part ii

. p. 419.

{258b} _The Merry Devill of Edmonton_, a comedy which was first published in 1608, was also re-entered by Moseley for publication on September 9, 1653, as the work of Shakespeare (see p. 181 _supra_).

{259a} Dyce thought he detected traces of Shirley's workmanship, but it was possibly Theobald's unaided invention.

{259b} The 1634 quarto of the play was carefully edited for the New Shakspere Society by Mr. Harold Littledale in 1876. See also Spalding, _Shakespeare's Authorship of_ '_Two Noble Kinsmen_,' 1833, reprinted by New Shakspere Society, 1876; article by Spalding in _Edinburgh Review_, 1847; _Transactions_, New Shakspere Society, 1874.

{260} Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in _Transactions_ of the New Shakspere Society, 1882.

{261} _Reliquiae Wottonianae_, 1675, pp. 425-6. Wotton adds 'that the piece was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of Pomp and Majesty, even to the matting of the Stage; the Knights of the Order, with their Georges and Garters, the Guards with their embroidered Coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now King _Henry_ making a Masque at the Cardinal _Wolsey's_ House, and certain Canons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the Thatch, where being thought at first but an idle Smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole House to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that vertuous fabrique; wherein yet nothing did perish, but wood and straw and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottle[d] ale.' John Chamberlain writing to Sir Ralph Winwood on July 8, 1613, briefly mentions that the theatre was burnt to the ground in less than two hours owing to the accidental ignition of the thatch roof through the firing of cannon 'to be used in the play.' The audience escaped unhurt though they had 'but two narrow doors to get out' (Winwood's _Memorials_, iii. p. 469). A similar account was sent by the Rev. Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, Bart., from London, June 30, 1613. 'The fire broke out,' Lorkin wrote, 'no longer since than yesterday, while Burbage's company were acting at the Globe the play of _Henry VIII_' (_Court and Times of James I_, 1848, vol. i. p. 253). A contemporary sonnet on 'the pittifull burning of the Globe playhouse in London,' first printed by Haslewood 'from an old manuscript volume of poems' in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1816, was again printed by Halliwell-Phillipps (i. pp. 310, 311) from an authentic manuscript in the library of Sir Matthew Wilson, Bart., of Eshton Hall, Yorkshire.

{263a} _Bodl. MS._ Rawl. A 239; cf. Spedding in _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1850, reprinted in New Shakspere Society's _Transactions_, 1874.

{263b} Cf. Mr. Robert Boyle in New Shakspere Society's _Transactions_, 1884.

{264} Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 87.

{265a} Manningham, _Diary_, March 23, 1601, Camd. Soc. p. 39.

{265b} Cf. Aubrey, _Lives_; Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 43; and art. Sir William D'Avenant in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.

{267} The indenture prepared for the purchaser is in the Halliwell-Phillipps collection, which was sold to Mr. Marsden J. Perry of Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A., in January 1897. That held by the vendor is in the Guildhall Library.

{268} Shakespeare's references to puritans in the plays of his middle and late life are so uniformly discourteous that they must be judged to reflect his personal feeling. The discussion between Maria and Sir Andrew Aguecheek regarding Malvolio's character in _Twelfth Night_ (II. iii. 153 et seq.) runs:

MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.

SIR ANDREW. O! if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.

SIR TOBY. What, for being a puritan? thy exquisite reason, dear knight.

SIR ANDREW. I have no exquisite reason for 't, but I have reason good enough.

In _Winter's Tale_ (IV. iii. 46) the Clown, after making contemptuous references to the character of the shearers, remarks that there is 'but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.' Cf. the allusions to 'grace' and 'election' in Cymbeline, p. 250, note 1.

{269a} The town council of Stratford-on-Avon, whose meeting-chamber almost overlooked Shakespeare's residence of New Place, gave curious proof of their puritanic suspicion of the drama on February 7, 1612, when they passed a resolution that plays were unlawful and 'the sufferance of them against the orders heretofore made and against the example of other well-governed cities and boroughs,' and the council was therefore 'content,' the resolution ran, that 'the penalty of xs. imposed [on players heretofore] be x_li_. henceforward.' Ten years later the King's players were bribed by the council to leave the city without playing. (See the present writer's _Stratford-on-Avon_, p. 270.)

{269b} The lines as quoted by Aubrey (_Lives_, ed. Clark, ii. 226) run:

Ten-in-the-hundred the Devil allows, But Combe will have twelve he sweares and he vowes; If any man ask, who lies in this tomb? Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.

