and gravity, being loth to have any profane pamphlets pass under their hands get some other to set his name to their verses"; and he significantly concludes that "He that cannot write true English without the help of clerks of parish churches will needs make himself the father of interludes"; and in his "Groatsworth of Wit," he says, "There is an upstart Crow beautified with our Feathers, that with his Tyger's heart wrapt in a Player's hyde, supposes he is as wel able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shakescene in the Country."

1

The expression, "Tyger's heart wrapt in a Player's hyde" is from the play of "Henry VI." Henry Chettle, who published Greene's book, apologized for this attack, but mentioned no names. In the apology he used these words: —

I am as sorry as if the originall fault had been my fault, because my selfe have seene his desmeanor no less civil than he is excelent in the qualitie he professes; besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that aprooves his Art. 2

This is all, and, if it refers to the actor, as so many of his admirers claim, though some deny, furnishes very little for favorable comment. All that Chettle had himself personally noticed was the civil demeanor of the person alluded to, with whom he seems to have had the slightest acquaintance; the rest he had heard reported. Surely this is faint praise, and notably perfunctory; but had it rung with pæans of admiration from Chettle it should still have passed unnoticed, for Chettle could hardly have been much respected. Dekker thus introduces him to the poets in Elysium:

In comes Chettle sweating and blowing by reason of his fatnes; to welcome whom, because he was of olde acquaintance, all rose

1 Groatsworth of Wit, n.p. London, 1629.

2 Henry Chettle, Kind Heart's Dream. London [1592], n.d.

up, and fell presentlie on their knees to drinck a health to all the lovers of Hellicon.

And Brandes, from whom this is quoted, remarks:

Elze has conjectured, possibly with justice, that in this puffing and sweating old tun of flesh, who is so whimsically greeted with mock reverence by the whole gay company, we have the very model from whom Shakespeare drew his demigod, the immortal Sir John Falstaff.1

Nash is even more bitter, calling the actor an "idiot-artmaster," who obtained all his learning in a grammar school, and sneers at the possibility of his "translating two penny pamphlets from the Italian without any knowledge even of its articles." This refers to the Italian plays which had not long before been written. Such authors, he says, "condemn arts as improbable, contenting themselves with a little country grammar knowledge, thanking God with that abscedarie priest in Lincolnshire, that he never knew what that Romish, popish Latin meant.' "2

In 1601, Jonson's "Poetaster" was produced, in which the principal character of Crispinus is ridiculed as Sogliardo is for his folly in attempting to acquire gentility by the display of a coat of arms. There can be no doubt that Jonson's satire in this production is aimed at the actor. It is too plainly drawn to be doubted. The father of Crispinus is described as "A man of worship," which John Shakspere's humble neighbors considered him. Crispinus is uneducated, and is advised to employ a tutor as he has "a canting coat of arms,' which unmistakably identifies him with the actor, though Fleay refuses to recognize the caricature.

We now come to the Ratsey episode, as it is denominated by Phillipps, who has printed it from the original entered for publication at Stationers' Hall, May 31, 1605. It seems to have been written solely as a vehicle for a lampoon upon

1 Brandes, William Shakespeare, vol. 1, p. 211.

Thomas Nash, The Anatomy of Absurdity. London, 1589.

the Stratford actor, and gives an interesting view of the status of strolling players of that time. It begins in this wise:

Gamaliel Ratsey and his company travailing up and downe the countrey came by chance into a inne where that night. there harbored a company of players.1

Having sent for several of the principal ones, he had them perform for him and dismissed them with a liberal douceur. The next morning, Ratsey, seemingly a dissolute gentleman of wealth, sets out well mounted, and, overtaking them, was met with obsequious greetings which he received contemptuously, bidding them "leave off their cringing and complements," and compelling them to return the money he had given them. Having done this he complimented "The chiefest of them" upon his presence upon the stage, and begins his satire upon the Stratford actor in these words:—

Get thee to London, for if one man [Burbage] were dead they will have much neede of such a one as thou art. There would be none in my opinion fitter than thyselfe to play his parts. My conceipt is such of thee, that I durst adventure all the mony in my purse on thy head to play Hamlet with him for a wager. There thou shalt learne to be frugall, for players were never so thriftie as they are now about London—and to feede upon all men, to let none feede upon thee; to make thy hand a stranger to thy pocket, thy hart slow to performe thy tongues promise; and when thou feelest thy purse well lined, buy thee some place or lordship in the country, that, growing weary of playing, thy mony may there bring thee to dignitie and reputation; then thou needest care for no man, nor not for them that before made thee prowd with speaking their words upon the stage.

