Shortly after his purchase of New Place, the poet found himself in a better position than ever for increasing his property and gratifying his passion for real estate. Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, sons of that James Burbage who owned "The Theatre" in which the poet is said to have been a servitor, had built the "Globe Theatre" on Bankside. It was an octagonal wooden building, in which Shakespeare's company was to be seen year after year; the poet refers to it in the opening part of "Henry V." The two brothers, from motives of prudence or generosity or both issued twenty-one-year leases of shares in the profits of the venture. Shakespeare had a share; so had Condell and Phillips and others of the company; and later the poet acquired an interest in the "Blackfriar's Theatre." Each share was proved, in the course of long subsequent litigation, to have been worth two hundred pounds a year. Setting down the poet's salary at a like amount, and his author's fees at about a hundred, we find that he must have been worth nearly L4000 a year, in our modern currency, from the time when he bought New Place to the year of his retirement. "The Globe" was burnt down in 1613 during a performance of "Henry VIII.," and was rebuilt a year later, but before the disaster occurred Shakespeare's financial position had long been assured, and it is unlikely that he held his shares when the theatre suffered. There is a story, unauthenticated but seemingly credited by many good judges, to the effect that at a moment when Shakespeare was desirous of making investments either in Stratford or London, his friend and patron Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, came very generously to his assistance.



CHAPTER XII

THE POET'S DOMESTIC LIFE

In 1601 John Shakespeare's arduous life came to an end. Fifty years had passed since he left Snitterfield for Stratford, to venture into several business undertakings with temporary success, and achieve municipal honours for a few years. His decline had been more rapid than his rise, and, but for his son's success, his ending had been less peaceful. As far as we can tell, the last four or five years were free from grave financial trouble, but when he died the houses in Henley Street were the sole remains of his fortune; the rest had passed to creditors. These William Shakespeare inherited as eldest son—he let one, and left his mother in peaceful enjoyment of the other. In the following year he made more purchases, rather more than one hundred acres of farm-land at three pounds per acre—a price that would be quite good to-day if we consider the relative values of money—and a cottage with garden on the boundary of the New Place grounds. In 1605 he bought the unexpired term of a long lease of half the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Welcombe, the price being L440, which may be taken to stand for more than L3000 of our money, and a considerable part of a full year's income in his most prosperous time. It was an unfortunate investment, and one which led to his frequent recourse to the lawyers. Shakespeare's knowledge of the law has often puzzled his biographers, and the correctness of his phraseology has been advanced by upholders of the grotesque Baconian heresy as one of the reasons why he could not have written the plays attributed to him. But it is impossible for the plain man to follow the arguments that the Baconians adduce and affect to support.

THE MERMAID INN

In later years the poet bought another twenty acres of arable land to add to his already considerable holding. All these purchases were made while he was a very busy man—actor, playwright, and manager. Doubtless he had other investments and interests, of which we may some day know a little more than we do now. Fresh documents relating to his investments in the theatrical world were published as recently as the closing months of 1909, and the records of the reign of Elizabeth and James I. are by no means fully examined. One truth stands out clearly through the interesting story of Shakespeare's investments, and that is his love for the town in which he was born. With so large a share of the world to choose from, with countless associations that might well have kept him in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, with friends in Court circles and acting circles who would scarcely be accessible in a town three, four, or even five days' journey from London, he seems to have had the fixed intent of spending his years of ease at home. There is too much reason to believe that with him marriage was a failure. Reference has been made already to the birth of his daughter Susanna, who became Mrs. Hall, and we know that in 1585 his wife bore twins, boy and girl, Hamnet and Judith, named after Hamnet and Judith Sadler, friends of John Shakespeare. But the poet saw little of his family or of the three children of his union, and at the time of his public return to Stratford little Hamnet Shakespeare died, in his twelfth year. Susanna married, in 1607, the Puritan physician John Hall. Judith the twin married Mr. Thomas Quiney in the year of her father's death. The poet seems to have lived on excellent terms with his daughters, but there must be some justification for the generally accepted story of unhappy married life. Had he been devoted to his wife, Shakespeare could have sent for her when he had been a very few years in London; the fact that he did not go back to her for eleven years has a significance that takes a great deal of explaining away, nor are the laboured explanations of the people who assume that the life of genius is perfect, worth the ink and paper devoted to them. The estrangement might have been the fault of the man, or his wife, or both; it is a matter that ceased to be important when one or both had died. We make our conjectures and pass on; others come to do the same; but the first is likely to be as far from the truth as the last. We do not find any reliable information that can clear the darkness enshrouding the poet's life; even Aubrey's "Lives of Eminent Men," in which the poet is described as "handsome and well shaped," was written more than fifty years after his death, and was founded upon the gossip of an old actor.

