Chapter V: Section III (1)

ANNALS ON WHICH THE PRECEDING SECTIONS ARE FOUNDED.

Until April 1564.

On 26th April 1564 was baptized William, son of John Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon and Mary Arden, at that time an only child, two girls born previously having died in their infancy. John Shakespeare was son of Richard Shakespeare of Snitterfield, where his brother Henry also resided: he was a glover, who speculated in wool, corn, &c. He lived in Henley Street, Stratford, as early as 29th April 1552, having left his father about 1550, and in October 1556 purchased two small estates in that town--one that is now shown as the birthplace, the other in Greenhill Street. In 1557 he married Mary Arden, whose father, Robert, a yeoman, had contracted a second marriage with Agnes Hill, widow, and in the settlement then made had reserved to Mary the reversion to estates at Wilmecote and Snitterfield. Some part of this land was occupied by Richard Shakespeare's grandfather. Mary Arden also received under her father's will, dated 24th November 1556, a considerable sum in money, and the fee-simple of Asbies at Wilmecote, a house with sixty acres of land. In 1557 John was a burgess, a member of the corporation, and by choice of the Court Leet ale-taster to the borough, sworn to look to the assize and goodness of bread, ale, or beer. In September 1558 he was one of the four constables under the rules of the Court Leet. On 6th October 1559 he was again chosen constable and one of the four affeerors for determining fines under the borough bye-laws. In 1561 he was again chosen affeeror, and one of the borough chamberlains, which office he held till the end of 1563.

1564.

In July the plague broke out in Stratford, and continued to December. There died 238 in that half-year, no Shakespeares among them. John Shakespeare had had an early lesson in sanitation by way of a fine of 12d. in April 1552 for having a muck heap in front of his door in Henley Street, within a stone's-throw of one of the public stores of filth. He now contributed fairly to relieve the poor and plague-stricken; about 12d. per month.

1565.

In March John Shakespeare with his former colleague made up the chamberlain's accounts from September 1563 to 1564. Neither of them could sign their names.

1566.

In February he again made up these accounts, and was paid £3, 2s. 7d. "for a rest of old debt" by the corporation. On 13th October his son Gilbert was baptized.

1567.

In September, Ralph Perrot, brewer, John Shakespeare, and Ralph Cawdrey, butcher, were nominated for the office of High Bailiff or Mayor. Cawdrey was elected. For the first time the name appears as "Mr." John Shakespeare.

1568.

On 4th September "Mr. John Shakysper" was chosen High Bailiff. He was succeeded the next year by Robert Salisbury.

1569.

On 15th April John Shakespeare's third daughter (named Joan after her deceased elder sister) was baptized.

1571.

On 28th September John Shakespeare's fourth daughter Anne was baptized. William was now seven, then the usual age for the commencement of grammar-school education, the use of the Absey book and horn-book having been acquired at home. Lily's _Accidence_ and the _Sententiæ Pueriles_ were the usual text-books for beginners in Latin. Shakespeare had some knowledge of Latin, and a little French; all beyond this is very problematical.

1573.

On 11th March, Richard, John Shakespeare's third son, was baptized.

1575.

John Shakespeare bought two houses in Stratford.

1578.

In January John Shakespeare paid only the amount of borough taxes paid by other aldermen. William was then fourteen, the usual age for commencing apprenticeship. There is a tradition given by Aubrey that he was apprenticed to a butcher. I believe this to be a myth, originating in the epithet "kill-cow," often applied to tragic actors. Some writers still think that the tradition may be relied on. Another story traced to the parish clerk of 1693 is that he followed his father's profession. May be so; may not be.

1579.

In Easter Term Asbies was mortgaged to Edmund Lambert for £40, to revert if repayment be made before Michaelmas 1580.

On 4th July Anne Shakespeare was buried; in the chamberlain's accounts occurs this item: "For the bell and pall for Mr. Shaxper's daughter, 8d.," the highest fee in the list.

On 15th October John Shakespeare and his wife convey their interest in Snitterfield to Robert Webbe. Agnes Arden's will is dated in this year.

1580.

On 3d May, Edmund, son of John Shakespeare, was baptized.

On or before 29th September, the money in discharge of the Asbies mortgage was tendered and refused unless other moneys due were also paid.

1581.

On 19th January the goods of Agnes Arden, deceased, were appraised.

On 1st September Richard Hathaway of Shottery made his will.

1582.

On 28th November the marriage bond between William Shagspere and Anne Hathway was given, under condition that neither party had been precontracted to another person, and that the said William Shagspere should not proceed to solemnization with the said Anne Hathway without consent of her friends. They were to be married with one asking of the banns. The bondsmen were Fulk Sandells and John Richardson,--the seal is R.H., which may be Richard Hathaway's.

1583.

On May 26th Susanna their daughter was baptized. It is assumed that a precontract existed between the parents which, according to the custom of the time, "was not legally recognised, but it invalidated a subsequent union of either of the parties with any one else" (Halliwell, _Outlines_, p. 45). The reader must form his own opinion. Taking into consideration the low morality of the time in such matters, the fact that Anne Hathaway was twenty-six, and Shakespeare eighteen in 1582, the practice still not unknown in rural districts of cohabitation under conditional promise of marriage, should the probable birth of a child make it necessary or prudent, the fact that from 1587 to 1597 we have no evidence that Shakespeare even saw his wife, and the palpable indications in the _Sonnets_ that during this interval he was intriguing with another woman--for my own part I cannot help adopting De Quincey's view that he was entrapped into some such conditional promise by this lady and kept his promise honourably. Compare on the precontract question the plays of _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ by Wilkins, which is founded on the contemporary history of the same Calverley who is the murderer in _The Yorkshire Tragedy_, with Shakespeare's own views in 1604 in _Measure for Measure_; his opinions in _Twelfth Night_, ii. 4 (early part, c. 1592), and _Midsummer Night's Dream_, i. 1, on wives that are older than their husbands: and, by way of showing that his plays do discover sometimes his personal feelings, Valentine's resignation of Silvia in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, with the story involved in the _Sonnets_ of Shakespeare's own transfer of his illicit love.

