does he assert his preference of the classic school over the romantic, by objecting, as Sir Philip Sidney objects, that "plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns." There had been, according to Spenser, a state of the drama that would "Fill with pleasure cause of displeasure, in that they have brought into their | place as the great defect of the English theatre. Nor plays matters of state and religion, unfit to be handled by them or to be presented before lewd spectators: neither hath any complaint in that kind ever been preferred against them or any of them. Wherefore they trust most humbly in your Lordships' consideration of their former good behaviour, being at all times ready and willing to yield obedience to any command whatsoever your Lordships in your wisdom may think in such case meet," &c. "Nov. 1589." In this petition, Shakspere, a sharer in the theatre, but with others below him in the list, says, and they all say, that "they have never brought into their plays matters of state and religion." The public mind in 1589-90 was furiously agitated by "matters of state and religion." A controversy was going on which is now known as that of Martin Marprelate, in which the constitution and discipline of the church were most furiously attacked in a succession of pamphlets; and they were defended with equal violence and scurrility. The theatres took part in the controversy, as we learn from a tract by Gabriel Harvey. Shakspere's great contemporary, Edmund Spenser, in a poem entitled "The Tears of the Muses,' originally published in 1591, describes, in the Complaint' of Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, the state of the drama at the time in which he is writing : "Where be the sweet delights of learning's treasure, And in her room unseemly Sorrow sits, And him beside sits ugly Barbarism, And brutish Ignorance, ycrept of late Where being bred, he light and heaven does hate; But me have banished, with all the rest That whilom wont to wait upon my train, Spenser was in England in 1590-91, and it is probable that The Tears of the Muses' was written in 1590. The four stanzas which we have quoted are descriptive, as we think, of a period of the drama when it had emerged from the semi-barbarism by which it was characterized, "from the commencement of Shakspere's boyhood, till about the earliest date at which his removal to London can be possibly fixed."* This description has nothing in common with those accounts of the drama which have reference to this "semi-barbarism." Nor does the writer of it belong to the school which considered a violation of the unities of time and Edinburgh Review,' vol Ixxi., p. 469. The listeners' eyes, and ears with melody." Can any comedy be named, if we assume that Shakspere had, in 1590, not written any, which could be celebrated-and by the exquisite versifier of 'The Fairy Queen'-for its "melody"? Could any also be praised for "That goodly glee Which wont to be the glory of gay wits"? Could the plays before Shakspere be described by the most competent of judges-the most poetical mind of that age next to Shakspere-as abounding in Fine Counterfesance, and unhurtful Sport, Delight, and Laughter, deck'd in seemly sort"? We have not seen such a comedy, except some three or four of Shakspere's, which could have existed before 1590. We do not believe there is such a comedy from any other pen. What, according to the Complaint' of Thalia, has banished such comedy? Unseemly Sorrow," it appears, has been fashionable;—not the proprieties of tragedy, but a Sorrow 66 "With hollow brows and griesly countenance;"the violent scenes of blood which were offered for the excitement of the multitude, before the tragedy of real art was devised. But this state of the drama is shortly passed over. There is something more defined. By the side of this false tragic sit "ugly Barbarism and brutish Ignorance." These are not the barbarism and ignorance of the old stage;-they are "Yerept of late Out of dread darkness of the deep abysm." They now tyrannize;" they now "disguise" the fair scene "with rudeness." The Muse of Tragedy, Melpomene, had previously described the "rueful spectacles" of "the stage." It was a stage which had no "true tragedy." But it had possessed "Delight, and Laughter, deck'd in seemly sort." The four stanzas which we have quoted are immediately followed by these four others : "All these, and ail that else the comic stage With season'd wit and goodly pleasure graced, Was limned forth, are wholly now defaced; And scornful Folly, with Contempt, is crept, But that same gentle spirit, from whose pen Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flow, Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw, Than so himself to mockery to sell." The love of personal abuse had driven out real comedy; and there was one who, for a brief season, had left the madness to take its course. We cannot doubt that "HE, the man whom Nature self had made To mock herself, and Truth to imitate," was