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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Facts About Shakespeare, by
William Allan Nielson and Ashley Horace Thorndike

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Title: The Facts About Shakespeare

Author: William Allan Nielson
        Ashley Horace Thorndike

Release Date: August 8, 2007 [EBook #22281]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: The Shakespeare Monument in the Parish Church,
Stratford-on-Avon.]




              THE FACTS ABOUT
                SHAKESPEARE


                    BY

       WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

                    AND

  ASHLEY HORACE THORNDIKE, PH.D., L.H.D.
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY


              [Illustration]


                 New York
           THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                   1927

           _All rights reserved_




COPYRIGHT, 1913,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1913. Reprinted April,
1914; July, 1915; May, November, 1916; January, 1918; February,
September, 1920; September, 1921; March, 1922; February, December, 1923;
October, 1924; June, 1926; January, December, 1927.



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY
THE BERWICK & SMITH CO.




Transcriber's Notes:

    Unique page headings have been retained, marked as [Page Heading:],
    and positioned at the first available paragraph break of the page or
    the preceding page.

    Many spelling inconsistencies exist due to the historical period of
    the quoted sources. These, in addition to the original punctuation,
    have been retained.

    Obvious typesetting errors have been corrected and noted in the
    Transcriber's Endnotes at the end of the text.

    Some index entries have been re-sequenced to allow for clarity of
    sub-entries. These changes are recorded in the Transcriber's
    Endnotes along with a copy of the original text.

    The following non-standard characters have been represented as
    follows:

      [oe] oe ligature
      [OE] OE ligature
      [~e] tilde over e. A contraction of en.




Contents


CHAPTER                                                        PAGE

   I. SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND AND LONDON                            1

  II. BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS AND TRADITIONS                          17

 III. SHAKESPEARE'S READING                                      50

  IV. CHRONOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT                                 67

   V. THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA                                      89

  VI. THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER                                   117

 VII. THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE                                   131

VIII. QUESTIONS OF AUTHENTICITY                                 156

  IX. SHAKESPEARE SINCE 1616                                    167

   X. CONCLUSION                                                188

APPENDIX A. BIOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTS AND AUTHORITIES              203

APPENDIX B. INDEX OF THE CHARACTERS IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS      226

APPENDIX C. INDEX OF THE SONGS                                  241

APPENDIX D. BIBLIOGRAPHY                                        243

INDEX                                                           265




THE FACTS ABOUT SHAKESPEARE




The Facts about Shakespeare

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND AND LONDON


Shakespeare lived in a period of change. In religion, politics,
literature, and commerce, in the habits of daily living, in the world of
ideas, his lifetime witnessed continual change and movement. When
Elizabeth came to the throne, six years before he was born, England was
still largely Catholic, as it had been for nine centuries; when she died
England was Protestant, and by the date of Shakespeare's death it was
well on the way to becoming Puritan. The Protestant Reformation had
worked nearly its full course of revolution in ideas, habits, and
beliefs. The authority of the church had been replaced by that of the
Bible, of the English Bible, superbly translated by Shakespeare's
contemporaries. Within his lifetime, again, England had attained a
national unity and an international importance heretofore unknown. The
Spanish Armada had been defeated, the kingdoms of England and Scotland
united, and the first colony established in America. Even more
revolutionary had been the assertion of national greatness in literature
and thought. The Italian Renaissance, following the rediscovery of Greek
and Roman literature, had extended its influence to England early in the
century, but only after the accession of Elizabeth did it bring full
harvest. The names that crowd the next fifty years represent fine native
endowments, boundless aspiration, and also novelty,--as Spenser in
poetry, Bacon in philosophy, Hooker in theology. In commerce as well as
in letters there was this same activity and innovation. It was a time of
commercial prosperity, of increase in comfort and luxury, of the growth
of a powerful commercial class, of large fortunes and large
benefactions. Whatever your status, your birth, trade, profession,
residence, religion, education, or property, in the year 1564 you had a
better chance to change these than any of your ancestors had; and there
was more chance than there had ever been that your son would improve his
inheritance. The individual man had long been boxed up in guild, church,
or the feudal system; now the covers were opened, and the new
opportunity bred daring, initiative, and ambition. The exploits of the
Elizabethan sea rovers still stir us with the thrill of adventure; but
adventure and vicissitude were hardly less the share of merchant,
priest, poet, or politician. The individual has had no such opportunity
for fame in England before or since. The nineteenth century, which saw
the industrial revolution, the triumphs of steam and electricity, and
the discoveries of natural science, is the only period that equalled the
Elizabethan in the rapidity of its changes in ideas and in the
conditions of living; and even that era of change offered relatively
fewer new impulses to individual greatness than the fifty years of
Shakespeare's life.

[Page Heading: Tudor England]

Shakespeare's England was an agricultural country of four or five
million inhabitants. It fed itself, except when poor harvests compelled
the importation of grain, and it supplemented agriculture by grazing,
fishing, and commerce, chiefly with the Netherlands, but growing in many
directions. The forests were becoming thin, but the houses were still of
timber; the roads were poor, the large towns mostly seaports. The
dialects spoken were various, but the speech of the midland counties had
become established in London, at the universities, and in printed books,
and was rapidly increasing its dominance. The monasteries and religious
orders were gone, but feudalism still held sway, and the people were
divided into classes,--the various ranks of the nobility, the gentry,
the yeomen, the burgesses, and the common people. But changes from one
class to another were numerous; for many lords were losing their
inheritances by extravagance, while many business men were putting their
profits into land. In spite of persecutions, occasional insurrections,
and the plague which devastated the unsanitary towns, it was a time of
peace and prosperity. The coinage was reformed, roads were improved,
taxes were not burdensome, and life in the country was more comfortable
and secure than it had been. Books and education were spreading.
Numerous grammar schools taught Latin, the universities made provision
for poor students, and there were now many careers besides that of the
church open to the educated man.

Stratford, then a village of some two thousand inhabitants, somewhat off
the main route of traffic, was far more removed from the world than most
towns of similar size in this day of railways, newspapers, and the
telegraph. With the nearby country, it made up an independent community
that attended to its own affairs with great thoroughness. The
corporation, itself the outgrowth of a medieval religious guild,
regulated the affairs of every one with little regard for personal
liberty. It was especially severe on rebellious servants, idle
apprentices, shrewish women, the pigs that ran loose in the streets, and
(after 1605) persons guilty of profanity. Regular church attendance and
fixed hours of work were required. The corporation frequently punished
with fines (the poet's father on one occasion) those who did not clean
the street before their houses; and it was much occupied in regulating
the ale-houses, of which the village possessed some thirty. Like all
towns of this period, Stratford suffered frequently from fire and the
plague. Trade was dependent mainly on the weekly markets and semi-annual
fairs, and Stratford was by no means isolated, being not far from the
great market town of Coventry, near Kenilworth and Warwick, and only
eighty miles from London.

[Page Heading: Sports and Plays]

Shakespeare's England was merry England. At least, it was probably as
near to deserving that adjective as at any time before or since. There
was plenty of time for amusement. There were public bowling-greens and
archery butts in Stratford, though the corporation was very strict in
regard to the hours when these could be used. Every one enjoyed hunting,
hawking, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, dancing, until the Puritans found
such enjoyments immoral. The youthful Shakespeare acquired an intimate
knowledge of dogs and horses, hunting and falconry, though this was a
gentleman's sport. The highways were full of ballad singers, beggars,
acrobats, and wandering players. Play-acting of one kind or another had
long been common over most of rural England. Miracle plays were given at
Coventry up to 1580, and bands of professional actors came to Stratford
frequently, and on their first recorded appearance received their
permission to act from the bailiff, John Shakespeare (1568-1569). There
was many a Holofernes or Bottom to marshal his pupils or
fellow-mechanics for an amateur performance; and Shakespeare may have
seen the most famous of the royal entertainments, that at Kenilworth in
1575, when Gascoigne recited poetry, and Leicester, impersonating Deep
Desire, addressed Elizabeth from a bush, and a minstrel represented
Arion on a dolphin's back. The tradition may be right which declares
that it was the trumpets of the comedians that summoned Shakespeare to
London.

In the main, life in the country was not so very different from what it
is now in the remoter places. Many a secluded English village, as
recently as fifty years ago, jogged on much as in the sixteenth century.
Opportunity then as now dwelt mostly in the cities, but the city of the
sixteenth century bore slight resemblance to a city of to-day.

London, with less than 200,000 inhabitants, was still a medieval city in
appearance, surrounded by a defensive wall, guarded by the Tower, and
crowned by the cathedral. The city proper lay on the north of the
Thames, and the wall made a semicircle of some two miles, from the Tower
on the east to the Fleet ditch and Blackfriars on the west. Seven gates
pierced the wall to the north, and the roads passing through them into
the fields were lined with houses. Westward along the river were great
palaces, behind which the building was practically continuous along the
muddy road that led to the separate city of Westminster. The Thames,
noted for its fish and swans, was the great thoroughfare, crowded with
many kinds of boats and spanned by the famous London Bridge. By one of
the many rowboats that carried passengers hither and thither, or on foot
over the arches of the bridge, between the rows of houses that lined it,
and under the heads of criminals which decorated its entrance, you
might cross the Thames to Southwark. Turning west, past St. Saviour's
and the palace of the Bishop of Winchester, you were soon on the
Bankside, a locality long given over to houses of ill fame and rings for
the baiting of bulls and bears. The theaters, forbidden in the city
proper, were built either in the fields to the north of the walls, or
across the river close by the kennels and rings. Here, as Shakespeare
waited for a boatman to ferry him across to Blackfriars, the whole city
was spread before his eyes, in the foreground the panorama of the
beautiful river, beyond it the crowded houses, the spires of many
churches, and the great tower of old St. Paul's.

[Page Heading: Tudor London]

It was a city of narrow streets, open sewers, wooden houses, without an
adequate water supply or sanitation, in constant danger from fire and
plague. But dirt and disease were no more prevalent than they had been
for centuries; in spite of them, there was no lack of life in the
crowded lanes. The great palaces were outside the city proper, and there
were few notable buildings within its precincts except the churches. The
dismantled monasteries still occupied large areas, but were being made
over to strange uses, the theaters eventually finding a place in
Blackfriars and Whitefriars. The Strand was an ill-paved street running
behind the river palaces, past the village of Charing Cross, on to the
royal palace of Whitehall and to the Abbey and Hall at Westminster. The
walls and surrounding moat had ceased to be of use for defense, and
building constantly spread into the fields without. These fields were
favorite places for recreation and served the purpose of city parks. The
Elizabethans were fond of outdoor sports and spent little daytime
indoors. The shops were open to the street, and the clear spaces at
Cheapside and St. Paul's Church-yard seem to have been always crowded.
St. Paul's, although still used for religious services, had become a
sort of city club or general meeting place. Mules and horses were no
longer to be found there as in the reign of Mary, but the nave was in
constant use as a place for gossip and business. The churchyard was the
usual place for holding lotteries, and here were the shops of a majority
of the London booksellers. In its northeast corner was Paul's Cross, the
famous pulpit whence the wishes of the government were announced and
popularized by the Sunday preachers. And here the variety of London life
was most fully exhibited. The processions and entertainments at court,
the ambassadors from afar, the law students from the Temple, the old
soldiers destitute after service in Flanders, the seamen returned from
plundering the Spanish gold fleet, the youths from the university come
to the city to earn their living by their wits, the bishop and the
puritan, who looked at each other askance, the young squire come to be
gulled of his lands by the roarers of the tavern, the solid merchant
with his chain of gold, the wives who aped the court ladies with their
enormous farthingales and ruffs, the court gallant with his dyed beard
and huge breeches, the idle apprentices quick to riot, the poor poets in
prison for debt--these and how many more are familiar to every reader of
the Elizabethan drama. As often in periods of commercial prosperity,
luxury became fantastic. Men sold their acres to put costly garments on
their backs. Clothing was absurd and ran to extreme sizes of ruffs,
farthingales, and breeches, or to gaudy colors and jewels. Enormous sums
were spent on feasts, entertainments, and masques, especially in the
reign of James I. Cleanliness did not thrive, perfumes took the place of
baths, and rushes, seldom renewed, covered the floor even of the
presence chamber of Elizabeth. But the comforts and luxuries of life
increased and spread to all classes. Tobacco, potatoes, and forks were
first introduced in Shakespeare's time. Building improved, streets were
widened, and coaches became so common as to excite much animadversion
and complaint. If some poets spent much time in the debtors' prison,
others lived well, and some actors gained large fortunes.

[Page Heading: Commercial Prosperity]

The industrious apprentice who refused the allurements of pageants,
theaters, tailors, and taverns, was sure to have his reward. It was a
time of commercial expansion, such as the last generation has witnessed
in Germany and the United States. Bankers, brokers, and merchants gained
great fortunes and managed to protect them. Industry, thrift, and
shrewdness were likely to win enough to buy a knighthood. The trade of
the old East and the new West came to the London wharves, and every one
was ready to take a risk. The merchants of London had furnished support
to the policies of Henry VIII and were rich enough to fit out the
expedition against Flanders and to pay for a third of the fleet that met
the Armada. It was a time, too, for great enterprises and benefactions
to charity. Sir Thomas Gresham built the Exchange, Sir Hugh Middleton
paid for the New River water supply, and there were many gifts to
hospitals. With all this increase in wealth, the various professions
prospered, especially that of law. The inns of court were crowded with
students, not a few of whom forsook the courts for the drama. The age of
chivalry was over, that of commerce begun. No one gained much glory by a
military career in the days of Elizabeth. The church, the law, banking,
commerce, even politics and literature, offered better roads to wealth
or fame.

The importance of the court in Elizabethan London is not easy to realize
to-day. It dominated the life of the small city. Its nobles and their
retainers, its courtiers and hangers-on, made up a considerable portion
of the population; its shows supplied the entertainment, its gossip the
politics of the hour. It was the seat of pageantry, the mirror of
manners, the patron or the oppressor of every one. No one could be so
humble as to escape coming somehow within its sway, and some of the
greatest wrecked their lives in efforts to secure its approval. It is no
wonder that the plays of Shakespeare deal so largely with kings,
queens, and their courts. Under the Tudors, and still more under the
Stuarts, the court aimed at increasing the central authority so as to
bring every affair of its subjects under its direct control. In London,
however, this effort at centralization met with strong opposition. The
government was in the hands of the guilds representative of the wealth
of the city, and was coming face to face with many of the problems of
modern municipalities. The corporation was in constant clash with the
court; and in the end the city, which had supported Henry VIII and
Elizabeth against powerful nobles, became the Puritan London that aided
in ousting the Stuarts.

[Page Heading: The City and the Court]

This conflict between city and court is illustrated in the regulation of
the theaters and companies of actors. The actors had a legal status only
as the license of some nobleman enrolled them as his servants, and they
relied on the protection of their patron and the court against the
opposition of the city authorities. The fact that they were employed to
give plays before the Queen was, indeed, about the only argument that
won any consideration from the corporation. This opposition was based in
part on moral or puritan grounds, but was determined still more by the
fear of three menaces, fire, sedition, and the plague. Wooden buildings
were already discouraged by statute, and the danger of fire from the
wooden theaters is shown by the burning of the Globe and the Fortune.
The gathering of crowds was feared by every property holder, and the
theaters were frequently the scenes of outbreaks of the apprentices. The
danger of the plague from the crowd at plays was the greatest of all.
London was hardly ever free from it, and suffered terrible devastation
in the years 1593 and 1603. For these reasons the theaters were
forbidden within the city's jurisdiction, and were driven into the
outskirts. The best companies appeared frequently at court, and on the
accession of James I they were licensed directly as servants of various
members of the royal family. The actors were thereafter under the
immediate control of the court, and certain "private" theaters were
established within the city. But this triumph of the court over the long
opposition of the city was not an unmixed blessing for the drama.

The theaters in 1590 represented the public on which they depended for
support; by 1616 they were far less representative of the nation or
London, and more dependent on the court and its following. The
Blackfriars theater, before which gathered the crowd of coaches that
annoyed the puritans of the neighborhood, was a symptom of the growth of
wealth and luxury, and of the increased power of the monarchy; the
protests of the puritan neighborhood were an indication of the growth of
a large class hostile alike to an arbitrary court, luxury, and the
theater.

Shakespeare's lifetime, however, saw little of this sharp division into
parties or of that narrow moral consistency which Puritanism came to
require. Looking back on his age in contrast with our own, we are
perhaps most impressed by its striking incongruities. This London of
dirt and disease was also the arena for extravagant fashion and princely
display. This populace that watched with joy the cruel torment of a bear
or the execution of a Catholic also delighted in the romantic comedies
of Shakespeare. This people, so appallingly credulous and ignorant, so
brutal, childish, so mercurial compared with Englishmen of to-day, yet
set the standard of national greatness. This absurdly decorated gallant
could stab a rival in the back or write a penitential lyric. Each man
presents strange, almost inexplicable, contrasts in character, as Bacon
or Raleigh, or Elizabeth herself. The drama mingles its sentiment and
fancy with horrors and bloodshed; and no wonder, for poetry was no
occupation of the cloister. Read the lives of the poets--Surrey, Wyatt,
Sidney, Spenser, Raleigh, Marlowe, Jonson--and of these, only Spenser
and Jonson died in their beds, and Ben had killed his man in a duel. The
student of Elizabethan history and biography will find stranger
contrasts than in the lives of these poets, for crime, meanness, and
sexual depravity often appear in the closest juxtaposition with
imaginative idealism, intellectual freedom, and moral grandeur.

[Page Heading: Elizabethan Incongruities]

The Italian Renaissance, with its mingled passions for beauty, art,
blood, lust, and intellect, seems for a time transferred to London and
dwelling alongside of commerce and Puritanism. Yet these incongruities
of character, manners, and motives that seem so striking to us to-day
may probably be explained by conditions already described. The
opportunities created by the changes in church and religion, the new
education and prosperity, the new America, and the revived classics, all
tended to create a new thirst for experience. This thirst for experience
led to excess and incongruity, but it also furnished an unparalleled
range of human motive for a poet's observation and imitation.

In the wide range of our poet's survey, there is, however, one notable
omission. The reign of Elizabeth, like those of her three predecessors,
was one of religious controversy, change, and persecution. But all this
strife, all this debate, repression, persecution, and all of this great
turmoil working in the minds of Englishmen, find little reflection in
Shakespeare's plays, and little in the whole Elizabethan drama.
Religious controversy had played a part in the drama of the reign of
Edward and Mary, but it rarely enters the Elizabethan drama, and then
mainly in the form of ridicule for the puritan. Shakespeare's plays seem
almost to ignore the most momentous facts of his time. They treat pagan,
Catholic, and Protestant with cordiality and only smile at the puritan
or Brownist. His England of the merry wives or Falstaff's justices seems
strangely untroubled by questions of faith or ritual. There is, to be
sure, plenty of religion and controversy in the literature of the time,
but the drama as a whole is singularly non-religious. It reflects
rather that freedom from restraint, that buoyancy of spirit, that lively
interest in experience, which had their full course in the few years
when the old garment was off and the new not quite fitted. The immense
intellectual and imaginative activity of the period consists precisely
in this freedom from restrictions, partisanship, dogmas, or caste.
Things had lost their labels and some time and argument were required to
find new ones. Ideas were free and not bound to any school, party, or
cause. You grasped an idea without knowing whether it made you realist,
romanticist, or classicist; papist, puritan, or pagan. After centuries
of imprisonment, individuality had its full chance in the world of ideas
as elsewhere.

[Page Heading: An Age of Freedom]

In a few years this was all over, and your sphere of life and the ideas
proper to that sphere were prescribed for you. By another century,
England had fought out the issues of creed and government with expense
of blood and spirit, and had settled down to the compromise of 1688. In
Shakespeare's day there was also, of course, some movement toward fixity
of ideas, and there were great men who strove to convert others to their
ideas and to dictate belief and conduct. But there was a breathing spell
in which, comparatively speaking, men were not alike, but individual,
and in which their motives and ideas revelled in a freedom from ancient
precedent. In this era of flux the modern drama found its panorama of
novel and varied experience making and marring character.

Shakespeare lived peaceably in the heyday of this change, nearly of an
age with Sidney, Raleigh, Spenser, Bacon, Marlowe. Like Marlowe in the
soliloquies of Barabbas and Faust, he recognized the new possibilities
that the age opened through money or ideas. He made much out of the
commercial prosperity of the day, gained such profits as were possible
from his profession, raised his estate, and acquired wealth. He gave his
mind not to any cause or party but to the study of men. The drunkards of
the London inn, the yokels of Warwickshire, and the finest gentlewomen
of the land alike came under the scrutiny of the creator of Falstaff,
Dogberry, and Rosalind. And like his great contemporaries, he triumphed
over incongruities, for he translated his studies of the human mind into
verse of immortal beauty that yet delighted the public stage which was
located halfway between the bear dens and the brothels.




CHAPTER II

BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS AND TRADITIONS


In the time of Shakespeare, the fashion of writing lives of men of
letters had not yet arisen. The art of biography could hardly be said to
be even in its infancy, for the most notable early examples, such as the
lives of Wolsey by Cavendish and of Sir Thomas More by his son-in-law in
the sixteenth century, and Walton's handful in the seventeenth, are far
from what the present age regards as scientific biography. The
preservation of official records makes it possible for the modern
scholar to reconstruct with considerable fullness the careers of public
men; but in the case of Shakespeare, as of others of his profession, we
must needs be content with a few scrappy documents, supplemented by oral
traditions of varying degrees of authenticity. About Shakespeare himself
it must be allowed that we have been able to learn more than about most
of his fellow dramatists and actors.

In a matter which has been the subject of so much controversy, it may
be an aid to clearness if the facts established by contemporary
documents be first related, and the less trustworthy reports added
later. The first indubitable item is trivial and unsavory enough. In
April, 1552, a certain John Shakespeare, residing in Henley Street,
Stratford-on-Avon, in the county of Warwick, was fined twelvepence for
failing to remove a heap of filth from before his door. This John, who
shared his surname with a multitude of other Shakespeares in the England
and especially in the Warwickshire of his time, appears, without
reasonable doubt, to have been the father of the poet. He is described
in later tradition as a glover and as a butcher; the truth seems to be
that he did a miscellaneous business in farm products. For twenty years
or more after this first record he prospered, rising through various
petty municipal offices to the position of bailiff, or mayor, of the
town in 1568. His fortunes must have been notably improved by his
marriage, for the Mary Arden whom he wedded in 1557 was the daughter of
a well-to-do farmer, Robert Arden, who bequeathed her L6 13_s._ 4_d._ in
money and a house with fifty acres of land.

To John and Mary Shakespeare was born a son William, whose baptism was
registered in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford on April 26,
1564. He was their eldest son, two daughters previously born being
already dead. Their other children were Gilbert, Joan, Anna, Richard,
and Edmund. The precise day of William's birth is unknown. The monument
over his grave states that at his death on April 23, 1616, he was
"AEtatis 53," which would seem to indicate that he must have been born at
least as early as April 22; and, since in those days baptism usually
took place within a very few days of birth, there is no reason for
pushing the date farther back.

[Page Heading: Marriage]

Of the education of the poet we have no record. Stratford had a free
grammar school, to which such a boy as the bailiff's son would be sure
to be sent; and the inference that William Shakespeare was a pupil there
and studied the usual Latin authors is entirely reasonable. About 1577
his father began to get into financial difficulties, and it is reported
that about this time the boy was withdrawn from school to help in his
father's business. We know nothing certainly, however, until we learn
from the registry of the Bishop of Worcester that on November 28, 1582,
two husbandmen of Stratford gave bonds "to defend and save harmless" the
bishop and his officers for licensing the marriage of William
Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway. Of the actual marriage there is no
record. Anne is probably to be identified with Agnes or Anne, the
daughter of Richard Hathaway of the neighboring hamlet of Shottery, who
had died in the previous July, and had owned the house of which a part
still survives and is shown to visitors as "Anne Hathaway's cottage."
The date on Anne's tombstone indicates that she was eight years older
than the poet.

A comparison of the bond just mentioned with other documents of the kind
indicates it to be exceptional in the absence of any mention of consent
by the bridegroom's parents, a circumstance rendered still more
remarkable by the fact that he was a minor. The bondsmen were from
Shottery, and this, along with the considerations already advanced, has
naturally led to the inference that the marriage was hurried by the
bride's friends, and to the finding of a motive for their haste in the
birth within six months of "Susanna, daughter to William Shakespere,"
who was baptized on May 26, 1583.

[Page Heading: "The only Shake-scene"]

The record of the baptism of Shakespeare's only other children, the
twins Hamnet and Judith, in February, 1585, practically exhausts the
documentary evidence concerning the poet in Stratford until 1596. It is
conjectured, but not known, that about 1586 he found his way to London
and soon became connected with the theater, according to one tradition,
as call-boy, to another, as holder of the horses of theatergoers. But by
1592 we are assured that he had entered the ranks of the playwrights,
and had achieved enough success to rouse the jealous resentment of a
rival. Robert Greene, who died on the third of September in that year,
left unpublished a pamphlet, _Greenes Groatsworth of Witte: bought with
a Million of Repentaunce_, in which he warned three of his fellows
against certain plagiarists, "those puppits, I meane, that speake from
our mouths, those anticks garnisht in our colours." "Yes, trust them
not," he goes on; "for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our
feathers, that with his _Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide_, supposes
he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and
being an absolute _Johannes Factotum_, is in his owne conceit the only
Shake-scene in a countrie. O that I might intreate your rare wits to be
imployed in more profitable courses, and let those apes imitate your
past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired
inventions! I know the best husband of you all will never prove an
usurer, and the kindest of them all wil never proove a kinde nurse; yet,
whilst you may, seeke you better maisters, for it is pittie men of such
rare wits should be subject to the pleasures of such rude groomes." The
phrase about the "tyger's heart" is an obvious parody on the line,

    Oh Tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!

which occurs both in _The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke_, and
in the variant of that play which is included in the First Folio as the
third part of _Henry VI_. "The only Shake-scene" has naturally been
taken as an allusion to Shakespeare's name; and it is scarcely possible
to doubt the reference to him throughout the passage. This being so, we
may infer that by this date Shakespeare had written, with whatever else,
his share in the three parts of _Henry VI_, and was successful enough to
seem formidable to the dying Greene. It is noteworthy, too, that thus
early we have allusion to his double profession: as an actor in the
words "player's hide" and "Shake-scene," and as an author in the charge
of plagiarism. That the reference in "beautified with our feathers" is
to literary plagiarism is confirmed by the following lines from
_Greene's Funeralls_, by R. B., 1594, which seem to have been suggested
by Greene's phrase:

    Greene is the ground of everie painters die;
    Greene gave the ground to all that wrote upon him.
    Nay, more, the men that so eclipst his fame,
    _Purloynde his plumes_: can they deny the same?

Somewhat less certain is the allusion in a document closely connected
with the foregoing. _Greenes Groatsworth_ had been prepared for the
press by his friend Henry Chettle, and in the address "To the Gentlemen
Readers" prefixed to his _Kind-Harts Dreame_ (registered December 8,
1592), Chettle regrets that he has not struck out from Greene's book the
passages that have been "offensively by one or two of them taken." "With
neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them
I care not if I never be. The other, whome at that time I did not so
much spare as since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the heate
of living writers, and might have usde my owne discretion,--especially
in such a case, the Author beeing dead,--that I did not, I am as sory,
as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because myselfe have seene
his demeanor no lesse civill, than he exelent in the qualitie[1] he
professes: Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightnes of
dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing,
that aprooves his Art." This characterization so well fits in with the
tone of later contemporary allusions to Shakespeare that it is
regrettable that Chettle did not make its reference to him beyond a
doubt.

[1] _I.e._, profession, used especially at that time of the profession
of acting.

[Page Heading: First Publications]

Within a few months after the disturbance caused by Greene's charges,
Shakespeare appeared in the field of authorship in quite unambiguous
fashion. On April 18, 1593, Richard Field, himself a Stratford man,
entered at Stationers' Hall a book entitled _Venus and Adonis_. The
dedication, which is to the Earl of Southampton, is signed by "William
Shakespeare," and the state of the text confirms the inference that the
poet himself oversaw the publication. The terms of the dedication, read
in the light of contemporary examples of this kind of writing, do not
imply any close relation between poet and patron; and the phrase "the
first heyre of my invention," applied to the poem, need not be taken as
placing its composition earlier than any of the plays, since writing for
the stage was then scarcely regarded as practising the art of letters.
_Lucrece_ was registered May 9, 1594, and appeared likewise without a
name on the title-page, but with Shakespeare's full signature attached
to a dedication, somewhat more warmly personal than before, to the same
nobleman. The frequency of complimentary references to these poems, and
the number of editions issued during the poet's lifetime (seven of
_Venus_, and five of _Lucrece_), indicate that it was through them that
he first obtained literary distinction.

Meanwhile he was gaining a footing as an actor. The accounts of the
Treasurer of the Chamber for March 15, 1594-5, bear record of
Shakespeare's having been summoned, along with Kempe and Burbage, as a
member of the Lord Chamberlain's Company, to present two comedies before
the Queen at Greenwich Palace in the Christmas season of 1594. This is
the earliest mention of the poet as sharing with his company a kind of
recognition as honorable as it was profitable.

The records now take us back to his family. On August 11, 1596, his only
son Hamnet was buried. In the same year John Shakespeare applied to the
College of Heralds for a grant of arms, basing the claim on services of
his ancestors to Henry VII, the continued good reputation of the family,
and John's marriage to "Mary, daughter and heiress of Robert Arden, of
Wilmcote, gent." Since there is evidence to show that the financial
difficulties that had beset John Shakespeare before his son went to
London had continued, and since the attempts of actors to obtain
gentility by grants of arms were not uncommon, it is likely that the
poet was the moving force in this matter. Though a draft granting this
request was drawn up, it was not executed; but in 1599 a renewed
application was successful, the heralds giving an exemplification of the
coat which the applicants claimed had been assigned them in 1568, "Gold,
on a bend sable, a spear of the first, and for his crest or cognizance a
falcon, his wings displayed argent, standing on a wreath of his
colours, supporting a spear gold steeled as aforesaid." The motto is
"Non Sans Droit." These arms appear on the monument over Shakespeare's
grave in Trinity Church in Stratford, and, impaled with the Hall arms,
on the tombstone of his daughter Susanna and her husband John Hall.

[Page Heading: The Purchase of New Place]

A more substantial step towards restoring the standing of the family was
taken when the poet bought on May 4, 1597, for sixty pounds, New Place,
the largest house in Stratford. This was only the beginning of a
considerable series of investments of the profits of his professional
life in landed and other property in his native district. On his
father's death in 1601 he inherited the two houses in Henley Street, the
only real property of which the elder Shakespeare had retained
possession; and in one of these the poet's mother lived until her death
in 1608. About a hundred and seven acres of arable land with common
pasture appertaining to it was conveyed to the poet on May 1, 1602, by
William and John Combe, of Warwick and Old Stratford respectively, in
consideration of L320; and twenty acres of pasture land were acquired
from the same owners in 1610. On September 28, 1602, the Court Rolls of
the Manor of Rowington record the transfer to Shakespeare from Walter
Getley of a cottage and garden in Chapel Lane, Stratford. In 1605 he
paid L440 for the thirty-one years remaining of a lease of the Stratford
tithes, a purchase which involved him in a considerable amount of
litigation. It was through this acquisition that he became involved in
the dispute over the attempted inclosure of certain common fields
belonging to the town of Stratford. John Combe, who died in July, 1614,
bequeathing Shakespeare L5, left as heir a son, William, who with Arthur
Mannering, sought to annex to their respective estates the aforesaid
common lands. After having secured a deed safeguarding himself as part
owner of the tithes from any loss that might result from the inclosure,
Shakespeare seems to have lent his influence to Combe, in spite of the
requests of the corporation for aid. The inclosure was not carried out.

His investments were not confined to his native county. A deed of sale
has come down to us concerning the purchase of a house near the
Blackfriars Theater in London, in March, 1613. The price was L140; but
on the following day, March 11, Shakespeare gave the previous owner,
Henry Walker, a mortgage deed for L60, which he never seems to have paid
off. There is evidence of his ownership of other property in Blackfriars
in three documents, recently discovered by Professor C. W. Wallace,
dealing with a suit in Chancery, and dated April 26, May 15, and May 22,
1615, in which Shakespeare and others sought to obtain from one Matthew
Bacon possession of certain deeds pertaining to their property within
the precinct of Blackfriars.

[Page Heading: Litigation]

Other traces of Shakespeare's business transactions suggest that he was
by no means averse to going to law. After his resumption of relations
with Stratford in 1596, we find his parents engaged (November, 1597) in
a lawsuit, the outcome of which does not appear to recover the mortgaged
estate of Asbies, which had formed part of his mother's inheritance. The
years 1600, 1604, 1608, and 1609 all contain records of suits by the
poet to recover small sums of money; and, on the other hand, we find tax
collectors in London seeking payment of taxes incurred on his goods
while he lived in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopgate, in 1593 or
1594. These claims Shakespeare satisfied some years later when he was
living across the river in Southwark. The documents of a law case of
1612, recently discovered by Professor C. W. Wallace in the Public
Record office, include Shakespeare's deposition as a witness and add
some interesting information. It appears that, possibly from 1598 to
1604, he lodged in the house of Christopher Mountjoy, a wigmaker, at the
corner of Muggle and Silver streets near Cripplegate. In 1604 he had
aided in arranging the marriage of Mary Mountjoy to her father's
apprentice, Stephen Bellott. The lawsuit was brought by Bellott against
his father-in-law to secure the dowry and promise of inheritance.
Shakespeare's negotiations in regard to the marriage play an important
part in the various depositions, as the question whether a dowry of L50
had been promised was crucial to the case. Shakespeare himself was
examined on September 11, but the poet failed to remember that a
definite sum had been agreed upon for the dowry.

Further evidence relating to Shakespeare as a man of substance is to be
found in letters in the Stratford archives, written by prominent
townsmen. One, from Abraham Sturley to a relative in London on the
business of the town of Stratford, dated January 24, 1597-8, contains a
reference to "Mr. Shaksper" as "willing to disburse some money upon some
odd yard-land or other at Shottery or near about us," and suggests
urging upon Shakespeare the purchase of the tithes. It seems fairly
certain from other letters of Sturley's that this one was addressed to
Richard Quiney, father of Shakespeare's future son-in-law, Thomas
Quiney. On October 25 of the same year, this Richard Quiney wrote from
the Bell in Carter Lane, London, "to my loving friend and countryman,
Mr. Wm. Shackespere," asking for his help with L30. From a letter from
Abraham Sturley to Richard Quiney on the following fourth of November it
appears that Quiney was seeking an enlargement of the charter of
Stratford, with a view to an increase of revenue. In Sturley's previous
letter reference had been made to an attempt to gain "an ease and
discharge of such taxes and subsidies wherewith our town is like to be
charged, and I assure you I am in great fear and doubt by no means able
to pay." In this extreme condition of affairs Sturley heard with
satisfaction "that our countryman Mr. Wm. Shak. would procure us money,
which I will like of as I shall here when, and where, and how; and I
pray let not go that occasion if it may sort to any indifferent
conditions." The poet is probably referred to in still another letter,
of about the same period, to Richard Quiney, this time from his father
Adrian: "If you bargain with Wm. Sha., or receive money therefor, bring
your money home that you may." All of these documents carry the
unmistakable implication that William Shakespeare in London was regarded
by his fellow-townsmen as a person of resources, likely to be of service
to his friends in financial stress.

[Page Heading: Professional Progress]

If we return now to the evidences of Shakespeare's professional
progress, we shall see whence these resources were derived. Confining
ourselves still to explicit and unambiguous records, we find the year
1598 marking Shakespeare's emergence as actor and dramatist into a
somewhat opener publicity. The quarto editions of _Richard II_ and
_Love's Labour's Lost_, issued that year, are the first plays to exhibit
his name on the title-page; and in the 1616 folio edition of Ben
Jonson's works, attached to _Every Man in His Humour_, is the statement:
"This Comedie was first Acted in the yeere 1598 by the then L.
Chamberleyne his servants. The principal Comedians were Will.
Shakespeare, Aug. Philips, Hen. Condel, Will. Slye, Will. Kempe, Ric.
Burbadge, Joh. Hemings, Tho. Pope, Chr. Beeston, Joh. Dyke." These
evidences of prominence are more than corroborated by the famous passage
in the _Palladis Tamia_ (1598) of Francis Meres, in which he not only
compares the "mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare" with Ovid for
his _Venus and Adonis_, his _Lucrece_, "his sugred sonnets among his
private friends," but with Plautus and Seneca for his excellence "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 John, Titus Andronicus, and his
Romeo and Juliet." Barnfield in the same year harps on the
"honey-flowing vein" of the author of _Venus_ and _Lucrece_, and
"honey-tongued" is again the opening epithet of John Weever's epigram
"Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare" (1599), in which "_Romeo_" and "_Richard_"
share the praises with the narrative poems. From this time on,
publishers of the plays recognize Shakespeare's reputation by generally
placing his name on the title-page: a form of compliment which the
author probably did not appreciate when it was extended, as in the case
of _The Passionate Pilgrim_ (1599), to pirated works, some of which were
meant to be private, and others were not by him at all.

Reminiscences or references to his works are frequent in contemporary
literature. Among these are several passages in two plays, _The Return
from Parnassus_, acted in St. John's College, Cambridge, about 1601. In
one passage, Kempe, the famous actor, speaks slightingly of the acting
qualities of the plays by university pens and continues, "Why here's our
fellow Shakespeare puts them all down, ay, and Ben Jonson
too,"--another identification of the actor and the dramatist
Shakespeare. Another character in these plays prefers Shakespeare to
Chaucer, Gower, and Spenser. Less enthusiastic though sincerely
appreciative is John Webster, who, in the address to the Reader prefixed
to _The White Devil_, 1612, acknowledges his indebtedness to his
predecessors, Chapman, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher and to "the right
happy and copious industry of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and
Master Heywood." Though of widely varying significance and interest, the
numerous allusions to Shakespeare or to his plays give further testimony
to his growing reputation.

[Page Heading: Contemporary Allusions]

While it is probable that the sale of Shakespeare's poems brought him in
some financial return, he is not likely to have profited from the
publication of his plays. The playwright at that time sold his product
to the manager or company, and thereby gave up all rights. To the end of
the sixteenth century managers usually paid from L5 to L11 for a new
play, adding a bonus in the case of success, and sometimes a share of
the proceeds of the second performance. During the first decade of
Shakespeare's activity as a dramatist, then, we may calculate that he
obtained for about twenty-one plays an average of about L10 each, which,
making the usual allowance for the greater purchasing power of money,
would be equivalent to about $400, or an annual income of about $800.
During his second decade the prices for plays had so risen that he may
be estimated to have received about twice as much from this source as
in the early half of his career.

More profitable than playwriting was acting. Lee estimates Shakespeare's
salary as an actor before 1599 at L100 a year at least, exclusive of
special rewards for court performances, and we know that by 1635 an
actor-shareholder, such as Shakespeare latterly was, had a salary of
L180. Besides this, he became about 1599 a sharer, with Heming, Condell,
Philips, and others, in the receipts of the Globe Theater, erected in
1597-8 by Richard and Cuthbert Burbage. The annual income from a single
share was over L200, and Shakespeare may have had more than one. In 1610
he became a sharer also in the smaller Blackfriars Theater, after it had
been acquired by the Burbages.

The evidence thus accumulated of Shakespeare's having acquired a
substantial fortune is corroborated by what we know of the earnings of
other members of his profession, and it leaves no mystery about the
source of the capital which he invested in real property in Stratford
and London.

The death of Elizabeth and the accession of James I improved rather than
impaired Shakespeare's prospects. A patent, dated May 19, 1603,
authorizes the King's servants, "Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare,
Richard Burbage ... and the rest of their associats freely to use and
exercise the arte and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories,
interludes, moralls, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such other like as
they have already studied, or hereafter shall use or studie, as well
for the recreation of our lovinge subjects, as for our solace and
pleasure when we shall thinke good to see them, duringe our pleasure."
By this document the Lord Chamberlain's Company became the King's, and
so remained during the rest of Shakespeare's connection with the stage.
At least a dozen instances are recorded in the Revels Accounts of the
Company's having acted before his Majesty, and on the occasion of a
performance before the court at the Earl of Pembroke's mansion of Wilton
House, L30 was given them "by way of his majesty's reward."
Shakespeare's name stands first in a list of nine actors who walked in a
procession on the occasion of James's entry into London, March 15, 1604,
when each actor was granted four yards and a half of scarlet cloth for
cloaks for the occasion.

[Page Heading: Growing Prosperity]

This recognition by the court is the latest evidence we have of
Shakespeare's belonging to the profession of acting. He is mentioned in
the Jonson Folio of 1616 as playing a part in _Sejanus_ in 1603; but his
name is absent from the list of the King's servants, as his company had
now become, when they performed _Volpone_ in 1605, _The Alchemist_ in
1610, and _Catiline_ in 1611. It would thus seem that he gave up acting
shortly after the death of Elizabeth.

The date of his withdrawal from London to Stratford is less precisely
indicated. The likelihood is that the transference was gradual; for
after 1611, the date usually conjectured for his retirement from the
metropolis, we have indications of at least occasional activities there,
as in the collaboration with Fletcher, now generally admitted, in _Henry
VIII_ and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, and in the business dealings in
Blackfriars already described. On the other hand, he had disposed of his
shares in the theaters before his death; as we have seen, he appears
frequently in his last years in connection with municipal affairs in
Stratford; and later formal references are usually to "William
Shakespeare, gent., of Stratford-on-Avon." It was during this period
that we find record of the poet serving in a new capacity. There has
recently been discovered in the Household Book at Belvoir Castle the
following entry: "Item 31 Martij (1613) to Mr. Shakspeare in gold about
my Lordes Impreso xiiij s. To Richard Burbadge for paynting and making
yt in gold xliiij s. (Total) iiij^li viij^s." This means that the Earl
of Rutland, who took part in a tournament at Whitehall on March 24,
1613, had the heraldic device for his shield made by Shakespeare and
Burbage,--Burbage, whose skill as painter is well known, being probably
responsible for the design and Shakespeare for the motto. Rutland was a
friend and associate of that Earl of Southampton to whom Shakespeare had
dedicated his two narrative poems.

The remaining documents are chiefly domestic. On June 5, 1607, his elder
daughter Susanna married John Hall, a physician of Stratford, who
succeeded the poet in the occupancy of New Place; and on September 9,
1608, the Stratford Register records the burial of his mother, "Mayry
Shaxspere, wydowe." His younger daughter, Judith, married Thomas Quiney
on February 10, 1616, with such haste and informality as led to the
imposition of a fine by the ecclesiastical court at Worcester. In the
previous month Shakespeare had a draft of his will drawn up by Francis
Collins, a solicitor of Warwick, and after certain changes this was
signed in March. On the twenty-fifth of April the Registers show the
burial of "Will. Shakespeare gent." The monument over his grave gives
the day of his death as April 23 (Old Style). He was buried in the
chancel of Stratford Church, and on the grave may still be read the much
discussed lines:

    Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
    To dig the dust enclosed heare;
    Bleste be the man that spares these stones,
    And curst be he that moves my bones.

William Hall, who visited Stratford in 1694, records the tradition that
the poet himself composed the lines in a style calculated to impress
sextons and prevent them from digging up his bones and throwing them
into the adjacent charnel house. However this may be, the grave has
remained unopened.

[Page Heading: Death and Burial]

Seven years later, thirty-six of Shakespeare's plays were collected by
two of his former colleagues of the theater, Heming and Condell, whom he
had remembered in his will, and published in the famous First Folio.
The preliminary documents in this volume, printed in our appendix, close
significantly the contemporary records of the man, and bind together the
burgess of Stratford with the actor of London and the dramatist of the
world.

Of Shakespeare's handwriting nothing that can be called his with
complete assurance has survived except six signatures; one to the
deposition in the matter of the Mountjoy marriage; one to the deed of
the house he bought in Blackfriars in 1613, one to the mortgage-deed on
the same house, executed on the day after the purchase, and one on each
of the three sheets of paper containing his will, the last of which has
in addition the words "By me." All six are somewhat crabbed specimens of
the old English style of handwriting, which is the character he would
naturally acquire in such a school as that at Stratford in the sixteenth
century, as we learn from surviving examples of the copy-books of the
period. The manuscripts of his plays have gone the way of all, or almost
all, the autographs of the men of letters of his time, nor is it likely
that future research will add materially to what we have. The exact
signatures, though it is difficult to be certain of all the letters,
seem to show a variation in spelling--Shakspere, Shakespere, or
Shakspeare. His father's name appears in the records of the town in
sixteen different forms, an illustration of the inconsistency in the
orthography of proper names, as of other words, which was common with
people of that time of greater worldly consequence and education than
the poet or his father. The form of the name used in the present edition
is that which generally appears on the title-pages of plays ascribed to
him; it is that which he himself used in signing the dedications of his
two poems to the Earl of Southampton; it is that which occurs in the
legal documents having to do with his property; and it is the common
spelling in the literary allusions of the seventeenth century.

[Page Heading: Signatures and Portraits]

[Illustration: THREE AUTOGRAPH SIGNATURES WRITTEN BY SHAKESPEARE ON
THREE SHEETS OF HIS WILL

From the document now at Somerset House, London]

Our knowledge of Shakespeare's personal appearance is also far from
being definite. The bust on the monument in the church at Stratford was
cut apparently before 1623 by a Dutch stone cutter called Gerard
Janssen. It was originally colored; probably the eyes light hazel, and
the hair auburn. Its crude workmanship renders it unreliable as a
likeness. The frontispiece to the First Folio was engraved for that work
by Martin Droeshout, who was only twenty-two years old at the time, so
that he is more likely to have made it from a portrait than from memory.
No portrait has been found that seems actually to have served this
purpose, though there are resemblances between the engraving and the
portrait, dated 1609, presented to the Memorial Picture Gallery at
Stratford by Mrs. Charles Flower. The numerous other portraits that have
been claimed as likenesses of the dramatist have varying degrees of
probability, but none has a pedigree without a flaw. Those with most
claim to interest are the Ely Palace portrait, the Chandos portrait,
the Garrick Club bust, and the Kesselstadt death-mask.[2]

[2] See frontispieces in the Tudor Shakespeare to editions of _Henry V_
(Droeshout original), _King Lear_ (Ely Palace), _Romeo and Juliet_
(Chandos), _Pericles_ (Garrick Club bust), and _The Tempest_
(Death-mask). The Stratford Monument and the Droeshout engraving are
reproduced in the present volume.

       *       *       *       *       *

Such is the very considerable body of authenticated facts about the life
of Shakespeare. Lacking though they are in intimate and personal
touches, they can hardly be said to leave the main outlines of his
career shadowy or mysterious. But they do not by any means exhaust the
data at our disposal for forming an impression of the poet's
personality. A large mass of tradition, of less than legal validity but
much of it of a high degree of probability, has come down to us, the
sources of which may now be detailed.

In the seventeenth century we have several biographical and critical
collections in which Shakespeare figures, the most important being
these: Fuller's _Worthies of England_ (1662), Aubrey's _Lives of Eminent
Men_ (compiled 1669-1696), Phillips's _Theatrum Poetarum_ (1675), and
Langbaine's _English Dramatic Poets_ (1691). The two last are for
strictly biographical purposes negligible, though interesting as early
criticism. Fuller began his work in 1643, so that he may be supposed to
have had access to oral tradition from men who actually knew
Shakespeare. He gives few facts, but some hints as to temperament.
"Though his genius generally was jocular and inclining him to
festivity, yet he could, when so disposed, be solemn and serious....
Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson; which two I beheld
like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war; master Jonson
(like the former) was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow, in
his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in
bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and
take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention."

[Page Heading: Sources of Traditions]

Among the actors who, with Shakespeare, took part in the first
production of Jonson's _Every Man in His Humour_ was Christopher
Beeston, who when he died in 1637 was manager of the Cockpit Theater in
Drury Lane. He was succeeded in this office by his son William, who
became in his old age the revered transmitter to Restoration players and
playwrights of the traditions of the great age in which he had spent his
youth. From him, and from another actor of the same period, John Lacy,
as well as from other sources, the antiquary John Aubrey collected
fragments of gossip for his lives of the English poets. According to
Aubrey's notes, confused and unequal in value, Shakespeare "did act
exceeding well"; "understood Latin pretty well, for he had been in his
younger years a schoolmaster in the country"; "was a handsome,
well-shaped man, very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant
smooth wit." It is Aubrey, too, that reports that John Shakespeare was
a butcher, and he adds, "I have been told heretofore by some of the
neighbours that when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade....
When he killed a calf, he would doe it in a high style and make a
speech. There was at that time another butcher's son in this towne, that
was held not at all inferior to him for a naturall wit, his
acquaintance, and coetanean, but dyed young." The same writer is
authority for the statement that it was at Grendon, near Oxford, on the
road from Stratford to London, that the dramatist "happened to take the
humour of the constable in Midsummer Night's Dream"--a remark that may
refer loosely either to Bottom and his friends, or to Dogberry and
Verges. He also ascribes to the poet an apocryphal epigram on a
Stratford usurer, John Combe.