1585.

February 2. Hamnet and Judith, Shakspeare's twin children, were baptized at Stratford-on-Avon. By April 26th he had certainly attained his majority, and his apprenticeship had probably expired.

1585-7.

Three or four years after his union with Anne Hathaway, he had, says Rowe, "by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and, amongst them, some, that made a frequent practice of deer stealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park, that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford; for this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely, and in order to revenge that ill usage made a ballad upon him, and though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time, and shelter himself in London." Whether this tradition be well founded or no, we are compelled by subsequent events to place the date of Shakespeare's leaving Stratford in or about 1587; and whether there be any truth in the story traced to Davenant or not, that he held horses at the play-house door, while their owners were witnessing performances inside, it is certain that he was very soon connected with the stage, first as actor, then as dramatic writer. It becomes therefore of importance to ascertain if possible the specific company with which he originally joined.

In the latter part of 1585 there were two regular theatres existing in London, the Theater and the Curtain. It clearly appears from a report by Recorder Fleetwood preserved in the Lansdown MSS. that at Whitsuntide 1584 these were occupied by the Queen's players and those of Lord Arundel. It is not clear that a third company, that of Lord Hunsdon, acted at the Theater: although Mr. J. O. H. Phillipps (whom I most usually refer to under his former and better known name of Halliwell) assures us that it is so. It is true that the "owner of the Theater," whom he takes to be a temporary occupier of that building, but whom I regard as the ground landlord, Giles Alleyn, is called a servant of Lord Hunsdon's, and that a company of actors, called Lord Hunsdon's men, acted at Court 27th December 1582; but it does not follow that these men were occupiers of the Theater. In fact the only companies anyhow known to us as in London in 1585 are the two already mentioned. It is by no means likely _à priori_, nor would it agree with the passages hereafter to be referred to in the writings of Greene and Nash, that Shakespeare should immediately on his appearance in London obtain employment in either. But there was a third company not noticed in Collier's _Annals of the Stage_, into which he may easily have obtained admittance. When the Queen's company was formed in 8th March 1582-3, by the selection of twelve players from the companies of the two Dudleys, Earls of Leicester and Warwick, there must have been sufficient men left unemployed to form another company. These were probably still retained by the Earl of Leicester: for in a letter from Sir Philip Sidney, dated Utrecht, 24th March 1575-6, mention is made of "Will, the Earl of Leicester's jesting player," who had gone with the Earl to the Netherlands in December 1575. Thomas Heywood, in his _Apology for Actors_, 1612, tells us that "The King of Denmark, father to him that now reigneth, entertained into his service a company of English comedians, commended unto him by the honourable Earl of Leicester." This King of Denmark, Frederick II., died in 1588, and the exact date of the transaction is fixed by documents dated October 1586, in which we find that five of these actors had been transferred from the service of Frederick II. of Denmark to that of Christian I., Duke of Saxony. I am far from wishing to adopt the conjecture of Mr. Bruce that "jesting Will" was Shakespeare; but when among the names of these five actors--Thomas King, Thomas Stephen, George Bryan, Thomas Pope, Robert Persie--we find two, Pope and Bryan, that are identical with those of two actors in the very first list extant of the first company with which we can positively connect Shakespeare as an actor; when we find this same company acting at Stratford in 1587, at the very time that Shakespeare's disappearance from all known connection with that town for nine years commences; when we find among a list of plays that had been acted by the English in Germany _Hester and Ahasuerus_, _Titus Andronicus_ [_and Vespasian_], both of which we shall trace to Shakespeare's company; when we also find a version of the Corambis _Hamlet_ existing early in the same country--then I think we are justified in saying that there is great likelihood of this company having been the one in which Shakespeare found his first employment. If so, he accompanied it in all its fortunes, and never (as we shall see) forsook it for another.

1586.

Meanwhile in London the plague had prevailed to such an extent that the theatres were shut up during 1586. It was not then during this year that Shakespeare held horses at stage-doors, or obtained employment in London theatres. But at the end of the year Lord Leicester's players returned to England, and in January 1586-87 are mentioned together with the Queen's, the Admiral's, and the Earl of Oxford's, in a letter to Walsingham from a spy of his, which is preserved in the Harleian MSS.

1587.

This same company, the Earl of Leicester's men, visited Stratford-on-Avon in 1587. I have not been able to trace their previous presence there since 1576, although other companies paid frequent visits to this town. It is singular that in this year, the only one in which this company visited Stratford during the twelve years intervening between the birth and death of Hamnet Shakespeare, we find also the only record of the poet's presence in the place of his nativity. I give this in the words of Mr. Halliwell. "In 1578 his parents had borrowed the sum of £40 on the security of his mother's estate of Asbies, from their connexion, Edmund Lambert of Barton-on-the-Heath. The loan remaining unpaid, and the mortgage dying in March 1587, his son and heir John was naturally desirous of having the matter settled. John Shakespeare being at that time in prison for debt, and obviously unable to furnish the money, it was arranged shortly afterwards that Lambert should, on cancelling the mortgage and paying also the sum of £20, receive from the Shakespeares an absolute title to the estate. His offer would perhaps not have been made had it not been ascertained that the eldest son William had a contingent interest, derived no doubt from a settlement, and that his assent was essential to the security of a conveyance. The proposed arrangement was not completed, but" the poet's sanction to it is recorded. I believe that immediately after this, in 1587, Shakespeare left Stratford either with or in order to join Lord Leicester's company.

