(after the completion of some inquiries by commissioners specially appointed) were allowed again to follow their vocation, there can be no doubt that there was a temporary suspension of all theatrical exhibitions in London. This suspension commenced a short time before Spenser wrote his "Tears of the Muses," in which he notices the silence of Shakespeare.

We have no means of ascertaining how long the order, inhibiting theatrical performances generally, was persevered in; but the plague broke out in London in 1592, and in the autumn of the year, when the number of deaths was greatest, "the Queen's players"," in their progress round the country, whither they wandered when thus prevented from acting in the metropolis, performed at Chesterton, near Cambridge, to the great annoyance of the heads of the university.

It was at this juncture, probably, if indeed he ever were in that country, that Shakespeare visited Italy. Mr. C. Armitage Brown, in his very clever, and in many respects original work, "Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems," has maintained the affirmative with great confidence, and has brought into one view all the internal evidence afforded by the productions of our great dramatist. External evidence there is none, since not even a tradition of such a journey has descended to us. We own that the internal evidence, in our estimation, is by no means as strong as it appeared to Mr. Brown, who has evinced great subtlety and ability in the conduct of his case, and has made as much as possible of his proofs. He dwells, among other things, upon the fact, that there were no contemporaneous translations of the tales on which "The Merchant of Venice" and "Othello" are founded; but Shakespeare may have understood as much Italian as answered his purpose without having gone to Venice. For the same reason we lay no stress upon the recently-discovered fact, (not known when Mr. Brown wrote) that Shakespeare constructed his "Twelfth Night" with the aid of one or two Italian comedies: if not translated, they may have found their way into England, and he may have read them in the original language. That Shakespeare was capable of translating Italian sufficiently for his own objects,

• They consisted of the company under the leadership of Lawrence Dutton, one of the two associations acting at this period under the Queen's name. Both were, .we believe, unconnected with the Lord Chamberlain's servants.

we are morally certain; but we think that if he had travelled to Venice, Verona, or Florence, we should have had more distinct and positive testimony of the fact in his works than can be adduced from them.

Other authors of the time have left such evidence behind them as cannot be disputed. Lyly tells us so distinctly in more than one of his pieces; and Rich informs us that he became acquainted with the novels he translated in 1581 on the other side of the Alps: Daniel goes the length of letting us know where certain of his sonnets were composed: Lodge wrote some of his tracts abroad: Nash gives us the places where he met particular persons; and his friend Greene admits his obligations to Italy and Spain, whither he had travelled early in life in pursuit of letters. In truth, at that period and afterwards, there seems to have been a prevailing rage for foreign travel, and it extended itself to mere actors, as well as to poets; for we know that William Kempe was in Rome in 1601', during the interval between the time when, for some unexplained reason, he quitted the company of the Lord Chamberlain's players, and joined that of the Lord Admiral'.

7 See Mr. Halliwell's "Ludus Coventriæ " (printed for the Shakespeare Society.), p. 410. Rowley, in his "Search for Money," speaks of this expedition by Kempe, who, it seems, had wagered a certain sum of money that he would go to Rome and back in a given number of days. In the Introduction to the reprint of that unique tract by the Percy Society it is shown that Kempe also danced a morris in France. These circumstances were unknown to the Rev. A. Dyce, when, in 1840, he superintended a re-publication of Kempe's "Nine Days' Wonder," 1600, for the Camden Society.

It is a new fact that Kempe at any time quitted the company playing at the Blackfriars and Globe theatres: it is however indisputable, and we have it on the authority of Henslowe's Diary, where payments are recorded to Kempe, and where entries are also made for the expenses of dresses supplied to him in 1602. These memoranda Malone overlooked, when the MS., belonging to Dulwich College, was in his hands; but they may be important with reference to the dates of some of Shakespeare's plays, and the particular actors engaged in them: they also account for the non-appearance of Kempe's name in the royal licence granted in May, 1603, to the company to which he bad belonged. The Rev. Mr. Dyce attributes the omission of Kempe's name in that instrument to his death, because, in the register of St. Saviour's, Southwark, Chalmers found an entry, dated Nov. 2, 1603, of the burial of "William Kempe, a man." There were doubtless many men of the common names of William and Kempe; and the William Kempe, who had acted Dogberry, Peter, &c., was certainly alive in 1605, and had by that date rejoined the Lord Chamberlain's servants, then called "the King's players." The following unnoticed memoranda relating to him are extracted from Henslowe's Diary, pp. 215. 237. 239:

"Lent unto Wm Kempe, the 10 of Marche, 1602, in redy mony, twentye shillinges for his necesary uses, the some of xx3.

Although we do not believe that Shakespeare ever was in Italy, we admit that we are without evidence to prove a negative; and he may have gone there without having left behind him any distinct record of the fact. At the date to which we are now adverting he might certainly have had a convenient opportunity for doing so, in consequence of the temporary prohibition of dramatic performances in London.

CHAPTER VIII.

Shake

Death of Robert Greene in 1592, and publication of his "Groatsworth of Wit," by H. Chettle. Greene's address to Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele, and his envious mention of Shakespeare in the "Groatsworth of Wit." speare's offence at Chettle, and the apology of the latter in his "Kind-heart's Dream:" the character of Shakespeare there given. Second allusion by Spenser to Shakespeare in "Colin Clout's come home again," 1594. The "gentle Shakespeare." Change in the character of his compositions between 1591 and 1594: his "Richard II." and "Richard III."

