catastrophe of the 'Sun's Darling'; and Ben Jonson, in his Cynthia's Revels (1600), put forth two censorious allusions to Essex's conduct. Indeed the framework of this latter play, 6 apart from its incidental attacks on other authors, is a defence of Cynthia's' severity. Says Cupid (i. 1):-'The huntress and queen of these groves, Diana, in regard of some black and envious slanders hourly breathed against her for divine justice on Actæon . . . hath . . . proclaim'd a solemn revels, which (her godhead put off) she will descend to grace.' The play was acted before Elizabeth, and contains many allusions to the Presence.' After the masque, Cynthia thanks the masquers (v. 3) :— 6 For you are they, that not, as some have done, Did, to our grief, incur a fatal doom. . . . And hallow'd places with impure aspect.' In 1600, such lines can only have pointed to Essex-Actæon's mad intrusion into the presence of a Divine Virgin. In 1601 if, as some hold, these lines were a late addition, the reference to Essex's execution was still more explicit. We know that Essex had urged the Scotch King, our James 1., to enforce the recognition of his claim to the succession by a show of arms,1 and that James 'for some time after his accession considered Essex a martyr to his title to the English crown.' Mr. Fleay points out that 'Lawrence Fletcher, comedian to His Majesty,' was at Aberdeen in 2 1 Queen Elizabeth, E. S. Beesley. 2 Criminal Trials, L. E. K. i. 394; quoted by Fleay. 3 History of the Stage, 136. October 1601, and that Fletcher, Shakespeare, and the others in his company, were recognised by James as his players immediately after his accession (1603).1 The title-page of the first Hamlet (1603: entered in the Stationers' Registers, July 26, 1602) puts the play forward as it hath beene diverse times acted by his Highnesse servants in the Cittie of London; as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere.' Mr. Fleay, therefore, to my thinking, proves his case: 2 that Shakespeare's company was travelling in 1601 whilst Ben Jonson's Cynthia was being played by the children of the Chapel. In the light of these facts it is easy to understand the conversation between Hamlet and Rosencrantz, Act ii. 2, which, else, is shrouded in obscurity :— 'Hamlet. What players are they? Rosencrantz. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the City. Hamlet. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Rosencrantz. I think their inhibition comes by means of the late innovation. Hamlet. Do they hold in the same estimation they did when I was in the City? are they so followed? Rosencrantz. No, indeed they are not. Hamlet. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? Rosencrantz. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases that cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages-so they call them-that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come 1 The license is quoted by Halliwell-Phillipps in full, Outlines, ii. 82. Mr. Sidney Lee (Dic. Nat. Biog. 'Shakespeare'), objects that there is nothing to indicate that Fletcher's companions in Scotland belonged to Shakespeare's company. This hardly touches the presumption raised by the fact that Fletcher, Comedian to His Majesty,' i.e. to James as King of Scotland in 1601, was patented with Shakespeare, Burbage, and others, as the 'King's servants' on James's accession to the English throne in 1603. thither. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy; there was for a while no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs on the question. . . .1 Hamlet. Do the boys carry it away? Rosencrantz. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.' 2 The collection of such passages; Shakespeare's professed affection for Southampton; his silence when so many mourned the Queen's death, marked (as it was) by a contemporary: all these indications tend to show that Shakespeare shared in the political discontent which overshadowed the last years of Elizabeth's reign. But it is safer not to push this conclusion, and sufficient to note that the storms which ruined Essex and Southampton lifted at least a ripple in the stream of Shakespeare's life.3 To turn from Southampton to Shakespeare's other noble patron, is to pass from the hazards of war and politics to the lesser triumphs and disasters of a youth at Court. Many slight but vivid pictures of Herbert's disposition and conduct, during the first two years of his life at Court, are found in the intimate letters of Rowland White to Herbert's uncle, Sir Robert Sidney. My Lord Harbert -so he invariably styles him-'hath with much a doe brought his Father to consent that he may live at London, yet not before next spring.' This was written 19th April 1597, when Herbert was but seventeen. During that year a project was 1 See infra on the personal attacks in Cynthia's Revels and Poetaster. 2 I.e. the Globe Theatre. 3 I shall not pursue the further vicissitudes of Southampton's adventurous career, for the last of Shakespeare's Sonnets was written almost certainly before the Queen's death or soon after. mooted between Herbert's parents and the Earl of Oxford for his marriage with Oxford's daughter, Bridget Vere, aged thirteen.1 It came to nothing by reason of her tender years, and Herbert, in pursuance of a promise extracted from a father confined by illness to his country seat, came up to town, and thrust into the many-coloured rout, with all the flourish and the gallantry, and something also of the diffidence and uneasiness, of youth. You catch glimpses of him now, a glittering figure in the medley, watching his mistress, Mary Fitton, lead a masque before the Queen, or challenging at the Tournay in the valley of Mirefleur-an equivalent for Greenwich, coined for the nonce, since both place and persons must be masked after the folly of the hour; and again you find him sicklied with ague and sunk in melancholy-the Hamlet of his age, Gardiner calls him-seeking his sole consolation in tobacco. I cannot refrain from transcribing Rowland White's references in their order, so clean are the strokes with which he hits off Herbert, so warm the light he sheds on the Court that surrounded Herbert. 4th August 1599: -My lord Harbert meanes to follow the camp and bids me write unto you, that if your self come not over, he means to make bold with you and send for Bayleigh'—Sir Robert Sidney's charger-'to Penshurst, to serve upon. you have any armor, or Pistols, that may steede him for himself only, he desires he may have the Use of them till your own Return.' 11th August 1599:- He sent to my lady'— ('Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother')—' to borrow Bayleigh. If 1 Mr. Tyler, Shakespeare's Sonnets, p. 45, quotes the Rev. W. A. Harrison and the original letters, discovered by him, which prove the existence of this abortive contract. This name belongs to 1606; in 1600, however, he also jousted at Greenwich. She returned this Answer, that he shall have it, but conditionally, that if you come over or send for yt to Flushing he may restore yt, which he agrees to.' 18th August 1599:-'My Lord Harbert hath beene away from Court these 7 Daies in London, swagering yt amongest the Men of Warre, and viewing the Maner of the Musters.' 8th September 1599:- My lord Harbert is a continuall Courtier, but doth not follow his Business with that care as is fitt; he is to cold in a matter of such Greatness.' 12th September 1599:- Now that my lord Harbert is gone, he is much blamed for his cold and weak maner of pursuing her Majestie's Favor, having had so good steps to lead him unto it. There is want of spirit and courage laid to his charge, and that he is a melancholy young man.' September 13, 1599:-'I hope upon his return he will with more lisse 1 and care undertake the great matter, which he hath bene soe cold in.' 2 On the 20th September 1599, White perceives 'that Lord Nottingham would be glad to have Lord Harbert match in his house '-i.e. marry his daughter. This, then, is the second project of marriage entertained on Herbert's behalf. On Michaelmas Day, White describes Essex's return, and you gather from many subsequent letters how great was the commotion caused by his fall. 'The time,' he writes, September 30th, 'is full of danger,' and 11th October :-- What the Queen will determine with hym is not knowen; but I see litle Hope appearing of any soddain liberty.' Meanwhile Herbert steers clear of the eddies, and prosecutes his cause with greater energy. Whilst Southampton is a truant at the play, 'My lord Harbert' (11th 1 1 Fr. Liesse=Gaiety. 2 About this time his father underwent an operation for the stone, and, if he had died under it, his place in Wales would have gone to the Earl of Worcester or the Earl of Shrewsbury. Herbert was to secure the reversion to himself. |