very clearly written; and as it is short, we here insert it: "owners" of the theatre as well as sharers in the profits arising out of the performances. The fact, however, seems to be that the sole owner of the "Mr. Hinslowe. This is to enfourme you that my Mr., edifice in which plays were represented, the propri- the Maister of the revelles, hath rec. from the Ll. of the etor of the freehold, was Richard Burbage, who in-counsell order that the L. Chamberlen's servauntes shall not herited it from his father, and transmitted it to his tition in that behalfe, but leave shall be given unto theym to be distourbed at the Blacke fryars, according with their pe sons; but as a body, the parties addressing the make good the decaye of the saide House, butt not to make privy council (for the "petition" appears to have the same larger then in former tyme hath bene. been sent thither) might in a certain sense call thoffice of the Revelles, this 3 of maie, 1596. themselves owners of, as well as sharers in the Blackfriars theatre. We insert the document in a note, observing merely, that, like many others of a similar kind, it is without signatures. a From "RICH. VEALE." Thus the whole transaction is made clear: the company, soon after the opening of the Globe, contemplated the repair and enlargement of the Blackfriars theatre: the inhabitants of the precincts objected not only to the repair and enlargement, but town: the company petitioned to be allowed to carry out their design, as regarded the restoration of the edifice, and the increase of its size; but the privy council consented only that the building should be repaired. We are to conclude, therefore, that after the repairs were finished, the theatre would hold no more spectators than formerly; but that the dilapidations of time were substantially remedied, we are sure from the fact, that the house continued long afterwards to be employed for the purpose for which it had been originally constructed. The date of the year when this petition of the actors was presented to the privy council is ascertained from that of the remonstrance of the inhabit-to any dramatic representations in that part of the ants which had rendered it necessary, viz., 1596; but by another paper, among the theatrical relics of Alleyn and Henslowe at Dulwich College, we are enabled to show that both the remonstrance and the petition were anterior to May in that year. Henslowe (stepfather to Alleyn's wife, and Alleyn's partner) seems always, very prudently, to have kept up a good understanding with the officers of the department of the revels; and on 3d May, 1596, a person of the name of Veale, servant to Edmund Tylney, master of the revels, wrote to Henslowe, informing him (as of course he must take an interest in the result) that it had been decided by the privy council, that the Lord Chamberlain's servants should be allowed to complete their repairs, but not to enlarge their house in the Blackfriars; the note of Veale to Henslowe is on a small slip of paper, To the right honourable the Lords of her Majesties "The humble petition of Thomas Pope, Richard Burbage, John Hemings, Augustine Phillips, William Shakespeare, William Kempe, William Slye, Nicholas Tooley, and others, servaunts to the Right Honorable the Lord Chamberlaine to her Majestie. most honourable Privie Councell. "Sheweth most humbly, that your Petitioners are own ers and players of the private house, or theatre, in the precinct and libertie of the Blackfriers, which hath beene for many yeares used and occupied for the playing of tragedies, commedies, histories, enterludes, and playes. That the same, by reason of its having beene so long built, hath fallen into great decay, and that besides the reparation thereof, it venient for the entertainment of auditories coming thereto. That to this end your Petitioners have all and eche of them put down sommes of money, 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; but that certaine persons (some of them of honour) inhabitants of the said precinct and libertie of the Blackfriers have, as your Petitioners are informed, besought your honourable Lordshipps not to permitt the said private house any longer to remaine open, but hereafter to be shut up and closed, to the manifest and great injurie of your petitioners, who have no other meanes whereby to maintain their wives and families, but by the exercise of their qualitie as they have here. tofore done. Furthermore, that in the summer season your Petitioners are able to playe at their new built house on the Bankside calde the Globe, but that in the winter they are compelled to come to the Blackfriers; and if your honorable Lordshipps give consent unto that which is prayde against your Petitioners, thay will not onely, while the winter endures, loose the meanes whereby they now support them selves and their families, but be unable to practise themselves in anie playes or enterludes, when calde upon to performe for the recreation and solace of her Matie and her honorable Court, as they have beene heretofore accustomed. The