and his mother in the autumn of the succeeding year.

There is no doubt that Edmund Shakespeare, who was not twenty-eight at the time of his death, had embraced the profession of a player, having perhaps followed the fortunes of his brother William, and attached himself to the same company. We, however, never meet with his name in any list of the associations of the time, nor is he mentioned as an actor among the characters of any old play with which we are acquainted. We may presume, therefore, that he attained no eminence: perhaps his principal employment might be under his brother in the management of his theatrical concerns, while he only took inferior parts when the assistance of a larger number of performers than usual was necessary.

Mary Shakespeare survived her son Edmund about eight months, and was buried at Stratford on the 9th Sept. 1608. There are few points of his life which can be stated with more confidence than that our great dramatist attended the funeral of his mother: filial piety and duty would of course impel him to visit Stratford on the occasion, and in proof that he did so, we may mention that on the 16th of the next month he stood godfather there to a boy of the name of William Walker. Shakespeare's mother had probably resided at New Place, the house of her son; from whence, we may presume also, the body of her husband had been carried to the grave seven years before. If she were of full age when she was married to John Shakespeare in 1557, she was about 72 years old at the time of her decease.

Globe theatre; the registration being in the following form, specifying, rather unusually, the occupation of the deceased,

“1607, Dec. 31. Edmund Shakespeare, a player.”

The following is a copy of the register.

"1608, Septemb. 9, Mayry Shaxspere, Wydowe."

The reputation of our poet as a dramatist seems at this period to have been at its height. His " "King Lear" was printed three times for the same bookseller in 1608; and in order perhaps to increase its sale, (as well as to secure the purchaser against the old “King Leir," a play upon the same story, being given to him instead) the name of "M. William Shake-speare” was placed very conspicuously, and most unusually, at the top of the title-page. The same observation will in part apply to "Pericles," which came out in 1609, with the name of the author rendered particularly obvious, although in the ordinary place. "Troilus and Cressida," which was published in the same year, also has the name of the author very distinctly legible, but in a somewhat smaller type. In both the latter cases, it would likewise seem, that there were plays by older or rival dramatists upon the same incidents. The most noticeable proof of the advantage which a bookseller conceived he should derive from the announcement that the work he published was by our poet, is afforded by the title-page of the collection of his dispersed sonnets, which was ushered into the world as "Shakespeare's Sonnets," in very large capitals, as if that mere fact would be held a sufficient recommendation.

In a former part of our memoir (p. xc.) we have alluded to the circumstance, that in 1609 Shakespeare was rated to the poor of the Liberty of the Clink in a sum which might possibly indicate that he was the occupant of a commodious dwelling-house in Southwark. The fact that our great dramatist paid sixpence a week to the poor there, (as high a sum as anybody in that immediate vicinity was assessed at) is stated in the account of the Life of Edward Alleyn, printed by the Shakespeare Society, (p. 90) and there it is too hastily inferred that he was rated at this sum upon a dwelling-house occupied by himself. This is very possibly the fact; but, on the other hand, the truth

may be, that he paid the rate not for any habitation, good or bad, large or small, but in respect of his theatrical property in the Globe, which was situated in the same district. The parish register of St. Saviour's establishes, that in 1601 the churchwardens had been instructed by the vestry "to talk with the players respecting the payment of tithes and contributions to the maintenance of the poor; and it is not very unlikely that some arrangement was made under which the sharers in the Globe, and Shakespeare as one of them,

10 The account (preserved at Dulwich College) does not state that the parties enumerated (consisting of 57 persons) were rated to the poor for dwelling. houses, but merely that they were rated and assessed to a weekly payment towards the relief of the poor, some for dwelling-houses, and others perhaps in respect to different kinds of property: it is thus entitled :—

"A breif noat taken out of the poores booke, contayning the names of all thenhabitantes of this Liberty, which are rated and assessed to a weekely paiment towardes the relief of the poore. As it standes now encreased, this 6th day of Aprill, 1609. Delivered up to Phillip Henslowe, Esquior, churchwarden, by Francis Carter, one of the ovreseers of the same Liberty."

