Of this play a garbled version was put on the market by Millington, who, soon after, did the same thing by the Henry V.
II. Davenant instructed Betterton how to render the part of Henry VIII., assuring him that he (Davenant) had his own instructions from Lowin, and that Lowin got them from William Shakespeare in person. * (We have not accepted Davenant's evidence as likely to be of much value, when assuming to be Shakespeare's son, successor, literary executor, and the like, but this does not appear, on its face, improbable, and is no particular less if untrue.) Ravens-croft, who re-wrote Titus Andronicus in 1687, says, in his preface: "I have been told by some anciently conversant with the stage, that it (this play) was not originally his (Shakespeare's), but brought by a private actor to be acted, and he only gave some master touches to one or two of the principal parts or characters." **
"I am assured," says Gildon, *** "from very good hands, that the person that acted Iago was in much esteem as a comedian, which made Shakespeare put several words and expressions into his part, perhaps not so agreeable to his character, to make the audience laugh, who had not yet learned to endure to be serious a whole play."
* Id.
** Id.
*** Reflections on Rymer's "Short View of Tragedy," quoted
by Mr. Halliwell Phillips, in his work cited in last note.
(But if Shakespeare put them in to "catch the ear of the groundlings," who took them out again for the folio of 1623? The Baconians would probably ask: "Did Bacon, after Shakespeare was dead?" And it could not have been a proofreader; for, if there was any proof-reader, he was the most careless one that ever lived. The folio of 1623 is crowded with typographical errors.) Somebody—necessarily Shakespeare—was in the habit of introducing into these Shakespearean plays the popular songs of the day. For example, the song, "A Lover and His Lass," in "As you Like it." was written by Thomas Morley, and printed in his "First Book of Ayres; or, Little Short Songs," in 1600. * And the ballad, "Farewell, Dear Love," in "Twelfth Night," has previously appeared in 1601, in the "Book of Ayres" of Robert Jones. ** It is probable, however, says Mr. Halliwell Phillips, that William Shakespeare had withdrawn from the management of the Globe; at the date of its destruction during the performance of Henry VIII. (which Mr. Phillips calls the first play on the English stage in which dramatic art was sacrificed to stage effect. It is curious, this being the case, to find the New Shakespeare Society rejecting the Henry VIII. as not Shakespearean on the philological evidence, and assuring us that Wolsey's soliloquy is not Shakespeare's, as did Mr. Spedding so many years before).
* In the last issue of the "Transactions of the New
Shakespeare Society" is a copy of what purports to be a
manuscript respecting the delivery of certain red cloth to
Shakespeare, on the occasion of a reception to James I., by
the corporation of London, in 1604, unearthed and guaranteed
by Mr. Furnivall.
** Folio, London, 1601.
The story of Queen Elizabeth's order for "Falstaff in Love" first appeared, in 1702, in the preface to John Dennis's "Comicale Gallant," from whom Rowe quoted. Although smacking of the same flavor as the Southampton and King James "yarns"—it is worth noting that this story may possess, perhaps, some vestige of foundation. If these sounding plays, so full of religion, politics, philosophy, and statecraft, were presented at Shakespeare's theater, it is only natural that it should come to Elizabeth's ears. The lion Queen did not care to have her subjects instructed too far. She liked to keep them well in hand, and was only—she and her ministers—too ready to "snuff treason in certain things that went by other's names." The run of comedies at other theaters were harmless enough (an adultery for a plot, and an unsuspecting husband for a butt. This was a comedy; plus a little blood, it was a tragedy). Let the people have their fill of amusement, but it is better not to meddle with philosophy and politics. So there are things more unlikely to have happened than that Elizabeth, through her Lord Chamberlain, should have intimated to manager Shakespeare to give them something more in the run and appetite of the day. * The "Merry Wives of Windsor" was, in due time, underlined. But, somehow or other, it was with a would-be adulterer, rather than an injured husband, for a butt; and, somehow or other, Galen and Esculapius and Epicurius had intruded where there was no need of them.
* Collier—"Lives of Shakespeare's Actors, Introduction,
page xv."—says that there were at least two, and perhaps
three, other William Shakespeares in London in these days.
The salaciousness Elizabeth wanted (if the story is true) was all there, as well as the transformation scene; but, at the end, there is a rebuke to lechery and to lecherous minds that is not equivocal in its terms. * But that any of this Shakespeare fortune came, by way of gift or otherwise, from Southampton, there is no ground, except silly and baseless rumor, for believing. If Southampton had been the Rothschild of his time—which he was very far from being—he would not have given a thousand pounds (a sum we have estimated as equaling $25,000 to-day, but which Mr. Grant White puts at $30,000, and which Mr. Halliwell Phillips, ** on account of the "often fictitious importance attached to cash, arising from its comparative scarcity in those days," says ought even be as high as twelve pounds for one) to a casual acquaintance. The mere passing of such a sum would seem to involve other relations; and if Southampton knew Shakespeare, or Shakespeare Southampton, let it be demonstrated from some autobiographical or historical source—from some other source than the "Biographies of William Shakespeare," written by those slippery rhapsodists, the Shakespereans. If Damon and Pythias were friends, let it appear from the biographies of Damon, as well as from the biographies of Pythias. Let us find it in some of Southampton's papers, or in the archives or papers of some of his family, descendants, contemporaries, or acquaintances; in the chronicles of Elizabeth, Raleigh, Cecil, Essex, Rutland, Montgomery, Camden, Coke, Bacon, Tobie Mathew, Ben Jonson, or of somebody alive and with open eyes in London at about that date, before we yield it historical assent, and make oath to it so solemnly.
* Perhaps, if the story were true, a rebuke to Elizabeth
personally in the line (Act V., Scene v.), "Our radiant
Queen hates sluts and sluttery."