William Shakspere. England was sorely visited by the plague in 1592 and 1593. The theatres were shut; there were no performances at Court. Shakspere, we may believe, during the long period of the continuance of the plague in London, had no occupation at the Blackfriars Theatre; and the pastimes of the Lord Chamberlain's servants were dispensed with at the palaces. It is probable that he was residing at his own Stratford. The leisure, we think, afforded him opportunity of preparing the most important of that wonderful series of historical dramas which unquestionably appeared within a few years of this period; and of producing some other dramatic compositions of the highest order of poetical excellence. It appears to us, looking at the printed labours of Shakspere at this exact period, that there was some pause in his professional occupation; and that many months' residence in Stratford, from the autumn of 1592 to the summer of 1593, enabled him more systematically to cultivate those higher faculties which placed him, even in the opinion of his contemporaries, at the head of the living poets of England. It is easy to believe that if any external impulse were wanting to stimulate the poetical ambition of Shakspere to make him aspire to some higher character than that of the most popular of dramatists—such might be found in 1593 in the clear field which was left for the exercise of his peculiar powers. Robert Greene had died on the 3rd of September, 1592, leaving behind him a sneer at the actor who aspired "to bombast out a blank verse." Had his genius not been destroyed by the wear and tear, and the corrupting influences, of a profligate life, he never could have competed with the mature Shakspere. But as we know that "the only Shake-scene in a country," at whom the unhappy man presumed to scoff, felt the insult somewhat deeply, so we may presume he took the most effectual means to prove to the world that he was not, according to the malignant insinuation of his envious compeer, upstart crow beautified with our feathers." We believe that in the gentleness of his nature, when he introduced into A Midsummer Night's Dream' "The thrice three Muses mourning for the death "all he dropped a tear upon the grave of Greene, whose demerits were to be forgiven in his misery. On the 1st of June, 1593, Christopher Marlowe perished in a wretched brawl, "slain by Francis Archer," as the Register of Burials of the parish of St. Nicholas, Deptford, informs us. Who was left of the dramatists that could enter into competition with William Shakspere, such as he then was? He was almost alone. The great disciples of his school had not arisen. Jonson had not appeared to found a school of a different character. It was for him, thenceforth, to sway the popular mind after his own fashion; to disregard the obligation which the rivalry of high talent might have imposed upon hire of listening to other suggestions than those of his own lofty art; to make the multitude bow before that art, rather than that it should accommodate itself to their habits and prejudices. But at a period when the exer cise of the poetical power in connexion with the stage was scarcely held amongst the learned and the polite in itself to be poetry, Shakspere vindicated his reputation by the publication of the 'Venus and Adonis.' It was, he says, "the first heir of my invention." There may be a doubt whether Shakspere meant to say literally that this was the first poetical work that he had produced; or whether he held, in deference to some critical opinions, that his dramatic productions could not be classed amongst the heirs of "invention." We think that he meant to use the words literally; and that he used them at a period when he might assume, without vanity, that he had taken his rank amongst the poets of his time. He dedicates to the Earl of Southampton something that had not before been given to the world. He calls his verses unpolished lines;" he vows to take advantage of all idle hours till he had honoured the young patron of the Muses with "some graver labour." But invention was received then, as it was afterwards, as the highest quality of the poet. Dryden says,-"A poet is a maker, as the word signfies; and he who cannot make, that is invent, hath his name for nothing." We consider, therefore, that "my invention" is not the language of one unknown to fame. He was exhibiting the powers which he possessed upon a different instrument than that to which the world was accustomed; but the world knew that the power existed. We employ the word genius always with re ference to the inventive or creative faculty. Substitute the word genius for invention, and the expression used But the substiby Shakspere sounds like arrogance. tution may indicate that the actual expression could not have been used by one who came forward for the first time to claim the honours of the poet. It has been argued from this expression that Shakspere had produced nothing original before the Venus and Adonis -that up to the period of its publication, in 1593, he was only a repairer of the works of other men. hold that the expression implies the direct contrary. 