humble prayer of your Petitioners therefore is, that your honorable Lordshipps grant permission to finish the reparations and alterations they have begun; and as your Petitioners have hitherto been well ordered in their behaviour, and just in their dealings, that your honorable Lordshipps will not inhibit them from acting at their above nande private house in the precinct and libertie of the Blackfriers, and your Petitioners, as in dutie most bounden, will ever pray for the increasing honor and happinesse of your honorable Lordshipps." hath beene found necessarie to make the same more con Where Shakespeare had resided from the time when he first came to London, until the period of which we are now speaking, we have no information; but in July, 1596, he was living in Southwark, perhaps to be close to the scene of action, and more effectually to superintend the performances at the Globe, which were continued through at least seven moved there shortly before the opening of the Globe, months of the year. We know not whether he reor whether from the first it had been his usual place of abode; but Malone tells us, "From a paper now before me, which formerly belonged to Edward Alleyn, the player, our poet appears to have lived in Southwark, near the Bear-garden, in 1596." He gives us no farther insight into the contents of the paper; but he probably referred to a small slip, borrowed, with other relics of a like kind, from Dulwich College, many of which were returned after his death. We subjoin it exactly as it stands in the original: the hand-writing is ignorant, the spelling peculiar, and it was evidently merely a hasty and imperfect memorandum : "Inhabitantes of Sowtherk as have complained, this of Jully, 1596. Mr Markis Mr Tuppin Mr Langorth Wilsone the pyper Mr Barett Mr Shaksper Tomson Mother Golden the baude Fillpott and no more, and soe well ended." This is the whole of the fragment, for such it appears to be, and without farther explanation, which we have not been able to find in any other document, in the depository where the above is preserved or elsewhere, it is impossible to understand more, than that Shakespeare and other inhabitants of Southwark had made some complaint in July, 1596, which, we may guess, was hostile to the wishes of the writer, who congratulated himself that the matnamed, including our great dramatist, continued ter was so well at an end. Some of the parties resident in Southwark long afterwards, as we shall have occasion in its proper place to show. The writer seems to have been desirous of speaking de- | dently prepared in order to ascertain how much rogatorily of all the persons he enumerates, but still he designates some as "Mr. Markis, Mr. Tuppin, Mr. Langorth, Mr. Barett, and Mr. Shaksper; but "Phellipes, Tomson, Nagges, and Fillpott," he only mentions by their surnames, while he adds the words "the pyper" and "the baude" after "Wilsone" and " Mother Golden," probably to indicate that any complaint from them ought to have but little weight. CHAPTER XI William Shakespeare's annual visit to Stratford.-Death of his son Hamnet in 1596.-General scarcity in England. -The quantity of corn in the hands of William Shakespeare and his neighbors in February, 1598.-Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humor," and probable instrumentality of Shakespeare in the original production of it on the stage.-Henslowe's letter respecting the death of Gabriel Spenser. AUBREY informs us, (and there is not only no reason for disbelieving his statement, but every ground for giving it credit,) that William Shakespeare was "wont to go to his native country once a year." Without seeking for any evidence upon the question, nothing is more natural or probable; and when, therefore, he had acquired sufficient property, he might be anxious to settle his family comfortably and independently in Stratford. We must suppose that his father and mother were mainly dependent upon him; and he may have employed his brother Gilbert, who was two years and a half younger than himself, and perhaps accustomed to agricultural pursuits, to look after his farming concerns in the country, while he himself was absent superintending his highly profitable theatrical undertakings in London. In 1595, 1596, and 1597, our poet must have been in the receipt of a considerable and an increasing income: he was part proprietor of the Blackfriars and the Globe theatres, both excellent speculations; he was an actor, doubt less earning a good salary, independently of the proceeds of his shares; and he was the most popular and applauded dramatic poet of the day. In the summer he might find, or make, leisure to visit his native town, and we may be tolerably sure that he was there in August, 1596, when he had the misfortune to lose his only son Hamnet, one of the twins born early in the spring of 1585: the boy completed his eleventh year in February, 1596, so that his death in August following must have been a very severe trial to his parents. Stow informs us, that in 1596 the price of provisions in England was