A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare. Fleay Frederick Gard

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СКАЧАТЬ in The Poetaster. Shakespeare certainly did take part in this controversy, and it is in the plays dating 1599-1602 that we must look for his contributions to it. One thing, however, is certain, that he did not act as a violent partisan. If he purged Jonson he did not spare Dekker, who had written for his own company in this quarrel; "when rank Thersites opes his Mastick jaws" (Troylus, i. 3) identifies him clearly enough. In fact, when the Globe company wanted a thorough party advocate in this matter it was not to Shakespeare that they applied. They took the very unusual course of hiring a poet from a rival company, and hence Dekker's Satiromastix was written for them. I venture to add that this would not have been allowed by Shakespeare had he been in London at the time, and that it had to be transferred to the sole use of the Paul's children, probably at his instance. Recurring to Every Man out of his Humour, the beginning of all this strife, a comparison of the actor list with that of Jonson's preceding play shows that Kempe, Beeston, and others had left the Chamberlain's company on the opening of the Globe. They no doubt remained at the Curtain, where a company called Lord Derby's soon began to act. This secession did not injure the Globe men, who became very popular. In October, for instance, we hear of Lord Southampton going to plays every day, of course at his old player protégé's house. But that some serious quarrel had taken place is, I think, evident from the exclusion of so important a name as Beeston's from the list of chief actors in the first Folio edition of Shakespeare. Duke, Pallant, &c., who seceded at the same time with Beeston, are equally excluded, so that the omission is not accidental.

      In this year a perfect edition of Romeo and Juliet was published, probably on leaving the Curtain; and The Passionate Pilgrim was impudently issued by W. Jaggard as by William Shakespeare. Beyond two sonnets and a few lines from Love's Labour's Lost, published in 1598, there is nothing in this book that can be shown to be Shakespeare's, but much that cannot. Somewhere about this date an unsuccessful application was made to impale the arms of Shakespeare with those of Arden. The Chamberlain's men performed three plays at Court during the Christmas festivities, viz.: on 26th December, probably As You Like It; 5th January, probably Henry V.; and another play on 4th February. I think this was the occasion for which The Merry Wives of Windsor was written, or rather rewritten on the foundation of The Jealous Comedy of 1592. The Queen, whose admiration for the character of Falstaff is well known, was sorely disappointed that Shakespeare had not fulfilled his promise made in the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV., that he would again introduce him on the stage; and there is no reason to doubt the tradition that, wishing to see him under new conditions, she ordered Shakespeare to represent him in love, which order he obeyed by writing The Merry Wives within a fortnight. The dates all suit this hypothesis, and in any case there can be no doubt that this comedy stands apart from the Henry V. histories, and was last in point of time. Another play of this year was Julius Cæsar. There is no evidence of any other writer than Shakespeare for the company this year, in which the 2 and 3 Henry VI. (alluded to as recast in Jonson's Prologue to his revised version of Every Man in his Humour, acted by the Chapel children early in 1601) were revised and partly rewritten by him. As usual in such cases, the old abridged acting copies of the plays in their earlier shape were reprinted. But there is more interesting matter connected with the publishers in the 1600 entries. On August 4, As You Like It, enry V., Much Ado about Nothing, and Every Man in his Humour, all Chamberlain's plays, were ordered to be "stayed;" they were probably suspected of being libellous, and reserved for further examination. Since the "war of the theatres" was at its height, they may have been restrained as not having obtained the consent of the Chamberlain, on behalf of his company, to their publication. Subsequently, Every Man in his Humour was licensed on 14th August, but not printed till 1601. Much Ado was also licensed 23d August, and printed; As You Like It was not allowed to appear, the company probably objecting that it had only been on the stage for one year, but Henry V. was printed surreptitiously by T. Millington and T. Busby before 14th August, on which date it appears in S. R. as the property of T. Pavier, who reprinted it in 1602. The peculiarity of this Quarto issue is, that it contains no matter which does not also appear in the complete Folio version, whereas, in the somewhat similar cases of Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives, and Hamlet, there is in every instance some portion of the Quarto which is palpably by another hand. This agrees with my view that these three plays, as in the Folio, were founded on earlier plays, in which Shakespeare was at most a coadjutor, while the Folio Henry V. is a revision of his own play, produced not long before. Another entry in S. R. is interesting. On October 28, The Merchant of Venice was entered to T. Hayes, with Pavier's consent; Roberts had already entered it 22d July 1598, but it had not been allowed to appear, probably because, like those mentioned above, it had then been only one year on the stage. On October 8, Midsummer Night's Dream was also entered. Of the editions of these two plays published in this year information will be found in another part of this book. On 11th August the two plays on Sir John Oldcastle, of which only one has reached us, were entered. They had been acted in 1599 at the Rose by the Admiral's men, and were directed against the presumed scandal thrown on the "martyr" in Shakespeare's Henry V. series. It should be especially noted that the principal author of these plays was Drayton, formerly fellow-worker with Shakespeare for the Chamberlain's men, and introducer of Sir John Oldcastle as a profligate parson in The Merry Devil of Edmonton. Of Shakespeare's personal movements during this year we merely know that he was in London in April recovering a debt of £7 of one Clayton, and no doubt acting in the three plays performed at Court in the winter.

