A Life of William Shakespeare

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO

William Shakespeare
Walker & Boutall. ph. sc.

William Shakespeare

from the "Droeshout" painting now in the
Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-on-Avon.

A LIFE

OF

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

BY

SIDNEY LEE

WITH PORTRAITS AND FACSIMILES

NEW AND REVISED EDITION

WITH A NEW PREFACE

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1909

Copyright, 1909,

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1909.

Norwood Press
J. S. Gushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co,
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

Preface to the New and Revised Edition (not in original TOC)		v
Preface to the First Edition (not in original TOC)		xxv
I
PARENTAGE AND BIRTH
PAGE
	Distribution of the name of Shakespeare	1
	The poet's ancestry	2
	The poet's father	4
	His settlement at Stratford	5
	The poet's mother	6
1564,	April. The poet's birth and baptism	8
	Alleged birthplace	8
II
CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION, AND MARRIAGE
PAGE
	The father in municipal office	10
	Brothers and sisters	11
	The father's financial difficulties	12
1571-7	Shakespeare's education	13
	His classical equipment	15
	Shakespeare's knowledge of the Bible	17
1575	Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth	18
1577	Withdrawal from school	18
1582,	Dec. The poet's marriage	19
	Richard Hathaway of Shottery	19
	Anne Hathaway	20
	Anne Hathaway's cottage	20
	The bond against impediments	21
1583,	May. Birth of the poet's daughter Susanna	23
	Formal betrothal probably dispensed with	24
III
THE FAREWELL TO STRATFORD
PAGE
	Early married life	26
	Poaching in Charlecote	28
	Unwarranted doubts of the tradition	29
	Justice Shallow	30
1585	The flight from Stratford	30
IV
ON THE LONDON STAGE
PAGE
1586	The journey to London	32
	Richard Field, Shakespeare's townsman	33
	Theatrical employment	33
	A playhouse servitor	35
	The acting companies	35
	The Lord Chamberlain's company	36
	Shakespeare a member of the Lord Chamberlain's company	37
	The London theatres	37
	Place of residence in London	39
	Actors' provincial tours	40
	Shakespeare's alleged travels	41
	In Scotland	42
	In Italy	43
	Shakespeare's rôles	44
	His alleged scorn of an actor's calling	45
V
EARLY DRAMATIC WORK
PAGE
	The period of Shakepeare's dramatic work, 1591-1611.	47
	His borrowed plots	48
	The revision of plays	48
	Chronology of the plays	49
	Metrical tests	50
1591	Love's Labour's Lost	51
1591	Two Gentlemen of Verona	54
1592	Comedy of Errors	55
1592	Romeo and Juliet	56
1592,	March. Henry VI	58
1592,	Sept. Greene's attack on Shakespeare	59
	Chettle's apology	60
	Divided authorship of Henry VI	61
	Shakespeare's coadjutors	62
	Shakespeare's assimilative power	63
	Lyly's influence in comedy	64
	Marlowe's influence in tragedy	65
1593	Richard III	65
1593	Richard II	67
	Shakespeare's acknowledgments to Marlowe	67
1593	Titus Andronicus	68
1594,	August. The Merchant of Venice	70
	Shylock and Roderigo Lopez	71
1594	King John	73
1594,	Dec. 28. Comedy of Errors in Gray's Inn Hall	74
	Early plays doubtfully assigned to Shakepeare	75
	Arden of Feversham (1592)	75
	Edward III	75
	Mucedorus	76
	Faire Em (1592)	77
VI
THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC
PAGE
1593,	April. Publication of Venus and Adonis	78
1584,	May. Publication of Lucrece	80
	Enthusiastic reception of the poems	82
	Shakespeare and Spenser	83
	Patrons at Court	85
VII
THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY
PAGE
	The vogue of the Elizabethan sonnet	87
	Shakespeare's first experiments	88
1594	Majority of Shakespeare's sonnets composed	89
	Their literary value	91
	Circulation in manuscript	92
	Their piratical publication in 1609	93
	A Lover's Complaint	95
	Thomas Thorpe and 'Mr. W. H.'	95
	The form of Shakespeare's sonnets	99
	Their want of continuity	100
	The two 'groups'	100
	Main topics of the first 'group'	102
