II. — The N ezvly-Discovcrcd Shakespeare Doeuments 



BY CHARLES WILLIAM WALLACE 



The universal interest in Shakespeare as the chief interpreter 

 of Hfe has carried with it energy and industry in reveaUng the 

 poet as man. For a century and a half research has been eager. 

 Malone, Knight, Collier, Dyce, Halliwell-Phillipps, Furnivall, 

 Lee, and the army inspired by their banners have, one would 

 suppose, left no ancient tome or record unexplored for even the 

 slightest evidence touching the poet's life and career. The 

 results have been gratifying beyond expectation. Modern schol- 

 arship, particularly the judicial work of Mr. Sidney Lee, has 

 brought the materials into proper perspective and enlightened 

 them. But for a full generation no record or document bearing 

 the poet's name or directly touching his life has been revealed, 

 and scholars have long felt that no more were to be found. Con- 

 sequently when the writer of this article announced to distin- 

 guished Shakespeare scholars and friends in England, America, 

 and Germany, during the autumn of the present year, and later 

 published in London the discovery of three ancient documents 

 touching the last year of the poet's life, considerable interest was 

 aroused. 



As previously announced, these documents were discovered in 

 the Public Record Office at London while the writer was making 

 a systematic research concerning the children companies at 

 Blackfriars and Whitefriars theaters from 1597 to the middle 

 of the reign of James I. His researches in this field in various 

 libraries and public archives during his absence from the Uni- 

 versity of Nebraska the past year have brought together docu- 

 ments and other evidences hitherto undiscovered or unused or 

 unrelated in stage and dramatic history, concerning which, it is 

 hoped, further information can be furnished in some future num- 

 ber of the Studies. 



Un:vbrsity Studies, Vol. V, No 4, October, 1905. 



347 



