called for; and assuredly that wonderful tragedy, whose true power can only be adequately felt by repeated study, must have carried its wonderful philosophy into the depths of the heart of many a reader who was no haunter of play-houses, and have most effectually vindicated plays and play-books from the charge of being nothing but "unprofitable pleasures of sin," to be denounced in common with "Love-locks, periwigs, women's curling, powdering and cutting of the hair, bonfires, New-year's gifts, May-games, amorous pastorals, lascivious effeminate music, excessive laughter, luxurious disorderly Christmas keeping, mummeries."* From the hour of the publication of Hamlet, in 1604, to these our days, many a solitary student must have closed that wonderful book with the application to its author of something like the thought that Hamlet himself expresses,-" What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!" • Prynne's Rietrio-Mastix.' NOTE ON THE PATENT TO THE COMPANY ACTING AT MALONE, in his 'Historical Account of the English Stage,' prints the "licence to the company at the Globe, which is found in Rymer's 'Fœdera." Mr. Collier, in his 'Annals of the Stage,' publishes the document "from the Privy Seal, preserved in the Chapter House, Westminster, and not from Rymer's Fœdera,' whence it has hitherto been inaccurately quoted." The Patent as given in Rymer, and the Privy Seal as given by Mr. Collier, do not differ in the slightest particular, except in the orthography, and the use of capital letters. These matters in Rymer are so wholly arbitrary, that in printing the document we modernize the orthography. Malone adheres to it only partially, and this possibly constitutes the principal charge of inaccuracy brought against him. He has, however, three errors of transcription, but not of any consequence to the sense. At line 9 he has "like other" instead of "others like;" at line 18 "our pleasure" instead of "our said pleasure;" and at the same line, “aiding or assisting” instead of “aiding and assisting." "Pro Laurentio Fletcher & Willielmo Shakespeare & aliis. A.D. 1603. Pat. "1 Jac. p. 2, m. 4. James by the grace of God, &c., to all justices, mayors, sheriffs, constables, headboroughs, and other our officers and loving subjects, greeting. Know you that we, of our special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, have licensed and authorised, and by these presents do license and authorise, these our servants, Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Philippes, John Hemings, Henry Condel, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowly, and the rest of their associates, freely to use and exercise the art and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, interludes, morals, pastorals, stage-plays, and such others like as they have already studied, or hereafter shall use or study, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure when we shall think good to see them, during our pleasure: and the said comedies, tragedies, histories, interludes, morals, pastorals, stageplays, and such like, to show and exercise publicly to their best commodity, when the infection of the plague shall decrease, as well within their now usual house, called the Globe, within our county of Surrey, as also within any town-halls or moot-halls, or other convenient places within the liberties and freedom of any other city, university, town, or borough whatsoever within our said realms and dominions. Willing and commanding you and every of you, as you tender our pleasure, not only to permit and suffer them herein, without any your lets, hindrances, or molestations, during our said pleasure, but also to be aiding and assisting to them if any wrong be to them offered, and to allow them such former courtesies as hath been given to men of their place and quality; and also what further favour you shall show to these our servants for our sake, we shall take kindly at your hands. In witness whereof, &c. "Witness ourself at Westminster, the nineteentl. day of May "Per Breve de privato sigillo." We have seen that in the year 1602 Shakspere was investing the gains of his profession in the purchase of property at Stratford. It appears from the original: Fines of the Court of King's Bench, preserved in the Chapter-house, that a little before the accession of James, in 1603, Shakspere had also purchased a messuage at Stratford, with barns, gardens, and orchards, of Hercules Underhill, for the sum of sixty pounds.* There can be little doubt that this continued acquisition of property in his native place had reference to the ruling desire of the poet to retire to his quiet fields and the placid intercourse of society at Stratford, out of the turmoil of his professional life and the excitement of the * The document was first published in Mr. Collier's New Facts.' companionship of the gay and the brilliant. And yet it appears highly probable that he was encouraged, at this very period, through the favour of those who rightly estimated his merit, to apply for an office which would have brought him even more closely in connexion with the Court. As one of the King's servants he received the small annual fee of three pounds six and eight-pence. * On the 30th of January, 1604, Samuel Daniel was appointed by letters patent to an office which, though not so called, was in fact that of Master of the Queen's Revels. In a letter from Daniel to Lord Ellesmere, he expresses his thanks for a "new, great, and unlooked for favour. I shall now be able to live free from those cares and troubles that hitherto have been my continual and wearisome companions. . . I cannot but know that I am less deserving than some that sued by other of the nobility unto her Majesty for this room if M. Drayton, my good friend, had