	Main topics of the second 'group'	103
	The order of the sonnets in the edition of 1640	104
	Lack of genuine sentiment in Elizabethan sonnets	104
	Their dependence on French and Italian models	105
	Sonnetteers' admissions of insincerity	109
	Contemporary censure of sonnetteers' false sentiment	110
	Shakespeare's scornful allusions to sonnets in his plays	111
VIII
THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS
PAGE
	Slender autobiographical element in Shakespeare's sonnets	113
	The imitative element	113
	Shakespeare's claims of immortality for his sonnets a borrowed conceit	117
	Conceits in sonnets addressed to a woman	122
	The praise of 'blackness'	122
	The sonnets of vituperation	124
	Gabriel Harvey's Amorous Odious sonnet	125
	Jodelle's Contr' Amours	126
IX
THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
PAGE
	Biographic fact in the 'dedicatory' sonnets	129
	The Earl of Southampton the poet's sole patron	130
	Rivals in Southampton's favour	134
	Shakespeare's fear of another poet	136
	Barnabe Barnes probably the chief rival	137
	Other theories as to the chief rival's identity	138
	Sonnets of friendship	140
	Extravagances of literary compliment	142
	Patrons habitually addressed in affectionate terms	143
	Direct references to Southampton in the sonnets of friendship	146
	His youthfulness	147
	The evidence of portraits	148
	Sonnet cvii the last of the series	151
	Allusions to Queen Elizabeth's death	151
	Allusion to Southampton's release from prison	153
X
THE SUPPOSED STORY OF INTRIGUE IN THE SONNETS
PAGE
	Sonnets of melancholy and self-reproach	155
	The youth's relations with the poet's mistress	157
	Willobie his Avisa (1594)	159
	Summary of conclusions respecting the sonnets	162
XI
THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMATIC POWER
PAGE
1594-5	Midsummer Night's Dream	165
1595	All's Well that Ends Well	167
1595	The Taming of The Shrew	168
	Stratford allusions in the Induction	169
	Wincot	169
1597	Henry IV	172
	Falstaff	174
1597	The Merry Wives of Windsor	177
1598	Henry V	179
	Essex and the rebellion of 1601	181
	Shakespeare's popularity and influence	183
	Shakespeare's friendship with Ben Jonson	183
	The Mermaid meetings	184
1598	Meres's eulogy	185
	Value of his name to publishers	186
1599	The Passionate Pilgrim	188
1601	The Phenix and the Turtle	190
XII
THE PRACTICAL AFFAIRS OF LIFE
	Shakespeare's practical temperament	192
	His father's difficulties	193
	His wife's debt	194
1596-9	The coat-of-arms	195
1597,	May 4. The purchase of New Place	200
1598	Fellow-townsmen appeal to Shakespeare for aid	202
	Shakespeare's financial position before 1599	203
	Shakespeare's financial position after 1599	207
	His later income	209
	Incomes of fellow-actors	210
1601-1610	Shakespeare's formation of his estate at Stratford	211
1605	The Stratford tithes	212
1600-1609	Recovery of small debts	213
XIII
MATURITY OF GENIUS
	Literary work in 1599	214
1599	Much Ado about Nothing	215
1599	As You Like It	216
1600	Twelfth Night	217
1601	Julius Caesar	219
	The strife between adult actors and boy-actors	220
	Shakespeare's references to the struggle	223
1601	Ben Jonson's Poetaster	225
	Shakespeare's alleged partisanship in the theatrical warfare	227
1602	Hamlet	228
	The problem of its publication	230
	The First Quarto, 1603	231
	The Second Quarto, 1604	231
	The Folio version, 1623	231
	Popularity of Hamlet	232
1603	Troilus and Cressida	233
	Treatment of the theme	235
1603,	March 24. Queen Elizabeth's death	238
	James I's patronage	239
XIV
THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY
1604,	Nov. Othello	243
1604,	Dec. Measure for Measure	245
1606	Macbeth	247
1607	King Lear	249
1608	Timon of Athens	251
1608	Pericles	252
1608	Antony and Cleopatra	254
1609	Coriolanus	255
XV
THE LATEST PLAYS
PAGE
	The placid temper of the latest plays	257
1610	Cymbeline	258
1611	The Winter's Tale	260
1611	The Tempest	261
	Fanciful interpretations of The Tempest	265
	Unfinished plays	267
