dedication to Lord Southampton, "the first heir of his invention" in a double sense, not merely because it was the first printed, but because it was the first written of his productions. The information we now possess enables us at once to reject the story, against the truth of which Malone elaborately argued, that Shakespeare's earliest employment at a theatre was holding the horses of noblemen and gentlemen who visited it, and that he had under him a number of lads who were known as "Shakespeare's boys." Shiels in his "Lives of the Poets," (published in 1753 in the name of Cibber) was the first to give currency to this idle invention: it was repeated by Dr. Johnson, and has often been reiterated since; and we should hardly have thought. it worth notice now, if it had not found a place in many modern accounts of our great dramatist'. The company to which he attached it is quite as probable, as that Shakespeare had seen "Hero and Leander" before it was printed. Marston's " Pygmalion's Image," published five years after "Venus and Adonis," is a gross exaggeration of its style; and Barkstead's "Myrrha the Mother of Adonis" is a poor and coarse imitation: the same poet's "Hiren, or the Fair Greek," is of a similar character. Shirley's "Narcissus," which must have been written many years afterwards, is a production of the same class as Marston's "Pygmalion," but in better taste. The poem called "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus," first printed in 1602, and assigned to Francis Beaumont in 1640, when it was republished by Blaicklock the bookseller, we hesitate to believe was the authorship of Beaumont, and it is an imitation of "Hero and Leander," not of "Venus and Adonis." At the date when it originally came out Beaumont was only sixteen, and the first edition has no name nor initials to the address "To Calliope," to which Blaicklock in 1640, for his own bookselling purposes, thought fit to add the letters F. B. In the same way, and with the same object, he changed the initials of a commendatory poem from A. F. to I. F., in order to make it appear as if John Fletcher had applauded his friend's early verses. These are facts that hitherto have escaped observation, perhaps, on account of the extreme rarity of copies of the original impression of "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus," preventing a comparison of it with Blaicklock's fraudulent reprint, which also contains various pieces to which, it is known, Beaumont had no pretensions. To afford the better means of comparison, and as we know of only two copies of the edition of 1602, we subjoin the title-page prefixed to it : "Salmacis and Hermaphroditvs. Salmacida spolia sine sanguine & sudore. Imprinted at London for John Hodgets, &c. 1602." 4to. The Rev. Mr. Dyce, in his edit. of "Beaumont and Fletcher," 1846, Vol. xi. p. 441, merely reprinted Blaicklock's impression, observing that he had never seen the earlier copy of 1602; but it is in the Bodleian Library, and it was reprinted in its original state by the Shakespeare Society. Mr. Dyce inadvertently perpetuates the grossest blunders. 1 It is almost to be wondered that the getters up of this piece of information did not support it by reference to Shakespeare's obvious knowledge of horses and horsemanship, displayed in so many parts of his works. The description of the horse in "Venus and Adonis " will at once occur to every body; and how much it was admired at the time is evident from the fact, that it was plagiarized so soon himself had not unfrequently performed in Stratford, and at that date the Queen's Players and the Lord Chamberlain's servants seem sometimes to have been confounded in the provinces, although the difference was well understood in London: some of the chief members had come, as we have stated, from his own part of the country, and even from the very town in which he was born; and he was not in a station of life, nor so destitute of means and friends, as to have been reduced to such an extremity. Besides having written "Venus and Adonis" before he came to London, Shakespeare may also have composed its counterpart, "Lucrece," which, as our readers are aware, first appeared in print in 1594. It is in a different stanza, and in some respects in a different style; and after he joined the Blackfriars company, the author may possibly have added parts, (such; for instance, as the long and minute description of the siege of Troy in the tapestry) which indicate a closer acquaintance with the modes and habits of society; but even here no knowledge is displayed that might not have been acquired in Warwickshire. As he had exhibited the wantonness of lawless passion in his "Venus and Adonis," he followed it by the exaltation of matron-like chastity in his "Lucrece ;" and there is, we think, nothing in the latter poem which a young man of one or two and twenty, so endowed, might not have written. Neither is it at all impossible that he had done something in connexion with the stage while he was yet resident in his native town, and before he had made up his mind to quit it. If his "inclination for poetry and acting," to repeat Aubrey's words, were so strong, it may after it was published. (See the Introduction, Vol. vi. p. 481.) For his judgment of skill in riding, among other passages, see his account of Lamord's horsemanship in "Hamlet," Vol. v. p. 581: the propagators and supporters of the horseholding anecdote ought to have added, that Shakespeare probably derived his minute and accurate acquaintance with the subject from his early observation of the skill of the English nobility and gentry, after they had re-mounted (he holding the stirrup) at the play-house door : "But chiefly skill to ride seems a science Proper to gentle blood."-Spenser's "Faerie Queene," b. ii. c. 4. 2 It attracted attention immediately after it was printed, and two poets whose productions also came out with the date of 1594, viz. Drayton and Willoby, expressly mention and highly praise it: the former afterwards, for some unexplained cause, withdrew his tribute, but it is contained in the preliminary matter to all the five impressions of the very popular poem by the latter. We may here mention that there was an edition of Willoby's, or Willoughby's, "Avisa," without date, but published about the year 1600, which we have accidentally not noticed in our Introduction to "Lucrece," Vol. vi. p. 526. have led him to have both written and acted. He may have contributed temporary prologues or epilogues; and without supposing him yet to have possessed any extraordinary art as a dramatist-only to be acquired by practice, he may have inserted speeches and occasional passages in older plays : he may even have assisted some of the companies in getting up, and performing the dramas they represented in or near Stratford. We