CHAPTER IV.

SHAKSPEARE'S WORLDLY CIRCUMSTANCES.

WHATEVER else may have been the case, after the ninth decade, at all events, Shakspeare not only possessed patrons and friends among the public, but also among the higher circles of London society; and they not merely valued the poet's works but took a great interest in him personally. His worldly circumstances also seem to have improved in the same proportion as he rose in fame as a poet and man. The document of the year 1596-a petition from the proprietors and players of Blackfriars Theatre to the Queen's Privy Council where Shakspeare's name stands fifth among the proprietors named, is, indeed, as much suspicious of being a forgery as the list of the number of shares and other property which Shakspeare is said to have possessed in the wardrobe and the 'properties' of Blackfriars Theatre.* But we know from extant records and letters, that in the Spring of 1597 he purchased, for 601., one of the best houses in his native town, known by the name of New Place; that in the following year he received various solicitations from his own townsmen for loans in money, and, as it seems, complied with the requests; that in May 1602 he added a large piece of arable land to his possessions in Stratford, for which he paid 3207.; that in September of the same year, a copyhold property (cottagium) together with appurtenances was made over to him; that he soon afterwards, in addition, purchased for 60l. a messuage or farm-house, with two barns, two gardens, and two orchards; that in 1605, for 4407. he took on lease the half of the great and small tithes of Stratford, and that as early as

* The first document Collier claims to have discovered in the State Paper Office; the second among the papers of Bridgewater House. Ingleby, p. 289 ff. 246 f.

1613 he bought a house in London in the neighbourhood of Blackfriars for 1401. As money in those days was five times more valuable that it now is, the sums thus expended prove that Shakspeare had gradually become a wealthy man.

Accordingly, as early as the end of the sixteenth century he, no doubt, was one of the first and most influential members of the Lord Chamberlain's company. It was upon his recommendation that the first piece with which Ben Jonson appeared as a theatrical poet (Every man in His Humour was accepted, although the governing body at first wished to have it rejected. In the already mentioned patent (of the 17th of May, 1603) in which James I. took the company into his service, and sanctioned their giving all kinds of dramatic performances, not only in the Globe Theatre in London, but in any other towns, universities, &c., Shakspeare's name stands second on the list beside that of Laurence Fletcher, who, as it seems, was named first merely on account of his special and personal relations to the king. That Elizabeth and James honoured Shakspeare's poetical works with their special approbation is expressly attested by Ben Jonson in his well known eulogy, written in memory of his beloved friend, for the folio edition of Shakspeare's works. Tradition reports that the Maiden Queen found such special pleasure in the character of Falstaff, that she expressed a wish to see him exhibited in love in another play, and moreover one to be performed within fourteen days-this is said to have induced Shakspeare to write the Merry Wives of • Windsor.' Such is the report given with actual certainty by Dennis and Rowe (probably from the mouth of Dryden and Davenant), and we have no reason to doubt the truth of the statement; on the contrary internal reasons-in the form and subject of the piece-seem to corroborate it. King James (perhaps on the occasion of a performance of Macbeth') is even said to have condescended to write an amicable letter to Shakspeare in his own hand. This has been doubted for reasons of etiquette, but as King James' condescension—as Dyce wishes us to remember-occasionally even took the form of un-kingly familiarity, and that the most trustworthy persons (such as the Duke of

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Buckingham) had seen the letter in Sir W. Davenant's hands, into whose possession it had fallen, there is no reason why we should deny the weak potentate the honour of writing the letter, seeing that there is so little else to honour in him.* In any case the long list of Shakspeare's plays which, according to the partially extant 'Accounts of the Revels,' were performed at the King's command after Nov. 1604, prove that Shakspeare's dramas were as much liked at Court as on the popular stage.