	The lost play of Cardenio	267
	The Two Noble Kinsmen	268
	Henry VIII	269
	The burning of the Globe Theatre	269
XVI
THE CLOSE OF LIFE
PAGE
	Plays at Court in 1613	273
	Actor-friends	273
1611	Final settlement at Stratford	275
	Domestic affairs	275
1613,	March. Purchase of a house in Blackfriars	276
1614,	Oct. Attempt to enclose the Stratford common fields	279
1616,	April 23. Shakespeare's death	280
1616,	April 23. Shakespeare's burial	281
	The will	282
	Shakespeare's bequest to his wife	283
	Shakespeare's heiress	284
	Legacies to friends	285
	The tomb in Stratford Church	286
	Shakespeare's personal character	286
XVII
SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS
PAGE
	Mrs. Judith Quiney (1585-1662)	289
	Mrs. Susanna Hall (1583-1649)	290
	The last descendant	291
	Shakespeare's brothers, Edmund, Richard, and Gilbert	292
XVIII
AUTOGRAPHS, PORTRAITS, AND MEMORIALS
PAGE
	Extant specimens of Shakespeare's handwriting	293
	His mode of writing	294
	The poet's spelling of his surname	294
	'Shakespeare' the accepted form	295
	Shakespeare's portraits	297
	The Stratford bust	298
	The 'Stratford' portrait	298
	Droeshout's engraving	299
	The 'Droeshout' painting	300
	Later portraits	303
	The 'Chandos' portrait	303
	The 'Jansen' portrait	305
	The 'Felton' portrait	305
	The 'Soest' portrait	306
	Miniatures	306
	The Garrick Club bust	307
	Alleged death-mask	307
	Memorials in sculpture	308
	Memorials at Stratford	309
XIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PAGE
	Editions of the poems in the poet's lifetime	311
	Posthumous quartos of the poems	311
	The 'Poems' of 1640	312
	Editions of the plays in the poet's lifetime	313
	Posthumous quartos of the plays	314
1623	The First Folio	315
	The publishing syndicate	315
	The prefatory matter	318
	The value of the text	319
	The order of the plays	320
	The typography	320
	Irregular copies	320
	The Sheldon copy	321
	Jaggard's presentation copy of the First Folio	323
	Estimated number of extant copies	326
	Reprints of the First Folio	327
1632	The Second Folio	327
1663-4	The Third Folio	328
1685	The Fourth Folio	328
	Eighteenth-century editors	328
	Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718)	329
	Alexander Pope (1688-1744)	330
	Lewis Theobald (1688-1744)	331
	Sir Thomas Hanmer (1677-1746)	333
	Bishop Warburton (1698-1779)	334
	Dr. Johnson (1709-1783)	334
	Edward Capell (1713-1781)	334
	George Steevens (1736-1800)	335
	Edmund Malone (1741-1812)	337
	Variorum editions	337
	Nineteenth-century editors	338
	Alexander Dyce (1798-1869)	339
	Howard Staunton (1810-1874)	339
	Nikolaus Delius (1813-1888)	339
	The Cambridge edition (1863-6)	339
	The Bankside edition	339
	Other nineteenth-century editions.	340
XX
POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION
PAGE
	Views of Shakespeare's contemporaries	342
	Ben Jonson's tribute	343
	English opinion between 1660 and 1702	345
	Dryden's view	346
	Restoration adaptations	347
	English opinion from 1702 onwards	348
	Stratford festivals	350
	Shakespeare on the English stage	350
	The first appearance of actresses in Shakespearean parts	351
	David Garrick (1717-1779)	352
	John Philip Kemble (1757-1823)	353
	Mrs. Sarah Siddons (1755-1831)	354
	Edmund Kean (1787-1833)	354
	William Charles Macready (1793-1873)	355
	Recent revivals	355
	Shakespeare in English music and art	357
	Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery	357
	Shakespeare in America	358
	Translations	358
	Shakespeare in Germany	358
	German translations	360
	Modern German critics	362
	Shakespeare on the German stage	363
	Shakespeare in France	364
	Voltaire's strictures	365
	French critics' gradual emancipation from Voltairean influence	366
	Shakespeare оп the French stage	368
	Shakespeare in Italy	369
	In Holland	370
	In Russia	370
	In Poland	370
	In Hungary	371
	In other countries	371
XXI
GENERAL ESTIMATE
PAGE
	General estimate	372
	Shakespeare's defects	372
	Character of Shakespeare's achievement	373
	Its universal recognition	374

