tains some things that we know he did not write, and some others which their poverty of thought and expression forbids our believing to be his. As to those portions of it which had been printed the year before among the poems of Barnfield, a recent inquiry 26 would seem to show that they may nevertheless be from Shakespeare's pen.-In 1599 was also published the second edition of his Romeo and Juliet, newly corrected, augmented, and amended." 66 Of the marriage of Shakespeare's sister Joan to William Hart, a hatter at Stratford, the register has no mention but their first child, William, was baptized August 28th, 1600, buried March 29th, 1639.27—Their other children were: Mary, baptized June 5th, 1603, buried Dec. 17th, 1607; Thomas, baptized July 24th, the name of another, which may put the world in opinion I might steale them from him, and hee, to doe himselfe right, hath since published them in his owne name : but, as I must acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage under whom he hath publisht them, so the author, I know, much offended with M. Jaggard that (altogether unknowne to him) presumed to make so bold with his name." Heywood having thus claimed his own, Jaggard cancelled the title-page of the third edition of The Passionate Pilgrim, 1612, on which was the name of Shakespeare, and substituted a title-page without any author's name. 28 By Mr. Collier: see his papers in The Athenæum for May 17th, 1856, and in Notes and Queries, Second Series, vol. ii. 8. After a minute examination of the two editions of Barnfield's volume, 1598 and 1605, he states that in the second edition, 1605, Barnfield omitted the pieces which had been printed in 1599 as Shakespeare's. The pieces in question are the Sonnet, "If music and sweet poetry agree," &c. and the Ode, “As it fell upon a day," &c.: and they form part of the fourth division ("Poems in diuers humors") of Barnfield's work, which was originally entitled The Encomion of Lady Pecunia; or the Praise of Money, &c. 27 See p. 89. 1605; Michael, baptized Sept. 23d, 1608.-In 1600,28 besides the plays already mentioned,29 our author's Much ado about Nothing and his King Henry the Fifth (a mere abortion of the original) found their way to the press. John Shakespeare, the father of the dramatist, about whom so much has been said in the commencement of this memoir, was buried at Stratford, Sept. 8th, 1601.30 28 The first part of the true and honorable history of the life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham, was printed in 1600, with "Written by William Shakespeare" on the title-page. Copies, however, exist, which are without any author's name; and we may conclude that the original title-page had been cancelled. That Shakespeare was not concerned in the composition of this play is certain: it was, as we learn from Henslowe's Diary, the joint production of Munday, Drayton, Wilson, and Hathway. The London Prodigall, 1605, and A Yorkshire Tragedie, 1608, both having Shakespeare's name on the title-page; The Lamentable Tragedie of Locrine, newly set foorth, ouerseene and corrected, By W. S., The True 1595; Chronicle Historie of Thomas Lord Cromwell, by W. S., 1602; The Puritaine, or The Widdow of Watling-streete, by W. S., 1607; were all (together with Sir John Oldcastle) reprinted in the third folio of Shakespeare's dramatic works, 1663 (and 1664), though from internal evidence it is clear that he did not contribute a single line to any of them.-With respect to The Two Noble Kinsmen, written by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr. John Fletcher and Mr. William Shakspeare, Gent., 1634, I think that the case is very different: see Some Account of the Lives and Writings of Beaumont and Fletcher, p. lxxx., where I have given my reasons for believing that portions of this play are by Shakespeare,-an opinion to which I still adhere, in spite of all the arguments to the contrary put forth by various critics since the publication of that Account. [1863. In an invaluable work, published since the first edition of this Memoir appeared, Walker, quoting The Two Noble Kinsmen, says, "Surely aut Shakespearius aut diabolus." A Crit. Exam. of the Text of Shakespeare, &c. vol. ii. p. 75.]—The Birth of Merlin, written by William Shakespear and William Rowley, 1662, is a drama almost below contempt. 