 15s. 10d., balance of account for malt.
In August the King had a special order issued that every member of the company should attend at Somerset House when the Spanish ambassador came to England (Halliwell, Outlines, p. 136). The Christmas Court performances have been noted above.
1605.
On 8th May, the old play on Leir was entered on S. R.
On 4th May Phillips made his will, which was proved on the 13th. In it he leaves 30s. each to Shakespeare and Condell, and 20s. each to Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cook, and Tooley, all his fellows; to Beeston, "his servant," 30s.; to Gilburne, his "late apprentice," 40s. and clothes; to James Sandes, "his apprentice," 40s. and musical instruments; to Hemings, Burbadge, and Sly, overseers and executors, a bowl of silver of £5 apiece.
On 3d July a ballad on the Yorkshire Tragedy was entered on S. R.; the play which has been erroneously attributed to Shakespeare was no doubt acted about the same time.
The London Prodigal was published, but not entered on S. R., this same year, with the name of William Shakespeare on the title-page.
Jonson's Fox was acted by the King's men; the chief actors were the same as those of Sejanus in 1603, except Phillips, who died in May, and Shakespeare, a most noteworthy exception.
On 24th July, William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, bought of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years' lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe for £440, subject to a rent payable to the corporation of £17, and £5 to John Barker. This, at the rate of interest then prevalent, was a dear purchase. In 1598 his "purchasing these tithes" had been mooted at Stratford.
As to Shakespeare's dramatic work during this year I have no doubt that Lear was on the stage in May, when the old play was published. I cannot otherwise account for the description of the latter in S. R. as a tragical history. Until Shakespeare's play this story had always been treated as a comedy.
Macbeth was probably produced in the winter, or in the following year. When James I. was at Oxford in August, he had been addressed in Latin by the three witches in this story, at an entertainment given by the University. No doubt James would be pleased by their prophecies, and desirous that they should be promulgated in the vulgar tongue. No more likely date can be found for the holograph letter which he is said to have addressed to Shakespeare. It may possibly be that that letter was a command to write this play. But, putting conjecture aside, Oldys says that Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, told Lintot that he had a letter from the King to the dramatist.
On October 9, Shakespeare's company performed before the Mayor and Corporation of Oxford. It may have been on this occasion that Shakespeare made the acquaintance of the Davenants, and stopped for the first time at the Crown, the license for which inn had only been taken out by Davenant in the preceding year. Enough has been written by others as to the scandal about Mrs. Davenant, and the tradition that William Davenant the poet, the godson of Shakespeare, was really his son. No foundation beyond a Joe Miller joke has been discovered for this report.
At Court, ten plays were acted in the Christmas season by the King's men; among them the revived Mucedorus, which, as we have seen, was an apology for Jonson's satire in Volpone.
1606.
In this year, Shakespeare's portion of Timon of Athens, and that part of Cymbeline which is founded on so-called British history, were probably written.
A play called The Puritan (Widow), evidently by Middleton, was acted by the Paul's boys this year, in which we find direct allusion to Richard III. and Macbeth, both of which were probably on the stage. The same scene contains a palpable parody of the action of the scene in Pericles in which Thaisa is recovered to life. That play must then have also been on the stage. It does not follow that it was the play as we have it. It may have been, and I believe was, Wilkins' play before Shakespeare's improvement had been introduced.
During July or August, the King's men had performed three plays before the King of Denmark and his Majesty—two at Greenwich, one at Hampton Court; and at Christmas they performed at Court nine plays: on December 26, 29; January 4, 6, 8; February 2, 5, 15, 27. That on 26th December was Lear, as we have it in the Quarto version. The Folio is that used on the stage of the same date.
Anthony and Cleopatra must have been acted about this time, as well as Cyril Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy.
On 25th June Susanna, Shakespeare's eldest daughter, married Dr. John Hall, an eminent physician at Stratford.
On 6th August Middleton's Puritan Widow was entered on S. R., and imprinted as by W.S.
Twine's Pattern of Painful Adventures, on which Wilkins' version of Pericles was founded, was reprinted in this year.
On 22d October Drayton's Merry Devil of Edmonton was entered on S. R. The entry on 5th April under the same title, in which the authorship is ascribed to T[homas] B[rewer], refers to the prose story, not the play.
On 26th November King Lear was entered on S. R.
On December 31 Shakespeare's brother Edmund was buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, aged twenty-eight, "a player," "with a forenoon knell of the great bell."