APPENDIX

I
THE SOURCES OF BIOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
PAGE
	Contemporary records abundant	377
	First efforts in biography	377
	Biographers of the nineteenth century	378
	Stratford topography	379
	Specialised studies in biography	380
	Epitomes	380
	Aids to study of plots and text	380
	Concordances	380
	Bibliographies	381
	Critical studies	381
	Shakespearean forgeries	381
	John Jordan (1746-1809)	382
	The Ireland forgeries (1796)	382
	List of forgeries promulgated by Collier and others (1835-1849)	383
II
THE BACON-SHAKESPEARE CONTROVERSY
PAGE
	Its source	386
	Sir Tobie Matthew's letter of 1621	387
	Chief exponents of the theory	388
	Its vogue in America	388
	Extent of the literature	389
	Absurdity of the theory	389
III
THE YOUTHFUL CAREER OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
PAGE
	Shakespeare and Southampton	390
	Southampton's parentage	390
1573	Oct. 6. Southampton's birth	391
	His education	391
	Recognition of Southampton's beauty in youth	393
	His reluctance to marry	394
	Intrigue with Elizabeth Vernon	395
1598	Southampton's marriage	395
1601-3	Southampton's imprisonment	396
	Later career	396
1624,	Nov. 10. His death	397
IV
THE EARL, OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A LITERARY PATRON
PAGE
	Southampton's collection of books
	References in his letters to poems and plays	398
	His love of the theatre	399
	Poetic adulation	400
1593	Barnabe Barnes's sonnet	400
	Tom Nash's addresses	401
1595	Gervase Markham's sonnet	403
1598	Florio's address	403
	The congratulations of the poets in 1603	404
	Elegies on Southampton	405
V
THE TRUE HISTORY OF THOMAS THORPE AND 'MR. W. H.'
PAGE
	The publication of the 'Sonnets' in 1609	406
	The text of the dedication	407
	Publishers' dedications	408
	Thorpe's early life	409
	His ownership of the manuscript of Marlowe's Lucan	409
	His dedicatory address to Edward Blount in 1600	410
	Character of his business	411
	Shakespeare's sufferings at publishers' hands	412
	The use of initials in dedications of Elizabethan and Jacobean books	413
	Frequency of wishes for 'happiness' and 'eternity' in dedicatory greetings	414
	Five dedications by Thorpe	415
	'W. H.' signs dedication of Southwell's 'Poems'	416
	'W. H.' and Mr. William Hall	418
	The 'onlie begetter' means 'only procurer'	419
VI
'MR. WILLIAM HERBERT'
PAGE
	Origin of the notion that Mr. W. H.' stands for William Herbert	422
	The Earl of Pembroke known only as Lord Herbert in youth	423
	Thorpe's mode of addressing the Earl of Pembroke	424
VII
SHAKESPEARE AND THE EARL OF PEMBROKE
PAGE
	Shakespeare with the acting company at Wilton in 1603	427
	The dedication of the First Folio in 1623	428
	No suggestion in the 'Sonnets' of the youth's identity with Pembroke	429
	Aubrey's ignorance of any relation between Shakespeare and Pembroke	431
VIII
THE 'WILL' SONNETS
PAGE
	Elizabethan meanings of 'will'	432
	Shakespeare's uses of the word	433
	Shakespeare's puns on the word	434
	Arbitrary and irregular use of italics by Elizabethan and Jacobean printers	435
