453 



SHAKSPERE, WILLIAM. 



SHAKSPERE, WILLIAM. 



454 



of this. It was reserved for the highest to throw it off, " like dew- 

 drops from the lion's mane." After a very full consideration of 

 Shakspere's dramatic works, wo are come to the conclusion that he 

 possessed, above all other men, BO complete a mastery over the tendency 

 to colour general representations of life and character with personal 

 views and circumstances, that he invariably went out of himself that 

 he saw nothing through his own individual feelings and that thus 

 none of hia portraits are alike, because none are personifications of 

 his own nature his own life his own self-consciousness. If there 

 are some portions of his Sonnets which are conceived in an entirely 

 different spirit, we think they are not very numerous, and must be 

 received as evidences of personal character, habits, and feelings, with 

 great scrupulousness. 



Shakspere during the last year or two of the 16th century, and the 

 opening years of the 17th, was for the most part in London. In 1598 

 we find his townsman, Richard Quiney, writing him a letter, request- 

 ing the loan of thirty pounds. Mr. Alderman Sturley, with reference 

 to some public business of the period, not only says in a letter that 

 " our countryman, Mr. William Shakspere, would procure us money," 

 but speaks " of the friends he can make." Such notices are decisive 

 i\s to the position Shakspere then held in the estimation of the world. 

 In 1601 his father died ; and his burial is registered at Stratford. He 

 appears then to have had three brothers living, Gilbert, Richard, 

 and Edmund. Gilbert, the next to himself, resided at Stratford, and 

 probably managed William's affairs there while he was in London ; 

 for in 1602, when the prosperous poet bought a considerable quantity 

 of land near Stratford, of William and John Combe (107 acres), the 

 counterpart of the conveyance (which we have seen) contains an 

 acknowledgment of possession being given to Gilbert Shakspere, to the 

 use of William. It is probable that Gilbert Hied before William ; for 

 no mention is made of him in the poet's will. The younger son of 

 the family, Edmund, born in 1580, followed the fortunes of his illus- 

 trious brother. It was probably intended that he should succeed 

 him in his proprietorship of the theatres ; but the register of the 

 burials of St. Mary Overies, in Southwark, closes his history in 1607 : 

 " Edmund Shakspere, player, in the church." Richard Shakspere 

 died in 1613. 



In 1603 James I. ascended the throne of England. Lord South- 

 ampton, who had so imprudently participated in the conspiracy of 

 Essex, was a favourite of the new king ; and one almost of the first 

 nets of the reign was a grant of a patent to the proprietors of the 

 Blackfriars and Globe theatres. In this patent the name of 

 Shakspere stands the second ; the names mentioned being " Lawrence 

 Fletcher, William Shakspere, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillips, 

 John Hemmings, Henry Condell, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard 

 Cowley." 



It would appear that at this period Shakspere was desirous of 

 retiring from the more laborious duties of his profession as an actor. 

 He desired to be appointed, there is little doubt, to the office of 

 Master of the Queen's Revels. Daniel, a brother poet, was appointed; 

 and in a letter to the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, he thus 

 speaks of one of the competitors for the office : " It seemeth to my 

 humble judgment that one who is the author of plays now daily pre- 

 sented on the public stages of London, and the possessor of no small 

 gains, and moreover himself an actor in the King's company of 

 comedians, could not with reason pretend to be master of the Queen's 

 Majesty's revels, forasmuch as he would sometimes be asked to approve 

 and allow of his own writings." 



But Shakspere continued to hold his property in the theatre. In 

 1608 the Corporation of London again attempted to interfere with the 

 actors of the Blackfriars ; and there being little chance of ejecting 

 them despotically, a negociation was set on foot for the purchase of 

 their property. A document found by Mr. Collier amongst the Egertou 

 papers at once determines Shakspere's position in regard to his theatrical 

 proprietorship. It is a valuation, containing the following item: 



"Item. W. Shakespeare asketh for the wardrobe 

 and properties of the same playhouse 5001., and 

 for his four shares, the same as his fellows 

 Burbidge and Fletcher, viz. 933?. 6s. 8d. . .1433 6 8" 



With this document was found another unquestionably the most 

 interesting paper ever published relating to Shakspere : it is a letter 

 from Lord Southampton to Lord Ellesmere, the lord chancellor ; and 

 it contains the following passage : 



" These bearers are two of the chief of the company ; one of them 

 by name Richard Burbidge, who humbly sueth for your Lordship's 

 kind help, for that he is a man famous as our English Roscius, one 

 who fitteth the action to the word and the word to the action most 

 admirably. By the exercise of his quality, industry, and good behaviour, 

 he hath become possessed of the Black Friars playhouse, which hath 

 been employed for plays since it was built by his father, now near 

 fifty years ago. The other is a man no whit less deserving favour, and 

 my especial friend, till of late an actor of good account in the company, 

 now a sharer in the same, and writer of some of our best English plays, 

 which, as your Lordship knoweth, were most singularly liked of Queen 

 Elizabeth, when the company was called upon to perform before her 

 Majesty at court, at Christmas and Shrovetide. His most gracious 

 Majesty King James also, since his coming to the crown, hath extended 

 his royal favour to the company in divers ways and at sundry times. 