There is hardly more than one portrait that may be supposed to show the poet as he was. This was discovered by Mr. Edgar Flower in 1892; it is painted on an elm panel, with "Wm. Shakespeare, 1609," in the left-hand corner. Several leading authorities have agreed that it may be the original from which Martin Droeshout engraved his half-length portrait for the folio of 1623, a likeness that was accepted as satisfactory by Ben Jonson, though it was clearly a second-hand work, because the engraver was no more than fifteen when Shakespeare died. The portrait is now in the Memorial Gallery at Stratford. Dr. Sidney Lee, in his fascinating "Life of William Shakespeare," a work that has run into many editions, tells us that upwards of sixty portraits of Shakespeare have been offered to the National Gallery since 1856, and that not one of these has been shown to be authentic. How fortunate, then, that the deeds and signatures quite beyond suspicion have told the world so much about the business side of the poet's life. Just as the forgery of portraits has been of common occurrence, so the forgery of deeds has been a source of amusement, if not of profit, to many; but happily there is always a strong critical faculty waiting to deal with startling discoveries, and those that survive the sifting of the keen intellects that examine them may be accepted in perfect good faith.

We have the safe material upon which to base the conclusion that the poet left Stratford penniless, or well-nigh penniless, in 1585; that after eleven years of hard work in London, in the course of which he probably paid brief visits to his home, travelling by way of Oxford and stopping at the Crown Inn, he returned to restore the family fortunes and build up his own estate. We know that he bought the best house in the town, that he planted an orchard, developed his gardens, and made extensive purchase of farm-lands, some years before he could hope to settle down in comfort to their enjoyment. It may be that the knowledge that the new home was ready for him helped to put a period to the London labours. He did not give any sign of appreciating the full significance of his own work, or appear to know that he had made a position that placed him side by side with Geoffrey Chaucer in merit, and still higher in world renown. He never pushed the advantages that a connection at Court and the favour of King James might have given him—he was only too pleased to retire, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," while he was yet on the sunny side of fifty. Man of affairs sufficiently to seek the law-courts on the smallest provocation, idealist to the extent of preferring a simple country life to all the glamour of London, a man seemingly endowed with all the ambitions of the most sober and unimaginative middle class—truly he presents strange and baffling contrasts.

In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, we may presume that Shakespeare retired from the actor's profession in 1611, on or before the completion of "The Tempest," into the closing act of which he would seem to have put a reflection of his own inmost thought. Of all the rich and varied emotions to which such a mind must have responded, there could have been none more stirring than the thought that his life-work had brought the reward he most desired. To the town from which he had fled as an outcast he was returning a man of substance and repute; to the failing fortunes of those he had left behind he had become a sure support. Father, mother, one brother, Edmund, and the little son Hamnet had gone before him "to that bourn from which no traveller returns," but there were two loving daughters and a granddaughter waiting to welcome him home, one sister, Joan, and two brothers, Gilbert and Richard. There was Michael Drayton, author of the "Shepherd's Garland," the man after his own heart, to whose charming sonnets he was indebted for some of the beauty of his own, and it may be that some of his old companions of the stage could be lured to New Place in the intervals of their touring. For one who knew as well as Shakespeare the changes and uncertainties of life, there must have been a keen consciousness that balance of fortune was in his favour when he rode out from London on to the Oxford-Stratford road, only to return to look after his vested interests as occasion should demand.

