speare, until very recently. had been one; it originated in the French ambassador. George Chapman had written two plays upon the history and execution of the Duke of Biron, containing, in the shape in which they were originally produced on the stage, such matter that M. Beaumont, the representative of the King of France in London, thought it necessary to remonstrate against the repetition, and the performance of it was prohibited: as soon, however, as the court had quitted London, the King's players persisted in acting it; in consequence of which three of the players were arrested, but the author made his escape. These two dramas were printed in 1608, and again in 1625; and looking through them, we are at a loss to discover any thing, beyond the historical incidents, which could have given offence; but the truth certainly is, that the objectionable portions were omitted in the press: there can be no doubt, on the authority of the despatch from the French ambassador to his court, that one of the dramas originally contained a scene in which the Queen of France and Mademoiselle Verneuil were introduced, the former, after having abused her, giving the latter a box on the ear.

This information was conveyed to Paris under the date of the 5th April, 1606; and the French ambassador, apparently in order to make his court acquainted with the lawless character of dramatic performances at that date in England, adds a very singular paragraph, proving that the King's players, only a few days before they had brought the Queen of France upon the stage, had not hesitated to introduce upon the same boards their own reigning sovereign in a most unseemly manner, making him swear violently, and beat a gentleman for interfering with his known propensity for the chase. This course indicates extraordinary boldness on the part of the players; but, nevertheless, they were not prohibited from acting, until M. Beaumont had directed the attention of the public authorities to the insult offered to the Queen of France; then, an order was issued putting a stop to the acting of all plays in London; but, according to the same authority, the companies had clubbed their money, and, attacking James I. on his weak side, had offered a large sum to be allowed to continue their performances. The French ambassador bimself apprehended that the appeal to the King's pecuniary wants would be effectual, and that permission, under certain restrictions, would not long be withheld.'

1 We derive these particulars from M. Von Raumer's "History of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries." The terms are worth quoting.

"April 5, 1606. I caused certain players to be forbid from acting the History of the Duke of Biron: when, however, they saw that the whole court had left town, they persisted in acting it; nay, they brought upon the stage the Queen of France and Mademoiselle Verneuil. The former, having first accosted the latter with very hard words, gave her a box on the ear. At my suit three of them were arrested; but the principal person, the author, escaped.

"One or two days before, they had brought forward their own King and all his favorites in a very strange fashion: they made him curse and swear because he had been robbed of a bird, and beat a gentleman because he had called off the hounds from the scent. They represent him as drunk at least once a day, &c.

"He has upon this made order, that no play shall be henceforth acted in London; for the repeal of which order they have already offered 100,000 livres. Perhaps the permission will be again granted, but upon condition that they represent no recent history, nor speak of the present time."

Whatever emoluments Shakespeare had derived from the Blackfriars or the Globe theatres, as an actor, we may be tolerably certain he relinquished when he ceased to perform. He would thus be able to devote more time to dramatic composition, and, as he continued a sharer in the two undertakings, perhaps his income was not much lessened. Certain it is, that in 1605 he was in possession of a considerable sum, which he was anxious to invest advantageously in property in or near the place of his birth. Whatever may have been the circumstances under which he quitted Stratford, he always seems to have contemplated a permanent return thither, and kept his eyes turned in the direction of his birth-place. As long before as January, 1598, he had been advised" to deal in the matter of tithes" of Stratford; but perhaps at that date, having recently purchased New Place, he was not in sufficient funds for the purpose, or possibly the party in possession of the lease of the tithes, though not unwilling to dispose of it, required more than it was deemed worth. At all events, nothing was done on the subject for more than six years; but on 24th July, 1605, we find William Shakespeare, who is described as "of Stratford-upon-Avon, gentleman," executing an indenture for the purchase of the unexpired term of a long lease of the great tithes of "corn, grain, blade, and hay," and of the small tithes of wool, lamb, and other small and privy tithes, herbage, oblations," etc., in Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishop ton, and Welcombe,'in the county of Warwick. From the draft of the deed, now before us, we learn that the original lease, dated in 1539, was "for four-score and twelve years;" so that in 1605 it had still twenty-six years to run, and for this our great dramatist agreed to pay 4401. by the receipt, contained in the same deed, it appears that he paid the whole of the money before it was executed. He might very fitly be described as of Stratford-upon-Avon, because he had there not only a substantial settled residence for his family, but he was the owner of considerable property, both in land and houses, in the town and neighbourhood; and he had been before so described in 1602, when he bought the one hundred and seven acres, which he annexed to his dwelling of New Place.