There were thirteen Court performances by the King's men: on December 26, 27, 28; January 2, 6 (two plays), 7, 9, 17 (two plays), 26; February 2, 6.
On February 21 Elizabeth Hall, Shakespeare's granddaughter, was baptized at Stratford.
The Yorkshire Tragedy was entered on S. R. May 20, as by William Shakespeare. The authorship of this play has not been yet ascertained.
On May 20 Anthony and Cleopatra, and Pericles (not as in the Quarto version with the three last acts by Shakespeare), were entered on S. R. Wilkins' prose version of the play was printed this same year. I take the order of events regarding this play to have been as follows. Wilkins wrote a play on Pericles in 1606, which was parodied in Middleton's Puritan that same year; in 1607 Twine's Pattern of Painful Adventures was reprinted; in the same year Wilkins left the King's company and joined the Queen's; in May 1608 the play was entered for publication, but not published; it may have been "stayed" by the Chamberlain's company; in the same year Wilkins issued surreptitiously (it was not entered on S. R.) his "true history of the play as it was lately presented by the poet Gower." Such a proceeding as this, a printing of a prose narrative founded on an unprinted play and by the same author, is unparalleled in the history of Shakespearean drama. It must be remembered that Wilkins was not even connected with the King's company at the time. Meanwhile Shakespeare had rewritten Acts iii.-v. In this new shape the play was acted in 1608, and was, as we know from an allusion in Pimlico, or Run Redcap (entered S. R. 15th April 1609), very popular. An edition of the play thus altered was issued in 1609, not by Blount, who made the entry in May 1608, but by Gosson, as the "late much-admired play ... with the true relation of the whole history ... as also the no less strange and worthy accidents in the birth and life of his daughter Marina," that is, of the part written by Shakespeare. This edition is very hurriedly and carelessly got up.
In August Shakespeare commenced an action against Addenbroke.
On September 9 Shakespeare's mother was buried at Stratford. Shakespeare's company had been shortly before travelling on the southern coast (Halliwell, who suppresses the exact date as usual). It is always dangerous to read personal feeling in a dramatist's work; but the coincidences in date of his King John and Hamnet's death, of his Coriolanus and his mother's death, justify, I think, my opinion that his wife's grief is apotheosised in Constance, and his mother's character in Volumnia. This is confirmed by the great change that takes place in his work at this time; his next four plays are devoted to subjects of family reunion after separation.
On 16th October he was godfather to William Walker at Stratford.
In this autumn Coriolanus was probably produced.
The Court Christmas performances by the King's men were twelve, on unknown dates.
1609.
On January 28 Troylus and Cressida was entered on S. R., and published from a surreptitious copy, with a preface, stating that it had been "never staled with the stage." This preface was withdrawn before the close of the year, probably at the instance of the King's company. It has been, however, the cause of misleading many modern critics (myself included), as to the date of the production of the play. In the new issue the title states that it is printed "as it was acted by the King's Majesty's servants."
On February 15, a verdict for £6 and £1, 4s. costs was given in favour of Shakespeare against John Addenbroke for debt, and execution issued. This suit began in August 1608; the precept for a jury is dated 21st December, when an adjournment of the trial probably took place. After the final judgment Addenbroke was non inventus, and on 7th June 1609, Shakespeare proceeded against his bail, one Horneby. All these proceedings were conducted not personally, but through his solicitor and cousin Thomas Greene.
On 20th May the Sonnets were entered on S. R., and published with dedication to Mr. W. H., who, in my opinion, was some one connected with Lord Southampton, who had obtained a copy from him or his, and possibly may have given Shakespeare the hint to write them in the first instance, at the time (1594) when his friends were anxious for him to marry. Such a person was Sir William Hervey, the third husband of Southampton's mother: she died in 1607, and I conjecture that the delay in publishing the Sonnets was due to the fact that she wished them to remain in MS. at any rate during her lifetime. The copy used may have been found among her papers.
On 20th May 1608 had been entered Pericles, and Antony and Cleopatra, which were not published by Blount, who made the entry. Pericles, however, was printed surreptitiously in 1609 for another firm as we have it in the Quarto. This play was probably then continued on the stage, as we find another edition required by 1611.
Cymbeline was probably produced in the autumn. This year being a plague year there was little dramatic activity; even Jonson did not produce his Epicene for the King's men, but had it acted by the Chapel (or Revels) children. For the same reason there were no stage performances at Court at Christmas.