The Rev. John Ward, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon for 1662 to 1668, kept
about the time of his coming to this charge a diary in which he relates
certain echoes of the conversation of the town at a time when the poet's
nephews were still living there. From him we hear that in his elder days
Shakespeare retired to Stratford; that in his most active period he
wrote two plays a year; that he spent at the rate of L1000 a year; and
that his death was due to a fever following a "merry meeting" in
Stratford with Jonson and Drayton.

An additional reference to the tradition of Shakespeare's convivial
tendencies is to be found in the legend of his visit to Bidford, six
miles from Stratford, with a group of cronies to compare capacities
with the Bidford Drinkers. According to the earliest version of this
somewhat widespread tale, that of a visitor to Stratford in 1762, "he
enquired of a shepherd for the Bidford Drinkers, who replied they were
absent but the Bidford sippers were at home, and, I suppose, continued
the sheepkeeper, they will be sufficient for you; and so, indeed, they
were; he was forced to take up his lodging under that tree [the
crab-tree, long pointed out] for some hours."

[Page Heading: Traditions]

The earliest description of Shakespeare as "a glover's son" is found in
the memoranda of Archdeacon Plume of Rochester, written about 1656.
Plume adds, "Sir John Mennes saw once his old father in his shop--a
merry cheeked old man that said, 'Will was a good honest fellow, but he
darest have crackt a jeast with him at any time.'" No Sir John Mennes
who could have seen John Shakespeare is known, but the saying may well
be the echo of contemporary gossip.

A manuscript preserved at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, contains
certain notes made before 1688 by the Rev. William Fulman. Among them
are interpolated others (given here in italics) by the Rev. Richard
Davies previously to 1708. "William Shakespeare was born at
Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire about 1563-4. _Much given to all
unluckinesse in stealing venison and rabbits, particularly from Sr. ...
Lucy, who had him whipt and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him
fly his native country to his great advancement; but his reveng was so
sweet that he is his Justice Clodpate, and calls him a great man, and
that in allusion to his name bore three lowses rampant for his arms._
From an actor of playes he became a composer. He dyed Apr. 23, 1616,
aetat 53, probably at Stratford, for there he is buried, and hath a
monument (Dugd. p. 520), _on which he lays a heavy curse upon any one
who shall remove his bones. He dyed a papist."_ The inaccuracy of
Davies's version of facts otherwise known warns us against too great a
reliance on his individual contribution.

A certain John Dowdall left a short account of places he visited in
Warwickshire in 1693. He describes the monument and tombstone, giving
inscriptions, and adds, "The clarke that shew'd me this church is above
80 years old; he says that this Shakespeare was formerly in this towne
bound apprentice to a butcher, but that he run from his master to
London, and there was received into the play-house as a serviture, and
by this means had an opportunity to be what he afterwards prov'd. He was
the best of his family, but the male line is extinguished. Not one for
feare of the curse abovesaid dare touch his gravestone, tho his wife and
daughters did earnestly desire to be leyd in the same grave with him."
The traditional explanation of the curse as reported by William Hall,
has already been given (p. 35).

[Page Heading: Rowe's Biography]

The first regular biography of Shakespeare is that by Nicholas Rowe,
written as a preface to his edition of the plays which, issued in 1709,
stands at the beginning of modern Shakespearean interpretation. Though
compiled nearly a century after the poet's death, Rowe's life has claims
upon our credit more substantial than might be expected. His chief
source of information was the great actor Betterton, a Shakespeare
enthusiast, who had himself taken pains to accumulate facts concerning
his hero. Much of Betterton's material came to him through John Lowin
and Joseph Taylor, two actors who had been colleagues of Shakespeare's
and who lived into the Restoration period. According to John Downes, a
theatrical prompter in the end of the seventeenth century, these
veterans brought to the new generation the actual instruction they had
received from the dramatist himself on the playing of the parts
respectively of Henry VIII and Hamlet. Theatrical and other traditions
reached Rowe also through Sir William D'Avenant, the leading figure in
the revival of the stage after 1660. D'Avenant's father was host of the
Crown Inn at Oxford, where, according to the statements of Aubrey and of
Anthony Wood in 1692, Shakespeare was accustomed to put up on his
journeys between London and Stratford. Wood reports that the elder
D'Avenant was a "man of grave and saturnine disposition, yet an admirer
of plays and play-makers, especially Shakespeare," and that Mrs.
D'Avenant was "a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation."
William D'Avenant was generally reputed to be Shakespeare's godson, and
Aubrey, whose gossip must be accepted with great hesitation, says that
he was not averse to being taken as his son. In spite of the fact of
this scandal's appearance in various seventeenth century anecdotes, the
more careful account of the D'Avenants by Wood points to its rejection.
The story is usually linked with another recorded by the lawyer
Manningham in his Diary, March 13, 1602, that Burbage, who had been
playing Richard III, was overheard by Shakespeare making an appointment
with a lady in the audience. When the tragedian arrived at the
rendez-vous, he found Shakespeare in possession; and on knocking was
answered that "William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third."

To return to the D'Avenants, the elder son, Robert, used to tell that
when he was a child Shakespeare had given him "a hundred kisses." Sir
William was Rowe's authority for the statement that the Earl of
Southampton once gave the poet L1000 "to enable him to go through with a
purchase which he heard he had a mind to"; but no purchase of this
magnitude by Shakespeare is recorded. D'Avenant himself was said to own
a complimentary letter written to Shakespeare by James I, and the
publisher Lintot says that the Duke of Buckinghamshire claimed to have
examined the document. The story about Shakespeare's first connection
with the theater consisting in his holding horses outside, told first in
a manuscript note preserved in the Library of the University of
Edinburgh, 1748, is also credited to D'Avenant. According to this
tradition, frequently repeated, the future dramatist organized a regular
corps of boys and monopolized the business, so that "as long as the
practice of riding to the play-house continued the waiters that held the
horses retained the appellation of Shakespeare's Boys."

[Page Heading: Further Traditions]

Many of the natural inferences to be drawn from the data in the first
part of the chapter are given by Rowe as facts. Thus he states
positively that Shakespeare attended a free school, from which he was
withdrawn owing to "the narrowness of his circumstances, and the want of
assistance at home." He repeats the deer-stealing anecdote, with further
detail. As to his acting, Rowe reports, "Tho' I have inquir'd, I could
never meet with any further account of him this way than that the top of
his performance was the ghost in his own Hamlet." He corroborates the
general contemporary opinion of Shakespeare's fluency and spontaneity in
composition. As to his personality, he says, "Besides the advantages of
his wit, he was in himself a good-natur'd man, of great sweetness in his
manners and a most agreeable companion." Rowe credits Shakespeare with
having prevented his company from rejecting one of Jonson's plays at a
time when Jonson was altogether unknown, and is inclined to consider the
latter ungenerous in his critical remarks on Shakespeare.

William Oldys, in his manuscript _Adversaria_, now in the British
Museum, reports a few further fragments of gossip, the chief of which
is that Shakespeare's brother Gilbert was discovered still living about
1660 and was questioned by some actors as to his memory of William. All
he could give them was a vague recollection of his having played the
part of Adam in _As You Like It_.

Such are the most significant details which tradition, unauthenticated
but often plausible, has added to our knowledge of the documents. There
exists also a very considerable amount of literary allusion to
Shakespeare's productions from 1594 onwards, which is easily accessible
in collected form. The most notable of these are the comments of his
friend and contemporary, Ben Jonson. Besides the splendid eulogy
prefixed to the First Folio, Jonson talked of Shakespeare's lack of art
to Drummond of Hawthornden, and expressed himself with affection and
discrimination in the famous passage in _Timber_.

After all allowances have been made for the inaccuracies of oral
tradition, we may safely gather from those concerning Shakespeare some
inferences which help to clothe the naked skeleton of the documented
facts. It is clear that, within a generation after Shakespeare's death,
common opinion both in Stratford and London recognized that in the actor
and dramatist a great man had passed away, that he had been in a worldly
sense highly successful, though starting from unpropitious beginnings,
that he wrote with great swiftness and ease, and that in his personal
relations he was gentle, kindly, genial, and witty. That the bailiff's
son who returned to his native town as a prosperous gentleman, is to be
identified with the actor and shareholder of the London theaters, and
with the author of the plays and poems, it is difficult to see how there
can remain any reasonable doubt; and, though the facts which prove this
identity contain little to illuminate the vast intellect and soaring
imagination which created Hamlet and Lear, they contain nothing
irreconcilable with the personality, which these creations imply rather
than reveal.

[Page Heading: Evidence of the Sonnets]

One further source of information about Shakespeare's personality has
figured largely in some biographies. The _Sonnets_ were published in
1609, evidently without Shakespeare's cooeperation or consent, with a
dedication by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, to a Mr. W. H., "the onlie
begetter of these insuing sonnets." All attempts to identify this Mr. W.
H. have failed. He may have been merely the person who procured the
manuscript for Thorpe, though the language of the dedication seems to
imply that he was the young gentleman who is the subject of a
considerable number of the poems. Of this young gentleman and of a dark
lady who seems to have been the occasion of other of the sonnets, much
has been written, but no facts of Shakespeare's life have been
established beyond those which are obvious to every reader: that
Shakespeare wrote admiring and flattering sonnets to a young man who is
urged to marry (and who may have been the Earl of Southampton, or an
unknown Mr. W. H., or another); and that he treats of an intrigue with
some unknown woman. The identification of the young man of the first
seventeen sonnets with other friends who are praised in later sonnets is
not certain, though in some cases probable; and much research and
conjecture have entirely failed to make clear the relations between the
poet, the rival poet, the lady, and the friend. The _Sonnets_ furnish us
with no knowledge of Shakespeare's personal affairs, and only a meager
basis even for gossip as to some of his experiences with men and women.

Another kind of inquiry has sought to discover in the sonnets not facts
or incidents of Shakespeare's life, but indications of his emotional
experiences. The results of such inquiry are manifestly outside the
scope of this chapter. For their discussion, the reader must be referred
to Professor Alden's introduction to the Tudor edition of the _Sonnets_.
Shakespeare's personality as it is reflected from his works will also be
considered in the concluding chapter of this volume. So much stress,
however, has been placed on interpretations of the sonnets, and these
have so often occupied an exaggerated place in his biography, that it
may be worth while to remark that whether these lyrical poems are
genuine and personal or are conventional and literary, and whether they
make the poet more clearly discernible or not, they must certainly be
taken not alone by themselves, but in connection with the dramas as
affording us an impression of the man who wrote them. Of the sonnets,
it may be said in almost the same words just now used of the documents
and traditions, that whether they contain much or little to illuminate
the vast intellect and soaring imagination which created Hamlet and
Lear, they contain nothing irreconcilable with the personality which
these creations imply rather than reveal.




CHAPTER III

SHAKESPEARE'S READING


We have called the present chapter "Shakespeare's Reading" rather than
"The Learning of Shakespeare," because, apart from the famous line in
which Ben Jonson stated that the poet had "small Latin and less Greek,"
it is evident from the allusions throughout the plays that Shakespeare
was a reader rather than a scholar. In other words, he used books for
what interested him; he did not study them for complete mastery; and
many and varied as are the traces of his literary interests, they have
the air of being detached fragments that have stuck in a plastic and
retentive mind, not pieces of systematic erudition. It is true that many
books have been written to show that Shakespeare had the knowledge of a
professional in law, medicine, navigation, theology, conveyancing,
hunting and hawking, horsemanship, politics, and other fields; but such
works are usually the products of enthusiasts in single subjects, who
are apt to forget how much a man of acute mind and keen observation can
pick up of a technical matter that interests him for the time, and how
intelligently he can use it. The cross-examination of an expert witness
by an able lawyer is an everyday illustration; and in the literature of
our own day this kind of versatility is strikingly exemplified in the
work of such a writer as Mr. Kipling.

[Page Heading: School-Books]

How Shakespeare learned to read and write his own tongue we do not know;
that he did learn hardly needs to be argued. The free grammar school at
Stratford-on-Avon, like other schools of its type, was named from its
function of teaching Latin grammar; and we may make what is known of the
curricula of such schools in the sixteenth century the basis for our
inferences as to what Shakespeare learned there.

The accidence, with which the course began, was studied in Lily's
Grammar, and clear echoes of this well-known work are heard in the
conversation between Sir Hugh Evans and William Page in _The Merry Wives
of Windsor_, IV. i, in _1 Henry IV_, II. i. 104, in _Much Ado_, IV. i.
22, in _Love's Labour's Lost_, IV. ii. 82 (and perhaps, V. i. 10 and
84), in _Twelfth Night_, II. iii. 2, in _The Taming of the Shrew_, I. i.
167,--a line of Terence altered by Lily,--and in _Titus Andronicus_, IV.
ii. 20-23, where Demetrius reads two lines from Horace, and Chiron says,

    O, 'tis a verse in Horace; I know it well.
    I read it in the grammar long ago.

Such fragments of Latin as we find in the dialogue between Holofernes
and Nathaniel in _Love's Labour's Lost_, IV. ii, and V. i, are probably
due to some elementary phrase-book no longer to be identified. It is to
be noted how prominently this early comedy figures in the list of
evidences of his school-day memories.

Among the first pieces of connected Latin prose read in the Elizabethan
schools was _AEsop's Fables_, a collection which, after centuries of
rewriting and re-compiling for adults, had come in the sixteenth century
to be regarded chiefly as a school-book, but allusions to which are
everywhere to be found in the literature of the day. In _2 Henry VI_,
III. i. 343, and _Richard II_, III. ii. 129, we find references to the
fable of "The Countryman and a Snake"; in _2 Henry VI_, III. i. 69, and
_Timon of Athens_, II. i. 28, to "The Crow in Borrowed Feathers"; in _2
Henry VI_, III. i. 77, to "The Wolf in the Sheep's Skin"; in _King
John_, II. i. 139, to "The Ass in the Lion's Skin"; in _Henry V_, IV.
iii. 91, to "The Hunter and the Bear"; in _As You Like It_, I. i. 87, to
"The Dog that Lost his Teeth"; in _All's Well_, II. i. 71, to "The Fox
and the Grapes"; besides a number of slighter and less definite
allusions. The most detailed fable in Shakespeare, that of "The Belly
and the Members," in _Coriolanus_, I. i. 99, is derived, not from
_AEsop_, but from Plutarch's _Life of Coriolanus_.

The traces of the well-known collection of sayings from various writers
called _Sententiae Pueriles_, and of the so-called _Distichs of Cato_,
both of which were commonly read in the second and third years, are only
slight. Battista Spagnuoli Mantuanus, whose _Eclogues_, written about
1500, had become a text-book, is honored with explicit mention as well
as quotation in _Love's Labour's Lost_, IV. ii. 95. Cicero, who was read
from the fourth year, has left his mark on only a phrase or two, in
spite of his importance in Renaissance culture; but Ovid is much more
important. The motto on the title-page of _Venus and Adonis_ is from the
_Amores_, and the matter of the poem is from _Metamorphoses_, X. 519
ff., with features from the stories of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis
(_Meta._ IV. 285 ff.), and the hunting in Calydon (_Meta._ VIII. 270
ff.). Ovid is quoted in Latin in three early plays; and even where a
translation was available, the phrasing of Shakespeare's allusions
sometimes shows knowledge of the original. Most of Ovid had been
translated into English before Shakespeare began to write, and Golding's
version of the _Metamorphoses_ (1567) was used for the references to the
Actaeon myth in _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_, IV. i. 107 ff., and for a
famous passage in _The Tempest_, V. i. 33. Livy, who had been translated
in 1545 according to Malone, seems to have been the chief source of
_Lucrece_, with some aid from Ovid's _Fasti_, II. 721 ff. Among other
Ovidian allusions are those to the story of Philomela, so pervasive in
_Titus Andronicus_; to the Medea myth in four or five passages; to
Narcissus and Echo, Phaeton, Niobe, Hercules, and a score more of the
familiar names of classical mythology. Pyramus and Thisbe Shakespeare
may have read about in Chaucer as well as in Ovid, but Bottom's
treatment of this story in _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_ gives but a
slight basis for proving literary relations.

[Page Heading: Ovid]

Virgil followed Ovid in the fifth year, and with Virgil, Terence. Of
direct knowledge of the latter the plays bear no trace, but of the
former there seems to be an influence in the description of the painting
of Troy in _Lucrece_, 1366 ff., and in two short Latin sentences in _2
Henry VI_, II. i. 24, and IV. i. 117. Horace, Plautus, Juvenal, Persius,
and Seneca were the new authors taken up in the last years in school.
All the Horace in the plays may have been taken from other works, like
the passage already quoted from Lily's Grammar. Juvenal and Persius have
left no mark. The _Menaechmi_ and _Amphitruo_ of Plautus furnish the
basis for _The Comedy of Errors_, and no English translation of either
of these is known before that of the _Menaechmi_ in 1595, which some
critics think Shakespeare may have seen in manuscript. But no verbal
similarities confirm this conjecture, and there is no reason why the
dramatist should not have known both plays at first hand.

The influence of Seneca is dramatically the most important among the
classical authors. All the plays that go by his name had been translated
into English in the first part of Elizabeth's reign; he was the main
channel through which the forms of classical tragedy reached the
Renaissance; and when Shakespeare began to write he was the dominant
force in the field of tragedy. This makes it hard to say whether the
Senecan features in _Titus Andronicus_, _Richard III_, and even
_Hamlet_, are due to Seneca directly, or to the tradition already well
established among Shakespeare's earlier contemporaries.

[Page Heading: Results of Schooling]

The impression which the evidence from the textbooks as a whole leaves
on one is that Shakespeare took from school enough Latin to handle an
occasional quotation[3] and to extract the plot of a play, but that he
probably preferred to use a translation when one was to be had. The
slight acquaintance shown with authors not always read at school,
Caesar, Livy, Lucan, and Pliny, does not materially alter this
impression. Much more conclusive as to the effect of his Latin training
than the literary allusions are the numerous words of Latin origin
either coined by Shakespeare, or used in such a way as to imply a
knowledge of their derivation. The discovery of a lost translation may
modify our views as to whether a particular author was used by him in
the original, but the evidence from his use of Romance words gives clear
proof that his schooling was no unimportant element in his mastery of
speech.

[3] See the list in the appendix to Schmidt's _Lexicon_.

Greek was occasionally begun in the Elizabethan grammar school, but we
do not know whether this was the case in Stratford. Certainly we have no
reason to believe that Shakespeare could read Greek, as all his
knowledge of Greek authors could have been obtained from translations,
and only two Greek words, _misanthropos_ and _threnos_, occur in his
writings. Yet no single author was so important in providing material
for the plays as the Greek Plutarch. His _Lives of Julius Caesar, Marcus
Brutus, Marcus Antonius_, and _Caius Martius Coriolanus_, in Sir Thomas
North's translation, are the direct sources of the great Roman
tragedies, and in a less important way the _Lives of Antonius_ and
_Alcibiades_ were used in _Timon of Athens_. Homeric elements are
discoverable in _Troilus and Cressida_, which derives mainly from the
medieval tradition. As the Trojan story was already familiar on the
stage, these need not have come from Chapman's Homer. The knowledge of
Lucian which seems implied in _Timon_ was probably not gained from the
Greek original. The late Greek romances, which were popular in
translation, may have been read by Shakespeare, since the reference to
the "Egyptian thief" in _Twelfth Night_, V. i. 120, is from the
_AEthiopica_ of Heliodorus, translated in 1569. Attempts have been made
by the assembling of parallel passages to prove a knowledge of Greek
tragedy on the part of Shakespeare, but such parallelisms are more
naturally explained as coincidences arising from the treatment of
analogous themes and situations.

Of modern languages, French was the easiest for an Elizabethan
Englishman to acquire, and the French passages and scenes in _Henry V_
make it fairly certain that Shakespeare had a working knowledge of this
tongue. Yet, as in the case of Latin, he seems to have preferred a
translation to an original when he could find it. Montaigne, whose
influence some have found pervasive in Shakespeare, he certainly used in
Gonzalo's account of his ideal commonwealth in _The Tempest_, II. i.
143 ff., but it seems that he employed Florio's translation here.
Rabelais's Gargantua is explicitly mentioned in _As You Like It_, III,
ii. 238, and the great humorist is possibly the inspirer of some of Sir
Andrew's nonsense in _Twelfth Night_, II. iii. 23. Many of the Sonnets
contain reminiscences of the French sonneteers of the sixteenth century,
and it is thought that in some cases Shakespeare shows direct
acquaintance with Ronsard. He was thus acquainted with the three
greatest French writers of his century, and French may well have been
the medium through which he reached authors in other languages.

[Page Heading: French and Italian]

The class of Italian literature with which Shakespeare shows most
acquaintance is that of the _novelle_, though there is no proof that he
could read the language. The _Decameron_ of Boccaccio contains the
love-story of _Cymbeline_, though there may have been an intermediary;
the plot of _All's Well_ came from the same collection, but had been
translated by Painter in his _Palace of Pleasure_; and the story of the
caskets in _The Merchant of Venice_ is found in a form closer to
Shakespeare's in the English translation of the _Gesta Romanorum_ than
in the _Decameron_. Thus we cannot conclude that the poet knew this work
as a whole. Similarly with Bandello and Cinthio. The plot of _Much Ado_
is found in the former, and is translated by Belleforest into French,
but at least one detail seems to come from Ariosto, and here again an
intermediary is commonly conjectured. The novel from Cinthio's
_Hecatommithi_ which formed the basis of _Othello_ existed in a French
translation; and his form of the plot of _Measure for Measure_ came to
Shakespeare through the English dramatic version of George Whetstone.
The version of the bond story in _The Merchant of Venice_ closest to the
play is in _Il Pecorone_ of Sir Giovanni Fiorentino, but the tale is
widespread. Incidents in _The Merry Wives_ have sources or parallels in
the same work, in Straparola's _Piacevoli Notti_, and in Bandello, but
in both cases English versions were available. A mass of Italian and
French prototypes lies behind the plot of _Twelfth Night_, but most of
the details are to be found in the English _Apolonius and Silla_ of
Barnabe Riche, and there is reason to conjecture a lost English play on
the subject. _The Taming of the Shrew_, based on an extant older play,
draws also on Gascoigne's version of Ariosto's _I Suppositi_; and the
echoes of Petrarch in the Sonnets may well have come through French and
English imitators. The introduction of stock types from the Italian
drama, such as the pedant and the braggart-soldier, can be accounted for
by the previous knowledge of these in England, and does not imply a
first-hand reading of Italian literature. The negative position is still
stronger in the case of Spanish, where the use of episodes from George
of Montemayor's _Diana_ in _The Two Gentlemen_, _Twelfth Night_, and _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_, can be supposed to be due to the author's
having access to Yonge's translation in manuscript, especially since
there is no other trace of Spanish influence.

[Page Heading: Early English]

The conclusion with regard to Italian and Spanish, then, seems to be
that Shakespeare in his search for plots was aware of the riches of the
_novelle_, but that he found what he wanted as a rule in English or
French versions; and that we have no evidence of his knowledge of
anything but fiction from these literatures.

Turning now to English, we find Shakespeare's knowledge of books in his
own tongue beginning after the Conquest. The romances of the Middle Ages
were in the Elizabethan time rapidly undergoing the process of
degradation that was soon to end in the chap-books, but the material was
still widely known. The particular versions read by the dramatist can
rarely be determined on account of the slight nature of most of the
references, but we find allusions to the Arthurian romances, to _Guy of
Warwick_, _Bevis of Hampton_, _The Squire of Low Degree_, Roland and
Oliver, and to _Huon of Bordeaux_, from which last came the name of
Oberon as king of the fairies. Among popular ballads, those of Robin
Hood are frequently alluded to; the story of _King Cophetua and the
Beggar Maid_ appears in no fewer than five plays; Hamlet knew a ballad
on Jephtha's daughter, and Sir Toby one on the chaste Susanna. A large
number of popular songs appear in fragments; and rimes and spells,
current jests and anecdotes, combine with the fairy-lore of _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _The Merry Wives_ to
assure us that Shakespeare was thoroughly versed in the literature and
traditions of the people.

His acquaintance with more formal letters begins with Chaucer, whose
_Knight's Tale_ contributed some details to _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_,
and the main plot of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, in which Shakespeare is
now usually supposed to have had a hand. This story had, however, been
already dramatized by Richard Edwardes. More certainly direct is his
knowledge of Chaucer's _Troilus_, which, with Caxton's _Recuyell of the
Historyes of Troye_, is the main source of _Troilus and Cressida_. The
references to the leprosy of Cressida are due to Henryson's _Testament
of Creseide_, a Scots sequel to Chaucer's poem, printed in the sixteenth
century editions of the older poet's works. In the _Legend of Good
Women_ he may have found the story of Pyramus, and a version of the
tragedy of Lucrece, to supplement his main sources in Livy and Ovid.
Chaucer's contemporary Gower contributed to his stock the story of
Florent (_Taming of the Shrew_, I. ii. 69) from the _Confessio Amantis_,
and from the same collection a version of the tale of _Apollonius of
Tyre_, dramatized by Shakespeare and another in _Pericles_.

[Page Heading: Contemporary Literature]

With the non-dramatic literature produced by Shakespeare's
contemporaries, we naturally find most evidence of his acquaintance in
the case of those books which provided material for his plays. Thus the
otherwise obscure Arthur Brooke, whose poem _Romeus and Juliet_ is the
chief source of the tragedy, is much more prominent in such an
enumeration as the present than he probably was in Shakespeare's view of
the literature of the day. Painter, whose version of the same story in
his _Palace of Pleasure_ cannot be shown to have been used much, if at
all, by the dramatist, seems nevertheless to have been known to him; and
we hardly need evidence that Shakespeare must have kept a watchful eye
on similar collections of stories, such as Whetstone's, Riche's, and
Pettie's. Of the greater writers of imaginative literature there is none
missing from the list of those he knew, though, as has been implied, the
evidence is not always proportionate to the greatness; and some
prominent figures in other fields, such as Hooker and Bacon, do not
appear. Spenser, who is supposed to have alluded to Shakespeare in
_Colin Clout's come home again_ and, less probably, in _The Teares of
the Muses_, is in turn alluded to in _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_, V. i.
52; and his version of the story of Lear in _The Faerie Queene_, II. x,
is believed to have given Shakespeare his form of the name Cordelia.
Evidence is more abundant in the case of Sir Philip Sidney. The
under-plot of _King Lear_ is based on the story of the blind king of
Paphlagonia in the _Arcadia_, and Sidney's sonnets, along with those of
Daniel, Drayton, Constable, Watson, and Barnes, formed the main channel
through which the French and Italian influences reached Shakespeare's.
However we may estimate the original element in his sonnets, and in our
opinion it is very great, there is no question of the author's having
had a thorough familiarity with contemporary sonnetteers.

Similarly we can be certain that he had read many of the elaborate
narrative poems then in vogue, a class to which he contributed _Venus
and Adonis_, _Lucrece_, and _A Lover's Complaint_. Daniel's _Rosamond_
and Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_ especially have left many traces, and
Daniel's _Barons' Wars_ is intimately related to _Richard II_ and _Henry
IV_. The longer prose fictions of the time he also watched, and Lyly's
_Euphues_ contributed the germ of a number of passages, as Lodge's
_Rosalynde_ and Greene's _Pandosto_ supplied the plots of _As You Like
It_ and _The Winter's Tale_ respectively.

Reference has already been made to his knowledge of folk beliefs about
fairies. To this should be added other supernatural beliefs, especially
as to ghosts, devils, and witches, evidence of his familiarity with
which will occur to every one. Matters of this sort were much discussed
in his time, the frequency of ghosts in Senecan plays having made them
conspicuous in Elizabethan imitations, and religious controversy having
stimulated interest in demonology. Several important books appeared on
the subject, and one of these at least Shakespeare read, Harsnett's
_Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures_, for from it Edgar, as Poor
Tom in _King Lear_, derived many of the names and phrases which occur in
his pretended ravings.

The most useful book in all his reading, if we judge by the amount of
his work that is based on it, was the second edition of the _Chronicles
of England, Scotland, and Ireland_, compiled by Raphael Holinshed. With
it he used the work by Hall on _The Union of Lancaster and York_, the
_Chronicles_ of Grafton and of Fabyan, and the _Annals_ of John Stowe.
On these were based the greater number of the historical plays,
_Macbeth_, and the political part of _Cymbeline_. In the case of _Henry
VIII_ there should be added the _Acts and Monuments_, better known as
the _Book of Martyrs_, of John Foxe.

[Page Heading: Contemporary Drama]

To deal adequately with Shakespeare's reading in the plays of his time
would be to write a history of the Elizabethan drama. Older dramatists,
like Preston, Gascoigne, and Whetstone, he knew, for he quotes
_Cambyses_, and from the two last he derives material for the plots of
_The Taming of the Shrew_ and _Measure for Measure_. Anonymous writers
supplied the older plays on which he based _King John, King Lear_, and
_Hamlet_, parts of _Henry V_ and _VI_, and of _Richard III_, and
probably others. Allusions prove a familiarity with all of Marlowe's
dramas; _Hamlet_ is indebted to the tradition of which Kyd was one of
the founders; Lyly taught him much in the handling of light comic
dialogue; and he quotes lines from Peele. Greene's contribution is less
specifically marked; but Shakespeare's profession of acting, as well as
that of play-writing, of necessity made him acquainted with the whole
dramatic production of the time. Thus, as has been stated in a previous
chapter, he acted in several of Jonson's plays, and a good case has been
made out for his modelling his last comedies on the new successes of
Beaumont and Fletcher.

No Englishman of that day was insensible to what was going on in
exploration and conquest of the Western World; and in _The Tempest_,
_Othello_, and other plays we have clear ground for stating that
Shakespeare shared this interest, and read books like Eden's _History of
Travayle in the West and East Indies_, Raleigh's _Discoverie of Guiana_,
and such pamphlets as were used in the vast compilation of Richard
Hakluyt. The scientific knowledge implied in the plays reflects current
beliefs, and must have been derived from such works as Pliny, _Batman
uppon Bartholome his Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum_, and from
conversation.

Finally, Shakespeare knew his Bible. Several volumes have been written
to exhibit the extent of this knowledge, and it has been shown by Anders
that he knew both the Genevan and the Great Bible, as well as the Prayer
Book.

Taken all together, the amount of literature indicated by this summary
account of the evidences in the plays and poems abundantly proves the
statement that Shakespeare, if not a scholar, was a man of wide and
varied reading. When it is further considered that only a fraction of
what any author reads leaves a mark that can be identified on what he
writes, we shall readily allow that in the matter of study Shakespeare
showed an activity and receptivity of mind that harmonizes with the
impression received from his creative work.

[Page Heading: His Reading Typical]

It agrees with our impressions of him derived from other sources also,
that his reading reflects not so much idiosyncrasies of taste as the
prevalent literary interests of the day. Thus in Latin literature the
most conspicuous author among general readers, as distinguished from
scholars, was Ovid, whose romantic narratives appealed to a time which
reveled in tales gathered from all quarters; and this same prominence of
Ovid has been shown to exist among the classical authors known to the
dramatist. Similarly his use of chronicles like that of Holinshed merely
reflects a widespread interest in national history; and Shakespeare
shared the popular interest in the translations of _novelle_ and the
like that poured in from the Continent. The age of Elizabeth was an age
of great expansion in reading--especially in the literature of
entertainment. For the first time since the introduction of printing the
people were free to indulge in books as a recreation, and the enormous
growth of publishing in this era indicates the response to the new
demand. In all this Shakespeare took part, and the evidences appear in
his works so far as the nature of their themes permitted it. But the
drama gave no opportunity for anything but passing allusions to
scientific, philosophical, and religious matters, so that direct
evidence is lacking as to how far Shakespeare was acquainted with what
was being written in these fields. On the other hand, the profundity of
his insight into human motive and behavior, the evidences of prolonged
and severe meditation on human life and the ways of the world, and the
richness of the philosophical generalizations that lie just below the
surface of his greater plays, make it difficult to believe that in these
fields also he did not join in the intellectual activity of his day.




CHAPTER IV

CHRONOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT


The value of a knowledge of the order in which an author's works were
composed no longer needs to be argued. The development of power and
skill which such knowledge reveals is an important part of biography,
and an individual work is more surely interpreted when we know the
period and the circumstances of the author's life in which it was
written, and what other works, by himself and his fellows, lie nearest
in point of time. Without a knowledge of chronology, the indebtedness of
contemporary authors to one another and the growth of literary forms
cannot be determined.

The fact, so often to be insisted upon, that at the beginning of
Shakespeare's career stage plays were hardly regarded as literature at
all and were not published by their authors, deprives us of the evidence
usually afforded by date of publication. We are thus forced to have
recourse to a variety of more or less casually recorded data, and to
indications of differences of maturity in style and matter which are
often much less clear than could be wished. Before giving the results of
the research that has been pursued for a century and a half, it will be
worth while to enumerate the most fruitful methods which have been
employed, and the sorts of evidence available.

Of purely external evidence, the chief kinds are these: records of the
performance of plays in letters, diaries, accounts, and the like;
quotation, allusion, imitation, or parody in other works; entries in the
books of the Master of the Revels at Court, and in the Register of the
Stationers' Company; dates on the title-pages of the plays themselves;
facts and traditions about the life of the author; dates in the lives of
actors and in the careers of companies known to have performed the
plays, and in the histories of theaters in which they were presented.
Instances of some of these are the manuscript which tells of a
performance of _The Comedy of Errors_ at Gray's Inn in 1594; the diary
of the quack, Dr. Simon Forman, who witnessed performances of _Macbeth,
Cymbeline_, and _The Winter's Tale_ at the Globe in 1610 and 1611; the
appreciation of Shakespeare, with a list of a dozen plays by him, in the
_Palladis Tamia_[4] of Francis Meres, 1598; and the pamphlets on
Somers's voyage to Virginia, which offered suggestions for _The
Tempest_.

[4] See Appendix A, 13.

Partly external and partly internal are the evidences derived from
allusions in the plays to current events, personal or political, such as
the reference in the Prologue to _Henry V_ to the expedition of Essex to
Ireland in 1599; references to other books, like the quotation from
Marlowe in _As You Like It_, III. v. 82; references from one play of
Shakespeare's to another, like the promise in the Epilogue to _2 Henry
IV_ to "continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with
fair Katherine of France."

[Page Heading: Kinds of Evidence]

The purely internal evidence is seldom as specific as the external, and
requires to be handled with much judgment and caution. Most difficult in
this class is the weighing of considerations of a moral or esthetic
nature; for, though these are often powerful in their effect on the
individual reader, they are usually incapable of proof to another person
with different tastes and a different point of view. Of such tests,
those afforded by a study of the methods used in the treatment of plot
and in the development of character are perhaps the least subjective.
Somewhat more palpable are the changing characteristics of style. The
number and nature of classical allusions and Latin words and quotations;
the kind and degree of elaboration of figures of speech, puns, conceits,
and the like; diffuseness or concentration in the expression of thought;
artificiality or lifelikeness in the treatment of dialogue; the use of
prose or verse; the employment of oaths, checked by statute shortly
after the accession of James I: these are the main aspects of style
which can be used in determining, not exact dates, but the period of
Shakespeare's activity within which a given work falls. More capable of
mechanical calculation than the tests of either matter or style are
those derived from changes in versification, though here too there is
often a subjective element in the reckoning. The more important metrical
tests include the following: the frequency of rhyme, whether in the
heroic couplet or, as not uncommonly occurs in early plays, in
alternates and even such elaborate arrangements as the sonnet; doggerel
lines; alexandrines, or lines of twelve syllables; the presence of an
extra syllable before a pause within the line; short lines, especially
at the end of speeches; the substitution of other feet for the regular
iambic movement of blank verse; weak and light endings; and, most
valuable, the position of the pause in the line ("end-stopped" or "run
on"), and feminine endings or hypermetrical lines, such as

    "These many summers in a sea of glor-y."

Many of these variable features were not consciously manipulated by the
author; and, even when a general drift in a certain direction is clearly
observable in his practice with regard to them, it is not to be assumed
that his progress was perfectly regular, without leaps forward and
occasional returns to an earlier usage. It is to be noted also that the
subject and atmosphere of a particular play might induce a metrical
treatment of a special kind, in which case the verse tests would yield
evidence not primarily chronological at all. Nevertheless, when all
allowances have been made and all due caution exercised, it will be
found that the indications of the versification corroborate and
supplement the external evidences in a valuable way.

[Page Heading: Metrical Tests]


TABLE I

=========================================================================
            |      |      |      |      |   %   |      |   %    |
            |      |      |      |      |BLANK  |      |SPEECHES|NO. OF
            |TOTAL |      |      |PENTA-|VERSE  |  %   |ENDING  |LIGHT
            |NO. OF|      |BLANK |METER |W. FEM.|RUN-ON|WITHIN  |AND WEAK
            |LINES |PROSE |VERSE |RHYMES|ENDINGS|LINES |THE LINE|ENDINGS
------------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+--------+--------
L. L. L.    | 2789 | 1086 |  579 | 1028 |   7.7 | 18.4 |  10.0  |    3
C. of E.    | 1770 |  240 | 1150 |  380 |  16.6 | 12.9 |   0.6  |    0
T. G. V.    | 2060 |  409 | 1510 |  116 |  18.4 | 12.4 |   5.8  |    0
R. III      | 3599 |   55 | 3374 |  170 |  19.5 | 13.1 |   2.9  |    4
K. J.       | 2553 |    0 | 2403 |  150 |   6.3 | 17.7 |  12.7  |    7
R. & J.     | 3002 |  405 | 2111 |  486 |   8.2 | 14.2 |  14.9  |    7
M. N. D.    | 2251 |  441 |  878 |  731 |   7.3 | 13.2 |  17.3  |    1
R. II       | 2644 |    0 | 2107 |  537 |  11.0 | 19.9 |   7.3  |    4
Merch.      | 2705 |  673 | 1896 |   93 |  17.6 | 21.5 |  22.2  |    7
1 Hy. IV    | 3170 | 1464 | 1622 |   84 |   5.1 | 22.8 |  14.2  |    7
2 Hy. IV    | 3437 | 1860 | 1417 |   74 |  16.3 | 21.4 |  16.8  |    1
M. W. W.    | 3018 | 2703 |  227 |   69 |  27.2 | 20.1 |  20.5  |    1
Hy. V       | 3320 | 1531 | 1678 |  101 |  20.5 | 21.8 |  18.3  |    2
M. Ado.     | 2823 | 2106 |  643 |   40 |  22.9 | 19.3 |  20.7  |    2
J. C.       | 2440 |  165 | 2241 |   34 |  19.7 | 19.3 |  20.3  |   10
A. Y. L. I. | 2904 | 1681 |  925 |   71 |  25.5 | 17.1 |  21.6  |    2
T. N.       | 2684 | 1741 |  763 |  120 |  25.6 | 14.7 |  36.3  |    4
T. & C.     | 3423 | 1186 | 2025 |  196 |  23.8 | 27.4 |  31.3  |    6
A. W. W.    | 2981 | 1453 | 1234 |  280 |  29.4 | 28.4 |  74.0  |   13
Hml.        | 3924 | 1208 | 2490 |   81 |  22.6 | 23.1 |  51.6  |    8
Meas.       | 2809 | 1134 | 1574 |   73 |  26.1 | 23.0 |  51.4  |    7
Oth.        | 3324 |  541 | 2672 |   86 |  28.1 | 19.5 |  41.4  |    2
Lear.       | 3298 |  903 | 2238 |   74 |  28.5 | 29.3 |  60.9  |    6
Mcb.        | 1993 |  158 | 1588 |  118 |  26.3 | 36.6 |  77.2  |   23
A. & C.     | 3064 |  255 | 2761 |   42 |  26.5 | 43.3 |  77.5  |   99
Cor.        | 3392 |  829 | 2521 |   42 |  28.4 | 45.9 |  79.0  |  104
Cym.        | 3448 |  638 | 2505 |  107 |  30.7 | 46.0 |  85.0  |  130
W. T.       | 2750 |  844 | 1825 |    0 |  32.9 | 37.5 |  87.6  |  100
Tmp.        | 2068 |  458 | 1458 |    2 |  35.4 | 41.5 |  84.5  |   67
=========================================================================


TABLE II

COLLABORATED PLAYS

=========================================================================
            |      |      |      |      |   %   |      |   %    |
            |      |      |      |      |BLANK  |      |SPEECHES|NO. OF
            |TOTAL |      |      |PENTA-|VERSE  |  %   |ENDING  |LIGHT
            |NO. OF|      |BLANK |METER |W. FEM.|RUN-ON|WITHIN  |AND WEAK
            |LINES |PROSE |VERSE |RHYMES|ENDINGS|LINES |THE LINE|ENDINGS
------------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+--------+--------
1 Hy. VI    | 2693 |    0 | 2379 |  314 |   8.2 | 10.4 |   0.5  |  4
2 Hy. VI    | 3032 |  448 | 2562 |  122 |  13.7 | 11.4 |   1.1  |  3
3 Hy. VI    | 2904 |    0 | 2749 |  155 |  13.7 |  9.5 |   0.9  |  3
T. And.     | 2525 |   43 | 2338 |  144 |   8.6 | 12.0 |   2.5  |  5
T. of S.    | 2671 |  516 | 1971 |  169 |  17.7 |  8.1 |   3.6  | 14
T. of A.    | 2358 |  596 | 1560 |  184 |  24.7 | 32.5 |  62.8  | 30 (S)
Per.        | 2386 |  418 | 1436 |  225 |  20.2 | 18.2 |  71.0  | 82 (S)
Hy. VIII    | 2754 |   67 | 2613 |   16 |  47.3 | 46.3 |  72.4  | 84 (S)
T. N. K.    | 2734 |  179 | 2468 |   54 |  43.7 |      |        |
=========================================================================

The accompanying Tables[5] give the detailed results of investigations
along these lines, and a study of the data therein contained will reveal
both their possibilities and their limitations. In Tables I and II the
order of the plays is approximately that of the dates of their
composition (virtually the same as the dates of first performance). The
second and third columns cannot be regarded as giving any clue to
chronology, except that they show that in the dramas written under the
influence of Marlowe prose is comparatively rare. Elsewhere Shakespeare
employed prose for a variety of purposes: for low comedy, as in the
tavern scenes in _Henry IV_, and the scenes in which Sir Toby figures in
_Twelfth Night_; for repartee, as in the wit-combats of Beatrice and
Benedick; for purely intellectual and moralizing speeches, such as
Hamlet's over the skull of Yorick. On the other hand, highly emotional
scenes are usually in verse, as are romantic passages like the
conversation of Lorenzo and Jessica in the moonlight at Belmont, or the
dialogues of Fenton and Anne Page, which contrast with the realistic
prose of the rest of the _Merry Wives_ and also the artificial
pastoralism of Silvius and Ph[oe]be in _As You Like It_. Few absolute
rules can be laid down in the matter, but study of Shakespeare's
practice reveals an admirable tact in his choice of medium.

[5] The figures here given are based in columns 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the
calculations of Fleay; in 5, 6, and 7 on those of Koenig; and in 8 on
those of Ingram. (S) = Shakespeare's scenes.

[Page Heading: Metrical Tests]

The frequency of rhyme, as shown in the fourth column, has more relation
to date. While there is no very steady gradation, it is clear that in
his earlier plays he used rhyme freely, while at the close of his career
he had practically abandoned it. The large number of rhymes in _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_ and _Romeo and Juliet_ is accounted for mainly
by the prevailing lyrical tone of a great part of these plays, while, on
the other hand, in _All's Well_ it probably points to survivals of an
earlier first form of this comedy. It ought to be noted that, in the
figures given here, the rhyming lines in the play scene in _Hamlet_, the
vision in _Cymbeline_, the masque in _The Tempest_, and the Prologue
and Epilogue of _Henry VIII_ are not reckoned.

More significant are the percentages in columns five, six, and seven.
Before 1598, feminine endings never reach twenty per cent of the total
number of pentameter lines; after that date they are practically always
above that number, and show a fairly steady increase to the thirty-five
per cent of _The Tempest_. The variations of run-on lines (which, of
course, carry with them the frequency of pauses within the line, and
inversely the growing rarity of end-stopped lines) are closely parallel
to those of the feminine endings; while the increase in the proportion
of speeches ending within the line is still more striking. In _The
Comedy of Errors_ this phenomenon hardly occurs at all; in _The Tempest_
it happens in over eighty-four per cent of the speeches, the increase
being especially regular after 1598. Yet in some cases other causes are
operative. Thus cuts and revisions of plays were apt to leave broken
lines at the ends of speeches, and the comparatively high percentages in
_Love's Labour's Lost_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _All's Well_ are
probably in part due to these causes.

The phenomena recorded in the last column are peculiar. Previous to the
date of _Macbeth_ it appears that Shakespeare practically avoided ending
a line with light or weak words such as prepositions, conjunctions, and
auxiliary verbs, but that from about 1606 to the end he employed them in
proportions ranging from 3.53 per cent in _Antony and Cleopatra_ to
7.14 per cent in his part of _Henry VIII_.

[Page Heading: Risks of Error]

The figures for plays not wholly written by Shakespeare are naturally
less significant, and have therefore been given separately; yet, on the
whole, they show the same general tendencies in the use of meter.

It will be observed that while the developments suggested by the
different columns are fairly consistent, they do not absolutely agree in
any two cases, and can obviously be used, as has been said, only to
corroborate other evidence in placing a play in a period, not to fix a
precise year. Further, in the calculations involved, there are many
doubtful cases calling for the exercise of individual judgment,
especially as to what constitutes a run-on line, or a light or weak
ending. Thus Professor Bradley differs from Koenig in several cases as to
the figures given in the seventh column, counting the percentage of
speeches ending within the line as 57 for _Hamlet_, 54 for _Othello_, 69
for _King Lear_, and 75 for _Macbeth_. For Acts III, IV, and V of
_Pericles_, the 71 per cent is Bradley's, for which Koenig's 17.1 is
clearly a mistake. Serious as are such discrepancies, and suggestive of
a need for a general re-counting of all the more significant phenomena,
they are not so great as to shake the faith of any scholar who has
seriously studied the matter in the usefulness of metrical tests as an
aid in the settling of the chronology.


TABLE III

==========================================================================
 PERIODS |       COMEDIES        |    HISTORIES    |       TRAGEDIES
---------+-----------------------+-----------------+----------------------
         | L. L. L.    1591      | 1 Hy. VI 1590-1 |
         | C. of E.    1591      | 2 Hy. VI 1590-2 |
    I    | T. G. of V. 1591-2    | 3 Hy. VI 1590-2 |
         |                       | R. III   1593   |
         |                       | K. J.    1593   | T. And.    1593-4
---------+-----------------------+-----------------+----------------------
         | M. N. D.    1594-5    | R. II    1595   | R. and J.  1594-5
         | M. of V.    1595-6    |                 |
         | T. of S.    1596-7    | 1 Hy. IV 1597   |
   II    | M. W. of W. 1598      | 2 Hy. IV 1598   |
         | M. Ado      1599      | Hy. V    1599   | J. Caes.    1599
         | A. Y. L. I. 1599-1600 |                 |
         | Tw. N.      1601      |                 |
---------+-----------------------+-----------------+----------------------
         | T. & C.     1601-2    |                 |
         | A. Well     1602      |                 |
         | Meas.       1603      |                 | Ham.       1602, 1603
         |                       |                 | Oth.       1604
   III   |                       |                 | Lear       1605-6
         |                       |                 | Mach.      1606
         |                       |                 | T. of Ath. 1607
         | Per.        1607-8    |                 | A. & Cl.   1607-8
         |                       |                 | Cor.       1609
---------+-----------------------+-----------------+----------------------
         | Cymb.       1610      |                 |
         | W. Tale     1611      |                 |
   IV    | Temp.       1611      |                 |
         | T. N. K.    1612-13   | Hy. VIII 1612   |
         |                       |                 |
==========================================================================

[Page Heading: First Period]

Table III gives a summary of the results of all the kinds of evidence
available as recorded in the introduction to individual plays in the
Tudor Shakespeare. The classification into Comedies, Histories, and
Tragedies draws attention at once to the changes in the type of drama on
which Shakespeare concentrated his main attention, and suggests the
usual division of his activity into four periods. In the first of these,
extending from the beginning of his writing (perhaps earlier than 1590)
to the end of 1593, he attempted practically all the forms of drama then
in vogue. Plays which were given him to revise, or in which he was
invited to collaborate, may naturally be supposed to have preceded
independent efforts, and his still undetermined share in _Henry VI_ is
usually regarded as his earliest dramatic production. What he learned in
this field of tragic history from his more experienced fellows may be
seen in _Richard III_, in which he can be observed following in the
footsteps of Marlowe in the treatment of meter, in the rhetorical and
lyrical nature of the dialogue, and in the conception of the central
character. Even less of his individual quality is to be discerned in the
field of tragedy, for the most that can be claimed for him in _Titus
Andronicus_ is the re-combination of the repellent episodes of that
crude specimen of the tragedy of blood, and the rewriting of the lines
which occasionally cloak the horrors with passages of poetry. If, as is
unlikely, the first form of _Romeo and Juliet_ was written in this
period, the extant form must show it so radically revised that it leaves
us little ground for generalization as to his power in tragedy in this
first period.

