Mr. Phillipps says: "There appears to have been generally a disinclination on Shakespeare's part to originate either plots or incidents. Writing first for a living, and then for affluence, his sole aim was to please an audience, most of whom, be it remembered, were not only illiterate, but unable to either read or write."

"Lucrece" was published in May; "printed by Richard Field for John Harrison." The dedication is as follows:

To the Right Honourable, Henry Wriothesley, Earle of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield:

The loue I dedicate to your Lordship is without end: wherof this Pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous Moity. The warrant I haue of your Honourable disposition, not the worth of my vntutord Lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I haue done is yours, what I haue to doe is yours, being part in all I haue deuoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duety would shew greater; meane time, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life still lengthned with all happinesse. Your Lordships in all duety.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Mr.

The dedications of the two poems are the only specimens we have of Shakespeare's prose. Phillipps says: "This magnificent poem almost immediately secured for its author a higher reputation than would have been established by the most brilliant efforts of dramatic art."

September 3. A work entered at Stationers' Hall, entitled "Willobie his Avisa; Or, the true Picture

of a modest Maid and of a chast and constant

Wife" contains these lines: —

"In Lavine Land though Livie bost,

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There hath beene seene a Constant dame;
Though Rome lament that she have lost
The gareland of her rarest fame,

Yet now we see that here is found

As great a Faith in English ground.

Though Collatine have deerely bought
To high renowne a lasting life,

And found that most in vaine have sought

To have a Faire and Constant wife,

Yet Tarquyne pluckt his glistering grape,

And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape.”

It is possible that Shakespeare is meant by the words "his familiar frend W. S." in Henry Willobie's "Italo-Hispalensis," 1594, and in cantos 45 and 47 of the "Avisa."

An unknown author in 1594 wrote "Epicedium. A funerall Song, upon the vertuous life and godly death of the right worshipfull Lady Helen Branch." It contains these lines:

"You that to shew your wits have taken toyle

In regist'ring the deeds of noble men,

And sought for matter in a forraine soyle
As worthie subjects of your silver pen,

Whom you have rais'd from darke oblivion's den;
You that have writ of chaste Lucretia,

Whose death was witnesse of her spotlesse life;

Or pen'd the praise of sad Cornelia,

Whose blamelesse name hath made her fame so rife
As noble Pompey's most renouned wife,

Hither unto your home direct your eies,

Whereas, unthought on, much more matter lies."

In this year, also, Michael Drayton wrote:

"Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long,
Lately reviv'd to live another age,

And here arriv'd to tell of Tarquin's wrong,

Her chaste denial, and the tyrants rage,

Acting her passions on our stately stage,
She is remember'd, all forgetting me,

Yet I as fair and chaste as ere was she."

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Before June 25, the second edition of "Venus and Adonis came out. In June "Titus Andronicus" was performed at Newington Butts.

"The earliest definite notice of [Shakespeare's] appearance on the stage is one in which he is recorded as having been a player in two comedies that were acted before Queen Elizabeth in the following December, at Greenwich Palace.

"The fact of Shakespeare having performed before Queen Elizabeth, 1594, is established by the following entry recorded in the manuscript accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber: To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, and Richarde Burbage, servauntes to the Lord Chamberleyne, upon the Councelles warrant dated at Whitehall xv. to Marcij, 1594, for twoe severall comedies, or enterludes, shewed by them before her Majestie in Christmas tyme laste paste, — viz., upon St. Stephens daye and Innocentes daye, — xiij. li. vj. s. viij. d., and by waye of her Majesties rewarde vj. li. xiij. s. iiij. d., in all xx. li.' The Court was then at Greenwich Palace. For making ready at Grenewich for the Qu. Majestie against her Highnes coming thether, by the space of viij. daies mense Decembr., 1594, as appereth by a bill signed by the Lord Chamberleyne, viij. li. xiij. s. iiij. d.' — MS. ibid. 'To Tho: Sheffeilde, under-keaper of her Majesties house at Grenewich for thallowaunce of viij. labourers there

three severall nightes, at xij. d. the man by reason it was night-woorke, for making cleane the greate chamber, the Presence, the galleries and clossettes, mense Decembr., 1594, xxiiij. s.' — MS. ibid." (H.-P. i. 119, 121.)

From this date Shakespeare

66 was never known to write for any other managers but those with whom he was theatrically connected."

The earliest notice of the "Comedy of Errors" appears in an account of Gray's Inn Revels, or "Gesta Grayorum." It describes a perforinance on the evening of December 28, 1594, and says:

"After their departure, the throngs and tumults did somewhat cease, although so much of them continued as was able to disorder and confound any good inventions whatsoever; in regard whereof, as also for that the sports intended were especially for the gracing of the Templarians, it was thought good not to offer anything of account save dancing and revelling with gentlewomen; and after such sports a Comedy of Errors, like to Plautus his Menechmus, was played by the players. So that night was begun and continued to the end in nothing but confusion and errors, whereupon it was ever afterwards called the Night of Errors."

Mr. Phillipps believes "that the play was acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Company, that to which Shakespeare was then attached, and the owners of the copyright."

The following is a copyright entry:

"1594, 9 May. Mr. Harrison Sen. - Entred for his copie, vnder thand of Mr. Cawood, warden, a booke intituled the Ravyshement of Lucrece."

"1594, 25 Junij. Mr. Harrison Sen. Assigned ouer vnto him from Richard Feild, in open court holden this day, a book called Venus and Adonis, the which was before entred to Ric. Feild, 18 April, 1593."

Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity" appears.

1595. Mr. Phillipps thinks that Shakespeare may have adapted and partly written the anonymous drama entitled the "Reign of King Edward the Third," entered at Stationers' Hall, December 1, 1595. One of its lines

"Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds"

is found in the poet's ninety-fourth sonnet. The sonnets " were not printed for many years afterwards."

Shakespeare is named on the margin of a volume printed in Cambridge in 1595 and called "Polimanteia; Or, the Meanes lawfull and unlawfull, to judge of the fall of a Commonwealth, against the frivolous and foolish Conjectures of this Age." Mr. Phillipps says: "The author is eulogizing in his text the poets of England as superior to those of foreign nations, but the two side-notes (one consisting of three and the other of two words) in which references are made to the early poems of Shakespeare appear to be merely illustrative examples in support of the author's main position. They seem to be isolated, and altogether unconnected with other marginalia.”

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