66 We We have a distinct record when the theatres were re-opened after the plague. The 'Diary of Philip Henslowe records that the Earl of Sussex his men" acted 'Huon of Bordeaux' on the 28th of December, 1593. Henslowe appears to have had an interest in this company. It is probable that Shakspere's theatre of the Blackfriars was opened about the same period. We have some evidence to show what was the duration of the winter season at this theatre; for the same diary shows that from June, 1594, the performances of the theatre at Newington Butts were a joint undertaking by the Lord Admiral's men and the Lord Chamberlain's How long this association of two companies lasted is not easy to determine; but during the month men. of June we have entries of the exhibition of Andro- | Words' to the Earl in 1598, shows pretty correctly nicus,' of 'Hamlet,' and of 'The Taming of a Shrew.' No subsequent entries exhibit the names of plays which have any real or apparent connexion with Shakspere. It appears that in December, 1593, Richard Burbage entered into a bond with Peter Streete, a carpenter, for the performance on the part of Burbage of the covenants contained in an indenture of agreement by which Streete undertook to erect a new theatre for Burbage's company. This was the famous Globe on the Bankside, of which Shakspere was unquestionably a proprietor. We thus see that in 1594 there were new demands to be made upon his invention; and we may reasonably conclude that the reliance of Burbage and his other fellows upon their poet's unequalled powers was one of their principal inducements to engage in this new enterprise. · In the midst of his professional engagements, which doubtless were renewed with increased activity after their long suspension, Shakspere published his ‘Rape of Lucrece.' He had vowed to take advantage of all idle hours till he had honoured Lord Southampton with some graver labour than the first heir of his invention. The Venus and Adonis' was entered in the Registers of the Stationers' Company on the 18th of April, 1593. The Lucrece' appears in the same Registers on the 9th of May, 1594. That this elaborate poem was wholly or in part composed in that interval of leisure which resulted from the shutting of the theatres in 1593 may be reasonably conjectured; but it is evident that during the year which had elapsed between the publication of the first and the second poem, Shakspere had been brought into more intimate companionship with his noble patron. The language of the first dedication is that of distant respect, the second is that of grateful friendship. At the period when Shakspere dedicated to him his 'Venus and Adonis' Lord Southampton was scarcely twenty years of age. He is supposed to have become intimate with Shakspere from the circumstance that his mother had married Sir Thomas Heneage, who filled the office of Treasurer of the Chamber, and in the discharge of his official duties would be brought into frequent intercourse with the Lord Chamberlain's players. This is Drake's theory. The more natural belief appears to be that he had a strong attachment to literature, and, with the generous impetuosity of his character, did not regard the distinctions of rank to the extent with which they were regarded by men of colder temperaments and more worldly minds. Shakspere appears to have been the first amongst the writers of his day that offered a public tribute to the merits of the young nobleman. Both the dedications, and especially that of 'Lucrece,' are conceived in a modest and a manly spirit, entirely different from the ordinary language of literary adulation. There is evidence in the second dedication of a higher sort of intercourse between the two minds than consists with any forced adulation of any kind, and especially with any extravagant compliments to the learning and to the abilities of a superior in rank. Such testimonies are always suspicious; and probably honest old Florio, when he dedicated his 'World of what the race of panegyrists expected in return for their compliments: "In truth, I acknowledge an entire debt, not only of my best knowledge, but of all; yea of more than I know, or can, to your bounteous lordship, in whose pay and patronage I have lived some years; to whom I owe and vow the years I have to live. But, as to me, and many more, the glorious and gracious sunshine of your honour hath infused light and life." There is an extraordinary anecdote told by Rowe of Lord Southampton's munificence to Shakspere, which seems to bring the poet somewhat near to Florio's plain-speaking association of pay and patronage:"What grace soever the Queen conferred upon him, it was not to her only he owed the fortune which the reputation of his wit made. He had the honour to meet with many great and uncommon marks of favour and friendship from the Earl of Southampton, famous