It was in comedy that Shakespeare first showed originality. _Love's
Labour's Lost_ is one of the few plays whose plots seem to have been due
to his own invention; and full of sparkle and grace as it is, it bears
obvious marks of the _tour de force_, the young writer's conscious
testing of his powers in social satire, in comic situation, and most of
all in verbal mastery and the manipulation of dialogue. In _The Comedy
of Errors_ he had the advantage of a definite model in the well-defined
type of the Plautian comedy; but here again in the doubling of the twins
and the elaboration of the entanglements there are traces of the
beginner's delight in technic for its own sake. The clearly contrasted
types in the two pairs of heroes and heroines of _The Two Gentlemen of
Verona_ point to a conscious effort in characterization, as the author's
attention had been concentrated on dialogue and on situation in the
other two comedies of this group. Thus, regarding the variety of kind
and the nature of his achievement in these first eight or nine plays, we
can hardly fail to acquiesce in the general opinion that views the first
period as one of experiment.

[Page Heading: Second Period]

The chronicle history was the Elizabethan dramatic form whose
possibilities were first exhausted. _King John_ had been only a making
over of an earlier work, and perhaps the most significant single change
Shakespeare made was the excision of the anti-Romanist bias which in the
older play had made John a Protestant hero. Yet this history voices,
too, in the speeches of Faulconbridge, that patriotic enthusiasm which
finds fuller expression in the dying Gaunt's eulogy of England in
_Richard II_, and culminates in the triumphant heroics of _Henry V_.
This national enthusiasm, especially ebullient in the years following
the Great Armada, is justly to be regarded as an important condition of
the flourishing of these plays on English history; and it is natural to
suppose that the ebbing of this spirit in the closing years of
Elizabeth's reign is not unconnected with the decline of this dramatic
type. There are, however, other causes clearly perceptible. The material
was nearly exhausted. Almost every prominent national figure for the
three hundred years before the founding of the Tudor dynasty had been
put upon the stage; and to come down to more recent times was to meddle
with matters of controversy, the ashes of which were not yet cold. The
reign of Henry VIII was not touched till after the death of Elizabeth,
and the nature of the treatment given to the court of her father by
Shakespeare and Fletcher corroborates our view. Further, the growing
mastery of technic which is so clearly perceptible in the comedies of
the second period must have been accompanied by a restlessness under the
hampering conditions as to the manipulation of character and plot which
were imposed by the less plastic material of the chronicles. Some effort
towards greater freedom the dramatist made in the later histories. The
earlier plays of this class had been prevailingly tragic; but now he
supplemented and enlivened the political element with the comic scenes
which gave us Falstaff; yet these scenes, brilliant as they are in
dialogue and superb in characterization, are of necessity little more
than episodes. The form had served its purpose as an outlet for national
feeling, but it was now outgrown. So distinguished, however, is
Shakespeare's achievement in this kind that we might be almost justified
in calling this second period that of the culmination of the chronicle
history.

The main objection to this title lies in his contemporary
accomplishment in comedy. _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_ and _The Merchant
of Venice_, the one in its graceful poetic fancy and dainty lyricism,
the other in its balanced treatment of all the elements of dramatic
effectiveness--action, character, and dialogue,--exhibit the dramatist
in complete control of his technical instruments, the creator of
masterpieces of romantic comedy. _The Taming of the Shrew_ is a more or
less perfunctory revision, probably in collaboration, of an older farce
comedy; _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ bears on its face corroboration of
the tradition that it was written to order in a fortnight. The power in
high comedy first fully shown in _The Merchant of Venice_ reaches its
supreme pitch in the three plays composed at the turn of the century,
_Much Ado about Nothing_, _As You Like It_, and _Twelfth Night_. In each
of these a romantic love-tale, laid in some remote holiday world, is
taken up, given a specific atmosphere, acted out by a group of
delightful creations who are endowed with intellect, wit, and natural
affection, bathed in poetic imagination, and yet handled with sufficient
naturalism to awaken and hold our human sympathies. No more purely
delightful form of dramatic art has ever been contrived; none has ever
been treated so as to yield more fully its appropriate charm; so that in
view of the completeness of the artist's success we are bound to call
the period which closed with the first year of the seventeenth century
the triumph of comedy.

[Page Heading: Third Period]

_Julius Caesar_, the first of the plays dealing with Roman history, may
have been written before 1600, but, whether it preceded _Hamlet_ by one
year or three, it forms a gradual introduction to the group of the great
tragedies. Masterly as it is in its delineation of types, rich in
political wisdom and the knowledge of human nature, splendid in
rhetoric, it still fails to rise to the intensity of passion that marks
the succeeding dramas. In _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _King Lear_, and
_Macbeth_, Shakespeare at length faced the great fundamental forces that
operate in individual, family, and social life, realized especially
those that make for moral and physical disaster, took account alike of
the deepest tendencies in character and of the mystery of external fate
or accident, exhibited these in action and reaction, in their simplicity
and their complexity, and wrought out a series of spectacles of the pity
and terror of human suffering and human sin without parallel in the
modern world. In these stupendous tragedies he availed himself of all
the powers with which he was endowed and all the skill which he had
acquired. His verse has liberated itself from the formalism and monotony
that had marked it in the earlier plays, and is now free, varied,
responsive to every mood and every type of passion; the language is
laden almost to the breaking point with the weight of thought; the
dialogue ranges from the lightest irony to heart-rending pathos and
intolerable denunciation; the characters lose all semblance of
artificial creations and challenge criticism and analysis like any
personage in history; the action is pregnant with the profoundest
significance. Hardly, if at all, less powerful are the later tragedies
of the Roman group. _Antony and Cleopatra_ is unsurpassed for the
intensity of its picture of passion, for its superb mastery of language,
for its relentless truth. The more somber scenes of _Coriolanus_ convey
a tragedy which either on its personal or its political side scarcely
yields to its predecessors in poignancy and gloom. Whatever else he may
have written in these years, here is surely the period of tragedy.

Nor do the plays classed as comedies and falling in the first three
years of the new century seriously modify this impression of the
prevailing tone of the period. _Troilus and Cressida_, _All's Well that
Ends Well_, and _Measure for Measure_ present a marked contrast to the
romantic comedy of the preceding stage. The love-story of the first
deals with a coquette and ends sordidly; while in the political plot,
though it gives occasion for speeches full of weighty thinking, jealousy
and intrigue overwhelm the heroic element. The second, alone of
Shakespeare's comedies, has a hero who is a rake; and, skilful as is the
delineation of Helena, it needs all the dramatist's power to hold our
sympathy and to force us to an unwilling assent to the title. _Measure
for Measure_ has its scene laid in a city seething in moral corruption:
out of this rises the central situation of the play; and the presence of
the most idealistic of Shakespeare's heroines does not avail to
counterbalance the atmosphere of sin and death that mocks the
conventional happy ending, and makes this play, even more than the two
others, seem more in place among the tragedies than among the comedies.

[Page Heading: Fourth Period]

The plays of the last period are, in the Folio, classed with comedies,
and such no doubt they are if judged merely by the nature of their
denouements. But if we consider their characteristic note, and the fact
that through the greater part of each play the forces and passions
involved are rather those operative in tragedy than in comedy, we easily
perceive why they have been classed as tragi-comedies or dramatic
romances. _Pericles_ in many respects stands apart from the other three
in nature as well as in date, for it is a dramatization of an old Greek
romance, and in it the hand of another than Shakespeare is only too
evident. Yet it shares with the others certain common features: like
_The Tempest_ it has scenes at sea; all four deal with the separation
and reuniting of families; all show us sympathetic figures deeply
wronged and finally overcoming their injurers by forgiveness. The
abounding high spirits of the earlier comedies are here replaced by a
mood of calm assurance of the ultimate triumph of good and a placid
faith that survives a rude acquaintance with the evil that is in men's
hearts. No period has a more distinctive quality than this of the
dramatic romances, in which the dramatist, on the eve of his retirement
from London, gave his imagination free play, and in both character and
action stamped his last creations with the mark of a lofty idealism.

[Page Heading: Interpretation of Periods]

The obvious fitness of this fourfold division into periods inevitably
raises the question of its causes, and attempts at an answer have run
along two main lines. One of these has been followed out with much
eloquence and persuasiveness by Professor Dowden, whose phrases "In the
Workshop," "In the World," "In the Depths," "On the Heights," to
describe the four periods, point clearly enough to the kind of
significance which he finds in the changes in mood and type of play.
With the first of these phrases few will be disposed to quarrel. In his
period of experiment Shakespeare's style was as yet comparatively
unformed, and his attention was so much occupied with problems of
technic that even the most psychological of critics finds here little
revelation of personality, and must be content to describe the stage as
one of professional apprenticeship. In the terms used of the three later
periods, however, there is an implication that the tone and mood of the
plays in each are the direct reflection of the emotional experiences
through which the poet himself was passing at the period of their
composition. But this is to take for granted a theory of the relation
between artist and production which has against it the general testimony
of creator and critic alike. It is not at the pitch of an emotional
experience that an artist successfully transmutes his life into art, but
in retrospect, when his recollective imagination reproduces his mood in
a form capable of being expressed without being dissipated. Of course,
Shakespeare must have lived and enjoyed and suffered intensely; but this
does not commit us to a belief in an immediate turning to account of
personal experience in the writing of drama. His boy, Hamnet, died in
1596, about the time that he was writing _The Merchant of Venice_ and
the rollicking farce of _The Taming of the Shrew_, and just before he
conceived Falstaff; it was fourteen years later that he gave us the
pathetic figure of the young Mamillius in _The Winter's Tale_. From all
we know of his personal life, the years of _King Lear_ and _Othello_
were years of abounding prosperity. The _lacrimae rerum_ that touch the
mind in these stupendous tragedies are the outcome of profound
meditation and vivid imagination, not the accompaniment of a cry of
instant pain. However we are to reconstruct the spiritual biography of
Shakespeare, it is clear that it is by no such simple reading of his
life in terms of his treatment of comic or tragic themes.

The other line of explanation will suggest itself to any thoughtful
student who contemplates the facts summed up in Chapter V on the
Elizabethan drama. Whatever Shakespeare's preeminence in the quality of
his work, he was not singular for innovations in kind. Not only are the
plays of his experimental stage preceded by models easily discerned, but
throughout his career one can see him eagerly taking up and developing
varieties of drama on which less capable men had stumbled and for which
the public had shown relish. Chronicle history, romantic comedy,
tragedies of blood and revenge, dramatic romance, had all been invented
by others, and Shakespeare never hesitated to follow their trail when it
promised to lead to popular success. This does not mean that he did not
put conscience into his work, but only that the change in type of play
perceptible from period to period is more safely to be explained by
changes of theatrical fashion and public taste than by conjectures as to
the inner life of the dramatist. Nor are we prevented from finding here
too that great good fortune as to occasion and opportunity that is
needed, along with whatever natural endowment, to explain the
achievement of Shakespeare. The return of the vogue of tragedy after he
had attained maturity and seen life was indeed happy for him and for us;
as was the rise of the imaginative type of dramatic romance when the
storm and stress of his youth had gone by. Had the theatrical demand
called for tragedy when Shakespeare was in the early thirties and light
comedy when he was in the forties, it seems likely that he would have
responded to the demand, though we can hardly suppose that the result
would have been as fortunate as in the existing state of things it
proved to be.

[Page Heading: Dates of the Poems]

The foregoing discussion has been confined to Shakespeare's plays; the
poems present problems of their own. _Venus and Adonis_ (1593) and
_Lucrece_ (1594), indeed, resemble the plays of the first period, with
which they are contemporary, both in conforming to a familiar type then
much in vogue, the re-telling in ornate style of classical legends drawn
chiefly from Ovid, and in exhibiting marks of the conscious exercise of
technical dexterity. They show the Shakespeare of the dramas mainly in
their revelation of a remarkable power of detailed observation and their
richness of phrase and fluency of versification. Vivid and eloquent
though they are, they can hardly be regarded as affording a sure
prophecy of the passion and power of characterization that mark his
mature dramatic production.

The case of the _Sonnets_ is very different. From Meres's mention of
them in 1598 we know that some had been written and were being
circulated in manuscript by that date, and certain critics have sought
to assign the main body of them to the first half of the last decade of
the sixteenth century. But they were not published till 1609, and many
of the greatest strike a note of emotion more profound than can be heard
before the date of _Hamlet_. In writing them, Shakespeare was, to be
sure, following a vogue, but as Professor Alden has pointed out in his
introduction to them in the Tudor Shakespeare, they stand apart in
important respects from the ordinary sonnet sequences of the time. All
our researches have failed to tell us to whom they were addressed, if,
indeed, they were addressed to any actual person at all; it is hardly
necessary to urge that Shakespeare was capable of profound and
passionate utterance under the impulse of imagination alone. The
probability is that they were produced at intervals over a period of
perhaps a dozen years, and that they represent a great variety of moods,
impulses, and suggestions. While some of them betray signs of youth and
remind us of the apprentice workman of _Loves Labour's Lost_, others
display in their depth of thought, intensity of feeling, and superb
power of incisive and concentrated expression, the full maturity of the
man and the artist. Hardly in the great tragedies themselves is there
clearer proof of Shakespeare's supremacy in thought and language.




CHAPTER V

THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA


Shakespeare's lifetime was coincident with a period of extraordinary
activity and achievement in the drama. By the date of his birth Europe
was witnessing the passing of the religious drama that had held its
course for some five centuries, and the creation of new and mixed forms
under the incentive of classical tragedy and comedy. These new forms
were at first mainly written by scholars and performed by amateurs, but
in England, as everywhere else in western Europe, the growth of a class
of professional actors was threatening to make the drama popular,
whether it should be new or old, classical or medieval, literary or
farcical. Court, school, organizations of amateurs, and the strolling
actors were all rivals in supplying a widespread desire for dramatic
entertainment; and no boy who went to a grammar school could be ignorant
that the drama was a form of literature which gave glory to Greece and
Rome and might yet bestow its laurels on England.

When Shakespeare was twelve years old the first public playhouse was
built in London. For a time literature held aloof from this public
stage. Plays aiming at literary distinction were written for schools or
court, or for the choir boys of St. Paul's and the royal chapel, who,
however, gave plays in public as well as at court. But the professional
companies prospered in their permanent theaters, and university men with
literary ambitions were quick to turn to these theaters as offering a
means of livelihood. By the time that Shakespeare was twenty-five, Lyly,
Peele, and Greene had made comedies that were at once popular and
literary; Kyd had written a tragedy that crowded the pit; and Marlowe
had brought poetry and genius to triumph on the common stage--where they
had played no part since the death of Euripides. A native literary drama
had been created, its alliance with the public playhouses established,
and at least some of its great traditions had been begun.

The development of the Elizabethan drama for the next twenty-five years
is of exceptional interest to students of literary history, for in this
brief period, in connection with the half-dozen theaters of a growing
city and the demands of its varied population, we may trace the
beginning, growth, florescence, and decay of many kinds of plays, and of
many great careers. Actors, audiences, and dramatists all contributed to
changes in taste and practice and to a development of unexampled
rapidity and variety. In every detail of dramatic art there was change
and improvement, a constant addition of new subject-matter, a mastery of
new methods of technic, and an invention of new kinds of plays. The
popular successes of Marlowe and Kyd and the early plays of Shakespeare
himself seemed old-fashioned and crude to the taste of twenty years
after, yet the triumphs of Shakespeare's maturity failed to exhaust the
opportunities for innovation and advance. We are amazed to-day at the
mere number of plays produced, as well as by the number of dramatists
writing at the same time for this London of two hundred thousand
inhabitants. To realize how great was the dramatic activity, we must
remember further that hosts of plays have been lost, and that probably
there is no author of note whose entire work has survived. By the time,
however, that Shakespeare withdrew from London to Stratford the drama
had reached its height. The dozen years from 1600 to 1612 included not
only Shakespeare's great tragedies, but the best plays of Jonson,
Chapman, and Webster, and the entire collaboration of Beaumont and
Fletcher. The only other decades comparable with this in the history of
the drama are that which heard plays by Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristophanes and that other which saw the masterpieces of Racine and
Moliere.

[Page Heading: Elizabethan Drama]

The greatness of the drama, however, by no means ended with the
retirement and death of Shakespeare. Some of those who had been his
early associates continued to write for the stage, and younger men, as
Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, and Shirley, carried on the traditions of
their predecessors. If, as in other forms of literature, there was
decline and decadence during the next twenty-five years, the drama also
retained initiative, poetry, and intellectual force until the end. It
was not dead or dying when the outbreak of the Civil War cut short its
course; in fact, its plays, its traditions, even some of its theaters,
actors, and dramatists survived the suppression of twenty years and
helped to start the drama of the Restoration. Had Shakespeare lived to
the age of seventy-eight he would have seen the closing of the theaters,
and his lifetime would have covered the crowded history of the drama's
development from such semi-moralities as _Cambises_ and _The Nice
Wanton_ to the last plays of Massinger and Shirley.

For nearly a quarter of a century he was a sharer in this dramatic
movement, working in London as actor, manager, and playwright. While no
playwright was more desirous than he to find in the stage full
opportunity for his genius, he was as keen as any in gauging the
immediate theatrical demand and in meeting the varying conditions of a
highly competitive profession. As we have already noted, he began by
imitating those who had won success, and to the end he was adroit in
taking advantage of a new dramatic fashion or discovery. Like his
fellows, he often took his plots from novels, histories, or other
narratives; but his very choice of stories might be determined by the
theatrical taste of the moment, and in his treatment of those stories he
shows in person, situation, or scene, a consideration of current
practices, traditions, and conventions. In every field of literature, a
writer is conditioned by the work of his predecessors and
contemporaries, and this dependence on current taste is especially
important in the drama, where practice tends to fix itself in
convention, and where innovation to be successful requires cooeperation
from the actors and approval from the audience as well as genius from
the author. Though Shakespeare is for all time, he is part and parcel of
the Elizabethan drama. If his plays are Elizabethan in their defects and
limitations, such as their trivial puns and word-play, their overcrowded
imagery, their loose and broken structure, their paucity of female
roles, their mixture of comic and tragic, their reliance on disguise and
mistaken identity as motives, their use of improbable or absurd stories;
they are Elizabethan also in the qualities of their greatness, their
variety of subject, their intense interest in the portrayal of
character, the flexibility and audacity of their language, their noble
and opulent verse, the exquisite idealism of their romantic love, and
their profound analysis of the sources of human tragedy.

[Page Heading: Beginnings of the Drama]

The Elizabethan drama was a continuation of the medieval drama
transformed by the influence of classical models, especially the
comedies of Terence and Plautus and the tragedies of Seneca. In England,
by the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Miracle and Mystery plays
were declining and were soon to disappear. The most common type of drama
for the next sixty years was the Morality, which symbolized life as a
conflict of vices and virtues or of the body and the soul. The drama was
rapidly changing from long out-door performances to brief plays that
could be given almost anywhere by a few actors. The term Interludes
became common for all such entertainments, and allegorical frameworks
served to contain a wide variety of matter, farce, pedagogy, politics,
religion, history, or pageant. Close imitations of the classical forms
were soon attempted by scholars and men of letters; but as the
professional actors grew in importance the development of a national
comedy and tragedy went on without much direction from critics or
theorists, but rather in response to the demands of actors and audiences
and to the initiative of authors.

The developments of comedy were numerous. Allegory gradually
disappeared, and the Morality ceased to exist as a definite type, though
its symbolization of life and its concern with conduct were handed along
to the later drama. The plays of Robert Wilson, about 1580, show an
interesting use of allegory for the purposes of social satire, and
realism and satire long continued to characterize Elizabethan comedy,
though for a time confined mostly to incidental scenes. Common and
incidental also was farce, which is found in most plays of the century
whether tragic, comic, or moral in their main purpose. Further, it was
soon discovered that the Plautian scheme of comedy was well suited to
farcical incident, as in _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ (1552).[6] The
classical models or their Italian imitations also produced other and
less domestic imitations, as in Gascoigne's translation of Ariosto's _I
Suppositi_ (pr. 1566) and Udall's _Ralph Roister Doister_ (1540); a
little later, Lyly's _Mother Bombie_, Munday's _Two Italian Gentlemen_,
and Shakespeare's _Comedy of Errors_. Indeed such adaptations continued
much later and resulted in some of the best farces, or realistic
comedies of intrigue, as Shakespeare's _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (1598),
Heywood's _Wise Woman of Hogsdon_ (1604), Jonson's _Epicene_ (1609) and
_Alchemist_ (1610).

[6] In this chapter the dates appended to the plays indicate the
conjectured year of presentation. Dates of publication are prefixed by
_pr_.

[Page Heading: Influence of Plautus]

The Plautian model, however, was far more influential than can be
indicated by these close adaptations or by any list of direct imitations
or borrowings. For the Elizabethan it offered a standard of comedy, and
its plots, persons, and devices were freely used in all kinds of plays,
romantic as well as realistic, sentimental as well as satirical or
farcical. The plots of Plautus and Terence offer a series of tricks in
which the complications are often increased by having the trickster
tricked. Certain fixed types of character play the parts of gulls or
gullers, as the old parents, the young lovers, the parasite, the
braggart soldier, and the clever slave. The intrigue is forwarded by the
use of disguise, mistaken identity, and most surprising coincidences;
and it is accomplished by dialogue, often gross and abusive, but usually
lively. This model served every nation of western Europe, reappearing
with prolonged vitality in the inventions of Lope de Vega, the "commedia
del arte" of Italy, and in the masterpieces of Moliere. Much in its
scheme that seems artificial and theatrical to-day was, we must
remember, accepted without question by Europe of the sixteenth century
as essential and desirable in comedy, especially in realistic comedy of
intrigue or manners.

The plots of Terence, notably that of the _Andria_, also gave some
encouragement to the modern fondness for adventure and sentimental love,
and some classical sanction to the abundant romantic material that was
knocking at the doors of comedy. If by romantic we mean what is strange
and removed from ordinary experience and what has the attractions of
wonder, thrill, and idealization, then for the Elizabethan the world of
romance was a wide one. It included the medieval stories of knights and
their gests, and also the fresher tales of classical mythology; the
Americas and Indies of contemporary adventure and the artificial
Arcadias of humanist imitators of Virgil and Theocritus. Ovid and
Malory, Homer and Boccaccio, Drake and Sanazzaro, were all contributors.
The union of this romance with comedy on the stage began in two ways,
and principally under the innovation of two writers, Lyly and Greene.

The taste for pageants, processions, and tableaux grew and flourished
under the patronage of the court; and music, dancing, and spectacle were
combined with dialogue in various court exhibitions and plays given by
the child actors. John Lyly, writing for these choir boys, developed
this type of entertainment into a distinct species of comedy. Of his
eight plays, written at intervals from 1580 to 1593, all but one were in
prose, and all except the Plautian _Mother Bombie_ adhere loosely to a
common formula. Classical myth or story, with pastoral elements, and
occasionally an allegory of contemporary politics, furnish the basis of
plots with similar love complications. Gods, goddesses, nymphs, fairies,
and many others add to the spectacle and mingle in the love intrigue,
and all rise to a graceful dialogue, which quickens to brisk repartee
when the pages or servants appear. The witty page supersedes the rude
buffoon of earlier plays, and everything is graceful and ingenious,
slight in serious interest, but relieved by movement and song.

[Page Heading: Lyly and Greene]

This is the form of comedy which Shakespeare adopted for _Love's
Labour's Lost_ and perfected in _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_. But Lyly's
contribution should not be defined merely by this type of drama,
original as it is in its departure from medieval or classical
precedents. He showed how comedy might be a courtly and literary
entertainment and also the playground of fancy and wit.

The second development of romantic comedy came through the dramatization
of stories of love, adventure, and marvels. To such stories Robert
Greene gave a heightened charm through the idealization of his heroines.
His _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ (1590) is a magic play with an
historical setting; but the interest gathers and centers on the love
story of Margaret, the Keeper's daughter. In _James IV_ (_c._ 1591) the
pseudo-historical setting frames the stories of the noble Ida and the
wronged but faithful Dorothea. In the incidents of the plot, with its
woman disguised as a page, the faithless lover, and the final
reconciliation, and also in the sweetness, modesty, and loyalty of the
heroine, the play reminds us of Shakespeare's comedies and is indeed
very close to _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, in which he was clearly
adopting Greene's formula.

Tragedy naturally lagged somewhat behind comedy as a form of popular
entertainment. So far as we can judge from the extant plays, there was
until the appearance of Kyd and Marlowe no real union between Senecan
imitations like _Gorboduc_ (1562), _Jocasta_ (1566), and _The
Misfortunes of Arthur_ (1588), on the one hand, and popular medleys of
morality, tragedy, and farce like _Cambises_ (1565), _Horestes_ (_pr._
1567), and _Appius and Virginia_ (1563), on the other. Marlowe's
_Tamburlaine_ (1587) was an epoch-making play because it brought to the
popular drama true poetry and genuine passion; but it and its successors
also established a new type of tragedy. Marlowe made no effort to retain
the structure or themes of classical tragedy; on the contrary, he made
his plays loosely connected series of scenes dealing with the life and
death of the hero, crowded with persons and with startling action. In
this he was conforming to the method of the dramatic narratives that
pleased the theaters. But each play centers its dramatic interest on a
mighty protagonist battling with his overweening desires and their
inevitable disappointment. With the spectacle and sensation, the rant
and absurdity, there is also dramatic structure and tragic significance
in the revelation of these protagonists, their volitional struggles, and
their direful catastrophes. These plays set the key for all Elizabethan
tragedy, including Shakespeare's _Lear_, _Othello_, and _Macbeth_. They
were immediately followed by dozens of imitators. All blank verse echoed
Marlowe's mighty line, and tragedy was filled with ranting conquerors
like Tamburlaine, monstrous villains like Barabbas, and murders like
that of Edward II. Shakespeare was his pupil in the _2_ and _3 Henry
VI_, mastered his methods in _Richard III_, and still wrote in
emulation, though no longer in imitation, in _Richard II_ and _The
Merchant of Venice_.

[Page Heading: Marlowe and Kyd]

Within a few months of _Tamburlaine_, appeared a play of almost equal
influence on subsequent drama, Kyd's _Spanish Tragedy_. Kyd was a
student of Seneca, a translator of Garnier's _Cornelia_, a Senecan
imitation; and he adapted some elements of classical tragedy to the
English stage. The ten plays ascribed to Seneca were the accepted models
of tragedy in the Renaissance. Their presentation of the more horrible
stories of Greek tragedy, their rhetorical and aphoristic style, their
moralizing and their psychology, were all greatly admired. They were
believed by the Elizabethans to have been acted, and their murders and
violence seemed to warrant such action on the modern stage; though the
Elizabethans found less adaptable their use of the chorus, the
restriction of the number of persons speaking, their long monologues,
and the limitation of the action to the last phase of a story. Kyd
modeled his rhetoric on Seneca and retained a vestige of the chorus,
long soliloquies, and some other traits of Senecan structure; but his
main borrowing was the essential story of a crime and its punishment. He
thus brought to the Elizabethan stage the classical theme of
retribution. In his _Spanish Tragedy_, a murder is avenged under the
direction of a ghost, by a hesitating and soliloquizing protagonist, who
is driven through doubt and speculation almost to madness, and then to
craft, with which he outwits the wily villain and brings all the leading
_dramatis personae_ to a final slaughter.

Blood revenge was established as the favorite motive of tragedy; the
conflict of craft between protagonist and villain made up the action,
and the speculations of the avenger gave a chance for wisdom and
eloquence. One other play, probably by Kyd, the lost _Hamlet_, also
presented these features and later formed the basis for Shakespeare's
tragedy. Other plays, as _Soliman and Perseda_, _The True Tragedy of
Richard III_, and _Locrine_ immediately adopted Kyd's theme and technic;
indeed the stage for half a dozen years abounded in avenging heroes,
diabolical villains, shrieking ghosts, and long soliloquies on fate,
death, retribution, and kindred themes. _Titus Andronicus_ is quite in
the Kydian vein. Many plays combined the salient traits of Marlowe and
Kyd, and henceforth no one wrote tragedy without paying homage to their
inventions.

[Page Heading: English History Plays]

We have now noticed the most important developments in comedy and
tragedy made by the time that Shakespeare began writing for the
theaters; and he made quick use of the progress accomplished by Plautian
and Lylyan comedy, by Greene's romances, and by the tragedies of Kyd and
Marlowe. There were other plays not easily classified under these names
and of less service to Shakespeare. But to the critical playgoer of 1590
few plays would have seemed either 'right comedies' or 'right
tragedies.' The majority were mere dramatizations of story without close
construction or selection of material, seeking merely varied and
abundant action. They drew their material from all kinds of narrative
sources, Italian _novelle_, current pamphlets, Latin historians, or
English chronicles; and, whether historical or fictitious, were usually
known as Histories, _i.e._, stories.

The patriotic interest in English history fostered the presentation of
its scenes upon the stage. The chronicles of Halle and Holinshed
furnished abundant material; and embassies, processions, and pitched
battles filled the stage with movement. Historical plays might, indeed,
draw from classical history or from current foreign history, but from
1590 to 1603 a very large number of plays give scenic representation to
the reigns of English kings.

Some of these form a distinct class, since, however mixed with comic
matter, they imitate Kyd or Marlowe and recast the chronicle of a reign
to fit the accepted subjects of tragedy, the downfall of a prince, the
revenge for a crime, the overthrow of a tyrant, or the retribution
brought upon a conspirator or usurper. Conceived under Marlowe's
influence, and perhaps owing something to his hand, is the tetralogy
that includes the three parts of _Henry VI_ and _Richard III_.

Those history plays, however, that do not follow the formulas for
tragedy, are a heterogeneous group not easily classified. They usually
keep to the loose chronicle method that presented a series of scenes
without much regard to unity or coherence. Farce, comedy, magic,
spectacle, heroics, and everything that might have happened was
permissible in these plays, and perhaps the only thing indispensable was
a pitched field with opposing armies. Biographical, comic, popular,
patriotic, or what not, these plays brought a variety of scenes to the
theaters, but offered only a loose and flexible form rather than any
dramatic direction or model to the creator of Falstaff.

The early deaths of Greene and Marlowe and the retirement of Lyly left
Shakespeare the heir of their inventions. Though his plays were at first
imitative, he soon surpassed his predecessors in gift of expression, in
depiction of character, and in deftness of dramatic technic. The years
from 1593 to near the turn of the century are particularly lacking in
records of plays or theaters; but it seems clear that the main
developments of the drama were in romantic comedy and chronicle history;
and it is also clear that Shakespeare was the unquestioned leader in
both of these forms.

[Page Heading: Shakespeare's Leadership]

In comparison with his associates, he was now the master, relying on his
own experience rather than on their innovations. Neither the crude but
popular _Mucedorus_ (1595) nor Dekker's poetical extravagance, _Old
Fortunatus_ (1596), could contribute to his development of romantic
comedy; and domestic comedy could not instruct the inventor of Launce
and Launcelot. Incidental relationships may indeed be noted. _As You
Like It_, for example, dramatizes a pastoral novel with the addition of
scenes that recall Robin Hood's forest life, and may owe something to
the suggestion of two Robin Hood plays by Chettle and Munday, _The
Downfall and Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon_ (1598). But, on the
whole, the indebtedness was on the other side, and imitations indicate
that men of Shakespeare's day realized that romantic comedy and history
could not be carried farther.

In fact, a certain reaction set in against these forms of drama. Near
the close of the century new tendencies became manifest. Comedy tended
to become more realistic and satiric. Chapman, Marston, Middleton, and
Jonson, all began writing romantic comedy, but changed shortly to
realistic. Jonson, in his _Every Man in His Humour_ (1598), announced
his opposition to the lawless drama which had preceded--whether
romantic comedy or chronicle history--and proposed the creation of a new
satirical comedy of manners. He was moved partly by a desire to break
from past methods in order to bring comedy closer to classical example,
and partly by a desire for realism, a faithful presentation, analysis,
and criticism of current manners. The growth of London and the increase
in luxury and immorality seem to have encouraged such a movement, and
for the decade after 1598 there were many comedies of London life,
mostly satiric, and nearly all realistic. Many varieties are to be
found, from gross representation of the seamy side of city life to
serious discussion of social questions, and from sympathetic picturing
of certain trades to satiric exposure of the evils of society.

Jonson's emulation of Aristophanes led him into arrogant personal satire
in the _Poetaster_ (1601), and there ensued the so-called war of the
theaters, in which Marston, Dekker, and, according to report,
Shakespeare were Jonson's opponents. If Shakespeare, indeed, had a share
in this war, he showed only slight interest in the prevailing comedy.
_Measure for Measure_ uses the device of a spying duke employed in
Marston's _Malcontent_, and discusses sexual relationships somewhat in
the tone of the time, while the scenes dealing with houses of ill fame
are not unlike similar scenes in the contemporary plays of Middleton,
Webster, and others. _Troilus and Cressida_, also, show more of a
satiric temper than is usual in Shakespeare. But neither of these plays
partakes to any extent of the prevailing satire on contemporary London.
Wide as was the range of Shakespeare's genius, it seems to have avoided
the field of satire.

[Page Heading: Realistic Comedy]

A review of the drama must, however, at least remark the importance of
this development of realistic comedy which flourished in the decade
after 1598 and continued to the end. Jonson's comedy of 'humors'
includes _Volpone_ (1605), which overstepped the bounds of comedy in its
denunciation of evil, the _Alchemist_ (1611), perhaps the best English
play on the Latin model, and _Bartholomew Fair_ (1614), most original
and English of them all. Dekker's fine drama of middle class life, _The
Honest Whore_ (1604), and Heywood's masterpiece, _A Woman Killed with
Kindness_ (1603), a play suggesting both the sentimental comedy of the
eighteenth century and the problem play of to-day, also belong to this
very remarkable era of domestic themes and serious realism.

If Shakespeare did not turn to satire or realism or current social
problems, he did turn away from chronicle history plays and romantic
comedies. As we saw in the last chapter, for a period of eight or nine
years, from _Julius Caesar_ to _Antony and Cleopatra_, he gave his best
efforts of his maturity to tragedy. The day for mere imitation of
Seneca, Kyd, or Marlowe, was past; and scholars like Jonson and Chapman
as well as Shakespeare sought in the tragedy of the public theater, an
opportunity for wisdom and poetry and a criticism of life.

For models, Shakespeare did not need to go back farther than his own
_Romeo and Juliet_ and _Richard II_, nor to imitate any other than
himself. Yet his great plays may have seemed to his contemporaries to
adopt rather than to depart from current dramatic practices. They belong
to the Elizabethan 'tragedy of blood'; against a background of courts
and battles they present the downfall of princes; they rest on
improbable stories that end in fearful slaughter; they invariably set
forth great crimes, compact of murder, lust, villainous intrigue, and
ferocious cruelty. Some of them follow Kyd in recounting a story of
blood vengeance presided over by ghosts, or discover the retribution due
for crime in physical torments. Nearly all follow Marlowe in centering
the tragic interest in the fate of a supernormal protagonist who is
swayed by an overpowering emotion, and in elevating these human desires
and passions into tremendous forces that work their waste of devastation
and ruin on character and life.

[Page Heading: Tragedy]

The contemporary tragedy is brought closest to Shakespeare in the
relations of the revenge plays to _Hamlet_. The type, introduced by Kyd
in _The Spanish Tragedy_ and the original _Hamlet_, underwent a special
development in Marston's _Antonio's Revenge_ (1598) and several other
plays appearing from 1598 to 1603, that dealt with the blood vengeance
of a son for a father. At the same time Shakespeare turned to the
remaking of the old _Hamlet_ and to a new treatment of the old theme,
yet retained many of the old accessories. Marston reproduces the
essential story of blood vengeance, presided over by a ghost, crossed by
both lust and sentimental love, commented on by long soliloquies, and
accompanied by pretended madness. Chettle, in _Hoffman_, amplifies the
horrors and villainy and brings the story of the mad girl into closer
juncture with the main plot than is the case in _Hamlet_. Tourneur,
writing independently of Shakespeare, introduces, among all sorts of
horrors, a Christian ghost who forbids blood vengeance and commands
submission to Providence. Ben Jonson, in his additions to the old
_Spanish Tragedy_, gives fine imaginative interpretation of the wavering
moods of meditation, irony, and frenzy with which Kyd had dealt only
crudely. The later development of this type proceeded without much
regard to Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, but rather in the direction started by
Marston's tragedies and his influential tragi-comedy, _The Malcontent_.
While _Hamlet_ may be described as centering attention on a meditative
and high-minded avenger, Tourneur, Webster, Middleton, and later
dramatists found greater interest in the study of villainy and intrigue.
Revenge is born of depravity rather than duty, and given a setting of
physical horrors and unnatural lust. Tourneur's _Revenger's Tragedy_
(1606) and Webster's _White Devil_ (1610) and _Duchess of Malfi_ (1611)
represent the culmination of this play of revenge, lust, and horror, and
supply a sort of standard for tragedy until the Civil War. Webster, it
must be added, was hardly less interested than Shakespeare in character
and motive, though he chose to study these in a chamber of horrors.

Shakespeare's Roman tragedies also suggest comparison with contemporary
plays, those either on Roman or on contemporary foreign history.
Tragedies dealing with Roman history had preceded _Julius Caesar_, but
that play doubtless stimulated Jonson's _Sejanus_ (1603) and _Catiline_
(1611). Both these plays attempted an approach to classical structure
and a thorough study and digest of classical history. This effort to
make tragedy a serious and authoritative interpretation of history was
also shared by Chapman in his plays dealing with contemporary French
history, _1_ and _2 Bussy D'Ambois_ (1601-1607) and _1_ and _2 Biron_
(1608). While Jonson strove to free his style from the abundance of
conceits, figures, and passages of description that had characterized
earlier drama, Chapman used every chance to crowd his verse with
far-stretched figure and weighty apothegm. At its worst it is peculiarly
representative of Elizabethan confusion and bombast; at its best it is
closest of all in its resemblance to Shakespeare's. Like Jonson and
Chapman, Shakespeare sought historical backgrounds for his characters
and found a fascination in the interpretation of the motives of the
great protagonists of the world of antiquity. It is worthy of note,
however, that he seems to have taken no interest in another class of
subjects much favored by his contemporaries. Contemporary crimes
treated with an excess of realism and didactic conclusions are common in
drama from _Arden of Feversham_ (1590) on, and engaged the services of
Jonson, Webster, Ford, Dekker, and others.

[Page Heading: Beaumont and Fletcher]

About 1607 a new departure appeared in the work of the dramatic
collaborators, Beaumont and Fletcher. After some experiments, they won,
in their tragi-comedies, _Philaster_ (1608) and _A King and No King_
(1610), and their tragedy, _The Maid's Tragedy_ (1609), great theatrical
successes, and in these and similar plays established a new kind of
dramatic romance. The realistic comedies of Jonson and Middleton, which,
along with the great tragedies of Shakespeare, crowd the stage history
of the preceding ten years, had offered nothing similar to these
romances which joined tragic and idyllic material in scenes of brilliant
theatrical effectiveness, abounding in transitions from suspense to
surprise, and culminating in telling denouements. This new realm of
romance is an artificial one, contrasting pure love with horrid
entanglements of lust, and ever bringing love in conflict with duty,
friendship, or the code of honor. In its intriguing courts, or in nearby
forests where the idyls are placed, love of one kind or another is the
ruling and vehement passion, riding high-handed over tottering thrones,
rebellious subjects, usurping tyrants, and checked, if checked at all,
only by the unexampled force of honor. Romance, in short, depends on
situation, on the artificial but skilful juxtaposition of emotions and
persons, and on the new technic that sacrifices consistency of
characterization for surprise. Characterization tends to become typical,
and motives tend to be based on fixed conventions, such as the code of
honor might dictate to a seventeenth-century gentleman; but the lack of
individuality in character is counterbalanced by the vividness with
which the lovers, tyrants, faithful friends, evil women, and sentimental
heroines are presented, and by the fluent and lucid style which varies
to any emotional requirement and rises to the demands of the most
sensational situations.

_Cymbeline_ in its plot bears some close resemblances to _Philaster_,
and it seems likely that Shakespeare was adopting the methods and
materials of the new romance. At all events, he turned from tragedy to
romance, and in _Cymbeline_ and the far more original and successful
_Winter's Tale_ and _Tempest_ produced tragi-comedies that, like
Beaumont and Fletcher's, rely on a contrast of tragic and idyllic and on
surprising plots and idealized heroines. After Beaumont's retirement in
1611 or 1612, it seems probable that Fletcher and Shakespeare
collaborated together on _Henry VIII_ and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.

There is ample evidence that the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher won a
great popular renown, surpassing for a time those of Shakespeare and all
others. Beaumont did not live long after he ceased to write for the
stage, dying at thirty, in the same year as Shakespeare. Jonson had
given up dramatic writing for the time, and Fletcher was left the chief
writer for Shakespeare's old company and the undoubted leader of the
theater. Including the plays written in collaboration with Beaumont,
Shakespeare, and later with Massinger, he left some sixty dramas of many
kinds, varying from farcical comedy of manners to the most extreme
tragedy. The comedies of manners present the affairs of women, and spice
their lively conversation and surprising situations with a wit that
often reminds one of the Restoration; indeed they carry the development
of comedy nearly to the point where Wycherley and Congreve began. The
tragi-comedies, which display the qualities already noted as belonging
to the romances, have the technical advantage that the disentanglement
of their rapid plots and sub-plots is left hanging in the balance until
the very end. The happy ending to tragic entanglements won a favor it
has never lost on the English stage, and tragi-comedy of the Fletcherian
type continued the most popular form of the drama until Dryden.

[Page Heading: Tragi-Comedy]

It is unnecessary here to dwell long over the drama after Shakespeare's
death. Jonson, Dekker, Heywood, and Webster wrote from time to time, and
Middleton devoted his versatile talent to whatever kind of play was in
vogue, now rather to Websterian tragedy and Fletcherian tragi-comedy
than to realistic comedy. Yet, in collaboration with Rowley, he produced
the powerful tragedy, _The Changeling_, and the much-admired
tragi-comedy, _A Fair Quarrel_. After Fletcher's death in 1625,
Massinger took his place as leader of the stage, and his work, with that
of Ford and Shirley, carry on the great traditions of the drama to the
very end. A host of minor writers, as Brome, D'Avenant, Suckling,
Cartwright, offer little that is new; but no survey of the drama,
however brief, can neglect to mention the skilful exposition, admirable
psychology, and sound structural principles that characterized the best
of Massinger's many plays, the unique and amazing dramatic genius shown
in Ford's masterpieces, _The Broken Heart_ and _'Tis Pity She's a
Whore_, and the ingenuity in plot, adroitness in characterization, and
genuine poetic gifts of Shirley.

Comedies from 1616 to 1642 reveal two chief influences; they are
realistic and satiric, following Jonson, or they are light-hearted,
lively combinations of manners and intrigue, after Fletcher. In the
former class are Massinger's two great comedies, _The City Madam_ and _A
New Way to Pay Old Debts_. To the latter class belong most of the
comedies of Shirley. Tragi-comedies follow Fletcher with the variations
due to the authors' ingenuity, and include perhaps the most attractive
plays of Massinger and Shirley. Tragedies usually mingle lust, devilish
intrigue, physical horror, after the fashion of Webster and Tourneur,
but now often with romantic variation on the theme of love, and a
technic of suspense and surprise similar to Beaumont and Fletcher. These
are the main tendencies in the last twenty years of the drama, and
characterize in the large the work of the greater men as well as of the
less. Shakespeare's influence is widespread, but appears incidentally in
particular scene, situation, character, or phrase, rather than as
affecting the main course and fashions of the drama. After the
publication of his plays in 1623, this incidental influence increased,
and is distinctly noticeable in the plays of Ford and Shirley.

[Page Heading: Pastoral and Masque]

A glance must suffice for two dramatic forms that had only slight
connection with the public theaters, the Pastoral Play and the Court
Masque. Pastoral elements are found in many early entertainments and in
the plays of Lyly and Peele. Later, in imitation of Guarini's _Il Pastor
Fido_, attempts were made to inaugurate a pastoral drama, presenting a
full-fledged dramatic exposition of the golden age. Daniel's _Queen's
Arcadia_ (1605) and Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_ (1609) had many
later followers, but the form won no permanent hold on the popular
taste. Traces of its influence, however, may often be seen, as in
Shakespeare's _As You Like It_, or Beaumont and Fletcher's _Philaster_.
The masque, originally only a masquerade, soon acquired some dramatic
accompaniment, and in the court of James I developed into an elaborate
form of entertainment. The masked dance of the ladies and gentlemen of
the court was merely the focus for dialogue, elaborate setting,
spectacle, music, and grotesque dances by professionals. These shows,
costing vast sums for staging, costumes, and music, depended for their
success mainly on the architect Inigo Jones, but in some degree also on
Ben Jonson, who was the creator of the Court Masque as a literary form.
Such expensive spectacles were far beyond the reach of the public
theater, but provoked considerable imitation, as in Shakespeare's
_Tempest_, or several of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. Later Milton
immortalized the form in _Comus_.

The most hasty review of the Elizabethan drama must suggest how
constantly Shakespeare responded to its prevailing conditions. There
are, of course, great variations in the signs which different plays
offer of contemporary influence and peculiarity. So it is with most of
his fellow dramatists. _Lear_ and _Othello_ were perhaps written within
the same year, yet _Othello_, in its unity, its technical excellence,
and its depiction of character, is the most modern of the tragedies,
while _Lear_, with its impossible story, its horrors, its treatment of
madness, its likeness to the chronicle plays, its prolonged passage from
crisis to catastrophe, in its very conception, is the most Elizabethan,
though perhaps the most impressive of the tragedies. _Twelfth Night_ is
suited to any stage, but _Troilus and Cressida_ and _Pericles_ are
hardly conceivable except on the Elizabethan. Despite such variations,
however, Shakespeare's relations to the contemporary drama were
manifestly constant and immediate. If it was rarely a question with him
what the ancients had written, it was always a question what was being
acted and what was successful at the moment. His own growth in dramatic
power goes step by step with the rapid and varied development of the
drama, and the measure for comparison must be, not by decades, but by
years or months.

[Page Heading: Shakespeare and His Contemporaries]

A study of the Elizabethan drama may help to excuse some of the faults
and limitations of Shakespeare, but it also enforces his merits. Both
faults and merits are often to be understood in the efforts of lesser
men to do what he did. We admire his triumphs the more as we consider
their failures. Yet they often had admirable success, and their triumphs
as well as his are due in part to the dramatic conditions which gave the
freest opportunity for individual initiative in language, verse, story,
and construction. Noble bursts of poetry, richness and variety of life,
an intense interest in human nature, comic or tragic--these are the
great merits of that drama. That in a superlative degree they are also
the characteristics of Shakespeare is not due solely to his exceptional
genius, but to the fact that his genius worked in a favorable
environment.

[Illustration: A TYPICAL SHAKESPEREAN STAGE

From Albright's _Shaksperian Stage_]




CHAPTER VI

THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER


In 1576, James Burbage, father of the great actor, Richard Burbage, and
himself a member of the Earl of Leicester's company, built the first
London playhouse, the Theater in Shoreditch. In the next year a second
playhouse, the Curtain, was erected nearby, and these seem to have
remained the only theaters until 1587-1588, when probably the Rose, on
the Bankside, was built by Henslowe. In 1599 Richard and Cuthbert
Burbage, after some difficulty over their lease, demolished the old
Theater and used the timber for the Globe, near the Rose, on the
Bankside. The Swan, another theater, had been built there in 1594,
somewhat to the west; and in 1614 the Hope was erected hard by the old
Rose and the new Globe, which in 1613 had replaced the old Globe.
Meantime the Fortune had been built by Henslowe and Alleyn in 1600 in
Golden Lane to the north of Cripplegate, on the model of the Globe, and
the Red Bull was erected in the upper end of St. John's Street about
1603-1607. These were all public theaters, open to the air, built of
wood, outside the city limits and the jurisdiction of the city
corporation.

Before the Theater, plays had been acted in various places about the
city, and especially in inn-yards, some of which long continued to be
used for dramatic performances. At an early date also, the companies of
children actors connected with the choirs of St. Paul's and the Queen's
Chapel had given public performances, probably indoors, at places near
St. Paul's and in Blackfriars. When the Burbages were in difficulties
about the Theater, they had leased certain rooms in the dismantled
monastery of Blackfriars, but had then released these to a company of
children which acted there for some years. In 1608 the Burbages regained
possession of this property, and Shakespeare's company began acting
there. This Blackfriars theater was known as a private theater in order
to avoid the application of certain statutes directed against the public
theaters, but it differed from them merely in being indoors, with
artificial lights, and higher prices. It was used by Shakespeare's
company as a winter theater, while the Globe served for summer
performances, and it was the model for various other private theaters,
two of which survived the Protectorate and became in turn the models for
the Restoration Theater. Drury Lane and Covent Garden, indeed, trace
their ancestry back directly to the Blackfriars through the Cockpit and
the Salisbury Court playhouses.