This other hath to name William Shakespeare, and they are both of 

 one county, and indeed almost of one town : both are right famous in 

 their qualities, though it longeth not to your Lordship's gravity and 

 wisdom to resort unto the places where they are wont to delight the 

 public ear. Their trust and suit now is, not to be molested in their 

 way of life whereby they maintain themselves and their wives and 

 families (being both married and of good reputation), as well as the 

 widows and orphans of some of their dead fellows." 



We may now suppose that the great poet, honoured and esteemed, 

 had retired to Stratford, retaining a property in the theatre regularly 

 writing for it. There is an opinion that he ceased to act after 1603. 

 In that year his name is found amongst the performers of one of Ben 

 Jonson's plays. But the years from 1604 to his death, in the April of 

 1616 were not idly spent. He was a practical farmer, we have 

 little doubt. In 1605 he bought a moiety of the tithes of Stratford, 

 which he would then probably collect in kind. He occupied the best 

 house of the place ; he had there his ' curious knotted garden ' to 

 amuse him; and his orchard had many a pippin of his ' own graffing.' 

 James I. recommended the cultivation of mulberry-trees in England ; 

 and who has not heard of Shakspere's mulberry-tree ? Vulgar tradi- 

 tion at this time represents him as writing a bitter epitaph upon his 

 friend and neighbour John Combe, as he had satirised Sir Thomas 

 Lucy. He was doing something better. To the first half of the 

 period between 1604 and his death may be assigned ' Lear,' 

 'Macbeth,' 'Cymbeline,' 'The Winter's Tale,' and 'The Tempest. 

 The very recital of the names of these glorious works, associated as 

 they are with that quiet country town, its beautiful Avon, its mea- 

 dows, and its woodlands, is enough to make Stratford a name dear and 

 venerable in every age. But there are others to be added to the 

 wondrous list ; and these probably belong to the latter half of the 

 period : 'Troilus and Cressida,' ' Henry VIII.,' ' Coriolauus,' 'Julius 

 Caesar,' ' Antony and Cleopatra.' The direction of Shakspere's mind 

 to Roman subjects, in his closing period, and the marvellous accuracy, 

 the real substantial learning, with which he has treated them, would 

 lead us to believe that he had renewed the studies of his boyhood in 

 the last years of his retirement. Alfieri learned Greek afcer he was 

 fifty. It is our opinion that Shakspere continued to write till he was 

 removed by death ; and that the Roman plays were the beginning of a 

 series. Who will finish that series ? 



In 1607 Susanna, the eldest daughter of Shakspere, married a 

 physician resident at Stratford a man of high professional eminence 

 Dr. Hall. In 1608 his grand-daughter Elizabeth was born. To this 

 child he bequeathed a sum of money, and all his plate, " except my 

 broad silver and gilt bowl." Shakspere was a grandfather at forty- 

 three. In 1608 his mother died the mother, doubtless, of his ardent 

 love. There is a curious record of Shakspere's later years, which was 

 recently discovered in the library of the Medical Society of London, 

 contained in the ' Diary of the Rev. John Ward, Vicar of Stratford- 

 upon-Avon.' The diary extends from 1648 to 1679 ; and it contains 

 the following very characteristic entry : 



" I have heard that Mr. Shakspeare was a natural wit, without any 

 art at all; he frequented the plays all his younger time, but in his 

 elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays 

 every year : and for it had an allowance so large, that he spent at 

 the rate of IOQOL. a year, as I have heard. 



"Shakspeare, Dray ton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting; 

 and, it seems, drank too hard, for Shakspeare died of a fever there 

 contracted." 



Shakspere's annual expenditure, and the merry meeting, and the 

 hard drinking, are probably exaggerations. They however show that 

 our opinion that Shakspere continued to write for the stage after he 

 had ceased to be an actor has some foundation ; and that his residence 

 in comfort and affluence at Stratford did not necessarily imply an 

 abandonment of all his former pursuits. 'Henry VIII.,' upon every 

 rational construction of evidence, was produced at the Globe theatre 

 in 1613, and was then a new play. 



We approach the end. Shakspere, according to the register of 

 Stratford, was buried on the 25th of April 1616. 



He survived the marriage of his daughter Judith to Thomas Quiney 

 only two months, and he made his will probably upon the occasion 

 of that marriage. It is dated the 25th of March, but in the document 

 February was first written, and afterwards struck out. By this will 

 which is long, he gives his real estate to his eldest daughter. Accord- 

 ing to the received interpretation of his will, Shakspere treats his wife 

 with neglect and " bitter sarcasm," for which estranged affections 

 would have been no warranty ; and consigns her, with a solemn 

 avowal of contempt and hatred, to a miserable dependence, not even 

 recommended or implied, upon the bounty of their common children. 

 According to the dictum of Malone, who first dragged this part of his 

 will into notice sixty years ago, " His wife had not wholly escaped 

 his memory he had forgot her, he had recollected her, but so 

 recollected her as more strongly to mark how little he esteemed her; 

 he had already (as it is vulgarly expressed) cut her off, not indeed with 

 a shilling, but with an old bed." It was the object of Shakspere by 

 this will to perpetuate a family estate. In doing so did he neglect 

 the duty and affection which he owed to his wife ? He did not. His 

 estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement, expressly men- 

 tioned in his will, were freehold. His wife was entitled to dower. She 