1610.
On 4th January a patent was granted to R. Daborne, P. Rossiter, J. Tarbook, R. Jones, and R. Browne, to set up a new Children's company in Whitefriars. Their success was no doubt the cause that determined the Burbadges to take the Blackfriars into their own hands.[10] Accordingly they arranged to purchase at Lady Day the remainder of Evans' lease of the Blackfriars (they had already taken the boys, "now growing up to be men," Underwood,[11] Ostler, &c., to "strengthen the King's service"), and to place men players—Hemings, Condell, Shakespeare, &c., therein. Before the end of the year we accordingly find the boys alluded to acting as members of the King's company in Jonson's Alchemist. The chief players were Burbadge, Hemings, Lowin, Ostler, Condell, Underwood, Cooke, Tooley, Armin, and Egglestone. Of these Tooley and Cooke had been boy actors in the Chamberlain's company, Underwood and Ostler in the Revels children. Shakespeare's name does not occur; nor do I find any evidence except Mr. Halliwell's unsupported assertion (Outlines, p. 111), that he continued to act at this date. It is noticeable that there are ten actors mentioned; this is very unusual in these play lists, and suggests that the number of sharers may have been increased from eight to ten. There are certainly about this time allusions to ten shares scattered about in contemporary plays. If this be the case, Shakespeare would no longer be a shareholder: the whole question of his shares is involved in difficulty, and this conjecture is only thrown out to call attention to any allusions in writings of this date that may throw light on the matter.
The King's men performed fifteen plays at Court this Christmas.
In this year, in my opinion, Shakespeare having produced The Winters Tale and The Tempest, retired from theatrical work. Malone's hypothesis that Sir W. Herbert's mention of Sir G. Buck's "allowing" the former play implies a date subsequent to August 1610, is worthless; Buck had the "allowing" of plays in his hands from 1607 onwards. There is direct evidence that the Blackfriars Theatre was occupied even after 1611 by other companies. Field's Amends for Ladies was acted there by the Prince's and the Lady Elizabeth's men; and Charles could not be called Prince till after the death of Henry, 6th November 1612. The production of Field's play was probably in the spring 1613. By careful comparison of the dry documents concerning shareholders in 1635, with those of the Blackfriars property in 1596, we ascertain that J. Burbadge bought that property 4th February 1596; that in November the establishment of a theatre there was petitioned against, but carried out soon after; that a lease of twenty-one years was granted to Evans, either at Christmas 1596 or Lady Day 1597, most probably the latter; that at the end of thirteen years the Burbadges bought the remaining eight years of the lease, probably at Lady Day 1610, and took possession of the building;—but that they at the same time took the boys into the King's company or set up Hemings, Shakespeare, &c., in the Blackfriars is mere rhetoric of Cuthbert's. Underwood and Ostler had both left the Revels children before the performance of Jonson's Epicene in 1609, and Field did not join the King's men till 1618-19.
In June Shakespeare purchased twenty acres of pasture land from the Combes.
At Christmas the King's men performed fifteen plays at Court.
1611.
In this year unusual efforts seem to have been made by the King's company to secure authors of repute to write for their playhouse. Jonson's Catiline was acted by nearly the same cast as The Alchemist, the only change being that Robinson appears in the list instead of Armin. The second Maiden's Tragedy was produced in October, most likely written by Tourneur, having been preceded by the first Maid's Tragedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, who also in this year brought out their Philaster and King and no King: in all we have five new plays of the first rank, acted by a company that hitherto appears to have almost entirely depended on about two plays from Shakespeare, and occasionally a third by some other hand, as sufficient novelty to attract a year's full houses. It is this quasi monopoly in writing for his company that explains Shakespeare's accumulation of property; and it is to me incredible that Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest should all have been produced in this year. Yet this seems to be the belief of practical critics who believe only what can be supported by what they term "positive evidence," the evidence in this case being that Forman, the astrological charlatan, entered in his note-book that he had seen acted Cymbeline, Macbeth, 20th April 1610 [1611]; Richard II., 30th April 1611; Winter's Tale, May 15. This evidence has, however, value of another kind, for it shows that a large number of revivals took place in this year; indeed, coupling this with the fact that at this Christmas and the next the unprecedented number of fifty plays were performed by the King's men at Court, it is likely that all Shakespeare's plays were revived immediately after his retirement from the stage. We cannot trace fifty plays to the possession of his company at this date without including them.