The companies of actors which occupied these theaters were cooeperative
organizations. Eight or ten actors formed a company, leased a theater,
hired supernumeraries, bought plays, and shared in the profits. In
Elizabeth's reign they secured a legal position by obtaining a license
from some nobleman, and so were known as the Earl of Leicester's men,
Lord Admiral's men, and so on. On the accession of James I, the leading
London companies were taken directly under patronage of members of the
royal family. During Shakespeare's time there were innumerable
companies, but the tendency was for the best actors to become associated
in a few companies, and for each company to keep to a particular
theater; so that at the accession of James I, there were only five adult
companies in London with permanent theaters. The best companies were
frequently employed to act at court, and during the summer or when the
plague was raging in London, they often toured the country. The
children's companies flourished from time to time, and especially from
1599-1607 they were, as we learn from _Hamlet_, formidable rivals of the
men.

[Page Heading: Companies of Actors]

The history of the adult companies shows the growth of two distinct
interests, that of Henslowe and Alleyn, and that of the Burbages.
Henslowe, whose diary is one of the chief documents for the history of
the theater, built the Rose, and in partnership with his son-in-law, the
famous actor Alleyn, controlled the Fortune and the Hope, and the
companies known as the Admiral's and the Earl of Worcester's men, and
later on the Queen's and the Prince's men. The Burbages owned the
Theater, the Globe, and the Blackfriars, and were in control of
Shakespeare's company. This company, at first the Earl of Leicester's
men, was known by the names of its various patrons, Strange's, Derby's,
Hunsdon's, and the Lord Chamberlain's, until in 1603 it became the
King's men. For a short time, as Lord Strange's men, it acted at the
Rose, and apparently later at the playhouse in Newington Butts, but its
regular theaters were the Theater, the Globe, and Blackfriars. With this
company Shakespeare was connected from the beginning, and he aided in
making it the chief London company. For a time, Alleyn and the Admiral's
men were its close rivals, but even before the accession of James I,
Shakespeare and Burbage had given it a supremacy that it maintained to
the closing of the theaters.

There are various pictures of the exterior of Elizabethan theaters in
the contemporary maps or views of London, the best representation of the
four Bankside theaters being the engraving of Hollar printed in the
Tudor edition of _Twelfth Night_. This was first published in
_Londinopolis_, 1657, but represents the Bankside as it was about 1620.
Four pictures of interiors have been preserved, that from Kirkman's
_Drolls_, those from the title-pages of _Roxana_ and _Messalina_, and
the DeWitt drawing of the Swan, reproduced in the Tudor Shakespeare, _1
Henry VI_. The drawing from Kirkman's _Drolls_ is usually known as the
Red Bull stage, but it was not issued until 1679, and does not seem to
have anything to do with the Red Bull or with any other regular
theater. The _Messalina_ and _Roxana_ pictures are small, and both show
a rear curtain and a projecting stage. The DeWitt drawing was done from
hearsay evidence, is inaccurate in details, and represents a theater
with a movable stage, probably not long regularly used for plays; it
gives little idea of the stage, but does afford a good general notion of
the interior of a public theater. The contract for the Fortune theater,
built on the model of the Globe, except that it was square instead of
octagonal, has been preserved and enables us to complete this view of
the interior in detail.

[Page Heading: Public Theaters]

The public theaters were usually round, or nearly round, wooden
buildings of three stories. These stories were occupied by tiers of
galleries encircling the pit, which was open to the air. The stage
projected halfway into the pit, and was provided with dressing rooms in
the rear, and a protecting roof overhead, supported in some cases by
pillars. At the top was the 'hut', a room used to provide apparatus for
raising and lowering persons or properties from the stage, Light when
needed was provided by torches. Admission to standing room in the pit
was usually only a penny, but seats in the gallery or boxes or on the
stage cost much more, rising as high as half a crown. Performances were
given on every fair day except Sunday, and a flag flying from the hut
indicated that a play was to be performed. Some of the public playhouses
were used for acrobats, fencing, or even bear-baiting as well as for
plays; but the better theaters, as the Globe and Fortune, seem to have
been limited to dramatic performances.

The size and arrangement of the stage doubtless varied somewhat with the
different theaters, and considerable changes seem to have been
introduced by the indoor private theaters. But the Curtain was used from
1577 to 1642, some new theaters were modeled closely on the old, and the
same plays were acted on different stages, so it is apparent that in all
the stage was the same in its main features. For clearness these may be
again enumerated. The stage was a platform projecting into the pit, open
on three sides, and without any front curtain. In the rear were two
doors, and between them, an alcove, or inner stage, separated from the
front stage by curtains. Above the inner stage was a gallery, also
provided with curtains, and over the doors were windows or balconies.
The arrangement of doors, inner stage, gallery, and curtain may have
varied somewhat, but the essential elements are a curtained space at the
rear, and a gallery above. Trap-doors were also provided, and the hut
overhead supplied the machinery for ascents and descents of gods and
goddesses.

[Page Heading: The Fortune Theater]

Our diagram for the ground floor of the Fortune shows a square-cornered
stage with doors flat on the rear, while the perspective drawing from
Dr. Albright's _Shaksperian Stage_ shows a tapering stage, as in the
_Messalina_ picture, with doors on the bias. Some stages may have had
rounded corners with doors in the side. The pillars were not necessary
in the private theaters; or in some public houses where other means were
found for supporting the roof.

[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF THE FORTUNE THEATER

Dimensions: 80 ft. square on the outside; 55 ft. square on the inside,
the stage 43 ft. wide and extending to the middle of the pit.]

The performance of a play differed in many ways from one to-day. There
was no scenery and there were no women actors. Though scenes were used
in court performances as early as 1604, they do not seem to have been
employed by the professional companies to any extent until after the
Restoration. Female parts were taken by boys, and, except in plays acted
by the children's companies, there were rarely more than two important
female characters in a play. Though without scenery, the Elizabethan
stage was by no means devoid of spectacle. Processions, battles, all
kinds of mythological beings, ascents to heaven, descents to hell,
fire-works, and elaborate properties, were employed. Numerous
contemporary plays indicate that neither the fairyland of _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_, nor the magnificent court of _Henry VIII_, was
devised without an eye to the resources of the stage. Large sums of
money were lavished on costumes, the cost of a coat often exceeding the
price paid an author for a play. Costume was anachronistic; Cleopatra
was impersonated by a boy in stays and farthingale; and Caesar, probably
by Burbage, in a costume much like that worn by the Earl of Essex. Some
attention, however, was paid to appropriateness. Shepherds were clothed
in white, hunters in green; and doubtless mermaids, fairies, Venuses,
and satyrs were given as appropriate a dress as fancy could devise. The
action of a play seems usually to have been completed in two hours.
There was sometimes music between the acts, but there were no long
waits, and little stage business.

[Page Heading: Stage Presentation]

The peculiarities in the presentation of a play due to the arrangement
of the stage were considerable, and have been the subject of much
discussion and misunderstanding among investigators. There is, however,
no doubt that the action was largely on the front stage, and that most
of the scenes, at least in Shakespeare's lifetime, were designed for
presentation on this projecting platform. Since there was no
drop-curtain, actors had some distance to traverse, on entrances and
exits, between the doors and the front. At the end of a scene or a play,
all must retire, and the bodies of the dead must be carried out. Hence a
tragedy often ends with a funeral procession, a comedy with a dance. The
indications of scene supplied by modern editors for Shakespeare's plays
help to visualize a modern presentation, but are misleading as to
Shakespeare's intentions or an Elizabethan performance. The majority of
scenes in his plays differ strikingly from those in a modern play in
that they offer no hints as to the exact locality. Often it is not clear
from the text whether the scene is conceived as indoors or outdoors, in
the palace, or the courtyard, or before the entrance. Even when the
scene is presumably within a room, there is often no indication of the
nature of the furnishings, never any of the elaborate attention to
details of setting, such as we find in a play by Pinero or Shaw.
Sometimes placards were hung up indicating the scene of a play, but
apparently these merely gave the general scene, as "Venice" or "Verona,"
and did not often designate localities more closely. In fact the
majority of the scenes were probably written with no precise conception
of their setting. They were written to be acted on a front stage, bare
of scenery, projecting out into the audience. This did not represent a
particular locality, but rather any locality whatever.

The inner stage and the gallery above, and to some extent the doors and
the windows, were used to indicate specific localities when these were
necessary. The gallery represented the wall of a town, an upper story of
a house, or any elevated locality. The doors represented doors to houses
or gates to a city, and the windows or balconies over them were often
used for the windows of the houses. The inner stage was used in various
ways to indicate a specific locality requiring properties, and this use
apparently increased as time went on, and especially in the indoor,
artificially lighted private theaters. In any case, however, when the
curtains were opened, the inner stage became a part of the main stage,
and while action might take place there, it might also serve as a
background for action proceeding in the front. Properties could be
brought on and off the inner stage, behind the closed curtains, hence
large properties were confined to its precincts. Furniture, as chairs,
tables, or even beds, could, however, be pushed or carried out from the
inner to the outer stage. A play might be given on the front stage
without using the curtained recess at all, but numerous references to
curtains make it clear that the inner stage was used from the early days
of the theater.

[Page Heading: Inner Stage]

The uses of the inner stage have been much discussed and are still in
dispute, but they may be summarized briefly. _First_, the inner stage
was used for a specific, restricted, and usually propertied locality--a
cave, a study, a shop, a prison. _Second_, the inner stage was used for
scenes requiring discovery or tableaux. Numerous stage directions
indicate the drawing of the curtains to present a scene set on the inner
stage, as Bethsabe at her bath, Friar Bungay in bed with his magical
apparatus about him, Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess. _Third_, the
use of the inner stage was extended so that it represented any
propertied background, especially for scenes in a forest, church, or
temple. In _As You Like It_, for example, the last four acts are located
in the Forest of Arden. "This is the Forest of Arden," says Rosalind as
soon as she arrives there; and even before this, Duke senior alludes to
"these woods," and later we learn that there are practicable trees on
which Orlando hangs his verses. The forest setting, consisting of trees
and rocks, was placed on the inner stage and served to give a scenic
background. Of course, different places in the forest are to be
presumed, but one forest background would be sufficient for all. In the
course of the four acts, however, there are three scenes (II. ii; II.
iii; III. i) that are not in the forest, but at unspecified and
unpropertied places about the palace and Oliver's house. For these
scenes the curtain would be closed, shutting off the forest background
and transferring the spectators to the unspecified localities of Act I,
_i.e._, to the bare front stage. _Fourth._ An extension of this last use
made it possible to employ the curtain to indicate change of scene.
Several scenes, where no heavy properties were required, might succeed
one another on the front stage with the curtains closed; but the opening
of the curtains would reveal a special background and a manifest change
of scene. One instance of this use of the inner stage is seen in the
immediate change from an outdoor to an indoor scene, or _vice versa_.
The scene is in the street, _i.e._, on the front stage; the person
knocks at one of the doors and is admitted to a house; when he
reappears, it is through the inner stage, the curtains of which have
been drawn, disclosing the setting of a room. Or this process is
reversed. In _A Yorkshire Tragedy_, there is an interesting case of such
an alternation from indoors to outdoors, with one character remaining on
the stage all of the time. A more extensive use of this "alternation"
could be employed to indicate marked changes of place. As long as the
action remains in Venice, the bare front stage will do, but a transfer
to Portia's house at Belmont can be made by means of the curtains and
the inner stage. In the later plays at the private theaters this use of
the inner stage, then better lighted, seems to have increased,
especially in the change from a street or general hall to special
apartments.

[Page Heading: Evolution of the Theater]

These uses of the inner stage, together with that of the upper stage or
gallery, gave a chance for considerable variety in the action, and
rendered the rapid succession of scenes less bewildering than one would
at first suppose. Shakespeare's stage was the outcome of the peculiar
conditions of acting by professionals in the sixteenth century, but it
was also a natural step in the evolution from the medieval to the modern
stage. On the medieval stage there was a neutral place or _platea_ and
special localized and propertied places called _sedes_, _domus_, _loca_.
On the Elizabethan stage the front stage is the _platea_, the inner and
upper stages the _domus_ or _loca_. In the Restoration theater the
scenery was placed on the inner stage and shut off from the outer stage
by a curtain. With the use of scenery, the inner stage became more
important, and the projecting apron of the front stage was gradually cut
down. The proscenium doors in front of the curtain long survived their
original use as entrances, but, as a rule, they have now finally
disappeared with the front stage. The modern picture-frame stage of
to-day is the evolution of the inner stage of the Elizabethans.
Similarly the method of stage presentation has changed only gradually
from Shakespeare's day to ours. The alternation from outer to inner
stage was very common in the Restoration theaters, where flat scenes
were used instead of a curtain, and it may still be seen in the
production of melodrama or of Shakespeare's plays. A painted drop shuts
off a few feet of the stage, which becomes a street or a hall, while
properties and scenery are being arranged in the rear. When the drop
goes up, we pass from the street or the court of the wicked Duke to the
Forest of Arden, just as the Elizabethans did.

The Elizabethan stage affected Shakespeare's dramatic art in many ways.
The absence of scenery, of women actors, and of a front curtain, the use
of a bare stage that served for neutral or unspecified localities,
naturally influenced the composition of every play. But the theatrical
presentation was by no means as crude or as medieval as these
differences from modern practice seem to indicate. The intimacy
established between actors and audience by the projecting stage, the
rapidity of action hastened by the lack of scenery or furniture, the
possibilities of rapid changes of scene rendered intelligible by the use
of the inner stage, were all manifest advantages in encouraging dramatic
invention. The traditions formed in this theater for the presentation of
_Hamlet_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and the other plays, were handed on from
Shakespeare and Burbage to Lowin and Taylor, to Betterton, Cibber, and
Garrick, down to the present day; and have perhaps been less
revolutionized by scenery and electric lights than we might imagine.




CHAPTER VII

THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE


The main difficulties that stand in the way of determining the actual
form in which Shakespeare left his plays are due, first, to the total
absence of manuscripts, and, secondly, to the fact that he, like his
contemporaries, regarded dramatic literature as material for performance
on the stage, not as something to be read in the library. The most
obvious evidence of this lies in his having himself issued with every
appearance of personal attention his poems of _Venus and Adonis_ and
_Lucrece_, while he permitted his plays to find their way into print
without any trace of supervision and, in some cases, apparently without
his consent. When the author sold a play to the theatrical company which
was to perform it, he appears to have regarded himself as having no
longer any rights in it; and when a play was published, we are in
general justified in supposing either that it had been obtained
surreptitiously, or that it had been disposed of by the company.
Exceptions to this begin to appear in the first half of the seventeenth
century, notably in the case of Heywood, who defended his action on the
plea of protecting the text from mutilation, and in that of Ben Jonson,
who issued in 1616, in the face of ridicule for his presumption, a
folio volume of his "Works." But, though Shakespeare is reported to have
felt annoyance at the pirating of his productions, there is no evidence
of his having been led to protect himself or the integrity of his
writings by departing from the usual practice in his profession.

Among the various documents which make us aware of this situation, so
general then, but so strongly in contrast with modern methods, three
explicit statements by Heywood are so illuminating that they deserve
quotation. One occurs in the preface to his _Rape of Lucrece_, 1630:

    To the Reader.--It hath beene no custome in mee of all other men
    (courteous Reader) to commit my plaies to the presse: the reason
    though some may attribute to my owne insufficiencie, I had rather
    subscribe in that to their seuare censure then by seeking to auoide
    the imputation of weaknes to incurre greater suspition of honestie:
    for though some haue vsed a double sale of their labours, first to
    the Stage, and after to the presse, For my owne part I heere
    proclaime my selfe euer faithfull in the first, and neuer guiltie of
    the last: yet since some of my plaies haue (vnknowne to me, and
    without any of my direction) accidentally come into the Printers
    hands, and therefore so corrupt and mangled, (coppied only by the
    eare) that I have bin as vnable to know them, as ashamed to chalenge
    them, This therefore, I was the willinger to furnish out in his
    natiue habit: first being by consent, next because the rest haue
    beene so wronged in being publisht in such sauadge and ragged
    ornaments: accept it courteous Gentlemen, and prooue as fauorable
    Readers as we haue found you gratious Auditors. Yours T. H.

[Page Heading: The Right to Print]

The second is in Heywood's _Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas_, 1637, the
prologue to _If you know not me, you know no bodie; Or, The troubles of
Queen Elizabeth_. It is as follows:

    A Prologve to the Play of Queene Elizabeth as it was last revived at
    the Cock-pit, in which the Author taxeth the most corrupted copy now
    imprinted, which was published without his consent.

    PROLOGUE

    Playes have a fate in their conception lent,
    Some so short liv'd, no sooner shew'd than spent;
    But borne to-day, to morrow buried, and
    Though taught to speake, neither to goe nor stand.
    This: (by what fate I know not) sure no merit,
    That it disclaimes, may for the age inherit.
    Writing 'bove one and twenty: but ill nurst,
    And yet receiv'd as well performed at first,
    Grac't and frequented, for the cradle age,
    Did throng the Seates, the Boxes, and the Stage
    So much: that some by Stenography drew
    The plot: put it in print: (scarce one word trew:)
    And in that lamenesse it hath limp't so long,
    The Author now to vindicate that wrong
    Hath tooke the paines, upright upon its feete
    To teache it walke, so please you sit, and see't.

The third passage occurs in the address to the reader prefixed to _The
English Traveller_, 1633:

    True it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to
    bear the titles of Works (as others). One reason is that many of
    them by shifting and changing of companies have been negligently
    lost; others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors
    who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in
    print; and a third that it was never any great ambition in me in
    this kind to be voluminously read.

From these passages we gather that Heywood considered it dishonest to
sell the same play to the stage and to the press; that some of his plays
were stolen through stenographic reports taken in the theater and were
printed in corrupt forms; that, in order to counteract this, he obtained
the consent of the theatrical owners to his publication of a correct
edition; that some actors considered the printing of plays against their
interest (presumably because they thought that if a man could read a
play, he would not care to see it acted); and that many plays were lost
through negligence and the changes in the theatrical companies. That we
are here dealing with the conditions of Shakespeare's time is clear
enough, since the edition of _If you know not me_ on which Heywood casts
reflections was published in 1605, and in 1604 Marston supplies
corroboration in the preface to his _Malcontent_:

    I would fain leave the paper; only one thing afflicts me, to think
    that scenes, invented merely to be spoken, should be enforcively
    published to be read, and that the least hurt I can receive is to do
    myself the wrong. But since others otherwise would do me more, the
    least inconvenience is to be accepted. I have myself, therefore, set
    forth this comedy; but so, that my enforced absence must much rely
    upon the printer's discretion: but I shall entreat slight errors in
    orthography may be as slightly overpassed, and that the unhandsome
    shape which this trifle in reading presents, may be pardoned for
    the pleasure it once afforded you when it was presented with the
    soul of lively action.

[Page Heading: Pirated Editions]

The only form in which any of Shakespeare's plays found their way into
print during his lifetime was that of small pamphlets, called Quartos,
which were sold at sixpence each.[7] In the case of five of these there
is general agreement that they came to the press by the surreptitious
method of reporting described by Heywood: the first Quarto versions of
_Romeo and Juliet_, _Henry V_, _The Merry Wives_, _Hamlet_, and
_Pericles_. All of these bear clear traces of the effects of such
mutilation as would naturally result from the attempt to write down the
dialogue during the performance, and patch up the gaps later. The first
Quartos of _Richard III_ and _King Lear_, though much superior to the
five mentioned, yet contain so many variants from the text of the Folio
which seem to be due to mistakes of the ear and to slips of memory on
the part of the actors, that probably they should also be included in
the list of those surreptitiously obtained.

[7] For facsimile reproductions see Bibliography, Appendix D.

Redress for such pirating as is implied in these publications was
difficult on account of the absence of a law of copyright. The chief
pieces of legislation affecting the book trade were the law of licensing
and the charter of the Stationers' Company. According to the first, all
books, with a few exceptions, such as academic publications, had to be
licensed before publication by the Bishop of London or the Archbishop
of Canterbury. This was an unworkable provision, and in fact the
responsibility for all books not likely to raise political or
theological controversy was left to the Stationers' Company. This close
corporation of printers and publishers exercised its powers for the
protection of its members rather than of authors. A publisher wishing to
establish a monopoly in a book he had acquired entered it on the
Stationers' Register, paying a fee of sixpence, and was thereby
protected against piracy. When the copy so registered was improperly
acquired, the state of the case is not so clear. At times the officials
showed hesitation about registering a book until the applicant "hath
gotten sufficient authoritye for yt," and _As You Like It_, for example,
appears in the Register only "to be staied," which it was until the
publication of the first Folio. Further, the pirated _Romeo and Juliet_
and _Henry V_ were never entered at all; the pirated _Hamlet_ and
_Pericles_ were entered, but to other publishers, who in the case of
_Hamlet_ brought out a more correct text in the following year; the
pirated _Merry Wives_ was transferred from one publisher to another on
the day of entry, and actually issued by the second. Thus this group of
plays does not support the view that the Stationers' Company stood ready
to give perpetual copyright to their members even for obviously stolen
goods. It is to be noted, too, that the previous publication of these
surreptitious copies formed no hindrance to the later issue of an
authentic copy. The second Quarto of _Hamlet_, printed from a complete
manuscript, followed, as has been said, the first the next year, and the
same thing happened in the case of _Romeo and Juliet_.

[Page Heading: Publisher's Copyright]

On the other hand, the great majority of the Quartos printed from
playhouse copies of the plays were regularly entered, and the rights of
the original publisher preserved to him. The appearance of groups of
plays in the market following interference with theatrical activity such
as came from the plague in 1594, from the breaking up of companies, or
from Puritan attempts at restriction, confirm the belief that these
better Quartos were honorably acquired by the publishers from the
companies owning them, when the actors thought that there was more to
gain than to lose by giving them to the press.

[Page Heading: Table of Quarto Editions]

The accompanying "Table of Quarto Editions" gives the names of all the
Shakespearean plays issued in this form before the publication of the
collected edition in 1623, known as the First Folio. In the cases of
_Romeo and Juliet_, _1 Henry IV_, _Love's Labour's Lost_, _Merchant of
Venice_, _Much Ado_, _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_, and _Richard II_, a
Quarto, usually the most recent, provided the text from which the
version in the Folio was printed. Hence, though in several cases the
copy of the Quarto thus employed seems to have been one used by the
actors and containing corrections of some value, the extant Quarto
rather than the Folio is the prime authority for the text to-day. The
same is true of _Titus Andronicus_, except that in this case the Folio
restores from some manuscript source a scene which had been dropped from
the Quarto. If, as some hold, the Folio texts of _Richard III_ and _King
Lear_ were printed from Quartos, there must have been available also a
manuscript version, which is so heavily drawn upon that the Folio text
virtually represents an independent source, as it does in the case of
four of the five plays acknowledged to be due to surreptitious
reporting. _Pericles_, the fifth of these, was first admitted to the
collected works in the third Folio, and is the only "reported" text
forming our sole authority.[8]


TABLE OF QUARTO EDITIONS BEFORE 1623

Transcriber's Note:
  The following abbreviations are used in the "SOURCE OF Q TEXT" column:
  D--Disputed;
  P--Playhouse;
  R--Reported.

==========================================================================
      |              |           DATES OF             |      |
      | ENTRIES IN   |--------------------------------|SOURCE|
      | STATIONERS'  |    |      |     |    |    |    | OF Q | SOURCE OF
      |  REGISTER    |Q1  | Q2   |Q3   |Q4  |Q5  |Q6  | TEXT |  F1 TEXT
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
------+--------------+----+------+-----+----+----+----+------+------------
T.A.  |Feb. 6, 1594  |1594|  1600| 1611|    |    |    |P     |Q3 completed
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      | & corrected
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
R. II |Aug. 29, 1597 |1597|  1598| 1608|1615|    |    |P     |Q4 corrected
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
R. III|Oct. 19, 1597 |1597|  1598| 1602|1605|1612|1622|D     |Disputed
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
R.J.  |No entry      |1597|  1599| 1609|n.d.|    |    |{Q1 R |Q3 from Q2
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |{Q2 P |
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
1 H.IV|Feb. 25, 1598 |1598|  1599| 1604|1608|1613|1622|P     |Q5 corrected
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
L.L.L.|No entry      |1598|      |     |    |    |    |P     |Q1
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
Merch.|July 22, 1598 |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |(conditional) |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |              |    | {1600|     |    |    |    |      |
      |Oct. 28, 1600 |1600| { or |     |    |    |    |P     |Q1 (Heyes)
      |              |    | {1619|     |    |    |    |      |
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |              |    |      |{1608|    |    |    |      |
H.V.  |[Aug. 4, 1600]|1600|  1602|{ or |    |    |    |R     |Independent
      |"to be stayed"|    |      |{1619|    |    |    |      |
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
M.Ado |[Aug. 4, 1600]|    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |"to be stayed"|    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |Aug. 23, 1600 |1600|      |     |    |    |    |P     |Q1 corrected
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
2 H.IV|Aug. 23, 1600 |1600|      |     |    |    |    |P     |Independent
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |              |    | {1600|     |    |    |    |      |
M.N.D.|Oct. 8, 1600  |1600| {or  |     |    |    |    |P     |Q2 corrected
      |              |    | {1619|     |    |    |    |      |
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
M.W.  |Jan. 18, 1602 |1602|  1619|     |    |    |    |R     |Independent
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
Hml.  |July 26, 1602 |1603|1604,5| 1611|    |    |    |{Q1 R |Independent
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |{Q2 P |
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
      |              |    | {1608|     |    |    |    |      |Disputed (Q1
Lear  |Nov. 26, 1607 |1608| { or |     |    |    |    |D     | in several
      |              |    | {1619|     |    |    |    |      | states)
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
T.C.  |Feb. 7, 1603 }|    |      |     |    |    |    |      |Independent
      |(conditional)}|1609|      |     |    |    |    |P     | (Q1 in two
      |Jan. 28, 1609}|    |      |     |    |    |    |      | issues)
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
Per.  |May 20, 1608  |1609|  1609| 1611|1619|    |    |R     |Not in F1
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |F3 from Q4
      |              |    |      |     |    |    |    |      |
Oth.  |Oct. 6, 1621  |1622|      |     |    |    |    |P     |Independent
==========================================================================

[8] In the table of Quarto editions may be noted four entries with the
words "or 1619" added to the date which appears on the title-page. These
four plays, the Roberts Quartos of _The Merchant of Venice_ and _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_ of 1600, the third Quarto of _Henry V_, 1608,
the second Quarto of _King Lear_, 1608, along with the 1619 Quartos of
_The Merry Wives_ and _Pericles_, an undated Quarto of _The Whole
Contention_ (the earlier form of _2_ and _3 Henry VI_), the Quarto of
_Sir John Oldcastle_, dated 1600, and the Quarto of _A Yorkshire
Tragedie_, dated 1619, have been shown by Mr. A. W. Pollard, with the
cooeperation of Mr. W. W. Greg, to have been put on the market at the
same time, and Mr. W. J. Neidig has proved from typographical evidence
that the title-pages of all nine were set up in succession in 1619. A
very curious problem is thus presented, and the motives for the
deception practised, apparently by the printers Pavier and Jaggard, have
not been satisfactorily cleared up; but at present it appears likely
that in the case of these nine Quartos the correct date of publication
should be 1619, and that, in the case of the first two mentioned, the
question of the comparative authority of the Heyes and Fisher Quartos
respectively as against that of the Roberts Quartos should be settled
against the latter. This last point is the only part of this remarkable
discovery which is of importance in determining the text, as the Quartos
dated 1608 and 1619 were already known to be mere reprints of earlier
ones.

[Page Heading: The First Folio]

We come now to the publication of the First Folio, the most important
single volume in the history of the text of Shakespeare. On November 8,
1623, the following entry occurs in the Stationers' Register:

    Mr. Blount: Isaak Jaggard. Entred for their copie under the hands of
    M^r Doctor Worrall and M^r Cole, Warden, M^r William Shakspeers
    Comedyes, Histories and Tragedyes, soe manie of the said copyes as
    are not formerly entred to other men viz^t, Comedyes. The Tempest.
    The two gentlemen of Verona. Measure for Measure. The Comedy of
    Errors. As you like it. All's well that ends well. Twelft Night. The
    winters tale. Histories. The thirde part of Henry the sixt. Henry
    the eight. Tragedies. Coriolanus. Timon of Athens. Julius Caesar.
    Mackbeth. Anthonie and Cleopatra. Cymbeline.

One notes here the omission of _1_ and _2 Henry VI_, _King John_, and
_The Taming of the Shrew_, which had neither been previously entered nor
issued in Quarto. This is probably due to the fact that three of these
are based on older plays of which Quartos exist, which may have seemed
to the publishers reason enough to save their sixpences. If we assume
that "The thirde part of Henry the sixt" is a misprint for "The first
part," the explanation covers the whole case. The registration of
_Antony and Cleopatra_ was superfluous, as it had been entered, though
not printed, so far as we know, on May 20, 1608.

There are thus in the First Folio, the publication of which immediately
followed this entry in 1623, twenty plays not before issued, for which
the text of this volume is our sole authority. The emphasis so commonly
placed on the supreme value of the text of the First Folio is justified
with regard to these twenty plays; as for the remaining seventeen, its
importance is shared, in proportions varying from play to play, with the
texts of the Quartos. The sources from which the compilers of the Folio
obtained their new material were in all probability playhouse copies, as
in the case of the better Quartos. Heminge and Condell, Shakespeare's
actor colleagues and friends, who sign the Address to the Readers,[9]
would obviously be the instruments for obtaining such copies. As for the
so-called "private transcripts" which some have postulated as a source
of material, there is no evidence that at this date any such existed.
Whether any of the playhouse manuscripts provided by Heminge and Condell
were in Shakespeare's autograph we can neither affirm nor deny, but it
is well to be cautious in accepting at its face value the implication
contained in their words that they had "scarce received from him a blot
in his papers."

[9] For this and other prefatory matter from the First Folio, see
Appendix A.

[Illustration: THE TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST FOLIO

(_From the copy in the New York Public Library._)]

[Page Heading: The First Folio]

The First Folio is a large volume of 908 pages, measuring in the tallest
extant copy 13-3/8 x 8-1/2 inches. A reduced facsimile of the title page
with the familiar wood-cut portrait appears on the opposite page. The
text is printed in two columns with sixty-six lines to a column. The
typography is only fairly good, and many mistakes occur in the
pagination. Extant copies, of which there are at least 156, vary in some
respects, on account of the practice of making corrections while the
sheets were being printed. The printer was William Jaggard, and his
associates in the publishing enterprise were his son Isaac and the
booksellers, William Aspley, John Smethwick, and Edward Blount.
Estimates of the size of the edition vary from five to six hundred.

Many of the causes which made the text of these early editions
inaccurate are common to all the plays, while some are peculiar to those
obtained by reporters in the theater. Of the first, the most fundamental
is, of course, the illegibility or ambiguity of the author's original
manuscript. Such flaws were perpetuated and multiplied with each
successive transcript, and when the manuscript copy came into the
printer's hands, the errors of the compositor--confusion of words
sounding alike, of words looking alike, unconscious substitution of
synonyms, mere manual slips, and the like--were added to those already
existing. The absence of any uniform spelling, and carelessness in
punctuation, which led to these being freely modified by the printer,
increased the risk of corruption. The punctuation of both Quartos and
Folio, though by no means without weight, cannot be regarded as having
the author's sanction, and all modernized editions re-punctuate with
greater or less freedom. Most nineteenth-century editors carry on with
minor modifications the punctuation of Pope, so that their texts show a
composite of sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century
methods; the text used in the Tudor edition is frankly punctuated, as
far as the syntax permits, according to modern methods, with, it is
believed, no loss in authority. There is no clear evidence that, in such
productions as plays, proof was read outside of the printing-office. The
theory, insisted on by Dr. Furness in successive volumes of the _New
Variorum Shakespeare_, that the Elizabethan compositor set type to
dictation is without foundation, the phenomena which he seeks to explain
by it occurring commonly to-day when there is no question of such a
practice.

Another class of variation in text arose from the treatment of the
manuscript in the playhouse. Cuts, additions, and alterations were made
for acting purposes, stage directions were added with or without the
assistance of the author, revivals of the play called for revision by
the original writer or another. The majority of stage directions in
modern editions, except exits and entrances, are due to editors from
Rowe onwards, and these unauthorized additions are distinguished in the
Tudor edition by brackets. Almost all notes of place at the beginnings
of scenes belong to this class.

[Page Heading: Corruptions of Text]

The defects to which the texts of the surreptitiously obtained Quartos
are particularly subject include omissions and alterations due to lapse
of memory on the part of the actors, additions due to the tendency to
improvise which Shakespeare censures in _Hamlet_, omissions due to the
reporter's failure to hear or to write quickly enough, garbled
paraphrases made up to supply such omissions, and the writing of prose
as verse and verse as prose.

Such are the most important of the causes of the corruptions which the
long series of editors of Shakespeare have devoted their study and their
ingenuity to remedying. The series really begins with the second Folio
of 1632 and is continued with but slight improvements in the third Folio
of 1663, reprinted with the addition of _Pericles_ and six spurious
plays in 1664, and in the fourth Folio of 1685. The emendations made in
the seventeenth-century editions are mainly modernizations in spelling
and such minor changes as occurred to members of the printing staff. In
no case do they have any authority except such as may be supposed to
belong to a man not far removed from Shakespeare in date; and they add
about as many mistakes as they remove.

The difficulty of the task of the modern editor varies greatly from play
to play. It is least in the twenty plays for which the First Folio is
the sole authority, greater in the eight in which the Folio reprints a
Quarto with some variations, greatest in the nine in which Folio and
Quarto represent rival versions. In these last cases, it is the duty of
the editor to decide from all the accessible data which version has the
best claim to represent the author's intention, and to make that a basis
to be departed from only in clear cases of corruption. The temptation,
which no editor has completely resisted, is naturally towards an
eclecticism which adopts the reading that seems most plausible in
itself, without giving due weight to the general authority of the text
chosen as a basis. If carried far, such eclecticism results in a
patchwork quite distinct from any version that Shakespeare can have
known.

The first editor of Shakespeare, in the modern sense, was Nicholas Rowe,
poet laureate under Queen Anne. He published in 1709 an edition of the
plays in six octavo volumes, preceded by the first formal memoir of the
dramatist, and furnished with notes. The poems were issued in the
following year in similar form, with essays by Gildon. Rowe based his
text upon that of the fourth Folio, with hardly any collation of
previous editions. He corrected a large number of the more obvious
corruptions, the most notable of his emendations being perhaps the
phrase in _Twelfth Night_, "Some are become great," which he changed to
"Some are born great." On the external aspect of the plays Rowe has left
a deeper mark than any subsequent editor. In the Folios only eight of
the plays had lists of _dramatis personae_; Rowe supplied them for the
rest. In the Folios the division into acts and scenes is carried out
completely in only seventeen cases, it is partially done in thirteen,
and in six it is not attempted at all. Rowe again completed the work,
and though some of his divisions have been modified and others should
be, he performed this task with care and intelligence. He modernized the
spelling and the punctuation, completed the exits and entrances,
corrected many corrupt speech-tags, and arranged many passages where the
verse was disordered. In virtue of these services, he must, in spite of
his leaving much undone, be regarded as one of the most important agents
in the formation of our modern text.

[Page Heading: Rowe and Pope]

A second edition of Rowe's Shakespeare was published in 1714, and in
1725 appeared a splendid quarto edition in six volumes, edited by
Alexander Pope. In his preface Pope made strong professions of his good
faith in dealing with the text. "I have discharged," he said, "the dull
duty of an editor to my best judgment, with more labor than I expect
thanks, with a religious abhorrence of all innovation, and without any
indulgence to my private sense or conjecture.... The various readings
are fairly put in the margin, so that anyone may compare 'em; and those
I have preferred into the text are constantly _ex fide codicum_, upon
authority.... The more obsolete or unusual words are explained." Hardly
one of these statements is entirely true. Pope possessed copies of the
first and second Folios, and at least one Quarto of each play that had
been printed before 1623, except _Much Ado_, but these he consulted only
occasionally, and seldom registered the variants as he said he had done.
When he did, he gave no clue to their source. He constantly inserted his
private conjectures without notice, and his explanations of difficult
expressions are few and frequently wrong. Passages considered by him
inferior or spurious he relegated to the foot of the pages; others he
merely omitted without notice. His ear was often jarred by the freedom
of Shakespeare's verse, and he did his best to make it "regular" by
eighteenth-century standards. Yet Pope spent much ingenuity in striving
to better the text, and no small number of restorations and emendations
are to be credited to him, especially in connection with the arrangement
of the verse. He is to be credited also with discernment in rejecting
the seven plays added to the Shakespearean canon in the third Folio, of
which only _Pericles_ has since been restored.

The weaknesses of Pope's edition did not long remain hidden. In the
spring of 1726 appeared "Shakespeare Restored: or, a Specimen of the
many Errors, as well committed, as unamended, by Mr. Pope in his late
edition of this Poet. Designed not only to correct the said edition, but
to restore the True Reading of Shakespeare in all the Editions ever yet
publish'd." Lewis Theobald, the author, was a translator and scholar,
much better equipped than Pope for the work of editing, and his
merciless exposure of Pope's defects gave a foretaste of the critical
ability later displayed in the edition of Shakespeare which he published
in 1734. Lovers of Shakespeare discerned at the time the service
performed by Theobald in this attack on Pope, but the publication in
1728 of the first edition of the _Dunciad_, with Theobald as hero, gave
Pope his revenge, and cast over the reputation of his critic a cloud
which is only now dispersing. Modern scholarship, however, has come to
recognize the primacy of Theobald among emendators of Shakespeare's
text, and the most famous of his contributions, his correction of "a
table of green fields" to "'a babled of green fields," in Quickly's
account of the death of Falstaff in _Henry V_, II. iii. 17, is only a
specially brilliant example of the combination of acuteness, learning,
and sympathy which made his edition a landmark in the history of the
text. For many of his troubles, however, Theobald was himself to blame;
he attacked his opponents with unnecessary vehemence, as he expressed
his appreciation of his own work with unnecessary emphasis; he was not
always candid as to what he owed to others, even to the despised edition
of Pope, from which he printed; and he indulged his appetite for
conjecture at times beyond reasonable bounds.

[Page Heading: Theobald and Hanmer]

Theobald's edition was followed in 1744 by that of Sir Thomas Hanmer in
six beautifully printed volumes. This edition is based on that of Pope,
and even goes farther than Pope's in relegating to the foot of the page
passages supposed unworthy. Hanmer performed no collating worth
mentioning, but made some acute conjectures.

The student is apt to be prejudiced against the work of William
Warburton on account of the extravagance of his claims and his
ungenerous treatment of predecessors to whom he was greatly indebted.
"The Genuine Text," he announced, "(collated with all former editions
and then corrected and emended) is here settled: Being restored from the
Blunders of the first editors and the Interpolations of the two Last";
yet he based his text on Theobald's and joined Pope's name with his own
on the title-page. Whatever value belongs to Warburton's edition (1747)
lies in a number of probable conjectural emendations, some of which he
had previously allowed Theobald to use, and in the amusing bombast and
arrogance of many of his notes. The feeble support that lay behind the
pretensions of this editor was exposed by a number of critics such as
John Upton, Zachary Grey, Benjamin Heath, and Thomas Edwards, who did
not issue new editions, but contributed a considerable number of
corrections and interpretations.

The value of Dr. Johnson's edition (1765) does not lie in his
emendations, which are usually, though not always, poor, or in his
collation of older editions, for which he was too indolent, but in the
sturdy common-sense of his interpretations and the consummate skill
frequently shown in paraphrases of obscure passages. His Preface to the
edition was the most weighty general estimate of Shakespeare so far
produced, and remains a valuable piece of criticism. In scientific
treatment of the text, involving full use of all the Quartos and Folios
then accessible, Johnson and his predecessors were far surpassed by
Edward Capell, who issued his edition in ten volumes in 1768.
Unfortunately, the enormous labor Capell underwent did not bear its full
fruit, for he suppressed much of his textual material in the interests
of a well-printed page, and his preface and notes are written in a
crabbed style that obscures the acuteness of his editorial intelligence.
He elaborated stage directions, and carried farther the correction of
disarranged meter; but, like most of his fellow-editors in that century,
he did less than justice to his predecessors and was too indulgent to
his own conjectures. This edition was supplemented by volumes of notes
published in 1775 (1 vol.) and 1779-1783 (3 vols.).

[Page Heading: Johnson and Capell]

Before the publication of Capell's text, the antiquary George Steevens
had issued in 1766 reprints of twenty of the early Quartos; and in 1773
he produced, in association with Johnson, an edition with a good text in
which he benefited from Capell's labors (though he denies this). Through
his knowledge of Elizabethan literature he made substantial
contributions to the interpretation of difficult passages. He restored
_Pericles_ to a place in the canon, but excluded the _Poems_, because
"the strongest Act of Parliament that could be framed would fail to
compel readers into their service." To the second edition of Johnson and
Steevens's text (1778) Edmund Malone contributed his famous "Essay on
the Chronology of Shakespeare's Plays," which began modern investigation
of this subject. The third edition was revised in 1785 by Isaac Reed;
and this was succeeded by the edition of Malone in 1790, in which the
vast learning and conscientious care of that scholar combined to produce
the most trustworthy text so far published. Malone was not brilliant,
but he was extremely erudite and candid, and his so-called "Third
Variorum" edition in twenty-one volumes, brought out after his death by
James Boswell in 1821, is a mine of information on theatrical history
and cognate matters, which will probably always be of value to students
of the period. The name of "First Variorum Edition" is given to the
fifth edition of Johnson and Steevens, revised by Reed in 1803, and
"Second Variorum" to the sixth edition of the same, 1813. Meantime
occasional critiques of complete editions contributed something to the
text. Johnson's edition called forth comment by Kendrick in 1765 and
Tyrwhitt in 1766, and the Johnson and Steevens text was criticized by
Joseph Ritson in 1783 and 1788, and by J. Monck Mason in 1785. The first
American edition was published in Philadelphia in 1795-1796 from
Johnson's text; the first continental edition at Brunswick in 1797-1801
by C. Wagner.

[Page Heading: Nineteenth-Century Editors]

The editions of the nineteenth century are too numerous for detailed
mention here. Passing by the "family" Shakespeare of T. Bowdler, 1807
and 1820, and the editions of Harness, 1825, and Singer, 1826, we note
the editions of 1838-1842, and 1842-1844 in which Charles Knight
resorted to the text of the First Folio as an exclusive authority. J. P.
Collier in his edition of 1844 leaned, on the other hand, to the side of
the Quartos, but later became a clever if somewhat rash emendator, who
spoiled his reputation by seeking to obtain authority for his guesses by
forging them in a seventeenth-century hand in a copy of the second
Folio. The colossal volumes of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps's edition,
1853-1865, contain stores of antiquarian illustration; and in the
edition of Delius, 1854-1861, we have the chief contribution of Germany
to the text of Shakespeare. Delius, like Knight, though not to the same
extreme, exaggerated the authority of the First Folio; but for the plays
for which that is the sole source, his text has earned high respect.
Alexander Dyce, wisest of Elizabethan scholars, produced in 1857 a
characteristically sane text, on the whole the best to this date; while
in America in 1857-1860 and 1859-1865 the brilliant but erratic Richard
Grant White produced editions which show a commendable if puzzling
openness to conviction in successive changes of opinion.

From 1863 to 1866 appeared the first issue of the Cambridge Shakespeare,
edited originally by W. G. Clark, J. Glover, and W. A. Wright. The
responsibility for the later revised edition of 1891-3 is Dr. Wright's.
The exceedingly careful and exhaustive collation of all previous textual
readings in the notes of this edition make it indispensable for the
serious student, and its text, substantially reprinted in the Globe
edition, is the most widely accepted form of the works of Shakespeare
which has ever been circulated. The over-emphasis on the First Folio
which has been noted in Knight and Delius is no longer found here, and
in general the comparative value of Quarto and Folio is weighed in the
case of each play. Occasionally, in cases like that of _Richard III_,
where both Quarto and Folio are good but vary widely, the Cambridge
editors seem more eclectic than their general theory warrants, and the
punctuation is still archaic, clinging to the eighteenth-century
tradition. But the acceptance of this careful and conservative text has
been a wholesome influence in Shakespearean study.

The only completely reedited texts which have been issued since the
revised Cambridge edition are that of the Oxford Shakespeare, by W. J.
Craig, on principles very similar to the Cambridge, and the Neilson
text, originally published in one volume in 1906 and revised and
reprinted in the Tudor Shakespeare. The massive volumes of Dr. H. H.
Furness's _New Variorum Shakespeare_, begun in 1871 (17 volumes issued),
now reprint the text of the First Folio, and show marked traces of the
tendency to follow this authority without due discrimination. This
monumental abstract of all previous criticism is of great value to the
professional student of Shakespeare, and its textual apparatus has the
advantage over the Cambridge edition of recording not only the first
occurrence of a reading, but the names of the chief editors who have
adopted it. It thus gives a compendious history of editorial judgment on
all disputed points.

[Page Heading: Recent Editors]

The conjectural emendation of Shakespeare still goes on, but since Dyce,
comparatively few suggestions find general acceptance. More progress has
been made in interpretation through the greater accessibility of
contemporary documents and the advance in recent years in our knowledge
of Elizabethan theatrical conditions. But, in view of the circumstances
under which the original editions were printed, there will always be
room for variations of individual opinion in many cases, both as to what
Shakespeare wrote and as to what he meant.




CHAPTER VIII

QUESTIONS OF AUTHENTICITY


Owing to the conditions of publication described in Chapter VII there
are questions as to the authenticity of a number of the poems and plays
ascribed to Shakespeare. Of the poems, "The Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle"
and "A Lover's Complaint" have been sometimes rejected as unworthy, but
there is no other evidence against the ascription to him by the original
publishers. The case of _The Passionate Pilgrim_ is different and is
interesting as illustrating the methods of piracy practised by
booksellers and as affording the only record of a protest by Shakespeare
against the free use which they made of his name. This anthology was
published by W. Jaggard in 1599 as "by W. Shakespeare." The third
edition in 1612 added two pieces by Thomas Heywood. Heywood immediately
protested and in the postscript to his _Apologie for Actors_, 1612,
declared that Shakespeare was "much offended with M. Jaggard that
(altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name." Of
the twenty poems that made up the volume, only five are certainly by
Shakespeare, two appearing also in _The Sonnets_ and three in _Love's
Labour's Lost_. Six others can be assigned to contemporary poets. The
authorship of the remaining nine is unknown, but probably only one or
two are by Shakespeare.

[Page Heading: The Shakespeare Apocrypha]

In addition to the thirty-seven plays now included in all editions of
Shakespeare, some forty others have been, for one reason or another,
attributed to him. The First Folio contained thirty-six plays; and it is
a strong evidence of the honesty and information of its editors, Heming
and Condell, that subsequent criticism has been satisfied to retain the
plays of their choice and to make but one addition, _Pericles_. Of these
plays, however, it is now generally agreed that a number are not
entirely the work of Shakespeare, but were written by him in part in
collaboration with other writers, _e.g._, _Titus Andronicus_, _1_, _2_,
and, _3 Henry VI_, _Timon of Athens_, _Pericles_, and _Henry VIII_. Of two
of these, _Titus Andronicus_ and _1 Henry VI_, some students refuse to
give Shakespeare any share. Of the forty doubtful plays, there is not
one which in its entirety is now credited to Shakespeare; and only three
or four in which any number of competent critics see traces of his hand.
Only in the case of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ is there any weight of
evidence or opinion that he had a considerable share.

