Page:Shakespeare of Stratford (1926) Yale.djvu/63

Shakespeare of Stratford ''further favor you shall show to these our servants for our sake we shall take kindly at your hands. In witness whereof &c. And these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge in this behalf. Given under our signet at our manor of Greenwich the seventeenth day of May in the first year of our reign of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scotland the six-and-thirtieth.—Ex: per Lake. —To our right trusty and well beloved counselor, the Lord Cecill of Esingdon, Keeper of our Privy Seal for the time being.''

. The royal patent here called for was formally issued two days later, the language being virtually the same. The significance of this emphatic testimonial of royal favor is enhanced by the circumstance that James had arrived in London to begin his reign only ten days before (May 7).

Lawrence Fletcher, who here first appears as a colleague of Shakespeare, had acted before King James in Scotland in 1599 and again in 1601.

From William Camden’s survey of English poetry in his Remains of a Greater Work concerning Britain.

''These may suffice for some poetical descriptions of our ancient poets; if I would come to our time, what a world could I present to you out of Sir Philip Sidney, Ed. Spenser, Samuel Daniel, Hugh Holland, Ben. Jonson, Th. Campion, Mich. Drayton, George Chapman, John Marston, William Shakespeare, and other''