1588.

The Earl of Leicester died on 4th September 1588. Previously to this date the company of players acting under his patronage had played in London, probably at the Cross-Keys in Bishopsgate Street, and more frequently had travelled in the country. At the death of Dudley, they had of course to seek for a new patron, and no doubt found one in Ferdinando, Lord Strange, whose company (containing as we shall see some of the actors already known as Leicester's men) are first traceable in 1589. An earlier company bearing the title of Lord Strange's men, c. 1582, seem to have been merely acrobats or posture-mongers. But before entering on the history of this company under its new name, of which we _know_ Shakespeare to have been a member, we must note some particulars regarding other dramatists, especially Marlowe, Greene, and Nash, which indirectly concern Shakespeare, and have hitherto been wrongly interpreted.

In 1587, when the Admiral's men re-opened after the plague, they produced, in what succession we need not here determine, Greene's _Orlando_ and _Alphonsus of Arragon_, Peele's _Battle of Alcazar_, and Marlowe's _Tamberlaine_. Those plays are enumerated in Peele's _Farewell_, 1589, as--

"Mahomet's pow, and mighty Tamberlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest."

"Mahomet's pow" is the head of Mahomet in _Alphonsus_; King Charlemagne was probably a character in the complete play of _Orlando_, of which only a mutilated copy has come down to us; Tom Stukeley is the hero of _The Battle of Alcazar_; and "the rest" most likely indicate Lodge's _Marius and Sylla_ and Marlowe's _Faustus_. Greene and Peele wrote no more for this company, but in 1587 removed to the Queen's men, who had been travelling in the country. On 29th March 1588 Greene's _Perimedes the Blacksmith_ was entered on the Stationers' Registers. In the introduction Greene attacks Marlowe and Lodge, who had remained with the Admiral's men, in a passage worth quoting: "I keep my old course still to palter up something in prose, using mine old posy still, _omne tulit punctum_; although lately two gentlemen poets made two madmen of Rome beat it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical buskins, every word filling the mouth like the fa-burden of Bow-bell, daring God out of heaven with that atheist Tamberlaine or blaspheming with the mad priest of the sun. But let me rather openly pocket up the ass at Diogenes' hand than wantonly set out such impious instances of intolerable poetry. Such mad and scoffing poets that have poetical spirits as bred of Merlin's race, if there be any in England that set the end of scholarism in an English blank verse, I think either it is the humour of a novice that tickles them with self-love, or too much frequenting the hot-house (to use the German proverb) hath sweat out all the greatest part of their wits." For the fuller understanding of this satire it may be noted that no "priest of the sun" is known in an early play except in _The Looking-glass for London and England_ by Lodge and Greene, which is certainly of later date than _Perimedes_, yet may indicate Lodge's liking for that character; that Diogenes is the name assumed by Lodge in his _Catharos_, 1591, and that Marlowe's name was written Merlin as often as Marlowe. There can be no doubt as to the persons aimed at, nor of the effect of the satire, for both of them left off writing for the Admiral's men; and Marlowe during the next two years produced _The Jew of Malta_, which can be traced to the Queen's company, and together with Greene, Lodge, and Peele produced the plays of _The Troublesome Reign of King John_, and _The First Part of York and Lancaster_ on which _2 Henry VI._ is founded. The internal evidence for the authorship of these last-mentioned plays is very strong: they were, however, published anonymously.

1589.

Before the entry of Greene's _Menaphon_ on the Stationers' Registers on 23d August 1589, _Hamlet_ and _The Taming of a Shrew_ must have been represented by Pembroke's men, and Marlowe must have left the Queen's company. As _Menaphon_ is accessible in Professor Arber's reprint to the general reader, it will be sufficient to refer to it here without quoting passages in full. That Greene refers so satirically to Marlowe as to prevent our supposing that at this date they could be writing jointly for the same theatre, is clear from a hitherto unnoticed passage in p. 54: "Whosoever descanted of that love told you a _Canterbury_ tale; some _prophetical_ fullmouth, that, as he were a _Cobler's_ eldest son, would by the last tell where another's shoe wrings." Marlowe or _Merlin_ was a shoemaker's son of Canterbury. That Doron in the story is meant for the author of _The Taming of a Shrew_ was shown by Mr. R. Simpson by comparing Doron's speech in p. 74: "White as the hairs that grow on Father Boreas' chin," and the passage in Nash's introduction, p. 5, about mechanical mates, servile imitators of vain-glorious tragedians, who think themselves "more than initiated in poet's immortality if they but once get Boreas by the beard," with the words of the play itself: "whiter than icy hair that grows on Boreas' chin." Mr. Simpson was, however, entirely wrong in identifying Doron with Shakespeare, and did not notice that Doron's entire speech parodies one of Menaphon's in p. 31, just as _The Taming of a Shrew_ parodies Marlowe's plays, or "the mechanical mates" alluded to by Nash imitate the "idiot art-masters" in the "swelling bombast of a bragging blank verse," or the "spacious volubility of a drumming decasyllabon." The name Menaphon is taken from Marlowe's _Tamberlaine_. In these passages Greene and Nash satirise Kyd, then writing for Pembroke's company. In another paragraph, p. 9, Nash speaks of "a sort of shifting companions" that "leave the trade of _Noverint_ whereto they were born," who get their aphorisms from translations of Seneca and can "afford you whole _Hamlets_ of tragical speeches." This passage is familiar to all students of Shakespeare; and yet no one has, I think, pointed out that Nash identifies these "famished followers" of Seneca with the "Kidde in Æsop, who, enamoured with the Fox's newfangles, forsook all hopes of life to leap into a new occupation." This pun in a tractate containing similar allusions to the names Greene, Lyly, and Merlin is equivalent to a direct attribution of the authorship of _Hamlet_ as produced in 1589 to Kyd, and is also a refutation of those who have seen in the whole passage an allusion to Shakespeare.

