was among the finest young noblemen of that time; and the language of the dedication is such as the Poet would hardly have used but to a warm personal friend. The following year, 1594, he published his Lucrece, dedicating it to the same nobleman, in still warmer terms of address, and indirectly acknowledging important obligations to him. The same year Spenser wrote his Colin Clout's Come Home again, in which we have the following, clearly referring to Shakespeare:

And there, though last not least, is Ætion:
A gentler Shepherd may nowhere be found,
Whose Muse, full of high thought's invention,
Doth like himself heroically sound.

This was Spenser's delicate way of suggesting the Poet's name. Ben Jonson has a like allusion in his lines "To the Memory of my beloved Mr. William Shakespeare":

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandish'd at the eyes of Ignorance.

All which may suffice to show that the Poet was not ong in making his way to the favourable regards of some whose good opinion was most to be desired, and whose respect was a strong pledge both of recognized genius and personal worth in the object of it. It is to be noted, however, that the forecited marks of consideration were paid to him altogether as an author, and not as an actor. As an actor it does not appear that he was ever much distinguished; though some of the parts which tradition reports him to have sustained would naturally infer him to have been at least respectable in that capacity; and when Chettle speaks of him as 66 excellent in the quality he professes," the word quality refers, undoubtedly, to his profession as an actor. But it must have been early evident that his gift looked in

another direction; and his associates could not have been long in finding his services most useful in the work for which he was specially gifted.

The dramatic company of which Shakespeare was a member were known as "the Lord Chamberlain's Servants." Richard Burbage, probably the greatest actor of the time, was a member of the same. The company had for some years owned and occupied what was called the Blackfriars theatre. This building did not afford accommodation enough for their business. So, in December, 1593, the company went about building the Globe theatre, in which Shakespeare is known to have been a considerable owner. And the obligations which I have spoken of his being under to Southampton were probably on account of some generous aid which this nobleman rendered him towards that enterprise. Tradition tell us that the Earl gave him a thousand pounds for the occasion. As this would be fully equivalent to $30, ooo in our time, we may well stick at the alleged amount of the gift; but the Earl's approved liberality in such matters renders even that sum not incredible, and assures us, at all events, that the present must have been something decidedly handsome; though, to be sure, tradition may have overdrawn the amount.

It does not appear that the Poet at any time had his family with him in London. But it is very evident that his thoughts were a good deal with them at Stratford; for he is soon found saving up money from his London business, and investing it in lands and houses in his native town. The parish register of Stratford notes the death of his only son, Hamnet, then in his twelfth year, on the 11th of August, 1596. So far as is known, he never had any children but the three already mentioned.

In the spring of 1597, he bought of William Underhill the establishment called "New Place," and described as consisting of " one messuage, two barns, and two gardens." This was one of the best dwelling-houses in Stratford, and was situate in one of the best parts of the town. From that time onward we have many similar tokens of his thrift, which I must not stay to note in detail. Suffice it to say that for several years he continued to make frequent investments in Stratford and the neighbourhood; thus justifying the statement of Rowe, that "he had the good fortune to gather an estate equal to his occasions ; and that "the latter part of his life was spent, as all men of good sense will wish theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends."

None of his plays are known to have been printed till 1597, in which year three of them, King Richard II., King Richard III., and Romeo and Juliet, came from the press, separately, and in quarto form. The next year, Francis Meres published his Wit's Treasury, in which he specifies by title the three plays already named, and also nine others. Besides these twelve, several others also are known to have been in being at that time; and it is all but certain that as many at least as eighteen of the Poet's dramas were written before 1598, when he was thirty-four years old, and had probably been in the theatre about twelve years.

The Poet seems to have been laudably ambitious of gaining a higher social position than that to which he was born. So, in 1599, he procured from the Heralds' College in London a coat-of-arms in the name of his father. Thus he got his yeoman sire dubbed a gentleman, doubtless that the honour might be his by inheritance, as he was his father's eldest The Poet's father was buried at Stratford, September

son.

8th, 1601; and thenceforward we find him written down in legal documents as "William Shakespeare, Gentleman."

King James the First came to the throne of England in March, 1603. On the 17th of May following, he ordered a patent to be issued under the Great Seal, authorizing "our servants, Laurence Fletcher, William Shakespeare, Richard Burbage," and six others, to exercise their art in all parts of the kingdoms, "as well for the recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall think good to see them." By this instrument, the company who had hitherto been known as the Lord Chamberlain's Servants were taken directly under the royal patronage; accordingly they were thenceforth designated as "the King's Players."

Whatever may have been his rank as an actor, Shakespeare evidently had a strong dislike to the vocation, and was impatient of his connection with the stage as a player. We have an affecting proof of this in one of his Sonnets, where he unmistakeably discovers his personal feelings on that point :

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide

Than public means, which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand;
And almost thence my nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.

Moreover, as Dyce remarks, "it is evident that Shakespeare never ceased to turn his thoughts towards his birth-place, as the spot where he hoped to spend the evening of his days in honourable retirement." It is uncertain at what time he withdrew from the stage. The latest notice we have of his acting was in 1603, when Ben Jonson's Sejanus was performed at the Blackfriars, and one of the parts was sustained

by him. The probability is that he ceased to be an actor in the course of the next year; though it is tolerably certain that he kept up his interest in the affairs of the company some years longer, and that he continued to write more or less for the stage down to as late a period as 1613.

The Poet's eldest daughter, Susanna, was married, June 5th, 1607, to John Hall, a gentleman, and a medical practitioner at Stratford, and well-reputed as such throughout the county. His first grandchild, Elizabeth Hall, was baptized, February 21st, 1608. On the 9th of September following, his mother died. His other daughter, Judith, was married to Thomas Quiney, February 10th, 1616. Quiney was four years younger than his wife, and was a vintner and winemerchant at Stratford.

Perhaps I ought to add that Meres, in the work already quoted, speaks of the Poet's "sugared Sonnets among his private friends." At length, in 1609, these, and such others as the Poet may have written after 1598, were collected, to the number of a hundred and fifty-four, and published. By this time, also, as many as sixteen of his plays, including the three already named, had been issued, some of them repeatedly, in quarto form.

On the 25th of March, 1616, Shakespeare executed his will. The testator is there said to be "in perfect health and memory"; nevertheless he died at New Place on the 23d of April following; and, two days later, was buried beside the chancel of Stratford church. It is said that "his wife and daughters did earnestly desire to be laid in the same grave with him"; and accordingly two of them at least, the wife and the eldest daughter, were in due time gathered to his side.

Shakespeare was by no means so little appreciated in his