SHAKSPEARE. 89 
were unvoidably altered, it was natural that the Theatre 
should present itself to his mind, as his best asylum ; he 
directed his steps to the metropolis, he became a player, and 
in the end, a writer for the stage The tale of Shakspeare’s 
attending at the Globe, on his first arrival in London, to 
take charge of gentlemen’s horses, during the performance, 
fs absurd; but it seems likely that the first office he held in 
the Theatre, was that of call-boy , or prompter’s attendant. 
He did notlong continue in that capacity, being soon admitted 
to perform minor parts. Shakspeare followed the profession of 
an actor upwards of seventeen years, and till within about 
thirteen years of his death; but we have good reason to 
suppose that six shillings and eight pence a week was the 
highest reward of his dramatic efforts. Of his merit as an 
actor, we have no positive data on which to found an opinion. 
From some satirical passages in the writings of his contem¬ 
poraries, we may fairly suppose that he was not a favourite 
performer with the public. His instructions to the 
players in Hamlet, however, bespeak so deep a study of 
the art, that it is possible his unpopularity may be attributed 
as. much to the bad taste of his auditors, as to a deficiency in 
his own powers. The only characters which we know with 
•certainty to have been personated by Shakspeare, are the 
Ghost in Hamlet, and Adam in As You Like it: his name 
appears in the list of Players attached to Ben Jonson’s 
Sejanus, and Every Man in his Humour; but it is sufficient¬ 
ly evident that he never sustained any very important part. 
His first attempts at authorship were confined to the adapta¬ 
tion of the older dramas to the stage, and hence probably 
arose that habit of borrowing plots and incidents which so 
remarkably characterizes him. No portion of his history is 
more obscure than the period at which he first ventured to 
•rely on the resources of his own mind, and produce an 
original drama on the stage, which he had so often trod 
unnoticed. Every attempt to select from the long list of 
his wonderful productions the one which paved his way to 
future eminence, has ended in uncertainty. The Comedy of 
Errors, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, have each been 
pitched upon as the first, but any other might have been 
named with an equal probability. Our bard, however, was 
well known as a dramatic writer in 1592, and there is 
reason to suppose that all his compositions for the stage were 
written between 1590 and 1613, a period of about twenty- 
tliree years, and when it is considered that we possess thirty 
of his plays which are indisputably genuine, besides several, 
the authenticity of which is doubtful, the marvellous power 
and range of his intellect will be sufficiently evident. Ac¬ 
cording to the chronological order in which the critics have 
placed his dramas, his genius appears in full vigour from its 
first flight to its last. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is said 
to have been his second production. It is a mortifying fact 
that of Shakspeare’s method of writing we know nothing. 
The story that is related of his telling Ben Jonson that he 
hehad “ never blotted out a line,” seems to show that he wrote 
with astonishing facility, and of this indeed there is strong 
internal evidence in all his writings. Yet it is also probable 
that many of his far extended puns, quibbles and plays on 
words were the result of some toil, and that his finer speeches 
must have undergone many retouchings. This, however, is 
mere conjecture. Of his art, or the order of his productions, 
nothing certain has been discovered. 
The following, however, is the order his plays were writ¬ 
ten in, according to the surmises of Malone and Chalmers-.— 
According to According to 
The Third Part of Henry VI. was \ 
written in. J 
SI alone. 
1591 
Chalmers 
1595 
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 
1592 
1598 
Comedy of Errors. 
1593 
1591 
-Taming of the Shrew., 
1594 
1598 
Love’s Labour’s Lost. 
1594 
1592 
;Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
1595 
1595 
Romeo and Juliet. 
1595 
1592 
Hamlet. 
1596 
1597 
King John... 
1596 
1598 
Von. XXIII. No. 1557. 
According to According to 
King Richard II. 
Malone. 
Chalmers. 
1596 
King Richard III. 
1595 
First Part of Henry IV. 
1596 
Second Part of Henry IV. 
1597 
Merchant of Venice. 
1597 
All’s Well that Ends Well. 
1599 
King Henry V. 
1597 
Much ado about Nothing. 
1600 
1599 
As You Like it .. 
1599 
Merry Wives of Windsor. 
1601 
1596 
King Henry VIII. 
1601 
1613 
Troilus and Cressida. 
1602 
1600 
Measure for Measure. 
1603 
1604 
The Winter’s Tale.;. 
1601 
King Lear.. 
1605 
1605 
Cymbeline. 
1606 
Macbeth. 
1606 
Julius Ceesar. 
1607 
1607 
Antony and Cleopatra. 
1608 
1608 
Timon of Athens. 
1601 
Coriolanus. 
1610 
1609 
Othello. 
1614 
The Tempest. 
1612 
1613 
Twelfth Night. 
1613 
Shakspeare, like most men of pre-eminent talents, is said 
to have been much assailed by the attacks of envious rivals, 
notwithstanding that gentleness and good nature were the 
peculiar characteristics of his personal deportment. Among 
those who are said to have treated him with hostility was the 
celebrated Ben Jonson; but though Jonson was arrogant of 
his scholarship, and publicly professed a rivalship of Shak¬ 
speare, he was in private his friend and associate. 
The opposition or rivalship of Shakspeare and Jonson 
produced, as might naturally be expected, much contention, 
concerning their relative merits, between their respective 
friends and admirers; and it is not a little remarkable, that 
Jonson seems to have maintained a higher place in the esti¬ 
mation of the public in general than our poet, for more than 
a century after the death of the latter. Within that period 
Jonson’s works are said to have passed through several edi¬ 
tions, and to have been read with avidity, while Shakspeare’s 
were comparatively neglected till the time of Rowe. This 
circumstance is in a great measure to be accounted for on 
the principle that classical literature and collegiate learning 
were regarded in those days as the chief criteria of merit 
Accordingly Jonson’s charge against Shakspeare was the 
want of that species of knowledge, that “ he knew little 
Latin and less Greek;” and upon his own proficiency in 
these languages, he arrogated to himself a superiority over 
him. That all classical scholars, however, did not sanction 
Jonson’s pretensions, is certain; for among the greatest ad¬ 
mirers of Shakspeare, was one of the most learned men of 
his age. Hales. On one occasion, the latter, after listening 
in silence to a warm debate between Sir John Suckling and 
Jonson, is reported to have interposed by observing, “ that 
if Shakspeare had not read the ancients, he had likewise not 
stolen any thing from them; and that if he (Jonson) would 
produce any one topic finely treated by any one of them, 
he would undertake to shew something on the same subject, 
at least as well written, by Shakspeare; which of course could 
very easily be done.” 
Shakspeare, unlike most authors of his time, became 
wealthy. He combined author and actor in his own person; 
this in some degree alleviated his pecuniary difficulties, and 
his superlative merits as a poet soon advanced him in the 
regard of the great and the noble. The players in his time 
were constantly denominated and treated as servants; and 
wherever the actor visited his patron’s mansion, the only 
place he expected admittance to, was the buttery. On the 
contrary, the friendship of the poet was frequently sought by 
the opulent: even noblemen made him their companions, and 
chose him at once as the object of their bounty and esteem. 
In this manner, Shakspeare became the bosom associate of 
2 A the 