Rowe's version opens somewhat differently:

Ten-in-the-hundred lies here ingrav'd. 'Tis a hundred to ten, his soul is not sav'd.

The lines, in one form or another, seem to have been widely familiar in Shakespeare's lifetime, but were not ascribed to him. The first two in Rowe's version were printed in the epigrams by H[enry] P[arrot], 1608, and again in Camden's _Remaines_, 1614. The whole first appeared in Richard Brathwaite's _Remains_ in 1618 under the heading: 'Upon one John Combe of Stratford upon Aven, a notable Usurer, fastened upon a Tombe that he had Caused to be built in his Life Time.'

{271} The clumsy entry runs: 'Sept. Mr. Shakespeare tellyng J. Greene that I was not able to beare the encloseing of Welcombe.' J. Greene is to be distinguished from Thomas Greene, the writer of the diary. The entry therefore implies that Shakespeare told J. Greene that the writer of the diary, Thomas Greene, was not able to bear the enclosure. Those who represent Shakespeare as a champion of popular rights have to read the 'I' in 'I was not able' as 'he.' Were that the correct reading, Shakespeare would be rightly credited with telling J. Greene that he disliked the enclosure; but palaeographers only recognise the reading 'I.' Cf. _Shakespeare and the Enclosure of Common Fields at Welcombe_, a facsimile of Greene's diary, now at the Birthplace, Stratford, with a transcript by Mr. E. J. L. Scott, edited by Dr. C. M. Inglehy, 1885.

{272a} _British Magazine_, June 1762.

{272b} Cf. Malone, _Shakespeare_, 1821, ii. 500-2; Ireland, _Confessions_, 1805, p. 34; Green, _Legend of the Crab Tree_, 1857.

{272c} The date is in the old style, and is equivalent to May 3 in the new; Cervantes, whose death is often described as simultaneous, died at Madrid ten days earlier--on April 13, in the old style, or April 23, 1616, in the new.

{273} Hall's letter was published as a quarto pamphlet at London in 1884, from the original, now in the Bodleian Library Oxford.

{274} Mr. Charles Elton, Q.C., has been kind enough to give me a legal opinion on this point. He wrote to me on December 9, 1897: 'I have looked to the authorities with my friend Mr. Herbert Mackay, and there is no doubt that Shakespeare barred the dower.' Mr. Mackay's opinion is couched in the following terms: 'The conveyance of the Blackfriars estate to William Shakespeare in 1613 shows that the estate was conveyed to Shakespeare, Johnson, Jackson, and Hemming as joint tenants, and therefore the dower of Shakespeare's wife would be barred unless he were the survivor of the four bargainees.' That was a remote contingency, which did not arise, and Shakespeare always retained the power of making 'another settlement when the trustees were shrinking.' Thus the bar was for practical purposes perpetual, and disposes of Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps's assertion that Shakespeare's wife was entitled to dower in one form or another from all his real estate. Cf. _Davidson on Conveyancing_; Littleton, sect. 45; _Coke upon Littleton_, ed. Hargrave, p. 379 _b_, note I.

{276a} A hundred and fifty pounds is described as a substantial jointure in _Merry Wives_, III. iii. 49.

{276b} Leonard Digges, in commendatory verses before the First Folio of 1623, wrote that Shakespeare's works would be alive

[When] Time dissolves thy Stratford monument.

{277} Cf. Dugdale, _Diary_, 1827, p. 99; see under article on Bernard Janssen in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.

{278a} 'Timber,' in _Works_, 1641.

{278b} John Webster, the dramatist, made vague reference in the address before his 'White Divel' in 1612 to 'the right happy and copious industry of M. Shakespeare, M. Decker, and M. Heywood.'

{280} The words run: 'Heere lyeth interred the bodye of Anne, wife of Mr. William Shakespeare, who depted. this life the 6th day of August, 1623, being of the age of 67 yeares.

'Vbera, tu, mater, tu lac vitamq. dedisti, Vae mihi; pro tanto munere saxa dabo! Quam mallem, amoueat lapidem bonus Angel[us] ore, Exeat ut Christi Corpus, imago tua. Sed nil vota valent; venias cito, Christe; resurget, Clausa licet tumulo, mater, et astra petet.'

{281} Cf. Hall, _Select Observations_, ed. Cooke, 1657.

{282} Baker, _Northamptonshire_, i. 10; _New Shaksp. Soc. Trans._ 1880-5, pt. ii. pp. 13--15.

{283} Halliwell-Phillipps, _Hist. of New Place_, 1864, fol.

{284} Wise, _Autograph of William Shakespeare_ . . . _together with_ 4,000 _ways of spelling the name_, Philadelphia, 1869.