The poet would appear to have taken an active part in developing the prosperity of his native town, and to have found in that work sufficient consolation, if any was needed, for his absence from the scenes of greater activity. In 1611, the year of his retirement, he supported with his purse and influence a Bill before Parliament for the better repair of the highways. He had suffered first-hand acquaintance with their wretched state. Doubtless he took part in much unrecorded work for the betterment of his own estate, and he was frequently found indulging in his undeniable passion for litigation. The purchase of a house in Blackfriars is recorded in 1613, and it led to the seemingly inevitable lawsuit some two years later. Nicholas Rowe, poet-laureate to King George I., wrote a life of Shakespeare in the early years of the eighteenth century, and we owe to him a statement, founded upon such information as a lapse of a century could validate, that Shakespeare spent the last years of his life enjoying "ease, retirement, and the conversation of his friends." We know that Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson visited him at New Place, and it is a tradition that their visits were celebrated in convivial fashion. At the same time there would have been certain restraints upon a very free life, even had the poet been disposed to lead one. Society in small country towns is notoriously inclined to be intolerant, and Shakespeare's son-in-law, Dr. Hall, was one of the great and growing body of Puritans that looked askance at sensual indulgence in any form. Moreover, there was a strong feeling against the stage in Stratford; it found expression only a year after Shakespeare's return, when the Town Council passed a resolution that stage plays were unlawful, and increased the penalties to which players might be subjected. It would be a matter of great interest to know how Shakespeare regarded a resolution that so wantonly decried the profession by which he had lived and thriven. There is no evidence to show that the action of the city fathers was symptomatic of any ill-will towards him, or that he resented it openly. Yet he was a man who could and would stand up for his rights in and out of season. Perhaps in the most of his moods he was gentle and affectionate, for more than once in his career we find his friends leaving him small legacies or gifts or tokens of their affection. These came alike from actors who had shared with him the traffic of the stage, and from fellow-townsmen of Stratford. Even if the recorded references are scanty enough, there is none that may be held unflattering if we except the attack by Greene, for which his publisher went out of his way to apologise. It is hard, if not impossible, to estimate the value of any form of art-work in the lifetime of the worker, and it may well be that of the thousands who applauded Shakespeare's plays there were very few who saw them as we do to-day. The mere fact that they were for the most part new versions of works that were then quite familiar to playgoers would have told against them. Theme rather than treatment was best calculated to "tickle the groundlings."



CHAPTER XIII

STRATFORD AS IT WAS

Stratford in Shakespeare's time administered its own affairs in very complete fashion through the medium of a Guild, which was turned into a Municipal Corporation by Edward VI. It boasted bailiff, aldermen, burgesses and chamberlains, and the council met every month in the Guild Hall. Those who accepted office were liable to be heavily mulcted for non-attendance, for attending in mufti, for declining promotion to a more responsible office, or for telling the secrets of the council chamber to those who had no place in it. The Chapel of the Guild, the Guild Hall, and the Grammar School, in which boys were taught and disciplined in fashion that would shock our humanitarian instincts to-day, still exist. The bailiff or warden of Stratford was at one time John Shakespeare himself, and at another a subordinate colleague, who would have sat in judgment upon him in the days when the old man's liabilities were beginning to get the better of his assets, and he himself was no longer a man of importance. The rule of the City Guild or Corporation was paternal in an Elizabethan sense. Just as the schoolmaster did not spare the rod lest he should spoil the child, so the magnates of the corporation regarded their fellow-citizens as men and women to be admonished or encouraged, punished or praised, according to their behaviour. Food prices were fixed by the corporation; the adulteration of the people's supplies was made exceedingly difficult and dangerous. Men who lived ill were fined or expelled from Stratford's boundaries; scolding wives were sentenced to have their tempers sweetened by immersion from the ducking-stool in the clear, cold waters of Avon. Publicans were forced to conform to the local laws carefully framed to abolish public drunkenness. The stocks were waiting for the feet of drunkards, brawlers, and offenders against municipal regulations, and the whipping-post was always in evidence where the Market House now stands. Apprentices might not be out after nine o'clock at night. Attendance at church was obligatory, and he who blasphemed or used foul language found ample reason to regret his indiscretion. In short, the conduct of Stratford was of a kind more in keeping with the Puritan tradition than anything we can find in England to-day, but it was associated with real brotherly love, and a feeling of common citizenship, that held the town together. Those who have studied the early records of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community in England in the years following the successful intercession of Manasseh ben Israel with Oliver Cromwell, will hardly fail to note the striking similarity between the rules that governed Elizabethan corporations and those that governed those Jews who returned to England and lived their prosperous but dignified lives in the east end of London when the eighteenth century was as young as our own.

