Cseem to have found, that neither their plays nor their players could stand the competition of their rivals, and they accordingly removed to a vicinity where no playhouse had previously existed The Fortune theatre was commenced in Golding Lane, Cripplegate, in the year 1599, and finished in 1600, and thither without delay Henslowe and Alleyn transported their whole dramatic establishment, strengthened in the spring of 1602 by the addition of that great and popular comic performer, William Kempe'. The association at the Globe was then left in almost undisputed possession of the Bankside. There were, indeed, occasional, and perhaps not unfrequent, performances at the Rose, (although it had been stipulated with the public authorities that it should be pulled down, if leave were given for the construction of the Fortune) as well as at the Hope and the Swan, but not by the regular associations which had previously occupied them; and after the Fortune was opened, the speculation there was so profitable, that the Lord Admiral's players had no motive for returning to their old quarters. The members of the two companies belonging to the Lord Chamberlain and to the Lord Admiral appear to have possessed so much influence in the summer of Alleyn against Kempe, could have meant nobody but Richard Burbage. It will be recollected, that not very long afterwards Kempe became a member of the association of which Alleyn was the leader, and quitted that to which Shakespeare and Burbage were attached. It is possible that this wager, and Kempe's success in it, led Alleyn and Henslowe to hold out inducements to him to join them in their undertaking at the Fortune. Upon this point, however, we have no other evidence, than the mere fact that Kempe went over to the enemy. 5 After his return from Rome, where he was seen in the autumn of 1601. It was at the Fortune that Alleyn seems to have realised so much money in the few first years of the undertaking, that he was able in Nov. 1604 to purchase the manor of Kennington for £1065, and in the next year the manor of Lewisham and Dulwich for £5000. These two sums, in money of the present day, would be equal to at least £25,000; but it is to be observed that for Dulwich, Alleyn only paid £2000 down, while the remaining sum was left upon mortgage. In the commencement of the seventeenth century theatrical speculations generally seem to have been highly lucrative. See "The Alleyn Papers," (printed by the Shakespeare Society,) p. xiv. 1600, that (backed perhaps by the puritanical zeal of those who were unfriendly to all theatrical performances) they obtained an order from the privy council, dated 22d June, that no other public play-houses should be permitted but the Globe in Surrey, and the Fortune in Middlesex. Nevertheless, the privy council registers, where this order is inserted, also contain distinct evidence that it was not obeyed, even in May 1601; for on the 10th of that month the Lords wrote to certain magistrates of Middlesex requiring them to put a stop to the performance of a play at the Curtain, in which were introduced "some gentlemen of good desert and quality, that are yet alive," but saying nothing about the closing of the house, although it was open in defiance of the imperative command of the preceding year. We know also upon other testimony, that not only the Curtain, but theatres on the Bankside, besides the Globe, (where performances were allowed) were then in occasional use. It is fair to presume, therefore, that the order of the 22d June, 1600, was never strictly enforced, and one of the most remarkable circumstances of the times is, the little attention, as regards theatricals, that appears to have been paid to the absolute authority of the court. It seems exactly as if restrictive measures had been adopted in order to satisfy the importunity of particular individuals, but that there was no disposition on the part of persons in authority to carry them into execution. Such was probably the fact; for a year and a half after the order of the 22d June had been issued it was renewed, but, as far as we can learn, with just as little effect as before'. Besides the second edition of "Romeo and Juliet" in 1599, (which was most likely printed from a play 7 See "Hist. Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage," Vol. i. p. 316, where the particulars, which are here necessarily briefly and summarily dismissed, are given in detail. house manuscript, being very different from the mutilated and manufactured copy of 1597) five plays by our great dramatist found their way to the press in 1600, viz. "Titus Andronicus," (which as we have before remarked had probably been originally published in 1594) "The Merchant of Venice," "A Midsummer Night's Dreams," "Henry IV." part ii., and "Much Ado about Nothing." The last only was not mentioned by Meres in 1598; and as to the periods when we may suppose the others to have been written, we must refer the reader to our several Introductions, where we have given the