times to play in the house (theatre) of the said Philip, and in no other, during the said term." The great poet was also, as we learn from various authorities, a good actor; and being moreover an excellent man of business, he did not long remain a servitor; for Mr. Collier has proved him, by means of the Ellesmere Papers, a sharer in the theatre,—that is, a person sharing in the daily profits of the representations,-as early as 1589. By 1592 he had become so well off as to excite the furious ire of his less fortunate contemporaries, one of whom, Henry Chettle, bespattered him, in a pamphlet, as an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his tiger's heart, wrapt 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 Factotum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country." It is due alike to Chettle and to Shakspeare to add that, in a subsequent pamphlet, the former thus withdraws these expressions: "The other, whom I did not at the time so much spare as since I wish I had; that I did not I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanour, no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes. Besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which argues his honesty; and his facetious grace in writing, which approves his art." In 1593 appeared Venus and Adonis, which Shakespeare himself designates "the first heir of his invention;" meaning thereby, in all probability, his first production of weight. It was of very great importance to him in one material respect, for it procured for him a munificent donation from Lord Southampton, to whom the poem was dedicated. This gift-which Rowe exaggerates to 10007.—was made, Davenant tells us, "in order to enable Shakespeare to go through with a purchase which Lord Southampton heard he had a mind to," and which Mr. Collier identifies with a share in the new playhouse, the Globe, then about to be erected. There is reason to believe that our practical poet became also at this time, or thereabouts, part-owner of the Blackfriars Theatre; and in one way or another he had, by 1597, realised enough wherewith to purchase out of his savings New Place, one of the best houses in Stratford, "with two barns and two gardens and their appurtenances.” Here, when not in London, Shakespeare's family chiefly resided from 1597 to the time of his death; and Mr. Halliwell adduces, from the local records, various passages which exhibit Shakspeare himself as much there, and engaged, if not actually in agriculture, at least in negotiations of a kindred character. A subsidy-roll of 1598 shows him to have been the holder of a house in the parish of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate; and as there are no indications that he ever lived in that locality, the probability is, that he had bought the lease of the premises as a speculation. The place was altogether out of the way of his occupation as actor, which he continued certainly up to 1603, in which year he was one of the principal performers in Ben Jonson's Sejanus. It is probable that the year 1604 may be assigned as the period at which he finally retired from the stage as actor, though his connexion with it as owner and comanager* continued some years longer. Old Aubrey tells us that "he was wont to go to his native country once a year." It is likely that his journeys were more frequent; but whenever they occurred, we are informed by Anthony à Wood, he always lodged at the sign of the Crown, in the Corn-market, at Oxford,-a hostelry of which considerable portions still remain, and which at the time was kept by John Davenant, 66 a very grave and discreet citizen, who had to wife a very beautiful woman, and of a very good wit, and of conversation extremely agreeable." The son of this couple, Sir William Davenant, who was born March 1606, used, "when he was pleasant over a glass of wine with his most intimate friends, e. g. Sam Butler (author of Hudibras), &c., to say that it seemed to him that he wrote with the very spirit that Shakespeare wrote, and was contented enough to be thought his son." If there be no better basis for this pleasantry than the poet-laureate's conceit that he wrote like Shakespeare, the fair fame of Mrs. Davenant, and the morality of William Shakespeare, in the particular case, have been needlessly vindicated. Shakespeare permanently retired to Stratford about 1611, with an income exceeding 500l. a year, in those days a considerable revenue. Our poet's sonnets were probably among his earliest productions; but when they were written, where, and to whom they were addressed, and of whom they discourse, are all matters of mystery. Mr. Halliwell conjectures several of them to have been composed at Stratford before his marriage, and to have been addressed to Anne Hathaway; and such may very well have been the case, compatibly with Mr. Dyce's opinion, "after repeated perusals of the sonnets, that the greater number of them were composed in an assumed character, on different subjects and at different times, for the amusement, and probably at the suggestion, of the author's intimate associates." Venus and Adonis, as we have seen, was published in 1593. This was followed, in 1594, by Lucrece; and these two poems seem to have been petted much more than the plays, not only by contemporary * It was