SHAKESPEARE'S HOUSE—STRATFORD-ON-AVON

There was much to hold communities together in Elizabeth's time, much to encourage strength of purpose and resignation to troubles that were regarded as the manifestation of Divine Will, though in truth they were fruits of the people's ignorance. Unfortunately there was no real attempt to control them. Sanitation was unknown. The ground floors of the houses were of hard clay, covered with rushes; chimneys were not common. Refuse and garbage were placed in the open roads, not always in the special places appointed by the corporation. Pigs were kept close to the houses, and though the butchers were supposed to take the refuse of the slaughter-houses beyond the town, a strong wind would doubtless bring back infection. The corporation kept certain public places clean, and doubtless the citizens, or the most of them, did their best; but they had no knowledge of the price of uncleanliness, and in a town that was unpaved, undrained, and seldom cleaned, microbes must have enjoyed their life under conditions only familiar to those of us who have travelled through some of the remote cities of Africa and Asia, and known what it is to be literally unable to dismount from a horse. Street lighting was in its early infancy. In Shakespeare's time every man of substance was compelled to hang a lighted lantern outside his house from dusk to curfew, during a few weeks of midwinter, and that was all.

Of all these defects the lack of cleanliness was the vital one, and the consequences of the neglect or ignorance of the first laws of sanitation may be imagined. Plague was never far away. Every few years there would be a visitation, mild or severe, and there was no effective remedy known to the people. As in the time of the great plague of London, herbs and cooling drinks were employed, fresh air was in demand, and there was much burning of spices. Shakespeare was a baby in arms when a visitation of the plague gave nearly fifteen per cent. of the town's population to the graveyard or its substitute, the plague pit.

Now and again the Avon would overflow its banks and flood the surrounding country. Not only would such a disaster increase the ague and rheumatism that are never far removed from dwellers by the river-side, but a late summer flood might damage the crops on low-lying lands, or carry away corn that had been cut but not carted, and then, as Stratford was not readily accessible, the prices of food stuff would rise despite the corporation's efforts, and actual famine was not unknown.

Fires, too, were common. Doubtless a few arose from the overheating of corn in barns and stacks, and some from the absence of chimneys to so many houses. The corporation did what it could, but there were no resources adequate to deal with a conflagration, for all that the Avon ran at the foot of the town. They came to the conclusion in 1582 that the absence of chimneys was a fruitful source of disaster, and ordered every householder to build one. They also ordered every burgess to provide himself with a bucket. Looking back to the times, it is not easy to say that the corporation of Stratford was really backward; its members did all that the people of a little town in the heart of Warwickshire could have been expected to do, and there would seem to have been no lack of public spirit, no falling away from continuous endeavour, no shirking of onerous duties. Every man had his work to do in the public service, and those who failed were punished.

When we look round at our busy manufacturing towns in this year of grace, and remember how much we know of the best tradition of municipal work, can we say that, mutatis mutandis, the advantage is altogether with us? Plague and fire and flood have been overcome, but men and women live lives entirely undisciplined. Little or nothing binds the citizen to the State, and the adulteration of food has become so common that pure bread and pure beer are the exception, and the supervision of those who prepare the necessities of our daily life is much less strict than it was when old John Shakespeare, the poet's father, was Stratford's ale-taster, empowered to see, inter alia, that every baker sold a whole loaf of true weight for one penny.

