in determining the position occupied by his name in the warrant. Mr. Collier's 31 conjecture that Laurence Fletcher was an elder brother of John Fletcher the dramatist, is very questionable. 32-We have no evidence that Shakespeare ever visited Scotland, either along with Laurence Fletcher, or ten years earlier as one of an English company, styled "her Majesty's players,” who are known to have performed at Edinburgh in 1589.33 31 [About this period, according to a letter from Daniel Life of Shakespeare, p. cci. 32 When Bishop Fletcher made his Will, Oct. 26th, 1593, he had nine children living, none of them "come to the age of one and twentye yeares" but at the period of his decease, June 15th, 1596, as we learn from a document drawn up by his brother, they were eight in number, and "divers of them very young." The names of four of them are not known: the others were Nathaniel, Theophilus, Elizabeth, John (the dramatist), and Maria. Only two of them are mentioned by name in the Bishop's Will, the two eldest sons then alive, it would seem,-Nathaniel and John (Theophilus, whose birth occurred between theirs, was probably dead) to these two he leaves "all his bookes, to be devyded betwene them equallie," and he gives moreover to Nathaniel "all his wearinge linen." In Henslowe's Diary (p. 78, ed. Shakespeare Soc.), under a note of money lent to various persons "sence the 14 of Octobr. 1596," are two notices of "Fleacher;" and on the first one Mr. Collier remarks (ubi supra); “This has been supposed by Malone to mean John Fletcher the poet, but there was also Laurence Fletcher an actor, whose name stands first in the patent granted by King James on the 17th May, 1603, and a few years afterwards we hear of Laz. Fletcher." Assuredly, the dramatist is not meant: now that the date of his birth has been discovered (see my Account of the Lives and Writings of Beaumont and Fletcher, p. xviii.), we know that in October 1596 he was under seventeen years of age. Laurence Fletcher was buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, Sept. 12th, 1608 see Collier's Memoirs of the principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare,-Introd. p. x. 33 "It may here be observed that a notice which first appeared in Mr. the poet to Sir Thomas Egerton, among the Ellesmere Manuscripts (see note, p. xxxiv.), Shakespeare was a candidate for the office of Master of the Queen's Revels, -to which Daniel was himself appointed Jan. 30th, 1603-4: "But a little time is past since I was called upon to thanke your Honor for my brothers advancement, and now I thanke you for myne owne: which double kindnes will alwaies receive double gratefulnes at both our handes. I cannot but knowe that I am lesse deserving Collier's interesting Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, 1841, p. 63, apparently showing that Shakespeare was in London in the month of October, 1603, conveys an inaccurate reading of the original manuscript preserved at Dulwich College, and cannot, therefore, be received as evidence. The following, and inquire after the fellow, and said he had lent hym a horse. I feere me he gulled hym, thoughe he gulled not us. The youthe was a prety youthe, and hansom in appayrell: we know not what became of hym. Mr. Bromffield commendes hym: he was heare yesterdaye. Nicke and Jeames be well, and commend them: so dothe Mr. Cooke and his weife in the kyndest sorte, and so once more in the hartiest manner farwell,'— is all that now remains of a postscript to a letter from Mrs. Alleyn to her husband, the celebrated actor, dated October 20th, 1603." Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 168, folio ed.-Mr. Collier gives the above extract thus; "Aboute a weeke a goe there came a youthe who said he was Mr Frauncis Chaloner who would have borrowed li to have bought things for*** and said he was known unto you, and Mr Shakespeare of the globe, who came *** said he knewe hym not, onely he herde of hym that he was a roge *** so he was glade we did not lend him the monney Richard Johnes [went] to seeke and inquire after the fellow," &c. then some that sued by other of the nobility unto her Majestie for this roome: if M. Draiton, my good friend, had bene chosen, I should not have murmured, for sure I ame he wold have filled it most excellentlie: but it seemeth to myne humble judgement that one [Shakespeare] who is the authour of playes now daylie presented on the public stages of London, and the possessor of no small gaines, and moreover him selfe an actor in the Kings Companie of Comedians, could not with reason pretend to be Mr. of the Queenes Majesties Revells, for as much as he wold sometimes be asked to approve and allow of his owne writings. Therefore he, and more of like quality, cannot justlie be disappointed because, through your Honors gracious interposition, the chance was haply myne."] The exact date at which Shakespeare ceased to be an actor is uncertain. He was still on the stage in 1603, when he played a character in the Sejanus34 of 34 On its first representation, this tragedy was unfavourably received; but having been subsequently remodelled by the author, it kept possession of the stage till long after the Restoration. In an address "To the Readers" prefixed to the quarto of 1605 (when it was originally printed), Jonson says; 66 Lastly, I would inform you, that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage; wherein a second pen had good share in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker, and, no doubt, less pleasing, of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation.” Gifford thinks that by "a second pen" is meant Fletcher, -not Shakespeare, as had been generally believed: "Shakespeare," he says, seems to be almost the last eminent writer to whom our author would look for assistance on the present occasion: Sejanus is entirely founded on the Greek and Latin historians, who are carefully quoted in the margin of the first copy, and the author values himself on the closeness with which he has followed his originals. Shakespeare, as Jonson well knew, de Jonson,—in whose Every Man in his Humour, as already noticed, he had been one of the original performers; but from Jonson's arrangement of the actors' names we can no more determine what character he represented in Sejanus than what was his particular part in the earlier production of his friend. Among the papers at Dulwich College is the copy of a letter from the Council to the Lord Mayor of London, &c., dated April 9th, 1604, to which is appended a list of the King's Players, who are thus enumerated: "Burbadge, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Phillips, Condle, Hemminges, Armyn, Slye, Cowley, Hostler, Day :" perhaps, however, at that date Shakespeare, though still connected with the company, had ceased to perform; if not, there can be little doubt that he withdrew from the stage shortly after.-In his cxith Sonnet he evidently expresses his real sentiments, when he says, "O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, Than public means which public manners breeds. To what it works in, like the dyer's hand," &c. He had, therefore, conceived a distaste for the player's rived all his knowledge of Roman story from translations, and this was scarcely sufficiently accurate or extensive to induce our author to solicit his aid in the production of his meditated tragedy, which he certainly intended to be a palmarian work' as to its fidelity." Jonson's Works, iii. 8. profession, regarding himself as degraded by it; and he must have felt any thing but regret at bidding farewell to the stage. His contemporary Chettle (in a tract already quoted) 35 terms him "exclent in the qualitie he professes;" and though the passage which contains these words was intended to be apologetical to Shakespeare, yet Chettle would hardly have ventured to use so strong an epithet as "excellent," unless our author's histrionic powers had been of a superior order. Another contemporary, John Davies of Hereford, thus alludes to Shakespeare and Burbadge in his Microcosmos, 1603; "If Pride ascende the stage (O base ascent !), Al men may see her, for nought comes thereon But to be seene, and where Vice should be shent, In blazing her by demonstration, Then Pride, that is more then most vicious, And so shee doth, for shee's most odious In men most base, that are ambitious. Players, I love yee and your qualitie, As ye are men that pass-time not abus'd; And some [W. S. R. B.] I love for painting, poesie, That hath for better vses you refus'd ; Wit, courage, good shape, good partes, and all good, As long as al these goods are no worse vs'd; And though the stage doth staine pure gentle bloud, The same persevering rhymer, in his Humours Heau'n |