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

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СКАЧАТЬ which is statedly incomplete, they must have been in some way distinguished from the rest of their fellows. They were, no doubt, shareholders in the Globe. Cooke and Lowin, who acted in Sejanus and Volpone, do not appear among them; nor do Tooley, Gough, and Sinkler, who were at this time members of the company. The nine were Shakespeare, Phillips, Fletcher, Hemings, Burbadge, Sly, Lowin, Condell, and Cowley. In July, Shakespeare was in Stratford, recovering in the local court some £2 odd for malt, &c., sold to one Rogers. In August he was summoned to London, the King's men having to attend at Somerset House to play at the reception of the Spanish ambassador. During this year he produced Othello and Measure for Measure, which were acted at Court in the winter festivities, along with five old plays of his, and two of Jonson's. Hamlet does not occur in this list, as it undoubtedly would have done if produced in 1604. It was, in fact, published this year as it had been acted at Court in the previous winter. Another play acted by the King's men was Marston's Malcontent, with an Induction by Webster, in which the reason of its appearance is explained. The Blackfriars children had acted Jeronymo in 1600, an old play of Kyd's, which had passed to the King's men from Lord Strange's, by whom it had been purchased of the Queen's. It had probably been taken from the Chamberlain's men to the Chapel children by Jonson, who in 1601, September 25, transferred it to the Admiral's, and wrote additions to it for Henslowe. This appropriation of their property irritated the Globe players, and when they got the chance, at the reconstitution of the Blackfriars children in 1604, they procured The Malcontent, which had been acted by these pigmies, and produced it on their own stage as "one for another." They also in December acted "the tragedy of Gowry with all action and actors," so Chamberlain writes to Winwood, December 18, "with exceeding concourse of all sorts of people," but he adds, "some great councillors are much displeased with it, and so 'tis thought it shall be forbidden." It probably was forbidden, as the play has disappeared. Another mysterious play is The Spanish Maz, said to have been one of the eleven performed in the winter at Court. Nothing is known of such a play; but much is known of forgery connected with such statements.