Very shortly after Greene's _Menaphon_ Nash issued his _Anatomy of Absurdities_, which had been entered on the Stationers' Registers 19th September 1588, and which contains much of the same satirical matter as his address in _Menaphon_.

We have now to pass from the private quarrel of Greene and Nash, as representing the Queen's men at the Theater, with Marlowe and Kyd, the writers for Pembroke's company, to a much more important controversy in which many of the same dramatists were concerned. Between October 1588 and October 1589 the Martinists published their Puritan controversial tracts; in opposition to them various writings had appeared, whose authors were Cooper, formerly schoolmaster, afterwards Bishop; Lyly the Euphuist; Nash the satirist; and Elderton "the bibbing fool" ballad-maker. They had also been ridiculed on the stage, in April 1589, at the Theater, most likely by Greene; at the Paul's school probably by Lyly; and either in ballad or interlude by Antony Munday, even at that early date a dramatic writer. As the anti-Martinist plays were on the side of the clergy and of secular authority they were not interfered with. But in November 1589, in consequence of certain players in London handling "matters of Divinity and State without judgment or decorum"--in other words, having the impertinence to suppose that there could be two sides to a question, Mr. Tylney, the Master of the Revels, suddenly becomes awake to the danger of allowing such discussions on public stages, and writes to Lord Burleigh that he "utterly mislikes all plays within the city." Lord Burleigh sends a letter to the Lord Mayor to "stay" them. The Theater and Curtain, where the Queen's men and Pembroke's were playing, were _without the city_, so that the anti-Martinist plays were not interfered with; the Paul's boys were for the nonce not regarded as a company of players: so that the Mayor could only "hear of" the Admiral's men, who on admonishment dutifully forbore playing, and Lord Strange's, who departed contemptuously, "went to the Cross-Keys and played that afternoon to the great offence of the better sort, that knew they were prohibited." The Mayor then "committed two of the players to one of the compters." These players, however, gained their end, for all plays on either side of the controversy were forthwith suppressed, and commissioners were appointed to examine and licence all plays thenceforth "in and about" the city played by any players "whose servants soever they be."

It is pleasing to find Shakespeare's company acting in so spirited a manner in defence of free thought and free speech: it would be more pleasing to be able to identity him personally as the chief leader in movement. And this I believe he was. The play of _Love's Labour's Lost_, in spite of great alteration in 1597, is undoubtedly in the main the earliest example left us of Shakespeare's work: and the characters in the underplot agree so singularly even in the play as we have it with the anti-Martinist writers in their personal peculiarities that I have little doubt that this play was the one performed in November 1589. If the absence of matter of State be objected, I reply that it would be easy for malice to represent the loss of Love's labour in the main plot as a satire on the love's labour in vain of Alençon for Elizabeth. We must also remember that it is most likely that for some years at the beginning of his career Shakespeare wrote in conjunction with other men, and that in those plays that were revived by him at a later date their work was replaced by his own. In the case of the present play, as the revision was for a Court performance, we may be sure that great care would be taken to expunge all offensive matter: the only ground for surprise is that enough indications remain to enable us to identify the characters at all.

1590.

_Love's Labour's Lost_ would no doubt be closely followed by _Love's Labour's Won_, which play I for other reasons attribute to this year.

We must now again refer to Greene. His _Farewell to Folly_ had been entered on the Stationers' Registers, 11th June 1587, but was not published till after his _Mourning Garment_, the entry of which dates 2d November 1590. In the introduction, which was certainly written at the time of publication, although the body of the work had been lying by for some three years and more, Greene distinctly alludes to _Fair Em_ and accuses its author of "simple abusing of Scripture," because "two lovers on the stage arguing one another of unkindness, his mistress runs over him with this canonical sentence 'a man's conscience is a thousand witnesses'; and her knight again excuseth himself with that saying of the Apostle, 'Love covereth the multitude of sins.'" The exact words in the play are "Love that covers multitude of sins" and "thy conscience is a thousand witnesses." Greene, says Mr. R. Simpson, who first drew attention to this allusion to _Fair Em_ in a paper unfortunately spoiled by an absurd attempt to identify Mullidor,[4] of "great head and little wit," with Shakespeare, has parallel plots to those of _Fair Em_ in his _Tully's Love_ (1589) and _Never Too Late_ (before 2d November 1590). To me the connexion seems closer between this satire, by Greene the profligate parson, based on Scriptural grounds, of a play written for Lord Strange's company, and the persecution they had just endured for venturing to present a play in favour of the Martinists. And as if to emphasise his intention in this direction, Greene says in his Dedication of his tract, "I cannot _Martinize_." That _Fair Em_ was the production of R. Wilson will I think be evident to those who will read it with careful remembrance.

The _Comedy of Errors_ was also probably acted this year in its original form.

1591.