existing information upon the subject. "The Chronicle History of Henry V." The clothing of Snug the joiner in a "lion's fell" in this play, Act v. sc. 1, (Vol. ii. p. 460), seems to have suggested the humorous speech to King James at Linlithgow, on 30th June 1617, eight lines of which only are given in Nichols's "Progresses" of that monarch, Vol. iii. p. 326. The whole address, of twenty-two lines, exists in the State Paper office, where it was discovered by Mr. Lemon. It seems to have been the original MS. which was placed at the time in the hands of the king, and as it is a curiosity we subjoin it. "A moveing engine, representing a fountaine, and running wine, came to the gate of the towne, in the midst of which was a lyon, and in the lyon a man, who delivered this learned speech to his majestie. "Most royall sir, heere I doe you beseech, The Nymph of Sicile: Noe, men may carous a From these faire conduits, and turne drunk like apes. Is nowe unto the gate? I would say more, But words now failing, dare not, least I roare." The eight lines in Nichols's "Progresses of James I." are from Drummond's Poems, and there can be little doubt that the whole speech was from his pen. also came out in the same year, but without the name of Shakespeare upon the title-page, and it is, if possible, a more imperfect and garbled representation of the play, as it proceeded from the author's pen, than the "Romeo and Juliet" of 1597. Whether any of the managers of theatres at this date might not sometimes be concerned in selling impressions of dramas, we have no sufficient means of deciding; but we do not believe it, and we are satisfied that dramatic authors in general were content with disposing of their plays to the several companies, and looked for no emolument to be derived from publication. We are not without something like proof that actors now and then sold their parts in plays to booksellers, and thus, by the combination of them and other assistance, editions of popular plays were surreptitiously printed. We ought not to pass over without notice a circumstance which happened in 1600, and is connected with the question of the authorized or unauthorized publication of Shakespeare's plays. In that year a quarto impression of a play, called "The first part of the true and honourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham," came out, on the titlepage of which the name of William Shakespeare appeared at length. We find by Henslowe's Diary that this drama was in fact the authorship of four poets, Anthony Munday, Michael Drayton, Robert Wilson and Richard Hathway; and to attribute it to Shakespeare was evidently a mere trick by the bookseller, T[homas] P[avier], in the hope that it would be bought as his work. Malone remarked upon this fraud, but he was not aware, when he wrote, that it had been detected and corrected at the time, for since his day more than 9 It was a charge against Robert Greene, that, driven by the pressure of necessity, he had on one occasion raised money by making "a double sale" of his play called "Orlando Furioso," 1594, first to the players and afterwards to the press. Such may have been the fact, but it was unquestionably an exception to the ordinary rule. one copy of the "First Part, &c. of Sir John Oldcastle" has come to light, upon the title-page of which no name is to be found, the bookseller apparently having been compelled to cancel the leaf containing it. From the indifference Shakespeare seems uniformly to have displayed on matters of the kind, we may, possibly, conclude that the cancel was made at the instance of one of the four poets who were the real authors of the play; but we have no means of speaking decisively upon the point, and the step may have been in some way connected with the objection taken by living members of the Oldcastle family to the name, which had been assigned by Shakespeare in the first instance to Falstaff 1o. CHAPTER XIV. Death of John Shakespeare in 1601. Performance of "Twelfth Night in February, 1602. Anecdote of Shakespeare and Burbage: Manningham's Diary in the British Museum the authority for it. "Othello,” acted by Burbage and others at the Lord Keeper's in August, 1602. Death of Elizabeth, and Arrival of James I. at Theobalds. English actors in Scotland in 1589, and again in 1599, 1600, and 1601 large rewards to them. The freedom of Aberdeen conferred in 1601 upon Laurence Fletcher, the leader of the English company in Scotland. Probability that Shakespeare never was in Scotland. THE father of our great poet died in the autumn of 1601, and he was buried at Stratford-upon-Avon'. He seems to have left no will, and if he possessed any property, in land or houses, not made over to his family, we know not how it was divided. Of the eight children which his wife, Mary Arden, had brought 10 See the Introduction to "Henry IV." Part I. Vol. iv. p. 220. 1 On the 8th September, as we find by the subsequent entry in the parish register: VOL. I. "1601. Septemb. 8. Mr. Johanes Shakspeare." m |