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be visited.' A noble compliment was paid to the genius of this unfortunate poet by his fellowdramatist, Michael Drayton :

Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had: his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.

Mr Sidney Lee thinks Marlowe was probably associated with Shakespeare in bringing the second and third parts of Henry VI. into final shape, and that he may have had a share in writing the anonymous Edward III (see below at Shakespeare). Originality, first attribute of genius, belongs in an eminent degree to the ill-fated Marlowe. Mr Swinburne thinks there is greater discrimination of character, and figures more lifelike, in Marlowe's Edward II. than in Shakespeare's Richard II. Gaveston, reading a letter, is thus introduced:

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Gav. My father is deceased! Come, Gaveston,
And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.'
Ah! words that make me surfeit with delight!
What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston
Than live and be the favourite of a king!

Sweet prince, I come; these, these thy amorous lines
Might have enforced me to have swum from France,
And, like Leander, gasped upon the sand,

So thou would'st smile, and take me in thine arms.
The sight of London to my exiled eyes

Is as Elysium to a new-come soul;

Not that I love the city, or the men,

But that it harbours him I hold so dear-
The king, upon whose bosom let me lie,
And with the world be still at enmity.
What need the arctic people love starlight,

To whom the sun shines both by day and night?
Farewell base stooping to the lordly peers!
My knee shall bow to none but to the king.
As for the multitude, that are but sparks,
Raked up in embers of their poverty;—
Tanti; I'll fawn first on the wind
That glanceth at my lips, and flieth away.
But how now, what are these?

In Charles Lamb's judgment, the death-scene of Edward II., at Berkeley Castle, when the king is left alone with Lightborn, the murderer, 'moves pity and terror beyond any scene, ancient or modern,' and may indeed challenge comparison with Shakespeare's death of Richard II. :

Edward. Who's there? what light is that? wherefore com'st thou?

Lightborn. To comfort you, and bring you joyful news. Edw. Small comfort finds poor Edward in thy looks! Villain, I know thou com'st to murder me.

Light. To murder you, my most gracious lord!

Far is it from my heart to do you harm.

The queen sent me to see how you were used,

For she relents at this your misery:

And what eyes can refrain from shedding tears,
To see a king in this most piteous state.

Edw. Weep'st thou already? list a while to me,

And then thy heart, were it as Gurney's1 is, Or as Matrevis',1 hewn from the Caucasus, Yet will it melt, ere I have done my tale. This dungeon where they keep me is a sink Wherein the filth of all the castle falls.

Light. O villains!

Edw. And there, in mire and puddle, have I stood This ten days' space; and lest that I should sleep, One plays continually upon a drum.

They give me bread and water, being a king;
So that, for want of sleep and sustenance,
My mind's distempered, and my body's numbed,
And whether I have limbs or no, I know not.
O would my blood drop out from every vein,
As doth this water from my tattered robes!
Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus,
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,
And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont.
Light. O speak no more, my lord! this breaks my heart.
Lie on this bed, and rest yourself a while.

Edw. These looks of thine can harbour nought but death:

I see my tragedy written in thy brows.

Yet stay a while, forbear thy bloody hand,
And let me see the stroke before it comes,
That even then, when I shall lose my life,
My mind may be more steadfast on my God.

Light. What means your highness to mistrust me thus ?
Edw. What mean'st thou to dissemble with me thus?
Light. These hands were never stained with innocent

blood,

Nor shall they now be tainted with a king's.

Edw. Forgive my thought, for having such a thought. One jewel have I left, receive thou this.

Still fear I, and I know not what's the cause,

But every joint shakes as I give it thee.

Oh, if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart,

Let the gift change thy mind, and save thy soul.
Know that I am a king: Oh, at that name

I feel a hell of grief. Where is my crown?

Gone, gone; and do I still remain alive?

Light. You're overwatched, my lord; lie down and rest. Edw. But that grief keeps me waken, I should sleep; For not these ten days have these eyelids closed.

Now as I speak they fall, and yet with fear
Open again. O wherefore sitt'st thou here?

