In these characters the records maintain him with little change for above ten years to come. In 1599 two of his Sonnets, and three poems from Love's Labour's Lost, appeared in a volume called the Passionate Pilgrim, ascribed at the time to him, but otherwise probably spurious. In 1609 appeared the quarto of the Sonnets as we have them.

To pass from poems to plays, in 1599 appeared a fairly complete quarto of Romeo and Juliet. In 1600, As You Like It, Henry V., Much Ado About Nothing, the Second Part of Henry IV., the Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Merchant of Venice were entered in the Stationers' Register, and all of these except As You Like It were published in quarto,Henry V. without his name; in the same year appeared anonymously the first extant quarto of Titus Andronicus. In 1602, Twelfth Night was acted; the Merry Wives of Windsor was entered and published; and in the same year were entered the First and Second Parts of Henry VI. and the Revenge of Hamlet. This is believed to be the version which appeared in quarto in 1603; the full text of Hamlet appeared in 1604. In 1607 King Lear was entered "as yt was played before the Kinges Majestie at Whitehall uppon St Stephens night at Christmas last." In the following year it appeared in two separate quartos, on the titlepages of which Shakspere's name is printed with very marked conspicuousness. In 1608, too, Pericles and Anthony & Cleopatra were entered. In 1609 Troylus & Cressida was entered and twice published; and

Pericles, too, twice appeared in quarto. This was the year, we may remember, in which the Sonnets appeared. From this time on, although a number of the foregoing plays were reprinted during his lifetime, no new work of his is known to have been either entered or printed until after his death; and the only one which appeared before the folio of 1623 was Othello, entered in 1621, and published in 1622. From these facts it would appear that his popularity as a dramatist was at its height in 1600; and that at least his activity diminished after 1609.

1

To pass from his works to his acting, he became, in 1599, a partner in the Globe Theatre, then just erected; and his company performed at court during Christmastide, in 1599, 1600, and 1602. It has been inferred by Mr. Fleay that their absence from court in 1601 was connected with Essex's rebellion. It is possible that the play concerning Richard II., performed on the eve of that insurrection, was Shakspere's; if so, the Queen probably had reason to withhold her favor from him and his associates; but the matter is all conjectural. Queen Elizabeth died on March 24th, 1603. On May 19th, King James granted a license to Shakspere and others by name, to perform plays and to be called the King's Players. The company in question gave several plays at court each year until 1609; and in 1604, on the occasion of the King's entry into London, Shakspere, along with the other players, was granted four yards and a half of red cloth. During the years 1 Life, 143–144.

in question, then, he was professionally at the height of his prosperity.

The records of his private affairs maintain this conclusion. In 1600 he brought an action for £7 against a certain John Clayton, and won it; in 1602 he bought one hundred and seven acres of land near Stratford, as well as other real property in the town; in 1604 there came another small action, and some large and small purchases of land. The records, in short, show him constantly and punctiliously thrifty; and as early as the purchase of 1602 he was legally described as "Wm. Shakespere of Stratford-uppon-Avon, gentleman." This description occurs a few months after he became the head of his family; for on September 8th, 1601, the year of the Essex conspiracy, his father was buried. In 1605, his fellow-player, Augustine Phillips, bequeathed him "a thirty-shilling piece in gold." On June 25th, 1607, Shakspere's elder daughter, Susanna, then twenty-four years old, was married to Dr. John Hall, a physician of Stratford; on February 21st, 1608, Elizabeth Hall, his grandchild, was baptized. Two months before, his youngest brother, Edmund, "a player," had died in London, and had been buried in S. Saviour's, Southwark. On September 9th, 1608, Shakspere's mother was buried at Stratford; on October 16th, he stood godfather there to one William Walker. These dry facts tell us something. Throughout the period of his professional prosperity he was demonstrably strengthening his position as a local personage at Stratford; and the

chances seem to be that he came thither in person more and more.

From this time on, what records touch him personally show him chiefly at Stratford. In 1611, to be sure, the surprisingly detailed note-book of Dr. Simon Forman mentions performances of Macbeth, Cymbeline, and the Winter's Tale. In 1613, along with some older plays, the Tempest was performed at court; in the same year, when the Globe Theatre was burned, the fire started from a discharge of cannon in a play about Henry VIII., which may have been Shakspere's; and certainly in the same year he bought, and mortgaged, and leased, a house and shop in Blackfriars, London. What attracts one's attention more, however, is his presence in the country. In 1610 he bought more land from the Combes; in 1611 he subscribed to a fund for prosecuting in Parliament a bill for good roads; in 1612, described as "William Shackspeare, of Stratford-uppon-Avon, gentleman," he joined in a suit of which the object was to diminish his taxes: in 1614 he received a legacy of £5 from his Stratford neighbor, John Combe; in 1614, too, he was deep in a local controversy about the fencing of commons. Meanwhile there is said to be no record directly connecting him with theatrical life after 1609, when his publication ceased.

In view of this, the last paragraph of the Dedication of John Webster's White Devil is in a way significant :

1 Centurie of Prayse, 100.

"Detraction is the sworne friend to ignorance: For mine owne part I have ever truly cherisht my good opinion. of other mens worthy Labours, especially of that full and haightned stile of maister Chapman: The labor'd and understanding workes of maister Johnson: The no lesse worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Maister Beaumont & Maister Fletcher: And lastly (without wrong last to be named) the right happy and copious industry of M. Shake-speare, M. Decker, & M. Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light: Protesting, that, in the strength of mine owne judgement, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my owne worke, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martiall.

non norunt, Hæc monumenta mori."

This was written in 1612. The first play of Chapman was published in 1598; the first of Heywood, in 1599; the first of Jonson and the first of Dekker in 1600; the first of Beaumont and Fletcher in 1607. Webster, probably a greater man than any of these, speaks of them all, in his first words, as traditional models. He groups Shakspere with them; and Shakspere had certainly begun his work, as a rival of Greene and Peele and Marlowe, years before any of these others except perhaps Dekker. In 1612 he was already, in a way, a tradition.

What little more is recorded of him belongs to the year 1616. On January 25th, his will was prepared. On February 10th, his younger daughter, Judith, married Thomas Quiney. On March 25th he signed his will. Just one month later, on April 25th,