{285} See the article on John Florio in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and Sir Frederick Madden's _Observations on an Autograph of Shakspere_, 1838.

{286} Cf. Halliwell-Phillipps, _New Lamps or Old_, 1880; Malone, _Inquiry_, 1796.

{290} Mr. Lionel Cust, director of the National Portrait Gallery, who has ittle doubt of the genuineness of the picture, gave an interesting account of it at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries on December 12, 1895. Mr. Cust's paper is printed in the Society's _Proceedings_, second series, vol. xvi. p. 42. Mr. Salt Brassington, the librarian of the Shakespeare Memorial Library, has given a careful description of it in the _Illustrated Catalogue of the Pictures in the Memorial Gallery_, 1896, pp. 78-83.

{291a} _Harper's Magazine_, May 1897.

{291b} Cf. Evelyn's _Diary and Correspondence_, iii. 444.

{291c} Numberless portraits have been falsely identified with Shakespeare, and it would be futile to attempt to make the record of the pretended portraits complete. Upwards of sixty have been offered for sale to the National Portrait Gallery since its foundation in 1856, and not one of these has proved to possess the remotest claim to authenticity. The following are some of the wholly unauthentic portraits that have attracted public attention: Three portraits assigned to Zucchero, who left England in 1580, and cannot have had any relations with Shakespeare--one in the Art Museum, Boston, U.S.A.; another, formerly the property of Richard Cosway, R.A., and afterwards of Mr. J. A. Langford of Birmingham (engraved in mezzotint by H. Green); and a third belonging to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who purchased it in 1862. At Hampton Court is a wholly unauthentic portrait of the Chandos type, which was at one time at Penshurst; it bears the legend 'AEtatis suae 34' (cf. Law's _Cat. of Hampton Court_, p. 234). A portrait inscribed 'aetatis suae 47, 1611,' belonging to Clement Kingston of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, was engraved in mezzotint by G. F. Storm in 1846.

{292} In the picture-gallery at Dulwich is 'a woman's head on a boord done by Mr. Burbidge, ye actor'--a well-authenticated example of the actor's art.

{296a} It is now the property of Frau Oberst Becker, the discoverer's daughter-in-law, Darmstadt, Heidelbergerstrasse 111.

{296b} Some account of Shakespeare's portraits will be found in the following works: James Boaden, _Inquiry into various Pictures and Prints of Shakespeare_, 1824; Abraham Wivell, _Inquiry into Shakespeare's Portraits_, 1827, with engravings by B. and W. Holl; George Scharf, _Principal Portraits of Shakespeare_, 1864; J. Hain Friswell, _Life-Portraits of Shakespeare_, 1864; William Page, _Study of Shakespeare's Portraits_, 1876; Ingleby, _Man and Book_, 1877, pp. 84 seq.; J. Parker Norris, _Portraits of Shakespeare_, Philadelphia, 1885, with numerous plates; _Illustrated Cat. of Portraits in Shakespeare's Memorial at Stratford_, 1896. In 1885 Mr. Walter Rogers Furness issued, at Philadelphia, a volume of composite portraits, combining the Droeshout engraving and the Stratford bust with the Chandos, Jansen, Felton, and Stratford portraits.

{297} Cf. _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1741, p. 105.

{298} _A History of the Shakespeare Memorial_, _Stratford-on-Avon_, 1882; _Illustrated Catalogue of Pictures in the Shakespeare Memorial_, 1896.

{299} This was facsimiled in 1862, and again by Mr. Griggs in 1880.

{302} Lithographed facsimiles of most of these volumes, with some of the quarto editions of the poems (forty-eight volumes in all), were prepared by Mr. E. W. Ashbee, and issued to subscribers by Halliwell-Phillipps between 1862 and 1871. A cheaper set of quarto facsimiles, undertaken by Mr. W. Griggs, and issued under the supervision of Dr. F. J. Furnivall, appeared in forty-three volumes between 1880 and 1889.

{303} Perfect copies range in price, according to their rarity, from 200 to 300 pounds. In 1864, at the sale of George Daniel's library, quarto copies of 'Love's Labour's Lost' and of 'Merry Wives' (first edition) each fetched 346 pounds 10s. On May 14, 1897, a copy of the quarto of 'The Merchant of Venice' (printed by James Roberts in 1600) was sold at Sotheby's for 315 pounds.

{304} See p. 183.

{306} Cf. _Bibliographica_, i. 489 seq.