Light. If thou mistrust me, I'll be gone, my lord.
Edw. No, no; for if thou mean'st to murder me,
Thou wilt return again; and therefore stay.

Light. He sleeps.

Edw. O let me not die; yet stay, O stay a while.
Light. How now, my lord?

Edw. Something still buzzeth in mine ears,
And tells me if I sleep, I never wake;
This fear is that which makes me tremble thus.
And therefore tell me wherefore art thou come?
Light. To rid thee of thy life. Matrevis, come.
Edw. I am too weak and feeble to resist :
Assist me, sweet God, and receive my soul.

1 Gurney and Matrevis were Edward's keepers. The following scene, in which the nobles remonstrate with Edward II., has also something of the Shakespearian manner :

Edward. How now? What noise is this?

Who have we here? Is 't you?

Young Mortimer. Nay, stay my lord: I come to bring you news:

Mine uncle's taken prisoner by the Scots.

Edw. Then ransom him.

Lancaster. 'Twas in your wars; you should ransom him. Y. Mor. And you shall ransom him, or else

Kent. What! Mortimer, you will not threaten him? Edw. Quiet yourself; you shall have the broad seal To gather for him throughout the realm.

Lanc. Your minion, Gaveston, hath taught you this.
Y. Mer. My lord, the family of the Mortimers
Are not so poor but would they sell their land,
'Twould levy men enough to anger you.

We never beg, but use such prayers as these.
Edw. Shall I still be haunted thus?

Y. Mor. Nay, now you're here alone, I'll speak my mind.

Lane. And so will I, and then, my lord, farewell.

Y. Mor. The idle triumphs, masques, lascivious shows, And prodigal gifts bestowed on Gaveston, Have drawn thy treasury dry, and made thee weak: The murmuring commons, overstretched, break.

Lanc. Look for rebellion, look to be deposed;
Thy garrisons are beaten out of France,

And, lame and poor, lie groaning at the gates.
The wild Oneyl, with swarms of Irish kernes,
Lives uncontrolled within the English pale.
Unto the walls of York the Scots make road,
And unresisted draw away rich spoils.

Y. Mor. The haughty Dane commands the narrow seas, While in the harbour ride thy ships unrigged.

Lanc. What foreign prince sends thee ambassadors? Y. Mor. Who loves thee but a sort of flatterers? Lanc. Thy gentle queen, sole sister to Valois, Complains that thou hast left her all forlorn.

Y. Mor. Thy court is naked, being bereft of those
That make a king seem glorious to the world-
I mean the Peers, whom thou shouldst dearly love:
Libels are cast against thee in the street,
Ballads and rhymes made of thy overthrow.

Lanc. The northern borderers seeing their houses burned,

Their wives and children slain, run up and down
Cursing the name of thee and Gaveston.

Y. Mor. When wert thou in the field with banner spread,
But once? and then thy soldiers marched like players
With garish robes, not armour; and thyself
Bedaubed with gold, rode laughing at the rest,
Nodding and shaking of thy spangled crest,
Where women's favours hung like labels down.
Lanc. And therefore came it that the fleering Scots
To England's high disgrace have made this jig :
'Maids of England, sore may you mourn

For your lem ins you have lost at Bannocksbourn,
With a heave and a ho.

What weeneth the King of England

So som to have won Scotland?

With a rombelow.

The concluding ditty is that quoted by Fabyan as having been sung by the Scots after Bannockburn (see above at page 171).

Detached lines and passages in Edward II. possess much poetical beauty or imaginative power. Thus, in answer to Leicester, the king

says:

Leicester, if gentle words might comfort me,
Thy speeches long ago had eased my sorrows;
For kind and loving hast thou always been.
The griefs of private men are soon allayed,
But not of kings. The forest deer being struck,
Runs to an herb that closeth up the wounds:
But when the imperial lion's flesh is gored,
He rends and tears it with his wrathful paw,
And highly scorning that the lowly earth
Should drink his blood, mounts up to the air.