The second Folio kept to the thirty-six plays of the First Folio; but
the second printing of the third Folio (1664) added seven plays:
_Pericles Prince of Tyre_, _The London Prodigal_, _The History of Thomas
Lord Cromwell_, _Sir John Oldcastle_, _Lord Cobham_, _The Puritan
Widow_, _A Yorkshire Tragedy_, _The Tragedy of Locrine_. These seven
plays were also included in the fourth Folio, and as supplementary
volumes to Rowe's, Pope's, and some later editions. They were all
originally published in quarto as by W. S., or William Shakespeare, but
except in the case of _Pericles_, this has been regarded as a
bookseller's mistake or deception without warrant. _Locrine_, "newly set
forth, overseen, and corrected by W. S., 1595," is a play of about the
date of _Titus Andronicus_, and is probably by Greene, Peele, or some
imitator of Marlowe and Kyd. _Sir John Oldcastle_ appeared in 1600 in
two quartos, one of which ascribed it to William Shakespeare, but it was
clearly composed for the Admiral's men as a rival to the Falstaff plays
which the Chamberlain's men had been acting. _Thomas Lord Cromwell_
(1602) and _The Puritan_ (1607) were ascribed to W. S., on their
title-pages, but offer no possible resemblances to Shakespeare. _The
London Prodigal_ (1605) and _A Yorkshire Tragedy_ (1608) were both acted
by Shakespeare's company, and bore his name on their first editions, and
the latter also on a second edition, 1619. The external evidence for his
authorship is virtually the same as in the case of _Pericles_, which
also was acted by his company, appeared under his name during his
lifetime, but was rejected by the editors of the First Folio. No one,
however, can discover any suggestion of Shakespeare in _The London
Prodigal_. _A Yorkshire Tragedy_ is a domestic tragedy in one act,
dealing with a contemporary murder. It gives the conclusion of a story
also treated in a play, _The Miseries of Enforced Marriage_ (1607) by
George Wilkins, the author of a novel _The Painful Adventures of
Pericles_, and sometimes suggested as a collaborator on the play
_Pericles_. _A Yorkshire Tragedy_ is very unlike Shakespeare, but it has
a few passages of extraordinarily vivid prose, which might conceivably
owe something to him.

[Page Heading: The Two Noble Kinsmen]

_The Two Noble Kinsmen_ was registered April 8, 1634, and appeared in
the same year with the following title-page "The Two Noble Kinsmen:
Presented at the Blackfriars by the Kings Maiesties servants, with great
applause: Written by the memorable Worthies of their time;

    Mr. John Fletcher, and }
                           } Gent.
    Mr. William Shakespeare}

Printed at London by the Tho. Cotes for Iohn Waterson; and are to be
sold at the signe of the Crowne in Paul's Church-yard. 1634." The
exclusion of the play from the First Folio may be explained on the same
basis as the exclusion of _Pericles_; for in each play Shakespeare wrote
the minor part. There is now general agreement that _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_ was written by two authors with distinct styles, and that the
author of the larger portion is Fletcher. The attribution of the
non-Fletcherian part to Shakespeare has been upheld by Lamb, Coleridge,
De Quincey, Spalding (in a notable Letter on Shakespeare's Authorship of
_The Two Noble Kinsmen_, 1833), Furness, and Littledale (who edited the
play for _The New Shakespeare Society_, Series II, 1, 8, 15, London,
1876-1885); but there are still many critics who do not believe that
Shakespeare had any part in the play. This question will probably always
remain a matter of opinion; but the evidence of various verse tests
confirms esthetic judgment in assigning about two fifths of the verse to
Shakespeare. The Shakespearean portion, here and there possibly touched
by Fletcher, includes, I. i; I. ii; I. iii; I. iv. 1-28; III. i; III.
ii; V. i. 17-73; V. iii. 1-104; V. iv, and perhaps the prose II. i and
IV. iii.

The dance in the play is borrowed from an anti-masque in Beaumont's
_Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn_, presented at court,
February 20, 1613. This fixes the date of composition for the play in
1613, the same year as _Henry VIII_, on which it is now generally agreed
that Shakespeare and Fletcher collaborated. On both of the plays the
collaboration seems to have been direct; _i.e._, after making a fairly
detailed outline, each writer took certain scenes, and, to all intents,
completed these scenes after his own fashion.

One other play must be mentioned in connection with _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_. _Cardenio_, entered on the Stationers' Register, 1653, was
described as "by Fletcher and Shakespeare." It seems probably identical
with a _Cardenno_ acted at court by the King's men in May, 1613, and a
_Cardenna_ in June, 1613. Attempts have been made to connect it with
_Double Falsehood_, assigned to Shakespeare by Theobald on its
publication in 1728.

[Page Heading: Last Ascriptions]

Other non-extant plays ascribed to Shakespeare after 1642 require no
attention, nor do a number of Elizabethan plays assigned to him in
certain of their later quartos. Among these are _The Troublesome Reign
of King John_, on which Shakespeare's _King John_ was based; _The First
Part of The Contention_, and (the Second Part) _The True Tragedy of
Richard Duke of York_ (versions of _2 Henry VI_ and _3 Henry VI_); and
_The Taming of a Shrew_, the basis of Shakespeare's play. The relation
of Shakespeare's plays to these earlier versions is discussed in the
introductions to the respective volumes of the Tudor Shakespeare. Other
plays assigned, without grounds, to Shakespeare by late
seventeenth-century booksellers are _The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The
Arraignment of Paris, Fair Em, Mucedorus_, and _The Birth of Merlin_.

A few other anonymous plays have been ascribed to Shakespeare by modern
critics. Of chief note are _Arden of Feversham_, 1592, first attributed
to Shakespeare by Edward Jacob in 1770; _Edward III_, 1596, included
with other false attributions to Shakespeare in a bookseller's list of
1659, and edited and assigned to Shakespeare by Capell in 1760; _Sir
Thomas More_, an old play of about 1587, preserved in manuscript until
edited by Dyce in 1844 and assigned to Shakespeare by Richard Simpson in
1871. There is no evidence for the ascription of various portions of
these plays to Shakespeare, except that certain passages seem to some
critics characteristic of him. But at the date when the three plays
were written his style had not attained its characteristic
individuality; and the assignment of these anonymous plays to any
particular author neglects the obvious fact that many writers of that
period present similar traits of versification and imagery. The
attribution to Shakespeare of the Countess of Salisbury episode in
_Edward III_, parts of the insurrection scenes in _Sir Thomas More_, and
a few passages in _Arden of Feversham_ has scarcely any warrant beyond
the enthusiastic admiration of certain critics for these passages.

Thus only one play of the Shakespeare Apocrypha has any considerable
claim to admission into the canon. The evidence for his participation in
_The Two Noble Kinsmen_ is about as strong as in _Pericles_, and the
part assigned to him is fairly comparable with his contribution to
_Henry VIII_.

An account of the Shakespeare Apocrypha is, however, incomplete without
reference to the forgeries of documents or plays. Theobald published
_Double Falsehood_ in 1728, as based on a seventeenth-century manuscript
which he conjectured to be by Shakespeare. John Jordan, a resident of
Stratford, forged the will of Shakespeare's father, and probably some
other papers in his _Collections_, 1780; William Henry Ireland, with the
aid of his father, produced in 1796 a volume of forged papers purporting
to relate to Shakespeare's career, and on April 2, 1796, Sheridan and
Kemble presented at Drury Lane the tragedy of _Vortigern_, really by
Ireland, but said by him to have been found among Shakespeare's
manuscripts. Ireland was exposed by Malone, and he published a
confession of his forgeries in 1805. More skilful and far more
disturbing to Shakespearean scholarship are the forgeries of John Payne
Collier, extending over a period from 1835 to 1849. These included
manuscript corrections in a copy of the second Folio, and many documents
concerning the biography of Shakespeare and the history of the
Elizabethan theater. These forgeries have vitiated many of Collier's
most important publications, as his _Memoirs of Edward Alleyn_, and
_History of English Dramatic Poetry_.

[Page Heading: Forgeries]

We turn now from attempts to increase Shakespeare's writings to an
extraordinary effort to deny him the authorship of all his plays. Doubts
on this score seem to have been raised by Joseph C. Hart in his _Romance
of Yachting_, 1848, and by an article in _Chambers' Journal_, August 7,
1852. In 1856, Mr. W. H. Smith first proposed Bacon's authorship in a
letter to Lord Ellesmere, "Was Lord Bacon the author of Shakespeare's
plays?" These were followed by an article by Miss Delia Bacon in
_Putnam's Monthly_, 1856, and a volume, _The Philosophy of the Plays of
Shakespeare unfolded by Delia Bacon_. Since Miss Bacon's book, her
hypothesis has resulted in the publication of hundreds of volumes and
pamphlets supporting many variations of the theory. Some are content to
view the authorship as a mystery, assigning the plays to an unknown
author. Others attribute the authorship to a club of distinguished men,
or to Sir Anthony Shirley, or the Earl of Rutland, or another. Others
give Bacon only a portion of the plays, as those containing many legal
terms. The majority, however, are thoroughgoing "Baconians," and the
most prodigious cases of misapplied ingenuity have been the efforts to
find in the First Folio a cipher, by which certain letters are selected
which proclaim Bacon's authorship; as _The Great Cryptogram_, 1887, by
Ignatius Donnelly, and _The Bi-Literal Cypher of Francis Bacon_, 1900,
by Mrs. Gallup. Such cyphers are mutually destructive, and their
absurdity has been repeatedly demonstrated. Either they will not work
without much arbitrary manipulation, or they work too well and are found
to indicate Bacon's authorship of literature written before his birth
and after his death. Yet similar 'discoveries' continue to be announced.

The evidences supporting Shakespeare's authorship have been set forth
sufficiently in this volume and offer no basis for an attitude of
skepticism. A few considerations may be recalled as correctives for a
partial or mistaken reading of the evidence. (1) Though the records of
Shakespeare's life are meager, they are fuller than for any other
Elizabethan dramatist. Indeed we know little of the biography of any men
of the sixteenth century unless their lives affected church or politics
and hence found preservation in the records. There is no 'mystery' about
Shakespeare. (2) Records amply establish the identity between
Shakespeare the actor and the writer. Moreover, the plays contain many
words and phrases natural to an actor, many references to the actor's
art, and show a wide and detailed knowledge of the ways and
peculiarities of the theater. (3) The extent of observation and
knowledge in the plays is, indeed, remarkable, but it is not accompanied
by any indication of thorough scholarship, or a detailed connection with
any profession outside of the theater, or a profound knowledge of the
science or philosophy of the time. (4) The law terms are numerous, and
usually correct, but do not establish any great knowledge of the law.
Elizabethan London was full of law students who were among frequent
patrons of the theater. Through acquaintance with these gentlemen
Shakespeare might have readily acquired all the law that he displays.
Moreover Shakespeare had an opportunity to gain a considerable
familiarity with the law through the frequent litigations in which he
and his father were concerned. (5) The dedication, commendatory poems,
and address to the readers prefixed to the First Folio ought in
themselves to be sufficient to remove the skepticism as to Shakespeare's
authorship.

[Page Heading: The "Baconian" Question]

The following considerations apply to the attribution to Bacon, so far
as that rests on any tangible basis: (1) Sir Tobie Matthews writes in a
letter to Bacon, written some time later than January, 1621, "The most
prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation and of this side of the sea
is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another." The
sentence probably refers to Father Thomas Southwell, a Jesuit, whose
real surname was Bacon. There is nothing to connect it with Shakespeare.
(2) The parallelisms between passages in Shakespeare and Bacon deal with
phrases in common use and fail to establish any connection between the
two men. (3) The few surviving examples of Bacon's verse suggest no
ability as a poet. (4) Bacon's life is well known, and it offers no hint
of connection with the theaters and no space in its crowded annals for
the production of Shakespeare's plays. In fact, if we had to find an
author for Shakespeare's plays among writers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, Bacon would be about the last person
conceivable.




CHAPTER IX

SHAKESPEARE SINCE 1616


During Shakespeare's lifetime, his plays were mentioned and imitated as
often as those of any of his contemporaries. The more important
documents bearing on his growing reputation have already been noted in
this volume. This popularity, however, was confined to theater-goers and
the readers of the sixteen plays that had appeared before 1616. There
was no opportunity for a full estimate of his plays as literature until
their publication in the Folio of 1623. This is given full and worthy
expression in the fine verses which Ben Jonson contributed as a preface
to the Folio. He had girded at several of Shakespeare's plays, and his
own views of the principles and practices of the dramatic art were
largely opposed to Shakespeare's, but he took this opportunity to
express unstinted appreciation of Shakespeare's greatness. He notes with
discrimination that Shakespeare learned his art in an earlier day, but
far outshone Kyd, Lyly, and Marlowe.

                    Soul of the Age
    The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!

He may challenge comparison with the great Greek tragedians, or in
comedies

    Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
    Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

    He was not of an age but for all time!

The magnitude of Shakespeare's achievement was thus enthusiastically
proclaimed by the literary dictator of the time.

From 1623, until the closing of the theaters, the plays continued
favorites on the stage, though they yielded somewhat in the current
taste to the theatrical successes of Fletcher and Massinger. After 1623,
they continued to be read and admired, as is shown by the publication of
the second and third folios in 1632 and 1663-1664, and by many
appreciations, including those of D'Avenant, Suckling, the Duchess of
Newcastle, and Milton. At the Restoration many of the plays were at once
revived on the stage, and Dryden's essay _Of Dramatick Poesie_ (1668)
summed up in a masterly fashion contemporary opinion on Shakespeare. He
is compared with other great dramatists, and is declared less correct
than Jonson and less popular and modern than Beaumont and Fletcher, yet
is "the man who of all Moderns, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the
largest and most comprehensive soul."

[Page Heading: The Seventeenth Century]

The Restoration was in some doubt about Shakespeare, for while it found
in him much to admire, it also found much to condemn. His plays now had
the advantage of women actors for the female parts, but they
encountered changed fashions in the theater. The romantic comedies were
not to the taste of the time, and disappeared from the stage until
toward the middle of the eighteenth century. Meanwhile, _The Merry Wives
of Windsor_ was the most popular and most highly esteemed of his
comedies. The tragedies attracted the genius of Betterton and were
constantly acted, but these were subject to revision of various kinds.
_Hamlet_ and _Othello_ held their places without alterations, but Nahum
Tate's tame version of _King Lear_ and Cibber's version of _Richard III_
superseded the originals for many years. _Romeo and Juliet_, too, gave
way to Otway's _Caius Marius_, 1692, which kept large portions of
Shakespeare's play; and _Antony and Cleopatra_ yielded place on the
stage to Dryden's fine _All for Love_ (1678), in the style of which he
professes to imitate the "divine Shakespeare." By 1692, adaptations had
also been made of _Troilus and Cressida_, _The Tempest_, _Macbeth_, _The
Two Noble Kinsmen_, _Timon_, _Richard II_, _Coriolanus_, _Henry VI_,
_Cymbeline_, _Titus Andronicus_, _Julius Caesar_. A great deal of
contempt has been visited upon these revisions of Shakespeare, and their
attempts to improve on him are usually feeble enough; but sufficient
recognition has not been given to the testimony that these revisors bear
to a great appreciation and admiration of Shakespeare. They tried to
adapt him to current metrical conventions, to current literary fashions,
to an idea of art quite foreign to his, but they made these efforts
because they admired his genius. If they did not admire everything in
his thirty-seven plays, they admired a great deal.

Further, these revisions are the outcome of critical strictures on the
plays which were then common and, in essence, have been frequently
repeated. Critics objected to the irregularity and confusion of their
structure, to their disregard of the unities of action, their mixture of
tragic and comic, their obscurity and archaism of diction, their mixed
and confused figures, their occasional puns and bombast. These are
substantially the criticisms that Dryden offers when under the influence
of Rymer. Rymer himself (_A Short View of Tragedy_, 1693) goes much
farther. He desires tragedy to give a rationalized view of life, dealing
poetic justice to various typical persons, and consequently condemns
Shakespeare's persons as too individual, his plots as too irregular, and
the total effect of his plays as insufficiently didactic and moral. This
view of tragedy was mainly due to the rationalistic and classical ideas
which continued for a century to dominate European criticism. But before
the seventeenth century was over, Shakespeare's growing reputation had
proved itself a rock against which the tendencies in criticism had
broken like unavailing waves. However much they might insist on rules in
art, critics were generally willing to hail Shakespeare as the great
exception. Champions were ready to answer Rymer and to defend
Shakespeare. _Othello_, selected by Rymer for special analysis and
condemnation, continued to hold its place on the stage and to incite
dramatists to emulation. The plays continued to be read, and new
editions were demanded. In the forty years from 1660 to 1700, in spite
of great changes in theatrical conditions, in spite of changes of taste
in readers that relegated most of Elizabethan drama to neglect, and in
spite of the formation of a criticism doubtful or neglectful of the very
qualities in literature that his plays present, Shakespeare continued to
win admirers. By 1700 he was recognized as a dramatist and poet who was
one of the great possessions of the English race.

[Page Heading: Widening Influence]

In the two centuries since, Shakespeare's fame and influence have spread
and multiplied to an extent difficult to characterize justly in a brief
summary. Some important evidences of this growth may indeed be collected
and analyzed. The position and importance of his plays on the stage, the
ever increasing number of editions, the changing attitudes of critics
and men of letters--on these matters it is not difficult to draw
conclusions as to Shakespeare's influence at home and abroad. But it is
not so easy to say what his influence was on the literature of any
generation, and still less easy to summarize with certainty the effects
on thought and feeling and conduct which made up his continuing power
over generation after generation of readers. This much is clear, that a
study of Shakespeare's influence is in part a study of changing ideas
and ideals in literature--that as he survived the Restoration taste, so
he survived the new classicism of the eighteenth and the romanticism of
the early nineteenth century. It is also clear that a full record of the
influence of Shakespeare on English-speaking readers would touch on
almost all the varied changes of thought and conduct that have entered
into the history of two centuries.

The most important of the successive editions of Shakespeare from that
of Nicholas Rowe, 1709, to the present time, have been noted in the
history of the text in Chapter VII. It must be observed that these
various publications indicate not only progress toward establishing a
sound text, but also a constantly increasing number of readers. The
multiplication of editions kept pace with the vast extension of the
middle-class interest in literature. By the end of the eighteenth
century, the works of Shakespeare were in the possession of everyone who
had a library, and with a text and notes that left few difficulties for
a person of any education.

The nineteenth century well maintained the tradition of earlier
scholarship. Malone's extensive antiquarian knowledge of Elizabethan
drama and theater served as the basis for further research in these
fields by Dyce, Ward, Fleay, and others. The chronological order of the
plays, which Malone was the first to investigate, was determined with
considerable certainty and gave a new significance to the study of
Shakespeare's work as a whole. Dyce, Sidney Walker, and Wright, Delius
of the Germans, Richard Grant White of the Americans, are a few among
the long list of scholars who have added notable emendations and
illustrative notes. Editions of the collected works indeed soon became
almost too numerous for record, and the number of readings, notes, and
illustrations too great for collection even in the largest variorum.
To-day the task of scholarship may lie in the restriction,
simplification, and final determination of certain varying editorial
practices rather than in the accumulation of further illustrative and
appreciative comment. But to the work of adding new editions there can
be no end so long as the number of readers increases. Volumes of all
sizes, for many classes, following various editorial methods, are likely
to continue to meet the changing but ever increasing demands of
English-speaking readers. At the end of the nineteenth century
Shakespeare's works were not merely a household possession, they were to
be had in every possible form to suit every possible taste or
convenience.

[Page Heading: On the Stage]

The extension of Shakespeare's popularity on the stage was concurrent
with this widening range of readers. In the first thirty years of the
eighteenth century, which marked a revolution in the nature of the drama
and the taste of the audiences, Shakespeare's tragedies continued to be
among the most frequently acted stock plays at the two patented
theaters. The middle of the century saw the revival of most of the
romantic comedies and the appearance of David Garrick. Some of the
adaptations continued, but others were displaced by genuine
Shakespeare, as in _Macbeth_, _The Merchant of Venice_, and _Romeo and
Juliet_. _All's Well That Ends Well_, _As You Like It_, _Cymbeline_,
_Much Ado_, _Twelfth Night_, _The Winter's Tale_, were all revived. In
fact, if we include adaptations, every play of Shakespeare was seen on
the stage during the eighteenth century, with the exceptions of _2_ and
_3 Henry VI_, only parts of these appearing, and of _Love's Labour's
Lost_, of which a version prepared for acting was published in 1762 but
not produced.

The traditions of Betterton had been carried on by Wilks (1670-1732),
Barton Booth (1681-1733), Colley Cibber (1671-1757), and others. But the
prevailing manner was condemned as stiff and lifeless in comparison with
the energy of Garrick's presentation. From his first triumph in Richard
III in 1741, to his farewell performance of Lear in 1776, he won a
series of signal successes in both tragedy and comedy, in Hamlet, Lear,
Macbeth, Richard III, Falconbridge, Romeo, Hotspur, Iago, Leontes,
Posthumus, Benedick, and Antony. Garrick's services to Shakespeare
extended beyond the parts which he impersonated. He revived many plays,
and though he garbled the texts freely, yet in comparison with earlier
practice he really had some right to boast that he had restored the text
of Shakespeare to the stage. Further, his example led to an increased
popularity of Shakespeare in the theater and afforded new incentives for
other actors. Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Pritchard were among
the women who acted with Garrick. Macklin, by his revival of Shylock as
a tragic character, Henderson by his impersonation of Falstaff, and John
Palmer in secondary characters, as Iago, Mercutio, Touchstone, and Sir
Toby, were his contemporaries most famous in their day.

[Page Heading: Kemble and Kean]

Garrick's place at the head of the English stage was taken by John
Philip Kemble (1757-1823), an actor of great dignity of presence and
manner, who won general admiration in the great tragic parts, especially
those offering opportunities for declamation. His sister, Mrs. Sarah
Siddons, was doubtless the greatest of English actresses; her Lady
Macbeth, Queen Katherine, and Constance overwhelmed her audiences by
their majesty and passion. Kemble's reputation was surpassed by Edmund
Kean, whose appearance as Shylock in 1819, at Drury Lane, was the first
of a series of great successes in most of the tragic parts, including
Hamlet, Lear, Othello, and Richard III. In contrast to Kemble's
declamation, Kean's acting was vehement and passionate. Coleridge
declared that to see him was "reading Shakespeare by flashes of
lightning." Readers of the dramatic criticism of Hazlitt and Lamb will
recall tributes to Kean and to other favorite actors, especially perhaps
their praise of Mrs. Jordan's Viola and Rosalind. Macready for forty
years maintained the great traditions of English acting, and during his
managements of Drury Lane sought to retain for Shakespeare's plays their
preeminence on the stage. Associated with his many impersonations were
those of Mrs. Warner and Helen Faucit (Lady Martin). From Garrick's
debut to the retirement of Macready (1851) is a century of great actors
and actresses who brought to the interpretation of the many characters
of the plays a skill and intelligence that satisfied the most critical
theater-goers and extended vastly the appreciation and knowledge of
Shakespeare's men and women.

Shakespeare's position on the stage was, however, maintained only with
difficulty against the melodramas, musical farces, and spectacles that
absorbed the theaters. Yet from 1844 to 1862, Samuel Phelps, at Sadler's
Wells, presented thirty-one of the plays. Since then the stage has
hardly seen an equally important revival; but the great traditions of
acting have been carried on by many eminent actors: Sir Henry Irving,
Ellen Terry, Forbes Robertson, in England; Edwin Forrest, Edwin Booth,
Junius Brutus Booth, Charlotte Cushman, Ada Rehan, Julia Marlowe, and
Edward Sothern in America. Lately, successful attempts have been made to
perform plays in the Elizabethan manner, and perhaps there is a tendency
to pay less attention to elaborate scenic presentation than was the
habit during the last of the nineteenth century. In one respect, at
least, the present offers a decided improvement on the past, for there
is now a strong sentiment in favor of as close an adherence as possible
to an authorized text of the plays.

[Page Heading: The Eighteenth Century]

Shakespeare has held his place on the stage in spite of many and great
changes in theatrical conditions and dramatic taste. He will probably
survive changes greater than those which separate the picture stage with
its electric lights from the projecting open-air platform of his own
day, or than those which separate the dramas of Ibsen, Shaw, and Barrie
from those of Marlowe and Fletcher, or the cinematograph and comic opera
from the bear-baiting and jugglery which rivaled the Globe. The visitor
who scans, in the Stratford Museum, the curious collection of portraits
of actors and actresses in Shakespearean parts may wonder what
peculiarities of costume, manner, and expression will be devised for the
admired interpretations of the centuries to come. But it hardly seems
possible that any actor of the future will influence as greatly the
appreciation of Shakespeare's characters and speeches as did Garrick and
Mrs. Siddons in England or Edwin Booth in America.

Shakespearean criticism in the eighteenth century was, as has been
noted, largely textual, but there was also a considerable discussion of
Shakespeare's learning, his art, and its violations of neo-classical
theory. John Dennis, in his _Letters_, 1711, proved a sturdy admirer,
and the consensus of opinion of following writers was that of Sedley's
couplet which described Shakespeare as

    The pride of Nature, and the shame of Schools,
    Born to Create, and not to Learn from Rules.

Voltaire's attacks brought rejoinders from Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu in
1769 and from Dr. Johnson in the preface to his edition, 1765. In fact,
admiration for Shakespeare was a powerful factor in forcing the
rejection of rules and standards of French criticism. Johnson's Preface
finds fault with Shakespeare's neglect of poetic justice and dwells at
length on the faults in plots and diction, but Johnson defends the
violation of the unities, and his praise is a discriminating summary of
the merits that the eighteenth century had found in Shakespeare. It is
praise that is likely to endure.

Within another generation, however, reverence for Shakespeare had
increased to an intensity that made Johnson's admiration seem feeble and
niggardly. This transformation was due to many causes, but in the main
it was a part of the vast changes in European literature known as the
Romantic movement. This resulted in a rejection of the rules and models
of neo-classicism, a new interest in the literature and manners of the
Middle Ages, a conception of poetry as the expression of individuality,
attention to the individual man in all orders of society, a fresh
concern for external nature, an emphasis on the emotions rather than
mere reason, a desire for wonder and mystery, and an exaltation of
natural instincts and intuitions as opposed to general truths or social
conventions. In each of these particulars, Shakespeare seemed the
complete fulfilment of the new tendencies--which indeed his growing
influence had undoubtedly encouraged. More than Spenser or Milton or
the old ballads, he was the inspiration and guide for new endeavors in
literature. It seemed to the new age of critics and poets that they had
rediscovered him, and they hastened to raise him from neglect to the
throne of omniscience. He was no longer a wayward genius, he was the
model from whom art and wisdom were to be learned.

[Page Heading: Appreciative Criticism]

This new criticism was esthetic and appreciative. It did not try to
balance Shakespeare's merits and faults, or to test him by codes of arts
or morals. It recognized him as supreme, and its discipleship was
devoted to reverent interpretation and enthusiastic admiration.
Believing in the importance of the poetic imagination in the affairs of
men, it found in him a gospel and an example for its creed. Its
delightful task was to find new beauties and to search out the
hiding-places that revealed the god of its idolatry. If the genius of
the master-poet was the source of art and wisdom, the personality of the
critic gained a new refulgence through its service of reflecting the
rays of glory. The interest in the study of individual characters had
resulted, even in Johnson's day, in some notable interpretive essays, as
Maurice Morgann's on Falstaff (1777). In the next generation, Coleridge,
Lamb, and Hazlitt in England, and Schlegel and Goethe in Germany,
brought the keenest intelligence and most sympathetic taste to a
criticism that aspired to reveal the full range and height of
Shakespeare's creative faculty.

The results of this criticism may be more specifically summarized. (1)
It viewed the individual characters of the plays as if they were real
persons, analyzing their motives and elaborating or repainting their
portraits, as in the analyses of Hamlet by Goethe and Coleridge, or in
the brilliant sketches of Hazlitt. The few hundred lines spoken by a
leading character have thus been expanded by the impressions made on
successive critics into volumes of biography. (2) Shakespeare's works
were studied as a whole in an effort to study the development of his art
and mind. Schlegel and Coleridge gave a unity to the phenomena of the
thirty-seven plays that had not been recognized hitherto; but they and
their followers naturally tended to make of their author a sort of
nineteenth-century romanticist. (3) Exalting the services of poetry and
the creative imagination, they viewed Shakespeare's exhibition of human
nature and his incidental wisdom as profound, consistent, and immensely
valuable for the human race. Hence they were ever seeking in his work
for a philosophy, a synthetic ethics, and making the widest applications
of his words to conduct. Believing that he could do no wrong, they
inevitably came to attribute to him ideas and morals that were of their
own creation.

The defects of this criticism are most apparent in critics like Ulrici
and Gervinus who carry its methods to extremes. Personal, fanciful,
unhistorical, idolatrous, it is yet a tremendous tribute and an amazing
record of the sway that Shakespeare has exerted on the human mind. The
writings of no other man have been studied so intimately by so many
sympathetic readers, or have excited such different impressions.
Throughout the nineteenth century this appreciative criticism has
continued, and Shakespeare has been interpreted through the personality
of many critics, German and American, as well as British, more recently
through the delicate sensibility of Professor Dowden, and the
penetrating reflection of Professor A. C. Bradley.

[Page Heading: The Nineteenth Century]

At the end of the nineteenth century, Shakespearean criticism has become
too varied for a brief survey. Textual and esthetic criticism both
continue. The biography has been established on a sound basis of fact by
Halliwell-Phillipps and Sidney Lee; and still new facts reward patient
investigators of the legal and court documents, almost the only records
preserved that can possibly bear on Shakespeare's life. Special studies
of all sorts have been numerous, as to his reading, religion, folk-lore,
and so on. More significant in its effect on our general view have been
the efforts of historical criticism. As our knowledge of Elizabethan
literature, drama, theater, have increased, it has been possible to see
Shakespeare in relation to his time and environment. The study of
Shakespeare as a sixteenth-century dramatist aims not merely at a better
appreciation of his work, but also to explain his development and to
account for some of the qualities of his achievement. Its attitude is
that of the scientific historian examining the records of any great
human activity, and trying to understand its causes, results, and
meaning. Somewhat allied to this has been technical dramatic criticism,
which is uniting knowledge of the Elizabethan theater with interest in
drama as a peculiar form, and thereby studying Shakespeare as a
dramatist rather than as a poet or philosopher. In fact, Shakespeare is
no longer merely man, poet, dramatist, philosopher, or genius. Jonson's
tribute, Dryden's summary, Johnson's judicial essay, or Coleridge's
admiring studies, all seem hopelessly inadequate to express the range of
his dominion. He has become the source of the most various and extensive
interests, a continent that ever expands its fields for exploration, an
epoch that ever extends the years of its duration, a race that never
dies, though its progeny ever multiplies.

[Page Heading: In Germany]

It is in the nineteenth century that Shakespeare's dominance becomes
international. Four of his plays were acted at Dresden and elsewhere
early in the seventeenth century, but there seems to have been no
literary acquaintance with the plays in Germany until about the middle
of the eighteenth century, when two poor translations of _Julius Caesar_
and _Romeo and Juliet_ appeared, and J. C. Gottsched severely criticized
Shakespeare's art. In 1759, in a journal, "Litteraturbriefe," Lessing
began a warm defense of Shakespeare and declared his superiority to
Racine and Corneille. His _Hamburgische Dramaturgie_ (1767) went far in
directing the change of taste from French classicism and in
establishing Shakespeare in German thought as the greatest of poets,
whether ancient or modern. A prose translation was begun by Wieland in
1762 and completed by Eschenburg in 1789. What is perhaps the best
translation of Shakespeare into any foreign tongue was begun in 1797 by
A. W. von Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, two leaders of German romanticism,
and finally completed in 1853. Schlegel's lectures on _Shakespeare and
the Drama_ were delivered in Vienna in 1808, and present both the
romanticist's idolizing of Shakespeare and a new kind of esthetic
criticism destined to exercise great influence on Coleridge and the
English critics. Meanwhile Goethe was adapting _Romeo and Juliet_ for
the Weimar theater (1801) and Schiller was arranging _Macbeth_ for
presentation at Stuttgart (1801). Goethe indeed was, throughout his
life, an enthusiastic admirer of Shakespeare, and his works are full of
discriminating criticism, of which perhaps the most famous passage is
the analysis of Hamlet in _Wilhelm Meister_. Since Lessing and Herder,
German poetry and drama have felt Shakespeare's influence, and in both
textual and esthetic criticism, Germany has rivaled England and the
United States. Delius and Schmidt, whose _Shakespeare-Lexicon_ (1874) is
one of the great monuments of Shakespeare scholarship, are perhaps first
among textual students; since 1865 the German Shakespeare Society has
published yearly contributions of all kinds to Shakespeare criticism,
and especially an excellent bibliography. On the stage Shakespeare has
been constantly acted since the beginning of the century, and has
engaged the services of some of the greatest actors, as Schroeder, the
two Devrients, and Barnay. At present a large number of his plays are
performed annually, in the smaller as well as the larger cities, and
more frequently than in Britain or America. Twenty-six of the plays were
acted in 1911, _Othello_ leading with 158 performances. For the years
1909, 1910, 1911, _Hamlet_, _Othello_, _The Merchant of Venice_ have
been the favorites, with _The Taming of the Shrew_ and _A
Midsummer-Night's Dream_ the most popular of the comedies. For over a
century Shakespeare has profoundly influenced German life and letters.
Rarely, if ever, has a great people been so powerfully affected by a
writer in a foreign tongue.

In France, during the eighteenth century, Shakespeare's reputation was
both aided and hindered by Voltaire. Though there are a few earlier
notices of the English dramatist, Voltaire, after his visit to England,
1720-1729, was virtually the first to win attention for Shakespeare. He
admired Shakespeare, acknowledged his influence, but deplored his
deficiencies in taste and art, "le Corneille de Londres, grand fou
d'ailleurs, mais il a des morceaux admirables." Voltaire's criticism
provoked replies in England and a defense from Diderot, who shared with
Lessing the effort to emancipate the drama from some of its
neo-classical restriction. Translations of twelve plays by La Place
(1745-1748) and all of the plays by Le Tourneur (1776-1782) gave an
opportunity for greater acquaintance with his work. A version of
_Hamlet_ by Ducis was acted at Paris in 1769. But even at the end of the
century, French literary opinion, though partly won by Le Tourneur's
praise of Shakespeare, still sympathized with Voltaire, now engaged in
an attack on Englishmen and their favorite. His last opinion (1778)
declares, "Shakespeare est un sauvage avec des etincelles de genie qui
brillent dans une nuit horrible."

[Page Heading: In France]

The nineteenth century saw a reaction from this criticism, indicated by
the praise of Madame de Stael (_De la Litterature_, 1804), by Guizot's
essay accompanying a revision of Le Tourneur's translation (1821), and
later in the appreciation of Mezieres's _Shakespeare ses [OE]uvres et
ses Critiques_ (1860), in several translations, and in Victor Hugo's
eulogy (1869). The best of the translations is by the poet's son,
Francois Victor Hugo in prose (1859-1866). On the Paris stage, the
leading English actors have appeared from time to time, and French
versions of _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, and _Othello_ have made a permanent
place. M. Jusserand is the chief authority for the history of
Shakespeare in France and an ambassador of peace between the conflicting
literary tastes of the two nations.

In Italy, Holland, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, during the nineteenth
century, many of the plays have been regularly acted, and from Italy
have come great actors and actresses, as Ristori, Salvini, and Rossi.
Complete translations have been published in these countries and in
Bohemian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, and Spanish; and separate plays have
been translated and acted in many other languages including those of
India, Japan, and China.

In music and painting Shakespeare's influence has also been
international. Books have been devoted to the history of Shakespeare's
music, and such surveys include nearly every English composer of note,
and also Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Ambroise Thomas,
Saint Saens, Rossini, and Verdi. In painting as well, the persons and
scenes of the play have excited the efforts of English, German, and
American artists.

In America, as has already been indicated, the interest in Shakespeare
is hardly separable from that in Great Britain. Editors, critics,
scholars, have been numerous and their contributions important, and the
plays have been acted constantly and widely through the country.
Probably there is no part of the world to-day where the study of
Shakespeare is so active and where the interest in his work is so
widespread. In one respect, at least, the United States in recent years
has carried this study and interest beyond England, in the fields of
education. As the study of the mother tongue has become the basis of
American education, so Shakespeare has come to play a more and more
important part in the training of youth. The universities offer training
in the various departments of Shakespearean scholarship, every college
offers courses on his plays, a number of them are prescribed for reading
and study in the high schools; a few of them are read and extracts
memorized in the primary schools. The child begins his education with
Ariel and the fairies, and until his schooling is completed is kept in
almost daily intercourse with the poetry and persons of the dramas.
Homer was not better known in Athens. In a democracy still young and
widely separated from older nations and cultures, Shakespeare has become
one of the links that bind the American public not only to the common
inheritances of the English-speaking races, but to the traditional
culture of Europe.

[Page Heading: In the United States]

Known in the literature and theater of every civilized nation, the
subject of a vast and increasing amount of discussion and criticism, the
source of a scholarship rivaling that devoted to the writers of
antiquity, the familiar theme for music and painting, the household
possession of Great Britain, Germany, and America, influencing thought
and conduct as few books have ever influenced them, and now an important
element in the education of a great democracy,--the plays of Shakespeare
occupy a position whence imagination "can not pierce a wink beyond, but
doubt discovery there." His reputation and influence must change greatly
in the years to come; but this at least is secure--three hundred years
of an ever increasing sway over the human mind.




CHAPTER X

CONCLUSION


The purpose of this volume has been to summarize what we know about
Shakespeare. The documentary records and early traditions of his life
have been supplemented by information in regard to the times and places
in which he lived, the literature which he read, and the theaters for
which he worked. The evolution of the drama that grew up in those
theaters has been reviewed, and its manifest connections with
Shakespeare's own development have been indicated. That development has
been traced by means of a careful determination of the chronology of the
plays; and the recognition of this growth of his powers has been shown
to be a necessary basis for a just estimate of their achievement.

If, now, in conclusion, we attempt to define our general impression of
the man and his work, this must inevitably take into account
considerations of environment and development. The man belonged to his
era, his city, and his profession. The documents make it plain that he
did not live apart, but in close contact with the affairs of his day and
generation. The plays make it clear that few men ever became so
intimately familiar with the manners, morals, and ideas of their own
time. There is no doubt that he drank deeply of the experience that
Elizabethan London offered him. Still more, the plays make it clear that
his life was one of constant and extraordinary intellectual and
spiritual growth. Though, from the objective nature of the dramas, it is
impossible to translate them into terms of personal experience or into
exact stages of mental growth, yet it is none the less evident that the
progress from the author of _Love's Labour's Lost_ to the author of _The
Tempest_, from the creator of Richard III and Valentine to the creator
of Iago and Antony, was marked, not only by a widening experience, but
also by a development of personal character.

[Page Heading: The Sonnets]

To understand a man's surroundings does not, however, reveal the man;
and to measure the growth of genius does not interpret its quality.
Lovers of the plays are likely always to query: What manner of man was
this? Taken out of his London, at any time in his career, how would he
seem if we could know him as a man? Of what nature is this companion and
friend whose presence we have felt through all his verses and in all of
his characters? The few clues offered by records or tradition, and the
difficulties in separating the creator from the thousand men and women
of his creation, have driven many to seek answers to these questions in
the sonnets. There he speaks in the first person, and there are revealed
not merely some dubious hints of actual incidents, but the surer
indications of emotional conflicts that went to the heart of the man's
nature. At their worst, the sonnets may have been only literary
exercises on conventional themes, but at their best they are surely both
superb poetry and the result of genuine emotion. Can we doubt that the
poet knew the pitfalls that beset the course of human passion or that he
had faith in the triumphant beauty of love and friendship? Yet the most
splendid of these lyrical declarations of faith add little to what we
knew of the creator of the lovers and friends of the dramas. The
trivialities and the sublimities, the sin and the idealism of the
sonnets coalesce with the emotional effects of the comedies and
tragedies. In forming our impression of the man, whatever we may derive
from the sonnets does not contradict and does not largely affect the
impressions made by the poetry and humanity of the plays. For the
conception which each one forms of Shakespeare the man must be derived
in the main from the impressions of personality implied by the plays.
Such a conception is bound to be individual and without validity that
can rest on proofs, but in the main it has not varied greatly from
individual to individual or from generation to generation. From Jonson
and Dryden to Goethe and Tennyson, there has been no great difference in
the essentials of this estimate of the man.

[Page Heading: Personality of Shakespeare]

If the plays do not throw a clear light on matters of conduct and
exercise of the will, they certainly tell of no lack of self-control
and no weakness or feverishness of action. The traditions of
conviviality and the records of a life of constant industry that secured
wealth and social position are both in accord with the impressions
derived from the plays of an eagerness for experience controlled by a
self-mastery and a serenity of purpose. If one were to search for a
modern writer most like Shakespeare, one would select Scott, rather than
Shelley, or Byron, or Wordsworth. As to the intellectual quality of the
author of the plays, it is clear that he was not a Galileo or a Bacon.
If we judge intellectual power by its creation of system or synthesis,
we shall probably estimate Shakespeare less highly than if we remember
that intellect of the highest order is often displayed by maintaining
openness and largeness of view in face of the solicitations of theory or
prejudice. No one can read the plays in connection with the literature
of the time, or of any time, without marveling at their freedom from
vulgarity, pettiness, or narrowness of mental attitude. If they do not
afford evidences of a profound culture in philosophy, letters, or
science, they offer no trace of intellectual blindness or conceit, and
they leave no doubt that their author had thought greatly and freely.
Even more certain is their assurance of the range and intensity of his
emotional life. In these respects again, no one can compare his work
with that of other writers without feeling the effect of his
personality. Fletcher, perhaps next to him among the Elizabethans in a
versatile expression of a wide range of emotions, gives no sign of the
sincere, profound, and searching interest in humankind which we are sure
was Shakespeare's. Bacon, surpassing him perhaps in intellectual
curiosity and thoroughness, manifestly gives no evidence in his writings
of the warmth of sympathy, the quickness of emotional response, the fire
of passion which we find in the author of Shakespeare's plays. It is
difficult to disbelieve that their imaginative participation in the
height and breadth of human feeling was the creation of a man who united
intellectual greatness with an emotional susceptibility of extraordinary
range and delicacy, and with a sympathy, genial, wide, tolerant, but
also heartfelt, deep, and passionate. Such is the ineffaceable
impression of the man which has been shared by many generations of
readers, and which found expression two hundred and fifty years ago in
Dryden's carefully considered estimate, "The man who of all Moderns, and
perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul."

What of the plays themselves? Is there any fixed and universal estimate
of their quality and significance as literature? In this volume we have
been concerned in reviewing our knowledge about them rather than in
their interpretation or evaluation. We have noted the sources from which
their plots were drawn, the conditions under which they were produced in
the playhouses, the influences at work in the contemporary drama which
determined in some measure their subjects and treatment. Starting with
the probable dates of their composition, we have traced them from the
theater to the printer, through the hands of many editors, and through
the long history of their effects on theatergoers and readers. In their
history they have played a part in the changes of taste and opinion of
three centuries, and if they have grown greatly in men's estimation,
this has not been without much variability of appreciation and
uncertainty as to their value. What, then, are the qualities of the
plays that raised them at once above the measure of contemporary
influence and rivalry? Are these the qualities that have continued to
win the most general appreciation? Despite all the stress we are to-day
taught to place on change, growth, evolution, are there qualities in
these plays which insure them a continued preeminence in literature?

[Page Heading: Qualities of the Plays]

Differences of opinion testify, indeed, to the comprehensive appeal of
the plays to different minds, nations, or epochs, but they have not
greatly affected the essential elements in men's admiration. If some
critic brings into new prominence a quality that has partly escaped
attention, his discovery is not likely to affect the more permanent
elements of their reputation. If for a time attention is turned to the
plays as plays rather than as poems and to the merits of Shakespeare as
a dramatist, this criticism does not lead to any lasting disregard of
their poetic quality or to the permanent acceptance of skill in dramatic
structure as a chief element in their literary preeminence. Nor is such
an element discoverable in their philosophical synthesis or their
incidental wisdom, although some of the most brilliant criticism has
exalted that wisdom or sought to formulate and expound their view of
life. Concerning the essential elements of their greatness no real
difference of opinion has arisen from the time they were written down to
the present day. They were lifted at once above the level of
contemporary endeavor, and they have continued to grow in reputation
chiefly because of their poetry and their characterization.

Concerning the nature and quality of these there is little difference of
opinion, though critics may vary in estimating their beauty or value.
One may prefer the verse of Homer or of Milton, but he will not deny the
traits that distinguish Shakespeare's. Another may prefer the
well-ordered study of human motives in Sophocles, or the realistic
analysis of a modern realist like Turgenieff, but he will recognize the
qualities in Shakespeare's characterization that are the basis of
general admiration. Still another may condemn that admiration, but he
will not differ from us as to the chief sources of its existence.

These two sources are hardly to be separated, for the persons are
revealed through the beauty of the verse, and the poetry is ever adapted
to the speakers. In the early plays the poet's fancy often refuses to be
bound by the requirements of his characters and escapes in lyric or
descriptive excursions; but as his art becomes more masterly, the
poetry adapts itself with increasing devotion to the dramatic task,
discarding the limitations of the verse form and even at times
sacrificing clarity and harmony of expression in its effort to make a
few lines significant of the thought and emotion of some individual. An
enormous vocabulary is treated with daring freedom; words are coined,
changed, or restamped in order to let nothing of significance escape.
The effect is not primarily that of finished workmanship or elaborate
harmony, though these may be found in many passages and notably in the
greatest of the sonnets. Broken rather than completed images, richness
of suggestion rather than unity of impressiveness, surprise and novelty
in words rather than their delicate adjustment, make up an effect of
bewildering enchantment rather than of perfected form. This is true even
in an early play like _Romeo and Juliet_, where the verse becomes
undramatic in order to make the most of every opportunity for fancy or
melody, and it is true also in _Othello_, where poetry and
characterization are wedded with consummate art. The reader's pleasure
is not in finding each idea finally developed or each motive given full
elaboration. It is rather in the flow of words which endow each person
and moment with their wealth of color and suggestion, and somehow carry
on to the reader both their impression of life and the transforming
power of their dignity and splendor.

[Page Heading: Poetry of the Plays]

In a last analysis the quality of the poetry is less dependent on the
music of line or passage than on the imagery of the words themselves. It
seems as if the imagination had hurried on Ariel's wing around the
universe in order to freight each phrase with a fresh trope and an
unexpected meaning. Sometimes, to be sure, there results an excess or
mixture of figures; but restrained to character and situation, bound by
the measure of the pentameter, the carnival of words becomes a gorgeous
yet ordered pageant, the very spectacle of beauty.

Let us take but one passage, not from the great crises of passion, nor
from those unsurpassable revelations of the tortured spirit, but from
the opening of a play where the purpose is chiefly expository, and where
indeed the language is not free from that mixture of figures which some
condemn. The wonderful first scene of _Antony and Cleopatra_, which
within the compass of its sixty-two lines presents the two protagonists
and their background of empire and war, opens thus in the speech of a
subordinate.

    Nay, but this dotage of our general's
    O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,
    That o'er the files and musters of the war
    Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn
    The office and devotion of their view
    Upon a tawny front; his captain's heart,
    Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
    The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
    And is become the bellows and the fan
    To cool a gipsy's lust.

[Page Heading: Characterization]

A few lines further on Antony speaks thus, as he embraces Cleopatra.

    Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
    Of the rang'd Empire fall! Here is my space.
    Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
    Feeds beast as man; the nobleness of life
    Is to do thus, when such a mutual pair
    And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
    On pain of punishment, the world to wit
    We stand up peerless.

No other man ever wrote verse like this; and it is hard to believe that
words will ever again respond to such a magician.

This poetry is the fitting accompaniment of a characterization, the
range and vitality of which, the world to wit, stand up peerless. While
these are in general qualities of the Elizabethan drama, it is
noteworthy that almost from the beginning Shakespeare outstripped his
rivals. Launce, Richard III, Shylock, Juliet, were enough to establish a
supremacy. The years that followed with their maturing thought and
experience gave an amazing development to what was manifestly the native
bent of his genius. Whatever else one may find in the plays, indeed
whatever one finds there of wisdom or beauty, truth or art, it cannot be
separated from their revelation of human nature.

It is this primarily that makes the dramas great and lasting. The
histories, with all their pomp and movement and patriotism, reveal kings
and lords and peasants as alike the subjects of changing fortune, alike
human beings for our pity, admiration, or laughter. The comedies with
their fancy and sentiment and fun, and their perennial sunshine on the
self-deceived and selfish, are ruled by the most charming and refined of
womankind. The tragedies with their presentation of the waste and
suffering of life, though here depravity may seem to fill the scene and
innocence share in the punishment and ruin, yet redeem us from the
terror of their devastation by their assurances of both the majesty and
the loveliness of men and women.

Shakespeare's methods in characterization have seemed to some haphazard
and bewildering. He does not fit his men and women into an analysis of
the constitution of society or into an obvious view of man's relations
in the universe. Nor does he use his characters to illustrate fixed
conceptions or processes of cause and effect. He usually started with an
old story, with certain types of character, and he was not forgetful of
theatrical necessities or dramatic construction. But as he went on he
brought all his astounding interest in human nature to focus on the old
plot and the stock type. Hamlet, the hesitating avenger, becomes the
sentimentalist, the idealist, the thinker at war with himself, the
embodiment of that conflict between circumstance and a nature unfitted
to its task, which in some measure we have all encountered in life. An
arrogant and doting old man, by the force of creative imagination,
transcends the nursery tale from which he came, and carries to us all
the implications of suffering and love that surround the aging of
parents and the growth of children. Cleopatra is a wanton, but no
analysis can explain the subtleties with which the idealism and
animalism, the sacrifice and frivolity--and how much else--of human
passion are bound together in the few hundred lines which she speaks. It
is impossible to affirm that each of the great characters is thoroughly
consistent or offers a strictly accurate motivation. Rather, they are
magnificent portraits--like the Mona Lisa--crowded with a penetrating
but question-provoking psychology. Into such parts and situations as the
drama could afford are impressed every possible revelation of our
motives; but his model was always reality and he never yielded truth to
whim or prepossession.

