plained that the theatres tempted their apprentices to play truant; but the 'matters handled on the stage' must have counted for as much, or more, in fostering their puritanical opposition.

High among the causes of offence to the ultra-protestant faction at this time, I must reckon the name first given to the Sir John Falstaff of Shakespeare's Henry IV.-viz., Sir John Oldcastle; for Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, had died a Protestant martyr, burned for Lollardy by Henry v. Some traces of this initial offence survive in the revised version, published in quarto, the first part in 1598, the second in 1600. Thus (Part I. 1. ii.) :—

'Falstaff. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench? Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the Castle.'

In Part II. 1. ii. line 113 the Quarto, instead of the Fal. given later in all the Folios, prefixes Old. to Falstaff's speech.1 In II. iii. 2. Shallow is made to say:-'Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy and Page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk'-a post actually filled by the historical Oldcastle.2 In the Epilogue to Part 1. the old name is explicitly withdrawn :— Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.' The whole transaction is set forth by Fuller in a passage which I have not seen quoted.3 In his life of John Fastolfe, Knight, On the death of Lord Chamberlain Brook (cf. Note 5) and succession of George Carey, Lord Hunsdon, this action was annulled, and his players took possession of the Curtain.

1 Theobald concluded that 'the play being printed from the Stage manuscript, Oldcastle had been all along alter'd into Falstaff, except in this single place, by an oversight, of which the printers not being aware, continued the initial traces of the original name.' Malone rejects this conclusion, but the evidence against him is decisive.

2 Boaz, Shakspere and his Predecessors, 1896, p. 260.

3 The History of the Worthies of England, published posthumously by

he writes: To avouch him by many arguments valiant, is to maintain that the sun is bright, though since the Stage hath been over bold with his memory, making him a Thrasonical Puff, and emblem of Mock-valour. True it is Sir John Oldcastle did first bear the brunt of the one, being made the make-sport in all plays for a coward. It is easily known out of what purse this black peny came. The Papists railing on him for a Heretick, and therefore he must also be a coward, though indeed he was a man of arms, every inch of him, and as valiant as any in his age. Now as I am glad that Sir John Oldcastle is put out, so I am sorry that Sir John Fastolfe is put in, to relieve his memory in this base service, to be the anvil for every dull wit to strike upon. Nor is our Comedian1 excusable by some alteration of his name, writing him Sir John Falstafe (and making him the property of pleasure for King Henry the Fifth, to abuse) seeing the vicinity of sounds intrench on the memory of that worthy Knight, and few do heed the inconsiderable difference in spelling of their name.'

But the matter does not end here.

Shakespeare's name

appears on the title-page of another play, also published in

quarto in the same year, 1600 :—

"The first part

of the true and hono-
rable history, of the life of
Sir John Old-castle, the good
Lord Cobham.

As it hath bene lately acted by the Right
honorable the Earle of Notingham
Lord High Admirall of England
his servants.

Written by William Shakespeare
London, printed for T.P.
1600.'

Fuller's son, 1662. This passage in the account of Norfolk must have been written less by a great deal than forty years after Shakespeare's death.

1 Shakespeare, without a doubt. Cf. Fuller's account of him, infra.

Now, Shakespeare did not write this play, and his name only appears on certain copies. It has, accordingly, been urged that his name was added to enhance the value of a pirated edition. Yet I find it hard to believe that any one can have hoped to palm off such a play as Shakespeare's. It was written for and acted by the rival Company (the Admiral's) during the run of Shakespeare's Henry IV., abnormally prolonged during several years, off and on, by the popularity of this character. It is also, in fact and on the face of it, a protestant pamphlet, written specifically in reply to Shakespeare's abuse of Oldcastle's name. This is apparent from the Prologue, the significance of which has not, I believe, been noted :

very

"The doubtfull Title (Gentlemen) prefixt

Upon the Argument we have in hand,

May breed suspence, and wrongfully disturbe
The peacefull quiet of your settled thoughts.
To stop which scruple, let this breefe suffice.
It is no pamper'd Glutton we present,
Nor aged Counsellor to youthful sinne ;
But one, whose vertue shone above the rest,
A valiant martyr, and a vertuous Peere,2
In whose true faith and loyalty exprest
Unto his Soveraigne, and his Countries weale:
We strove to pay that tribute of our love
Your favours merit: let faire Truth be grac'd
Since forg'd invention former time defac'd.'

1 We know from Henslowe's Diary that it was written by Michael) D(rayton) A(nthony) M(onday), Hathway and Wilson, who were paid in full, £10, October 16, 1599, with a gift of 10s. for the first playing in November.-Fleay, History of the Stage, p. 108.