Young Mortimer's device for the royal pageant was:
A lofty cedar tree fair flourishing,

On whose top branches kingly eagles perch,
And by the bark a canker creeps me up,
And gets into the highest bough of all.

For the story Marlowe follows not so much Fabyan as the chronicles of Stow, Holinshed, and Baker.

Marlowe's unfinished poem of Hero and Leander, founded on the classic story of the sixth-century Musæus, was first published in 1598. Marlowe completed the first and second Sestiads of his paraphrase, and they were reprinted with a completion (four sestiads) by Chapman in 1600. A few lines will show his command of the heroic couplet :

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.

When two are stripped, long ere the race begin,
We wish that one should lose, the other win.
And one especially do we affect

Of two gold ingots, like in each respect.
The reason no man knows : let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes:
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:

Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

The last memorable line was quoted from the 'Dead Shepherd' by Shakespeare in As You Like It. 'Blood is the god of war's rich livery,' 'Above our life we love an absent friend,' More childish valorous than worldly wise,' are pregnant single lines; Things past recovery are hardly cured with exclamations' has a modern ring.

Of the following pieces which first appeared in the Passionate Pilgrim (see page 257), the first is in England's Helicon given as by Marlowe, and the second by Ignoto.' But in one copy the initials of Sir Walter Raleigh are attached; and we have the explicit statement of Izaak Walton that the pieces were really by Marlowe and Raleigh respectively -an attribution now generally accepted. Posterity also agrees with Walton that Marlowe's poem 'choicely good.'

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and vallies, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wooll,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs :
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing,
For thy delight, each May-morning :
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

The Nymph's Reply.
(By Sir Walter Raleigh.)

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

But Time drives flocks from field to fold,
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields
To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,
Thy cup, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten,

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,
Thy coral clasps and amber studs ;
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee, and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then those delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

See the editions of Marlowe by Dyce (1850 and 1858), Cunningham (1872), and Bullen (3 vols. 1888); New Light on Kyd and Marlowe, by Mr Boas in the Fortnightly for February 1899; and Mr Boas's edition of Kyd (1900). Marlowe's best plays are included in the Mermaid' series (ed. Havelock Ellis, 1887). Dr Faustus was elaborately edited by Professor A. W. Ward, and Tamburlaine by A. Wagner (Heilb. 1885). See also Mr Swinburne's essay, Symonds's Shakespeare's Predecessors, and Mr Churton Collins's Essays and Studies (1895).

Richard Carew (1555-1620), of Antony House in East Cornwall, was bred at Christ Church, Oxford, but spent most of his life as an active and cultured country gentleman on his own estate. He was the first to essay an English rendering of Tasso; but of his translation-Godfrey of Bulloigne or the Recoverie of Hierusalem-only five cantos appeared (1594). Carew kept much closer to his original than Fairfax did, was often correct where

Fairfax blundered, and was sometimes (though seldom) as rhythmical. The apostrophe in the first book will serve for comparison with Fairfax's version (given below at page 445):

O Muse! thou that thy head not compassest
With fading bayes which Helicon doth beare;
But bove in skyes, amids the Quyers blest,

Dost golden crowne of starres immortal weare, Celestiall flames breath thou into my brest, Enlighten thou my song; and pardon where I fainings weave with truth, and verse with art Of pleasings deckt, wherein thou hast no part. His entertaining Survey of Cornwall (1602) describes the manners and customs of the people, and gives a pretty full account, with specimens, of the Cornish language, then still spoken. He does not omit the 'common byword-By Tre, Pol, and Pen, you shall know the Cornishmen;' and then goes on to record a sad fact:

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But the principall love and knowledge of this language lived in Doctor Kennall the civilian, and with him lyeth buryed: for the English speach doth still encroche upon it, and hath driven the same into the uttermost skirts of the shire. Most of the inhabitants no word of Cornish; but very few are ignorant of the English and yet some so affect their owne as to a stranger they will not speake it for if meeting them by chance you enquire the way or any such matter, your answere shal be, Meea navidva cowzasawzneck, I can speake no Saxonage.' The English which they speake is good and pure as receyving it from the best hands of their owne gentry and the easterne marchants: but they disgrace it in part with a broad and rude accent, and eclipsing (somewhat like the Somersetshire men) specially in pronouncing names.