{308} This copy was described in the _Variorum Shakespeare_ of 1821 (xxi. 449) as in the possession of Messrs. J. and A. Arch, booksellers, of Cornhill. It was subsequently sold at Sotheby's in 1855 for 163 pounds 16s.

{309a} I cannot trace the present whereabouts of this copy, but it is described in the _Variorum Shakespeare_ of 1821, xxi. 449-50.

{309b} The copy seems to have been purchased by a member of the Sheldon family in 1628, five years after publication. There is a note in a contemporary hand which says it was bought for 3 pounds 15s., a somewhat extravagant price. The entry further says that it cost three score pounds of silver, words that I cannot explain. The Sheldon family arms are on the sides of the volume, and there are many manuscript notes in the margin, interpreting difficult words, correcting misprints, or suggesting new readings.

{309c} It has been mutilated by a former owner, and the signature of the leaf is missing, but it was presumably G G 3.

{310} Correspondents inform me that two copies of the First Folio, one formerly belonging to Leonard Hartley and the other to Bishop Virtue of Portsmouth, showed a somewhat similar irregularity. Both copies were bought by American booksellers, and I have not been able to trace them.

{311} Cf. _Notes and Queries_, 1st ser., vii. 47.

{312a} Arber, _Stationers' Registers_, iii. 242-3.

{312b} On January 31, 1852, Collier announced in the _Athenaeum_, that this copy, which had been purchased by him for thirty shillings, and bore on the outer cover the words '_Tho. Perkins his Booke_,' was annotated throughout by a former owner in the middle of the seventeenth century. Shortly afterwards Collier published all the 'essential' manuscript readings in a volume entitled _Notes and Emendations to the Plays of Shakespeare_. Next year he presented the folio to the Duke of Devonshire. A warm controversy as to the date and genuineness of the corrections followed, but in 1859 all doubt as to their origin was set at rest by Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton of the manuscript department of the British Museum, who in letters to the _Times_ of July 2 and 16 pronounced all the manuscript notes to be recent fabrications in a simulated seventeenth-century hand.

{314} The best account of eighteenth-century criticism of Shakespeare is to be found in the preface to the Cambridge edition by Mr. Aldis Wright. The memoirs of the various editors in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ supply useful information. I have made liberal use of these sources in the sketch given in the following pages.

{317a} Mr. Churton Collins's admirable essay on Theobald's textua criticism of Shakespeare, entitled 'The Porson of Shakespearean Critics,' is reprinted from the _Quarterly Review_ in his _Essays and Studies_, 1895, pp. 263 et seq.

{317b} Collier doubtless followed Theobald's hint when he pretended to have found in his 'Perkins Folio' the extremely happy emendation (now generally adopted) of 'bisson multitude' for 'bosom multiplied' in Coriolanus's speech:

How shall this bisson multitude digest The senate's courtesy?--(_Coriolanus_, III. i. 131-2.)

{318} A happy example of his shrewdness may be quoted from _King Lear_, III. vi. 72, where in all previous editions Edgar's enumeration of various kinds of dogs included the line 'Hound or spaniel, brach or hym [or him].' For the last word Hanmer substituted 'lym,' which was the Elizabethan synonym for bloodhound.

{320} Edition of 1793, vol. i. p. 7.

{327a} Cf. the opening line of Matthew Arnold's Sonnet on Shakespeare:

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

{327b} These letters have been interpreted as standing for the inscription 'In Memoriam Scriptoris' as well as for the name of the writer. In the latter connection, they have been variously and inconclusively read as Jasper Mayne (Student), a young Oxford writer; as John Marston (Student or Satirist); and as John Milton (Senior or Student).

{328} Charles Gildon in 1694, in 'Some Reflections on Mr. Rymer's Short View of Tragedy' which he addressed to Dryden, gives the classical version of this incident. 'To give the world,' Gildon informs Dryden, 'some satisfaction that Shakespear has had as great a Veneration paid his Excellence by men of unquestion'd parts as this I now express of him, I shall give some account of what I have heard from your Mouth, Sir, about the noble Triumph he gain'd over all the Ancients by the Judgment of the ablest Critics of that time. The Matter of Fact (if my Memory fail me not) was this. Mr. _Hales_ of Eaton affirm'd that he wou'd shew all the Poets of Antiquity outdone by Shakespear, in all the Topics, and common places made use of in Poetry. The Enemies of Shakespear wou'd by no means yield him so much Excellence: so that it came to a Resolution of a trial of skill upon that Subject; the place agreed on for the Dispute was Mr. Hales's Chamber at Eaton; a great many Books were sent down by the Enemies of this Poet, and on the appointed day my Lord Falkland, Sir John Suckling, and all the Persons of Quality that had Wit and Learning, and interested themselves in the Quarrel, met there, and upon a thorough Disquisition of the point, the Judges chose by agreement out of this Learned and Ingenious Assembly unanimously gave the Preference to Shakespear. And the Greek and Roman Poets were adjudg'd to Vail at least their Glory in that of the English Hero.'