On September 11 Shakespeare's name occurs in the margin of a folio page of donors (including all the principal inhabitants of Stratford) to a subscription list "towards the charge of prosecuting the bill in Parliament for the better repair of the highways." This appears to confirm the view that Shakespeare was at this time residing in Stratford.
On December 16 the play of Lord Cromwell was entered on S. R., and published as by W. S.
The plays at Court were twenty-two: on October 31; November 1, 5; December 26; January 5, February 23, before the King; on November 9, 19; December 16, 31; January 7, 15; February 19, 20, 28; April 3, 16, before Prince Henry and Charles, Duke of York; on February 9, 20 (sic), before the Prince; on March 28, April 26, before the Lady Elizabeth.
1612.
On February 3 the burial of Gilbert Shakespeare "adolescens" was entered in the Stratford Register. I agree with Mr. French that this was most likely Shakespeare's brother.
In this year a suit was commenced "Lane Greene, and Shakespeare complts." on the ground that they had to pay too large a proportion of the reserved rent of the tithes purchased in 1605. It appears from the draft of the bill filed before Lord Ellesmere that Shakespeare's income from this source was £60.
The plays produced by the King's men were The Woman's Prize, Cardenno (i.e., Cardenes, or Loves Pilgrimage), and The Captain, by Fletcher and his coadjutors, and the Duchess of Malfi by Webster, who also published The White Devil, with the remarkable allusion to the "right happy and copious industry" of Shakespeare, Dekker, and Heywood. Curiously enough, this is often referred to even now as a eulogy on Webster's part; it is really damning with faint praise the poet to whom he hoped to be the successor as provider of plays to the King's company.
The Passionate Pilgrim reached a third edition, and was reissued as "certain amorous Sonnets between Venus and Adonis," by W. Shakespeare; "whereunto is added two love epistles" between Paris and Helen. These were stolen from Heywood's Troja Britannica of 1609. In his Apology for Actors (1612), he complains of the injury done him, as it might lead to unjust suspicion of piracy on his part, and adds, "As I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage under whom he hath published them, so the author I know much offended with M. Jaggard that altogether unknown to him presumed to make so bold with his name." In consequence, no doubt, of this remonstrance, Jaggard had to substitute a new title-page, from which Shakespeare's name was entirely omitted. He had allowed his name to be used in the titles of The London Prodigal in 1605, of The Yorkshire Tragedy in 1608, of The Passionate Pilgrim of 1609, and even of Sir John Oldcastle in 1600 without murmuring; but directly the interests of another demand justice at his hands he takes prompt action, and compels the piratical publisher to withdraw his name altogether.
The King's men at the Christmas festivities, &c., presented at Court fourteen plays before the King and fourteen before the Prince, the Lady Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine. Among the plays so represented were Philaster, The Knot of Fools, Much Ado about Nothing, The Maid's Tragedy, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Tempest, A King and no King, The Twins' Tragedy, The Winter's Tale, Sir John Falstaff (The Merry Wives of Windsor), The Moor of Venice, The Nobleman, Cesar's Tragedy, Love lies a bleeding (Philaster repeated), before the Prince, Lady Elizabeth, and the Palatine; A Bad Beginning makes a Good Ending (? All's Well that Ends Well; but entered S. R. 1660 as Ford's, and destroyed in MS. by Warburton's servant; Ford's revision must, of course, have been later than 1623), The Captain, The Alchemist, Cardenno, The Hotspur (1 Henry IV.), Benedicte and Betteris (Much Ado about Nothing), before the King. See Stanhope's Accounts (Halliwell, Outlines, p. 597, third edition, and Revels Accounts, p. xxiii.) Of these twenty Shakespeare contributes nine, Fletcher (with Beaumont) six, Jonson one, Tourneur one, Drayton (?) one, and two have not been identified.
1613.
On 4th February Richard Shakespeare, the poet's only surviving brother, was buried at Stratford.
On 10th March Shakespeare purchased in Blackfriars a house with yard and haberdasher's shop for £140, subject to a mortgage of £60. This property had greatly increased in value since 1604, when it was sold for £100, probably in consequence of the immediate vicinity of the theatre, which drew large custom for feathers and other articles of attire to Blackfriars. Shakespeare leased it to John Robinson, who had by this time seen the absurdity in a business point of view of his opposition to the establishment of the theatre in 1596. One of the trustees for the legal estate (the mortgage remaining unredeemed till 1613) was John Heming, unquestionably Shakespeare's friend the actor.