In this year were most likely produced two plays, not in the shape in which they have come down to us, but as originally written by Shakespeare and some coadjutor, viz., _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ and _Romeo and Juliet_. The question of the dates of these and all other plays of Shakespeare will be separately argued further on. It may be just worth while to note that the "pleasant Willy" of Spenser, who has been so carelessly identified with Shakespeare, with Kemp, and with Tarleton (!) is certainly Lyly. The line "doth rather choose to sit in idle cell" (_Tears of the Muses_) identifies him with "slumbering Euphues in his cell at Silexedra" (_Menaphon_). Compare "Euphues' golden legacy found after his death in his cell at Silexedra" (title of Lodge's _Rosalynde_).

1591-2.

In the Christmas Records of this year, the Queen's company made their final appearance at Court on December 26th. Lord Strange's men performed at Whitehall on December 27th, 28th, January 1st, 9th, February 6th, 8th. The import of this fact has not been fully appreciated. The exceptionally large number of performances of Lord Strange's men show a singular amount of Court favour, and go far to prove that Elizabeth did not sanction their persecution at the hands of Burleigh two years before. They henceforth, under various changes of name and constitution, until the closing of the theatres in 1642, retain the chief position in the performances at Court. This date, 1592, is in the history of this company of players, and therefore in that of Shakespeare, their chief poet and one of their best actors, of the very greatest importance.

The old plays of _King John_, on which Shakespeare's was founded, were published this year, as having been acted by the Queen's company--an additional indication of an important change in their internal constitution.

1592.

This year was scarcely less eventful than the preceding for the company to which Shakespeare belonged. On 19th February Henslowe opened the Rose theatre on Bankside for performances by Lord Strange's men under the management of the celebrated actor, Edward Alleyn. Whether (and if at all, for how long) Alleyn had been previously connected with the company, we are not directly informed; but as he gave up playing for Worcester's men, c. January 1588-9, the exact time when the players of the late Earl of Leicester found a new patron in Lord Strange, that is the probable date of his joining them. This possession of a settled place for performance gave his company additional influence and status. At first they played old plays, among which may be mentioned Kyd's _Jeronymo_ and _Spanish Tragedy_, Greene's _Orlando_ and _Friar Bacon_, Greene and Lodge's _Looking-glass_, Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_, and Peele's _Battle of Alcazar_. This last-named play, may, like Greene's _Orlando_, have been originally sold to the Queen's men, and to the Admiral's afterwards; but whether this be so or not, we have the singular fact to explain that four plays, three by Greene and one by Marlowe, all belonging to the Queen's men, are now found in action by Lord Strange's. Combining this with their sudden disappearance from the Court Revels, it would seem that some grave displeasure had been excited against them, and that they had become disorganised. In fact, although they, or a part of them, lingered on in some vague connection with Sussex' players, they now practically disappear from theatrical history. Of new plays Lord Strange's men produced on March 3d, _Henry VI._, which is by the reference to it in Nash's _Piers Penniless_ (entered 8th August 1592) identified with the play now known as _The First Part of Henry VI._ It was acted fourteen times to crowded houses (Nash says to 10,000 spectators), and was the success of the season. I have no doubt that this play was written by Marlowe, with the aid of Peele, Lodge, and Greene, before 1590, and that the episode of Talbot's death added in 1592 is from the hand of Shakespeare himself. In this last opinion it is especially pleasing to me to find myself supported by the critical judgment of Mr. Swinburne. On 11th April the play of _Titus and Vespasian_ was first acted. Had it not been for the existence of a German version (given in full in Cohn's _Shakespeare in Germany_) we should not have been aware that this play was identical in story with that known as _Titus Andronicus_. It is unfortunately lost--a loss the more to be regretted since it has led to the supposition of the extant play having proceeded from the hand of Shakespeare. On 10th June _A Knack to Know a Knave_ was performed for the first time. Mr. R. Simpson without the slightest ground conjectured that this was the play that Greene says he "lastly writ" with "young Juvenal." The most successful new plays in this season were _Henry VI._ and _Titus and Vespasian_ (performed seven times in two months); of old plays _the Spanish Tragedy_ (performed thirteen times), _The Battle of Alcazar_ (eleven performances), and _The Jew of Malta_ (ten performances).

On June 22 the last performance took place before the closing of the theatres on account of the plague.

On August 8 _Piers Penniless_ was entered S. R., which contains Nash's reference to _I Henry VI._

On September 3 Greene died.

On September 20 his _Groatsworth of Wit_ was entered in the Stationers' Registers. This pamphlet was edited by Chettle, and contains the often quoted address to Marlowe, "young Juvenal," and Peele. In the portion where Greene speaks to all three of them, he says: "Trust them not, for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, _with his Tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide_, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and being an absolute _Johannes Factotum_, is in his own conceit the only shake-scene in our country." Mr. R. Simpson showed that "beautified with our feathers" meant acting plays written by us, but "bombast out a blank verse" undoubtedly refers to Shakespeare as a writer also. The line "O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide" occurs in _Richard Duke of York_ (commonly but injudiciously referred to as _The True Tragedy_), a play written for Pembroke's men, probably in 1590, on which _3 Henry VI._ was founded. It is almost certainly by Marlowe, the best of the three whom Greene addresses. In December Chettle issued his _Kindheart's Dream_, in which he apologises for the offence given to Marlowe in the _Groatsworth of Wit_, "because myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes; besides divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, which approves his art." To Peele he makes no apology, nor indeed was any required. Shakespeare was not one of those who took offence; they are expressly stated to have been two of the three authors addressed by Greene, the third (Lodge) not being in England.