been chosen, I should not have murmured, for sure I am he would have filled it most excellently; but it seemeth to mine humble judgment that one who is the author of plays now daily presented on the public stages of London, and the possessor of no small gains, and moreover himself an actor in the King's Company of Comedians, could not with reason pretend to be Master of the Queen's Majesty's Revels, forasmuch as he would sometimes be asked to approve and allow of his own writings. Therefore he, and more of like quality, cannot justly be disappointed because through your honour's gracious interposition the chance was haply mine." It appears highly probable that Shakspere was pointed at as the author of popular plays, the possessor of no small gains, the actor in the King's company. It is not impossible that Shakspere looked to this appointment as a compensation for his retirement from the profession of an actor, retaining his interest, however, as a theatrical proprietor. Be that as it may, he still carried forward his ruling purpose of the acquisition of property at Stratford. In 1605 he accomplished a purchase which required a larger outlay than any previous investment. On the 24th of July, in the third year of James, a conveyance was made by Ralph Huband, Esq., to William Shakspere, gentleman, of a moiety of a lease of the great and small tithes of Stratford, for the remainder of a term of ninety-two years, and the amount of the purchase was four hundred and forty pounds. There can be little doubt that he was the cultivator of his own land, availing himself of the assistance of his brother Gilbert, and, in an earlier period, probably of his father. An account in 1597 of the stock of malt in the borough of Stratford, is said to exhibit ten quarters in the possession of William Shakspere, of Chapel Street Ward. New Place was situated in Chapel Street. The purchase of a moiety of the tithes of so large a parish as Stratford might require extensive arrangements for their collection. Tithes in those days were more frequently collected in kind than by a modus. But even if a nodus was taken, it would require a knowledge of the value of agricultural produce to farm the tithes with advantage. But before the date of this pur This letter, found amongst the Egerton Papers, is published by Mr. Collier in his New Pacts.' There is & document dated the 28th of October, 1614, in which William Replingham cove chase it is perfectly clear that William Shakspere was in the exercise of the trading part of a farmer's business. He bought the hundred and seven acres of land of John and William Combe in May, 1602. In 1604 a declaration was entered in the Borough Court of Stratford, on a plea of debt, William Shakspere against Philip Rogers, for the sum of thirty-five shillings and ten-pence, for corn delivered. The precept was issued in the usual form upon this decla ration, the delivery of the corn being stated to have taken place at several times in the first and second years of James. There cannot be more distinct evidence that William Shakspere, at the very period when his dramas were calling forth the rapturous applause of the new Sovereign and his Court, and when he himself, as it would seem, was ambitious of a courtly office, did not disdain to pursue the humble though honourable occupation of a farmer in Stratford, and to exercise his just rites of property in connexion with that occupation. We must believe that he looked forward to the calm and healthful employment of the evening of his days, as a tiller of the land which his father had tilled before him, at the same time working out noble plans of poetical employment in his comparative leisure, as the best scheme of life in his declining years. The exact period when he commenced the complete realization of these plans is somewhat doubtful. He had probably ceased to appear as an actor before 1605.* If the date 1608 be correctly assigned to a letter held to be written by Lord Southampton,† it is clear that Shakspere was not then an actor, for he is there described as "till of late an actor of good account in the company, nou a sharer in the same." His partial freedom from his professional labours certainly preceded his final settlement at Stratford. In the conveyance by the Combes to Shakspere in 1602, he is designated as William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon. The same designation holds in subsequent legal documents connected with Stratford; but there is no doubt that, at the period of the conveyance from the Combes, he was an actor in the company performing at the Blackfriars and at the Globe; and in tracing therefore the "whereabout" of Shakspere, from the imperfect records which remain to us, we have assumed that where the fellows of Shakspere are to be found, there is he to be also located. But in the belief that before 1608 he had ceased to be an actor, we are not required to assume that he was so constantly with his company as before that partial retirement. His interest would no doubt require his occasional presence with them, for he continued to be a considerable pro prietor in their lucrative concerns. That prudence and careful management which could alone have enabled him to realize a large property out of his professional pursuits, and at the same time not to dissipate it by his agricultural occupations, appears to have been founded upon an arrangement by which he secured the assistance of his family, and at the same time made a provision for them. We have seen that in 1602 his brother Gilbert was his representative nants with William Shakspere to make recompense for any loss and hindrance, upon arbitration, for and in respect to the increasing value of tithes. * See Chapter IX., p. 478. ↑ See Note at the end of this Chapter. |