the house in Blackfriars, in London, near the Wardrobe, whom we suppose to have been a protégé of Shakespere's. Hamnet Sadler was an old friend, and the son of his father's friend, and the person after whom [?] he named his only son, and one by whom he desired to be remembered, for he bequeathed to him twenty-six shillings and eight pence, to buy him a ring-doubtless an In memoriam one. Of Robert Whattcoat, we have been unable to glean any particulars, but there is little doubt that he had a position making it possible to associate with the other witnesses on this occasion. Perhaps he might be only the lawyer's clerk. These were all evidently sympathizing friends who, on the 25th of March, scarcely anticipated that in a month "A little month, or ere those shoes were old,” they would be called, clad in "the trappings and the suits of woe," to bear the body of him whom they then saw trace these lines, to "That bourne from which no traveller returns," Yet so it was. This scarcely, however, sustains the tradition of a fevered and a hasty death. 66 We have been unwittingly led in the preceding arguments to rest a little stress upon the character of Shakespere's friends. We do not think this an illegitimate process of reasoning: “A man is known by the company he keeps." "Want of true friends,” Bacon says, as it is the reward of perfidious natures; so it is an imposition upon great fortunes. The one deserve it, the other cannot scape it.” Shakespere was in neither of these plights. As gentle Shakespere, his reputation is traditional, and evidence upon that point might be multiplied. Does he not appear as if he had very fairly acted up to his own precept?— "Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy Under thy own life's key: be checked for silence, But never taxed for speech." If he did, then in some sort, though reflexly, by knowing his friends we may guess in part what manner of man he was, and so be able to add to our admiration of the poet our love also of the man. Among his patrons, we find Queen Elizabeth and King James, the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, and Lords Essex, Hunsdon, and Southampton. Among his personal friends, we know we can rank Ben Jonson-who "loved the man as much as any, Michael Drayton, George Chapman, all three members of "the worshipful fraternity of the Sireniacal gentlemen" who met with him at the "Mermaid" on the first Friday in each month; Leonard Digges, Nathaniel Field—a fellow-actor and playwright; Thomas Freeman, John Davies, John Marston-a satirist, who found no material for sarcasm in Shakespere; Richard Barnefield, and others of the literary men of his day; then among his "fellows," the actors, we have special proofs of the interchange of good offices between him and Richard Burbadge, Heminge and Condell, Kempe and Armin, &c. Among the inhabitants of Stratford-upon-Avon, we find him—as we have already pointed out-the friend of John and William Combe, of Hanmet Sadler, Henry Walker, Francis Collins, Thomas Russell, Julius Schawe, &c., some of the most influential people in his neighbourhood. In thus drawing together a few memoranda of the friends and patrons of Shakespere, we only in some measure strive to bring our thoughts into a fit state to comprehend the intellectual atmosphere in which he lived. Mere personal detail of a single life cannot adequately represent the man. Each individual is necessarily mixed up with men and affairs, and his character can neither be understood nor explained unless we take into consideration the men among whom he moved, and the affairs in which he had a part, It is gratifying to know-or at least to believe that Shakespere maintained the integrity of his soul before his patrons, formed and preserved to the end of his days many intimate and valuable friendships, with his fellows on the stage, at the club, in the city, and his native village, as well as among his contemporaries of the quill ; and yet, that in the tranquillity and retirement of his " snug lordship in the country," envy neither tracked his steps, nor did disappointed ambition whet its beak in his own breast. And these things we think may justly be inferred from the foregoing facts regarding "the friends of Shakespere," CHAPTER VII. THE WORKS OF SHAKESPERE. "Remember First to possess his books."-Tempest. THE Stage and the Pulpit, in the Elizabethan age, almost alone supplied the million with thought, on which the literary arts had been expended. Though the pulpit took in a wider circle of topics, and spread its influence over a larger area of life then than it does now, the stage was at once the library, news-room, lecture-hall, mechanics' institute, debating society, &c.,-the only secular mental excitant of the age. It was a vast power. History, morals, politics, principles of criticism, literary excellence-the living sculpture of the actor's skill-were all combined by it into one grand essencerepresented thought;—were all made easy, patent, comprehensible to the popular mind, and so made readily operative, both for recreation and improvement. The book of human life, with pictorial illustrations, that the drama was only becoming when Shakespere sought an opening for his genius in it.. "He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and images, which, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand," and worked it into a