so high, that the bushel of wheat was sold for six, seven, and eight shillings: the dearth continued and increased through 1597, and in August of that year the price of the bushel of wheat had risen to thirteen shillings, fell to ten shillings, and rose again, in the words of the old faithful chronicler, to the late greatest price." Connected with this dearth, the Shakespeare Society has been put in possession of a document of much value as regards the biography of our poet: although, at first sight, it may not appear to deserve notice, it is sure in the end to attract. It is thus headed: "The noate of corne and malte, taken the 4th of February, 1597, in the 40th year of the raigne of our most gracious Soveraigne Ladie, Queene Elizabeth," &c. and in the margin opposite the title are the words "Stratforde Burroughe, Warwicke." It was evi corn and malt there really was in the town; and it is divided into two columns, one showing the "Townsmen's corn," and the other the "Strangers' mult." We are enabled by this document, among other things, to prove in what part of Stratford the family of our great poet then dwelt: it was in Chapel-street Ward, and it appears that at the date of the account William Shakespeare had ten quarters of corn in his possession. As some may be curious to see who were his immediate neighbors, and in what order the names are given, we copy the account, as far as it relates to Chapel-street Ward, exactly as it stands : may to this document upon another point, but in the We shall have occasion hereafter again to refer Shakespeare is not found in any part of it. This mean time we may remark that the name of John the two old people, possibly with some of their fact gives additional probability to the belief that children, were living in the house of their son William, for such may be the reason why we do not the owner of any corn. find John Shakespeare mentioned in the account as It likewise in part explain how it happened that William Shakespeare was in possession of so large a quantity: in proportion to the number of his family, in time of scarcity, with the main article of subsistence; or it is very he would be naturally desirous to be well provided possible that, as a grower of grain, he might keep it. It affords some proof of his means and substance at this date, that only two persons in ChapelWe are led to infer from this circumstance that our street Ward had a larger quantity in their hands. and it is not unlikely that the wheat in his granary have been a cultivator of land, great dramatist may had been grown on his mother's estate of Asbyes, than fifty, out of about sixty, acres were arable. at Wilmecote, of which we know that no fewer some in store for sale to those who were in want of We must now return to London and to theatrical affairs there, and in the first place advert to a passage in Rowe's Life of Shakespeare, relating to the between our great dramatist and Ben Jonson. Rowe real or supposed commencement of the connexion tells us that "Shakespeare's acquaintance with Ben Jonson began with a remarkable piece of humanity time altogether unknown to the world, had offered and good nature. Mr. Jonson, who was at that one of his plays to the players, in order to have it acted; and the persons into whose hands it was ously over, were just upon returning it to him with put, after having turned it carelessly and supercili an ill-natured answer, that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespeare, luckily, cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it, as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the public." This anecdote is entirely disbelieved by Mr. Gifford, and he rests his incredulity upon the supposition, that Ben Jonson's earliest known production, "Every Man in his Humor," | was originally acted in 1597 at a different theatre, and he produces as evidence Henslowe's Diary, which, he states, proves that the comedy came out at the Rose. The truth, however, is, that the play supposed, on the authority of Henslowe, to be Ben Jonson's comedy, is only called by Henslowe "Humors," or "Ümers," as he ignorantly spells it. It is a mere speculation that this was Ben Jonson's play, for it may have been any other performance, by any other poet, in the title of which the word "Humors" occurred; and we have the indisputable and unequiv ocal testimony of Ben Jonson himself, in his own authorized edition of his works in 1616, that "Every Man in his Humor" was not acted until 1598: he was not satisfied with stating on the title-page, that it was "acted in the year 1598 by the then Lord Chamberlain his servants," which might have been considered sufficient; but in this instance (as in all others in the same volume) he informs us at the end that 1598 was the year in which it was first acted: "This comedy was first acted in the year 1598." Are we prepared to disbelieve Ben Jonson's positive assertion (a man of the highest and purest notions, as regarded truth and integrity) for the sake of a theory founded upon the bare assumption, that Henslowe