And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, In maiden meditation, fancy-free." Act ii. sc. 1.— We are told that The Merry Wives of Windsor was written by the command of her majesty, who had been so pleased with Falstaff in the Two Parts of King Henry the Fourth, that she desired to see him in the character of a lover: and the anecdote may possibly be true, though it cannot be traced farther back than the beginning of the last century. 35 In King James the drama found a kind and liberal patron. On May 17th, 1603, but a few days after his arrival in London, the following warrant36 under the Privy Seal was issued: "Right trusty and welbeloved Counsellor, we greete you well, and will and commaund you, that under our 35 Dennis in The Epistle Dedicatory to an alteration of The Merry Wives of Windsor, entitled The Comical Gallant, 1702, writes as follows; "I knew very well that it had pleased one of the greatest queens that ever was in the world. . . . . This comedy was written at her command and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted, that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased at the representation." It is supposed that Dennis had this story from Dryden, and Dryden from Davenant.-Rowe, in his Life of Shakespeare, 1709, says; "She [Elizabeth] was so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff in the Two Parts of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to shew him in love. This is said to be the occasion of his writing The Merry Wives of Windsor." 36 In the Chapter House.-The patent under the Great Seal bears date May 19th. privie seale in your custody for the time being, you cause our letters to be derected to the keeper of our greate seale of England, commaunding him under our said greate seale, he cause our letters to be made patents in forme following. James, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, Fraunce, and Irland, defendor of the faith, &c. To all justices, maiors, sheriffs, constables, headboroughes, and other our officers and loving subjects greeting. Know ye, that we of our speciall grace, certaine knowledge, and meere motion, have licenced and authorized, and by these presentes doe licence and authorize, these our servants, Lawrence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage, Augustine Phillippes, John Hemmings, Henrie Condell, William Sly, Robert Armyn, Richard Cowlye, and the rest of their associats, freely to use and exercise the arte and faculty of playing comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, moralls, pastorals, stage-plaies, and such other like, as thei have already studied, or hereafter shall use or studie, as well for the recreation of our loving subjects, as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall thinke good to see them, during our pleasure; and the said comedies, trajedies, histories, enterludes, moralls, pastoralls, stage-plaies, and such like, to shew and exercise publiquely to their best commoditie, when the infection of the plague shall decrease, as well within theire now usuall howse called the Globe, within our county of Surrey, as also within anie towne halls, or mout halls, or other convenient places within the liberties and freedome of any other citie, universitie, towne, or borough whatsoever within our said realmes and dominions: willing and commaunding you, and every of you, as you tender our pleasure, not only to permit and suffer them heerin, without any your letts, hinderances, or molestations, during our said pleasure, but also to be ayding or assisting to them yf any wrong be to them offered; and to allowe them such former courtesies, as hathe bene given to men of their place and qualitie; and also what further favour you shall shew to these our servants for our sake, we shall take kindly at your hands. And these our letters shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge in this behalfe. Given under our signet at our mannor of Greenewiche, the seavententh day of May in the first yeere of our raigne of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scotland the six and thirtieth." Our poet and his above-named associates were then at the head of the Lord Chamberlain's company, performing at the Globe in summer, and at the Blackfriars in winter,37 though the former theatre only is noticed in the instrument. By virtue of it, they now ceased to be the Lord Chamberlain's Servants, and were henceforth designated as the King's Players.38-Laurence Fletcher, the leading member of the association, had performed 37 See p. 60. 38 Here followed, in the former edition of this Memoir; "It should be observed that the name of Shakespeare, which stands fifth in the actors' petition to the Privy Council in 1596, is placed second in the warrant; such importance had he acquired in the interval." But see note 6, p. 60. before King James in Scotland with the company of English actors who were there from Oct. 1599 to Dec. 1601; and he is ascertained to have been at the head of that company by the fact of his having received the freedom of the city of Aberdeen on Oct. 22d, 1601, as "comedian to his Majesty." Perhaps the favour in which he at that time stood with James was not without its influence in determining the position occupied by his name in the warrant.-Mr. Collier's39 conjecture that Laurence Fletcher was an elder brother of John Fletcher the dramatist is very questionable.40-We have 40 When Bishop Fletcher made his Will, Oct. 26th, 1593, he had nine children living, none of them "come to the age of one and twentye yeares:" but at the period of his decease, June 15th, 1596, as we learn from a document drawn up by his brother, they were eight in number, and "divers of them very young." The names of four of them are not known the others were Nathaniel, Theophilus, Elizabeth, John (the dramatist), and Maria. Only two of them are mentioned by name in the Bishop's Will, the two eldest sons then alive, it would seem,-Nathaniel and John (Theophilus, whose birth occurred between theirs, was probably dead): to these two he leaves "all his bookes, to be devyded betwene them equallie," and he gives moreover to Nathaniel "all his wearinge linen." 66 In Henslowe's Diary (p. 78, ed. Shakespeare Soc.), under a note of money lent to various persons sence the 14 of Octobr. 1596," are two notices of "Fleacher;" and on the first one Mr. Collier remarks (ubi supra); "This has been supposed by Malone to mean John Fletcher the poet, but there was also Laurence Fletcher an actor, whose name stands first in the patent granted by King James on the 17th May, 1603, and a few years afterwards we hear of Laz. Fletcher." Assuredly, the dramatist is not meant: now that the date of his birth has been discovered (see my Account of the Lives and Writings of Beaumont and Fletcher, p. xviii.), we know that in October 1596 he was under seventeen years of age. Laurence Fletcher was buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, Sept. 12th, 1608 see Collier's Memoirs of the principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare,-Introd. p. x. no evidence that Shakespeare ever visited Scotland, either along with Laurence Fletcher, or ten years earlier as one of an English company, styled "her Majesty's players," who are known to have performed at Edinburgh in 1589.41 41 A letter from Mrs. Alleyn to her husband, dated October 20th, 1603, which was first printed by Mr. Collier in his Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, contains, as given by Mr. Collier, the following "mention of Shakespeare," p. 63; "Aboute a weeke a goe there came a youthe who said he was Mr. Frauncis Chaloner who would have borrowed x1 to have bought things for * * # and said he was known unto you, and Mr. Shakespeare of the globe, who came * * * said he knewe hym not, onely he herde of hym that he was a roge so he was glade we did not lend Richard Johnes [went] to seeke and inquire him the monney * * after the fellow," &c. * * * * But, since the publication of Mr. Collier's Memoirs of Alleyn, the original Ms. of the letter just cited has been minutely examined by various persons, who have all failed to discover the "mention of Shakespeare" which Mr. Collier found in it. "On collating this letter with the original," says Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton, "it appears to have been entirely misread by Mr. Collier, as there is not the smallest trace of authority for any allusion to Shakspere, or to any of the words concerning him found there by Mr. Collier, and printed by him as forming part of the original document. * * * I have broken the lines, both in my version of the document and in that of Mr. Collier, in exact accordance with the written document, so that the reader may see at a glance the average number of words contained in a line, and be thereby enabled to judge for himself of the actual impossibility of the paragraph in question having ever been contained in the original document where Mr. Collier avers that he found it. At the same time it will be observed that portions of three damaged lines are still legible, which are incompatible with the Shakspere paragraph, and in regard to which Mr. Collier is wholly silent 'Aboute a weeke agoe there [cam]e a youthe who said he was Mr. Frauncis Chalo[ner]s man * * ** ld have borrow[e]d xs to I would have & I bene su and inquire after the fellow,""&c. An Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr. According to one of the Ellesmere Manuscripts discovered by Mr. |