A spurious edition of HAMLET having been published in 1603, a more authentic copy came out in the next year, containing much that had been omitted, and more that had been grossly disfigured and misrepresented. We do not believe that Shakespeare, individually, had any thing to do with this second and more correct impression, and we doubt much whether it was authorized by the company, which seems at all times to have done its utmost to prevent the appearance of plays in

1 In a letter from a resident in Stratford of the name of Abraham Sturley.

"This is one special remembrance of your father's motion. It seemeth by him that our countriman, Mr. Shakespeare, is willing to disburse some money upon some od yardeland or other at Shottery, or near about us: he thinketh it a very fitt patterne to move him to deale in the matter of our tithes. By the instructions you can give him theareof, and by the frendes he can make therefore, we thinke it a faire marke for him to shoote at, and not unpossible to hitt. It obtained would advance him in deede, and would do us much good." The terms of this letter prove that Shakespeare's townsmen were of opinion that he was de sirous of advancing himself among the inhabitants of Stratford. 2 The only copy of this impression is in the library of the Duke of Devonshire. See the Introduction to Hamlet.

print, lest the public curiosity should thereby be satisfied.

The point is liable to dispute, but we have little doubt that HENRY VIII. was represented very soon after the accession of James I., to whom and to whose family it contains a complimentary allusion; and MACBETH, having perhaps been written in 1605, we suppose to have been produced at the Globe in the spring of 1606. Although it related to Scottish annals, it was not like the play of "Gowry's Conspiracy," founded, to use Von Raumer's words, upon "recent history;" and many of the sentiments and allusions it contained, especially that to the "two-fold balls and treble sceptres," (in act iv. scene 1,) must have been acceptable to the King. It has been supposed, upon the authority of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, that King James with his own hand wrote a letter to Shakespeare in return for the compliment paid to him in MACBETH: the Duke of Buckingham is said to have had Davenant's evidence for this anecdote, which was first told in print in the advertisement to Lintot's edition of Shakespeare's Poems, in 1710.1 Rowe says nothing of it in his "Life," either in 1709 or 1714; and it seems improbable that James I. should have so far condescended. We may conjecture, that a privy seal under the sign manual, (then the usual form of proceeding,) granting to the King's players some extraordinary reward on the occasion, has been misrepresented as a private letter from the King to the dramatist.

Malone speculated that MACBETH had been played before King James and the King of Denmark, (who arrived in England on 6th July, 1606;) but we have not a particle of testimony to establish that a tragedy relating to the assassination of a monarch by an ambitious vassal was ever represented at court: we should be surprised to discover any proof of this kind, becanse such incidents seem usually to have been carefully avoided.

The eldest daughter of William and Anne Shakespeare, Susanna, having been born in May, 1583, was rather more than twenty-four years old when she was married, on 5th June, 1607, to Mr. John Hall, of Stratford, who is styled "gentleman" in the register; but he was a professor of medicine, and subsequently practised as a physician. There appears to have been no reason on any side for opposing the match, and we may conjecture that the ceremony was performed in the presence of our great dramatist, during one of his summer excursions to his native town. About six months afterwards he lost his brother Edmund, and his mother in the autumn of the succeeding year.

