The " Merry Wives of Windsor," written, it is said, by command of Queen Elizabeth, was entered in Stationers' Hall in 1601. [The first sketch of this play was reprinted, under the editorial care of Mr. J. O. Halliwell, for the Shakespere Society, 1842.]

In a list of witnesses (?) in an action for trespass, the name of "Mr. John Sackespere" appears in 1601; and again the same name appears in the burial register of Stratford—

"1601, Sept. 8. Mr. Johañes Shakspeare,”—

and the dramatist was fatherless. Grief was in Henley Street and in New Place; and Shakespere laid his father's grey hairs in the grave with a humbled heart as he, with self-reference, felt,—

"I too, once gone, to all the world must die;

The earth can yield me but a common grave."

Did he, on this occasion, startle his own beating heart with the interrogation,

"How would you be,

If He, which is the Top of Judgment, should

But judge you as you are?"

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1602. A book, The Revenge of Hamlett, prince of Denmark, as yt was latelie acted by the Lord Chamberlayn his Servants," was registered in Stationers' Hall, by James Roberts, in 1602. It was not, however, printed by him till 1604, when it bore this title, viz. :

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The Tragicall Historie of Hamlett, Prince of Denmark. Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie."

[In Henslowe's accounts, in Dulwich College, headed, "In the name of God. Amen, beginning at Newington, my lord admirell men, and my lord chamberlen men, as followeth," this entry regarding his share of the proceeds is found, viz. ::-"9 of June, 1594, R at hamlet viii s." The Chamberlain's men were probably playing at Newington Butts, while their own theatre, the Globe, was building; and this may have been Shakespere's play. In Lodge's "Wits Miserie, or the World's Madnesse," 1596, "the Ghost who cried so miserably at the theatre Hamiet revenge," is mentioned; and in 1589, Nash, in Greene's "Menaphon," says of some one (who ?), He will affoord you whole Hamlets; I should say, handfuls of tragical speeches." It has been supposed Kyd wrote a Hamlet. It is known Shakespere did write one. Why

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should we not conclude that this Hamlet was an early production subsequently revived? It seems to us a feasible enough hypothesis.]

Can we fancy Queen Elizabeth coveting the incense of one poet in her reign that she did not receive unasked? There is a tradition that a play was composed by Shakespere at the request of her Majesty; and those who read attentively the sonnets 82-85 will find a most ingenious excuse offered for an apparent negligence, such as might befit an incident like that which our fancy has shadowed. The play to which this tradition refers ("The Merry Wives of Windsor ") was printed in 1602 as it had been "acted before her Majesty and elsewhere." It is a well-known, and not an improbable story either, that while he was playing in “Henry IV." once, so engrossed in his part as not to notice her Majesty, that she returned, and dropped her glove-a token with her of high favour; the poet stooped, picked it up, saying (in character), —

"And though now bent on this high embassage,

Yet stoop we to take up our cousin's glove,

then withdrew, and delivered it. This is pretty chiding; and the sonnets mentioned above may have been the poet's reply.

The fifth edition of "Venus and Adonis" was published in 1602; as well as a second edition of "Henry V.," and a third edition of "Richard III."

At Harefield (Middlesex), the seat of Sir Thomas Egerton, the sum of £10 was paid to "Burbidge's players," for performing "Othello" before Queen Elizabeth, 6th August, 1602 [?].

In May, 1602, Shakespere bought, "for and in consideracion of the somme of three hundred and twentie poundes, of current English money," 107 acres of arable land, in the parish of Old Stratford, from "William Combe, of Warwicke, in the countie of Warrwick, esquier, and John Combe, of Olde Stretford, in the countie aforesaid;" and the indenture of the purchase (see Halliwell, 198200), was "sealed and delivered to Gilbert Shakespere, to the use of the within William Shakespere, in the presence of" witnesses, as (it is supposed) Shakespere himself was not at Stratford when the transaction was closed. This brings us within view of Shakespere entrusting the transaction of important business to his brother, in the full confidence that he was able and willing to see the affair

properly completed, and so proves that his brother, too, had got a fair education for his time. Gilbert's signature is extant.*

On 28th Sept. of the same year, Walter Getley, through Thomas Tibbottes, an attorney, at a Court Baron of the Manor of Rowington, surrendered to William Shakespere and his heirs, a house in Walker's Street, or Dead Lane, near New Place, in Stratford-possession being reserved to the lady of the manor till suit and service had been done by Shakespere for the same. At the Michaelmas Term, in this same year, too, "William Shakespere, Gentleman," bought from Hercules Underhill, for £60, a property consisting of one messuage, two orchards, two gardens, and two barns, with their appurtenances, &c.