There were three plays performed at Hampton Court this Christmas, on December 26, 31, January 1, by Lord Strange's men, in spite of the plague.

I think the latter part of 1592 the most likely time for the writing of some scenes in _All's Well that Ends Well_ and _Twelfth Night_ that show marks of early date.

1593.

On January 5 Lord Strange's company, who had reopened at the Rose, 29th December 1592, produced a new play called _The Jealous Comedy_; this I take to have been _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ in its earliest form.

On January 30 they produced Marlowe's _Guise_ or _Massacre of Paris_, which has reached us in an unusually mutilated condition.

On February 1 they performed for the last time this year in Southwark; the Rose as well as other theatres being closed because of the plague.

On April 18 _Venus and Adonis_ was entered by Richard Field for publication. Shakespeare's choice of a publisher was no doubt influenced by private connection. R. Field was a son of Henry Field, tanner, of Stratford-on-Avon, who died in 1592. The inventory of his goods attached to his will had been taken by Shakespeare's father on 21st August in that year. _Venus and Adonis_ was licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Whitgift) (at whose palace near Croydon Nash's play, _Summer's Last Will_, was performed in the autumn of 1592), and was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Shakespeare calls it "The first heir of my invention," which may mean his first published work; but more probably means the first production in which he was sole author, his previous plays having been written in conjunction with others; and he vows "to take advantage of all idle hours till I have honoured you with some graver labour." He had probably then planned if not begun his _Rape of Lucrece_.

On May 6 a precept was issued by the Lords of the Privy Council authorising Lord Strange's players, "Edward Allen, William Kempe, Thomas Pope, John Heminges, Augustine Philipes, and George Brian" to play "where the infection is not, so it be not within seven miles of London or of the Court, that they may be in the better readiness hereafter for her Majesty's service." This list of names is by no means a complete one of the company of players; but probably does consist of all the _shareholders_ therein. Shakespeare was not a shareholder yet. Alleyn is described as servant to the Admiral as well as to Lord Strange. Accordingly they travelled and acted in the country--in July at Bristol, afterwards at Shrewsbury. Meanwhile on June 1 Marlowe was killed, leaving unpublished his poem, _Hero and Leander_, his play _Dido_, and in my opinion other plays; of which more hereafter.

On 25th September Henry Earl of Derby died, and Ferdinand Lord Strange succeeded to his honours. His company of players are consequently sometimes called the Earl of Derby's for the next six months. There were no performances at Court at Christmas on account of the plague.

1594.

On 23d January _Titus Andronicus_ was acted as a new play by Sussex' men at the Rose. This company gave up playing there on 6th February. On 26th February the _Andronicus_ play was entered on S. R. Langbaine, who professes to have seen this edition, says it was acted by the players of "Pembroke, Derby, and Essex." Essex is clearly a mistake for Sussex, for in the 1600 edition the companies are given as "Sussex, Pembroke, and Derby." Halliwell's careless statement that Lord Strange's players transferred their services to Lord Hunsdon in 1594, has led me and others into grave difficulty on this matter. The fact is that Lord Derby's players became servants to the Chamberlain between 16th April, when Lord Derby died, and 3d June, when they played at Newington Butts under the latter appellation. There was strictly no Lord Strange's company after 25th September 1593, and no other Derby's company till 1599. The old name Strange, however, does sometimes occur instead of Derby. Hence it seemed that the transfer to Derby's company must have taken place in 1600. Indeed so little was the fact known even in 1600, that Shakespeare's company enjoyed the title of Derby's men for six months, that although that name is given on the first page, on the title the same men reappear as the Lord Chamberlain's. Why Pembroke's men should have acquired the play on 6th February, and possibly parted with it by the 26th, does not appear, nor is there any parallel instance known: there must have been some great changes in their constitution at this time. But in any case Shakespeare did not write the play; Mr. Halliwell's theory that he left Lord Strange's men, who in 1593 enjoyed the highest position of any then existing, and after having been a member successively of two of the obscurest companies, returned to his former position within a few months, is utterly untenable. There is no vestige of evidence that Shakespeare ever wrote for any company but one.

On 12th March _York and Lancaster_ (_2 Henry VI._) was entered on S. R.

From 1st to 8th April Sussex' men and the Queen's acted at the Rose, among other plays, the old _Leir_ (April 8), on which Shakespeare's _Lear_ was founded. Both these companies henceforth vanish from stage history.

On April 16 Lord Derby died.

On May 2 _The Taming of a Shrew_ was entered on S. R.

On May 9 _The Rape of Lucrece_ was entered. The difference in tone between the dedication of this poem to Lord Southampton and that of _Venus and Adonis_ distinctly points to a personal intercourse having taken place in the interval. Hence the date of Shakespeare's first interview with his patron may be assigned as between April 1593 and May 1594.

On May 14 _The Famous Victories of Henry V._ and _Leir_ were entered on S. R.

On May 14 also the Admiral's company, of which nothing is heard since 1591, began to act at the Rose, having acted at Newington for three days only. Alleyn, Henslow's son-in-law, had left the management of Shakespeare's company on the death of Lord Derby, and now joined the Admiral's men.