The account is in three divisions; and in the first, besides the above, we find the

and twenty-one others. The next division includes a list of nineteen names, and.

at the head of it we find,

Mr. Shakespeare

vjd

Mr. Edw. Collins

vjd

John Burret

vjd

and all the rest pay a rate of either 244 or 144, including the following actors:

ijd ob.

jd ob.

Richard Hunt

jd ob.

Simon Bird

jd ob.

The third division consists of seven persons who only paid one penny per week, and among them we perceive the name of no individual who, according to other evidence, appears to have been in any way concerned with theatres: Malone (see his "Inquiry," p. 215,) had seen this document, but he mis-states that it belongs to the year 1608, and not 1609.

would be assessed. As a confirmatory circumstance we may add, that when Henslowe and Alleyn were about to build the Fortune play-house, in 1599-1600, the inhabitants of the Lordship of Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate, petitioned the privy council in favour of the undertaking, one of their reasons being, that "the erectors were contented to give a very liberal portion of money weekly towards the relief of the poor." Perhaps the parties interested in the Globe were contented to come to similar terms, and the parish to accept the money weekly from the various individuals. Henslowe, Alleyn, Lowin, Town, Juby, &c., who were either sharers, or actors and sharers, in that or other theatres in the same neighbourhood, contributed in different proportions for the same purpose, the largest amount being six-pence per week, which was paid by Shakespeare, Henslowe, and Alleyn'.

The ordinary inhabitants included in the same list, doubtless, paid for their dwellings, according to their several rents, and such may have been the case with Shakespeare: all we contend for is, that we ought not to conclude at once, that Shakespeare was the tenant of a house in the Liberty of the Clink, merely from the circumstance that he was rated to the poor. It is not unlikely that he was the occupier of a substantial dwelling-house in the immediate neighbourhood of the Globe, where his presence and assistance would often be required; and the amount of his income at this period would warrant such an expenditure, although we have no reason for thinking that such a house would be needed for his wife and family, because the existing evidence is opposed to the notion that they ever resided with him in London.

1 John Northbrooke, in his Treatise against Plays, Players, &c., (Shakespeare Society's reprint, p. 126,) informs us that in 1577 people contributed weekly to the support of the poor "according to their ability, some a penny, some two-pence, another four-pence, and the best commonly giveth but sixpence."

CHAPTER XVII.

Attempt of the Lord Mayor and aldermen in 1608 to expel the King's players from the Blackfriars, and its failure. Negociation by the corporation to purchase the theatre and its appurtenances: interest and property of Shakespeare and other sharers. The income of Richard Burbage at his death. Diary of the Rev. J. Ward, Vicar of Stratford, and his statement regarding Shakespeare's expenditure. Copy of a letter from Lord Southampton on behalf of Shakespeare and Burbage. Probable decision of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere in favour of the company at the Blackfriars theatre.

WE have referred to the probable amount of the income of our great dramatist in 1609, and within the last ten years a document has been discovered, which enables us to form some judgment, though not perhaps an accurate estimate, of the sum he annually derived from the private theatre in the Blackfriars.

From the outset of the undertaking, the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London had been hostile to the establishment of players within this precinct, so near to the boundaries, but beyond the jurisdiction of the corporation; and, as we have already shown, they had made several fruitless efforts to dislodge them. The attempt was renewed in 1608, when Sir Henry Montagu, the Attorney General of the day, gave an opinion in favour of the claim of the citizens to exercise their municipal powers within the precinct of the late dissolved monastery of the Blackfriars. The question seems in some shape to have been brought before Baron Ellesmere, then Lord Chancellor of England, who required from the Lord Mayor and his brethren proofs that they had exercised any authority in the disputed liberty. The distinguished lawyers of the day retained by the city were immediately employed in searching for records applicable to the point at issue; but as far as we can judge, no such proofs, as were thought necessary by the highest legal authority of the