fit vehicle and medium for being the reservoir of the highest philosophy of life, history, manners, &c. Out of his great heart he threw the potent influences of his being into the receptive souls of the public of his day, and made them the foremost people in the world. Life is realized for them. History enacts itself again before their very eyes. Thought has the vitality of action and utterance bestowed upon it. The very imaginations of men receive embodiment and palpability. The airy or majestic audacities of fiction glow with the very hues of fact, and the singularities of romance become the commodities of every-day existence. The drama, then, translated all thought into living vividness, and so made impressive and instructive the most recondite and abstract truths of economics, legislation, morals, policy, philosophy, art, life, literature, civic, state, or personal reform. The productions for the stage were not looked upon, in the time of Shakespere, as a part of the recognized literature of the country. Stage-plays, while popular with audiences, were profitable monopolies. So much was this the case, that in 1627, even after the publication of the folio under his own and Henry Condell's care, Sir Henry Herbert "received from Mr. Heminge, in their company's name, to prohibit the playing of Shakespere's plays by the Red Bull company, five pounds." Henslowe was often glad to stave off the printing of a play piratically, by a present of forty shillings. Thomas Heywood speaks of some of his plays as being "still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come into print." When, however, a play acquired a certain amount of interest, the booksellers got their eye on it, and in the hope of gaining a sale from the demand arising from its popularity, it was seldom long before "Some one, by stenography, drew The plot, put it in print scarce one word trew," and the author had to complain, like Marston, that "scenes invented merely to be spoken, should be inforcively published to be read." In 1637, the Master of the Revels was memorialized to restrain printers and stationers from "printing divers of their books of comedies and tragedies, which they had, for their own use, bought at high prices, and which the printers were for publishing, to the prejudice of the players; and from the corrupt state in which they were printed, to the injury and disgrace of the authors." These premises give us the key to the fact that several editions of Shakespere's separate plays were published, and yet that no complete authorized edition was issued during his lifetime. He had, most probably, a life-interest in their stage success, which passed to his widow; and when the likelihood of a successful restraint of publication was lessened by his and her death, the other proprietors hastened to forestall the market, and to realize their interest as early as possible. As we have seen in the preceding pages, the earliest work published with the name of Shakespere was the poem of "Venus and Adonis," 1593. This was followed, in 1594, by "Lucrece." They were both dedicated to Lord Southampton, with choice but not 66 fulsome compliments. They were frequently reprinted during the author's lifetime. Besides his plays, he was the author of that small collection of entitled poems The Passionate Pilgrim," first issued in 1599, and of 154" Sonnets," and "The Lover's Complaint," published together, though known to be extant long previously, in 1609. The following plays, either really or imputedly the productions of Shakespere, were published during the life of the great dramatist, at dates varying between 1594 and 1609, viz. :-Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labour Lost, Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice, Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Pericles, Richard II., Henry IV. (parts first and second), Richard III., Hamlet, Henry V., The Merry Wives of Windsor, The first part of the Contention between the Houses of York and Lancaster, The true Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York (constituting the second and third parts of Henry VI.), and The Yorkshire Tragedy (regarded as spurious). "Othello" was published in 1622, with a prefatory address to the reader, by Thomas Walkley, who is supposed to have had a copyright interest in the work. The various editions of the above-mentioned plays are known and spoken of by critics as the "Quartos,"—that having been the form in which they were issued. We know, from Meres, that, prior to 1598, Shakespere was the author of the following plays, not enumerated above, and not, so far as is yet known, printed while he was alive, viz.:-The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour Won (which has been variously supposed to be either All's Well that Ends Well, The Tempest, or The Taming of the Shrew), and King John. "Henry V." was first printed in 1600. That it must have been popular we presume, because it was reprinted in 1602 and in 1608. The earliest quarto contained about 1,800 lines, while the folio edition extends to 3,500. It is, however, precious to us, because it contains in its "Epilogue," which is a sonnet, the following intimation of Shakespere's consciousness of success:— "Thus far, with rough, and all unable pen, Our bending author hath pursued the story; Mingling, by starts, the full force of their glory. |