	The conceits of Sonnets cxxxv-vi interpreted	436
	Sonnet cxxxv	437
	Sonnet cxxxvi	439
	Sonnet cxxxiv	441
	Sonnet cxliii	442
IX
THE VOGUE OF THE ELIZABETHAN SONNET, 1591-1597
PAGE
1557	Wyatt's and Surrey's sonnets published	443
1582	Watson's Centurie of Love	444
1591	Sidney's Astrophel and Stella	444
I.	Collected sonnets of feigned love	445
1592	Daniel's Delia	446
	Fame of Daniel's sonnets	447
1592	Constable's Diana	447
1593	Barnabe Barnes's sonnets	448
1593	Watson's Tears of Fancie	449
1593	Giles Fletcher's Licia	449
1593	Lodge's Phillis	449
1594	Drayton's Idea	450
1594	Percy's Cœlia	451
1594	Zepheria	451
1595	Barnfield's sonnets to Ganymede	451
1595	Spenser's Amoretti	451
1595	Emaricdulfe	452
1595	Sir John Davies's Gullinge Sonnets	452
1596	Linche's Diella	453
1596	Griffin's Fidessa	453
1596	Thomas Campion's sonnets	453
1596	William Smith's Chloris	453
1597	Robert Tofte's Laura	454
	Sir William Alexander's Aurora	454
	Sir Fulke Greville's Cælica	454
	Estimate of number of love-sonnets issued between 1591 and 1597	455
II.	Sonnets to patrons, 1591-1597	456
III.	Sonnets on philosophy and religion	456
X
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON THE SONNET IN FRANCE, 1550-1600
PAGE
	Ronsard (1524-1585) and 'La Pléiade'	458
	The Italian sonnetteers of the sixteenth century	458n
	Philippe Desportes (1546-1606)	459
	Chief collections of French sonnets published between 1553 and 1584	460
	Minor collections of French sonnets published between 1553 and 1605	460
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		463

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE		Frontispiece
From the 'Droeshout' painting, now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery, Stratford-on-Avon.
HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, Third Earl of Southampton, as a young man		To face p. 149
From the painting at Welbeck Abbey.
SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE to the purchase-deed of a house in Blackfriars, dated March 11, 1612-3		To face p."276
From the original document now preserved in the Guildhall Library, London.
SHAKESPEARE'S AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE to a mortgage-deed relating to the house purchased by him in Blackfriars, dated March 11, 1612–3		To face p."278
From the original document now preserved in the British Museum.
THREE AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURES severally written by Shakespeare on the three sheets of his will		To face p."282
From the original document at Somerset House, London.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE		To face p."307
From a plaster-cast of the terra-cotta bust now in the possession of the Garrick Club.
CONTEMPORARY INSCRIPTION in Jaggard's presentation copy of the First Folio		To face p."323
Now belonging to Mr. Coningsby Sibthorp.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1926, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 98 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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