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 play-house 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 thus 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 Lord Chamberlain's servants. By the words "Will's new play," there can be little doubt that some work by Shakespeare was intended; and we know from Heywood's “Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels,” 1635, p. 206, that Shakespeare was constantly familiarly called “Will." The document is preserved at Dulwich, and it was first printed in the " Memoirs of Edward Alleyn," p. 13. "Sweete Nedde, nowe wynne an other wager For thine old frende, and fellow stager. Thou still as macheles Ned shall shyne. For in the triall, come what maye, All sides shall brave Ned Allin saye." By "Roscius Richard" the writer of these lines, who was the backer of Alleyn against Kempe, could have meant nobody but Richard Burbadge. 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 Burbadge 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. 2 After his return from Rome, where he was seen in the autumn of 1601. 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 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 22nd June, that no other public playhouses 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 22nd 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 power to carry them into execution. Such was probably the fact; because a year and a half after the order of the 22nd June had been issued it was renewed, but, as far as we can learn, with just as little effect as before'. It was at the Fortune that Alleyn seems to have realized 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 10651., and in the next year the manor of Lewisham and Dulwich for 50001. 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 20001. 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 in 1843), Introd. p. xiv. See "Hist. Eng. Dram. Poetry and the Stage," Vol. i. p. 316, where the particulars, which are here necessarily briefly and summarily dismissed, are given in considerable detail. Besides the second edition of "Romeo and Juliet" in 1599, (which was printed from some more authentic copy, if not from a play-house manuscript, being very different from the mutilated and manufactured impression 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 Dream," "Henry IV." part ii., and "Much Ado about Nothing." The last only is 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." also came out in the same year, but without the name of Shakespeare upon the title The clothing of Snug the Joiner in a "lion's fell" in this play, A. v. sc. I (Vol. ii. p. 249), 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 twentytwo 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, This Well you see, is not that Arethusa, The Nymph of Sicile: Noe, men may carous a Health of the plump Lyæus noblest grapes, From these faire conduits, and turne drunk like apes. This second spring I keep, as did that dragon Hesperian apples. And nowe, sir, a plague on This your poore towne, if to't you bee not welcome! But whoe can doubt of this, when, loe! a Well come Is nowe unto the gate? I would say more, But words now failing, dare not, least I roare." The eight lines inserted in Nichols's "Progresses of James I." are quoted from Drummond's Poems, and there can be no doubt that the whole speech was from the pen of the poet of Hawthornden. page, and it is, if possible, a more imperfect and garbled representation of the play, as it was delivered 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, reciting them to scribes, 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 drama, 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 title-page 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 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 evinced on matters of the kind, we may, possibly, conclude that the cancel was made at the instance of one of the four poets who • 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. 7 "Henslowe's Diary," printed by the Shakespeare Society, p. 158, the memorandum being dated Oct. 1599. By an entry on p. 162 we find that in Dec. 1599 Doughton was paid 41. for the second part of this play; and in Aug. 1602 Dekker contributed "new additions in Oldcastle," and received 21. for them. 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 a name, which had been assigned by Shakespeare in the first instance to Falstaff. No change beyond the title was made in the drama, which has manifestly reached us in a very incomplete and corrupted shape'. A circumstance of considerable interest, connected with an event of great public importance, occurred near the commencement of the year 1601: we allude to the trial and execution of the Earl of Essex on the 25th Feb. for rebellion and treason. Some of his partisans in this ill judged and worse executed enterprise, in order, it should seem, to influence the popular mind, procured the company acting at the Globe to represent a play in which the deposition and death of Richard II. formed prominent incidents. In our Introduction to Shakespeare's historical drama upon the events of that reign we have inserted the original examination of Augustine Phillips, who appears to have been the spokesman of the players on the occasion, and whose name alone is introduced; which examination was taken before the Chief Justices of the Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, and Mr. Justice Fenner 1o. We have there remarked upon the fact that neither Sir Gilly Merrick, nor Cuffe (the Secretary of the Earl of Essex) was present at the interview with the actors, and we have since been fortunate enough to meet with the deposition of Merrick, which speaks, not of the agreement between the partisans and the players for the representation of the drama in question, but of the performance itself at the Globe, and of the parties who attended it. Inasmuch as it refers to the same transaction, and throws additional light 10 See the Introduction to "Henry IV., Part I.," Vol. iii. p. 316. Mr. J. O. Halliwell published a separate tract upon this point. • It is reprinted in Malone's "Supplement," Vol. ii. p. 265. We will instance one misprint, because it tends to confirm (if it needed confirmation) an emendation in "Richard II.," A. ii. sc. 1 (Vol. iii. p. 247), where “wives" is misprinted lives: in "Oldcastle" "wife" is misprinted life, where Tom tells Murley that Lawrence" means to leave his life behind him," when he ought certainly to say that he "means to leave his wife behind him." A. iii. sc. 2, p. 312. 10 See Vol. iii. p. 214. We have spoken of Sir E. Anderson as if he were only a puisné judge, but (as we are reminded by our friend, Mr. Edward Foss, author of "The Lives of the Judges ") he was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas at the time, and Mr. Justice Fenner, one of the puisné judges of the Court of Queen's Bench, and not, as we erroneously imagined, Queen's Serjeant. |