2 The astounding inaccuracy of Mr. Carter (Shakespeare: Puritan and Recusant) may be illustrated as above from his handling of this subject. He attributes this line to Shakespeare, and gives it to the Merry Wives! In the same paragraph, p. 144, he gives the early use of the name Oldcastle to the Merry Wives instead of Henry IV., and the phrase, 'Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man,' also to the Merry Wives instead of to the Epilogue, II. Henry IV.

The villain and principal character of the Play, which follows to 'grace fair truth,' is a Priest who turns highwayman for his leman's sake, robs the King in a scene inverted from Prince Hal's escapade, is discovered, in dicing against him, through staking a stolen angel which the King had marked, commits murder, and is finally hanged in chains. The addition of Shakespeare's name to a missile so violently retorted against his handiwork may well be but an insolent device, for which there are many analogues in the controversial amenities of the time.1

VII

If there be dark shadows in the life of the Court, there are shadows, also dark enough, in the other brilliant world of letters. Greene starves in a garret (September 1592). Marlowe, his Hero and Leander yet unpublished, is stabbed to death in a tavern brawl (1593). And, apart from the squalid tragedy of their deaths, these great men of letters were literary Mohocks in their lives. There are few parallels to the savage vindictiveness of the Marprelate controversy, and the men who could wield such weapons were ever ready to lay them with amazing truculence about the shoulders of any new adventurer into the arena of their art. Shakespeare came in for his share of the bludgeoning from the outset. The swashing blows of

Tom Nash, in his address 'To the Gentlemen students of both Universities' (prefixed to Greene's Menaphon, 1589) 2 whistled suspiciously near his head, and must, at least, have been aimed at some of his new colleagues. And they are

1E.g. Jonson having attacked Dekker in The Poetaster, a play into which he introduces himself as Horace, Dekker retorted in Satiromastix by lifting one of Jonson's characters, Tucca, the better to rail at Jonson, again under his self-chosen name of Horace.

2 Dated by Ed. Arber.

Ibid. 'It is a common practice now a daies amongst a sort of shifting comparisons, that runne through every arte and thrive by none, to leave the

but a part of the general attack delivered by the University pens' upon the actors and authors of the new Drama: 'Who

trade of noverint (i.e. attorney) whereto they were borne, and busie themselves with the indevors of Art, that could scarcelie latinise their necke-verse (to claim benefit of clergy) if they had neede; yet English Seneca read by candle night yeeldes manie good sentences, as Bloud is a beggar, and so foorth; and if you intreate him faire on a frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speaches.' Mr. Arber has argued that this passage does not refer to Shakespeare, (1) because his play of Hamlet was not yet written, (2) because it applies only to translators. On the other hand (1) the earlier Hamlet, referred to here and in Dekker's Satiromastix, was acted by Shakespeare's colleagues, and may have been retouched by him before he produced the two versions attributed to his authorship-if indeed the Quarto of 1603 can be called a separate version, and be not a pirated edition made from shorthand notes. (2) Although the whole passage refers to translators, this and other incidental remarks are clearly directed against the new drama. Titus Andronicus is ascribed by Mr. Dowden to the preceding year, and is said by Baynes to reflect the form of Seneca's later plays. Out of four plays acted by Shakespeare's company, June 3-13, 1594, three bear the titles of plays afterwards ascribed to him, viz., Andronicus, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew (Fleay, History of the Stage, p. 97). Many other plays with titles afterwards borne by plays indubitably rewritten by Shakespeare, were acted even earlier. Fleay and Dowden agree substantially in placing Love's Labour's Lost, Love's Labour Won (Much Ado about Nothing), Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet, Two Gentlemen of Verona, three parts of Henry VI., All's well that ends well, Troylus and Cressida, The Jealous Comedy (Merry Wives of Windsor), and Twelfth Night in the early years, 1588-1593. Without even considering the date at which Shakespeare may be called sole author of a play (for that is a wholly different question), we may infer that his practice of adding touches to the stock MSS. of his company was one which grew with the popular success attending it. If that be so, an attack in 1589 on a play, afterwards appropriated to Shakespeare, cannot be said to miss him. The extensive habit of anonymity and collaboration in the production of plays shows that they were regarded simply as the property of the company, and were paid in full when the authors received their fee. The profits were shared: cf. Tucca to Histrio, the impresario, after the exhibition of acting by his two boys :-'Well, now fare thee well, my honest penny-biter: commend me to seven shares and a half, and remember to-morrow. If you lack a service-(i.e. a patron whose service should protect against the statute)-you shall play in my name, rascals; but you shall buy your own cloth, and I'll have two shares for my countenance.' It was a matter of business, and remained so until the fame of certain authors led to publication. Drayton's Plays of which he was sole author have all perished.