But if the corporation ruled Stratford strictly in Elizabethan times, it encouraged all kinds of sport, to some of which the poet makes reference in his plays. Young and old knew the Maypole. Nine Men's Morris was another popular game, and Falstaff, referring to his treatment when he escaped from Ford's house disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, says, "Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, since lately." Goose-plucking was a particularly barbarous pastime. We know that hockey and football were played in Elizabethan England, and that the corporation of Stratford kept a bowling-alley at the municipality's expense for the free use of the town. Cock-fights were among the less reputable sports of the time, and bears or bulls were baited. Hunting, hawking, coursing, fishing, and the rest beguiled the leisure hours of those who had any, and the harvest festivals would have played their part. There were great fairs and open markets held at certain seasons of spring and summer. Within doors, cards and shovel-board would seem to have been the only kind of amusement that were not directly associated with social ceremonies.

Christening, marriage, and burial were all allied in the poet's time to more public exhibitions than obtain to-day, the wedding being preceded by a public betrothal ceremony, and the marriage itself being associated with a great many quaint customs if the contracting parties had the money wherewith to carry them out. Removed from touch with the outside world, seeing little of the life of big cities for themselves, the citizens of Stratford managed to get no small measure of simple and harmless enjoyment out of life, though even among the town council there were men whose liking for sack and good ale was notorious.

Players from London brought some added amusement in the summer, but as Stratford grew more and more puritanical, a very deliberate effort, already referred to in the preceding chapter, was made to penalise actors, and some years after Shakespeare's death it is recorded that the king's players were bribed by the corporation to leave the town without giving any performances. The gardens of Stratford were very productive. They were separated from each other by mud walls, and were carefully cultivated. Shakespeare delighted in his gardens and his plays speak of his sound knowledge of the gardener's craft. People who could afford to plant orchards took a pride in doing so; the poorer folk generally boasted a few fruit-trees, and gave no small part of their garden plot to raising herbs and simples for use against the various ailments that troubled them from time to time. The furniture in the house was primitive. Table, stools, a chair or two, and a bench would furnish a living-room. Carpets were not often met with; mattresses, bolsters, and pillows were stuffed with feathers. Sheets and table-cloths were of flax or hemp; dishes were of brass or pewter. Wooden trenchers and pewter spoons were in common use, and most houses held the necessary equipment for baking bread, brewing ale, and weaving wool. Cooking was primitive; good cooks were not required unless the occasion was an extraordinary one. People rose early and retired early; there was no temptation to be out late in filthy, ill-lighted streets, and bed was the only comfortable place in a house after nightfall. Doubtless the conditions were favourable to deep drinking among those who were not limited to the ale-house, and consequently could escape from the vigilant eye of authority.

The apprentice system was in vogue at Stratford in Shakespeare's time, and though the condition of apprentices was not always creditable to their employers, the system ensured a thorough knowledge of any business that a man sought to establish. The apprenticeship was a legal condition, precedent to setting up in business, and until a lad had fulfilled his indentures he could not open a shop on his own account or claim the rights of a freeman. Apprentices had their rights and privileges, including certain holidays, but they might not carry arms, might not visit ale-houses, and might not stay out after nine o'clock. For lads who did not care to settle down in business, or had not the means to establish themselves in one, there were other ways of securing a living. They could seek military service—there was always a demand for strong, athletic young men—or they could enter the big establishments of the great landowners, who employed scores of retainers, and, in peaceful times, did not overwork them. The wealthier lads went to the universities or to the metropolis, where no small proportion, freed from all restraint, went hopelessly to the bad. In Shakespeare's time, the Earl of Leicester, Lord Compton, Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, and a few others, were the chief men in the neighbourhood of Stratford to keep retainers in large numbers.

SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL THEATRE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON



CHAPTER XIV

THE CLOSE OF LIFE

When Shakespeare settled down in Stratford to spend the last years of his life amid its familiar surroundings, he could without a doubt have aspired to the highest honours in the corporation's gift. He had restored his father's good name, and John Shakespeare in his palmy days had been Stratford's chief alderman. The early history of his escapades had apparently been forgotten; he was on friendly terms with the then owner of Charlecote Park, while other great landowners who passed a part of their time at Court were to be found among his acquaintances if not his friends. But he had not retired from the stress and strife of London to seek responsibilities that entailed heavy penalties for neglect. It sufficed him to take a friendly interest in the affairs of the corporation, and to remain right outside the council chamber. His own obligations might call him to town at any moment, and his own local affairs would have taken so much of the rest of his time as he would be disposed to give to business. Clearly he wished to enjoy his life, and from the scanty records in our possession there is reason to believe that he did so. Doubtless he added much to his ample stores of observation; the few last years could hardly have been wasted; but apparently he had no wish to set pen to paper when he had left the stage behind him. It may be that, had he been disposed to work in the later years, the Gunpowder Plot might have afforded him material for a stirring play. Ambrose Rookwood, who was closely associated with the conspiracy, lived in Clopton House near Stratford.

The Clopton family was closely identified with Stratford's history. Sir Hugh, of that family, had been Lord Mayor of London in 1492. He it was who built New Place, the house in which the poet was living. He built the stone bridge over Avon at Stratford, to take the place of a worthless wooden structure. He founded exhibitions at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. In short, Sir Hugh made the reputation of the family for all time, and the scandal of Rookwood's residence in Clopton House, which is within easy reach of Stratford, must have been a considerable one.

There is a suggestion that the poet had not only given up his work, but that the taint of landowning under the existing conditions had corrupted him. As late as 1614 he was assisting one William Combe, a landowner and son of his old friend John Combe—who had left him five pounds by will—in an attempt to enclose the common lands round his estate at Welcombe. In the early days the poet had been a foe of those who attempted to rob the people, but it may be that by 1614 he was growing a little intolerant of the Puritans on the corporation council, and quite ready to vex them if he could. The Clerk to the Council followed Shakespeare to London, apparently in order to discuss the case against William Combe, and the corporation in council drew up a letter to the poet, begging him to aid them against the guilty landowner; but Shakespeare did not do so, and it was left for the London courts to settle the matter in favour of the corporation, after much litigation and long delays.

The opening days of 1616 saw the marriage of Judith Shakespeare, the poet's daughter, born with little Hamnet who had died twenty years before. Two months later the poet entertained Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson at New Place. Some biographers say that the meeting was associated with a drinking bout—there is no reason to believe that either of his distinguished visitors would have been averse from one. Others believe that the poet fell a victim to the prevailing lack of sanitation; his house was at the corner of a very dirty lane. Whatever the cause, there can be no doubt about the result. On the 23rd of April 1616, England's greatest dramatist died in the prime of life—he was just fifty-two years of age. Two days later he was buried in Stratford Church, near the north wall of the chancel. Fearful lest his bones should be added to the grisly burden of the charnel-house close by, he penned a curse upon those who should disturb his remains.

The corporation's leading members joined the funeral procession, and a banquet consoled the mourners. A monument was put up in the chancel a few years later, the work of a London sculptor living near the "Globe Theatre." It is not a very pleasing piece of work. By his will, the poet left substantial legacies to his daughters, a gift to Stratford's poor, and mementoes to many friends, but to his wife he left his "second best bedstead" and nothing more. Anne Shakespeare died seven years later, and was buried close to her husband. His neglect of her by will does not imply indifference to her future; doubtless he had expressed his wish that one or other of his daughters should look after her, but it is clear that he did not hold her in great affection.

So passed a great man from his world, leaving an imperishable monument for generations yet to come. The London he knew has passed beyond our ken; it is a buried city that will never be unearthed. But time has dealt more gently with Stratford and Shottery, Wilmcote and Snitterfield, and a large part of the surrounding country that made our national poet articulate. Much that he loved returns with the yearly pageant of the seasons, and with this we must be perforce content.