Between[5] June 3 and June 13 the Chamberlain's men played at Newington Butts alternately with the Admiral's: among the Chamberlain's plays we notice on June 3, 10, _Hester and Ahasuerus_, which exists in a German version of which a translation ought to be published; June 5, 12, _Andronicus_;

June 9, _Hamlet_; June 11, _The Taming of a Shrew_. The intermediate days were occupied by the Admiral's men: who on the 15th [17th] went to the Rose, and the Chamberlain's men no doubt to the Theater, the Burbadges' own house. The Chamberlain's company at this date included W. Shakespeare, R. Burbadge, J. Hemings, A. Phillips, W. Kempe, T. Pope, G. Bryan, all of whom, with the possible exception of Burbadge, had been members of Lord Strange's company; together with H. Condell, W. Sly, R. Cowley, N. Tooley, J. Duke, R. Pallant, and T. Goodall, who had previously been in all probability members of the Queen's company. C. Beeston must have joined them soon afterwards. The names of Richard Hoope, William Ferney, William Blackway, and Ralph Raye occur in Henslow's _Diary_ as Chamberlain's men c. January 1595. The Queen's men came in on the reconstitution of that company in 1591-2. See on this matter further on under the head of _The Seven Deadly Sins_.

On June 19 the old play of _Richard III._ (with Shore's wife in it) was entered on S. R., a pretty sure indication, which tallies with other external evidence, that the play attributed to Shakespeare was produced about this time. No one can read the four plays composing the Henry 6th series without feeling that, however various their authorship, they form a connected whole in general plan. Margaret is the central figure, who hovers like a Greek Chorus over the terrible Destiny that involves King and people in its meshes. But Margaret is not Shakespeare's creation; she is Marlowe's. Shakespeare had no share in the plays on the contention of York and Lancaster, and but a slight one in _1 Henry VI._ Marlowe had a chief hand in _1 Henry VI._ and _York and Lancaster_; probably wrote the whole of _Richard Duke of York_, and laid, in my opinion, the foundation and erected part of the building of _Richard III._ At his death he seems to have left unacted or unpublished his poem of _Hero and Leander_, finished afterwards by Chapman; _Dido_, partly by Nash, and produced (when?) by the Chapel children; _Andronicus_ acted (under Peele's auspices?) by the Sussex men, and _Richard III._, completed by Shakespeare, and acted by the Chamberlain's company as we have it in the Quarto. All these plays were produced or published in 1594. About the same time an earlier play of Marlowe's, originally acted c. 1589, was altered and revised by Shakespeare. The date and authorship of the Shakespearian part of _Edward III._, viz., from "Enter King Edward" in the last scene of act i. to the end of act ii., are proved by the allusion to the poem of _Lucrece_; the repetition of lines from the _Sonnets_: "Their scarlet ornaments," "Lilies that foster smell far worse than weeds," and many smaller coincidences with undoubted Shakespearian plays: while the original date and authorship of the play as a whole will appear from the following quotations. In the Address prefixed to Greene's _Menaphon_, in a passage in which Nash has been satirising Kyd and another as void of scholarship and unable to read Seneca in the original, he suddenly attacks Marlowe, whom he has previously held up as the object of their imitation, and asks what can they have of him? in Nash's own words: "What can be hoped of those that thrust Elysium into Hell, and have not learned, so long as they have lived in the spheres, the just measure of the Horizon without an hexameter?" Marlowe in _Faustus_[6] has "confound Hell in Elysium," and, in _Edward III_, _horízon_ is pronounced _hórizon_. This, however, might occur in other plays; but in Greene's _Never Too Late_ we find Tully addressing the player Roscius, who certainly represents R. Wilson, in these words: "Why, Roscius, are thou proud with Æsop's crow, being pranked with the glory of others' feathers? Of thyself thou canst say nothing: and if the Cobbler hath taught thee to say _Ave Cæsar_, disdain not thy tutor because thou pratest in a King's chamber." Unless another play can be produced with "Ave Cæsar" in it, this must be held to allude to _Edward III._, in which play Wilson must have acted the Prince of Wales (act i. 1. 164). The "cobbler" alludes to Marlowe as a shoemaker's son.

On July 20, _Locrine_, an old play written, says Mr. Simpson, by G. Tylney in 1586, but in which Peele had certainly a principal hand, was entered on S. R. It was issued as "newly set forth, overseen and corrected by W. S." I see no reason to believe that this was Shakespeare. Of course he had no hand in writing the play; and in any case Peele did not probably sanction the publication.

To this year we must assign the production of the earliest of Shakespeare's _Sonnets_. That these (or rather that portion of them which are continuous, 1-126) were addressed to Lord Southampton was proved by Drake. The identity of language between the Dedication of _Lucrece_ and Sonnet 26, the exact agreement of them with all we know of the careers of Shakespeare and his patron during the next four years, and the utter absence of evidence of his connection with any other patron, are conclusive on that point. They begin (1-17) with entreaties to marry, which date about 6th October 1594, when Southampton attained his majority, and before he had met Elizabeth Vernon, and end (117) in a time when "peace proclaiming olives of endless age," after the treaty of Vervins, 2d May 1598: and before the Earl's marriage at the end of that year. They involve a story of some frail lady who had transferred her favours to the young lord from the older player (40-42). Far too much has been written on this matter from a moral point of view. The fact remains, and all we can say is: Remember these Sonnets were written "among private friends," and not for publication. The lady has not hitherto been identified, but is, I think, identifiable. On September 3d was entered on S. R., _Wyllobie his Avisa_. Dr. Ingleby has shown in his _Shakespeare Allusion-books_ that the W. S. in this poem is William Shakespeare, and that Hadrian Dorrell, the reputed editor, is a fictitious character. He has, however, missed the key to this anonymity; viz., that the book was known to be a personal satirical libel. P[eter] C[olse], according to the author of _Avisa_, "misconstrued" the poem; and so necessitated the further figment in the 1605 edition that the supposed author, A. Willobie, was dead; in this edition the mythical H. D. says: "If you ask me for the persons, I am altogether ignorant of them, and have set them down only as I find them named or disciphered in my author. For the truth of this action, if you enquire, I will more fully deliver my opinion hereafter." But independently of this evidence from the book itself we find in S. R. (Arber, iii. 678) that when the works of Marston, Davies, &c., were burnt in the Hall, 4th June 1599, other books were "stayed;" viz., _Caltha Poetarum_, Hall's _Satires_, and "_Willobie's Adviso_ to be called in." This marks the book as of the same character as its companions; viz., libellous, calumnious, personally abusive. The characters in the poems were evidently representations of real living persons. The heroine of the poem is Av[)i]sa, or Av[=i]sa (sometimes written A vis A), that is, Avice or Avice A. This name was not uncommon (see Camden's _Remaines_, p. 93). She lived in the west of England, "where Austin pitched his monkish tent," in a house "where hangs the badge of England's saint." The place is more fully described thus:--

