1608; after which there was another delay, possibly in the hope of the matter being amicably arranged, a peremptory summons to the same jury having been issued on February 15, in the following year. A verdict was then given in favor of the poet for £6 and £1. 4s. costs, and execution went forth against the defendant; but the sergeant-at-mace returning that he was not to be found within the liberty of the borough, Shakespeare proceeded against a person of the name of Horneby, who had become bail for Addenbroke. This last process is dated on June 7, 1609, so that nearly a year elapsed during the prosecution of the suit. It must not be assumed that the great dramatist attended personally to these matters, although of course the proceedings were carried on under his instructions. The precepts, as appears from memoranda in the originals, were issued by the poet's cousin, Thomas Greene, who was then residing, under some unknown conditions, at New Place.

The spring of the year 1609 is remarkable in literary history for the appearance of one of the most singular volumes that ever issued from the press. It was entered at Stationers' Hall on May 20, and published by one Thomas Thorpe under the title of Shake-speares Sonnets, neuer before imprinted, the first two words being given in large capitals, so that they might attract their full share of public notice. This little book, a very small quarto of forty leaves, was sold at what would now be considered the trifling price of five-pence. The exact manner in which these sonnets were acquired for publication remains a mystery, but it is most probable that they were obtained from one of the poet's intimate friends who alone would be likely to have copies, not only of so many of those pieces but also one of The Lover's Complaint. However that

may be, Thorpe,-the well-wishing adventurer, was so elated with the opportunity of entering into the speculation that he dedicated the work to the factor in the acquisition, one Mr. W. H., in language of hyperbolical gratitude, wishing him every happiness and an eternity, the latter in terms which are altogether inexplicable. The surname of the addressee, which has not been recorded, has been the subject of numerous futile conjectures; but the use of initials in the place of names, especially if they referred to private individuals, was then so extremely common that it is not necessary to assume that there was an intentional reservation.

At the time that the Sonnets issued from the press the author's company were itinerating in Kent, playing at Hythe on May 16 and at New Romney on the following day. They were also at Shrewsbury at some unrecorded period in the same year, a memorable one in the theatrical biography of the great dramatist, for in the following December, the eyry of children quitted the Blackfriars Theater to be replaced by Shakespeare's company. The latter then included Hemmings, Condell, Burbage, and the poet himself.

The exact period is unknown, but it was in the same year, 1609, or not very long afterwards, that Shakespeare and two other individuals either commenced or devised a law-suit bearing upon a question in which he was interested as a partial owner of the Stratford tithes. Our only information on the subject is derived from the draft of a bill of complaint, one that was penned under the following circumstances. Nearly all the valuable possessions of the local college, including the tithes of Stratford-on-Avon, Old Stratford, Welcombe and Bishopton were granted by

Edward VI, a few days before his death in 1553, to the Corporation, but the gift was subject to the unexpired term of a lease for ninety-two years which had been executed in 1544 by the then proprietors in favor of one William Barker. The next owner of the lease, John Barker, assigned it in 1580 to Sir John Huband, but he reserved to himself a rent charge of £27. 13s. 4d., with the usual power of reëntry in case of non-payment. The above mentioned tithes were of course involved in this liability, but, when Shakespeare purchased a moiety of them in 1605, it was arranged that his share of that charge should be commuted by an annual payment of £5. An observance of this condition should have absolved the poet from further trouble in the matter, but this unfortunately was not the case. When the bill of complaint was drafted there were about forty persons who had interests under Barker's lease, and commutations of the shares of the rent-charge had only been made in two cases, that is to say, in those of the owners of the tithe-moieties. A number of the other tenants had expressed their willingness to join in an equitable arrangement, provided that it was legally carried out; but there were some who declined altogether to contribute, and hence arose the necessity of taking measures to compel them to do so, a few, including Shakespeare, having had to pay more than their due proportions to avoid the forfeitures of their several estates. The result of the legal proceedings, if any were instituted, is not known, but there are reasons for believing that the movement terminated in some way in favor of the complainants.

The annual income which Shakespeare derived from his moiety is estimated in the bill of complaint at £60, but this was not only subject to the payment of the above-named

£5, but also to that of one-half of another rent-charge, one of £34, that belonged to the Corporation of Stratford. His net income from the tithes would thus be reduced to £38, but it was necessarily of a fluctuating character, the probability, however, being that there was a tendency towards increase, especially in the latter part of his career. It is most likely that he entered into an agreement each year with a collector, whose province it would have been to relieve him of all trouble in the matter, and pay over a stipulated amount. It is not probable that he himself visited the harvest field to mark, as was then the local practice, every tenth sheaf with a dock, or that he personally attended to the destination of each of his tithepigs.

The next year, 1610, is nearly barren of recorded incidents, but in the early part of it Shakespeare purchased twenty acres of pasture land from the Combes, adding them to the valuable freeholds that he had obtained from those parties in 1602. After this transaction he owned no fewer than a hundred and twenty-seven acres in the common fields of Stratford and its neighborhood. His first purchase consisted entirely of arable land, but although he had the usual privilege of common of pasture that was attached to it, the new acquisition was no doubt a desirable one. The concord of the fine that was prepared on the latter occasion is dated April 13, 1610, and, as it was acknowledged before Commissioners, it may be inferred that Shakespeare was not in London at the time. His company were at Dover in July, at Oxford in August, and at Shrewsbury at some period of the year which has not been recorded.

There are an unusual number of evidences of Shake

speare's dramatic popularity in the following year. We now first hear of his plays of Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest. New impressions of Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, and Pericles also appeared in 1611, and, in the same year, a publisher named Helme issued an edition of the old play of King John, that which Shakespeare so marvelously re-dramatized, with the deceptive imputation of the authorship to one W. Sh., a clear proof, if any were needed, of the early commercial value of his

name.

The tragedy of Macbeth was acted at the Globe Theater, in April, 1611, and Forman, the celebrated astrologer, has recorded a graphic account of its performance on that occasion, the only contemporary notice of it that has been discovered. The eccentric Doctor appears to have given some of the details inaccurately, but he could hardly have been mistaken in the statement that Macbeth and Banquo made their first appearance on horseback, a curious testimony to the rude endeavors of the stage-managers of the day to invest their representations with something of reality. The weird sisters were personated by men whose heads were disguised by grotesque periwigs. Forman's narrative decides a question, which has frequently been raised, as to whether the Ghost of Banquo should appear, or only be imagined, by Macbeth. There is no doubt that the Ghost was personally introduced on the early stage as well as long afterwards, when the tragedy was revived by Davenant; but the audiences of the seventeenth century were indoctrinated with the common belief that spirits were generally visible only to those connected with their object or mission, so in this play, as in some others of the period, an artificial