[Page Heading: Human Nature]

Human nature, at its best or worst, droll or tragic, is thus given
magnitude and potency. This idealization, rendered still more effective
by the verse, persuades us as we read that here are our own attributes
and conflicts exalted, now into serene beauty, again into torment and
horror, and again into the Olympic warfare of unknown supermen. No doubt
there is confusion because of the complexity of motives depicted and the
multiplicity of impressions created, but there is also a final message
of the greatness and comprehensiveness of human souls. In this world of
sin and weakness and death, it is human beings, however mocked or
maltreated by circumstance or by themselves, that are still triumphant
and interesting. Out of his strifes and failures, the individual man yet
emerges, the object of our contemplation and the assurance of our faith.

In periods or persons when interest in the individual gives way to
thought about class or system or some form of organization, it is likely
that admiration for Shakespeare's plays will suffer a decline. In
periods or persons when the individual assumes a larger place in thought
and his power to affect and dominate the world is emphasized, the plays
are likely to acquire a new regard. As long, however, as the study of
human nature is a chief occupation of mankind and as long as we believe
that a great purpose of imaginative literature is to enlarge our
knowledge and sympathy for our fellows, so long, we may be sure, these
dramas will not lose their preeminence in literature.




APPENDICES




Appendix A

BIOGRAPHICAL DOCUMENTS AND AUTHORITIES


I. REPOSITORIES OF DOCUMENTS

L. refers to Lambert's _Shakespeare Documents_ and H.-P. to
Halliwell-Phillipps's _Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare_. 7th ed.


1

THE PARISH REGISTERS OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON are the authority for the
baptisms of John Shakespeare's seven children (L. 1-7); for the burials
of Anne and Edmund (L. 10); for the baptisms of William Shakespeare's
daughter Susanna (L. 13) and the twins, Hamnet and Judith (L. 14); for
the burials of Hamnet (L. 28), of the poet's father, John (L. 75), of
his mother, Mary (L. 110), of the poet himself (L. 146), and of his
widow (L. 159). These Registers have been edited for the Parish
Registers Society, by R. Savage, 1898-9.


2

THE CORPORATION RECORDS OF STRATFORD-ON-AVON contain the Quiney-Sturley
correspondence (L. 39, 43, 44; H.-P. II. 57-60); a return of the
quantities of corn and malt held by the inhabitants of the ward in which
New Place was situated, "Wm. Shackespere" being down for ten quarters
(L. 53); a Bill of Complaint presented by R. Lane, T. Green, and William
Shakespeare respecting the tithes of Stratford-upon-Avon (L. 125); the
answer of William Combe to the foregoing Bill (L. 126).

[Page Heading: Biographical Documents]


3

THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE IN LONDON preserves the following: record of
the purchase by John Shakespeare of two houses on Henley Street,
Stratford-on-Avon (L. 8); record of a mortgage on an estate at "Awston
Cawntlett" given to Edmund Lambert by John and Mary Shakespeare (L. 9);
Bill of Complaint brought by John Shakespeare against John, son of
Edmund Lambert, respecting an estate at Wilmecote, near Stratford (L.
15); Ms. accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, "To Willm. Kempe,
Willm. Shakespeare & Richarde Burbage, servaunts 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 Majestic in Christmas tyme laste paste, viz: upon St.
Stephens daye and Innocentes daye xiij.li. vj.s. viijd., and by waye of
her Majesties rewarde vj.li. xiii.s. iiijd. in all xx.li." (L. 25);
record of the purchase of New Place by Shakespeare (L. 32); papers in a
Chancery suit relating to the estate at Wilmecote mortgaged to Edmund
Lambert, and consisting of a Bill of Complaint by John and Mary
Shakespeare against John Lambert for his refusal to accept L40 and
reconvey the property to the complainants, John Lambert's answer, and
the replication of John and Mary Shakespeare to the answer (L. 35); a
subsidy roll showing William Shakespeare as a defaulter in respect of a
tax of five shillings, October, 1596, and of thirteen shillings and four
pence, October, 1598, based on an assessment made about 1598 or 1594,
when the poet was living in St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and paid after he
had moved to Southwark (_Athenaeum_, March 16, 1906, and L. 42); Royal
Warrant for a Patent and the Patent itself (May 19, 1603) licensing the
company of actors, "Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard
Burbage, Augustine Phillippes, John Hemmings, Henrie Condell, William
Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowly and the rest of their associates" as
the King's Servants (L. 87, 88); the Accounts of the Revels at Court in
the reigns of Elizabeth and James, containing entries showing
performances at Court of "The Moor of Venis," "The Merry Wives of
Winsor," "Mesur for Mesur" by "Shaxberd," "the plaie of Errors" by
"Shaxberd," "Loves Labours lost," "Henry the fift," and "the Martchant
of Venis" by "Shaxberd" (twice, being "againe commanded by the Kings
Ma^tie"), all in 1604 (O.S.), of "the Tempest" and "y^e winters nightes
Tayle" in 1611, all by the King's men, and of the performance before the
Court at Wilton, Dec. 2, 1603 (L. 96, 133, _Notes in the History of the
Revels Office under the Tudors_, ed. by E. K. Chambers, and _Supposed
Shakespeare Forgeries_, by Ernest Law); record of the purchase in 1610
of an estate in Old Stratford and Stratford-on-Avon by Shakespeare from
William and John Combe (L. 127); three documents in a Chancery suit
relating to the ownership of property in Blackfriars, April 26, May 15,
May 22, 1615 (C. W. Wallace in _Englische Studien_, April, 1906, and
Preface to New Edition of Lee's _Life_, xxii ff.); the grant for cloaks
for the King's entry into London, March 15, 1604 (Ld. Chamberlain's
Papers, No. 600); the documents in the law suit among the heirs of
Richard Burbage (1635), relating to the ownership of the Globe and the
Blackfriars theaters, and giving much information on the value of
theatrical shares, actors' salaries, etc. (H.-P. i. 312-319); and the
documents in the lawsuit of Bellots _vs._ Mountjoy (1612), including
Shakespeare's deposition (_New Shakespeare Discoveries_, C. W. Wallace,
_Harper's Magazine_, March, 1910).


4

THE SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE MUSEUM IN STRATFORD-ON-AVON contains
several documents of importance: record of the conveyance in 1602 of an
estate in Old Stratford from William and John Combe to William
Shakespeare (L. 79, H.-P. II, 17-19); extract from the Court Rolls of
the Manor of Rowington, transferring from Walter Getley to William
Shakespeare certain premises in Chapel Lane, Stratford-on-Avon (L. 81);
the conveyance to Shakespeare from Ralph Hubande of the residue of a
lease of a moiety of the tithes of Stratford-on-Avon, Old Stratford,
Welcombe, and Bishopton (L. 99); the diary of one Thomas Greene,
containing a reference to the dispute as to the inclosing of common
lands (reproduced in facsimile in C. M. Ingleby's _Shakespeare and the
Enclosure of Common Fields at Welcombe_, 1885).


5

THE BRITISH MUSEUM possesses the Ms. diary of John Manningham of the
Middle Temple, which, under the date of Feb. 2, 1601, records a
performance of _Twelfth Night_, and the anecdote recorded above, p. 44
(L. 77; Ms. Harl. 5353, ed. Camden Soc., p. 39); also the Mortgage Deed
from Shakespeare to Henry Walker on the property in Blackfriars conveyed
to Shakespeare and others on the day previous, March 10, 1612/13.


6

THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY AT OXFORD has the Ms. diary of Dr. Simon Forman
describing performances of _Winter's Tale, Cymbeline_, and _Macbeth_ in
1610 and 1611 (L. 128; Ms. Ashmol. 208, fol. 201_b_); and the Accounts
of Lord Stanhope of Harrington, Treasurer of the Chamber to James I,
containing the following entry: "1613, May 20. Item paid to John
Heminges uppon the cowncells warrant dated att Whitehall xx^o die Maii
1613 for presentinge before the Princes highnes the La: Elizabeth and
the Prince Pallatyne Elector fowerteene severall playes viz ... Much
adoe abowte nothinge ... The Tempest ... The Winters Tale, S^r John
Falstafe, The Moore of Venice ... Caesars Tragedye ... All w^ch Playes
weare played within the tyme of this Accompte, viz p^d the some of iiij.
(xx.) xiij.li. vj.s. viij.d.

[Page Heading: Biographical Documents]

"Item paid to the said John Heminges uppon the lyke warrant dated att
Whitehall xx^o die Maij 1613 for presenting sixe severall playes viz.
one playe called ... And one other called Benidicte and Betteris all
played within the tyme of this Accompte viz p^d ffortie powndes And by
waye of his Ma^tis rewarde twentie powndes In all ... lx li." (L. 138;
Ms. Rawl. A. 239).


7

THE EPISCOPAL REGISTER OF THE DIOCESE OF WORCESTER contains the bond
given by Sandells and others for the marriage of Shakespeare and Anne
Hathaway (L. 12).


8

THE LIBRARY OF THE GUILDHALL IN LONDON has the indenture prepared for
the purchaser in the sale of the house in Blackfriars on March 10, 1613,
by Henry Walker to William Shakespeare and others (L. 136). The
indenture held by the seller is in the library of Mr. Marsden J. Perry,
Providence, R. I.


9

THE PRINCIPAL PROBATE REGISTRY, Somerset House, London, contains
Shakespeare's Will, which runs as follows:

[Page Heading: Shakespeare's Will]

    [10]VICESIMO quinto die [Januarii] _Martii_, anno regni domini
    nostri Jacobi, nunc regis Angliae, &c., decimo quarto, et Scotiae
    xlix^o, annoque Domini 1616.

    --T. WMI. SHACKSPEARE

    In the name of God, Amen! I William Shackspeare, of Stratford upon
    Avon in the countie of Warr., gent., in perfect health and memorie,
    God be praysed, doe make and ordayne this my last will and testament
    in manner and forme followeing, that ys to saye, ffirst, I comend my
    soule into the handes of God my Creator, hoping and assuredlie
    beleeving, through thonelie merittes, of Jesus Christe my Saviour,
    to be made partaker of lyfe everlastinge, and my bodye to the earth
    whereof yt ys made. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto my [sonne
    and][11] daughter Judyth one hundred and fyftie poundes of lawfull
    English money, to be paied unto her in the manner and forme
    foloweng, that ys to saye, one hundred poundes _in discharge of her
    marriage porcion_ within one yeare after my deceas, with
    consideracion after the rate of twoe shillinges in the pound for soe
    long tyme as the same shalbe unpaied unto her after my deceas, and
    the fyftie poundes residwe thereof upon her surrendring _of_, or
    gyving of such sufficient securitie as the overseers of this my will
    shall like of, to surrender or graunte all her estate and right that
    shall discend or come unto her after my deceas, or _that shee_ nowe
    hath, of, in, or to, one copiehold tenemente, with thappurtenaunces,
    lyeing and being in Stratford upon Avon aforesaied in the saied
    countye of Warr., being parcell or holden of the mannour of
    Rowington, unto my daughter Susanna Hall and her heires for ever.
    Item, I gyveand bequeath unto my saied daughter Judith one hundred
    and fyftie poundes more, if shee or anie issue of her bodie be
    lyvinge att thend of three yeares next ensueing the daie of the date
    of this my will, during which tyme my executours are to paie her
    consideracion from my deceas according to the rate aforesaied; and
    if she dye within the saied tearme without issue of her bodye, then
    my will ys, and I doe gyve and bequeath one hundred poundes thereof
    to my neece Elizabeth Hall, and the fiftie poundes to be sett fourth
    by my executours during the lief of my sister Johane Harte, and the
    use and proffitt thereof cominge shalbe payed to my saied sister
    Jone, and after her deceas the saied l.^_li._ shall remaine amongst
    the children of my saied sister, equallie to be divided amongst
    them; but if my saied daughter Judith be lyving att thend of the
    saied three yeares, or anie yssue of her bodye, then my will ys, and
    soe I devise and bequeath the saied hundred and fyftie poundes to be
    sett out _by my executours and overseers_ for the best benefitt of
    her and her issue, and _the stock_ not _to be_ paied unto her soe
    long as she shalbe marryed and covert baron [by my executours and
    overseers]; but my will ys, that she shall have the consideracion
    yearelie paied unto her during her lief, and, after her deceas, the
    saied stock and consideracion to bee paied to her children, if she
    have anie, and if not, to her executours or assignes, she lyving the
    saied terme after my deceas. Provided that yf suche husbond as she
    shall att thend of the saied three years be marryed unto, or att
    anie after (_sic_), doe sufficientlie assure unto her and thissue of
    her bodie landes awnswereable to the porcion by this my will gyven
    unto her, and to be adjudged soe by my executours and overseers,
    then my will ys, that the said cl.^_li._ shalbe paied to such
    husbond as shall make such assurance, to his owne use. Item, I gyve
    and bequeath unto my saied sister Jone xx.^_li_ and all my wearing
    apparrell, to be paied and delivered within one yeare after my
    deceas; and I doe will and devise unto her _the house_ with
    thappurtenaunces in Stratford, wherein she dwelleth, for her
    naturall lief, under the yearlie rent of xij.^_d._ Item, I gyve and
    bequeath unto her three sonnes, William Harte, ... Hart, and
    Michaell Harte, fyve pounds a peece, to be paied within one yeare
    after my deceas [to be sett out for her within one yeare after my
    deceas by my executours, with thadvise and direccions of my
    overseers, for her best profitt, untill her mariage, and then the
    same with the increase thereof to be paied unto her]. Item, I gyve
    and bequeath unto [her] _the saied Elizabeth Hall_, all my plate,
    _except my brod silver and gilt bole_, that I now have att the date
    of this my will. Item, I gyve and bequeath unto the poore of
    Stratford aforesaied tenn poundes; to Mr. Thomas Combe my sword; to
    Thomas Russell esquier fyve poundes; and to Frauncis Collins, of the
    borough of Warr. in the countie of Warr. gentleman, thirteene
    poundes, sixe shillinges, and eight pence, to be paied within one
    yeare after my deceas. Item, I gyve and bequeath to [Mr. Richard
    Tyler thelder] _Hamlett Sadler_ xxvj.^_s._ viij.^_d._ to buy him a
    ringe; to _William Raynoldes gent., xxvj.^s. viij.^d. to buy him a
    ringe_; to my godson William Walker xx^_s._ in gold; to Anthonye
    Nashe gent., xxvj.^_s._ viij.^_d._; and to Mr. John Nashe xxvj.^_s._
    _viij.^d._ [in gold]; _and to my fellowes John Hemynges, Richard
    Burbage, and Henry Cundell, xxvj.^s. viij.^d. a peece to buy them
    ringes_. Item, I gyve, will, bequeath, and devise, unto my daughter
    Susanna Hall, _for better enabling of her to performe this my will,
    and towards the performans thereof_, all that capitall messuage or
    tenemente with thappurtenaunces, _in Stratford aforesaid_, called
    the New Place, wherein I nowe dwell, and two messuages or tenementes
    with thappurtenaunces, scituat, lyeing, and being in Henley
    streete, within the borough of Stratford aforesaied; and all my
    barnes, stables, orchardes, gardens, landes, tenementes, and
    hereditamentes, whatsoever, scituat, lyeing, and being, or to be
    had, receyved, perceyved, or taken, within the townes, hamletes,
    villages, fieldes, and groundes, of Stratford upon Avon,
    Oldstratford, Bushopton, and Welcombe, or in anie of them in the
    saied countie of Warr. And alsoe all that messuage or tenemente with
    thappurtenaunces, wherein one John Robinson dwelleth, scituat,
    lyeing and being, in the Blackfriers in London, nere the Wardrobe;
    and all my other landes, tenementes, and hereditamentes whatsoever,
    To have and to hold all and singuler the saied premisses, with
    theire appurtenaunces, unto the saied Susanna Hall, for and during
    the terme of her naturall lief, and after her deceas, to the first
    sonne of her bodie lawfullie yssueing, and to the heires males of
    the bodie of the saied first sonne lawfullie yssueinge; and for
    defalt of such issue, to the second sonne of her bodie, lawfullie
    issueinge, and [of] to the heires males of the bodie of the saied
    second sonne lawfullie yssueinge; and for defalt of such heires, to
    the third sonne of the bodie of the saied Susanna lawfullie
    yssueing, and of the heires males of the bodie of the saied third
    sonne lawfullie yssueing; and for defalt of such issue, the same soe
    to be and remaine to the ffourth [sonne], ffyfth, sixte, and
    seaventh sonnes of her bodie lawfullie issueing, one after another,
    and to the heires males of the bodies of the saied fourth, fifth,
    sixte, and seaventh sonnes lawfullie yssueing, in such manner as yt
    ys before lymitted to be and remaine to the first, second, and third
    sonns of her bodie, and to theire heires males; and for defalt of
    such issue, the said premisses to be and remaine to my sayed neece
    Hall, and the heires males of her bodie lawfullie yssueinge; and for
    defalt of such issue, to my daughter Judith, and the heires males
    of her bodie lawfullie issueinge; and for defalt of such issue, to
    the right heires of me the saied William Shakspeare for ever. _Item,
    I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture._ Item, I
    gyve and bequeath to my saied daughter Judith my broad silver gilt
    bole. All the rest of my goodes, chattels, leases, plate, jewels,
    and household stuffe whatsoever, after my dettes and legasies paied,
    and my funerall expenses dischardged, I give, devise, and bequeath
    to my sonne in lawe, John Hall gent., and my daughter Susanna, his
    wief, whom I ordaine and make executours of this my last will and
    testament. And I doe intreat and appoint _the saied_ Thomas Russell
    esquier and Frauncis Collins gent, to be overseers hereof, and doe
    revoke all former wills, and publishe this to be my last will and
    testament. In witness whereof I have hereunto put my [seale] _hand_,
    the daie and yeare first abovewritten.

                                            By me WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

      Witnes to the publyshing hereof,
        FRA: COLLYNS,[12]
        JULYUS SHAWE,
        JOHN ROBINSON,
        HAMNET SADLER,
        ROBERT WHATTCOTT.

    Probatum coram magistro Willielmo Byrde, legum doctore comiss. &c.
    xxij^do. die mensis Junii anno Domini 1616, juramento Johannis Hall,
    unius executorum, &c. cui &c. de bene &c. jurat. reservat. potestate
    &c. Susannae Hall, alteri executorum &c. cum venerit petitur, &c.
    (Inv. ex.)

[10] The words which have been erased are put between brackets; those
which have been interlined are printed in italics.

[11] So Lambert, Halliwell-Phillipps reads "sonne in L."

[12] Francis Collyns was the lawyer at Warwick who prepared the will, of
which the draft only was executed, no time being possible for an
engrossed copy.--Note by Lambert.

[Page Heading: Biographical Documents]


10

THE HERALDS' COLLEGE has the two drafts of a grant of arms to John
Shakespeare in 1596 (Ms. Vincent. Coll. Arm. 157, arts. 23, 24); and the
confirmation of the grant in 1599 (L. 30, 55). For further details on
the matter of the coat of arms, see _Herald and Genealogist_, i. 510,
and for facsimiles, _Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica_, 2d ser.
1886, i. 109. On the criticism of the herald's complaisance in the
matter of the Shakespeare and similar grants, see Preface to New Edition
(1909) of Lee's _Life_, pp. xi-xv.


11

THE STATIONERS' REGISTER, accessible in the _Transcript_ edited by E.
Arber, 5 vols. 1875-94, contains the records of the entries of those of
Shakespeare's works which were registered either with or without his
name. The Shakespearean entries are gathered out of the great mass
contained in these volumes by Lambert, Fleay, Stokes, H. P.,
_Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays_, 1878, Appendix V, and
others.


12. MISCELLANEOUS

The literary allusions to Shakespeare in the sixteenth and earlier
seventeenth centuries have been collected in _Shakespeare's Century of
Praise_, revised and reedited by J. Munro as _The Shakespeare Allusion
Books_, London, 1909.

Greene's attack in _Greenes Groatsworth_ will be found in its context in
his works, ed. A. B. Grosart, 1881-1886, and Chettle's Apology in his
_Kind Hartes Dreame_, Percy Society, 1874.

_The Historical MSS. Commission's Report on the Historical MSS. of
Belvoir Castle_, IV. 494, contains the entry from the Belvoir Household
Book as to Rutland's "impresa." See also _Times_, December 27, 1905,
and Preface to New Edition of Lee's _Life_, pp. xvi-xxii.


13. EXTRACTS FROM MERES'S _PALLADIS TAMIA_, 1598

As the Greeke tongue is made famous and eloquent by _Homer_, _Hesiod_,
_Euripedes_, _AEschilus_, _Sophocles_, _Pindarus_, _Phocylides_ and
_Aristophanes_; and the Latine tongue by _Virgill_, _Ovid_, _Horace_,
_Silius Italicus_, _Lucanus_, _Lucretius_, _Ausonius_ and _Claudianus_:
so the English tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeouslie invested in
rare ornaments and resplendent abiliments by sir _Philip Sidney_,
_Spencer_, _Daniel_, _Drayton_, _Warner_, _Shakespeare_, _Marlow_ and
_Chapman_.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the soule of _Euphorbus_ was thought to live in _Pythagoras_: so the
sweete wittie soule of _Ovid_ lives in mellifluous & hony-tongued
Shakespeare, witnes his _Venus_ and _Adonis_, his _Lucrece_, his sugred
Sonnets among his private friends, &c.

As _Plautus_ and _Seneca_ are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy
among the Latines, so _Shakespeare_ among y^e English is the most
excellent in both kinds for the stage; for Comedy, witnes his
_G[~e]tlem[~e] of Verona_, his _Errors_, his _Love labors lost_, his
_Love labours wonne_, his _Midsummers night dreame_, & 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_.

As _Epius Stolo_ said, that the Muses would speake with _Plautus_
tongue, if they would speak Latin: so I say that the Muses would speak
with _Shakespeares_ fine filed phrase, if they would speake English.

As _Ovid_ saith of his worke:

    Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira, nec ignis,
    Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.

[Page Heading: Extracts from Meres]

And as _Horace_ saith of his; _Exegi monumentum aere perennius;
Regalique; situ pyramidum altius; Quod non imber edax; Non Aquilo
impotens possit diruere; aut innumerabilis annorum feries &c fuga
temporum_: so say I severally of sir _Philip Sidneys_, _Spencers_,
_Daniels_, _Draytons_, _Shakespeares_, and _Warners workes_;

As _Pindarus_, _Anacreon_ and _Callimachus_ among the Greekes; and
_Horace_ and _Catullus_ among the Latines are the best Lyrick Poets: so
in this faculty the best among our Poets are _Spencer_ (who excelleth in
all kinds) _Daniel_, _Drayton_, _Shakespeare_, _Bretton_.

As ... so these are our best for Tragedie, the Lorde _Buckhurst_, Doctor
_Leg_ of Cambridge, Doctor _Edes_ of Oxforde, maister _Edward Ferris_,
the Authour of the _Mirrour for Magistrates_, _Marlow_, _Peele_,
_Watson_, _Kid_, _Shakespeare_, _Drayton_, _Chapman_, _Decker_, and
_Benjamin Johnson_.

... so the best for Comedy amongst us bee, _Edward_ Earle of Oxforde,
Doctor _Gager_ of Oxforde, Maister _Rowley_ once a rare Scholler of
learned Pembroke Hall in Cambridge, Maister _Edwardes_ one of her
Maiesties Chappell, eloquent and wittie _John Lilly_, _Lodge_,
_Gascoyne_, _Greene_, _Shakespeare_, _Thomas Nash_, _Thomas Heywood_,
_Anthony Mundye_ our best plotter, _Chapman_, _Porter_, _Wilson_,
_Hathway_, and _Henry Chettle._

... so these are the most passionate among us to bewaile and bemoane the
perplexities of Love, _Henrie Howard_ Earle of Surrey, sir _Thomas Wyat_
the elder, sir _Francis Brian_, sir _Philip Sidney_, sir _Walter
Rawley_, sir _Edward Dyer_, _Spencer_, _Daniel_, _Drayton_,
_Shakespeare_, _Whetstone_, _Gascoyne_, _Samuell Page_ sometimes fellowe
of _Corpus Christi_ Colledge in Oxford, _Churchyard, Bretton_.


14. THE INSCRIPTION ON SHAKESPEARE'S MONUMENT IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY
TRINITY, STRATFORD-ON-AVON

        Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem
          Terra tegit, populus maeret, Olympus habet.

    Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast?
    Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast
    Within this monument: Shakespeare with whome
    Quick nature dide; whose name doth deck ys tombe
    Far more than cost; sith all yt he hath writt
    Leaves living art but page to serve his witt.

                    Obiit ano. doi 1616. AEtatis 53. Die 23 Ap.

[Page Heading: The First Folio]


15. THE INTRODUCTORY MATTER IN THE FIRST FOLIO

                        TO THE MOST NOBLE
                               AND
                  INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF BRETHREN.
                             WILLIAM
         Earle of Pembroke, &c.  Lord Chamberlaine to the
                  _Kings most Excellent Maiesty_.
                               AND
                              PHILIP
Earle of Montgomery, &c. Gentleman of his Maiesties Bed-Chamber.
       Both Knights of the most Noble Order of the Garter,
                   and our singular good LORDS.

    Right Honourable,

Whilst we studie to be thankful in our particular, for the many fauors
we haue receiued from your L. L. we are falne vpon the ill fortune, to
mingle two the most diuerse things that can bee, feare, and rashnesse;
rashnesse in the enterprize, and feare of the successe. For, when we
valew the places your H. H. sustaine, we cannot but know their dignity
greater, then to descend to the reading of these trifles: and, while we
name them trifles, we haue depriu'd our selues of the defence of our
Dedication. But since your L. L. haue beene pleas'd to thinke these
trifles some-thing, heeretofore; and haue prosequuted both them, and
their Authour liuing, with so much fauour: we hope, that (they
out-liuing him, and he not hauing the fate, common with some, to be
exequutor to his owne writings) you will vse the like indulgence toward
them, you haue done vnto their parent. There is a great difference,
whether any Booke choose his Patrones, or finde them: This hath done
both. For, so much were your L. L. likings of the seuerall parts, when
they were acted, as before they were published, the Volume ask'd to be
yours. We haue but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to
procure his Orphanes, Guardians: without ambition either of
selfe-profit, or fame: onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend,
& Fellow aliue, as was our SHAKESPEARE, by humble offer of his playes,
to your most noble patronage. Wherein, as we haue iustly obserued, no
man to come neere your L. L. but with a kind of religious addresse; it
hath bin the height of our care, who are the Presenters, to make the
present worthy of your H. H. by the perfection. But, there we must also
craue our abilities to be considerd, my Lords. We cannot go beyond our
owne powers. Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruites, or what
they haue: and many Nations (we haue heard) that had not gummes &
incense, obtained their requests with a leauened Cake. It was no fault
to approch their Gods, by what meanes they could: And the most, though
meanest, of things are made more precious, when they are dedicated to
Temples. In that name therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your H. H.
these remaines of your seruant SHAKESPEARE; that what delight is in
them, may be euer your L. L. the reputation his, & the faults ours, if
any be committed, by a payre so carefull to shew their gratitude both to
the liuing, and the dead, as is

                                        Your Lordshippes most bounden,
                                                  IOHN HEMINGE.
                                                  HENRY CONDELL.


_To the Great Variety of Readers._--From the most able to him that can
but spell;--there you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd,
especially when the fate of all bookes depends upon your capacities, and
not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique,
and you will stand for your privileges wee know; to read and censure. Do
so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a booke, the stationer
saies. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes, make
your licence the same and spare not. Judge your sixe-pen'orth, your
shillings worth, your five shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you
rise to the just rates, and welcome. But, whatever you do, buy. Censure
will not drive a trade or make the jacke go. And though you be a
magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Black-Friers or the Cock-pit
to arraigne playes dailie, know, these playes have had their triall
alreadie, and stood out all appeales, and do now come forth quitted
rather by a Decree of Court than any purchas'd letters of commendation.

It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished, that the
author himselfe had liv'd to have set forth and overseen his owne
writings; but since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death
departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his friends the
office of their care and paine to have collected and publish'd them; and
so to have publish'd them, as where (before) you were abus'd with
diverse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the
frauds and stealthes of injurious impostors that expos'd them; even
those are now offer'd to your view cur'd and perfect of their limbes,
and all the rest absolute in their numbers as he conceived them; who, as
he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it.
His mind and hand went together; and what he thought, he uttered with
that easinesse that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his
papers. But it is not our province, who onely gather his works and give
them you, to praise him. It is yours that reade him. And there we hope,
to your divers capacities, you will finde enough both to draw and hold
you; for his wit can no more lie hid then it could be lost. Reade him,
therefore; and againe and againe; and if then you doe not like him,
surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him. And so we
leave you to other of his friends, whom, if you need, can bee your
guides. If you neede them not, you can leade yourselves and others; and
such readers we wish him.--_Iohn Heminge._--_Henrie Condell._


[Page Heading: Ben Jonson's Eulogy]

              TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOUED,

                       THE AVTHOR

                MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:
                          AND
                 what he hath left vs.

    To draw no enuy (_Shakespeare_) on thy name,
      Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame:
    While I confesse thy writings to be such,
      As neither _Man_, nor _Muse_, can praise too much.
    'Tis true, and all mens suffrage. But these wayes
      Were not the paths I meant vnto thy praise:
    For seeliest Ignorance on these may light,
      Which, when it sounds at best, but eccho's right;
    Or blinde Affection, which doth ne're aduance
      The truth, but gropes, and vrgeth all by chance;
    Or crafty Malice, might pretend this praise,
      And thinke to ruine, where it seem'd to raise.
    These are, as some infamous Baud, or Whore,
      Should praise a Matron. What could hurt her more?
    But thou art proofe against them, and indeed
      Aboue th' ill fortune of them, or the need.
    I, therefore will begin. Soule of the Age!
      The applause! delight! the wonder of our Stage!
    My _Shakespeare_, rise; I will not lodge thee by
      _Chaucer_, or _Spenser_, or bid _Beaumont_ lye
    A little further, to make thee a roome:
      Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
    And art aliue still, while thy Booke doth liue,
      And we haue wits to read, and praise to giue.
    That I not mixe thee so, my braine excuses;
      I meane with great, but disproportion'd _Muses_:
    For, if I thought my iudgement were of yeeres,
      I should commit thee surely with thy peeres,
    And tell, how farre thou didstst our _Lily_ out-shine,
      Or sporting _Kid_, or _Marlowes_ mighty line.
    And though thou hadst small _Latine_, and lesse _Greeke_,
      From thence to honour thee, I would not seeke
    For names; but call forth thund'ring _AEschilus_,
      _Euripides_, and _Sophocles_ to vs,
    _Paccuuius_, _Accius_, him of _Cordoua_ dead,
      To life againe, to heare thy Buskin tread,
    And shake a Stage: Or, when thy Sockes were on,
      Leaue thee alone, for the comparison
    Of all, that insolent _Greece_, or haughtie _Rome_
      Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
    Triumph, my _Britaine_, thou hast one to showe,
      To whom all Scenes of _Europe_ homage owe.
    He was not of an age, but for all time!
      And all the _Muses_ still were in their prime,
    When like _Apollo_ he came forth to warme
      Our eares, or like a _Mercury_ to charme!
    Nature her selfe was proud of his designes,
      And ioy'd to weare the dressing of his lines!
    Which were so richly spun, and wouen so fit,
      As, since, she will vouchsafe no other Wit.
    The merry _Greeke_, tart _Aristophanes_,
      Neat _Terence_, witty _Plautus_, now not please;
    But antiquated, and deserted lye
      As they were not of Natures family.
    Yet must I not giue Nature all: Thy Art,
      My gentle _Shakespeare_, must enioy a part.
    For though the _Poets_ matter, Nature be,
      His Art doth giue the fashion. And, that he,
    Who casts to write a liuing line, must sweat,
      (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
    Vpon the _Muses_ anuile: turne the same,
      (And himselfe with it) that he thinkes to frame;
    Or for the lawrell, he may gaine a scorne,
      For a good _Poet's_ made, as well as borne.
    And such wert thou. Looke how the fathers face
      Liues in his issue, euen so, the race
    Of _Shakespeares_ minde, and manners brightly shines
      In his well torned, and true-filed lines:
    In each of which, he seemes to shake a Lance,
      As brandish't at the eyes of Ignorance.
    Sweet Swan of _Auon_! what a sight it were
      To see thee in our waters yet appeare,
    And make those flights vpon the bankes of _Thames_,
      That so did take _Eliza_, and our _Iames_!
    But stay, I see thee in the _Hemisphere_
      Aduanc'd, and made a Constellation there!
    Shine forth, thou Starre of _Poets_, and with rage,
      Or influence, chide, or cheere the drooping Stage;
    Which, since thy flight fro hence, hath mourn'd like night,
      And despaires day, but for thy Volumes light.

                                                  BEN: IONSON.


VPON THE LINES AND LIFE OF THE FAMOUS

Scenicke Poet, Master WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

    Those hands, which you so clapt, go now, and wring
    You _Britaines_ braue; for done are _Shakespeares_ dayes:
    His dayes are done, that made the dainty Playes,
    Which made the Globe of heau'n and earth to ring.
    Dry'de is that veine, dry'd is the _Thespian_ Spring,
    Turn'd all to teares, and _Ph[oe]bus_ clouds his rayes:
    That corp's, that coffin now besticke those bayes,
    Which crown'd him _Poet_ first, then _Poets_ King.
    If _Tragedies_ might any _Prologue_ haue,
    All those he made, would scarse make one to this:
    Where _Fame_, now that he gone is to the graue
    (Deaths publique tyring-house) the _Nuncius_ is.
      For though his line of life went soone about,
      The life yet of his lines shall neuer out.

                                                  HVGH HOLLAND.


[Page Heading: The First Folio]

                        TO THE MEMORIE

                of the deceased Authour Maister

                        W. SHAKESPEARE

    _Shake-speare_, at length thy pious fellowes giue
    The world thy Workes: thy Workes, by which, out-liue
    Thy Tombe, thy name must: when that stone is rent,
    And Time dissolues thy _Stratford_ Moniment,
    Here we aliue shall view thee still. This Booke,
    When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
    Fresh to all Ages: when Posteritie
    Shall loath what's new, thinke all is prodegie
    That is not _Shake-speares_ eu'ry Line, each Verse
    Here shall reuiue, redeeme thee from thy Herse.
    Nor Fire, nor cankring Age, as _Naso_ said,
    Of his, thy wit-fraught Booke shall once inuade.
    Nor shall I e're beleeue, or thinke thee dead
    (Though mist) vntill our bankrout Stage be sped
    (Jmpossible) with some new straine t'out-do
    Passions of _Iuliet_, and her _Romeo_;
    Or till J heare a Scene more nobly take,
    Then when thy half-Sword parlying _Romans_ spake.
    Till these, till any of thy Volumes rest
    Shall with more fire, more feeling be exprest,
    Be sure, our _Shake-speare_, thou canst neuer dye,
    But crown'd with Lawrell, liue eternally.

                                                  L. DIGGES.


To the memorie of M. _W. Shake-speare_.

    WEE wondred (_Shake-speare_) that thou went'st so soone
    From the Worlds-Stage, to the Graues-Tyring-roome.
    Wee thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth,
    Tels thy Spectators, that thou went'st but forth
    To enter with applause. An Actors Art,
    Can dye, and liue, to acte a second part.
    That's but an _Exit_ of Mortalitie;
    This, a Re-entrance to a Plaudite.

                                                  I. M.


_The Workes of William Shakespeare, containing all his Comedies,
Histories, and Tragedies; truely set forth according to their first
Originall._--_The names of the Principall Actors in all these
playes._--William Shakespeare; Richard Burbadge; John Hemmings;
Augustine Phillips; William Kempt; Thomas Poope; George Bryan; Henry
Condell; William Slye; Richard Cowly; John Lowine; Samuell Crosse;
Alexander Cooke; Samuel Gilburne; Robert Armin; William Ostler; Nathan
Field; John Underwood; Nicholas Tooley; William Ecclestone; Joseph
Taylor; Robert Benfeld; Robert Goughe; Richard Robinson; John Shancke;
John Rice.

_A Catalogue of the severall Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
contained in this Volume._--COMEDIES. The Tempest, folio 1; The Two
Gentlemen of Verona, 20; The Merry Wives of Windsor, 38; Measure for
Measure, 61; The Comedy of Errours, 85; Much adoo about Nothing, 101;
Loves Labour lost, 122; Midsommer Nights Dreame, 145; The Merchant of
Venice, 163; As You Like it, 185; The Taming of the Shrew, 208; All is
well that Ends well, 230; Twelfe-Night, or what you will, 255; The
Winters Tale, 304.--HISTORIES. The Life and Death of King John, fol. 1;
The Life and Death of Richard the Second, 23; The First Part of King
Henry the Fourth, 46; The Second Part of K. Henry the fourth, 74; The
Life of King Henry the Fift, 69; The First part of King Henry the Sixt,
96; The Second part of King Hen. the Sixt, 120; The Third part of King
Henry the Sixt, 147; The Life and Death of Richard the Third, 173; The
Life of King Henry the Eight, 205.--TRAGEDIES. The Tragedy of
Coriolanus, fol. 1; Titus Andronicus, 31; Romeo and Juliet, 53; Timon of
Athens, 80; The Life and death of Julius Caesar, 109; The Tragedy of
Macbeth, 131; The Tragedy of Hamlet, 152; King Lear, 283; Othello, the
Moore of Venice, 310; Anthony and Cleopater, 346; Cymbeline King of
Britaine, 369.


[Page Heading: Traditional Material]

II. SOURCES OF TRADITIONAL MATERIAL

Fuller's Worthies of England. 1662.

Aubrey's Lives of Eminent Men, 2 vols. Ed. A. Clark. Oxford, 1895.

Diary of Rev. John Ward (1661-1663). Ed. C. A. Severn, 1839.

Rev. William Fulman's and Rev. Richard Davies's Mss. Corpus Christi
College, Oxford.

John Dowdall's Travels in Warwickshire (1693). London, 1838.

William Hall (1694), Letter in Bodleian Mss. London, 1884.

William Oldys, Ms. Adversaria in British Museum, printed in Appendix to
Yeowell's Memoir of Oldys, 1862.

Archdeacon Plume's Ms. memoranda at Maldon, Essex. See Lee, _Nineteenth
Century_, May, 1906, and Preface to New Edition (1909) of _Life_.

For the anecdote of the Bidford Drinkers, see H.-P. and Greene's Legend
of the Crab Tree, 1857.

Antony Wood. Athenae Oxonienses, 1692.




Appendix B

INDEX TO THE CHARACTERS IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS


[Page Heading: Index to Characters]

This Index records the act and scene in which each character first
speaks, not necessarily the same as that in which he first appears. Only
persons who speak are included, except a few marked with asterisk.


Aaron. TA. II. i.

Abbess, Lady. CofE. V. i.

Abergavenny, Lord. H8. I. i.

Abhorson. Meas. IV. ii.

Abraham. R&J. I. i.

Achilles. T&C. II. i.

Adam. AYLI. I. i.

Adrian. Tmp. II. i.

Adriana. CofE. II. i.

AEdile, an. Cor. III. i.

AEgeon. CofE. I. i.

AEmilia. CofE. V. i.

AEmilius. TA. IV. iv.

AEneas. T&C. I. i.

Agamemnon. T&C. I. iii.

Agrippa. A&C. II. ii.

Aguecheek, Sir Andrew. TwN. I. iii.

Ajax. T&C. II. i.

Alarbus. TA.*

Albany, Duke of. Lear I. i.

Alcibiades. Tim. I. i.

Alencon, Duke of. 1H6. I. ii.

Alexander. T&C. I. ii.

Alexas. A&C. I. ii.

Alice. H5. III. iv.

Alonso. Tmp. I. i.

Ambassadors:
  Hml. V. ii;
  H5. I. ii;
  1H6. V. i.

Amiens. AYLI. II. i. v.

Andromache. T&C. V. iii.

Andronicus. _See_ Titus, Marcus.

Angelo. CofE. III. i.

Angelo. Meas. I. i.

Angus. Mcb. I. ii.

Anne Bullen, Queen. H8. I. iv.

Anne, Lady. R3. I. ii.

Anne Page. MWW. I. i.

Antigonus. WT. II. i.

Antiochus, King of Antioch. Per. I. i.

Antipholus of Ephesus. CofE. III. i.

Antipholus of Syracuse. CofE. I. ii.

Antonio. Merch. I. i.

Antonio. MAdo. I. ii.

Antonio. Tmp. I. i.

Antonio. TGV. I. iii.

Antonio. TwN. II. i.

Antony.
  JC. I. ii;
  A&C. I. i.

Apemantus. Tim. I. i.

Apothecary. R&J. V. i.

Apparitions. Mcb. IV. i.

Archbishop. _See_ York, Canterbury.

Archidamus. WT. I. i.

Ariel. Tmp. I. ii.

Armado, Don. LLL. I. ii.

Arragon, Prince of. Merch. II. ix.

Artemidorus. JC. II. iii.

Arthur, Duke of Bretagne. John II. i.

Arviragus. Cym. III. iii.

Astringer, Gentle. AWEW. V. i.

Attendants.
  A&C. I. ii;
  Hml. IV. vi. _See_ Servants.

Audrey. AYLI. III. iii.

Aufidius, Tullus. Cor. I. ii.

Aumerle, Duke of. R2. I. iii.

Austria, Archduke of.
  John II. i.
  _See_ Lymoges.

Autolycus. WT. IV. iii.

Auvergne, Countess of. 1H6. II. iii.


Bagot. R2. II. ii.

Balthasar. MAdo. II. iii.

Balthazar. CofE. III. i.

Balthazar. Merch. III. iv.

Balthazar. R&J. I. i.

Banditti. Tim. IV. iii.

Banquo. Mcb. I. iii.

Baptista. TofS. I. i.

Bardolph.
  1H4. II. ii;
  2H4. II. i;
  H5. II. i;
  MWW. I. i.

Bardolph, Lord. 2H4. I. i.

Barnardine. Meas. IV. iii.

Bassanio. Merch. I. i.

Bassanius. TA. I. i.

Basset. 1H6. III. iv.

Bastard of Orleans. 1H6. I. ii.

Bastard. _See_ Edmund, Faulconbridge, and Margarelon.

Bates. H5. IV. i.

Bawd.
  Per. IV. ii.
  _See_ Overdone.

Beadles.
  2H4. V. iv;
  2H6. II. i.

Beatrice. MAdo. I. i.

Beaufort, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, and Cardinal.
  1H6. I. i;
  2H6. I. i.

Beaufort, John, Duke of Somerset.
  1H6. II. iv;
  2H6. I. i.

Beaufort, Thomas, Duke of Exeter.
  H5. I. ii;
  1H6. I. i.

Bedford, Duke of. H5. II. ii.

Bedford, Duke of. 1H6. I. i.

Belarius. Cym. III. iii.

Belch, Sir Toby. TwN. I. iii.

Benedick. MAdo. I. i.

Benvolio. R&J. I. i.

Berkeley. R3. I. iii.*

Berkeley, Lord. R2. II. iii.

Bernardo. Hml. I i.*

Bertram, Count of Rousillon. AWEW. I. i.

Bevis, George. 2H6. IV. ii.

Bianca. Oth. III. iv.

Bianca. TofS. I. i.

Bigot, Lord. John IV. iii.

Biondello. TofS. I. i.

Biron. LLL. I. i.

Blanche of Spain. John II. i.

Blunt, Sir James. R3. V. ii.

Blunt, Sir Walter. 1H4. I. iii.

Boatswain. Tmp. I. i.

Bolingbroke, Roger. 2H6. I. iv.

Bolingbroke, afterwards King Henry IV. R2. I. i.

Bona. 3H6. III. iii.

Borachio. MAdo. I. iii.

Bottom. MND. I. ii.

Boult. Per. IV. ii.

Bourbon, Duke of. H5. III. v.

Bourchier, Cardinal. R3. III. i.

Boyet. LLL. II. i.

Boys:
  H5. II. i;
  1H6. I. iv;
  H8. V. i;
  Mcb. IV. ii;
  Meas. IV. i;
  MAdo. II. iii;
  R3. II. ii;
  T&C. I. ii.
  _See_ Pages.

Brabantio. Oth. I. i.

Brakenbury, Sir Robert. R3. I. i.

Brandon. H8. I. i.

Brothers, to Posthumus, ghosts. Cym. V. iv.

Brutus, Decius. JC. II. i.

Brutus, Junius. Cor. I. i.

Brutus, Marcus. JC. I. ii.

Buckingham, Duke of.
  2H6. I. i;
  R3. I. iii.

Buckingham, Duke of. H8. I. i.

Bullcalf. 2H4. III. ii.

Bullen, Anne. H8. I. iv.

Burgundy, Duke of. H5. V. ii.

Burgundy, Duke of. 1H6. II. i.

Burgundy, Duke of. Lear I. i.

Bushy. R2. I. iv.

Butts, Doctor. H8. V. ii.


Cade, John. 2H6. IV. ii.

Caesar. _See_ Julius _and_ Octavius.

Caithness. Mcb. V. ii.

Caius. TA.*

Caius, Doctor. MWW. I. iv.

Caius Ligarius. JC. II. i.

Caius Lucius. Cym. III. i.

Caius Marcius (Coriolanus). Cor. I. i.

Calchas. T&C. III. iii.

Caliban. Tmp. I. ii.

Calpurnia. JC. I. ii.

Cambridge, Earl of. H5. II. ii.

Camillo. WT. I. i.

Campeius, Cardinal. H8. II. ii.

Canidius. A&C. III. x.

Canterbury, Archbishop of.
  H5. I. i.
  _See_ Bourchier, Cranmer.

Caphis. Tim. II. i.

Captains:
  A&C. IV. iv;
  Cym. IV. ii, V. iii;
  Hml. IV. iv;
  1H6. II. ii;
  Lear V. iii;
  Mcb. I. ii;
  R2. II. iv;
  TA. I. i.
  _See_ Sea Captain.

Capucius. H8. IV. ii.

Capulet. R&J. I. i.

Capulet, Lady. R&J. I. i.

Capulet, second. R&J. I. v.

Cardinal. _See_ Bourchier, Winchester.

Carlisle, Bishop of. R2. III. ii.

Carpenter. JC. I. i.

Carriers. 1H4. II. i.

Casca. JC. I. ii.

Cassandra. T&C. II. ii.

Cassio. Oth. I. ii.

Cassius. JC. I. ii.

Catesby, Sir William. R3. I. iii.

Cato, young. JC. V. iii.

Celia. AYLI. I. ii.

Ceres. Tmp. IV. i.

Cerimon. Per. III. ii.

Chamberlain. 1H4. II. i.

Chamberlain, Lord. H8. I. iii.

Chancellor, Lord. H8. V. iii.

Charles, a wrestler. AYLI. I. i.

Charles, the dauphin, later King of France. 1H6. I. ii.

Charles VI, King of France. H5. II. iv.

Charmian. A&C. I. ii.

Chatillon, ambassador. John I. i.

Chief Justice. 2H4. I. ii.

Chiron. TA. I. i.

Chorus.
  H5;
  Per;
  R&J;
  WT.

Cicero. JC. I. iii.

Cimber, Metellus. JC. II. i.

Cinna, a conspirator. JC. I. iii.

Cinna, a poet. JC. III. iii.

Citizens.
  Cor. I. i;
  2H6. IV. v;
  John II. i;
  R3. II. iii;
  R&J. III. i.

Clarence, George, Duke of.
  3H6. II. ii;
  R3. I. i.

Clarence, Thomas, Duke of. 2H4. IV. iv.

Clarence, son and daughter of. R3. II. ii.

Claudio. Meas. I. ii.

Claudio. MAdo. I. i.

Claudius, King of Denmark. Hml. I. ii.

Claudius. JC. IV. iii.

Cleomenes. WT. III. i.

Cleon. Per. I. iv.

Cleopatra. A&C. I. i.

Clerk. 2H6. IV. ii.

Clifford, Lord.
  2H6. IV. viii;
  3H6. I. i.

Clifford, young, son of preceding. 2H6. V. i.

Clitus. JC. V. v.

Cloten. Cym. I. ii.

Clowns:
  A&C. V. ii;
  AWEW. I. iii;
  Hml. V. ii;
  LLL. I. ii;
  Oth. III. i;
  TA. IV. iii;
  WT. IV. iii.
  _See_ Feste, Peter, Pompey, etc.

Cobbler. JC. I. i.

Cobweb. MND. III. i.

Colville, Sir John. 2H4. IV. iii.

Cominius. Cor. I. i.