Sir, I thanke you, quoth the player, for this good counsell; I promise you I will make use of it, for I have heard, indeede, of some that have gone to London very meanly, and have come in time to be exceeding wealthy.

And in this presage and propheticall humor of mine, says Ratsey, kneele downe - Rise up, Sir Simon Two Shares and a Halfe; thou art now one of my knights, and the first knight that ever was player in England.

1 Phillipps, Outlines, etc., vol. 1, p. 325.

This appears to have been written not far from the close of the Stratford actor's theatrical activity, and, with the opinions of contemporaries already cited, shows us plainly how he was known to them at different periods, from a few years after his advent to near the close of his career in London. There is a verisimilitude about them which, though possibly exaggerated, stamps them as genuine, revealing to us the same figure that walked the streets of Stratford in early life, unlettered, rude, .immoral, selfish, all of which was mellowed by a coarse natural wit, a figure far from agreeable, and which in the later years of his life among his Stratford contemporaries was unrelieved by the grace of generosity or solicitude for the welfare of others, but retained the same sordid features that pertained to the rude rustic who aforetime displayed his dramatic "wit" in the shambles.

In 1606, there was printed in London, "The Return from Pernassus," a trilogy which had been formerly acted by Cambridge students. In the first scene of Act V, Studioso, a student, bewails England's neglect of her scholars, and her exaggerated esteem of actors, and ends by declaring that, —

With mouthing words that better wits have framed,
They purchase lands, and now Esquiers are made.

To this, Philomusus, lover of the Muse, replies:

Whatere they seeme being even at the best,
They are but sporting fortunes scornfull jest.

Here we have again the familiar skit at the Stratford actor's unfortunate purchase of a coat of arms with "words that better wits have framed." As so many of the words he mouthed were from the "Shakespeare" plays, we cannot wonder if the insinuation they carry, like a similar one in the Ratsey episode, seems to some minds worthy of consideration.

It may be replied that the trilogy is an unfortunate source from which to quote, and that it contains a commendation of

the actor of a nature to show that the Cambridge students believed him to be the author of the works. It might be rejoined that beliefs are not admissible evidence; but what really is this commendation? Throughout the trilogy sounds an unmistakable note of contempt for actors; "Adonis" and “Lucrece❞ are mentioned approvingly. On their title-pages was the name, "William Shakespeare," but this was a matter of common knowledge, and in no wise identified them with the Stratford actor. In the last part of the trilogy, however, some of the students masquerade as Burbage and Kempe, two popular actors, who, to enliven the scene, boastingly declare that "few of the university pens play well," and that "our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down, aye, and Ben Jonson, too." Certainly such a remark in a satirical play by rollicking students is of no weight in determining a question of authorship. Is it in any wise equivalent to the condemnatory quotation which the actor's biographers ignore, while flaunting the commendatory one? Of this the reader is competent to judge. Possibly he may be interested to ascertain, if he has not already done so, what other contemporary and friendly authorities have said to identify him with the authorship of the works, and we will refer to "The Centurie of Prayse," from which we have already quoted.

The "Allusions" and supposed "Allusions," beginning with Greene, Chettle, and Nash, number, between 1592 and 1624, one hundred and nineteen. The most important we have already treated. While they refer to certain plays and poems which bear the name "Shake-speare" or "Shakespeare" on their title-pages, a name, as we shall see, employed by several unknown authors on similar works, some of which alluded to are still in dispute, not one identifies the actor with the author of the plays or poems. That this statement of non-identity is not overstrained is acknowledged by no less an authority than Fleay, the author of a life of the actor, who, speaking of these allusions, declares that