by "Umers" not only meant Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humor," but could mean nothing else? 66 Mr. Gifford, passing over without notice Jonson's positive statement, proceeds to argue that Ben Jonson could stand in need of no such assistance, as Shakespeare is said to have afforded him, because he was "as well known, and perhaps better," than Shakespeare himself. Surely, with all deference for Mr. Gifford's undisputed acuteness and general accuracy, we may doubt how Ben Jonson could be better, or even as well known as Shakespeare, when the latter had been for twelve years connected with the stage as author and actor, and had written, at the lowest calculation, twelve dramas, while the former was only twenty-four years old, and had produced no known play but "Every Man in his Humor." Add to this, that nothing could be more consistent with the amiable and generous character of Shakespeare, than that he should thus have interested himself in favor of a writer who was ten years his junior, and who gave such undoubted proofs of genius as are displayed in "Every Man in his Humor." Our great dramatist, established in public favor by such comedies as "The Merchant of Venice" and "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," by such a tragedy as "Romeo and Juliet," and by such histories as "King John," "Richard II.," and "Richard III.," must have felt himself above all rivalry, and could well afford this act of "humanity and good nature," as Rowe terms it, on behalf of a young, needy, and meritorious author. Fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." Now, had Ben Jonson been at that date the author of the comedy call Umers," and had it been his "Every Man in his Humor," which was acted by the Lord Admiral's players eleven times, it is not very likely that Henslowe would have been ignorant who Benjamin Jouson was, and have spoken of him, not as one of the dramatists in his pay, and the author of a very successful comedy, but merely as "bricklayer." CHAPTER XII. Restriction of dramatic performances in and near London in 1597. Thomas Nash and his play, "The Isle of Dogs :" imprisonment of Nash, and of some of the players of the Lord Admiral.-Favor shown to the companies of the Lord Chamberlain and of the Lord Admiral.-Printing of Shakespeare's Plays in 1597.-The list of his known dramas, published by F. Meres in 1598.-Shakespeare authorized the printing of none of his plays, and never corrected the press.-Carelessness of dramatic authors in this respect. Shakespeare's reputation as a dramatist. IN the summer of 1597 an event occurred which seems to have produced for a time a serious restriction upon dramatic performances. The celebrated Thomas Nash, early in the year, had written a comedy which he called "The Isle of Dogs;" that he had partners in the undertaking there is no doubt; and he tells us, in his tract called "Lenten Stuff," printed in 1599, that the players, when it was acted by the Lord Admiral's servants in the beginning of August, 1597, had taken most unwarrantable liberties with his piece, by making large additions, for which he ought not to have been responsible. The exact nature of the performance is not known, but it was certainly satirical, no doubt personal, and it must have had reference also to some of the polemical and political questions of the day. The representation of it was forbidden by authority, and Nash, with others, was arrested under an order from the privy council, and sent to the Fleet prison. Some of the offending actors had escaped for a time, and the privy council, not satisfied with what had been already done in the way of punishment, wrote from Greenwich on 15th August, 1597, to certain magistrates, requiring them strictly to examine all the parties in custody, with a view to the discovery of others not yet apprehended. From this important official letter we learn, not only that Nash was the author of the "seditious and slanderous" comedy, but possibly himself an actor in it, and "the maker of part of the said play," especially pointed at, who was in custody. Before the date of this incident the companies of various play-houses in the county of Middlesex, but particularly at the Curtain and Theatre in Shoreditch had attracted attention, and given offence, by the licentious character of their performances; and the registers of the privy council show that the magis Another circumstance may be noticed as an inci- trates had been written to on the 28th July, 1597, dental confirmation of Rowe's statement, with which requiring that no plays should be acted during the Mr. Gifford could not be acquainted, because the summer, and directing, in order to put an effectual fact has only been recently discovered. In 1598 stop to such performances, because "lewd matters Ben Jonson, being then only twenty-four years old, were handled on stages," that the two places above had a quarrel with Gabriel Spencer, one of Hens-named should be " plucked down." The magis lowe's principal actors, in consequence of which trates were also