46 Charles William Wallace 



Pope in equal fourths, the sale of a share to Osteler, the granting 

 of a half share by Heminges to Condell gratis, the sale of a 

 share to Nathaniel Field after Shakespeare's death, and the whole 

 complicated history of the share claimed by Witter, with its vary- 

 ing shifts of ownership. 



One of the significant items in the Witter-Heminges case con- 

 cerns the basis of organization of that half of the Globe company 

 in the membership of which Shakespeare is always named first. 

 He and his associates converted their half from a tenancy in 

 common into a joint-tenancy. The nature and significance of 

 this sort of organization and its apparent influence on all succeed- 

 ing theatrical organizations of the time, accompanied by a sum- 

 mary of the chief data and a story of considerable human interest 

 in its bearing upon Shakespeare and his fellows, is presented in 

 an article in the Century Magazine, August, 1910. This central 

 point of joint-tenancy illuminates the bare facts in the history of 

 the shares as told by these and the Osteler-Hemynges records, 

 and explains conditions of organization and management in all the 

 other theatrical companies. The relations of Shakespeare and his 

 associates to each other in building, managing, and rebuilding the 

 Globe theatre, and in maintaining their enterprise throughout 

 with a larger spirit of equity than the strict letter of joint-tenancy 

 would allow, rising above the smoke and fume and smouldering 

 fire of Witter's making, emerge now from the centuries with 

 noble proportions. 



Shakespeare's income from his share in the Globe theatre 

 was equal to that of each associate who owned the same amount. 

 Witter in these documents declares that his own income from 

 one share previous to the fire and while he owned one-seventh 

 of one-half (or one-fourteenth of the entire theatre, the same 

 as Shakespeare then owned) was 30 /. to 40 /. a year. Although 

 Witter is an unconscionable distorter of facts when thereby 

 advantage is to be gained, he has no occasion in this instance 

 either to magnify by false statement or to minify the amount of 

 profit received. Moreover, this annual profit from one share in 

 the Globe agrees with a similar amount of 30 /. from a share 



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