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.