His Epistle concerning the Excellencies of the English Tongue (1605) is slight but interesting. He argues that in the four main points-significance, easiness, copiousness, and sweetness-English is comparable if not preferable to any other in use at this day.' The ground language 'appertaineth to the old Saxon ;' and our having borrowed 'from the Dutch, the Britaine, the Roman, the Dane, the French, the Italian, the Spaniard,' so far from 'making Littletons hotch-potch of our tongue or a Babelish confusion,' is amply warranted by the results, especially by the copiousness secured. (Littleton's Tenures, reproduced in 'Coke-uponLittleton,' was long the standard authority on the branch of English law called Hotchpot.) The conclusion is:

Moreover, the Copiousnesse of our Language appeareth in the diversitie of our Dialects; for we have Court and we have Countrie English, we have Northerne and Southerne, grosse and ordinarie, which differ each from the other not onely in the Terminations, but also in many words, termes, and phrases, and expresse the same thinges in divers sorts, yet all right English alike. Neither can any Tongue, as I am perswaded, deliver a Matter with more Variety than ours, both plainly, and by Proverbes and Metaphors: for example, when we would be rid of one, we use to say, Be going, trudge, packe; Bee faring

hence; Away; Shift; and by Circumlocution, Rather your Roome than your Companie; Lets see your backe; Come againe when I bid you, when you are called, sent for, intreated, willed, desired, invited; Spare us your place; Another in your stead; A ship of salt for you; Save your credite; You are next the doore; The doore is open for you; There is no body holdeth you; No body teares your sleeve, &c. . . . And in a word, to close up these proofs of our Copiousnesse, look into our imitations of all sorts of Verses affoorded by any other Language, and you shall finde that Sir Philip Sidney, M. Puttenham, M. Stanihurst, and divers more have made use how farre we are within compasse of a fore-imagined possibilitie in that behalfe.

...

I come now to the last and sweetest point, of the sweetnesse of our Tongue, which shall appeare the more plainely if we match it with our Neighboures. The Italian is pleasante, but without Sinews, as a still fleeting Water; the French delicate, but even nice as a Woman, scarce daring to open her Lippes, for feare of marring her Countenance; the Spanish Majestical, but fulsome, running too much on the o, and terrible like the Devil in a Play; the Dutch manlike, but withall very harsh, as one ready at every word to picke a quarrel. Now we, in borrowing from them, give the Strength of Consonants to the Italian, the full Sound of Words to the French, the Varietie of Terminations to the Spanish, and the mollifying of more Vowels to the Dutch; and so, like Bees, gather the Honey of their good Properties, and leave the Dregs to themselves. And thus when substantialnesse combineth with delightfullnesse, fullnesse with finenesse, seemlinesse with portlinesse, and currantnesse with staidnesse, how can the Language which consisteth of all these sound other than most full of Sweetnesse?

Againe, the long wordes that we borrow being intermingled with the short of our owne store, make up a perfect Harmonie, by culling from out which Mixture (with judgment) you may frame your Speech according to the Matter you must worke on, majesticall, pleasant, delicate, or manly, more or lesse, in what sort you please. Adde hereunto, that whatsoever Grace any other Language carrieth in Verse or Prose, in Tropes or Metaphors, in Eccho's and Agnominations, they may all be lively and exactly represented in ours. Will you have Piato's Veine? read Sir Thomas Smith; the Ionicke? Sir Thomas Moore; Cicero's? Ascham; Varro? Chaucer; Demosthenes? Sir John Cheeke; who hath comprised all the Figures of Rhetoricke. Will you read Virgil? take the Earle of Surry; Catullus? Shakspeare, and Barlowes Fragment; Ovid? Daniel; Lucan? Spencer; Martial? Sir John Davies, and others. Will you have all in all for Prose and Verse? take the Miracle of our Age, Sir Philip Sidney.

