But this does not help to lift the anonymity of Thorpe's "Mr. W. H." Perhaps, since the Sonnets were designed by the poet primarily as literature, it is just as well that we do not know more. Fletcher, in an address prefixed to his Licia cycle, after refusing to disclose whom he is celebrating, says to the reader: "If thou like it, take it." And Shakespeare may well say the same thing to us.1 The Sonnets ended with the usual "Finis"; but to the collection Thorpe appended another work, a poem of 329 lines, entitled A Lover's Complaint, which he stated to be also "by William Shakespeare." It is in the same stanzaic form used in Lucrece, but is more far-fetched in its conceits, and more labored in its imagery and style than any work positively known to be from Shakespeare's hand; and whether we are justified in accepting Thorpe's attribution is a matter of grave doubt. Scholars, indeed, are not yet agreed what to think of the poem. Dowden declares: "There appears to be no good reason to question the correctness of this ascription"; Mr. Masefield holds that "It is a work of Shakespeare's youth, fresh and felicitous as youth's work often is, and very nearly as empty"; Swinburne seems to be seriously in doubt, referring to it as an "actual or possible work" of Shakespeare, though calling attention to some "superbly Shakespearean" lines in it; Professor J. W. Mackail, who alone has subjected the poem to a careful analysis, concludes positively that it could not have been written by the dramatist.2 In the 329 lines of the poem he finds twenty-three words that do not elsewhere occur in Shakespeare, seven words that may fairly be regarded as non-Shakespearean, sixteen words that are used in a sense not employed by Shakespeare, and twelve words that are found only in the 1 For a summary of the many theories advanced by scholars, and a complete bibliography, see the excellent variorum edition of the Sonnets by R. M. Alden. 2 Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, 1912, iii, 51. master's maturer work; and in addition he notices the writer's special fondness for Latinisms. Under the head of "Syntax," he calls attention to three peculiarities (ellipsis of subject, ellipsis of verb, and asyndeton) which are alien to Shakespeare's ordinary usage. Finally, he points out that by the tests of "phrasing and style" the poem is generally unlike Shakespeare's recognized work. The evidence which Professor Mackail thus presents seems to carry weight. Yet he admits: "On the other hand, there are more than a few passages in the poem which are like Shakespeare at his best, and of which one would say at first sight that no one but Shakespeare could have written them, so wonderfully do they combine his effortless power and his incomparable sweetness." As to questioning the accuracy of Thorpe's attribution we need have little hesitancy, for we know how stolen verse-manuscripts were constituted, and what slight effort the publishers often made to discover the real author of the poems contained therein. A study of Jaggard's issue of The Passionate Pilgrim will furnish a good illustration, and Elizabethan literature supplies numerous other examples. Possibly Thorpe had secured the commonplace-book of some gallant, containing chiefly the Sonnets of Shakespeare, but also other poems, some no doubt attributed to their authors, others without signature. And finding there A Lover's Complaint, Thorpe might, either in ignorance or with the easy conscience of his kind, print the poem as by Shakespeare in order to increase the size and heighten the importance of his volume. Our chief difficulty in rejecting Thorpe's ascription lies in the fact that it is hard to discover any one besides Shakespeare to whom we may assign the poem, which despite its many absurd faults has at times a beauty that reflects the art of the great master. Professor Mackail, recognizing this difficulty, would attribute the poem to the mysterious Rival Poet, whom Shakespeare himself had confessed to be gifted with a "golden quill, and precious phrase by all the Muses filed." On this hint Mr. J. M. Robertson would go a step further, and assuming it as proved that the Rival Poet was George Chapman, give the poem to that writer.1 Both hypotheses seem fanciful and unlikely. Any one who has read Chapman's minor poems could hardly agree that the author of The Shadow of Night and A Coronet was also the author of A Lover's Complaint. It is safe only to conclude that Thorpe's attribution carries little authority, and that the poem may have been an inferior (it seems to be an incomplete) product of Shakespeare's pen, or an unusually excellent imitation of Shakespeare's popular style, in which the unknown author occasionally, as Professor Mackail observes, “writes like Shakespeare at his best." 1 Shakespeare and Chapman, 1917. CHAPTER X WITH THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S COMPANY DURING his two years of freedom from acting and playmaking Shakespeare had succeeded in establishing himself as one of England's leading poets. His Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, and his Sonnets had won him the unstinted praise of literary critics, and had carried his fame even to the cloistered halls of Oxford and Cambridge. From Ireland Edmund Spenser wrote to acknowledge his power, including him, "though last, not least," in his famous list of eminent poets who glorified the Court of Elizabeth: A gentler shepheard may nowhere be found, Shakespeare's name was indeed sounding wherever men came together to discuss the poetry of the day. In view of his rapid rise to fame in the courtly circle of writers, he may, as has already been suggested, have contemplated abandoning the actor's profession and dramatic composition, with the purpose of henceforth devoting his energy to the production of works in the realm of pure literature. If so, Fate was soon to determine otherwise. Whether he lost the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, or whether the actors were able to offer him pecuniary inducements that he could not resist, we are unable to say. All that we positively know is that before the end of 1594 he is back again at the "common theatres," as an 1 Colin Clout's Come Home Again, probably written in 1594, published in 1595. It is not certain that Spenser is referring to Shakespeare, but the passage seems to fit no one else so well, and most scholars assume that it alludes to the dramatist. Did Spenser first write "Doth like his name," and subsequently change "his name" to "himself" for the sake of alliteration? actor treading the rush-strewn stage before the "pennyknaves" of London, and as a literary artist devoting his splendid powers to refurbishing old plays and composing new ones. He could not, of course, rejoin the Pembroke's Men, for they had ceased to exist. Instead he became affiliated with the Lord Chamberlain's Company, which, having survived the lean years of the plague, was just entering upon a new and brilliant career. Since he was destined to remain with this notable company throughout the rest of his life, and produce for it the plays which render him immortal, we must hurriedly glance at its previous history, and observe the course of circumstances which led it in 1594 to engage the services of England's most promising young poet. The company was originally known as Lord Strange's Men. It seems to have been constituted a metropolitan troupe in the autumn of 1588, though our first notice of it bears the date of November 6, 1589:1 the Lord Mayor had peremptorily forbidden the Admiral's and the Strange's Men to perform in the city; the Admiral's Men obeyed, but the Strange's Men, so the Lord Mayor complained, "in a very contemptuous manner departing from me, went to the Cross Keys [Inn], and played that afternoon." Obviously the company was already numbered among the important London troupes; and this importance was augmented in the winter of 1591-92. The Admiral's Company, of which the famous Edward Alleyn was the most conspicuous figure, was temporarily dissolved in 1591 in order to allow some of its chief players to undertake a prolonged tour of the Continent, a custom then popular with English actors. But Alleyn, who at this time was in 1 There was an earlier troupe enjoying the patronage of Lord Strange, which appears in the provinces from 1576 to 1588, but never in London or at Court. It does not concern us here. |