'Though Collatine have deerely bought And found that most in vaine have sought; And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape.' Hardly worth counting as a separate reference is a marginal note to a work called Polimanteia, 4to, 1595, saying (we cite Mr. Halliwell) that 'all praise' the Lucretia of 'sweet Shakespeare. In one of Heywood's plays of as early a date, the Venus and Adonis is quoted from. 6 12. Spenser's Colin Clout's come home again was published, it is believed, at the close of 1595. In this poem there is an interesting enumeration of the shepherds' at the court of Cynthia, who serve her laesie'- i. c., of the most celebrated Elizabethan poets: 'For better shepherds be not under skie, Nor better hable, where they list to blow First is mentioned 'good Harpalus, now waxen aged,' supposed to be old Barnaby Googe. Next is named Corydon, though meanly waged, yet hablest wit of most I know this day'-believed to be Abraham Fraunce. Then come 'sad Alcyon,' 'Palin worthie of great praise,' 'pleasing Alcon,' and 'old Palemon, free from spight, all identified with authors of the day. There is then a long eulogy by name on Dr. William Alabaster, and another on the poet Daniel; and the list concludes with a few more fictitious names, the last of which is thus introduced: And there, though last not least, is Aetion: A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found; Even those who doubt the reference to Shakespeare in the passage already quoted from Spenser, do not doubt the reference here, as indicated by the last line. To us, however, the second, if admitted, confirms the first; and the conclusion from both is, that Shakespeare was one of those junior poets on whom Spenser had his eye, and whom he personally admired as the rising stars of a new literary age. 13. Early in 1596, a petition was presented to the Privy Council, on the part of Thomas Pope, Richard Burbadge, John 'Hemings, Augustine Phillips, William Shakespeare, William 'Kempe, William Slye, Nicholas Tooley, and others, servants to 'the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlain; the purport of Contemporary Notices of Shakespeare. 169 the petition being that whereas they, being owners of the Blackfriars Theatre, desired to enlarge and repair that playhouse before the coming winter, (seeing that their new house' on the Bankside, called 'The Globe,' was only suitable for summer) and had all and eche of them put down soumes of money for the purpose, 'according to their shares in the said theatre, and which they 'have justly and honestly gained by the exercise of their qualitie 'of stage-players;' and whereas 'certain persons, some of them of honour, inhabitants of the said precinct and libertie of the Black'fryers,' were averse to the proposed repairs, and, in fact, regarded the theatre as a nuisance in the neighbourhood, and had petitioned to have it closed; they the said petitioners hoped that their lordships would not injure poor men in their property, but would permit the repairs and enlargement to go on. The petition was so far successful. Their lordships allowed the repairs, but disallowed the enlargement. Copies of the petition of the objecting inhabitants of Blackfriars, and of the counter-petition of the players, are preserved in the State-paper office; and the latter may be seen printed entire in Collier's Annals of the Stage. 14. Curiously enough, the next notice of Shakespeare exhibits him in the character of a complainant against another place of public entertainment. In 1596, Alleyn, the celebrated actor, and afterwards founder of Dulwich College, was proprietor of the Bear-garden, on Bankside, the amusements at which consisted of bear and bull-baiting, and other noisy sports. Many actors at that time resided in Bankside, and among them Shakespeare. It appears accordingly, that when some of the inhabitants of Southwark complained of the Bear-garden as a pest in the neighbourhood, Shakespeare and one or two other theatrical persons joined in the complaint. The following is a jotting from one of the Alleyn papers in Dulwich College-a jocular memorandum of the fact from the pen of some one scribbling on the Alleyn side of the question:'Inhabitantes of Sowtherk as have complaned this Mr. Markis Mr. Tuppin Mr. Langorth Wilsone, the pyper Mr. Barett Mr. Shaksper Phellipes Tomson Mother Golden, the baude Nagges of Jully, 1596. Fillpott and no more, and soe well ended.' 15. To the same year and to the following month belongs another notice-a brief but poignant one. It is a burial-entry from the Stratford register : '1596: August 11: Hamnet, filius William Shakspere.' It is not unlikely that Shakespeare was at Stratford when the event occurred. The boy was then eleven years and a half old. 16. In 1597, Shakespeare had been about twelve years in London, acting and writing plays, and deriving profits from both crafts, as well as from his distinct, though kindred business, as a theatre-proprietor. By this time it is tolerably certain that he had written and produced at the Blackfriars and the Globe about half of the entire series of his plays. These, however, were not published as they were produced, but were kept in manuscript as part of the theatrical stock, in which Shakespeare had property. His Venus and Adonis in 1593 (republished in 1596), and his Lucrece, in 1594, seem, as we have said, to have been the only works of his-at all events, up to this time-published by himself. By this time, however, some of his plays had been published surreptitiously, or otherwise, from the originals. There is reason to believe,' says Mr. Craik, summing up the results of the latest information on this topic, that the first edition of Titus Andronicus was printed in 1594, although the earliest of which any copy is now known is dated 1600. The earliest existing editions of Romeo and Juliet, Richard the Second, and Richard the Third, bear the date of 1597. The following are copies of the title-pages of the original editions of the three last-mentioned plays: 'An excellent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. As it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely, by the right Honourable the L. Hunsdon his servants. London: Printed by John Danter. 