Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/228

SHA, and which affords a gratifying proof of his eminence at this period. Not long subsequent to the time we are dwelling on, the company to which our author belonged began to alternate their performances—acting at the new play-house called the Globe, on the Surrey bank side of the Thames in summer, and at their old theatre in Blackfriars during winter. In connection with the Globe, it is incumbent upon us to notice in passing three documents published by Mr. Collier, which profess to throw some light upon the position of Shakespeare at this period of his town career. The first of these "discoveries" Mr. Collier represents to be a petition of certain inhabitants of the precinct where the Blackfriars' play-house stood, against any further performances there, and as being in the State Paper office. For this petition the most diligent search has been made, but not only can no such paper be found, but no entry of it has ever been made in the calendars of the office. The second instrument purports to be an answer to the former, and does really exist among the national archives of the State Paper office, though how it came there is inscrutable. Its value as historic evidence may be estimated by this fact—suspicion having been thrown upon its integrity, the Master of the Rolls directed that it should be officially examined, and the result of the investigation was the following certificate, which, by order, is now attached to it:— "30th January, 1860. "We, the undersigned, at the desire of the Master of the Rolls, have carefully examined the document hereunto annexed, purporting to be a petition to the Lords of Her Majesty's Privy Council from Thomas Pope, Richard Burbadge, John Hemings, Augustine Phillips, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William Slye, Nicholas Tooley, and others, in answer to a petition from the Inhabitants of the Liberty of the Blackfriars; and we are of opinion that the document in question is spurious. ", K.H., Deputy Keeper of H.M. Public Records. ", K.H., Keeper of the MSS. British Museum. "J. S., M.A., Reader at the Rolls. "T. , Assistant Keeper of Records. "N. E. S. A., Assistant, Department of MSS. British Museum."

The third of these delusive documents, alleged to be a note from one "Rich. Veale" to Henslowe, found by Mr. Collier in the Alleyn collection of God's Gift college, Dulwich, has, like the petition of the Blackfriars malcontents, foiled all who sought for it.

Proceeding onward a year or two from the opening of the Globe theatre, the interval affording us no authentic record of the poet, save the sad one of his son's death in 1596, we reach a period when it may be reasonably thought that Shakespeare was in the full tide to fortune and renown. The testimony of a divine, named Francis Meres, assures us that by 1598 he had produced, besides the poems of "Venus and Adonis," "Lucrece," and the "Sugred Sonnets," at least twelve of his incomparable plays. On the chronological order of our poet's dramas there is no evidence more important than that of Meres. It occurs in his Palladis Tamia, or Wit's Treasury, written and published in 1598:—"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage. For comedy witness his 'Gentlemen of Verona;' his 'Errors;' his 'Love Labours Lost;' his 'Love Labours Won;' his 'Midsummer Night's Dream;' and his ' Merchant of Venice.' For tragedy, his 'Richard II.;' 'Richard III.;' 'Henry IV.;' 'King John;' 'Titus Andronicus;' and his 'Romeo and Juliet.' "His acquaintance with the earl of Southampton would by this time have ripened into cordiality; and with his splendid popularity, his colloquial powers, and his amiable and convivial disposition, the society of William Shakespeare would be coveted in the most brilliant circles of the town. He was the great luminary of that famous knot of beaux esprits originally established by Raleigh at the Mermaid in Bread Street; a club which numbered among its members—besides Shakespeare—Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Donne, and a host of kindred spirits; and of which Beaumont has left us an imperishable picture:—

In pecuniary circumstances also—too often the bitter potion in the poet's chalice—his lot was enviable. From his incomings as an author, an actor, and a sharer in two flourishing play-houses, he must have acquired an easy competence. If there is truth in the constant tradition that Lord Southampton's admiration of his genius was such, that at one time this munificent patron "gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to go through with a purchase which he heard he had a mind to," we should conjecture the time when this gift was made to be that we are upon, and the "purchase," the "Great House," afterwards called "New Place," and certain land at Stratford. The fact, too, that his father, in 1597, commenced a suit in chancery, and tendered the redemption money, £40, to recover the estate of Ashbies, may be taken as a proof of Shakespeare's prosperity, since it is more than probable he found means for the purpose. Another circumstance may be thought significant of the same conclusion. It was shortly before this date that the elder Shakespeare obtained from the Herald's college confirmation of a grant of arms, for which he had applied so early as 1568-69, but of which at that time he appears to have got only the "tricking" or drawing.

The year 1598 has a special interest in the biography of our dramatist. In that year he and Ben Jonson began an acquaintance which, in spite of some rubs, inseparable from a long intercourse between men in a manner rivals, evidently mellowed into genial friendship. Rowe tells us, and there seem no grounds for discrediting the pleasant information, that the acquaintance of these great men began with a remarkable piece of humanity and good nature on the side of Shakespeare:—"Mr. Jonson, who was at that time altogether unknown to the world, had offered one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the persons in whose hands it was put, after having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natured answer that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the public." We take it ill of Gifford, in his memoir of Ben Jonson, that he should discountenance this interesting anecdote, or at least should ascribe to Shakespeare the merit only of "procuring for his own theatre an improved copy of a popular performance." The play in question was Every Man in his Humour. When originally acted, 1596, the scene was laid in Italy; Jonson afterwards gave the characters English names, and transferred the scene to London. Thus altered, it was produced at the theatre of the Blackfriars in 1598, Shakespeare being one of the actors. There could be no self-abasement in Jonson's receiving a favour of this nature at the hands of a fellow-dramatist. And the obligation, if there were one, he has requited a thousand-fold. So long as Shakespeare is remembered, so long will Jonson's tribute to his genius be remembered also. Milton's magnificent eulogium—

is hardly finer than the verses, in memoriam, of the folio, 1623, beginning—

As we have no contemporary testimony to Shakespeare's intellectual pre-eminence so valuable as Jonson's, neither have we any so important to his moral worth. Ben Jonson loved the man as much as he admired the poet. It is observable, that while others dedicate their tributes "to the memory of the deceased author," &c., or to the memory of Mr. W. Shakespeare, or to "Worthy Master Shakespeare," his are consecrated "To the memory of my beloved, the author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he has left us." The same affectionate regard is manifest when speaking of him in the Discoveries: "I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions," &c. Fuller, in his Worthies, has preserved a tradition touching the intimacy of Shakespeare and Jonson which must always be read with interest:—

"Many were the wit-combates betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great gallion and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances;