town of their birth,-between the Poet and his printer." And this tie, more especially dear perhaps to a poet than to another, existed between himself and several of the actors with whom he was so long associated, and was perhaps that which drew as well as bound him to them for so many years.

It is more than probable, therefore, that he came to London with a previous understanding that he would, on his arrival, receive a position connected with the theater; for, as he was already married, and had a wife and child to support, so wise and prudent a man was not likely to have ventured to London on mere speculation. Is it likely that, if he had come to London as a sort of beggarly holder of horses at the theater-doors, he would in two years after his arrival in London have acquired sufficient wealth and reputation to become one of the fifteen proprietors of the Blackfriars' Theater? Is it likely that he would in so short a time have become the friend and companion of various noblemen and of

some of the most considerable persons of the time? "The reason why we know so little of Shakespeare," says Maginn, "is, that when his business was over at the theater, he did not mix with his fellow-actors, but stepped into his boat, and rowed up to Whitehall, there to spend his time with the Earl of Southampton, and other gentlemen about the Court." The bare fact that he became the esteemed friend and companion of such men as Southampton is a proof that he was, from the first, a man of taste and refinement. So also is the circumstance that he bought, with his first considerable earnings, the finest house in his native town, and put his family into it. A man of low origin and vulgar tastes would have had other associates, and would have spent his money in quite a different way.

Instead of being incredible, therefore, Shakespeare's career seems to me of all things most credible and natural; for he came to his work in the most natural way that can be imagined. No college

bred, classic-crammed formalist could ever have composed the free and easy, precedent-defying, rule-defying, and entirely original compositions which go under his name. None but a naturally-developed, free and independent genius could have produced such marvellous works. They probably came to him as naturally and as easily as the historical romances came to Walter Scott, and he perhaps dashed off a play in as short a space of time as Scott dashed off a romance. We know this to have been the case with The Merry Wives of Windsor, and it is not improbable that the same was the case with others of his plays. In Love's Labor's Lost, he makes Biron say:

Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority, from others' books.

"Fortunately for us," says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, "the youthful dramatist had, excepting in the school-room, little opportunity of studying any but a grander volume, the infinite book of nature, the pages of which were ready to be

unfolded to him in the lane and field, amongst the copses of Snitterfield, by the side of the river, or by that of his uncle's hedgerows."

13

CHAPTER XIII.

SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER IN LONDON-HOW

HIS CONDUCT CLOSELY RESEMBLES THAT
OF THE PRINCE.

OW let us turn to the scene in

Nwhich the Prince, on ascending the

throne, discards Falstaff and his other companions, and see how it resembles the Poet's conduct on arriving in London.

Enter the King and his train; the Chief Justice among them.

Fal. God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal

Hal!

Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!

King. My lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain

man.

Ch. Just.

Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you speak?

Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my

heart!