INDEX

Aberdeen, 32

"All's Well that Ends Well," 39

Ancient Pistol, 43

"Antony and Cleopatra," 53

Arden, Forest of, 47 " Mary, 9, 58 " Robert, 58

Ariosto, 47

Arnold, Matthew, 7

"As You Like It," 32, 47

Aston Clinton, 7, 9

Aubrey's "Lives of Eminent Men," 66

Avon, 5, 73, 75, 82

Barnard, Lady, 60 " Sir John, 60

Barnfield, Richard, 44

Bath, 30

"Bear's House," 25, 26

Beaumont, 41, 42, 44

"Bell, The," 43

"Bell Inn," 17

Bishopgate, 26, 27

Bishopton, 64

Blackfriars, 21, 70 " Theatre, 22, 62

Boar's Head, 40, 41

"Bohemia," 44

Boswell, 61

Brentford, 77

"Bull Inn," 27

Burbage, Cuthbert 62 " James, 22, 62 " Richard, 22, 32, 37, 49, 62

Burbie, Cuthbert, 35, 36

Cambridge University, 82

Chapel of the Guild, 72

Charlecote, 7, 12, 46, 56, 80 " Park, 81

Charles II., 29

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 43, 44, 68

"Children of the Chapel, The," 48

Clopton, Sir Hugh, 58, 60, 82 " Sir John, 60 " House, 82

Cobham, Lord, 46

College of Heralds, 57

Combe, John, 82 " William, 82, 83

"Comedy of Errors, The," 36

Compton, Lord, 80

Condell, 62

"Convivial Laws," 42

Coopers' Arms, 33

"Coriolanus," 53

Coventry, 30

"Cow Lane," 35

Cromwell, Oliver, 73

"Crosby Hall," 27

Crown Inn, 68

"Curtain, The," 21

"Cymbeline," 53

Danter, John, 36

Derby, Earl of, 22

"Devil Tavern," 41, 42

Drayton, Michael, 7, 44, 69, 70, 83

Droeshout, Martin, 67

Eastcheap, 40

Edward VI., 72

Elizabeth, Queen, 13, 32, 37, 39, 46, 50, 51

Essex, Earl of, 47, 48

"Falcon, The," 41, 60, 62

Falstaff, Sir John, 13, 46, 77

Faversham, 30

"Feverel, Richard," 16

Field, Richard, 20, 21, 35

Fletcher, 41, 42

Florence, 26

Flower, Edgar, 67

Folkestone, 30

Fulbroke Parks, 12

Fuller, 41

Gastrell, Rev. Francis, 59, 60, 61

"George, The," 41, 43 " I., 70

"Globe, The," 22, 48, 62, 84

Gower, 25

Grammar School, Stratford, 72

Gray's "Elegy," 1

Greene, Robert, 27, 36, 43, 71

Greenwich, 32, 38

Guild Hall, 72

Gunpowder Plot, 82

Hall, John, 66, 70 " Susanna, 62, 66

Halliwell-Phillipps, Mr. J. O., 61

"Hamlet," 31, 32, 48, 49

Hathaway, Anne, 11, 17, 18, 60

"Henry IV.," 13, 14, 39, 40, 46 " V.," 14, 47, 62 " VI., King," 36 " the Seventh, King, 57 " VIII.," 47, 53, 63

