As early as 1598 Abraham Sturley had suggested that Shakespeare should purchase the tithes of Stratford. Seven years later, on July 24, 1605, he bought for £440 of Ralph Huband an unexpired term of thirty-one years of a ninety-two years’ lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe. The moiety was subject to a rent of £17 to the corporation, who were the reversionary owners on the lease’s expiration, and of £5 to John Barker, the heir of a former proprietor. The investment brought Shakespeare, under the most favourable circumstances, no more than an annuity of £38, and the refusal of persons who claimed an interest in the other moiety to acknowledge the full extent of their liability to the corporation led that body to demand
from the poet payments justly due from others. After 1609 he joined with two interested persons, Richard Lane of Awston and Thomas Greene, the town clerk of Stratford, in a suit in Chancery to determine the exact responsibilities of all the tithe-owners, and in 1612 they presented a bill of complaint to Lord-chancellor Ellesmere, with what result is unknown. His acquisition of a part-ownership in the tithes was fruitful in legal embarrassments.
Recovery of small debts.
Shakespeare inherited his father’s love of litigation, and stood rigorously by his rights in all his business relations. In March 1600 he recovered in London a debt of £7 from one John Clayton. In July 1604, in the local court at Stratford, he sued one Philip Rogers, to whom he had supplied since the preceding March malt to the value of £1 19s. 10d, and had on June 25 lent 2s. in cash. Rogers paid back 6s., and Shakespeare sought the balance of the account, £1 15s. 10d. During 1608 and 1609 he was at law with another fellow-townsman, John Addenbroke. On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare, who was apparently represented by his solicitor and kinsman Thomas Greene, [206a] obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of £6, and £1 5s. costs, but Addenbroke left the town, and the triumph proved barren. Shakespeare avenged himself by proceeding against one Thomas Horneby, who had acted as the absconding debtor’s bail. [206b]
XIII—MATURITY OF GENIUS
Literary work in 1599.
With an inconsistency that is more apparent than real, the astute business transactions of these years (1597-1611) synchronise with the production of Shakespeare’s noblest literary work—of his most sustained and serious efforts in comedy, tragedy, and romance. In 1599, after abandoning English history with ‘Henry V,’ he addressed himself to the composition of his three most perfect essays in comedy—‘Much Ado about Nothing,’ ‘As You Like It,’ and ‘Twelfth Night.’ Their good-humoured tone seems to reveal their author in his happiest frame of mind; in each the gaiety and tenderness of youthful womanhood are exhibited in fascinating union; while Shakespeare’s lyric gift bred no sweeter melodies than the songs with which the three plays are interspersed. At the same time each comedy enshrines such penetrating reflections on mysterious problems of life as mark the stage of maturity in the growth of the author’s intellect. The first two of the three plays were entered on the ‘Stationers’ Registers’ before August 4, 1600, on which day a prohibition was set on their publication, as well as on the publication of ‘Henry V’ and of Ben
Jonson’s ‘Every Man in his Humour.’ This was one of the many efforts of the acting company to stop the publication of plays in the belief that the practice was injurious to their rights. The effort was only partially successful. ‘Much Ado,’ like ‘Henry V,’ was published before the close of the year. Neither ‘As You Like It’ nor ‘Twelfth Night,’ however, was printed till it appeared in the Folio.
‘Much Ado.’
In ‘Much Ado,’ which appears to have been written in 1599, the brilliant and spirited comedy of Benedick and Beatrice, and of the blundering watchmen Dogberry and Verges, is wholly original; but the sombre story of Hero and Claudio, about which the comic incident revolves, is drawn from an Italian source, either from Bandello (novel. xxii.) through Belleforest’s ‘Histoires Tragiques,’ or from Ariosto’s ‘Orlando Furioso’ through Sir John Harington’s translation (canto v.) Ariosto’s version, in which the injured heroine is called Ginevra, and her lover Ariodante, had been dramatised before. According to the accounts of the Court revels, ‘A Historie of Ariodante and Ginevra was showed before her Majestie on Shrovetuesdaie at night’ in 1583. [208] Throughout Shakespeare’s play the ludicrous and serious aspects of humanity are blended with a convincing naturalness. The popular comic actor William Kemp filled the role of Dogberry, and Cowley appeared as Verges. In both the Quarto of 1600 and the Folio of 1623 these actors’ names are