DURING the prevalence of the infectious malady of 1592, although not in consequence of it, died one of the most notorious and distinguished of the literary men of the time, -Robert Greene. He expired on the 3rd of September, 1592, and left behind him a work purporting to have been written during his last illness: it was published a few months afterwards by Henry Chettle, a fellow-dramatist, under the title of "A Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance," bearing the date of 1592, and preceded by an address from Greene "To those Gentlemen, his quondam acquaintance, who spend their wits in making Plays." Here we meet with the second notice of Shakespeare, not indeed by name, but with such a near approach to it, that nobody can entertain a moment's doubt that he was intended. It is necessary to quote the whole passage, and to observe, before

"Lent unto Wm Kempe, the 22 of Auguste, 1602, to buye buckram to make a payer of gyentes hosse, the some of v3.

"Pd unto the tyerman for mackynge of Wm Kempe's sewt, and the boyes, the 4 Septembr 1602, some of viij3. 8d.”

About the year 1590 Kempe had belonged to the association acting under Edward Alleyn, for “A Knack to know a Knave," played “by Ed. Allen and his Company," and printed in 1594, contains "Kempe's applauded Merrimentes of the Men of Gotham." See the reprint of this play and four others for the Rox

burghe Club in 1851.

we do so, that Greene is addressing himself particularly to Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele, and urging them to break off all connexion with players' :-"Base minded men all three of you, if by my misery ye be not warned; for unto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleave; those puppets, I mean, that speak from our mouths, those anticks garnished in our colours. Is it not strange that I, to whom they all have been beholding; is it not like that you, to whom they have all been beholding, shall (were ye in that case that I am now) be both of them at once forsaken ? Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapp'd in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank-verse, as the best of you: and, being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country. Oh! that I might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions."

The chief and obvious purpose of this address is to induce Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele to cease to write for the stage; and, in the course of his exhortation, Greene bitterly inveighs against "an upstart crow," who had availed himself of the dramatic labours of others, who imagined himself able to write as good blank-verse as any of his contemporaries, who was a Johannes Fac-totum, and who, in his own opinion, was "the only SHAKE-SCENE in a country." All this is clearly levelled at Shakespeare, under the purposely-perverted name of Shake-scene; and the words, "Tiger's heart wrapp'd in a player's hide," are a parody upon a line (most likely by Greene), "Oh, tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide," in a historical play from which Shakespeare had taken his "Henry VI., Part III.1 "

• We have some doubts of the authenticity of the "Groatsworth of Wit," as a work by Greene. Chettle, originally a printer, was a needy dramatist, and possibly wrote it in order to avail himself of the high popularity of Greene, then just dead. Falling into some discredit, in consequence of the publication of it, Chettle reasserted that it was by Greene, but he admitted that the MS. from which it was printed was in his [Chettle's] own hand-writing: this circumstance he explained by stating that Greene's copy was so illegible that he was obliged to transcribe it: "it was ill written," says Chettle, "as Greene's hand was none of the best;" and therefore he re-wrote it. This may be true, and perhaps was so, but it is liable to suspicion.

1 See this point more fully considered in the Introduction to " Henry VI., Part III.," Vol. iv. p. 113.

From hence it is evident that Shakespeare, near the end of 1592, had established such a reputation, and was so important a rival of the dramatists, who, until he came forward, had kept undisputed possession of the stage, as to excite the envy and enmity of Greene, even during his last and fatal illness. It also, we think, establishes another point, not hitherto adverted to, viz. that our great poet possessed such variety of talent, that, for the purposes of the company of which he was a member, he could do anything that he might be called upon to perform he was the Johannes Fac-totum of the association : he was an actor, and he was a writer of original plays, an adapter and improver of those already in existence, (some of them by Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, or Peele) and no doubt he contributed prologues or epilogues, and inserted scenes, speeches, or passages on any temporary emergency. Having his ready assistance, the Lord Chamberlain's servants required few other contributions from rival dramatists': Shakespeare was the Johannes Fac-totum who could turn his hand to any thing connected with his profession, and who, in all probability, had thrown men like Greene, Lodge, and Peele, and even Marlowe himself, into the shade. In our view, therefore, the quotation we have made from the "Groatsworth of Wit" proves much more than has been usually collected from it.

It was natural and proper that Shakespeare should take offence at this gross and public attack: that he did so there is no doubt, for we are told it by Chettle himself, the avowed editor of the "Groatsworth of Wit:" he does not indeed mention Shakespeare, but he designates him so intelligibly that there is no room for dispute. Marlowe, also, and not without reason, complained of the manner in which Greene had spoken of him in the same work, but to him Chettle made no apology, while to Shakespeare he offered all the amends in his power.

His apology to Shakespeare is contained in a tract called "Kind-heart's Dream," which was published without date, but as Greene expired on the 3rd Sept. 1592, and as Chettle tells us in "Kind-heart's Dream," that Greene died "about

2 At this date Peele had relinquished his connexion with the company occupying the Blackfriars theatre, to which, as will be remembered, he was attached in 1589. How far the rising genius of Shakespeare, and his increased utility and importance, had contributed to the withdrawal of Peele, and to his junction with the rival association acting under the name of the Lord Admiral, it is impossible to determine. We have previously adverted to this point.