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comedy of Love's Labor's Lost, Jaggard's collection does not include a single line that can be positively ascribed to the pen of the great dramatist, but much that has been ascertained to have been the composition of others. The entire publication bears evident marks of an attempted fraud, and it may well be doubted if any of its untraced contents, with perhaps three exceptions, justify the announcement of the title-page. The three pieces alluded to are those on the subject of Venus and Adonis, and these, with the beautiful little poem called The Lover's Complaint, may be included in the significant et cetera by which Meres clearly implies that Shakespeare was the author of other poetical essays besides those which he enumerates.

It is extremely improbable that Shakespeare, in that age of small London and few publishers, could have been ignorant of the use made of his name in the first edition of the Passionate Pilgrim. Although he may, however, have been displeased at Jaggard's unwarrantable conduct in the matter, it appears that he took no strenuous measures to induce him to disavow or suppress the ascription in the title-page of that work. There was, it is true, no legal remedy, but there is reason for believing that, in this case, at least, a personal remonstrance would have been effective. Owing, perhaps, to the apathy exhibited by Shakespeare on this occasion, a far more remarkable operation in the same kind of knavery was perpetrated in the latter part of the following year by the publisher of the First Part of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, a play mainly concerned with the romantic adventures of Lord Cobham. Although this drama is known not only to have been composed by other dramatists, but also

to have belonged to a theatrical company with whom Shakespeare had then no manner of connection, it was unblushingly announced as his work by the publisher, Thomas Pavier, a shifty bookseller, residing at the grotesque sign of the Cat and Parrots near the Royal Exchange. Two editions were issued in the same year by Pavier, the one most largely distributed being that which was assigned to the pen of the great dramatist, and another to which no writer's name is attached. As there are no means of ascertaining which of these editions is the first in order of publication, it is impossible to say with certainty whether the introduction of Shakespeare's name was an afterthought, or if it were withdrawn for a special reason, perhaps either at his instigation or at that of the real authors. It is most likely, however, that the anonymous impression was the first that was published, that the ascribed edition was the second, and that there was no cancel of the poet's name in either.

The most celebrated theater the world has ever seen was now to receive a local habitation and a name. The wooden structure belonging to the Burbages in Shoreditch had fallen into desuetude in 1598, and, very early in 1599, they had pulled it down and removed the materials to Southwark, using them in the erection of a new building which was completed towards the end of the year and opened early in 1600 under the title of the Globe. Ben Jonson's comedy of Every Man Out of his Humour was one of the first plays there exhibited, the author, in an epilogue written probably for the occasion, distinctly appealing to the judgment of "the happier spirits in this faire-fild Globe" (ed. 1600). Among the Shakes

pearean dramas acted at the old Globe before its destruction by fire in 1613 may be mentioned, Romeo and Juliet, Richard the Second, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Pericles, Othello, Macbeth, and The Winter's Tale.

Shakespeare's company acted before Queen Elizabeth at Richmond Palace on Twelfth Night and Shrove Sunday, 1600, and at Whitehall on December 26. On March 6 they were at Somerset House, and there performed, before Lord Hunsdon and some foreign ambassadors, another drama on the subject of Oldcastle. A few weeks after the last occurrence, the poet, who was then in London, brought an action against one John Clayton to recover the sum of £7, and duly succeeded in obtaining a verdict in his favor. This is one of the several evidences that distinctly prove the great dramatist to have been a man of business, thoroughly realizing the necessity of careful attention to his pecuniary affairs. Here we have the highest example of all to tell us that the financial discretion is not incompatible with the possession of literary genius.

One of the most exquisite of Shakespeare's comedies, As You Like It, was most likely produced in the summer of this year, and was, as might be expected, favorably received. The celebrated speech of Jacques on the seven ages of man would have had an appropriate significance when uttered below the Latin motto under the sign of the Globe Theater, but the coincidence was no doubt accidental. An attempt to publish this drama was frustrated by an appeal to the Stationers' Company, a fact which testifies to its popularity; and one of its ditties was set to music by Thomas Morley, an eminent composer of the day, who published it, with some others of a cognate

description, in his First Booke of Ayres, or Little Short Songs, a small thin folio volume printed at London in the same year, 1600.

According to a tradition mentioned by several writers of the last century, there was a character in As You Like It that was performed by the author of the comedy. "One of Shakespeare's younger brothers," says Oldys, "who lived to a good old age, even some years, as I compute, after the restoration of King Charles II, would in his younger days come to London to visit his brother Will, as he called him, and be a spectator of him as an actor in some of his own plays. This custom, as his brother's fame enlarged, and his dramatic entertainments grew the greatest support of our principal, if not of all our theaters, he continued, it seems, so long ofter his brother's death, as even to the latter end of his own life. The curiosity at this time of the most noted actors to learn something from him of his brother, etc., they justly held him in the highest veneration; and it may be well believed, as there was besides a kinsman and descendant of the family, who was then a celebrated actor among them, this opportunity made them greedily inquisitive into every little circumstance, more especially in his dramatic character, which his brother could relate of him. But he, it seems, was so stricken in years, and possibly his memory so weakened with infirmities, which might make him the easier pass for a man of weak intellects; that he could give them but little light into their inquiries; and all that could be recollected from him of his brother Will in that station was the faint, general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein, being to personate a decrepit old man,

he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another person to a table, at which he was seated among some company who were eating, and one of them sung a song." This account contains several discrepancies, but there is reason for believing that it includes a glimmering of truth which is founded on an earlier tradition.

The carliest notice of the comedy of Much Ado About Nothing occurs in the entry in which we also first hear of As You Like It. Its attempted publication was stopped by an application made by the Stationers' Company on or before August 4, 1600, but, on the 23rd of the same month, Wise and Aspley succeeded in obtaining a license. It is not known if the prohibition was directed against the latter publication and afterwards removed, or whether it refers to a fraudulent attempt by some other bookseller to issue a surreptitious copy. Although Much Ado About Nothing was not reprinted in the author's lifetime, there is no doubt of its continued popularity.

The scene of this comedy is laid in Messina, but the satire on the constables obviously refers to those of the England of the author's own time. Aubrey, whose statements are always to be cautiously received, asserts that Shakespeare "happened to take" the "humor" of one of them "at Grendon in Bucks, which is in the road from London to Stratford, and there was living that constable about 1642." The eccentric biographer no doubt refers to Dogberry or Verges, but if the poet really had a special individual in his mind when portraying either of those characters, it is not likely that the Gren

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