in the histories of that time for his friendship to the unfortunate Earl of Essex. It was to that noble lord that he dedicated his poem of Venus and Adonis.' There is one instance so singular in the magnificence of this patron of Shakspeare's, that if I had not been assured that the story was handed down by Sir William D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his affairs, I should not have ventured to have inserted; that my Lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to. A bounty very great, and very rare at any time, and almost equal to that profuse generosity the present age has shown to French dancers and Italian singers." This is one of the many instances in which we are not warranted in rejecting a tradition, however we may look suspiciously upon the accuracy of its details. D'Avenant could scarcely be very well acquainted with Shakspere's affairs, for he was only ten years old when Shakspere died. The sum mentioned as the gift of the young nobleman to the poet is so large, looking at the value of money in those days, that it could scarcely consist with the independence of a generous spirit to bear the load of such a prodigality of bounty. The notions of those days were, however, different from ours. Examples will readily suggest themselves of the most lavish rewards bestowed by princes and nobles upon great painters. They received such gifts without any compromise of their intellectual dignity. It was the same then with poets. According to the habits of the time Shakspere might have received a large gift from Lord Southampton, without any forfeiture of his selfrespect. Nevertheless, Rowe's story must still appear sufficiently apocryphal: "My Lord Southampton at one time gave him a thousand pounds, to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to." It is not necessary to account for the gradual acquisition of property by Shakspere that we should yield our assent to this tradition, without some qualification. In 1589, when Lord Southampton was a lad at College, Shakspere had already acquired that pro perty which was to be the foundation of his future for tune. He was then a shareholder in the Blackfriars Theatre. That the adventure was a prosperous one, not only to himself but to his brother shareholders, may be inferred from the fact that four years afterwards they began the building of another theatre. The Globe was commenced in December, 1593; and being constructed for the most part of wood, was ready to be opened, we should imagine, in the summer of 1594. In 1596 the same prosperous company were prepared to expend considerable sums upon the repair and extension of their original theatre, the Blackfriars. The name of Shakspere occupies a prominent position in the document from which we collect this fact: it is a petition to the Lords of the Privy Council from "Thomas Pope, Richard Burbadge, John Hemings, Augustine Philips, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William Slye, Nicholas Tooley, and others, servants to the Right Honorable the Lord Chamberlain to her Majesty ;" and it sets forth that they are "the owners and players of the private theatre in the Blackfriars; that it hath fallen into decay; and that it has been found necessary to make the same more convenient for the entertainment of auditories coming thereto." It then states what is important to the present question:-" To this end your petitioners have all and each of them put down sums of money according to their shares in the said theatre, and which they have justly and honestly gained by the | exercise of their quality of stage-players." It then alleges that certain inhabitants of the precinct had besought the Council not to allow the said private house to remain open, "but hereafter to be shut up and closed, to the manifest and great injury of your petitioners, who have no other means whereby to maintain their wives and families, but by the exercise of their quality as they have heretofore done." The common proprietorship of the company in the Globe and Blackfriars is also noticed :-" In the summer season your petitioners are able to play at their new-built house on the Bankside, called the Globe, but in the winter they are compelled to come to the Blackfriars." If the winter theatre be shut up, they say they will be "unable to practise themselves in any plays or interludes when called upon to perform for the recreation and solace of her Majesty and her honourable Court, as they have been heretofore accustomed." Though the Registers of the Council and the Office-books of the Treasurer of the Chamber are wanting for this exact period, we have here the distinct evidence of the intimate relation between Shakspere's company and the Court. The petitioners, in concluding by the prayer that their "honourable Lordships will grant permission to finish the reparations and alterations they have begun," add as a reason for this favour that they "have nitherto been well ordered in their behaviour and just in their dealings." The