enjoined to send for the owners of they met, fought, and Spencer was killed. Hens-" 'any other common play-house" within their jurislowe, writing to Alleyn, the leading member of his company, on the subject, on the 26th September, uses these words: "Since you were with me, I have lost one of my company, which hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel, for he is slain in Hoxton diction, and not only to forbid performances of every description, but "so to deface" all places erected for theatrical representations," as they might not be employed again to such use." This command was given just anterior to the production of Nash's "Isle of Dogs,” which was certainly not calculated to les- | extract precisely as it stands in the original, because sen the objections entertained by any persons in it has no where, that we recollect, been quoted quite authority about the Court. correctly. The Blackfriars, not being, according to the terms of the order of the privy council, "a common playhouse," but what was called a private theatre, does not seem to have been included in the general ban; but as we know that similar directions had been conveyed to the magistrates of the county of Surrey, it is somewhat surprising that they seem to have produced no effect upon the performances at the Globe or the Rose upon the Bankside. We must attribute this circumstance, perhaps, to the exercise of private influence; and it is quite certain that the necessity of keeping some companies in practice, in order that they might be prepared to exhibit, when required, before the Queen, was made the first pretext for granting exclusive "licenses" to the actors of the Lord Chamberlain, and of the Lord Admiral. We know that the Earls of Southampton and Rutland, about this date and shortly afterwards, were in the frequent habit of visiting the theatres: the Earl of Nottingham also seems to have taken an unusual interest on various occasions in favor of the company acting under his name, and to the representations of these noblemen we are, perhaps, to attribute the exemption of the Globe and the Rose from the operation of the order "to deface" all buildings adapted to dramatic representations in Middlesex and Surrey, in a manner that would render them unfit for any such purpose in future. We have the authority of the registers of the privy council, under date of 19th February, 1597-8, for stating that the companies of the Lord Chamberlain and of the Lord Admiral obtained renewed permission "to use and practise stage-plays," in order that they might be duly qualified, if called upon to perform before the Queen. This privilege, as regards the players of the Lord Admiral, seems the more extraordinary, because that was the very company which only in the August preceding had given such offence by the representation of Nash's "Isle of Dogs." It is very likely that Nash was the scape-goat on the occasion, and that the chief blame was thrown upon him, although, in his tract, before mentioned, he maintains that he was the most innocent party of all those who were concerned in the transaction. "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines: so Shakespeare among y English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage Loue labor's lost, his Loue labor's wonne, his Midsummers for Comedy, witness his Getleme of Verona, his Errors, his night dreame, & his Merchant of Venice: for Tragedy his Richard the 2. Richard the 3. Henry the 4. King John, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Ïuliet." Thus we see that twelve comedies, histories, and tragedies (for we have specimens in each department) were known as Shakespeare's in the Autumn of 1598, when the work of Meres came from the press. It is a remarkable circumstance, evincing strikingly the manner in which the various companies of actors of that period were able to keep popular pieces from the press, that until Shakespeare had been a writer for the Lord Chamberlain's servants ten or eleven years not a single play by him was published; and then four of his first printed plays were without his name, as if the bookseller had been ignorant of the fact, or as if he considered that the omission would not affect the sale: one of them, "Romeo and Juliet," was never printed in any early quarto as the work of Shakespeare, as will be seen from our exact reprint of the title-pages of the editions of 1597, 1599, and 1609, (see Introduc.) The reprints of "Richard II." and " Richard III." in 1598, as before observed, have Shakespeare's name on the title-pages, and they were issued, perhaps, after Meres had distinctly assigned those "histories" to him. It is our conviction, after the most minute and patient examination of, we believe, every old impression, that Shakespeare in no instance authorized the publication of his plays: we do not consider even "Hamlet" an exception, although the edition of 1604 was probably intended, by some parties connected with the theatre, to supersede the garbled and fraudulent edition of 1603: Shakespeare, in our opinion, had nothing