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SHAKSPERE, WILLIAM. 



SHAKSPERE, WILLIAM. 



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produced in 1593 were not hero alluded to. The drama scarcely then 

 aspired to the character of poetry. The ' some graver labour ' which 

 he contemplated was another poem ; and he did produce another next 

 year, which he also dedicated to the same friend. This was the ' Rape 

 of Lucrece.' Perhaps these poems were published to vindicate his 

 reputation as a writer against the jealousies of some of the contem- 

 porary dramatists. But we still think that he used the term ' first 

 heir of my invention ' in its literal sense ; and that ' Venus and 

 Adonis ' or at least a sketch of it was the first production of his 

 imagination, his invention. It bears every mark of a youthful com- 

 position j it would have been more easily produced by the Shakspere 

 of eighteen or twenty than any of his earliest dramas. He had models 

 of such writing as the ' Venus and Adonis ' before him. Chaucer he 

 must have diligently studied ; Spenser had published his ' Shepherd's 

 Calendar,' his Hymns to Love and Beauty, and other poems, when 

 Shakspere's genius was budding amidst his native fields. But when 

 he wrote 'Henry VI.' or the first 'Hamlet,' where could he seek for 

 models of dramatic blank verse, of natural dialogue, of strong and 

 consistent character? He had to work without models; and this was 

 the real ' graver labour ' of his early manhood. It has been discovered 

 by Mr. Collier that in 1589, when Shakspere was only twenty-five, he 

 was a joint proprietor in the Blackfriars theatre, with a fourth of the 

 other proprietors below him in the list. He had, at twenty-five, a 

 standing in society ; he had the means, without doubt, of main- 

 taining his family ; as he advanced in the proprietorship of the same 

 theatre, he realised a fortune. How had he been principally occupied 

 from the time he left Stratford, to have become somewhat rapidly a 

 person of importance among his ' friends and fellows ? ' We think, 

 by making himself useful to them, beyond all comparison with others, 

 by his writings. It appears to us not improbable that even before 

 Shakspere left Stratford, he had attempted some play or plays which 

 had become known to the London players. Thomas Greene, who 

 in 1586 was the fourth on the list of the Blackfriars shareholders, was 

 said to be Shakspere's fellow townsman. But the young poet might 

 have found another and more important friend in the Blackf'riars 

 company : Richard Burbage, the great actor, who in his own day 

 was called 'the English Roscius,' was also of Shakspere's county. 

 In a Letter of Lord Southampton to the Lord Chancellor Ellesinere 

 (written about 1608), introducing Burbage and Shakspere to the 

 chancellor, it is said : " They are both of one county, and indeed 

 almost of one town." It is perfectly clear, therefore, that Shakspere, 

 from the easy access that he might have procured to these men, would 

 have received inviting offers to join them in London, provided he had 

 manifested any ability which would be useful to them. That ability, 

 we have no doubt, was manifested by the production of original plays 

 (as well as by acting) some time before he had attained the rank and 

 profit of a shareholder in the Blackfriars company. 



The theory that Shakspere had not produced any of his dramas till 

 several years after he was a shareholder in the Blackfriars theatre, is 

 generally upheld by the assertion that he is not noticed by any con- 

 temporary writer till after the period usually assigned to the com- 

 mencement of his career as a dramatic author; that is, about 1592. 

 There is an allusion to 'Hamlet' by Nashe, in 1589; and the most 

 reasonable belief is, that this was Shakspere's ' Hamlet ' an earlier 

 sketch than the early one which exists. We believe with Dryden and 

 Rowe, that a remarkable passage in Spenser's 'Thalia' applies to 

 Shakspere, and that poem was published in 1591. The application of 

 these passages to Shakspere is strongly disputed by those who assign 

 the first of his plays to 1593. In an age when there were no news- 

 papers and no reviews, it must be extremely difficult to trace the 

 course of any man, however eminent, by the notices of the writers of 

 his times. An author's fame then was not borne through every 

 quarter of the land iu the very hour in which it was won. More than 

 all, the reputation of a dramatic writer could scarcely be known, 

 except to a resident in London, until his works were committed to 

 the press. The first play of Shakspere's, which was printed was ' The 

 First Part of the Contention ' (' Henry VI.,' Part II.), and that did not 

 appear till 1594. Now Malone says, " In Webbe's ' Discourse of English 

 Poetry,' published in 1586, we meet with the name of most of the 

 celebrated poets of that time; particularly those of George Whetstone 

 and Anthony Munday, who were dramatic writers ; but we find no 

 trace of our author, or any of his works." But Malone does not tell us 

 that hi Webbe's ' Discourse of Poetry ' we meet with the following 

 passage : " I am humbly to desire pardon of the learned company of 

 gentlemen scholars, and students of the universities and inns of court, 

 if I omit their several commendations in this place, which I know a 

 great number of them have worthily deserved, in many rare devices 

 and singular inventions of poetry ; for neither hath it been my good 

 hap to have seen all which I have heard of, neither is my abiding in 

 such place where I can with facility get knowledge of their works." 

 " Three years afterwards," continues Malone, " Puttenham printed 

 his ' Art of English Poesy ; ' and in that work also we look in vain 

 for the name of Shakspere." The book speaks of the one-and-thirty 

 years' space of Elizabeth's reign ; and thus puts the date of the 

 writing a year earlier than, the printing. But we here look in vain 

 for some other illustrious names besides those of Shakspere. Malone 

 has not told us that not one of Shakspere's early dramatic contempo- 

 raries is mentioned neither Marlowe, nor Greene, nor Peele, nor Kyd, 



BIOO. DIY, VOL. V. 



nor Lyly. The author evidently derives his knowledge of ' poets and 

 poesy ' from a much earlier period than that in which he publishes. 