High Wycombe, 20

Holinshed's "Chronicles," 33, 52, 53

Hunt, Wm., 61

Hythe, 30

James I., King, 22, 24, 29, 51, 77

Johnson, Robert, 53

Jones, Inigo, 29

Jonson, Ben, 7, 41, 42, 43, 67, 70, 83

"Julius Caesar," 48

Keere, Peter Van den, 24, 25

Kemp, William, 32

Kenilworth, 39

"King John," 37 " Lear," 52

"King's Servants, The," 51

"Lambeth Marsh," 25

Lee, Dr. Sidney, 10, 31, 32, 49, 52, 67

Leicester, Earl of, 13, 21, 39, 80

Leyton, Edward, 61

Lichfield, 61

Loggin, Mrs., 61

Lollard, 46

"Love's Labour's Lost," 35

Lucy, Sir Thomas, 12, 13, 46, 80

"Macbeth," 51, 52

Manasseh ben Israel, 73

Marlborough, 30

Marlowe, Christopher, 27, 36, 37, 43

Masuccio, 33, 36

"Measure for Measure," 51

"Merchant of Venice, The," 37

Meredith, George, 16

Meres, Francis, 44

"Mermaid, The," 41, 42, 44

"Merry Wives of Windsor," 13, 40, 46

"Midsummer Night's Dream, A," 13, 39

Milton, 7

Miranda, 53

Moorfields, 21

"More Feyldes," 25

Mountjoy, 33

"Much Ado about Nothing," 47

Naseby, 5

Nash, Elizabeth, 60 " Thomas, 62

Newington Butts, 22

New Place, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 69, 70, 82, 83

New Place Museum, 62

New Romney, 30

Nimrod, 13

Norman William, 5

Oldcastle, Sir John, 46

Old Stratford, 11, 64

"Othello," 51

Oxford, 20, 30, 68

Oxford University, 82

"Palace of Nonsuch, The," 38

Peele, 36

Pembroke, Earl of, 51

"Pericles," 52, 53

Phillips, Augustus, 22, 62

"Phoenix and the Turtle, The," 48

Plautus, 36

"Play House," 25

Plutarch's "Lives," 33, 48, 53

Ponte Vecchio, 26

Prospero, 53, 54

Quiney, Mr. Thomas, 66

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 42

"Rape of Lucrece, The," 37, 38

Rhodes, Cecil John, 2

"Richard II.," 37, 47

"Richard III.," 27, 37

Richmond, 38

"Romeo and Juliet," 36

Rookwood, Ambrose, 82

"Rose, The," 22

Rowe, Nicholas, 70

Rye, 30

Saffron Walden, 30

Saxon Harold, 6

Senlac, 5

Severn, 5

Shakespeare, Edmond, 24, 69 " Gilbert, 69 " Hamnet, 66, 69 " Joan, 69 " John, 9, 10, 57, 58, 64, 66, 72, 76, 81 " Judith, 66, 83 " Richard, 69 " Susanna, 12, 60, 66

Shallow, Mr. Justice, 13, 40, 46

"Shepherd's Garland," 69

Shoreditch, 21

Shottery, 7, 11, 16, 17, 18, 84

Sidney, Sir Philip, 29

Smith, Miss, 61

Snitterfield, 6, 9, 10, 64, 84

Southampton, Earl of, 37, 39, 47, 48, 63

Southwark, 22, 26, 27, 42

Spanish Armada, 42

Spenser, Edmund, 41

"Spittlefeyldes," 25

St. Helen's, 26, 27

"St. Marye Overyes," 24, 25

St. Saviour's, Church of, 24, 25

Stratford Church, 83

"Tabard, The," 41, 42, 43, 44

"Taming of the Shrew, The," 39

"The Tempest," 53, 69

"Theatre, The," 21, 22, 62

Thorpe, 38

"Timon of Athens," 52

"Titus Andronicus," 37

"Troilus and Cressida, 49

"Twelfth Night," 47

"Two Gentlemen of Verona, The," 35

"Venus and Adonis," 37, 38

Walker, Sir Edward, 60

Welcombe, 64, 82

Westminster Abbey, 24

White, William, 35

Whitehall, 38, 51, 52

"White Hart, The," 43

Wilmcote, 6, 9, 10, 18, 58, 84

Wilton, 51

"Winter's Tale, The," 53

Wotton Wawens, 7

Wriothesley, Henry, 39, 50, 63

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London



Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by underscore.

Illustration captions are indicated by caption.

THE END