{329a} Milton, _Iconoclastes_, 1690, pp. 9-10.

{329b} Cf. Evelyn's _Diary_, November 26, 1661: 'I saw Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, played, but now the old plays began to disgust the refined age, since His Majesty's being so long abroad.'

{330a} _Conquest of Granada_, 1672.

{330b} _Essay on Dramatic Poesie_, 1668. Some interesting, if more qualified, criticism by Dryden also appears in his preface to an adaptation of 'Troilus and Cressida' in 1679. In the prologue to his and D'Avenant's adaptation of 'The Tempest' in 1676, he wrote:

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he.

{332a} Cf. _Shakspere's Century of Praise_, 1591-1693, New Shakspere Soc., ed. Ingleby and Toulmin Smith, 1879; and _Fresh Allusions_, ed. Furnivall, 1886.

{332b} Cf. W. Sidney Walker, _Critical Examination of the Text of Shakespeare_, 1859.

{333} See _Notes and Lectures on Shakespeare and other Poets by S. T. Coleridge_, _now first collected by T. Ashe_, 1883. Coleridge hotly resented the remark, which he attributed to Wordsworth, that a German critic first taught us to think correctly concerning Shakespeare. (Coleridge to Mudford, 1818; cf. Dykes Campbell's memoir of Coleridge, p. cv.) But there is much to be said for Wordsworth's general view (see p. 344, note 1).

{334} R. E. Hunter, _Shakespeare and the Tercentenary Celebration_, 1864.

{335} Thomas Jordan, a very humble poet, wrote a prologue to notify the new procedure, and referred to the absurdity of the old custom:

For to speak truth, men act, that are between Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen With bone so large and nerve so uncompliant, When you call DESDEMONA, enter GIANT.

{338} _Essays of Elia_, ed. Canon Ainger, pp. 180 et seq.

{340a} _Hamlet_ in 1874-5 and _Macbeth_ in 1888-9 were each performed by Sir Henry Irving for 200 nights in uninterrupted succession; these are the longest continuous runs that any of Shakespeare's plays are known to have enjoyed.

{340b} See p. 346.

{341} Cf. Alfred Roffe, _Shakspere Music_, 1878; _Songs in Shakspere_ . . . _set to Music_, 1884, New Shakspere Soc.

{342} Cf. D. G. Morhoff, _Unterricht von der teutschen Sprache und Poesie_, Kiel, 1682, p. 250.

{344} In his 'Essay Supplementary to the Preface' in the edition of his _Poems_ of 1815 Wordsworth wrote: 'The Germans, only of foreign nations, are approaching towards a knowledge of what he [_i.e._ Shakespeare] is. In some respects they have acquired a superiority over the fellow-countrymen of the poet; for among us, it is a common--I might say an established--opinion that Shakespeare is justly praised when he is pronounced to be "a wild irregular genius in whom great faults are compensated by great beauties." How long may it be before this misconception passes away and it becomes universally acknowledged that the judgment of Shakespeare . . . is not less admirable than his imagination? . . .'

{345} Cf. _Wilhelm Meister_.

{346a} Cf. _Jahrbuch der Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft_ for 1894.

{346b} _Ibid._ 1896, p. 438.

{347} The exact statistics for 1896 and 1897 were: 'Othello,' acted 135 and 121 times for the respective years; 'Hamlet,' 102 and 91; 'Romeo and Juliet,' 95 and 118; 'Taming of the Shrew,' 91 and 92; 'The Merchant of Venice,' 84 and 62; 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 68 and 92; 'A Winter's Tale,' 49 and 65; 'Much Ado about Nothing,' 47 and 32; 'Lear,' 41 and 34; 'As You Like It,' 37 and 29; 'Comedy of Errors,' 29 and 43; 'Julius Caesar,' 27 and 29; 'Macbeth,' 10 and 12; 'Timon of Athens,' 7 and 0; 'The Tempest,' 5 and 1; 'Antony and Cleopatra,' 2 and 4; 'Coriolanus,' 0 and 20; 'Cymbeline,' 0 and 4; 'Richard II,' 15 and 5; 'Henry IV,' Part I , 26 and 23, Part II , 6 and 13; 'Henry V,' 4 and 7; 'Henry VI,' Part I , 3 and 5,