probably in the capacity of manager that he found occasion to bring Ben Jonson forward. writers, but even by Shakespeare himself, since these were his only productions in the publication of which he at all concerned himself. The circumstance may, indeed, be attributable to the greater anxiety on such a subject of a young man just feeling his way to fortune; but it has more probable connexion with that utter indifference to fame which so singularly contrasts Shakespeare in this particular with Milton, and which occasioned him evidently to feel no concern whether his works were given to the world in a perfect or imperfect state. Even while in the enjoyment of his retirement at Stratford, he did not so much as take the trouble to collect his writings together; and it was not until seven years after his death that his plays were formed into a volume by two of his old associates. Milton, on the contrary, who was haunted from his youth upwards with the thought of composing some great work which should live for ages, when his Paradise Lost was published, blind as he was, and trifling as was the emolument it brought him, caused the printing to be superintended with the most minute care, and corrected the orthography throughout on a system peculiarly his own. The order in which Shakespeare's plays were written will probably never be determined with precision. Meres, a contemporary writer, shows that in 1598, Shakespeare, then thirty-four years of age, had written, at all events, twelve plays : 1. The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 2. The Comedy of Errors. 3. Love's Labour's lost. 4. Love's Labour won (All's Well that Ends Well; or, according to Halliwell, a separate play now lost). 5. Midsummer Night's Dream. 6. Merchant of Venice. 7. Richard II. 8. Richard III. 9. Henry IV. 10. King John. 11. Titus Andronicus. 12. Romeo and Juliet. It can be further stated that Henry VI., Part I., had appeared before 1592; and that the first sketches of the Second and Third Parts of Henry VI. had appeared in 1593; that the Merry Wives of Windsor was written in 1593; and that the Taming of the Shrew was acted at Henslowe's Theatre in 1593. After 1598 we find : Henry IV. Part II. Printed 1600; but believed by Halliwell to have been written before 1598. Henry V. Printed 1600. Much Ado about Nothing. Printed 1600. As You Like It. Entered at Stationers' Hall, 1600. Twelfth Night. Acted in Middle Temple Hall, 1602. Othello. Acted at Harefield, July 1602; but probably affirmed by Mr. Halliwell to have been written before 1600. Hamlet. Printed 1603. Measure for Measure. Acted at Whitehall December 26, 1604. King Lear. Acted at Whitehall 1607. Troilus and Cressida. Acted at Court before 1609, Pericles. Printed 1609. The Tempest. Acted at Whitehall November 1, 1611. The Winter's Tale. Acted at Whitehall November, 5, 1611. Macbeth, Cymbeline, Timon of Athens, Julius Cæsar, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus, are evidently the productions of Shakespeare's mature period; but their precise dates are uncertain. was "The latter part of Shakespeare's life," writes Mr. Rowe, spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends. His pleasurable wit and good-nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship, of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Amongst them, it is a story almost still remembered in that country, that he had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted thereabouts for his wealth and usury. It happened that in a pleasant conversation, amongst their common friends, Mr. Combe told Shakespeare in a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if he happened to outlive him; and since he could not know what might be said of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately; upon which Shakspeare gave him these four lines: Ten in the hundred lies here engraved, "Tis a hundred to ten his soul is not saved! If any man ask, 'Who lies in this tomb?' 'Oh, oh!' quoth the devil, 'tis my John à Combe !' said to have stung the man so Now these verses in themselves Shakespeare's disposition, mild, But the sharpness of the satire is severely, that he never forgave it." betray no asperity of feeling at all. gentle, and equable, seems to have even made him regard the failings of others, and even injuries done to himself, with forbearance; and in this particular instance the satire does not go beyond a jest, which certainly occasioned no lasting coolness, at all events, between the parties; for at his death, in 1614, Mr. Combe left Shakespeare 57.; and Shakespeare, when he himself died, bequeathed his sword to Mr. Thomas Combe. Shakespeare died at New Place, on April 23, 1616, aged fifty-two, and was buried in the chancel of Stratford church two days afterwards. The memorial erected over his remains is a flat stone, bearing this inscription: "Good friend, for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust enclo'ased heare: His monument, on the north wall of the chancel, is his bust, with a cushion before him, a pen in the right hand, and the left resting upon a scroll. Beneath are inscribed these lines: "Judicio Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem, Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast? Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plast |