performances at the Blackfriars went on without interruption. Shakspere, in 1597, bought "all that capital messuage or tenement in Stratford called the New Place." This appears to nave been his first investment in property distinct from his theatrical speculations. The purchase of the best house in his native town, at a period of his life when his professional occupations could have allowed him little leisure to reside in it, would appear to have had in view an early retirement from a pursuit which pro | bably was little agreeable to him. His powers as a dramatic writer might be profitably exercised without being associated with the actor's vocation. We know from other circumstances that at this period Stratford was nearest to his heart. On the 24th of January, 1598, Mr. Abraham Sturley, an alderman of Stratford, writes to his brother-in-law, Richard Quiney, then in London :-"I would write nothing unto you now— but come home. I pray God send you comfortably home. This is one special remembrance, from your father's motion. It seemeth by him that our country. man Mr. Shakspere is willing to disburse some money upon some odd yard land or other at Shottery, or near about us. He thinketh it a very fit pattern to move him to deal in the matter of our tithes. By the instructions you can give him thereof, and by the friends he can make therefore, we think it a fair mark for him to shoot at, and not impossible to hit. It obtained, would advance him indeed, and would do us much good." We thus see that in a year after the purchase of New Place, Shakspere's accumulation of money was going on. The worthy alderman and his connexions appear to look confidently to their countryman, Mr. Shakspere, to assist them in their needs. On the 4th of November, in the same year, Sturley again writes a very long letter "to his most loving brother Mr. Richard Quiney, at the Bell, in Carter Lane, in London," in which he says of a letter written by Quiney to him on the 21st of October, that it imported, amongst other matters, "that our countryman Mr. W. Shakspere would procure us money, which I well like of, as I shall hear when, and where, and how; and I pray let not go that occasion, if it may sort to any indifferent conditions." Quiney himself at this very time writes the following characteristic letter to his "loving good friend and countryman, Mr. William Shakspere :"-" Loving countryman, I am bold of you as of a friend, craving your help with thirty pounds upon Mr. Bushell and my security, or Mr. Mytters with me. Mr. Rosswell is not come to London as yet, and I have especial cause. You shall friend me much in helping me out of all the debts I owe in London, I thank God, and much quiet to my mind which would not be indebted. I am now towards the Court in hope your answer for the dispatch of my business. Yea shall neither lose credit nor money by me, the Lord willing; and now but persuade yourself so as I hope, and you shall not need to fear but with all hearty thankfulness I will hold my time, and content your friend, and if we bargain farther, you shall be the paymaster yourself. My time bids me to hasten to an end, and so I commit this to your care and hope of your help. I fear I shall not be back this night from the Court. Haste. The Lord be with you and with us all. Amen. From the Bell in Carter Lane, the 25th October, 1598. Yours in all kindness, Ryc. Quiney." The anxious dependence which these honest men appear to have upon the good offices of their townsman is more satisfactory even than the evidence which their letters afford of his worldly condition. In the midst of this prosperity the registers of the "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state." Sonnets of Shakspere were in existence in 1598, when parish of Stratford-upon-Avon present to us an event | wrote, with reference to himself, unlocking his heart to which must have thrown a shade over the brightest some nameless friend :— prospects. The burial of the only son of the poet is recorded in 1596. Hamnet was born on the 2nd of February, 1585; so that at his death he was eleven years and six months old. He was a twin child; and | Meres tells us of "his sugared sonnets among his private it is not unlikely that he was constitutionally weak. | friends." We do not receive these Sonnets altogether Some such cause interfered probably with the education as evidences of Shakspere's personal history or feelings. of the twin-sister Judith; for whilst Susanna, the elder, We believe that the order in which they were printed is is recorded to have been "witty above her sex," and an arbitrary one; that some form a continuous poem or wrote a firm and vigorous hand, as we may judge from poems, that others are isolated in their subjects and the her signature to a deed in 1639, the mark of Judith persons to whom they are addressed; that some may appears as an attesting witness to a conveyance in express the poet's personal feelings, that others are 1611. wholly fictitious, dealing with imaginary