Accordingly we may with safety assume that it was not only the opinion of a single critic, but the public voice, when Francis Merest maintains that: as Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines: so Shakespeare among ye English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy witness his Gentlemen of Verona,' The Comedy of Errors,' 'Love's Labour Lost,' Love's Labour Won' (probably' All's Well that Ends Well'), 'Midsummer-night's Dream,' and The Merchant of Venice'; for tragedy his 'Richard II.' 'Richard III.' Henry IV.' 'King John,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and Romeo and Juliet;' and then adds, ' as Epius Stolo said, that the Muses would speake with Plautus tongue, if they would speake Latin: so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakspeare's fine filed phrase, if they would speake English.' Weever indulges in similar eulogies,‡ in a Sonnet addressed to Shakspeare, where after speaking of Venus and Adonis' and 'Lucrece,' he especially commends 'Romeo, and Richard, and their powerful attractive beauty. Equally

*The letter of Sam. Daniel, the poet, to Lord Egerton, which Collier claims to have discovered in Bridgewater House, and which intimates that Shakspeare applied for the office of a 'Master of the King's Revels,' but did not receive-because he was an actor,-and also James' patent, by which Shakspeare, Daborn, and others were nominated instructors of the Children of the Revellers to the Queene,' are, however, most probably likewise forgeries. Ingleby, p. 247 f. 252 f. In his Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury, 1598. Meres, it seems, enumerates the comedies in the chronological order in which they appeared; the tragedies, however, he evidently divides into two classes, the historical and the non-historical plays, and for this reason he names Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet the two non-historical plays last, although Titus Andronicus was assuredly much older than the historical dramas mentioned.

Weever, who published a collection of epigrams in 1599.

enthusiastic is Ben Jonson in his commendations of Shakspeare (his friend but also his rival) when in the abovementioned eulogy he says: "I confess thy writings to be such as neither man nor Muse can praise too much. 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage;' and again when he calls him the 'soul of the age! the applause! the delight and wonder of our stage,' and expressly places him, not only above Chaucer and Spenser, Lilly and Kyd, but also above Marlowe and Beaumont, nay, even above the ancient writers whom he esteemed so highly. We have no reason to doubt that this estimate of Shakspeare, as Ben Jonson asserts, was the general opinion; for even a man like J. Webster, a follower of the new antagonistic tendency of dramatic art, and no personal friend of Shakspeare's, mentions him nevertheless among the most distinguished theatrical poets of the day, for, in the preface to his tragedy 'Vittoria Corombona,' which was printed in 1612, he remarks: For mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of other men's worthy labours, especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman; the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light, &c.' *

* Some recent opponents of Shakspeare have understood the word 'industry' to signify that Webster thereby meant to call Shakspeare a manufacturer of stage plays. But this only proves that they understand but little English. The word industry in the sixteenth and seventeenth century was never used in the sense of blame, but only of praise or diligence and assiduity, and Webster, therefore, unquestionably, merely intended to commend, not the number but also the industrious, careful, composition of Shakspeare's dramas, and the success they met with. That he should name Chapman first, and Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher before Shakspeare is just as characteristic of his judgment and taste, as of his tendency and position: for it was only at a leter date that he belonged to the more modern school, the most eminent representatives of which were the four above-mentioned poets.-(Compare Book iii.)

CHAPTER V.

SHAKSPEARE'S POETICAL CAREER.

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THE decennium between 1597 and 1606 may perhaps have been the brightest period of Shakspeare's lifetime. Up to 1597-98 he had already written the twelve dramas enumerated by Meres, and no doubt also a number of youthful productions which Meres has passed over unnoticed. These were succeeded, probably at least, up to the year 1606 by Hamlet,' 'Othello,' King Lear,' Henry V.,' The Merry Wives of Windsor,' 'Much Ado about Nothing,'Twelfth Night,' As You Like It,''Measure for Measure,' and perhaps, also, by even one or other of his remaining pieces. Hence, in spite of the generally very unsafe determinations as regards the dates of the first appearance of his dramas, still I think we may with some degree of certainty distinguish four different periods in Shakspeare's poetical career, and an equal number of stages in the development of his style, his mind, and his character. I consider that such plays as Titus Andronicus,' The Two Gentlemen of Verona,' 'The Comedy of Errors,' Love's Labour Lost,' The Taming of the Shrew,' the three parts of Henry VI.,' 'Pericles,' * and any other of the doubtful plays that may belong to him, still exhibit a certain youthful awkwardness, harshness, and immoderation; at one time an inclination to Marlowe's bombast, at another to Greene's diffuseness and super ficiality, a certain ruggedness and abruptness, not only of language, but in the whole way in which the subject

* Dyce and Delius consider Pericles to be a work of some other author, which Shakspeare merely remodelled about 1608. I regard it as improbable that Shakspeare should, at so late a date, have applied himself to improving other men's works. Moreover, the inequality of the separate parts do not strike me as being so very marked, and accordingly my opinion is, that the play is a youthful production, which, however, Shakspeare partially remodelled in 1608.