CHAPTER XXIII LAST LABORS FOR THE KING'S MEN WITH The Tempest in 1611 Shakespeare had written his last complete play. It is hard to understand why he should thus virtually cease composition at the age of forty-seven when all London with her loudest "O yes!" was crying "This is he!" It was not the time of life at which a successful man likes to give up his activity. Othello, though he had "somewhat descended into the vale of years," upon realizing that he must abandon his profession, exclaimed in agony of soul: Farewell the plumèd troop and the big wars Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!... Why should Shakespeare, at the peak of maturity, bid farewell to the spirit-stirring life of the London theatres, and to his glorious career as England's most applauded poet? We can, I think, best explain this on the theory that his health was impaired; he had, indeed, only five years of life remaining. And if his strength was failing, he could now relax his efforts, for Beaumont and Fletcher were supplying his company with plays that enabled it to maintain its superiority over all rivals. Possibly he had contemplated retiring in the autumn of 1609. His cousin, Thomas Greene, then living with the poet's family at New Place, wrote in his Diary on September 9, 1609, in allusion to a change in his residence: "the rather that I perceive I might stay another year at New Place." We know that by June, 1611, Greene had moved to a house on the bank of the Avon. It may be, therefore, that in the spring of 1611 Shakespeare temporarily withdrew to Stratford with a view to recuperating his energies under the watchful care of his son-in-law, the eminent physician John Hall. We have documentary evidence that he was in Stratford in 1611: in September of that year the citizens made a collection "towards the charge of prosecuting the Bill in Parliament for the better repair of the highways," and among the seventy names of persons who made contributions we find that of the poet. Throughout the remainder of 1611 and all of 1612 we have no evidence to indicate his presence in London, nor does he seem to have busied himself with literary work of any sort. This raises the question, When did Shakespeare retire from acting? "A question to be asked," for in his day he was not only a distinguished poet but a distinguished actor as well. Probably his labors on the rush-strewn stages of the Theatre, the Curtain, the Globe, and the Blackfriars playhouses occupied the greater part of his time and energy, as they certainly produced the major share of his income. The reason for our tendency to overlook his career as an actor is not far to seek. Gerard Langbaine, the first to write a sketch of his life, says: "He was both a Player and a Poet - but the greatest Poet that ever trod the Stage"; and it is his greatness as a poet that has in modern times overshadowed his successful career as a player. Yet in his own day, men never forgot that he was also an actor. As late as 1640 an anonymous admirer printed "An Elegy on the Death of that famous Writer and Actor, Mr. William Shakespeare." He was, indeed, numbered among the better performers in an age when histrionic art kept pace with playwriting. It was as an actor that he scored his earliest successes in London. In 1592 Henry Chettle wrote: "Myself have seen his demeanour, no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes." Apparently Chettle could find no stronger comparison. In 1594 he was chosen as one of the few full-sharers in the Chamberlain's Company, the best troupe in England. In 1595 the Court Treasurer, in recording a payment of money to the Chamberlain's Men for performances before the Queen, singled out the three actors, "William Kempe, William Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage," as adequately identifying the troupe. In the list of "the principal comedians" who took the chief rôles in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humor, 1598, Shakespeare stands at the head of the first column, with Burbage heading the second column; and in a similar list prefixed to Sejanus, 1603, he again tops one of the two columns, this time exchanging places with Burbage. In the royal patent, 1603, establishing the King's Company of Players, he is named before Burbage, Heminges, and the rest, as also in the various grants of red cloth for liveries. And, finally, in the Folio of 1623 he stands first in the list of the "Principal Actors in All These Plays." Clearly we cannot afford to ignore his labors as one of the "principal actors" in the leading company of the Elizabethan age. Of the various rôles he assumed during his long career on the stage we have little definite knowledge, for information of this character was preserved only by accident. We have, however, the testimony of his friend, John Davies of Hereford, that sometimes he acted "kingly parts." In a poem entitled "To Our English Terence, Mr. Will. Shakespeare," Davies writes: Some say, good Will, which I in sport do sing, From this it has been inferred, and no doubt rightly, that Shakespeare assumed parts that involved a dignified bearing. Such rôles would be in keeping with what we know of his personal manners, with Chettle's glowing praise of his "civil demeanour," and with the epithet "gentle" commonly applied to him by his contemporaries. As to his style of acting, perhaps some notion may be gleaned from his advice to the players put into the mouth of Hamlet: Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.... Be not too tame, neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature. We can well believe that Shakespeare tried to follow these principles in his own acting, keeping ever in mind that one judicious spectator whose approval, he tells us, should "o'erweigh a whole theatre of others." And in a goodly measure he must have succeeded. Theatrical managers and actors themselves are competent judges of histrionic ability; the experienced Elizabethan manager Beeston, and the eminent performer Mohun, long after the poet's death, informed Aubrey that Shakespeare "did act exceedingly well." For further information regarding his career as a player we are dependent on late and untrustworthy gossip. Nicholas Rowe, writing in 1709, says that according to a tradition he acted "the Ghost in his own Hamlet," adding that it was regarded as "the top of his performance." If we accept this story, we may suppose that Shakespeare assumed the rôle because he did not care to entrust it to another; and there are some reasons for thinking that he may have acted the part of the Player King in addition.1 A second tradition is perhaps even less trustworthy. William Oldys, professing to derive his information from the actor John Bowman, writes (about 1750-60) that one of Shakespeare's younger brothers, "who lived to a good old age, even some years, as I compute, after the restoration of King Charles the Second," was accustomed to come to London to witness plays. On one such occasion he was questioned about the rôles assumed by the poet. But, writes Oldys, "he was so stricken in years, and possibly his memory so weakened with infirmities, which might make him the easier pass for a man of weak intellects, that he could give them but little light into their enquiries; and all that could be recollected from him of his brother Will in that station was the faint, general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein, being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated among some company who were eating, and one 1 See the writer's article, "Some Notes on Hamlet," Modern Language Notes, 1913, xxviii, 39. |