own that this conjecture appears to us at least plausible, and the Lord Chamberlain's servants (known as the Earl of Leicester's players until 1587) may have experienced his utility in both departments, and may have held out strong inducements to so promising a novice to continue his assistance by accompanying them to London. What we have here said seems a natural and an easy way of accounting for Shakespeare's station as a sharer at the Blackfriars theatre in 1589, about three years after we suppose him to have finally adopted the profession of an actor, and to have come to London for the purpose of pursuing it. CHAPTER VII. The earliest allusion to Shakespeare in Spenser's "Tears of the Muses," 1591. Proofs of its applicability — What Shakespeare had probably by this date written-Edmund Spenser of Kingsbury, Warwickshire. No other dramatist of the time merited the character given by Spenser. Greene, Kyd, Lodge, Peele, Marlowe, Lyly, and Sir Philip Sidney, and their several claims: that of Lyly supported by Malone. Temporary cessation of dramatic performances in London. Prevalence of the Plague in 1592. Probability or improbability that Shakespeare went to Italy. WE come now to the earliest known allusion to Shakespeare as a dramatist; and although his surname is not given, we apprehend that there can be no hesitation in applying what 3 We have already stated (p. 75]) that although in 1586 only one unnamed company performed in Stratford, in the very next year (that in which we have supposed Shakespeare to have become a regular actor) five companies were entertained in the borough: one of these consisted of the players of the Earl of Leicester, to whom the Blackfriars theatre belonged; and it is very possible that Shakespeare, at that date, exhibited before his fellow-townsmen in his new professional capacity: before this time his performances at Stratford may have been merely of an amateur description. It is, at all events, a striking circumstance, that in 1586 only one company performed, and that in 1587 such extraordinary encouragement was given to theatricals in Stratford. is said to him: it is contained in Spenser's "Tears of the Muses," a poem printed in 1591'. The application of the passage to Shakespeare has been much contested, but the difficulty in our mind is, how the lines are to be explained by reference to any other dramatist of the time, even supposing, as we have supposed and believe, that our great poet was at this period only rising into notice as a writer for the stage. We will first quote the lines literatim, as they stand in the edition of 1591, and afterwards say something of the claims to the distinction they confer. "And he the man, whom Nature selfe had made To mock her selfe, and Truth to imitate With kindly counter under Mimick shade, "In stead thereof scoffing Scurrilitie, And scornfull Follie with contempt is crept, "But that same gentle Spirit, from whose pen Large streames of honnie and sweete Nectar flowe, Scorning the boldnes of such base-borne men, Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe, Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell, Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell." The most striking of these lines, with reference to our present inquiry, is, "Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late;" and hence, if it stood alone, we might infer that Willy, whoever he might be, was actually dead; but the latter part of the third stanza we have quoted shows us in what sense the word "dead" is to be understood: Willy was "dead as far as regarded the admirable dramatic talents he had already displayed, which had enabled him, even before 1591, to outstrip all living rivalry, and to afford the most certain ✦ Malone (“Shakspeare, by Boswell,” Vol. ii. p. 168) says that Spenser's "Tears of the Muses" was published in 1590, but the volume in which it first appeared bears date in 1591. It was printed with some other pieces under the title of "Complaints. Containing sundrie small Poems of the Worlds Vanitie. Whereof the next Page maketh mention. By Ed. Sp. London. Imprinted for William Ponsonbie, &c. 1591." It will be evident, from what follows in our text, that a year is of considerable importance to the question. indications of the still greater things Spenser saw he would accomplish: he was "dead," because he "Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell, Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell." It is to be borne in mind that these stanzas, and six others, are put into the mouth of Thalia, whose lamentation on the degeneracy of the stage, especially in comedy, follows those of Calliope and Melpomene. Rowe, under the impression that the whole passage referred to Shakespeare, introduced it into his "Account of the Life," &c. in his first edition of 1709', but silently withdrew it in his second edition of 1714: his reason, perhaps, was that he did not see how, before 1591, Shakespeare could have shown that he merited the high character given of him and his productions— "And he the man, whom Nature selfe had made To mock her selfe, and Truth to imitate." Spenser knew what the object of his eulogy was capable of doing, as well, perhaps, as what he had done; and we have established that more than a year before the publication of these lines, Shakespeare had risen to be a distinguished member of the Lord Chamberlain's company, and a sharer in the undertaking at the Blackfriars. Although we feel assured that he had not composed any of his greatest works before 1591, he may have done enough, besides what has come down to us, amply to warrant Spenser in applauding him beyond all his theatrical contemporaries. His earliest printed plays, "Romeo and Juliet," "Richard II.," and "Richard III.," bear date in 1597; but it is indisputable that he had at that time written considerably more, and part of what he had so written is contained in the folio of 1623, never having made its appearance in any earlier form. When Ben Jonson published the bulky volume of his "Works" in 1616, he excluded several comedies in which he had been aided by other poets', and re-wrote part of 3 With misprints: see "Some Account of the Life," &c., 1709, p. xi. • Perhaps it was printed off before his "Bartholomew Fair" was acted in 1614; or perhaps, that comedy being a new one, Ben Jonson did not think he had a right to publish it to the detriment of the company (the servants of the Princess Elizabeth) by whom it had been purchased, and produced. 'Such as "The Widow," written soon after 1613, in which he was assisted by Fletcher and Middleton; "The Case is Altered," printed in 1609, in which his coadjutors are not known; and Eastward Ho!" published in 1607, in which he was joined by Chapman and Marston: this last play exposed the authors to great danger of punishment. |