Commons. 2H6. III. ii.

Conrade. MAdo. I. iii.

Conspirators. Cor. V. vi.

Constable (Dull). LLL. I. i.

Constable of France. H5. II. iv.

Constance. John II. i.

Cordelia. Lear I. i.

Corin. AYLI. II. iv.

Coriolanus. Cor. I. i.

Cornelius, a physician. Cym. I. v.

Cornelius. Hml. I. ii.

Cornwall, Duke of. Lear I. i.

Costard. LLL. I. i.

Court. H5. IV. i.

Courtesan. CofE. IV. iii.

Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. H8. V. i.

Cressida. T&C. I. ii.

Crier. H8. II. iv.

Cromwell. H8. III. ii.

Cupid. Tim. I. ii.

Curan. Lear II. i.

Curio. TwN. I. i.

Curtis. TofS. IV. i.

Cymbeline, King. Cym. I. i.


Dancer, A. 2H4. Epi.

Dardanius. JC. V. v.

Daughter of Antiochus. Per. I. iv.

Dauphin. H5. II. iv.

Davy. 2H4. V. i.

Deiphobus. T&C. IV. i.

Demetrius. A&C. I. i.

Demetrius. MND. I. i.

Demetrius. TA. I. i.

Dennis. AYLI. I. i.

Denny, Sir Anthony. H8. V. i.

Derby, Earl of. R3. I. iii.

Dercetas. A&C. IV. xiv.

Desdemona. Oth. I. iii.

Diana. Per.*

Diana. AWEW. III. v.

Dick, butcher. 2H6. IV. ii.

Diomedes. T&C. II. iii.

Diomedes. A&C. IV. xiv.

Dion. WT. III. i.

Dionyza. Per. I. iv.

Doctor. Lear IV. iv.

Doctor, English Mcb. IV. iii.

Doctor, Scotch. Mcb. V. i.

Dogberry. MAdo. III. iii.

Dolabella. A&C. III. xii.

Doll Tearsheet. 2H4. II. iv.

Don Adriano de Armado. LLL. I. ii.

Donalbain. Mcb. II. iii.

Don John. MAdo. I. i.

Don Pedro. MAdo. I. i.

Dorcas. WT. IV. iv.

Dorset, Marquis of. R3. I. iii.

Douglas Archibald, Earl of. 1H4. IV. i.

Drawers. 2H4. II. iv.

Dromio of Ephesus. CofE. I. ii.

Dromio of Syracuse. CofE. I. ii.

Duke, in banishment. AYLI. II. i.

Duke Frederick. AYLI. I. ii.

Duke of Milan. TGV. II. iv.

Dull. LLL. I. i.

Dumain. LLL. I. i.

Duncan, King. Mcb. I. ii.


Edgar. Lear I. ii.

Edmund. Lear I. i.

Edmund, Earl of Rutland. 3H6. I. iii.

Edward, Earl of March, later Edward IV.
  3H6. I. i;
  R3. II. i.

Edward IV, King.
  3H6. I. i;
  R3. II. i.

Edward V, King. R3. III. i.

Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward V. R3. III. i.

Edward Plantagenet, Prince of Wales. 3H6. I. i.

Egeus. MND. I. i.

Eglamour. TGV. IV. iii.

Egyptian. A&C. V. i.

Elbow. Meas. II. i.

Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester. 2H6. I. ii.

Eleanor, Queen. John I. i.

Elizabeth, Queen (as L. Grey).
  3H6. III. ii;
  R3. I. iii.

Ely, Bishop of. H5. I. i.

Ely, Bishop of. R3. III. iv.

Emilia. Oth. II. ii.

Emilia. WT. II. ii.

Enobarbus. A&C. I. ii.

Eros. A&C. III. v.

Erpingham, Sir Thomas. H5. IV. i.

Escalus, Prince. R&J. I. i.

Escalus. Meas. I. i.

Escanes. Per. II. iv.

Essex, Earl of. John I. i.

Euphronius. A&C. III. xii.

Evans, Sir Hugh. MWW. I. i

Executioners. John IV. i.

Exeter (Beaufort), Duke of.
  H5. I. ii;
  1H6. I. i.

Exeter, Duke of. 3H6. I. i.

Exton, Sir Pierce of. R2. V. iv.


Fabian. TwN. II. v.

Fairies.
  MND. II. i;
  MWW. V. iv.

Falstaff, Sir John.
  1H4. I. ii;
  2H4. I. ii;
  MWW. I. i.

Fang. 2H4. II. i.

Fastolfe, Sir John. 1H6. III. ii.

Father that hath killed his son. 3H6. II. v.

Faulconbridge, Lady. John I. i.

Faulconbridge, Philip the Bastard. John I. i.

Faulconbridge, Robert. John I. i.

Feeble. 2H4. III. ii.

Fenton. MWW. I. iv.

Ferdinand. Tmp. I. ii.

Ferdinand, King of Navarre. LLL. I. i.

Feste. TwN. I. v.

Fisherman. Per. II. i.

Fitzwater, Lord. R2. IV. i.

Flaminius. Tim. III. i.

Flavius. JC. I. i.

Flavius. Tim. I. ii.

Fleance. Mcb. II. i.

Florence, Duke of. AWEW. III. i.

Florizel. WT. IV. iv.

Fluellen. H5. III. ii.

Flute. MND. I. ii.

Fool.
  Lear I. iv;
  Tim. II. ii.

Ford. MWW. II. i.

Ford, Mistress. MWW. II. i.

Forester.
  AYLI. IV. ii;
  LLL. IV. i.

Fortinbras. Hml. IV. iv.

France, King of. AWEW. I. ii.

France, King of. Lear I. i.

France, Princess of. LLL. II. i.

Francis. 1H4. II. iv.

Francisca. Meas. I. iv.

Francisco. Hml. I. i.

Francisco. Tmp. II. i.

Frederick, Duke. AYLI. I. ii.

Frenchman, A. Cym. I. iv.

Friar Francis. MAdo. IV. i.

Friar John. R&J. V. 2.

Friar Lawrence. R&J. II. 3.

Friar Peter. Meas. IV. vi.

Friar Thomas. Meas. I. iii.

Froth. Meas. II. i.


Gadshill. 1H4. II. i.

Gaolers:
  CofE. I. i;
  Cym. V. iv;
  1H6. II. v;
  Merch. III. iii;
  WT. II. ii.

Gallus. A&C. V. i.

Gardener. R2. III. iv.

Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. H8. V. i.

Gargrave, Sir Thomas. 1H6. I. iv.

Gaunt, John, Duke of Lancaster. R2. I. i.

Gentleman Usher. H8. II. iv.

Gentlemen:
  AWEW. V. iii;
  Cym. I. i;
  Hml. IV. v;
  2H6. IV. i;
  H8. II. i;
  Lear I. v;
  Meas. I. ii;
  Per. III. ii;
  Oth. II. i;
  WT. V. ii.

Gentlewomen.
  Cor. I. iii;
  Mcb. V. i.

George, Duke of Clarence.
  3H6. II. ii;
  R3. I. i.

Gertrude, Queen of Denmark. Hml. I. ii.

Ghosts of:
  Caesar, JC. IV. iii;
  of Hamlet's father, Hml. I. v;
  Sicilius Leonatus, wife, two sons, Cym. V. iv;
  Banquo,* Mcb. III. iv;
  Prince Edward, Henry VI, Clarence, Rivers, Grey, Vaughan, Hastings,
      two young princes, Lady Anne, and Buckingham, R3. V. iii.

Glansdale, Sir William. 1H6. I. iv.

Glendower, Owen. 1H4. III.

Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of.
  2H4. IV. iv;
  H5. III. vii;
  1H6. I. i;
  2H6. I. i.

Gloucester, Richard, Duke of.
  3H6. I. i;
  R3. I. i.

Gloucester, Duchess of. 2H6. I. ii.

Gloucester, Duchess of. R2. I. ii.

Gloucester, Earl of. Lear I. i.

Gobbo, Launcelot. Merch. II. ii.

Gobbo, Old, father of Launcelot. Merch. II. ii.

Goffe, Matthew. 2H6.*

Goneril. Lear I. i.

Gonzalo. Tmp. I. i.

Goths. TA. V. i.

Governor of Harfleur. H5. III. iii.

Governor of Paris. 1H6. IV. i.

Gower.
  2H4. II. i;
  H5. III. ii.

Gower, chorus. Per.

Grandpre. H5. IV. ii.

Gratiano. Merch. I. i.

Gratiano. Oth. V. ii.

Gravediggers. Hml. V. i.

Green. R2. I. iv.

Gregory. R&J. I. i.

Gremio. TofS. I. i.

Grey, Lady, later Queen Elizabeth.
  3H6. III. ii;
  R3. I. iii.

Grey, Lord. R3. I. iii.

Grey, Sir Thomas. H5. II. ii.

Griffith. H8. IV. ii.

Grooms.
  2H4. V. v;
  R2. V. v.

Grumio. TofS. I. i.

Guard. A&C. IV. xiv.

Guiderius. Cym. III. iii.

Guildenstern. Hml. II. ii.

Guildford, Sir Henry. H8. I. iv.

Gurney, James. John I. i.


Haberdasher. TofS. IV. iii.

Hamlet. Hml. I. ii.

Harcourt. 2H4. IV. iv.

Hastings, Lord. 2H4. I. iii.

Hastings, Lord.
  3H6. IV. i;
  R3. I. i.

Hecate. Mcb. III. v.

Hector. T&C. II. ii.

Helen, an attendant. Cym. II. ii.

Helen. T&C. III. i.

Helena. AWEW. I. i.

Helena. MND. I. i.

Helenus. T&C. II. ii.

Helicanus. Per. I. ii.

Henry IV, King (Bolingbroke).
  1H4. I. i;
  2H4. III. i;
  R2. I. i.

Henry V, King (first, Henry, Prince of Wales).
  1H4. I. ii;
  2H4. II. ii;
  H5. I. ii.

Henry, Prince.
  1H4. I. ii;
  2H4. II. ii.

Henry, Prince, son of King John. John V. vii.

Henry VI, King.
  1H6. III. i;
  2H6. I. i;
  3H6. I. i.

Henry VII, King, first Earl of Richmond.
  3H6.*
  R3. V. iii.

Henry VIII, King. H8. I. ii.

Heralds.
  Cor. II. i;
  H5. III. vi, IV. viii;
  2H6. II. iv;
  John II. i;
  Lear V. iii;
  Oth. II. ii;
  R2. I. iii.

Herbert, Sir Walter. R3. V. ii.

Hereford, Duke of.
  _See_ Henry IV.
  R2. I. i.

Hermia. MND. I. i.

Hermione. WT. I. ii.

Hero. MAdo. I. i.

Hippolyta. MND. I. i.

Holland, John. 2H6. IV. ii.

Holofernes. LLL. IV. ii.

Horatio. Hml. I. i.

Horner, Roger. 2H6. I. iii.

Hortensio. TofS. I. i.

Hortensius. Tim. III. iv.

Host. TGV. IV. ii.

Host of the Garter Inn. MWW. I. iii.

Hostess.
  H5. II. i.
  _See_ Quickly.

Hostess. TofS. Ind.

Hotspur.
  1H4. I. iii.
  _See_ Percy.

Hubert de Burgh. John III. iii.

Hume, John. 2H6. I. ii.

Humphrey of Gloucester.
  2H4. IV. iv;
  H5. III. vii;
  1H6. I. i;
  2H6. I. i.

Huntsmen.
  3H6. IV. v;
  TofS. Ind.

Hymen. AYLI. V. iv.


Iachimo. Cym. I. iv.

Iago. Oth. I. i.

Iden, Alexander. 2H6. IV. x.

Imogen. Cym. I. i.

Interpreter. AWEW. IV. iii.

Iras. A&C. I. ii.

Iris. Tmp. IV. i.

Isabel, Queen of France. H5. V. ii.

Isabella. Meas. I. iv.

Isadore, servant. Tim. II. ii.


Jamy. H5. III. ii.

Jaquenetta. LLL. I. ii.

Jaques. AYLI. II. v.

Jaques, son of Sir Roland de Boys. AYLI.*

Jessica. Merch. II. iii.

Jeweller. Tim. I. i.

Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc). 1H6. I. ii.

John, King. John I. i.

John of Lancaster.
  1H4. V. iv;
  2H4. IV. ii.

Jordan, Margery. 2H6. I. iv.

Julia. TGV. I. ii.

Juliet. Meas. I. ii.

Juliet. R&J. I. iii.

Julius Caesar. JC. I. ii.

Juno. Tmp. IV. i.

Jupiter. Cym. V. iv.


Katherina. TofS. I. i.

Katherine. LLL. II. i.

Katherine, Princess of France. H5. III. iv.

Katherine, Queen. H8. I. ii.

Keepers:
  3H6. III. i;
  H8. V. ii; R2. V. v;
  R3. I. iv.
  _See_ Gaolers.

Kent, Earl of. Lear I. i.

Knights:
  Lear I. iv;
  Per. II. iii.


Ladies:
  Cor. II. i;
  Cym. I. v;
  R2. III. iv;
  Tim. I. ii;
  WT. II. i.

Laertes. Hml. I. ii.

Lafeu, Lord. AWEW. I. i.

Lamprius. A&C. I. ii.

Launce. TGV. II. iii.

Launcelot Gobbo. Merch. II. ii.

Lavache, a clown. AWEW. I. iii.

Lavinia. TA. I. i.

Lawyer, a. 1H6. II. iv.

Lear, King. Lear I. i.

Le Beau. AYLI. I. ii.

Legate. 1H6. V. i.

Lennox. Mcb. I. ii.

Leonardo. Merch. II. ii.

Leonato. MAdo. I. i.

Leonatus, Posthumus. Cym. I. i.

Leonine. Per. IV. i.

Leontes. WT. I. ii.

Lepidus.
  JC. IV. i;
  A&C. I. iv.

Lewis, the Dauphin. H5. II. iv.

Lewis, the Dauphin. John II. i.

Lewis XI, King of France. 3H6. III. iii.

Lieutenant:
  Cor. IV. vii;
  2H6. IV. i;
  3H6. IV. vi.

Ligarius. JC. II. i.

Lincoln, Bishop of. H8. II. iv.

Lion. MND. V. i.

Longaville. LLL. I. i.

Lords:
  AWEW. I. ii, III. i;
  AYLI. II. i;
  Cor. V. vi;
  Cym. I. ii;
  Hml. V. ii;
  LLL. II. i;
  Mcb. III. iv;
  Per. I. ii;
  R3. V. iii;
  TofS. Ind.;
  Tim. I. i;
  WT. II. ii.

Lorenzo. Merch. I. i.

Lovel, Lord. R3. III. iv.

Lovell, Sir Thomas. H8. I. iii.

Luce. CofE. III. i.

Lucentio. TofS. I. i.

Lucetta. TGV. I. ii.

Luciana. CofE. II. i.

Lucianus. Hml. III. ii.

Lucilius. JC. IV. ii.

Lucilius. Tim. I. i.

Lucio. Meas. I. ii.

Lucius, Caius. Cym. III. i.

Lucius. JC. II. i.

Lucius. TA. I. i.

Lucius, young. TA. III. ii.

Lucius. Tim. III. ii;
  servant. Tim. III. iv.

Lucullus. Tim. III. i.

Lucy, Sir William. 1H6. IV. iii.

Ludovico. Oth. IV. i.

Lychorida. Per. III. i.

Lymoges, Duke of Austria. John II. i.

Lysander. MND. I. i.

Lysimachus. Per. IV. vi.


Macbeth. Mcb. I. iii.

Macbeth, Lady. Mcb. I. v.

Macduff. Mcb. II. iii.

Macduff, Lady. Mcb. IV. ii.

Macduff's son. Mcb. IV. ii.

Macmorris. H5. III. ii.

Maecenas. A&C. II. ii.

Malcolm. Mcb. I. ii.

Malvolio. TwN. I. v.

Mamillius. WT. I. ii.

Marcellus. Hml. I. i.

Marcus Andronicus. TA. I. i.

Marcus Antonius (Antony).
  JC. I. ii;
  A&C. I. i.

Mardian. A&C. I. v.

Margarelon. T&C. V. vi.

Margaret. MAdo. II. i.

Margaret, Queen.
  1H6. V. iii;
  2H6. I. i;
  3H6. I. i;
  R3. I. iii.

Margaret Plantagenet, daughter of Clarence. R3. II. ii.

Maria. LLL. II. i.

Maria. TwN. I. iii.

Mariana. AWEW. III. v.

Mariana. Meas. IV. i.

Marina. Per. IV. i.

Mariner.
  WT. III. iii;
  Tmp. I. i.

Marshal. Per. II. iii.

Marshal, Lord. R2. I. iii.

Martext, Sir Oliver. AYLI. III. iii.

Martius. TA. I. i.

Marullus. JC. I. i.

Master. 2H6. IV. i.

Master gunner. 1H6. I. iv.

Master, of a ship.
  Tmp. I. i;
  2H6. IV. i.

Master's Mate. 2H6. IV. i.

Mayor of London.
  1H6. III. i;
  R3. III. i.

Mayor of St. Albans. 2H6. II. i.

Mayor of York. 3H6. IV. vii.

Melun. John V. iv.

Menas. A&C. II. i.

Menecrates. A&C. II. i.

Menelaus. T&C. I. iii.

Menenius Agrippa. Cor. I. i.

Menteith. Mcb. V. ii.

Mercade. LLL. V. ii.

Merchants:
  CofE. I. ii;
  Tim. I. i.

Mercutio. R&J. I. iv.

Messala. JC. IV. iii.

Messengers:
  A&C. I. i;
  AWEW. IV. iii;
  CofE. V. i;
  Cor. I. i;
  Cym. V. iv;
  Hml. IV. v;
  1H4. IV. i;
  2H4. IV. i;
  H5. II. v;
  1H6. I. i;
  2H6. I. ii;
  3H6. I. ii;
  H8. IV. ii;
  John IV. ii;
  JC. IV. iii;
  Lear IV. ii;
  LLL. V. ii;
  Mcb. I. v;
  Meas. IV. ii;
  Merch. II. ix;
  MAdo. I. i;
  Oth. I. iii;
  Per. I. i;
  R3. III. ii;
  TofS. III. i;
  Tim. I. i;
  TA. III. i.

Metellus Cimber. JC. II. i.

Michael. 2H6. IV. ii.

Michael, Sir. 1H4. IV. iv.

Milan, Duke of. TGV. II. iv.

Miranda. Tmp. I. ii.

Montague. R&J. I. i.

Montague, Lady. R&J. I. i.

Montague, Marquess of. 3H6. I. i.

Montano. Oth. II. i.

Montgomery, Sir John. 3H6. IV. vii.

Montjoy. H5. III. vi.

Moonshine. MND. V. i.

Mopsa. WT. IV. iv.

Morocco, Prince of. Merch. II. i.

Mortimer, Edmund, Earl of March. 1H4. III. i.

Mortimer, Edmund, Earl of March. 1H6. II. v.

Mortimer, Lady. 1H4. III. i.

Mortimer, Sir Hugh.* 3H6. I. ii.

Mortimer, Sir John. 3H6. I. ii.

Morton. 2H4. I. i.

Morton, John, Bishop of Ely. R3. III. iv.

Moth. LLL. I. ii.

Moth. MND. III. i.

Mother to Posthumus, a ghost. Cym. V. iv.

Mouldy. 2H4. III. ii.

Mowbray, Lord. 2H4. I. iii.

Mowbray, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. R2. I. i.

Murderers:
  2H6. III. ii;
  Mcb. III. i;
  R3. I. iii.

Musicians:
  Merch. V. i;
  Oth. III. i;
  R&J. IV. v;
  TGV. IV. ii.

Mustardseed. MND. III. i.

Mutius. TA. I. i.


Nathaniel, Sir. LLL. IV. ii.

Neighbors. 2H6. II. iii.

Nerissa. Merch. I. ii.

Nestor. T&C. I. iii.

Noble, a. Cor. III. ii.

Nobleman, a. 3H6. III. ii.

Norfolk, Duke of.
  3H6. I. i;
  R3. V. iii.

Norfolk, Duke of, Thomas Mowbray. R2. I. i.

Norfolk, Duke of. H8. I. i.

Northumberland. _See_ Percy.

Northumberland, Earl of. 3H6. I. i.

Northumberland, Lady. 2H4. II. iii.

Nurse. R&J. I. 3.

Nurse. TA. IV. ii.

Nym.
  H5. II. i;
  MWW. I. i.


Oberon. MND. II. i.

Octavia. A&C. III. ii.

Octavius Caesar (Augustus).
  JC. IV. i;
  A&C. I. iv.

Officers:
  CofE. IV. i;
  Cor. II. ii;
  Oth. I. iii;
  R&J. I. i;
  TwN. III. iv;
  WT. III. ii.

Old Athenian. Tim. I. i.

Old Lady. H8. II. iii.

Old Man.
  Lear IV. i;
  Mcb. II. iv.

Oliver. AYLI. I. i.

Oliver Martext, Sir. AYLI. III. iii.

Olivia. TwN. I. v.

Ophelia. Hml. I. iii.

Orlando. AYLI. I. i.

Orleans, bastard of. 1H6. I. ii.

Orleans, Duke of. H5. III. vii.

Orsino, Duke of Illyria. TwN. I. i.

Osric. Hml. V. ii.

Ostler. 1H4. II. i.

Oswald. Lear I. iii.

Othello. Oth. I. ii.

Outlaws. TGV. IV. i.

Overdone, Mrs. Meas. I. ii.

Oxford, Earl of. 3H6. III. iii.

Oxford, Earl of. R3. V. ii.


Page. MWW. I. i.

Page, Mistress. MWW. II. i.

Page, Mistress Anne, a daughter. MWW. I. i.

Page, William, a son. MWW. IV. i.

Pages:
  AWEW. I. i;
  AYLI. V. iii;
  2H4. I. ii;
  H8. V. i;
  R3. IV. ii;
  R&J. V. ii;
  Tim. II. ii.
  _See_ Boys.

Painter. Tim. I. i.

Pandar. Per. IV. ii.

Pandarus. T&C. I. i.

Pandulph, Cardinal. John III. i.

Panthino. TGV. I. iii.

Paris. R&J. I. ii.

Paris. T&C. II. ii.

Parolles. AWEW. I. i.

Patience. H8. IV. ii.

Patrician. Cor. III. i.

Patroclus. T&C. II. i.

Paulina. WT. II. ii.

Peaseblossom. MND. III. i.

Pedant. TofS. IV. ii.

Pedro, Don. MAdo. I. i.

Pembroke, Earl of. 3H6. IV. i.

Pembroke, Earl of. John IV. ii.

Percy, Henry, Earl of Northumberland.
  1H4. I. iii;
  2H4. I. i;
  R2. III. i.

Percy, Henry (Hotspur).
  1H4. I. iii;
  R2. II. iii.

Percy, Lady (wife of Hotspur).
  1H4. II. iii;
  2H4. II. iii.

Percy, Thomas, Earl of Worcester. 1H4. I. iii.

Perdita. WT. IV. iv.

Pericles. Per. I. i.

Peter. 2H6. I. iii.

Peter. R&J. II. iv.

Peter of Pomfret. John IV. ii.

Petitioners. 2H6. I. iii.

Peto.
  1H4. II. ii;
  2H4. II. iv.

Petruchio. TofS. I. i.

Phebe. AYLI. III. v.

Philario. Cym. I. iv.

Philemon. Per. III. ii.

Philip, King of France. John II. i.

Philo. A&C. I. i.

Philostrate. MND. V. i.

Philotus. Tim. III. iv.

Phrynia. Tim. IV. iii.

Physicians:
  Cym. I. v;
  Lear IV. iv;
  Mcb. IV. iii.

Pierce, Sir, of Exton. R2. V. iv.

Pinch. CofE. IV. iv.

Pindarus. JC. IV. ii.

Pirates. Per. IV. i.

Pisanio. Cym. I. i.

Pistol.
  2H4. II. iv;
  H5. II. i;
  MWW. I. i.

Plantagenet. _See_ Richard.

Player King. Hml. III. ii.

Player Queen. Hml. III. ii.

Players.
  Hml. II. ii;
  TofS. Ind.

Plebeians.
  JC. III. ii.
  _See_ Citizens.

Poet. Tim. I. i.

Poet. JC. IV. iii.

Poins.
  1H4. I. ii;
  2H4. II. ii.

Polixenes. WT. I. ii.

Polonius. Hml. I. ii.

Pompeius, Sextus. A&C. II. i.

Pompey. Meas. I. ii.

Popilius. JC. III. i.

Porters:
  2H4. I. i;
  1H6. II. iii;
  H8. V. iv;
  Mcb. II. iii.

Porter's Man. H8. V. iv.

Portia. JC. II. i.

Portia. Merch. I. ii.

Post.
  2H6. III. i;
  3H6. III. iii.

Posthumus Leonatus. Cym. I. i.

Prentices. 2H6. II. iii.

Priam, King of Troy. T&C. II. ii.

Priests:
  Hml. V. i;
  R3. III. ii;
  TwN. V. i.

Princess of France. LLL. II. i.

Proculeius. A&C. V. i.

Prologue.
  R&J;
  H5;
  MND;
  Hml. III, ii;
  H8;
  T&C.

Prospero. Tmp. I. ii.

Proteus. TGV. I. i.

Provost. Meas. I. ii.

Publius. JC. II. ii.

Publius. TA. IV. iii.

Puck, Robin Goodfellow. MND. II. i.

Pursuivant. R3. III. ii.

Pyramus. MND. V. i.


Queen, wife of Cymbeline. Cym. I. i.

Queen, wife of Richard II. R2. II. i.

Quickly, Mrs.
  1H4. II. iv;
  2H4. II. i;
  H5. II. i;
  MWW. I. iv.

Quince. MND. I. ii.

Quintus. TA. I. i.


Rambures. H5. III. vii.

Ratcliff, Sir Richard. R3. III. iii.

Regan. Lear I. i.

Reignier, Duke of Anjou. 1H6. I. ii.

Reynaldo. Hml. II. i.

Richard II, King. R2. I. i.

Richard II, Queen to. R2. II. i.

Richard III, King (at first Gloucester).
  3H6. I. i;
  R3. I. i.

Richard, Duke of York, son of Edward IV. R3. II. iv.

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York.
  1H6. II. iv;
  2H6. I. i;
  3H6. I. i.

Richard Plantagenet, son of preceding.
  2H6*;
  3H6. I. i.

Richmond, Earl of, later Henry VII.
  3H6*;
  R3. V. iii.

Rivers, Lord.
  3H6. IV. iv;
  R3. I. iii.

Robin. MWW. I. iii.

Robin Goodfellow. MND. II. i.

Roderigo. Oth. I. i.

Roman, a.
  Cor. IV. iii.
  _See_ Citizens.

Romeo. R&J. I. i.

Rosalind. AYLI. I. ii.

Rosaline. LLL. II. i.

Rosencrantz. Hml. II. ii.

Ross. Mcb. I. ii.

Ross, Lord. R2. II. i.

Rotherham, Thomas. Archbishop of York. R3. II. iv.

Rousillon, Count. _See_ Bertram.

Rousillon, Countess. AWEW. I. i.

Rugby, John. MWW. I. iv.

Rumour. 2H4. Ind.

Rutland, Edmund, Earl of. 3H6. I. iii.


Sailors:
  Hml. IV. vi;
  Oth. I. iii;
  Per. III. i.

Salanio. Merch. I. i.

Salarino. Merch. I. i.

Salerio. Merch. III. ii.

Salisbury, Earl of.
  H5. IV. iii;
  1H6. I. iv.

Salisbury, Earl of. 2H6. I. i.

Salisbury, Earl of. John III. i.

Salisbury, Earl of. R2. II. iv.

Sampson. R&J. I. i.

Sandys, William (Lord). H8. I. iii.

Saturninus. TA. I. i.

Say, Lord. 2H6. IV. iv.

Scales, Lord. 2H6. IV. v.

Scarus. A&C. III. x.

Scout. 1H6. V. ii.

Scribe. H8. II. iv.

Scrivener. R3. III. vi.

Scroop, Lord. H5. II. ii.

Scroop, Richard, Archbishop of York.
  1H4. IV. iv;
  2H4. I. iii.

Scroop, Sir Stephen. R2. III. ii.

Sea-Captain (Lieut.).
  2H6. IV. i;
  TwN. I. ii.

Sebastian. Tmp. I. i.

Sebastian. TwN. II. i.

Secretary. H8. I i.

Seleucus. A&C. V. ii.

Sempronius. TA.*

Sempronius. Tim. III. iii.

Senators,
  Roman.
    Cor. I. i;
    Cym. III. vii;
  Venetian. Oth. I. iii;
  Athenian. Tim. II. i;
  Coriolanian. Cor. I. ii.

Sentinels. 1H6. II. i.

Sentry. A&C. IV. ix.

Sergeant. 1H6. II. i;
  (at arms) H8. I. i.

Servants:
  A&C. II. vii;
  Hml. IV. vi;
  1H4. II. iii;
  2H4. I. ii;
  H8. I. iv;
  JC. II. ii;
  Lear III. vii;
  Mcb. III. i;
  Meas. II. ii;
  Merch. III. i;
  Per. III. ii;
  R2. II. ii;
  TofS. IV. i;
  Tim. I. ii;
  T&C. III. i;
  TwN. III. iv;
  WT. II. iii.

Servilius. Tim. III. ii.

Servingmen:
  Cor. IV. v;
  1H6. I. iii;
  2H6. II. iv;
  Merch. I. ii;
  TofS. Ind.

Seyton. Mcb. V. iii.

Sexton. MAdo. I. i.

Sextus Pompeius. A&C. II. i.

Shadow. 2H4. III. ii.

Shallow, Justice.
  2H4. III. ii;
  MWW. I. i.

Shepherd. 1H6. V. iv.

Shepherd, Old. WT. III. iii.

Sheriff.
  1H4. II. iv;
  2H6. II. iv;
  R3. V. i.

Shrewsbury, Talbot, Earl of. 1H6. I. iv.

Shylock. Merch. I. iii.

Sicilius Leonatus, a ghost. Cym. V. iv.

Sicinius Velutus. Cor. I. i.

Silence. 2H4. III. ii.

Silius. A&C. III. i.

Silvia. TGV. II. i.

Silvius. AYLI. II. iv.

Simonides, King of Pentapolis. Per. II. ii.

Simpcox. 2H6. II. i.

Simpcox's wife. 2H6. II. i.

Simple, Peter. MWW. I. i.

Siward. Mcb. V. iv.

Siward, young. Mcb. V. vii.

Slender, Abraham. MWW. I. i.

Sly, Christopher. TofS. Ind.

Smith. 2H6. IV. ii.

Snare. 2H4. II. i.

Snout. MND. I. ii.

Snug. MND. I. ii.

Soldiers:
  A&C. III. vii;
  AWEW. IV. i;
  Cor. I. iv;
  H5. IV. iv;
  1H6. II. i;
  2H6. IV. vi;
  3H6. IV. viii;
  JC. IV. ii;
  Mcb. V. iv;
  Tim. V. iv;
  T&C. V. ix.

Solinus, Duke of Ephesus. CofE. I. i.

Somerset, Duke of.
  1H6. II. iv;
  2H6. I. i.

Somerset, Duke of. 3H6. IV. i.

Somerville, Sir John. 3H6. V. i.

Son that hath killed his father. 3H6. II. v.

Soothsayers.
  A&C. I. ii;
  Cym. IV. ii;
  JC. I. ii.

Southwell, John. 2H6. I. iv.

Speed. TGV. I. i.

Spirits. 2H6. I. iv.

Spring (Ver). LLL. V. ii.

Stafford, Lord. 3H6.*

Stafford, Sir Humphrey. 2H6. IV. ii.

Stafford, William. 2H6. IV. ii.

Stanley, Lord, Earl of Derby. R3. I. iii.

Stanley, Sir John. 2H6. II. iv.

Stanley, Sir William. 3H6. IV. v.*

Starveling. MND. I. ii.

Stephano. Merch.*

Stephano. Tmp. II. ii.

Steward. AWEW. I. iii.

Strangers. Tim. III. ii.

Strato. JC. V. v.

Suffolk, Earl and Duke of.
  1H6. II. iv;
  2H6. I. i.

Suffolk, Duke of. H8. II. ii.

Surrey, Earl of. 2H4.*

Surrey, Earl of. R2. IV. i.

Surrey, Earl of. R3. V. iii.

Surrey, Lord. H8. III. ii.

Surveyor. H8. I. ii.


Tailor. TofS. IV. ii.

Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. 1H6. I. iv.

Talbot, John. 1H6. I. iv.

Tamora, Queen of Goths. TA. I. i.

Taurus. A&C. III. viii.

Thaisa. Per. II. ii.

Thaliard. Per. I. i.

Thersites. T&C. II. i.

Theseus. MND. I. i.

Thieves. 1H4. II. ii.

Thisbe. MND. V. i.

Thomas, Friar. Meas. I. iii.

Thurio. TGV. II. iv.

Thyreus (Thidias). A&C. III. xii.

Timandra. Tim. IV. iii.

Time (chorus). WT. IV. i.

Timon. Tim. I. i.

Titania. MND. II. i.

Titinius. JC. IV. iii.

Titus. Tim. III. iv.

Titus Andronicus. TA. I. i.

Titus Lartius. Cor. I. i.

Touchstone. AYLI. I. ii.

Townsmen of St. Albans. 2H6. II. i.

Tranio. TofS. I. i.

Travellers. 1H4. II. ii.

Travers. 2H4. I. i.

Trebonius. JC. II. i.

Tressel. R3. I. iii.*

Tribunes, Roman:
  Cym. III. vii;
  TA. I. i.

Trinculo. Tmp. II. ii.

Troilus. T&C. I. i.

Tubal. Merch. III. i.

Tullus Aufidius. Cor. I. ii.

Tutor. 3H6. I. iii.

Tybalt. R&J. I. i.

Tyrrel, Sir James. R3. IV. ii.


Ulysses. T&C. I. iii.

Ursula. MAdo. II. i.

Urswick, Christopher. R3. IV. v.


Valentine. TwN. I. iv.

Valentine. TGV. I. i.

Valentine. TA.*

Valeria. Cor. I. iii.

Varrius. A&C. II. i.

Varro, servant. Tim. II. ii.

Varro. JC. IV. iii.

Vaughan, Sir Thomas. R3. III. iii.

Vaux. 2H6. III. ii.

Vaux, Sir Nicholas. H8. II. i.

Venice, Duke of. Merch. IV. i.

Venice, Duke of. Oth. I. iii.

Ventidius. A&C. III. i.

Ventidius. Tim. I. ii.

Verges. MAdo. III. iii.

Vernon. 1H6. II. iv.

Vernon, Sir Richard. 1H4. IV. i.

Vincentio. TofS. IV. v.

Vincentio, Duke. Meas. I. i.

Vintner. 1H4. II. iv.

Viola. TwN. I. ii.

Violenta. AWEW. III. v.

Virgilia. Cor. I. iii.

Volsce, a. Cor. IV. iii.

Voltimand. Hml. I. ii.

Volumnia. Cor. I. iii.

Volumnius. JC. V. v.


Wall, MND. V. i.

Warders. 1H6. I. iii.

Wart. 2H4. III. ii.

Warwick (Beauchamp), Earl of.
  2H4. III. i;
  H5. IV. viii;
  1H6. II. iv.

Warwick (Nevil), Earl of.
  2H6. I. i;
  3H6. I. i.

Watchmen:
  Cor. V. ii;
  3H6. IV. iii;
  MAdo. III. iii;
  R&J. V. iii.

Westminster, Abbot of. R2. IV. i.

Westmoreland, Earl of.
  1H4. I. i;
  2H4. IV. i;
  H5. I. ii.

Westmoreland, Earl of. 3H6. I. i.

Whitmore, Walter. 2H6. IV. i.

Widow. TofS. V. ii.

Widow, of Florence. AWEW. III. v.

William. AYLI. V. i.

Williams. H5. IV. i.

Willoughby, Lord. R2. II. i.

Winchester, Bishop of.
  1H6. I. i;
  2H6. I. i.

Winchester (Gardiner), Bishop of. H8. V. i.

Witches. Mcb. I. i.

Wolsey, Cardinal. H8. I. i.

Woodville. 1H6. I. iii.

Worcester, Earl of. 1H4. I. iii.


York, Archbishop of. _See_ Rotherham and Scroop.

York, Duchess of. R2. V. ii.

York, Duchess of. R3. II. ii.

York, Duke of. H5. IV. iii.

York, Duke of. _See_ Richard.

York, Duke of. _See_ Richard, son of Edward IV.

York, Edmund Langley, Duke of. R2. II. i.

Young Marcius. Cor. V. iii.




Appendix C

INDEX OF THE SONGS IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS


[Page Heading: Index of Songs]

The first lines are given. In a few cases it is doubtful whether the
verses were sung or spoken.


A cup of wine that's brisk and fine, 2H4. V. iii.

And let me the canakin clink, clink; Oth. II. iii.

And will he not come again? Hml. IV. v.

An old hare hoar, R&J. II. iv.


Be merry, be merry, my wife has all; 2H4. V. iii.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind. AYLI. II. vii.

By gis, and by Saint Charity, Hml. IV. v.


Come away, come away, Mcb. III. v.

Come away, come away, death, TN. II. iv.

Come, thou monarch of the vine, A&C. II. vii.

Come unto these yellow sands, Tmp. I. ii.


Do me right, 2H4. V. iii.

Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer, 2H4. V. iii.


Farewell, master; farewell, farewell! Tmp. II. iii.

Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Cym. IV. ii.

Fie on sinful fantasy! MWW. V. v.

Fill the cup, and let it come; 2H4. V. iii.

Flout 'em and scout 'em. Tmp. III. ii.

Fools had ne'er less grace in a year; Lear I. iv.

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. Hml. IV. v.

Full fathom five thy father lies; Tmp. I. ii.


Get you hence, for I must go. WT. IV. iv.


Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, Cym. II. iii.

He that has and a little tiny wit,-- Lear. III. ii.

Honour, riches, marriage-blessing, Tmp. IV. i.

How should I your true love know. Hml. IV. v.


I am gone, sir, TN. IV. ii.

If it do come to pass, AYLI. II. vi.

In youth, when I did love, did love, Hml. V. i.

I shall no more to sea, to sea, Tmp. II. ii.

It was a lover and his lass, AYLI. V. iii.


Jog, jog on, the foot-path way, WT. IV. iii.


King Stephen was and a worthy peer, Oth. II. iii.


Lawn as white as driven snow; WT. IV. iv.

Love, love, nothing but love, still more! T&C. III. i.


No more dams I'll make for fish; Tmp, II. ii.

No more, thou thunder-master, show. Cym. V. iv.


Oh mistress mine, where are you roaming? TN. II. iii.

On the ground, MND. IV. i.

Orpheus with his lute made trees. (Fletcher?) H8. III. i.

Over hill, over dale, MND. II. i.


Pardon, goddess of the night, MAdo. V. iv.


Round about the cauldron go; Mcb. IV. i.


Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, MAdo. II. iii.


Take, O, take those lips away, Meas. IV. i.

Tell me where is fancy bred, Merch. III. ii.

The god of love, MAdo. V. ii.

The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I, Tmp. II. ii.

The ousel cock so black of hue, MND. III. ii.

The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, Oth. IV. iii.

They bore him barefac'd on the bier; Hml. IV. v.

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, Hml. IV. v.

To shallow rivers, to whose falls. MWW. III. i.


Under the greenwood tree, AYLI. II. vi.


Was this fair face the cause, quoth she, AWEW. I. iii.

Wedding is great Juno's crown. AYLI. V. iv.

What shall he have that killed the deer? AYLI. IV. ii.

When daffodils begin to peer, WT. IV. i.

When daisies pied and violets blue. LLL. V. ii.

When that I was and a little tiny boy, TN. V. i.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I. Tmp. V. i.

While you here do snoring lie, Tmp. II. i.

Who doth ambition shun, AYLI. II. vi.

Who is Silvia? What is she, TGV. IV. iii.

Will you buy any tape, WT. IV. iv.


You spotted snakes with double tongue, MND. II. ii.




Appendix D

BIBLIOGRAPHY


[Page Heading: Bibliography]

This Bibliography is arranged in divisions corresponding to the chapters
of this volume. It aims to include those books most important for the
student, and to furnish guidance for those interested in more
specialized fields of study.

The following are the chief general bibliographies:

Shakespeare Bibliography, by William Jaggard, Stratford-on-Avon, 1911.
This is the most important and useful attempt that has yet been made
toward a complete bibliography of works in the English language; but it
is far from being exhaustive or accurate.

Catalogue of the Barton Collection of the Boston Public Library, part i,
Shakespeare's Works and Shakesperiana, 1878-1888. Probably the best
bibliography up to the date of its publication.

Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft. Weimar, 1865-. The
bibliographies, with indexes, issued in this annual provide the best
bibliography of all recent Shakespearean literature in all languages.
They include references to periodicals and to book reviews.

The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. v, chaps. viii-xii.
Cambridge, 1910. The best recent short selected bibliography.

Other useful bibliographical aids are: the article on Shakespeare
Encycl. Brit., Eleventh ed., 1911; the British Museum Catalogue of
Printed Books, 1897; the Catalogue of the Lenox Library, New York, 1880;
and the Index to the Shakespeare Memorial Library, Birmingham, 1900.


CHAPTER I

SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND AND LONDON

See bibliographies in the Cambridge Modern History, vol. iii, chap. x,
and the Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. v, chap. xiv. The
two most accessible and important works on the subject are: William
Harrison's _Description of Britaine and England_, in Holinshed's
Chronicle, 1577, reprinted in the Shaks. Soc. Publ. 1877-1888, in the
Scott Library, 1899, and in Everyman's Library; and John Stow's _Survey
of London_, 1st ed., 1598, reprinted in Everyman's Library. J. D.
Wilson's _Life in Shakespeare's England_ (Cambridge, 1911) is an
excellent anthology drawn from Elizabethan publications.

The following list includes only more important and more recent books.

Aiken, L. Memoirs of the Court of James I. 2d ed., 1822.

Ashton, J. Humour, Wit, and Society in the Seventeenth Century. 1883.

Besant, Sir W. London. 1892.

---- London in the Times of the Tudors. 1908.

Creighton, M. The Age of Elizabeth. 1892.

Creizenach, W. Geschichte des neueren Dramas, Halle, 1893. See vol. iv,
part i, book iii, Religios-sittliche und politisch-soziale Anschauungen
der Theaterdichter.

Douce, F. Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners. 1839.

An English Garner. New ed., 1903. See vols.: Social England Illustrated;
Tudor Tracts, 1532-1582; Stuart Tracts, 1603-1693.

Froude, J. A. History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat
of the Armada. 1856-1870. Reprinted in Everyman's Library.

Gildersleeve, V. Government Regulation of the Elizabethan Drama. New
York, 1908.

Hall, H. Society in the Elizabethan Age. 4th ed., 1901.

Jusserand, J. J. Histoire litteraire du peuple Anglais. Paris, 1904.
English trans., 1909. See especially vol. ii, book v, chap. i.

Lee, S. Stratford-on-Avon from the Earliest Times to the Death of
Shakespeare. 1907.

---- An Account of Shakespeare's England, a survey of social life and
conditions in the Elizabethan age (in preparation).

Nicholls, J. The Progresses and Processions of Queen Elizabeth. New ed.,
3 vols., 1823.

---- The Progresses, Processions, and Festivities of King James I. 4
vols., 1828.

Stephenson, H. T. Shakespeare's London. New York, 1905.

---- The Elizabethan People. New York, 1910.

Strutt, J. Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. 1801. New ed.,
1903.

Thompson, E. N. S. The Controversy between the Puritans and the Stage.
Yale Studies in English, vol. xx. New York, 1903.

Traill, H. D. Social England. 3d ed., 1904. See vols. iii and iv.

Wakeman, H. O. The Church and the Puritans, 1570-1660. New ed., 1902.

Wheatley, H. B. London Past and Present. 3 vols. 1891.


CHAPTER II

BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS AND TRADITIONS

Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O. Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. 2 vols.
7th ed., 1887. Later eds. are reprints. With illustrations, facsimiles,
and a full collection of documents.

Lambert, D. H. Shakespeare Documents. (Published originally as Cartae
Shakespeareanae, 1904.) A chronological catalogue of extant evidence.

Lee, Sidney. A Life of William Shakespeare, London and New York, 1898.
New and revised ed., 1909.

---- Shakespeare in Oral Tradition, Chap. III in Shakespeare and the
Modern Stage, 1906.

The preceding are the most important books, but the following are useful
in various ways: William Shakespeare. K. Elze. Halle, 1876. Eng. trans,
by L. D. Schmitz, 1888. A Chronicle History of the Life and Works of
Shakspere. F. G. Fleay. London, 1886. Shakespeare's Marriage. J. W.
Gray. 1905. Shakespeare's Family. C. C. Stopes. 1901. Shakespeare's
Warwickshire Contemporaries. C. C. Stopes. 1907. New Shakespeare
Discoveries. C. W. Wallace. Harper's Magazine, March, 1910. Catalogues
of the books, manuscripts, works of art, antiquities, and relics at
present exhibited in Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, 1910.
For discussion of portraits of Shakespeare, see Portraits of
Shakespeare, J. P. Norris, Philadelphia, 1885; M. R. Spielmann in
Stratford-Town Shakespeare, vol. x; and in Encycl. Brit., 11th ed.,
article on Shakespeare. On a Portrait of Shakespeare in the Shakespeare
Memorial at Stratford-on-Avon, L. Cust, Proc. Soc. Antiq., 1895.

See also Sources of Traditional Material, Appendix A, p. 225.


CHAPTER III

SHAKESPEARE'S READING

Shakespeare's Books: A dissertation on Shakespeare's reading and the
immediate sources of his works. By H. R. D. Anders. Berlin, 1904. The
best book on the subject.

Shakespeare's Studies, T. S. Baynes, 1893.

Shakespeare's Holinshed. Ed. W. G. Boswell-Stone. 1896. New ed., 1907. A
reprint of the passages in Holinshed's Chronicles which Shakespeare
used.

Shakespeare's Plutarch. Ed. W. W. Skeat. 1875.

The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare. J. J. Jusserand, trans. E.
Lee. 1890.

The Shakespeare Classics, gen. ed. L. Gollancz (in progress, 1907-),
reprints the chief sources of the plays: Lodge's Rosalynde, Greene's
Pandosto, Brooke's Romeo and Juliet, the Chronicle History of King Leir,
The Taming of a Shrew, The Sources and Analogues of A Mid-summer-Night's
Dream, Shakespeare's Plutarch. Most of these, with other valuable
material, are found also in W. C. Hazlitt's revision of Collier's
Shakespeare Library. 6 vols. 1875 (out of print).

Many translations which Shakespeare may have known are included in the
long series of the Tudor Translations, ed. W. E. Henley and Charles
Whibley (mostly out of print).

For drama see Bibliography, chap. vi; for contemporary literature see
bibliography in Cambridge History of English Literature; or any short
manual, as Saintsbury's Elizabethan Literature, or Seccombe and Allen's
Age of Shakespeare. 2 vols.


CHAPTER IV

CHRONOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT

The first thorough attempt to determine the chronology of Shakespeare's
plays was made in Malone's "Attempt to ascertain the order in which the
plays attributed to Shakespeare were written," published in Steevens's
edition of 1778. His final conclusions on the subject are to be found in
the preliminary volumes of the 1821 Variorum. Since then, discussions of
chronology and development have appeared in almost every edition of
Shakespeare's Works and in many volumes discussing his life and art.
(See Bibliography for Chaps. II and VIII.) The following are the most
important contributions to the general question of the chronology.

Hertzberg, W. G. Preface to Cymbeline in Ulrici's ed. of Schlegel and
Tieck's trans. of Shakespeare, 1871.

---- Metrisches, grammatisches, chronologisches zu Shakespeares Dramen.
Jahrbuch, xiii, 1878.

Fleay, F. G. Shakspere Manual, 1878.

New Shakspere Society. Publications for 1874 contain Fleay's tests as
originally proposed with discussions by Furnivall, Ingram, et al.
Publications for 1877-9 contain F. S. Pulling's essay on The
Speech-ending test, p. 457.

Ingram, J. K. On the weak endings of Shakspere with some account of the
verse-tests in general. N. S. S. Publ. 1874.

Koenig, G. Der Vers in Shaksperes Dramen. Quellen und Forschungen vol.
61, 1888. The fullest presentation of numerical results for various
verse tests.

Furnivall, F. J. Preface to the Leopold Shakespeare, 1876.

Hales, J. W. The Succession of Shakespeare's plays. 1874.

Stokes, H. P. Attempt to determine the chronological order of
Shakespeare's plays, 1878.


CHAPTER V

THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA

Full bibliographies of both plays and critical works are to be found in
Schelling's Elizabethan Drama and in the Cambridge History of English
Literature, vols. v and vi.


