Upon this, the playwright made the modest rejoinder that, much as he regretted the circumstances, it was, in point of fact, impossible to play the three pieces in either of those chaste tongues, since he himself had written them in the vulgar English language, which unfortunately was the only tongue with which he could claim an acquaintance, and that a very imperfect one. Such a statement was very shocking to the University. The permission was at once withheld, but in language of great politeness and dignity. “We do not well understand,” it said in effect, “how one who is not even a member of this University or of the sister foundation of Cambridge, who, we are credibly informed, is a mere hackney writer for the theaters, and who, we are further informed, is a little better than one of the illiterate, can prefer such a request.”
After this rebuff, the playwright, quite undaunted, applied to the city authorities for permission to use the Town Hall. In the meantime, however, the news had been carried to the bench of aldermen that the University had rebuked this importunate fellow. And if the vulgar English tongue was beneath the dignity of the Gown, how much more was it beneath the dignity of the Town, which had a reputation to maintain and so much less upon which to maintain it. “No, sir,” said the bench of aldermen, “we would have you to know that that which is not deemed worthy for only a part or moiety of this fair city, is deemed still less so for the whole of it.”
Thus there was nothing left for the poor playwright to do but to seek permission of honest John Davenant, mine host of the Crown, to set up trestles and boards and rig up a curtain in the middle of his large inn yard. And John Davenant, having less in the way of learning than the Gown and less in the way of dignity than the Town, and being promised, moreover, a full ten percentum of the takings at each performance, was nowise averse from such a proceeding.
The play to be given that afternoon was “The Merchant of Venice,” a pleasant comedy that had already been played several times with success in Shoreditch. The author of the piece had not to play in it himself, a contingency for which he expressed himself devoutly thankful. “A bad play is doubly damned,” he said, “if the author himself has to preen and strut in it.”
That afternoon, the more congenial and not less onerous rôle was to be his of sitting at the receipt of custom. But his friend, Richard Burbage, had for his sins to play the Jew. And the famous tragedian was fain to declare that the playwright as usual had got the best of the bargain, inasmuch that it was far easier to play the Jew in the box-office than it was upon the boards.
These players were a high-spirited, light-hearted, genial crew. The incident in which they had been concerned in nowise affected their gaiety. They lived in and for the moment; they took life as it came to them; theirs was the sovereign faculty of being able to lay care aside. They were prone to set all sorts of tricks upon one another, and to crack jokes and tell tales at one another’s expense. They seemed to have no particular respect for anybody, not even for Shakespeare himself, but Anne and Gervase noticed that only one man in all that merry, careless company ever ventured to break a lance with him.
Richard Burbage was the man in question. The tragedian was a short, powerfully-made man, with a solemn face of much good-humor and an organ-like voice that was both rich and deep. When the playwright and his friend crossed swords, which they did pretty frequently, the whole table would cease to ply knife and spoon in order that it might attend the combat. These duellos, to be sure, were carried off in the highest style of pleasantry, but the play was very keen while it lasted.
The dramatist sat at one end of the long table, and his trusty henchman at the other.
“They do tell me,” said the tragedian, in his slow, rolling speech, and bestowing a wink on those that were near him, “that this plaguy piece we have all got to play in for our sins this plaguy afternoon is the work of a certain court gallant by the name of William Shakespeare.”
At this, the dramatist at the other end of the table laid down his knife very deliberately, and after gazing around as if in search of a thing he could not see, said, “I wonder whence that growl proceeds. I do believe there is a dog in the room. Young Parflete”—this to the youngest and smallest member of the company—“young Parflete, I will thank you to pitch it out with your foot behind it.”