That the story came through the Duke of Buckingham, from Davenant, seems to have been a conjectural addition by Oldys: the words in Lintot's advertisement are these:-"That most learned Prince, and great patron of learning, King James the First, was pleased with his own hand to write an amicable letter to Mr. Shakespeare; which letter, though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir William Davenant, as a credible person now living can testify." Dr. Farmer was the first to give currency to the notion, that the compliment to the Stuart family in MACBETH was the occasion of the letter.

He was buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, in the immediate vicinity of the Globe theatre; the registration being in the fol lowing form, specifying, rather unusually, the occupation of the deceased:

1607, Dec. 31. Edmund Shakespeare, a player."

There is no doubt that Edmund Shakespeare, who was not twenty-eight at the time of his death, had embraced the profession of a player, having perhaps followed the fortunes of his brother William, and attached himself to the same company. We, however, never meet with his name in any lists of the associations of the time, nor is he mentioned as an actor among the characters of any old play with which we are acquainted. We may presume, therefore, that he attained no eminence: perhaps his principal employment might be under his brother in the management of his theatrical concerns, while he only took inferior parts when the assistance of a larger number of performers than usual was necessary.

Mary Shakespeare survived her son Edmund about eight months, and was buried at Stratford on the 9th September, 1608.' There are few points of his life which can be stated with more confidence than that our great dramatist attended the funeral of his mother: filial piety and duty would of course impel him to visit Stratford on the occasion; and in proof that he did so, we may mention that on the 16th of the next month he stood godfather there to a boy of the name of William Walker. Shakespeare's mother had probably resided at New Place, the house of her son; from whence, we may presume also, the body of her husband had been carried to the grave seven years before. If she were of full age when she was married to John Shakespeare, in 1557, she was about seventy-two years old at the time of her decease.

The reputation of our Poet as a dramatist seems at this period to have been at its height. His KING LEAR was printed three times for the same bookseller, in 1608; and in order perhaps to increase its sale, (as well as to secure the purchaser against the old “King Leir,” a play upon the same story, being given to him instead,) the name of "M. William Shake-speare" was placed very conspicuously, and most unusually, at the top of the title-page. The same observation will in part apply to PERICLES, which came out in 1609, with the name of the author rendered particularly obvious, although in the ordinary place. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, which was published in the same year, also has the name of the author very distinctly legible, but in a somewhat smaller type. In both the latter cases, it would likewise seem, that there were plays by older or rival dramatists upon the same incidents. The most noticeable proof of the advantage which a bookseller conceived he should derive from the announcement that the work he published was by our Poet, is afforded by the titlepage of the collection of his dispersed sonnets, which was ushered into the world as "Shakespeare's Sonnets," in very large capitals, as if that mere fact would be held a sufficient recommendation.

In a former part of our memoir we have alluded to the fact, that in 1609 Shakespeare was rated to the poor of the Liberty of the Clink in a sum which might indicate that he was the occupant of a commodious dwelling-house in Southwark. The fact that he paid sixpence a week to the poor there, (as high a sum as any body in that immediate vicinity was assessed at,) is stated in the account of the Life of Edward Alleyn,

1 The following is a copy of the register :

"1608, Septemb. 9, Mayry Shaxspere, Wydowe."

printed by the Shakespeare Society; and there it is inferred that he was rated at this sum upon a dwellinghouse occupied by himself. This is possibly the fact; but, on the other hand, the truth may be, that he paid the rate not for any habitation, good or bad, large or small, but in respect of his theatrical property in the Globe, which was situated in the same district. The parish register of St. Saviour's establishes that, in 1601, the church-wardens had been instructed by the vestry "to talk with the players" respecting the payment of tithes and contributions to the maintenance of the poor; and it is not unlikely that some arrangement was made under which the sharers in the Globe, and Shakespeare as one of them, would be assessed. We may add, that when Henslowe and Alleyn were about to build the Fortune play-house, in 1599-1600, the inhabitants of the lordship of Finsbury, in the parish of Cripplegate, petitioned the privy council in favour of the undertaking, one of their reasons being, that "the erectors were contented to give a very liberal portion of money weekly towards the relief of the poor." Perhaps the parties interested in the Globe were contented to come to similar terms, and the parish to accept the money weekly from the various individuals. Henslowe, Alleyn, Lowin, Town, Juby, etc., who were either sharers, or actors

and sharers, in that or other theatres in the same neighbourhood, contributed in different proportions for the same purpose, the largest amount being six-pence per week, which was paid by Shakespeare, Henslowe, and Alleyn.'