1. EDITIONS OF PLAYS

Convenient collections, often with valuable introductions and notes,
are: Dodsley's Old English Plays, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 15 vols.,
1874-1876; Manly's Pre-Shaksperean Drama, 2 vols., Boston; Neilson's
Chief Elizabethan Dramatists, Boston, 1911 (30 plays in one volume); the
Mermaid Series of the Old Dramatists (4 or 5 plays by one author in each
vol.); the Belles Lettres Edition (with excellent bibliographies),
Boston; Masterpieces of the English Drama, New York; Temple Dramatists.
Valuable reprints of old plays and documents are found in the following
series now in progress: The Tudor Facsimile Texts, ed. J. S. Farmer, 43
vols., 1907; Materialien zur Kunde des aelteren englischen Dramas, ed. W.
Bang, Louvain, 1902; Publications of the Malone Society, 1906.

Collected editions of the chief dramatists include those of Greene,
Peele, Webster, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shirley, ed. by
Alexander Dyce; of Middleton, Marston, Marlowe, and Webster, by A. H.
Bullen, and the more recent editions from the Clarendon Press,--Greene,
ed. J. Churton Collins; Kyd, by F. S. Boas; Lyly, by W. Bond; Nash, by
McKerrow; Marlowe, by Tucker Brooke. Massinger and Jonson exist only in
the early nineteenth-century editions of Gifford. There are also recent
editions of Beaumont and Fletcher by A. R. Waller, Cambridge, and by A.
H. Bullen _et al._ (in progress), and an edition of Chapman by T.
Parrott.


2. CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL

Die Geschichte des neueren Dramas. W. Creizenach (in progress). Halle,
1893-. This is the standard history of the modern drama, vol. iv dealing
in a masterly fashion with the Shakespearean period. There is no English
translation.

History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne. A. W.
Ward. 2d ed. 3 vols. 1899.

Elizabethan Drama. F. E. Schelling. 2 vols. Boston, 1902. This contains
valuable bibliographies and a finding list for the plays.

The Mediaeval Stage. E. K. Chambers. 2 vols. Oxford, 1903. Authoritative
for the pre-Elizabethan drama, with valuable bibliography and
appendices.

A Bibliographical Chronicle of the English Drama. F. G. Fleay.
1559-1642. A work of great value to scholars, but not of much service to
the general reader.

Other works less comprehensive in scope, but dealing with special
aspects or divisions of the drama, are: Tragedy, A. H. Thorndike,
Boston, 1908; Shakespeare and his Predecessors, F. S. Boas, 1896; Tudor
Drama, C. F. Tucker Brooke, Boston, 1912.

Special treatises which have also been drawn upon for this chapter are:
F. E. Schelling's English Chronicle Play, New York, 1902; A. H.
Thorndike's Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere, Lemcke and
Buechner, N. Y., 1901; and Hamlet and the Revenge Plays, Publ. Mod.
Lang. Assn., 1902; E. E. Stoll's John Webster, 1905; F. H. Ristine's
English Tragi-Comedy, 1910; Reyher's Les Masques Anglais, Paris, 1909;
W. W. Greg's Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, 1906.


CHAPTER VI

THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER

None of the books here listed gives a comprehensive account of the
theater. Greg's admirable edition of Henslowe's Diary, Fleay's
researches, and Murray's supplements to them are all valuable for
students. The account of the stage and the method of performance given
in this chapter are based in part on Albright. During the last ten years
there has been much controversy on this subject; and those interested
should consult the bibliographies in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch under
Albright, Brodmeier, Archer, Chambers, Corbin, Lawrence, Reynolds,
Wegener. For contemporary documents, see the Bibliography to chap, x,
vol. vi, of the Cambridge History of English Literature.

Albright, V. E. The Shakespearian Stage. New York, 1909.

Archer, W. The Elizabethan Stage. Quarterly Review, April, 1908.

Brodmeier, C. Die Shakespeare-Buehne nach der alten Buehnenanweisungen.
Weimar, 1904.

Chambers, E. K. The Stage of the Globe. Stratford Ed. Shakespeare's
Works, vol. x.

Collier, J. P. Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of
Shakespeare. Shaks. Soc., 1846.

Feuillerat, A. Documents relating to the Office of the Revels in the
time of Queen Elizabeth. Louvain, 1908.

Fleay, F. G. A Chronicle History of the London Stage. 1890.

---- A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 1559-1642. 2 vols.,
1891.

Gildersleeve, V. Government Regulation of the Elizabethan Theater. New
York, 1908.

Greg, W. W., ed. Henslowe's Diary, 2 parts. London, 1907-1908.

---- Henslowe Papers. 1907.

Lawrence, W. J. The Elizabethan Playhouse and other studies. Stratford.
1912.

Mantzius, R. A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient and Modern Times.
1904. Cf. vol. iii.

Murray, J. T. English Dramatic Companies, 1558-1642. 1910.

Ordish, T. F. Early London Theaters. 1894.

Rendle, W. Old Southwark and its People. 1878.

Reynolds, G. F. Some Principles of Elizabethan Staging. Reprinted from
Modern Philology. Chicago, 1905.

---- What we know of the Elizabethan Stage, Modern Philology, July,
1911. With bibliography of recent discussions.

Wallace, C. W. The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars, 1597-1603.
Univ. of Nebraska, 1908.

---- Evolution of the English drama up to Shakespeare: with a history of
the first Blackfriars theatre. Stechert. 1912.

These two volumes contain some newly discovered material, but their
discussions of theatrical history are not valuable.

Wegener, R. Die Buehneneinrichtung des Shakespeareschen Theaters nach der
zeitgenoessischen Dramen. Halle, 1907.


CHAPTER VII

HISTORY OF THE TEXT


1. COMPLETE EDITIONS


_In one volume._

The Globe Edition, ed. W. G. Clark and W. Aldis Wright 1864.

The 'Oxford' Edition, ed. W. J. Craig. Oxford, 1904.

The 'Cambridge Poets' Edition, ed. with introductions to each play, ed.
W. A. Neilson. Boston, 1906 (the text used in the Tudor Shakespeare).


_Annotated Library Editions._

The Cambridge Shakespeare, ed. W. Aldis Wright. 9 vols. 1863-1866. 2d
ed., 1891-1893. The text known as the Cambridge text is very near to
that of the Globe ed., and these have been generally used in recent
editions.

A new Variorum Edition, ed. H. Howard Furness and H. H. Furness, Jr. (in
progress). Philadelphia, 1871. This ed. prints (latterly) the First
Folio text with exhaustive variants and annotations. The appendices
supply much illustrative matter. The following plays have appeared:
Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth (2d ed.), Hamlet (2 vols.), Lear, Othello,
Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The Tempest, A Midsummer-Night's
Dream, A Winter's Tale, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Love's
Labour's Lost, Antony and Cleopatra, Richard III, Julius Caesar.

The Arden Shakespeare, general ed. W. J. Craig, in progress, 1899. Publ.
in the U. S. without special title by Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis.

The Eversley Edition, ed. by C. H. Herford. 10 vols., 1901-1907.

Among other recent editions are the Rolfe ed., 40 vols., 1871, revised
1896; Temple, ed. I. Gollancz, 40 vols., 1894, 1895; First Folio, ed. C.
Porter and H. Clarke (following and defending the text of the First
Folio). New York, 1903; Caxton, general ed. S. Lee, 1910.


_Historical Editions._

The most valuable is the Third Variorum, Boswell and Malone, 21 vols.,
1821. The other principal editions are discussed in this volume, and
include: Rowe, 1709, 1714; Pope, 1723-1725; Theobald, 1733; Hanmer,
1744; Warburton, 1747; Johnson, 1765; Steevens (20 plays), 1766; Capell,
1768; Steevens (and Johnson), 1773; Malone, 1790; Reed (Steevens and
Johnson), 1st Variorum, 1803; 2d Variorum, 1813; Knight, 1838-1842,
second ed., 1842-1844; Hudson, 1851-1856; Delius, 1854-1861; Dyce, 1857,
second ed., 1864-1867; White, 1857-1860, second ed., 1859-1865.


2. FACSIMILE REPRINTS

For a discussion of conditions of publication of early editions, see A.
W. Pollard's Shakespeare's Folios and Quartos. 1909.

The First Folio, With introd. by Sidney Lee. Oxford, 1902.

The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Folios. Methuen, 1904-1910.

The First Folio, reprint, L. Booth, 1869.

The First Folio, in reduced facsimile, J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, 1876.
Very small type.

Quarto Facsimiles. E. W. Ashbee. 48 vols. 1862-1871.

Quarto Facsimiles reproduced by photographic process, J. W. Griggs,
under the superintendence of F. J. Furnivall. 43 vols. 1883-1889.

Shakespeare's Poems and Pericles, with introduction by Sidney Lee. 5
vols. Oxford, 1905.


3. GLOSSARIES, GRAMMARS, ETC.

The standard concordance is Bartlett's _New and Complete Concordance_,
1894. The standard dictionary and one of the great monuments of
Shakespeare scholarship is Alexander Schmidt's _Shakespeare-Lexikon_. 2
vols. Berlin, 1894, 1895. 3d ed., 1902. This contains valuable
appendices on syntax. The most recent brief glossary is C. T. Onion's
_Shakespeare Glossary_. Oxford, 1911. It makes partial use of the
valuable material in the New English Dictionary. The best grammar in
English, though now somewhat out of date, is F. A. Abbott's
_Shakespearian Grammar_, 1869, often reprinted.

The following are also of value:

Cunliffe, R. J. A New Shakespearean Dictionary. 1910.

Dyce, A. A Glossary to the Works of Shakespeare. 1867. Revised by H.
Littledale, 1902.

Ellis, A. J. On Early English Pronunciation, with especial reference to
Shakspere and Chaucer. 5 parts. E. E. T. S., 1869-1889.

Franz, W. Shakespeare-Grammatik. 2 parts. Halle, 1898-1900. 2d ed.,
Heidelberg, 1905. No English translation.

Vietor, W. A Shakespeare Phonology, Marburg and London, 1906.


CHAPTER VIII

QUESTIONS OF AUTHENTICITY


1. THE DOUBTFUL PLAYS

The Shakespeare Apocrypha. Ed. C. F. T. Brooke. Oxford, 1908. This
contains texts of fourteen of the plays discussed in this chapter.

Pseudo-Shakespearean Plays. Ed. K. Warnke and L. Proescholdt. 5 vols.
Halle, 1883, 1888. Contains only 5 plays.

The Two Noble Kinsmen. Ed. H. Littledale. New Shaks. Soc. Publ., 1876.

Doubtful Plays of William Shakespeare. Ed. M. Moltke. Leipsig, 1869.
Contains 6 plays.

A good bibliography for the critical matter on these plays is to be
found in the Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. v, pp.
442-444. As to Cardenio, connected with Double Falsehood, see Bradford,
G., Jr., Mod. Lang. Notes, February, 1910.


2. FORGERIES

Ingleby, C. M. The Shakespeare Fabrications. 1859. A complete review of
the Collier forgeries, with bibliography.

Ireland, W. H. Confessions containing the particulars of his fabrication
of the Shakespeare manuscripts. 1808.

Malone, E. Inquiry into the Authenticity (of the Ireland Ms.). 1796.

Law, E. Some Supposed Shakespeare Forgeries. 1911.

Wheatley, H. B. Notes on the life of John Payne Collier. 1884. Gives a
list and account of the spurious documents.


3. THE BACON CONTROVERSY

Allen, C. Notes on the Bacon-Shakespeare question. Boston, 1900. An
account of Shakespeare's legal phrases.

Bacon, Delia. The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded. 1857.

Bacon, Francis. Life and Letters. Ed. J. Spedding. 7 vols. 1861-1872.

Beeching, H. C. William Shakespeare: Player, Play maker and Poet. A
reply to Mr. George Greenwood. 1908.

Bompas, G. C. The Problem of Shakespeare's Plays. 1902.

Booth, W. S. Some Acrostic Signatures of Francis Bacon. Boston, 1909.

Donnelly, I. The Great Cryptogram. 2 vols. Chicago, 1887.

Fiske, John. Forty Years of Bacon-Shakespeare Folly. Atlantic Monthly,
1897; reprinted in Century of Science, 1899.

Gallup, E. W. The Bi-literal Cypher of Francis Bacon.

Greenwood, G. G. The Shakespeare Problem restated. Lane, 1908.

---- In re Shakespeare Beeching _v._ Greenwood. Lane, 1909.

Lang, A. Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown. 1912.

Pott, Mrs. H. Did Francis Bacon write Shakespeare? Chicago, 1891.

Robertson, J. M. The Baconian heresy, 1913.

Wyman, W. H. Bibliography of the Shakespeare-Baconian controversy.
Cincinnati, 1884. Continued in Shakespeariana. Philadelphia.


CHAPTER IX

SHAKESPEARE SINCE 1616


1. THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

The Shakespeare Allusion Books. Ed. J. Munro. 2 vols. This reprints
references to Shakespeare before 1700.

Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare. Ed. D. Nichol Smith. Glasgow.
Contains Rowe's, Pope's, Theobald's, Johnson's prefaces, Farmer's essay
on Shakespeare's learning, Morgann's essay on Falstaff, etc.

Shakespearian Wars. T. R. Lounsbury. i. Shakespeare as a Dramatic
Artist, ii. Shakespeare and Voltaire. 2 vols. Yale Univ., 1901.

First Editors of Shakespeare or The Text of Shakespeare (Pope and
Theobald). T. R. Lounsbury. 1906.

Shakespeare en France sous l'ancien regime. J. J. Jusserand. Paris.
1898. Eng. trans. London, 1899.

Considerable matter in the following volumes from the Clarendon Press
bears on the early criticism of Shakespeare: Elizabethan Critical
Essays, ed. Gregory Smith, 2 vols.; Seventeenth Century Critical Essays,
ed. J. E. Spingarn, 3 vols.; Dryden's Essays, ed. W. P. Ker, 2 vols.


2. THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Baker, G. P. The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist. Macmillan,
1907.

Boas, F. S. Shakespeare and his Predecessors. 1895.

Bradley, A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy. Macmillan, 1904.

---- Oxford Lectures on Poetry. Macmillan, 1909.

Brandes, G. William Shakespeare. Copenhagen, 1896. Eng. trans. 2 vols.,
1898.

Coleridge, S. T. Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare, etc. 2 vols. 1849.
Reprinted in Everyman's Library, the New Universal Library, and Bohn's
Library.

Collins, J. C. Studies in Shakespeare. 1904.

Dowden, E. Shakspeare: His Mind and Art. 1874.

---- A Shakspere Primer. 1877.

---- Introduction to Shakespeare. 1893.

Elze, K. William Shakespeare. Halle, 1876. Eng. trans., 1888.

Goethe. Wilhelm Meister, book IV, chaps. 13-16, contains an analysis of
Hamlet.

---- Wahrheit und Dichtung, and Eckermann's Reports of Goethe's
conversations contain references. An essay "Shakespeare und kein Ende"
appears in his collected works.

Hazlitt, W. Characters of Shakespeare's plays, 1817. Reprinted in
Everyman's Library, New Universal Library, Bohn's Library.

Heine, Heinrich. Shakespeare's Maidens and Women, in Works. Eng. trans.
Heinemann, 1851.

Jameson, Mrs. Shakespeare's Heroines. Temple Classics.

Kreyssig, F. S. T. Vorlesungen ueber Shakespeare. 2 vols. 3d ed. Berlin,
1876.

Lamb, Charles. On Some of the Old Actors (Essays of Elia). Reprinted in
Everyman's Library.

---- On the Tragedies of Shakespeare (Misc. essays). Reprinted in Temple
Classics.

Lee, Sidney. Shakespeare and the Modern Stage. 1906.

Lessing, G. E. Laokooen, and Dramatic Notes. Eng. trans., Bohn's
Library.

MacCallum, M. W. Shakespeare's Roman Plays and their Background. 1910.

Martin, Lady (Helen Faucit). On Some of Shakespeare's Female Characters.
1885.

Matthews, Brander. Shakespeare as a Playwright. In preparation.

Moulton, R. G. Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. Oxford, 1885.

---- The Moral System of Shakespeare. 1903.

Raleigh, W. Shakespeare (English Men of Letters). 1907.

Schlegel, A. W. von. Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. Reprinted
in Bohn's Library.

Swinburne, A. C. A Study of Shakespeare. 1880.

Thorndike, A. H. The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare.
Lemcke and Buechner, N. Y., 1901.

Wendell, B. William Shakspere. 1894.

White, R. G. Studies in Shakespeare. 9th ed. 1896.

---- Shakespeare's Scholar. 1854.

Important critical and interpretative aids will also be found in the
bibliographies for earlier chapters, as in the complete editions of
Shakespeare's works, in histories of literature and the drama, or in
special studies, as Anders's Shakespeare's Books, and Madden's Diary of
Master William Silence.

For a handy bibliography of studies of botany, folk-lore, law, medicine,
the supernatural in Shakespeare, etc., see the Cambridge History of
English Literature, vol. v, pp. 450, 451, to which may be added Freytag,
G., Technique of the Drama, Eng. trans. 1891; Matthew, B., A Study of
the Drama, 1910; Arnold, M. E., Soliloquies of Shakespeare, New York,
1911; Fansler, H. E., Evolution of Technic in Elizabethan Tragedy, 1914;
Archer, W., Play Making, 1912.

In the New Variorum Furness gives a summary of the interpretation and
criticism for each play; but he is often quite neglectful of recent
tendencies in criticism.


3. STAGE HISTORY

The standard work for the English stage is _Some Account of the English
Stage, from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830_, by J. Genest, 10 vols.,
Bath, 1832. There is no authoritative history of the stage since 1832.
Information in regard to the Shakespearean plays may be had in the lives
of the actors, as Colley Cibber's Apology; Davies's Memoirs of Garrick,
1790; Murphy's Life of Garrick, 1801; Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons,
1827, and Memoirs of Kemble, 1825; Cumberland's Memoir, 1806; Boaden's
Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald; Private Correspondence of David Garrick,
1831-1832; Cooke's Memoirs of Charles Macklin, 1808; Macready's
Reminiscences, 1878; Archer's Life of Macready, 1890; Molloy's Life of
Edmund Kean, 1888; Winter's Life and Art of Edwin Booth, 1893;
Brereton's Life of Sir Henry Irving, London, 1908.

Baker, H. B. The London Stage, 1576-1903. 1904.

Brown, J. S. A History of the New York Stage, 1732-1901. 3 vols. New
York, 1903.

Doran, J. Their Majesties' Servants. 1888. Ed. R. W. Lowe.

Dunlap, W. A History of the American Theater. 1832.

Fitzgerald, P. A New History of the English Stage. 2 vols. London, 1882.

Hazlitt, W. A View of the English Stage. 1818.

Home, R. H. New Spirit of the Age. 1884.

Lowe, R. W. Thomas Betterton, New York, 1891.

Lowe, R. W. Bibliographical Account of English Dramatic Literature.
1888.

Phelps, W. M., and Forbes Robertson, J. Life and Works of Samuel Phelps.
London, 1886.

Seilhamer, G. O. A History of the American Theater, 3 vols.
Philadelphia, 1891.


4. SHAKESPEARE ON THE CONTINENT

A good selected bibliography is to be found in the Cambridge History of
English Literature, vol. v, pp. 456-472, and a full bibliography
annually in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch. Only a few of the most important
titles are given here, including some already noted.

Boehtling, A. R. A. Goethe und Shakespeare. Leipzig, 1909.

Burckhardt, C. A. H. Das Repertoire des Weimarischen Theaters unter
Goethes Leitung. Hamburg, 1901.

Chateaubriand, F. R. de. Shakespeare. 1801.

Cohn, A. Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries. Berlin, 1865.

Creizenach, W. Die Schauspiele der englischen Komoedianten. Stuttgart,
1889.

Delius, N. Saemmtliche Werke, Kritische Ausgabe. 1854-1861. 5th ed.,
1882.

Elze, K. William Shakespeare. Halle, 1876.

Genee, R. Geschichte der Shakespeareschen Dramen in Deutschland.
Leipzig, 1870.

Guizot, F. De Shakespeare et de la Poesie dramatique. Paris, 1822.

Heine, H. Shakespeares Maedchen und Frauen, in saemmtliche Werke. vol. v,
1839. Eng. trans., 1895.

Hugo, F. V. [OE]uvres completes de Shakespeare, traduites. 18 vols.
Paris, 1856-1867.

Hugo, Victor. Cromwell, Preface. Paris, 1827.

---- William Shakespeare. Paris, 1864.

Jusserand, J. J. Shakespeare en France sous l'ancien regime. Paris,
1898. Eng. trans. London, 1899.

Koeppel, E. Studien ueber Shakespeare's Wirkung auf zeitgenoessische
Dramatiker. Louvain, 1905.

Kreyssig, F. Vorlesungen ueber Shakespeare und seine Werke. 1858. 3d ed.,
1877.

Lee, Sidney. Shakespeare in France. In Shakespeare and the Modern Stage.

Lessing, G. E. Hamburgische Dramaturgie. Nos. 12, 15, 73. 1767, 1768.

Lounsbury, T. R. Shakespeare and Voltaire. 1902.

Mezieres, A. Shakespeare, ses [oe]uvres et ses critiques. Paris, 1860.

Renan, E. Caliban, Suite de la Tempete. Paris, 1878.

Schlegel, A. W. Ueber dramatische Kunst und Literatur. Heidelberg,
1809-1811.

---- Shakespeare's Dramatische Werke, uebersetzt. 1797-1810. Neue
Ausgabe, ergaenzt und erlaeutert von L. Tieck. 9 vols. 1825, 1880-1883.
Revised by Ulrici, 1867-1871, by Grandl, 1897-1899, by H. Conrad, 1905.

Stendhal (Henri Bergh) Racine et Shakespeare. Paris, 1823.

Taine, H. Histoire de la litterature anglaise. Paris, 1844. Eng. trans.,
rev. ed., 1873.

Ten Brink, B. Shakespeare. Strassburg, 1893.

Tolstoi, L. N. Shakespeare. 1906.

Ward, A. W. History of English Dramatic Literature. vol. i, pp. 534
ff.




Index


[Page Heading: Index]

_Adversaria_, 45.

_AEsop's Fables_, 52.

_AEthiopica_ of Heliodorus, 56.

Albright, V. E., 116, 122.

_Alchemist_, 33, 95, 105.

Alden, R. M., 48, 88.

Alleyn, Edward, 117, 119, 120.

_All for Love_, 169.

_All's Well that Ends Well_, 52, 57, 73, 74, 82, 174.

_Amores_, 53.

_Amphitruo_, 54.

_Andria_, 96.

_Antonio's Revenge_, 106.

_Antony and Cleopatra_, 75, 82, 105, 142, 169, 196, 197.

_Apollonius of Tyre_, 60.

_Apologie for Actors_, 156.

_Apolonius and Silla_, 58.

_Appius and Virginia_, 98.

_Arcadia_, 61.

Archbishop of Canterbury, 136.

_Arden of Feversham_, 109, 161, 162.

Ariosto, 57, 58, 95.

Aristophanes, 91, 104.

_Arraignment of Paris_, 161.

Aspley, William, 143.

_As You Like It_, 46, 52, 57, 62, 68, 73, 80, 113, 127, 136, 174.

Aubrey, John, 38, 39, 43, 44.

Autographs, facsimiles of, 36.


Bacon, Delia, 163.

Bacon, Francis, 2, 13, 16, 61, 163-166, 191, 192.

Bacon, Matthew, 26.

"Baconians," 163-166.

Bandello, 57, 58.

Bankside, 7, 117, 120.

Barnay, L., 184.

Barnes, Barnabe, 61.

_Barons' Wars_, 62.

Barrie, J. M., 177.

_Bartholomew Fair_, 105.

_Batman upon Bartholome_, 64.

Beaumont and Fletcher, 64, 91, 109, 110, 112, 113, 168.

Beaumont, Francis, 31, 110.
  _See_ Beaumont and Fletcher.

Belleforest, 57.

Beeston, Christopher, 29, 39.

Betterton, Thomas, 43, 130, 169, 174.

_Bevis of Hampton_, 59.

Bible, the, 1, 64.

Bidford, 40, 41.

_Bi-Literal Cypher of Francis Bacon_, 164.

_Biron_, 108.

_Birth of Merlin_, 161.

Blackfriars,
  property in, 26;
  theater, 12, 26, 32, 118, 120, 159.

Blount, Edward, 143.

Boccaccio, 57, 96.

Booth, Barton, 174.

Booth, Edwin, 176, 177.

Booth, Junius Brutus, 176.

Boswell, J., 152.

Bowdler, T., 153.

Bradley, A. C., 5, 181.

_Broken Heart_, 112.

Brome, R., 112.

Brooke, Arthur, 60.

Buckinghamshire, Duke of, 44.

Burbage, Cuthbert, 32, 117, 118, 119.

Burbage, James, 117.

Burbage, Richard, 24, 29, 32, 34, 44, 117, 118, 119, 124, 130.

_Bussy d'Ambois_, 108.

Byron, Lord, 191.


Caesar, Julius 55, 124.

_Cambridge Shakespeare_, 153, 154, 155.

_Cambyses_, 63, 92, 98.

Capell, Edward, 151, 161.

_Cardenio_, 160.

Cartwright, W., 112.

_Catiline_, 33, 108.

Caxton, 60.

_Chambers' Journal_, 163.

Chandos portrait, 38.

_Changeling_, 111.

Chapman, George, 31, 56, 91, 103, 105, 108.

Chaucer, 31, 53, 60.

Chettle, Henry, 22, 23, 103, 107.

Cibber, Colley, 130, 169, 174.

Cibber, Mrs., 174.

Cicero, 52.

Cinthio, Giraldi, 57, 58.

_City Madam_, 112.

Clark, W. G., 154.

Clive, Mrs., 174.

Cockpit theater, 39, 118.

Coleridge, S. T., 159, 175, 179, 180, 182.

_Colin Clout_, 61.

Collier, J. P., 153, 163.

Collins, Francis, 35.

Combe, John, 25, 26, 40.

Combe, William, 25.

_Comedy of Errors_, 54, 68, 74, 78, 95.

Condell Henry, 29, 32, 35, 142, 157.

_Confessio Amantis_, 60.

Congreve, William, 111.

Constable, Henry, 61.

_Contention of York and Lancaster_, 161.

_Coriolanus_, 52, 82, 169.

Corneille, 182.

_Cornelia_, 99.

Covent Garden theater, 118.

Craig, W. J., 154.

Curtain theater, 117, 122.

Cushman, Charlotte, 176.

_Cymbeline_, 57, 63, 68, 73, 110, 169, 174.


Daniel, Samuel, 61, 62, 113.

D'Avenant, Sir William, 43, 44, 45, 112, 168.

Davies, Rev. R., 41.

_Decameron_, 57.

Dekker, T., 31, 103, 104, 105, 109, 111.

_De la Litterature_, 185.

Delius, N., 153, 154, 172.

Dennis, John, 177.

_De proprietatibus rerum_, 64.

De Quincey, T., 159.

Derby's men, 120.

Devrients, the, 184.

De Witt drawing of Swan theater, 120, 121.

_Diana_ of Montemayor, 58.

Diderot, D., 184.

_Discovery of Guiana_, 64.

_Distichs of Cato_, 52.

Donnelly, I., 164.

_Double Falsehood_, 160, 162.

Dowdall, John, 42.

Dowden, E., 84, 181.

Downes, John, 43.

_Downfall and Death of Huntington_, 103.

Drake, Sir F., 96.

Drayton, Michael, 40, 61.

Droeshout, Martin, 37, 38 n.

Drummond, W., 46.

Drury Lane theater, 118, 175.

Dryden, John, 111, 168, 169, 170, 182, 190, 192.

Ducis, J. F., 185.

_Dunciad_, 149.

Dyce, A., 153, 155, 161, 172.

Dyke, John, 29.


Earl of Leicester's men, 119, 120.

Earl of Worcester's men, 119.

Eden's _History of Travayle_, 64.

_Edward III_, 161, 162.

Edwards, Richard, 60.

Edwards, T., 150.

Elizabeth, Queen, 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 32, 79, 119, 133.

Ellesmere, Lord, 163.

Ely Palace portrait, 37, 38 n.

_English Dramatic Poets_, 38.

_English Traveller_, quoted, 133.

_Epicene_, 95.

_Essay of Dramatic Poesie_, 168.

Essex, Earl of, 68, 124.

_Euphues_, 62.

Euripides, 90, 91.

Evans, Sir Hugh, 51.

_Everyman in His Humour_, 39, 103.


Fables in Shakespeare, 52.

Fabyan's _Chronicles_, 63.

_Faerie Queen_, 61.

_Fair Em_, 161.

_Fair Quarrel_, 111.

_Faithful Shepherdess_, 113.

_Fasti_, 53.

Faucit, Helen, 176.

Field, Richard, 23.

First Folio, 167;
  described, 141-143;
  facsimile of title-page, 143;
  introductory matter in, _see_ APPENDIX A.

Fisher Quarto, 141 n.

Fleay, F. G., 72 n, 172.

Fletcher, John, 9, 91, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 168, 177, 191;
  collaboration on _Two Noble Kinsman_, 159, 160.
  _See_ Beaumont and Fletcher.

Fletcher, Lawrence, 32.

Florio, John, 57.
  _See_ Montaigne.

Flower, Mrs. Charles, 37.

Folios, Second, Third, Fourth, 145, 157.

Ford, John, 91, 109, 112, 113.

Forman, Dr. Simon, 68.

Forrest, Edwin, 176.

Fortune theater, 11, 117, 119, 121, 122;
  diagram of, 123.

Foxe, John, _Book of Martyrs_, 63.

_Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, 97.

Fuller, Thomas, 38.

Fulman, Rev. W., 41.

Furness, H. H., 144, 154, 159.


Galileo, 191.

Gallup, Mrs., 164.

_Gammer Gurton's Needle_, 94.

Garrick Club bust, 38.

Garrick, David, 130, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177.

Gascoigne, George, 5, 58, 63.

Gervinus, 180.

_Gesta Romanorum_, 57.

Getley, Walter, 25.

Gildon, C., 146.

Goethe, 179, 180, 183, 190.

_Globe Shakespeare_, 154.

Globe theater, 11, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 124, 177.

Glover, J., 154.

Golding, Arthur, 53.

_Gorboduc_, 98.

Gottsched, J. C., 182.

Gower, 31.

Grafton's _Chronicles_, 63.

_Great Cryptogram_, 164.

Greene, Robert, 62, 63, 90, 96, 97, 101, 102, 158;
  attack on S., 20-23.

_Greene's Funeralls_, 21, 22.

Greene's _Groatsworth of Wit_, 20-22.

Greg, W. W., 140 n.

Gresham, Sir Thomas, 10.

Grey, Z., 150.

Guarini, G. B., 113.

Guizot, F., 185.

_Guy of Warwick_, 59.


Hakluyt, Richard, 64.

Hall, John, 25, 34.

Hall, Susanna, 25, 34.

Hall, William, 35, 42.

Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O., 153, 181.

Hall's _Union of Lancaster and York_, 63, 101.

_Hamburgische Dramaturgie_, 182.

_Hamlet_, 43, 45, 47, 49, 54, 63, 73, 75, 81, 87, 100, 106, 107, 119,
    135, 136, 137, 145, 169, 184, 185.

_Hamlet_, the lost, 100, 106, 107.

Hanmer, Sir T., 149, 150.

Harness, W., 153.

Harsnett's _Popish Impostures_, 62.

Hart, J. C., 163.

Hazlitt, William, 175, 179, 180.

Heath, B., 150.

_Hecatommithi_, 58.

Heliodorus, 56.

Heminge, John, 29, 32, 35, 142, 157.

Henderson, J., 175.

_1 Henry IV_, 30, 62, 73, 137.

_2 Henry IV_, 30, 62, 69.

_Henry V_, 52, 56, 63, 68, 79, 135, 136, 149.

_1 Henry VI_, 63, 77, 102, 120, 141, 157.

_2 Henry VI_, 52, 54, 63, 77, 99, 102, 141, 157, 161.

_3 Henry VI_, 21, 63, 77, 99, 102, 157, 161, 169.

_Henry VIII_, 34, 63, 74, 124, 157, 160, 162.

Henry VIII, 10, 11, 43, 79.

Henryson, Robert, 60.

Henslowe, P., 117, 119.

Herder, J. G., 183.

_Hero and Leander_, 62.

Heyes Quarto, 141 n.

Heywood, Thomas, 31, 95, 105, 111, 131;
  quoted in publishing, 132-134, 135, 156.

_History of English Dramatic Poetry_, 163.

_Hoffman_, 107.

Hollar, W., 120.

Hollinshed's _Chronicles_, 63, 65, 101.

Homer, 56, 96, 187, 194.

_Honest Whore_, 105.

Hooker, Richard, 2, 61.

Hope theater, 117, 119.

Horace, 51, 54.

_Horestes_, 98.

Hugo, F. V., 185.

Hugo, Victor, 185.

Hunsdon's men, 120.

_Huon of Bordeaux_, 59.


Ibsen, H., 177.

_If you know not me you know nobodie_, quoted, 133, 134.

Ingram, J. K., 72 n.

Ireland, W. H., 162, 163.

Irving, Sir Henry, 176.


Jacob, E., 161.

Jaggard, Isaac, 143.

Jaggard, William, 140 n, 143, 156.

James I, 9, 12, 32, 44, 69, 119, 120.

_James IV_, 98.

Janssen, Gerard, 37.

_Jocasta_, 98.

Johnson, Samuel, 150, 151, 152, 178, 179, 182.

John, King, 78.

Jonson, Ben, 13, 29, 30, 31, 33, 39, 40, 45, 46, 50, 63, 91, 95, 103,
    105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114, 131, 182, 190;
  eulogy of S., 167, 168.

Jordan's _Collections_, 162.

Jordan, Mrs., 175.

_Julius Caesar_, 81, 105, 108, 169, 182.

Jusserand, J. J., 185.

Juvenal, 54.


Kean, Edmund, 175.

Kemble, J. P., 162, 175.

Kempe, Will., 24.

Kendrick, 152.

Kesselstadt, death-mask, 38.

_Kind-Heart's Dream_, 22.

_King and No King_, 109.

_King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid_, 59.

_King John_, 30, 52, 63, 78, 141, 161.

King's men, 120.

Kipling, Rudyard, 51.

Kirkman's _Drolls_, 120.

Knight, Charles, 153, 154.

_Knight's Tale_, 60.

Koenig, G., 72 n, 75.

Kyd, Thomas, 63, 90, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 158, 167.


Lacy, John, 39.

Lamb, Charles, 159, 175, 179.

Langbaine, G., 38.

La Place's translation, 184.

_Lear_, 47, 49, 61, 62, 63, 75, 81, 85, 99, 114, 135, 140, 140 n, 169.

Lee, Sidney, 181.

_Legend of Good Women_, 60.

Leicester, Earl of, 5, 119.

Lessing, G. E., 182.

Le Tourneur, P., 184, 185.

Lily's Grammar, 51, 54.

Littledale, H., 159.

_Lives of eminent men_, 38.

Livy, 55, 60.

_Locrine_, 100, 157, 158.

Lodge, Thomas, 62.

_Londinopolis_, 120.

London, described, 6-12.

_London Prodigal_, 157, 158.

Lope de Vega, 95.

Lord Admiral's men, 119, 120.

Lord Chamberlain's men, 120.

_Lover's Complaint, A_, 62, 156.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, 29, 30, 51, 52, 74, 78, 88, 97, 137, 156, 189.

_Love's Labour's Won_, 30.

Lowin, John, 43, 130.

Lucan, 55.

Lucian, 56.

_Lucrece_, 23, 29, 30, 53, 54, 62, 87, 131.

Lucy, Sir T., 41.

Lyly, John, 63, 90, 95, 96, 97, 102, 113, 167.


_Macbeth_, 68, 74, 75, 81, 99, 169, 174, 183, 185.

Macklin, C., 175.

Macready, W., 176.

_Maid's Tragedy_, 109.

_Malcontent_, 104;
  quoted, 134.

Malone, Edmund, 152, 163, 172.

Malory, Sir T., 96.

Mannering, Arthur, 26.

Manningham, John, 44.

Mantuan's _Eclogues_, 52.

Marlowe, Christopher, 13, 16, 62, 63, 68, 72, 90, 98, 99, 101, 102, 104,
    105, 106, 158, 167, 177.

Marlowe, Julia, 176.

Marston, J., 103, 104, 106, 107, 134.

Mason, J. M., 152.

_Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn_, 160.

Massinger, Philip, 91, 92, 111, 112, 168.

Matthews, Sir T., 165.

_Measure for Measure_, 58, 63, 82, 83, 104.

_Memoirs of Edward Alleyn_, 163.

Mennes, Sir John, 41.

_Menaechmi_, 54.

_Merchant of Venice_, 30, 57, 58, 80, 85, 99, 137, 140 n, 174, 184.

Meres,  Francis,  _Palladis Tamia_, 27, 68.

_Merry Devil of Edmonton_, 161.

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, 51, 58, 60, 73, 80, 95, 135, 136, 140 n, 169.

_Messalina_, 120, 121, 122.

_Metamorphoses_, 53.

Mezieres, A., 185.

Middleton, Sir Hugh, 10.

Middleton, T., 103, 104, 107, 109.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, 30, 40, 53, 58, 59, 60, 61, 73, 80, 97, 124,
    137, 140 n, 184.

Milton, John, 114, 168, 194.

Miracle plays, 5, 93.

_Miseries of Enforced Marriage_, 159.

_Misfortunes of Arthur_, 98.

Moliere, 91, 95.

Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 178.

Montaigne, 56.

Montemayor, George of, 58.

Morality plays, 93, 94.

More, Sir Thomas, life of, 17.

Morgann, M., 179.

_Mother Bombie_, 95, 97.

Mountjoy, Christopher, 27.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, 51, 57, 80, 137, 148, 174.

_Mucedorus_, 103, 161.

Munday, A., 95, 103.

Music, Shakespeare in, 186.


Neidig, W. J., 140 n.

Neilson Text, 154.

Newcastle, Duchess of, 168.

Newington Butts theater, 120.

_New Variorum_, 144, 154.

_New Way to Pay Old Debts_, 112.

_Nice Wanton_, 92.

North, Sir Thomas, 56.
  _See_ Plutarch.


_Oldcastle, Sir John_, 140 n.

_Old Fortunatus_, 103.

Oldys, William, 45.

_Othello_, 58, 64, 75, 81, 85, 99, 114, 169, 170, 184, 185, 195.

Otway, T., 169.

Ovid, 53, 60, 65, 87, 96.

_Oxford Shakespeare_, 154.


_Painful Adventures of Pericles_, 159.

Painter's _Palace of Pleasure_, 57, 61.

Palmer, J., 175.

_Palladis Tamia_, 29, 30, 68.

_Pandosto_, 62.

_Passionate Pilgrim_, 30, 156.

_Pastor Fido_, 113.

Pavier, T., 140 n.

_Pecorone, Il._, 58.

Peele, George, 63, 90, 113, 158.

_Pericles_, 60, 75, 83, 114, 135, 136, 140, 140 n, 145, 148, 151, 157, 158.

Persius, 54.

Petrarch, 58.

Phelps, S., 176.

_Philaster_, 109, 110, 113.

Philip, Augustus, 29, 32.

Phillips, Edward, 38.

_Philosophy of the Plays of S._, 163.

_Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle_, 156.

_Piacevoli Notti_, 58.

Plautus, 54, 93, 95.

_Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas_, 133.

Pliny, 55, 64.

Plume, Archdeacon, 41.

_Plutarch's Lives_, 52, 55, 56.

_Poetaster_, 104.

Pollard, A. W., 140 n.

Pope, Alexander, 144, 147, 148, 149, 158.

Pope, Thomas, 29.

Preston, T., 63.

Pritchard, Mrs., 174.

Prince's men, 119.

_Puritan, the_ 158.

_Puritan Widow_, 157.

_Putnam's Monthly_, 163.


Quartos, 135-140;
  table of, 138, 139;
  of apocryphal plays, 158.

_Queen's Arcadia_, 113.

Queen's Chapel boys, 118.

Queen's men, 119.

Quiney, Richard, 28.

Quiney, Thomas, son-in-law of S., 28.


Rabelais, 57.

Racine, 91, 182.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 13, 16, 64.

_Ralph Royster Doyster_, 95.

_Rape of Lucrece_, quoted, 132.

_Recuyell of Troy_, 60.

Red Bull theater, 117, 120.

Reed, I., 152.

Rehan, Ada, 176.

_Return from Parnassus_, 30.

_Revenger's Tragedy_, 107.

_Richard II_, 29, 36, 52, 62, 79, 99, 106, 169.

_Richard III_, 36, 54, 63, 77, 99, 102, 135, 140, 154, 169.

Riche, Barnaby, 58, 61.

Ristori, Madame, 185.

Ritson, T., 152.

Roberts Quartos, 140 n, 141 n.

Robertson, Sir Forbes, 176.

Robin Hood, 159.

Robin Hood plays, 103.

_Romance of Yachting_, 163.

_Romeo and Juliet_, 30, 60, 73, 74, 77, 106, 135, 136, 137, 169, 174,
    182, 183, 195.

_Romeus and Juliet_, 60.

Ronsard, 57.

_Rosalynde_, 62.

_Rosamond_, 62.

Rose theater, 117, 119, 120.

Rossi, 185.

Rowe, Nicholas, 42, 43, 45, 146, 147, 158, 172.

Rowley, W., 111.

_Roxana_, 120, 121.

Rutland, Earl of, 164.

Rymer, T., 170.


Sadler's Wells, 176.

Salisbury Court theater, 118.

Salvini, T., 185.

Sanazzaro, 96.

Schlegel, A. W., 180, 183.

Schmidt's _Lexicon_, 183.

Schroeder, F., 184.

Scott, Sir Walter, 191.

_Sejanus_, 33, 108.

Seneca, 54, 93, 99, 100, 105.

_Sententiae Pueriles_, 52.

Shakespeare, Anna, 18.

Shakespeare, Anne (Hathaway), 19.

Shakespeare, Edmund, 18.

Shakespeare, Gilbert, 18, 46.

Shakespeare, Hamnet, 20, 85.

Shakespeare, Joan, 18.

Shakespeare, John, 4, 5, 18, 24, 40, 41.

Shakespeare, Judith, 20, 35.

Shakespeare, Mary Arden, 18, 24, 35.

Shakespeare, Richard, 18.

Shakespeare, Susanna, 25, 34.

Shakespeare, William. _See_ CONTENTS.
  Monument of, frontispiece;
  facsimile autographs of, 36;
  portrait of in First Folio, 143.

_Shakespeare and the Drama_, Schlegel's, 183.

_Shakespeare Restored_, 148.

Shakespeare Society, New, 160.

Shaw, G. B., 177.

Shelley, P. B. 191.

Sheridan, T., 162.

Shirley, James, 91, 92, 112, 113.

Shirley, Sir A., 164.

_Short View of Tragedy_, 170.

Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 175, 177.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 13, 16, 61.

Simpson, R., 161.

Singer, S. W., 153.

_Sir Thomas More_, 161, 162.

_Sir Thomas Oldcastle_, 157, 158.

Slye, William, 29.

Smethwick, John, 143.

Smith, W. H., 163.

_Soliman and Perseda_, 100.

Somers, Sir George, 68.

_Sonnets_, 57, 58;
  date of, 87, 156;
  evidence of, 47-49;
  personality in, 189, 190.

Sophocles, 184.

Sothern, Edward, 176.

Southampton, Earl of, 23, 47.

Southwell, T., 166.

Spalding, William, 159.

Spenser, Edmund, 2, 16, 61, 178.

_Spanish Tragedy_, 99, 100, 106, 107.

_Squire of Low Degree_, 59.

St. Paul's, 7, 8, 90, 118, 159.

Stael, Madame de, 185.

Stage, typical Shakespearean, illustration, 116.

Stationers' Company, 68, 135, 136.

Steevens, G., 151, 152.

Stowe, John, _Annals_, 63.

Strange's men, 120.

Stratford, described, 4, 6;
  Shakespeare at, 18-35.

Sturley, Abraham, 28.

Suckling, Sir John, 112, 168.

_Supposoti, I_, 58, 95.

Surrey, Earl of, 13.

Swan theater, 117, 119, 120.


Tables of metrical tests, 71, 72;
  of chronology of plays, 76;
  of quarto editions, 138, 139.

_Tamburlaine_, 98.

_Taming of a Shrew_, 161.

_Taming of the Shrew_, 51, 58, 60, 63, 80, 85, 141, 184.

Taylor, Joseph, 43, 130.

_Tears of the Muses_, 61.

_Tempest, The_, 53, 57, 64, 68, 73, 74, 83, 110, 114, 169, 189.

Tennyson, A., 190.

Terence, 51, 54, 93, 95, 96.

Terry, Ellen, 176.

_Testament of Cressid_, 60.

Theater, in Shoreditch, 117, 118, 119, 120.

_Theatrum Poetarum_, 38

Theobald L., 148, 149, 150, 162.

Theocritus, 96.

_Thomas Lord Cromwell_, 157, 158.

Thorpe, Thomas, 47.

Tieck, L., 183.

_Timber_, 46.

_Timon of Athens_, 56, 157, 169.

_'Tis Pity She's a Whore_, 112.

_Titus Andronicus_, 30, 51, 53, 54, 77, 100, 140, 157, 158, 169.

Tourgenieff, 194.

Tourneur, C., 107, 112.

Troilus and Cressida, 56, 60, 82, 104, 114, 169.

_Troilus and Cressida_, (Chaucer's), 60.

_Troublesome Reign of King John_, 161.

_True Tragedy of Richard III_, 100.

_True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York_, 21, 161.

_Tudor Shakespeare_, 38 n, 154, 161.

_Twelfth Night_, 51, 56, 57, 58, 73, 80, 114, 120, 146, 174.

_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, 30, 58, 78, 98.

_Two Italian Gentlemen_, 95.

_Two Noble Kinsmen, The_, 34, 60, 110, 157, 159, 160, 162, 169.

Tyrwhitt, T., 152.


Udall, N., 95.

Ulrici, 180.

Upton, J., 150.


_Venus and Adonis_, 23, 29, 30, 53, 62, 87, 131.

Virgil, 53, 96.

_Volpone_, 33, 105.

Voltaire, 178, 184, 185.

_Vortigern_, 162.


Wagner, C., 152.

Walker, Henry, 26.

Walker, Sidney, 172.

Wallace, C. W., 26, 27.

Walton's _Lives_, 17.

Warburton, W., 150.

Ward, Rev. J., 40.

Ward, W. A., 172

Warner, Mrs., 176.

Watson, Thomas, 61.

Webster, John, 31, 91, 104, 107, 109, 111, 112.

Weever, John, 30.

Whetstone, George, 58, 60, 63.

_White Devil_ 31, 107.

White, R. G., 153, 172.

Wieland, 183.

_Wilhelm Meister_, 183.

Wilson, Robert, 94.

Winchester, Bishop of, 7.

_Winter's Tale_, 62, 85, 110, 174.

_Wise Woman of Hogsdon_, 95.

Wolsey, life of, 17.

_Woman Killed with Kindness_, 105.

Wood, Anthony, 43.

Wordsworth, 191.

_Worthies of England_, 38.

Wright, W. A., 154, 172.

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 13.

Wycherley, W., 111.


_Yorkshire Tragedy_, 128, 140 n, 157, 158, 159.



Printed in the United States of America.




Transcriber's Endnotes


Corrections:

    Page 41. Chapter II. "certains" corrected to _certain_.
      "... contains certain notes made before 1688 by the ..."

    Page 72. Table 2. "LINES" corrected to _LINE_.
      "... ENDING WITHIN THE LINE ..."

    Page 89. Chapter V. "comedy These" corrected to _comedy. These_.
      "... of classical tragedy and comedy. These new forms ..."

    Page 234. Appendix B. "St. Alban's" corrected to _St. Albans_.
      "... Mayor of St. Albans. 2H6. II. i."

    Page 265. Index entry. "Bi-Lateral" corrected to _Bi-Literal_.
      "... Bi-Literal Cypher of Francis Bacon ..."

    Page 268. Index Hamlet entry. "160" corrected to _106_.
      "... 87, 100, 106, 107, 119 ..."


Re-sequenced Index entries:

    First Folio, described, 141-143; facsimile of title-page, 143; 167;
    introductory matter in, _see_ Appendix A.

    Fletcher, John, 9, 91, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114; collaboration on
    _Two Noble Kinsman_, 159, 160; 168, 177, 191. _See_ Beaumont and
    Fletcher.

    Florio, John. _See_ Montaigne, 57.

    Greene, Robert, attack on S., 20-23: 62, 63, 90, 96, 97, 101, 102,
    158.

    Jonson, Ben, 13, 29, 30, 31, 33, 39, 40, 45, 46, 50, 63, 91, 95,
    103, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114, 131; eulogy of S., 167, 168;
    182, 190.

    _Sonnets_, evidence of, 47-49; 57, 58; date of, 87, 156; personality
    in, 189, 190.






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