 He does not mention Spenser by name, but he does "that other gentle- 

 man who wrote the late ' Shepherd's Calendar.' " The ' Shepherd's 

 Calendar ' of Spenser was published in the year 1579. Malone goes 

 on to argue that the omission of Shakspere's name, or any other notice 

 of his works, in Sir John Harrington's ' Apology of Poetry,' printed 

 in 1591, in which he takes occasion to apeak of the theatre, and men- 

 tions some of the celebrated dramas of that time, is a proof that 

 none of Shakspere's dramatic compositions had then appeared. Does 

 he mention ' Tamburlaine,' or ' Faustus,' or ' The Massacre of Paria,' 

 or ' The Jew of Malta ' ? As he does not, it may bo assumed with 

 equal justice that none of Marlowe's compositions had appeared iu 

 1591, and yet we know that he died in 1593. So of Lyly's ' Galathea,' 

 'Alexander and Campaspe,' 'Endymion,' &c. So of Greene's ' Orlando 

 Furioso,' 'Friar Bacon,' and 'James IV.' So of the 'Spanish Tragedy' 

 of Kyd. The truth is, that Harrington, in his notice of celebrated 

 dramas was even more antiquated than Puttenham ; and his evidence 

 therefore in this matter is utterly worthless. But Malone has given 

 his crowning proof that Shakspere had not written before 1591, in the 

 following words : " Sir Philip Sidney, in his ' Defence of Poesie,' 

 speaks at some length of the low state of dramatic literature at the 

 time he composed his treatise, but has not the slightest allusion to 

 Shakspere, whose plays, had they then appeared, would doubtless have 

 rescued the English stage from the contempt which is thrown upon it 

 by the accomplished writer, and to which it was justly exposed by 

 the wretched compositions of those who preceded our poet. ' Tho 

 Defence of Poesie' was not published till 1595, but must have been 

 written some years before." There is one slight objection to this argu- 

 ment : Sir Philip Sidney was killed at the battle of Zutphen, in the 

 year 1586; and it would really have been somewhat surprising if the 

 illustrious author of the 'Defence of Poesy' could have included 

 Shakspere in his account " of the low state of dramatic literature at 

 the time he composed this treatise." 



If the instances of the mention of Shakspere by his contemporaries 

 during his lifetime be not numerous, we are compensated by the fulness 

 and explicitness of one notice that of Francis Meres, in 1598. Short 

 as his notice is, it is by far the most valuable contribution which we 

 possess towards the ' Life ' of Shakspere. Meres was a master of ai t-i 

 of Cambridge, and subsequently entered the church. In 1558 he 

 published a book called ' Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury.' It is a 

 collection of moral sentences froui ancient writers, and it is described 

 by Anthony Wood as ' a noted school-book.' Prefixed to it is ' A 

 Comparative Discourse of our English Poets.' Nothing can be 

 more decisive than this ' Comparative Discourse ' as to the rank 

 which, in 1598, Shakspere had taken amongst the most eminent of his 

 contemporaries. 



"As the Greek tongue ia made famous and eloquent by Homer, 

 Hesiod, Euripides, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, Pindarus, Phocylides, and 

 Aristophanes ; and the Latin tongue by Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Silius 

 Italicus, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ausonius, and Claudianus ; so the English 

 tongue is mightily enriched, and gorgeously invested in rare orna- 

 ments and resplendent habiliments, by Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, 

 Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakspeare, Marlow and Chapman. 



" As the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so 

 the sweet witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued 

 Shakespeare ; witness his ' Venus and Adonis,' his ' Lucrece/ his 

 sugared sonnets among his private friends, &c. 



" As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and 

 tragedy among the Latins, 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's Night Dream,' and his ' Mer- 

 chant of Venice; ' for tragedy, his 'Richard II.,' ' Richard III.,' ' Henry 

 IV.,' ' King John,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and his 'Romeo and Juliet.' 



" As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus's 

 tongue, if they would speak Latin ; so I say that the Muses would speak 

 with Shakespeare's fine filed phrase if they would speak English.' 



The list of Shakspere's plays which Meres gives in 1598 can scarcely 

 be supposed to be a complete one. Previous to 1598 there had been 

 only printed the two Parts of the ' Contention ' (now known as the 

 ' Second and Third Parts of Henry VI.'), ' Richard III.,' ' Richard II.,' 

 and 'Romeo and Juliet.] Of the six comedies mentioned by Meres, not 

 one had been published ; neither had 'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' nor 

 'Titus Andronicus;' but, in 1597> 'Love's Labour's Lost,' and the 

 ' First Part of Henry IV.,' had been entered in Stationers' Hall. 

 Without the list of Meres therefore we could not have absolutely 

 shown that the ' Two Gentlemen of Verona,' the ' Comedy of Errors,' 

 the 'All's Well that Ends Well' (which we have every reason to 

 think was designated as 'Love Labours Won') the 'Midsummer 

 Night's Dream,' the ' Merchant of Venice,' the ' King John,' and the 

 'Titus Andronicus,' were written and produced before 1598. The list 

 of Meres omits the original ' Hamlet ' and the ' Taming of the Shrew,' 

 which we may believe were produced before 1598; but, looking at 

 Meres' list alone, how gloriously had Shakspere earned that reputation 

 which he had thus acquired in 1598 ! He was then thirty.four years 

 of age, but he had produced all his great historical plays, with the 

 exception of ' Henry V.' and ' Henry VIII.' He had given us 'Romeo 



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