1597.' "The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. As it hath beene publikely acted by the right Honourable the Lorde Chamberlaine his servants. London: Printed by Valentine Simmes for Andrew Wise, and are to be sold at his shop in Paule's Churchyard, at the signe of the Angel. 1597.' "The Tragedie of King Richard the Third. Containing His treacherous plots against his brother Clarence: the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes: his tyrannicall usurpation: with the whole course of his detested life and most deserved death. As it hath beene lately acted by the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his servants. At London: Printed by Valentine Sims for Andrew Wise, dwelling in Paule's Churchyard, at the signe of the Angell: 1597.' Contemporary Notices of Shakespeare. 171 These, the first published plays of Shakespeare (so far as is yet accurately known), were all three published, it will be noted, in 1597, and without the author's name, and probably without any consultation with him. So also with the next play of his published early in the following year, as follows: "The History of Henrie the Fourth [the First Part'] with the battell of Shrewsburie, betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy, surnamed Henrie Hotspur of the North. With the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaffe. At London, Printed by P. S. for Andrew Wise, dwelling in Paule's Churchyard at the signe of the Angell: 1598.' That Shakespeare was already well known, however, as the author not only of the particular plays so published anonymously, but of many others equally popular, is proved by a very important notice of him and his works, which occurs in a work published in the same year as the last-named play. The work in question is Palladis Tamia: Wit's Treasury; being the second Part of Wit's Commonwealth. By Francis Meres, Maister of Artes of both Universities: London: Printed by P. Short for Cuthbert Burbie. 1598.' Little is known of Meres, save that he was a Lincolnshire man, a clergyman and schoolmaster, and a compiler of schoolbooks and the like (See Wood's Fasti, i. p. 263). The volume above-mentioned, which is his chief work, is a thick little duodecimo, and consists of a collection of pithy sayings and similitudes on a great variety of topics from all known authors. Thrown into the work, without much connexion with the rest of it, and occupying eight pages, is 'A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets.' This little discourse' is now very precious as containing an enumeration, evidently meant to be exhaustive, and, in some sort, also a classification, of the English poets most celebrated when the author was writing it. The exact position of Shakespeare in the literature of his country in 1598, according to the judgment of well-informed men of that time, is indicated in the discourse' with singular precision. The author first goes back upon the old English poets, and mentions Chaucer, Piers Plowman, Harding, Skelton, and the Earl of Surrey, as the most distinguished poets of former generations. He then enumerates the Englishmen who had more recently distinguished themselves as writers of Latin verse-Haddon, Nicholas Car, Gabriel Harvey, Christopher Ocland, Thomas Newton, Thomas Watson, Thomas Campion, Brunswerd, and Willey. Then, as among living or recently dead authors, who had proved themselves all in all the most eminent masters of the English tongue, he mentions Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Chapman. Then, proceeding more systematically, he groups the still living or recently dead English authors into kinds; maintaining that England can show a goodly list of authors under each kind of literature of which Greece or Rome had afforded a precedent. First, as Pindarus, Anacreon, 'and Callimachus among the Greeks, and Horace and Catullus ' among the Latins, are the best Lyrick poets; so, in this faculty, 'the best among our poets are Spenser (who excelleth in all kinds), 'Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Bretton.' Next, as English representatives of the Tragic muse, he names Lord Buckhurst, Doctor Leg of Cambridge, Dr. Edes of Oxford, 'Maister Edward Ferris, the author of the Mirrour of Magistrates,' Marlowe, Peele, Watson, Kyd, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, Decker, and Benjamin Johnson. Not less efficiently represented is the Comic Drama, by Edward, Earl of Oxford, Dr. Gager, of Oxford, Master Rowley, once of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge,' 'Master Edwardes, of her Majesty's Chapel,' John Lilly, Lodge, Gascoigne, Greene, Shakespeare, Nash, Heywood, Anthony Munday (our best plotter), Chapman, Porter, Wilson, Hathaway, and Henry Chettle. In Satire are mentioned, in addition to old Piers Plowman, Hall of Cambridge (afterwards Bishop Hall), and Lodge; in Elegy, the Earl of Surrey, the elder Wyat, Abraham Fraunce, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Edward Dyer, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Gascoigne, Samuel Page of Oxford, Churchyard, and Bretton; in Pastoral, Sir Philip Sidney, Challoner, Spenser, Stephen Gosson, Abraham Fraunce, and Barnefield. As our best Epigrammatists, are named Heywood, Drayton, Kendal, Bastard, and John Davies of Hereford. Queen Elizabeth, the Countess of Pembroke, and King James of Scotland, are mentioned as examples of royal and noble authors of Britain, comparable to ancient authors of an analogous order. Among Translators, Phaer, the translator of Virgil, Golding, the translator of Ovid, Harington, the translator of Ariosto, Barnaby Googe, Turbervile, Chapman (for his inchoate Homer'), and Gervase Markham, are mentioned as the best Britain had produced; and the 'discourse' concludes with references to some individual English authors, as furnishing parallels, in some incidents of their lives, to Greek and Roman ones. Shakespeare, it will be noticed, is mentioned by name five several times in Meres's list-first, generally, as one of the contemporary ornaments of the English tongue; and then specially |