loves and jealousies, and not attempting to separate the personal identity of the artist from the sentiments which he expressed, and the situations which he delineated. We believe that, taken as works of art, having a certain degree of continuity, the Sonnets of Spenser, of Daniel, of Drayton, of Shakspere, although in many instances they might shadow forth real feelings and be outpour "Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage With the exception of this inevitable calamity, the present period may probably be regarded as a happy epoch in Shakspere's life. He had conquered any adverse circumstances by which his earlier career might have been impeded. He had taken his rank among the first minds of his age; and, above all, his pursuits were so engrossing as to demand a constant exercise of his faculties, and to demand that exercise in the cultiva-ings of the inmost heart, were presented to the world as tion of the highest and the most pleasurable thoughts. exercises of fancy, and were received by the world as This was the period to which belong the great histories such. Even of those portions of these remarkable lyrics of 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,' and 'Henry IV.,' and which appear to have an obvious reference to the poet's the delicious comedies of the 'Merchant of Venice,' feelings and circumstances, we cannot avoid rejecting Much Ado about Nothing,' and 'Twelfth Night.' the principle of continuity; for they clearly belong to These productions afford the most abundant evidence different periods of his life, if they are the reflection of that the greatest of intellects was in the most healthful his real sentiments. We have the playfulness of an possession of its powers. These were not hasty adapta- early love, and the agonizing throes of an unlawful tions for the popular appetite, as we may well believe passion. They speak of a period when the writer had some of the earlier plays were in their first shape; but won no honour or substantial rewards-"in disgrace highly-wrought performances, to which all the method with fortune and men's eyes," the period of his youth, if of his cultivated art had been strenuously applied. It the allusion was at all real; and yet the writer is was at this period that the dramatic poet appears not to "With time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn." have been satisfied with the applause of the Globe or One little dedicatory poem says, the Blackfriars, or even with the gracious encouragements of a refined Court. During three years he gave to the world careful editions of some of these plays, as if to vindicate the drama from the pedantic notion that the Muses of tragedy and comedy did not meet their sisters upon equal ground. Richard II.' and 'Richard III.' were published in 1597; 'Love's Labour 's Lost,' and 'Henry IV., Part I.,' in 1598; 'Romeo and Juliet,' corrected and augmented, in 1599; 'Henry IV., Part II.,' the Merchant of Venice,' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Much Ado about Nothing,' in 1600. The system of publication then ceased. It no doubt interfered with the interests of his fellows; and Shakspere was not likely to assert an exclusive interest, or to gratify an exclusive pride, at the expense of his associates. But his reputation was higher than that of any other man, when only four of his plays were accessible to the readers of poetry. In 1598 it was proclaimed, not timidly or questionably, that "as Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for tragedy and comedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare, among the English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage:" and "As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare." It was certainly not at this period of Shakspere's life that he Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To witness duty, not to show my wit." Another (and it is distinctly associated with what we hold to be a continued little poem, wholly fictitious, in which the poet dramatizes as it were the poetical character) boasts that "Not marble, not the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme.' Without attempting therefore to disprove that these Sonnets were addressed to the Earl of Southampton, or to the Earl of Pembroke, we must leave the reader who fancies he can find in them a shadowy outline of Shakspere's life to form his own conclusion from their careful perusal. They want unity and consistency too much to be received as credible illustrations of this life. The 71st to the 74th Sonnets seem bursting from a heart oppressed with a sense of its own unworthiness, and surrendered to some overwhelming misery. There is a line in the 74th which points at suicide. We cling to the belief that the sentiments here expressed are essentially dramatic. In the 32nd Sonnet, where we recognise the man Shakspere speaking in his own modest and cheerful spirit, death is to come across his well-contented day." We must place one sentiment |