On 8th June the King's men played at Court before the Duke of Savoy's ambassadors.
On 29th June the Globe Theatre was burnt down, "while Burbadge's company were acting the play of Henry VIII., and there shooting off certain chambers by way of triumph" (T. Lorkin's letter). Sir H. Wotton says it was "a new play called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII." It was of course Shakespeare's play in its original form. A Fool must have acted in it, for in the old ballad about this fire, "the reprobates prayed for the fool and Henry Condy" (Condell), who were apparently the last actors who escaped.
It has been conjectured that at this time Shakespeare retired from the stage, having sold his shares in the Globe and Blackfriars in order to purchase the house above mentioned. There is no particle of evidence that he had not saved the £80 then paid from his usual economies, or that if he had wished to sell his shares he could have done so. It is true that shares in the later Globe (rebuilt 1613-14) were so sold; but all the evidence as to the theatre in which Shakespeare was concerned points the other way. It appears from the 1635 documents that Hemings, Shakespeare, &c., had their shares without paying any consideration, and that all the shares held by Pope, Kempe, Bryan, Shakespeare, Sly, and Cowley had reverted by 1614 into the hands of the surviving shareholders, the Burbadges, Hemings, and Condell. If we examine the wills of these men, we find that Pope indeed, in 1603, leaves all his estate or interest in the Globe, "which I have or ought to have," to Mary Clark and Thomas Bromley; but that Phillips in 1605, and Cooke in 1614, make no mention of any shares. It seems most likely that this will of Pope's raised the question as to whether these shares were held during office as actor or absolutely. There can be little doubt that the former was the case, as is only reasonable where the shares, as in the first Globe, were given "without consideration." Purchased shares, like those in the latter Globe, are in a different position. At any rate, the shares left to Bromley and Clark in fact reverted to the surviving shareholders. Sly's will in 1608, which is in similar terms to Pope's, leaves his shares to Robert Brown, who, like Clark and Bromley, disappears from all future history of these shares. Moreover, there is no mention of any shares belonging to Cowley, Beeston, or Kempe: yet there can be no doubt that Kempe was till 1599 a shareholder.
On 15th July, in the Ecclesiastical Court at Worcester, the case of Dr. John Hall v. John Lane, for slandering his wife, was heard, and the defendant excommunicated on the 27th.
There were sixteen plays performed at Court by the King's men this year, on November 4, 16; January 10; February 4, 8, 10, 18; and nine others.
Fletcher, Webster, and Beaumont had all left the King's men, and now, 31st October, Jonson leaves them too, and produces his Bartholomew Fair at the Hope, with abundant sneers at Shakespeare's plays, especially the Tempest and Winter's Tale. He does not allude to Henry VIII. Fletcher was now, as well as Jonson, a writer for the Princess Elizabeth's players.
In July John Combe left Shakespeare £5 as a legacy.
In the autumn an attempt was made by W. Combe, the squire of Welcombe, to inclose a large portion of the neighbouring common fields; this attempt was opposed by the Corporation, but supported by Mr. Manwaring and Shakespeare. The latter clearly acted simply with a view to his own personal interest. His name as an ancient freeholder occurs in a list, 5th September, as having claim for compensation if the inclosure took place. On 18th October, Replingham, Combe's agent, covenanted to give him full compensation for injury by "any inclosure or decay of tillage:" on 16th November he went to London: on 17th November his "cousin," T. Greene, town clerk of Stratford and at the same time his own solicitor, called to see him: he said the inclosures were to be less than had been represented, that nothing would be done till April, and that he and Mr. Hall thought nothing would be done at all. On 23d December letters to Mr. Manwaring and Shakespeare were written, with "almost all the company's hands" to them, and a private letter in addition by Greene to "my cousin," with copies of all the acts of the Corporation, and notes of the inconveniences that would result from the inclosure. The inclosure was not made, and Shakespeare did not get his compensation.
1616.
On 25th January the first draft of Shakespeare's will was drawn up. On 10th February his daughter Judith was married without a license to T. Quiney, vintner of Stratford; they were summoned in consequence to the Ecclesiastical Court of Worcester a few weeks after. On 25th March the will was executed, and on 25th April "Will. Shakspere, gent." was entered in the burial register at Stratford. He died just before completing his fifty-fourth year; but it is usually supposed on the 23d, his birthday.