"At east of this a castle stands
By ancient shepherds built of old,
And lately was in shepherds' hands,
Though now by brothers bought and sold:
At west side springs a crystal well:
There doth this chaste Avisa dwell."

And again:--

"In sea-bred soil on Tempe downs,
Whose silver spring from Neptune's well
With mirth salutes the neighbouring towns."

These descriptions suit the vale of Evesham, the castle being that of Bengworth and the well that of Abberton. Austin's oak was traditionally placed in this part by some, though others put it in Gloucestershire. Avisa's parents are mentioned as "of meanest trade." They were, I take it, inn-keepers, and the inn had the sign of St. George. The other characters are D. B., a Frenchman, with motto _Dudum Beatus_; Didymus H., an Anglo-German, with motto _Dum Habui_; H. W., _Italo Hispalensis_, and W[illiam] S[hakespeare]. The story is that Avisa, the chaste, who "makes up the mess" of four with Lucrece, Susanna, and Penelope, has been married at twenty, tempted by a Nobleman, a Cavaliero, a Frenchman, an Anglo-German, &c., without result, and is consequently England's _rara avis_, who matches those of Greece, Palestine, and Rome. The mottoes of the foreigners, however, point to a different conclusion, and so does this passage: "If any one, therefore, by this should take occasion to surmise that the author meant to note any woman, _whose name sounds something like that name_, it is too childish and too absurd, and not beseeming any deep judgment, considering there are many things which _cannot be applied to any woman_." In plain language, Mr. Dorrell believes no woman to be chaste. H. W., at first sight of Avisa, is infected with a fantastical fit, and bewrays his disease to his familiar friend, W. S., who, _not long before_, had tried the courtesy of the like passion, and was now newly recovered [in 1594]. Having been laughed at himself he determined to see whether it would sort to a happier end for the _new actor_ than it did for the _old player_. Doubtless W. S. is Shakespeare, and Avisa is represented ironically as a _trader_ who had made a Frenchman long happy (_dudum beatus_), been possessed by an Anglo-German (_dum habui_), had then passed to Shakespeare, and finally to H. W. Such was the slanderous story published in 1594; how far true, whether at all true, I care not to inquire; but that it is the same story as that of the Sonnets, that H. W. is Henry Wriothesley, and that the black woman of the Sonnets is identical with Avisa, I regard as indubitable. Of course the Thomas Willoby, _Frater Henrici Willoughby nuper defuncti_, of the 1605 edition is a mere device to blind the licensers for the press. Similar devices have often been used, but I know of none so impudently charming as the "author's conclusion" as to the man who is _nuper defunctus_. "H. W. was now again stricken so dead that he hath not yet any further essayed, nor I think ever will, and whether he be alive or dead I know not, and therefore I leave him."

On December 26th and 28th the Chamberlain's servants performed before the Queen at Greenwich, apparently in the daytime. Kempe, Shakespeare, and Burbadge were paid for these performances on the following March. It is singular that the performance of "A comedy of _Errors_ like unto Plautus his _Menoechmi_" should have also been performed apparently by the same company at Gray's Inn, also on December 26th. This seems to be the first mention of Shakespeare's play, the true title of which is simply _Errors_: but whether it was written in 1590 or 1593-4, there is no evidence that is absolutely decisive. The allusion to France fighting against her heir, v. ii. 2. 125, would be equally applicable at any date from July 1589, when Henri III. was killed, to February 1594, when Henri IV. was consecrated.

1595.

That the date of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ should be fixed in the winter of 1594-5 was long since seen by Malone, the allusions to the remarkable weather of 1594 being too marked to be put aside contemptuously. It has also been attempted to assign other dates on account of the play's being manifestly written for some marriage solemnity. It is not needful to alter the date for that reason. Either the marriage of W. Stanley, Earl of Derby, at Greenwich, on 24th January, 1594-5, or that of Lord Russel, Earl of Bedford, to Lucy Harrington (before 5th February, S. R.), would suit very well in point of time. The former is the more probable; because it took place at Greenwich, where we know the Chamberlain's men to have performed in the previous month, and because these actors had mostly been servants to the Earl of Derby's brother in the early part of the previous year.

There is little, if any doubt, that Shakespeare produced _Richard II._ and _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, as we now have it, in this year. _A larum for London_, or _The Siege of Antwerp_, by (?) Lodge, was acted about this time.

The play of _Richard Duke of York_ was printed in 1595 and on 1st December _Edward III._ was entered on S. R.

The performances of the Chamberlain's men, 1594-5, at Court, were on December 26, 27, 28; January 5; February 22. Payment was made to Hemings and Bryan.

1596.