I'll speak with none, although it be the mouth
Of the big company.'
Cf. Dekker, News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 99), 'Marrie players swarme there as they do here, whose occupation being smelt out, by the Caco-daemon, or head officer of the Countrie, to bee lucrative, he purposes to make vp a company, and to be chiefe sharer himselfe'; also A Mad World, my Masters, V. i. 42, where one of the sham Lord Owemuch's players is a 'politician', who 'works out restraints, makes best legs at court, and has a suit made of purpose for the company's business' and 'has greatest share and may live of himselfe'.
[999] Jonson, Poetaster, III. iv. 373, 'Commend me to seuen-shares and a halfe, and remember to morrow—if you lacke a seruice, you shall play in my name, rascalls, but you shall buy your owne cloth, and I'le ha' two shares for my countenance'. It appears from a list of Sir Henry Herbert's profits as Master of the Revels, drawn up in 1662, that he had secured a share, which he valued at £100 a year, from each of the London companies, other than the King's men (Variorum, iii. 266).
[1000] It is impossible to say what arrangement underlies the statement in an undated letter from Richard Jones to Alleyn about a German tour (Henslowe Papers, 33) that Robert Browne was 'put to half a shaer, and to stay hear, for they ar all against his goinge'.
[1001] Hamlet, III. ii. 286:
'Hamlet. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players.
Horatio. Half a share.
Hamlet. A whole one, I.'
For half-sharers, cf. ch. xiii (Queen's, Admiral's). Three-quarter sharers existed in the Lady Elizabeth's men about 1614; cf. T. M., Father Hubburd's Tales (Bullen, Middleton, viii. 64), 'The ant began to stalk like a three-quarter sharer'.