players to their "singular good lords" they say, “When we value the places your Honours sustain, we cannot but know their dignity greater than to descend to the reading of these trifles; and while we name them trifles, we have deprived ourselves of the defence of our dedication. But since your Lordships have been pleased to think these trifles something, heretofore; and have prosecuted both them, and their author living, with so much favour: we hope that (they out-living him, and he not having the fate, common with some, to be executor to his own writings) you will use the like indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent.' They subsequently speak of their Lordships liking the several parts of the volume when they were acted but their author was the object of their personal regard and favour.

The call to Wilton of Shakspere's company might probably have arisen from Lord Pembroke's desire to testify this favour. It would appear to be the first theatrical performance before James in England. The favour of the Herberts towards Shakspere thus began early. The testimony of the player-editors would imply that it lasted during the poet's life. The young Earl of Pembroke, upon whom James had just bestowed the Order of the Garter, would scarcely, we think, have been well pleased to have welcomed the poet to Wilton who had thus addressed him :

At the Christmas of the same year the King had taken up his residence at Hampton Court. It was here, a little before the period when the Conference on Conformity in Religion was begun, that the Queen and eleven ladies of honour were presenting Daniel's Masque; and Shakspere and his fellows performed six plays before the King and Prince, receiving twenty nobles for each play.* The patronage of the new King to his servants, players acting at the Globe, seems to have been constant and liberal. To Shakspere this must have been a season of prosperity and of honour. The accession of the King gave him something better. His early friend and patron Southampton was released from a long imprisonment. Enjoying the friendship of Southampton and Pembroke, who were constantly about the King, their tastes may have led the monarch to a just preference of the works of Shakspere before those of any other dramatist. The six plays performed before the King and Prince in the Christmas of 1603-4 at Hampton Court, were followed at the succeed

* Cunningham's" Revels at Court," p. xxxv.

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ing Christmas by performances "at the Banqueting-House at Whitehall," in which the plays of Shakspere were preferred above those of every other competitor. There were eleven performances by the King's players, of which eight were plays of Shakspere. Jonson shared this honour with him in the representation of "Every One in his Humour," and "Every One out of his Humour." A single play by Heywood, another by Chapman, and a tragedy by an unknown author, completed the list of these revels at Whitehall. It is told, Malone says, upon authority which there is no reason to doubt, that King James bestowed especial honour upon Shakspere." The story is told in the Advertisement to Lintot's edition of Shakspere's Poems— "That most learned Prince and great patron of learning, King James the First, was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter to Mr. Shakespeare; which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir William Davenant, as a credible person now living can testify." Was the honour bestowed as a reward for the compliment to the King in "Macbeth," or was the compliment to the King a tribute of gratitude for the honour ?

"The Accompte of the Office of the Reuelles of this whole yeres Charge, in An° 1604" which was discovered through the zealous industry of Mr. Peter Cunningham, is a most interesting document: first, as giving the names of the plays which were performed at Court, and showing how pre-eminently attractive were those of Shakspere; secondly, as exhibiting the undiminished charm of Shakspere's early plays, such as "The Comedy of Errors," and "Love's Labour's Lost ;" and, thirdly, as fixing the date of one of our poet's dramas, which has generally been assigned to a later period-"Measure for Measure." The worthy scribe who keeps the accounts has no very exact acquaintance with "the poets wch mayd the plaies," as he heads the margin of his entries; for he adds another variety to the modes of spelling the

name of the greatest of those poets—“Shaxberd." The list gives us no information as to the actors which acted the plays, in addition to the poets which made them. We learn, indeed, from the corresponding accounts in the Office Books of the Treasurer of the Chamber, that on the 21st of January, 1605, sixty pounds were paid “To John Hemynges, one of his Mats players, for the paines and expences of himselfe and the reste of his Companie, in playinge and presentinge of sixe Enterludes, or plaies, before his Matie." The name of Shakspere is found amongst the names of the performers of Ben Jonson's "Sejanus," which was first acted at the Globe in 1603. Burbage, Lowin, Hemings, Condell, Phillipps, Cooke, and Sly had also parts in it. In Jonson's "Volpone," brought out at the Globe in 1605, the name of Shakspere does not occur amongst the performers. It has been conjectured, therefore, that he retired from the stage between 1603 and 1605. But, appended to the letter from the Council to the Lord Mayor and other Justices, dated April the 9th, 1604 (which we have already noticed), there has been found the following list of the "King's Company:"*.

"Burbidge,
Shakspeare,
Fletcher,
Phillips,

Condle,
Hemminges,
Armyn,
Slye,

Cowley,

Hostler,

Day."

It is thus seen that in the spring of 1604 Shakspere was still an actor, and still held the same place in the company which he held in the patent of the previous year. Lawrence Fletcher, the first named in that patent, has changed places with Burbage. The probable explanation of these changes is, that the shareholders periodically chose one of their number as their chairman, or official head; that Lawrence Fletcher filled this office at Aberdeen in 1601, and at London in 1603, Burbage succeeding to his rank and office in 1604. In the meantime the reputation of Shakspere as a dramatic poet must have secured to him something higher than the fame of an actor, and something better than courtly honours and pecuniary advantages. He must have commanded the respect and admiration of the most distinguished amongst his contemporaries for taste and genius. Few, indeed, comparatively of his plays were printed. The author of "Othello," for example, must have been content with the fame which the theatre afforded him. But in 1604, probably to vindicate his reputation from the charge of having, in his mature years, written his "Hamlet,” such as it appeared in the imperfect edition of 1603, was published "The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. By William Shakespeare. Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie." Edition after edition was called for; and assuredly that wonderful tragedy, whose true power can only be adequately felt by repeated study, must have carried its wonderful philosophy into the depths of the heart of many a reader who was no haunter of play-houses, and have most effectually vindicated plays and playbooks from the charge of being nothing but "unprofitable pleasures of sin," to be denounced in common with "Love-locks, periwigs, women's curling, powdering and cutting of the hair, bonfires, New-year's gifts, May-games, amorous pastorals, lascivious effeminate music, excessive laughter, luxurious disorderly Christmas keeping, mummeries."+ From the hour of the publication of "Hamlet," in 1604, to these our days, many a solitary student must have closed that wonderful book with the application to its author of something like the thought that Hamlet himself expresses," What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!"

*Collier's"Memoirs of Alleyn," p. 68.

† Prynne's "Histrio-Mastix."

We have seen that in the year 1602 Shakspere was investing the gains of his profession in the purchase of property at Stratford. It appears from the original Fines of the Court of King's Bench, preserved in the Chapter-house, that a little before the accession of James, in 1603, Shakspere had also purchased a messuage at Stratford, with barns, gardens, and orchards, of Hercules Underhill, for the sum of sixty pounds.* There can be little doubt that this continued acquisition of property in his native place had reference to the ruling desire of the poet to retire to his quiet fields and the placid intercourse of society at Stratford, out of the turmoil of his professional life and the excitement of the companionship of the gay and the brilliant. And yet it appears highly probable that he was encouraged, at this very period, through the favour of those who rightly estimated his merit, to apply for an office which would have brought him even more closely in connexion with the Court. As one of * The document was first published in Mr. Collier's "New Facts."