bore upon its title-page the abbreviation "By W. S." Evidently an unscrupulous publisher, in order to help the sale of the play, came as near as he dared to claiming that Shakespeare was the author. At that date no play of Shakespeare had appeared in print except a 1594 quarto of "Titus Andronicus," of which we have one copy, discovered in Sweden in 1904. The play upon which Shakespeare based his "King John" bore the title "The Troublesome Raigne of John King of England." The first edition of "The Troublesome Raigne" in 1591, was anonymous. The second edition of 1611 bore on its title-page the claim "Written by W. Sh." In 1622, six years after Shakespeare's death, the third edition presented itself as "Written by W. Shakespeare."

Shakespeare was the first English dramatist whose plays were published in collected form after his death. They came out in 1623 in the imposing First Folio. William Prynne the Puritan declared indignantly in 1632: "Shakespeare's plays are printed in the best crown paper, far better than most Bibles."1 In the seventeenth century four folio editions of his works were published, in 1623, 1632, 1663-64, 1685. The first of the many modern editions of his plays was brought out by Rowe in 1709. Shakespeare's popularity has never greatly declined at any time.

Lowndes records an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher in 1711, and one of Ben Jonson in 1716. The first modern, annotated edition of Beaumont and Fletcher came out in 1750; the first of Ben Jonson, in 1756. Eight important annotated editions of Shakespeare were published before 1750.

In a tribute prefixed to an edition of Shakespeare's 1I, 369.

Poems in 1640, Leonard Digges gives conclusive evidence concerning the early popularity of Shakespeare's plays with the theatergoers, and compares him directly in this respect with his great friend, rival, and critic, Ben Jonson. Digges tells us:

So have I seen, when Cæsar would appear,
And on the stage at half-sword parley were
Brutus and Cassius,-O how the audience

Were ravish'd! with what wonder they went thence!
When some new day they would not brook a line
Of tedious, though well-laboured, Catiline.
Sejanus too was irksome; they priz'd more

Honest Iago, or the jealous Moor.

And though The Fox and subtle Alchemist,

Long intermitted, could not quite be miss'd;

Though these have sham'd all the ancients, and might raise
Their author's merit with a crown of bays;
Yet these sometimes, even at a friend's desire
Acted, have scarce defray'd the seacoal fire

And door-keepers; when let but Falstaff come,

Hal, Poins, the rest, you scarce shall have a room,

All is so pester'd. Let but Beatrice

And Benedick be seen, lo, in a trice

The cockpit, galleries, boxes, all are full;

[Or] To hear Malvolio, that cross-garter'd gull.

But why do I dead Shakespeare's praise recite?

Some second Shakespeare must of Shakespeare write.1

We will now glance at a few striking references to Shakespeare that preceded the appearance of the First Folio in 1623.

A book entitled Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, written by Francis Meres, "Maister of Artes of both Universities," appeared in 1598. A sketch, or short treatise, which comes near the close of the work bears the title "A comparative discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets." In this "comparative discourse"

1I, 456-57.

Shakespeare is mentioned nine separate times. Of his eminence as a dramatist, Meres says:

As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love labors lost, his Love labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; for Tragedy his Richard the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King Iohn, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Iuliet.1

This contemporary testimony to Shakespeare's greatness is refreshing. There are many things in Meres' book, however, which show that, while he was exceptionally well informed, he did not possess much critical acumen. The judgment just cited probably represents the popular estimate as observed by a regular attendant at the theater.

Three plays written and acted at Cambridge University somewhere between 1597 and 1603 make up a series. They are "The Pilgrimage to Parnassus," and "The Return from Parnassus," Part I and Part II. The character Gullio, in "The Return from Parnassus, Part I," raves over the beauties of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis." He says:

Let this duncified world esteem of Spenser and Chaucer, I'll worship sweet Mr. Shakespeare, and to honour him will lay his Venus and Adonis under my pillow, as we read of slept with Homer under his bed's head."

one

Since Gullio (the gull) is an "arrant braggart," and "empty pretender to knowledge," and an "avowed libertine," his words are hardly intended by the author as

1I, 46. It seems best not to modernize this passage.

I, 68; Macray's edition of the three plays, Oxford, 1886, p. 63, 11. 1222-27.

'Macray's ed., p. x.

a compliment to Shakespeare. Part I and Part II of "The Return from Parnassus," tell how harshly the world treats the poor Cambridge graduates. Almost as a last resort two young scholars, Philomusus and Studioso, will try to join the actors, and Burbage and Kemp, the most famous actors of the time, have an interview with them, and hear them rehearse dramatic passages. Burbage tells Kemp that a little teaching will correct the faults of acting in the young men, and thinks that they will also be able "to pen a part" when necessary. But Kemp replies: "Few of the university pen plays well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down, aye, and Ben Jonson too." 1

James Bass Mullinger, in his History of the University of Cambridge from 1535 to 1603, holds that the author wishes here "to convey the notion that Shakespeare is the favorite of the rude half-educated strolling players, as distinguished from the refined geniuses of the University." Schücking and Schelling agree with this. Arber, on the contrary, takes this passage as a proof of Shakespeare's "confessed supremacy at that date, not only over all University dramatists, but also over all the London professional playwrights.3

These two views do not really contradict each other. Undoubtedly the passage is a hit at ignorant actors who can even suppose Ovid and Metamorphosis to be two different writers. But the passage is not entirely ironical. 1I, 102; Part II, Macray's ed., 11. 1806-10. Hazlitt-Dodsley, ix, p. 194.

'Cited in Schücking, p. 122; in Macray, p. x.

Edition of The Return from Parnassus [Part II], The Eng. Scholar's Library, London, 1879, p. xiii.

Surely Kemp's objection to playwrights with a university training contains some well-justified criticism. And his exultant pride in Shakespeare's pre-eminence in general favor points to an accepted fact.

It is interesting to note the low estimate of the actor's calling which is voiced by Philomusus:

And must the basest trade yield us relief?

Must we be practis'd to those leaden spouts

That naught [do] vent but what they do receive?1

The two scholars finally refuse to submit to this disgrace, and become fiddlers instead:

Better it is 'mongst fiddlers to be chief

Than at [a] player's trencher beg relief."

At the conclusion of the play the two unhappy scholars decide to end their days as shepherds.

A poem on Shakespeare's death by William Basse has come down to us in ten different manuscript copies and in five printed forms. It was evidently very popular. Munro gives the approximate date of the earliest manuscript as 1622, but the language of the piece implies that it was composed not long after the death of Shakespeare. Ben Jonson alludes to the poem in his famous lines that precede the Shakespeare Folio of 1623 in a way which shows that it is familiar to all. Basse proposes at first that the poet be buried with the greatest of his predecessors in Westminster Abbey. He then accepts the decision that the master shall sleep alone, and possibly refers to the tomb at Stratford.

Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.

1 1 Part II, Macray's ed. 11. 1886-88; Hazlitt-Dodsley, ix, p. 198. 'Part II, Macray's ed. ll. 1956 f; Hazlitt-Dodsley, ix, p. 202.