      In 1605, the tragedy of King Lear was acted about 7th May, when the old Leir, on which it was founded, but which was a comedy, was entered S. R. as a "Tragical History" of Leir, &c., "as it was lately acted." Another play of very dubious authorship was acted by the King's men before 3d July, when the ballad on the same events was entered S. R.; this was The Yorkshire Tragedy. It was a continuation of the story of The Miseries of Enforced Marriage, but treated more realistically and more powerfully. It was published 2d May 1608 as by Shakespeare, as in 1605 The London Prodigal had already been, but in the latter instance the publication was unlicensed and surreptitious, while the Yorkshire Tragedy was entered S. R. as "written by William Shakespeare." The entry, however, was made for T. Pavier, an unscrupulous piratic printer, who on other occasions tried to establish rights in "Shakespeare's plays" which were not Shakespeare's; and no weight can be assigned to his assertions. Another play acted by the King's men, in March 1605, was Jonson's Volpone, or The Fox. This was anterior in production to the plays already mentioned. Immediately afterwards we find Jonson in connection with the Blackfriars children again, and in prison for writing Eastward Ho. Shakespeare did not act in The Fox; perhaps Jonson was offended at this; he at any rate did not return to the King's men till 1610. On 4th May, Phillips, Shakespeare's fellow-actor, made his will, and died shortly after. We learn from this document, which gives us many other valuable particulars respecting the members of the company, that Shakespeare and Condell were the two of "his fellows" whom, next to Hemings, Burbadge, and Sly, his executors, Phillips most highly appreciated; he left them each a 30s. – piece in gold, but to Fletcher, Armin, Cowley, Cooke, and Tooley a 20s. – piece. He also left legacies to Gilburne and Sands his apprentices, and to Beeston his servant. "His fellows" here means the shareholders in the Globe, as contrasted with the "hired servants," to whom he left "£5 amongst them." There were then in 1605 eleven shareholders, Cooke and Tooley having been added since 15th March 1604. On 24th July Shakespeare invested £40 in a lease of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, as had been suggested to him in 1598. In August King James was at Oxford, and among the entertainments presented to him were speeches by three young men of St. John's, who personated the three Sibyls who had prophesied to Banquo. This interlude would necessarily recall to the King's mind the old Macbeth play, which had been probably presented to him in Scotland by the Globe players, and if, as there is little reason to doubt, he did write an autograph letter to Shakespeare, it was most likely on this occasion, commanding a fuller version of Macbeth. This play was certainly produced at Court, probably at Shrovetide in March 1605-6, but it has been altered since, condensed and interpolated by dances and songs and a new scene with Hecate in it, no doubt by Middleton in 1622, from whose Witch the songs are taken. On 9th October the Globe company acted before the Mayor and Corporation at Oxford, and then, if not from the King, Shakespeare would be sure to hear of the Sybils interlude. In all, ten plays were acted at Court this winter by the Globe company. Among them was a version of Mucedorus, with additions. This version has only come down to us in imprints of 1610 and later; but there was an edition in 1606 mentioned in Beauclerc's Catalogue, 1781, from which the later title-pages were copied. From the title it appears that it had been revived before the King on Shrove-Sunday night at Whitehall. The original play had been acted about the city, and therefore not later than 1594, before the Chamberlain's men settled at the Theater. The additions are directed against Jonson, whose strictures on monopolies, and sneer at "the miraculous effects of the Oglio del Scoto" in Volpone, ii. 1, must have grievously offended James, who had revived the touching for the king's evil. Jonson had subsequently joined Chapman and Marston in writing Eastward Ho for the Chapel boys, in which the Scots were still more severely satirised, and was evidently, as may be seen from the address prefixed to Volpone, at daggers drawn with the Globe men. Hence, in the Mucedorus additions, the allusions to the "meagre cannibal," the "scrambling raven with his meagre beard" (certainly Jonson, the "thin-bearded Hermaphrodite" in Satiromastix), who had, stirred up by Envy, written a comedy for the Globe filled with "dark sentences pleasing to factious brains;" which would have led to their restraint, as Eastward Ho did for the Chapel boys, had not the King's players been staid and discreet, and begged pardon of His Majesty on bended knee "for their unwilling error." The threatened information must have been in the autumn of 1605.

      To 1606 no other play than Macbeth can with certainty be traced: and the marked change of metrical style at this epoch points to a period of rest. In all his subsequent plays, many lines end with unemphatic words, such as and, if, which, but and the like, and this change was not introduced gradually but suddenly and decisively. Hence its value as indisputably separating the Fourth Period plays from the preceding. On this ground it is pretty certain that Timon was Shakespeare's next production; he only wrote the chief scenes in it, however, and it was finished for the stage by another hand. At this time also, in my opinion, Shakespeare began to write Cymbeline, which he afterwards completed himself. This arrangement of his work seems natural; Lear, Macbeth, Cymbeline closing the series founded on Holinshed, and Timon, Antony, Coriolanus– the series from Plutarch – succeeding them. A minuter examination of the question will be found in a later part of this work. Of other play-writers' contributions to the Globe in 1606 there is only one —Pericles, as originally produced by Wilkins, which was ridiculed in The Puritan by Middleton – acted by the Paul's children of this year. Wilkins left writing for the King's men, and (1607) joined the Queen's men at the Curtain. This was probably rumoured to have been caused by some quarrel with Shakespeare, for on 6th August 1607, S. R., The Puritan Widow was published as by W. S., evidently meaning William Shakespeare. Of all the instances in which Shakespeare's name or initials were fraudulently inserted on title-pages, this play and Sir John Oldcastle were the only two in which they were prefixed to plays not even acted by his company. At the Court in the 1606-7 season three Globe plays were presented to the King of Denmark on the occasion of his visit to England, and nine others in the usual course. Antony and Cleopatra may be confidently assigned to 1607. It was entered for publication S. R. on 20th May 1608 with Pericles(no doubt as originally written by Wilkins), but both plays were stayed; the former as having been on the stage only one year, the latter to be superseded by the issue in 1609 of СКАЧАТЬ