And thus, if mine owne Eies bee not blinded by Affection, I have made yours to see, that the most renowned of all other Nations have laid up as in a Treasure and entrusted the divisos orbe Britannos with the rarest Jewels of the Lips Perfections; whether you respect the Understanding for Significancie, or the Memorie for Easinesse, or the Conceit for Plentifullnesse, or the Eare for Pleasantnesse: wherein if enough be delivered, to add more than enough were superfluous; if too little, I leave it to be supplied by better stored Capacities; if ought amisse, I submit the same to the Discipline of everie able and impartial Censurer.

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke (1554–1628", born at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire; from Shrewsbury passed to Jesus College, Cambridge; with his school friend Philip Sidney visited Heidelberg (1577); sat in parliament and he'd various offices under Elizabeth and James I.; in 1603 was made a Knight of the Bath, and in 1620 Lord Brooke. He was stabbed by an old servant who had found he was not mentioned in his master's will; the man, struck with remorse, then slew himself. Greville's tomb may still be seen in St Mary's Church at Warwick, with the emphatic epitaph written by himself: 'Fulke Grevill, servant to Queene Elizabeth, conceller to King James, frend to Sir Philip Sidney.' He was a thoughtful, sententious author both in prose and verse, though nearly all his productions were unpublished till after his death. His poems consist of Treatises on Monarchy, Religion, and Humane Learning, two tragedies, 109 sonnets, &c. He also wrote a Life of Sir Philip Sidney (1652), whom, he said, he had lived with and known from a child, yet never knew him other than a man.' The whole works of Lord Brooke have been collected and edited by Dr A. B. Grosart (4 vols. 1870), who has also published The Friend of Sir Philip Sidney (1895). A few stanzas from the Treatise on Monarchy describing the prehistoric age will show the dignified style of Fulke Greville's verse:

There was a time before the times of Story
When Nature raign'd instead of Laws or Arts,
And mortal gods, with men made up the glory
Of one Republick by united hearts.

Earth was the common seat, their conversation
In saving love, and our's in adoration.

For in those golden days, with Nature's chains
Both King and People seem'd conjoyn'd in one;
Both nurst alike, with mutual feeding veins,
Transcendency of either side unknown;

Princes with men using no other arts
But by good dealing to obtain good hearts.

Power then maintaind it self even by those arts
By which it grew as Justice, Labor, Love;
Reserved sweetness did it self impart
Even unto slaves, yet kept it self above,
And by a meek descending to the least,
Enviless sway'd and govern'd all the rest.

Order there equal was; Time courts ordain'd
To hear, to judge, to execute, and make
Few and good rules, for all griefs that complain'd:
Such care did princes of their people take

Before this art of Power allay'd the Truth:
So glorious of Man's greatness is the youth.
What wonder was it then if those thrones found
Thanks as exorbitant as was their merit?
Wit to give highest tributes, being bound
And wound up by a princely ruling spirit
To worship them for their gods after death
Who in their life exceeded humane faith?

William Shakespeare. Shakespeare, the greatest poet and dramatist not merely of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, but of any age or country, was born nearly six years after the accession of Queen Elizabeth. His life extended over fifty-two years, and when he died James I. had occupied the throne of England for thirteen years.

Of his elder literary contemporaries, Sir Walter Raleigh was his senior by twelve years; John Lyly and Richard Hooker each by ten years; Robert Greene by four; Francis Bacon by three; and Christopher Marlowe, his tutor in tragedy, by only two months. Of his younger contemporaries, Ben Jonson was his junior by nine years, John Fletcher by eleven, Massinger by nineteen, and Francis Beaumont by twenty. Milton, who, from both chronological and critical points of view, was next Shakespeare the greatest English poet, was born when Shakespeare was forty-four years old, and was only contemporary with him for the first eight years of life.