to do with the one or with the other. He allowed most mangled and deformed copies of several of his greatest works to be circulated for many years, and did not think it worth his while to expose the fraud, which remained, in several cases, undetected, as far as the great body of the public was concerned, until the appearance of the folio of 1623. Our great dramatist's indifference As far as we can judge, there was good reason for showing favor to the association with which Shake-upon this point seems to have been shared by many, if speare was connected, because nothing has reached us to lead to the belief that the Lord Chamberlain's servants had incurred any displeasure. Accordingly, we hear of no interruption, at this date, of the performances at either of the theatres in the receipts of which Shakespeare participated. 66 To the year 1598 inclusive, only five of his plays had been printed, although he had then been connected with the stage for about twelve years, viz.: "Romeo and Juliet,” “ Richard II." and "Richard III." in 1597, and "Love's Labor's Lost" and Henry IV." part i. in 1598; but, as we learn from indisputable contemporaneous authority, he had written seven others, besides what he had done in the way of alterations, addition, and adaptation. The earliest enumeration of Shakespeare's dramas made its appearance in 1598, in a work by Francis Meres, entitled "Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury." In a division of this small but thick volume (consisting of 666 8vo. pages, besides "The Table,") headed "A comparative discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets," the author inserts the following paragraph, which we not by most, of his contemporaries; and if the quarto impression of any one of his plays be more accurate in typography than another, we feel satisfied that it arose out of the better state of the manuscript, or the greater pains and fidelity of the printer. Returning to the important list of twelve plays furnished by Meres, we may add, that although he does not mention them, there can be no doubt that the three parts of "Henry VI." had been repeatedly acted before 1598: we may possibly infer, that they were not inserted because they were then well known not to be the sole work of Shakespeare. By Henry IV." it is most probable that Meres intended both parts of that "history." "Love's Labor's Won" has been supposed, since the time of Dr. Farmer, to be "All's Well that Ends Well," under a different title: our notion is that the origi nal name given to the play was "Love's Labor's Won;" and that, when it was revived with additions and alterations, in 1605 or 1606, it received also a new appellation. Yet it is singular, if we rely upon several coeval authorities, how little our great dramatist was about this period known and admired for his plays. Richard Barnfield published his " Encomion of Lady Pecunia," in 1598, (the year in which the list of twelve of Shakespeare's plays was printed by Meres,) and from a copy of verses entitled "Remembrance of some English Poets," we quote the following notice of Shakespeare: "And Shakespeare thou, whose honey-flowing vein, Pleasing the world, thy praises doth contain, Whose Venus, and whose Lucrece, weet and chaste, Thy name in Fame's immortal book bath plac'd; Live ever you. at least in fame live over: Well may the body die, but fame die never." Here Shakespeare's popularity, as "pleasing the world," is noticed; but the proofs of it are not derived from the stage, where his dramas were in daily performance before crowded audiences, but from the success of his "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," which had gone through various editions. Precisely to the same effect, but a still stronger instance, we may refer to a play in which both Burbage and Kempe are introduced as characters, the one of whom had obtained such celebrity in the tragic, and the other in the comic parts in Shakespeare's dramas: we allude to "The Return from Parnassus," which was indisputably acted before the death of Queen Elizabeth. In a scene where two young students are discussing the merits of particular poets, one of them speaks thus of Shakespeare: "Who loves Adonis love or Lucrece rape, His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life; Could but a graver subject him content, Without love's foolish, lazy languishment." Not the most distant allusion is made to any of his dramatic productions, although the poet criticised by the young students immediately before Shakespeare was Ben Jonson, who was declared to be "the wittiest fellow, of a bricklayer, in England," but "a slow inventor." Hence we might be led to imagine that, even down to as late a period as the commencement of the seventeenth century, the reputation of Shakespeare depended rather upon his poems than upon his plays; almost as if productions for the stage were not looked upon, at that date, as part of the recognised literature of the country. CHAPTER XIII. New Place, or, "the great house," in Stratford, bought by Shakespeare in 1597.