Here, then, is evidence that Shakespere was the possessor of no small amount of disposable capital; and that he diligently looked after the adequate employment of it,-in subservience to his great (apparent) design to found a family, and not only elevate, but fix the name of Shakespere among those who enjoy the greatest amount of ease, honour, and happiness-the middle class, the landed gentry of England.

1603. These lines, from John Davies' "Microcosmos," p. 125, 1603, appear from a marginal note to refer to Shakespere and Burbadge. The reference, too, is made more palpable and pertinent from an allusion to Sonnet cxi., beginning,

"Oh, for my sake do you with Fortune chide," &c.

"Players, I love ye, and your qualitie,

As ye are men that pass-time not abused,

And some I love for painting poesie.

And say fell Fortune cannot be excused

That hath for better uses you refused

W. S. R. B.

Wit, courage, good-shape, good partes, and all good,
As long as al these goods are no worse used;

And though the stage dothe stain pure gentle blood,
Yet generous yee are in minde and moode."

"The tragicall historie of Hamlet prince of Denmarke, by William Shakespeare; as it hath beene diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants, in the Cittie of London; as also in the two Vniversities of Cambridge and Oxford; and elsewhere," was published "for N. L. and John Trundell, 1603."

* Probably Gilbert farmed this land for his brother.

Ben Jonson's "Sejanus" was produced on the stage in 1603. In a printed list of the personators of the characters in that drama, the name of Shakespere holds a place; but if we read and reason rightly a passage in the author's address to the readers, it may, we think, justly be inferred that in its earliest form for presentation it was indebted to the pen of Shakespere; for in that advertisement there appears the following passage, viz. :-" I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share: in place of which I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation." To what other dramatist than Shakespere would Ben Jonson be likely thus publicly to knuckle down? What other would or could he have so praised? As our hypothesis regarding the meaning of this sentence accords with the tradition of Shakespere's kindly dealing with Jonson as formerly mentioned, and with the amiability always spoken of as characterizing the great dramatist, it may be that this fancy is neither impossible nor unlikely to be true.

We have already alluded to Shakespere's reticence in praising Queen Elizabeth, as well as to the tradition that she favoured him. Both are alluded to, in the following unmistakeable language, by Henry Chettle, editor of Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit," in a poem entitled "Englande's Mourning Garment."

"Nor doth the silver-tongued Melicert

Drop from his honied muse one sable teare
To mourne her death that graced his desert,
And to his lines opened her royall eare,
Sheapheard-remember our Elizabeth,

And sing her rape done by that Tarquin-Death."

Elizabeth died 29th March, 1602-3. James I. and VI., her successor, reached London on the 7th May, 1603. He resided first in the Tower, and then removed to Greenwich. A warrant, under the privy seal, was issued from "our mannor of Greenewiche, the seventeenth day of May, 1603," by which "our servants, Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Philippes, John Hemmings, Henrie Condell, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowlye, and the rest of their associats," are

licensed and authorized "to use and exercise the arte and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, moralls, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such other like as thei have already studied, or hereafter shall use or studie, as well for the recreation of our lovinge subjects as for our solace and pleasure, as well within theire now usuall howse called the Globe, within our county of Surrey, as alsoe within anie towne halls or mont halls, or other convenient places within the liberties and freedome of anie other citie, university, towne, or borough whatsoever within our said realms and dominions," &c. So that we see Ben Jonson uses no hyperbole when he speaks of

"Those flights upon the bankes of Thames,

That so did take Eliza and our James."

An interesting event in the annals of the stage requires notice under this date. On the 2nd December, 1603, James I. was entertained at Wilton, near Salisbury, the seat of William, third Earl of Pembroke, then twenty-three years of age, and a poet of some repute himself. Cunningham's extracts from the accounts of the revels at Court, contain an entry showing that £30 were paid to John Heminge, on behalf of his Majesty's servants of the Globe, for coming from Mortlake in Surrey, to Wilton, to perform at this festival before the King. Shakespere was, in all probability, there, for the Pembrokes, we know, from the players' dedication to the first folio edition of his plays, "prosecquuted their author living with much favour." There was also there another, we may suppose, whose bent in life was that day fixed-Philip Massinger's father was one of the retainers of the Montgomerys, and his son, who was at this time in his eighteenth year, may be safely conjectured to have been present on such an occasion. It was, perhaps, the first theatrical performance before the King in England, and was, doubtless, got up in such a manner as to make it a theme of much talk in the district of Sarisburiensis. Massinger modelled his style upon that of Shakespere, and seems to have studied the great master with much assiduity.

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The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, by William Shakespeare. As it hath beene diverse times acted by his Highnesse Servants in the Cittie of London; as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere. At London,

E