“To my Loveinge good ffrende and contreymann Mr. Wm. shackespere dlr thees:
“Loveinge Contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a ffrende, craveinge yowr helpe with xxx li uppon Mr. Bushell’s & my securytee, or Mr. Myttons with me. Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, & I have especiall cawse yow shall ffrende me muche in helpeinge me out of all the debettes I owe in London, I thancke god, & muche quiet my mynde wch wolde nott be indebeted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in hope of answer for the dispatche of my Buysenes. Yow shall nether loase credytt nor monney by me, the Lorde wyllinge; & nowe butt perswade yowrself soe, as I hope, & yow shall not need to feare butt with all hartie thanckefullenes I wyll holde my tyme & content yowr ffrende, & yf we Bargaine farther, yow shalbe the paiemr. yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me hastene to an ende, & soe I commit thys [to] yowr care, & hope of your helpe. I feare I shall nott be backe thys night ffrom the Cowrte. Haste. The Lorde be with yow and with vs all, amen. ffrom the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25th October, 1598.
“Yowrs in all kyndnes
“Rye. Quyney.”
There is nothing to show directly what was Shakespeare’s reply to this request for the loan of so considerable a sum; which, however, was not the personal matter it would seem to be. Quiney was a substantial man, mercer and alderman of Stratford, and was in London, incurring debts in the interests of the town, whose law business he was furthering. He wanted nothing for himself.
It is curious that this letter was discovered among the town’s papers, not among any Shakespeare relics, and it is believed was never actually sent after being written; for another letter is extant, addressed by one of the town council, Abraham Sturley, to Quiney, on November 4th, in which he says: “Ur letter of the 25 October . . . which imported . . . that our countriman Mr. Wm. Shak. would procure us monei. . . .” It would appear, therefore, that on the very day he was writing, Quiney had received assurance from Shakespeare that he would lend.
In 1600 Shakespeare’s company played before the Queen at Whitehall, and on several occasions in 1602: their last performance being at Richmond in Surrey on February 2nd, 1603. The following month the great Queen died. In 1602 Shakespeare had been buying land in the neighbourhood of Snitterfield and Welcombe from the Combes; no less than 107 acres, and in succeeding years he considerably added to it; further, in July 1605, expending £440 in the purchase of tithes. Early in September 1601, his father, John Shakespeare, had died. Seven years later, also in September, died his mother. In 1607, his eldest daughter, Susanna, married Dr. John Hall, and on the last day of the same year his brother Edmund, an actor, was buried in St. Saviour’s, Southwark.
It was in 1609 that Shakespeare retired permanently to Stratford. He and his players had been honoured by the new sovereign from the very beginning of his reign; but Shakespeare now severed his active connection with the stage. In this year his famous Sonnets were published, those sugared verses addressed to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he laments having made himself “a motley to the view.” Henceforth he would be a country gentleman and dramatic author, and let who would seek the applause of the crowd. He now wrote the Taming of the Shrew, whose induction is permeated with local allusions; he bought more land in the neighbourhood of Stratford; he kept some degree of state at New Place. In 1611 he sold his shares in the theatres, but in 1612 bought property at Blackfriars. Thus Shakespeare passed his remaining years. As Rowe, his earliest biographer says, they were spent “as all men of good sense will wish theirs to be; in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends.”
His last dramatic work, The Tempest, was written in 1611, and bears evidences of being consciously and intentionally his last. It is easily dated, because of the references in it to the “still vex’d Bermoothes,” the Bermuda islands, which were discovered by Admiral Sir George Somers’ expedition in 1609. The “discovery” was made by the Admiral’s ship, the Sea Venture, being driven in a storm on the hitherto unknown islands. The disasters, the adventures, and the strange sights and sounds of the isles were described by Sylvester Jourdain, one of the survivors, in an account published October 1610, called “A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Isle of Divels.”
Shakespearean students find a purposeful solemnity in the treatment of the play, and some perceive in the character of the magician, Prospero, a portraiture of himself, his work done, and with a foreboding of his end, oppressed with a sense of the brief span and the futility of life—
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”