But poems no less than plays, in which Shakespeare had no hand, were deceptively placed to his
credit as soon as his fame was established. In 1599 William Jaggard, a well-known pirate publisher, issued a poetic anthology which he entitled ‘The Passionate Pilgrim, by W. Shakespeare.’ The volume opened with two sonnets by Shakespeare which were not previously in print, and there followed three poems drawn from the already published ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost;’ but the bulk of the volume was by Richard Barnfield and others. [182] A third edition of the ‘Passionate Pilgrim’ was printed in 1612 with unaltered title-page, although the incorrigible Jaggard had added two new poems which he silently filched from Thomas Heywood’s ‘Troia Britannica.’ Heywood called attention to his own grievance in the dedicatory epistle before his ‘Apology for Actors’ (1612), and he added that Shakespeare resented the more substantial injury which the publisher had done him. ‘I know,’ wrote Heywood of Shakespeare, ‘[he was] much offended with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name.’ In the result
the publisher seems to have removed Shakespeare’s name from the title-page of a few copies. This is the only instance on record of a protest on Shakespeare’s part against the many injuries which he suffered at the hands of contemporary publishers.
‘The Phœnix and the Turtle.’
In 1601 Shakespeare’s full name was appended to ‘a poetical essaie on the Phœnix and the Turtle,’ which was published by Edward Blount in an appendix to Robert Chester’s ‘Love’s Martyr, or Rosalins complaint, allegorically shadowing the Truth of Love in the Constant Fate of the Phœnix and Turtle.’ The drift of Chester’s crabbed verse is not clear, nor can the praise of perspicuity be allowed to the appendix to which Shakespeare contributed, together with Marston, Chapman, Ben Jonson, and ‘Ignoto.’ The appendix is introduced by a new title-page running thus: ‘Hereafter follow diverse poeticall Essaies on the former subject, viz: the Turtle and Phœnix. Done by the best and chiefest of our modern writers, with their names subscribed to their particular workes: never before extant.’ Shakespeare’s alleged contribution consists of thirteen four-lined stanzas in trochaics, each line being of seven syllables, with the rhymes disposed as in Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam.’ The concluding ‘threnos’ is in five three-lined stanzas, also in trochaics, each stanza having a single rhyme. The poet describes in enigmatic language the obsequies of the Phœnix and the Turtle-dove, who had been united in life by the ties of a purely spiritual love. The poem may be a mere play of fancy without recondite intention, or it
may be of allegorical import; but whether it bear relation to pending ecclesiastical, political, or metaphysical controversy, or whether it interpret popular grief for the death of some leaders of contemporary society, is not easily determined. [184] Happily Shakespeare wrote nothing else of like character.
XII—THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE
Shakespeare’s practical temperament.
Shakespeare, in middle life, brought to practical affairs a singularly sane and sober temperament. In ‘Ratseis Ghost’ (1605), an anecdotal biography of Gamaliel Ratsey, a notorious highwayman, who was hanged at Bedford on March 26, 1605, the highwayman is represented as compelling a troop of actors whom he met by chance on the road to perform in his presence. At the close of the performance Ratsey, according to the memoir, addressed himself to a leader of the company, and cynically urged him to practise the utmost frugality in London. ‘When thou feelest thy purse well lined (the counsellor proceeded), buy thee some place or lordship in the country that, growing weary of playing, thy money may there bring thee to dignity and reputation.’ Whether or no Ratsey’s biographer consciously identified the highwayman’s auditor with Shakespeare, it was the prosaic course of conduct marked out by Ratsey that Shakespeare literally followed. As soon as his position in his profession was assured, he devoted his energies to re-establishing the fallen fortunes of his family in his native
place, and to acquiring for himself and his successors the status of gentlefolk.