The next letter is also from the same Mordecai Shylock, and is dated four days later.
THREADNEEDLE STREET, May 16, 1602.
To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
My earnest epistle to thee of four days since having elicited no response, I did on the following day offer at the meeting of the Brokers' Guild some of the shares of the stock in the Globe pledged to me, and three shares were bidden at £9 each by my brother, Nehemiah Shylock. As I offered next all the rest, one Henry Wriothsley, Earl of Southampton, did ask to whom the shares belonged, and when he was enlightened, did straightway take all the shares and pay me the whole balance owing, and called me divers opprobrious names. I answered not his railing with railing, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe, but such slander is illy bestowed on one who has been your friend for long, and who was but striving to avert his own destruction.
The next letter in order is from one William Kempe, who would seem to be the business manager of the Globe Theatre, or the person having in charge the unskilled labor connected with the playhouse.
GLOBE PLAYHOUSE, EMPLOYMENT BUREAU, May 25, 1602.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
In much tribulation do I write thee as to the contention which hath arisen among our stock actors and supes of the Globe. Nicholas Bottom, whom you brought from the Parish workhouse in Stratford, is in ill humor with thee in especial. He says when he played with you in Ben Jonson's comedy, "Every Man in his Humor," he was by far the better actor and did receive the plaudits of all; despite which he now receives but 6 shillings each week, while you are become a man of great wealth, having gotten, as he verily believes, as much as £100. Vainly did I oppose to him that the reason you had money when he had none was in verity that you had labored when he was drunken, and that this was to his profit, since, had not you and the other holders of shares in the Globe saved somewhat of money, unthrifty groundlings of his ilk would starve, as there would be none to hire them at wages; but he avers that he is ground in the dust by the greed of capital, and hath so much prated of this that he hath much following, and accounteth himself a martyr. I said to him that at your especial order he was paid 6 shillings per week, which was double his worth, and that he should go elsewhere if he was not content, as I could daily get a better man for half his wages; but he will not go hence, nor will he perform, and has persuaded others to join with him, his very worthlessness having made him their leader, and they threaten, unless they may receive additional 4 shillings per week, and a groat each night for sack, they will have no plays performed, nor will they allow others to be hired in their stead. They do further demand that you shall write shorter plays; that you shall write no tragedies requiring them to labor more than three hours in the rendition; that you shall cut out as much as twelve pages each in "Richard III." and "Othello," and fifteen pages from "Hamlet," that they may not labor to weariness, and may have more hours to recreation and improvement at the alehouse. I know not what to do. If I yield them their demands, nothing will be left for the owners of shares in the Globe; and if I do not, I fear mobs and riots. Fain would I receive thy counsel, which shall have good heed.
The next letter is the last in the period under review, and bears date four days later than the one just quoted from William Kempe.
AT THE ELEPHANT & MAGPIE INN, LONDON, May 29, 1602.
TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
This is written to thee by John Lely, a clerk, in behalf of Nicholas Bottom, who useth not the pen, and who says to me to tell William Shakespeare, fie upon him that he did order the aforesaid Bottom to be locked out of the Globe Playhouse. Hath he forgotten the first play he, William Shakespeare, did ever write, to wit, "Pyramus and Thisbe," when a boy at Stratford, which was played by himself and Nicholas Bottom and Peter Quince and others, in a barn, for the delectation of the townsmen? And is not this same play a part of his "Midsummer Night's Dream," which beggarly play he did sell for £10, and hath not Nicholas Bottom first and always been an ass therein? Doth he refuse to render to Nicholas Bottom 10 shillings per week when he can get £10 or even £11 for a beggarly play, which is nought unless it be acted? Many a time hath he paid me from a sponging house; often hath he given me groats for sack, and for purges when sack hath undone me; and did I ever insult him to offer to repay him a penny? Say to him, remembereth he not when the horses ridden by Duncan and Macbeth upon the stage did break through the floor, who, affrighted, did run howling away, whereby Burbage was aroused and did pick him, William Shakespeare, from among the horses' feet and save his life? And now, sweet Will, fie upon thee that thou didst frown upon thy townsman. Delay not to send me sundry shillings for the publican, who believes you will discharge, as often before, my reckoning. This, and much more of like tenor, saith Nicholas Bottom to William Shakespeare by your worship's humble servant,
JOHN LELY.
The letters in the third period bear date in 1609, seven years later than those last quoted. The first is from Rev. Walter Blaise, who appears to be the clergyman at Stratford-on-Avon.
STRATFORD, Feb. 23, 1609.
TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
John Naps, of Greece, who did recently return to his home here from London, safely has delivered to Anne, your wife, the package entrusted to him for carriage. As your wife hath not the gift of writing, she does desire that I convey to you her thanks for the sundry contents of the hamper. She hath also confided to me as her spiritual adviser that she did diligently ply John Naps with questions as to his visit to you in London, and that said John Naps, under her interrogatories, has revealed to her much that doth make her sick at heart and weary of life.
Item. He doth report that you do pass among men as a bachelor, and, with sundry players and men of that ilk, do frequent a house of entertainment kept by one Doll Tearsheet, and do kiss the barmaid and call her your sweetheart.
Item. He doth also report that you did give to the daughter of the publican at whose house you do now abide, a ring of fine gold, and did also write to her a sonnet in praise of her eyebrows and her lips, and did otherwise wickedly disport with the said damsel.
Item. He doth further report of you that you did visit, with one Ben Jonson, on the Sabbath-day, a place of disrepute, where were cock-fights and the baiting of a bear, and that with you were two brazen women, falsely called by you the wife and sister of Ben Jonson.
These things do overmuch grieve Anne, who hath been to you a loyal wife and a true, and she desires that you do forthwith renounce your evil ways and return to the new house at Stratford, and in ashes and sackcloth repent of your wanderings from the straight and narrow way.
Thus far have I spoken to you as the mouthpiece and vicegerent of Anne, your wife, who is in sore affliction and deep grief by reason of your transgressions. But, beloved lamb of my flock, I should be unworthy my high and sacred calling did I not lift up also my rebuking voice as a pelican in the wilderness, and adjure you to beware of concupiscence and fleshly lust, which unceasingly do war upon the human soul. Thinkest thou to touch pitch and remain undefiled?
The next letter is from the firm of Coke & Dogberry, lawyers in London.
INNER TEMPLE, March 8, 1609.
To WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
We have been retained by Mistress Anne Page as her solicitors to bring against you an action, for that you have not fulfilled and in sooth cannot fulfil with her a contract of marriage, and to seek against you under the laws of this realm heavy damages and an imprisonment of the body, in that you have in unholy ways trifled with her affections, contrary to the statute in such cases provided. She especially avers that you did, two days before Michaelmas, swear to her on a parcel gilt goblet that you did love her alone, and did then give to her a bracelet of price. But yesterday, as she was bargaining with a yeoman named Christopher Sly, from Stratford, for the purchase of a spotted pig of his own fattening, the said Sly did reveal to her that you were his friend, and that you had wife and children in your native town where he dwelt. We beg you to straightway name to us your solicitors, that we may confer with them and attend to the issuance of the writs.