I. The obscurity with which Shakespeare's biography has been long credited is greatly exaggerated.1 The mere biographical information accessible is far more definite and more abundant than that concerning any other dramatist of the day. Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, was a dealer in agricultural produce at Stratford-on-Avon, a prosperous country town in the heart of England. John Shakespeare was himself son of a small farmer residing in the neighbouring village of Snitterfield. The family was of good yeoman stock. Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was also daughter of a local farmer who enjoyed somewhat greater wealth and social standing than the poet's father and his kindred. William Shakespeare, the eldest child that survived infancy, was baptised in the parish church of Stratford-on-Avon on 26th April 1564.

The poet was educated with a younger brother, Gilbert, at the public grammar-school of Stratfordan institution re-established by Edward VI. on a mediæval foundation. The course of study was mainly confined to the Latin classics, and Shakespeare proved his familiarity with the Latin schoolbooks in use at Elizabethan grammar-schools by quoting many phrases from them in his earliest play, Love's Labour's Lost. Until Shakespeare was thirteen years old his father's fortunes prospered. Within that period John Shakespeare took a prominent part in the municipal affairs of Stratford. After holding many inferior offices, he was elected an alderman in 1565, and in 1568 he became bailiff or mayor. But about 1577 his business declined,

The outline of Shakespeare's career here supplied is based by the present writer on his Life of William Shakespeare, first published in 1898, to which the reader is referred for an exhaustive account of the facts, together with the original sources of information. The illustrated library edition of the work published in 1899 contains the latest corrections and a few additions. A cheaper popular edition, somewhat abbreviated for the use of students and general readers, appeared in 1900.

and he was involved for many years afterwards in a series of pecuniary difficulties. As a consequence his eldest son was removed from school at the early age of thirteen or thereabouts, and was brought into the paternal business to buy and sell agricultural produce. But he was not destined to render his family much assistance in that capacity. In 1582, when eighteen years old, he increased his father's anxieties by marrying. His wife Anne was daughter of Richard Hathaway, a farmer residing in the adjoining hamlet of Shottery. She was no less than eight years her lover's senior. There is good reason to believe that Shakespeare was a reluctant party to the marriage, to which he was driven by the lady's friends in order to protect her reputation. The ceremony took place in November 1582, and a daughter, Susanna, was born in the following May. A year later twins were born, a son and daughter, named respectively Hamnet and Judith. Shakespeare had no more children, and it is probable that in 1585 he left his family at Stratford to seek a livelihood elsewhere, and for some twelve years saw little or nothing of his wife and children.

A credible tradition assigns the immediate cause of Shakespeare's abandonment of his country home to a poaching adventure in Sir Thomas Lucy's park at Charlecote, which is situated within five miles of Stratford. It is related that he was caught there in the act of stealing deer and rabbits, and was ordered to be whipped and imprisoned by the owner, Sir Thomas Lucy. Shakespeare is reported to have penned bitter verses (which have not survived) on his prosecutor, and Lucy's threat of further punishment is said to have finally driven Shakespeare from Stratford. He subsequently avenged himself on Sir Thomas Lucy by caricaturing him as Justice Shallow in the Second Part of Henry IV. and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

There is a further tradition that Shakespeare on leaving Stratford served as schoolmaster in an adjacent village. But there is little doubt that at an early date in 1586, when twenty-two years old, he travelled on foot to London, passing through Oxford on the way. It was with the capital city of the country that the flower of his literary life was to be identified. London was chiefly his home during the twenty-three years that elapsed between 1586 and 1609, between the twenty-third and forty-sixth years of his age.

Probably only one resident in London was already known to him on his arrival-Richard Field, who some seven years before had left Stratford to be bound apprentice to the London printer Vautrollier. Field subsequently printed for Shakespeare the earliest work that he sent to press. On his settlement in the metropolis Shakespeare sought a living at the theatre. It is said that at first he tended visitors' horses outside a playhouse. In a very short time he was employed inside the playhouse, probably as call-boy; but opportunity of trying his skill an actor was given him, and he stood

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