The ordinary inhabitants included in the same list, doubtless, paid for their dwellings, according to their several rents, and such may have been the case with Shakespeare: all we contend for is, that we ought not to conclude that Shakespeare was the tenant of a house in the Liberty of the Clink, merely from the circumstance that he was rated to the poor. It is not unlikely that he was the occupier of a substantial dwelling-house in the immediate neighbourhood of the Globe, where his presence and assistance would often be required; and the amount of his income at this period would warrant such an expenditure, although we have no reason for thinking that such a house would be needed for his family, because the existing evidence is opposed to the notion that they ever resided with him in London.

1 John Northbrooke, in his Treatise against Plays, Players, etc.. informs us that in 1577 people contributed weekly to the support of the poor "according to their ability, some a penny, some twopence, another four-pence, and the best commonly giveth but sixpence."

half a share.

From the outset the Mayor and aldermen of London had been hostile to the establishment of players within this precinct, so near to the boundaries, but beyond the jurisdiction of the corporation; and they had made several fruitless efforts to dislodge them. The attempt was renewed in 1608, when the Attorney General gave an opinion in favour of the claim of the citizens to exercise their municipal powers within the precinct of the late dissolved monastery of the Blackfriars. The question seems in some shape to have been brought before Baron Ellesmere, then Chancellor who required from the Mayor and his brethren proofs that they had exercised any authority in the disputed liberty. The distinguished lawyers of the day retained by the city were employed in searching for records applicable to the point; but no proofs sufficient to satisfy the Chancellor seem to have been produced.

Failing in this endeavour to expel the King's players by force of law, the corporation appears to have negotiated with them for the purchase of the Blackfriars theatre, with its properties and appurtenances. To this negotiation we are indebted for a paper, which shows with great exactness the amount of interest them claimed by each sharer, those sharers being Richard Burbage, Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, John Heminge, Henry Condell, Joseph Taylor, and John Lowin,

We insert the document in a note. We there find that Richard Burbage was the owner of the freehold or fee, as well as the owner of four shares, the value of his whole interest he rated at 19331. 6s. 8d. Laurence Fletcher (if it be he, for the Christian name is written

1 It is thus headed

"For avoiding of the Playhouse in the Precinct of the Blacke Friers.

Imp. Richard Burbidge oweth the Fee, and is alsoe a
sharer therein. His interest he rateth at the grosse
summe of 1000l. for the Fee, and for his foure shares
in the summe of 9331. 6s. 8d.
Item. Laz. Fletcher oweth three shares, which he
rateth at 7001., that is, at seven yeares purchase for
each share, or 331. 6s. 8d., one yeare with another
Item. W. Shakespeare asketh for the wardrobe and
properties of the same playhouse 500l., and for his
4 shares, the same as his fellowes, Burbidge and
Fletcher; viz. 9331. 68. 8d.

Item. Heminge and Condell eche 2 shares
Item. Joseph Taylor 1 share and an halfe.
Item. Lowing also one share and an halfe.
Item. Foure more playeres with one halfe share to
eche of them.

.

Summa totalis

£.

8. d.

1933 6 8

700 0 0

1433 68

933 6 8

350 00

350 0 0

466 13 4 6166 13 4

Moreover, the hired men of the Companie demaund some recom pence for their great losse, and the Widowes and Orphanes of Players, who are paide by the Sharers at divers rates and proportions, so as in the whole it will cost the Lo. Mayor and the Citizens at least 7000l."