- Removal of the Lord Admiral's players from the Bankside to the Fortune theatre in Cripplegate.-Rivalry of the Lord Chamberlain's and Lord Admiral's company.-Order in 1600 confining the acting of plays to the Globe and Fortune: the influence of the two associations occupying those theatres-Disobedience to the order of 1600.-Plays by Shakespeare published in 1600.-The First Part of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle," printed in 1600, falsely imputed to Shakespeare, and cancelling of the title-page. in February, 1597-'98, and that he had ten quarters of corn there; and we need not doubt that it was the dwelling which had been built by Sir Hugh Clopton in the reign of Henry VII.: the Cloptons subsequently sold it to a person of the name of Botte, and he to Hercules Underhill, who disposed of it to Shakespeare. We therefore find him, in the beginning of 1598, occupying one of the best houses, in one of the best parts of Stratford. He who had quitted his native town about twelve years before, poor and comparatively friendless, was able, by the profits of his own exertions, and the exercise of his own talents, to return to it, and to establish his family in more comfort and opulence than, as far as is known, they had ever before enjoyed. consider the point that Shakespeare had become owner of New Place in or before 1597 as completely made out, as, at such a distance of time, and with such imperfect information upon nearly all matters connected with his history, could be at all expected." We We apprehend likewise, as we have already remarked, that the confirmation of arms in 1596, obtained as we believe by William Shakespeare, had reference to the permanent and substantial settlement of his family in Stratford, and to the purchase of a residence there consistent with the altered and improved circumstances of that family. The removal of the Lord Admiral's players, under Henslowe and Alleyn, from the Rose theatre on the Bankside, to the new house called the Fortune, in Golding-lane, Cripplegate, soon after the date to which we are now referring, may lead to the opinion that that company did not find itself equal to sustain the rivalship with the Lord Chamberlain's servants, under Shakespeare and Burbage, at the Globe. That theatre was opened, as we have adduced reasons to believe, in the spring of 1595: the Rose was a considerably older building, and the necessity for repairing it might enter into the calculation, when Henslowe and Alleyn thought of trying the experiment in a different part of the town, and on the Middlesex side of the water. Theatres being at this date merely wooden structures, and much frequented, they would soon fall into decay, especially in a marshy situation like that of the Bankside: so dump was the soil in the neighborhood, that the Globe was surrounded by a moat to keep it dry; and it is most likely that the Rose was similarly drained. The Rose was in the first instance, and as far back as the reign of Edward VI., a house of entertainment with that sign, and it was converted into a theatre by Henslowe and a grocer of the name In the garden of this house it is believed that Shakespeare planted a mulberry tree, about the year 1609: such is the tradition, and we are disposed to think that it is found. ed in truth. In 1609. King Jaines was anxious to introduce the mulberry (which had been imported about half a century earlier) into general cultivation. On the 25th November, 1609, £935 were paid out of the public purse for the planting of mulberry trees "near the palace of Westminster." The mulberry tree, said to have been planted by Shakespeare, was in existence up to about the year 1755; and in the spring of 1742, Garrick, Macklin, and Delane the actor, were entertained under it by Sir Hugh Clopton. New Place remained in possession of Shakespeare's succesClopton family: about 1752 it was sold by the executor of sors until the Restoration; it was then repurchased by the Sir Hugh Clopton to a clergyman of the name of Gastrell, who, on some offence telook at the authorities of the bor ough of Stratford, on the sect of rating the house, pulled it down, and cut down tha letter in the Annual Reg *** by a silversmith, who rec curious." In our time we hav IT will have been observed, that, in the document we have produced, relating to the quantity of corn and malt in Stratford, it is stated that William Shakespeare's residence was in that division of the borough called Chapel-street ward. This is an important circumstance, because we think it may be said to settle decisively the disputed question, whether our great dramatist purchased what was known as "the great house," or "New Place," before, in, or after 1597. It was situated in Chapel-Cuve been formed from tonlberry tree, as could street ward, close to the chapel of the Holy Trinity: hardly have been furnished by the mulberry trees in the We are now certain that he had a house in the ward county of Warwick. с ry tree. According to a the wood was bought by odd things of it for the 30% as many relics, said to |