30 "The latest notice of John Shakespeare hitherto met with occurs in a paper in the Council Chamber at Stratford, containing notes respecting an action of trespass brought by Edward Grevil against several bur If Malone's conjecture be right,-and it can hardly be far wrong,—that he was "born in or before the year 1530,"31 he had somewhat passed the age of threescore and ten. The earliest date assigned by the commentators to the production of Shakespeare's Twelfth-Night was 1607, till the discovery of the following curious entry in the Diary of John Manningham, a member of the Middle Temple (Ms. Harl. 5353): "1601 [-2]. Febr. 2. At our feast wee had a play called Twelve Night or What you Will, much like the Commedy of Errors or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and neere to that in Italian called Inganni.31* A good practise in it to make the steward beleeve his lady widdowe was in love with him, by counterfayting a lettre as from his lady in generall termes, telling him what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparraile, &c., and then when he came to practise, making him beleeve they tooke him to be mad, &c." In 1602 Shakespeare made an important addition to his property by purchasing, for three hundred and twenty pounds, a hundred and seven acres of arable land32 in the parish of Old Stratford: the indenture, gesses of Stratford in 1601. His name is in a list that appears amongst memoranda of the defendant's case, perhaps of the witnesses intended to be called, Mr. Jhon Sackesper."" Halliwell's Life of Shakespeare, p. 73, folio ed. 31 Life of Shakespeare, p. 50. 31* See Introd. to Twelfth-Night. 32 In a fine levied on this property in Trinity Term 1611, "twenty acres of pasture land" are described in addition to the hundred and seven "Betweene William Combe, of Warrwicke, in the countie of Warrwick, esquier, and John Combe, of Olde Stretford, in the countie aforesaid, gentleman, on the one partie, and William Shakespere, of Stretford-uppon Avon, in the countie aforesaide, gentleman, on thother partye," is dated 1st of May; and, Shakespeare not being then at Stratford, the conveyance was executed by his brother Gilbert.33 On the 28th of the following September, a "cotagium cum pertinentiis," in Walker's Street, alias Dead Lane, Stratford, near New Place, was surrendered to Shakespeare by Walter Getley,—the former, it appears, being at that time absent from Stratford: and during Michaelmas-Term of the same year our poet bought, for sixty pounds, from Hercules Underhill, a messuage, with two barns, two gardens, and two orchards, described, not very precisely, in the original fine as situated "in Stretford super Avon." 66 acres mentioned in the indenture; so that Shakespeare," observes Mr. Halliwell, "may then have added to his former purchase; and in a deed, which bears date in 1652, this land is also stated to be of the same extent." Life of Shakespeare, p. 165, folio ed. 66 33 Mr. Collier cites an extract from 'The Egerton Papers,' to show that 'Othello' was acted for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, at the residence of Lord Ellesmere (then Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal), at Harefield, on the 6th of August, 1602; ['6 August, 1602. Rewardes to the vaulters, players, and dauncers (Of this x.li to Burbidges players for Othello) Ixiiij." xviij.3 x.a3] but the suspicion long entertained that the Shakesperian documents in that collection are modern fabrications having now deepened almost into certainty, the extract in question is of no historical value." STAUNTON,-Pref. Remarks to Othello. "The writing, the ink, and the signature [of the paper containing the above extract] equally condemn it at once." Hardy's Review of the Present State of the Shakespearian Controversy, p. 60. Queen Elizabeth died on the 24th of March 1602-3. She was fond of theatrical performances; and we have the testimony of Ben Jonson that she justly appreciated the dramatist who was the brightest ornament of her reign; "Sweet Swan of Avon, what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames To the same effect is a passage in Chettle's Englandes Drop from his honied Muse one sable teare And to his laies opend her royall eare. Shepheard, remember our Elizabeth, And sing her Rape done by that Tarquin, Death." Indeed, she could hardly have been insensible to the most enchanting compliment ever paid by genius to royal vanity,—the allusion to the Virgin Queen in A Midsummer-Night's Dream; forming, as it does, so striking a contrast to the gross and vulgar flattery with which other contemporary poets strove to soothe her ear; "That very time I saw-but thou couldst not Flying between the cold moon and the earth, At a fair vestal throned by the west, 3 To the Memory of my beloved, the author, Mr. William Shakespeare, &c. |