      In March 1601 the Chamberlain's company were in disgrace for having publicly acted "the outdated play of Richard II.," no doubt inclusive of the deposition scene (which had been omitted in the published copies, under the censorship of the Master of the Revels), for the entertainment of the Essex conspirators. They consequently "travelled," having previously produced Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, a considerable portion of which is of much earlier date (c. 1592), but which, in the Parolles scenes, has distinct allusion to Marston's Jack Drum's Entertainment of the preceding year, and to the "war of the theatres," not yet concluded. They also acted the play of Cromwell, Earl of Essex, by W. S., in which the parallel between the careers of Cromwell and the lately executed Earl is strongly brought out. I believe W. S. to have been William Sly, the well-known actor of the Chamberlain's company. In their travels this year the company visited the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where they performed Julius Cæsar and Hamlet. The version of this last play so acted was not the old play by Kyd, but one hurriedly remodelled by Shakespeare, which we possess in an imperfect form in the first Quarto. Among the Shakespearian additions occur passages alluding to the theatrical war and the popularity of the Chapel Children, to which the travelling of the company is attributed. This proves that Shakespeare was one of the strolling detachment. Jonson seized on this defence in his Poetaster, and represented that the travelling was due to the inefficiency of their play-writers, and makes Tucca tell Histrio, the Globe player, that if they will employ Marston, who "pens high lofty in a new stalking strain," they "shall not need to travel with thy pumps full of gravel after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel-heads to an old cracked trumpet." The travels, however, were not confined to England. In October they had reached Aberdeen, where they received the title of "the King's Servants," and Laurence Fletcher, their manager, was admitted burgess of guild of the borough. In all probability a version of the old Macbeth play was produced before King James – such a version as that of Hamlet acted at the Universities. Its plot would fit more aptly with the circumstances of the Gowry conspiracy of 1600 than that of Richard II. would with Essex, and anything more pleasing to the King and people of Scotland could not have been selected. During the absence of this strolling detachment Jonson's Poetaster was produced, containing a vigorous attack on the Globe company; and they, in Shakespeare's absence, hired Dekker to reply in his Satiromastix, which, with the aid of the Paul's children, they represented in the public theatre of the Globe, and in the private convocation-room of Paul's. During this same absence, on 8th September Shakespeare's father was buried at Stratford. He apparently died intestate. After the return from Scotland, the appearance of Shakespeare's name, as fellow-contributor to Chester's Love's Martyr with Jonson, Marston, and Chapman, marks the conclusion of the theatrical quarrel, and the reconciliation of all the principal combatants, except СКАЧАТЬ